by Jenna Kernan
“Let it be me,” he whispered.
Skylark lowered her head to his chest. “It has always been you.”
He sprang like a snare, released by the slightest touch of his quarry, his arms coming about her and drawing her close. He lowered his head until his cheek rested on the top of her head.
His words where choked by emotion. “Thank the Great Spirit.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
White Owl heard the hooting of the horned owl coming from somewhere beyond his lodge, but now the great birds held no horror for him. He knew that it meant only that the spirits carried a message for his people. Five moons had passed since he was welcomed into the tribe of the Low River people. The Digging Moon had arrived and the winter camp had disbanded as each of the four tribes set off to their favored hunting grounds.
Beside him, his wife Skylark stirred and nestled closer to him, pressing her warm back against his naked chest. He wrapped an arm protectively about her middle, gauging the swell of her belly and then lifting a brow at the powerful kick of their child.
“Oof,” she groaned, and then gave a soft chuckle that warmed his heart. She moved his hand so that it cradled her belly. “My aunt says that I used to kick like this and that it is a good sign for a strong child.”
White Owl smiled as he held his wife and child in one embrace. Then he leaned in to nuzzle Skylark’s neck.
“Do you ever see our child in your visions?” she asked, her hand now over his.
“Never. Spirit Bear says that it is the way with farseeing men, a blind spot like the white places in an old man’s eyes. He says none of us should see our future too clearly.”
“What did Bright Arrow say about your news?”
“He will send a hunting party to see if the blue pony boys are building a fort on the Green River.”
“That is very close to our summer trapping area.”
“Too close.”
“Perhaps they are on a different river?” she asked.
He did not answer. He sometimes misinterpreted what he saw, like when he saw the hunters who fell through the ice and believed they were of the Wind Basin people, when it turned out they were Sioux scouts who had ventured onto a pocket of thin ice.
“Perhaps,” he said.
Her breathing slowed and came in soft puffs of air as she dozed. Beneath his palm came the pushing of a tiny hand or foot. He pushed back and met resistance. He laughed.
White Owl knew that he would never lead a raid or be chosen to head a medicine society or earn another coup feather and he did not care. To his surprise and without any of those things, he had still earned the respect of his new people. In a strange unfolding of events, that fall from his horse had given him everything a man could ever hope for. The farseeing man had never seen far enough to predict his many blessings.
The owl hooted again.
“Tomorrow, my friend,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “Tomorrow we will see what message you carry.”
And then, the farseeing man fell into slumber with his arms wrapped around the most important ones in his life. Once he thought he was cursed. But now he saw the truth. He had been blessed and blessed again.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story,
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Don’t miss Jenna’s
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APACHE PROTECTORS
from Harlequin Intrigue.
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HUNTER MOON
TRIBAL LAW
NATIVE BORN
Keep reading for an excerpt from STOLEN ENCOUNTERS WITH THE DUCHESS by Julia Justiss.
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The Moons
Fast Water Moon (mid-March to mid-April) Runoff from melting snow and spring rains make the rivers and streams run fast and high.
Digging Moon (mid-April to mid-May) Time for planting seeds and digging spring greens.
Many Flowers Moon (mid-May to mid-June) The prairies and meadows are alive with blossoms, birds and bees. Early berries are ripe.
Little Rain Moon (mid-June to mid-July) Rainfall is at its lowest. Rivers and streams run low. Days are long and hot.
Ripening Moon (mid-July to mid-August) Many roots, seeds, tubers and plants are ready to eat. Fish such as salmon begin to run.
Hunting Moon (mid-August to mid-September) A time for the fall hunt for winter buffalo robes and meat from deer, elk and buffalo.
War Moon (mid-September to mid-October) Time to war with enemies.
Winter Camp Moon (mid-October to mid-November) Tribes of different clans gather for the winter camp.
Story Moon (mid-November to mid-December) Snows fall heavily, nights are long. People gather to hear stories, repair and create clothing, weapons and tack.
Freezing Moon (mid-December to mid-January) The serious cold comes. Families stay close to the fires and game is scarce.
Deep Snow Moon (mid-January to mid-February) The time of the heaviest snows and most serious storms. Deer strip the bark from the trees because they can no longer dig through the snow to the grass.
Empty Belly Moon (mid-February to mid-March) This moon the food stores often run short and the people are hungry.
*The names of the moons are the author’s interpretation based on Native American culture.
Each tribe refers to the months of the year in their own way.
