Frontier Bride (Harlequin Historical)

by Ana Seymour

  Chapter Fifteen

  September 1763

  The summer had raced by. Beyond the meadow where they had planted their first crops, the beech groves had turned russet and the hickories were burnished with gold in the early autumn sun. In the two months since Ethan Reed had left the Destiny River settlement, the three cabins had been finished. A neat little pen kept the pigs from wandering as they had that first chaotic week. A corral housed the horses. Adjoining it, the frame was in place for a communal barn, which would provide winter shelter for the animals.

  Artichokes, peas, pole beans, squash and turnips shared the vegetable garden while several acres of corn stretched out behind. For a time corn would serve multiple needs. It would be ground for flour and pressed for oil. The plumpest ears would be shelled for eating and the husks would be fed to the pigs. As Ethan had promised, the tall green stalks seemed to grow like magic and now towered over their heads, even with the late planting they’d had.

  To Hannah, her little cabin was starting to feel like home. The Webster and Baker cabins had been built in a flat, clear area at the edge of several feet of sloping riverbank. The Trasks had positioned their house a short distance away, downriver, where a grove of trees gave them the privacy that Hugh had insisted upon.

  The Bakers’ house was the smallest. They had somewhat sadly declared that they didn’t need much room, and that the wood should be used for those who still had families to shelter. The Webster and Trask cabins were nearly identical, though Hannah had found time to fix hers up in a way that Nancy couldn’t do, having the new baby to care for. She had never completely recovered her strength from the difficult birth, and Hannah felt sorry for her. But when she had offered to make an extra set of the yellow dimity curtains she had made for the Webster cabin, Nancy had politely refused, saying that she would be able to decorate her own home when she was feeling herself again.

  Nancy’s burden wasn’t helped any by the fact that Hugh had ridden off on several “hunting forays,” returning sometimes days later with very little to show for the time gone. His absences were causing dissension between him and Randolph and Seth. For one thing, he wasn’t doing his part in working on the crops, and for another, his wife was in no condition to be left to care for the family by herself.

  Randolph had discussed the matter with Hannah, as he seemed to do with everything these days. They agreed that in the interests of trying to maintain harmony through the first winter of the settlement, they would do nothing for the time being. But Hannah noticed that Randolph visited the Trask cabin more and more regularly as Trask’s disappearances became longer. He doted on little Wally, as they all did, and many days Hannah would see her normally serious employer on his hands and knees bent over the baby’s blanket making funny faces and communicating in nonsense sounds.

  Hannah herself had settled into a tranquil routine of frontier life. She loved her little house. She loved walking along the beautiful Destiny, picking wildflowers and stopping to watch the birds, the squirrels and the rabbits. When they had a yearning for fresh meat, she and Seth would hunt in the woods to the south of their meadow. It had become something of a joke among the group that Hannah was the hunter in the Webster household. Randolph had yet to show that he could hit a moving target, and since they were concerned about the diminishing supplies of gunpowder, he agreed to let Hannah bring home their supper.

  With the success of their venture so far and the promise of rich crops for the winter, there was a feeling of well-being and a great deal of merriment in the Webster cabin. Hannah was growing closer each day to Peggy and Jacob as the memory of Priscilla became a little dimmer. If it wasn’t for a vague sense of longing, which she did not dare define even to herself, she would say that these were the happiest days of her life.

  The longing seemed to sharpen each time Randolph suggested one of their private evening walks. They would stroll along the river in the long summer twilight, and he would talk about his plans for this place. How one day a town would grow up in the Destiny valley, with shops and banks and hospitals and an actual government with real courts of law. Hannah found it difficult to share his vision. Cities and courts had not been especially kind to her. She loved the freedom of the West and secretly cherished the idea that the pretty little valley belonged just to them and no one else.

  Randolph held her hand on their walks, and when the twilight turned to darkness, sometimes he would lean toward her and kiss her on the lips, gently, never demanding. The first time he had done so, she had pulled back in surprise and he had said gravely, “Don’t worry, Hannah. I’ll not hurry you. Just because we have left civilization doesn’t mean that I have become uncivilized. I know you need time to grow accustomed, and the children, too. I have every intention of giving Priscilla the year of mourning she deserves.”

  Hannah told herself she was grateful for his gentility and his thoughtfulness. She let him kiss her, and she kissed him back. Sometimes she felt a flicker of those feelings Ethan had taught her. She would stop and let the night air cool her face. And she would wonder if she wasn’t just a little bit wicked after all.

  They’d promised the children a husking party complete with music and dancing. They had butchered their first hog to have fresh bacon and chitlins for the occasion. Jacob had asked to be part of the butchering team, but he had come running back to the cabin halfway through with his face a sick shade of green, and Peggy had teased him the rest of the day.

  It was still light late enough into the evening to put in almost a full day’s work in the fields and have plenty of time for the festivities afterward. Hannah and Eliza had gone back to the cabins in the midafternoon to work with Nancy in preparing the corn cakes they would have with the last of the maple syrup they had brought from Fort Pitt.

