Last year one John Sausamon, a “praying Indian,” had reported trouble brewing—and been murdered for it. Three Indians had been executed at Plymouth for the crime, which had only deepened the unrest. Colonists like Moffatt, who believed the Wampanoag chieftain had already made an alliance with the powerful Narragansetts and could put ten thousand men in the field, were alarmed and taking their own measures. Moffatt’s “measures” had led him, a wealthy man, to arrange for a shipment of contraband arms to be delivered up the Providence River for the defense of Rhode Island. Cameron had that shipment waiting on his sloop in Narragansett Bay and was to have received his instructions from Moffatt tonight on where to land it.
At first Raile, by nature suspicious of elaborate plans—which too often smacked of treachery and nonpayment—had resisted the idea of journeying so far inland across the low hills of the Rhode Island countryside. Why couldn’t his man meet him at a “safe” tavern in Providence? Why this out-of-the-way hole? But when he had learned that Moffatt had a bad leg which made travel difficult for him, Cameron had acquiesced. And here he sat, his only contact a dead man, and a valuable arms shipment subject to search and seizure lying in the bay.
He was about to rise and take his leave when his departure was stayed by the sight of the girl. A bonny sight she was, and the slimy plot he’d heard hatched outside was about the taking of her virginity.
Raile sat back down thoughtfully. It was not late. He could still spend the night at that inn he had seen along the road. As the girl brought his ale, the buckskinned fellow who had been plotting outside with the dandy by the window, reached out and grabbed roguishly at her bodice. She jumped away, sloshing the ale over his coat. With a happy roar, he rose and would have thrown his arms about her, but the dandy, right on cue, roared, “Sit down, you dunderhead! Let Mistress Lorraine alone!”
Casting a grateful look at Philip, Lorraine set the tankard of ale carefully down before Raile Cameron and turned to flee.
Philip called her over. “I’ll not have you mauled and pinched by such ruffians as that,” he growled.
And Lorraine, remembering all too well how many times Philip’s jealousy had erupted into tavern brawls over her, said uneasily, “Let be, Philip. The man is drinking heavily and meant no harm.”
“No harm, is it?” cried Philip angrily. He half-rose in his chair. “By God, I’ll teach him to manhandle you!”
Anxiously Lorraine pressed her hands against his chest, urging him to sit down. “Please, Philip, do not fight him on my behalf.”
Philip seemed pleased to have her dainty hands pressing urgently against his chest and sat back docilely enough.
With a sigh of relief, believing the brawl averted, Lorraine moved back to the stranger’s table. “Your supper will be ready soon,” she promised him. “Though ’twill be only cold meat and bread, I’m afraid, for the fire is out.”
Raile nodded. “That will suit me well enough,” he said indifferently. And then, “How do you come to be so well-spoken, Mistress Lorraine? Your accent bespeaks of town.”
“ ’Twas my mother’s influence,” she confessed. “She was a lady and did school me well.”
“To serve ale at this tavern?”
Her blue-gray eyes clouded. “To marry,” she said bitterly. “But when she died, all things changed.”
“Aye, they have a way of changing,” he agreed, remembering his own childhood on Scottish shores where the world had been green and young and full of promise. He roused himself. “But you are very young, Mistress Lorraine. Your circumstances may alter for the better.”
“ ’Tis to be hoped,” she sighed. “I’ll bring your supper now.”
Raile ate slowly. As he consumed his cold venison and thick slab of brown bread and washed it down with tankards of ale, the small crowd in the tavern thinned out—farmers who must be home, for they’d be up before cockcrow, a tradesman or two who must open up shop early. Finally only the buckskinned fellow who had reached for Lorraine and the foursome of young bucks at the next table were left—and one of those had already passed out from drink and slid down from his bench, his head lolling as he snored loudly.
Lorraine liked the tall stranger. She liked the way he looked at her—as if she were a lady. The way he spoke to her—with respect. Respect was something that was sadly lacking in her life these days. Philip could take her out of all this—and she hoped he’d get around to it eventually—but meantime he was content to be free, not saddled with a wife, and where did that leave her? Working long hours in a tavern, the prey of rough and careless men.
