Chapter 2
The first blow struck Kincaid’s back before he was fully prepared for the pain. He sucked in his breath hard and closed his eyes. Damn, but a cattle whip could cut a man’s skin to ribbons!
He’d been beaten before, in Edinburgh, during an interrogation by English soldiers. They’d whipped him near to death, but he’d not given a single name. He’d thought it was an experience a man never forgot.
He was wrong.
He hadn’t remembered how much it hurt, and how much effort it took to keep from screaming. He braced himself mentally for the second blow. The leather curled up from his waist and sliced a furrow of fire across his back to his left shoulder. The crack of the whip echoed in his ears. He swallowed back the cry of agony.
Son of a bitch, he cursed silently. It was enough to ruin a man’s day.
“Three.”
That was the woman’s voice. And as the third lash fell on his naked back, he realized that the bitch was wielding the whip.
“Four,” she called.
He shuddered as the stroke cut across raw flesh opened by the earlier lashes and clenched his fists as a red tide of fury washed across his consciousness. She’ll pay for this, he vowed. She’ll pay dearly for every stripe, if it’s the last thing I do. . . .
“Eight,” Bess said. The leather of the cattle whip was slick with Kincaid’s blood and his broad back was crisscrossed with ugly swollen welts. Bile rose in her throat and she forced it down as she drew back the lash for another blow.
What kind of woman had she become that she could mutilate a human being in the name of justice? What had happened to the child who’d wept when a kitten was trampled under a horse’s hoofs? To the girl who had tended a hawk with a broken wing?
The sentence had been twenty stripes. Twenty was fair punishment for a horse thief and a runaway bond servant. Her grandmother would have given him twenty lashes, herself without blinking an eye.
But Bess had let her cursed temper get the better of her. She’d argued with Kincaid in front of her servants—in front of the neighbors. In her pride, she’d added an extra five stripes to his ordeal. She’d done it because he hadn’t bowed his head and submitted to her authority.
“Fifteen.” Her shoulder ached; her muscles cried out from the exertion. Damn her for a proud fool! Twenty-five lashes could ruin a man for life. And she didn’t want to hurt him . . . not like that.
He had behaved better than she had for his arrogance, she thought. Her eyes clouded with tears and she blinked them away. Why had she let him goad her into increasing the penalty?
Finish what ye start, her grandmother had always said. And never bite off more than ye can chew.
“Twenty-one.” I’m sorry, she thought. I’m so sorry. She was so weary she could hardly lift the whip, but she shook her head when one of her bondmen offered to finish the job. “It’s my duty,” she declared.
Disbelief showed on the men’s faces. Disbelief and fear. She knew what they would say of her later. She takes after the old missus—the witch. And maybe it was true.
On number twenty-four, Kincaid slumped forward in a dead faint. She gave a token stroke for the last blow, then threw the bloody whip to the dirt. “Take him to the barn,” she ordered. “I want two guards watching him day and night.” She fixed the nearest bond servant with a scowl. “I’ll have the hide off any man of mine who lets him escape.”
“He’ll not get away, mistress. Ye can count on that.”
There had never been a need for a jail on Fortune’s Gift, so she’d instructed her servants to clean out one of the stallion boxes in the big barn. The sides of the stall were solid oak, and the door was secured on the outside with an iron latch. She’d instructed them to cover the floor with fresh straw and make a pallet for Kincaid to lie on.
“Give him water when he comes to,” she said. “I’ll send someone from the house to tend to his wounds.” She watched as they cut him down, and his moans made sweat break out on her forehead. “Let it be a lesson to any man on the Tidewater,” she reminded them. “Horse thieves will receive swift justice on Fortune’s Gift.”
She held back the tears until she reached the privacy of her bedchamber, and then she broke down and sobbed. She’d not cried since the day she’d buried her grandmother, but she cried now.
The household maids hurried about their chores and whispered to each other. “What’s wrong with Miss Bess?” And the cook, Deaf Donald, shook his spoon at them and went on with his work in silence.
In time, Bess rose from her bed and rubbed her tearstained eyes. She splashed water on her face from a rose-patterned pitcher and patted her cheeks dry.
It must be near her monthly flow, she thought, to make such a fuss about an unpleasant proceeding. She had done no less than her father would have done. Let one horse thief go unpunished, and no plantation stock would be safe. Not cows, nor swine, nor geese would be spared. Too many men thought Fortune’s Gift an easy mark without a master in residence.
