Gunn stayed at the fort longer than he’d intended to, helping draw up plans for defense of the fort in case the Indians launched a retaliatory attack. Before he realized how late it was, darkness had closed in.
“Damn, I left my wife at the cabin all by herself,” he said.
“Should I have one of the men ride out there?” Raskin offered.
“To guard her by sleeping at his post?” Gunn laughed humorlessly. “No, thank you. It’s time I left anyway. We won’t accomplish any more tonight.”
It was full dark by the time Alice awoke. She reached for Chris, but his place in bed was empty. The spring night had turned chilly. She rose and pulled on her long, warm gown, then slipped back under her Indian robe.
“Darling?” she called. “Chris, are you here?”
Only silence answered her. Alice experienced a sudden sense of dread, but forced herself to remain calm. He was probably outside the cabin, answering nature’s call. She settled back down, ready to make love again as soon as he came back to bed.
Somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. A panther answered his call with a bloodcurdling scream. Alice began to get nervous again. The darkness was total and thick and frightening. She felt as if it were closing in on her, taking her breath away.
“Chris?” Her voice when she called this time was feeble with fright.
Just then, she heard the cabin door creak open. She took a deep breath, sighing with relief.
“Oh, Chris, I’m so glad you’re back. Come to bed, darling.”
She heard nothing else. He didn’t answer, nor could she hear any footsteps beyond the curtain. The hair rose at the back of her neck and gooseflesh covered her body.
“Chris? Say something. You’re scaring me.”
Only silence.
Alice huddled under the covers, barely daring to breathe. Suddenly she felt like a small child again, alone in the tower room with grotesque shadows threatening her ominously.
After a long time, or so it seemed to Alice, she began to relax again. Her imagination was playing tricks on her. She’d only thought she heard the cabin door before, but she was sure she would hear it any moment now. Chris would return and all would be well. She settled back against the pillows and closed her eyes, sighing deeply. Her fingers toyed nervously with the beads on her robe. She’d just catch another catnap while he was outside.
Out of nowhere unseen hands grasped her shoulders. She tried to scream, but the sound froze in her throat. A moment later she was yanked roughly from the bed. Her attacker threw the robe over her head and secured it tightly, wrapping ropes around her arms. The next she knew, she was dangling upside down over the man’s shoulder. Moments later her kidnapper tossed her over the back of a horse. Her screams finally escaped as the horse set off in a gallop, but they were useless, muffled by the thick cloak that blocked light, air, and sound.
She had no idea who had taken her prisoner or why. Her mind, frozen with fear at first, soon began to boil with rage as pains shot through her body from the ropes biting into her flesh and the unceasing motion of the galloping horse that seemed to bruise her through and through. This was an outrage, an insult, an affront to her feminine dignity. How dare this brute sneak into her own home and steal her from her own bed? She would have a thing or two to say to him once their maniacal ride through the night was done.
“Stop this horse!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
A muffled laugh answered her demands, and some unseen hand slapped her on the rump.
Chris was surprised to see the cabin still dark when he returned. He’d guessed that Alice would be up by now, with lamps lit and a fire going. He figured she’d probably be mad as hell at him, too, for leaving her alone so long without even telling her when he left. Or maybe he was in luck and she was still sleeping. After all, they’d had a rather spirited day.
He opened the door softly. All was quiet. Shedding his clothes along the way, he made straight for the bed. If Alice had been sleeping all evening, it was high time he woke her up, and he knew just how he planned to wake her.
Not until he slid into bed did he discover that Alice was gone. Quickly he got up and lit a candle. A cold hand closed around his heart. The sheets were tumbled in wild disarray. The bright red and green coverlet lay on the floor and her robe was gone. He was relieved to find no blood in evidence, but the black lightning bolt hurriedly scratched on the wall with a piece of charred wood left little doubt in his mind as to what had happened to Alice.
“Scalappi,” he moaned. “Oh, God, no!”
