by Karen Ranney
He had no right to treat the girl so badly. All she’d ever done was try to help those who needed help. But Bruce had never seen it that way.
He had to be stopped. And Miss Rose had to be saved.
Chapter 26
Rose hadn’t returned.
Captain McDougal didn’t say a word or prod him in any way, but the man had checked his pocket watch three times in the last fifteen minutes. Their route was back down the Wando River and the man was right to want to navigate it in the daytime.
The two seamen who’d helped Rose deliver the food were back. He’d told them he didn’t want her out of their sight, but each man stated that she’d been adamant about speaking to Maisie alone.
He didn’t know who he was angrier at, the two seamen or Rose.
That had been fifteen minutes ago.
When she still hadn’t arrived a few minutes later, he knew something was wrong. He checked his own watch, caught McDougal’s eye, and left the Raven, intent on finding Rose.
When he stepped up to the veranda, the door was open. He knocked on the door frame. No one answered, so he called out for Bruce or Claire. The child he’d seen before was suddenly there, racing through the foyer like a sprite.
“Hello,” she said, stopping to stare at him.
He crossed the threshold to speak to her.
“Hello. Do you know where your Aunt Rose is?”
Her bright smile immediately vanished. “My daddy says she’s done something wrong and can’t come into our house anymore.”
“So you haven’t seen her?”
“Go to the kitchen, Gloria,” Claire said, suddenly appearing at the door. “See if Maisie has anything for you to eat.”
Gloria took one look at her mother, another at him, then was speeding down the corridor, her shoes making a tap, tap, tap on the wood floor.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“I have no idea where Rose is. I haven’t seen her since she came into my house and insulted me. Nor do I intend to see her again.”
“Won’t you miss your sister?” he asked, genuinely curious. He’d missed Glynis those years she was away from Glasgow, and couldn’t wait for another one of her letters to the family. But Claire didn’t look like she gave a good damn.
“You don’t wear mourning for your brothers,” he said. “Why is that?”
“That is none of your business, Mr. MacIain. Now I’d appreciate if you would leave my home.”
“Because they were Yankees and you’ve so fully embraced your husband’s way of life that even a brother becomes an enemy?”
“This war has separated families, Mr. MacIain. Please leave my house.”
“Not until you tell me what’s happened to Rose.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It was my impression that she was leaving with you this morning.”
Her patrician nose wrinkled a little, either at him because he was only Duncan MacIain of MacIain Mills, a man who worked for his living, or because Rose was accompanying him without benefit of chaperone or companion.
He had a feeling it was equal amounts of both.
“Where’s Bruce?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know, Claire?” He was annoyed, and he was rarely annoyed. That this vacuous woman had the ability to pull on his temper was another irritant.
He didn’t like this woman with her air of propriety, who’d allowed her sister to be treated like a slave, to be whipped and degraded and hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it.
She was just one of the reasons he’d be overjoyed to see the last of Glengarden. The other was Bruce, and it looked like he was going to have to go hunting for the bastard.
He turned and would have left the house, only to be faced with another woman, one he’d never before seen.
“You’re a very rude man,” she said. “You’ll leave my house and never enter it again. Or if you must, use the back entrance so anyone with distinction will not be subjected to your ill humor.”
She was standing, but not very well. She had a cane in one hand and was gripping a chair back with the other. He didn’t know how old she was. The wrinkles on her face and neck could be from sudden weight loss or age. Her features—chin, nose, and cheekbones—were sharp. The dark blue dress she wore hung from her shoulders, and despite the hoop skirt, he could tell she was little more than a skeleton.
The bright pink circles on her sunken cheeks and the pink color of her thinned lips didn’t match her aristocratic expression. It was as if a painted doll had begun to speak like the Queen.
Susanna: she was the only one of the MacIains he hadn’t met. Evidently, she wasn’t disposed to like him, either. Maybe, at one time, he would have been concerned about the level of antipathy he faced from his American cousins. Now he accepted it as a badge of honor.
The more they hated him, the better he felt about himself.
But because he’d been reared to respect the elderly, he bowed slightly in her direction.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
“Who are you?”
He didn’t bother answering. Let her son illuminate her. He had to find Rose.
Turning, he left the house.
He hadn’t had time, or the inclination, to explore the whole of Glengarden, but he knew where the barn and the slave cabins were. A dozen other buildings were located to the west of the cabins, one of which was the stables. Each stall was empty, and from the number of industrious spiderwebs, he doubted if the building had had any occupants lately.
If he, as a Scot, would have been at war with England, would he have given all his horses to his fellow Scots? He couldn’t say he would. Hopefully, he’d have retained some of his common sense and kept a few back for use on his own property.
Common sense, however, was something not to be found in abundant supply at Glengarden.
He walked the lines of cabins, his anger growing with each structure he passed.
