MacGregor's Bride

by Barbara Dan

  "I think she wants a proper introduction to her mother." Bruce calmly transferred his avarously rooting daughter to Lydia's breast. Impervious to her novice mother, who blushed and squealed and jumped nervously, Isobella latched on like a sucker fish, and instinct took over.

  Her head resting on Bruce's shoulder, Lydia glanced up. "She likes me," she marveled.

  "Aye. She seems to have her mother's primitive instincts." Bruce laughed and buried his nose in his wife's sweetly fragrant hair, his heart full to overflowing. Bringing new life into the world was the nearest to a miracle he'd ever been.

  Lydia lifted her lavender-blue eyes to meet his. "Is Doctor Trowbridge coming?"

  "Should be here any minute. That's why I fired the cannons."

  "You did it?!"

  "Aye, 'twas a signal he and I worked out, so he could drop everything and come a-running."

  "All this time I thought the British had invaded! I'll get you for that, Bruce MacGregor," Lydia vowed. "See if I don't."

  "'Tis good to see you've regained your fightin' spirit." Bruce grinned, his warm brown eyes twinkling. "Doc's going to be disappointed. It seems you give birth as efficiently as you do everything else."

  "Cheated him out of his fee, did I?" She chuckled at the thought.

  "I'm tempted to pay the good doctor twice his usual fee for arriving late," Bruce said, remembering how he'd been excluded when Angela had the twins.

  "Bruce, no true Scotsman would pay more!"

  "Lydia, I said I was 'tempted.' Not crazy."

  The MacGregors laughed together over their little joke, while a tiny dark head nonchalantly dined at her mother's breast, her little fist tightly wrapped around her father's finger.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  October 29, 1814

  Freeing her sleeve from a splintery, rough sawn board, Lydia slithered past the oyster shack windows, intent upon tracking Bruce down. For the past two weeks he and Andrew Graham had been skulking around the waterfront after dark. Every morning he returned home, reporting that he was "hot on the trail" and expected at any moment to apprehend the culprit who was lighting blue flares along the shore.

  Four days after Isobella was born, Baltimore had been bombarded by a British land-and-sea attack. Answering the frantic call for reinforcements, Bruce had immediately weighed anchor. And once again the "blue light blockhead," duly dubbed by the traitor's frustrated pursuers, had prevented his departure.

  Meanwhile Lydia was busier than she could ever have imagined possible. One tiny infant proved an absorbing handful and a delight, but Isobella was nearly eight weeks old now and sleeping through the night. Lydia's vitality had revived, along with her lust for life and her fascination with Bruce's knees.

  Aye, and other parts as well, if the truth be known!

  In a way, she ought to be grateful to the "blue light blockhead," who had unwittingly kept Bruce at home, while other privateers were running interference with the British fleet. But since the baby's birth, a great many weeks had passed without the return of the nocturnal romps that were her life's blood.

  Quite frankly, her husband's obsession with capturing his elusive adversary had begun to irk her, and Lydia was not a patient woman. Chafing over her husband's long neglect, she had at last decided to take matters into her own hands. If Bruce couldn't flush out the culprit, she would!

  Only this morning, she had overheard Bruce mention the dilapidated boathouse just south of the oyster shack to Andrew. She hadn't caught the entire conversation, but she knew enough.

  Bruce meant to smoke out the traitor by sending his new ship, the Lady Valiant, down the Thames under cover of dark, the moon being in the first quarter. He had persuaded an old timer, Captain Buckley, to take command, while he and Andrew watched for the spy on shore, searching every building along the waterfront, if necessary.

  Earlier in the day, Bruce had openly provisioned the Lady Valiant from Robbie Harris's warehouse. His crew had swarmed the ship, checked rigging, sails and equipment, even borrowed tools for supposed repairs. Every fool in New London had to suspect something was afoot! To make sure, Harris wandered into Old Paddy's, buzzing it about that MacGregor would sail on the evening ride for New York Harbor, and was actively recruiting "a few good men."

  The trap had been baited and set. They had only to wait, and the culprit would spring it on himself. Or so they figured.

  Lydia had her doubts. Nothing was ever that simple.

  Bruce and Andrew had let the "blue light blockhead" slip through their fingers before. Obviously they needed her help. And so she had left Isobella sleeping under the watchful eye of the Harms sisters.

