Bold Surrender

by Judith E. French

  "You'll want Robert's roan gelding and you might as well have my gray. I haven't been in the saddle in months. Take what you will... and Godspeed." Henry's face reddened. "You're not so bad... for a sister."

  * * *

  Dusk was falling when Ashley tied the roan's reins to a tree by the cemetery wall and went to say her last goodbyes to Quincy. Heaps of flowers covered the raw earth of the new graves; in a few weeks, grass would spring up and blanket the mounds in soft green. Ashley dropped to her knees beside her father's resting place, but once again she found no words.

  The scent of honeysuckle and lilacs filled the air. The sounds from the manor house were muted and far away. She was alone in the warm Virginia night with a solitary mockingbird and the ever-present litany of spring peepers. "Goodbye, Papa," she whispered. "Rest now. You've earned it."

  Chin up, she returned to where she had tied the horse and swung up into the saddle. She turned his head north and dug her heels into his sides. "Get up," she murmured. "Let's go home."

  "Wait, Ashley! Wait!" A horse and rider galloped down the dirt lane toward her. "It's me! James!"

  Reluctantly she pulled up the gelding, turning him to face the oncoming rider. Damn, she thought. A few minutes more and I would have made my escape.

  "Ashley! Henry told me what you were up to. How could you think of riding off like this with matters not settled between us?" He reined in his horse beside her and pulled off his cocked hat. "Didn't Cicely tell you I was coming?"

  The two animals sniffed one another, nickering amiably. Lord Pade's horse was nearly sixteen hands, with good lines and a noble head. Ashley reached over and patted the animal's neck. "You always did have good taste in horseflesh, James. And you ride as well as any man in Virginia."

  He grinned, tucking the feathered hat under his left elbow. "That's a compliment, coming from you."

  "I'd not say it if it wasn't true. Cicely said Nicholas always envied you your hands. You have a way with horses."

  "I came to offer my condolences to your mother, but I'd be a liar if I said I regretted Nicholas's passing. He was no gentleman and Cicely deserves better." He cleared his throat. "I'd have been at the funeral, but I had urgent business elsewhere."

  "You witnessed the hangings."

  "I did." He stared off into the darkness. "I'm not a vengeful man, Ashley, but I believe in justice. We must make the Chesapeake safe for honest citizens." The bay danced sideways and James soothed the animal with a firm hand, maintaining his erect posture in the saddle without visible effort. "I believe you'll think no less of me if I tell you I took no pleasure in watching them die."

  "I have known you all my life, James. Nothing could make me think less of you."

  "Ashley, you must stop this wild manner of living. You could have been murdered by these people... or worse." He broke off, plainly embarrassed. "I want you to be my wife. I asked Nicholas for your hand, but he gave me no answer. However, now that he's gone, I'm certain Cicely would give us her blessing." He cleared his throat again. "Mother has given her approval. I need only your agreement."

  Ashley leaned forward in the saddle and scratched the roan's neck. How could she turn this good man down without offending him? "James... Lord Pade," she began softly, "you do me great honor. But have you fully considered this match?"

  "I know I'm considerably older than you, Ashley, but that is often an asset in marriage. I would like an heir, children. And despite your extraordinary upbringing, I think we would suit each other."

  "You have said nothing of love, James."

  He coughed. "That would come after marriage. Where there is friendship and respect, love follows. Who should a woman love if not her husband?" He brought the bay closer. "Damn me, girl! I'm not a milksop boy. You'll get no fancy talk. But I will treat you well and share my name and all that is mine with you."

  "'That's the trouble. I like you too much to become your wife," Ashley explained. "You are a leader in the colony, a lord, a person men come to for advice. Who knows what advancement might come your way in the future? With my... background, I'm not the wife for you. I might become an embarrassment in years to come. No." She threw up a hand. "I mean it, James. We would not suit each other. I am far too used to having my own way. You need a wife of a more gentle and pliable nature. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a woman cut in the same mold as your mother?"

  "God forbid!"

  "Exactly. You would do far better to wait a few months and then court Cicely."

  "Your mother?"

  "Why not? She's beautiful, isn't she? And rich. And she has always admired you." Ashley smiled up at him. "She's young enough to give you an heir and wise enough to support you against Lady Pade."

