Her cheeks burned for the hundredth time since she’d entered this tiny room. She should be thankful. She knew the price she had to pay for the protection of a husband: She’d have to submit to the man’s fumbling lusts. She’d long steeled herself for that.
But Andre hadn’t grasped her greedily, he hadn’t pawed her with rough hands or scratched her with ragged nails. And when his arms had tightened around her and his lips had suddenly parted, her entire body had jolted with a shock of something she’d never felt before, and her heart had raced and tumbled as if she had been running away from the royal orchards with a skirt full of ripe apples. It had scared her to death. She wanted no part of that feeling; she didn’t understand it, she didn’t trust it.
Genevieve whirled and paced back and forth across the room, the wooden floor icy beneath her bare feet. She reminded herself that the kiss had taken place before he’d realized she was his wife, when he’d thought she was nothing more than a whore looking for a companion for the evening. After he’d discovered the truth, he had looked at her as a well-dressed bourgeois might look at manure caught on the heel of his boot: He had spent the rest of the night trying to kick it off.
Until he bared his teeth in some semblance of a smile and agreed to take her along with him.
She pulled her stockings off the back of the chair, plopped down on the edge of the bed, and thrust her toes into the worn wool. She didn’t have to be the most perceptive woman in the world to know that he didn’t want this marriage. If he did, she wouldn’t be sleeping in a windowless room on the other end of the inn. Rather, she’d be tight between the sheets with him, in the midst of the “marital duties.” Genevieve stifled the strange feeling rising in her belly. Better for her that he didn’t demand those favors yet, but it simply meant that he didn’t want a wife, for she knew better than most women that all men craved the lifting of a woman’s skirts with blind, mindless heat. There had to be another reason why he had agreed to take her with him into the wilderness. A dark, deceptive reason.
Have you ever gambled, my wife?
She tied the garter at her thigh with a jerk. Genevieve remembered the gambling halls of the Cour des Miracles in Paris, the hot, dark rooms where men risked their money and their lives, and women bet their faded charms on the turn of a single card. She remembered the drunkards who risked the bounty of a day’s begging on the clatter of the bones on the paving stones.
Oh, yes , she thought, her eyes narrowing with secrets, I’ve gambled, my husband . She had gambled enough to recognize Andre as a dangerous man. She imagined that Marie Duplessis’s Musketeer would be Of the same ilk—roguish, charming, devil-may-care, full of promises but empty of conscience. Men like that had abounded in the books that were hidden in Mamaris library, the books Genevieve had spent many a night reading by the flickering light of a fragrant candle. And now she faced one in the flesh. During the course of a single evening, Andre had manipulated her like a puppet at the fair of Saint-Germain.
She should know better. Genevieve vowed not to let him surprise her again. Her stomach curdled like overheated milk as she pulled on her leather boots and laced them up. She was acting like a weak-kneed little fool, letting her emotions and her fears overrule her common sense. She didn’t know what Andre was planning for her, but she knew the dice were weighted in her favor. She was gambling that once she reached their new home, this silver-tongued fur trader could be manipulated into giving her what she wanted most: the protection of his name and his wealth, the security of his house, and most of all, the knowledge that she would never—ever—be set out on her own again.
Nine months was a long time in the wilderness, a long time for a husband and wife to live like celibates in close quarters. If their unlikely marriage was consummated, then her future would be secure.
The past would be gone … forever.
Genevieve stood up and smoothed unsteady hands over her skirts. She clutched the handle of her case. The sooner they started on this voyage, the sooner they would reach their new home and the less time she would have to falter like a coward. Straightening her bodice, she strode out of the room. The door swung shut loudly behind her, echoing in the silent hall.
The darkness reeked of brandy and stale sweat. She headed blindly down the hall, trailing her hand along the wall as a guide. She stumbled twice over prone bodies, then continued ahead. It took a few minutes for her to find Andre’s door, and when she did, she rapped on the wood and waited.
