Ride the Fire (Blakewell/Kenleigh Family Trilogy, #3)
Pamela Clare
“Riveting, exciting . . . Pamela Clare delivers what readers want.”
—Connie Mason, New York Times bestselling author
“A taut, sensual adventure . . . Sexy, sensitive, and resourceful frontiersman Nicholas Kenleigh, Clare’s larger-than-life hero, will seduce readers as he wins the heart of young widow Elspeth Stewart.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This book has everything—great sexual tension, an action-packed story, high stakes, compelling characters, beautiful writing, and a historical authenticity that you can almost touch, it’s so vivid . . . A truly magnificent story! Pamela Clare, take a bow!”
—Romance Novel TV
“Suited for those who like their history with grit and their romance with emotional power—with an added lesson about how love heals all wounds.”
—RT Book Reviews
“One of the best historical romances I’ve read! . . . Words cannot express how magnificent it is. The passion with which Ms. Clare writes is overwhelming, humbling, incredible. Ride the Fire is a brilliant masterpiece to be savored like a fine wine.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Pamela Clare . . . creates heroes, heroines, and villains with the ease of a master [and] draws the readers irresistibly into the story, making them part of the pain, the fear . . . and the passion.”
—Leigh Greenwood, USA Today bestselling author
Praise for the MacKinnon’s Rangers Novels
SURRENDER
“Be forewarned that this is not a book you’ll put down lightly. Once you start, you’ll be hard pressed to do anything else but travel along on this journey filled with action, danger, fantastically vivid historical events, and written in almost liquid prose: nonstop and ever-flowing words that blend together in a lifelike portrayal of colonial times and the people that stood up to almost unimaginable hardships, written only as Pamela Clare can write them. Surrender is a must-have . . . I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”
—Romance Reader at Heart
“Trust me, you do not want to miss this exciting and hot start to what promises to be a fabulous new series. I have loved all of Pamela Clare’s novels from the first one and this is one that I hated to see end.”
—Night Owl Reviews
“A compelling story that I found difficult to set aside. I was totally submerged in the characters and the story through the very end.”
—Once Upon a Romance
UNTAMED
“Captivating . . . Clare’s detailed attention to the history of alliances forged and battles fought near Fort Ticonderoga adds authenticity, and the characters evolve and change with a realism that readers will love.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sizzling sensuality, touching emotions, and great historical detail make this a sure winner . . . Magnificent . . . You need only to read the first page to know that you are beginning another historical romantic masterpiece by Pamela Clare, a master storyteller who always delights readers . . . Untamed will leave you breathless and cheering with its attention to historical detail, characters you can almost reach out and touch, a story line that’s deeply riveting, and a love story that will melt your heart . . . You must always keep a Pamela Clare book on your keeper shelf. She is not just a read, she is a reread.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Riveting. Clare cleverly combines history and fiction to bring us a tale full of drama and sensuality, with well-drawn characters and continuous action.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Surrounded by the lush backdrop of the historical wild frontier, Untamed is the extraordinary story of how Morgan and Amalie find a once-in-a-lifetime love. The pages are filled with danger, excitement, and suspense. Compelling characters, a seemingly impossible conflict, and one of the most magnificent men I’ve ever read about make Untamed unforgettable . . . Every moment they share is incredibly sensual and erotic . . . Untamed is the ultimate angst-filled romance . . . Untamed is perfect.”
—Joyfully Reviewed
“A powerful story about two people who discover love despite war and betrayal . . . I felt truly invested in the characters in Untamed and found the time period captivating. Morgan has now taken the lead as my favorite hero of the year.”
—All About Romance
Berkley Sensation books by Pamela Clare
RIDE THE FIRE
The I-Team series
EXTREME EXPOSURE
HARD EVIDENCE
UNLAWFUL CONTACT
NAKED EDGE
BREAKING POINT
The MacKinnon’s Rangers series
SURRENDER
UNTAMED
DEFIANT
RIDE THE FIRE
Pamela Clare
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
RIDE THE FIRE
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / February 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Pamela Clare.
