Defiant (42 page)

C
onnor burned, his back in flames, the pain threatening to consume him. He sought the river, thinking to throw himself in and quench the flames, but he could not find it, its banks ever obscured by the forest.

Mary, Mother of God, help me!

Then through the trees he thought he saw the glint of moonlight on water. He stumbled toward the river only to find himself held fast by one of the trees, his wrists bound by cruel branches, the agony of the burning unbearable. Was this hell?

“Connor!”

He opened his eyes, looked into a face very much like his own. “I-Iain?”

And he remembered.

Wentworth had sentenced him to a hundred lashes a day, and today was the third day. He’d lost count at forty-seven. He must have lost consciousness and been dreaming. Perhaps he was still dreaming, his mind conjuring up an image of his brother’s whiskered face.

Iain spoke to someone. “Och, he’s senseless.”

Connor wanted to tell his brother that he’d always had more sense than either him or Morgan, but he couldn’t find the strength. His body trembled uncontrollably, blood trickling down his back, the pain shaking him apart.

“Morgan and I are here, lad.”

He heard someone draw a sword, heard the clash of steel against iron, and felt himself falling, his legs too weak to support him. But Iain caught him, lifting him over his shoulder like sack of potatoes.

“Put him down! He’s got a score more lashes comin’ before we’re through with him today!”

“Stand aside, or I’ll run you through.” That was Morgan.

His brothers had come.

The next thing Connor knew, he was lying on his belly in the infirmary.

“Drink, Connor,” a woman’s soft voice bade him. “This will dull your pain.”

He was desperately thirsty and did as she asked, the bitter taste of laudanum filling his mouth. He opened his eyes. “Annie?”

“Aye, I’m here. We’re all here.” She gave him water to drink, quenching his thirst, then pressed a cool cloth against his brow. “Now rest.”

But Connor couldn’t rest, not yet. “She’s alone, Annie. Sarah’s alone…wi’
him
. He…he tried to poison her…wanted her…to miscarry. Help her.”

“Shhh.” Annie stroked his brow. “Joseph told us everything.”

“I’m sorry. I didna mean…for Iain to be pressed…back into service.”

“I dinnae blame you for that. You’ve done all you can to spare him.” She smiled, but Connor could see the worry in her green eyes.

He felt the laudanum begin to take effect, but knew his relief would be short-lived. He still faced more than seven hundred lashes. Dread coiled in his belly at the thought, the pain so much worse than he could have imagined. But he had to be strong. He would not let Wentworth break him. “Whatever doctorin’ you hope to do…you’d best be about it. They’ll be comin’ for me again soon.”

Annie smiled. “I pity them if they try.”

As his pain ebbed, Connor drifted into blessed oblivion.

W
illiam shared the contents of Amherst’s most recent missive with Lieutenant Cooke. “He wants us to advance to Crown Point with all haste to prevent Bougainville from joining Lévis. I had anticipated this, so we are well provisioned. Still, we must begin immediately if we are to reach Crown Point within the month.”

Lieutenant Cooke said nothing, his countenance fixed in an expression of resigned disapprobation, as it had been these past three days.

William went on as if he had not noticed. “Amherst will not send us additional troops. He plans to march with ten thousand while we have fewer than four thousand, including the Rangers and the Indians.”

“The Mahican will not fight with us.” Lieutenant Cooke’s voice held a note of condemnation as if Captain Joseph’s perfidy were William’s fault. “Captain Joseph made it quite clear that if you persisted in flogging Major MacKinnon, the Mahican would desert the war effort and not fight beside us again.”

William gave an impatient wave of his hand. He’d long resented the fact that the Mahicans seemed to serve the MacKinnon brothers more than the Crown. “I am trusting that the eldest MacKinnon will put all to rights with our allies.”

“If he does not join them in revolt.” Lieutenant Cooke spoke the words softly, as if he did not especially wish for William to hear him.

For William, it was the last straw. “Is there aught you would say to me, Lieutenant? If so, I would hear it and have an end to your ill humor.”

Cooke stood at attention. “Permission to speak freely, my lord.”

William frowned. “Permission granted.”

