The sound of drums grew louder, drowned out the twittering of birds.
Then Annie saw him.
Just crossing the bridge, he walked in the center of an escort, his wrists and ankles shackled, soldiers both before and after him, their bayonets glinting in the early morning light. Behind the soldiers came a young drummer, then Lieutenant Cooke, and last of all Lord William, who had his own escort. The soldiers marched with stiff formality, but Iain walked as if he were out for a morning stroll, his lazy stride hindered only slightly by his bonds.
The feeling of dread inside Annie grew as they drew near.
The relentless rat-a-tat-tat of the drum. The plodding tramp of boots on frozen ground. The clinking of fetters, of brass buckles, of sabers in sheaths.
The escort reached the lines of Rangers, marched through their center.
Iain spoke to his men, a grin on his face. “Morn’, boys. I heard you had a bit of a collieshangie in the night. Sorry to wake you so early.”
His words were met with guffaws and a dozen shouts of “morn’, Mack” and “sorry you couldna be there” and more than a few Gaelic curses aimed at Lord William, whose face remained as impassive as marble.
And then Iain was before her, his gaze upon her.
She looked into his eyes, saw he was still angry with her, watched his anger soften.
Without warning, he lifted his shackled wrists over her head and pulled her hard against him, claiming her in an almost brutal kiss. His fingers fisted in her hair and forced her head back, his tongue plundering her mouth as he took advantage of her surprised gasp to thrust deep. It was no gentle kiss, but a kiss meant to claim her, to mark her before the other men.
And mark her it did—to her soul.
Then, as suddenly as he had seized her, he released her, his voice a ragged whisper in her ear. “I willna let you do this, Annie! Dinnae make yourself his slave! Let me take the pain I have earnt, and dinnae interfere!”
Before Annie could think or speak a word to him, rough hands pushed him onward, leaving her shaken, fingers pressed to her bruised and tingling lips.
She watched, her emotions in turmoil, as the escort reached the whipping post, removed the shackles that bound Iain’s wrists, and then ordered him to remove his shirt. This Iain did in one motion, pulling it over his head and dropping it to the cold ground. Then he turned to face the post, pulled his long hair to the side to expose his muscled back, and stretched out his arms so the soldiers could lock his wrists in place.
Then Lieutenant Cooke began to read aloud. “Major Iain MacKinnon, you are hereby ordered to receive fifty strokes of the lash for willfully—”
“We all ken why I’m here, Cooke, for God’s sake.”
Howls of laughter from the Rangers.
Then Iain looked over his shoulder at her. “But ’tis one hundred strokes, no’ fifty.”
Red in the face, Lieutenant Cooke looked at the orders in his hands, then looked to Lord William for guidance.
And Lord William looked at Annie. “Miss Burns, I cannot now seem to recall—was it fifty lashes or one hundred?”
And she knew Lord William was letting her decide, forcing her to make an impossible, terrible choice once again.
She swallowed, felt the heat of every man’s gaze upon her, then looked to Iain.
I’d have gone to the whipping post gladly and taken each one of a hundred strokes wi’out complaint, knowin’ you were safe and untouched. ’Twas a price I was willin’ to pay.
His gaze was steady, reassuring, insistent.
Holding on to the strength she saw in his eyes, she searched for her voice, feeling like a traitor. “One hundred.”
His lips curved in a smile so warm it broke Annie’s heart.
“So it was.” Lord William nodded to Lieutenant Cooke.
Cooke motioned to another soldier, who stepped forward, whip in hand. He raised it, tested it in the air, snapping it with a sickening crack. Then he turned toward Iain.
Chills of horror raced along Annie’s spine. “Nay!”
She found herself rushing forward, only to feel Morgan’s arms shoot out to restrain her. “Nay, lassie. You cannae do more for him than you’ve done. Be strong.”
The first crack of the whip against Iain’s bare skin turned her knees to water, and she’d have sunk to the earth had Morgan not already held her fast. Through her tears, she saw Iain’s body stiffen with pain, saw a ribbon of red well up on his skin. Then came another terrible crack and another and another.
