Lord of the Wolves

by S. K. McClafferty

  Sauvage sensed her surrender. It had not been his intent to seduce her, yet she had looked so soft and so sweet standing there, with tears streaming down her face, and he’d been strangely moved by the sight of her grief. He’d been compelled to dry her tears, to attempt to cheer her just a little, to distract her with his teasing, and then she’d raised her eyes to his and he’d been lost. Eyes the shade of a bottomless lake on a storm-swept day. Eyes a man could easily drown in... and Sauvage had.

  He’d felt himself sinking, going surely, inexorably down, succumbing to the plump pink and white, somewhat pious, softly scented charms of Sarah Marsters.

  What a succulent little morsel she was, a sweetmeat to assuage an appetite too long repressed. How long had it been since he’d seen a white woman? How long since he’d lowered himself between a pair of silken thighs?

  Not since Caroline.

  Sauvage gave himself to his hunger, deepening the kiss, tightening his arms around Sarah, drawing her down until she lay beneath him on the ground, catching the hem of her long linen skirts, edging it slowly up.

  At the same time, Sarah came to her senses. Wedging her hands between them, she pushed against his chest; he pushed back her prayer cap and pulled the pins from her hair.

  Sarah caught his hands. “Kingston, what are you doing?”

  “I am liberating your glorious tresses, Madame,” he said with maddening calm. “Since I first laid eyes on you, they have been crying out for their freedom, and being a man who loves freedom, how can I resist?”

  The last pin was plucked, and the shining brown mass fell loose with a sibilant hiss. He buried his face in her hair and Sarah’s tears gathered. Furious tears that slid down her cheeks. “If you truly loved freedom, then you would release me.”

  “So much for promoting peace and love among the savages,” he said. “It’s good policy, Madame. Are you certain you will not change your mind? I could have sworn that you were willing.”

  “I am certain,” Sarah insisted.

  “Then, save your tears, Madame,” he said quietly. “I would not want an unwilling woman.” He pushed away from her and stood. “I’ve never forced a woman to lie with me, yet I am not above seduction. A pretty face and generous curves are tempting, and temptation is hard to resist. You understand irresistible natural urges, eh, Madame? Having been wedded and bedded yourself.” He stood back with a wry smile, sketching a shallow bow before he turned away. “I’ll be back in a little while. Compose yourself, and be ready to leave by the time I return.”

  Sarah dried the last of her tears on the hem of her skirt, then, when she could no longer hear his fading footfalls, she bowed to her mortification and covered her face with her hands.

  What had come over her? Why had she, a respectable widowed woman, newly betrothed, allowed a man like Kingston Sauvage to take such liberties?

  Surely, as he had said, she was no stranger to the ways of man and woman. But neither was she a slave to passion!

  She was simply Sarah Marsters, plain and lackluster and given to plumpness, a timid brown wren of a woman who had accepted a third-party marriage proposal rather than live alone.

  There was nothing exciting about her, nothing fiery, bold, or heroic, and yet, in that moment when Kingston had spoken of her sultry mouth, she had felt almost pretty. The blood had thrummed through her veins and for a brief time, when his mouth had moved over hers, her thoughts had been so filled with the wonder of his possession, his touch, that there had been no room for doubts, or fears, or her ever-looming inadequacies.

  Now, they came rushing back with a vengeance, along with a new realization. “Merciful God in Heaven,” Sarah breathed. She was truly along with Kingston Sauvage. But what frightened her more than anything was the nagging suspicion that given the same set of circumstances, she would do it all over again.

  Sarah was seated on a large rock examining her shoes when Kingston reentered the clearing a short time later. “Is something amiss with your shoes, Madame?”

  The skin at Sarah’s nape prickled deliciously. His voice was so liquid-sounding, so silken that the simplest comment or question seemed to brim with hidden meaning. It was a ridiculous notion, of course, the fanciful thoughts of a lonely young widow—a widow of whom he had taken shameless advantage just a short time ago.

