Captured by Love (Michigan Brides #3)(74)

Angelique nodded, her throat tight.

He studied every inch of her face as if he were memorizing it. “Looks as though you won’t have to worry about breaking your commitment to Jean after all.”

On the one hand, his words were reassurance that somehow he’d been able to deliver Jean back to the American ships. But on the other, his statement slipped around her neck like a hangman’s noose.

He’d given up. He knew he was a dead man.

She started to shake her head. There had to be some way to save him.

“Sound the call to assemble,” Lieutenant Steele said to one of the soldiers as he stepped out of the stone building and let the door close with a loud bang behind him.

Pierre glanced at the lieutenant and then spoke to Angelique in an unnaturally soft voice, “You need to take Maman home. Now.”

Angelique followed his gaze, but then jerked back. There, dangling from the lieutenant’s hand, was the cat-o’-nine-tails. Its knotted cords hung stiffly, brown and dry from the blood of the last soldier who’d been flogged.

The lieutenant started toward Pierre.

“Go on,” Pierre said more urgently to Angelique. “Take Maman out of here.”

With halting steps, Angelique pulled Miriam forward, a cry of protest burning in her chest. She didn’t want to leave him.

“I love you, my dear son,” Miriam cried out over her shoulder, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No matter what, I’ll never stop loving you.”

Angelique choked back a swell of anguish. Miriam knew as well as she did that she was losing Pierre. After finally having him back in their lives, he was being torn from them forever.

The blast of the trumpet sounded in the morning air, calling the soldiers to congregate in front of the whipping post. Each shrill note clawed Angelique’s back, as if the thin knotted strips of the whip were lashing her instead of Pierre.

Miriam dragged her feet as Angelique urged her away from the fort. She had to get Miriam out of there so that she couldn’t hear the slap of the cat-o’-nine-tails against Pierre’s bare flesh or his agonized moans.

She almost wished they’d shoot him first, yet she knew they wouldn’t let him get off that easily. They’d flog him until he was half dead to make an example of him to any other soldiers who were tempted to spy. And then after they’d made him suffer, they would lead him out in front of the firing squad and kill him.

As far as she could tell, there was no way he’d be able to escape his fate.

A deep sob rose in her throat, and she gulped hard to keep it down. She knew with certainty that she wasn’t ready to lose Pierre. Not now. Not ever.





Chapter

20



Angelique paced in the hallway outside Lavinia’s bedchamber. The silky skirt swished with each step. She’d donned the blue-green gown Lavinia had given her for the dance, had combed her hair, and had even washed the dust from her face. She’d taken as much care as she could to do all the things Lavinia had taught her during their lessons that summer.

She’d made sure that Ebenezer hadn’t seen her leave the inn dressed in the ridiculous gown. But now she was so desperate, she no longer cared if he caught her in it.

Lavinia had claimed illness for over a week, since the morning Pierre had been arrested. With each passing day that Lavinia canceled their lessons, Angelique had grown more impatient and worried, until she’d decided she couldn’t wait another moment to see Lavinia.

Angelique had decided the gown was her only hope, that if Lavinia knew she was wearing it, then maybe she’d allow her a visit. She prayed that when Lavinia saw her in it, she’d be pleased enough to listen to her plea to save Pierre’s life.

Angelique paused in her pacing and listened to the voices inside the bedchamber. The servant girl had gone in to announce Angelique’s presence. She’d instructed the girl tell Lavinia she was wearing the gown. Angelique tried to still the trembling in her limbs. If Lavinia refused to see her, what other hope did she have?

Every morning over the past week, when she’d delivered her catch of fish to the fort, she’d begged for news of Pierre. And each morning it had been the same. He was still in the Black Hole.

The deep, damp hole in the ground was reserved for the worst of prisoners, especially those sentenced to die. The dirt cell wasn’t big enough for a grown man to sit in comfortably and was devoid of light.

Angelique shuddered at the thought of Pierre languishing in the blackness, the gashes on his back from the whipping likely festering.

She rubbed her gloved hands over her bare arms to ward off a chill. Even though mid-August was still warm, the sky was stormy that morning and had brought a cooler breeze, taunting her that fall was fast approaching. There wouldn’t be many days left before the voyageurs and Indians left the island for their winter hunting grounds in the west.

And it wouldn’t be long before Lavinia left the island too.

Angelique glanced at the closed door to the young woman’s chamber and then resumed her pacing. After the past week of agony, she’d finally begged one of the sentinels to allow her in to see Lavinia. At first he’d refused, but when she’d offered him several eggs, his eyes had lit up.

It was no secret the food and other supplies within the fort were almost gone and that the situation was growing more desperate every day. In fact, word had reached them only yesterday that the Americans had destroyed a British blockhouse on Nottawasaga Bay, along with the schooner Nancy that had been bound for Michilimackinac and loaded with shoes, leather, candles, flour, pork, and salt.