by Pamela Clare
Seeking at least some comfort in that thought, she reached for the poultice and had just begun to dab it over the wound with a clean bit of linen when the door opened. “Mademoiselle.” Lieutenant Rillieux entered, gave her a crisp bow. “Bourlamaque sent me to inquire after the prisoner. How does he fare?”
Still upset with the lieutenant, she refused to glance up.
“He is unchanged.”
Lieutenant Rillieux stood for a moment, watching. “You are displeased with me.”
“It is unbefitting a gentleman to deny a dying man Last Rites.”
Lieutenant Rillieux came to stand behind her and placed an unwelcome hand upon her shoulder, his thumb caressing the bare skin at her nape. “You are young and a woman. I don’t expect you to understand. Besides, he does not seem to be dying.”
Why did he insist on touching her? She leaned forward, out of his grasp, and reached for more poultice, fighting to keep the anger from her voice. “He is quite feverish. It is still too soon to know whether he will live.”
For a moment there was silence.
“Monsieur de Bourlamaque is most impressed with my conduct in this affair. He has written to Montcalm, praising me for MacKinnon’s capture. I have reason to believe that I will find myself a captain by summer’s end.” At this exciting news, Amalie glanced up and felt some of her anger abate at the look of satisfaction on Lieutenant Rillieux’s face. She knew how much this meant to him. “Oh, Lieutenant! You must be so pleased!”
“I knew you would be happy for me.” He smiled. “It is an honor I have long sought and one I deserve, if I might be so bold. I accomplished something many believed could not be done—I captured one of the MacKinnon brothers. I shouldn’t be surprised if dispatches bearing this news make their way to Paris and my name is read before le Bien-Aime.” Amalie thought it unlikely the king’s ministers would trouble His Majesty with news from New France, but she didn’t say so. She finished dabbing on the poultice and began to bind the prisoner’s wound once more, while Lieutenant Rillieux boasted at length about the night the Ranger was captured and how Bourlamaque never could have accomplished such a deed himself and how Bourlamaque knew this and even now treated him with a new regard, the stolen case of wine forgiven, if not forgotten.
“With this change in my fortunes, I feel emboldened to say that it is time you reconsidered my offer. It is no small honor to be the wife of a captain.” And with that his rambling ceased.
Amalie tied off the bandage, drew the blankets over the prisoner’s leg, then stood, searching for words that would spare Lieutenant Rillieux’s feelings but finding none. “You flatter me with your perseverance, monsieur, but I cannot marry you. Even if I were wholly resolved not to return to the convent and take vows, I know that you and I would not—“ “You speak with such conviction.” Lieutenant Rillieux looked down at her as if she’d just said something absurd, his face a blend of insult and amusement. “But how can you be certain? You’re a virgin and were convent raised. You know nothing of men or marriage.”
She lifted her chin to meet his gaze, no longer bothering to hide her anger. “I know my own mind, monsieur.”
He stepped back from her, a mocking look in his eyes. “As much as I admired your father, he has done you a terrible disservice by encouraging such willfulness. If he had not insisted that Bourlamaque allow you freedom to choose your own path, you would already be my wife. You were not meant for the convent, Amalie.”
With that, he turned and was gone.
On The Hudson River
His Majesty’s Colony of New York
Lord William Wentworth took in the news, caught off his guard by the surge of distress that washed through him. He studied the pieces on his chessboard without truly seeing them, struggling to keep his face impassive. Beside him, Lieutenant Cooke found the words to say what he, lacking his voice, could not.
“I am deeply grieved to hear of your loss, Captain. Major MacKinnon was a skilled marksman and leader. I . . . I admired him.”
Given the undying animosity that lay between the Rangers and His Majesty’s Regulars, Cooke’s confession was unusual, if not unexpected. Most British Regulars viewed the Rangers as nothing more than uncouth colonials, barbarians without the disposition necessary for the military arts. But the Rangers had saved Cooke’s life at Ticonderoga last summer, and their skill had clearly won his respect. William cleared his throat. “Start at the beginning, Captain. And go slowly this time.”