She began to polish a tankard with a piece of coarse linen. Unmindful that Philip was watching her keenly with a truculent expression on his handsome face, Lorraine strolled back to Raile’s table.
“Was your supper good enough?” she asked him. “ ’Twas the best cut I could get.”
Raile smiled at her, keeping an eye meanwhile on Buckskins, who was easing around in his seat as if to reach out again for the girl. It was Raile’s intention to foil the nasty plot he had heard concocted outside. Tavern wench she might be, but her virginity was probably the only valuable thing she owned outside of her very considerable beauty, and Raile did not like to see it stolen under false pretenses. “The meat was very good,” he said, loud enough for the young dandy, Dedwinton, to hear. “But the view was even better, Mistress Lorraine. I’ve been beguiled by watching your sweet face.”
She flushed prettily. “You must not say such things,” she murmured. “I do but work here for my bread.”
“And does that work become tedious?” he asked bluntly.
She gave him a swift honest look from those steady blue-gray eyes. “It becomes hard,” she said gravely. “Especially when I must pay for the breakage others have caused and it is tallied up against me so that I may have to work more than my years of indenture to pay for it all.”
“Breakage?”
She nodded gravely. “Aye—if the landlord’s wife decides the men have fought and broken things because of me.”
“And do you then set suitor against suitor and ignite these disputes?”
Vehemently she shook her head. “Never. For I like not brawling nor”—she turned and threw this recklessly in Philip’s direction—“nor brawlers.” She heard Philip’s tankard come down hard on the table, but ignored it.
“What is not your fault should not be charged against you, Mistress Lorraine.”
“In life,” said Lorraine bitterly, “even an accident of birth may be charged against one.”
Raile looked at her in surprise—for it was just such an accident of birth that had sent him off on the wrong road in Scotland. Illegitimate and plagued by his father’s legitimate sons, who seemed to nourish some spite against him, young Raile had had a stony life indeed. But now all that was behind him. Still, he could understand—and sympathize. “ ’Tis sad you must learn this hard truth so young, Mistress Lorraine,” he said softly.
Lorraine gave him a very sweet smile that showed off the matchless perfection of her white teeth and the soft curve of her ripe young mouth. At the next table the threesome who were still upright watched alertly—especially Philip. Rage was kindling in his eyes as he bent his head for some whispered conversation with his friends Brad and Bob, and signaled Tate Corbin, seated nearby.
Lorraine turned to take the now shining pewter tankard back where she had got it, but she did not walk past Corbin as the trio expected. Instead, seeing a bench that was set awry where its last occupant had left it, she turned and moved toward it. Raile’s attention, diverted for the moment from the young men, followed her delicious figure and her lushly outlined young hips and buttocks as she bent to move the bench back into position.
It was a moment of inattention that was to cost him. A hard fist slammed into his slightly turned jaw and sent him spinning from his bench. At the same time, a moccasined foot kicked over the table holding his trencher and near-empty tankard.
Lorraine screamed.
R
aile rolled as he fell and, quick as a cat, was back on his feet, instantly sending his assailant—the grinning one called Brad—backward across a table. But a second man, Dedwinton, came flying forward, and from the velocity of the assault both contestants went staggering toward the door and through it, locked in each other’s arms.
Out into the summer night they went, with Corbin and Philip’s two friends plunging after. It was dark under the trees but it seemed plain to Lorraine, standing in the tavern doorway, that the tall stranger was equal to taking all four of them, from the agile way he leapt about, striking a blow here, parrying a blow there, sending his jostling opponents into disarray.
Oddsbud’s wife, who had been muttering as she counted knives and spoons in the corner, now came running forward to grasp Lorraine’s arm and pull her roughly back into the room. “I saw you!” she cried in a fury. “You flaunted yourself before that stranger and you caused this to happen! Look at this trencher—all dented . . . and that knife—bent! You’ll pay for this, never fear!”
Too upset to speak in her own defense, for she did feel that she had flirted with the stranger—perversely, to irritate Philip—and if anyone was hurt in the fray out there, it would be her fault, Lorraine kept silent under the woman’s assault, but struggled to break free of the clutching bony hands.