  She was still quite upset about what had occurred between them. Sufficiently upset to consider not answering his question at all, but he would only assume she had not heard and put the question to her again. “I was trying to decide which to devour first, the sole, or the upper portion. I suppose it must be the upper portion, since I could not fit the entire sole into my ‘sultry’ mouth.”

  He laughed, a pleasant ripple of sound, deeper than his voice, more resonant. “I am happy to see that you have a sense of humor. You’re going to need it.”

  “It was only half a jest,” Sarah admitted. “I’ve heard tales of the colonial militia boiling their moccasins for something to eat. It always sounded ludicrous when I was living in London with all that I wished to eat. Now, quite suddenly, I understand.”

  “Hungry, are you?”

  She looked up at him, shading her eyes with her hand. “I don’t suppose you happened to kill something while you were gone?”

  He shook his head, his black eyes glinting in his lean, hard face. “There’s little game to be found around here these days.”

  “I thought the wilderness was teeming with all manner of wild beasts,” Sarah said. “A veritable hunter’s paradise.”

  “It was, before the coming of the white man. Still is, west of the mountains, but here in the East, game is scarce.”

  “But the land is still raw, untamed.”

  Kingston shrugged. “Traders come in droves from the coastal cities seeking furs and bringing with them ruination, whiskey and rum. Wherever a trader makes his post, a settlement is bound to follow. Soon there are too many whites and not enough game to go around. It’s bad for the land. Bad for the people.”

  “But surely settlement is progress,” Sarah countered.

  He shifted his stance, folding his hands over the barrel of his long rifle. “That would depend on which side of the mountains you are standing when your belly is empty, would it not?”

  “I do believe I take your meaning.” She cast a wry glance at her shoes. “Never let it be said that I am gluttonous. Which will it be, monsieur? Upper, or sole?”

  He chuckled, reaching into the leather satchel that hung at his hip. “There is no need for so drastic a measure just yet.”

  The strips he held out to her were black and smelled strongly of smoke. Sarah eyed him skeptically.

  “It’s jerked bear meat. If you break off small pieces, and chew it slowly to bring forth the juices, it will assuage your hunger until I can find something more substantial.”

  Sarah did as he suggested, tearing off a small piece and chewing diligently. It was nearly as tough as shoe leather, but the flavor was smoky and not unpleasant. “Thank you, Kingston.”

  “You are welcome, Madame.”

  Sarah rose and followed Kingston from the dooryard, yet as she turned onto the Indian path, she couldn’t resist one backward glance. The fire had quickly burned itself out; the hunter’s lodge lay in ruins. All that remained of the safe haven where she and Kathryn had taken sheltered were a few charred and blackened beams. The sight brought a fresh sheen of tears to Sarah’s eyes, but she quickly blinked them back.

  She would never forget Kathryn Seaton, but it was time to look forward, to the bright future that awaited her beyond the western mountains. Perhaps one day, she would return to this place and erect a fitting monument to the memory of the woman who’d been her friend so briefly. Just now, she lifted her skirts in both hands and hurried to catch up with her reluctant protector.

  Sauvage set a slow but steady pace those first two hours, yet Madame still had difficulty keeping up. Crashing through the underbrush, puffing her way up the smallest hill, and groaning down each incline,
she made more noise than a Seneca village wildly drunk on English rum.

  Several times, he had thrown a warning glance her way, but with little lasting effect. In that instant, she would quell and seem to shrink beneath his censuring stare, then, the moment his back was turned, she continued her frightful din.

  Hearing the soft sound of despair behind him, Sauvage turned and found Madame valiantly battling a blackberry vine for possession of her small lawn cap. The more she tried to extract herself from the thorny tentacles, the more desperate her struggles, the more hopelessly ensnared she became.

  “Oh, Kingston!” she cried. “I am caught!”

  Sauvage closed his eyes, summoning up the slight store of patience left to him, and went back to rescue Madame.

  There were angry welts on her cheek and the lovely white column of her throat, and the huge blue eyes she turned on him were rapidly filling with tears. With practiced hands, he extracted his charge, then guided her to a huge uprooted tree, urging her to sit. “Madame, I fear we must talk.”

