Rowena gasped as the savage caught her close.

Her heart hammered her ribs as she stared up into his smoldering black eyes. She knew better than to show fear, but her racing pulse would not obey the command to be still. Swallowing her terror, she took refuge once more in words.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she declared, meeting his stony gaze. “You didn’t hurt me when you had the chance. You won’t hurt me now. You need me too much for that.”

Boldly spoken, but her fluttering heart belied her bravado. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest through her bodice. Her own breath came in shallow gasps, as if she’d been running uphill. Every nerve in her body was taut and tingling, but a strange fascination had taken the place of fear. He was so large and wild and so…beautiful, like an unbroken stallion…!

Praise for Elizabeth Lane’s recent releases

Shawnee Bride

“A fascinating, realistic story.”

—Rendezvous

Apache Fire

“Enemies, lovers, raw passion, taut sexual tension, murder and revenge—Indian romance fans are in for a treat with Elizabeth Lane’s sizzling tale of forbidden love that will hook you until the last moment.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

MY LORD SAVAGE

Harlequin Historical #569

#567 THE PROPER WIFE

Julia Justiss

#568 MAGIC AND MIST

Theresa Michaels

#570 THE COLORADO BRIDE

Mary Burton

My Lord Savage
Elizabeth Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ELIZABETH LANE

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For PowderPuff

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Prologue

Virginia

February 19, 1573

Black Otter lay in the stinking darkness of the hold where the white men had flung him. Slimed with blood, his wrists and ankles twisted against the iron manacles that held him prisoner. Although he had been viciously beaten, his ribs cracked and purpled, his eyes swollen shut, he felt no pain. He was beyond pain, beyond fear, even beyond grief. The only emotion left to him now was white-hot rage.

A whisper of reason told him that he’d been taken prisoner in the attack on the village, that he’d been knocked unconscious by a blow to the head and carried onto the great, winged canoe where the white men lived.

Reason, darkened by despair, reminded him also that Morning Cloud, the wife of his heart, was dead. His arms had caught her as she fell, her chest shattered by a blast from the mouth of a white man’s firestick. In the space of a single breath her life had slipped away. Too stunned to react, he had been cradling her limp body when the sharp blow had struck his head from behind. He had awakened in shackles.

Morning Cloud, at least, was beyond danger. But what of his children? Black Otter writhed in his bonds, yanking at his chains in impotent fury as he thought of his son Swift Arrow, a stalwart lad of nine winters, and his shy young daughter, Singing Bird, budding with the promise of womanhood. They had been in the village that morning, but he had not seen either of them since the beginning of the attack. Had they escaped into the forest or were they lying dead somewhere, the boy’s skull shattered, the beautiful girl-child spread-eagled and bloodstained where the white men had slaked their lust?

Black Otter clenched his teeth to keep from screaming out loud. He could not let the white men hear his torment. He could not let them know how close they had come to driving him mad.

Willing himself to be calm, he filled his lungs with the foul, dark air and forced his rage-numbed mind to think. There was nothing he could do for his wife. But if his children were alive, he had to get free and find them. He had to get them to a safe place before it was too late.

A rat scurried across his outstretched leg, triggering a jerk of revulsion. The great boat’s belly was overrun with the filthy creatures. The smell of their droppings mingled with the rank odors of seawater, rotting fish, urine and mold.

Black Otter could hear the rats squealing and rustling in the darkness around him. He could hear the creak of the massive timbers, the steady lap of waves against the hull, and, faintly, through the closed wooden door overhead, the strange, metallic babble of white men’s voices.

Sooner or later, he calculated, they would come down for him. This time he would be ready.

Black Otter moved more cautiously now, testing the limits of his manacled arms and legs. He could not maneuver far, but yes, it would be possible to fight. The men who had captured him did not look like seasoned warriors. If there were not too many, he would have a fair chance against them. The chains themselves could be used as weapons, to club, to slash, to strangle. He would strike to kill, leaving only one of them alive to unfasten the iron bands. Then he would be gone with the speed of a panther in the night.

The great boat was anchored in an inlet, not far from shore. If he could gain the open air it would be an easy matter to leap over the rail and—

Black Otter’s thoughts fled as a new sound penetrated his awareness—the slow, labored groan of wood and the even tread of moving feet. He heard a thud and felt a shudder pass through the body of the great hull as if something heavy had been lifted into place. Voices were bawling out orders—or signals, perhaps, in their alien tongue. Black Otter raged against his shackles, bewildered, fighting a fear so terrible that it had no shape or name.

Motion rocked the hull as the lap of waves became a murmur like the current of a fast-flowing river. Only then did he understand what was happening. Only then did desolation crush him with a weight so overpowering that he screamed.

The great boat had pulled up its anchor and spread its huge wings to catch the wind.

It was moving out to sea.

Chapter One

Cornwall

June 10, 1573

Mistress Rowena Thornhill pressed anxiously against the tower window, her skirt of plain russet billowing behind her to fill the confined space of the landing. For a moment her tawny eyes strained to see the world beyond the leaded diamond panes. Then, impatient with the narrow view, she unlatched the sash from its dark wooden frame and flung it open to the sea wind.

The salty air stung her face and loosened tendrils of her tightly bound chestnut hair as she leaned over the stone sill. Beyond the courtyard, the hilly moor, abloom with clumps of gorse and flowering sedge, swept off in every visible direction, ending to the south with rocky cliffs where seabirds cried and circled above the surging waves.

Threading across the land between the cliffs and the rambling old manor house was a narrow road, rutted almost hub-deep by generations of passing carts and wagons. It was on this road that Rowena fixed her worried gaze, stretching beyond the sill to see the place where it disappeared over the eastern horizon.

No horse. No rider. Nothing. And the sun would be setting in less than an hour’s time.

Her father often made the journey to Falmouth. As a scientist, he liked to wander the docks, buying “curiosities,” as he called them, from the sailors—a monkey or parrot, perhaps; maybe an unusual shell or some odd sea creature plucked from the depths and pickled in salt brine. Any and all of these things he would bring home to his laboratory where he would spend days, even weeks, prodding and observing his new prize and taking copious notes in his leather-bound journals.

In more vigorous years these writings had earned Sir Christopher Thornhill a reputation as one of England’s foremost scholars. But he was getting old now, too old to be riding the long, dangerous road alone. Next time, Rowena resolved, she would insist on his taking one of the stable grooms with him or go along herself, despite his protests that the teeming waterfront was no place for a lady.

She lingered at the window, her fingers toying with the heavy ring of keys that hung from a cord at her narrow waist. How would she face life when her father passed on? she found herself wondering. In the seventeen years since her mother’s death she had filled her days with managing the house and servants and assisting him in his laboratory. This crumbling old manor house and her father’s work had consumed her whole life. But he was nearing seventy, and she could sense the looming frailty in the stoop of his shoulders, the slight unsteadiness of his hands. What would she do when the halls no longer echoed with his ponderous footsteps? What would she do when the laboratory lay still and empty?

Marriage? An ironic little smile tugged at a corner of her too wide mouth. Who but an old sot would want her? A spinster two years past thirty, shy and mannishly tall, with a long, narrow face that had always reminded her of a horse? Even with the enticements of house and land, the prospect of finding a worthy husband was hardly worth considering.

She would, of course, carry on her father’s scientific work. But who would take her research seriously? Who would read the scribblings of a mere woman, let alone give them weight and value?

Rowena’s gaze drifted toward the sea where petrels and kittiwakes wheeled above the cliffs. High above them a single soaring albatross rode the wind, its outstretched wings as still as if they had been carved from white marble.

