Gift Of The Heart

Chapter Two

Jamie was weak, Lord help him, he was so weak and wasted that to raise his heavy eyelids even this much was more than he thought possible. But if he did, he could see the woman kneading the bread dough on the long wooden table, her bands and forearms white with flour, and for one glimpse of that he would have dragged himself through the snow to Albany and back.

She was so beautiful that at first he’d wondered if she was real or only one more groundless fever-dream. She was tall and graceful as she went about her tasks in the little cabin, her figure rounded but neat, the bow of her apron emphasizing the narrow span of her waist. Strange how often he’d focused on that bow when the pain had burned him the worst, struggling to concentrate on something, anything, but his own tortured body.

And damnation, she had made it almost easy. On the first night he remembered her coming to him by light of the fire alone, bending over him so her unbound hair, black as a moonless night, had rippled over her shoulders. Her fingertips had been cool as she’d gently, so gently, stroked his cheek above his beard. Then he had seen the color of her eyes in the firelight, the same bright green as young maples in the spring, and with feverish fascination he had watched as the little gold hoops with carnelian drops that she wore in her ears swung gently against the full curve of her cheek.

She’d saved his life, he knew that, but his pleasure in her company ran deeper than that alone. After all the ugliness and suffering he’d seen in these past two years since the war had become his life, her beauty was a balm to his soul, healing and easing him as much as the broth and herb possets she’d spooned between his parched lips.

Not that he’d a right to it, not for a moment. He knew that, too. After what he’d done, he deserved no beauty, no sweetness, no comfort at all.

Fiercely he reminded himself that he knew nothing of the woman’s allegiances, nor those of her husband’s. She was kind, she was beautiful, but he’d seen before how hatred could make other kind, beautiful women turn on their enemies. For all he knew she’d kept him alive only to be able to claim the bounty Butler offered for his capture.

“More milk, Mama,” said the little boy, waving his battered pewter mug imperiously as he tugged on his mother’s skirts for her attention. She turned and glanced so meaningfully at the cup that, mystified, he looked inside before he realized what she intended. Then he grinned, and held the empty cup out again. “More, please, Mama!”

Jamie watched as the woman smiled and bent to wipe the smudged jam from the boy’s mouth, and a fresh wave of guilt and sorrow swept over his soul as he thought of another boy, one who would never again be treated to blackberry jam and corn bread or a mother’s kiss to his sticky cheek. He closed his eyes again, desperately wishing it was as easy to shut out the memory of the past.

He would leave now, today. There was no other way.

Through sheer will he raised himself up on his uninjured arm. “Friend,” he began, his voice croaking from disuse, “I must thank you.”

With a startled gasp she turned toward him, her green eyes turning wary as she shoved the child behind the shelter of her skirts.

“You’re awake.” She brushed away a strand of hair from her forehead with the heel of her hand, forgetting the flour that left a powdery streak against the black waves. “Heaven help me, I knew this would happen when your fever broke yesterday.”

“Don’t rejoice too much,” said Jamie dryly, wincing as he shifted higher against the pillows. “Given a choice, I’d rather I’d waked than not.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Rachel quickly. Though it had made more work for her when he’d been ill, she was doubly glad now that she’d put him to bed in his breeches and shirt. “I wouldn’t have tended to you at all if I didn’t wish you to live.”

“Or given me your bed?”

Rachel drew back sharply, her face turning hot at what he implied. How much did he remember of what she’d murmured to him as he’d tossed with fever and pain? Unconscious, he had been only a lost, wounded man who would most likely die despite her efforts, and in her loneliness she had caught herself pouring out her heart into his unhearing ears. At least, then she’d believed he hadn’t heard. But now, under the keen, unsettling gaze of his blue eyes, she wasn’t certain of anything.

“This isn’t an inn with a bed to suit every traveler,” she said defensively. “You were too ill to sleep on the floor, and too large for the trundle.”

“The floor would have suited me well enough,” he said gruffly, wondering what devil had made him mention the bed at all. He’d meant to thank her, not insult her. “I didn’t ask for your man’s place.”