No answer. No shuffle of linens, no grunts of sleepiness, not even the patter of footsteps.
She knocked again, this time more insistently. The door gave way under her fist. Startled, she stared at it for a moment, then pushed it wide open.
The room was empty. An inky blue light spilled through the cracks of the wooden shutters, splashing stripes of color across the twisted linens. The covers lay half on the bed, half on the floor. Andre’s pack was missing from the corner.
The stinking son of a poxed whore .
Genevieve strode in and searched the room for a note, a message of any kind, tearing the linens off the mattress. He had sounded so sincere when he said he wouldn’t leave her behind! Short of sleeping in the hall outside his room or throwing herself upon him, she’d had no choice but to take him by his word.
She whirled and raced down the stairs to the common room. Ignoring the sleeping innkeeper slouched behind a small counter, she stormed across the room and barreled through the door.
A diffuse bluish light bathed the shore. A breeze ruffled the inky black expanse of the St. Lawrence River, rippling the pale light gleaming on the waves. The bank swarmed with activity. Most of the long, narrow boats that had littered the shore the evening before were gone. A long line of men, hefting sundry kegs and bales, trudged westward, parallel to the row of compact wooden houses that formed the settlement of Montreal. Their laughter drifted over the breeze and broke the heavy silence of the early morning. Genevieve searched for Andre’s silhouette, but she couldn’t see a feathered hat or a wide-skirted coat among the men on the banks. She watched them disappear into the darkness. Beyond, the great western forest loomed, the spiky peaks of the pines stark and black against the indigo sky.
He was gone. She suddenly saw herself, standing in the mud outside this Montreal inn, clutching all her worldly possessions in her arms and staring out toward the wilderness. Abandoned again. She had no idea where he planned to go after Montreal. She’d been told that this was the last settlement in this country, straddled against the enormous expanse of wilderness. Beyond these well-fortified stores and warehouses were nothing but forests and savages, and no roads but those forged by men like Andre. Her fury grew. Coward . Why didn’t he grant her the annulment and end this marriage before it had ever begun?
She straightened her shoulders. She would get her annulment. If she had her way, she would get her annulment before the week was out.
“Madame Lefebvre?”
She started and turned around. The driver of a cart that had pulled up in front of the inn leapt agilely off the wooden seat and strode toward her. Only one person could have told this man her name.
She lifted her skirts from the mud and marched to meet him. “I suppose he sent you to… . Oh!”
Her case fell with a thump to the mud. She recognized the deep lines that fanned out from his brandy-colored eyes, the only similarity between the Frenchman she had faced last night and the savage apparition now standing before her. Andre’s shaggy mane of fair hair—which last night had been covered by a curled periwig—was now tossed back haphazardly from his wide forehead, falling straight and unencumbered to his shoulders. Fringe hung from the sleeves of his form-fitting deerskin shirt, belted low and reaching mid-thigh. His hand rested easily on the butt of a pistol, which jutted from a beaded sash, accompanied by the hilt of a dagger. Below the hem of his shirt his thighs were naked.
Naked .
Her breath caught on a gasp. All the restless virility, all the repressed animal grace
she had sensed last night, lay raw and exposed before her. She had the distinct feeling that she was staring at her husband— her real husband—and that last night she had been fooled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And there was a dimple in his buttocks.
“Having a change of heart, my wife?” He glanced at the case at her feet. “Last night you were screaming like a brandy-crazed squaw to come with me.”
He was clever, very clever, trying to make her look as if she were the one escaping. “So the pot calls the kettle black! I went to your room to find you and you were gone, slipped away like a thief, leaving no note, no message.”
“I wish I had been there to reassure you.” A sly, dangerous smile slipped over his lips. “But I had business to take care of, and I didn’t expect you to wake so early.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just forget me?” Her glance dropped to his bare, sinewy thighs. “As you forgot your breeches?”
