by Cat Lindler
Ford nodded and wondered what subject preyed on the general’s mind. “You wished to speak with me?” he ventured when Marion seemed lost in his musings.
Marion looked up. “Indeed. Three days ago while returning from raiding along the Santee, I received a visit from a messenger we embedded in Cornwallis’s camp. His lordship has placed a price on your head, or rather, on your brother’s head. It appears he caught wind of your activities in aid of the patriots. He has branded Major Aidan Sinclair a traitor. You cannot return to Georgetown.”
The blow to his gut silenced Ford. Who? Who betrayed him? Willa? He could not believe, at first, that Willa had broken their confidence. The notion was too distasteful to swallow. He reached for the glass of vinegar water and took a large gulp without thinking. It puckered his lips and soured in his mouth, mingling with the acid churning in his stomach. Nonetheless, his brain remained crystal clear. The informant must be Willa. Jwana and Plato were unwaveringly loyal to the cause. He would wager he had allayed Willa’s suspicions with his story of being a double agent. But in the face of the evidence, that no longer seemed true. More important was the question: Why would she betray him?
Even in the face of his shock, his mind returned to their times together, the soft look in her eyes when she gazed at him. He convinced himself she was falling in love with him. What had changed? In truth, had anything changed? She had made no secret of her dislike for Thomas Digby. Yet the major now lived beneath her roof as her stepmother’s lover, or so he had heard. Mayhap he and others had misinterpreted the situation. Would Willa deliberately mislead him? He was obliged to ask himself: Was Willa’s expressed aversion for Digby merely a ruse? While he admitted she was a virgin at the cabin, he had no choice but to wonder: Was Digby’s lover now Willa rather than Marlene?
He scowled and turned to his commander. “Who betrayed me to Cornwallis?”
Marion cleared his throat, slid his chair backward, and got to his feet. “You must calm yourself, Captain. We have no room in this war for personal vendettas.”
“Who?” Cold crept through him, making his tone curt to the point of insubordination.
Marion gave back a weary look to Ford’s unflinching expression. “The messenger observed Major Digby at Cornwallis’s camp. He could not be certain, but he believes the major delivered the information to Cornwallis.”
Ford jerked upright, the sudden movement toppling the chair. His arms hung stiff at his sides with his hands forming fists.
Marion placed his palms flat on the desk. “Captain, I forbid you to return to Georgetown. I require your services here and cannot afford to lose a good man through sheer stupidity.”
Ford stared blankly at the general. He’d never disobeyed an order, but at this moment, he tossed Marion’s words to the wind.
“Do we have an understanding?” Marion asked gruffly. “I have no wish to hold you up for discipline.”
Ford started, as though being awakened, and focused his eyes on the general. “You must do as you will,” he said in a quiet, dead voice. “And I shall do what I must.” With a sharp salute, he turned on a boot heel and stalked from the lean-to.
Willa opened the stall door and led Cherokee inside. Their wild ride across the fields had splattered mud on the legs of her trousers, and even the back of her jacket and hat bore evidence of the wet weather. After retrieving the grooming brush from a ledge, she cleaned the mud balls and dead grass from Cherokee’s legs and belly. The paint lifted his head and snorted, then dipped his muzzle into the pan of oats in the manger.
With Cherokee as well groomed as she could manage, she set aside the brush and left the stall, latching it behind her. Her thoughts had focused for the past week on Aidan and what Jwana told her during their discussion. She found it difficult to reconcile her feelings with her logic. Aidan had absented himself since their torrid lovemaking, and she had no notion why he would stay away. To compound matters, the mood in the household was growing odd. Digby and Marlene walked about exchanging smirking glances. Their conversations abruptly fell silent whenever Willa came within hearing range. Jwana and Plato went about their duties with somber looks on their faces. Only Quinn behaved normally, seemingly unaffected by the peculiarity afflicting the others. But then Quinn’s usual state was one of dour reserve.