  Since Bruce already had the musket and a pistol with him, Lydia had considered taking the old blunderbuss hanging over the mantel. One tenth her weight, it was an ancient firing piece of frightening proportions; no doubt deadly in the right hands, but unwieldy in hers. Finally she decided the blunderbuss was worth more as a curiosity on the dining room wall than in combat. Armed with a small caliber pistol, she set out for town on horseback, minutes behind Bruce.

  Confident that she would find Bruce in the boathouse, she hurried along an abandoned path, now overrun by weeds, broken bottles, oyster shells, and rubble. The sudden violent beating of wings in a tall tangle of weeds set her heart to pounding. An angry white goose rose like a ghost from its nest and hissed, sending Lydia scurrying over discarded shards, wood scraps torn from a broken boat, and iron fittings. She stumbled, picked herself up, and tried the rusty doorknob on the boathouse.

  As she stepped across the threshold, a sudden violent push from behind propelled her forward. Knocked to her knees, Lydia uttered a muffled cry and rolled, trying to elude her assailant.

  "Get off me, you idiot!" she swore, jabbing an elbow in the man's eye. He reeked of alcohol and unwashed body odor as he came down, pinning her. She pummeled and punched, catching him in the Adam's apple, then bit his ear, only to spit it out, because it tasted so vile.

  "Lout! Filthy cretin," she yelled. "Let me up." Flattened against the dusty floorboards, she kept up a barrage of verbal abuse, fighting fiercely. Dirt and wood shavings rose in the scuffle, as they wrestled and rolled in the squalor of a building often used by seamen and tramps down on their luck.

  Lydia's fury at being so roughly handled gave her a strength she hadn't known she possessed. From good-natured girlhood tussling with her brothers, she knew a man's most vulnerable spots. She kneed his groin. She butted her head against his windpipe. She gouged savagely, slugging and kicking with all the seething rage of a wildcat fighting for its life. At the top of her lungs she yelled defiant threats, calling down the fires of hell to strike her assailant dead.

  Finally he flung Lydia against an overturned boat. Dazed and nearing exhaustion, she quickly decided to change tactics. She certainly couldn't outfight him. He had the advantage of superior physical strength. But that didn't mean she couldn't win, she reasoned. Any man who couldn't keep himself clean, who lived in such filth, surely had a screw loose. He shouldn't be difficult to outsmart.

  "Blockhead!" she yelled, neatly landing a punch on his eye.

  He yanked her viciously by the hair. "Bitch!"

  Lydia's blood froze. Up until now, they'd fought in pitch darkness, Lydia hurling insulting epithets, the man silent. From his first word, she knew . . . That voice! Even in the dark she knew the danger she was in. For the man lying on top of her, vile breath and all, had sworn revenge.

  "Adam Fenton?"

  She swallowed down a cold lump of fear, knowing that she'd made a serious miscalculation. Based on a snatch of conversation, she had ventured forth, impatient for a love tryst with Bruce. Oh, more fool, she! Now she found herself facing a situation that could cost her honor, if not her life. For an instant she lay petrified, thinking what to do. It was now obvious that neither Bruce nor Andrew was closeby, or they would have heard and come to her rescue.

  She had no one to blame but herself. While Bruce was pursuing his phantom "blockhea
d," she had a real one on her hands!

  "So you recognize me, eh, Lydia?" Fenton breathed fumes of foul alcohol into her face, his voice floating. "I knew if I waited long enough, I'd catch you one of these days."

  "Get off, you scum!" she snapped, suddenly aware that her skirts rode high above her knees. He'd torn one sleeve of her gown, and she could feel the crude evidence of what he intended to do to her, pressing against her thigh.

  She flung back her head and screamed as loud as she could.

  Adam Fenton's hand clamped down brutally over her mouth, bruising her lips against her teeth. His sweaty forehead gleamed like an eery mask above the wiry beard he now wore, as he deliberately roughened her flushed cheek.

  "You've had this comin' to you a long time, bitch." His savage enjoyment of her helplessness sent shivers up her spine. "I'm gonna get me a piece of what you've been givin' that sly bastard, MacGregor."

  Choking beneath his hot calloused hand, Lydia tried vainly to push him off. She was being methodically, bruisingly ground into the cold floorboards. She felt Adam fumble beneath her skirts, tugging at her pantalettes, and squealed with rage. His grubby fingers touched bare flesh, and she bucked feebly, trying to evade the insult.

