| |
THOMAS CHARGED DOWN the rise.
Mac lunged. His arms slipped around the lass’ back and beneath her knees. He lifted her to his chest. His eyes darkened to cinders.
Thomas ground his heels into the sod and slid to a halt. He pulled Elizabeth from him. “Why was she here?”
“She said she wished to build her strength. Issy was nae around, so I said I would escort her.”
“And ye let her go all the way to the creek?”
“I tried to get her to go back several times, but she is as stubborn as ye. She refuses to listen to reason. She insists on doing things her way even if they are harder.”
Was the man speaking of more than her wish to walk?
She stirred. “Tomas. Ne pas accuser. Mac.”
Thomas would blame Mac if he bloody well felt like it.
Mac’s lips tightened like fraught binding. “I canna for the life of me imagine why ye have befriended her.”
“And I do not like you either,” she whispered.
“Mac,” Thomas said, “if ye canna get along with her—”
“I dinna wish to.”
“—‘tis yer ain fault.”
“My fault? She is the one that should nae be here. Or have ye forgotten?”
“I will nae go back to the Fottrell House.” Her voice sounded stronger. Or was her anger fueling the spine in her words?
“Ye are still likely to end up there.” Mac thrust his head forward. “One way or the other.”
Something fired between the two.
“Put me down.” Elizabeth pushed against Thomas’ chest with more strength than he thought she had.
“Ye canna make it up the rise, Lass.”
“I want down,” she cried. “Or I will jump.”
“I would do as she asks,” Mac glowered. “The princess has a way of getting what she wants.”
“Princess!” she cried.
One wooden shoe shot into Thomas’ thigh. He stifled the cry behind his teeth and set her to the ground. She fought against the sway of her legs. Thomas grabbed her arm.
She shot a lethal glare at Mac.
The man turned to Thomas. “When ye are done with her, ye best find me and fast. I will be over there.” He pointed to the woods and to the other, lesser path to the creek. “We need to talk.” He stalked up the rise as if pulled by a tight string.
“Come, Elizabeth, let us get ye back to the tent for a rest.”
“Non.” She shied away from him. “I will not go back yet. I cannot breathe beneath the heavy heat of the canvas.”
“Ye canna stay out here.”
“Why not? I can sit on the ground.” She lowered to her rear, crossed her legs like an Indian, and leaned against a tree. “I can get back my wind and then go up.”
He was nae certain even then she could do so.
“Fine.” Why he agreed he knew not. He lowered beside her. He stretched his white stockinged legs outward and crossed his ankles. “I dinna understand why Mac and ye canna get along. Back at Fearnought Farms, before I knew he had married Sarah, I had entertained the idea that ye and he would do so once I brought ye here.”
“Marry him?” The horror stretched her face.
Thomas laughed. “’Tis not so far-fetched. Ye both like using big words. He is quiet, ye only slightly less so. He is very loyal, Elizabeth, and ye could use a friend like that when I am gone.”
“A friend maybe. A husband no.”
Thomas sighed. “It matters not. He is married, and ye two apparently have drawn a battle line between ye.”
She sighed. “Did you find me work today?”
“No. Tomorrow I go to the farms to the extreme east of town.”
“And if you find nothing then?” The fear laced her words.
He tried a weak smile. “I have one last effort to make.” Even if it was the last thing he wished to do.
He wove his hands together and shoved them in the valley between his thighs. “The thing ye need to understand is that there are a number of rumors swirling about me. I was well thought of until this past fall when I made some rather bad mistakes.”
“Do these rumors have anything to do with why you are insisting on leaving as soon as you find me a place to work and stay?”
“They do.”
“But if they are rumors . . .”
“Rumors with large grains of truth. People are afraid of me and want me gone from town. They certainly dinna wish to do me a favor.”
“Is that why you wish me to wear the English clothes?”
“Aye, although now, after the past few days, ye need to not just wear English clothes. Ye need to be English.”
She twisted to face him. “’Tis one thing to ask me to wear the clothes of the very people who sent me here, but to now ask me to be one of them?”
“But ye are one of them and denying your heritage will nae help ye here. The French are hated.”
“I am not French.”
“But people here see ye as such, and to choose to be so when ye could so obviously be something else is suicide.”
