Fortune's Flame

“If that murderer crosses my path, I’ll see him in hell or Virginia—whichever’s closest!”

Bold words, and worthy of the mistress of Fortune’s Gift, she thought. But it was one thing to utter them in the warmth of a friend’s cabin, and quite another to consider her bravado as she rode home alone. Here, on this dark trail, her rash boast rang hollow.

Bess, Lady Elizabeth Lacy Bennett, shivered in the raw wind and hunched low over her mare’s neck, shielding her eyes against the needles of driving sleet. The flintlock pistol tucked inside her coat was cold and hard—a constant reminder of the threat that caused her to carry a lethal weapon on her own land.

The mare flattened her ears against her head and quickened her pace on the icy dirt lane. Bess patted the horse’s neck and spoke soothingly to her. “Easy, Ginger. You’re as anxious to be out of this weather as I am, aren’t you?”

The animal snorted and shied sideways at a tumbling branch. Bess’s heart rose in her throat, but she moved instinctively with the horse, keeping her balance despite her fright. Chuckling at her own foolishness, she hugged the mare. “Now I’m starting at shadows,” she murmured. “Like as not, that escaped convict is across the bay and moving west as fast as his feet will take him.”

Nevertheless, she wished that she’d waited for her overseer, Tom, to return before she’d set out to help with the delivery of Sally Walker’s baby. Since Mabel had died of old age, there was no midwife within thirty miles. Sally was past thirty and had nothing to show for fifteen years of marriage but three stillborn infants. The Walkers were good neighbors, and it would have taken a crueler heart than hers to deny Sally a woman’s aid.

Bess smiled as she remembered the lusty cry of young Moses Walker. Whatever had taken the lives of Sally’s earlier babes, this boy-child was fat and strong. He weighed as much as Alice Horsey’s twin girls put together.

“This one will live to cause you gray hairs,” Bess had promised Sally. Her friend’s joyous expression as she looked down into the round face of a living son had made Bess’s journey worthwhile.

Sally’s husband, Big Moses, had offered to escort her home. “It’s not safe fer a lady to be out at night,” he’d said. “Not wit dat wild man on the loose.”

She’d not wished Sally to be left alone so soon after childbirth, so she’d refused his company. “I’ll be fine,” she’d assured him. “These two need your attention more than I do.”

Big Moses’ brown face would have been a comfort to her now, she thought as she summoned up the image of his muscular shoulders and huge hands that could drive a broadax through oak logs for ten hours at a stretch. Not even an escaped convict would dare to accost her with Big Moses at her side.

The wind shrieked through the trees, and Bess’s teeth began to chatter. It was unlike her to be so fearful; she’d ridden the plantation alone since she was a child, both day and night and in all kinds of weather. But tonight . . . She shivered and wiped melting ice off her face with the back of a gloved hand. Tonight she couldn’t shake a premonition of impending danger.

“Shades of my grandmother,” she murmured to herself. Patting Ginger’s neck again, she raised her voice and spoke bravely to the horse. “Not far now, girl. Once we’re through this stretch of woods—”

An unholy war cry rent the night.

Ginger reared up on her hind legs and before Bess could react, a heavy weight struck her and knocked her out of the saddle onto the frozen ground. Her chin slammed against the road, and for an instant, she lay there stunned. The weight rolled off her, and a shadow lunged toward the shying horse.

“Whoa!”

Bess’s mind cleared. Someone was trying to steal her horse! She reached for her pistol and realized that she’d lost it in the fall. “Take your thieving hands off my mare!” she yelled as she scrambled to her feet and launched herself at the bandit’s back.

“What the—” The outlaw’s protests were cut off as Bess locked her hands around his neck. She tried to encircle his waist with her legs, but the bulk of her riding skirt made it impossible. He slammed an elbow into her middle, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped and tumbled backward.

The man caught one dangling rein. Ginger reared up again, then whirled and kicked at him. Bess recovered and dove at the backs of his knees. He went down and she hit him as hard as she could with her fists.

He was still holding the mare’s rein. Bess jerked the leather from his hand and ran toward her horse. She’d got one foot in the stirrup when he seized her shoulder and yanked her around. He drew back a fist to strike her, then stopped and let out a yelp of laughter.

“A lass, by God!” He locked one arm around her waist and dragged her, kicking and punching, away from the horse.

“Let go of me!” she screamed. He loomed over her, taller by a head than she was, and as strong as an ox. Hitting him was as useless as striking a barn door. She couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but a mass of fair, tangled hair hung loose to his shoulders, giving him a savage appearance.