  "Bruce and me go back a long way," Fenton told her, his left hand working at his breeches, clumsy and slow. Impatient, he shifted hands, and Lydia screeched out her hatred again.

  Adam cuffed her across the mouth. Lydia licked the cut, tasted her own blood, never taking her eyes from the dark mask of hate above her. His left hand circled her slender throat, and he gave it a squeeze.

  "Do that again, and I'll fuck a corpse," he warned. "Now where was I? Oh, yeah, I was tellin' you what good friends your husband and I used to be in school."

  Lydia saw right away what lay ahead. Rape was only part of Adam Fenton's revenge. He meant to prolong her misery. His grudge wasn't merely against her; it involved Bruce, and probably the community that had spurned him. "If you're such good friends, why are you doing this?" she whispered, hoping to delay what seemed inevitable.

  "Bruce is everybody's friend. Never had an enemy in his life. Or so he thinks," Fenton grunted, unbuttoning his fly.

  "Wh-what did he ever do to you?" Lydia stammered, nervously talking, afraid not to, for fear he would— She gulped, trying not to think about the thick bulge Fenton was slowly guiding toward the apex between her thighs.

  "I always hated him," he said thickly. "He makes friends without even tryin.' Things come easy for him. He makes money, while blokes like me barely get by. An' then he came back from Halifax a big hero!" He glared down at her. "Don't you see, bitch? He's got everything. Money, looks, friends, a beautiful wife, the whole town eatin' out of his hand!" He laughed mirthlessly and rubbed himself against her leg.

  Lydia saw Fenton's desperation. For years his jealousy had been festering. Oh, if only it was a case of her rejection! All she could do was stall for time.

  "S-so you think raping me will change all that," she said, trying to hide her panic.

  "It's too late to change my mind now," Adam said. "Ain't it funny? I was goin' to set fire to his ship tomorrow night—"

  "You want to ruin him financially?" she prompted. Her only hope lay in keeping him talking.

  "Yep. Old Bruce ain't brung in a single prize cargo since I set those blue flares. And I kept him from lookin' like a goddam hero, too," he sniggered.

  "That was smart thinking." Lydia held herself very still beneath him, her eyes fastened on his face.

  Adam Fenton went on, enjoying his boasting. "I've kept one step ahead of old Bruce all summer, him and Lieutenant Andy. I left false clues all over the place."

  "You must have liked that," Lydia encouraged. "Laughing up your sleeve at them. Imagine! Two such stupid men, trying to outsmart you."

  Fenton frowned. "I know what you're tryin' to do. But flattery ain't gonna save you."

  "I wasn't—"

  He reached up and pinched her right breast until he forced a yelp of pain from her lips. "Not too loud, slut. Just loud enough to let me enjoy hearin' you beg. You like gettin' it, don't you?" He jerked her bodice open, and his grimy fingers fondled her breasts.

  Lydia spat in his face. "Disgusting pig!"

  "I wonder if you'll think so when I'm through with you," he speculated, stroking her throat. She threw her head back as if to scream again, and his fingers closed like steel around her neck again. "Don't make a sound."

  Her eyes flashed with hatred, but she kept silent.

  "I know all about how Bruce makes you yowl and pitch and moan, just beggin' for it." His eyes were glittering shards, dark with evil fantasies. "It's a wonder folks in the next county can't hear the high fallutin' MacGregors makin' love."

  "That's ridiculous," Lydia whispered, afraid of what she read in his diabolical expression.

  "My cousin tells me everything," he informed her with malicious satisfaction. "Yep. Good old Isaac." He laughed at her surprised gasp. "You're quite the little reformer. Miss Do-gooder Lydia, takin' that old drunk under your wing."

  "That sweet old man is . . . your cousin?" Lydia stammered, incredulous that Isaac, whom she'd befriended and given a roof over his head, would betray her and Bruce.

  "Actually, he's my first cousin."Adam said. "Not so old either. Forties is all."

  Lydia shook her head, her eyes riveted on Fenton's. His hand, an encroaching insult, left her coldly unmoved. "You're making this up. I don't believe Isaac would—"

  "Stupid Lydia," he sneered, stroking her breasts. "Isaac's a drunk. He tells me anything I want to know, for a pint of gin." He yanked her tangled tresses, making her clamp her jaw against the pain. "So Bruce calls me a 'blockhead,' does he?"

