The Bonny Bride Page 20

  Douglas sneered. “Don’t flatter yourself, Chisholm. You’ll never be my size.”

  He turned his attention back to Jenny. “I came by the house to see if you fancied a stroll on such a lovely day. Can you imagine my worry when I found you gone and no one knew where? I was frantic, Janet. This is too rough a town for a woman of your position to go about unescorted.”

  “Aye, Roderick.”

  Before Harris could step between them again, Jenny circled him and took her place at her fiancé’s side. “I promise I’ll never do such a thing again.”

  With a meekness that made Harris bilious, she took the arm Roderick offered her and let him lead her away.

  Too late, Harris knew what he needed to tell Jenny. The words that might arm and hearten her to confront her black devil. Now if he could just get close enough to her to say them…Before Roderick Douglas whisked her to the altar.

  “I’m not done with ye yet, lass,” he muttered aloud. “Nor with ye neither, Douglas.”

  From behind him a strange voice replied, “Now that’s where ye’re wrong, feller-me-lad.”

  Harris spun around to confront two men, a pair he’d often seen shadowing Roderick Douglas. Neither one was as tall as he, but they were solidly built, with broad shoulders and thick forearms that thrust out of their rolled shirtsleeves. One had a jowly, florid face framed by ginger hair and side-whiskers. The other was dark, with a massive nose, crooked from more than one breaking.

  They sauntered toward Harris, smiling too broadly.

  “Wh-what…” He stifled the sense of dread that gripped him by the throat. Animals, it was said, could smell fear. “What do ye want?”

  “It’s like this, friend,” said Jowly Ginger. “We understand ye’re leaving town. Ye might say we’re yer farewell committee.”

  Broken Nose sniggered as he ambled around Harris.

  “Very obliging of ye, gentlemen.” Harris took a slow step back. The last thing he wanted was to get caught between Rod Douglas’s hired ruffians. “If ye’d care to escort me back to my workplace, I’d be pleased to tip a glass with ye…in honor of my going.”

  The pair exchanged a look.

  Whatever their employer had instructed them to do, Harris’s offer clearly appealed to them. If he could just get them back to the tavern, he might be able to slip away unharmed.

  “I’m tempted, boyo.” Jowly Ginger sighed his regret. “But orders is orders.”

  They moved with the synchronized precision of a well-trained ox team. Before he knew what was happening, Harris felt his arms solidly pinned behind him. His feet flailed out, connecting with something that yielded to the kick.

  Ginger let out a grunt of pain. “That’s gonna cost ye, boyo.”

  A leg hooked around his ankles and sent him sprawling onto the ground. As he fell, his head hit one of the tombstones. A soundless explosion of pain glittered inside his skull for an instant, before everything went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Wake up, Harris Chisholm. Ye’re breathing, so I ken ye must be alive.”

  Jenny?

  Harris shrank from consciousness. He had hovered on the edge of it before, each time driven back into peaceful oblivion by the pain. But this time was different.

  Jenny called him, and he could not resist the lure of her voice. Not if he had to run the gauntlet of a hundred devils with red-hot pitchforks.

  He tried to open his eyes, but only one of them would cooperate. The world blurred and swam for a bilious instant before Harris let his eyelid fall shut again. A groan escaped his lips, swollen as they were. His throbbing tongue felt twice its normal size. After a quick mental inventory, he decided that his left leg had somehow escaped injury. Every other part of his body ached or stung or burned or pounded with its own unique pitch of agony.

  “Who did this to ye, Harris?”

  For a split, lunatic second, he forgot all his hurts. He would tell Jenny that Rod Douglas was responsible for his brutal beating, and that would be the end of their wedding plans.

  He willed his mouth to form the words, but nothing intelligible emerged.

  “Don’t try to talk now,” she said in the infuriating way of womankind, forgetting that she had urged him to speak with her question. “I’ll fetch some water to bathe yer hurts. Then I’ll find someone to help me carry ye home.”

  Home?

  With his tenuous grasp on consciousness, Harris puzzled the word. Where was home? Not Roderick Douglas’s house, surely. His own lean-to shanty behind the tavern?

