Chapter Three
Wolf Heart caught the subtle widening of her eyes. He saw the terror that glinted in their clear green depths. He felt the tension in her slim white foot where it balanced on his bent knee. The girl had courage. Perhaps too much courage for her own good.
At first, when she had defied him, even teased him, he had thought her merely foolish. Now he saw that she was well aware of her danger. Even so, she hid her fear, masking it with boldness.
“Tell me,” she demanded, fixing him with a brazen gaze. “What is your name?”
“In your tongue, my name means Wolf Heart,” he said, bending close to twist a stubborn thorn from her heel. She winced as it came free, the small wound oozing blood. How could she have walked so far on those sore, tender feet without a whimper of complaint?
“I mean your real name,” she persisted annoyingly.
He froze, scowling up at her. “I just told you my real name.”
“All right, -then, your old name. Your Christian name.”
“Seth Johnson.” The long-forgotten syllables were hard to form. They left him wanting to rinse out his own mouth for having spoken them.
“My name is Clarissa. Clarissa Rogers,” she said lightly, as if she were meeting some swain at a party. “May I call you Seth?”
“No.” Wolf Heart carefully brushed the last of the dirt and twigs from her left foot, wishing she would be quiet and leave him alone. But, he sensed she was formulating more questions, and he knew that she would allow him no peace until she had her answers.
“Since you’re bound to ask, I was adopted by the Shawnee when I was eleven years old,” he said. “They raised me as one of their own. I am Shawnee, and my true name is Wolf Heart.”
A quiver passed through her fragile body as he lifted her right foot, cradling it, for the space of a heartbeat, between his big rough hands.
“And did the Shawnee try you as they will try me?” she asked, lowering her voice to a taut whisper.
“Yes.” He worked a small, sharp stone from the ball of her foot and used his finger to stanch the bead of crimson blood it left behind.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “I want to be ready.”
“When you need to know, then I will tell you.” He gazed down at her bruised, bleeding legs, trying not to think of the gauntlet and what it would do to her pale flesh. At that moment, he wished with all his heart she could be spared the ordeal. But that was not the Shawnee way.
“Are you hungry?” He spoke into the gulf of silence that had fallen between them.
“I could probably force myself to eat a bite or two.” Her eyes glittered defiance. “Untie my wrists, and I’ll help myself to whatever you’re serving.”
Wolf Heart hesitated, then shook his head, knowing he could not trust those swift hands of hers unfettered. “First I will finish with your feet,” he said decisively. “Then I will feed you myself.”
He drew his own steel hunting knife and saw her shrink back from him, her eyes as startled as a doe’s. Without speaking, he seized a handful of her ragged petticoat and began slashing a strip as wide as his hand from around the hem.
Her spunk returned as she realized what he was doing. “You owe me for one fine English petticoat!” she bantered.
“I’ll pay you in food.” He finished cutting the strip and began wrapping it in tight layers around her foot. The cloth would wear out rapidly, but at least it should protect her bleeding soles long enough to reach the canoe.
The girl watched him in tense silence as he worked. Clarissa. His mind toyed with her name, turning it over like a glistening river stone. It was a flower name, a name that whispered of pink satin ribbons, dancing slippers and tea in thin little china cups. Clarissa.
“What happened to your family?” she asked, the question pushing into his thoughts. “Did the Shawnee kill them?”
He shot her a glare. “No. I was an orphan. Even that is more than you need to know.”
“I’m an orphan, too,” she said, studying him with those disconcerting eyes. “My brother Junius sent me to Fort Pitt to find a husband.”
“And did you find one?” He had finished wrapping her left foot and started on her right. He was looking down as he spoke and, thus, was totally unprepared for the responding tinkle of laughter. It was a musical sound, as light as the trill of a bird. He glanced up at her, halfstartled.
“Find a husband? Gracious, no!” she exclaimed, her pale cheeks dimpling. “Unless, of course, you’d be willing to fill the job. Junius isn’t fussy. He just wants me out of the way.”
Wolf Heart bent his attention to the wrapping of her foot. Shawnee girls could also be bold and saucy. That he knew all too well. Yet this fragile creature, bruised, starved and probably frightened half to death, was the most impudent female he had ever met in his life. Her spirit moved and astounded him.
But he could not soften toward her, Wolf Heart admonished himself. This intriguing prisoner was not his to judge. She belonged, even now, to the people of his tribe, and he could not let himself be swayed, either by her fragile beauty or by her white blood. Her fate was out of his hands.
“You need to eat.” He reached into the small parfleche that hung at his waist, drew out a thin strip of smoked venison and thrust it toward her.
“Ugh! What’s that?” She drew back, wrinkling her elegant nose m distaste. “It looks awful and smells even worse!”
“It’s just deer meat,” Wolf Heart said irritably.
He tore off a small chunk from the dark, dry slab. Her gaze widened sharply as his fingers moved the morsel toward her mouth. “It looks raw,” she said, shrinking away from him.
“Smoked and salted. Try it.”
She shook her head in a show of defiance. This, Wolf Heart swiftly realized, was to be a contest of wills. “How long has it been since you ate?” he demanded.
“What difference does it—” Her question ended in a choking sound as he shoved the sliver of meat into her open mouth, seized her jaw between his two hands and held it shut. Inches from his own, her green eyes blazed like a bobcat’s.
“You are going to eat if I have to stuff this down your throat!” he said in a low, menacing voice. “Now chew!”
Her gaze shot daggers as he held her, his fingers framing her temples, his thumbs bracing her jaw. She smelled of river moss, and her cheeks were as soft as the petals of the wild hawthorn blossom. A vein throbbed beneath the translucent skin of her throat.
Wolf Heart found himself growing acutely aware of her body and the way the mud-stiffened bodice of her gown had molded to her small, perfect breasts. He remembered their savage struggle on the riverbank, her slim legs tangling so wildly with his own. Even now, the thought of it triggered a freshet of heat that trickled downward to pool in his loins.
This