  "I had not thought of Cicely."

  "Then it's time you did. She is the perfect hostess and her land joins yours. If you do not wed her, who knows what other man you might have for a neighbor. "

  "But Henry is master now. Surely—"

  Ashley sighed loudly. "My brother is not long for this world, James. He told me just this evening of his plans to go to England. Henry would not be an obstacle to your suit."

  "You are a most unusual young woman, Ashley Morgan."

  "Thank you, sir. I will take that as a compliment. And now"—she pulled up the roan's head—"I will be about my business. You are on your honor as a gentleman not to tell my mother I am leaving. You may, however, say that I declined your offer of marriage. Or perhaps it would be better to say that you had had second thoughts."

  "You're certain you will not have me?"

  She laughed. "As a stepfather, gladly."

  "Cicely may turn me down, too."

  "I doubt it. I do not think my mother is a woman who cares to be too long without a man."

  "Do not be too hard on her, Ashley. If there are things in your childhood that..." He trailed off, uncertain.

  "I would not have suggested her for you if I held any bitterness against her, James. I think the two of you could find happiness together."

  "And us?"

  "We will remain friends, no matter what." Ashley raised her hand in a salute and nudged the roan's side with her heels. "Remember, not a word," she warned.

  "You'll not do anything reckless?" James called after her.

  "Not if I can help it," she shouted back over her shoulder.

  Chapter 25

  It was early May and the dogwood was in bloom when Ashley crossed the northern boundaries of Morgan's Fancy. The days of solitude had given her an opportunity to think, and though she'd found little peace of mind, at least she'd recovered most of her inner strength. Her sorrow at Quincy's death was tempered by the knowledge that with the loss of her father, she had truly found him. Old fears and guilt could be put to rest. She had even come to accept Cicely for what she was. There was little love between them, but at least she could think of her mother with some affection.

  Kelt was gone. Ashley knew in her heart that she had lost him. She had deliberately made a leisurely trip from Virginia to Morgan's Fancy, stalling until the spring planting was finished on the plantation. Kelt had told her he was leaving after the planting and she had no doubt he would keep his word. If she had been there when he left, it would have been too painful to bear. The dark Scot had offered her a love she'd never expected to receive from a man, and out of stubborn willfulness and lack of trust, she had thrown it back into his face.

  A hundred times on the trip north from Rosewood she had seen his face. He haunted her dreams with his soft burr and magnetic gray eyes. She'd shed enough foolish tears to float a cask of tobacco, but it all came back to the same thing. A man like Kelt Saxon came to a woman once in a lifetime and she'd not had the sense to recognize him for what he was before it was too late.

  At least Kelt was not leaving empty-handed. His share of the reward money offered by the Virginia authorities would be substantial. The Scarlet Witch alone would make him a man of means. With the sale of the pirate schooner, he could buy his own pla
ntation and till his own fields instead of another man's.

  For the first time since Quincy's death, Ashley thought of the buried treasure and laughed. Beneath her, the horse gave a snort and flicked his ears. She patted the roan's neck. "Just a little farther, and you'll have a nice stall and some grain," she promised. The animal quickened his step and Ashley chuckled again. "Just like a man," she observed. "Mention food and you're all ears."

  She decided to wait a few weeks or even months before she went to check out the location of Quincy's fortune. She guessed she and Mari would have to move it to a new location. Several spots would be better than one. It was surprising how little the thought of being rich meant to her. After all the struggle to keep Morgan's Fancy solvent, her worries on that account were over.

  "I suppose I could even buy my own ship to carry my tobacco to England. What do you think of that, Shawnee?" The horse ignored her. She'd not thought to ask her brother the animal's name, so she'd been forced to give him a new one. So far, the gelding didn't seem to respond to it one way or another. Ashley sighed. "It shows just how batty I'm getting when I try to talk financial matters with a Virginian."

  The sound of axes and falling timber drifted toward them from the creek. Ashley turned the horse's head toward 'Mari's cabin. She wasn't ready to speak with her lumbermen yet, wasn't ready for the mountain of problems she knew they would have for her to solve. She wanted to see Mari and find out if Baron had survived the gunshot wound. The roan was a fine blooded animal with heart and staying power, but he wasn't a lifelong friend. Her bay stallion was more than a horse, and if he was dead, she doubted she would ever find another animal that suited her as well.