Cooke stood at ease, his gaze boldly meeting William’s. “Your behavior the other night was not that of a gentleman. I heard almost every word, as did the guards at the door. No doubt Lady Sarah is now the subject of much speculation amongst the Regulars. As for Major MacKinnon, I have known him too long to believe he would lie about such a thing. His account matches Lady Sarah’s in every detail. How could they concoct such a tale?

“In short, I believe he told the truth that night, whilst I
know
you told falsehoods. Your niece is now so distressed over Major MacKinnon’s torment that I fear for her health and that of the child. As her
warden
, I had the most unpleasant task of restraining her and carrying her to her room two mornings past. And what you planned to do to her—forcing her to miscarry? I was shocked to my soul to hear—”

“That is enough, Lieutenant.” This outburst was quite extraordinary coming from the normally mild lieutenant. William found himself pressed to keep the anger out of his voice. He hadn’t meant for Cooke to speak quite so freely.

“I believe Major MacKinnon innocent, and—”

“I said
enough
!” Did Cooke actually presume to reprimand him?

Lieutenant Cooke started, then shifted his gaze to the window. “Yes, my lord.”

William’s hand drifted into his pocket, grasped the cracked black king as he fought to restrain his anger. First, Sarah’s rebuke and now a lecture from his lieutenant.

For a short time, I thought there were two men in this world with whom I could share my heart. You have shown me there is only one.

A strange feeling of guilt stirred inside him, cold and prickly.

He quashed it.

How dare either of them question him? She was his ward, and he had shown her all the kindness a devoted uncle could. Without his intervention, she would be utterly ruined, disowned by her father, outcast from society. And Cooke was William’s lieutenant, a commoner with little understanding of what was at stake.

“I’m curious, Lieutenant, how you can hold MacKinnon innocent when he clearly found his pleasure with Sarah. If his actions hadn’t been exposed by Sarah’s condition, he would have gone the rest of his days privately gloating that he’d stolen her maidenhead.”

“I’ve spent no small amount of time wondering what I might have done had I been in Major MacKinnon’s position in that Shawnee village. If all was as he said it was—and I believe he is telling the truth—I hope I would have had the fortitude to do exactly as he did. Would you have given me a thousand lashes, my lord?”

William did not know what to say. He had never imagined that what MacKinnon had told him was the truth. “Lieutenant, I—”

There came shouts from the guards outside, and the doors to his study were thrown wide.

“You sent for me, Your Immensity?” Fury on his face, Iain MacKinnon strode toward him, claymore in hand, his brother Morgan beside him. “I’m back.”

“So I see.” William gaze drifted to the doorway, hoping Lady Anne might have accompanied her husband.

In a heartbeat, the tip of MacKinnon’s blade rested beneath his chin, forcing him to meet the Highlander’s gaze. “My wife’s no’ here. She’s seein’ to Connor in the infirmary. You’ll no’ lay another stripe upon his back so long as I breathe. If you want my sword, revoke the remainder of his sentence. Now.”

“The balance between us has not changed, MacKinnon. With a shout I can have all three of you bound over and sent to Albany for trial on the charge of murder. I hold the power.”

“
I
hold a sword.”

As William looked into eyes that promised death, he wondered when he’d lost control of this entire state of affairs.

S
arah sat at her harpsichord trying to play, her fingers strangely clumsy. She stopped, started again, stopped, started again, stopped. Music had always been her comfort, her refuge. But not today.

She was certain the two men she’d seen this morning had been Connor’s brothers. She’d been asleep upstairs, when she’d been awakened by shouting. Though Agnes had tried to stop her, Sarah had hurried down the hall in time to see two men walk out the front door. They’d been so alike Connor in appearance that there could be no mistaking them for anything but kin. Both had held broadswords, their strides determined as they’d set out across the parade grounds.

Had they come to help him, to free him perhaps? Did they know about her? Did they know about the baby?

No one would tell her anything—her uncle’s orders, no doubt. She had hoped to speak quietly with Lieutenant Cooke to learn what had happened and to ask about Connor’s condition, but she hadn’t yet found a moment to approach the lieutenant. He’d spent most of the day behind closed doors with Uncle William. She’d waited for him, calling to him as he walked quickly from her uncle’s study out the front door, telling him that she needed to speak with him. But he’d acted as if he hadn’t heard her.