She felt as if some calamity loomed on the horizon, like a storm brewing. Her father failed daily, growing weaker and smaller, fading into the ghost he would soon become. The doctor held out little hope for Colonel Bellingham’s recovery and shook his head with a sympathetic expression when Willa confronted him. So she spent a goodly amount of her time sitting beside her father’s bed and reading his favorite books aloud. Marlene sneered at her, pointing out that George could not possibly comprehend what Willa was saying to him. Still she persevered, her desire to bring her father some comfort strengthened rather than undermined by Marlene’s callous attitude.
But this unsettling feeling had naught to do with her father.
Willa shoved her cold hands into her pockets as she made her way to the loft ladder to fetch hay. When she passed an empty stall, fingers closed on the arm of her jacket and yanked her into the small space. A shriek erupted from her throat as a rough hand clamped down on her mouth. A muscular arm came around her waist and yanked her up against a tall, hard body. Heat poured from his chest into her back. She drew a gasp against the palm and tasted the strong essences of horse, leather, and fresh mud. His rasping breath flowed across the side of her face like a harsh summer wind.
“Bitch!” a voice grated against her ear.
Aidan! Willa nearly strangled on the protest in her throat, though she was as certain of his identity as she was of her own. Her pulse pounded wildly. She fought her feelings and his grasp while he poured curses, ever more vile, over her head. At last he let her go and spun her around, his hands like shackles on her arms. His face was a study in rage, violet in its intensity, his eyes blackened coals searing her, his lips bloodless. The air between them crackled. Words failed her in her dumfounded state.
“Why?” he hissed. He took her by the upper arms and shook her. “Why did you do it?”
Her hat fell off into the straw beneath her feet. Her hair whipped back and forth, obscuring her vision and catching in her open mouth. She tried to force out words, any words, but she was breathless due to the violence of his assault. When he released her, he shoved her backward until her spine fetched up against the stall boards with a resounding thud.
She scraped a hand across her face and pushed back the curtain of hair. Her stomach had tightened at his tirade, and now, she angled up her chin and glared into his baleful eyes. “Do what?” Her voice raised to a shout. “What in God’s name—”
He snorted a laugh. “As if you didn’t know.” Hesitation flickered across his face for a second before a grimace of antipathy replaced it. “It appears I chose the wrong Bellingham to fuck,” he said. “At the very least, Marlene is honest in her promiscuity.”
Willa sucked in a gasp. “You … you rutting bastard!”
His smile was no more than a vicious twist of his mouth. “You have the right of it, Willa. I am that. I came to let you know your duplicity will come to naught. I shall fight on with more reason than ever. I wish I’d never laid eyes on you and your lying tongue. You are naught to me other than an assignment. Do you understand what I’m telling you? You are nothing and have never been more.”
Pain sliced through her breast, and her mouth trembled as she fought back tears. Unable to catch her breath from the acute agony of his words, she could not have spoken in any case. He would not say these hateful things. She would not listen. Where was the man with twinkling eyes who made gentle love to her, time and again, and asked her to marry him? ‘Twas more than she could bear. Her arms stretched out of their own volition. What sounded like a moan crawled up from her chest.
Aidan lifted a brow. “You dare to beg? Now? I suppose, being a gentleman, I cannot refuse such a touching request from a lady.” H
e caught her around the waist and hauled her up against him. His mouth possessed hers in a brutal kiss. Her lips, chapped from her cold ride, split from the pressure, and she tasted blood.
While he plundered her mouth, he stripped her trousers from her with one hand. The front of her bare thighs pressed against his heat and hardness while cold air chilled her backside. Despite her physical and mental distress, the flesh between her legs softened, and moisture gathered. It mattered not. She did not want him like this. He had once told her to simply say the word and he would let her go. She tried to push the word past her lips, but it refused to come. Some feeling inside her choked it back. Some madness drove Aidan, and she sensed he needed her to assuage it. She loved him, and even in the midst of this nightmare, her heart bled for him. All resistance left her. She wrenched her head to one side and bit down on her lower lip.
He bore her back against the stall and ripped at his buttons. Splintery wood dug into her skin, eliciting a groan. Aidan blinked not an eye at her distress. As he lifted and held her right leg up around his waist, he shoved her against the boards with a thrust of his hips and braced his other hand beside her head.
