Lord of the Wilderness Page 15

  She struck him on the chest, forcing his gaze back to hers. “Damn you. Damn you to hell a thousand times. You mislead the truth to cover—”

  He thrust her aside and jumped to his feet. “You make much when this was a trifling undertaking.”

  “Trifling?” She sat up and drew her knees to her chest.

  “Insignificant,” he said, shifting and attempting not to scowl at the mocking throbbing in his loins. “Inconsequential.”

  She angled her head, glaring holes in him. “After what happened just now, I will never look at you again—at myself in anyway unaffected. You call that trifling?”

  “Yes,” he snapped. He snatched his sack and slung it with his powder horn over his shoulder. In truth, he wanted her so much that his blood was aflame. He was so hard that it created a burning pain in every nerve and fiber of his being. “You have to go to England. The frontier is no place for a woman. The vows we took were a means to an end. I have no interest in making the kind of promises you require.”

  “What is it you hide so neatly?”

  His nostrils flared. “That is none of your affair.”

  Oh, it is my affair. After what we just did, I am owed an explanation.”

  “Damn you, Lady Faulkner. Damn you for seeking meaning where none was intended.” He would not look at her as he stalked from the river, yet he slowed on the path until he perceived her behind him. He did not want to see her face, for he knew she would read the lies in his own.

  She stepped on his heels, struck him on the shoulder. He pivoted and swore. She raised a hefty branch, her arc high, ready to do more damage. Before she struck him again, he ripped her weapon from her hands, and threw it against the trunk of an oak where it broke apart.

  “There is a war going on in case you haven’t noticed. I could not protect her. I cannot protect you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back on the river, Juliet stared at Joshua’s back as he paddled, each stroke deep and purposeful. There’d been a change in him. Now his eyes held neither hunger nor hostility when he looked at her. Those emotions had been replaced by a distant courtesy. She swallowed past an unexpected heat in her throat. He was living the memory of a deceased loved one.

  Tears? Where did they come from? She wiped them away; committed not to shed one more. No sense wasting time thinking of a man who neither wanted her nor had a place in her life.

  Yet deep in her heart, she grasped he had lied to her concerning his feelings. No man could bring a woman so close to the stars and feel nothing himself.

  For three more hours, they traveled north on the Oswego River that pursued its way through rich, green and gently undulating country, until it reached a natural terrace from which it tumbled, and then glided to the deep water of the Great Lake of Ontario. High on a precipice, Fort Oswego loomed with ominous high stockade walls, guarding the mouth of the watercourse like Cerberus, the many headed hound, guarding the gates of Hell.

  Juliet’s heart raced. Would her cousin help her? Had he received her letter? Did he know anything of what happened to her? A cloud passed over, shadowing them and she craved the warmth of the sun to take away the chill of foreboding that grew in her.

  Joshua hailed a sentry up on a parapet. She kept her attention fixed on her husband, helpless to stay the memory of that moment on the riverbank, helpless against a warm shudder of unforgettable pleasure. And her heart ached at his callous dismissal.

  With no idea she observed him, Joshua had let down his guard, talking to the soldiers and explaining their presence. What she glimpsed was the ache of loss, possibly the deep contrition and sacredness of grief he embraced, tinged with winter hues of hopelessness. Oh, the somberness he concealed, keeping himself separate from others even when he stood in their midst. That great wall he’d built—impenetrable and unbreachable.

  When the gates yawned open, they were bid to pass, and Juliet stepped through. Maybe that’s what made her care for him, what compelled her to absolve him for his callous words. Not merely the fervor of his kisses, the tenderness of his caresses, the fiery ecstasy he had shown her. Those made her hunger for him. But the other virtues stirred her compassion—the challenge of his unhappiness, the aura of his remoteness.

  The mystery of his secrets.

