Ride the Fire (Blakewell/Kenleigh Family Trilogy, #3)

  Stunned, Nicholas stared into the soldier’s eyes, saw there the unspeakable truth.

  Suddenly all the pieces fell into place. Her fear of men. Her unwillingness to discuss her family. Her reluctance to return to Paxton.

  Her husband hadn’t been the only man to mistreat her.

  Oh, God, Bethie!

  “If you tell, everyone will know your wife is a whore! Bethie will be shamed for life! You have to let me go!”

  “That’s what you think!” In a black rage, Nicholas slammed his fist into the bastard’s jaw again and again and again, until the soldier’s head lolled stupidly on his shoulders. Nicholas wanted to kill him, spill his blood, watch the light fade from his eyes as life left his body. He might have killed him then and there, had not the sound of Belle’s frantic crying pierced his fury.

  He dragged the unconscious man around the bed to the still-open door, tossed him roughly into the dirt.

  Men stopped working, stared.

  Nicholas barked out a string of orders, certain they would be obeyed. “Get the quartermaster! This man attacked my wife! See to it he is locked in the guardhouse! Send for the doctor! And get Annie from the trading post! Quickly!”

  * * *

  Bethie struggled to wake from the depths of a nightmare. Richard had come for her. He had beaten her. He had tried to rape her.

  If only her head didn’t hurt so badly. If only the nightmare would leave her in peace.

  “Bethie, love, can you hear me?” It was Nicholas.

  A hand stroked her cheek.

  “She’s suffered quite a severe beating. I’ve left laudanum for her pain, but I shouldn’t be surprised if she remains unconscious for some time.” That was Dr. Aimes. “You might well need a wet nurse for the baby, at least for a day or two. If you’ll excuse me, I need to see to the man who did this.”

  Beating? Unconscious? Wet nurse?

  It hadn’t been a dream!

  A spark of panic ignited in her belly, moved sluggishly to her mind, became confused. What had happened? Why couldn’t she open her eyes? Where was Belle? But before the answers could form, she was adrift, conversation flowing over her like water.

  “Rest assured, he will pay for his crime,” Captain Écuyer said.

  “I should have killed him when I had the chance!”

  “It’s better that you didn’t, Kenleigh. A British fort is no place for frontier-style justice. He will be tried in a court-martial, and, after he is convicted, he will be shot.”

  “It must be handled discreetly, Captain. I would not have her suffer more than she already has.”

  “Of course. All shall be sworn to secrecy. Tell me, Master Kenleigh, does your father know of your marriage?”

  “I’ve had no contact with him for six years. Why do you ask?”

  “I should think my question obvious. You are heir to your father’s estates. I’m certain he would have preferred you to make a dynastic match and marry a woman of your own class, not the daughter of Scottish rustics, no matter how lovely or pleasant she might be.”

  “You go too far, Écuyer.”

  “Perhaps. But bad blood will out, as they say. Now I must be going. We are at war, and I’ve many duties.”

  Bethie heard the sound of a door shutting, felt a cold cloth against her aching forehead. Warm lips brushed over hers. Nicholas.

  She tried to speak his name, but it came out a moan.

  “Bethie? Bethie, can you hear me?”

  She tried to dig her way out of the darkness, put all of her strength into saying one word. “Belle . . .”

  “Belle is fine, love. She’s safe, and so are you. I won’t leave you, Bethie.”

  She felt him warm beside her, smelled his scent, sensed his strength.

  Then she surrendered and slept.

  * * *

  Nicholas gazed down at Bethie’s sleeping face. Dark bruises and lacerations marred both of her cheeks. There were bruises on her throat, arms, and inner thighs as well, the marks of a predator.

  Damn it!

  He ought to have been here. He ought to have prevented this.

  Instead, he’d been unwittingly helping Écuyer murder the Delaware, who were intent on killing the English. And while he’d been caught up in the drama outside the gates, a man—no, an animal masquerading as a man—had beaten and tried to rape his own sister, or stepsister, as it now seemed.