If he’d been brought up here, like Bruce, would he have been a different man, or one just like his American cousin? The question was impossible to answer, but he hoped he would have had more compassion for his fellow man. Or had been able to learn from his mistakes. That, too, was unknowable, a hypothetical question that would never be answered.
Bruce seemed to be one of those people who enjoyed the suffering of others. Did each scream bring him pleasure? Did every moan make him feel more powerful? What kind of soldier had he been? Had he been a leader among men, or a sadist?
He found Bruce near a cluster of buildings closer to the house. He didn’t know what they were used for and he didn’t care.
Biting back his anger, he approached the other man.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
He advanced on Bruce. “You damn well know who. Rose. Where is she?”
Bruce stood leaning against the wall of the building. He glanced around him, took a cheroot from his pocket and calmly lit it.
“You should look around the slave cabins for your lost little Rose. She was always mucking about with the slaves.”
“She isn’t there. Where is she?”
Bruce smiled. Did a man’s character show on the outside? Had he always had that bitter look in his eyes or was that recent, after the loss of his leg? Had his mouth always turned down as if, despite all his advantages, he was somehow still dissatisfied?
He suspected that Bruce was one of those people who were never happy. They could be wealthy, esteemed, and powerful, yet something would always be missing from their lives. Because of that, they resented those who found it. Maybe it was contentment. Or maybe the answer was simply love.
“You’ve done something with her. I know you have.”
“She’s changed her mind about leaving with you. Women like Rose do, you know. But they’re too c
owardly to come out and admit it. She doesn’t want to go with you, but she’ll never tell you. She’s like that. Always running off when it’s too difficult to stay in place. That’s what she did in going to Scotland, you know.”
He could see her standing in front of him in his imagination, her green eyes deep with emotion, her red hair a bright beacon.
Forgive me, Duncan. I couldn’t say good-bye.
No, she wouldn’t have done that. He knew she loved him. A woman like Rose wasn’t fickle or faithless.
“She went to Scotland to save your family while you were off playing soldier.”
Bruce’s smile thinned.
“She had no need to do that. Or trying to run the plantation. There were men to do that.”
“Until they left.”
Bruce’s smile disappeared.
“I don’t know a damn thing about farming,” Duncan said. “But even I know you can’t harvest a crop unless you plant one. How did you expect her to buy seeds? Or till the soil without the horses you so kindly gave to your Confederate army?”
“Why use a horse or a mule when Rose would do?”
The smirk was visible; the sarcasm deliberate. He wasn’t going to rise to Bruce’s taunt.
“I heard about that. How you thought working in the fields might teach her a lesson. The problem was, Bruce, that she’s the one who taught you. She took everything you doled out and threw it back at you.”
“She’s a thankless bitch who went behind my back to free my slaves. She gave them the money to leave. She showed them the way. She even forged my name to safe passage papers. Then she had the gall to sell cotton that belonged to me.”
“I was willing to pay twice the price you could have gotten in Nassau because of her. Did you think of that when you burned it? Where are you going to get the money for seeds now? Who’s going to see that your family is fed? Not Rose, because I’m not letting her stay here.”
“Or maybe she’s already made the decision,” Bruce said, his smile back in place. “I’d be willing to bet she’s run away again.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Bruce turned and would have walked away if Duncan hadn’t grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him around, causing the other man to almost fall. He didn’t care that Bruce was missing half his leg. He could be missing both of them and he’d still want to lay him out flat.
Grabbing the man’s shirt, he hauled him up until their faces were only inches apart.
“Where is she?” he asked, accentuating each separate word.
“In the cold house.”
He turned to see Maisie standing there, her hands clenched in front of her.
“He dragged her all the way with a rope around her neck.”
Her gaze moved from Bruce to meet Duncan’s eyes.
“I don’t know if she’s still alive.”
If she wasn’t, Rose wasn’t the only person who was going to die today.
“SHUT UP, Maisie. If you don’t, I’ll shut you up.”
Bruce had that look in his eye. That look she’d seen in the kitchen, as if he wanted to whip her then. Or now. But if he thought she was going to tolerate a whipping, he was wrong.
She was free. She didn’t care if the Confederacy accepted it or not, Mr. Lincoln had freed her. She stayed here to take care of Miss Susanna and she did so with more patience than anyone in this house. She cleaned up the old woman’s messes, she calmed her confusion. She did errands for Miss Claire that she could easily do herself. She put up with every one of them, but she wasn’t about to be punished for helping Miss Rose escape this place.
No. No more.
“He struck her, too. Her whole face was bloody.”
“Where’s this cold house?”
She turned to Duncan.
“I’ll show you. He took the key from the pantry. There’s only one.”
Duncan still hadn’t released Bruce, still had him by the shirt, but you would never know it from Bruce’s smile. The Devil was on Bruce’s face and in his heart.
Maisie began to lead the way to the east side of the house.