What she wouldn’t give for some word of Connor! She was almost certain the flogging had stopped before the count had reached one hundred. That could only mean that he’d fallen unconscious or been deemed too weak for the flogging to continue. Was he in the guardhouse lying in dirty straw, dreading
tomorrow’s pain? Or was he in the infirmary, perhaps feverish, maybe even dying?

Remember this, Sarah. Remember me.

Sarah heard his voice as if he were beside her. For a moment, she resisted, afraid that allowing herself to recall any happy memory would only deepen her worry and grief. Slowly, she closed her eyes, turning her thoughts toward that day in the cabin, the two of them alone in the wild, his body joining with hers as he showed her the bliss that was hers as a woman, his entire body bound to her pleasure. He’d been strong, virile, alive.

Och, Sarah, how shall I call augh’ beautiful again unless it be the sight of you?

Somehow her fingers found the keys, and, without opening her eyes, she played, pouring out the passion of that memory, unaware what song she was playing, her mind wrapped in the joy she’d felt as he’d taken her and given himself to her, breath and bodies mingled, blood running hot in their veins even as the storm raged outside.

“You play beautifully.”

Sarah gasped, whirled about to find a woman standing beside her. About Sarah’s height, she was strikingly beautiful with flaxen hair and bright green eyes. She wore a simple gown of pink cotton, but her apron was of embroidered linen, the kerchief at her throat fine lace.

“’Tis sorry I am to interrupt you, my lady, but I fear we’ve no’ much time. Your uncle doesna ken I am here and will surely send me away when he finds me. My name is Annie MacKinnon, Iain MacKinnon’s wife and Connor’s sister-by-marriage. Can we go to your chamber and speak where others cannae overhear us?”

“We shall have to speak here. My lady’s maid is upstairs, and she is not to be trusted.” Overjoyed to have this chance to speak with someone from Connor’s family, Sarah began playing to mask their voices, her fingers finding the notes without effort now. “How did you come to be here?”

She listened as Mistress MacKinnon told her how Joseph had arrived on the farm in the middle of the night and shared with them all that had happened. Fearing for Connor, the entire family—Annie, Iain, Morgan, Morgan’s wife Amalie, and their four children—had set out for Fort Edward after breakfast,
traveling through the night. On their way, they’d met the redcoat troops sent to press Iain back into service and had heard the terrible punishment that Lord William had decreed for Connor.

“I fear for him, Mistress MacKinnon! Have you any news of him?”

“Please call me Annie, and, aye, I do.”

Then Annie told her how Iain had cut Connor down from the whipping post and carried him to the infirmary, where Annie had tended him herself.

“My husband went to speak wi’ him and…
persuaded
Lord William to rescind his own orders and dismiss the remainder of the sentence.”

So that’s what had happened.

Sarah felt light-headed with relief. “Thanks be to God!”

“Connor is in pain, but we are givin’ him laudanum and watchin’ over him. He is stubborn and strong. He will heal. Each time he wakes, he asks about you, so I thought it best to come and see wi’ my own eyes that you are safe. How do you feel?”

From the hallway outside the door came the sound of approaching boot steps.

They fell silent, listening, Sarah continuing to play as the footfalls drew nearer—and then passed by.

Sarah gave a sigh of relief. “I am still sick in the mornings and very tired.”

Though Sarah had known Annie but for a few minutes, she felt she could trust her completely. She found herself pouring out her fears and doubts, telling Annie all that had happened since she’d heard Connor shouting and had come downstairs to find him and Uncle William at each other’s throat—Connor’s accusations against Uncle William, the shock of learning that her uncle had hoped to induce her to miscarry, her uncle’s refusal to let her child be raised either by Joseph or by Connor.

Annie frowned pensively, as if thinking over what she was about to say. “Your uncle can be a hard, prideful man. I believe he has a heart, but he doesna often pay heed to it. Connor spoke the truth. Your uncle still holds the charge of murder over their heads. He uses it to control them.”

Sarah wasn’t certain which hurt more—knowing that Uncle William had done such a terrible thing or knowing that he had
lied to her about it. “I am sorry for the wrongs my uncle has done your family.”

“You dinnae need to apologize. You are no’ to blame for his actions.”