  The forest was a canopy of lush green in every shade from cedar to the pale new green of sprouting grass. From every tree came choruses of lilting bird song; on the ground, she spotted fresh deer and rabbit tracks, and even glimpsed a bushy russet tail as a red fox dove for the protective cover of a green briar thicket.

  To Ashley's keen disappointment, Mari's cabin stood quiet. Even the corral was empty. Ashley dismounted and checked the ashes in the fireplace. There had been no cooking fire there for days and there was no sign of any of the Indian woman's assorted pets. Mari was undoubtedly off on another visit to her relatives. Slowly Ashley swung up into the roan's saddle and turned toward the manor house.

  As she reached the dirt road, she urged the horse into a canter. Suddenly she was tired of being alone. She wanted to see familiar faces, to have a hot bath and wear her own clothes again. After all these days of camping out, the thought of sleeping in a feather bed was pure luxury.

  At first the farmyard at Morgan's Fancy seemed as deserted as Mari's pound. A few horses and a spotted cow stood with their heads hanging amiably over the split-rail fence. A long-eared hound bitch lay with her eyes shut in the shade of the barn well house, nursing a half dozen multicolored pups. There was no sound but the perk-perk of a turkey hen scratching for worms in the dirt beside the fence. Then a groom sauntered lazily out of the barn, breaking into a run when he saw who the visitor was.

  "Mistress Morgan! Welcome home!"

  Her attention was caught by an urgent whinny from the barn and the sound of a horse's hooves hitting the side of a box stall. Ashley dropped the roan's reins into the groom's hands and ran into the barn. "Baron!"

  The big stallion reared, striking the top rail of the door with his front feet, and let out a welcome nicker.

  "Baron!" Ashley threw her arms around the massive head. "Good boy! Good horse." Entering the stall, she anxiously examined the pink scar, stroking the animal's neck and withers. "Good boy," she soothed. "Good old boy." He'd lost a lot of weight, but it was plain that the wound was almost healed. "Mari must have spent a lot of nights with you," she murmured. "Yes, but you're worth it."

  "Glad to have you home, mistress. That horse is hard to handle. He's had this barn on its end since Mari brought him up here."

  "Do you know where she is? When she'll be back?" Baron pushed at her with his nose and she scratched him behind the ears. She couldn't quite keep her eyes from wandering to the stall where Kelt had kept his dappled-gray. It was empty, as she had known it would be.

  "Nope. I wouldn't know nuthin' 'bout that, mistress. You know how Injuns is. She didn't say nuthin' to me, jest put the stallion in his stall and said take care o' him. She looked at me wi' snake eyes like she does. Gives a body the creeps."

  "You haven't seen Jai, have you?" Even her dog seemed to have deserted her. She missed the shaggy head and rumbling bark he always gave when she came home.

  "Yes'm. The Injun woman, she had the dog wi' her. Said to tell you somethin' 'bout takin' him swimmin' in the big salt water."

  "All right, thank you. See that the roan gets a good rubdown and some warm mash. He's had quite a workout."

  A little girl with a cat under her arm paused to call hello to Ashley as she crossed the yard to the kitchen door. It stood open, with a boy swinging a pine bough to keep out flies. Ashley nodded to him and paused to take a deep whiff of the delicious odors coming from the kitchen. The smell of bread baking was enough to make her ravenous. Trail cooking, and especially hers, was never the best, and she hadn't stopped to eat since daybreak.

  "Good day, Mistress Morgan."

  "Good day, mistress."

  "Miss Morgan."

  Three woman echoed greetings as she entered the kitchen. The older white woman was wife to one of the indentured servants, but the two blacks were strangers. One was a tall, broad woman with tribal tattoos on her cheekbones, and the other, a small copy, looked about fifteen. The girl braced one hand against the plank table for support, half hiding a crippled leg behind her.

