“When the servants were not around, Mother tied me to the bed and burned me with a poker, and then threatened to kill me if I told anyone. I suffered in silence. The nanny had seen the burns and did her best to protect me from Emmaline, and wrote to you suggesting boarding school.”
Outside, a dark, dense gray cloud cast them in a premature twilight, but inside it was darker, almost black. Though he did not move a muscle, the colonel turned pale. Juliet stood close enough to see the pulse leap at his temple. “I never knew—”
Edmund raked his long fingers through his hair, the same black hair of his twin. “Of course not. You abandoned us in the guise of duty. How could you have known from thousands of miles away? The one time you did come home, you were only there for two weeks. During your visit, Emmaline placed such fear in me that I dared not speak one word of her sins.”
“I could not deal with your mother. She became worse and worse I was at a loss. England was the best answer for her and for you, I thought. I hope you can forgive me, Edmund and put this behind us.” He glared at Juliet and moved to his desk.
“You will not execute my brother,” Edmund said in clear, articulated words.
The rain lashed down, torrential and unforgiving. In the meager light, the colonel’s dark blue eyes darted from Juliet to Edmund. Gone was any remorse, replaced by a smile that rattled the nerves up Juliet’s back.
“Edmund, I should at no time allowed you to come here. You have been gently reared and do not understand the oath I’ve pledged. I’m a soldier of the Crown with sworn duty to the King. Two Eagles is a spy. I will act accordingly with the law. He will hang with the other traitor on the morrow. There will be no further discussion.”
“Have you not neglected the weightier matters of law—justice and mercy? Do you not have a conscience?”
“My conscience?” The colonel’s mouth curved into a cold sickle of amusement. His voice a whisper meant for Edmund alone. “My dear son, where on earth did you get the notion tI had one?”
“The greatest heresies in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people blindly following the rules. Your dogmatism will be your undoing, Father.”
“Are you threatening me for that savage and his traitor friend?”
Edmund drew his tall frame to his full height and glared at the man he had called his father all the years of his life. “The real issue is your prejudice. You cannot tolerate the fact my brother and mother are savages. You forget, I am a savage, too. Indian blood runs through me. I beg you once more to stop this madness.”
The colonel’s face flushed red and the veins in his thick neck protruded. “There will be no further discussion.” He kicked his chair forward, flopped into it, and picked up his quill, writing furiously.
“You are not the father I thought I had. This is the end of our relationship. I’ll return to England as soon as it can be arranged.” Edmund turned, stalked across the room and slammed the door with such force it clanged the muskets hanging on the wall.
“Colonel,” Juliet said, her voice composed in spite of her throat clogging. “Won’t you reconsider?”
“Not all of life’s lessons come wrapped in a shiny bow,” said the colonel. He seemed as volatile and unpredictable as the winds racing across the Great Lake of Ontario. His craving for power and control equaled his lust for his rum.
“This is not about a suckling babe at his mother’s breast. This concerns war, matters you as a woman cannot possibly understand. Regardless of the costs, I will remain in compliance with His Majesty.”
The decision was set in stone. Nothing she might say or do would change the course of events. She balled her fists, her fingernails jammed into her palms, and the bloodletting of her soul began. He had the same disregard for women embraced by her own father. “I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me many years to be fine with being different. My father prejudiced me with being born, and now I see you, tethered with the same narrow-mindedness. Where will your waltz with pride and arrogance lead you?”
He pounded a meaty fist on his desk. “I am in charge here,” he blustered. “The canny frontiersman you are championing used you to gain access to my fort to get information. The man is an accomplished liar. Do you know he claimed to be a nobleman to escape the noose?” He blew on the paper to dry the ink, and then peered up at her. “In time, Edmund will see the folly of his request and what is best for him. As for your opinion, I do not care. I have accepted Captain Sutherland’s proposal in marriage for you.”
“What!”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you might do better to bow to my wishes to join in matrimony with Captain Sunderland than try with my patience?”
He was her elder cousin and, with certainty, flaunting his control over her future. “Of course, wedding Captain Sunderland might raise your own misplaced standing in society. I refuse to marry him.”
“A woman’s path is not mapped, it is made. My decisions are for the best, and I will not discuss this further. Guards!”
Blood rushed to her head. She felt herself sway on unsteady legs as her last hope shattered.
The door opened and a guard stood at attention, waiting the colonel’s further command. “Escort Lady Faulkner to her quarters and take this order to Captain Sunderland to commence the hanging of two spies on the morrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Joshua’s hands gripped the iron bars over the small window of the cell he’d occupied for the past two days. Heavy fetters bit into his wrists and ankles, the iron cold and hard. The unending, ceaseless rain had stopped. Outside he scanned the slightly higher land to the east on the other side of the river. Beyond the forest, a hazy glow silhouetted the treetops, as if there were a distant fire behind them…like when the Indians burned the brush and forests to create new farmlands.
The glow, more golden than red, gradually spread as though worked by an artist’s brush until he could see the upper edge of a full moon. Then with startling suddenness, the complete circle was above the trees, lighting the peaks of the distant hills.
“They look like teats on a sow’s belly, not like they do in the daylight,” commented Ghost. The man had been thrown unconscious in the cell an hour earlier and was now awake. “The nooses’ glow in the moonlight.”
Joshua ignored Ghost’s morbid reminder of the last night of his life. Their cell was not much to recommend, hardly enough to hold three men and barely high enough for him to stand. Bars from floor to ceiling and beyond the anteroom was a six-inch oak door. Soldiers guarded the entry and elsewhere, the yard and fort walls were secured by more regulars. Joshua kicked at the two-inch bars. No recoil. No escape there.
