Whispered Promise

by Colleen French

  Whispered Promise

  Colleen French

  Copyright © 1993, 2019 by Colleen French. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of The Evan Marshall Agency, 1 Pacio Court, Roseland, NJ 07068-1121, evan@evanmarshallagency.com.

  Version 1.0

  This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by The Evan Marshall Agency. Originally published by Kensington Publishing Corp., New York, under the title Forever His and under the name Colleen Faulkner.

  Cover by The Killion Group

  For Valerie Donahue who was there for me when I

  was a child, dreaming a child's dreams . . . and

  now is there for Morgan.

  BY COLLEEN FRENCH

  Scottish Fires Series

  HIGHLAND LADY

  HIGHLAND LORD

  HIGHLAND BRIDE

  Destiny's Daughters Series

  THE PRINTER'S DAUGHTER

  THE BOOTMAKER'S DAUGHTER

  THE FUR TRADER'S DAUGHTER

  CAPTIVE

  FIRE DANCER'S CAPTIVE

  FORBIDDEN CARESS

  HEAVEN IN MY ARMS

  HIS WILD HEART

  IN CLOSE PURSUIT

  IN LOVE WITH THE KING'S SPY

  MY SAVAGE LORD

  OUTRIDER

  PASSION'S SAVAGE MOON

  SAVAGE SURRENDER

  SWEET DECEPTION

  THE ENGLISH LADY AND THE IRISH ROGUE

  THE HIGHWAYMAN AND THE LADY

  THE OFFICER'S DESIRE

  THE RUFFIAN AND THE ROSE

  WHISPERED PROMISE

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Prologue

  Delaware Colony

  June, 1767

  Harrison DeNay rolled back onto the woolen cloak, one arm still wrapped tightly around Leah Tanner. He pressed a kiss to her damp temple. Both of them still breathed heavily. "I love ye, Leah," he whispered fiercely. "I'll love ye unto death—even longer."

  She laughed, her voice still husky from their lovemaking. "I'll remind you of those words come fifty years from now when you're old and feeble and have tired of me."

  He caught a curl of her bright red hair and twirled it around his finger. "It will never happen. We were meant to be together. It was in the stars, as my grandmother Starlight says."

  Leah pushed up on one elbow, her blue eyes suddenly becoming serious. "My father says if I speak of you again in his household, he'll send me to my Aunt Elizabeth's in Philadelphia."

  Harrison caught her hand and kissed it. "I'll not let him come between us, Leah, not your father, not anyone."

  Her lower lip trembled. She looked at Harrison and then looked away, tears welling in her eyes. "He says he'd rather have me dead than married to a half-breed bastard."

  "I'm not a bastard! My father was married to my mother before I was born. You know that."

  "An abomination, my father says—an Frenchman married to a red savage."

  Harrison rolled onto his side, pushing up on his elbow so that he faced Leah. Casually he draped one bare leg over hers. Here in their secret place in the forest no one could find them. Here on her father's land, that bordered his father's, they had met to play as children, and now at the ages of sixteen and seventeen, they had found love.

  "Don't listen to him." He caught the single tear from her flushed cheek with his fingertip and brought it to his lips to taste the saltiness of her anguish. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters but us and our love for each other."

  "He's says I'm too young to know what's best for me." She looked up at him. "He wants me to marry Edmund Beale. Soon."

  Harrison looked away. "That pompous ass?"

  Leah laughed, stroking his muscular shoulder. "If father knew we'd already handfasted he'd have a cow."

  Harrison slowly traced an invisible line between her firm, milky white breasts. "I've been thinking about that, Leah." He looked up at her. "We need to make it legal before your father forces you into something we can't get you out of."

  She lay back in the grass and stared up into the clear blue sky. "I'd sooner kill myself than marry Edmund."

  Cupping her breast, he leaned to stroke her nipple with the tip of his tongue. "We should just run away and be married."

  She pushed away his head playfully. "But hand-fasting is recognized by English law."

  "I know that, but this would guarantee you'd be safe. Your father would have to accept me if we had a document, if we were married by a man of the cloth."

  Leah looked away, toying with the ribbon on the cloak Harrison had spread in the new grass for them. "Father says he'd disown me if I married you." Her gaze met his. "He said he would never speak with me again. He wouldn't allow my sisters to have any contact with me. I'd lose my dowry and my portion of Tanner's Gift—the portion my grandfather meant for me. Here,"—she patted the grass—"this land I love so much."

  "Aw, sweet, he's bluffing. Once we're married, he'll be angry, but he'll accept it." He squeezed her hand. "He'll be happy for you when he sees how much I love you and how happy we are together." He smiled at her. "He'll be glad to have his first grandchildren to bounce on his knee."

  She tore her gaze from his. "You don't know my father. He has many fine qualities, but tolerance is not one of them. The French and Indian Wars left him very bitter toward your mother's people. He says he hates you, he hates them all."

  "We could run away, and marry, and go back to my father. He'd be damned furious, but he'd get over it. The three of us could then go to your father and reason with him." He clasped her hand. "Leah, it would work."