As she watched the bird’s flight, Rowena was seized by a yearning so powerful that her lips parted in silent response. The walls of the ancient house seemed to close around her, shutting her in like the gates of a prison. The heavy folds of her skirts and the rigid constriction of her corset seemed to drag her down like the weight of iron shackles. Even her own rational mind, hardened by a lifetime of common sense, held her back from following the cry of her heart—to shed the chains of house and clothes and reason, to spread her wings and soar with the albatross over the oceans to places she would never see in her sober lifetime; places whose very names resonated with music—Cathay, Zanzibar, Constantinople, America…

Pulling back into herself she dropped her gaze from the sky to the spot where her long, pale fingers rested on the limestone sill. When she glanced up again there was a dark speck moving along the distant road toward the house.

Little by little the speck materialized into a wagon—a ramshackle one-horse dray with two men hunched on the seat and a long, dark form lying across the open bed. Rowena’s hand crept to her throat as she recognized her father’s gelding, Blackamoor, dancing alongside the wagon on a tether. The gelding’s saddle was empty.

Her long legs took the steps two at a time as she raced downstairs to what, in grander days, had been the great hall. Her slippered feet flew across the rush-strewn floor, their swift passage releasing the scent of crushed rosemary behind her.

By the time she reached the front door, Rowena’s heart was hammering with dread. What had possessed her to let her father go off alone this morning? She should have ridden along on the pretext of some errand or devised an excuse to keep him at home. Whatever disaster had befallen him now, the fault was at least partly her own.

The front doors opened straightaway onto the moor. Rowena burst outside to see that the dray was still a considerable distance off. Too agitated to wait, she caught up her skirts and broke into a headlong run that bruised her feet through the thin leather house slippers. The sea wind tore the pins from her hair as she plunged toward the road. Would she find her father hurt? Ill? Even dead?

At the crest of a long hedgerow she paused for a moment to rest. Her ribs heaved beneath the constricting stays of her corset, and her breath came in agonized gasps, but she had halved the distance between herself and the dray. Only now did she have a clear view of the two men on the seat. One of them was the driver, an unkempt hireling she had often seen in town. The other—

Rowena’s knees buckled with relief as she recognized her father’s stoop-shouldered frame and low-crowned woolen hat. He was all right. She had worried herself to a frenzy for nothing.

But why had he taken the trouble to hire a dray? What was the nature of the dark, mysterious shape that lay across the planks behind him, wrapped in what appeared to be a canvas sail? Had Sir Christopher purchased some exotic new specimen? A large fish, perhaps? A dolphin? A dead seal? She thought of the long marble dissecting table in the laboratory and the exhausting days and nights to come as they labored to learn and catalog their discoveries before putrefaction made the work impossible.

“Rowena!” Her father’s sharp-edged voice rang out across the distance. His arm beckoned her to come, but she was already running toward the roadway, her skirts gathering green burrs where they trailed behind her.

By the time she reached the edge of the road she was too winded to speak. She stood warm and panting, her hair streaming in the breeze as the dray, drawn by a spavined cart horse, lumbered toward her.

“Rowena. Good.” Her father nodded in his terse way. “I’ll be needing some help with this specimen. Ride Blackamoor back to the stable. Tell Thomas and Dickon to be in the courtyard when we arrive. Have Ned clear out the barred room in the cellar and spread the floor with clean straw. Quickly.”

“The cellar?” Rowena stared up at him, dumbfounded. “But how can you mean that? The place is little more than a rat warren! No one goes down there, ’tis so dark and damp and moldy! Father, I truly do not understand—”

“Soon enough you will. Hurry, now.” Sir Christopher reached in front of the driver, seized the slack reins and pulled the plodding nag to a halt. Blackamoor, impatient for stall and feed, snorted and tugged at the tether that held him to the side of the dray.

“Steady, there.” Rowena eased closer to the high-strung gelding, caught the bridle and, with her free hand began unloosing the tether. While her fingers worked the knot, her gaze was compellingly drawn to the canvas-swathed bundle that was lashed with thick ropes to the bed of the dray. From what she could see of the thing inside, she could judge nothing except that it was long—the length of a tall man. Her lips parted in astonishment as she saw a slight movement and realized that beneath its heavy wrappings the creature was breathing.

“Father!” She spun around to face him, her heart pounding. “The beast is alive! You must tell me what it is!”

“Later, Rowena.” He dismissed her demand with a scowl. “The less said here, the better. We can talk at the house. Now, ride.”

The knot parted, freeing the gelding’s bridle. Rowena swung expertly into the saddle, legs astride, skirts bunched over her thighs. As she paused to gather the reins, her eyes fell once more on the dray’s tightly bound cargo.

Mounted, she could see what she had not been able to see from the ground. The edges of the canvas sail had parted at the near end of the bundle to reveal a face.

A human face.

The face of a man.

Rowena’s heart lurched as she leaned closer, oblivious to her father’s impatient glare, oblivious to everything except the sight of those riveting male features.

The eyes, set beneath straight ink-black brows, were closed. Deep-set, they lay in the hollows of a fiercely noble face that seemed all bruises and jutting bones, fleshless beneath taut bronze skin. A lock of black hair—all she could see—trailed across one purpled cheek. For all his evident strength the man looked ill and starved. He smelled of vomit and seawater, evidence of a long, rough ocean voyage. But why in heaven’s name was he lashed to the bed of the dray? Surely, in his condition, there was no danger of escape.

Compelled by a strange urge, Rowena leaned outward from the saddle and extended her right hand toward the stranger’s battered, motionless face. Ignoring her father’s sharp-spoken warning, she brushed an exploring fingertip along one concave cheek. The cool skin was as smooth as the finest tanned leather, the long, rugged jaw bearing not a trace of beard stubble. It was almost as if—

Rowena gasped and snatched her hand away as the man’s eyelids jerked open. The eyes that glared up at her were as black as polished jet—their hue so deep that she could see no distinction between iris and pupil.

But it was not the startling color of those eyes that froze her as if she had been turned to stone. It was the blaze of hatred she had glimpsed in their depths—a hatred so pure, so intense, that it seemed to rise from the depths of hell itself.

She wrenched her gaze away. “Father—”

“Not now, Rowena,” Sir Christopher snapped. “Later, once the brute’s safely locked away, I’ll tell you everything. Go, now, there’s no time to lose!”

Rowena shot her father a look of horrified dismay. Then, knowing there was nothing to be done here, she wheeled the horse and galloped off toward the house.

Black Otter willed himself to not struggle as the two burly white men seized his arms and began dragging him off the bed of the cart. Over the course of the terrible sea voyage, he had taken on the desperate strategy of a trapped animal. Watch and learn. Wait for the best chance. Then strike to kill.

Early in the voyage he had come close to killing one of the men on the ship. The young brute had been tormenting him, jabbing him with the end of a smoldering stick. For one careless instant the fellow had come too close, and Black Otter, driven by pain and anguish, had lashed out at him. Flinging the iron links of his wrist manacles around the sailor’s neck, he had squeezed and twisted, taking a perverse satisfaction in the man’s thrashing, his labored gasps.

Then a shout had rung out from above, and the man’s cohorts had come pounding down the hatch-way to fall on Black Otter like a pack of dogs. They had beaten him so savagely that he had drifted in and out of consciousness for more days than he could count on the fingers of both hands.

That beating had taught Black Otter a lesson he would not forget. Never again would he strike out at his captors without weighing the odds. If there was little to be gained he would contain his fury, caging it like a wild beast. But if the chance came to break for his freedom, he would kill any white person who stood in his way.

