White Bear's Woman

by Candace McCarthy

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Reprinted Edition She Ran From The Arm Of English Law. . . After killing her lecherous stepfather in self-defense, Hannah Gibbons fled to the New World where another cruel fate awaited her as slave to the fierce Seneca Indians. Terrified, her first thought was escape. . .until she met her new master, the mysterious blond brave with sapphire eyes. And Into The Hands Of A Savage. . . When Hannah, bathing in a lake, found herself face to face with White Bear's golden muscles and nothing between them but the crystal blue water, she was shocked to discover that the wild beating of her heart, and the prickling of her skin was not fear. . .but desire. And suddenly, slavery seemed sweeter than freedom. Praise For Candace Mccarthy's Books "Passion burns through the story." -- Rendezvous on Heaven's Fire "Exciting. . .superb. . .A timely tale." -- Affaire de Coeur on Irish Linen 120,000 Words

Release date: November 1, 2013

Publisher: eClassics

Print pages: 224

Sample

Pennsylvania Colony, 1748

“She is not going to take the news well,” Caroline Abbott said to her husband.

“No,” John agreed, eyeing their bondservant with concern as the young woman hugged the eldest of his two sons. “She’s taken with our children. She seemed so sad and alone when she came here. ’Tis only been these last two months that the sadness has gone from her eyes.”

He knew little about Hannah Gibbons but that she was an Englishwoman who’d not been a stranger to hard work—and she was alone in the world.

“Hannah looks much better than when she came to us,” his wife said.

John agreed. The young woman was pale, but healthy when he’d purchased her indenture thirteen months past. There’d been a look in her eyes that told him Hannah had suffered a tragedy recently. It had been only the other day that he’d learned that she’d come to them a short time after her mother’s death.

John knew about loss and painful hard times. In the first six months, life had been tough in the New World for all of them. His family had had difficulty making the adjustment in this harsh, primitive land, yet Hannah hadn’t complained. She had worked as hard as the rest of them as they’d labored to build the house; and then later, as they planted and raised their first farm crops. Things had improved, but it was not the life they’d had in England. His wife’s miscarriage a month past and the recent news of his father’s death had made John realize that he should never have taken the family from home. A fortnight past, Caroline and he had discussed the matter and made the decision to go back to Rosefield, his late father’s estate, his inheritance.

Twill be easy enough be get rid of Windgate, John thought. Thomas Whitely, his neighbor to the west, had been wanting the property since the day John had moved his family into the house.

The money made from the sale would buy passage home for him, his wife, and his children ... but not Hannah, for Hannah, he knew, wouldn’t want to go. John didn’t know what had driven the young woman from her homeland, but she had left, and he was sure that no amount of coaxing would convince her to return with them.

Which left him with only one option, and that was to sell her indenture. Hannah had three years of service left on her contract. He had hoped that Whitely would offer for her along with the land. It would make things easier for all concerned. Unfortunately, neither Whitely nor any other family in these parts had need of another mouth to feed.

“If Hannah were a man,” Thomas Whitely had said, “then I might have considered the expense. A man’s worth the coin in his ability to do back-breaking labor, but a woman ...”

According to Whitely and a few of the other landowners as well, a woman was a liability more than an asset, especially a plain-faced woman such as Hannah Gibbons.

John didn’t agree. Hannah had worked long, hard hours without a bitter word. She had cared for Caroline when she’d been with child and afterward when his wife had lost the babe. He’d considered Hannah well worth the money he’d spent for her voyage. The least he could do for the young woman was to see her kindly settled with a new owner.

John had nearly given up hope of finding a buyer for Hannah’s service contract, until yesterday in Philadelphia, where he’d encountered Jules Boucher in the marketplace. The Frenchman had overheard his conversation with Robert Conn and had spoken of his interest in purchasing Hannah’s indenture. The man said that he had need of a good woman to cook and clean house for him, and had promised that Hannah would have a good home.