  Under sneering eyes of onlookers, they followed an escort of soldiers with bright red coats, and off-white breeches. A white woman in an Indian dress? She, the poor creature, had been a victim of both white men and Indian’s crimes, could imagine what they were speculating. Flung once again in a very moral society, its chin in the air, deciding with swift determination she was unacceptable, she leaned into Joshua, looped her hand on his arm. The tenseness of his muscles flexed beneath her fingers, brought a sense of security…and a wave of remembrance.

  A dark lock of his hair fell over his brow, making him appear more wickedly handsome than she could bear. His mouth curved in a humorless smile. “Are you afraid?”

  She caught his gaze then glanced away, lest he spot the havoc he had created in her soul. A parade of marching soldiers thumped past them, kicking up clouds of dust. “Very.”

  He patted her hand. “Where is the fearless Aphrodite who brandishes her candlestick, compelling mere mortals like Horace Hayes to tremble before her?”

  Though he tried to make her smile, she could not. His desertion reared its ugly head, speeding her to that howling darkness of childhood, that constant, roaring state of loneliness, where neglect and abandonment were the landscape of her life.

  Distantly, a hammer banged on an anvil, officers barked out orders, sentries strutted upon the parapets. None of these Juliet noticed as they passed by several barracks. Outside the commandant’s office, they were greeted by a handsome officer.

  “I am Captain Sunderland.” He dipped an appreciative and curious glance over her, then motioned to Two Eagles wait in an anteroom with Mary.

  Juliet stopped. “Joshua,” she spoke his name quietly.

  Startled, he looked away from the sentries at the door. For a second, pleasure flickered in his eyes, but then he fixed a polite expression on his face and gave a courteous nod. “My lady.”

  My lady. How formal he was. How cold and distant. As if he’d never hauled her from a river and kissed her. As if he had never lain with her on sweet grass and brought her to a state of wild completion.

  With the use of her title, Captain Sunderland raised an eyebrow. The intimacy of the wilderness was no longer. Like an actress on a stage, she must be mindful of her audience.

  Her cheeks heated. “I wanted to thank you again for rescuing me, Mr. Hansford.”

  “I merely helped my fellow countrymen.”

  “Of course.” She searched his face for any sign of the man who had held her the day before. The man who had looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

  Instead she saw a cold stranger. “Mr. Hansford, yesterday—”

  “Is best forgotten.” The muscles in his neck corded and his callous tone set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. He stared straight ahead waiting for the door to open. “You must trust the uncertainty of a new beginning.”

  She touched her throat. Parting with Joshua created a loneliness and a longing as great as an ocean.

  The door swept open and her cousin stood blinking. “Lady Juliet! I did not believe the guard when he told it was you. How is it you are here?” His eyes narrowed, scanning over her from head to toe.

  Joshua’s entry was barred by a guard barely out of his nappies and who had pushed a bayonet across the doorway. Abandoning Juliet did not put him in the mood for idle pleasantries. He gave the guard a deadly look that spoke the words as loudly as if he had said them, “Keep clear.” How many seconds to skewer the pimple-faced guard with his bayonet?

  Juliet glanced between her cousin and Joshua, then said, “Mr. Hansford is a trader and at peril to his own life has helped me to get to you.”

  Colonel Thomas Faulkner sat back, his pudgy hand smacked down on the carved lions on th
e arms of his chair and nodded.

  Joshua smirked at the guard, pushed the bayonet away, and swaggered into the room behind Juliet. He didn’t know who he disliked more, the British colonel or Captain Sunderland who stood to the side unable to take his smitten gaze from Juliet.

  The colonel’s lips twisted with revulsion upon Joshua whom he likely considered an unkempt colonial dressed in dirty deerskin.

  “Are you looking for a reward for the return of my cousin?”

  Joshua steeled his reserves, flexed his arm muscles. “My reward is knowing the lady is safe and with family. I’ll be on my way in a few days and beg respite and practice of my commerce, if you will allow.”

  Years in the wilderness, years of drinking rum, had degraded Colonel Faulkner’s face to the likeness of a tragic reproduction made of unleavened bread left out in the rain, bloated yet sodden, the features flaccid and blurred. The war and the colonel’s time in the Colonies had not altered his hubris and, thankfully, he did not remember meeting Joshua in Boston.