  She looked away.

  Harrison studied her face carefully. "Leah, don't you love me?"

  She looked back at him. "Oh, yes. You know I do," she cried passionately. "More than life."

  "Then what's wrong? Don't you want to spend your life with me?"

  She lowered her head. "I do. It's just . . . just that I'm afraid. I love my father. I don't want to make him angry. And I don't want to hurt him. Surely there's another way."

  He rose and offered her his hand. He pulled her to her feet and took her in his arms. The late afternoon sun beat down on their young, nude bodies, bathing them in warmth. "It's the only way." He kissed her lips. "Now go home and pack a small bag. Meet me here tomorrow morning at dawn's first light." He paused. "All right?" When she didn't respond he lifted her chin with his finger, forcing her to look up at him. "All right, Leah? You'll be here?"

  She closed her eyes. "All right, Harrison. Here, tomorrow, at dawn."

  He enclosed her tightly in his arms, reveling in the feel of her soft breasts pressed to his che
st. "It will all be fine, I swear it, Leah. I love you and you love me. That's all that matters."

  She dropped her head to his shoulder, tightening her arms around his neck. "Our love for each other—that's all that matters," she repeated softly.

  Harrison shifted his weight in his saddle nervously. The sun had been up a full half-hour. Where was Leah?

  Just the thought of her brought a smile to his face. God help him, he loved her, more than he had ever thought it would be possible to love another. And once they were married they would begin a life together. It would be perfect. They would build a house and clear land for tobacco. Within a few years, with their combined acreage they would have one of the largest, most prosperous plantations in the Colonies.

  But where was she? He turned in his saddle. Was that the sound of a horse he heard coming down the path? He sat back in his saddle, relieved. For a moment, for the briefest second, he was afraid she wasn't coming.

  Yes, that was a definitely a horse he heard. "Leah?" he called. "Leah, you're late, sweet. I told you—" Harrison cut himself off in mid-sentence.

  It was Leah's father on horseback that came through the narrow opening in the pine and maple trees. "Harrison DeNay, you red bastard!"

  His horse shied and Harrison pulled up on his reins. "Where's Leah?' he demanded. "What have you done with her?"

  More men on horseback came through the trees behind Joseph Tanner—Tanner's Gift's foreman and several burly men.

  Tanner threw back his head and laughed. "Surely you didn't think she'd really come, did you?" His tone was caustic.

  Harrison urged his mount forward a few paces. "What have you done with her? You can't stop us. We will be married, whether we have your approval or not! I love her!"

  Tanner shook his head, his lip curling in derision. "You fool. She was never going to marry you. She would never marry one of you red beggars. She was never interested in anything except bedding you, I'm ashamed to say."

  "Where is she, you son of a bitch?" Harrison shouted, his temper flaring.

  "Home. Still asleep I should think." He shrugged. He spoke calmly, confidently. "She told me about your little intended meeting. She confessed to me last night, my sweet daughter did. She said she was sorry for what she'd done, throwing herself at you the way she has. She said she'd marry Beale if I'd forgive her for her indiscretion. I accepted her apology and told her I'd take care of you."

  The leather of the reins suddenly felt heavy in Harrison's hands. The smell of the pine trees and the summer grass grew stronger. Suddenly all colors intensified, the blue of the sky, the green of the forest. Every sound was louder . . . the neigh of his horse, the squeak of the leather saddle. "Liar," he accused.

  Tanner slid out of his saddle and came around his horse. "You'd like to think so wouldn't you?" He walked up to Harrison, smiling up at him. "You really would like to think you were good enough for my daughter, wouldn't you?" He shouted the last words so loudly that they rang in Harrison's ears.

  "I don't have to stand here and listen to you." Harrison lifted his reins. "If she no longer loves me, I'll hear her words for myself."

  Tanner reached out and grabbed Harrison's horse. The grey gelding shied, but the older man held him tightly. Behind him the other men were dismounting and coming toward them.

  Harrison looked up, suddenly realizing why Leah's father had brought other men. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the long horsewhip in foreman Joe's hand. "Let me go," Harrison demanded through clenched teeth. My father—"

  "DeNay is a good man—a good man for a Frenchman—but he was always weak when it came to you. Were I him, I'd have drowned a little red bastard like you at birth, not made you my heir."

  The minute Tanner caught Harrison's arm, Harrison tried to dismount on the other side, but it was too late, Tanner's men were already circling him. A big man with a black mustache pulled Harrison out of the saddle, slamming him into the grass, the grass where he and Leah had made love only yesterday.

  "We come to teach you a little lesson, red boy," the man with the mustache sneered.

  Harrison swung a fist, but the foreman caught it in mid-air. Harrison struggled, kicking, but in a matter of seconds the men had him against a tree and were cutting the brocade coat and linen shirt off his back. They tied him to the pine tree, his cheek crushed against the rough bark.

  Everything was moving so swiftly.

