Harris cursed the fading light.
He had pushed on through the two previous nights, taking his bearings by the stars and stopping to snatch an hour of sleep only when exhaustion threatened. Now he feared he might have strayed off course on either of those nights. His time was running out. Even if he managed to reach Richibucto by morning and do his business immediately, how could he hope to turn around and make it back to Chatham in time to stop Jenny’s wedding?
Morag had been right. This was a fool’s errand. Another man might have accomplished it. A man in better condition. One with greater powers of endurance. One with a decent sense of direction.
Goaded by desperation, Harris picked up his pace. He must cover as much ground as possible while daylight lasted. His stride quickened to a trot and finally to a dead run. He’d stop and rest when he could no longer see the trees in his path.
This was perhaps the quietest hour of the day—when songbirds found a perch and folded their wings to sleep. Before owls and other night creatures began to stir. The only sounds Harris heard were the crunch of pine needles under his tread, the pounding of his pulse and the hiss of his labored breath.
His body ached from this heightened exertion when it yearned to rest. Harris pushed himself on. His weary mind teetered on the brink of sleep. He willed himself not to surrender. When the physical and mental effort grew too great for him to sustain, he began to strike bargains with himself.
Just twenty more strides. Just past that tall fir tree, up ahead. Just beyond this rise.
As Harris crested the rise, his legs continued pumping even after his mind had given them leave to stop. He lost his footing on the uneven ground. Down he fell, tumbling over and over. At last he hit bottom, catching all his weight on his left leg. A jolt of pain surged from his ankle, making him cry out.
Night and despair dropped on Harris like a giant slab of black granite.
“You look pensive tonight, Janet. Are you still fretting about arrangements for the party?”
Jenny glanced up from her supper. Roderick’s deep voice sounded so solicitous. His smile looked so charming. Surely the ravings of that madwoman couldn’t be true.
“I beg your pardon, Roderick. I don’t mean to be such disagreeable company for ye.”
“Quiet, yes. Disagreeable, never. Why, if all I did was look on you I could be contented, Janet. I’ll wager you’re the handsomest woman in the colony. Speaking of which, did you try on the gown I had sent over from the seamstress?”
A stinging blush rose in Jenny’s cheeks. “Aye. Do ye mean me to wear it for our wedding?”
It was an exquisite creation of jonquil-yellow in the finest muslin Jenny had ever seen. So fine, in fact, that it was all but transparent. The neckline hung lower than on any dress Jenny had ever seen, let alone worn. Did Roderick really want her breasts on such brazen display?
“The wedding?” He chuckled. “Janet, you are a caution. The poor vicar’s eyes would pop clean from his head. No. The seamstress is refurbishing the gown you brought from Scotland. Hard to credit it’s still in one piece after your journey overland from Richibucto. The new dress is for our wedding eve party. Billings and Pruitt can stare all they like.”
The thought of Roderick’s business colleagues gaping at her in that immodest costume made Jenny squirm in her seat. Desperate to distract herself, she groped for a new topic of conversation. Only one readily presented itself. Roderick seemed in a very cordial humor tonight—perhaps she might dare broach the matter and set her mind at rest.
“Do ye ken a lass named Morag McGregor—bides in the Highland settlement on the way to Richibucto?”
Roderick’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. After the slightest hesitation, it continued its course. When he had chewed and swallowed that bite of food, he replied, “A sad case. How do you come to know of Mad Morag, and what made you mention her now?”
Jenny’s breath shifted a little easier. So, she’d been right after all. The pathetic creature was a madwoman.
“I saw her when Har…when I came through the settlement on my way to Chatham. There was a big wedding going on then, too. Talking about our wedding must have made me think of her. Does anyone know how she came by the scars on her face?”
“Indian attack.” Roderick shook his head. “A terrible thing—vicious savages. I led the militia in a retaliatory strike on their encampment at Eel River. Taught them a lesson, I hope, about molesting innocent white women. I’d still prefer you not to go out alone, my dear Janet.”
Jenny tried to reconcile Roderick’s explanation with her own experience of the local Mi’kmaq people. She could not imagine Levi Augustine or any of his family committing such a brutal outrage. Yet, she could not afford to entertain doubts about her husband-to-be.
