a novel

Tropes: Slow-Burn Romance – Cross-Cultural Romance – Protector Romance – Survival and Providence – Crisis of Faith – Forbidden Love – Faith vs Culture – Hidden Identity

Chapter 1

September 9, 1777—Near Chadds’ Ford, Pennsylvania

With hair as black as midnight, the man flowed into the tiny forest clearing in front of Grace as if materialized by her scream. Long and lanky despite the breadth of his shoulders, his crouch matched that of the panther, perched on a rocky outcropping before them. Both man and cat were illuminated by the lingering glow after the sunset. Grasping a musket at his side, the man did not point it at the panther.

The cat’s long tail twitched as its yellow eyes narrowed to near slits.

“Walk backward.” His voice was soothing and low, cultured, with not a tremor of unease or uncertainty.

Grace’s foot obeyed his directions even as her mind clogged with fear.

“Do not turn and run, only walk backward.”

Grace forced her other foot to move, then the first again.

The man shadowed her movements without a glance in her direction, his attention on the large cat. His shoulders now blocked her view of the animal’s yellowed teeth and amber eyes. She reached behind her, feeling for anything that might block her retreat.

She’d backed up at least seven rods in distance into the trees, leaving the panther behind. A branch caught her linen cap and tore it from her head, dislodging the pins that secured her hair. She snatched the cloth before it hit the ground, taking another step back. Silently, she gripped her hair that fell around her face. She’d made no sound, but the man turned and faced her.

He stood straight, his back to where they’d left the cat, as if confident they were beyond its danger. Eyes barely a shade lighter than his hair met hers in the shadowed depths of the forest. The strong planes of his face were free of wrinkles, his wide mouth a straight line across his tanned skin. A dark mark divided his brow left from right, perhaps a scar. Shoulder-length hair free of a tie framed him against the deep green shadows. If not for his common hunter’s clothing—a white linen shirt under a buckskin hunting jacket and buff breeches—he might have been an Indian.

“Are thee hurt?” The cultured flow of his words belied his wild countenance.

Grace smoothed the front of her apron with trembling hands while she found her voice. “I think not.”

He cocked his head. “I do not believe we have met.”

“Nay. I have only just arrived. With the army.” Washington’s army had marched in earlier that day. She should have stayed with the rest of the camp followers, who’d set up along a tributary of Brandywine Creek. She’d been a fool to stray so far into the forest, but it kept her out of reach of—

“’Tis best to stay close to a fire in the evening.”

His words were warming, reassuring, not the least threatening, but still she tensed. How often had she turned away invitations to share a man’s fire… and more?

“Forest predators like the panther respect fire and avoid it.”

This man might speak of panthers, but they weren’t the only predators. Despite the sultry air, she wrapped her arms around her ribs.

He took a step closer. “Pray accept my pardon. ’Twas not my intention to frighten thee.” His brows drew together along the dark line, his eyes impossible to read.

A frog croaked in the distance, and crickets took up their evening chorus. A shiver worked the length of her back. Where was the camp? How had she allowed herself to be caught out alone with a strange man? The cultured voice meant nothing. Hadn’t her mother warned her of that? Hadn’t John Perkins’ relentless pursuit proved it? Her throat threatened to close off again.

He retreated a step. “I would be honored to escort thee to the army’s camp, should thee wish it.”

Did she wish it? Nay, but what choice was left to her? Her own foolishness had caught her out.

“I would be most grateful.” Had he noticed how thready her voice was? Would he pounce on her weakness as surely as the panther? Had she exchanged one dangerous beast for another?

Yet he spoke with the Quaker thee. Mother had installed her with Major General Greene’s camp followers because of that man’s Quaker beliefs. Quakers didn’t walk the backstreets of Philadelphia, at least, not the backstreets where she’d grown up. That must mean something.

“Where were thee heading, miss…?” He paused, a slight tilt to his head, strands of straight black hair feathering in the breeze.

“Miss Grace. Everyone calls me Miss Grace.” Because that was all the name she owned, but he didn’t need to know that.

***

Her dress, while modest and plain, was not that of a Quaker, so Mark had expected her to supply a surname. While unconventional among those not Quaker, the use of her Christian name made things easier for him. Adding the “miss” was not something a Quaker should do, however. He’d been taught to shun any form of titles when addressing people.

“Very well, then. Call me Mark.” She didn’t need to know his full name. While the Quakers of Birmingham were tolerant of him, many even friendly, Mark Running Bear wasn’t seen as a blacksmith or a Quaker outside of the village. He was seen as an Indian.

Did this slip of a woman see him that way too? Her eyes, the gray of a pigeon’s wing, were filled with fear, her knuckles almost as white as the apron she clutched. Was it fear of the panther still—or of him? He shifted another step away, and her breathing settled into a more regular pattern.

“Where were thee heading, Grace?”

She paused, perhaps taken aback by his more intimate use of her name. “Major General Greene’s division of the Continental Army. I work in the followers’ encampment.”

That didn’t explain why she was there, in the forest. Not that it should matter to Mark.

While most Quakers didn’t concern themselves with military matters, some of those coming to the blacksmith shop where he worked were free with their opinions and often argued about the state of the war. Mark had known that Washington’s troops were between Philadelphia and Head of Elk to the southwest, but not that they’d veered this far north. He’d been gone since noon, it being Tuesday and his normal half day at the smithy.

“Where are they encamped?”

She pressed her fingers to her lips, uncertainty written on her face even in the diminishing light. Her eyes never left his, but she backed another step away. Why did she fear him so? Might she suspect him of being a spy for the British?

“I am a Quaker, Grace. I have no loyalty to either side of the war. I would know thy destination only to see thee safely there, not to carry the news to anyone else.”