  Harrison heard the whip coil back in Tanner's hand. He bit down on his lower lip drawing blood to keep from screaming out in pain at the first bite of the leather. The whip struck again as Leah's father cursed, then again, and again. Ten lashes, twelve. Harrison was growing dizzy; he knew he was losing consciousness. But the pain in his back as intense as it was, was no match for the pain in his heart.

  Leah had betrayed his love.

  Chapter One

  Nine Years Later

  November 1, 1776

  Tanner's Gift, Delaware

  Leah Tanner Beale dismounted and strode toward the group of men and women at the edge of the cornfield. "Not like that, Flora," she called with authority. "Let me show you, again."

  The quadroon woman dressed in brightly colored skirts, took a step back. "Good morning to you, Mistress," she said in a soft, liquid voice. "Fine day."

  "Fine day it is, now watch me . . ." Leah grasped the cornstalk with one gloved hand and carefully stripped the ear of corn with a snap of her wrist. "This way you don't ruin the stalk that will go for fodder come winter, and you don't damage the corn kernels. When the snow flies, this corn will feed Washington's men."

  Flora nodded and grabbed the stalk of corn, carefully stripping the other ear.

  "That's it." Leah praised. "You've got it now." She took a step closer to the woman and lowered her voice. "But, I told you, Flora. It isn't necessary that you work in the field. I can well use your help in the kitchen, or my office for that matter. I've a stack of ledgers to go over and your figures are as good as mine."

  Flora shook her head as she moved on to the next stalk. "No ma'am. I tole you, I like the fields. I like gettin' my hands all dirty." She smiled up at Leah. "I'll do as you say, but if I got a choice, I'll stay put with my brothers." She nodded in the direction of three adolescent boys all picking corn.

  When Washington had called for more troops, Leah had made the decision, against her husband's wishes, to send most of her able-bodied servants, bond or slave, to serve the army in whatever capacity they were needed. People from the Delaware to the Chesapeake Bays had scoffed at the thought of a woman running a plantation with no one to work but women, boys, and old men, but Leah had made it successful. Instead of planting tobacco in the spring as she had always done, she had planted corn and wheat to feed the hungry men who fought for freedom from the Crown of England, and cotton to spin cloth to keep them warm.

  Leah gave a courteous nod to Flora and moved on down the row. The quadroon was her husband's mistress and she wanted to keep her satisfied. If Flora was happy, she made Edmund happy. If Edmund was happy with Flora, he left Leah alone. "As you wish, Flora, but if you change your mind, you come to me."

  Moving on, Leah nodded to the old black man picking the row next to Flora's. "Excellent, Noah. You're proof that age is wisdom."

  The old man chuckled and went on singing a rhythmic African song, the boys echoing him as he stripped corn from the stalks and dropped them into a burlap bag he wore over his shoulder.

  Leah moved farther down the row, speaking to the workers, complimenting them, giving them a hand. In the last eight years she had learned much about the running of a plantation, and one of the things she had learned was that she had to see and been seen in the fields. Having an overseer, no matter how good he was, wasn't good enough. Workers needed to see their master, or mistress, as in the case of Tanner's Gift. Workers, be they slave, bonded, or free, needed to know they were appreciated when they did a good job.

  Leah tucked back a lock of bright red hair that had escaped her black snood, and t
urned back toward her horse. Her knee-high calfskin boots beneath her sober, olive skirts left footprints in the dark Delaware soil as she trudged ahead.

  Edmund had given her full rein of the plantation shortly after her lying-in more than eight years ago. In the prior months it had become obvious to them both that Edmund would never make a farmer. He preferred a life of cards, women, and horse racing, and after the birth of her son, Leah had conceded to all three vices. She didn't care what Edmund did as long as he was discreet, he spent his own money, and he left her alone.

  Leah sighed thinking back. Of course there had been other concessions too. In return for her freedom to run Tanner's Gift as she saw fit, Edmund expected her to appear the loving wife in public. He expected her to remain a lady at all times be it in the fields or in a tobacco drying house. And he expected her to allow him to oversee the education of her son . . . his heir.

  Leah sighed as she grasped the reins of her roan mare and swung into the saddle easily. She missed her son, William. She had adamantly refused to give Edmund permission to take him back to New York with him to the Patriot camps despite her husband's insistence that they would be perfectly safe. But William had begged to go, and eventually, Edmund had made the decision to take him without her permission. They had been gone a full eight weeks. Twice William had written to tell his mother of his adventures. He had met General Washington himself and played him a game of checkers. He had shot a cannon. He had played the evening tattoo on someone's bugle. He said he was having a marvelous time and when he grew up, he was going to be a soldier just like his papa.

  Just like his papa . . .

  Leah wiped at the corner of her eye where a bit of dust must have irritated it. William was growing up so quickly, too quickly. Before she knew it, he would be a man. Already, Edmund was speaking of sending him away to school in France to get a proper education.

  The sound of pounding hooves tore Leah from her thoughts. She reined her mount around. A soldier in a Delaware militia uniform was riding straight for her.

  "Mistress Beale?" the soldier asked, panting as he reined in his horse.