  His poor addled wits were still pondering the question when she returned with water. Harris heard a high whine of cloth tearing and his wounded lip twitched up. Wasn’t it just like Jenny to rip up her petticoat in order to tend him?

  The cool, sodden cloth daubed his forehead, stinging like a horde of wasps. Harris sucked a hissing breath in between his clenched teeth. One tooth wobbled at the touch of his tongue.

  She began to talk again, perhaps to distract him from the necessary torture of her ministrations.

  “It was Sweeney and McBean who beat ye, wasn’t it?”

  When he made no reply, not even a groan or a nod, she prompted, “Douglas’s men? One with a crooked beak and the other with a face like a red bulldog?”

  “Mmm” was all the affirmation Harris could manage, though her descriptions drove him to another painful grin.

  “I knew it. I should never have sent ye after her.”

  Harris peered at her through the slit of his eye, forcing the shimmering image of her face into focus.

  “Morag!” Her name heaved out of him.

  “Aye, who did ye think it was?” Her voice took on a bitter edge. “Jenny Lennox? Sorry to disappoint, but ye’re not in any shape to be fussy about who tends ye.”

  Harris subsided. His mangled mouth was not equal to the laborious explanation he owed Morag McGregor. He was not disappointed by her presence, but by Jenny’s absence. If only Jenny could have seen the harm of which Roderick was capable, Harris would have counted his beating a blessing and taken another if need be.

  “That’s as much as I can do for ye here,” said Morag at last. “I’ll go fetch Murdock and Pa to carry ye back to our place.”

  He hadn’t the strength to reply.

  Perhaps she thought he’d lost consciousness again, for she rested her hand lightly on his brow, in something like a caress. “Did they beat her out of ye, Harris? It might be the best thing for ye in the long run.”

  As he slipped back into a gentle twilight, Harris almost laughed. After all Jenny had done to drive him away and all he had done to purge his feelings for her, it would take harder fists than Rod Douglas could hire to beat her out of his heart.

  The sun of late September beat into Roderick Douglas’s carriage as it rolled up to St. Mary’s for Sunday worship. If the summer was waning, it showed no sign. The still air had already grown uncomfortably warm and the grass in the churchyard had been baked to brittle gold threads.

  While pretending to concentrate on what Roderick was saying, Jenny cast surreptitious glances in every direction. On the last two Sundays she had glimpsed Harris watching her from a distance. Today there was no sign of him.

  So he had been in earnest about leaving Chatham. She had…not exactly hoped, but…wondered if that had been a ruse to lure her out to the kirkyard.

  Jenny assured herself that his departure relieved her mind. Now she could anticipate her wedding without fearing he might disrupt the ceremony. Perhaps with Harris gone from town, Roderick might loosen his restrictions upon her comings and goings. He protested that such measures were for her own safety, and she believed him. Still, there were days she felt as if she was being slowly smothered.

  “What do you say to that, Janet?”

  “I beg yer pardon, Roderick? Something caught my eye and I didn’t hear all of what ye said.”

  His handsome mouth tightened into a line of disapproval Jenny had begun to shrink from.

  “I was saying
that some important business acquaintances of mine will be in town next week—from Boston. At least two of them will be bringing their wives along. I mean to invite them to the wedding, of course. I also thought we could host a party the evening before. Would you like that?”

  “Aye, I would.” Jenny tried to sound enthusiastic. She berated herself for feeling otherwise.

  Wasn’t this everything she’d dreamed of, back home in Dalbeattie when the notion of her marriage to Roderick had first been raised? A fine home, servants to do the work, lavish parties for important guests. Confronted with the prospect of organizing such an affair, Jenny quailed.

  What did she know of entertaining such people? Where did a body even start? Food. Music. Would she be expected to write invitations? She didn’t want to disgrace Roderick in front of his wealthy American friends. He had such high expectations of her, and she always seemed to be letting him down.

  Harris had never made her feel like that. The thought popped, unbidden, into Jenny’s mind. Even as she tried to dismiss it, the idea took firm root. Somehow, Harris had always made her feel she could do anything she set her mind to. But Harris was gone now and the illusion of strength and competency he’d instilled in her was fading rapidly.