  “Why don’t you take a walk down to the river and pick us some berries, Nancy?” Eliza suggested as she and Hannah entered the Trask house. “We’ll watch Wally for a while.” Hugh had been gone for days, and Nancy had hardly been out of her house except to fetch water and wood.

  With a grateful smile she grabbed a basket and started toward the door. “I’ve just fed him,” she said, nodding at the tiny boy who had finally graduated from his cartouche box into a real wooden cradle. “He shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “Just go,” Hannah said, giving her friend a little push. “Get some fresh air.”

  “I think I’ll skin that Hugh Trask alive when he finally decides to show his face around here,” Eliza said vehemently, after Nancy had disappeared down the path.

  Hannah nodded agreement. “I’ll help you. And Randolph will, too. He thinks it’s disgraceful the way that man treats Nancy.”

  Eliza looked down at the peas she was shelling. “I’ve noticed that Randolph has been spending a lot of time over here.”

  “Aye, he tries to help out as much as he can, and of course he’s extremely fond of Wally.”

  Eliza continued watching her peas. “But…it doesn’t bother you?”

  Hannah furrowed her forehead in confusion. “Bother me? Why would it bother me?”

  “Oh, never mind. I’m just a meddling old lady, my dear. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Hannah was still not completely sure she under-stood what Eliza was saying. “Are you implying that Randolph and Nancy…?”

  “Well, a few years back Nancy was one of the most sought after girls in town. And the years have not ruined her looks entirely.”

  Hannah laughed. “Eliza, Randolph has asked me to marry him. Well, not in so many words…he wants to wait out his year of mourning for Priscilla. But he talks of it regularly.”

  Eliza gave a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s enough of that, then. Randolph’s too honorable to be courting two ladies at the same time.”

  “What an idea! Why, Nancy’s a married woman.”

  “If Hugh keeps traipsing off like he’s been doing, she won’t be any more married than that Polly McCoy woman back at the fort. And she’s got all kinds of men afte
r her.”

  Including Ethan Reed, Hannah thought sourly. “There’s no way Randolph would be involved with a married woman. I’m positive about that.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Eliza agreed. “You know him better than any of us. And I’m happy that the two of you are going to be together. He’s a good man. And those children love you like they did their mama.”

  “I’ll never replace Priscilla, but we do get along well, and I love them both dearly.”

  Their conver-sation drifted to other subjects. By the time Nancy returned with the berries, Hannah had almost forgotten Eliza’s odd remarks. But later that evening, as they sat around a big table that the men had built in the center of their clearing, she watched Randolph sitting on the bench next to Nancy. The two were cooing together over Wally just like an old married couple. She told herself that the notion was ridiculous. She should be pleased to see Randolph’s delight in the child. It just served to show what a good father he would make for the children they would someday have together, God willing.

  The children had been playing “deer and stalker” while they waited for the adults to finish eating and start the music. Jacob came running over to Hannah and pulled on her hands with surprising strength for his age. “Come on and be the stalker, Hannah,” he begged.

  “I’m far too full of corn cakes,” she protested. But then Peggy, Bridgett and Janie gathered around and added their pleas to Jacob’s. “All right,” Hannah conceded, laughing as they pulled her into a circle. “But just one game.”

  She let them tie a kerchief around her eyes and whirl her in a circle so that she would make a disoriented hunter while they cavorted around as “deer.” It was growing dark and even looking down along the edge of the blindfold, she could see nothing. The children’s shouts seemed to come from all sides at once. She lunged in what seemed a likely direction, only to be met with an armful of air.

  After several more attempts at capturing one of her targets, she could no longer sense where she was or even if she was still within the circle of the cabins. The laughter seemed farther away, and she began to be a little afraid that any minute she would go stumbling down the bank and into the river. She stopped and tried to keep her head from spinning. “Where are my deer?” she demanded loudly.

  From behind her there was a shuffling sound, then the cracking of a branch. She whirled around and grabbed for her quarry. The quarry grabbed her back, then held her off the ground against a solid wall of chest. With a gasp of fright she tore away the kerchief and looked up into the dark, laughing eyes of Ethan Reed.

  Hannah’s back ached. The past week they had all spent hours in the field harvesting the vegetables and the corn. But she would sooner bite her tongue off than let anyone know her problem. Especially Ethan. She had been horrified at the immediate and violent response of her treacherous body when he had held her against him earlier this evening. As soon as she had realized who was holding her, she had jumped back as if she had been scalded. But her heartbeat and flushed face gave her away, and from the look in Ethan’s eye, she could tell that he knew exactly what effect he had had on her.

  She only hoped no one else had noticed. Randolph had left Nancy’s side immediately at Ethan’s appearance and had walked swiftly across the camp to stand next to Hannah.

  “This is a surprise, Reed,” he’d said in a calm, not-too-pleased tone.