Captain Connor MacKinnon, the youngest of the three MacKinnon brothers and the most unpredictable, closed his eyes, drew a breath and began again.
“I was firing at the soldiers on the walls and didnae see Morgan get hit. But I saw him fall. I ran out to fetch him, but the French had opened their gates and.. .” The captain closed his eyes, a look of anguish on his face. “He said he was already lost and ordered me to retreat wi’ the men. And, curse me, I did!”
“Your actions are commendable, Captain. You—“ “He was my brother, and I left him to die!” The captain shouted the words in William’s face, his eyes dark with rage, his jaw covered with thick stubble, his clothes stained with sweat and dirt from his buckskin breeches to the homespun of his blue checked shirt. “The French raised him over their heads and carried him inside the fort like a great bloody prize!” Then, as if his outburst had cost him the last of his strength, the captain sank into the same chair he’d refused to accept not five minutes before, burying his face in his hands. “Lieutenant, pour Captain MacKinnon a cognac.” The lieutenant’s eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing beneath his wig. William had never offered any of the Rangers a drink from his private stores before. But Cooke was a disciplined officer and did as William had ordered without question. It was surely a measure of Captain MacKinnon’s misery that he accepted the glass and drank. Under normal circumstances, none of the MacKinnon brothers would have taken so much as a farthing from William. He had forced them to fight for His Majesty’s army by rather unorthodox means, allowing them to choose between leading a company of Rangers or being hanged. They hated him as they hated no one, except perhaps his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland—or his grandsire, their noble Sovereign, King George. “Major MacKinnon is a prize. If he was still alive when they captured him, I can only assume Bourlamaque asked his personal surgeons to tend him in the hope that the major would survive to be interrogated.”
For four years, the MacKinnon brothers had harried the French relentlessly, helping to turn the tide of the war. The French had been trying for most of that rime to kill or capture them, and had placed a bounty on their scalps that was roughly the equivalent of two thousand British pounds: But the brothers had evaded every trap set for them—until now. “Interrogated?” Glass shattered. “You mean tortured!
They’ll do all they can to break him, and when they’re done, they’ll turn him, battered and bleedin’, over to the Abenaki, who will bum him alive!”
William turned slowly to face the captain and found him on his feet again, shards of crystal scattered across the polished wooden floor. He ignored the mess. “That is the price of capture, Captain. Your brother knew it when he ordered you to leave him. But I’m afraid we must consider more than your brother lost. All of your supply caches, your hideouts and rendezvous points, your favorite paths, your passwords, the Rules—you must act now as if the French have knowledge of them all—“ The captain’s voice sank to a menacing growl. “Morgan would never betray us or our secrets! Dinnae you dishonor him! You are no’ fit to clean his boots!”
“I meant no disrespect, of course.” William sat and reached for pen and parchment, finding something oddly reassuring in the captain’s blatant hostility. “It is simply a fact that prolonged pain can loosen even the most stalwart of tongues. But do not lose hope yet. If your brother is alive, it will take weeks for him to heal. I shall send a dispatch this very evening, offering Bourlamaque a prisoner exchange—the four French officers you captured last week for Major MacKinnon.” The captain frowned, a
s if perplexed. “You would do that for him?”
“Major MacKinnon is a highly trained officer. His life and the secrets he holds are of great worth to the Crown.” There was more to it than that, but William refused to admit it, even to himself. “I would be foolish not to make every effort to recover him.”
“The men and I leave in the morn’ to pay our respects to Iain. Captain Joseph and his men come wi’ us.” “Are you asking me to grant you leave?” William opened his bottle of ink, dipped his quill, and tapped it on the brim. “Nay, Your Holiness. I dinnae give a damn whether you say aye or nay.”
“Nevertheless, I grant it.” The last thing William wanted near the fort was a hundred drunken Highlanders playing endless wailing dirges on those godforsaken pipes. He looked up to meet the captain’s gaze. “Report back within ten days. You’re in command now, and I shall hold you responsible—unless you’d rather I call your eldest brother back into service.” The captain’s eyes flew wide for a moment, then a look of utter loathing settled on his face. “Over my dead body.” “Very well, then.” William put quill to paper and began to write. “You should know that of the three of you, I found Morgan to be the most sensible.”
