Lord of the Wolves Read Free Page B

wounded! She
needs your help! Wait! Oh, please wait!” In complete desperation, she folded
her hands, squeezed her eyes shut and beseeched God to intervene with this
stubborn individual on her behalf. “Father, please! You must convince him! Reveal
to him the error of his ways!”
    It
was not God who answered, but a thin and wavering voice from the rear of the
structure. “Damn you, Sauvage. If you turn your back on that child, you turn
your back on decency.”
    To
Sarah’s amazement, he stopped in midstride, turning slowly, disbelievingly
toward the woman who had spoken so unkindly. “Kate? Kate Seaton, is that you?”
    “Come
closer, damn you,” Kathryn said. “I’d like to look you in the eye when I curse
you for a pitiless bastard.”
    Sauvage
propped his rifle by the door, moving closer to the pallet, while Sarah
continued to gape. When he reached the pallet where the wounded woman lay, he
knelt and took her hand. “I had no idea,” he said gently, his voice tinged with
regret. “I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry
that I am dying?” she demanded. “Or sorry that you were about to abandon that
poor girl?” She shifted on her bed, groaning low in her throat. “Oh, never mind!
I don’t have the time to listen to you try and justify your actions! I don’t
have time for anything, except perhaps for setting this situation to rights,
and by all that’s holy, whether you like it or not, you are going to
help me.”
    “Kate,
for pity’s sake,” Sauvage began. “ La Bruin and his men are but four
miles from here. Four damnable miles. Do you know what this means?”
    “I
do,” Kathryn replied. “It means you are likely to go off and get yourself
killed, leaving Sarah alone and defenseless!” Sauvage’s mouth hardened, as did
Kathryn’s voice. “I was there , Kingston! There are too many of them; one
man doesn’t have a prayer against them. Not even a man like you. They killed
Joshua and the others, and then they tortured Ben Bones.”
    Kingston
raised his head and looked intensely at her. “They got Ben?”
    Standing
a short distance away, Madame shifted her weight restlessly, seemingly uneasy
with the topic of conversation, or perhaps with Sauvage’s presence. The soft
rasp of linen against lawn, skirts against numerous layers of undergarments,
lightly abraded his senses. It was a pleasant sound, so terribly feminine and
so out of place here in this ramshackle wilderness cabin, as indeed Madame was
herself.
    Kathryn
gave a barely perceptible nod. “He took a very long time to die, Sauvage. I
would rather my last thought on this earth not be of you, sharing Ben’s fate.”
    “Then,
do not think of it,” he said. “I know that you are concerned, Kate. For her,
perhaps for me. It’s admirable; but it changes nothing. I must go . You
know that. For Caroline’s sake.”
    “It
is for Caroline’s sake that you must stay. She was good and kind, Kingston, and
she loved you—”
    “Dammit,
woman! Do not!”
    His
thunderous reply fairly shook the rafters, yet had little effect on Kathryn,
who went doggedly on. “She was a gentle spirit! And the truest friend I ever
knew!”
    Sauvage
cursed, turning away, but he could not escape her. She was relentless. Determined
to have her way.
    “She loved you, Sauvage! Worshipped you!” She paused to catch a
breath, and her voice lost some of its sting. “What would she say if she were
here with us now? Would Caroline want you to turn away from me in my hour of
greatest need? Would she approve of you abandoning Sarah so that you can have
your pound of flesh?”
    Coming
on the heels of Caroline’s strange visitation, Kate’s blistering diatribe was
almost more than Sauvage could bear. The idea that Caroline had been there to
prevent his leaving had occurred to him already. Yet, he could not abandon his
quest. “What would you have me do?” he demanded. “Bless the bastard who stole
my life from me?”
    He
made to fling himself away from the pallet, but Kathryn