“Millicent! Oh, will somebody call off that blasted dog?”
Caroline caught the top of the fence and propelled herself up and over to land in the middle of the bedlam
created by chickens, child, dog, and cat. Behind her Daniel yelled for Raleigh to come back between what sounded like fits of laughter. Out in the field the laboring men stopped what they were doing and squinted toward the scene of the commotion. One called out something that was unintelligible to Caroline.
Millicent bolted under the fence on the opposite side of the barnyard while Raleigh and the boy raced after her. Caroline, her caught-up skirts revealing flashes of white petticoats and slim, thrashing calves, followed suit. The child stopped, apparently content to do no more than hang on the gate and watch as dog and cat dashed across the meadow. He yelled something to Caroline as she swarmed up and over the fence. So intent was she on the chase that the words didn’t register until she was almost halfway across the field. Then the sense of what he had said sank in. The boy had cried, “ ’Ware the bull!”
Bull?
Caroline’s step faltered. Her gaze left the dog and cat and swung around in a wide arc. What she saw made her stop dead and drop her skirts. Her mouth opened and her eyes rounded with horror.
There was, indeed, a bull.
It was as black as Satan and as big as a colossus, and it was looking directly at her from no more than a dozen yards away!
For a moment that seemed suspended forever in time, Caroline and the beast stared at each other. Then, with a nod to the adage that discretion was the better part of valor, Caroline snatched up her skirts, whirled about, and fled back toward the safety of the
barnyard, her scarlet cloak streaming out behind her like a banner.
Behind her, with a fearsome bellow, the behemoth charged.
“Run!”
The boy on the fence screamed encouragement, but Caroline scarcely heard him. She was deafened, blinded by fear. Her eyes focused on the fence, and her ears were filled with the heaving, snorting creature that pounded after her.
“Come on! Come on!”
The child cheered her on, but it was scarcely necessary. The finest runner in all of London town could not have matched the speed Caroline attained that morning. She sprinted toward the fence like a greyhound. Behind her she could hear the monster’s enraged bawls, the pounding of its hooves.
Caroline screamed. The boy on the gate yelled. Men and children converged on the barnyard from seemingly every direction.
She fancied she could feel the creature’s hot breath on her back.
“Your cloak! Drop your cloak!”
Still some paces short of the fence, Daniel yelled the advice even as he raced to her assistance.
Caroline clenched one fist around her skirt—tripping at such a juncture might very well prove fatal—and raised the other hand to jerk at the strings of her cloak. An instant later the garment billowed free.
“Good girl!”
Terror gave wings to her feet as she leaped toward the safety of the fence from nearly a yard away. Daniel,
vaulting up the other side, grabbed her arm and jerked her up and over. There was a tug as her skirt caught, the sound of ripping cloth, and then she was hurtling through the air to land with an
oomph!
facedown in the filth of the barnyard.
As she lay sprawled, aching in every bone and fighting for breath, Millicent appeared from nowhere and rubbed her head against her mistress’s. From the woods beyond the bull’s pasture, Raleigh continued to bark frantically as he sought the cat, which had, in the mysterious manner of its kind, managed to elude him. Caroline didn’t even have the strength to groan as her pet began, very noisily, to purr.
3
F
or what seemed like an eternity Caroline lay unmoving, Millicent’s consoling rumbles echoing in her ears. The fall had knocked the breath from her; the hardscrabble ground had scraped her face and hands, making them sting. Her entire body felt bruised by the force of her landing, and her heart had yet to slow its panicked beat. To make matters worse, she was sure that when she opened her eyes a huge mouth full of giant doggy teeth would be poised to make a meal of her under the eyes of its grinning masters, none of whom had seemed inclined to lift so much as a finger in her defense.
But finally she could postpone the inevitable no longer. Reaching out an arm, she scooped up Millicent, cradling the cat against her bruised ribcage. With great reluctance, she opened her eyes and rolled cautiously onto an elbow as she looked around. The dog was nowhere in sight. Caroline heaved a sigh of relief. Except for the scowling scrutiny of the small boy who had been feeding the chickens, she was alone. Moving gingerly, she sat up.
“She’s alive, Pa.”