“The whole ordeal overset the poor woman’s mind,” Roderick continued. “She deluded herself into thinking she was still a great beauty and that she was going to marry me. When I declined to go along with her ridiculous fancy, she began spreading the vilest stories about me. Of course, no one with any sense believed the poor wretch.”
Those dark, mysterious eyes, whose merest glance had once thrilled Jenny, now held her—an unspoken question in their disquieting depths.
Did she believe him, or did she believe Mad Morag?
“Of course,” she murmured. Ducking her head to avoid his gaze, Jenny concentrated fiercely upon eating her dinner. Each mouthful dropped into her stomach like a lump of lead.
The world still lay wrapped in darkness when Harris pulled himself to foggy consciousness. His ankle throbbed. The crushing weight of his failure oppressed him. Little by little, though, he became aware of a beckoning, hopeful sound. The sound of running water not too far distant.
Gathering all his waning strength, he tried to pull himself erect. His injured ankle buckled under the weight with a searing burst of pain. Driven to his knees, Harris began to crawl forward. He had come too far and endured too much to give up now, no matter how futile his undertaking might seem.
By the time he reached the riverbank, the palms of his hands stung with blisters and his whole body pleaded for sleep. Songbirds had begun to serenade the rising sun. Their cheery warbling mocked Harris’s anguish.
Too tired even to pry off his boots, he sat on the bank and thrust his feet into the swift-flowing water. Gradually the cold leeched his pain, allowing him to escape once again into sleep.
He woke later with a start, to the touch of a wet nose sniffing his hand. His first thought was of foxes or a wolf, seeking easy prey in a wounded creature. Then, as his exhausted mind began to clear, he realized the wet nose belonged to a dog—the kind of dog he’d seen running with shrieking brown children around Levi Augustine’s encampment.
Suddenly the children were there, surrounding him, all talking at once in their own language. From their excitement, he gathered they recognized him, even without the red beard. All Harris could do was smile and tousle their dark heads, to show that he remembered them as well.
Levi Augustine edged his canoe to the riverbank.
“Barbe-rouge?” He looked Harris over, shaking his head. “Did you lose a fight with a bear, friend? A she-bear, maybe?”
Harris replied with a weak grin. “I need your help,” he said in French. “Someone has stolen my woman and I must get her back. Have you heard of a man from Chatham who builds ships? Black Douglas, they call him.”
He got his reply in the grim scowl that darkened Levi’s face. “He is an evildoer, who blames my people for his own treachery. Tell how we can help get your woman back and we will do it.”
“Can ye take me to Richibucto in your canoe?”
“Why there? Is your woman not in Chatham?”
“Oui, she is. But there’s an important paper I must get to set her free from Douglas. I can only get it in Richibucto.”
Levi paused in their conversation to call out to the younger men of his family. Then he spoke to Harris again. “I do not understand this store you white men set by bits of paper. They are not living things with spirits, like an eagle, or a river, or the wind. Yet they have strong magic for you.”
A wider, sturdier canoe beached nearby, paddled by Levi’s widowed brother and the young man who wanted to marry Levi’s daughter. Together, the three men helped Harris into the canoe. Levi called out to his wife on the opposite bank, perhaps to tell her where he was going and why.
As the streamlined birchbark craft swept downriver, Harris yearned to heft an oar, but he knew he’d be more hindrance than help. So he rested his injured ankle and let the reviving sun and sea air soak into him. In vain he tried to quench the foolish bubble of hope that swelled within his heart.
“Levi, do ye know what day this is?” Harris could no longer be sure.
“The third day of the new moon,” came the confident but unhelpful reply.
Harris fretted. He couldn’t hope to get back to Chatham in time, on foot. Not on an ankle that might well be broken. Desperate as he was, he couldn’t ask Levi and the others to risk their lives by delivering him to Chatham. Once he saw to the paperwork, though, he might be able to send a messenger to deliver his announcement and fetch Jenny back to Richibucto.
Would she come with a stranger? Harris wasn’t certain he’d be able to convince her face-to-face, let alone by proxy.
If only he had enough time.
Jenny glanced at the pedestal clock in the corner of the parlor. The time had gone eleven—would their guests never leave?
Her head felt like a raw egg squeezed in a man’s fist—ready to shatter into a thousand brittle white shards. For all the pains taken with cleaning and decorating, for all the expensive food and drink imported, for all the affluent, socially superior company, the party had been a disaster.