**The year begins with spring, because spring is the first season in the medicine wheel for many native people.
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Stolen Encounters with the Duchess
by Julia Justiss
Chapter One
Setting off at a pace brisk enough to clear the wine fumes from his head, David Tanner Smith, Member of Parliament for Hazelwick, headed from the Mayfair town house where he’d dined with some Whig colleagues towards his rooms at Albany.
The friends had urged him to stay for a few more rounds, but after a day of enduring the m
ostly irrelevant objections the opponents of the Reform Bill kept raising to delay bringing it to a vote, he was weary of political talk. He was also, he had to admit, somewhat out of spirits.
His footsteps would echo loudly once he reached the solitary rooms of his chambers. Though he rejoiced that his best friend, Giles Hadley, had found happiness with Lady Margaret, he’d discovered that losing the companion with whom he’d shared rooms since their student days at Oxford had left him lonelier than he’d anticipated.
Since the only woman he’d ever loved was far beyond the touch of a lowly farmer’s orphan, he didn’t expect he’d ever find wedded bliss himself. Being common-born, but sponsored by a baronet and a marquess, put him in an odd social limbo, not of the gentry, never acceptable to the haut ton, but as a rising politician in the Whigs, not a nonentity either.
Rather a conundrum, which spared him attentions from marriage-minded mamas who couldn’t quite decide whether he would be a good match for their daughters or not, he thought with a wry grin.
The smile faded as he recalled the stillness of Giles’s empty room back in Piccadilly. Who might he marry, if he were ever lonely enough? The daughter of a cit who valued his political aspirations? A politically minded aristocrat who would overlook the lack of birth in exchange for elbow room at the tables of power?
He was rounding the dark corner from North Audley Street towards Oxford Street when the sounds of an altercation reached him. Slowing, he peered through the dimness ahead, where he could just make out the figures of two men and what appeared to be a young woman draped in an evening cloak.
‘You will release me at once, or I will call the watch,’ she declared.
‘Will ye, now?’ one of them mocked with a coarse laugh.
The other, grasping the woman’s shoulder, said, ‘The only thing you’ll be doing is handing your necklace over to us—and the bracelet and earbobs, too, if you don’t want that pretty face marred. ‘
‘Aye, so pretty that maybe we’ll take you to a fancy house after,’ the other man added. ‘They’d pay a lot for a tender morsel like you, I reckon.’
‘Take your hands off me!’ the girl shrieked, kicking out and twisting in the first man’s grip, as the second pulled on the ties to her cape.
Davie tightened his grip on his walking stick and ran towards them. ‘Let the woman go!’ he shouted, raising the stick menacingly. ‘Now—before I call the watch.’
For an instant, seeing his imposing size, the men froze. Then, city blokes obviously having no idea of the damage a strong yeoman could do with a stout stave, they ignored him and resumed trying to subdue the struggling female.
He’d warned them, Davie thought. After having to restrain himself around buffoons all day, the prospect of being able to deliver a few good whacks raised his spirits immensely.
With a roar, he rushed them, catching the first man under his ear with the end of the stick and knocking him away. Rapidly reversing it, he delivered an uppercut to the chin of the second. The sharp crack of fracturing bone sounded before the second man, howling, released his hold. Wrenching free, the lass lifted her skirts and took to her heels.
Davie halted a moment, panting. Much as he’d like to round the two up and deliver them to the nearest constable, he probably ought to follow the girl. Any female alone on the street at this time of night was likely to attract more trouble—at the very least, some other footpad looking for an easy mark, if not far worse.
Decision made, he turned away from the attackers and ran after her. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you!’ he called out. ‘It’s not safe, walking alone in London at night. Let me escort you home.’
The girl gave a quick glance over her shoulder, but apparently unconvinced, fled on. Hampered by her skirts, she wouldn’t have been able to outrun him for long, but before he could catch up to her, she tripped on something and stumbled. With a cry, she fell to her knees.
Reaching her in a few strides, Davie halted at her side and offered a hand to help her to her feet. The girl took it, but then suddenly jerked away with such violence that, when Davie hung on instead of releasing her, the force of the ricochet slammed her back into Davie, chest to chest.
Swearing under his breath, Davie held fast to the lass, who immediately began struggling again. ‘Stop it!’ he said sharply. ‘I told you, I don’t mean to hurt you.’ Lowering his voice, he continued, ‘We’ll sort this out, miss, but not on a public street. Let me take you somewhere safer, and you can tell me how to get you home to your family.’
With a deep sigh, the girl ceased trying to pull away from him. ‘Please, Davie,’ she said softly, ‘won’t you just let me go?’
The dearly familiar voice shocked him like the sharp edge of a razor slicing skin. ‘Faith?’ he said incredulously.
