by Barbara Mack
“You have got to help them, Miss Maggie,” he pleaded from his knees beside her bed. “They will catch her and they will hang her. I told her not to go, I told her it was much too dangerous, but she went anyway, she said she had to.” He had Maggie’s shoulders in a death grip, and she eased his hands off, swinging her legs off the side of the bed.
“Calm down now,” she whispered. “I do not know what you are talking about, Tommy.”
Maggie had a sinking feeling that she knew who the ‘she’ was in this story, and she came to her feet and started rummaging in the wardrobe for clothes.
“Turn your back while you tell me, Tommy,” she said, and calmly began dressing in the pants and loose shirt that she had been using for her riding lessons.
“It is Miss Kathleen, they are hard on her heels, and I do not know what to do.” Tommy’s voice trembled, tears thickening his voice. “I did not know who to get. When I . . . when I found the hidey-hole in the stables, Miss Kathleen made me promise never to tell Nick, but she never made me promise not to tell you. They had a slave locked up at Drizzell’s, and they was gonna hang him tomorrow. They said he attacked a white man, a guest of the Drizzells, for no reason, but Drizzell’s slaves all say that guest of theirs was hurtin’ the man’s daughter, and that he did not do nothin’ but run to help her when she was cryin’ out for him. Kathleen said she was gonna get him loose, and the daughter, too. I told her not to go, I told her not to,” he said, and rubbed fiercely at his eyes, where the tears seemed to spurt out without his permission. “Something went wrong. Kathleen got both of ‘em, and they are on their way here, and Ned’s waitin’ there to hide them in the place that they have, but they are right on her, I tell you, right on her, and they are gonna catch her comin’ in, I know they are.”
Tommy hung his head, weeping, his whole body shaking with the sobs he tried valiantly to repress. “I was not supposed to go, but I followed her to make sure she was okay, and somebody set up a hue and cry right after they left the plantation. My horse is faster than hers and Kathleen is leading them around in circles so I got here first, but we ain’t got much time, Miss Maggie. Somebody has got to help her.”
Maggie finished tucking in her shirt. “So that is what is been wrong with her all day,” she breathed. “You can turn around now, Tommy. Let’s go to the stables, and we will try to figure something out.”
They crept down the stairs and out into the blackness of the night. There was hardly any moon tonight, and Maggie shivered in the darkness. Tonight, instead of being her friend, the darkness seemed to cloak evil; each shadow was malevolent and must belong to some twisted being that was here to catch Kathleen, catch her and hang her if they caught her. Goosebumps covered Maggie’s skin, and she quivered. What was she going to do?
They entered the stables through the double doors, and Maggie squeaked when a giant cloaked figure grabbed her by the shoulder. A quick shake and a hissed, ‘Quiet!’ in a familiar voice had her stilling her struggles. It was Duncan, minus his cane, dressed in the strange clothing that he had been wearing when they first met, that he had later told her was made in the Indian fashion, that one of his aunts had sent to him. He turned to look at Tommy.
“Go take the horse you used to the place where you usually keep them and stay there with them until sunrise, then sneak home without the horses. Ned can collect them later. I led them here, away from Kathleen. If they find the horse here, warm and obviously just ridden, they will know for sure instead of just suspecting. Tie up my horse right out front, to make sure they see it when they come in.” His arched brows drew together. “And hurry, boy, I do not want this to be all for nothing. I do not want them catching you, either. We do not have much time.”
Tommy obeyed without question, hurrying off into the shadows. He could not have been more than five feet away when the dark swallowed him up as if he had never been.
“Where’s the most obvious place, if you were going to meet your lover here?” he asked Maggie urgently, grabbing her arm.
“The tack room,” she said without hesitation. “They keep a small bed out there, so they have someplace to catnap when one of the horses is foaling, or needs round-the-clock care.”
“Lead me there,” Duncan said grimly. “And hurry.”