Stumbling back through the cabin, he pulled on clothes as he went. His anger was like black bile rising in his throat, but even stronger was his fear. The renegade Indian had been his enemy for years. He had tried once already to steal Alice. Now he had succeeded. Where he would take her, what he would do to her was anybody’s guess. No thoughts on that subject were pleasant. Wherever Alice was at the moment, she was in the clutches of a dangerous, unbalanced savage. The very thought tore Chris apart.
“Turn me loose!” Alice shrieked.
She was off the horse, standing in the deep woods. She knew that because the thick carpet of pine needles stabbed into her bare feet. Her head and torso were still encased in the heavy robe and the ropes binding her arms to her sides bit into her flesh.
“Untie me!” she demanded.
Rough hands grasped her arms and whirled her around. A moment later she felt the relief of the ropes falling away. She rubbed her arms to restore circulation, then tossed off the blinding, stifling cloak. She gasped when she saw the man before her.
“Scarappi!”
Three near-naked braves stood close to her, unsmiling as their dark eyes measured her. She knew Scarappi in an instant by the black lightning bolt tattoos on his cheeks. The sight of him chilled her blood. He wore only moccasins and a breechclout. His body seemed as thick and unyielding as the trunk of an oak. His face was hard and hateful, and there was no mistaking the look of lust in his cold black eyes.
Screwing up all of her courage, Alice spat at him, “My husband will kill you for this.”
Scarappi almost smiled. Reaching out with a motion as quick as a viper, he grasped the neck of Alice’s gown, tearing it slightly. Still gripping the fabric, he pulled her toward him. His evil face hovering over hers, he answered, “If I must die, I mean to have what I want from you first. Gunn had my woman, Ishani. Now I have you.” He twisted the linen in his fist, drawing Alice’s face closer to his. “Your man won’t come for you. He knows our ways. He accepts them. An eye for an eye, a squaw for a squaw.”
“No! You have no right to me!” Alice cried. “Ishani is back with her people. There was nothing between her and my husband. He told me so himself.”
All three men chuckled and exchanged knowing glances. Again, it was Scarappi who spoke. “Nothing, you say? Ha! I hear he did not take you to the wedding. Do you know why?”
“What wedding?” Alice asked, confused, thinking of Peg and O’Dare instead of the baron’s marriage.
Scarappi threw back his head and laughed. The other two joined him. “He did not even speak to you of the wedding of our sagamore’s daughter to the great Frenchman? It does not surprise me. Brits have strange ways with their own women. After marriage they think they must bed the wife forevermore. Not so in our nation, and not so with your husband. He was an honored guest at the wedding. Refuse his gift from the groom?” Scarappi laughed at Alice’s stricken look and shook his head. “Never! Not that he wished to. No man turns from Ishani. Your man aches to have her beneath him even now.”
Alice gave a startled, incomprehensible cry. The three men laughed.
“You’re lying!” she accused, but all her old doubts came rushing back that instant.
Scarappi shrugged. “Think what you wish. I am not a man to take what he is not owed. Gunn knows our customs. He knew them when he took Ishani the first time, and he knew them when he bedded her after the wedding feast. So now it is my turn… and yours.”
As he spoke the final words, Scarappi grasped Alice’s long hair in his fingers and twisted cruelly. She cried out in pain, bending low to lessen his grip.
“Please,” she murmured.
“On your knees,” Scarappi ordered.
Alice sank down before him, unable to do otherwise while he still had his grip on her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to look at what was before them. But Scarappi saw her plan and gave her tresses another painful jerk. Her eyes shot open. Not six inches from her face the rough deerskin pouch that held Scarappi’s genitals strained to near-bursting. Alice swallowed hard. He was more than ready for a woman, and she was the only one near.
“You think your man can come in time to save you? Ha!” he taunted. “Why do you think he went away in the night? He knew I was coming to take you. He accepted it. An eye for an eye,” he repeated. “You for Ishani.”