Eager to return to Boston after a month’s sojourn in Quebec, Mrs. Billings and Mrs. Pruitt had made not the slightest effort to be agreeable. The former had started a vicious hissing argument with her husband about the extent of his drinking. The latter gave Jenny several spiteful little digs about the immodest design of her dress.
The heavy, florid Mr. Billings complained incessantly about the stifling atmosphere, asking several times if more windows could be opened. Jenny suspected he was using the unseasonable heat as an excuse to drink great quantities of Roderick’s rum punch.
For all that, Jenny preferred him to the loathsome Mr. Pruitt, who’d scarcely taken his eyes off the cleavage of her bosom all evening. She had done her best to reply politely to several lewd compliments.
Roderick appeared to be the only member of the party truly enjoying himself. There could be no question that he looked well in a new suit of clothes, complemented by a very fashionable waistcoat. He made a point to impress everyone by telling how much he had paid for each item.
He talked of his record profits for the year, told of the much larger and grander house he planned to build. And all the while, Jenny kept a covert eye on the clock, wishing the time would magically disappear.
Finally Mr. Billings stretched, yawned and said he and his wife should return to sleep on the ship that night to escape the oppressive heat. Jenny could scarcely restrain herself from throwing her arms around his stout midsection.
“I suppose we all must get our rest,” Roderick replied. “I don’t want my bride oversleeping and missing the ceremony tomorrow.” He sent Mrs. Lyons to dispatch the carriage around for their guests.
When the Billings and the Pruitts had gone, he lounged on the settee, patting a place for Jenny beside him. She lowered herself gingerly, fearful, as she had been all evening, that her bosom might burst clean out of her brief bodice.
Roderick heaved a self-satisfied sigh. “I thought it all went off quite well, don’t you? Have a word with the cook, though. The poached pears might have been firmer and the sauce a little sweeter. I saw Mrs. Pruitt pucker up when she tasted it.”
Jenny had seen the woman’s sour expression, too. She thought it had more to do with Mr. Pruitt’s lascivious comment on her dress than with the poached pears.
“You were very quiet this evening, I must say, Janet. In future when we entertain, I hope you’ll cultivate a more vivacious humor.”
“I…I’m sorry if I let ye down, R-Roderick.” She could feel tears stinging the back of her eyes. “It’s just so awfully hot and this is the very first time I’ve ever entertained, and with the wedding tomorrow…”
“There, there, Janet.”
For the first time since she’d come to Chatham, Roderick took her in his arms. He’d been so circumspect until now, with only the odd kiss bestowed on her hand or her forehead to bid good-night. Surely a deeper intimacy between them would help quell her memories of Harris.
“I know this is a far grander life than you’re used to,” said Roderick. “I’m prepared to make allowances. You’ll grow into your new role, I feel certain of it. Just heed me and I’ll do my best to mold you into a perfect wife.”
She knew he meant this for reassurance, but his words chilled her. The sensation of his embrace held none of the wonder she had once imagined. None of the wonder she’d experienced with Harris.
He kissed her then, on the lips. Slowly, deeply and with expert precision—as though he’d practiced his technique on many willing women before her. Jenny tried to relax and enjoy it. She failed.
Likewise, when Roderick raised his hand and swiped it across the exposed flesh of her breasts. His mouth released hers, kissing its way across her cheek to her ear. Instead of rousing her, it only made her hackles rise.
“Oh, Janet,” he whispered, his voice hot and husky. “I’ve held myself back from you these past weeks, wanting everything to be right and proper. But tonight, seeing you in that gown and the way those men looked at you, I can’t keep my hands off you a moment longer, my dearest.”
He trailed a string of kisses down her neck and across her collarbone, veering down to the cleft between her breasts. His hands ranged over her, taking triumphant possession of his conquered territory. Did he mean to have her for the very first time, here in the parlor, where Mrs. Lyons or one of the hired girls might walk in at any moment?
“Please, Roderick.” She pulled back from him, turning her face away when he tried to kiss her again. Modesty was only an excuse, Jenny realized. She didn’t want him pawing at her—would she ever? “Can’t we wait until…” Until hell freezes?
Braving a quick glance into his eyes, Jenny shrank from what she saw there. Something intense and remorseless glared back at her. His hand squeezed down on her breast so swiftly and so hard that she gasped in pain.