She sucked in a weighty breath. She opened and closed her mouth several times before finding her words. “The English forced us from our homes and burned them. They burned the wagons with the things we brought from home.” She splayed her fingers and bounced them before her face. “At times I can still feel the heat scorching my face. I can still hear Grandpere and Grandmere weeping from a lifetime of work lost.” She curled the fingers inward. “More lifetimes. So much of what they had was from their parents and their parents before them.” She slammed her fists to her thighs. She fought against the moisture filling her eyes. “And the Acadian girls. Many of them my friends. And Meggie . . .” Her cheeks quivered. “I can still hear their screams as the English soldiers took advantage of them.”
The bile rose in his throat.
“And there was nothing anyone could do. No one could stop the English.”
“I understand how ye feel.”
“You know nothing of what I speak or how I feel.”
He spun around to her. “Dinna ever tell me so again.” His eyes shot fire. “Not when my wife and child lie in an unmarked grave to
the west and at the hands of the Indians and the French.”
The fear crawled across her face. She staggered to her feet.
He rushed to his. “I realize the Acadians wanted nothing to do with this war, but people here think of them as French, and the French work with the Indians to exterminate anything remotely akin to an Englishman.”
“Is this why you have been gone for two years from your family?”
His hands dropped to his sides. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Aye. I sold my soul to the devil in order to rid the world of as many Frenchman and Indians as I possibly could.”
His vengeance, however, had backfired. And now, he went to meet his end.
“So ‘tis a hard fact to face, Lass, but your French blood is really little better than your English.”
Her lips trembled. Her knees gave way.
Thomas lifted her against his chest. At least she fought him not.
He trudged up the rise. He reached the top and made a sharp left turn into her tent. He set her to her feet beside the bed. Her legs folded beneath her. Her chest raked his.
Thomas grabbed her waist. Her breath scraped his neck.
“Elizabeth,” he groaned. He slid his hands to her back. He locked her against him. His mouth hovered beside hers. Their breaths collided and whirled.
Her lashes fluttered.
His gaze fell to her lips. He ached to take them. To work them this way and that, over and around, till they were swollen and red, and she had no fight left.
And then he would make her his in deeper, more earth-shattering ways.
He pushed her to the bed.
He could not do as he craved. She was not his.
He whirled around. He stumbled from the tent and into the sun.
In another time and place, he could have courted Elizabeth Marie Johns. They could have built a future together. He could have forgotten Catharine. And the rood. And the past two years.
But then again, had it not been for his sins the past two years and the English determination to own all things, Elizabeth and he would not be here in this time nor place. Those things had brought them together.
In the end, they would drive them apart. And like Elizabeth, there was nothing Thomas McQueen could do to stop it.
––––––––
ELIZABETH CLENCHED her fist over the chemise. The rood bit through the fabric and pierced her palm.
Please, Lord, end the painful thump in my chest.
Fingal lay his nose on her lap.
If Thomas had taken her lips, she would not have stopped him. Indeed, she very nearly pressed her own against his.
You may have been raised Acadian, but you are English through and through.
An Acadian lass would have pulled herself free. Only the English allowed their passions free reign.
But she no longer knew who she was, and ‘twas obvious one side of her was no better than the other.
Yer French blood is little better than your English.
A deep pit opened in her stomach. Even as a young girl running the meadows around Grand Prè, her Englishness set her apart from her Acadian companions. Later, at Annapolis Royal, amidst so many Englishman, she was known as the Acadian Lass, the daughter of Dr. Benjamin Joshua Johns.
Now, the framework of Elizabeth Marie Johns was disintegrating into black dust like the over burnt logs of a fire. Battle lines in Nova Scotia had been drawn last summer between the French and the English.
Was the same dual blood flowing in her veins to now wage a desperate war for her soul?
––––––––
SARAH THREW HER HANDS to her hips. “I do not need your help, Husband.”
“I will nae let ye wash and so close to your time.” Steam may as well have clouded the man’s ears.
“I am expecting a child. I am not helpless.”
Mac yanked the shirt from her hands. Behind him, the creek sparkled in the afternoon sun.
Thomas cleared his throat.
Sarah reddened. Mac lifted his hand in a pleading gesture. “Please, Wife, let me scrub and beat them. Most of them are my shirts anyhow.”
And the man did like clean clothes.
