“Are you mad?” he demanded. “Do you have any idea of what is about to happen?”
He grabbed her arm and tried to steer her back to the ladder, but the little minx eluded him. He followed her to the ramparts where his attention was caught by the sight of the enemy. The British had begun to advance, scarlet uniforms ablaze in the sunlight, drums beating and pipes skirling. It was a brave and beautiful sight and altogether foolish. Had their commander lost his mind?
Before he could guide her away, the gates of the fort flew open and a flood of men ran out, firing their muskets and shouting.
Mara took one look at the charging horde and buried her face in Jacques’s shoulder. For all her brave talk, she was unable to watch. He held her tightly, but didn’t move as the French and Indians overwhelmed the smaller British force. The colonials faltered first and ran for the rear. A valiant few put up a spirited resistance in an attempt to protect the retreat, but they were soon driven back toward the river. The air filled with the crack of musket fire, war whoops, and the screams of the wounded.
Mara pushed away from him and clapped her hand to her ears. He took hold of her arms and forced her to look up at him. “Mara,” he rasped. “What were you thinking of to come up here?”
She sobbed and pulled away, then bent over and retched.
He helped her to straighten up. “Come, I will take you back to the trading post.”
“I can’t.” She grabbed hold of his lapels. “Don’t you understand? Gideon could be out there!”
Gideon. Always Gideon. Jacques felt his jaw clench. “I will look for him.”
“But you don’t know what he looks like.”
“I know; I saw him. He is tall and blond and—” Something struck him suddenly. Something wonderful. “He looks like you.”
She wet her lips and nodded. “He is my brother.”
Her brother. He’d been jealous of her brother? What a fool he was, and a lovesick fool at that! How Alain would laugh at his folly. “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”
“I did not think it was any of your business.”
“But now you do?”
She flushed, but made no reply.
Jacques gripped her by the elbow and steered her none too gently toward the ladder. “Fear not, madame. I will save your brother if I can, whether it is my business to do so, or not.”
Back on the ground, he escorted Mara to the surgery located in the outer perimeter of the fort, then left the fort to look for her brother, the infamous Gideon.
The field of battle was a scene straight out of hell. Warriors swooped down on wounded men, looting and scalping. The screams of the dying rent the air, and the acrid scent of gunpowder mingled with the metallic smell of blood.
Grimly, Jacques wove his way through the field, watching his back all the while. But he saw no one resembling Mara’s brother. He came across Crazy Badger, who had collared a Highland officer with a bleeding wound in his thigh. The Delaware had one hand at the man’s throat and brandished his bloody tomahawk with the other. Something about the man was familiar. Jacques suddenly realized that he was the same young lieutenant they had seen at Mara’s cabin. With her brother.
“Stop,” Jacques shouted and grabbed the Indian’s arm. “That man is an officer.”
With an incredulous glare, Crazy Badger yanked out of Jacques’s grasp. “He is my captive.”
“Yes, of course,” Jacques agreed. “But let us escort him to the fort for questioning. He may have information we need.”
The wounded Highlander roused enough to glare at them. “I won’t tell you a thing, you bloody frog,” he shouted.
Crazy Badger waved his tomahawk threateningly.
“Shut up, you fool,” Jacques hissed at the soldier. “I’m trying to save your worthless hide.” The Highlander looked from Jacques to the Indian and back, then closed his mouth.
Turning to Crazy Badger, Jacques tried once again to placate him. “You know you can trust me. I will see that you receive ransom for this prisoner.”
Crazy Badger grunted his assent and moved off.
Jacques threw an arm around the other officer’s waist and started toward the fort. “A wise choice,” he told the man. “Madame Dupré would have been most disappointed had you decided not to live.”
“Madame Dupré?” The man’s pain-filled eyes focused on Jacques’s face. “She is alive?”
“Yes, and concerned about her brother. Have you seen him?”
“Not in weeks.”
“Then he was not here today?”
“No,” the man mumbled. “Wish I wasn’t, either.”
Jacques grunted his agreement. He imagined most of the attackers felt that way. Thank God, Mara’s brother had been absent. Jacques doubted she could bear any more tragedy right now.
He half-led, half-carried the wounded man to the surgery where Mara, Sophie, and several other women helped Monsieur Fourgue.
Mara ran to Jacques the moment she saw him enter with the wounded officer. “Did you find him?”
Jacques shook his head. “The lieutenant assures me he is not here.”
Mara turned to his companion and recognition lit her face. “Lieutenant Shaw!”
“Madame Dupré. We meet again.” He managed a weak smile before passing out.
*
Late that afternoon Jacques went back to the surgery, took one look at Mara’s wan face and led her from the building. He should never have left her there for so long. No matter the atrocities the war had dealt her so far, she wasn’t used to the violence she’d witnessed this day. Ignoring her protests, he took her behind the fort, beside the river.
They clambered down the bank and watched the water flowing peacefully downstream. After a few minutes, Mara knelt and splashed her face with water. But when she reached for her apron to dry off, she froze at the sight of the dried blood on it.
Jacques saw the look of horror, her glazed eyes, and trembling lips. He knelt beside her and gently wiped her face with his own handkerchief, smoothing back tendrils of hair that had escaped from her braid.
