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BOOK: Judith E French
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The amulet was all she had left of home. She’d worn the heavy necklace since she was a babe. Her mother had said the ancient piece was solid gold, a gift from her father, and no matter how hungry they’d been, her mother had never sold it to buy food. For fear that someone would steal the precious antique, her mother had painted it black.
Black for the curse it carries,
Eileen O’Neal had said many a time.
Black for the evil that would take you far from home and kin, and pure sweet yellow gold within. Gold, my darlin’, gold for the shining blessing.
Fiona drew in a long, shuddering breath. Her mother’s voice had been low and husky and full of authority; it was a voice that never failed to turn men’s heads and make even the gentry pay heed. Fiona could hear Eileen’s lilting tone now if she listened hard enough.
The amulet was a gift from your lordly father to you when you were but hours old . . .
Her mother had repeated the story so many times that Fiona could recall it word for word....
A birthing gift fit for a princess. I cried when first I laid eyes upon the shining glory of the Eye of Mist.

Hardly fit for the likes of our daughter,” your father replied, all proud and filled with the joy of seeing you so fat and fair. “I’ll see her wed to a prince when she’s grown,” he promised. As God is my witness, little one, those were his very words. He said the amulet had been handed down in your Scottish grandmother’s family for time out of time. “Whosoever possesses the Eye of Mist shall be cursed and blessed,” so the legend goes. “The curse is that you will be taken from your family and friends to a far-off land. The blessing is that you will be granted one wish. Whatever you ask you shall have—even unto the power of life and death.”
“Unto the power of life and death,” Fiona murmured. She opened her eyes and stared into the swirling snow. If she believed in such nonsense as magic necklaces, she’d use the amulet now to strike Karl and Nigel stone dead. Or . . . She thought wistfully of the columbine that had trailed over the wall at the bottom of her grandfather’s yard. Or she’d use the Eye of Mist to turn back time and wish herself a child again in James Patrick O’Neal’s parlor. No, she decided, not her grandfather’s parlor—his office. She’d spent her happiest hours there, watching him tend his patients, holding and sterilizing his instruments and studying his medical books.
Dour and short-tempered, James Patrick O’Neal had reluctantly given her a home after her mother, Eileen—his only child—had died. He’d never forgiven Eileen for giving birth to Fiona out of wedlock.
Or me for being born, Fiona thought painfully. But he gave her an education few boys in Ireland could boast of. He taught her much of what he’d learned in medical school and in forty years of practice as a physician. He gave her a calling, a purpose in life.
Fiona didn’t have to guess what her grandfather would say about the mess she’d gotten herself into.
Any fool who’d indenture himself like a cart horse and go off to the Colonies deserves anything they get.
If she’d used common sense and stayed in Ireland . . .
If she’d stayed in Ireland, she might well have ended up hanging from a rope.
Since the days of Cromwell, the English hand of conquest lay heavy on her Catholic homeland. The Black Night, her people called it. The penal laws enacted by William III forbade the education of Catholic children and closed the schools. Even parents who could afford it were not permitted to send their children abroad to be educated. Catholics had no vote and were barred from holding public office or from attending university. Many priests had been imprisoned or put to death, and all religious orders were exiled from Ireland. Thousands of acres of privately owned land had been confiscated, and inheritance rights had been severely restricted.
Hundreds of starving people walked the roads begging for work. Once her grandfather died and his house and belongings were confiscated, she’d had nowhere to go, and no way to support herself. A woman alone in Ireland—without family or money—became a thief, sold her body to strangers, or died alone in a ditch.
Instead, Fiona had chosen to begin a new life in America. And she’d ended up facing rape and murder at the hands of these men . . .
The terror and hardship of the bitter night were beginning to take their toll. Fiona had ceased to shiver, and her eyelids felt weighted with lead. She’d never been exposed to such harsh weather in Ireland, but she remembered reading the symptoms of patients who had. She knew that she had to remain alert and that she must keep the blood circulating in her hands and feet.