Taking her father’s place had not been easy. She’d been cheated on the price of tobacco seed and overcharged by the shipowners who would carry her cured tobacco to England. Neighbors and bondmen alike had laughed at her when she had freed all the slaves on the plantation. And they had blamed her when one of her freemen had been killed robbing a lonely farmhouse.
In truth, her father had been a worse business manager than she was. He’d known he had no head for such matters, and he’d not interfered when her grandmother had hired the best tutor on the Eastern Shore to teach her mathematics, philosophy, and other subjects more suitable for men than for women. In the years since her grandmother had passed away, her father had gradually allowed her more and more leeway in making the decisions concerning Fortune’s Gift.
There were a thousand decisions to be made: what forests should be cleared for new fields, what crops should be grown, which horses should be bred and which sold. Ships brought supplies from England once or twice a year, and a shopping list must cover the needs of over a hundred people on the plantation for eight to ten months at a time. If she failed to order enough cloth, or shoes, or plowshares, a year could come and go before the error could be set right.
She loved her father dearly, but his decision to risk the family fortune in a voyage to the China Sea was one she hadn’t agreed with and had begged him to reconsider. Fortune’s Gift was rich land, but every planter lived on the brink of ruin. Storms and drought plagued farmers, and political upheavals made shipping products home to the motherland difficult. Every year taxes became higher, and her father had been determined that his manor house would rival any home on the Eastern Shore. He had added on to the original house twice, and he had built a horse barn so beautiful that people came from miles around just to admire it.
Whatever would he say when he came home and found out that she’d sold most of the furniture he’d had custom-built in France? She hadn’t been able to think of a way to strip the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper from the grand entrance hall, but it hadn’t been for lack of trying. Sir Robert Miller of Chestertown had offered her a pretty penny for the paper if she could get it down without destroying it. She had sold off a complete set of porcelain and a chest of silver plate.
No, she thought as she hurried down the main staircase, Father had ever been realistic when it came to money. He’d expected to live like a king, and he’d wanted her to play the part of the princess.
Deaf Donald nodded when Bess entered the winter kitchen, which was attached to the house. He’d been taking spices from the locked cupboard to use in the noon meal. Now that the weather had turned warm, all cooking for the manor would be done in the summer kitchen, a brick structure set away from the main dwelling. Fire was an ever-present threat, and keeping the kitchen separate reduced the risk of having the big house destroyed.
Bess greeted the gray-haired man with the respect due his position of head cook and gathered up her medicinal supplies. Since she’d caused the injury to Kincaid’s back, she felt it only fair to tend him herself. It wouldn’t make up for the pain she’d caused him, but it would ease some of her guilt.
She’d never intended to seriously harm the outlaw. Ever since word of his exploits had filtered in to Fortune’s Gift, she’d toyed with an outrageous idea. It was too early to speak of her plan yet, but if anything was to come of it, Kincaid might supply a vital ingredient.
Kincaid’s indenture had come high. Even though the man had escaped, Roger Lee had been reluctant to part with the Scot’s contract. He’d protested that Kincaid was a valuable worker, a man who knew how to grow tobacco and who was at home on ships and the water. Most bondmen had a seven-year servitude—Kincaid’s was forty years. He had cost Bess twenty gold sovereigns, a silver cup that had been in her family since her grandfather had stolen it from the Spanish, and a prize bull.
Her father had imported the bull from Devon when the animal was a calf. The beast—named Rupert—had sired fourteen prime milk cows for Fortune’s Gift, and he produced hard cash when other farmers brought their cows to be bred. Bess had a son of Rupert’s, but it would be another year before he would be old enough to stand at stud. And what if the bull calf proved sterile or fathered only average calves?
If she’d traded a superior bull for a dead man, she’d be the laughingstock of Maryland. She sighed. It wouldn’t do to let the big Scot die of his injuries, and it wouldn’t do at all to let him slip through her fingers. She’d had to post a bond with the sheriff, promising to be responsible for any harm he caused. And because she had no cash left, she’d promised payment from last fall’s tobacco crop—a crop that could well be at the bottom of the Atlantic.
The ship that had carried her tobacco and the hope of Fortune’s Gift had sailed with the fleet for London in early November. Now she must wait as the other colonial tobacco planters waited. Three months there, if the weather was with the fleet and no pirates caught them. Another month or two, or even three, before the captains could set sail again for the Chesapeake. No way to tell if the price for tobacco was high or low, or if any of her precious crop was damaged by water on the journey.