Willa swallowed her scream when he lunged into her. ‘Twas not a gentle penetration but an invasion. Then he pounded wildly and battered her against the wall. Her breath slashed through her clenched teeth as he buried his mouth in her throat, sucking and biting at the tender flesh. Numbness overcame her. Some moisture gathered to ease his way. Nonetheless, smarting pain still stole her breath and voice. With one last bruising plunge, he finished, shuddering against her and panting his scorching breath on her neck.
He straightened slowly, dropped her leg, and stepped back. As she slumped to her knees in the prickly straw, she looked up with tears on her cheeks. “Why?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Why would you do this to me?”
His gaze roamed across her face, and she detected a flash of regret amongst the suffering in the gray depths. “The question becomes, Willa, why would you do this to us?” He calmly buttoned up his breeches and, with one last scathing look, he took his leave.
Once the hoof beats of his horse faded, Willa rose on wobbly legs and searched for her trousers. As she pulled them on, she winced when they came up against her abused core, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. The momentary sympathy she had felt for Aidan’s personal demons fled on the wind of a rising storm. She cursed vehemently, straightened her back with effort, and left the stable.
No degree of scrubbing with cold water from her washbasin could remove Aidan’s scent from her skin. Her cut lip had swollen and stung when she touched her tongue to it. The red marks his fingers left on her hip felt like brands. A purple bruise marred the base of her throat. When Willa called down for a bath, Jwana accompanied the footmen. The black woman swept a puzzled gaze over Willa’s visible injuries and remained behind after the men filled the tub and departed.
“Wot in de Lord’s mercy done happen ta you, girl?” Jwana traced a gentle fingertip over Willa’s lip and down to the bruise on her throat. “A tree branch done take you by su’prise?”
“No,” Willa said with downcast eyes but offered no additional words. Her heart felt as heavy as lead.
The maid’s mouth flattened and carved lines in her face. Then Willa removed her wrapper and stepped into the tub. With a loud intake of breath, Jwana smoothed her hand over the bruises on Willa’s back and buttocks and the angry red imprints on her hips. Her scowl deepened, and she muttered an imprecation. “Who done hurt you?” she demanded.
Willa eased into the steaming water. Her body was as sore as the first time Aidan had taken her. She tried once again with soap and cloth to wash away the traces of his violation.
“Who?” Jwana asked again.
“Aidan,” Willa murmured.
Jwana drew back as though struck. “No. I ain’t be believin’ dat.”
Willa glanced up, the hurt Aidan had inflicted—damage to her heart more than her body—clearly transparent. “That was my first reaction. He would not do this to me.” She uttered a small laugh. “But in truth, he did. He stormed into the stable, enraged over something he fancied I had done, and took out that rage on me.”
Jwana shook her head repeatedly and collapsed into a chair. The shock on her handsome face quickly transformed into a stony expression. She pushed to her feet and charged across the room, every muscle tense, her dogged strides burning up the carpet.
A bright moon hung in a clear sky, lighting the track like a lantern as the horse picked its way across the frozen mud ruts. White plumes streamed from the animal’s nostrils, and brittle, frosted grass snapped beneath his hooves.
The night dug icy fingers into Jwana’s skin as she drove the gig toward the lightning-blasted sweet gum near the swamp. She huddled down with a shiver into her heavy coat. While the horse plodded along, she had an abundance of time to run Willa’s accusations through her mind. The girl was young and inexperienced. She could have little knowledge of men and what they desired in bed. Perhaps she mistook a bit of rough sex play for force. The need to know seared her throat, leaving behind the taste of ashes.
When the tree came into view, its twisted silhouette outlined by moonlight before the swamp’s inky backdrop, Ford was waiting. He stood beside his ebony mount, legs spread apart and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his greatcoat. She pulled the horse to a stop. Ford quickly walked over, came up to the gig, and lifted his arms to help her down.
Jwana made a small, dismissive movement with one gloved hand. “I believe I jes’ be sittin’ here, if’n you don’ min'.”
A frown slid over his mouth at her tone. “As you wish,” he replied with a nod. He backed up, removed his hat, and looked up. “Your message was cryptic. Yet you implied it was urgent.”
