The first thing Caleb Whitmore noticed was not the ropes. It was the dress. Beneath the grime and tears, Charlotte Ashcombe wore what had once been expensive pale silk, cut in an old European court style that had no business appearing beside a crumbling wall in a cotton estate near Natchez, Mississippi. The fabric was torn at the shoulder and hem, exposing more than propriety allowed, and dust clung to her bare calves.
Her wrists were bound behind her. Her ankles were tied. Blonde hair hung across a face gone frighteningly still. Caleb Whitmore had been riding home when he saw her through the heat haze. He reined in so sharply his horse tossed its head. A few yards away, Harlan Pike stood beneath an awning with two armed men, pretending the bound woman was merely another problem of property.
Caleb Whitmore dismounted and asked one question: “What is her price?” “She is not for sale,” Harlan Pike said. Caleb Whitmore looked again at the woman, then at a small detail half hidden beneath her torn collar: a broken signet ring bearing the initials C.A. and the seal of a British peerage. His expression changed. He crossed the distance, seized Harlan Pike by the front of his coat, and pulled him close enough that the guards froze.
“If you knew who she really was,” Caleb Whitmore said quietly, “you would already be praying for heaven.” He released him only enough to add, “Name anything you want. But she leaves in my carriage.” The woman finally lifted her eyes, and the terror in them told him the bargain was already too late. Outside, cicadas screamed from the live oaks while dust settled over the road like a warning nobody wanted to name.
Every doorway seemed to hold a witness, yet most.