Although Boucher’s rough appearance would not have reassured John under normal circumstances, John accepted the man’s offer. His desire to go home within the week had convinced him to believe the man’s word.

“When are you going to tell her, husband?” Caroline asked.

John regarded his wife with affection. Caroline stood by his side near the garden gate, her appearance pristine despite the soiled spade she held in her right hand. “Now. I’ll tell her as soon as I send the children to help you in the vegetable garden.”

Caroline gazed at the woman, who had been a godsend to her in the days when disappointment and poor health had nearly overwhelmed her. Hannah had been the rock that Caroline leaned on when her days seemed as dark as the nights. “I shall miss her. Isn’t there a chance she’ll return with us?”

“I think not, dear. Whatever she once had in England is gone, and I suspect her memories of home are too painful for her.”

John watched Hannah with his children. Her attention was now with his youngest offspring. The young woman knelt on the grass, her coarse homespun bunched about her knees, as she played a game with his four-year-old daughter Anne. While she sang a song, Hannah reached out and tickled the child in the ribs whenever she came to the lyrics about a little bird. Anne laughed with delight each time Hannah ended a line with a teasing tickle.

John headed in their direction. Both females, caught up in their playacting, remained oblivious to his approach.

“Fly high, fly wide! Little bird, little bird!” the woman sang.

“Hannah.”

“Papa!” the child cried, seeing him first.

“Hello, little bird,” her father replied, and Anne giggled.

Hannah had paused in the game to flash him a smile. “Good day to you, Mr. Abbott. Annie and I were just singing.” She grinned at the little girl. “Weren’t we, little bird?”

John had caught his breath as the smile lit Hannah’s face, lending her features a beauty that startled him. He tensed, for he hated to be the one to destroy that look. But he could no longer delay telling her of his decision to go home.

Hannah must have sensed his uneasiness, for her smile vanished. He saw her glance beyond him to where his wife stood, looking pensive, near the garden gate.

She whispered into Anne’s ear and then straightened, watching as Anne ran toward her mother. When the little girl was gone, Hannah faced John.

“Master Abbott?” she said. “Is something wrong?”

He noted, not for the first time, the differences between his bondservant and his wife. Hannah was tall and sturdy, while Caroline was feminine and fragile. He studied the young woman a long while before answering. Would she be strong enough to accept what he had to tell her?

“Mr. Abbott?” she asked again, alarm darkening her gray eyes.

John glanced at his two sons, who played happily on the lawn only a few yards away. “Boys, your mother needs help in the garden.”

“Aw, father,” James said. His brother wasn’t any happier.

“James, Michael. I want you to go—now!”

Grumbling beneath their breath, young James and Michael obeyed their father and left.

John pointed toward a bench near the house. “Let’s sit down, Hannah. There is something I must tell you.”

Hannah sat, feeling stiff and unnatural and filled with fear.

John Abbott, she saw, tried to reassure her with a smile, but failed miserably.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked, feeling chilled.

He shook his head. “No, no, Hannah. You are a hard worker, and Mrs. Abbott and I are grateful for your help.”

He looked away from the relief he must surely,have seen in her gray eyes. “The thing is—” he said, then hesitated before continuing, “Caroline—Mrs. Abbott—and I have decided to return to England to live.”

Hannah stared at him with horror. Dear God, she wouldn’t return to England! Not unless she wanted to face prison. “Please,” she gasped. “I cannot go back.”

John nodded. “I realize that, Hannah. ’Tis why we must talk. My wife and I don’t want to lose you, but we understand that something drove you from your home.” An intensity entered his expression as he held her gaze. “I don’t know why you indentured yourself—”

He had issued an invitation to tell him what forced her from her homeland, but she ignored it. She couldn’t tell him—she just couldn’t! But what was to become of her?