Her chin dipped, and he could no longer see her eyes. “We set up along a stream they said emptied into the Brandywine.”

Harvey Run was no more than a quarter mile to the north. That was the closest stream, yet that was quite a distance for her to travel on her own with darkness closing in.

“Come, I will lead thee to the stream.” He took a few steps, paused, and looked back. She was following but staying beyond his arm’s reach. This one was wary, which, in light of the war, was probably a good thing. But what had driven her from the safety of the camp? It made no sense.

Neither did his strong urge to protect her.

***

Following Mark was like stalking a shadow—or a ghost. As silently as he’d first appeared before the panther, he slipped through the forest with only the meager light from stars in the cloudless sky. Grace closed the distance between them, her fear of getting lost in the wilderness outweighing her fear of him.

He’d made no move to accost her, even though there was no one around to stop him. His height, his build, his youth all proved she’d be no match for him if he did. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Mother’s saying, one Grace had heard too many times to count.

She didn’t know Mark. He’d not even offered a proper last name, perhaps because she hadn’t either. And he’d called her by her first name alone, not including miss, as if they were intimates.

Her next thought caused her to stumble. What if he were like her? She caught herself on a low-hanging branch.

He whirled in a half-crouch, and she gasped.

He straightened. “Are thee well?”

“’Twas merely a root.” And the notion they might be alike. Not that it made him any safer to be around. There were plenty of young men born to the backstreets of Philadelphia. She’d spent as much of her growing-up years avoiding them as any other men.

He continued forward, and she fell in step behind him. The night sounds surrounded them, sounds foreign to her, but nothing that caused Mark to slow or pause. He was as one with the forest, with the night. Grace’s city upbringing had not prepared her for this dark wilderness. She’d been a fool to leave camp. She’d been warned, but when that soldier had come up to her, bold as brass in broad daylight, and suggested they—

“Do thee hear the water?”

Grace jumped, heart fluttering behind her stays, hands crushing the linen of her apron. “Pardon?”

He stopped. “Listen.”

The burble of water over rocks came to her. A soothing sound, quiet enough that she’d have missed it if he hadn’t told her to listen.

“I hear it.”

“While thee are here, stay within hearing distance of the stream. ’Twill lead thee back.”

Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Because she’d been raised in the city. Because she hadn’t thought darkness would come so fast. And because fear had driven her from camp as soon as that soldier had left her. Left her and assumed she’d be there waiting for him to return. Waiting for her to… to be like her mother.

***

Her face was a study of conflicts, and Mark couldn’t stop staring at her. In an opening in the forest, lit by starlight, she looked too frail to be in their rugged surroundings. Was she a Wemategunis? She wasn’t much taller than the Lenni Lenape forest spirits Betsy and Sarah spoke of. The two old Lenape women enjoyed telling him stories of the Wemategunis. He always listened with respect, although their beliefs clashed with the Quakers’ teachings. But now, seeing Grace in the starlight, he could almost believe those stories of mystical beings.

“Is something wrong?” Her voice was a reedy whisper, and her hands tortured her apron.

“Nay.” He hauled in a deep breath and turned toward Harvey Run. “Follow me. We are almost there.”

They reached the stream’s edge, where the trees hung low over the rippling water. Mark stopped and listened. Grace halted several steps behind him, her breathing loud in the stillness. A faint whiff of woodsmoke reached him from upstream. That made sense. The land had been cleared along the stream there, and Arnold Bishop’s flax crop had been harvested several weeks ago. Mark had forged a new shaft for the flyer on Arnold’s wife’s spinning wheel about that same time. And everyone in the area knew the farmer was sympathetic to the Patriot cause.

“The camp is that way.” He pointed.

“Is it?” Grace looked around. “I am not certain. Everything looks so different.”

She’d come this way in the daylight, no doubt. From the noise she’d made scrabbling through the trees behind him, she’d not spent much time in a forest.

“’Tis not much farther.” He led the way, and she crashed through the brush in his wake.

Soon, voices rode on the evening breeze. Flickering light from a blazing central campfire filtered through the trees. Most people in town were abed at this hour, but the camp seemed a living, breathing thing so busy were its parts. He stopped behind the last large tree before the clearing. Grace stepped up behind him and peered around his shoulder, the first time she’d come within reach since they’d left the panther behind.

“Is this where thee belong?”

He’d have given anything to be able to interpret the expressions that flitted across her face in the light of the rising moon. She said nothing, neither did she move. He waited beside her while her breathing slowed to normal.

“Grace?”

She jumped at his voice, and he took a step back. The last thing he wanted was to frighten her any more than she already was. But she could have run past him into the camp, and she hadn’t. In fact, she seemed almost reluctant to leave him now. The uneven thump of his heart had nothing to do with their swift travel through the forest. Nothing at all.

She turned hesitant eyes toward him and bobbed a short curtsey. To him. Quakers didn’t hold with bowing or curtsying. They showed no deference to another human, believing that all men—and women—were created equal. Yet Mark fought the urge to bow to her in return.

“I am so grateful for what you did, getting me away from the panther and for leading me back.”

“’Twas my honor to serve thee.”

“Good evening, then.” She bobbed another curtsey, scanned the area of the camp closest to them, and then scurried into the jumble of tents and wagons.

Even after she’d blended into the mass of humanity, lost from his sight, Mark remained. The camp itself brought back long-held memories of another time, another camp, another people. But mostly, it was the woman who held him in place with a power he’d never experienced before.

Perhaps she was a Wemategunis.

paperback ISBN: 979-8-9929079-6-4 – ebook ISBN: 979-8-9929079-7-1

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