The child spoke over his shoulder, then turned wide blue eyes back on Caroline. His black hair, fine as silk,
formed a ragged fringe above his eyes; it needed trimming, she saw, and there was a rip in the knee of his breeches that cried out for mending. He had an untended look about him, and his manners certainly left a great deal to be desired. But he was not her concern, and for that she must be thankful.
Squinting against the sun, Caroline looked past the urchin to find five grown men and the youth who’d been stirring the kettle leaning against the fence she’d just scaled. Beyond them the bull snorted and stomped as it tossed what was left of her cloak into the air with its horns. All five males regarded the malevolent beast with an anxiety that would have been heartwarming had it been directed at her. But focused on the bull, such concern was maddening.
At the child’s pronouncement they all turned their heads. Six pairs of eyes fixed on Caroline with varying degrees of rebuke. Her attention focused on the oldest of the three men she had not yet met. If she was not mistaken, he was the one whom Daniel had earlier referred to as Matt. Her eyes were more than a little hostile as she watched the approach of Ephraim Mathieson.
He was a tall man, taller even than Daniel who had stood beside him at the fence, with broad shoulders and a wide chest that tapered down to narrow hips and long, powerful legs. Like the two boys, he wore no coat or waistcoat. His shirt was long-sleeved, white, and collarless, his breeches black and full, ending just below the knee. His stockings were of gray wool, his shoes simple square-toed leather. He was hatless, and his hair was so black that it glinted blue in the bright
sunlight, as rare and fine a shade of black as her own. Like Daniel’s, it was cut short in the Roundhead style, but the curls and deep waves it fell into seemed determined to defy that modest fashion.
Even before she got a good look at his face, Caroline decided that her sister’s husband was a most attractive man.
It was only as he drew closer that she realized that he limped. His left leg, apparently unable to bend at the knee, swung awkwardly as he moved. A small amount of hostility faded from her gaze. It must be galling for such an obviously vigorous man to be hampered by such an affliction.
When he was but a few paces from her, he stopped, fists on hips, as he studied her, frowning. Self-consciously her gaze followed the same path as his. As she inventoried her own shortcomings, it was all she could do to suppress a wince. She was naturally tall and slender, but once she had been round in all the places where women were meant to be round. The rigors of the voyage and the soul-destroying months that had preceded it had leached the feminine roundness from her, leaving her almost painfully thin. Unfortunately, her gown—it was her best, a once-lovely creation of ruched emerald silk—had been made when her contours were more womanly. Now it hung on her, the neckline far lower than it should be, the elbow-length sleeves and waist drooping, the skirt inches too long. In fact, the garment looked as if it had been made for a much larger person. It was also torn and filthy from her fall. With her hair tumbling from its once-tidy knot at her nape so that thick black strands straggled
indecorously around her neck and down her back, and her petticoat hiked to expose her legs almost to the knee, she was, she realized with chagrin, quite a sight to behold.
He was eyeing her bare legs disapprovingly. All her earlier hostility returned in full force.
“Ephraim Mathieson?”
Her tone was frosty. He nodded once in confirmation as, despite her protesting muscles, she scrambled to her feet, trying without much success to brush the grime from her skirt while at the same time keeping a tight grip on Millicent. The cat glared at the man; Caroline barely controlled an urge to do likewise as she strove to set her appearance to rights.
The square neckline of her bodice had slipped off one shoulder, exposing the top of her chemise and far more of her creamy skin than she would have liked. With angry jerks she tugged at her offending corsage until it was at least minimally decent. There was nothing she could do about the rip in her skirt that revealed glimpses of ruffled white petticoat to the waist. As for her hair, with Millicent in her arms she was forced to let it hang where it would. Lifting her chin—she tried not to dwell on the thought that her face was very likely as dirty as her dress—she met his eyes. Never in her life had she felt at such a disadvantage, but she’d be hanged before she’d let it show!
“You may count yourself lucky,” he said in a deep, brusque tone, “that you’ve not caused harm to my bull.”
After all she had endured, that statement was too much. Caroline drew in a long, ragged breath, trying
without much success to catch the tail end of her runaway self-control.