He bent one knee to show her the fringed tube of deerskin that covered his leg from his knee to his ankle, held up by thongs that gartered somewhere below the hem of his shirt. “They’re called leggings. You’d best get used to them. All my men wear them.” His smoky gaze slipped lazily over her. “And you’re not an easy woman to forget.”
“Flatterer.” She curled her hands into fists. “I’ve just taken you by surprise.”
“Faithless, aren’t you?”
“Faith is for God. I trust no man who has a grin as toothy as a wolf’s and morals as loose as a cat’s.”
His teeth gleamed in the predawn light. “I see a night’s sleep hasn’t dimmed your spirit.”
“I’ve been awake all night thinking about what you were scheming….”
“You’ll regret that by sundown. We’ve got a lot of distance to travel.” He gestured to the men working along the shore. Three of them heaved the last narrow boat upon their shoulders and headed down the muddy bank toward the edge of the encroaching forest. “We’ll be taking those canoes into the interior. We can’t launch here because there are rapids just upstream of Montreal. We’re going to cross the island and launch at Lachine to avoid them.”
Lachine . She frowned. He was toying with her, as if she knew nothing about geography. She’d had enough lessons forced upon her by that wart-faced old priest Maman had hired as her tutor.
“China,” she said pointedly, “is rather far for these oxen to walk.”
“Lachine is the name of the launching point. It’s only a few leagues away.” A wildness lit his eyes. “We’re going much, much farther than Lachine. We’re going to places you’ve never heard of before, places that aren’t even mapped. Are you afraid?”
“No.” Genevieve winced as soon as she said the word. This man believed she was a pampered daughter of the petty nobility, who should be frightened by the unknown. She tilted her chin. “Why should I be? You’re escorting me, and we have a home somewhere out there, don’t we?”
“Mmm. In a place called Chequamegon Bay.” He nodded to the empty cart behind him. “I spent the morning looking for a cart and oxen to borrow. You can ride with me to the launching point. It’s no carriage, but it’s better than walking.”
Genevieve glared at the cart. She felt like a ship at full speed whose wind had been sucked out of its sails. He hadn’t escaped without her but rather had made arrangements for her comfort, which only confused her more.
“You won’t be needing that.” He reached for her case. “I’ll make arrangements to store it in the inn.”
She tightened her grip on the handle and pressed it close to her side. “I’m taking it.”
” Sacre !” He curled his fingers over hers and pulled the woven case, rattling the contents. “What do you have in there?”
“My dowry from the king. Pins and needles and scissors and a comb and two knives—”
“You won’t need all that frippery. All you’ll need is a blanket to sleep in.”
Her fingers tightened around the handle. “I’ll need it to set up a household.”
“There’s no room for it in the canoes,” he argued. “We’re packed to the gunwales.”
“If there’s room for me, there’s room for it.” Genevieve wrenched it from his grip. “It is all I have in the world.”
She hated herself for sounding like a poor waif clutching her last crust of bread, but she had already left more than half of Marie’s clothing at Marietta’s, and she had no intention of parting with what remained of her meager possessions. “I gave up many things when I decided to come to Quebec,” she explained, her chin lifting. “These few comforts are too important to me to leave behind, and I’ll need them to set up a household.”
Andre opened his mouth to argue, paused, then shrugged his shoulders, the fringe of his shirt fluttering with the gesture. “You’ll have to carry it. My men have more than they can carry as it is.”
“Fine.”
He reached for her case. This time she gave it to him, making sure her fingers didn’t come into contact with his rough, callused hands. He slung the case in the back of the cart with a clatter. “Are you always this garrulous in the mornings? Or is it just the lack of sleep?”
“It’s a lack of trust.”
“That’s no way to start a marriage.”
“Neither is making funeral arrangements for your wife.”
He grimaced, then rubbed his stubbled chin. “It looks like I’ve got some explaining to do.”
“The only thing I want to hear,” she said as she picked her way toward the cart, lifting her skirts from the mud, “is about this chewywagon place.”