  But all overtones of hostility had disappeared when they had heard Reed’s mission in visiting them. Pontiac had finally succeeded in allying the tribes to march against the English, Ethan told them. They’d taken a number of British forts, and Colonel Bouquet had been forced to meet them in battle at a place called Bushy Run, just twenty miles from Fort Pitt. Bouquet’s men had won the battle, but the British were urging all settlers in the area to return to the safety of the fort at once.

  The music and dancing were forgotten, and the remains of the supper lay uncollected on the trestle table as the settlers soberly discussed their options.

  “It sounds to me like we have no choice,” Seth said. “We certainly have no way of putting up any defenses here.”

  Ethan pounded his hand on the table with impatience. “I don’t know why you’re even discussing it. You’re not going to risk the lives of your women and children staying out here on your own surrounded by a dozen tribes on the warpath.”

  “How long would we have to stay up at the fort?” Randolph asked.

  Ethan shrugged. “The winter, for sure. You’ll not be back here this season.”

  “We’ve not finished the harvest…” Randolph started to protest.

  “Forget the crops!” Ethan interrupted. “They won’t do you much good if you’re massacred in your sleep.”

  “We have to think of the children,” Hannah said gently, laying her hand on Randolph’s arm. She understood his resistance. The thought of leaving their little settlement on the Destiny, of abandoning their cozy little cabin, was hard for them all. But she knew that Ethan would not be urging them to do so unless the situation were grave.

  “We’ve worked so hard…” Randolph swung his legs over the end of the bench and stood up. His frustration was evident in every muscle. “I’ll do whatever the group decides,” he said. Then he stalked off to-ward his cabin.

  The others were silent for a few moments. Then Seth said, “So that’s it. We’ll pack up in the morning.”

  “It will be a more difficult trip upriver on horse-back than it was floating down her,” Ethan reminded them. “Try to get all the rest you can.”

  They nodded at each other and quietly began moving toward their own places. No one bothered to clean up the rest of the food. They would have to leave almost all their belongings and supplies behind, and there was no guarantee they would ever see any of them again.

  Randolph finished banking the fire. The fall nights were beginning to grow cool, and it was good to have the embers still burning in the morning when they woke up to the cabin’s chill. Hannah couldn’t believe that they were sleeping in their new home for what might be the last time. The children had already climbed up to their loft. Neither one had had much to say. Randolph, too, had been mostly silent since the party had broken up and everyone had retired to their own homes to deal with the shattering news Ethan had brought them.

  Ethan would be spending the night in the Trask cabin, a measure of protection in Hugh’s absence, though everyone knew that if a war party happened upon their little Destiny River site, there would be little they could do to defend themselves.

  Hannah looked around at the room that served as a living room, dining room and kitchen. Every piece of furniture, every dish, every pot, she had placed there. It had been the first house that she had ever felt belonged to her. But she regretted the turn of events even more for Randolph’s sake than her own. After all, she had moved many times with her mother during her childhood, and she would survive if she had to pull up her roots yet one more time.

  She could see the weight of Randolph’s defeat in the slumping of his shoulders, the lack of energy in his walk. She went to stand behind him as he gazed down into the fire. In a rare gesture, she put both her hands on his shoulders and squeezed. “We’ll be back,” she said with more confidence than she was feeling. “We’ll just tuck everything nicely away tomorrow morning, and it will all be right here waiting for us next spring.”

  “Aye. We’ll come back to a fine settlement of rotted crops and dead animals and, most likely, burned-out houses.”

  “We’ll bring new animals and plant new crops, and, if need be, we’ll build new houses, too.”

  Randolph turned around and took her in his arms. She went willingly, sensing that he was seeking comfort, not passion. “Do you never get despondent, my valiant Hannah?” he asked, his face turned against her hair.

  “There’s only one kind of loss that can’t be replaced—the loss of someone you love. My mother. Priscilla. But we’re all still alive and healthy. We have our whole lives ahead of us and the strength a
nd energy to make of them what we will.”

  He held her for several minutes while neither spoke. Finally he said, “Of course, the most important thing is for us to stay safe and well. If that means returning to the fort, then that’s what we’ll do. As usual, Hannah, you help me see the world more clearly.”

  Hannah could almost feel the bitterness seeping away from him as he held her, and it gave her a sense of deep satisfaction to know that she could make that happen. She offered her mouth gladly as he turned her face up for a kiss.

  “I beg your pardon,” said a mellow voice. They both looked over to find Ethan filling the doorway. “The…er…latchstring was still out,” he said with-out sounding particularly apologetic.

  Hannah and Randolph took a step apart. “What do you want, Reed?” Randolph asked curtly.

  Ethan took a step into the room. “I need to talk with you about Trask.” His eyes were on Randolph, which allowed Hannah a moment to compose herself. She had no reason to be embarrassed at being seen in Randolph’s embrace. After all, Ethan himself had said that it was inevitable that she and Randolph would marry someday,

  Randolph moved away from the fire and sat at one side of their table, motioning for Ethan to take a seat across from him. He did not offer him food or drink. Hannah quietly took a seat on the bench next to Randolph.