Cover art by Gregg Gulbronson.
Cover design by George Long.
Map illustration copyright © Susan France.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-0-425-25730-2
BERKLEY SENSATION®
Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
This book is dedicated to all victims of sexual assault.
May you find the courage, love, and healing you need to live a full life happily ever after.
Acknowledgments
With special thanks to Douglas McGregor, educator at the Fort Pitt Museum in Pittsburgh, for his generous help. He rocks. Anything I’ve managed to get right about the siege at Fort Pitt is due to his time and effort.
Special thanks also to Susan France for her wonderful illustration of Fort Pitt.
Additional thanks to Natasha Kern, my agent, for her unflagging faith, and to Cindy Hwang, my editor, for bringing this story, one of my readers’ favorites, back to life again.
Personal thanks to Kristie Jenner, who single-handedly raised awareness about Nicholas and Bethie as only Kristie can. I told her she deserved a bronze plaque in the reissued version, but I can’t give her a bronze plaque, so a shout-out will have to suffice.
Hugs and thanks to my sister and best friend, Michelle, for always being there.
And as always, thanks and much love to my family and my sons, Alec and Benjamin. You are everything. I could not do this without you.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Prologue
July 15, 1757
The Ohio Wilderness
“They’re going to burn us, aren’t they?”
Nicholas Kenleigh ignored the panic in Josiah’s voice and Eben’s frightened whimpering, strained in vain to free himself from the tight leather cords that held him to the tall wooden stake. His hands, bound fast above his head, had long since lost any feeling.
There would be no escape.
“I don’t want to die!” Eben sobbed, his freckled face wet with tears.
Nicholas took a deep breath, sought for words to comfort the two younger men, found none. He had taken them under his wing shortly after he’d joined Washington’s forces, tried to teach them to track and to shoot well.
None of that mattered now.
“I have no wish to die either.” Especially not like this. “But if death is all that is left to us, then we must face it with courage.”
His words sounded meaningless, even to his own ears, but seemed to calm them. Josiah was nineteen, Eben only seventeen. They reminded him of his younger brothers—Alec, William, and Matthew. They didn’t deserve this.
No one deserved this.
Nicholas had known from the moment they were taken captive what the Wyandot would do to them. He’d warned Josiah and Eben, but they had not listened. Instead, they’d allowed themselves to be deceived by feasts, promises of adoption, and the pleasures of sex with comely, young Wyandot women. But those promises were false, food and sex merely part of the ritual of sacrifice.
Nicholas supposed that caring for the physical needs of their prisoners and bringing them pleasure took away some of the guilt the Wyandot must feel at torturing people to death—if, indeed, they felt guilt. But he had seen the deception for what it was, had eaten his food in silence, turned the woman away. Dark-eyed and pretty she had been, but he would not risk getting her with child and leaving a piece of himself behind to grow up here. Nor would he betray Penelope, his fiancée.
Fidelity when death was imminent might seem strange to most men, but Nicholas had been raised to keep his word and to put loyalty to family and friends above all else. He would try to die the way he had lived.
Washington’s force had been encamped near the Ohio when the Wyandot had attacked under cover of night. Nicholas had been discussing the next day’s march with George over a bottle of Madeira when they’d been interrupted by the sounds of war cries, shouts, and gunfire. He’d fought his way across the camp toward Josiah’s and Eben’s tents and spied them in the distance, wild with bloodlust, pursuing a group of fleeing Wyandot into the forest.
He’d charged after them, shouted for them to stop, warned them it was a trap. But it was too late. They had been ambushed and overcome before his words reached them. And though Nicholas had managed to kill several warriors in an attempt to free them, there were simply too many. One blow to the temple with a war club, and Nicholas had found himself a prisoner, too. Now they would die together.
His mind flashed on his mother, and he felt a moment of deep anguish. His death would be hardest on her. She had opposed his decision to join Washington and serve as a tracker, had begged him to stay at home, take up his role as heir of the Kenleigh shipbuilding empire, and produce an heir himself. But at twenty-six, Nicholas had felt certain there was still plenty of time for such things. Besides, Washington was a good friend and a fellow Virginian—and his need was dire. The outcome of this war would make or break British authority on this continent.