“He’d be bloody fashed to hear that.”
“You are dismissed, Captain.” William scrawled words on the page until the door shut. But the moment the captain was gone, he set the quill in the bottle, rose, and crossed the room to pour himself a drink. “We have suffered a great loss, Lieutenant.” “Aye, my lord. It is terrible.”
William tossed back the cognac—something he would ordinarily never do—and wondered why he should feel so bereft.
FOUR
Amalie bathed the Ranger’s face with a cold, wet cloth she’d dipped in water sprinkled with wild sage and juniper. It was a cure she’d learned from her grandmother’s people. The wild sage would purify him, and the juniper would cleanse away the remnants of his sickness. His fever had broken early this morning. There was no doubt now—he would live.
His skin was no longer pale but flushed, his dark hair slick with sweat, little rivulets trickling down his temples, his neck, his chest, drenching the linens beneath him. He slept peacefully, his long lashes dark against his cheeks, his jaw shadowed by many days’ growth of beard, his chest rising and falling with each deep, steady breath.
But his peaceful rest would not last long.
The laudanum would soon wear off, and whatever pain he still had would return. Monsieur Lambert, hoping to save their dwindling stores of the precious medicine, had given the Ranger his last spoonful a few hours past, vowing to force water down his throat should he refuse to drink again. But that was not the worst of it.
When she’d come down to breakfast, she’d overheard Lieutenant Rillieux and Monsieur de Bourlamaque discussing what to do with the Ranger next. As soon as he was able to stand, they would move him to the guardhouse—and his suffering would begin anew. And this time .. .
Amalie did not wish to think on it.
She dipped the cloth back into the scented water, squeezed it out, and nudged the linens down to his hips. She bathed first his arms, which were still stretched above his head, each wrist shackled to a bedpost. Then she wet the cloth again and bathed his shoulders, working her way over his chest and down his belly.
Although she knew it must be sinful, she couldn’t keep her gaze from following her hands. His man’s body was so different from hers, the sight of him both disturbing and intriguing. His skin was soft, but the muscles beneath it were hard, the feel of him like iron sheathed in velvet. Although his nipples drew tight from the chill of the water, as hers did when she was cold, his were dark like wine, flat, and ringed by crisp, dark hair. Where her belly was soft and rounded, his had ribs of muscle—and a trail of dark curls that disappeared beneath the linens. As if drawn by a will of its own, her hand left the cloth behind to press against those ridges, her fingers playing over his sweat-slick skin as she slid her hand slowly from his belly up to his chest, something tickling inside her at the feel of him.
Her hand came to rest above his heartbeat, its rhythm steady against her palm.
“Your touch could bring the dead to life, lass.” Amalie gasped, jerked her hand back, and saw to her horror that the Ranger was watching her. Heat rushed into her face, made her cheeks burn, English words forsaking her tongue.
“M-mon Dim! Pardonnez moi, monsieur!”
“Easy, lass. I didnae mean to frighten you.” He watched her through dark blue eyes, his gaze soft, a hint of amusement on his face, his speech accented by a soft lilt. “Forgive me if I offend, monsieur!”
Morgan’s mouth was as dry as sawdust. His chest ached. His right leg throbbed. But at the moment he didn’t care. He watched the play of emotions on the French lass’s face—fear, shame, wariness—and found himself wanting to lessen her unease. “Tis only nature’s way for a maid to be curious about men. Besides, I wouldna be a Scotsman if I shrank from the touch of a bonnie lass... a beautiful woman.” Did she understand him?
The deepening flush in her cheeks told him she did. And she was beautiful. Her eyes seemed to hold all the colors of the forest—greens and browns mixed together. He’d never seen any like them. They seemed to slant upward at the corners, or perhaps that was just the effect of her cheekbones, so high and delicate they were. Her nose was small and fine, her lips full and well shaped. Her skin was flawless, almost luminous. Her hair was the color of sable, dark and gleaming. It hung to the floor when she sat, tresses so long and lovely they made his hands ache to touch them.