“What makes you think you have it now?” Lord help her, why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Furiously she began wiping the flour from her hands onto her apron. No man could ever fill the empty place William had ripped in her heart, nor would she let another come close enough to try. She’d no intention of making a mistake like that again. “A husband’s considerably more than a valley worn deep in a feather bed.”

“I never said otherwise,” replied Jamie softly, responding more to the unmistakable pain in her eyes than to her words. “So you miss him that much, then?”

But even as Rachel opened her mouth to correct the stranger, she realized the folly of telling the truth. Hadn’t she said enough already? She knew nothing for certain of this man, not even his name. She was miles from any neighbor or friend, doubly bound in by the snow. Better to let him believe that she loved William fervently, better still to hint that he was expected home again at any time.

“Of course I miss him,” she said carefully. “He’s my husband, and this is his home. I pray for his safe return soon, before Christmas and the worst snows.”

“Then he’s a fortunate man, your husband,” said Jamie with a heartiness he didn’t feel.

“He is.” Rachel nodded, a single swift motion of her chin to mask her bitterness. William was lucky, barbarously lucky; she was the one that fortune had frowned upon. “He always has been.”

“Luck of any kind is a great gift in this war.” Jamie sighed, trying to remember what else, if anything, she’d told him about her husband beyond that he was away with the rebel army. Not that it mattered. He meant to be gone long before the most fortunate husband returned.

She was watching him warily, stroking the little boy’s flaxen hair over and over with the palm of her hand, more to calm herself than the child. By the firelight her eyes were as green as he remembered, and unconsciously she swallowed and ran her tongue around her lips to moisten them.

Oh, aye, her husband was a fortunate man. Afraid that his expression would betray his own despondency, Jamie looked away from her face to the boy at her side and smiled. The child reminded him of his brother, Sam, his cheeks rosy and plump and his little chin marked with the same resolute stubbornness.

Like Sam, and not like the boy he’d abandoned in Cherry Valley…

“How’s the horse, lad?” he asked, jerking himself back to the present. “How’s Blackie?”

The boy’s eyes lit with excitement. “Blackie’s a good horse!” he declared eagerly, wiggling free of his mother’s hand and the safety of her skirts so he could state more openly at this fascinating stranger who was finally awake. “Blackie’s my horse, and he’s very, very fast!”

Jamie nodded sagely. “Fast as lightning, too, I recall. But mind, now, Billy, that you keep Blackie—”

“No.” Swiftly Rachel caught Billy by the shoulders and pulled him back. “I won’t have you hurt him.”

“I meant the lad no harm—”

“But you will hurt him with your careless kindness, as surely as if you used your knife!” With a fierce possessiveness she held Billy close, smoothing her fingers over the fine, babyish ringlets that she couldn’t bear to cut. “The child’s too young to remember his own father, and weeks pass when he sees no one but me. Then you appear, smiling and asking questions about his horse as if you care. Little enough it means to you, but what will he think when you vanish from his life as suddenly as you came?”

“You coddle the lad too much,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended, but her vehemence stung. He’d never meant to hurt her boy; he’d never meant to hurt any child. “But it’s of no matter. I’ll be gone before it is.”

Impatiently he shifted toward the nearest narrow window, the only one with the shutter drawn for light. By the height of the sun he guessed it was midmorning, later than he wished, but there would still be enough daylight hours left to make a start. He touched his shoulder, lightly prodding the bandage over the wound, and sucked in his breath as the dull ache changed abruptly to a raw stab of pain.

The woman clucked her tongue with disapproval. “There, now, see for yourself how badly you’re hurt. You can bluster all you wish, but you won’t be leaving until that’s healed. Another week at least.”

Jamie scowled, striving to hide the pain that was finally receding. “Don’t you think I’ll be the better judge of that?”

For the first time she dared to square her gaze to meet his eyes. But was she daring him, wondered Jamie, or herself?

“You’re a man,” she declared, “which is as much to say that you haven’t a blessed trace of sense where your own weakness is concerned. So, no, I don’t think you’re a good judge at all. Why, I doubt you could even lift that fancy rifle of yours this morning, let alone hold it steady enough to fire.”