She tried to wiggle her toes and realized with a sinking feeling that her legs were numb from the knees down. Her fingers were stiff with cold, but she’d folded her arms across her chest under the blanket, and tucked her hands under her armpits.
It was snowing so hard now that she couldn’t see Karl or Nigel. The rump of Nigel’s mule was a moving white mound just beyond her own mount’s flicking ears. She didn’t know where Karl was—if he was riding behind her or ahead. If she was last in line, she wondered if she could just rein in her mule and stop. How long would it take before the trappers missed her?
Would she just sit on her mule in the middle of this endless woods until she and the animal froze to death? And if they did, would it be an easier death than what awaited her at the end of the journey?
Quitter!
Fiona’s eyes snapped open, and she stared around her, expecting to see James Patrick O’Neal’s scowling face materialize out of the darkness. Grandfather’s dead, she told herself firmly. If I’m hearing his voice, it’s only my mind playing tricks on me.
Quitter.
It was her grandfather’s voice, all right.
Weak stock on your father’s side. What more can I expect of an Englishman’s bastard?
“Scot,” Fiona murmured through cold, cracked lips. “He wasn’t English—he was a Scot.”
Same thing. A gentleman.
Her grandfather’s withering sarcasm cut deep, as it always had.
Weak stock, weak blood. Any farmer knows interbreeding makes worthless livestock. No O’Neal was ever a quitter. Your mother had more gumption than you when she was half your age.
Nigel’s harsh voice intruded on Fiona’s dreaming. “Hold yer blathering tongue, slut.”
“He was a Scot,” she repeated stubbornly, barely loud enough for her own ears to hear.
Her grandsire had always forced her into the position of defending her father . . . defending a man she hated. It wasn’t fair, but it was James Patrick O’Neal’s way, and nothing short of God or the devil would change it.
Whenever the dusty Latin texts were too hard for her, or she couldn’t figure out the handwritten recipe for mixing a medicinal formula, her grandfather would goad her to try again and to keep trying until she succeeded. He never laid a hand on her in anger. But if she sickened at the sight of bedsores on a dying man, or blanched at the cries of a woman giving birth, he would taunt her until she found the strength to face what appalled her.
“I guess you made me tough, Grandfather,” Fiona whispered into the wind, “but it never made me love you.”
The mule stopped short, and Fiona fell forward over the animal’s neck, barely catching herself from tumbling into the snow.
“We’re here,” Karl said. “Get down offen thet mule.”
Seconds later, before Fiona could force her stiffened limbs to obey, he cuffed her sharply alongside the head. The blow brought her fully awake. She slid her leg over the mule’s back and kicked free of the stirrup, then let herself drop. Her knees folded under her, and she landed facedown on the ground, under the animal’s belly.
Excruciating pain shot through her as pins and needles of sensation seized both feet. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, crawled from under the mule, and used the saddle leathers to pull herself up to a standing position.
Nigel’s hand clamped over Fiona’s shoulder, and he dragged her several yards to a crude log structure. “Home sweet home,” he said, throwing his shoulder against the door and dragging her inside.
She shuddered and shrank away from him. He smelled worse inside out of the wind, and the stink turned her stomach.
Nigel caught her chin cruelly between his fingers. “No need to be so standoffish,” he said salaciously. “Before spring comes, we’re gonna get to know each other real well.”
“I’ll kill you if you touch me,” she threatened.
He laughed. “Once ye see what I got, ye won’t be backin’ off, ye’ll be beggin’ fer it.”
“Rot in hell,” she retorted.
His fingers dug into Fiona’s face, and he shoved her roughly away from him. “That’s what my last woman said,” he taunted her, “and she ended up as wolf bait.”
White-hot anger drove back the smothering fear as Fiona sank to her knees on the dirt floor and tried to think clearly. Nigel and Karl believed she was helpless. Well and good, let the English bastards think so! She was no longer bound hand and foot, and both trappers carried weapons.
If only she could just stall their sexual assault long enough to get her hands on a gun . . .
eKENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
 
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 1991 by Judith E. French
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
 
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ISBN: 978-1-6018-3090-6
First Electronic Edition: June 2013
BOOK: Judith E French
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