“Perhaps,” he said. “I own some land, ken, on the Ridge. Uncle Jamie gave it to me, some years back. ’Twould be hard work, mind, clearing fields and planting and plowing, but farming is mostly peaceful. Bar things like bears and wild pigs and fire and hailstorms, I mean.”
“Oh, Ian.” Her face had gone soft, and so had her hand, now resting peacefully in his. “I should love to farm with thee.”
“Ye’d miss your brother,” he reminded her. “And Dottie. Maybe Fergus and Marsali and the weans, too—I dinna think they’d come settle on the Ridge, though Uncle Jamie thinks they’d maybe travel south with us but settle near the coast. Fergus would need a decent-sized city, if he’s to make much living as a printer.”
A shadow crossed her face at that, but she shook her head.
“I will miss Denzell and Dottie—but I should in any case, for they will go where the army goes. But I will be very happy if thee does not,” she added softly, and lifted her face to kiss him.
RACHEL WOKE instantly. She hadn’t been soundly asleep, her body still a-hum from lovemaking, and still so attuned to Ian’s that when he gasped and stiffened beside her, she sprang at once into awareness and had her hands on his shoulders, meaning to shake him gently out of his dream.
The next moment, she was on the floor in a tangle of bedding, her husband on top of her and his very large hands vised round her throat. She flopped and wriggled, pushed at him in futile panic—and then, as her breath vanished and brilliant red stars flashed in the darkness of her vision, she got hold of herself and brought her knee up as hard as she could.
It was a lucky blow, though it missed its mark; she hit Ian hard in the thigh, and he woke with a start and let go. She struggled out from under him, gasping and wheezing, and crawled as fast as she could to the corner, where she sat quivering with her arms wrapped round her knees, chest heaving and her heart thumping in her ears.
Ian was breathing heavily through his nose, pausing every so often to grunt or to say something brief—and probably very expressive, if she’d had the wit to understand it—in either Gaelic or Mohawk. After a few minutes, though, he got slowly into a sitting position and leaned back against the bedstead.
“Rachel?” he said warily, after a moment’s silence. He sounded rational, and her tight-clasped arms loosened a little.
“Here,” she said, tentative. “Is thee . . . all right, Ian?”
“Oh, aye,” he said mildly. “Who taught ye to do that to a man?”
“Denny,” she said, beginning to breathe easier. “He said that discouraging a man from committing the sin of rape wasn’t violence.”
There was a moment of silence from the vicinity of the bed.
“Oh,” said Ian. “I might have a wee chat wi’ Denny, one of these days. A philosophical discussion on the meaning of words, like.”
“I’m sure he would enjoy it,” Rachel said. She was still unnerved by what had happened, but crawled over and sat beside Ian on the floor. The sheet was lying in a pale puddle nearby, and she shook it out and draped it over her nakedness. She offered half of it to Ian, but he shook his head and leaned back a little, groaning as he stretched out his leg.
“Um. Would thee like me to . . . rub it?” she asked tentatively.
He made a small huffing noise that she interpreted as amusement. “Not just now, aye?”
They sat together, shoulders barely touching, for a bit. Her mouth was dry, and it took some time to work up enough spit to speak.
“I thought thee was going to kill me,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from quivering.
“I thought I was, too,” Ian said quietly. He groped for her hand in the dark and held it, hard. “Sorry, lass.”
“Thee was dreaming,” she ventured. “Does—does thee want to tell me about it?”
“God, no,” he said, and sighed. He let go her hand and bent his head, folding his arms atop his knees.
She kept quiet, not knowing what to say, and prayed.
“It was the Abenaki,” he said eventually, his voice muffled. “The one I killed. In the British camp.”
The words were simple and bald, and struck her in the pit of the stomach. She knew; he’d told her when he came back wounded. But to hear it again here, in the dark, with her back scraped from the floor and her throat bruised from his hands . . . She felt as though the deed itself had just happened in front of her, the reverberation of it shocking as a scream in her ear.
She swallowed and, turning to him, put a hand on his shoulder lightly, feeling with her thumb for the fresh, ragged scar where Denzell had cut to remove the arrow.
“Thee strangled the man?” she asked, very quietly.
“No.” He breathed deep and sat up slowly. “I choked him, and I cut his throat, just a wee bit, and then I bashed his head in wi’ a tomahawk.”
He turned to her then and passed a hand lightly over her hair, smoothing it.
“I didna have to,” he said. “Not right that moment, I mean. He didna attack me—though he’d tried to kill me before.”
“Oh,” she said, and tried to swallow, but her mouth had dried afresh. He sighed and bent so that his forehead rested on hers. She felt the warmth of his nearness, the warmth of his breath, smelling of beer and the juniper berries he chewed to clean his teeth. His eyes were open but so shadowed that she couldn’t see into them.
“Is thee afraid of me, Rachel?” he whispered.
“I am,” she whispered back, and closed her hand on his wounded shoulder, lightly but hard enough for him to feel the hurt of it. “And I am afraid for thee, as well. But there are things I fear much more than death—and to be without thee is what I fear most.”