Including the woman.

He felt her eyes on him now as he struggled to stand on the reeling ground. Golden eyes, darkly set in a long, pale face. He remembered the touch of her fingertip on his face, her low gasp as he opened his eyes. Had he frightened her? Good, he had wanted to frighten her. He wanted to frighten them all.

Straining against the weight of his shackles, Black Otter straightened to his full height and glowered defiantly at them—the woman, the old man and the lesser people who had come out of the enormous lodge. The two burly men, who seemed to be taking orders from the old one, gripped his arms, half supporting, half restraining. In his full strength Black Otter could have broken their bones with his bare hands. Chained, starved and ill, he had little power to resist.

The woman turned to the old man and spoke. Maybe they were going to kill him now, Black Otter thought. If that was so, he would not submit meekly. Among his own people, the Lenape who lived on the banks of the great sea river, he was a powerful sakima, a chief, as well as an invincible warrior. Even here, in this alien place, he would die a warrior’s death. And he would not die alone.

For all her proper upbringing, Rowena could not help staring at the stranger. Filthy, bruised and unsteady on his feet, he stood between the two stable hands with the majesty of a captive lion. He was taller than almost any man she knew. His pitch-black hair formed a matted mane that streamed past his massive shoulders. His face was striking—but then, as Rowena discovered, she could not look long at his hawk-like features with any kind of ease. The hatred in those infernal eyes blazed back at her with such fury that she was forced to lower her gaze.

Beneath a patina of welts, cuts and bruises, his body reminded her of—yes—the drawing of a Greek statue she had seen in her father’s library. Rowena’s eyes traced the flow of muscles beneath his bruised mahogany skin, their names clicking senselessly through her mind—the deltoids, the pectorals, the flat, hard rectus abdominus that rippled downward to disappear beneath the twisted, dirty bit of leather that covered his loins.

Apart from the loincloth he wore nothing below except a pair of rotting soft-soled leather slippers, the like of which she had never seen before.

As the dray lumbered back toward the road, Rowena drew closer to her father. “Who is he?” she asked softly.

“No need to whisper,” he snapped a bit impatiently. “The primitive wretch has no understanding of the queen’s English.”

“Father, who is he?” Rowena demanded, more forcefully this time.

“An Indian. From America. I bought him today in Falmouth.”

“You bought him? As a slave?”

Sir Christopher looked askance. “Certainly not!” he huffed. “Look at the fellow—far too much a savage for any kind of decent service.”

“Then why would you do such a thing? Out of Christian pity?”

Sir Christopher shook his head, then fixed her with a level gaze. “No, Rowena,” he said, “I bought him as a curiosity.”

“As a curiosity?”

“Yes, my dear. As a rare specimen. For the purpose of study.”

Chapter Two

“By my faith, have you lost your mind?” Rowena spun to confront her father, horror overcoming her usual deference. “A specimen, indeed! Father, you can hardly collect and catalog a human being as you would a bird or a fish!”

“And what makes you so sure the creature is human?” Sir Christopher challenged his daughter. “I have it on good authority that his speech—if you can call it such—is nothing but monkey gibberish, and that he attacked and nearly killed a seaman aboard the Surrey Lass. All told, the brute seems considerably more beast than man. Whichever he may be, I mean to study him and find out.”

Rowena’s gaze darted from her father to the tall, dark American savage who, even now, looked ready to spring on her and devour her flesh. Over the years, she had put up with innumerable monkeys, fish, reptiles, tropical birds and even one aged performing bear, all of which her father had kept penned in his laboratory until they sickened in the cold English climate and died—after which they’d gone straight to the dissecting table. Much as it saddened her, she had come to accept the fate of these creatures as part of her father’s work. But a man—even the raw, untutored heathen who stood before them now? No, she would not stand for it! This time Sir Christopher had gone too far!

“Father!” Rowena seized his arm, gripping it so hard that the old man winced. “I beseech you in the name of humanity, don’t do this!”

“And what would you have me do instead?” Sir Christopher thrust her away from him, scowling at her over the top of his thick spectacles. “Should I let him go? Should I turn the poor devil loose to roam the countryside like a mad dog and probably end up being shot or hanged?”

Rowena exhaled slowly, knowing she had no counter to his question. “Very well, then, get me the keys to his manacles. If the man is going to live here, the least we can do is give him a good washing and some proper clothes.” She wheeled away from her father and took two strides toward the defiant prisoner.

He did not move, but the blistering rage in his black eyes stopped her like a wall. Rowena hesitated. Her hand crept to her throat as she glimpsed something else beneath that rage—a sorrow so deep and so desperate that it tore at her heart.

“No closer,” her father cautioned her from behind. “The creature is dangerous. Given his freedom, there’s no imagining what he might do, especially to a woman. You’re to keep a safe distance from him, Rowena, at all times.”

Rowena studied the prisoner across the span of a few paces. Dangerous? Yes, certainly. He was a wounded animal, maddened by pain and fear. But what if she were to reach out and touch him in gentleness, in compassion?

Her hand stirred, but even that slight motion ignited a fresh blaze of hatred in the man’s eyes. Rowena felt as if she had stepped too close to a fire and been singed from head to foot by a sudden flare.

Before she could gather her wits, her father spoke gruffly to the two servants. “Take him to the cellar and lock him into the barred room. You’ll find the key hanging on the wall behind the door. Leave him a little water and a slop bucket—pray that after two months at sea the wretch will know what to do with it.”

“How can you just shut him down there in the dark?” Rowena had found her tongue and was determined to speak. “Look at the poor creature! He needs food and warm clothing! He needs some measure of kindness in this strange place!”

“All that he will get soon enough!” Sir Christopher retorted. “But first, as with any wild beast, we must break that proud spirit of his. Only after he has learned dependence on his masters will he be docile enough to study.”

“Father, there are rats down there, and heaven only knows what else—”

“Hush, Rowena! My mind is made up! We can talk at supper.” Sir Christopher turned away from his daughter and unleashed his irritation on the servants. “What are you staring at? Get him downstairs—and watch him, mind you. I was told that the creature is uncommonly treacherous!”

The two husky Cornishmen tightened their grip on the prisoner’s arms and began dragging him toward the back door of the house. Until that moment the man had not made a sound, but as the three of them reached the stoop, he suddenly threw back his head and uttered a shattering cry—a sound so savage and primitive that it raised the fine hairs on the back of Rowena’s neck and startled a flock of jackdaws perched on the edge of the roof. The cry was not born of fear or pain—that much Rowena knew at once. No, her instincts told her, it was a warrior’s battle scream, an outburst of sheer, defiant rage.

Startled, the two servants drew back for an instant, and suddenly the dark stranger was free. He lunged across the courtyard, dragging the weight of his shackles as if they’d been made of twine. In full health, he might have made his escape, but as it was he tired swiftly. Halfway between the house and the stable, Thomas and Dickon caught up with him. A swift kick from Thomas’s boot sent the prisoner sprawling facedown in the muck. From there it was an easy matter for the two men to seize his arms and jerk him to his feet once more.

Dripping mud and manure, the savage faced his captors. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he burst into a sudden stream of the vilest profanity known to any English sailor.

“…Son of a whoring bitch…filthy, murdering red-skinned bastard…” The phrases he spat purpled the air around him. He had learned them on the voyage from America, Rowena realized, sick with dismay. In all likelihood, they were the only English expressions he knew.