  The carriage halted in front of St. Mary’s. Other churchgoers hung back respectfully from the door, waiting for Mr. Douglas and his betrothed to enter.

  “You’re quiet this morning, my dear,” said Roderick as he helped her down from the gig. “Nothing the matter, I hope?”

  Was there a hint of mocking triumph in his voice?

  Of course not! Jenny rebuked herself for even entertaining such a wicked notion. Her fiancé was being solicitous of her feelings, that was all.

  “Wrong?” She forced a bright smile. “Oh no. Just thinking about getting ready for the party. We can bring in the last of the garden flowers to decorate the table. Is New Brunswick always this warm the end of September, Roderick?”

  “Ha! I should say not. Two years ago at this time, we had snow that stayed. This has been a freakish summer.”

  As they took their places in the Douglas pew, Jenny thought about the final reading of the banns. In a few short days she would be Mrs. Roderick Douglas, an honored leader of town society. Her long-cherished dream would finally become a reality. So why did she feel caught in a shifting, baffling nightmare from which she longed to waken?

  Harris struggled awake from another nightmare.

  His heart drummed against his bruised ribs in a frantic, aching beat. He gasped for air. A bead of sweat dribbled from his hairline, stinging the messy wound on his left temple.

  For the past three nights, his sleep had been riddled with dark, disturbing dreams. They all featured Jenny in mortal peril and him trying in vain to save her. Each time he hastened to her rescue his efforts went awry. He would trip over his own feet or lose his way. Or he would reach Jenny only to discover he’d been tricked and she was nothing but a scarecrow.

  The overwhelming sense of urgency and futility stayed with him long after the dream had passed.

  He had to find some way to wrest Jenny from the power of Roderick Douglas—if only he could think how.

  Pondering that complicated riddle, he relaxed onto his bed of straw in one of Alec McGregor’s outbuildings. He had not managed much productive thought when he heard Morag’s brisk step approaching and smelled the savory aroma of beef broth wafting on the still, warm air.

  “How are ye feeling this morning?” she asked as soon as she’d confirmed he was awake.

  “Better,” Harris allowed cautiously.

  For the first two days, as bruises bulged and gashed skin began to knit, he had hurt worse than just after his beating. Morag had told him it was a good sign, and a warning for him to rest and let his battered body heal.

  “At least words don’t sluice over my tongue so bad. I don’t suppose ye’ve brought me anything solid to eat. Yer beef broth and egg yolk custard are tasty, but they don’t stay a man’s stomach for long.”

  “I ken a man’s on the mend for certain when he can eat and talk.” Wry humor warmed her tart words as she knelt beside him. “Aye, I’ve brought a bit of boiled beef, if ye think ye can manage it, and some new tatties mashed with cream.”

  Harris made quick work of the meal, taking care to spare his loose tooth. Having a good full stomach revived him further.

  “Where will ye go, when ye’re well enough to leave?” Morag rose abruptly and moved toward the entrance to the shed. Was that a note of longing in her voice?

  “I can’t leave until I get Jenny away from Rod Douglas.”

  She rounded on him, her eyes flashing verdant fury. “Don’t be a fool, Harris. Miss Lennox has made her choice. Let her live with it. That beating Sweeney and McBean gave ye was only a warning. If ye dare to come back they’ll do ye real harm.”

  “How do ye know so much about what those ruffians are apt to do?” he snapped.

  Morag’s left hand flew up to cover her cheek. The gesture answered his question more eloquently than any words.

  “They did that to ye? Why?”

  “It was too dark for me to see them.” The confession choked out of her. “But I recognized them from their voices. It was all his orders, of course, but those two animals love their work. To them, a cry or the crack of a breaking bone is almost as good as pay.”

  Swept by a tidal wave of indignation, Harris tried to rise, only to have the world wobble and sway around him. “Did ye never go to the Justice? Swear out a complaint against them?”

  “Pa tried. They claimed they were in each other’s company the whole night and nowhere near the place where I was…” It sounded as if a powerful hand had tightened around her throat, squeezing off the flow of words.

  She fought for composure and won.

