Savage Surrender
Colleen French
Copyright © 1992, 2017 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, [email protected].
Version 1.0
This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
Originally published by Kensington Publishing Corp., New York, under the name Colleen Faulkner.
Cover by The Killion Group
CONTENTS
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
Epilogue
Chapter One
Pennsylvania Colony
May 1761
Lady Rachael Moreover slipped her hands into her velvet-soft kidskin gloves as she glanced out the window. An awkward silence hung in the air casting a pallor over the occupants of the carriage that bumped along the rutted roadway.
"I . . . I don't understand, Rachael," Viscount Gifford Langston finally said, his face notably paler.
"I mean what I say," she repeated firmly. "I shan't marry you." She took a deep breath. She had vowed she would be honest with Gifford, but she didn't want to injure him unnecessarily. This was her fault as much as his. He had led her down the path, but she had followed like a smitten dairy maid. She tucked a lock of rich chestnut hair beneath her silk traveling bonnet. "I can't marry you because it would be wrong."
Gifford glanced from Rachael to his cousin the Reverend James who sat beside him, and then back to Rachael again. "But the banns have been read, my dearest. The ceremony is but a formality." He slipped across the carriage to the opposite upholstered bench so that he might sit beside her and he took her gloved hand. "It's as if you already were my wife."
Rachael pulled her hand from his, suddenly loathing his touch. Slowly she turned from the window until her blue-eyed gaze settled on Gifford's strikingly handsome boyish face. "I am no man's wife," she said with determination, "until I make my vow before God." Her gaze shifted to Gifford's cousin sitting nervously on the opposite bench. "Is that not true, Reverend?"
The dark-haired man cleared his throat, taken off-guard by the sudden turn in conversation which had been entirely pleasant until a moment before. He had never cared for his cousin Gifford and had accepted his offer to ride along to their aunt's only because the woman was so gravely ill. John James should have known he would be caught in something unpleasant like this. Events always seemed to turn unpleasant when they involved Gifford Langston.
The reverend took a moment to consider the young woman across from him. She was a beauty, indeed, with her honeyed complexion, rosy lips, and thick shining glory of dark hair, but it was in her eyes that John saw true beauty . . . a beauty of the heart . . . of the soul. His first impression of Lady Rachael upon meeting her six months ago when she'd arrived from London to marry Gifford was that she was entirely too good for his conniving cousin. Like many other women before her, she had been fooled by Gifford's handsome good looks and his smooth-tongued ways. Fooled, but apparently not fooled for long, John thought. He turned his attention back to his cousin. "Yes," he answered evenly, "before the Lord, that is where a man and a wife are joined unto death. Our government in its all-knowing wisdom seems to believe that it is they who should govern such sacraments, but it is not as the Lord instructed us."
Rachael flashed him a grateful smile.
Gifford scowled. Because it was obvious the good reverend wasn't going to come to his defense, he took a different tack. "Surely you're not serious, Rachael, love. Twice before you've said you'd changed your mind but both times—"
"I came to my senses?" she injected. "It's not going to work this time. I've made my decision."
"Tell me why it is you can't marry me. The house I built for you is nearly complete." When he touched her damask sleeve, she stiffened.
Rachael glanced out the window again, taking in the panorama of the dense forest of the Pennsylvania colony surrounding them. Never, until she'd come to the American colonies, had she seen such stark beauty as this. There was something about the sight of the trees, about the sound of the woodland birds, and the heady smell of the humus that intrigued her. Its magic lured her from her bed at night to sit in the window and listen, imagining what it would be like to wander through the ancient oaks and elms on a starry night.
"I cannot marry you, Gifford, because I don't love you." Rachael clenched her jaw. There. She'd admitted it finally . . . to Gifford, but more importantly to herself.
"Love me! Of course you love me. And I you. I should think I would perish without you at my side." He clasped his hands to his breast in emphasis.
Rachael rolled her eyes heavenward. To think she had once found his histrionics romantic. Now she simply found them irritating. Unconsciously, she shook her head. How could she have been so easily beguiled by Gifford? Why hadn't she listened to her brother Thomas when he had warned her that the Viscount Langston was not the husband for her? Thomas had tried to warn her of her intended's dishonesty. He had tried to tell her that Gifford was a man who played a part, any part you wanted him to, but only long enough to get what he wanted from you. But Rachael had been fooled by Gifford's lavish attentions. The extravagant gifts, the evenings at the playhouse, the stolen kisses, they had all masked his true self behind a veil of girlish dreams.
"Rachael, please," Gifford insisted under his breath. "Let's talk about this later." He shook his head ever so slightly. "But not in front of my cousin. I'm hurt that you would bring up such a delicate matter in the presence of another."
Rachael pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped her perspiration-dotted forehead. She had purposely waited to break the news to Gifford in John's presence, thinking he might soften the blow. Perhaps that had been a mistake. Perhaps even an act of cowardice. She tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve. "There's nothing to talk about. I made a mistake in thinking I wanted to marry you. I'll not double the error by doing so."