  Ashley glanced around the shining kitchen. Every cobweb had been dusted from the rafters and the walls glistened with fresh whitewash. The pine floor was scrubbed clean enough to see her face in it, and the baskets, hooks, bowls, and pots all hung in orderly rows. Fresh bundles of spices and herbs dangled from the beams, and a crock of butter in the center of the table, set into a bowl of water to keep it cool, was topped by a clean linen cover to keep out insects.

  "Good day," Ashley replied. "Samantha, are you working in the kitchen now?"

  "Yes, Miss Ashley, I am. Master Saxon said I could. My daughter, Mary, helps out, too, but she's fetchin' some fresh fish from the dock."

  Ashley turned to the older black woman. "And you are?"

  "Elvy, mistress, an' this my girl Rose-lind. We pleased to have ye home."

  Ashley nodded. "Rose-lind." She ran a finger over the scrubbed tabletop. "The kitchen is... It looks wonderful, Elvy. I hope you will like living on Morgan's Fancy." She swallowed hard. "I think we must have a talk soon about your papers."

  Elvy blanched. "What's wrong wi' my papers, mistress? Master Saxon say it all done legal. Rose-lind here, she got seven-year bond, jest like Abe and d'others." She twisted large, muscular hands in the folds of her apron. "Master Saxon say I a free woman, mistress. He say I work fourteen year in Maryland for white folks an' that's all anybody can ask."

  "Master Saxon said you were free?" Ashley let out a sigh of relief. "That's wonderful, Elvy. Of course, you're free. I didn't know if he'd told you or not," she lied quickly. "There are no slaves on Morgan's Fancy." Ashley's heart began to pound. He freed her. He did listen. He freed the slaves.

  Elvy, Rose-lind, and Samantha all began to laugh and chatter at once. "You go on up, Miss Ashley," Samantha said. "We'll heat you some water. I know you want a bath after all that ridin'."

  "Rose-lind been straight'nin' up some upstairs, mistress," Elvy explained. "Your clothes is all nice an' ready fo ye. Everythin's there. You need somethin', you jest holler."

  "And Master Saxon? Is he here?" Ashley asked.

  "Oh, no, ma'am," Samantha said. "He left two, three days ago. Him and old Thomas. Nobody here but us."

  Nodding, Ashley left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the second floor. She had known he was gone. Why hadn't she let it be? Numbly
she went down the hall and pushed open the door to Kelt's chambers.

  His things were gone, as she had known they would be. Her unfinished portrait leaned against the cold fireplace. "Oh, Kelt," she whispered into the empty room. "Why?"

  * * *

  In the orchard Ashley sat on the soft grass with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped round them, leaning back against a tree trunk amid the gentle showers of fragrant apple blossoms. Twilight had come and gone, melting into the warm spring night like new-spun honey, and the mockingbird had ceased his chirping song, giving over to the whippoorwill and other birds of the night. Still Ashley sat there, lost in her own thoughts and treasured memories.

  At last, when the moon's pale light had turned the rows of trees into a fairyland of shimmering other-world beauty, Ashley sighed, unfolded her stiffening legs, and rose to her feet. She had not taken a dozen steps in the semidarkness when a man's voice startled her from her reverie.

  "Stop there, woman."

  She whirled toward the source of the voice, peering into the shadows. "What do you want?" she demanded huskily. A rivulet of fear ran through her and she trembled.

  "Come here." It was an order.

  Ashley licked her dry lips. "Who do you think you are?"

  "I'll brook no sass from you, girl!"

  "I'm mistress of this plantation!"

  "Aye, ye may be that, but I think we both know who is master here." The tall form stepped from the shadows and Ashley hurled herself into his arms.

  "Kelt! Kelt!" she cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and covering his chin with kisses. "Kelt," she murmured as he lifted her and his name was lost in the depths of their kiss.

  "Darlin' mna," he whispered, intertwining his fingers in her hair and loosening the silken ribbon to let it flow like a dark curtain around them. "Kelpie, mine. I ha' missed ye so... like a parched field misses the rain."

  "I thought you were gone," she murmured.

  "The fires o' hell wouldna keep me from ye, lass."

  "They told me you were gone," she insisted between kisses. "I asked and they said—" She pushed his face away. "Your beard! What have you done with your beard?"