“Now, now!” cried Oddsbud, huffing up in an attempt to restrain his wife, who was fairly dragging Lorraine across the floor in her rage.
Outside, Raile, who had just knocked Brad spinning against a tree bole and was now grappling with the heavily muscled man in buckskins, heard Philip’s voice ring out loudly: “I’ll teach you to take liberties with Mistress Lorraine!” And a pistol ball sang through the air.
Raile, who had handful of fringed buckskin shirt clutched firmly in his left hand while his right was busy delivering a punishing blow to his assailant’s jaw, instinctively ducked as the ball whizzed harmlessly over the head into the trees. Letting go of Corbin, he made a grab for his own pistol stuck in his leather belt. But even as his hand darted toward it, a stick of wood, held firmly in young Bob’s eager hands, came down solidly on the back of the Scot’s dark head and his world exploded into a bright flash of colored lights. He fell heavily to the dew-wet ground.
Inside the tavern’s common room, Lorraine heard Philip’s roar and then the sound of the shot, and paled. Oddsbud’s wife released her with a suddeness that made her stagger back.
When they heard Brad’s anguished drunken cry of, “My God, Philip, you’ve killed him!” both Lorraine and the tavernkeeper’s wife would have rushed outside but that Oddsbud grabbed both women and pulled them away from the door.
“ ’Tis the devil’s work tonight,” he growled. “But the lads, right or wrong, are from around here and the stranger’s not! ’Tis best we see nothing and hear nothing—do you understand me?”
For a few moments, amid a flurry of shouts from outside, Oddsbud’s wife grappled with him in silence. But finally she wrenched herself free. “You keep your hands to yourself, Oddsbud,” she panted. “See nothing and hear nothing indeed! I want to know what’s going on in my own woodlot!” Lifting her skirts so that her scrawny calves came into full and unattractive view, she sprinted with surprising speed out the door. Oddsbud followed in full pursuit.
Left alone in the common room, Lorraine leaned upon a table and put a hand over her eyes. Oh God, that she should have been the cause!
Suddenly she was grasped by a pair of hands and, turning with a start, found herself staring into Philip’s face. He had a cut on his cheekbone and his eyes looked wild.
“My God, Lorraine, I’ve killed a man,” he muttered. They’ll have me up for murder—of that I’m sure! And all for jealousy because you showed him such preference!”
“Preference? Oh, Philip, how could I prefer a man I’ve seen but for an hour or two?” She was so upset she hardly knew what she was saying. Though Philip had changed toward her since her station in life had worsened, he was still the man she loved. “Surely you have not killed him?” she cried. “Perhaps he still lives!”
Philip’s voice sounded distracted. “He came at me, Lorraine, and he was pulling a wicked-looking pistol from his belt. I lost my head and shot him.” He cast a hunted look around him. “If only there was someplace to hide till I can get away later. Oddsbud will stop me if I try to reach my horse through yonder doorway, but he did not see me slip in here—they all think I’ve run away into the woods, and some have gone there to look for me. Ah, Lorraine, ’twas all because I love you so!”
CHAPTER 4
LORRAINE STARED UP at Philip. Around her the world seemed to have spun to a halt. Even the shouts outside were muted, dimmed.
Because he loved her so! Those words she had hungered for—and to come at such a time!
“Quick, I’ll hide you in my room,” she said. “There!” She pushed the ladder toward him and he took it. “Up the ladder with you, and I’ll say you did not come this way. Then when all is quiet you can slip away and ride to safety.”
“Wouldst do that for me, Lorraine?” Philip’s breath was warm on her ear.
“Yes, yes! But hurry!” She gave him a push and returned to the doorway to stand in it, living proof that none could come or go by this door without passing her. Behind her she heard Philip’s soft moccasined footsteps quickly receding.
Looking out, she could see the tavernkeeper and his wife standing by the woodpile. Behind them the dark trees formed a barrier and there was no one else in sight. Lorraine looked about for a body but saw none.
Suddenly a figure darted around the corner of the building. It was the buckskinned man, Corbin. He ran to Lorraine’s side.