“How do you stand it?” she asked in a choked voice. “The f-fighting. The blood.” A shudder shook her frame, and she clenched her trembling hands together.
“It is my job.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s barbaric.”
Jacques could stand it no more. He drew her into his arms, her head on his shoulder. Smoothing her hair with one hand, he tried to comfort her. She felt so fragile in his arms, slender and fine-boned. But she had an iron will, he knew, probably the only thing that had kept her on her feet all day.
It was a moment to cherish, to give thanks for just being alive. The sun was setting in the distance, turning the river golden. A light breeze freshened the air, filling his nostrils, washing away the stench of blood, if not the memory. On this side of the fort, it was deceptively easy to forget the morning’s battle where nearly three hundred men had died. Easy to forget everything but the soft, warm woman in his arms.
Mara clung to him, soaking up the comfort he offered until she stopped shaking. He could have held her forever, but all too soon she drew away, and Jacques reluctantly let her go. He urged her to her feet and led her to a rock large enough for them to sit on.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For saving Lieutenant Shaw’s life.”
Jacques shrugged. “One does what one can.” He and his comrades had tried but managed to save only a half dozen of the British officers. The western Indians had taken one young ensign prisoner and refused to give him up.
“Alain came by earlier to see how I was doing,” Mara said.
Jacques felt his gut tighten. Alain. So she and that rogue were on a first name basis, yet she still called him Corbeau. He could keep still no longer. “Madame, I feel I must warn you about Alain Gauthier.”
Her brows knit in a puzzled frown. “Whatever do you mean? He seems very charming to me.”
Jacqu
es ground his teeth. “That is precisely my point. He is an accomplished rogue who will take advantage of you if given half the chance.”
She smiled faintly. “Unlike yourself, of course. Why should I be more wary of Alain than of you?”
“For one thing, I do not have a fiancée in Paris.”
Her smile faded. “I see. Well, thank you for the warning, though I can assure you I was in no imminent danger of succumbing to Alain’s charms.”
Did that mean she was vulnerable to his? Jacques breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I worry about you, Mara. Do you like your new situation? Have the Bernards been good to you?”
“Yes.” Her eyebrows raised. “Why do you care?”
He touched her hand lightly. “I feel responsible for you, and I cannot help but sense that there is something between us, even if it is only hate on your part.”
Mara saw the troubled look on his face and, in a dawning revelation, knew she did not hate him after all. “It is not you I detest, but what you stand for.”
“What is that?”
“The nation that killed my…husband.” And my father, and his father, and so many other Huguenots. So many deaths, already. Will the fighting and the hatred ever end? She wrapped her arms around her middle and looked away.
When he spoke, his voice was gentle and tinged with regret. “I cannot change who I am.”
“Neither can I.” She choked out the words as she tried to banish the tumultuous images in her head. Her father’s memorial stone covering an empty grave. Emile dying in her arms. The bodies of the British soldiers strewn across the field of battle.
Corbeau took her chin in his hand and turned her toward him. “Mara, is there any chance that one day you may begin to like me? Perhaps a little?”
She shivered at the husky tone of his voice. “Does it really matter what I think of you?”
“Oh, yes, it matters.”
As he caressed her lower lip with his thumb, she realized he was going to kiss her. “No,” she whispered, remembering that overpowering kiss after she’d run away. She had felt violated afterwards. Punished. But why would he wish to punish her now?
She tried to pull away, but he took her face between his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. The abrasion of his unshaven jaw rubbed against her cheek. Lightly, he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was warm and tender, full of a bittersweet yearning that she was unable to resist. This gentle persuasion was no punishment, no punishment at all. She felt herself relaxing, leaning into the comfort of his embrace.
She was so tired in body, so sick in heart and mind, so soul-starved that she drank in everything he had to offer her. His strength, his vitality, his passion, brought her battered senses to life. She felt the gentle breeze fanning her hot face and listened to the rhythm of the river as it flowed on, unmindful of human pain.
Her lips parted under the tentative probing of his tongue. She placed her hands on his chest and felt the furious pounding of his heart, echoing her own. His scent filled her nostrils, a heady combination of soap, wool, leather, and man.
With a lazy, sensuous movement, his tongue entwined with hers. A wild surge of pleasure swept through her, and she clung to him, her arms circling his waist. Oh, yes, it was a sin—but a sweet one, the kind of sin she’d gladly pay for later.
When a small whimper escaped her throat, he broke the kiss. His lips hovered just above hers, his breathing ragged. Looking into his darkened eyes, she saw the depths of his passion and forced herself to pull away. If she didn’t stop now it would be too late, and she would be lost for certain.
Perhaps forever.
*
Swords. There were swords everywhere.
Gideon sat in the privacy of his tent at Fort Ligonier and stared at the cards spread before him. The dominant suit was definitely swords, which was no surprise under the circumstances.
The flickering light of a candle cast shadows on the sides of the tent and cast a yellow glow over the brilliantly colored cards. The hour was late and the camp quiet, but Gideon had been unable to sleep. He did not often consult the tarot, but his concern for Mara made him desperate to find answers in any way possible.