She swallowed hard. “Master Abbott,” she began. Afraid to ask, Hannah looked down and pretended an interest in her shoes. He continued to wait patiently for her to continue. How could she explain that she couldn’t go back to England because the authorities would arrest her for murder? She had killed her mother’s husband. The memory of her crime made her physically ill. She respected John Abbott more than any man she’d known. She couldn’t bear to see his look of disbelief, then disgust, and finally his expression of fear when he learned that the woman who had cared for his wife and children was a murderess who had fled England to escape the consequences of her crime.

“I can’t go back—ever,” she whispered. “Please don’t ask me to explain.”

“I won’t force you to tell me, Hannah,” he said, much to her relief. “You’ve been a good servant Caroline and I are grateful for your help when she—we’ve—needed you. I’ll not ask you to come back with us, because I can sense that whatever drove you from your home must be painful for you.”

Hannah closed her eyes, fighting the mental image of her mother lying pale and lifeless. Then, there was the nightmare of Samuel Walpole’s hands on her, violating her, touching her where no man had a right to touch. She could feel again the smooth wooden back of the chair against her fingers as she grabbed the chair and swung it, notjust once but twice as the first blow glanced off Samuel’s shoulder. The jarring thud of her second hit made direct contact with the man’s flesh and bone as she hit him against the head and the side of his neck. Samuel had fallen to the floor, deadweight, a severe gash where the chair had clipped him.

She shuddered in the bright morning sun and hugged herself with her arms. It was a warm spring morning in the New World, but Hannah had become lost in the memory of England and that winter again.

Would she ever forget the sight of Samuel Walpole lying bleeding and dead on her bedchamber floor?

“Hannah.” John Abbott pulled her from the past. “It’s all right. We’ll not make you come with us.” He raised his voice as if he were trying to make her understand. “You don’t have to go.”

She blinked and tried to focus on her owner. Then what was to become of her? she wondered anew. Dare she hope that he would free her? Perhaps forgive the balance of her years of indenture?

She frowned. After he’d paid dearly for her passage and keep? Not likely. “What shall become of me?” There, she thought, she had said it. Now she waited for the bad news.

“I’ve found you a new master, Hannah,” he said with an encouraging smile. “A Mr. Jules Boucher. The man has assured me you’ll have a good home for the remainder of your service.”

Jules Boucher, she thought. “A Frenchman?” she gasped. The prospect did not set well with her. “Where does the man live?” Maybe the man was a kind gentleman like John Abbott with a wife and family. “Will I be working for Mrs. Boucher?” The questions came to her, one after the other. She wanted to learn everything there was to know about the man who would own her for the next three years. “What does he do?”

John seemed unable to meet her gaze. “He is a fur trader, I think. His home, I’m told, is to the north.”

“And a wife?” she asked, her voice weak. “Does he have a wife?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. John must have sensed her unease. He looked at her directly. “ ’Tis the only way for you to stay here, Hannah.”

Hannah inhaled sharply. “I see.” She read more into what he didn’t say. No one in the area wanted another servant Well, then she had little choice, but to go wherever this Mr. Boucher took her, she thought. Wife or no wife. It would be hard enough to leave the Abbott family, for whom she’d come to care about a great deal. Now she had to learn to deal with her fear of venturing into unknown territory with a stranger.

Did the man have a real home? she wondered. Or would he drag her from one place to the next as if she were a servant hired to pander to the man’s every wish? Would he treat her kindly as John Abbott said, or would she be sorely used as her mother had been by Samuel Walpole?

Hannah shuddered and then stiffened her spine. Frenchman or not, she would accept her lot. She couldn’t return to her homeland.

“I shall go with Mr. Boucher,” she said, as if she had a choice, which, of course, she didn’t.

John Abbott nodded, but did not smile. “Thank you, Hannah.”

A Seneca Indian Village, near Lake Ontario. One month later.