Scarappi turned then and said something in his native tongue to the other two braves. They jumped to do his bidding, bringing the rope that had left burns on Alice’s tender arms. He shouted another command. Quickly the taller of the two Indians grasped Alice’s hands, pulling them over her head and tying her wrists tightly. Next, the other brave grasped her ankles. Between them, they lifted her, carrying her to a nearby tree where they dropped her to the ground again. With lightning speed the man at her head secured the other end of the rope to the trunk of a slender birch. Scarappi himself placed a filthy rag in her mouth to silence her screams.
Once she was staked out, the three men moved slightly away and huddled in a group, muttering softly. From time to time one of them would glance over at her, grin, then return to the discussion.
Alice writhed on the ground, trying to loosen the rope. Her thoughts were as frantic as her actions and just as hopeless. The rawhide rope seemed to tighten as she worked at it, and the more plans she thought of for escape, the more ridiculous she knew they were. Only Chris could save her, and, if she was to believe Scarappi, her own husband had been a party to her abduction.
No! she thought. Never! But if Chris was blameless in all this, why hadn’t he mentioned the wedding to her? He’d let her believe all along that he was going up the river on official business. Then he’d brought her a beautiful gift to appease her anger if he ever was going to tell her that the trip was strictly pleasure, not business at all. Imagine! He’d refused to allow her to accompany him, saying it would be too dangerous.
It would have been, too, she told herself silently. Dangerous for him! I’d have killed him if I caught him with Ishani.
Fear and anger battled in Alice’s mind. What difference did anything in the past matter now? It was all too clear that the three Indians each intended to have his turn with her. It remained only for them to decide who would go first.
Alice closed her eyes and tried to pray. If Chris didn’t come, God was her only hope. Surely, after saving her from the gallows, He didn’t intend for her to wind up like this, at the mercy of a trio of lusting savages. She would have preferred the length of rope around her neck.
The three men turned as one and started toward her. Alice stopped her twisting and lay very still, alert to their every move.
Scarappi said something to the other two, and they hunkered down on either side of her, staring hungrily at their prey.
When Scarappi reached down and caught her ankles, Alice muttered useless screams into her gag. He raised her feet high in the air, until her gown slid down exposing her thighs. The braves on either side of her murmured in awe at the sight of her pale skin and the triangle of golden hair. One of them reached out to touch her, but Scarappi knocked his hand away.
Her eyes tightly shut, Alice steeled herself for the moment when Scarappi would make his move. She only hoped they would kill her when they were done with her.
Suddenly she thought of her mother and the brutal attack she had survived. History seemed to be repeating itself. From somewhere far away Thalia Wiggins’s voice whispered to her daughter “
Be brave, child. Whatever happens, don’t let them see you cry
.”
She remembered something else, a curse her mother had put on the men who attacked her. Only bits and snatches of it came back to Alice. Willing herself to remember, she concentrated with all her might. Everything about seemed to vanish—the pine needles no longer pricked her back, the forest birds grew silent, even the three men threatening her lost substance in her consciousness. Her mother’s face, her mother’s voice, her mother’s very words swam in her mind.
Over and over Alice repeated the silent incantation:
Begone, begone, to the devil with you as I boil my pot and stir my brew. I bring you death in my wondrous stew. Begone, begone, to the devil with you
.
Scarappi’s sudden jerk on her ankles brought Alice out of her daze. Fear seized her heart once more. The ancient curse had been useless. As she stared up at Scarappi’s bulging breechclout and his leering face, it seemed her fate was sealed.
Alice swooned when Scarappi crouched on the earth between her thighs. Everything before her dissolved in a liquid pool of blackness. She could no longer fight her own hopeless fate.
When Alice came around, she could hardly believe her eyes or her senses. She was still tied to the tree, but someone had thrown the Indian robe over her to guard against the chill of twilight. Scarappi and one of the braves slept nearby. The third man had disappeared.
Stranger yet, the three men had done nothing to her. Maybe the ancient curse worked after all. Other than Alice’s sore arms and rope-burned wrists, she remained undamaged. Thinking that they might be waiting for her to regain consciousness before they fell upon her, Alice quickly shut her eyes again and feigned a swoon.
