Hunter responded with a rueful laugh. "I'm never mistaken for a gentleman."
Randolph gestured to concede that fact, but argued just the same. "That really doesn't matter. Anything you say against Melissa, will be called malicious lies."
"Alanna believes me."
Randolph glanced toward the sleeping young woman. Her youth should have made her easy to deceive, but surviving the tragic loss of her family had given her a wisdom well beyond her years. "Yes, she must, or she would not have married you. Well, that's good enough for me," Randolph insisted. "Perhaps you ought to reconsider visiting the Barclays this evening. I'd like for you to stay at my home tonight. Tomorrow I can ask the priest to go with me to tell John and Rachel about Elliott. Then, after the funeral, Alanna could tell them about her marriage. Otherwise—"
Hunter shook his head. "I won't involve you in our problems."
Randolph was far more concerned about Alanna's feelings than Hunter's, but despite nearly a half-hour of persuasive argument, he was unable to sway the Indian to his point of view. "You are either the bravest man ever born, or a damn fool. I don't know which."
"It may take years to answer that question, but I won't run from the truth and neither will my wife."
As they had talked, Randolph had been watching Alanna sleep in her husband's arms, and he knew Hunter was wrong: Alanna was already running.
* * *
Rachel and John Barclay were seated in the parlor, waiting for supper to be announced, when Randolph O'Neil's carriage drew up outside. She was working on a piece o
f embroidery, while he was reading aloud to her from that week's edition of the Virginia Gazette. Curious as to who had chosen to pay them a visit at such an inconvenient hour, John lay the paper aside and moved to the window, while Rachel remained on the settee. The light was fading, but he needed no more than a fleeting glimpse of the buckskin-clad man leaving the carriage to recognize him. Without a word to his wife, he ran from the parlor to his study to fetch his pistol.
"John?" Understandably perplexed, Rachel rose and went to the window, but she saw only Randolph and Alanna, rather than Hunter. Assuming Elliott was with them, she was delighted, and reached the front door just as her husband arrived with his pistol in hand.
"Get out of my way!" he shouted.
"Dear god, John, have you taken leave of your senses? Alanna and Elliott are home!"
"Yes, and they've brought that Indian devil with them!" Under normal circumstances the most considerate of men, John shoved his wife aside and flung open the front door. Hunter was nearing the bottom of the steps, but accurately assessing her uncle's mood, Alanna had moved in front of him, and with Randolph O'Neil at her side, John was unable to get a clear shot at the Indian.
His murderous intentions plain, he used the pistol to wave Alanna and Randolph out of his way. "How dare you bring that heathen here?" he bellowed.
All their carefully rehearsed speeches forgotten, Alanna's attention was riveted on the pistol in her uncle's hand. Since leaving home she had seen the damage a musket ball could do to human flesh, and she knew a pistol shot to be equally deadly. She could only imagine the pain it would cause, but continued to shield Hunter's body with her own.
"He's my husband," she informed John calmly.
"No!" Rachel shrieked. "We raised you as one of our own! Have you no more loyalty to us than that?"
Randolph O'Neil had feared John would greet Hunter with a gun, but to actually be a witness to such violence unnerved him completely. He wanted to get right back into his carriage and flee the unfortunate scene with all possible haste, but his love for Alanna wouldn't allow him to behave in such a cowardly fashion in front of her. He remained at her side, while Rachel continued to wail in a high-pitched whine that brought Catherine and Rosemary McBride from the dining room out into the hall. Horrified by the sight of the master waving a pistol at his niece, they ran from the house to the kitchen to beg their mother to protect them.
"Stand aside, Alanna!" John ordered. "That snake can be expected to hide behind a woman's skirts, but it won't save him." Intent upon killing the man responsible for his darling Melissa's death, he took careful aim.
Rather than brush Alanna out of the way, Hunter stepped back and moved to the side to present John with a clear target. "You are no more civilized than your daughter," he taunted.
"You don't deserve to live when she's dead!" John screamed right back at him.
John might have killed Hunter then, had Rachel not flung herself at her husband with a force that knocked him off balance and sent his shot wide. "Get away from me!" John yelled.
"Do you want to hang for murder?" Rachel cried. "Hasn't he caused us enough grief?"
His feet becoming entangled in his wife's skirts, John had to struggle to remain upright, presenting Hunter with an opportunity to wrench the pistol from his hand. The Indian hurled the now unloaded weapon toward the river. He then gestured for John to come to the bottom of the steps.
"Come," he called, "fight me here."
John was furious enough to think he could actually beat a man half his age, and he ripped off his coat as he came toward him. "Gladly," he replied.
"No!" Alanna's voice rang out clearly. "There's been too much bloodshed already."
"Stay out of this," John hissed.