And he despised her.
Grief, bitter and sharp, stabbed at her breast, stealing her breath, robbing her day of light.
How could she have forgotten her brand? How could she have been so careless?
Time and again she’d asked herself that question, but she knew the answer. With his lips and hands upon her—and his promise to wed her fresh in her heart—she’d not been able to think of anything but him.
And now?
Now he thought her a thief. She had seen it in his eyes.
The trouble wi’ a liar, Miss Campbell, is that a man doesna ken what he can believe.
She supposed she should be grateful he hadn’t yet turned her over to Lord William or denounced her to his men. She was certain Lord William would send her to Albany to be resold if he knew. He might even clap her in irons—an ordeal Annie did not think she could endure again. But more painful than anything Lord William could do to her would be to see the kind light in the Rangers’ eyes darken to loathing.
Water hissed and splashed as it boiled over onto the fire.
Annie set the basket of bandages aside, hurried to the hearth, wrapped her apron around her hand, and lifted the pot of boiling water from its hook. Then, taking care not to burn herself, she poured it over the leaves in the copper bowls, covered the bowls with clean cloths, and left the herbs to steep. She had just returned the kettle to its hook, when a voice startled her from behind.
“Can you get the doctor, miss? I’ve a bellyache.”
She spun about to find a young soldier with a sunburnt face standing only a few feet behind her. His blond hair was pulled back in a sloppy queue, his uniform unkempt. Even standing a few feet away, she could smell that he was in desperate need of a bath. “Dr. Blake is wi’ the colonel just now. You can take one of the beds and wait for him to return, if you like.”
His gaze raked over her, and he smiled. “Aye.”
Feeling strangely ill at ease, she took a step back from him. “Shall I make you a cup of chamomile tea? It might help.”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on her breasts.
She turned away from him and walked toward the hearth, grateful for an excuse to put distance between them.
He is just a soldier and young, Annie. Dinnae be a goose!
Rough hands grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth, and cut off her scream.
His foul breath scorched her temple. “’Tis not really me belly that aches—’tis me tadger. And I don’t think a cup of tea will help me quite as much as your tight little cunnie.”
Iain had set a relentless pace. They’d reached Ticonderoga in a quick three days. Iain had set up a guard, left Morgan in command, and had then led a small party to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. There they’d spied the beginnings of an abatis—a barrier of fallen trees that, when finished, would stretch from one end of the small Ticonderoga peninsula to the other. Clearly the French knew an attack was coming and were doing all they could to ready themselves.
“It doesna look so high,” Dougie had said, squinting against the noon sun.
“That’s because you’re far above it,” Iain had explained.
Joseph had pointed in the Indian way—with a jerk of his head. “Look how the soldiers reach up to throw more branches on the heap. It is taller than you are.”
“Could we climb it?”
Iain had handed his spyglass to Joseph. “We’d be cut to ribbons by cannon and rifle fire from their ramparts. Look how they’ve built it so that every foot is covered from above. If Abercrombie tries to send his troops over the top of that death trap, he’ll lose them to a man.”
They’d done their best to reckon troop strength. Then they’d come down off the mountain, taken turns getting some sleep, and started the journey back to Fort Edward.
If Iain had hoped the trek would take his mind off Annie, he’d been mistaken. Treading silently through the trees, he’d had far too much time to think, and there seemed to be reminders of her everywhere. The remains of the whaleboats he’d destroyed when the Abenaki had caught up with them. The hilltop where she’d slept in his arms. The prow of rock and earth that had hidden them from the French when the battle had overtaken them.
When he’d set out on this mission, he’d been certain Annie was naught but a liar and that his anger was more than justified. She had deceived him for weeks. She’d listened to him tell of the murder charge that hung over his head but kept her own life secret. She had looked into his eyes, heard his promise to wed her, and she’d said nothing. She’d been ready to give herself to him—to yield her body, but not her true name: Campbell. Only after he’d discovered her brand had she spun her tale for him—and an unlikely tale it was.
But with each league that passed beneath his moccasins, his certainty crumbled until he now doubted himself as much as he doubted her.
How could she have concocted such a terrible story if it were not the truth? What virgin—and he knew women well enough to be certain she was a virgin—would know anything of the sinister side of sex unless she had accidentally witnessed it, as she’d said she had? What court would have ordered her to be branded on her inner thigh instead of upon her thumb or wrist or cheek, where it could be seen as the symbol of shame it was meant to be?
So many things he’d always found oddish about her began to fit.
My uncle saw to it that I wanted for naught.
The new calluses on her hands and her baby-soft feet pointed toward a pampered life, as did her skill with reading and the way she fit so well at Wentworth’s dinner table. Iain had been raised in a laird’s hall, after all, and even he didn’t know what all of that silver gibbletry was for.
He’d bound her to his bed. He was usin’ her . . . in unnatural ways.
She’d gone pale when Iain had jested with her about tying him to his bed, fear making her green eyes go wide.
Mistress Hawes hated me and thought me lazy because I didna ken how to milk a cow or clean hides or cook. She beat me wi’ a leather strap.
Hadn’t he seen the yellow stripes upon her back?