A short time later she heard stirrings about camp. She peeked under one eyelid to see all three men up and about. They were obviously getting ready to move out. Panic seized her. What if they left her staked out in the forest alone? She’d be defenseless against any predators that might wander into the clearing. Panthers, bears, who could tell what threat might be lurking in these deep woods?
This new fear soon vanished when Scarappi untied her from the tree. “We go now,” he told her. Moments later she was once more trussed in the robe. Scarappi then threw her across his horse, the same painful position she’d endured all the way from the cabin.
Most of the night they rode at a hard pace. After what seemed an eternity to Alice, she heard other voices shouting greetings to the three braves—other Indian voices. Apparently, they had reached a village. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more frightened. Maybe Scarappi, in an uncharacteristic moment of generosity, had decided to share her with the entire Abenaki nation.
She couldn’t think about that now. All her mind could focus on was the relief when he pulled her off the horse and set her on her feet.
Alice could see nothing, but she felt hands groping at the robe, trying to pull it off, and heard voices raised in tones of awe. Renewed fears made her tremble uncontrollably. She’d heard terrible tales about female hostages tortured, then burned at the stake by their savage captors.
Gunn and a search party had left the fort the night before, as soon as they realized what had happened. All day they had followed false trails left by Scarappi through the woods. By nightfall the group was weary and disgruntled.
“Sir, I’ll go on with you, even if the others won’t,” young Private Smith offered. “We’re sure to find your wife soon.”
“I appreciate your optimism, lad. I only wish I could feel certain of that.”
All day Gunn had been fast losing hope. Scarappi was not well thought of even by his own people. His hatred and mistreatment of whites was legendary and atrocious. To think of his own Alice in that villain’s clutches was almost too much to bear.
“We’ll all keep searching,” Pegeen’s husband declared. “And when we find the bloody bastards, we’ll skin the hide off them while they beg for mercy. I’ll make harnesses out of them. After what they’ve done to poor Mrs. Gunn, they deserve no better.”
“Shut up, O’Dare!” Smith warned with a nod toward Gunn. “We don’t know they’ve done anything to the lady.”
“It’s all right, Smith,” Gunn replied with a weary sigh. “I know the probabilities as well as any man here. All we can do is keep searching and pray we’ll find her in time.”
As twilight turned to dusk, the search party fanned out, hoping to find some real clue in the gathering darkness. But hope was fading as fast as the light.
Two things Alice did not know: First, while she had been in her swoon, Scarappi and his men had used the time to their advantage, laying false trails through the woods to mislead her rescuers. Second, Scarappi, wishing to make the other braves envious, had decided to parade his kidnapped beauty before his people. Then he would have his fun with her for all of them to see.
Now Alice stood in the middle of the same river island village where her husband had been an honored guest only days before. The bride and groom remained in seclusion.
With great pomp and ceremony Scarappi untied Alice, then pulled the robe from her. Men, women, and children alike rushed forward, exclaiming over her, touching her pale skin, and tugging at her long golden hair. Most of them had never seen a white woman before.
Alice’s fear grew by the minute, but she hid her feelings well. Squaring her shoulders and setting her chin at a stubborn angle, she met each brave and squaw eye-to-eye.
Finally she said in a loud voice, “I demand to speak with your chief. I am a subject of the king of England, and I will not be treated in such a shabby manner.”
She swept her long, white robe about her in regal fashion and strode through the ogling throng. Where she was going, she had no idea, but she refused to stand in one place and be mauled.
Scarappi, surprised by her grand manner and her sudden movement away from him, caught her arm and whirled her around. Without thinking what she was doing, she slapped him across the face. For a moment he stared at her blankly, unable to believe that any woman would strike him. Then, growling low in his throat, he gripped her arm viciously, twisting it behind her. Alice screamed.
Hearing the commotion outside his lodge, Baron de Saint Castin rolled away from his voluptuous wife.