  “Roderick Douglas also gave them an alibi, and that was good enough for the Justice. He came back with a verdict that I’d been attacked by Indians.”

  Harris sputtered his outrage. The thought of Levi and his people accused of such a heinous crime disgusted him. The thought of what Morag had suffered sickened him. And the thought of Jenny legally bound to a man who would casually mastermind such atrocities chilled him to the bone.

  One question remained unanswered, though Harris could guess. “Why did Douglas order Sweeney and McBean to do…what they did to ye?”

  “Because I was a fool, Harris.” With those words of confession, she moved closer to him. “A proud, vain fool. From the time I could walk, folks had told me what a beauty I was.”

  By the way she held her head and savored the words on her tongue, Harris knew she was remembering. “I came to think no man in the colony would do for me but Roderick Douglas. So handsome. So rich. When he came courting, I welcomed him. And when he asked for me, I said yes.”

  Her voice tightened. “My pa tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t listen any more than Miss Lennox listened to you.”

  Harris shook his head. “Why didn’t ye wed him?”

  “I said I was a fool,” she snapped, recovering a measure of her composure. “Not an ass. I finally recognized Black Roderick for what he is—a self-centered, domineering bully who can’t stand being or having less than the best in anything. When I called the wedding off, he went into a cold rage. I ken he decided if he couldn’t have the most beautiful lass in the county—” she hesitated “—he’d make certain she wasn’t the most beautiful anymore.”

  Fighting down his dizziness, Harris raised himself enough to reach for her hand. “I’m sorry, Morag.”

  She stiffened and pulled her fingers from his weak grasp. “Don’t fret for me, Harris. Roderick robbed me of my looks, but not my pride. I can’t abide pity, and that’s all anyone feels for me anymore.”

  “Maybe if ye let them show their pity, they’ll get past it.” For all her hard-won wisdom, could she not see that? “In time, perhaps they’ll see the whole woman again, not just the scars. Ye’re not Morag the Fair anymore, but ye don’t have to
be Morag the Tragic.”

  “How in blazes do ye know so much about it, Harris Chisholm, that ye can presume to tell me how to live my life?” She looked ready to finish the job Sweeney and McBean had started on him.

  “Fetch me a razor and some shaving soap.”

  She looked bewildered by his request. “What’s that got to do with anything? Why do ye want a shave at a time like this?”

  “Just do it, Morag—please.”

  She flounced off without a word, leaving Harris to wonder if he’d ever see her again. A short time later, though, he heard her step and the faint slosh of water in a basin.

  Alec McGregor squeezed into the shed behind his daughter. “Morag tells me ye fancy a shave, Chisholm. She’s afeared ye’ll slit yer throat if ye try to do it yerself. I’m not used to barbering any but myself, so mind ye keep still.”

  Every daub of the lather and every stroke of the razor, stabbed Harris with regret. He’d come to like his beard, and not just for its protective cover. Oh well, he could always grow another.

  Wiping the last smears of soap from his face, he called out, “Have a look, Morag.”

  She spared him a grudging glance. Her eyes widened, and Harris recognized a fleeting mist of pity in them. For the first time in his life, he welcomed it.

  Alec McGregor looked from Harris to his daughter. “Ye’ve got some talking to do, I see, and I’ve got a hog to butcher.”

  When her father had gone, Morag settled herself beside Harris’s pallet of straw. “From the minute I clapped eyes on ye, I felt ye were different—that ye understood, somehow.”

  “I didn’t understand, Morag. Not until I saw ye. Nothing like seeing things from a fresh angle to make sense of them. Most folks are like me—hiding scars nobody else can see.”

  He thought of Jenny and how her early life had left its wounds.

  “Morag, will ye do something for me?”

  “Aye, if I can.”

  “Will ye go to Jenny and tell her what ye told me—about what Roderick had done to ye?”

  Rising, with the basin in her hands, she stepped to the entrance of the shed and tossed out the soapy water. “How can ye ask me that, Harris?” She refused to look back at him. “Did ye not hear what I told ye? Miss Lennox probably wouldn’t heed me anyhow.” Her voice died away to a frightened whisper. “And who knows what Roderick would do to me in return.”