A bitter smile tugged at the corners of Sir Christopher’s mouth. “Well, well,” he said, nodding in satisfaction. “At least we know the creature is capable of learning human speech. Take him to the cellar.”

Rowena half expected the savage to strike out again, but he had exhausted his strength for the moment. He offered no more resistance as Dickon and Thomas gripped his arms and dragged him into the house.

Black Otter felt as if the great lodge had swallowed him whole, as a giant frog might swallow a fly.

His gaze darted furtively over whitewashed walls and ceilings higher than a man’s reach, over huge, ornate pictures made entirely of thread, over tables and chairs that looked as solid as the trunks of great trees. At first he had planned to memorize the way inside so he might know it when the time came for his escape. But he had long since given up. The place was a maze of corridors and chambers as complex as the inside of a termite nest. Surely, with such a lodge, the old man who had taken him from the ship must be the chief of all the white tribe.

One of the rooms he had passed through appeared to be used for nothing but cooking. The fire pit was built into one wall like a cave, and over the crackling flames, the carcass of a large animal hung roasting on a metal spit. Loaves of fresh brown bread lay on long tables. Black Otter had never seen so much food in one place. The mouthwatering aromas had made his stomach contract with hunger, but no one had offered him food or even a sip of water. He had been dragged through one immense room after another and, at last, down a long, narrow passageway that ended in a pool of darkness.

A third man, plump and pale, joined them now. He was carrying a torch made of twisted reeds dipped in pitch. The foul smoke stung Black Otter’s eyes and nostrils as they forced him downward into the black space that opened up before them. His moccasin-clad feet stumbled on the rough stone steps.

Fear closed around his heart as the clammy air, redolent with mold, filled his lungs. It was cold and damp down here, below the earth. And without the torch it would be darker than the belly of the great boat. Even if they did not kill him at once, he would die slowly in this place. He would die like a caged animal, from want of sun, air, warmth and freedom. And he would never know what had happened to his precious children.

Torchlight flickered over mildewed stone walls, then over moldering crates and barrels that looked as if they had not seen daylight in years. Black Otter heard the faint drip of water and the scurrying sound of rats.

One of the men spoke as the torchlight came to rest on a framework of rusty iron bars. A door creaked open on corroded hinges, revealing a tiny, cavelike room that looked as if it had been hacked from the living flesh of the earth. Realizing he was about to be shoved inside the terrible place, Black Otter began to struggle—a waste of strength. With a quickness that belied his size, the largest of the white men struck out with one meaty fist. Black Otter saw the blow coming, but he was powerless to dodge or counter. He felt a flash of pain as the massive knuckles crunched against his cheekbone. Then the torchlight exploded into swirling stars, and he pitched forward into darkness.

Rowena toyed with her supper, too agitated to eat. “I understand none of this!” she declared, pushing her plate to one side. “You say you paid a hundred fifty pounds for the man! A small fortune, Father, and far more than we can spare! What under heaven possessed you to do such a thing?”

Sir Christopher lifted his tankard and took a draught of ale to wash his mouth free of bread and meat. “My dear Rowena,” he answered, scowling, “I grant you, a hundred fifty pounds is a considerable sum, but you must look on it as an investment.”

“An investment?” Rowena glared at him.

“An investment in the future. Mine and your own.” He leaned forward across the long, bare table where the two of them sat. A single candle sputtered between them, etching his face with stark ridges of light and shadow. He looked old and tired.

“Listen to me, child.” His earnestness all but made her weep. “We both know my reputation as a scholar has faded over the years. I am no longer consulted by the queen or invited to lecture at Oxford. But with the new discoveries I hope to make, all that will change.”

“You talk in riddles! What new discoveries?” Rowena asked, her concern deepening. Had the great Sir Christopher slipped over the edge of reason?

“Think of it, Rowena!” The candle flame, reflecting in his spectacles, transformed his pale eyes into blazing lights. “Spain has already gained a solid foothold in the Indies. While there is time, England must seize her own piece of this bright new world. The vast country to the northwest, rich in furs and land and treasure, is ours for the taking, save one obstacle—the savages who live there!”

Rowena gazed at her father, excitement clashing with dismay. The Spanish conquistadores had long since subdued the more civilized tribes of tropical America—the Aztecs, the Mayans and, far to the south, the Incas. But the northern forest dwellers were savage brutes, rumored to be more beast than human. Their ferocity had long kept white invaders from their shores.

And now one of them was here in England, locked in the cellar of this very house.

“Think, Rowena!” Sir Christopher’s voice rasped with emotion. “Think what we might learn if we can communicate with the creature—if we can subdue him, teach him to speak, perhaps even press him to serve as a guide and interpreter!”

“He’ll serve as nothing if he dies of the cold and damp in the cellar,” Rowena snapped. “A hundred fifty pounds, indeed! You might as well have—”

Her words died in a little choking sound. She stared at her father, thunderstruck. “By my faith, you didn’t just happen across that poor wretch in Falmouth, did you? You planned this, all of it!”

“Hear me out, Rowena.” Sir Christopher could be as strong-willed as his daughter. “What I did, I did for my own good reasons.”

“How long did it take you to arrange it?” she demanded, trembling as she rose to her feet. “Six months? A year? What did you have to do to get him?”

“I put up printed notices in the taverns around the docks,” he answered with the cold stubbornness of a rock in the Narrow Seas. “The notices declared that I would pay one hundred fifty pounds for a healthy savage from North America. A messenger brought me word yesterday that a captain, newly arrived, had such a specimen—”

“A captain, indeed! A privateer, you mean! No better than a pirate!”

“In truth, I did not think to ask.” Sir Christopher had marshaled his defenses now. The set of his shoulders and the jut of his jaw declared that he had taken his position and would not be moved.

“And not a word to your own daughter!” Rowena fumed. “Indeed, why did you neglect to make me privy to your plans?”

Sir Christopher speared a morsel of beef with the point of his knife and used it to jab the air emphatically as he spoke. “Because you would have behaved exactly as you’re behaving now. And you would not have succeeded in changing my mind, Rowena. Not by a whit. The discoveries I make about this creature and his world will restore my favor with the queen. Yours, too. Perhaps you might even be offered a position at court—”

“I have no wish to wait upon the queen, Father. My life is here in this house with you.”

Sir Christopher sagged in his chair, an expression of profound sadness stealing over his once-vigorous features. “And what kind of life have I given you, child? When I pass on, you’ll be alone here. No husband, no children—”

“Let the savage go,” Rowena demanded gently. “Take him back to Falmouth and put him on a ship for the New World. I’ll pay his passage myself out of the dowry of jewels my mother left me.”

Rowena’s father shook his head. “You know as well as I do he would never survive the journey. Likely as not, the captain would take your money and throw your savage overboard at the first sign of trouble.”

“My savage?” A bitter smile tugged at the corners of Rowena’s mouth. “So now he’s my savage, is he?”

“Why not, since you seem to have taken up his cause?” Sir Christopher scowled at the tidbit of meat on the end of his knife, then brought it to his mouth and began the tedious chewing that his meager teeth allowed.

“Well, then, as long as I have claim to him, I want him out of the cellar,” Rowena said. “There are empty chambers aplenty in this house. The least we can do is lock him in a warm, dry place with ample food and bedding.”

Sir Christopher downed the remains of the meat with a swig of ale. “What? And have him leap out of a window or attack the first poor soul who comes in to feed him? No, Rowena, as long as the creature is a danger to himself and to others he will remain behind bars. As for you, you are not to go near him, nor is any other woman in this house. Leave the tending of him to Thomas and Dickon.” He pushed back from the table, his chair scraping on the stones. “And leave the breaking of him to me. I mean it.”