Mac bobbed his head at Thomas. “I need to speak with him. When I am ready to put them in the hot water I will come get ye.” He grabbed the woman’s hand. “We will finish them together.” He smiled.
“Fine,” she said. “But I am going to check on Elizabeth.”
The man’s long dimples carved deep valleys in each cheek. “Wife, ye know how I feel—”
“And you know how I feel.”
The man’s fight fled. He nodded.
Sarah turned and walked past Thomas.
Mac watched her breach the rise. He then gouged a tight gaze at Thomas and lowered his voice. “Elizabeth tells me when she is settled ye are going to the backcountry.”
The man may as well have punched him in the gut.
“Everyone thinks ye are home to stay.”
“Never said I was staying.”
“Ye never said ye were leaving either, and ‘tis a price on your head. Ye will nae get far.”
“Iron Gun has put a price on every one of you.”
Mac’s eyes narrowed. “Ye canna be serious.”
“And the only hope any of ye have is for me to turn myself over to him.”
“Ach!” The groan welled from Mac’s belly. He wadded the shirt. Water dripped and muddied the ground. “Iron Gun will do worse than take your scalp.”
Thomas dinna need to be told that again. “And ye canna tell the others of their danger, nor of what I go to do.”
Mac tossed the shirt to the rock. “Why do ye do this?” He grabbed Thomas’ shoulders. He squeezed and shook. “Stay with us. When we go back to the farm we will prepare for a siege.” Mac clawed at Thomas’ ears.
Thomas pressed his palms against the man’s chest. “Even if we drive them away once, we canna do so twice and thrice.” He pulled himself free and stepped back.
“We can if we have to, Tom. The war canna go on forever.”
“I was the one that sought revenge. I will nae have my family now suffer capture or worse.”
“Ach! Ye and your honor.” Mac flipped his hand outward. “Why did ye no think of such while ye were firing cabins in the woods with women and children in them?”
Thomas’ gut wrenched, but he dinna defend himself. ‘Twas no point.
“Mac, I spent all winter flat of my back with typhoid and then pneumonia trying to think my way around this, but ‘tis nae other way.”
A crazed look whirled from the man’s eyes. “Ye canna ask me to let ye go to your death,” he hissed. “I fear every day for Sarah as that child grows. She nearly died during her one and only birthing while married to Robert. The babe did. We just got ye back. Now I have to let ye go to yer ain destruction and at yer ain hand?”
Thomas’ heart tightened against the agony. They had both lost so much and neither had coped well. Thomas had sought revenge, and Mac had chosen to shove his grief deep inside while loving Sarah and hanging onto everyone he held dear.
Maybe never speaking of that day had not been a good idea.
“I go to do this, Mac. There is nae other way, and ‘twould be easier for me if ye would offer Elizabeth a job and a place to stay until her father comes.”
“Ye are mad, Thomas McQueen.”
“Mac, please. I have had nae luck in two and a half days. Nae one wishes to hire her.”
“With good reason. And did not William and I warn ye of this possibility?”
“I made a promise to her.”
“I made nae such promise.” He yanked a shoe from his foot. “And if I dinna agree to give her a job and a place to stay when your maither asked, I am not liken to do so for ye.”
“My maither?”
Mac pulled the stocking off. He shook two fingers in the air. “Twice. She has asked twice.” He took off the other shoe and stocking.
“Ye never turn down any request of my maither’s.”
He stepped into the water. “I did this time. Although I expected it of her. But Sarah?”
“Sarah asked as well?”
“Asks.” Mac spit the word through his teeth. He haunched to a half-submerged rock. “Every night. Every morning. Every time I turn around.”
“And why will ye no? The lass only needs to stay until her father comes, and Sarah could certainly use the help. And why do ye dislike her so? She really is a sweet lass.”
“Sweet? That one?” He ground the shirt against the rock. “About as sweet as a hungry cougar.” He lifted it upward. He shifted it this way and that, found a greasy spot, and pressed the shirt to the rock yet again.
“Ye dinna know her, Mac. If she fights at times like a warrior, ‘tis because of what she has been through.”
“I care not what Miss Johns has been through.” He swirled the shirt in the water. “I will nae help ye with her. She needs to go back to the Fottrell House where she belongs.” He twisted the shirt free of water. He stepped out of the creek. He snagged Thomas with a black stare. “And if ye will nae see she goes back, I just might have to.”