I didna want to be sold again. I wanted my life back. I wanted to be free!
If there was anything Iain understood, it was the yearning for freedom. Hadn’t he and his brothers also been blamed for a crime they did not commit? Hadn’t they been forced to fight for Wentworth simply because they knew no one would believe three Catholic Highlanders over the king’s own grandson?
I hated lyin’ to you, but I didna think you’d believe me. No one else has.
Most of all there was the way she’d told him—tears coursing down her cheeks, her body shaking, her stomach revolting. How could she have feigned such a response? Being forced to tell him had been hell on her, and he hadn’t shown her the slightest bit of compassion.
Remorse gnawed at Iain’s gut, and a dark sense of foreboding drove him forward.
“You can’t get back to her any faster by walking into an ambush.” Joseph spoke in Muhheconneok, his voice low enough that only Iain could hear him.
Or so Iain thought.
“You can’t undo whatever stupid thing you’ve done by dying out here,” Morgan agreed. “Slow down, and get your mind off Annie and back on the trail.”
Iain felt a prick of irritation. “What makes you sure I did something stupid?”
“The regret on your face,” Morgan said.
“Is it so plain to see?”
Joseph and Morgan answered as one. “Yes.”
Then Joseph asked the question Iain had hoped to avoid. “Are you going to tell us, or do we have to spend the rest of the journey guessing?”
He did not want to expose Annie, but he found himself telling them the story, certain they’d take his secrets to their graves. As he spoke, it became clear to him he’d done Annie a horrible wrong.
“Then I turned my back on her and walked away. I let her think I might turn her over to Wentworth to be sold again.”
For a moment neither Joseph nor Morgan spoke, the only
sound the whisper of moccasins against the forest floor.
Then Joseph let out a breath. “Have you always been this skilled with women?”
Morgan swore under his breath. “I can scarce fathom the horror of it—being betrayed and branded by her uncle, being sold to people who beat her, nearly being killed by the Abenaki. No woman should have to be so strong.”
“Aye, you speak the truth, brother.” It sickened Iain to think of Annie alone in gaol amidst filth and stench and men so vile she feared to speak of them. It sickened him even more to think of her uncle forcing her legs apart and burning her with hot iron.
“So she’s a Campbell.” Morgan grinned. “I can see why in a camp of MacKinnons, Camerons, McDonalds, and McHughs she’d want to keep that a secret.”
“Campbell.” Joseph spoke the name. “Is that an enemy tribe?”
“Yes.” Iain didn’t feel like explaining a century of Scottish history.
“I’ll bet that’s how she knows Wentworth—for I’m certain she knows who he is.”
Iain didn’t want to think about that. “The point is she lied to me.”
“What would you have done in her place—a woman alone on the frontier?” Morgan tossed Iain a disapproving frown. “She was trying to survive.”
Iain honestly couldn’t say, and it bothered him all the more.
Then it was Joseph’s turn to berate him. “Does she know what hangs over your head?”
“Yes.”
“And how did she respond when she learnt she’d been kissing a murderer?”
“But I am not really a murderer.”
Joseph met his gaze, his dark eyes unsympathetic. “How was she to know for certain? It is lucky for you she has more compassion in her heart than you have in yours, salmon brains.”
Annie tried to pull away from her attacker, but he wrenched her arm painfully behind her back and shoved her toward the storage room.
“Do as I tell you, or I’ll make it hurt worse!” He twisted her arm more as if to prove his point.
Brutal pain shot up through her shoulder, and for a moment she feared the bone would shatter. Unable to cry for help, unable to free herself, she stumbled before him, her mind racing for some way to fight back.
For a moment she thought he would rape her on the storeroom floor. But he was in too much of a hurry for that. He forced her to bend over a heavy cask of rum, holding her in place with the wiry weight of his body.
Then he released her arm, lifted her skirts, and kicked her feet apart, spreading her legs. Her fear thickened, turned to darkest dread. This could not be happening!
“What’s this? A brand?” He chuckled. “So MacKinnon’s woman is a convict. I’ll bet you were a whore, right? Is that what it says?”
Desperate with panic, Annie kicked at his shins, clawed and bit at the hand that silenced her until she tasted blood.
“Ouch, bitch!” He jerked his hand away from her mouth.
She screamed.
He drove his elbow into the back of her neck, leaving her stunned and dizzy. “Quiet, or I’ll break your neck!”
She heard buttons snap through the fabric of his trousers and tried to rise above her dizziness and pain to fight him. But he was heavier and much stronger, and pinned facedown as she was, she could not reach him to strike at him.
“You might as well enjoy it, missy. I know I will.”
“That might be hard wi’ your brains splattered on the wall.”
For a moment Annie thought it was Iain’s voice she’d heard. But then her attacker jerked her upright and thrust her before him like a shield, his arm wrapped tightly around her throat.
Connor!
He stood wearing only his drawers, his right shoulder bound with bandages, a pistol clutched in his left hand and already cocked. He leaned against the doorway, barely strong enough to stand. But his aim was steady. “Get your hands off her, or I’ll split your skull.”
“You’d risk killing your brother’s whore?”