She pursed her lips and considered him in silence. His dark hair merged flawlessly into the night behind him, and moonlight converted his gray eyes to silver mirrors. He was a fine-looking devil, tall and muscular, handsome in a dark, dangerous way. But his hard edges presented a deceptive facade. General Marion respected the captain, and Jwana knew his true nature. She hesitated to believe him capable of forcing himself on Willa.
“It be mighty cold t’night,” she said as she extracted a pistol from beneath the blanket beside her and pointed it at his chest. “So I be gettin’ right ta de point. Why you done abuse ma Willa?”
Bewilderment crackled briefly in his gaze at the sight of the gun. Then comprehension dawned on his face, and his frown deepened. “Is that what she says?” His voice cut through the air like an axe through ice. “Have you any notion of what your Willa did to me?”
“Don’ care none wot she done ta you,” she replied and adjusted her grip on the pistol. “Nobody hurts ma chil'. Now you be gonna answer me. You done force yurself on her or didn’ you?”
Memories tumbled through Ford’s brain. He recalled rage overwhelming his senses, making the images indistinct. He did not process Willa’s struggles at the time as repudiation and now was reluctant to label them as such. He had a clear recollection of her reaching out to him and saw it as an invitation and another attempt to ensnare him in her web. The sounds she made, her moans and groans, he took for ones of passion and similar to those he had heard many times before. One rock in the path of his memories caused him to stumble—the unexpected resistance of her sheath when he took her. It almost, but not quite, caused him to withdraw. Now that Jwana forced him to think it through, he admitted his actions could have been unwelcome.
Unwelcome? Do you not mean rape? A metallic taste coated his mouth. Many times he had watched as soldiers raped their enemies’ women. He despised the act, considered himself above that sort of inhuman behavior. Now he felt as if he required a bath to wash away the stain of his own brutality.
He dropped his gaze to the frozen ground, which was no colder at this moment than his heart. “I suppose Willa could have interpreted my actions in that light. I must have mistaken her willingness.” He raised one han
d tightened into a fist. As he opened it, he drove it through his hair. “I was furious with her … I took no time to think.” He speared Jwana with a searing look. “God damn it! She betrayed me. Willa tossed me to the redcoats like a piece of offal. She spilled all she knew to her lover, Digby. He passed that word on to Cornwallis and had me put to the horn. As a result of her deceit, she irreparably compromised my usefulness to Marion.”
Jwana let the gun sink to the gig’s bench and clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Fool,” she said with a shake of her head. “You done got it all mixed up, Mista Ford. Willa ain’t betrayed nobody. She spilled yur story ta me, not ta Major Digby, ‘cause she be all confused an’ flustered ‘bout de tale you done tole her ‘bout bein’ a spy fer both sides. It didn’ make no sense ta her, but she wanted ta believe you anyway. Her heart be messin’ wid her mind. We didn’ know Marlene be listenin’ outside de door an’ heard ever’thin’ we said. She tole de major. An’ Willa bein’ Major Digby’s lover?” She let loose with a laugh and slapped a hand against her thigh. “You be fox-bitten crazy an’ blind as a sloe-plum-drunk coon. Dat gal loved you. She gone an’ took no man ta her bed ‘cept you. She hates dat Major Digby … an’ now, I ‘spec', she hates you, too.”
Her words turned his heart to ash and cinder. “Oh, God,” he muttered. He staggered to a fallen log and sagged down onto it. As he bent at the waist, he plowed his fingers through his hair, then cradled his head in his hands.
Jwana climbed down from the gig, came to him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You love her, don’cha?”
He gave a barely perceivable nod, refusing to lift his head, his breath coming out on a quaver. “How could I have acted so idiotically? Why did she not say something … explain … stop me?” Then he remembered. He’d never told her why he was so angry. She’d had no accusations to refute. “Why did I not afford her the chance to explain?”
She patted him on the shoulder. “You done fried yur ass good dis time. Don’ know how you kin gain Willa’s trust ‘gain after wot you gone an’ done ta her.”