“You’re dead, Maisie.” Bruce’s voice was like syrup, thick and sweet.
She was trembling, but she pushed down her fear. Miss Rose never did anything to hurt Bruce. She only tried to help other people, but that was enough for the man to hate her.
“Nobody goes in there anymore because it’s empty. He would leave her to die.”
“Where’s the key?” Duncan asked Bruce.
The other man just shrugged.
She’d seen a lot of brutality in her life. Whippings, beatings, a man enraged and taking off after another man for stealing something of his, be it a brush or a wife. The blow she witnessed from Duncan MacIain ranked right up there at the top of brutal events.
His fist must have had the power of a boulder because when it connected beneath Bruce’s jaw, the man’s head snapped back. She heard something crack, saw Bruce’s whole body fly up and then land flat on the ground as if he’d been felled by an act of God.
She stared at him for a moment, grateful that she’d been witness to such a thing.
Kneeling beside the unconscious man, she searched Bruce’s pockets. To her great surprise, the first thing she discovered was a gun tucked into Bruce’s shirt. She didn’t try to pick it up, but only pointed to it. Duncan reached down and pocketed the weapon, which was a relief.
The key was located in the small front pocket of his trousers. She fished it out and handed it to Duncan.
The look on his face was that of an angel of retribution.
Her first thought was that Miss Rose certainly had picked right. Her second was that Bruce was going to be dangerous when he woke.
SHE WAS hoarse from where Bruce had choked her. She didn’t bother shouting for help, knowing it was futile. She’d spent hours yelling for help and no one had ever heard her.
One by one she examined the shelves. There was nothing there. No bags of flour or sugar, no churned butter, no buttermilk, nothing. Their cook used to store food like chowchow, okra, pickles, and relish here in glass jars in the cold house, but there were none to be found now.
Nothing was on the topmost shelf, either. No old pots and pans not used but not discarded, either. Everything at Glengarden was saved, but the cold house had been stripped. The only things remaining were the shelves and the sounds, either industrious mice looking for any kind of scraps or spiders the size of her palm.
No one was going to come to the cold house. Their cook had been one of the slaves who’d slipped away from Glengarden at night. Maisie had taken on the task, but she knew there was nothing here. Claire, to the best of her knowledge, didn’t even know the location of the cold house and wouldn’t have been interested even if she knew. Old Betsy never left her cabin, and Susanna? Coming here would be beneath her. Benny was the only one who might wander by, but he wouldn’t hear her.
She sat on the floor with her knees drawn up, trying to calm herself. She knew how difficult it was to figure out a plan when she was terrified. Instead, her mind was going in several directions at once. What if Duncan didn’t find her? What if he sailed off without her? Would he?
No, Duncan was constant, of that she was certain. He was one of those people whose word was his bond. If he said something, you could believe it. You could trust him. You knew he was honest and decent.
Dear God, she wasn’t worth him; she knew that. But she wanted him so much. She wanted a life with him where people were free, where war didn’t threaten to overrun them. She wanted a life in a place like Glasgow, where people were friendly and smiling.
Her first day in Scotland had taught her that it was a different place. Even as a stranger, she’d been welcomed, treated like family, put to bed and fed.
The first day at Glengarden she’d been horrified. She could remember Claire showing her everything around the house and, later, the grounds. Her sister had waved her hand toward the fields and said something like, “Cotton is king at Glengarden. It’s the only crop we grow.” Only once on that day had she alluded to the one hundred seventeen people enslaved here, and that was with the same nonchalant dismissal, the same “way of the South” excuse.
She’d taken on a task that first day, to make the lives of Glengarden’s slaves better. Some things she did, Bruce never knew about, like taking messages from one plantation to another, or ensuring that letters got to Charleston. Or seeing to it that a man who was talented in healing got the herbs and supplies he needed.
Anyone in the South would agree with Bruce, that she deserved to be where she was, sitting in the dirt and the dark as punishment. She’d broken so many laws and so many societal edicts in the last two years.
Yet she wouldn’t take back anything she’d done, even now.
Maybe being loved by Duncan and loving him in return was a reward for her small actions.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she bent her head and prayed. A simple prayer, but a heartfelt one.
Please God, don’t let me die here.
Chapter 27
Rose heard the key in the lock and braced herself. She had nothing with which to defend herself, only her body, and she was going to fight Bruce with everything she had.
He was going to have to shoot her to keep her in here.
“Rose.”
She’d never been so grateful to hear a voice in her life.
She stood, nearly falling when a wave of dizziness hit her.
“My God, Rose, what did he do to you?”
She was, for the second time in her life, hefted in a man’s arms and carried somewhere.
She glanced down on the ground at Bruce’s unconscious form. “The question is what did you do to him?”
“A taste of what he truly deserves.”
“He locked me in again,” she said. “This time he was never going to let me out.”