Iain had never faced a test such as this and did not wish to shame his men, but it hurt far more than he had imagined, each blow a shock to both mind and body. He fought not to cry out, embracing the pain, unwilling to give Wentworth the satisfaction of breaking him.
The faces of those who’d died as a result of his actions drifted before his mind—Lachlan, Peter, Robert Wallace, Robert Grant, Gordie, and Jonny Harden. He thought of young Brendan, who might lose his leg, and Conall with his terrible powder burns. In Iain’s mind, his pain was but atonement for theirs.
After thirty strokes, Iain lost count. After some dozen more, he felt dizzy, sick, his mind dazed from agony. After still more, he found himself leaning against the whipping post for support, his legs barely able to hold his weight. Struggling not to betray his weakness, he bent his mind toward Annie.
Annie, desperate and alone, fighting the Abenaki.
Annie rowing the boat the wrong way, her eyes wide with terror.
Annie asleep in his arms, her body soft and warm.
Annie bare to the waist, her breasts wet, her rosy nipples puckered from cold.
Annie firing his pistol at the French soldier.
Blood ran down his back, hot and wet. Sweat stung his eyes. His breath came in shudders, his lungs straining to fill before the next stroke forced the air from him again. But still the blows did not stop.
Mother of God, have mercy upon me!
He reached for Annie with his mind, wrapped his thoughts around her, fought the agony that threatened to strip him of strength, of will, of pride.
Annie!
Another stroke. And another. And another.
Then dimly he became aware that soldiers were unbinding his wrists.
It was finally over.
And then he knew only darkness.
Annie reached over and touched her hand to Iain’s brow, grateful to find it still cool. The surgeon, a bespectacled older man with bushy white eyebrows and a large red nose, had warned her that infection now posed the gravest danger.
“Sometimes they die of shock, but Major MacKinnon is heartier than most,” Dr. Blake had told her as he’d washed the blood off Iain’s back. “He’ll no doubt recover fully.”
As bad as it had looked from a distance, Annie had been appalled to see how horribly the whip had torn his flesh. There seemed to be little skin left upon his back. She could not fathom how badly it must have hurt, and as she’d watched Dr. Blake bandage Iain she’d wished she’d have stuck with her first choice and spared Iain the remaining fifty strokes, no matter what Lord William might have demanded of her.
The surgeon had tried to send her away, but Annie had refused to go, insisting she could help. Only when he’d realized she could read—she’d read aloud the label from a jar of medicine he’d had in hand—did he relent and allow her to stay.
“You might be of some assistance,” he’d said.
Twice Iain had awoken, his brow furrowed with pain, and twice she had spooned broth and laudanum between his lips, though he had tried to refuse the latter.
“Nay, Annie. Poppy . . . will dull my mind. I must get back . . . on my feet.”
She had stroked his hair, forced herself to smile. “You daftie. Sleep now.”
And sleep he did.
Annie tried to make herself useful by sweeping the floor, rolling strips of linen into bandages, and grinding dried plants into powder with a pestle while Dr. Blake talked of the war and saw to his patients. One had shot himself in
the foot. Another had a fever. Two were Rangers who’d been injured in the battle with the French. And then there was Iain.
Though she tried to listen politely to the doctor’s tales, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from drifting. Images of Iain bound to the whipping post, the lash striking his already bloodied back again and again, leapt unbidden into her mind, left her shaken. So much pain. And yet he hadn’t made a sound.
And then there was the kiss. She could still feel the scorching press of his lips against hers, the invasion of his tongue, the twist of his fingers in her hair. And she found herself hoping he would kiss her again one day. Perhaps she was just overtired. She hadn’t slept a wink last night, after all. Nor had she been herself these past few days. So much had happened.
She had just finished grinding some kind of tree bark—willow bark for fevers, the doctor had said—when a lad who until then had lain in a fevered sleep spoke to her.
“Are you the major’s lassie?” Young he was, no older than Annie herself, with freckles and blond hair.