Maggie headed for the tack room, nearly pulling Duncan along behind her in her haste. In seconds, they were inside. Maggie shut the door behind them, and a sudden flare of light had her turning. Duncan held a stub of a candle in his hands, and Maggie realized he must have had it in his pocket. The candlelight threw flickering shadows across his face, highlighting his scar and his blade of a nose, making him appear almost demonic. Duncan put the candle in a holder he found on the shelf, then laid out his cloak on the narrow bed, and turned to her. The light of the candle fell full upon his face and he was once again the familiar Duncan that she trusted. Maggie breathed a sigh of relief and forced herself to stop trembling. Even though she would bet her life that Duncan would hurt them, it was only human to have a moment or two of doubt, especially when a person had gone through what she endured in her life.
Duncan pulled his shirt over his head, exposing a nearly hairless, heavily muscled chest. He threw the fringed shirt on the ground, then sat on the edge of the small cot to pull off his knee-high soft boots, which he had told her were called moccasins.
“Come over here, on the cot and loosen up some of those clothes,” he said quietly, not looking at Maggie. “You don’t have to take them off, but if we are going to convince them that we are lovers, you are going to have to appear at least a little unclothed and a whole lot closer to me than across the room.”
Maggie paled. “What good is that going to do Kathleen?” she whispered, but her nimble fingers were already unbuttoning her shirt.
“They are going to think that it was me that they followed through the forest from the start, and not Kathleen,” Duncan said patiently. “If they think they picked up the wrong trail, and followed me here where I was having an assignation with Nick Revelle’s housekeeper, it will take the suspicion off of everyone here. It will give Kathleen time to hide the slaves and get home. They will waste precious time checking everything out here, and Tommy will have plenty of time to get to the place where they stable the horses in the woods and hide them. He will stay there with them, for I doubt seriously that they will check his room or that they will consider a fourteen year old boy smart enough to figure out how to get a heavily guarded man and his daughter off a plantation.”
"And Uncle Ned?" she asked breathlessly.
"Safe in his room," he said briefly.
Maggie threw her boots atop Duncan’s, and slid under the covers, avoiding his eyes as she went to pull her shirt off. She wore nothing underneath it, having dressed in too much of a hurry to worry about such niceties. He stopped her with one hand on hers, and smiled gently at her.
“I do not think that is necessary.” His big fingers tilted her chin up. “I am your friend, Maggie. I have never hurt you, and I never will. You do not have to worry.” He wrapped the blanket around her. "Here, sit on my lap, I am too big to lie down on this cot."
She nodded, and he slipped the blanket around her, putting his arms with it. Even sitting up, they were a tight squeeze on the small cot.
"You are as big as a mountain,’ she grumbled in a shaky voice. Maggie laid her head on his broad chest and realized that he was chuckling without sound in the way that he had. She marveled at the way she felt in Duncan’s arms versus the way she felt in Nick’s. She felt warmed, protected, and somewhat embarrassed at being in Duncan’s arms, but if Nick were here instead, she would have been trembling with desire, not cold.
"How did you know that Kathleen was in trouble?" she asked quietly. "How?" He did not answer her at first, and Maggie peered intently up at him in the dark, giving him an insistent shake when he did not answer her right away.
"I heard . . . Kathleen calling me,” Duncan whispered slowly. "She was afraid and she needed help. I lay i
n my bed and I heard her cry out. So I came here to help. I cannot explain it any better than that." Maggie opened her mouth to say something, wondering how he could have heard Kathleen from miles away. "Sshh. I hear them now,” he whispered, and Maggie resolved to drag the whole story from him later. Then Nick’s furious tones came to her ears, and her heart fell to somewhere around her toes. Duncan’s eyes met her suddenly stricken ones, and he laid a hand on her cheek.
She had not thought about Nick being with the men, but of course he would be. They would have woken him first. He was going to find her here, in another man’s arms.
And he would hate her forever for it.