* * *
To his astonishment, as he turned the woman’s face up into the lamplight, Davie recognised that it was, in fact, Faith Wellingford Evers, Duchess of Ashedon, he had trapped against him.
Before he could get his stunned tongue to utter another word, the lady pulled away. ‘Yes, it’s Faith,’ she admitted. ‘I was on my way to find a hackney to take me home. Couldn’t you pretend you hadn’t seen me, and let me go?’
As the reality of her identity sank in, a second wave of shock, sharpened by horror over what might have happened to her, held him speechless for another moment. Then, swallowing a curse, Davie clamped a hand around her wrist and began walking her forward. ‘No, Duchess, I can’t let you—’
‘Faith, Davie. Please, let it be Faith. Can’t I escape, at least for a while, being the Duchess?’
It shouldn’t have, but it warmed his heart that she would allow such familiarity to someone who’d not been a close friend for years. ‘Regardless, I can’t let you wander on your own, chasing down a carriage to get you back to Berkeley Square. The streets in Mayfair are better, but nowhere in London is truly safe after dark, for anyone alone. To say nothing of a woman!’
‘You were alone,’ she pointed out.
‘Yes, but I was also armed and able to defend myself,’ he retorted. ‘I was going to take the young lass I’d rescued to a tavern and discover how to help her, but I can’t do that with you. Not around here, where we are both known. You’d better let me summon the hackney and escort you safely home.’
She slowed, resisting his forward motion. ‘You’re sure you can’t just let me go?’ After his sharp look of a reply, she said softly, ‘I didn’t set out to be foolish or irresponsible. I am sorry to have inadvertently got you involved.’
She swallowed hard, and the tears he saw sparkling at the edge of her lashes hit him like a fist to the chest. How it still distressed him to see her upset!
‘Well, I’m not. Can you imagine the uproar, if you had summoned the watch, and they discovered your identity? Far better for it to be me, whose discretion you can depend upon. If you don’t want to find out what society would say about a duchess wandering around alone on a Mayfair street, we better return you to Ashedon Place as soon as possible, before someone in a passing carriage recognises you.’
When she still resisted, a most unpalatable thought occurred. ‘You...you do trust me not to harm you, don’t you, Faith?’
She uttered a long, slow sigh that further tore at his heart. ‘Of course, I trust you, Davie. Very well, find us a hackney. And you don’t have to hang on to me. I won’t bolt again.’
Without another word, she resumed walking beside him. The energy that had fuelled her flight seemed to have drained out of her; head lowered, shoulders slumping, she looked...beaten, and weary.
Good thing he had to be mindful that some ton notable might at any minute drive by, else he might not have been able to resist the strong impulse to pick her up and carry her. After a few more minutes of brisk walking, they arrived at a hackney stand where, fortunately, a vehicle waited. Still not en
tirely believing he was accompanying his Faith—no, the widowed Duchess of Ashedon, he corrected himself, never his—he helped her in, guiding her back on to the seat.
After rapping on the panel to signal the driver to start, Davie looked back at the Duchess. ‘Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you? What about your knees? You took quite a fall.’ If they had harmed her, he’d track them down and take them apart limb from limb.
‘No,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I was frightened, and furious; my arm got twisted, but I’ve nothing more than bruises. I think I landed a few good kicks, too.’
‘Thank heaven for that! Before we get back to Berkeley Square, can you tell me how you ended up alone on the street at this time of night?’
‘Can’t you just let me return, and spare the exposition?’
He studied the outline of her profile in the light of the carriage lamps. ‘I don’t mean to pry. But finding you alone, practically in the middle of the night—well, it’s disturbing. Something isn’t right. I’d like to help fix it, if I can.’
To his further distress, the remark brought tears back to her eyes. ‘Ah, Davie. You’ve always wanted to make things better, haven’t you? Compelled to fix everything—government, Parliament, society. But this can’t be fixed.’
She looked so worn and miserable, Davie ached to pull her into his arms. Nothing new about that; he’d ached to hold her since he’d first seen her, more than ten years ago. Sister-in-law of a marquess, she’d been almost as unattainable then as she was now, as the widow of a duke.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t kept him from falling in love with her, or loving her all the years since.
‘What happened?’ he asked quietly. ‘What upset you so much, you had to escape into the night?’
She remained silent, her expression not just weary, but almost...despairing. While he hesitated, torn between respecting her privacy and the compulsion to right whatever was wrong in her universe, at last, she shrugged. ‘I might as well tell you, I suppose. It wasn’t some stupid wager, though, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