The major’s lassie.
Annie wasn’t sure how to answer. “Major MacKinnon saved my life.”
“You are bonnie.” A grin brightened the lad’s pale face. “He said you were bonnie.”
Iain had spoken of her and said she was bonnie? “Are you a Ranger?”
“Private Brendan Kinney of MacKinnon’s Rangers, miss.” His pride was clear to see.
While Dr. Blake examined Private Kinney’s leg and gave him medicine to ease his fever, Annie listened to him tell how he’d been wounded.
“’Twas in the first attack, miss. We heard the major fire his shots and knew they’d be after us. They laid on us hard—three hundred French or more. But we fought them back wi’ Morgan and Connor to guide us. They caught me wi’ a ball when I went for better cover.”
Five of his men are dead and nine are wounded because he chose to rescue you over doin’ his duty.
Connor’s words came back to her, and at last she understood.
“You’re very brave, Private Kinney, and I am sore grieved you were hurt.”
“Dinnae let it worry you, miss. I’m glad Mack saved your life.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced over at Iain, who still slept deeply. “Shall I read to you, Private Kinney?”
Iain was floating, Annie’s voice flowing around him like warm honey. She was telling a story. It was a story he knew because it involved him. ’Twas the story of his attack on the Abenaki village.
“‘—having marched many leagues through deep snows and frozen forests empty of game, and facing blizzards that stopped their progress, they were forced to boil their belts and leggings else starve.’ Did you truly eat your belts, Private Kinney?”
“Aye, miss, and worse, but I willna speak of it to a lassie.”
“‘After five and twenty days of such torments, they came upon the village, which they entered at dawn, having purposed to slay such warriors as they found there. In his account of the expedition to Colonel William Wentworth, Major MacKinnon reported finding more than one thousand scalps, including those of women and children, raised on poles above the lodges.’ Mercy!”
That wasn’t the whole tale, but only the tame version that had run in the Boston Gazette. How had she come by it? Was he dreaming? His mind foggy with laudanum, Iain tried to make sense of it, but soon he was drifting again.
Lord William sent for Annie just before sunset. His two young officers found her in the hospital and informed her they were there to take her to their commander’s quarters. Stunned, Annie started to object, and then she remembered. Lord William was the fort’s commander. Like her uncle, he could do whatever he wished to do, and no one could stop him.
She touched Iain’s forehead one last time, said a silent prayer for him, then followed the men sent to fetch her across the parade grounds, all but legless with fear, her mind haunted by the unknown.
Would he seek to bed her? If he did, would he hurt her? Would he keep her with him all night? Would he force her to return to him again and again? Would he get her with child? If so, would he see to it that she and the bairn were cared for, or would he cast her out without so much as a crust of bread? Would he boast of his conquest and shame her before others?
And what would he do to her if he saw her brand?
She willed herself to breathe and tried to walk as bravely to Lord William’s doorstep as Iain had walked to the whipping post. Her feelings running amok, she now found herself being led once again before Lord William. She curtsied, though not so formally or deeply as before, in part to hide her breeding and in part because her trembling legs would not hold her. “Colonel.”
This time he rose to greet her, dressed in full uniform, lace at his chin and cuffs, his white wig perfectly coiffed. It was strange to think that in another time and another place she’d have found him bonnie—an ideal match and woefully beyond her reach. But as he bent over her hand and brought it to his lips, she found it almost impossible to hide her rage and revulsion.
“Miss Burns. I had hoped you’d be rested after your long and arduous journey, but I can see you are still quite fatigued.”
Annie saw no reason to mask the truth. “I couldna sleep last night.”
He frowned. “Major MacKinnon’s men conducted themselves disgracefully. I do apologize for not reining them in sooner.”
It had been less the Rangers that had kept her awake than her fear for Iain. “They were afraid for the major, as was I.”
“Yes, of course. How is Major MacKinnon?” He asked the question as if this were light conversation about a mutual acquaintance, not a query into the condition of a man he’d just had brutally flayed.