“Have it your own way.” He spat the words at her. “Traipse around the countryside like a trollop with that oaf of a Chisholm, then act all missish and proper with the man who has an honest claim on you.”
She opened her mouth to protest the injustice of his accusation, but no words would come. It was true. She’d allowed Harris far greater liberties than her fiancé had just tried to claim. Allowed? Why, she’d positively encouraged them.
“I’m sorry, Roderick.” Would she have to spend every day of her marriage apologizing to him for something?
He rose abruptly from the settee, adjusting his clothes. “The hour is late. We both need our sleep.”
“Yes, Roderick.” She rose to accompany him to the door.
He took her face in his hands. Jenny nearly wilted with relief. So he meant to pardon her rebuff after all.
The force of his fingers increased, until Jenny felt as if her head was being squeezed in a vise.
He pressed his nose to hers and gazed deep into her eyes. “Tomorrow night you’ll be mine, Janet. Then you’ll not deny me.”
As suddenly as he had taken her, he released Jenny and strode for the door. She lapsed back onto the settee until her fluttering pulse slowed and her trembling subsided. Then she took herself off to bed.
Seated before the night table, she pulled the brush through her hair again and again, long past her usual fifty strokes. Tomorrow she was going to marry Roderick Douglas. It was the dream of a lifetime finally come true. The sumptuous party fare roiled in her stomach. It was natural for a bride to be nervous on the eve of her wedding, she told herself firmly. She was merely anxious that tomorrow’s ceremony should go off smoothly.
Jenny kept on brushing. If she stopped, she feared her hands would shake again. Surely it was nothing unusual for a maid to anticipate her wedding night with uneasiness…or apprehension or…stark terror?
She would become accustomed to Roderick’s ways once they’d been married awhile, Jenny tried to reassure herself. She’d work hard to be a good wife. She’d keep their home quiet and serene. Gentle his fierce temper with her womanly influence. Avoid giving him cause to treat her roughly. In time, she’d grow used to his kisses and his touch, ceasing her constant and unfair comparisons with Harris.
The hairbrush dropped from Jenny’s hand, clattering on the floorboards.
Hurriedly she scooped it up again, her heart hammering. What if Mrs. Lyons came to investigate the noise? Jenny anxiously inspected the silver back of the brush for dents. Roderick would not appreciate her careless handling of the fine things he bought for her.
She glanced over at the wide tester bed. She hadn’t slept soundly in it since coming here. By rights, she ought to be a sensible lass and try to get some rest. When she looked at it, though, she could only contemplate the years of nights to come, when she must share it with Roderick Douglas.
Jenny could feel a dull ache in her face and arms and the soft flesh of her breast where his hands had plundered so roughly. When she recalled the hungry light in his eyes and his parting words, her supper threatened to erupt from her seething belly.
Rifling through her wardrobe, she took out the copy of Ivanhoe that had been Harris’s parting gift to her. Perhaps the book would distract her from unwelcome thoughts and lull her to sleep. She settled in the rocking chair, opening the volume not to the first page of text, but to the last.
Softly she paraphrased Scott’s prose to fit her own situation. “She lived long and happily with Roderick, for they were attached to each other by bonds of early affection and loved each other the more for recollection of obstacles which had impeded her union. Yet it would be inquiring too curiously to ask whether the recollection of Harris Chisholm’s courage and magnanimity did not recur in her mind more frequently than the noble descendant of Douglas might altogether have approved.”
The last words escaped in a hoarse whisper. But it was not until she saw the first teardrops splatter on the open page that Jenny realized she was weeping.
The long shadows of that early October evening seemed so much at odds with a heat like mid-July. One final push of the paddles brought Levi’s sea canoe to dock at the Richibucto wharf, astern of a strangely familiar vessel. A small clutch of curious townsfolk had gathered to meet them.
The lofty figure of Robert Jardine detached itself from the others. “Is that you, Chisholm? Did you ever make it to Chatham? We feared the worst when we didn’t hear any news of you. All your gear is safely stored at my house…”
Harris cut him off. None of the rest mattered, except the one question that had been burning in his brain all day. “Robert, by all that’s holy, man, can you tell me what day it is?”
“What day? Why it’s Thursday, of course. The sixth of October. Why do you need to know?”
Thursday. The sixth. By noon tomorrow Jenny’d be wed to Roderick Douglas, and Harris was now powerless to stop it.