Sweetbriar Read online

  “Can you turn over?”

  It wasn’t easy, and Linnet reminded herself of a fish flopping about on dry land, but she would have died rather than give up hope of facing her Devon. It took a moment to see him. “Devon! What have they done to you?”

  He tried to smile but his lips wouldn’t slide across his dry teeth. “They’ve enjoyed themselves. Why are you here? You should be safe with Miranda. Come closer.”

  She scooted across the floor so that she was touching him.

  “Kiss me,” he said hoarsely. “I need you.”

  She didn’t question him but found his kiss to be more searching than anything else, and when she felt the inside of his mouth, dry, almost cracked, she knew he needed moisture from her more than anything else. He broke away and his eyes brightened for a moment.

  “An old Indian trick?” she asked.

  “No. Macalister alone. Linnet, why are you here? You shouldn’t be.”

  “You said that. Devon, I have a knife.”

  He almost jumped as he looked at her, his body tied into a backward circle just as hers was.

  “It’s strapped to the inside of my thigh, only I don’t know how to get it.”

  He seemed to have trouble thinking correctly or swiftly. “Fast. We must move fast. Can you move up?”

  “How can you get it?”

  “With my teeth,” he answered.

  Linnet managed to move upward, her muscles aching and crying for rest. Devon pulled her skirt and petticoats up with his teeth, high above her waist to expose the drawstring of the linen underpants. The string was knotted, and he could not unfasten it.

  “Damn it, Linnet! Why’d you have to make a knot?”

  She smiled through the darkness at his words. With a powerful wrench with his teeth, he tore the string and a great deal of linen away. The knife Phetna had given her was strapped inside her thighs, the hilt of it having rubbed a raw, chafed mark on the soft opposite thigh.

  Devon looked at her body, ivory, gleaming in the dark for a moment before lowering his head and removing the knife from its sheath. He seemed to take much longer than he needed to remove the knife.

  Linnet realized how tired she was—or was it only tiredness? She rolled to her stomach so he could cut the rawhide that bound her feet to her hands. How good it was to stretch out straight once again!

  Devon dropped the knife from his teeth and rested the side of his face against the cold dirt floor, too tired to cut the binding on her hands. After a moment, “Lynna, can you cut mine away?”

  She frowned at his tone. He was hurt, and his joviality was a supreme effort for him.

  “Quick, Lynna, quick.”

  “Yes, Devon.” Her hands still tied behind her, she felt for the knife. He did not stir when she moved to his back and tried to work the knife blade under the rawhide leather attaching his hands to his feet. She tried to calm her frantic thoughts when she cut the rope, because Devon did not move from his cramped and unnatural backward position.

  “I’m afraid my body’s been this way too long. Can you get my hands loose?”

  It wasn’t easy to conquer her fear and control her hands as she tried to saw the rawhide apart with the little knife. The cords were so tight that she could hardly find a place to slip the blade under.

  “Don’t worry about hurting me,” Devon whispered. “Cut my hand off and I wouldn’t know it. Just do it fast.”

  She felt the blade tip touch him once but he didn’t flinch or move and she knew he was telling the truth when he said his hands were numb.

  When he was free he moved his arms slowly, awkwardly. “Give me the knife. Linnet, listen to me,” he said in her ear as he sawed at the rawhide across her wrists. “I’ve been here a long time and I’m…not well. Promise me somethin’. If I fall somewhere, leave me. Go on by yourself and leave me. I don’t want you recaptured by Crazy Bear. Do you understand me?”

  “Perfectly,” she said quietly.

  “Then I have your promise?”

  Linnet pulled her arms forward and rubbed her wrists. “No. Now let me have the knife and I’ll cut this off our feet.”

  “Lynna, please.”

  “Devon, do not waste my time.” She cut the bindings, and as she felt his feet they seemed to be wet, and she realized it was blood. She had no time to cry and made herself do what had to be done. “Can you walk?” she asked when they were free.

  “Not if you can carry me.”

  Linnet held her breath as she cut away the side of the little hut and peered into the fading daylight to see if anyone was about. Crazy Bear’s people were lazy and didn’t post guards always, and now that he was away, searching for Yellow Hand, his people were even more lax.

  “It’s clear,” she said and offered him her hand. He took it, and she helped to support him to stand in a crouch, his face a mask hiding all his thoughts and feelings. He nodded, and she led the way outside the hut and into the woods. At her first look at Devon in the daylight, she saw that his half-healed burns were raw again. She didn’t ask what Crazy Bear had done to him.

  His eyes were hard, and without saying a word, he cautioned her and told her to lead ahead. They walked slowly for an hour, and Linnet knew he could go on for only a little while longer. If only I could carry him, she thought as they came to the bank of a river. The water’s surface was covered with several logs, notched and ready for building. Linnet’s mind wandered, and she wondered what catastrophe had caused some settlers to lose all the logs they had so carefully prepared for their cabin, when a thought struck her. She couldn’t carry Devon but the water could.

  “Devon, if I got you into the water could you hold on to a log?”

  He nodded, his eyes glazed.

  She supported him as much as her slight frame could as he walked to the river’s edge. She saw by the way he drew in his breath that the coolness of the water hurt him at first. He was bare from the waist up, wearing only the heavy linsey-woolsey pants and no shoes. Yet as he went more deeply into the water, the chill numbed him and cleaned the wounds. The buoyancy of the water helped to take the pressure off his cut feet and he felt better.

  “Smart. Smart, Lynna,” he said as he let the water lift him.

  “My governess made me study about what to do with raw, bleeding men in the Kentucky wilderness.”

  He put his arm across a log and looked at her, one eyebrow lifted, not sure if she joked or was serious. “Don’t talk anymore. They’ll look for us soon,” he said and put his cheek against the rough bark, resting for the first time in four days.

  They floated silently for hours as the sun set and the night spread about them. There were times when Devon seemed to sleep, and Linnet kept watch over him, ready to hold him if he should slip.

  “Someday I’m gonna take care of you,” he whispered once when she thought he was asleep.

  “I’d like that,” she said as she touched his ear.

  They heard horses along the bank, softly padding, almost inaudible. Devon’s arm came down from the log and pulled Linnet’s head under him, beneath his chest, between him and the log. She did not breathe for fear of making a sound. Long after the horses were no longer heard, Devon still held her beneath him, her neck cramped and hurting. He released her slowly, and she kicked backward to take her place beside him. She looked at him in question.

  “Your hair,” he said, “too bright,” and rested against the log’s bark.

  When the sun came up, Linnet began to realize they would have to stop somewhere, rest and eat. “Devon?” she asked softly.

  He opened his eyes, clear and bright, the blue sparkling. “I thought it was a dream,” he said, smiling, perfect white teeth against his dark skin. “I thought if I opened my eyes you wouldn’t be here, and I’d know I made it all up.”

  She put her hand in the soft, curling thickness of his black hair. “You’d be right, too, because you’re not even going to be able to get rid of me in your sleep from now on.”

  He grinned broader. “Whe