Blackstone's Bride. Bronwyn Williams

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      Her first attempt to escape after Devin had been killed had failed simply because she hadn’t realized at the time that she was a prisoner. Couldn’t conceive of such a thing. She’d walked boldly down the crooked path to the settlement at the base of Devin’s Hill one morning a few weeks after his death, and asked if anyone was planning a trip to town, and if so, could she please ride with them as she needed to make arrangements to return to her home.

      Her polite request had been met with blank stares or averted glances. Finally an old woman everyone called Miss Lucy had explained that as Devin’s widow—she’d called it widder-woomern—her home was up on Devin’s Hill.

      For her second attempt, she’d waited until after dark and left a lamp burning in case anyone was watching. Sparing only a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness, she had hurried across the small clearing, her goal being to reach one of the outlying farms she’d seen only from a distance. Devin had once told her that they were not his kin, but they’d been allowed to stay anyway, as their families had been there for generations.

      Allowed to stay?

      At the time, she hadn’t understood the ramifications.

      Now she did.

      Like a thief in the night, she’d moved swiftly, slipping between gardens and outhouses, thankful for the moon that allowed her to avoid knocking over woodpiles or stepping in any unmentionables.

      She’d made it past the first three houses, past two leaning sheds and an overgrown cornfield. Only a few miles to go and she would have been safe. Exhilarated to have gotten so far, she’d tried to plan—or as much as a woman could when she had no home, no relatives and no money.

      As it turned out, all the planning in the world would have done her no good. Before she’d passed the last house, the one belonging to the Hooters, Varnelle and Alaska, whose mother had been a Miller, Alaska had stepped out from behind the outhouse, a jug of what Devin had called popskull in each hand and a grin on his long, bony face.

      “Where you goin’, Elly Nora?”

      She could hardly say she was going for a stroll, not when she was carrying all her worldly possessions except for her books, her china and crystal and the sofa that Dev had been planning to trade for a Cornish pump when he’d died.

      “I’m going home,” she’d told him, knowing she wouldn’t be. Not this time, at least.

      “Now, you don’t want to go nowhere. Poor old Dev, he’d be heart-broke, and him not hardly cold in the ground yet.”

      By then her husband had been dead nearly two months. After the long, hard winter they’d just gone through, he was as cold as he was ever likely to get. “I just want to go home, Alaska. Back to Charlotte.”

      “We can’t let you do that, Elly Nora.”

      She’d been so crushed with disappointment she hadn’t bothered to argue, knowing it would do no good. Alaska had escorted her back to the cabin. Neither of them had said another word.

      And then, shortly after her second attempt at escape, what she’d come to think of as the courting parade had begun. Even now, she could hardly believe it, but the bachelors of Dexter’s Cut, practically every one of them between the ages of eighteen and fifty, had waited three months to the day after Devin had blown himself up to try their luck with his widow.

      She hadn’t laughed—it wasn’t in her to hurt a man’s feelings, not even a Miller. Instead, she had listened to their awkward proposals and then gently declined every one of them, praying she would never reach a point when she would regret it.

      Chapter Two

      A hand-lettered sign warned against trespassing. Traveling cross-country as he often did, that was one big word Jed had learned to recognize. But roadways were roadways, and while this one was overgrown, the rutted tracks were still visible.

      He could hear the sound of rushing water close by. Evidently McGee heard it, too, from the way he picked up his pace. Jed gave the gelding his head and held on to his own hat as the horse broke through a dense laurel slick to emerge on the banks of a shallow creek some ten feet wide.

      He could use a break, and this was as good a place as any. He had saved some of the cheese and soda crackers he’d bought earlier that morning—but first a drink. The sight of all that water made him realize how thirsty he was. Dismounting, he slapped McGee on the hindquarters, knowing the horse was going nowhere until he’d drunk his fill. Founder at the trough, if he let him. Damned horse didn’t have a grain of sense.

      He was on his knees lowering his face to the rippling surface when a sound and a scent made him glance over his shoulder. One look was all it took.

      Ah, Jesus, not now.

      Guns and whiskey spelled trouble in any language, but in the hands of a mob of dirty, grinning polecats like the five lining up behind him, the odds weren’t all that favorable. His best bet was to get to the other side of the creek, but something told him he wasn’t going to have a chance. “You fellows want to talk about it?” he asked, his mind reeling out possible excuses for being here.

      One man held an old Sharps bear rifle; another one carried a newer Winchester and the tallest carried a spade over his shoulder. That left two men unarmed, which helped even the odds.

      But not a whole lot.

      “Have at ’em, McGee,” Jed whispered, his hands closing over a river rock.

      “We wanna talk about it, boys? ’Pears to me we got us a traipser.” Winchester grinned, revealing a total of three long, yellow teeth.

      A traipser? Would that be a trespasser? Jed wondered.

      “I might have got lost and—” That was as far as he got before the shovel caught him on the side of the head. From that point on, things went rapidly downhill. Later, he would dimly recall hearing a lot of hooting and hollering, rifles being fired and a gleeful suggestion that they tan his hide and nail it to the side of the barn as a warning to “traipsers.”

      His head ringing with pain, he fought back, the fear of death lending him strength. He even managed to get in a few good licks, mostly with his feet, but five against one pretty much settled the outcome. At least they didn’t shoot him outright, but that damned spade was almost as lethal. All he could do was roll with the punches, try to protect his vitals and hope the sumbitches would fall down dead drunk before they managed to finish him off.

      His boots… “Ah, Jesus, no!” he yelped, feeling his ankle twist in a way it was never meant to twist.

      The smell of whiskey was everywhere. If they doused him with the stuff and set him on fire—

      He tried to roll toward the creek. Someone kicked him in the ribs, and then the others joined in, cackling and shouting suggestions. On his hands and knees, Jed tried to crawl toward the bushes, but they followed him, kicking and jabbing him with the butt of a rifle.

      “Git that there hoss ’fore he gits away!” one of them shouted.

      “Hit ’im wi’ the shovel ag’in, it won’t kill ’im!”

      “You git СКАЧАТЬ