1 Chapter 1 : The Abduction

I am frightened. I am cold and I am in pain.

I am not a seasoned rider. It is a very great effort for me to stay in the saddle for long stretches of time. My leg muscles are beginning to ache.

We have been riding through the thick South Carolina forest for several hours. When the leader decides that we shall stop near a stream, terror replaces my anxiety. Shivers run down my spine. My feet and hands sting as if needles were being driven into them. One of the men pulls me roughly off my horse and throws me against a tree trunk.

"Don't move!" he orders.

He might be talking to a dog.

For a while, nobody takes any interest in me. The leader of the group is much too engaged in making an inventory of his bounty. His henchmen busy themselves with the makeshift campfire and the animals.

I could escape. I even contemplate it. But I do not make a move. Where could I go?

The New World is vast even when you have a map and a good guide. But here and on my own, there is no way I can survive. If I am not killed by a wild animal before I starve to death or die of cold, the savages will deal with me.

I am being stupid. I know what will happen to me if I stay with these murderers. Perhaps it would be better to die a slow death than suffer the fate that these brutes have in store for me? And even if they intend to rape me, it will not prevent them from killing me.

I have always liked to think of myself as a young woman with more courage than others, but at present, faced with death, I can but bide my time.

Gradually, my enemies settle down where they can to doze. At last I am able to study my captors. Eight men. The stench of their bodies is so foul that I can smell them moving before I see them.

Nine horses. From this I deduce that my abduction was planned.

I know their leader. I have already met him.

It was three weeks ago, in the port of Charleston, in British territory.

After a journey which had lasted for more than a month and which had taken me from Brest to Louisbourg, I had just spent a further two weeks on choppy seas aboard a vessel whose destination the Southern Province. Its cargo was mainly composed of rams and ewe. I was so relieved to be on dry land that I must have been radiating joy like a ray of sunshine. He hailed me.

"What a pretty shipment! Never before has the Septon delivered such a beauty."

I would not normally have deigned to answer him. Nobles do not address commoners. Or, as Mother liked to say, doves do not speak the language of toads. I do not know what prompted me to dally with him. Perhaps it was the euphoria of having finally reached my destination, and having my feet on dry land. Or the frank gaze which showed his self-assurance and natural authority.

"I agree," I answered in perfect English. "Our ewes are ravishing."

The wink I gave him surprised him and we both laughed. Although his apparel attested to the fact that he was poor, his posture gave him a stately demeanour. His cocked hat was threadbare in places. I remember thinking that he would be charming if he would only take a brush to his hair and have a good bath. With his back against a barrel, he eyed me covetously. I moved away to admire the port of Charleston and the hustle and bustle of the sailors on the docks, mindful all the while that his eyes were fixed on me.

"Do you need a guide to take you into town?" he asked.

I turned around. I had to half-close my eyes to survey him. His silhouette was etched on the horizon in the light of the rising sun.

"I believe I can find my own way, thank you."

"I was not suggesting that I would be your guide."

His Irish accent rang prettily in my ears. I smiled.

"Have you nothing better to do, my good Sir, than to inconvenience young ladies as they alight from their ships?"

"Nothing more exciting, as it happens."

His casual air was both pleasant and entertaining.

"Florence!" called my cousin Claire. "Please come and pay your respects to the captain. We are leaving. Mister McPherson awaits us!"

I returned to the deck of the Septon to bid Monsieur Delastérie farewell. I thought I would never see the stranger again. How wrong I was.

Morning is breaking. The men have hardly slept at all. But at least they have not drunk or sullied my body. Not yet. According to my meagre sense of direction, I sense that we are once more on the road to the South. We are leaving Charleston and the home of my husband-to-be near the Santee River further and further behind us. I think that if we continue on in this direction we shall reach the coast.

I try to recall the map in the cabin of Captain Diziers-Guyon[1] and the names of the port towns scattered over the paper. I only remember the largest ones: Savannah, Fort Saint George, and Saint Augustine.

I find this reassuring. They will not sell me to the savages who live inland. I do not usually heed rumours. But now, all the stories told by the travellers aboard Le Dauphin[2] take on a new meaning. Indians who scalp their victims before killing them or who torture white people by pulling out their nails. And I imagine that my long russet-coloured hair would have a certain value for the savages.

From time to time, I have moments of enlightenment. I have been kidnapped so that they can demand a ransom. The man I am marrying is immensely wealthy. His fortune, acquired through the management of farming land for the production of sugar, is one of the most sizeable in the British territories of the New World. My cousin also assures me that he has a number of slaves.

I had met the Scotsman two weeks earlier. We had been introduced by my Jacobite cousin Claire McDougall. It was in the Starling Inn in Charleston where we had stayed for a few days following our arrival in the New World. He was not as ugly as I had imagined but he was older. I was nevertheless moved by the politeness and thoughtfulness he showed me. In no way did he give me cause to think that I would become a thing for him to possess. But he had paid generously to have me.

Much to my mother's displeasure, Mister Conor McPherson is not a nobleman. Our marriage was to confirm that I was the dregs of the Acres family, and it had been necessary to find me a spouse who would accept my situation. Despite my Puritan education, I had succumbed to carnal pleasure. Scandal might have been avoided if my lover had not taught me the art of libertine love and engrossed me to boot. I had sullied my reputation in France and exile was the only possible solution to avoid the shame that my behaviour would bring to my name.

We women have to learn that fortune is a serious affair. My family's fortune was an insurance against celibacy in this society where the only alternative to marriage is to enter a convent.

A trip half-way across the world to marry a rich sugar producer is not the worst thing that can befall a young girl of 18 years of age. My tutor was wont to repeat that I had not been born at the right time. I used to love it when he said that I was modern and wild and ahead of my time. I believed him when he whispered to me that I was destined for a different future. I was delighted when he schooled me in life outside the walls of the Château de l'Aigle, our family seat. I was accomplished when he made love to me.

"Hold on to your reins", a man said suddenly.

Lord, what am I supposed to do in such a situation? I feel weak. I may falter at any moment. I have felt the need to pass water for several hours, but do not dare ask to stop for fear of awakening a virile reaction in my captors.

Towards midday, their leader gives me a hunk of bread. We look at each other, but this time his hard, calculating expression is neither amusing nor teasing. It is deathly cold. Then we set off again.

Their rare discussions inform me that the leader's name is Steven. The youngest is Nick, and the sturdiest of them is nicknamed Cook. The one they call John frightens me. I notice him leering at me and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end whenever our horses come near each other.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I choose to urinate in my stockings. The inconvenience this causes me is not at first a problem. I vaguely hope that the stench of my legs will send these men running if they try to beset me. I feel stupid and I am drenched.

Never before have I been so terrified.

[1] The actual captain of the ship Le Dauphin in 1750.

[2] Le Dauphin is a ship that really existed. In 1750, it sailed from Brest to the New World, with on board Monsieur de Chabert to whom the king had entrusted the mission of carrying out geometrical and astronomical operations.