Bess paused in the open doorway and pursed her lips. Looking toward the river was wasted energy. It would be weeks yet before she would know if the best crop Fortune’s Gift had ever produced had snatched her from the jaws of poverty, or . . . she shook her head. She wouldn’t think or. Brow furrowed in thought, she walked on, out of the kitchen.
She owed the merchants for the tobacco seed, and the ship’s owners for the cost of passage. Without the profit from her tobacco, the bond she’d given the sheriff for the convict would be worthless. Without hard cash and the supplies that money would buy, how could she keep her plantation workers and their families for another whole year? Where would she get seed for next year’s crop? How would she buy harness, and axes, and wool for winter coats?
A prickly feeling at the nape of her neck caused Bess to glance back toward the open doorway. A ragged black tomcat sat there in a patch of sun, grooming his glossy fur. His eyes were squinted shut, and she could see the nub where his left ear should have been. The light was so bright that Bess blinked, and when she looked again, the cat had vanished.
“So you’re back, are you, you old rascal,” she murmured. He looked good, considering his age. She hoped he wouldn’t cause too much concern among the maids. “Try and stay out of trouble, Harry,” she admonished the empty doorway.
Continuing on toward the barn, her mood lightened. Maybe Kincaid had told the truth, she thought. She’d ask the sheriff to inquire with Joan Pollott about her mare Ginger. If they could locate her, Bess would demand her return. After all, a person shouldn’t have to buy back her own stolen property—should she?
A lad leading a red-and-white ox passed her. The boy ducked his head and tugged at his shaggy forelock. “Mornin’, Miss Bess,” he said shyly.
“Good morning, Vernon,” she answered. Vernon was the youngest son of her blacksmith, a steady youth—even if he had no head for letters. One of her ideas that her overseer had objected to had been to open a plantation school for her workers’ children.
Vernon had been like most of them. He far preferred running errands for his father or working in the forge to book learning. Of the original twenty-three children she’d assembled for daily lessons, only five had continued with their studies. Now Bess held school two afternoons a week in the library of the manor house. Those who did come were rewarded by a special noon meal topped off with a sweet baked especially for the little ones by Deaf Donald. If the children came because of the treats and learned to read in the process, Bess would be satisfied.
A woman shooing a flock of geese and a man carrying wood greeted her as she neared the barn. This was the busiest time of day, and most of her people were in the fields. Tobacco required daily cultivation to keep out the weeds. It was hard, dirty work when the plants were young, but it was a task that must be adhered to or they’d lose the crop before it matured. The best time to pull weeds was early in the morning, before the sun made the fields too hot to work.
Tobacco was her main cash crop, but not the only one. She grew corn and wheat and hay on Fortune’s Gift, as well as vegetables, and flax for weaving into cloth. She kept a full timber crew and an army of carpenters, herdsmen, and hunters. Also, she owned several small fishing boats. They caught fish and crabs and eels to add to the daily diet of her employees. Extra fish were dried and salted by women and packed in barrels for shipment to England. There was a dairy, a sheepfold, a weaving shed, and a brick kiln. Fortune’s Gift was as self-sufficient a plantation as Bess could make it. But no matter how hard she tried, there were always things that must be purchased from London at high prices.
Such was a planter’s life, she thought, and smiled. It was all she knew, and all she wanted to know. Not for her was her father’s life of sailing to strange lands. She was happiest here, her hands covered with good tidewater dirt and her eyes resting on the ripening crops. The land was her legacy, one she meant to pass down to future generations.
“If I can only hang on to it,” she said softly as she put her hand on the barn-door latch.
The nearest guard looked up as she entered the shadowy building. He was armed with a flintlock musket and a hunting knife. “We’re keepin’ a good eye on him, Miss Bess. He ain’t moved an inch since we laid him down.”
She nodded her approval. “Don’t relax your vigilance, Ben. In England, they say Kincaid killed three soldiers.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He colored. “I mean, no, ma’am, I won’t. If he tries anything with me, he’ll be sorry.”
She walked past Ben toward the far corner of the barn. Despite her uneasiness at the confrontation ahead, Bess felt the spell of the barn slip over her and she breathed deep of the familiar odors of grain and animals. The air was heady with the scent of sweet clover hay the workers had forked into the loft the week before. She could smell the fresh-raked earth beneath her feet and the bite of vinegar that the grooms had added to the horses’ water barrels.
