Untamed by Pamela Clare Read Free Book Online Page A

the bright blue of the sky on a summer day, but the deep, dark blue of midnight. Then he spoke, startling the silence, his voice deep and ragged. “I would think myself in hell but for the sight of you, lass.”
    Even had she had her English at the ready, she would not have known what to say, his words catching someplace deep inside her, making her pulse trip.
    Then he shifted, raising one fettered wrist as if to reach for her.
    She scooted backward, nearly toppling her stool in her haste to evade him.
    But pain halted his motions even before his chains grew tight. He drew a shuddering breath through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes squeezed shut.
    “B-be still, or you will cause yourself to suffer needlessly.” She stood and reached toward the bedside table for the water pitcher and a tin cup, irritated with herself to find her hands shaking.
    He is just a man, Amalie. You are childish to fear him.
    But he was not just a man. He was a Ranger, perhaps the very Ranger who had sent Papa to his grave. It was only natural for her to feel afraid.
    “My leg? Is it…gone?”
    Another wave of pity washed through her.
    “You have it still.” Vexed with herself, she poured water into the tin cup, then returned to his side to find him watching her once more, a strange look in his blue eyes. “Drink.”
    She slid one hand beneath his head to raise it and held the cup to his lips.
    He turned his head away, rivulets spilling down his jaw and over the thick muscles of his neck, pooling in the recess at the base of his throat. “Nay, lass! I cannae.”
    At first she thought he couldn’t drink because of his fever or his injuries. Only when she’d placed his head back on the pillow and watched him turn his face away from her did she realize the truth. He meant to deny himself water.
    He meant to let himself die.
    Astonished, Amalie said the first thing that came to mind. “It is a mortal sin to cause your own death.”
    But is it not also a sin to save his life so that he can be burnt alive?
    “Then I’d best go swiftly to hell and no’ keep the devil waitin’.”
    With those shocking words, he closed his eyes and drifted into a restless sleep, leaving Amalie to fight the pricking of her conscience.

Chapter 3
     
    M organ gave himself over to his fever, willing it to ravage and consume him, eager to die and pass from this life with his secrets intact—the last thing he could do for his men, for his brothers. But dying wasn’t as simple as he’d thought it would be.
    The laudanum left him witless, unable to tell if he was dreaming or awake. More than once he’d turned his head away from the tin cup the beautiful French lass offered him, but he could not be certain she hadn’t gotten him to drink in his sleep when his will was weakest. Ghosts of the past mingled with the present, memories with nightmares, English words with French. The woman’s soft entreaties. Men’s voices. His own fevered raving. And beneath it all a desperate, aching thirst.
    Please, you must drink!
    Nay, I willna. Be a good lass and fetch a priest.
    You will report to me at Fort Edward by August twenty-first and serve me until death releases you or this war is ended. If you fail to appear or abandon your post, you will be shot for desertion and your brothers will be hanged for murder.
    Dinnae do it, Iain! Curse him!
    I am no’ afraid to die . Let them hang us! We willna be the first Highlanders murdered by English lies, nor the last!
    He will not drink, no matter what I try. He asked me to fetch a priest.
    A priest? If he’s going to die, then let it be without absolution. He deserves to burn in hell!
    Surely you do not mean to deny him last rites, Lieutenant.
    It is a mortal sin to cause your own death.
    Then I’d best go swiftly to hell and no’ keep the devil waitin’.
    Perhaps we ought to interrogate him now, monsieur, see what we can extract from him.
    Something struck Morgan, jarring him from his delirium.
    “Parlez-vous