The smoke from the Indians’ cookfires drifted into the air and swirled upward to escape through a hole in the longhouse roof. The morning was young. All that lingered from the early-morning rain was a dampness about the earth and the sweet scent of spring. Droplets of water clung to the leaves of the forest trees surrounding the compound, and bare feet got wet when one walked through the grass. The center of the village was muddy where only yesterday it had been hard-packed dirt where the Iroquois children had run and played their games.

Inside a longhouse, a woman sorted through a basket of wild berries while her daughter sat by her side before their cubicle, stirring the simmering contents of a cooking pot. In the housing compartment next to theirs, a child slept on his platform bed while his mother sat on the dirt floor, embroidering a doeskin tunic. In the cubicle across the way, a warrior dug beneath a sleeping platform and withdrew a small bow and quiver of arrows. A young boy stood behind him, waiting, his face a mixed picture of fear and excitement.

“White Bear prepares his son for the hunt,” Singing Rain murmured as she stirred the contents of her pot one more time.

Her mother snorted. “White Bear acts from duty to his son, not love. Eagle Soaring wants not to hunt, but to please his father.” The old heavyset woman sighed, and her expression softened. “He grieves for her still.”

Singing Rain tensed. Her mother had spoken of the one who had been White Bear’s wife. “That cannot be,” she said. “It has been eight summers since her death.” It was wrong to speak of the dead by name, even if the deceased was a friend as Wind Singer had been. Wind Singer had reached the end of the Great White Path and now shared a place with their deceased grandfathers.

“Then why does he not live in the longhouse with his clan? He lives alone now but for his son. He comes only to gather supplies. White Bear still mourns the mother of Eagle Soaring. He has looked at no one since her death. He barely looks at his son, because it pains him to see the child’s mother in him.”

“He should marry. It is not right that he buries himself in the past.”

Rising Moon’s gaze narrowed upon her daughter. “And you would wish to share his sleeping mat?” she asked perceptively. “Have a care, Singing Rain. It will take much to lure White Bear from his memories. The woman who tries will not walk an easy path. The trail will be a hard and rough one.”

Her attention returned to the brave who was like no other. He’d come to the Seneca as an Englishman boy, but he’d grown into a true Seneca warrior, more highly skilled with Iroquois weapons than one who had been born from a village matron. He was more unyielding and fierce than the other braves, but there had been no denying his loving devotion to his wife, Wind Singer, daughter to Man with Eyes of Hawk. It was tragic that Wind Singer had died giving birth to White Bear’s son. White Bear hadn’t been the same since his wife’s death.

“White Bear is a warrior to fight for,” Singing Rain murmured.

“The battle will not be easily won,” her mother replied. “But you are right, the woman who wins White Bear’s love will find the direction of her earth’s journey a happy one.”

“Father? Will we see a bear while we hunt?” Eagle Soaring asked.

White Bear adjusted a quiver of arrows on his son’s back. “There are bears in the forest,” he said. A quick tug on the strap and he was satisfied that the quiver was secure. Only then did he meet his son’s gaze. He felt a tightening in his chest as he looked into dark eyes and skin so much like the woman he’d loved ... and lost “Are you afraid to meet a bear?” he asked sharply.

The boy lifted his chin. “You are a mighty warrior. I am not afraid.”

“Good.” White Bear handed his son a small version of the bow he himself carried and turned to gather his own weapons. “It is good to be brave. A warrior must be able to think with a mind clear of fear to be the best hunter ... whether it is our meat or our enemy that we encounter.”

His son regarded him with adoration. “Singing Rain said that you are the best warrior in all the village.”

White Bear raised one eyebrow. “Singing Rain knows little of such things.” He glanced across the longhouse to find the same woman’s dark eyes following his every movement. There was a look of hunger in her expression that he had seen before, a look that made him uncomfortable, for he had no interest in Singing Rain or any other village maiden. He had married and loved the only woman for him, and she was dead. Taken cruelly so that his son could have life. For that, he’d never forgive himself. If he hadn’t planted his seed in her, Wind Singer would be alive still ... and loving him.