He wasn’t about to admit she was right. “There’s more to that rifle than looks alone. With it I can shoot the seeds from an apple at a hundred paces.”

“I don’t doubt that you can,” she said. “But you can’t do it now, and you won’t ever do it again unless—”

“Someone’s here.” Jamie jerked his hand up to silence her as he strained his ears to listen. “One horse, one rider. Where’s my gun?”

Rachel rushed to the window, anxiously wiping away a corner of the frost with the hem of her apron to peer outside. What she saw made her mutter one of her seafaring father’s favorite imprecations under her breath as her whole face tightened.

“What’s amiss? Where’s my rifle?” demanded Jamie, struggling to shove himself free of the coverlet. “If you think I’m going to lie here like a trussed turkey-cock while you—”

“Hush, now, you won’t be needing your gun just yet.” She smiled grimly as she reached for her cloak from the peg on the back of the door. “’Tis only my husband’s brother, and if anyone’s going to pepper Alec’s backside, I plan to be first. But you needn’t worry. I’ll send him on his way soon enough.”

She swung the cloak over her shoulders, trying to decide whether to bring Billy with her or not. There was an even chance that he’d babble to Alec about the stranger, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk leaving him behind in the house, either. With a sigh she reached down and yanked the quilt from the trundle bed, wrapped it around Billy and scooped him, wriggling, onto the curve of her hip. Finally, with her free hand, she took one of the pair of long-barreled muskets that hung, loaded and ready, beside the door.

A new layer of snow had fallen in the night, not more than an inch or two on what already lay on the ground, but enough to soften the edges of the paths Rachel had shoveled and swept from the house to the barn. She walked forward only a dozen paces from the house, unwilling to go any farther to greet or encourage Alec, and set Billy down at her feet.

“Listen to me, Billy,” she whispered, bending to the height of the child’s ear. “This is important. We must not say a word about the poor man inside, or Uncle Alec may try to hurt him more. Not a single word, love, not even a peep like a baby chick’s. Do you understand? Shush!”

She laid her forefinger first across her lips and then across Billy’s, miming the silence she prayed he would keep.

“Shush, Mama,” he whispered back solemnly, hunching his shoulders beneath the quilt as he pressed his own finger across his lips. “I’m quiet!”

“Thank you, love, that’s all I ask,” she whispered as she gave him a little squeeze. “You’re Mama’s good boy.”

She knew her request wouldn’t be a hard one for Billy to obey. At best Alec had treated his nephew as an inconvenient nuisance, and even as a baby Billy had wisely learned to keep from his uncle’s path.

She straightened, lifting the musket to her shoulder. Long ago her father had insisted that she and her sisters learn how to load and fire a gun, but it was only since she’d come here as William’s wife that she’d been forced to put her skills to the test.

Not that Alec would be any kind of test; his visits were more of a trial that sent her heart to pounding with dread. She hadn’t expected him to come again until spring, when the snow was gone and the journey from his own cabin could be made in two hours instead of four. Carefully she kept her face impassive as he labored up the hill toward her, digging his bootheels into the sides of his weary horse. Most men would have dismounted and led the animal through the drifted snow, or at least found an easier path, but the only other man that Alec Lindsey resembled was his brother—and her husband—William.

And the resemblance was disturbingly strong. The same pale gold hair above arched brows, the same squared jaw turning soft from drink and the same slightly bored expression to his gentlemanly features that could so easily turn to sullenness, the fashionably cut coat of imported broadcloth beneath the heavy overcoat—all of it nearly a mirror to William.

Once Rachel had congratulated herself on marrying into a family with such handsome, charming men, but that was when she’d believed as well in the elegant country seat that the Lindsey brothers promised was the centerpiece of their vast estates here to the west of the Hudson, and well before she’d learned that the only thing vast about the Lindseys were the lies that slipped so easily from their lips.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, and flexed her fingers against the icy metal of the flintlock. “You can just turn yourself directly about, Alec,” she shouted when she was certain he was near enough to hear. “I told you before you weren’t welcome here any longer.”