“I am telling you, there are no escaped slaves here! And that is not one of my horses. Do you think if I was stealing slaves I had be stupid enough to leave the horse out front? Look around, if you want. There is no-one here.”
Just as someone flung the door to the tack room, Duncan put his mouth on hers. The kiss was warm, and sweet, and Maggie was dying, dying, dying. She could feel Duncan’s compassion for her as she jerked her head around to look at the men standing crowded in the doorway. Nick was never going to forgive her, and no explanation was going to be good enough to cover this. Maggie squeezed her eyes shut against the light of the lanterns they carried and to shut out the sight of Nick’s face. Someone began to laugh in a coarse way. Duncan sat up in a way that shielded her body from the prying eyes of the men who crowded in the doorway of the small tack room.
“What are you doing here, Murdoch?” growled Nick, but Duncan did not answer.
Maggie slowly put her head up, her hands clenched on the sheet she held up to her chest for comfort, not for hiding behind. She felt tears burning hard behind her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. She watched Nick’s expression change from threatening to incredulous to angry in the space of a mere second. His eyes reproached her; he seemed to have lost his ability to speak, merely staring at them both with an expression that tore Maggie’s heart in half. Maggie felt a lump rising in her throat and a scorching pain somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, and she pressed her hands harder against her chest, trying to make it go away. She could not hold his gaze for long, and dropped it before the cold scorn in his. He spoke, finally, without taking his eyes off of her.
“Gentlemen, this is our new doctor, Duncan Murdoch,” he said darkly, without a trace of the emotion boiling in his guts. “I think it was he who you followed here and not any escaped slave at all. You have obviously made a mistake. I suggest that you leave my property and search for
your prey elsewhere, for it is not to be found here.”
One of the men chuckled, and Maggie burned with a blush all the way to her toes.
The men left, grumbling and talking among themselves. Snatches of their conversation drifted back to Maggie, and still she sat upon the bed with her eyes downcast, with Nick’s eyes on her, burning a hole in her, crushing her heart.
“Do not know where . . . damned thieves! . . . back on the trail . . . “
Even after the voices disappeared and were heard no more, they were all frozen in the tableau of misery. Duncan was the first to move, reaching for his boots and shirt. He pulled the shirt over his head, then looking at Maggie’s down bent head, spoke quietly.
“Let’s leave Maggie alone for a moment, shall we?”
Nick spoke not a word, just stood there in silent recrimination, his gaze damning her silently. He had thought she was different, that she was not like his wife, and then she had done this. The realization twisted like a dagger in his guts. He wanted to kill Duncan; he felt the dangerous emotion snaking through his body and he knew that the other man was very well aware of his desire to pound him into the ground. He clenched his fists, his eyes hot.
Duncan gestured toward the door, and Nick turned and left, striding angrily off. If he stayed here one more moment, he would attack the bigger man. He would try to kill him for taking the woman that he wanted for himself. Nick felt his heart grow cold as he walked away. Maggie’s betrayal was freezing his soul.
"It is not what you think," the big man called after him quietly, but Nick knew what it was. He did not need any explanations. He ignored him and kept walking. He had no desire to hang for murder, and that is what would happen if he stopped just for a second.
You should never have believed in her, he told himself harshly as he slammed into the house, rattling the door in its frame with the strength of his fury. You let her frailty and those big eyes, those eyes that seemed so honest and trusting, fool you . . . but her eyes were lying
just like the rest of her was.
He had thought that she was different; he had wanted to believe in her, to believe that at least one woman was capable of sustaining an emotion for longer than a few weeks. That is what you got for caring–a knife to the guts. She was ripe for some man to sweep her into his arms, and when she could not get him to do the job, why, she had just gone on to the next available one. He went to his study and poured himself a huge drink, slamming that door behind him with enough force to rattle the paintings on the wall.