Since his wife’s death, White Bear had felt like only half a man. During those first months, he had ceased to care about anything—certainty not whether he lived or died.

“Father, is Running Brook coming with us?”

White Bear nodded. Running Brook was the son of He-Who-Comes-In-The Night. The hunting party would consist of the two warriors, their sons, and two other braves—Sky Raven and Black Thunder. They would be venturing to the south, where the young boys would learn about hunting skills and the most plentiful areas in which to find game. Eagle Soaring would be the youngest member of the hunt. Running Brook was born four summers before Eagle ... at a time when White Bear didn’t know what it was to love someone above all else.

He thought about his sister, Sun Daughter, who like him had not been born to the Iroquois, but had come to them as Abbey Rawlins, a young Englishwoman, past the age of eighteen. Abbey had been searching for him when she’d been captured by the Onondaga. Like him, his sister had found the secret of love when she married the leader of the Onondaga people who tended the Iroquois council fire. White Bear had respect and a fondness for Kwan Kahaiska, his sister’s husband. Kwan, too, had been born to white parents until he’d been kidnapped at the age of nine and adopted into the tribe. Kwan had come to the Iroquois a child only a year older than Eagle Soaring now. But Kwan had proven himself to have the courage of a mighty warrior, a man who was as wise as he was kind. His name meant Great Arrow because of his skills with the bow.

Kwan had promised to meet up with them near the great trail, where he and his son, Strong Oak, would join their hunting party. Strong Oak was eight summers, born two months before Eagle Soaring.

They had spent so little time together, White Bear thought, he and his son. Until two summers past, Eagle Soaring had lived in the house of his grandmother, Woman with Dark Skin, Wind Singer’s mother. Grief had so stricken White Bear after his wife’s death that he had gone off by himself, returning months later, a stranger to his people—and his son. Previously he’d plucked his scalp but for the warlock on his crown as was the practice of the Seneca warriors to keep his enemy from grabbing hold of his hair during battle. While away, White Bear had allowed his blond hair to grow. For weeks, he didn’t care if he encountered his enemy. Life had ceased to have meaning for him. Until one day after two months of living alone, he’d come to the village of Kwan Kahaiska, where he’d seen and been scolded by his sister. Sun Daughter had screamed at him, reminding him of the son he’d left behind—Wind Singer’s son.

“Did you love her so little that you would neglect her child?” Sun Daughter had exclaimed.

White Bear, who was unkempt, bearded, and with hair that did not quite touch the back of his neck, had been hurt and angry, and then he realized, he’d been full of self-pity. He stayed a week with the Onondaga, while he sought guidance from the gods—the Christian God he’d learned about as a little boy and the Indian gods, whom he’d come to revere and respect as a Seneca. He cleaned himself up, shaved his beard, but left his hair to grow, realizing that he preferred it that way. He wasn’t afraid of the enemy, so he didn’t see a need to pluck his scalp again. Then, with a heart that was heavy from the loss of his beloved wife, he headed back to his people ... and the tiny son he’d left behind.

The return to the village hadn’t been easy. His people had looked at him, not seeing the man they’d known in the man he’d become. As time passed and they saw the pain in White Bear, they understood and accepted him.

Because his son looked like his mother, White Bear had difficulty looking at him without hurting. He allowed the babe to stay with his grandmother until one day when the child was six years old, and White Bear had dreamed of Wind Singer. In the dream, Wind Singer was unhappy that White Bear did not know his son, and she begged him to change that.

Disturbed by the dream message upon awakening, White Bear had gone to Woman with Dark Skin and asked for his son. The woman looked into White Bear’s eyes, as if reading his soul, and agreed that Eagle Soaring should live with his father.

Two years later, Eagle Soaring was eight, but White Bear still felt as if he and his son were strangers.