  The gaze she lifted to his was fearful, mon dieu, forlorn. Sauvage shifted uncomfortably, foot to foot. “We simply cannot go on like this.”

  “I shall try to walk faster,” she said quickly. “I was doing quite well at keeping pace until that blackberry vine caught hold of me.”

  “It is not your keeping pace that concerns me, Madame, but your clumsiness.”

  “My clumsiness?” She lowered her gaze to her hands, which were clasped in a tight knot in her lap, and a single tear coursed slowly over her smudged cheek.

  Sauvage’s stomach constricted. He was feeling that strange sensation again, as if he were the one in error here, as if he should apologize to Madame, beg her forgiveness. Guilt. That’s what it was. Guilt over making her cry. How very absurd.

  How trying, this whole situation.

  “What a child you are,” he said, taking a seat on the tree trunk beside her. “A child who has no business even thinking of going to the Ohio country.”

  She pursed her fine full mouth, and Sauvage felt a twinge of genuine regret; she straightened her spine and he admired the lush curve of her breasts as they strained against the gray linen gown. He imagined undoing the small, neat row of buttons that closed the front of her bodice and parting the garment to worship those breasts. If the rest of Madame was any indication, those breasts would be soft and white and voluptuous... pure temptation.

  His body’s response to his wayward thoughts was instantaneous, and beneath the thin covering of his breechclout, his maleness stirred to life.

  Sauvage found his lack of self-control appalling. He should care nothing at all for Madame’s maidenly blushes, her sweetly beckoning smiles, her tears, yet he found himself strangely affected by her, and it only served to make him angry.

  He did not want to care for her in any capacity. Caring brought loss, and pain, and loneliness.

  Her soft, yet slightly rebellious voice dragged Sauvage from his musings. “If you say I am clumsy, then I suppose I must try harder to be less so. However, I fail to see how a little awkwardness shall prevent me from fulfilling my marriage contract with Brother Liebermann.”

  “Your ineptitude, Madame,” Sauvage bluntly pointed out, “may very well get both of us killed. And that would certainly prevent you from continuing on to the Muskingum, to your prospective husband.”

  She set her jaw, and the look she gave him was mulish.

  Sauvage smiled to himself. Madame’s back was up, but he liked her better this way—as prickly and defensive as an outraged porcupine—than full of tears and vulnerability. “Can you have forgotten the attack upon your friends so quickly?” he demanded. “You must be more watchful, more observant, more careful how you step, than you have ever been. You cannot just go blundering through the forest, making more noise than a herd of bison.”

  Sarah looked daggers at Kingston. She was not all that sure that she cared for his comparison. “I hardly think—”

  “That is precisely my point, Madame. You do not think! You must learn to concentrate, to become fully aware of your surroundings, use the senses the Creator has given you. He took her hand and brought her to her feet. “Now, then. Lift your skirts and walk for me.”

  The request was so outrageous that at first she thought she’d misheard him. She stared at him, open-mouthed, until the statement was repeated, less patiently this time. “Damn it, Sarah! Lift your skirts and walk!”

  Sarah raised her skirts an inch and took several steps, glaring at him all the while. It was not enough to satisfy him, however, for he strode to her, and moved the hands still clutching her linen skirts higher on her hips until a few inches of trim ankle clad in black stocking showed beneath the hem of her skirts. “Now walk!” he said. “A dozen paces that way, then turn and come back here to me!”

  Sarah blushed furiously, but she obeyed him. She took a dozen half-hesitant, half-angry steps along the path, then pivoted, coming back again. With each step she took, she was more aware of his close scrutiny, aware how his black gaze never left the exposed turn of her ankles... aware of the nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach. When she stopped, it was several paces from him. Pointedly, she dropped her skirts, preserving her modesty. “Are you satisfied?”

  “It is just as I thought,” the frontier rogue said. “You walk like an Englishwoman.”