“Breaking?” Rowena paused in clearing away the platters, something she often did if the evening meal lingered past the time for the servants to retire. “You talk about him as if he were a wild animal!”

“That is precisely what he is.” Sir Christopher rose wearily to his feet. “I wasn’t always the doddering old fool you see before you, my dear. Just give me a little time. Believe me, I know how to break a beast—and a man.”

Black Otter gripped the iron bars, his eyes straining to see into the murky darkness that lay beyond his cell. The effort was useless. For all he could make out, he might as well have been blind.

How long would they keep him here? Time lost all meaning when the sun was gone. At least, in the belly of the great boat, he had caught occasional glimpses of light from above. He had been able to hear men moving and shouting on the decks overhead and, in time, had learned to tell day from night by the sounds they made.

Here there was nothing but darkness and bone-chilling cold. Nothing but the scurry of rats and the faint, distant drip of water. Nothing but his own burning rage to keep him from giving in to madness.

He thought of the two husky men who had dragged him through the great lodge and down the dark stairs. He pictured the pale, plump man with the torch and the old one, the chief of all the white men. He remembered the woman, tall, like a man, but with a disturbing grace about her, the skirt of her odd costume flaring around her legs like the inverted cup of a huge, dark flower. One by one he focused his anger on them, letting it burn hot in the cold darkness. Even her. Even the woman. He hated them all.

But anger would not get him out of this place, Black Otter reminded himself. For that he would need a cool head and the cunning of a fox.

He had explored his small prison from top to bottom, fingers probing the straw, the walls, the fastenings that anchored the heavy barred door. The enclosure was solid stone, with not so much as a niche that could be widened into an opening. The bars, as well, were too strong to bend and too closely spaced for even a child to squeeze through. His only chance of escape lay in seizing the instant when one of his captors opened the door. For that he would need to be on constant watch.

The iron manacles ground into his scab-encrusted wrists and ankles, raising an ooze of fresh blood as he moved into a shadowed corner and eased himself into a low crouch against the wall. He had found the water jar earlier and taken a cautious sip. It was fresh and cool, and after the foul stuff he’d been given on the boat, it had taken all his willpower to keep from gulping it to the last drop. Even now, his parched throat cried out for more. But he could not surrender to thirst. There was no way of knowing how long the water might have to last.

With a broken exhalation, he leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes and tried to rest. To take his mind off the pain of his battered body, he thought about Lenapehoken, his homeland, with its deep forests and clear-running streams; and he thought about his children. He pictured Swift Arrow bounding toward him along a mossy forest trail, his small brown face split by a reckless grin. He imagined Singing Bird kneeling beside the fire, her gaze lowered, her young features—awkwardly balanced but holding the promise of beauty—soft in the golden light. He would return to them, he vowed. Whatever the cost, if they lived he would find them. He would gather them into his arms and the three of them would be a family once more.

Whatever the cost….

Rowena lay on her bed, her hair spread in a wild tangle on the pillow. Above her the midnight moon glimmered through the leaded windowpanes. She had been tossing for hours, it seemed, turning this way and that, willing herself to sleep. But it was no use. Her body was tired but her churning mind would not grant her release.

Frustrated, she sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and brushed her sweat-dampened hair back from her face. Her chamber, closed as always against the night vapors, was warm and stuffy. Rowena hesitated, then rose and strode to the window. Vapors be damned! She needed fresh air!

Flinging open the sash, she stretched on tiptoe and let the sea wind wash her face and body. She was naked beneath her shift, and the coolness through the soft, damp linen was as poignant as a caress. The curve of the crescent moon gleamed like a Saracen’s blade in the dark sky. Waves crashed and murmured against the rocks at the foot of the cliff.

Rowena’s thoughts returned once more to the savage, her savage, locked away from light and warmth and air. She remembered his eyes, the anguish she had glimpsed beneath the glaze of hatred.

What torments was he suffering down there alone in the darkness? Was he hungry? Injured? Even dying? Could she make the prudent choice and harden her heart against his need?

Or was it already too late?

Trembling, she closed the window and fastened the latch. Almost without willing it, she found herself moving to the wardrobe, slipping her light woolen dressing gown off its hook on the door. A voice in the back of her mind shrilled that she was setting out on a madwoman’s errand, risking her father’s anger and her own safety. Rowena paid it no heed. How could she rest in her soft, warm bed when a fellow being was suffering under her very roof?

Resolutely now, she gathered a wool-stuffed quilt from the foot of her bed. Then she glided across the room and opened the door into the hallway. Sir Christopher would scold her, to be sure. But she would face that unpleasantness tomorrow.

The house was dark but Rowena’s bare feet knew every knot in the cool wooden floor, every step of the long staircase that curved down into the great hall. The rushes whispered beneath her soles as she skirted the table and hurried to the kitchen. The upper floors of the house she knew by heart, but not the cellar, whose darkness was like the wet black pit of a mine. She would need a light to find her way.

Groping amid the clutter, she found a candle and lit it with a coal from the fireplace. The light glowed eerily in the cavernous kitchen, flickering over soot-blackened iron pots, shelves, cupboards and long tables. Rowena found a loaf of bread in the pantry and tucked it under her arm with the quilt. Much as she loved her father, she could not condone his plan to starve the savage into submission. Not after glimpsing the pain in those proud, black eyes.

As she made her way down the rough stone stairway, a mouse scurried across her bare foot. Rowena’s lips parted in an involuntary gasp. If only she’d thought to wear her slippers—

But there could be no going back now. If she returned to her room for the shoes, her courage would surely fail. She would shut herself in, draw the bed curtains and spend the rest of the night hidden beneath the coverlet, quaking like the coward she was.

For as long as she could remember, Rowena had harbored an unspoken terror of the cellar. Perchance something about the place had frightened her when she was too young to remember; or one of the maids had told her horrible stories to keep her from toddling down the dark stairs. Whatever the reason, her skin crawled as she descended the long passageway. She cupped a protecting hand around the candle flame, fearful that some stray draught might blow it out.

At the center of her fear lay the barred room. In Rowena’s lifetime it had been used only for storage. But it was well known that the long-ago Thornhill who’d built the great house had used it for a very different purpose. People had died in that room.

Past generations of the Thornhill family had shown a penchant for barbarism, Rowena reflected. But not Sir Christopher. Not, at least, until today. Had the dark trait surfaced at last in her own gentle father?

The damp cellar air rose around her like a miasma, smelling of mold and rot. She thought of the savage huddled alone in the darkness. Was he frightened? Angry? Would he understand that she had come to him in the spirit of kindness?

Rowena tried to imagine how he had been captured, chained and taken from his home. A man such as he would have fought like the very devil. Why hadn’t the ship’s crewmen captured someone more docile? A woman, or even a child?

The answer to her question came at once. The privateers had wanted their captive to reach England alive. They had chosen a strong man—a warrior—because he would have the best chance of surviving the miserable voyage.

Darkness, as cold and heavy as the body of a snake, pressed around her as she reached the bottom of the stairway. The candle seemed little more than a sputtering pinpoint. She inched forward, protecting the tiny flame. By its dim light she could make out a jumble of stacked boxes and barrels and, beyond them, the stark outline of iron bars.

Rowena paused, holding her breath and listening. She could hear the faint drip of water from an underground spring and a low rustling noise that could have been a rat. But even in the stillness, she heard no sound at all from the barred room.

