LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Leo, may I present my sister, Lady Margaret Galvan? Lord Leofric Sinclair.”

      Two months later, she and Leo had been married. And within three months, she had left Ireland, never to return to it again.

      Her shallow breathing quickened as the shell of the woman who had once been “Pretty Peggy” moved one thin, bloodless hand as if to ward off memories that now came thick and fast, flooding her tired mind with scenes that, like watercolors, ran one into the other: Conal’s loud, blustering voice, shouting at her, threatening her; the feel of his heavy hands as he beat her into shivering, resigned submission; Leo’s white, soft hands, the heavy rings glinting on long fingers—his voice thick with the liquor he had consumed so heavily before he could bring himself to come to her; she herself lying trembling in bed, her thin lawn nightshift feeling clammy against her perspiring, shrinking flesh.

      How long—how many months (or had it been years?)—before she was woman enough to understand that their relationship was not a normal one?

      Fashionable husbands and wives did not seek each other’s company too much. And if she slept alone more often than not, this, too, was nothing out of the ordinary.

      She had no one to talk to—no older woman to warn her or give her advice as to what she should expect from marriage. All Conal had said, gruffly, was, “You remember your promise to obey your husband and to submit to him in everything. That’s all you need to know, little sister.” And he and Leo had exchanged a look over her head that she hadn’t understood—not then.

      After they had left Ireland, Peggy’s life was too full of new things, and far too confusing, for her to want to think too closely about her sudden marriage and the cold, remote man who was her husband.

      There was the big house in the country near Cornwall where Leo took her first, to meet his family. His father, the duke of Royse, was an ailing, irascible old man, who had merely raised one bushy eyebrow as he nodded and growled, “That’s right—and high time, too! Told you marriage was the only thing.”

      Leo’s older brother, the Viscount Stanbury, was off in Europe somewhere, but his younger brother, Anthony, was kind to her, shaking her hand vigorously as he stammered his good wishes.

      After Cornwall, they traveled about a great deal so that she was always tired. Visits to relatives and friends and Leo leaving her alone with them most of the time. Finally, the months in London—a giddy whirl of fittings for dazzling new gowns and one activity after another until she felt that she never got enough sleep and was relieved that Leo left her alone so much. Leo’s sister, Lady Hester Beaumont, took her everywhere and saw that she met everyone and wore exactly the right clothes and jewels for every occasion. They had the use of the duke’s magnificent house in London, and Peggy learned to keep household accounts and manage a large staff of servants.

      But she had barely had time to become used to the routine of life in London when they were on the move again, this time a journey that meant crossing the ocean, for Leo’s father had deeded him a large plantation in the colony of North Carolina, in America.

      Leo was handsomer than ever in those days despite the faint lines of dissipation that were beginning to show in his face. Peggy had grown used to the fact that he was always cold and punctiliously formal to her. She was aware that there were other women who looked at her enviously and whispered that she had one of the few faithful husbands in town. But they could not know that her husband found her so unattractive that he seldom came to her, and then only when he was very drunk; or that he had never once undressed her completely, but fumbled clumsily and hurtfully for her body in the dark as if he could not bear to look upon her face or her nakedness. She had no idea what was supposed to take place between a man and a woman; and when he cursed and swore and hurt her with his groping fumblings, she blamed herself for being inexperienced. Leo was such a perfect, beautiful specimen of a man that the fault had to lie with her. The fact that he preferred the company of his cronies she also accepted passively. It was not until much, much later that she really understood what kind of devils drove her husband and the kind of debauchery his twisted nature craved….

      In Carolina, Leo had his duties with the army that kept him away for weeks and months at a time. There was an overseer to tend the crops, and slaves to perform every task that needed doing, even to the brushing of Peggy’s long dark hair. She began to read, from sheer loneliness and boredom at first, choosing books at random and with a kind of diffidence (how limited her formal education had been) from the enormous library. And then, caught up and taken beyond herself by the sudden treasure-trove of knowledge that lay at her fingertips, she began to read quite avidly. Books on art, on history, on philosophy and even music opened a whole new world to her starved, seeking mind. She was never lonely now, with her secret world to retire to; and with some of her earlier agonizing shyness and anxiety disappearing, she began to make friends with the families of neighboring plantation owners, finding that making conversation was not so difficult after all if one had something to talk about.

      Leo, when he was home, expressed himself pleased at her emergence from her “dull little shell,” and Peggy herself, as she became used to the lazy, leisurely life, was almost content.

      Until…

      She was to agonize over it later. To ask herself over and over if it had been worth it, being brought to sudden awareness of her womanhood and deeply hidden passions only to have everything taken away from her again. She could never even regain that fleeting sense of contentment that had come with her very ignorance of what living meant.

      But at first, when it happened, she felt only stark, unreasoning terror, and a sense of unreality that kept her alive for she did not fall into screaming hysterics or try to flee in useless panic as some of the other women did, to be brought down bleeding and staring-eyed, her skull split open by a tomahawk.

      To be taken by Indians! Such a thing only happened to other people—to the wives and families of small settlers—not to her, not to the Lady Margaret Sinclair, chatelaine of one of the largest plantations in the Carolinas.

      “Leo will tell me it was all my own fault,” she caught herself thinking stupidly once during the long, forced march that led her and the other captives deeper and deeper into impenetrable forest and swamps. “If I had not felt it my duty to visit that poor little Mrs. Rutherford because she was having her first child and I thought there was no other woman for miles around. And then, after all, there were, and I need not have—”

      But what was the point of thinking? After a while she concentrated only upon keeping on her feet, for if she fell she would be killed, and she had found, already, that she did not want to die.

      Thankfully, her memory blurred—a series of pictures moving faster and faster in her tired mind until abruptly they stopped, focusing on one particular scene, growing brighter and larger, until all she could see was Jean’s face, as she had seen it first.

      Dark-haired like herself, his eyes were a strange green-grey, like the surface of a lake on a cloudy day. Surprisingly, he had spoken to her first in French.

      “Sacre—” And then, biting the next word off with an effort, “What were you doing among those unfortunate wretches? Had no one warned you of the dangers you might encounter?”

      She was too tired, too numb to respond to his anger, except to wonder dully why he seemed so angry. She said the very first thing that came into her mind.

      “You—you are not one of them! But who are you?”

      “Nom de Dieu! Questions! And it is I who should be asking them. Do you realize in what kind of position you are, madame?”

      “I am safe now, though, am I not?” Again she spoke without conscious thought, mesmerized by the angry, intent look in those ice-bright eyes.

      Even as she spoke his eyes seemed to change, and something made her start to blush, even though she still could not tear her gaze from his sun-dark face.

      “I am blood brother to the Iroquois,” he said. And then, more softly, almost to himself, he added, “Safe? My soul is as wild as theirs. I would not be too sure of

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