"It's your brother, isn't it?" Gifford ran his index finger along the line of his blond mustache. "He comes into port long enough to fill your pretty little head with these notions and then sails away again. He doesn't like me. Of course he told you not to marry me. I suppose he even had the audacity to call me a fortune hunter."
"He did," she conceded quietly. "But Gifford—" The sound of a man's scream froze her voice in her throat.
"Christ, what was that?" Gifford muttered as the carriage lurched to one side throwing him against Rachael.
A second scream rent the air followed by several thumps that rocked the carriage.
Rachael grasped the seat as the vehicle swayed suddenly out of control. "The coachman!" she cried as she stared ou
t the window in shock as the carriage raced by the crumpled body of the liveried driver. She sat back hard in her seat, squeezing her eyes shut, praying this was all a terrible nightmare, but knowing it wasn't. Arrows . . . Those had been feathered Indian arrows protruding from the coachman's chest.
At the sound of an ear-splitting howl Rachael's eyes snapped open. "Do something!" she shouted. "We're under attack! Indians! The carriage is going to overturn!" She could see the savages now, naked redskinned men running beside the careening vehicle, howling like wild beasts.
"Our Father who art in heaven," the reverend began to murmur as he went down on his knees on the carriage floorboards, "hallowed be Thy name . . . "
"Gifford!" Rachael screamed.
But Gifford was shaking so hard that all he could do was clutch his silver-tipped walking cane, his face terror-stricken.
She pressed her face to the window just in time to see one of the loin-clothed heathens leap into the air. The carriage lurched beneath the added weight of the man and quickly began to slow down.
Indians! Rachael's mind raced. She knew she should pray, humbly preparing herself for the hereafter, but no words came to mind. White-hot anger bubbled inside her. Attacked by Indians so near to Philadelphia! Impossible! Only two days ago Gifford had been telling friends how safe Philadelphia was despite the trouble with the French and the Indians.
"Lead us not into temptation . . . " Reverend James went on.
When the carriage jerked to a halt, Rachael swallowed against her immobilizing fear. She wasn't ready to die. Not yet. There were too many things left to do in life. She wanted to marry. To love. To cradle a child in her arms. She didn't want to die, and certainly not at the hands of brutal savages.
" . . . For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."
The door slammed open and a hideous face painted in black and white thrust through the doorway. Gifford cringed. Reverend James clasped his hands and bowed his head in prayer. Rachael defiantly lifted her lashes to meet the red devil's gaze. If she was going to die at this redskin's hands she wanted to see his face.
The savage shouted in a gruff voice, his words monosyllables and utterly foreign to Rachael's ears. The redskin grabbed Reverend James by the collar of his coat and hauled him out of the carriage.
"Please! Please!" Gifford cried. "Don't hurt us! We've money. A great deal of money! You can have it! Have it all!" His hands trembled as he jerked a coin purse from his belt and jingled it.
A moment later the redskin reached for Gifford. He tried to retreat, but in the tiny carriage there was no where to go. Gifford tripped on Rachael's skirts and fell, striking his forehead on the window sill. Rachael watched, horror-stricken as the savage dragged the unconscious Gifford from the carriage and threw his motionless body to the ground below.
Rachael knew she was next. Thrusting out her jaw, she rose as the heathen grasped her ankle. "I can walk," she spit.
The redskin barked something as he took her by her forearm twisting it unmercifully. Rachael nearly tripped as she leaped down out of the carriage. "What do you want?" she demanded. "We've done you no harm! You must free us at once! You have no right!"
The painted-faced man slapped her hard across the face and Rachael felt a drop of blood trickle from the corner of her mouth. A sob escaped her lips as she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her new ivory damask gown, staining it crimson.
"Yo ra se," the painted man said, reaching out to stroke her cheek.
Rachael recoiled. "Don't touch me!" she shouted in his face. "Kill me, but don't touch me, you filthy creature!"
There was a cackle of laughter from two other savages standing nearby, but the painted man made no attempt to touch her again. Rachael's gaze darted from Gifford's crumpled body to the small clearing where the carriage had come to a halt. For God's sake, where was Reverend James?
At the sound of more guttural speech, she turned toward the horses that were being unhitched by a savage wearing a beaten cocked hat. The reverend was on his knees, his hands clasped, tears running down his cheeks as two redskins attempted to rip his clothing from his back.
"Stop that! Stop it at once," she screamed running toward Gifford's cousin.
"Run!" John James shouted. "Run for your life, Lady Rachael."
"No!" she cried, grasping John's quaking shoulders. "We try to run and they'll kill us!" A redskin pulled free his black frock coat as another tugged at his heeled shoes. "They're going to kill us anyway," John moaned.
"No! No! Stop it!" Rachael sobbed. She turned to the nearest redskin and pummeled his bare back with her balled fists.
Reverend James took that moment to leap to his feet and run.
"No, John!" Rachael screamed as she tried to twist from her capture's grasp. "Don't run, John!"