“Can a man have no peace around here, even while he’s bedding his bride?” He leaned over to kiss Mathilde’s breast, then whispered, “I shall return, my darling. Stay just as you are.”
Nothing could have surprised the Frenchman more than the sight that greeted him. Scarappi stood in the center of the melee, holding a beautiful white woman, who screamed in pain at his cruel treatment.
The baron had to shout to be heard over the woman’s ear-splitting shrieks. “Release her!” he demanded.
Silence fell over the crowd. Scarappi only scowled at the Frenchman.
“I do not issue orders twice,” Castin said quietly.
In a confusion of Indian, French, and English, Scarappi said, as near as Alice could figure out, that he had taken her as spoils of war after killing all the Englishmen in a raid on a coastal village. She was his now, and he had no intention of giving her up.
The tall foreigner eyed Alice coolly for a few seconds, then said bluntly, “You are a liar, Scarappi.”
Alice had no idea who this man was, but she certainly agreed with him. Scarappi kept a firm grip on her arm.
“Tell me who this woman is,” the baron demanded.
Scarappi narrowed his eyes, glanced at Alice, then back at his interrogator. “No one,” he evaded. “She is no one of importance.”
“Fine,” Castin replied, seemingly without interest. “Then I shall go back to my bride, and I’ll see that this ‘no one’ is given proper escort to Quebec, where she’ll bring a handsome profit from some French gentleman.”
“No!” Scarappi and Alice both shouted the word at the same moment.
Ignoring Alice, Castin turned to Scarappi and asked, “What else could we possibly do with her? You told me her people were all dead. She’s no one of importance, so she won’t be missed. But she is quite lovely. I have a noble friend in Canada who has been looking for a new bed warmer. She’ll do nicely, and he’ll pay a fortune for her services.”
Alice gasped in horror at the stranger’s plans for her.
“She’s mine!” Scarappi shot back. “I took her in war.”
“He did not!” Alice screamed. “He stole me from my bed.”
Scarappi ignored Alice’s protests and the baron’s plans, saying, “I mean to keep her.”
“I think not,” Castin answered. Walking toward Alice, he reached out and touched the robe. “You see, Scarappi, you’ve outwitted yourself this time. You’ve stolen the wrong woman. I know this lady.” Bowing deeply before her, the baron said, “Mrs. Christopher Gunn, I presume.”
Alice stared at the tall stranger. She’d never seen him before in her life. How could he possibly know who she was?
Gathering her scattered wits about her, she answered, “Sir, you have me at a grave disadvantage. I’ve no idea to whom I owe my gratitude, but be assured I am most grateful that you’ve come to my rescue.”
“Were you taken in battle?” he asked her.
“No. I was kidnapped from my own bed in the middle of the night by these ruffians.”
A twinkle came into his dark eyes and one brow arched upward. “Christopher Gunn’s bride, in bed alone in the middle of the night? That’s not the man I know, leaving his wife by herself and unloved.”
Alice cast her gaze down, embarrassed by his words. She was half tempted to admit to him that both she and her husband had been at the time of her kidnapping exhausted by their strenuous day of lovemaking, but she kept her modest silence.
“No, not like Gunn at all,” the baron mused aloud.
“Ishani wore him out while he was here!” cried a cackling old crone in the crowd. “He was too weak to ride his wife on his return.”
Alice’s blood chilled at the woman’s words.
“Be silent, all of you!” the baron ordered.
Putting together all the bits and pieces that she knew, Alice ventured, “You must be the Frenchman, Baron de Saint Castin. Chris has spoken of you often.”
He bowed again and smiled. “I hope he has spoken kindly on most occasions.”
“He has. But how did you know me?”
Again he reached out to touch her cloak. “Who would not recognize this wondrous robe? I personally sent it by your husband as a gift for you.”
Alice hugged the robe more closely. “Oh, yes. I should have guessed. How can I ever thank you properly—for my gift and for saving me?”