“And a good day to you, sister!” Alec raised his beaver tricorn, dusted with snow, and gallantly swept it across his breast. “But pray put aside the musket, my lady. It’s not a greeting I particularly fancy.”

“The musket stays, Alec, for I intend neither to greet you nor to tease your fancy,” she called back. “Now, away with you, and off my land before I’m tempted to try my marksmanship.”

“The only thing you’re trying, Rachel, is my patience.” With a grunt he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped heavily to the snowy ground. “You’ll thank me when you learn why I’ve come.”

“If it’s more of your self-styled help, Alec, I want none of it.” Though she didn’t dare look away from her brother-in-law, she could feel how Billy shrank uneasily against her leg.

“You wanted it readily enough last year,” said Alec, his breath coming in great gusts in the icy air as he trudged through the snow. “And this past autumn, too. Who saw to it that you’d firewood to last through the snows, eh?”

“Only half of what you promised,” she declared, but grudgingly she rehooked the catch on the flintlock and lowered the gun. Though she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t have survived last winter without his assistance. It was what he’d expected in return that had made his charity so loathsome, and her position so complicated now. “What is it this time Alec?”

He stopped a half-dozen paces away and smiled with the full force of his considerable charm. “A chance to gild our pockets, Rachel. Twenty dollars, all going begging. You won’t say nay to that when times are so hard now, will you, sister?”

“No one lets gold go begging, hard times or not,” answered Rachel suspiciously. “Especially not you. The truth, Alec, plain and simple.”

Seeing how little charm was getting him, Alec jammed his hat squarely on his head and spat into the snow. “The truth, Rachel, is that one of those bloody Tory Rangers lost his head in the middle of a battle, quarreling over a woman or some other plunder. Shot an officer dead without so much as a by-your-leave. At least, that’s what they’re saying at Volk’s.”

“Oh, my, what’s said at Volk’s,” she scoffed. “Why do you think I’d care about your tavern tattle?” But despite the scorn she poured on his words, she did care. She cared very much, more with every second as she waited with dread for what Alec would inevitably say next.

“Because Colonel Butler himself’s put a price on the poor bastard’s life,” said Alec with obvious satisfaction.

The chill that swept through Rachel had nothing to do with the snow. As isolated as she was from the war, she still had heard of Walter Butler and the hellish pact he’d made with Joseph Brant, the chief of the Mohawk nation. Together Butler’s Rangers and Brant’s braves had cut a ruthless, bloody swath through to the east in the name of the king.

But, God help her, how could the man with the summer blue eyes, the man whose smile had haunted her loneliness as she’d drawn him back from death—how could this same man be so heartlessly cruel?

“They’re offering twenty dollars,” continued Alec. “Double the usual rate for a white man’s scalp. Of course, Butler’d rather have the man alive to deal with properly, but Brant and the rest of his savages aren’t inclined to be overnice with traitors.”

Rachel swallowed her revulsion, imagining all too vividly the stranger’s long, chestnut hair trailing from the belt of some Seneca brave. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me. This land here belongs to the Americans, not the British.”

“Only this, you foolish chit. Butler swears the man was shot before he fled, and in this weather he wouldn’t go far. If you find him on your land before the wolves do—or even after they have, as long as you can take his scalp—then we can claim the reward.”

Appalled both by his suggestion and that he’d make it before Billy, Rachel stared at him. “What kind of woman do you think I am, that I would use some wounded stranger so cruelly?”

“Oh, I think you’re a decent, loyal woman who loves her country and the sweet cause of liberty,” said Alec, his sarcasm unmistakable. “You wouldn’t want people thinking otherwise of you, would you? Whispering that you’ve forgotten your husband and gone over to the king? You’d learn soon enough how short tempers are in this county, Rachel, you and the boy both.”

“But I couldn’t—”

“You can do anything if your life depends on it,” said Alec firmly. “You’ve skinned game. Taking a scalp’s not much different. A tall man, they’re saying, name of Ryder, with coppery hair and a bullet in his shoulder. Shouldn’t be too hard to mistake, eh, sister?”