White Bear studied his son, as the boy tested the string on his bow, and felt a shaft of pain that Eagle’s mother couldn’t be here to see the boy off to his first hunt.

“You will be kind to Strong Oak,” he said to his son.

Eagle Soaring’s expression flickered with surprise and then hurt as his father’s words registered. “I like Strong Oak, Father. He and I are brothers.”

White Bear did not smile. “It is true that you are like two bear cubs on a honey prowl when you are together. You must watch that you don’t anger the bees and get stung.”

“I do not like honey, father,” the boy said seriously.

“I talk not of honey and bees, Eagle Soaring,” White Bear said, surprised by this serious side of his son, “but of the dangers of a man hunting for food.”

“Ah,” the child said. “I will be careful, and so will Strong Oak. We will not run from our fathers when we see a bear, nor will we rush forward to pierce the bear with our arrows. We will shoot when we can kill with only one draw of our bows. And in the hours before we set out into the woods, we will practice our hunting skills by hitting leaves from Father Tree.”

“Will not Father Tree get angry?” his father asked, curious as to the boy’s response.

Eagle Soaring drew himself to stand straight to all of his four-foot frame. “I will beg forgiveness of Father Tree for his pain, and He will understand, because new leaves He will grow, but a man may get only one chance at bringing down a deer.”

White Bear grunted, pleased. “You will remember the deer’s spirit?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, father. I will ask the spirit of the deer to allow me to take its life, and I will seek his forgiveness as I make him understand that by taking his life I save my own and that of my people.”

“You will make a good warrior, my son,” White Bear said. He looked away, missing the look of gladness that lit the boy’s expression.

But another brave saw and didn’t like it. “It is time.” He-Who-Comes-In-The-Night stood at the door of the longhouse, within a few feet of White Bear’s cubicle.

White Bear nodded. “Let us go then. Eagle, you must tell your grandmother that we leave now.”

“He is not ready,” Night said after the boy had left.

“He is ready,” Eagle’s father insisted. He narrowed his gaze as he studied the brave. Night was a fierce-looking warrior. His face had been painted with streaks of red, and his only hair was a small tuft of black that formed a warlock on the crown of his head. White Bear knew that Night resented him. Unlike his elders and his people, He-Who-Comes-In-The-Night did not accept the adopted white English as one of the People. That the boy, Jamie Rawlins, had been accepted and given such a mighty name had never sat well with the Iroquois brave.

White Bear wondered whether it was wise to take Eagle Soaring on his first hunting trip with He-Who-Comes-In-The-Night and his son. As the father disliked White Bear, the man’s son, Running Brook, bore resentment toward Eagle Soaring. It was Kwan’s decision to join them that had White Bear agreeing to the hunt. He felt sure of Eagle Soaring’s safety with Kwan and Strong Oak by his side.

“Come,” Night said. “The sun rises high in the morning sky. We must go now.”

White Bear nodded and followed the man from the longhouse.

He was worse than she had expected. Hannah watched Jules Boucher’s approach and felt a shiver of revulsion. Coarse and crude, he was a frightening spectacle for any lone woman, especially one who was essentially at the man’s mercy.

The Frenchman was unkempt, with shaggy brown hair that fell past his shoulders and a thick red beard that was always filthy with bits of food from his last meal. He was large, with a barrel chest and thick limbs. His buckskins were stained; his fur cloak was matted. The man hadn’t bathed in all the weeks Hannah had been with him; he reeked of whiskey, sweat, and damp animal fur. Monsieur Boucher was a vile specimen of humanity, and, disgusted by the man more than his bathing habits, Hannah couldn’t wait to be free of him.

For the past three weeks, they’d been traveling through the wilderness, sleeping and eating out in the open, where the insects left red welts on her exposed flesh and sleeping on the hard ground made Hannah’s muscles and joints ache. She had long given up the hope that the fur trader had a wife and a house. It hadn’t been long after their departure from Windgate that she realized that Boucher had lied to John Abbott.. . .