Maggie blew out the candle and sat in the dark, her heart in tatters. She felt numb. Every word Nick had spoken with his eyes hit her like a blow. She wrapped her arms around herself and sank to the floor, rocking back and forth like a hurt child, a keening noise coming from her throat. The tears that she had been repressing slid unbidden down her face, and she wiped them away angrily. Crying was not going to help her now. Nick had been all but looking for some reason not to trust her, and now he would be certain that all women were liars and cheaters.
Maggie felt a flicker of anger begin to invade the dullness that shrouded her mind. He certainly had not waited around to see if there was any kind of an explanation, had he? He had jumped to the neatest conclusion and never even asked her about anything, he had just automatically assumed the worst. She jerked her boots on angrily. Admittedly, it looked bad, but he had known her for months. Could not he at least have asked her one question?
Duncan was waiting for her outside the door. His eyes studied her face, and Maggie knew he did not miss the grief that was crippling her. She tried to smile at him, but it was a pitiful expression at best. Nick was nowhere to be seen; Maggie assumed he had gone on up to the house.
“All right?” he asked sympathetically. When Maggie nodded, he put an arm around her shoulders and walked her up to the door of the house. “I am sorry, Maggie,” he said quietly.
“More sorry than you know. Do you want me to stay?”
“Not unless you want him to try and kill you,” she said wryly. “He will not hurt me, Duncan. The worst thing that he will do is yell at me,” she reassured the big man. And kill my heart. All those accusations in his eyes . . .
“Thank you,” Maggie said simply, putting her hand up to Duncan’s face. “I cannot think what we would have done without you tonight. I did not have any idea of what to do when Tommy came and got me tonight.”
Duncan’s smile twisted up on one corner. “You would have thought of something. I have got to go,” he said, his words little more than a whisper. “I have got to make sure . . . Are you going to be all right? “
”I will be fine,” she said firmly. “Go on now.”
He turned and left, his stride rapid. Maggie’s steps dragged as she entered the house. A light was on in Nick’s study, and she knew that he was in there. She was glad to miss the scene that she had been imagining, and so she made very little noise as she climbed the interminable stairs to her room. Once there, she fell across her bed, suddenly weary beyond belief. She fell asleep still fully clothed, and did not realize until days later that she had forgotten in all the confusion to ask Duncan just how he had heard Kathleen call for help when they were miles apart.
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“Let me tell him,” Kathleen said, carrying a pail of water over to the kettle. “I hate this, Maggie. Let me tell him.”
“No.”
Kathleen threw her a venomous look over her shoulder. “What is the point of making
yourself and everybody else miserable? Let me tell him.”
Maggie shook her head, panting slightly as she stirred the kettle of boiling water. Steam rose up around them, and though it was relatively cold outside, they both wore short-sleeved, thin gowns, and they were still warm. Maggie irritably tucked up strands of hair that kept falling out of the knot behind her head and clinging to her damp skin. It was wash day, the hardest day of the week, and she wished Kathleen would just shut up about the whole thing. They had a wash house to use, but it was just so hot out that they couldn’t bear to be in there with the boiling water.
It was over and done with; no use crying over spilt milk, her Ma had always said.
The man and his daughter that Kathleen had rescued were long gone, on to the next stop in their long trip to freedom. Maggie had not asked how Kathleen had gotten them out from behind locked doors that night, and Kathleen had not volunteered the information. She had also not said anything about what had happened the rest of the night or about Duncan, and Maggie had not asked about that, either. Kathleen had told her only that the girl was only twelve, and that the Drizzell’s guest should have been the one scheduled to be hung, not the girl’s father. All Maggie knew was that she had been filled with joy when Tommy had come down the stairs for breakfast the next morning and when Kathleen had showed up for work none the worse for wear. And that was all she wanted to know. She was not cut out for a life of intrigue. It was much too wearying.
Kathleen squinted at her through the steam, and took her turn in agitating the clothes around in the water with the dolly that they used, which was really just a handle with four fingers at the end for moving the clothes around. Her muscles strained and sweat popped out on her forehead. Maggie started transferring the clothes to the kettle they used for rinsing.