She crept closer, the candle thrust ahead of her. Now she could see the bars clearly. She could see into the cell beyond them, all the way to the far wall.

No one was there.

Forgetting caution, she hurried forward. Had the savage escaped? Had he died on the way to his dark prison? Or had her father simply decided to put him somewhere else?

Rowena reached the bars and pressed against them, raising the candle to see into the far corners of the small room. Only then did she notice the straw piled in the shadows—a long, bumpy mound of it, the size and shape of a man’s body.

Relief swept over her as she lowered the light. Cold and weary, the savage had taken the only sensible course of action. He had burrowed into the straw like a wild animal and gone to sleep.

Rowena’s breath hissed out in a jerky release. Her errand of mercy would be easier now. She had only to push the bread and the quilt between the bars and go. When he awakened the savage would discover her gift, and if he was as intelligent as he appeared to be, he would understand that even among the English there was compassion.

Dropping to a crouch, she set the candlestick on the stone floor to free her hands. She was about to push the bread between the bars when a rustle in the shadows reminded her of the rats. An unguarded loaf would only serve as bait for the horrid creatures, drawing them by the score into the cell. The bread would be gone before the captive could wake up and drive them off.

Rowena hesitated, torn. She could call out and rouse him. But that in itself would be a heartless act. Sleep was the only blessing left to the wretched man. If, perchance, he was dreaming of his homeland and loved ones, why awaken him to misery?

She would push the quilt and the bread through the bars, she resolved. Then she would reach through with both hands and wrap them into a single bundle. Nothing would hold the rats off forever, but at least the quilt might delay them.

The quilt was so thickly padded with wool that it had to be unfolded and stuffed inch by inch between the bars. As she worked, Rowena kept a wary eye on the mound of straw, ready to draw back at the slightest stir. But there was no movement or sound from the sleeping captive. Clearly he was too exhausted to be of any danger.

All the same, her fingers trembled as she guided the crusty loaf through the narrow space. Nothing remained now except to wrap the bread securely in the quilt.

It would only take a moment, Rowena assured herself as she leaned forward and slid her arms into the darkness beyond the bars. Just a moment of fumbling, and then—

Her thoughts exploded in a paroxysm of fear as a rough, brown hand shot out of the shadows, seized her wrists and yanked her hard against the bars.

Chapter Three

Rowena fought for balance as the savage wrenched her forward. Her head struck one of the bars, setting off an explosion of pain. She sagged for an instant, the candle flame spinning in her vision. Then, as her senses cleared, she began to twist and claw in earnest.

“Let me go!” She spat out the words, forgetting that he would not likely understand her. “I’m not your enemy, you fool! I’m here to help you!”

His grip tightened around her wrists. She felt the crushing of bones and tendons. Rowena whimpered as he wrenched her flat against the bars. She might have screamed, but she knew no one else in the house would be able to hear her. Not from this deep, dark place.

She could see the savage’s face now by the light of the guttering candle. His cheekbones were gaunt bronze slabs. His jet eyes were as cold as a panther’s. She could smell him, too. His scent was a trapped animal’s, thick with the musk of rage and terror.

“Let me go,” she gasped, weak with pain. “They’ll come for me…they’ll punish you—”

He growled something under his breath—a guttural, menacing phrase whose meaning Rowena could only guess. The grip of his manacled hands shifted, and for the space of a heartbeat she thought she might have reached him. But no—he was only crossing her wrists so that he could wrap a length of his chain around them, leaving his right hand free. By the time Rowena realized his intent, it was too late to jerk away.

She was on her knees now, her body molded to the bars. The savage’s face was a handbreadth from her own. Rowena shuddered as his black eyes impaled her. “Tell me what you want,” she whispered, choking back panic. “If it is within my power—”

Her words ended in a gasp as his huge hand knifed through the bars and caught her at the waist. She would have wrenched herself away, but the iron grip on her wrists kept her pinned against the bars. She froze, her heart pounding, as his fingers groped the span of her waist, fumbling awkwardly with the knotted sash of her robe.

Rowena’s eyes closed as the knot came loose and the robe fell open. The bars were strong, she reminded herself. Aside from hurting her hands, the savage could not truly harm her. All the same, her heart seemed to stop as his fingers seared through the thin fabric of her shift, moving urgently along the curve of her waist, then lower, skimming her hipbones. His dangerous touch triggered subtle tuggings and tightenings in the moist core of Rowena’s body. A tiny moan quivered in her throat.

She thought of the candlestick, the candle still flickering on the floor where she had left it. One well-placed kick could tip it into the straw that lined the cell. The straw would begin to smolder, then burst into leaping flames…

She could not move.

His touch became more demanding, more frantic. Rowena could feel the anger in him, the rising tide of frustration that grew until it exploded out of him in a single word.

“Key!”

She stiffened against him in sudden awareness. The savage had evidently learned on the ship that a key was needed for opening locks. He had even managed to learn the word. And last evening in the courtyard, the ring of keys hanging at her waist had caught his sharp gaze. He was looking for those keys now.

Finding nothing, he drew back from the bars. His eyes seethed with anger. “Key!” he demanded again, jerking her arms so hard that she whimpered. “Key! Give me!”

“No!” Rowena began speaking volubly, with no idea of how much he could understand. “I don’t have any keys with me. And even if I did, even if I were to let you out of this place, it would do you no good. You’d be lost in this land. You wouldn’t know where to go, where to hide, how to find food and clothing. You wouldn’t have the first idea how to get on a ship and return to your own country. You must stay here for now. Stay here!” She emphasized the words, praying he would understand their meaning. But he only glowered at her, his eyes so hot with pain and hatred that their gaze all but withered her spirit.

“I don’t have the key,” Rowena said again, resisting the painful pull on her hands. “No key.”

The savage stared at her, then snorted with disgust and let her go so abruptly that Rowena tumbled backward into a pile of moldering firkins. The small barrels came bumping and rolling down around her, making such a commotion that she feared someone in the house would hear. She sat up, rubbing her bruised temple, as the racket subsided.

The candle had burned down to a glowing stub. By its faint light she could see the savage, standing now, behind the bars of his prison. The fierce majesty of his presence filled the wretched space. Who had he been in that other faraway world? Rowena found herself wondering. What would he tell her if she could understand his alien tongue?

But this was no time for idle questions. She would need to get the candle at once, before it sputtered out and left her in darkness. She felt the savage’s eyes on her as she crept forward and snatched the candlestick from its place on the floor. The sudden motion fanned the flame, causing the light to dance crazily over the walls of the cellar. As Rowena scrambled to her feet she glimpsed his face—the grim mouth twisted wryly at one corner, disdainful, amused, as if he were silently laughing at her. She felt a sudden surge of irritation. Her temper flared like tinder as she swung back to face him.

“I’m not afraid of you!” she snapped, not caring whether he understood or not. “And I have better things to do than put up with your bullying! If you’re too blind to see that I’m your only friend in this place, there’s nothing more to say! You can stay down here by yourself and rot!”

She wheeled abruptly and stalked toward the stairs. Her exit would have done a queen proud if her candle had not, at that very moment, burned to the end of its wick. The fragile light flickered and died, plunging the cellar into pitch blackness.

Only Rowena’s anger kept her from giving way to panic. She could not, would not let the savage know how terrified she was, she vowed as she groped her way across the cluttered floor. She had suffered enough humiliation without giving him cause to laugh at her again.