Only one horse remained inside the barn this morning, a roan mare Bess had been treating for a split hoof. As she passed the horse’s stall, the animal nickered to her. Bess paused long enough to grab a handful of wheat from a feed bin and offer it to her. The mare took the grain daintily, licking Bess’s fingers with a raspy tongue. “Good girl,” Bess soothed. “Good Jeanie.” She bent and kissed the mare’s velvety nose and ran a hand along her fine neck. “We’ll have you fit as a fiddle in no time.”
Bess had always loved the smell of a clean stable. Horses had always been a passion with her. Her grandfather had taught her to ride when she was three, and after that he always knew where to find her. If she wasn’t on horseback, she would be in the stable following the grooms around and begging them to saddle a mount for her. And sometimes, she just sat quietly in the corner of a stall and talked to the horses and other animals.
She patted Jeanie a last time and went down the passageway to the secure box stall where Kincaid lay. She waved aside the second bondman’s protest and went inside. “Close the door,” she ordered. “I’ll call you if I need you, Ned. And don’t bring that gun in here around Kincaid.”
The Scot lay facedown on a clean blanket atop a pallet, seemingly unconscious. He wore only his breeches and boots. If he’d possessed a shirt, there was no sign of it now.
Bess winced when she saw his back. It looked worse now than it had immediately after the lashing. Black streaks of blood had dried on the lacerated wounds, and the waist of his breeches was stained with dark spots. One place, the whip had cut through his flesh nearly to the bone.
God help me, she thought. I did this.
“Be careful, Miss Bess,” Ned called.
His words reminded her of her duty. “Bring me water and clean cloths,” she instructed him. “I want salt in the water. You can use horse salt, so long as it’s clean. And I’ll need some of that salve I used on Jeanie’s split hoof.”
Kincaid opened his eyes and turned his head to glare at her. “What do ye here?” he rasped. “Come to finish me off?” Again she heard the deep burr of the Highlands in his voice, and again she felt that strange flutter in the pit of her belly.
“No,” she answered sternly. “I’ve come to make sure your wounds don’t fester. You’re of no use to me if you die or become a cripple.”
He made a move to sit up, then gasped and fell back on his pallet. His tanned face paled to tallow gray, and she saw the muscles flex along his jaw.
“Are you in much pain?” she asked, then realized how foolish her question must sound.
“I’ve been better.”
She walked toward him cautiously. His right hand was fastened to the wall by a chain, but his left was free. She took care not to come within his reach. “I’m going to wash your back,” she said. “If you lie perfectly still, it will be easier on you.”
“Easy for ye to say,” he taunted her.
Her chest felt tight, and it was hard for her to breathe. What was it about this convict that disturbed her so? She had tended men and animals since she was a child; her grandmother had said she had the hands for it.
“Where’s your husband?” he demanded. “If ye were my wife, ye’d not—”
“ ‘Tis none of your business,” she snapped. “And I’d not be wife to the likes of you, so there’s naught but nonsense in your talk.”
“Only an Englishman would be such a fool as to allow his woman—”
“I have no husband,” she declared. “Nor am I like to choose one.”
He scoffed, twisting his head so that he could stare at her boldly with nutmeg-brown eyes. “I should have guessed. Not even an Englishman would take such a harridan to wife. Now that I look at ye, I see that ye are long in the tooth-past the age of wedding.”
Heat flamed in her face. “Hold your tongue,” she said, “or I’ll fill your mouth with soap. My age is none of your business.” She was but four and twenty. Many a maid didn’t wed until later than that. Still, his remark stung and she felt anger coil in her chest. “I’ve come to give you aid, not listen to your insults.”
The stall door opened and Ned entered, carrying a bucket of water and the rags she had asked for. “I kin do thet, Miss Bess,” he said in his slow way. “It ain’t fittin’—”
“I’ll say what’s fitting on Fortune’s Gift,” she reminded him. He nodded respectfully and handed her the can of salve. “That will be all,” she said.
Ned tapped the knife at his waist. “Keep them hands to yourself, pirate,” he warned Kincaid. “You lay a hand on the mistress, and I’ll cut you—”
“That will be all, Ned,” she repeated. “Close and lock the door behind you.”
“Yes’m.”
“Do ye always take such chances with wild animals?” Kincaid asked sarcastically.