“Chey-way-megon. I’ll tell you all about it on the way.” He climbed on the cart and held out his hand to her. “Come. I want to be on the water before sunup.”
A lock of his hair, more golden than the rest, fell over his forehead. He confused her, this handsome man. He looked half savage in those smoke-ripened, well-worn deerskin clothes—what there was of them. He switched faces like an actor switches roles, and she wondered which face was really his. Then she remembered last night’s devilish grin.
Suddenly, from the marrow of her bones came the scream Run! Run! so strong, so compelling, that every muscle, every sinew in her body, vibrated with the plea.
“Second thoughts, wife?”
She stared up at him, the primal fear whirling in her gut. She felt the softness of the mud beneath her boots, the cool river breeze on her cheeks, and realized she was staring into the golden eyes of a lion, the eyes of a predator . .. the eyes of the only man who could fulfill her dreams.
Or destroy them.
Her fingers found their way into his outstretched hand. Andre smiled that slow, wolfish grin as she settled beside him in the cart. He picked up the reins and snapped them over the oxens’ backs. To Genevieve, the oxens’ hooves against the earth sounded eerily like the clattering of rolled dice.
***
The morning light cast lacy shadows upon the forest floor when Andre first glimpsed the water of Lake St. Louis through the dense forest growth. As he urged the oxen on, the cart reeled over the deeply rutted earth, its wheels sinking into the mud and plowing new furrows among the older tracks. The rickety boards squealed in complaint, creaking against one another as the vehicle plodded its way beneath the feathery pines.
“I trust you can handle a boat better than you handle these oxen,” his wife snapped as the cart nearly keeled over, only to right itself as it found even ground. “If this cart were a boat, we’d have drowned by now.”
Andre suppressed the grin of triumph that tugged at his lips. He had discovered, several leagues back, that the only way to stop this woman from barraging him with questions was to make the cart sway dangerously over the rocky, uneven ground. As it stood, she had already wheedled too much information out of him. She knew the voyage was going to take six or seven weeks—and it should, if weather permitted and there were no injuries, wolves, bears, or Indian attacks en route, all of which he didn’t mention. But she was
dangerously close to discovering that neither he nor anyone else on this voyage had ever been to Chequamegon Bay, and he knew nothing about the “home” she asked so much about … even if it did exist. He was close enough to the launching point to smell the spruce wood fires.
Nothing—not even a stubborn, willful French wife—was going to come between him and this expedition now.
Genevieve clutched the edge of the seat, the bones of her hands standing out against the soft kid of her gloves. Her green eyes were fixed forward, on the uneven road. He had wondered last night, as he tossed and turned in his empty bed, if this woman would be as beautiful in the bright of day as she was by candlelight. Now he could see the freckles speckled over her tiny, tip-tilted nose; he could see the full, luscious curve of her lower lip. The dawn light reflected off her hair, and the tendrils, escaping her chignon and struck by the golden rays, shone like fine, clear brandy. Too brassy to be considered lovely, too unruly to be considered elegant. She was not a beauty by the standards of many—his Provencal mistress would have called this woman gamine, a little chit of a country girl—but he found an irresistible allure in her freshness, in the sensuous disorder of her hair.
She straightened and pointed to a large stretch of sparkling water that came into view as they rounded a copse of pines. “Is that it? Are we at the launching point?”
Andre saw his three largest gaily painted canoes floating in the placid water of a small bay, low and heavy with merchandise. His chest filled with anticipation. “Welcome to Lachine.”
The spicy scent of the camp fires grew stronger as they entered the clearing. A bluish smoke hung heavy beneath the boughs of the sheltering pines. A few small piles of kegs and barrels littered the shore, marked in black letters with their contents: saltpeter, shot, arrowheads, kettles, glass beads. His two dozen men milled about in the clearing, heaving the bales upon their straining shoulders, sloshing through the water to deposit them in the canoes.
Heaven in His Arms Page 8