“
I
harm your bull!” she sputtered, her eyes snapping with indignation. “Yon beast was almost the death of me! To hell with your bloody bull, is what I say!”
“Shut your foul mouth, woman!” The roar from behind her made Caroline jump and almost lose her grip on Millicent. Catching the squirming cat just as it would have leaped for freedom, Caroline swung around to discover the dominie not a dozen paces away, stopped in his tracks by her hasty words. Outrage was writ plain upon his sharp features. Beneath the tight, white curls of his wig, his face was very red.
“Oh, my land,” Caroline muttered, put out of countenance by the pastor’s unexpected presence. What had emerged from her mouth mortified her nearly as much as it horrified the dominie. She had thought the hardships she had learned to endure had permanently snuffed her inclination toward quick-temperedness and outspokenness. Why did both the blasted dominie and her proposed new family have to be present to witness her newly reawakened delinquency?
“So you’re a blasphemer as well as a thief, a strumpet as well as a liar!” The dominie’s voice swelled with affront as his gaze raked over Caroline before fixing on the man behind her. “Ephraim Mathieson, if you have not yet repudiated this shameless woman, I urge you to do so at once, and publicly! When one of my flock told me of her iniquities aboard ship, I shuddered and hurried to warn you! But it seems no warning is necessary: out of her own mouth she is condemned!”
The dominie’s denunciation quivered in the air. Caroline’s
eyes flashed, and she opened her mouth to defend herself with words that were admittedly stronger than was politic. But before she could utter so much as a syllable she was stopped by a strong, warm hand that closed over her arm, squeezing a warning.
“And a very good day to you, too, Mr. Miller.”
Matt’s greeting was coldly sardonic, but Caroline was too concerned with the crawling sensation engendered by his touch to do more than barely register his tone. Would the feel of a man’s hand on her person ever cease to repulse her, she wondered even as she pulled free. With the cessation of the hated contact, her mind cleared, and she was once again able to focus on the exchange between the two men.
Her gaze moving from the bristling dominie to Matt, Caroline saw that her brother-in-law’s expression was even more unpleasant than his voice. She saw something else, too, in this, her first closeup view of him, that made her eyes widen involuntarily. He was regarding the pastor with icy distaste, but his expression in no way marred the dark splendor of his face. His features could have graced a classical statue; his jaw and cheekbones had been chiseled by a master hand. His nose was straight, his mouth long and well shaped, with a lower lip that was just slightly fuller than the upper. His eyes were deep set beneath straight, thick black brows. The irises were a brilliant celestial blue, their lightness almost shocking against the sun-weathered swarthiness of his skin. The only note of disharmony was the scar, white and jagged, that sliced across his left cheek from the corner of his eye to just above his mouth. Had it not been for that,
Caroline would have easily judged him to be the handsomest man she had ever beheld in her life.
Fortunately, he did not observe her reaction to his appearance. His attention was all for the dominie.
“I charge you to put your household in order, Ephraim Mathieson, and denounce this sinful woman!” the pastor brayed.
Matt’s lips tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “It is not for you to tell me how to conduct matters relating to my household, Joachim Miller. Nor to condemn a stranger without proof.”
“Proof?” The man tittered angrily. “Proof of her blasphemy I have just heard with my own ears. For proof of her thievery and lying, I have the word of her fellow passengers from the
Dove
! Question Tobias for yourself, if you will; I have no doubt that he will verify the tale! For proof of strumpetry, you have only to look at the way she is displaying herself in that shocking gown! ’Tis an affront to decency, it is! She should be set in the stocks, then sent back across the sea to the Gomorrah from which she came!”
“I believe I am capable of handling my own affairs without your interference.”
“You dare to set yourself up in opposition to the word of God?”
“To God’s word I’ll willingly listen, but to more of your blather, no! Take yourself from my sight, Mr. Miller, whilst you still can!”
“So now you go so far as to threaten a man of the cloth! You will be held accountable for your actions, Ephraim Mathieson!” The dominie, chin quivering with anger, turned away. “You’ll rue this day, I promise
you!” Robe flapping, he marched across the barnyard, heading with jerky haste for the path through the trees.