The memory of his searching fingers, hard and rough through the fabric of her shift, brought a surge of heat to her cheeks. She’d had no choice except to let him touch her, Rowena reminded herself. But that did not in any way excuse her from responding like a cat in heat. What could she have been thinking? That he wanted her? That any man could want her? What rubbish! He had wanted nothing except the key to his prison. Failing to find it, he had flung her away like a piece of tainted meat.

What had she expected? In the name of heaven, what had she wanted? Rowena inched forward, her face burning with shame in the darkness. Behind her, where the savage stood, there was nothing but silence.

Her shoulder scraped against a wall, and in the next instant her groping feet found the bottom of the long stairway. Sick with relief, she toiled her way upward, one hand clutching at the cold stones for support.

Eternities seemed to pass before she emerged into the corridor on the ground floor of the house. The shadows were more familiar now but they gave her no comfort. The very walls mocked her folly as she fled across the great hall and stumbled up the stairs. Reaching her own chamber, she bolted the door, flung herself into her bed and hastily drew the curtains. Even then the laughing demons would not be shut out. Rowena lay hot-faced and quivering beneath the covers, waiting for the mercy of dawn.

Black Otter fingered a corner of the quilt the woman had pushed through the bars of his cell. It was a wondrously fine thing—thick and soft, its covering smoother than doeskin. The fabric still smelled of her body—a pungent, flowery aroma that was nothing like the scent of his own people. Raising it to his nose, he inhaled deeply. The odor flooded his senses, awakening a spark of heat in his groin. He frowned at the sensation. Was he so woman-hungry that the very scent of this tall, pale creature could rouse him to desire? If that was so, he was even worse off than he’d thought.

Flinging the quilt down with a snort of self-disgust, he turned his attention to the bread. The loaf was fresh and soft beneath its crisp outer crust. Black Otter was starving, but he kept a tight rein on his appetite as he broke off one small piece and tasted it. Like the water, it might have to last him a long time.

The bread was light and chewy in texture, a far cry from the dense, flat maize cakes he had eaten all his life. But the flavor—yes, it was good. More than good. It was all he could do, in fact, to keep from bolting the entire loaf. But Black Otter was a disciplined man, his will tempered by experience. He ate only enough to dull the edge of his hunger. Then he wrapped his body in the quilt and settled himself against the wall, still clutching the bread to guard it from the rats.

The woman had brought him this gift of food and warmth, he reminded himself. She had come alone, at great risk, to do him the first kindness he had known in this strange land.

He remembered her moon-white face in the flickering candlelight, her large, cat-colored eyes wide with fear. It had not been easy for her to come to him—he had not made it easy. But even when he’d done his best to frighten her, she had not lost her courage. For that she had earned his grudging respect.

And he was not ungrateful for her gifts, Black Otter mused as he sank deeper into the softness of the quilt. Gratitude, however, was not the same as friendship. All whites were his enemies, this tall, strong-minded female among them. But if ever the chance came for vengeance he would remember this night and, perhaps, let her live.

He had resolved to not sleep, but as the warmth crept into his aching body he felt his eyelids grow heavy. The woman-musk scent of the quilt stole around him, awakening subtle urges in the depths of his body. He remembered touching her through the thin cloth, his fingertips tracing the long curve of her waist in search of the keys. If his hand had moved higher—or lower—would he have discovered her to be like the women of his people? Would his fingers have found the quivering softness of her breasts, the moist, secret cleft of her womanhood? Would her breath have caught and quickened at his touch?

Black Otter exhaled, pushing her image from his mind. Such careless thoughts would only do him harm. They would lull his spirit, causing him to lower his guard and miss the chance that would surely come. For such a lapse, he would never forgive himself.

He stared into the darkness, striving to fill it with the faces of those he had loved and remembered—pretty Morning Cloud who had died in his arms; their children, their friends, all of the people who made up the big, warm extended family of the village. He would return, Black Otter vowed. No matter what he had to do, no matter who he had to hurt, he would return.

His eyelids were growing heavy again, and the quilt was as soft and enfolding as a woman’s arms. Black Otter was drifting deeper, and he knew he could not battle sleep any longer. The white woman’s aura seeped like perfumed smoke through his senses. He smelled her, tasted her, and saw her dark-rimmed eyes in the candlelight. He heard her breathy gasp as his fingers touched her flesh.

As he sank into slumber, hers was the last image he saw.

“By my faith, have you lost your mind?” Sir Christopher confronted his daughter across the breakfast table. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking last night?”

“That our prisoner was in need of some common kindness.” Rowena willed herself to meet her father’s angry eyes. She knew better than to deny what she had done last night. Her quilt had already been discovered in the savage’s cell.

“The creature is dangerous, Rowena. He could have hurt you, even killed you!”

“As you can see for yourself, he did neither. I came away from the encounter quite unscathed.” Rowena avoided glancing at her wrists, which bore small, dark welts where the savage had jerked his chain around them. She had chosen a gown with long, lace-edged sleeves that covered all but her fingers. Her father did not need to know everything that had happened.

“This time you were fortunate,” Sir Christopher snapped. “But the savage is not to be trusted. You’re to have nothing more to do with him, and that’s that!”

“I suppose I should respect your wishes,” Rowena answered quietly. “But I am the only person in this place who has treated him kindly. You may discover that he trusts no one else.”

Sir Christopher cursed under his breath, swallowed his ale too quickly and broke into a fit of coughing. Rowena was on her feet at once, sprinting around the table to pound the old man between the shoulder blades until his raised hand signaled that he was all right. As the coughing subsided she bent closer, pressing the tankard toward his chapped lips. He waved her away.

“Don’t fuss over me!” he grunted. “I’m a man, not some ancient dotard who needs to be fed and wiped.”

“That I know.” Rowena sighed as she reined back the impulse to dab a bead of spittle from the end of his jutting chin. Only then did she notice the folded letter, its wax seal already broken, lying next to her father’s plate. A groan escaped her lips as she recognized the oddly back-slanted handwriting.

“Not Edward Bosley again! What does he want this time?”

“Need you ask?” Sir Christopher crumpled the letter between his arthritic hands. “The wretch is out of money again and asking for a handout! Just because he married your mother’s younger sister and worried her into an early grave, he thinks he’s entitled to bleed me dry!”

“Tell him no,” Rowena said. “If it were up to me, that’s what I would do.”

“Even if he were to inform you that he could find no more work in the theater and as a consequence his landlord was about to throw him into the street—in which case he would be forced to come and take shelter with us?”

Rowena sagged against the side of the table, remembering Edward Bosley’s last visit. “How much does he want?” she asked.

“Twenty pounds. For now.”

“And twenty pounds again next month, I’ll wager. Very well, I’ll see that the money is sent.” Rowena returned to her chair and forced herself to take a spoonful of porridge. “Now, about the savage, Father—”

He scowled up at her, eyes narrowing sharply behind his spectacles. “No, Rowena,” he said. “I know where this discussion is leading, and there’s no use—”

He broke off as Thomas burst into the hall. The husky Cornishman was out of breath. His fleshy face was as pale as a slab of lard.

“’Tis the savage, sir!” Thomas gasped. “He looked to be asleep, so I told Dickon to open up the door and get the slop bucket. The bastard jumped poor Dickon and got him by the throat! I managed t’ get the door shut, but Dickon is locked in the cell with the savage—that is, if ’e’s not kilt by now!”

“Bloody fool!” Sir Christopher was on his feet. “See what you’ve done!” he said, turning angrily to Rowena. “Your so-called kindness did little more than lessen the creature’s fear of us! Now there’ll be the devil to pay!”

