Free Captive by Heather Graham

to his voice.
    “She’s his stepdaughter, James,” Jarrett said.
    But suddenly James wasn’t listening or talking to his brother any more. He had lowered his head to her, his lips very nearly against her ear as he spoke. “Your name is
Warren?
” he demanded of Teela, his tone so low and husky it sounded like a growl.
    Teela moistened her lips. “Yes, Teela Warren,” she stated, chin high as she clenched down hard on her jaw.
    To her amazement, he suddenly started laughing. His laughter had a bitter sound to it. Taunting, rough against her ear.
    “Warren!” he spat out. Softly. So softly. “Ah, well, now I understand my interest in you, and it’s not one that would please or entertain you in any way, Miss Warren. I would simply like to see the whole of your wretched family burn in the most blinding fires of hell for all eternity.”
    He spun around, exiting the room with long, hard strides. A chill swept through Teela, and it was long moments before she realized that he had spoken so very quietly that only she, and not even his brother, had heard the full bitter impact of his words.
    Music filled the room again.

Chapter 4
    J ames sat on the porch rail, staring out into the night. The breeze was balmy and he closed his eyes, listening. He could hear laughter and music from within the house, and he could hear the sounds of the night from without. The slow lap and fall of the river, the whisper of the breeze through oak and cypress. Crickets letting out their night call. The mosquitoes didn’t seem to be biting tonight, the gentle wind moving a little too quickly for them. It was a perfect night, the air a gentle caress, and, with the sounds of revelry within muted slightly, it seemed as peaceful as could be. Of course, quiet brought out the true beauty of the place. Sliding downriver silently in a canoe, seeing the wild orchids growing, the glitter of the water where sun broke through the tree branches … yes, there was the beauty. And there were still places to go where that peace was unbroken. Where the modern world had not intruded, where the sounds of gunfire didn’t shatter the balmy green tranquility.
    It was a pity he could so seldom see those places, so seldom touch them.
    He could feel the ruffles of his frilled shirt against his wrists and throat. Once again he could clearly hear the music from within. He leaned his head back against the column that braced the rail. Most of the people inside the house were his friends. People he had known for years. He had lived their life; he had received white schooling, he had been welcomed in his brother’s grandfather’s house in Charleston, and because he was hisfather’s son, many whites had ignored his Indian blood. He could feel his heart ache for many of the white people who had been caught in the war. For the young plantation wife who had watched her husband killed, her farm burned. Who had felt a bullet pierce her side, a Seminole knife lift her scalp from her head … and then lived to tell of it by playing dead while bitter Seminoles shrieked their triumph and danced before the fires.
    It was a horrible picture.
    But he had been in battles himself.
    Just last year Andy Jackson, still President Jackson then, had given the command of the army to Florida’s governor, Richard Keith Call. Call had plodded along, determined on a course of action, bogging down in swamp, losing men to fever and sickness, finding that supply depots he had ordered built had never risen out of the muck. But a major offensive had still taken place on the With lacoochee River. The men under Call had assumed the black water was very deep; it hadn’t been much more than three feet. Major David Moniac had attempted the crossing, but a Seminole bullet had sent him facedown into the river. No one else had tried the crossing. Hundreds of men, women, and children behind the fighting forces had been saved by that failure of action. The strangest thing was that Major David Moniac had been