  "He'll wipe the street up one side and down the other with you, when he catches you."

  Fenton chuckled. "That so? Well, tonight he's out chasin' after Isaac, who's busy leadin' him off the scent, Meanwhile I'll be enjoyin' his wife."

  "Adam, do you mean to kill me?" Lydia asked anxiously.

  "Not unless I have to. I got a better plan. I want old Bruce to squirm. Every time he looks at you, I want him to remember that I had his woman. That I outfoxed him."

  Lydia shuddered inwardly, feeling the pale horse of death ride across her spirit. Without doubt, Adam Fenton was a madman. The sickness eating away at him came from deep inside. He seemed consumed by a volatile, unpredictable anger that no amount of reason could appease.

  "And so you'll have your revenge," she said, her mind working frantically, seeking to gain a fighting edge, a way of escape. "One way or the other, you'll show Bruce and the whole town that Adam Fenton is a man to be reckoned with."

  Fenton's eyes fairly bulged. She saw how eagerly he coveted that moment of ultimate notoriety. Already desperate, Lydia decided to take a shot in the dark.

  "Who will know, Adam, if you rape Bruce's wife on this dirty floor? Where's the glory in that?" she whispered. She watched her words connect with some dark, lusting dream of his.

  "Bruce will know. They'll all know," he assured her, and his tongue lewdly flicked at his lips through his thick tangled beard.

  "I daresay Bruce will, and perhaps a handful of people. But they're Bruce's friends. Men of honor. They will keep it a secret to their graves." Lydia stopped resisting his horrible groping and fumbling. Her fingers, pinned between their bodies, grasped his turgid member.

  Fenton lurched with surprise, his eyes hot with desire for revenge and domination.

  "What are you up to, bitch?" he growled.

  "I can think of only one way the whole town will know what you did to Bruce MacGregor," Lydia said, pretending to conspire with him. "There's a longboat over on the wharf, turned upside down. I-I saw it on my way over here. Can you imagine, Adam, what they'd think, if you did it to me in the open? They would think I was giving myself to you willingly—"

  She paused. Had he seen through her game? Above all, she must get free, stand to her feet, so she could run! Otherwise, she didn't stand a ch
ance. If only she could appeal to his warped lust for power and fame.

  "You'd whore yourself?" Fenton latched onto the idea like a sea bass sinking the hook deep in his jaw. "Bruce would be a laughin' stock. Some hero, his wife whorin' on the dock!" He laughed and pulled Lydia to her feet. "C'mon, Mrs. MacGregor, let's see you spread your legs where every fuckin' drunk in town can see an' laugh."

  Lydia's heart slammed violently against her ribcage. Obviously Adam Fenton knew the waterfront better than she. He could take her anywhere. To an after-hours saloon, a brothel, anywhere. She breathed a prayer for a miracle as Fenton dragged her outside. Her clothing was falling off her shoulders, her breasts exposed and pale in the faint moonlight.

  Inflamed by thoughts of revenge, Adam was anxious to fulfill his fantasy. He pulled her along, heading north along the bank toward a stretch of gravel bordering the Water Street dock. His clothing was open, his sex exposed, and Lydia knew he had, indeed, gone stark raving mad.

  She stumbled, deliberately slowing their progress, and dropped to one knee. His grip on her wrist slackened as he turned to give her a back-handed slap. She dodged to one side, keeping low. Fenton raised his fist to strike her again, and she lunged upward, bringing her foot against his groin. Her vicious kick doubled him up. His howls rent the air. He dropped her wrist, panting and hobbling in pain.

  "Goddam bitch! I'll kill you for that!" he screamed.

  Lydia didn't wait to see how badly he was incapacitated. Her feet flew across the gravel. With only the moon's faint glimmer to guide her steps, she raced past the Customs office.

  It grew darker still,, as she sped toward the business district. Tiny shops blocked out the moon, leaving only eery shadows. Behind her, Adam Fenton, still roaring his outrage, called every vile name his demonic brain could spew out.

  Trembling with fright, Lydia paused indecisively. Which way to go? Surely some shopkeeper would raise his window shade, if only to see what the ruckus was about.

  Gasping for air, she darted into a recessed doorway, hoping to lose Adam Fenton in the maze of narrow streets. The weather was cold; she'd lost her shawl, yet her blood was up, fired by her frenzy and her desperate desire to live.