  The colonel lifted an eyebrow, sneering at Juliet in her doeskin dress. Apparently, he could not see past the tattered gown, the tangled hair, the smudges of dirt on her face.

  “The lady remains untouched?” The colonel glared, his eyes like dried blueberries stuck in dough, each with a red rim as though reposing in a ringlet of bacon.

  Juliet gasped.

  The colonel wanted to know if she’d been raped by the Indians. Joshua clenched his hands, swallowed his need to punch the lout, and he plunged in before her buffoon of a cousin made an opinion and cast her aside. “I arrived in the village of the War Chief Onontio before any harm had befallen the lady and took great care to rush her to the safety of her loving family where her person and reputation would be respected, that is,” Joshua dared, “if the family matches her innocence and her good character.”

  Joshua admired the way Juliet bore up under the humiliating disparagement of her cousin. Faulkner’s scowl had taken down fiercer officers than a gently-bred girl, yet she met his stare with unwavering ferocity.

  Captain Sunderland bowed to Juliet and glanced disapprovingly at his superior. “We thank you for the lady’s safe deliverance and obvious good character. She has been through much difficulty and should be heralded for her courage.”

  “How is it you were in an Indian village in the first place, Lady Juliet?” asked the colonel. “Where had you been taken from?”

  A muscle jerked in Joshua’s jaw. The pompous bastard. Joshua gave a brief summary. She has been neglected by family who should have protected her. I assume you are honorable and will hold up to the task?”

  The colonel narrowed his eyes. “You arrogant colonial. No one questions me about my honor.”

  Captain Sunderland interjected. “Rest and comforts will be provided to a subject of the Crown. May I recommend bringing her dresses from officers’ wives who have returned to England, and a seamstress in the fort to make any adjustments—and, of course, our hospitality can be extended to the trader, right, Colonel?”

  “Be my guest for a few days.” The colonel glared at Joshua and pressed an airy hand through the air. “Make available to Lady Faulkner whatever she requires. Captain Sunderland, you may escort my cousin to a room and make comfortable the other lady.” As an afterthought, he said, “Find whatever arrangement for the colonial that space allows.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite the remote and primitive surroundings, everything spoke of royal munificence and splendor. The white linen shone around the burnished reflections of pewter and sparkling crystal wine glasses placed in precise arrangements along the table. From the suspended chandelier, candles had been lit against the late hour, and cast their yellow glows on an oily cracked portrait of the colonel. The gleaming patina of muskets and swords, dangling with menace on the wall. Since Joshua was in the belly of the beast, the collection of weapons might prove useful.

  He drummed his fingers on his thigh, while waiting for Juliet, the guest of honor. Who seemed to be taking her time. He didn’t know why he had accepted the dinner invitation, suffering the snobbery of his countryman. Perhaps it was a chance to see Juliet one last time that had prompted him, to make sure she was safe and would be well-cared for. He’d seen her only once since he’d escorted her to the fort and in the attendance of Captain Sunderland.

  Two officers had attached themselves to him. A jaundiced-colored scarecrow of a sergeant, his temples deeply sunken as if a hammer had struck them and frail as a fledgling’s belly continued to boast of his high intellect.

  “Since you are a common colonial, you will profit from my greater experience and civilization,” said one man at his side.

  Joshua raised a brow. Wouldn’t the sergeant be surprised to learn he was the third heir to the Dukedom of Rutland, an unbroken line for a thousand years, and was educated in the finest schools in England and could wipe the floor with him academically? “Enlighten my ignorant state.”

  “Did you know, a tea made from horse manure is an effective treatment of Pemphigus?” Joshua took another look at the sergeant whose hand rose to itch large pustules erupting on his face. Joshua took a step back. By the smell of his breath, the sergeant had imbibed liberal doses. Was the prescription more fatal than the cure?