  “Well, of course, I walk like an Englishwoman! I am an Englishwoman!” The sharp reply shocked even Sarah. She put her fingertips over her mouth and waited for Kingston to shout back at her.

  But, he merely smiled, the glint of a secret amusement in his obsidian eyes. “Not for long,” he said. “From now on, you are a Delaware woman, one of the Original People. The forest is your home, the animals your friends, but there are enemies lurking, Huron dogs waiting for you to make a careless move so they can lift your scalp. What will you do to thwart them? How will you endeavor to keep your hair?”

  “If indeed I see them before they see me, I shall hide.”

  He nodded, and the scarlet silk tassels which adorned his ear lobes swayed gracefully. “Very good. Yet how will you keep the Huron dogs from seeing you when they can hear you from two miles away?”

  “Point taken,” Sarah allowed. “But this solves nothing. Pretending to be a Delaware woman does not make me one in truth, and as you so rudely pointed out, I still walk like an Englishwoman. Indeed, I can do nothing else.”

  “You can,” he insisted. “With practice. Watch closely.” He took a dozen steps along the path, turned and came back again, his movements sure, deliberate. “White men walk heel down first. That’s why their gait is so ungainly. It throws the body’s natural balance off-kilter. Setting your toes down first—turned in slightly—remedies the problem, and the heel will quite naturally follow the toes.”

  Sarah walked a little way along the path, trying her best to mimic his actions, even though she remained painfully aware that she lacked the savage grace and catlike movement that to him was so inherent, so effortless. Ten steps, eleven, twelve. Sarah turned, catching sight of Kingston, who was grinning broadly at her efforts. The flash of white teeth in his sun-bronzed face caused her heart to skip a beat. Flustered, she missed a step, her turned-in toes became entangled, and she fell headlong.

  Kingston caught her. “It seems that we are at a disadvantage to those Huron dogs I mentioned. But, rest assured, Madame,” he said, touching a playful finger to the tip of her nose. “It will not always be so. Now, come. You may practice along the way.”

  Hefting his rifle in his right hand and adjusting his various leather pouches to a more comfortable position, Kingston started off at a brisk pace.

  For a moment, Sarah simply stood, staring after him as she tried to sort through her conflicting feelings... yet, like the man himself, they proved far too complex to be quickly and easily understood. She only knew that the few words of praise he had offered, belated and slightly off-handed, had warmed her considerably, and she would try her best to learn from hi
s tutelage, if only to please him.

  And so Sarah started off, hurrying in order to catch up to Kingston, and this time she stepped more carefully.

  Chapter 4

  Sauvage’s lesson in Delaware stealth had little immediate effect upon Madame. For the next two miles, she continued to pant like a winded steed while ascending the slightest grade, and now and again she would catch the toe of her cumbersome shoe on some protruding root or tangle of vine and nearly sprawl headlong before she caught herself.

  Scanning the rugged forest trail ahead, Sauvage sighed. It would take a great deal of time and patience to transform Madame into a Delaware woman. More, certainly, than he possessed. His efforts, however, had not been totally in vain. The din she created was somewhat less than it had been, and practicing the toe-in walk kept her from noticing the things that Sauvage could not miss.

  The print of a heel here, a broken branch there, a few gray threads adhering to a bramble bush—signs of a hasty passage. When he came upon the smattering of rusty droplets scattered over the leaf-strewn forest floor and saw the hollow log, he knew that Madame’s short period of distraction had come to an end. He halted on the path at the foot of a steep incline and waited for her to come to him.

  She was watching her feet as she walked, unaware that Sauvage had stopped until he reached out and grasped her arms.

  She glanced up, clearly startled, looking first to Sauvage’s face, then slowly glancing around. The look of fear and pain that entered her eyes, the tightening of her mouth as she sought to control her emotions, told Sauvage more clearly than words that the scene of the attack lay beyond the next rise.

  Still holding her by the arms, Sauvage made for a laurel thicket some fifty feet to the left of the path. In the midst of the thicket, he bade her sit, then, knelt beside her.