“Aye, lass, I’ll let go o’ ye, as soon as ye quit knockin’ hell out o’ me.”

His heavy Scots burr penetrated her anger, and Bess’s heart sunk to her boots. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the escaped convict whom half the Tidewater had been hunting. A yellow-haired Scotsman, they’d said, standing six feet tall.

She drew in a shuddering breath and stopped struggling.

“That’s better,” he said. “I mean ye no harm, woman, but I have grave need of your horse.”

“You’ll hang for this. Do you know who I am?”

“I care not. You’re English, and that’s all that matters,” he said harshly.

He loosened his grip on her waist, and she broke free and backed away from him. She’d bitten her lip when she’d fallen from the horse, and she tasted the salt of blood in her mouth. She was so frightened she could hardly get her breath, but the thought of this brute stealing Ginger made her forget her fear. “She’s mine, and I won’t let you have her,” she retorted. “I raised her from a foal.”

“It’s my neck or your mare.” He shrugged and spread his hands palms up.

Bess swallowed hard and she noticed an iron manacle fastened around one sinewy wrist. She took another step backward and the heel of her boot struck something hard on the trail. Her pistol? Her long riding habit covered the object; tentatively, she nudged it.

“You’ll nay hold it against me if I choose my own life,” he continued. His deep voice rumbled up from a broad chest as arrogantly as though he owned the ground he stood on and she was the intruder.

She faced him squarely. “Surrender yourself, sir. If you come peaceably with me, I’ll see you have a fair trial.”

He laughed. “Before my hanging?”

“Who are you?” She stalled, playing for time. Perhaps Big Moses had followed her . . . or maybe Tom would ride back this way. She listened, hoping against hope that she would hear hoofbeats on the frozen road.

But the only thing she heard was the mocking cry of the winter wind, rattling through the branches overhead.

“I’ve nay time for games, lass. Ye ken well enough who I be.”

“Kincaid.”

“Aye.”

She nodded. “Your reputation goes before you, sir. Since it’s you, then I suppose I must—” She dropped to one knee and grabbed the pistol. Raising the weapon, she took aim at the center of his chest and squeezed the trigger. The recoil of the flintlock slammed her backward. Before she could recover, Kincaid’s fist smashed into her wrist, knocking the pistol from her hand.

She gasped as pain shot up her arm. Her first thought was that he’d broken her hand; her second was that she had missed and now he would kill her.

“Ye shot me,” he said.

She realized that he was clutching his shoulder. “I didn’t shoot straight enough,” she dared.

He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her so close that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. “I choked the life from the last man who took a shot at me,” he said.

She was inches from the bullet wound. She could smell the sickly-sweet scent of his blood as it seeped down the front of his filthy shirt. The realization that he wasn’t wearing a coat on this bitter night flashed across her numbed mind, and i for the barest instant, she felt pity for him.

“‘Tis said that Englishwomen are as hardhearted as their men,” he whispered. “Mayhap ’tis true.” He pulled her head back. “I gave my word not to harm ye,” he rasped, “but I’ll take a toll for the gift you’ve give me. A kiss, so that ye won’t forget our meeting.” He leaned down and covered her mouth with his.

She braced herself for a crude assault, but to her surprise, his kiss was as tender as it was provocative. Her eyes widened in shock as his fingers loosened their grip on her hair to caress the back of her neck. She felt a flush of heat wash up to the roots of her scalp, then rush down through her chest and midsection to curl her toes. A dizzy sensation unlike anything she’d ever experienced made the earth tilt beneath her.

Instinctively, she grabbed hold of him to keep herself from falling. He was still kissing her, and she knew that she should be fighting him . . . should resist his unwanted attack. But the warm pressure on her lips was as heady as the smell of new-plowed fields in March. And to her horror, she found that she was no longer a passive participant in his embrace—she was kissing him back.

“Perhaps they were wrong,” he said. His low chuckle as he pushed her away brought her crashing back to the reality of what she’d done. “Perhaps not all English lasses are cold-natured. A pity I’ve not the time to stay and prove them wrong.”

Bess wiped her tingling lips with a trembling hand. “Don’t take my horse,” she warned him. “I’ll hunt you down if you do. I swear I will.”

He bent and retrieved her pistol and tucked it into his waist. “Tell your menfolk to keep a better watch over ye. Every escaped felon may nay be as forgivin’ as I am.” He seized Ginger’s reins and swung up onto her back.

“Don’t do it, Kincaid!” Bess cried. “I’ll have the hide from your back, so help me God!”

He yanked the mare’s head around and drove his heels into her sides. She leaped forward, and Kincaid’s laughter floated back to Bess on the wind.