But as the words slipped from her mouth, so did the arrow from the Iroquois bow. The arrow cut through the morning air with a swish striking the Reverend James square in the back.
Rachael screamed as she brought her gloved hands to her face to shield her eyes from the sight, knowing the Reverend John James was dead before his body hit the ground. As she lowered her hands she saw his life's blood flowing onto the soft carpet of green moss. "No! No, you can't do this," she begged. "We've done nothing to you!"
"Nothing?" A strangely accented voice came from behind.
Rachael whirled around, expecting to see a white man, shocked to see a savage uttering the English words. He was an ugly man with a bald head save for a thatch of black hair that sprouted from the center and fell over one ear in a scalplock. He had a scar that ran across his cheek to a terribly disfigured ear. Rachael's lower lip trembled. The savage's onyx eyes were filled with hate . . . hate of her.
"You say you have done nothing," he snarled. "You killed my three sons. You raped and tortured my wife leaving her in pieces so that she could not rise into the heavens. You call that nothing!"
Rachael stumbled backward. "I did nothing! I've never laid eyes on a red man until this moment!"
Broken Horn gestured toward Gifford who still lay unconscious on the ground. "Your men. Your people." He spat on the ground. "Someone must be responsible. Someone must pay."
"Pay? I can pay. I have money." She brushed away a piece of hair that had fallen across her bruised cheek. "Let me go back to Philadelphia and I'll bring you coin."
"Coin?" Broken Horn sneered. "You white men, you think coin can right the wrongs of a hundred years!"
When he swept out his hand to catch her, Rachael darted left, but he snagged the sleeve of her damask gown. A sinister smile crept across Broken Horn's scarred face. "You are pretty, white woman." He nodded. "And brave. I think I should not kill you."
Relief flooded her face. "No. Don't kill me. Let me go." She glanced sideways at the men who were leading away the carriage horses. Someone was inside the carriage ripping up the seat with a knife, in search of valuables no doubt. "Take the horse. My fiancé and I . . . we'll walk back into Philadelphia."
Broken Horn's gaze shifted to Gifford's limp form and then back to Rachael. "Let you go?" He gave a little laugh. "No. You will come with me."
"No!" Rachael cried trying to tear from his grip. "You can't. That's kidnapping!"
"That is life. More than he has," as he indicated the Reverend James, "eh?"
Rachael squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to think. Should she run? They would only shoot her down as they had the reverend. Was it better to die quickly than to wonder when the arrow would come? Her eyes fluttered open. If she ran now, there was no chance of survival, but if she waited . . . perhaps that chance would come.
Broken Horn waved a broad hand signaling his men to hurry. He still held Rachael by the sleeve of her gown.
"Where are you taking me?" she demanded. "If it's ransom you want—"
"Shut up before I shut you up," Broken Horn snapped. "I have had enough of your words. Keep quiet and do as I say and perhaps you will live until we reach the Watashia River."
Rachael opened her mouth to speak again, but the look on the redskin's face warned her to keep silent. A savage approached Gifford and whipped out a jagged-edged knife.
"What is he doing?" she murmured more to herself than her captor. Suddenly realizing that the savage meant to cut Gifford's throat she bolted, tearing from Broken Horn's grasp. "No! Don't touch him! Let him be!" She reached Gifford's body and grabbed the savage's bare forearm. She looked back toward Broken Horn. "Please don't kill him."
"He is your husband?" Broken Horn asked.
She lowered her head. "Husband to be . . . he was, I mean."
Broken Horn contemplated his choices. The girl he could trade for muskets and whiskey. The man . . . ransom perhaps. Then of course a white captive was always a good diversion for the Mohawks. "He cannot walk," Broken Horn scoffed. "We must travel fast."
Rachael fell to her knees, grasping Gifford's face. His forehead was split open where he'd hit the window sill. The blood had congealed but his forehead was already turning purple with bruising. "He can travel. I swear he can! Please don't kill him!" She patted Gifford's pale cheek. "Gifford, Gifford, wake up!" she insisted in a half whisper. "Gifford if you don't wake up, love, they're going to kill you."
He groaned, his eyelids fluttering. "That's right," she urged. "Wake up." She patted his cheek harder.
"Kill him!" Broken Horn barked.
"No!" She turned back to Gifford slapping him hard across the cheek. "Gifford, if you don't wake up, damn you, they're going to kill you!"
The sharp slap in the face made Gifford open his eyes. "Rachael . . . " he mumbled groggily.
"Gifford, get up!" she insisted, rising to her feet, trying to drag him up with her. "They're going to kill you if you don't get up."
"Kill me?" Slowly Gifford's eyes focused. The realization of where he was and what had happened quickly washed over his face. "Rachael!" He wrapped his arms around her, leaning heavily on her shoulders. "John?"
"Dead." She brushed his cheek with her hand. "They're not going to kill us, not yet at least, but you have to walk. Do you understand what I'm saying, Gifford?" She grasped his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes.
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