Untamed by Pamela Clare Page A

shook her head, sure he must be lying. “I do not believe you, monsieur. It is the British who pay Indians to collect such hideous trophies, not us!”
    “Are you so certain? Do not I, myself, have a price on my scalp?”
    “Yes, but that is diff—”
    “Ask Bourlamaque if he’s ever paid trade goods to warriors bearing English scalps. And ask him, too, about the other horrors visited upon frontier families by his soldiers. I have seen brutality that would chill your marrow, lass—women far gone wi’ child lyin’ ravished and slain upon the grass, babes dead at their mothers’ breasts, children…” Clearly angry now, the Ranger stopped, drew a breath. “Nay, I willna speak of it, for I can see it distresses you. But ken this: the men of Oganak had preyed upon women and children for too long, and we Rangers put an end to it. But we were no’ so cruel as they had been. We slew only grown men. We spared their women and children and the stripling lads, too.”
    “You left them without food or shelter.” Why did he not understand? “To leave them helpless is no better than to have slain them with your own hands.”
    “We didna ken that winter should set in so hard. We paid for that sin many times over, stranded in deep snows for weeks on end wi’ naugh’ to eat but our belts and moccasins, our bellies grinding wi’ hunger, our bodies weak and frozen. I watched men who were my friends starve to death on the terrible journey home. Nay, dinnae speak to me of Oganak, unless you can tell me how a man can take a helpless child into his arms and draw his blade.”
    M organ watched Miss Chauvenet at her needlework and regretted having spoken so harshly to her. ’Twas clear that she’d been sheltered from the horrors of this war. There’d been no cause for him to thrust those horrors into her face. And yet it had galled him that she should think him the very devil without knowing the full truth.
    Are you feelin’ better now, laddie?
    He could see she was vexed with him. She’d spoken nary a word since then, a troubled look on her face, her head bent over her embroidery, refusing to look up except to fetch him water or broth or one of the surgeon’s lads when he had need. She sat, spine stiff, the light of the parchment window behind her, her dark hair spilling around her shoulders and tumbling almost to the floor in soft waves, her fingers nimble with needle and thread.
    Morgan sought for something to say to her, to break the brittle silence that stretched between them. “How did you learn to speak English so well?”
    Her spine grew straighter, and she did not look up. “Four of the sisters were English, exiled Catholics who’d made their way to the Americas and then to Trois Rivières. The mère supérieure felt we must learn their tongue, as they must learn ours.”
    “She sounds like a wise woman, this mère supérieure. ” He pretended to stumble over the words. “How did you come to be raised in a convent?”
    “My mother died in childbed when I was two.” And still she did not look up, but kept to her stitching. “My father sent me away to Trois Rivières.”
    “Such a young age to lose your mother. ’Tis sorry I am, lass.”
    Her hand stilled. “I do not remember her.”
    He took a chance and switched to the Abenaki tongue. “Kigawes Wabanaki?” Your mother was Abenaki?
    Her head came up and she gaped at him as if in astonishment. “Yes.”
    “Och, dinnae look so surprised, Miss Chauvenet. I kent when first I saw you that you were of mixed birth. I can see it upon your face. Besides, didna you yourself just tell me your cousins thought I was chi bai ? That means you must at least carry some Abenaki blood in your veins, aye?”
    “I’ve been told that the English believe Indians are… des sauvages ?” She seemed to search for the right English word, but because he was pretending not to speak French, Morgan did not help her find it. “Savage men? I’ve been told they hold all with