She was French—that much he knew—but he’d bet his ration of rum she was also Indian. Her cheekbones, the slight slant of her eyes, the hue of her skin—like cream with just a hint of coffee—bespoke a mixed ancestry. And then there were the herbs she’d placed in the water. No simple French lass was likely to know about such things. Was she Huron? Abenaki? Mi’kmaq?
What did it matter?
She’s like to be the last lass that e’er you set eyes on, MacKinnon.
As Morgan had always loved the lasses, ‘twas a strange thought.
Roused by the blessed relief of a cool cloth against his skin and the fresh scents of sage and juniper, he’d come slowly back to awareness, thinking for a moment that he was a lad again, that he’d fallen sick and was in Joseph’s mother’s lodge in Stockbridge. As a lad, he’d spent as much time in his blood brother’s home as his own, the Mahican having befriended his family when they’d first settled on the frontier, exiles newly come from the Highlands of Scotland. Then he’d opened his eyes to find himself being perused by the same lovely French angel who’d visited him in his fevered dreams, and it had pleased him to know she was real.
He’d watched through half-closed eyes while she’d bathed his body, her gaze traveling over him with innocent curiosity. Then she’d laid her small, soft hand upon him, her timid touch burning a path over his skin, threatening to rouse him in an altogether different manner.
“The Mere Superieure says I am far too curious.” Her accent was soft and sweet.
“Who?”
“The Mother Superior.” She hoped those were the right words “From the convent where I was raised.” Aye, and that explained her bashfulness.
“Och, well, if you were raised in a convent amidst womenfolk, ‘tis even more reason for you to be curious about men, aye? No wrong has been done, lass. Dinnae trouble yourself. What is your name?”
She looked as if she did not want to answer. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. “Amalie Chauvenet.” ‘”Tis a bonnie name. I’m thinkin’ you already ken who I am.”
She nodded gravely. “Morgan MacKinnon, the leader of MacKinnon’s Rangers.”
There was a hint of—was it anger?—in her voice when she spoke.
“How long has it been?”
She glanced at the window, at the ceiling, at her hands, which lay folded in her skirts—but she did not look at him. “Fifteen days since you were wounded.”
F
ifteen days! No wonder he felt so bloody weak! Connor, Joseph, and the men would have long since made their way back to Fort Elizabeth. Surely even Iain would have gotten word by now. Would his brothers believe him dead? Would they blame themselves for his death? He pushed the questions from his mind. “Might I have some water, Miss Chauvenet?”
She reached for the water pitcher, a surprised look on her face. “You no longer seek your own death?” He shook his head. “I have lost that battle.” Her lovely face grew troubled. She poured water into a tin cup, then lifted his head and held the cup to his lips. Silken strands of hair slipped over her shoulder to fall against his chest, the scent of her like lavender, fresh linen, and woman. “Drink.” He asked her to refill the cup four times before his thirst was quenched, wondering as he drank at the distress he saw on her face. Had the Sisters raised her to be so primsie that she still felt guilt for touching him? Perhaps she was afraid of him and did not wish to be here. “I thank you for your care of me, Miss Chauvenet.”
The troubled look on her face became genuine anguish.
And he understood.
“You ken what awaits me, and it troubles you to be speakin’ wi’ a dead man.”
She stood so quickly that her stool toppled over. She stared down at him with eyes that held the first sheen of tears. “I do not care what becomes of you, monsieur! Why should I? You and your Rangers killed my father!”
Then she turned and fled in a swish of skirts.
And as he watched her hurry to get away from him, Morgan knew that his sins had caught up with him at last.
Tears pricking her eyes, Amalie ran from the back room out the front door of the hospital, ignoring the surprised look on Monsieur Lambert’s face, scarce hearing the questions he called after her.
How dare he behave like this? How dare her enemy act as if he understood her? He was not a gentleman! How dare he behave as one?
She hurried across the grass, not sure where she was going until she found herself in the fort’s cemetery. She threaded her way through the rows of small crosses until she came to the one that marked her father’s grave. She knelt before it and let the tears come.