Defiant (29 page)

F
eeling as if he’d just been kicked, Connor willed himself to shift his gaze from the shattered look on Sarah’s face to his men.

It was not the full strength of the Rangers that stood before him, but only about thirty men, those who’d been able to muster quickly. McHugh was there and Forbes. Killy and Dougie stood off to one side with young Jabez Fitch. Brendan had come, Conall and Angus beside him.

For the first time Connor did not feel uplifted to see their familiar faces, some part of him wanting to rage at Joseph for bringing the war to the cabin’s door. For a while today, for a few precious hours, Connor had let himself forget.

Yet, even to think such a thing felt akin to betrayal. To let the men wander needlessly through the perils of the forest would be to risk their lives to no purpose. They had come at his bidding as brothers-in-arms, ready to put their lives on the line for him once again. They were cold and hungry and tired from the march. He would not repay their loyalty with such thoughts.

Keeping his gaze off Sarah, he grabbed his bearskin coat and joined his men in the rain, shutting the door behind him. Many of them he’d not seen since before Yuletide.

“McHugh, I can see you’ve no’ gone hungry over the
winter.” He eyed the wider girth of his lieutenant. A bear of a man, McHugh was the only Ranger taller than Connor.

McHugh laughed, his smile nearly hidden behind his bushy red beard. He patted his belly. “My goodwife kens how to cook, aye?”

Forbes was as lean as he was a tall, a long-limbed man who moved with astonishing gracefulness. His cool head in battle had earned him the rank of captain.

“Forbes.” Connor clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve heard you’ve a new daughter. Felicitations! Does that make five or six bairns?”

“Two.” Forbes grinned. “Saints be praised the wee lass has her mother’s look about her and no’ mine.”

This made the men laugh.

Connor laughed, too, but there was no levity inside him, his heart still with Sarah inside the cabin.

You kent it wouldna last forever.

Aye, he had, but he hadn’t imagined their stolen time together would end so soon.

“You’re lookin’ hearty and hale, Killy.”

Killy was McHugh’s opposite, short for a man, all bone and sinew. But appearances could be deceiving, as anyone who faced Killy in battle soon learned. The Irishman was as tough as he was damnably stubborn. He’d spent much of the winter sick with fever but had clearly regained his strength.

His scarred face twisted in a wide grin at Connor’s greeting. “It seems the devil is no hurry to get his due. He refuses to take me, so he does.”

The men laughed.

Killy had more lives than a cat. He’d already survived being hanged, shot, scalped, and nearly gutted. It would take more than the
griùrach
—what the English called measles—to put him in his grave.

Connor pressed on. “Dougie, lad, what have you to say for yourself?”

But Dougie didn’t answer, his gaze fixed on the cabin door.

Connor turned and saw her.

Sarah stood in the doorway, chin high, looking every bit the English noblewoman, despite being clad in moccasins, leggings, a doeskin skirt, and his shirt. Though Connor knew she suffered every bit as much as he did, no trace of distress re
mained on her face, her private grief set aside. And his admiration for her grew.

He closed the distance between them, keeping his hands at his sides, afraid he’d reach out and touch her. “My lady, may I present MacKinnon’s Rangers—or some of them. They are good men and loyal-hearted and will escort us the remainder of the way to Fort Edward. If any men on earth can keep you safe, they will.”

She looked from man to man, a soft smile on her beautiful face. “Who has not heard of MacKinnon’s Rangers? My uncle has always praised you in his letters. I am grateful for your efforts on my behalf. I pray your path has not been a troubled one.”

Her words were gracious, but they were met with silence. And for a brief moment, Connor saw her through the eyes of his men. Beautiful she might be, and dressed in a way that provoked a man’s senses with her short skirt and long, unbound hair, but her bearing was undeniably aristocratic, her accent regally English. And she had just mentioned the one person on the earth the Rangers hated more than the wee German lairdie who sat upon the throne—Wentworth.

Killy bowed his head and tugged on his forelock. “Ma’am.”

The other men followed suit in twos and threes. “Ma’am.”

Connor saw the confusion on Sarah’s face and knew she sensed something was amiss.