  So much violence. So much brutality. He thought he’d seen everything both the wilderness and the so-called civilized world had to offer. And then he’d seen this.

  Why hadn’t she told him?

  As soon as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He had secrets, too—memories so terrible that even the act of recounting them was unbearable.

  He shuddered to think what would have happened to Bethie had he not arrived just then. He’d been on his way to work on the ramparts, ready to spend his rage in the dirt, when he’d noticed that Private Fitchie was not on duty outside their door. Still haunted by a vague sense of uneasiness, he’d come to investigate. If only he had come sooner.

  “Nicholas?”

  She was awake.

  “I’m right here, love. How do you feel?”

  Her violet eyes were clouded by pain. “My head . . . hurts.”

  He reached for the laudanum, poured a small amount into a cup, lifted her head, held the cup to her lips. “Drink this, love. It will take the pain away.”

  Her nose wrinkled as she swallowed the bitter liquid.

  Nicholas lowered her head gently back to the pillow. “Just rest, Bethie.”

  For a moment she lay silent, then tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nicholas. Please forgi’e me.”

  He wiped the tears away with his thumb. “Forgive you for what, Bethie? None of this was your fault.”

  “I’ll no’ blame you if you tell people the truth about us and set me aside.”

  He pulled her against him, kissed her hair, torn between fury and tenderness. “Why would I do that, love?”

  Her voice, already weak, quavered with emotion. “I’ve brought shame on you.”

  Nicholas tilted his head, looked straight into her eyes. “That is not true. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “B-but he is my . . . brother.” The last word was an anguished whisper.

  “Your stepbrother. Aye, I know.”

  Whatever Bethie had expected from Nicholas, it was not this. She’d been so certain he would turn away from her the moment he knew the truth. But here he was, beside her, comforting her.

  Perhaps it was his kindness, or perhaps it was the lulling effects of the laudanum, but she found herself telling him everything.

  How her father had been killed while helping neighbors build their cabin when she was only ten. How her mother, burdened with a daughter and no living sons, had sought a husband at the meetinghouse and found Malcolm Sorley. How her gospel-greedy stepfather had taken them to his home farther west, where he lived with his already-grown son, Richard. How Malcolm had found her lacking in piety and overblessed with beauty and had made it his duty to beat the fear of his vengeful God into her. How Richard had watched the beatings with a strange look in his eyes that made Bethie afraid.

  “The first time he came to my bed, I was twelve. I didna know what men did with women, didna understand what he was tryin’ to do. When I started to protest, he told me Malcolm would punish me if he found out.”

  “And then he raped you.”

  “Nay. At first, all he did was t-touch me, run his hands over me.” She shuddered, a feeling of deep horror mingling with utter revulsion in her belly.

  Nicholas held her closer. “I’m right here, Bethie.”

  “But then he began to . . .”’Twas almost impossible to say it. She took a deep breath. “Then he began to put his fingers . . . inside me.”

  “I’m so sorry, love.”

  “It hurt, but he didn’t care. I tried to fight him. I tried! But he was so much stronger.”

&
nbsp; “A little girl can hardly be expected to fight off a grown man, Bethie. It was not your fault. You did everything you could.”

  She pushed on, desperate to get the words out. “He laughed. He laughed at me, laughed when . . . when he saw my maiden’s blood on his hands.”

  “Dear God! Bethie, I—”

  “Every night I went to bed, hoping and praying he would stay away. And every night I would hear him creep up the ladder to the loft. He hurt me. He rubbed himself against me.” A wave of nausea assailed her.

  “You should sleep. Tell me the rest later. It’s too soon.”

  “Nay! I must finish! You must know!”

  “I know everything I need to know about you, Bethie. There’s nothing you can tell me that will change the way I feel about you.”

  But Bethie scarcely heard him. She had started the story. Now she must finish it.

  She told him how one night when she was fifteen, Richard had come to her and told her it was time for her to become a woman. Afraid of the pain and unable to bear it any longer, she had fought him, and her struggles had awakened Malcolm, who had beaten her almost senseless, accused her of seducing his only son and leading him down the path of eternal damnation.