“Oh, hurry, sir!” Thomas’s eyes bulged wildly. “The red ’eathen keeps screamin’ something about a key! If we don’t get down there…” The rest of his words were lost as he wheeled and raced back toward the corridor. Sir Christopher, feeling his arthritis, labored after him.

Rowena bumped her hip as she plunged around the corner of the table. The heavy key ring at her waist jangled as it struck wood.

Pausing, her father shot her a stern backward glance. “And where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

“I’m coming with you,” Rowena said. “If there’s anything I can do—”

“Haven’t you done enough harm already? Stay up here where you belong!”

“With all due respect, Father—” she began, but this was no time for an argument, and they both knew it. With an indignant huff, Sir Christopher turned on his heel and hobbled furiously toward the corridor. Rowena caught up her skirts and rushed after him. Dickon, for all his size and strength, was the gentlest of souls, an innocent creature with the mind of a child. He had grown up on the manor and, as a youth, taught her to ride her first pony. She could not bear the thought of his being hurt. As for the savage—

Rowena forced all concern for the dark-skinned prisoner from her mind as she pressed past her father in the narrow corridor. This was no time for sentiment. If it came to a choice, Dickon would be the one saved. The savage, for all his worth, would be destroyed like a rabid dog.

From the top of the stairs she could see the yellow flare of torchlight on the walls. She paused while her father, his breathing alarmingly labored, came up behind her. He was too old for this ordeal, Rowena realized, her own heart pounding. His reflexes were too slow, his judgment too impaired by his years. She could not allow Sir Christopher to pit himself against the primeval strength and lightning instincts of the man in the cell.

She alone stood a chance against the savage.

Murmuring a plea for forgiveness, Rowena turned, pressed a hand against her father’s chest and shoved him backward into the corridor. Before the stunned old man could react, she wheeled and flung herself into the dark stairwell, pausing only long enough to slam the door and bolt it fast behind her.

“Rowena!” Sir Christopher pounded impotently on the massive oaken planks. “Open this door at once! Open it, I say!”

Closing her ears to his cries, Rowena hurried down the stairs, down and down, into the very maw of danger.

Fear hung in the dank cellar air, its presence so acrid that she could almost taste it. In the hellish glare of the torchlight, Thomas stood outside the cell jabbing a long wooden pike through the bars. The savage had backed into a shadowed corner, just out of his reach. One muscular brown arm was wrapped around Dickon’s throat. The other gripped the hapless servant’s waist.

“Keep back, mistress,” Thomas warned as she moved closer. But Rowena scarcely heard him. Her attention was riveted on the drama in the cell. She could see the glint of firelight on Dickon’s bulging blue eyes. She could see terror in every line of his plump, gentle face. Behind him the savage was no more than a black shadow, but she knew he was watching her.

“Key!” His voice rasped out of the darkness, pleading, demanding. Rowena felt the weight of the brass ring at her waist. One of the keys, old and rusted, was a twin to the key Thomas had used to open and lock the door of the cell. But she had no key that would free the prisoner’s manacled wrists and ankles. Her heart sank as she realized there might be no such key, except, perhaps, aboard the ship that had carried him to Falmouth.

“Rowena!” Sir Christopher’s muffled voice rumbled through the locked door as she glided like a sleepwalker toward the bars. “Have you gone mad? Let me in!”

Rowena pretended to not hear. Her father would be frantic, she knew, but a tragedy lay in wait here. If she did not act swiftly and courageously someone would die in this wretched place.

As she drew closer she could hear the whimpering sounds that came from Dickon’s throat. His face was an ashen lump above the dark band of the savage’s arm. Thomas was still jabbing uselessly with the pike. Rowena laid a hand on his arm. “Stop,” she said in a low voice. “You’re only threatening him. It won’t help.”

He hesitated, and for the space of a heartbeat Rowena feared he would argue. But Thomas was a servant and she was mistress of the great house. In the end he withdrew the pike and backed reluctantly away. From the top of the dark staircase, Sir Christopher continued to pound and rage. “Mind the door, Thomas,” Rowena said. “Keep my father safely out of this. Don’t let him interfere or you’ll answer sorely for it.”

“Aye, mistress,” Thomas muttered, his voice weighted with reluctance. He would answer sorely in any case.

Rowena could feel the savage’s black eyes on her as she fumbled with the cord at her waist, freeing the ring of keys. Her unsteady fingers found the oldest and rustiest among them and thrust it into the lock.

The corroded mechanism balked for a moment, then the tumblers clanked into place and the door opened.

Rowena could see the savage clearly now. His height and bulk filled the far corner of the cell. Black hair streamed in his battered, feral face. Black eyes glowed amber in the dancing torchlight. He looked like the devil incarnate, she thought. Only the sight of Dickon’s blanched face and bulging eyes kept her from bolting to safety and locking the door behind her.

“Hold on, Dickon,” she muttered, clutching the ring of keys. “I’ve come to get you out of here.”

Brave words. But Rowena felt her spirit quail as her eyes met the savage’s desperate gaze. There was a fair chance she could fool him long enough to free the terrified servant. But what would the savage do once he discovered that none of her keys would unlock his manacles?

She stepped into the cell and felt the stench of fear close around her, thick and dark and fetid. Beyond the barred door, even her father had fallen silent. She could hear nothing but the crackle of burning pitch, the labored sound of Dickon’s breathing, and the drumming of her own heart.

Dickon’s pale eyes bulged in the torchlight. Behind him, the savage seemed no more than a tall, black shadow. Only his arm and his massive fist had substance where they caught the light. She could see the chain now, passing in front of the groom’s plump, white throat. A single jerk would be enough to break his windpipe.

Swallowing her terror, Rowena forced herself to speak. “Don’t be afraid, Dickon,” she said gently. “I won’t let him hurt you. See, I’ve brought the keys. That’s what he wants.”

Dickon’s eyes flickered in response. His breath gurgled in and out, blocked by the pressure of the chain against his neck. “Let him go.” Rowena spoke slowly and clearly to the savage, holding the key ring just out of easy reach. The Indian made no response.

“I said, let him go!” Rowena’s hand dropped onto the bruised knuckles of the powerful hand that gripped the chain. The light contact sent a shock up her arm, a sensual chill that jolted through her veins. She felt the responding jerk of his hand. It took all her self-control to keep from leaping backward.

“Key! You open!” He rasped the words, shaking a manacled wrist in her face. The motion tightened the chain around Dickon’s neck. The groom gurgled in terror.

“Let him go!” Rowena ordered, punctuating the words with emphatic gestures. “You let him go, or no key. Understand? No key.”

“I…kill.” The chain tightened across Dickon’s throat. “Kill him…kill you.”

Rowena’s knees threatened to buckle beneath her petticoats. She willed herself to stand tall and speak fiercely. “You kill, you die!” she said. “Right here. Right now.”

Thomas moved the torch closer to the cell, shining the light directly in the savage’s eyes. The black pupils contracted sharply. Then slowly the chain slackened against the groom’s throat. The links slithered in the torchlight, and suddenly Dickon was free. He stumbled forward, half paralyzed by fear.

“Go on, Dickon,” Rowena said softly. “You’re all right now. Thomas will let you out.”

Dickon lurched toward the door of the cell. Rowena heard the ancient hinges creak behind her as Thomas opened the door. Then the iron bars closed. She was alone in the cell with the savage.

Her savage, she reminded herself. She had come to save him as well as the hapless groom. Now he stood before her in wretched majesty, his shackled arms extended, his eyes squinting in the torchlight.

How long could she play this game of pretense? And where would it end?

Rowena was about to find out.

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