Annie could not keep the anger from her voice. “He’s torn to bits.”
“You’re distressed and angry with me, I can see. Rest assured—the major will recover. Shall we begin?”
“Wh-what do you want wi’ me? Major MacKinnon took all hundred lashes. You’ve no cause to—”
“Miss Burns, please tell me you didn’t think I brought you here for some indecent purpose.” He looked down at her disapprovingly, spoke in a superior, chiding voice. “Aye, I can see from the fear on your face that’s exactly what you were thinking. But I wish only to enjoy the pleasure of your company.”
It had taken a moment for Annie to understand what he’d just said.
I wish only to enjoy the pleasure of your company.
His words unleashed a wave of relief so fierce it made her wobble on her feet. “Forgi’e me, my lord. I misunderstood.”
Chapter 15
It was pain that finally woke him—that and Connor’s irksome voice.
“Can you hear me, Iain?”
“Aye, you bloody idiot. You’re shoutin’ in my ear!” His mouth was as dry as sand and tasted of laudanum, but the drug had long since worn off. His back hurt like hell.
“How do you feel?” That was Morgan.
“Like the skin has been ripped off my back wi’ grapplin’ hooks.” Iain lifted his head, saw his two brothers sitting beside him.
Connor glanced down at Iain’s bandaged back. “Near enough. Sweet Jesus, Iain! I hope never again to see such a sight as that.”
“That makes two of us,” Morgan agreed. “You held up well—a hundred lashes and no’ a sound. The men are right proud, they are. And I’m certain Annie is, too.”
Iain remembered the stricken look on Annie’s face as she’d watched him walk to the whipping post. “You shouldna ha’ made her watch.”
“’Twas hard on her, but she’s a strong lass.” Morgan handed Iain his water skin. “She never took her eyes from you, Iain, but stood there weepin’, pretty as a poem.”
Connor grinned. “I think half the men would gladly have taken your place if only she’d have wept like that for them.”
Iain drank, then looked about for Annie, certain he’d heard her voice but a moment ago, but he did not see her. “Where is she?”
Morgan
and Connor exchanged a glance that had alarm coursing through Iain’s veins.
“Where is she?” Iain tried to sit but found himself on his belly again, borne down by pain so terrible it left him dizzy and out of breath.
Morgan spoke first. “There is naugh’ you can do, Iain. You must regain your strength.”
“Blast it! Where is she?” But Iain thought he knew the answer.
Connor met his gaze. “He took her.”
Iain slammed his fist into the canvas of his pallet. “Why did you no’ watch over her?”
“Wentworth punished the entire company for last night’s rumpus by settin’ us to fell trees along the road. We’ve been hard at it all day wi’ no chance to look after you or her.”
He’d thought Wentworth had understood. But the whoreson had given him his hundred lashes, then gotten both him and his brothers out of the way and gone after Annie anyway.
Rage cleared the last of the laudanum from his mind, and gritting his teeth against overwhelming pain, he slowly sat. Dizziness assailed him, but soon his bare feet were flat on the floor. He looked down, saw thick bandages wrapped around him—but no shirt. “Where are my bloody moccasins and shirt?”
Morgan put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him. “You’re no’ fit for this, Iain.”
Iain knocked his hand aside. “Dinnae you try to stop me!”
Connor stood, shook his head. “Do what you will, but the good doctor says Wentworth’s men came for her three hours ago. It’s too late. Whatever Wentworth wanted from her, he’s taken by now—many times over.”
Annie followed Lord William to the dinner table, where several of his officers, including Lieutenant Cooke, awaited them. They dined off porcelain dinner plates using real silver and taking wine from crystal goblets. ’Twas a meal such as Annie had not had since Uncle Bain had thrown her into gaol—hot pease soup, roasted pheasant, suckling pig, a joint of roasted venison, boiled potatoes, wheaten bread, cheeses, and sweetmeats— and she discovered she was famished. She ate her fill, nearly sighing with delight when cups of warm chocolate arrived.