Jamie—Nicholas’s elder by four years and his uncle—had served with Washington during his march north in 1754 and had fought beside George in the blood and mud of Fort Necessity. But Jamie now had a wife—lovely Bríghid—and two small sons. He would not leave them. Nicholas had reasoned he could do the job just as well as Jamie, as they had been taught together by Takotah, the old Tuscarora healer who had made her home with his family since long before he’d been born. It had seemed right that he fill Jamie’s shoes.
And now?
Now he would need every ounce of strength, every bit of courage he possessed. He was not immune to fear.
Eleven fires had been lit in fire pits running down the center of the enormous longhouse. Old women busied themselves building up the fires, adding wood until the lodge was uncomfortably warm in the already stifling July heat.
As the fires crackled, Eben again began to weep, Josiah to curse the Wyandot.
“W-will it be quick?”
Nicholas had heard stories, accounts of the French priests who’d first encountered the Wyandot a hundred years before. He prayed the priests had lied. “I don’t know.”
“Bloody savages!” Josiah spat on the dirt floor. “It’s good they like fire, because they’re goin’ to burn in hell!”
Wyandot villagers began to drift through the low entrance—men, women, children. Soon the longhouse was packed from end to end. The Wyandot stared at their prisoners with solemn eyes, and Nicholas could sense an undercurrent of expectation.
Last to enter was the Wyandot war chief, Atsan, who had dressed in ceremonial garb, a great bearskin cape draped over his bare, aged shoulders, a single eagle feather in his scalp lock. He held up his hand to silence the murmurs and whispers of his people, began to speak in Wyandot.
His words floated just beyond Nicholas’s comprehension, strangely familiar and yet utterly foreign. He did not speak Wyandot, but it sounded somewhat like Tuscarora, which he knew well. Several times he thought he understood a word or phrase—Big Knives, fight, river—but the words were spoken so quickly that Nicholas couldn’t quite catch them.
And then Nicholas recognized one: “See-tah.”
Fire.
A few feet away Eben wept like a frightened child. Josiah trembled but glared at the Wyandot with youthful bravado.
How vulnerable and alone men are at the hour of their deaths.
The thought, detached from emotion, flickered through Nicholas’
s mind, left dark regret in its wake. Why hadn’t he been able to get to them faster? Why hadn’t he been able to stop this? Why hadn’t he found a means to escape?
He closed his eyes, sent up what might have been a prayer. Let it be fast. Let us be strong. Do not let them suffer!
Even as the last thought faded, several women stepped forward from the crowd and walked toward the captives. Nicholas felt cool fingers brush against his skin as his shirt and breeches were cut from his body, leaving him entirely naked. A glance showed him Josiah and Eben had likewise been stripped. Both were red in the face, and Nicholas realized they felt shame at being unclothed before strangers.
As Atsan’s last words drifted into silence, the women who’d undressed them moved to the fires and began to stir the flames.
Something twisted in Nicholas’s gut. He tried to force down his fear.
A young woman appeared at his side, the same young woman he’d rejected the day before. She looked up at him, her brown eyes dark with an emotion that might have been anger—or lust. In her hand was a knife.
Nicholas just caught a glimpse of the blade before she slid the tip into the skin of his belly. His muscles tensed in surprise at the razor-sharp pain.
To his left, Eben shrieked.
Nicholas watched in odd detachment as the woman deftly carved a small pocket from his flesh and wondered for a moment if she intended to skin him. Hot blood poured down his belly, past his exposed groin to his bare thighs.
She looked up, met his gaze, a faint smile on her lips. Then she stepped aside to make room for an old woman, who carried a small glowing ember from the fire on a flint blade. Nicholas realized what they were going to do a moment before they did it, and took a deep breath.
I will not cry out. I must not cry out.
The crone slipped the tip of her blade into the cut, pried the pocket of flesh open, and dropped the ember inside.
A sizzling sound. Searing pain. The smell of burning flesh—his own flesh.