“Did Philip come by this way!” he gasped. “He killed that fellow! Brad and Bob are carrying his body away now to hide it for a while, but Oddsbud’s wife has a tongue that will soon be clacking and they’ll find the body and there’ll be the devil to pay!”
Hiding his body . . . that pleasant stranger with the genial smile? Lorraine swallowed and a quiver went through her. Still, she reminded herself that she owed her first loyalty to Philip, whom she had ruined this night with her indiscretion.
“No, Philip didn’t come by here,” she told Corbin, for she neither liked nor trusted the fellow.
He gave her a ribald wink. “And you wouldn’t tell me if he had, would you, Mistress Lorraine?”
She flushed angrily, but was spared a retort by the Oddsbuds’ return. The tavernkeeper was forcibly dragging his wife with him.
Lorraine moved aside to let them pass. Corbin gave her another knowing look and went off to untie his horse. From the trees Brad’s voice called, “Ho there, wait for me. I’ll ride along with you.”
“You’ll pay for this tomorrow, Lorraine, you brazen hussy,” screamed Oddsbud’s wife as he dragged her through the doorway of her bedroom at the far side of the common room. “I’ll take a whip to you, I will!”
“Shut up!” Oddsbud kicked the door shut with his foot and their shouts became muffled behind the thick door.
With her heart still beating triphammer beats, Lorraine climbed up to her room and carefully pulled the ladder up behind her. She groped about in the loft, where only a little moonlight glimmered in from under the eaves.
In that warm darkness, scented by the fresh straw that filled her mattress, a pair of arms came around her waist and a quick kiss smothered her gasp.
“Alone at last with you,” murmured Philip’s fond voice.
Lorraine struggled weakly in his arms. How she wanted him! And tonight—tonight he had killed someone because of her. Wrong though it was, he had been driven by a lover’s jealousy—of that she was certain.
“No,” she murmured.“Please, Philip, no. Philip, you’ve killed a man tonight. You can’t stay here, you must think . . . plan.” Her voice broke off for he had begun to pull her dress down off her shoulders. The worn material tore and the rip was one with her sob of worry for him as he pushed her down firmly into the straw ben
eath him. “No, Philip,” she whispered urgently. “It isn’t right, and at such a time, how can you think of—”
“Hush,” he chided, “or they’ll hear. Do you want them to hang me, Lorraine?”
Oh God, no, she didn’t want that! But . . . but Philip was taking liberties with her she’d never meant to allow any but her someday bridegroom to take. She tried to pull up her bodice, gasped as she felt her chemise, suddenly unloosed, come slithering down over her firm young breasts, felt Philip’s hands seize them eagerly. She felt a hot pair of lips and a warm wet tongue nuzzle one pink-tipped trembling breast.
Hot anger swept over her, and something else, something she could not identify, a worldly magic as old as Eve—but the anger was uppermost because Philip knew how she felt about letting a man take her lightly.
She began to fight him in earnest, silent and gasping. Writhing in his arms, she kicked at his shins, her small fists pounding against his chest.
Philip was hard pressed to keep her wriggling from beneath him and he dropped upon her suddenly, pressing her down by sheer weight and buried his face in the silky softness of her hair. His voice came to her muffled.
“Oh, Lorraine, I want you so,” he whispered yearningly. A very real passion throbbed in his voice. “And think . . .think, Lorraine! I’ll have to flee. They’ll be searching at my house tomorrow—here too.” His voice was a goad. “And who knows when I’ll see you again?"
That gave her pause, and in that pause she ceased to fight him. Suddenly she found her skirts whisked up to her waist to meet her bodice. Now her hips as well as her breasts were naked beneath him on the straw mattress.
“No,” she whispered wrenchingly. “No! But his hard mouth came down on hers and she was fighting for her breath as well as for her virtue.
As Philip held her down and moved lustily atop her, Lorraine discovered to her horror that he had already undressed and had been waiting for her, trouserless. She recoiled as his manliness brushed her, and renewed her battle, turning this way and that in her panic as she tried to escape.
To Love a Rogue Page 5