Dougie spoke quietly in Gaelic. “She’s a sight fairer to behold than her uncle.”

And the men burst into laughter.

But Connor didn’t find it funny. Rage tangling with pity in his heart, he watched as Sarah took a step back from the doorway, knowing they were laughing about her, but not knowing why.

He turned to his men, spoke in Gaelic. “Watch your tongue, Dougie. I’ll not suffer any one of you to treat her ill. She is not to blame for the wrongs her uncle has done. She’s been through a terrible ordeal and yet shown great courage. You’ll treat her with the respect due her sex and her station—or I’ll ken the reason why.”

Some of the men had the good sense to show shame, their faces now downcast.

Killy, who’d always had a weakness for lasses, was the
first to step forward. “The name’s Killy, ma’am. God has shown you mercy this day by seein’ fit to put an Irishman in a company of ill-mannered Scots—idiots and louts every last one of them. I am sorry for your sufferin’. If there’s aught you need, call for Killy.”

Sarah’s lips curved in a hopeful smile. “You are most kind, Killy.”

From behind him Connor heard Joseph’s voice speaking in Mahican. “Do you remember how you spoke of her before you met her? Give them time. They will come to see her for who she is, just as you did.”

Connor hoped Joseph was right. “They treated Annie with respect, and she’s a hated Campbell. They doted upon Amalie, and she is French.”

“Yes, but both Iain and Morgan claimed their women. If you were to claim her as your wife, make her a MacKinnon—”

“You know I cannot do that.” Was Joseph daft?

“We will help her win their hearts. But look—some of them are already warming to her.”

Connor watched as Dougie stepped forward.

“If it please you, ma’am, I’m Dougie. Dinnae be fooled by Killy’s silver tongue. His heart’s so black, the devil willna let him die for fear he’ll defile hell.”

If Sarah was shocked by such profane speech, she hid it well.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Dougie.” Her face brightened. “Are you the Ranger with the violin…the fiddle?”

“Aye.” Dougie’s stood taller. “So Connor spoke to you of my playin’, did he?”

Sarah smiled. “Yes, he did. Do you have your fiddle with you?”

“In my pack?” Dougie chuckled. “Nay! If you wish to hear me play, you’ll have to wait till we return to Ranger Island.”

Sarah smiled as if she were looking forward to this, but Connor knew she didn’t want to hear Dougie play nearly so much as she wished to play herself.

Connor took a deep breath and spoke what was in his heart, knowing Joseph would share it with no one. “I fear the hardest part of this mission is upon me, for now I must feign that she means nothing to me.”

He felt Joseph’s hand come to rest upon his shoulder.

*   *   *

S
arah watched as Connor walked amongst his Rangers, speaking with them, encouraging them, sometimes in English, sometimes in Gaelic. There was no mistaking him for anything less than the officer he was—a true leader of men. He quickly gave orders, assigning half his men to stand watch and sending two small parties into the forest, one to gather firewood, the other to hunt for their dinner. The others dried themselves by the large fire they built inside the barn, tended their gear, or slept wrapped in bearskins in the straw.

The Rangers were far rougher than she’d imagined, both in manner and appearance. Why she’d expected men in uniforms and neat ranks she couldn’t say, for Connor wore no uniform. Some of the Rangers were scarcely older than she, but already they were rugged and weatherworn. Some, like Master Killy, were badly scarred. Some spoke with such a thick Scottish burr that she could scarce understand a word they said. But she supposed it didn’t matter, as they weren’t speaking to her.

From the moment she’d opened the door, she’d sensed that Connor’s men did not care for her. She did not know what she might have said or done to offend them, but only after Connor had admonished them in Gaelic—she was certain that’s what he’d done—had they begun to warm to her, and then only halfheartedly. Perhaps it was the fact that she was Protestant and English, while they were all Scottish—or Irish in Killy’s case—and most likely Catholic. Perhaps they felt wary around her because she was of noble birth. Or perhaps she’d grown so accustomed to the ease and lack of formality she’d enjoyed with Connor and Joseph that she was mistaking deference for indifference.