The baron took Alice’s arm and led her away from the others as he explained, “Your husband saved my life once. We are blood brothers, even though we fight on different sides. Come with me now. I’ll see to your comfort for the night, and then…”
Alice stopped in her tracks. “And then what?” she demanded. “You aren’t going to send me to Canada?”
He laughed, then whispered for Alice’s ears alone, “Of course not. I only said that to bedevil Scarappi. I’ll see you safely back to your husband.”
“I can’t go back to him, either, not until I know the truth of all this,” she whispered. “Scarappi said he was a party in my abduction.”
Castin didn’t believe that for a moment, but when he saw Mathilde beckoning to him from their lodge, he decided it was not the time for discussion. He showed Alice to a tent where she could sleep for the night.
“Rest now,” he told her. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Alice settled gratefully into a soft bed of furs, but sleep refused to come. So many things were battling within her. Granted, Scarappi was a liar and a scoundrel. Why should she believe anything he’d said about Chris being a party to her kidnapping? But where had Chris gone and why had he left her alone and unguarded in the cabin?
Furthermore, there was the remark made by the old Indian woman. Alice recalled Pegeen’s warning about Abenaki customs. And, too, the baron had sent her a gift—the robe. Had he also given a present to her husband, specifically a beautiful woman with dark eyes and a passionate nature?
Alice willed herself not to think of Ishani, but there seemed little else she could do. She had married Chris in Boston, a different world from the one they were now forced to share. Could it be that her husband was like some wild animal—tame enough when kept in a domestic setting, but reverting to primitive habits when he returned to the woods?
All night Alice did battle with herself. By morning she had made her decision. She would stay here, if the baron would allow it. Perhaps she would be able to understand her husband’s odd relationship with these Indians. Also, as long as she was in the camp, she would know for sure that Chris was not with Ishani. She meant to keep a close eye on that woman!
The baron reluctantly agreed the next morning to allow Alice to stay for a time, but only if she allowed him to send word to her husband that she was alive and well.
“He’ll come charging in here and demand that I return with him,” Alice argued, frustrated by the Frenchman’s stubbornness. “He’s done it before. I need to sort things out in my mind and heart before I see him again. But he won’t let me have my own way. He’ll force me to leave with him.”
“He will not. That I can promise you. He knows my word is law here. That’s something you need to learn, too, Alice. If you plan to stay in my domain, you must live by my rules.”
“Oh, very well,” Alice finally agreed. Then she glanced up at the big man suspiciously, remembering some of the tales she’d heard about Indian women and their responsibilities. “You won’t expect me to do anything odd, will you?”
He laughed. “I haven’t the vaguest notion what you’re talking about.”
“You know. I don’t want to be treated like a squaw—fetching firewood, building tents, chewing hides to soften them. After all, I am an English lady.”
The huge Frenchman bellowed at her haughty tone. “I’ll have some tasks for you, right enough.” At Alice’s stricken look he added, “My wife needs an English tutor. I’ve taught her the correct pronunciation; she can even manage a passable ‘l’ sound now. But she’s having difficulty sorting out the meanings of words and their proper usages. Her English is far from perfect. I’d also like you to teach her how to manage a civilized household. I’m building a mansion near here. Once it’s done, I want everything to run in perfect order. How will these duties suit you?”
Alice smiled, relieved and delighted. “They will fit me like a lace glove, sir.”
“Fine. Then let’s both get to work.”
Not until the baron sat down to write a message to Gunn did one of Scarappi’s men come to tell him of the attack several nights before. The Frenchman frowned as he added a threat to his otherwise friendly letter.
The baron’s messenger found Christopher Gunn and his search party only an hour’s ride from the village. The young brave approached the weary, haggard men cautiously, under a flag of truce. To the last man they looked as if they might eat a lone Indian for breakfast.
Gunn took the courier aside to speak with him. “You’ve news of my wife? Where is she?”
“With our people,” he answered.
“Thank God!” Gunn was on his feet at once. “We can get to the camp before dark.”
The brave shook his head. “The Frenchman says you are not to come for her. He sends you this message.”