A muscle jumped in Connor’s jaw, and his gaze darkened. “You Regulars have trouble hittin’ marks, aye? We Rangers dinnae miss.”
She felt her attacker’s heart beat faster, felt his body tense, and her own pulse quickened.
With a mighty shove, the soldier thrust her away from him, sent her hurtling into Connor, and the two of them toppled onto the floor. Connor broke her fall with his body, but the impact knocked the pistol from his hand. It clattered across the floor and slid beneath one of the empty beds, far beyond reach.
In a heartbeat, Connor was on his feet. The soldier drove into him, and they fell to the floor in a heap of flying fists. But Connor was already weak from fever and blood loss, and the soldier quickly had him on his back.
Glancing frantically about, Annie leapt up, grabbed a bottle of laudanum from the table, and brought the heavy glass down on the soldier’s head. He fell to the floor and lay still.
Weak with relief, Annie hurried to where Connor lay, knelt beside him. “Are you hurt?”
He sat up slowly, wiping blood from his lower lip. “Just my pride. ’Tis sorry I am I didna stop him sooner, lass. Forgi’e me.”
She cupped his cheek in her palm, dabbed the blood from his face with her apron. “There is naught to forgi’e, Connor. If no’ for you . . .”
A deep shudder coursed through her.
Connor brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “’Tis best no’ to think on that. But go now. Bring me my pistol, then fetch Wentworth. This bit of filth belongs to him.”
As she hurried on unsteady legs to do as Connor asked, it came to her.
The soldier had seen her brand, and he would surely tell Lord William.
Knowing Annie would be at the hospital, Iain stopped to bathe in the river and stowed his gear in Morgan’s cabin before entering the fort. He went to see Wentworth first to give his report and was admitted the moment he arrived. He delivered the intelligence he’d gathered quickly, impatient to be done so he could go to Annie. There was much he would say to her, much for them to discuss.
And then there was the matter of taking up where they’d left off—she on her back and bared to his kisses, he between her thighs.
He told Wentworth of all they’d seen. “If they finish that abatis before we attack, there will be no way for troops to reach the fort over land. They’ve no more than three thousand men gathered now. The time to attack is soon, before the abatis is complete and their ranks increase.”
Wentworth sat at his writing table and observed him coolly over a glass of wine. “General Abercrombie disagrees. He believes overwhelming force is the answer and wants to wait until he can amass and supply an army of fifteen thousand.”
“Abercrombie is an idiot, and you ken it as well as I.”
“Such decisions are not yours to make, Major.”
“Nay, ’tis true. I dinnae choose how or when to do the fightin’, but ’tis my men who do the dyin’, aye?” Iain bent down and leaned in until his nose all but touched Wentworth’s. “I tell you now, my wee German lairdie, I willna send a single Ranger against that abatis.”
For a moment there was silence.
“Is that all, Major?” Wentworth’s voice was as placid as a summer lake.
“Aye.” Without waiting to be dismissed, Iain turned and strode toward the door.
Wentworth raised his voice a notch. “If you’re looking for Miss Burns, you won’t find her at the hospital.”
Iain stopped in midstride and turned to face him, the sense of foreboding he’d felt all day returning full force. “Where is she?”
“She spent the better part of the afternoon upstairs—in my chamber.” Wentworth brought something to his nostrils, closed his eyes, and sniffed it, as if savoring its scent.
One of Annie’s ribbons.
The sight of it—together with Wentworth’s words—struck him like a fist. Annie had been in Wentworth’s chamber? Had she left the ribbon as a token?
Even as he denied that she could have done any suc
h thing, even as he reminded himself how Wentworth liked to bait him, a spark of jealous rage burnt in his gut.
You turned your back on her and left her weeping, MacKinnon. Did you expect her to pine for you? Did you expect her to wait for you? Did you no’ learn that lesson wi’ Jeannie?
He forced that voice out of his mind.
“Forget your bloody games, Wentworth. Where is she?”
“I’m afraid she’s rather less innocent than when you left her.”
Fury a buzzing sound in his ears, Iain crossed the room in three strides. It was all he could do not to grab the haughty bastard by the lace at his throat and throttle him. “If you have defiled her in any way, neither your rank nor your family crest will protect you from me. Where is she?”
Wentworth glanced at the ribbon in his fingers. “I believe she returned to your cabin, Major. She seemed spent.”
From his window, William watched Major MacKinnon leave the fort with angry, determined strides, off to make what William hoped was a terrible mistake.
Most people were predictable. The major was far less so, which is what made him both interesting and a worthwhile opponent. But today the major had responded to his words exactly as he’d hoped. William hadn’t needed to exaggerate or even dissemble.
Miss Burns had, indeed, spent a part of the afternoon in his chamber, but only because he’d insisted she rest. And having endured a near rape, she was most certainly less innocent than she’d been when the major had left six days ago. That the ribbon had fallen from her hair was pure providence. But nothing had been able to persuade her to stay in his quarters, and William had known she was thinking of Major MacKinnon.
She’d been in a fragile state. How would she react to the fifteen stone of jealous, angry Highlander about to confront her? Would she endure him? Or would his anger break the bond between them, perhaps even driving her to seek William’s protection?