“Animals have more sense. They know when someone is trying to help them.” She wet a cloth in the salt water. “This will sting,” she said.
“Aye,” he said, “I thought it might.”
“Turn over and lie still.”
“Aye, mistress.”
It was easier to approach him when he looked away. She knew that, even badly injured, he could be dangerous. He was a big man, and powerful; his sinewy shoulders were wider even than her father’s. His waist was narrow, his belly flat. His muscular thighs . . . She shook her head. What had come over her, that she was having lustful thoughts about a servant’s body?
She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully. Could this be the man whose coming her grandmother had foretold?
A man of war will come in a time of great need, Mama had said so many years ago. A strong man with fair hair and dark eyes. And when he comes, you’ll know him, Bess. You’ll know him.
Bess brushed aside Kincaid’s hair. It was dirty and matted with mud, but strands of it caught the light. It’s the color of ripe wheat, she thought. When she pushed it away, it sprang back and curled around the back of his neck.
. . . a fair-haired man . . .
For an instant, her fingers touched his skin, and it seemed to Bess as though she’d been jolted by lightning. She drew back her hand in shock as the tingling ran up her arm and made gooseflesh rise.
He’s only a man, she thought. Just a runaway bondman . . . an outlaw. But her heart beat faster and her mouth went dry. Could he be the one?
“Get on with it, woman,” Kincaid growled.
“Be still!” With trembling hands, she took the wet cloth and wiped gently at the bloody welts. She heard his sharp intake of breath and jumped back.
“Dammit, woman,” he said, “do it and be done with.”
“Remember your place, convict,” she admonished.
“I’ll remember,” he promised. “And I’ll remember who laid the stripes in my flesh.”
She rinsed the cloth and the water turned pink. “The salt will keep the wounds from turning bad,” she explained to him. His grunt was noncommittal. She repeated the process again, and when she was satisfied that the torn flesh was clean, she stitched the bad spot, rubbed the wounds with an Indian remedy she’d brought from the house, and, finally, coated his entire back with the horse salve.
“You must stay on your stomach,” she ordered. “It will heal faster if I don’t cover it with cloth.” She cleaned her hands as best she could. “Are you hungry?”
As she was turning away, his left hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She stifled a scream of fear.
“Aye, I’m hungry.” He pulled her close to his face. “Will ye prepare a meal for me with your own hands, Englishwoman? And if ye do, will it be poison?”
Bess grabbed the small wooden bucket and raised it over his head. “Let me go,” she warned, “or I’ll brain you. So help me God, I will.”
He laughed and released her.
Shaken, she backed away. Her wrist throbbed and she looked down at it, half expecting the skin to show some sign of bruising. “Take no liberties with me, Scotsman,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll tolerate none from the likes of you.”
“Won’t you? I wonder what kind of woman takes pleasure in lifting the skin from a man’s back with her own hands?”
“I took no pleasure in it,” she replied. “But I guard my own. I warned you when you stole my mare. I’ll not be bullied by any man.”
“Why did ye do it?”
“I just told you. I—”
“Nay! Not that. Why did you buy my contract? What woman’s fancy would make ye risk so much money when none knew if I’d ever be captured?”
“ ‘Tis my affair,” she answered. “And not for you to know. At least . . .” She hesitated. “At least not yet.”
“Aye, so ye say,” he retorted. “But this much I will tell ye. I will not forget the pleasure we shared, and the day will come when—”
“Enough!” she cried. “Hold your tongue, lest I call my blacksmith and have it cut out. You are my bondman, my property. You will do as I say, when I say. And if you ever have a hope of walking free again, you’d best remember that.”
Without giving him time to reply, she whirled around and called loudly for Ned. He threw open the door immediately. “Keep close watch on him,” she warned. “For I’ll have the neck of any man who lets him escape.”
Still trembling inside, she hurried back toward the house. This Kincaid couldn’t be the man her grandmother had seen in her vision. He could never be trusted. He was dangerous. If she had the sense of a hound pup, she’d sell him across the bay as soon as his wounds healed.
“I will,” she declared. “I’ll not add Kincaid to my troubles.” But even as she mouthed the words, the image of his craggy face and square chin rose in her mind’s eye, and she knew that she wouldn’t let go of him so easily.
“Lucifer he may be,” she murmured. “But if I attempt what I’ve dreamed of, it may be that a devil is exactly what I need.”