  Bethie was trembling now, her body shaking uncontrollably. Tears slid, unheeded, down her cheeks. “Three days later, he married me off to Andrew, a man my father’s age, and sent me away. Andrew knew what had happened, said he forgave me, but I could always see it in his eyes—the pity, the shame.”

  The helpless rage that had been brewing inside Nicholas all day began to boil. “And what of your mother? Did she do nothing to help you? Did your stepfather beat her, too?”

  “Aye, he beat her. But she hated me. She said I had cursed her womb because I had been born alive and her sons had all been stillborn. When Malcolm told her I had bewitched his son, I think she believed him.” Her voice broke into quiet weeping at this deepest betrayal.

  Her grief was almost more than he could bear. Rage, fueled by anguish, burned hot inside him. Richard Sorley would die. It would be Nicholas’s great pleasure to kill him.

  But not tonight.

  Gently he scooped Bethie’s bruised and trembling body into his arms, laid her head against his chest, let her tears soak through the cloth of his shirt. “It’s over now, Bethie. None of them will ever harm you again.”

  “I—I am no’ deservin’ of such kindness. I am tainted, do you no’ see that?”

  “All I see, Bethie, is the woman I—”

  Love.

  “—care deeply about and wish to protect.”

  The word had come to him so naturally, had slipped onto his tongue as if he’d meant it.

  And to his astonishment, Nicholas realized he did.

  He loved her.

  He was in love with Bethie Stewart.

  Chapter 24

  Bethie awoke in Nicholas’s arms the next morning, aching with milk and longing to hold her baby again. Though her head throbbed and her entire body ached, she felt a strange sense of lightness inside, as if something dark and heavy had been lifted from her. And it didn’t take her long to realize why.

  Last night she had told Nicholas everything, every horrible detail, and he had not pushed her away. Instead, he’d held her, comforted her, assured her no one would hurt her again. And as the laudanum had taken hold and she’d drifted off to an untroubled sleep, the last thing she remembered him saying was that he still cared for her.

  All I see, Bethie, is the woman I care deeply about and wish to protect.

  ’Twas not a declaration of love, to be sure, but it was far beyond anything she’d dared hope for. And when he’d looked at her, it was not pity or shame she saw in his eyes, but tenderness, concern. Nicholas knew, and still he stayed by her side.

  Nicholas. Nicholas. She loved him. With everything she was, she loved him. Uncertain though their future might be, she felt some peace in knowing that much.

  He stayed with her, refused to let her get out of bed for three days, except when absolutely necessary. Private Fitchie, much embarrassed by the cruel trick that had been played upon him and blaming himself for her suffering, was back on duty outside her door, ferocious in his devotion. Annie paid several calls each day, bringing what gossip she had—which was considerable, given that she was the hub of the fort’s gossip mill.

  But no one ever spoke to Bethie about Richard. When she finally asked Nicholas, all he told her was that Richard would never trouble her again.

  * * *

  The court-martial of Richard Sorley convened three days after the attack. Nicholas watched in disgust as Sorley accused Bethie of seducing and bewitching him, described how she’d seduced him when she was but a child. His words were so revolting that Nicholas spied the officers giving Sorley blatant looks of contempt. Nicholas was the only other person to testify. The officers reached a verdict within minutes: guilty.

  Écuyer rendered his sentence immediately. “Private Richard Sorley, you are hereby sentenced to be executed by firing squad at dawn tomorrow for the reprehensible and capital crimes of assault and attempted rape. And only God will have mercy on your soul.”

  There was no shortage of volunteers for the firing squad among either the soldiers, who seemed to have despised Sorley, or the militia, who had apparently grown to respect Nicholas for his woodcraft and bravery. But when Sorley was led, weeping, from the guardhouse the next morning, taken across the drawbridge and bound to a stake, only one of the dozen rifles aimed at him was loaded.

  “Ready!”

  Nicholas lifted his weapon, thought of a young girl who had lain, terrified and alone, in the darkness.

  “Aim!”

  He aligned the front sight with Sorley’s black heart, heard the sound of that young girl’s desperate pleas, her weeping.