And matters would soon be coming to a head. A few days ago, an expedition made up of provincial and Highland troops, including his young friend Cameron Shaw, had left camp headed for Fort Duquesne. If the cards were correct—and the message they told was crystal clear—then Major Grant and his men were in trouble.
In that case, two possibilities occurred to Gideon. The French could leave the safety of the fort and attack the advancing British in force, as they had three years ago with Braddock. However, since it was late in the season, it was also possible that their native allies would tire of the white men’s war and go home to hunt for the winter, which would leave the French more vulnerable than ever. Still, a prudent soldier always prepared for the worst.
Gideon sighed and gathered the cards into a pile. His grandfather would be turning in his grave if he knew that his grandson was playing with “devil’s cards”, as he had called them. Gideon’s thoughts drifted back to his first visit home from the university. He had casually mentioned that a fellow student had introduced him to the cards, and his grandfather had gone into a tirade. The old man had forbidden him to have anything more to do with the fellow.
The old man’s violent reaction had intrigued Gideon, who hated being told what to do, much less what to think. He’d gone back to school and made it a point to become involved in anything his grandfather didn’t approve of, from tarot cards to Freemasonry.
The final rebellion had come when he finished school and became a soldier instead of going into the ministry, as expected. He would have made a terrible clergyman. It was not just that he had no calling, but that he found no comfort in orthodox religion. He was still searching for the secrets of life and death.
But for the first time, Gideon questioned that decision. If he had become a minister, he’d have been able to offer a home to Mara after their grandfather’s death. Instead, it had been Emile, his old friend, who had come forward and offered to care for her. And if she hadn’t married Emile, she would still be safe in Geneva.
They would all be safe in Geneva.
Stop it, he told himself. Such thinking was pointless. The only question was what would happen to her now?
He shuffled the cards, concentrating on his sister. As he laid them out, one by one, on the small puncheon table, they seemed to tell a story. The Five of Coins spoke of hardship and loss. He glanced at the battered leather trunk he’d brought from Mara and Emile’s cabin. It held the clothing she’d left behind and the family Bible and little else. He’d left the rest for whoever found it. When he found Mara, he doubted she would want to return.
Turning back to the cards, he noted the Eight of Swords meant bondage, but he hoped, of short duration. He frowned when he turned over the Nine of Swords, having been told it was a fatal card. Of course, one person had already died. Emile.
Next came a card that depicted a young woman holding open the jaws of a lion. Force, indicating strength of character despite difficulties. The card gave him a little hope. Mara could survive if she had the strength of will to resist and endure.
The cards representing the future were more ambiguous. The Three of Swords could mean further separation, a definite possibility unless Grant’s expedition went better than Gideon expected. He knew that unless a ransom was paid, captives were usually not returned until after the end of a war. Chances were he’d not see his sister for several years, a prospect that caused his heart to sink even further.
Gideon turned his attention back to the cards. Judgment was upside down, perhaps symbolizing a fear of death, something he and Mara shared, thanks to Grandfather Ebersole’s fire and brimstone teachings.
The card called La Maison Dieu, literally the House of God, though he preferred to think of it as the Destroyed Tower, next caught his eye. It pictured a keep-like tower under attack with bodies fallin
g from the ramparts. A shiver passed through him. The card often portended a potential catastrophe. Was it possible that Fort Duquesne would be destroyed? What of the inhabitants?
He groaned and rubbed his aching forehead, and then picked up the next to last card—the High Priestess, which represented an unrevealed future. He knew that a chain of events had already been set in motion, but perhaps something could be done to change the final outcome.
He turned over the last card, hoping for some clear answer, but he was puzzled by the appearance of the trump card called L’Amoureux, the Lovers. Given the situation, what on earth could that signify?
Bah, he should have known better than to try reading the cards when he was so upset. With a smothered oath, he swept his hand over the cards, scattering them into a haphazard pile. But before putting the cards away, Gideon picked up the one with the picture of cupid hovering over a man and woman, his bow and arrow poised.
Lovers, he murmured. How the devil did love fit into this situation?
*
Two days after the battle, Mara sat beside Lieutenant Shaw’s cot and wiped his face with a wet cloth. Though his wound had not been life threatening, he was running a fever. Monsieur Fourgue said it was a usual part of the healing process, but she was worried.
She rolled her shoulders and neck, trying to work out the stiffness. She’d been at the hospital for the better part of three days now, and exhaustion was beginning to set in. Her stomach growled, reminding her she’d forgotten to eat again.
To make matters worse, when she had gotten away to rest, sleep eluded her. It was all Corbeau’s fault. Whenever she closed her eyes, the memory of his sweet, tender kiss consumed her thoughts. Lord, how could she long for the man who had dragged her away from her home, the man who had refused to even bury her husband?
She sighed and felt Lieutenant Shaw’s forehead again. Thanks to him, she at least knew Emile had received a proper burial. For that reason, she was determined to see that the young man recovered.
A familiar voice broke into her thoughts. “How is he doing?”
She looked up to see Corbeau standing on the other side of the cot. “Feverish.”
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