Whatever the cause, she was now an outsider.

She wished she could have done something to help them, to show her gratitude, to prove her worth, but they were accustomed to tending to their own needs and knew what they were about far better than she. She couldn’t cook for them. She couldn’t repair their gear. She couldn’t even make them tea.

Never had she felt so useless.

Overtaken by a wave of desolation, she stepped inside, closed the cabin door behind her, and leaned back against it, hugging her arms around her middle, afraid the pain inside her
would break her apart. Tears blurred her vision, a sob caught in her chest. Bent under the weight of her grief, she stumbled across the room to sit before the fire.

She’d thought she had three more days with him.

Three more days
.

But those days had been taken from them by those sent to help them. Now she would return to her world, where she would await word of her fate, and Connor would return to war. It would be as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed.

No! No, that’s not true!

Sarah’s head came up at the outcry that arose inside her.

Everything had changed.
She
had changed.

Her parents had thought to punish her, to cut her off from the world she knew, to make her pay for wrongs she hadn’t committed by sending her into exile and consigning her to a life of loneliness. Instead, they’d sent her to a world that was vaster, more perilous, and more stirring than they could possibly conceive. What she’d seen had opened her eyes—and her heart. Some of it had been terrible and frightening, but some of it had been beautiful, too.

And then there was Connor.

He’d saved her life, taken her virginity, and given her freedom in its place. He’d helped her find her own courage, believed her when no one else had. He’d helped her defy her fate and had shown her the joys of physical passion.

Now she was stronger, wiser, more experienced. She’d faced danger, fear, and pleasure beyond her imaginings, had done things she’d never dreamt she could do. She’d witnessed violence to freeze the marrow, had seen a forest so vast that it swallowed the soul, had glimpsed eternity in the star-filled sky. But more than that, she now knew what it was to love.

She loved Connor MacKinnon, and nothing could change that.

In the years to come, when you lie alone in your bed and the night grows long and bitter, remember how it felt when I held you, kissed you, made you mine. Remember this night. Remember me.

She would remember Connor. She would remember every moment with him—every breath, every kiss, every touch a treasured jewel set in memory.

In truth, the world hadn’t stolen three days from them; they’d
stolen one precious night and day from the world. No one could take that from them.

She would return to London, but she was no longer the ashamed and terrified girl her parents had sent away. The law gave them the right to decide her future—whether she would marry or live out her days as a spinster. But her heart and her mind were now her own.

Sarah stood, put more wood on the fire, and wiped her tears away.

I
t was near sunset when the rain stopped, sunlight breaking through the gray clouds, the air chill and damp. Haunches and cuts of venison roasted over four great cook fires behind the barn, the scent making Connor’s mouth water. Men bustled about, fetching tin plates and forks from their packs, eager for their first real meal in three days.

“Go and fetch your woman.” Joseph spoke quietly in Mahican, his words meant for Connor alone. “Leave the rest to me.”

Connor found Sarah sitting quietly before the fire. “Supper is waitin’, my lady. My men and I would like for you to join us, if you’re willin’.”

She rose, uncertainty in her eyes. “Are you certain they wish this? I do not want to trouble them.”

And Connor knew she’d seen through him. His men had not asked him to fetch her, and he supposed most of them cared not one whit whether she joined them for supper or ate alone in the cabin.

He lowered his voice, speaking for her ears alone. “My men are sons of Culloden—sent abroad or born in exile. I ask you to forgi’e them their churlishness and unmannerful treatment of you earlier today.”

She seemed to hesitate, then nodded, following him trustingly out the door, hugging her arms around herself to ward off the chill.

Connor took the bearskin coat from his back and draped it over her shoulders, his hands lingering unnecessarily on her back, his fingers tangling in her long tresses. “The men have no’ eaten but parched cornmeal since they left Edward. Tonight, we dine on venison.”

His men lapsed into an awkward silence as they approached,
every man’s gaze on Sarah. Her chin went up, and he was reminded of the first moment he’d seen her—her head high as she faced the blows of the Shawnee villagers. But these were
his
men and, by God, they would
not
treat her thus!