  “Fire!”

  He pulled the trigger, killed the bastard who had hurt her.

  And later, those who were there told how Nicholas Kenleigh, after firing the single, fatal shot, strode angrily over to the man who had tried to dishonor his wife, ripped the blindfold off the man’s face, glared into his dying eyes—and cursed him to eternal hell.

  * * *

  After four days of lying abed, Bethie was restless and wanted nothing more than to scrub their quarters from one end to the other. Her head no longer ached, and her bruises were beginning to fade. Between the sticky July heat, Nicholas’s healing salves, and the lingering feel of Richard’s hands upon her, she also longed to take a bath.

  Nicholas had left before she’d awoken, and when she’d asked Private Fitchie where he’d gone, the boy had claimed not to know. Worried about Nicholas and feeling more than a wee bit cankersome, she’d asked Private Fitchie to bring water, soap, and a brush so that she could clean the floor, only to have Minna and Goody Wallace enter, arms full, to do the job for her. When she’d tried to help, they told her to sit and have some tea, saying that Nicholas would be upset with them if they allowed her to do anything strenuous.

  Minna had stood firm. “We owe you both our families’ lives, so please dinnae argie wi’ us.”

  In short order, the room had been swept and scrubbed from one end to the other, and the bed linens had been stripped and replaced with new, sweet-smelling linens Annie had sent over from the trading post.

  “A gift from yer husband, a thoughtful man and a brave one,” Goody Wallace had said as she’d made the bed. “I’ve ne’er seen a man so in love wi’ his wife as your Master Kenleigh.”

  Her words had made Bethie smile, though it still bothered her that she and Nicholas were allowing these good people to believe a lie.

  By the late afternoon, she and Belle were all that remained in need of cleaning. ’Twas then she learned she would have to bathe her daughter in cold water, as Captain Écuyer had recently ordered the rationing of firewood. Though Bethie thought the water felt heavenly when pressed against her throat with a cloth, Belle, who’d been fussy all day, had shrieked in protest when Bethie had dipped her i
n the bucket. By the time Nicholas walked through the door, Bethie was close to tears herself.

  “I can see I’ve arrived just in time.” He strode through the door, a smile on his face, his shirt stained with sweat.

  Annie came through the door behind him, a bundle beneath her arm, followed by two soldiers carrying what looked like a horse trough with legs, a third carrying firewood and a fourth carrying dinner from the officers’ mess.

  “What is all this about?” Bethie stared in amazement.

  Nicholas grinned. “I heard you wanted to take a bath.”

  “She should eat her supper before it grows cold!” Annie dropped her bundle on the bed, scooped Belle from Bethie’s arms. “How is Auntie Annie’s little Isabelle?”

  As abruptly as they’d arrived, the soldiers left, Annie behind them with Belle in her arms.

  Nicholas gestured to the table. “Sit and eat, love. It’s not much, I’m afraid.”

  Bethie sat, lifted the cloth from her plate. Boiled beef and some dearly won greens. “Will you join me?”

  “Aye, after I get this fire started. Young Fitchie should be back with water at any moment.”

  “Fire? But I thought—”

  “That it’s against general orders to burn wood in the barracks? Aye, it is. But Écuyer is letting me break the rules tonight. It seems he owes me.”

  Soon their plates were empty, and the bathtub—for that’s what it surely was, a proper bathtub—was filled with steaming water and floating sprigs of lavender, which Nicholas admitted to have stolen from the king’s garden and which filled the room with their heady scent.

  “Fit for a princess.” Nicholas set a bar of soap on a chair beside the tub.

  Bethie felt almost giddy with excitement. “I’ve never had a bath so grand!”

  Then Nicholas reached out, cupped her cheek, drew her near. “I want this to be a new start for you, love. It’s over. Sorley is dead. He was executed early this morning.”

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. “Richard is . . . dead?”

  ’Twas such momentous news she barely knew what to feel. Grief? He’d been her stepbrother. Happiness? He’d all but ruined her life. But then one emotion stood clear from the rest: relief.