  A lieutenant flanked his other side. He had deep-set black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows that marvelously knitted together in the center of his forehead, and possessed a particularly annoying habit: hands moving constantly in competition with his conversation. He, too, was a self-proclaimed physician.

  The lieutenant rolled up to the balls of his feet. “Did you know there is a treatment for difficult breathing and excessive spitting? One makes small pills of dried and powdered toad, and consumes the prescriptions until the convulsion fails.”

  Or until you breathed your last breath. Joshua diverted the delay to review his last two days of reconnaissance.

  Fort Oswego projected a primary, two-story structure, loop-holed for musket fire and surrounded by a crenellated parapet which, in turn, was surrounded by a U-shaped stone wall and two integral blockhouses. Overall, it was an eight-pointed star-shaped fort, including a three-bastioned square fort and several four-bastioned forts, an irregular field fortification, three masked coastal batteries, a number of redoubts, retrenched batteries, and other minor works. Such fortification concentrations demonstrated outstanding tactical and strategic importance and a great link to the interior.

  The fort was impassable and well-guarded, supplied by British ships across the lake from Canada and replenished with new recruits and regiments. The barracks were packed, even the officers’ quarters were crammed, the commandant’s quarters, the most lavish and spacious. Of particular note was the northwest bastion housing the munitions beneath. The fort would be a prize for General Washington to capture.

  While his attention was focused on what the scarecrow sergeant was saying to him, a hushed murmur rose, growing into a crescendo. Everyone had shifted their gazes. Joshua glanced to his left. The lieutenant possessed the same sappy rapture as the rest of the men in the room. Turning his head, he looked for the source of everyone’s interest…toward the doorway…and froze.

  “Lady Juliet Faulkner,” a soldier announced.

  She entered the room like an immortal goddess, Aphrodite, granting divinity to miserable souls. The men stood at attention awed by her beauty and transformation, and so did Joshua.

  Gone was her Indian doeskin dress, replaced by an emerald green gown made of stiff silk, the square neck cut low to enhance the deep valley of her swelling breasts, and edged with a fine white lace matching her long cuffs. The front of the dress was drawn back in the current fashion and well-served to show her tiny waist. Beneath flowed a finely embroidered petticoat that hid her shapely ankles. Her flaming red hair was pulled atop her head in an elegant style, leaving long ringlets that spiraled to her creamy white shoulders pinkened by the sun. A breathtaking vision of beauty and breeding.

  Capt
ured as every hale and lusty man in the room, he couldn’t pull his gaze away. A knot of jealousy churned in his belly. How he wanted to wipe off the stares and ogling of every man.

  “It is a lovely occasion to dine with you gentlemen this evening,” Juliet said, her spell binding every man in the room with her radiance.

  She laughed and said, “Where shall I sit?”

  Her voice came as the most amorous sound he knew, more rousing than the rustle of silk on bare skin. She looked to him. But he could not move. No. He could not perform that role any more.

  From her clamoring legion of admirers, Captain Sunderland raced to her side. No doubt, she’d find her favor in his handsome ceremonial dress, his pride, authority and rank displayed in the ornamental fringe sewed on his shoulder. He leaned into her, touching her hair.

  “You are lovely as a rising sun,” Sunderland said and she laughed at his remark.

  Then he clasped her hand and brought it to his lips.

  She lifted her chin, and her smile brightened. Joshua regarded the spectacle through a scarlet mist, and watched as she directed her courtesies from one male to another, always smiling and nodding.

  “Where is Mistress Mary?” asked the colonel. He was not to be disregarded. Dressed in his full regalia, a bright red uniform with shiny gold buttons and dripping with gold epaulets lionizing his rank, and a testament to his soldier-valet to make him appear intact.

  Juliet smiled, the kind of smile that wove spells and caused men to run upon hot coals. “Mary has the megrims and begged to stay in bed. She is still not fully recovered from her ordeal.”

  Joshua had seen Mary moving round the fort earlier in the day. He was not convinced.

  “Good God,” Faulkner ranted when his eyes beheld Joshua. “Who gave the cloddish colonial permission to sup with us?”