“I trust,” he growled, remembering their earlier conversation, “that you didn’t have company in the mire.”
“Julien,” she grinned, flashing the boy a smile, “was kind enough to help me.”
“Her skirts got caught on a branch,” Julien explained. “She took a spill and I helped her to her feet.”
“He’s been helping me brush the muck off.” Her eyes gleamed with mischief. “I never realized rolling in the mud is such a messy affair.”
“Try harder to stay off your back, woman. There are no doctors in these woods.”
“Your concern touches me, husband, but nothing’s hurt but my vanity.” She brushed at her puffed sleeves, adjusting the snagged ribbons while her lips twitched in humor. “Julien is doing everything he can to restore that.”
“His job isn’t to be a maidservant to my wife.” Andre glared at the boy. “You should know better than to stop during a portage, especially along this stretch of the Ottawa.”
The boy’s fingers tightened on the dirty linen in his hand. “But Madame fell—”
“Madame is going to find herself in the slime often,” he warned, meeting his wife’s steady, twinkling eyes, “if she isn’t very, very careful.”
“Then I’ll have to make sure I’m close to you, j my husband, the next time I’m feeling reckless and unsteady.”
Genevieve bent over to hide her smirk. Her headrail gaped, showing the generous curve of one breast, and it took all his will to tear his gaze away from her and settle it on the red-faced young man at her side.
“It takes no more than a second for an Iroquois to scalp a man—or a woman. Why the hell did you stop here, in the open, in the middle of Iroquois country?”
“Oh, come, Andre.” She straightened and brushed her hair off her forehead. “Wapishka told me there’s been a peace treaty between those wigmakers and the French for three years now—”
“Savages like these will break a treaty whenever it pleases them.” He shifted his weight and jerked his chin toward Julien. “You, pork-eater, are lagging behind. There are penalties for delays.”
Julien glanced at Genevieve apologetically and handed her the dirty linen. “At least the silt will keep away the mosquitoes.”
She smiled like the sunrise. “Thank you for your help, Julien.”
The boy flushed and nodded, then bent his knees and reached for her case.
“Didn’t I load you up enough?” Andre barked. Julien stared blankly al his boss, the case tight in his hand. Andre nodded to it. “You’re taking on an extra burden.”
“Madame is tired, and the case is heavy for her—”
“The lady will carry her own fripperies.”
She curled her fingers around the handle. “You already have enough to carry, Julien—”
“But….”
“Go.” She glanced at her husband. “Go before your master sprouts horns and cloven hooves.”
Julien reluctantly released the case and headed into the woods. Andre glared at his wife, wondering how many of his men had carried her case along the way, wondering exactly what was the meaning of the secret little glance that had passed between her and Julien before the boy turned and strode into the forest.
“Don’t be so harsh with him. He was only being kind.” She gazed at Julien’s overloaded back, frowning. “It’s bad enough that he’s been baptized in every cove since we left Lachine and now he’s forced to wear a pot on his head for the men’s amusement.”
Andre strode to her side. Sweat gleamed in the hollow of her throat and darkened a V into the headrail. “Have you gotten bored so quickly of working your wiles on me, wife?”
Genevieve blinked, wide-eyed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That pork-eater is so smitten that he’ll suffer more weight than he can possibly carry for your sake.”
A slow smile lifted the edges of her lips. “I do believe you’re jealous.”
“I’m wary.” He brushed a bit of caked mud off her chin, then regretted the touch the moment his finger came in contact with her skin. Christ. A dirty, disheveled woman with knotted hair trailing down her back was not supposed to be attractive. “Wary of a beautiful woman alone among two dozen men. Wary of the havoc she can wreak just with her presence.”
“Your men treat me like a fine piece of porcelain.” She shifted the case to her other hand and kicked aside a little pile of acorns. “Everything is ‘Yes, madame,’ and ‘No, madame,’ and ‘May I lay the spruce boughs for your bed, madame.’ I am the boss’s wife, Andre, and all that havoc is in your head.” Her nose wrinkled mischievously. “Of course, I shouldn’t tell you this. I should keep you guessing—”
“I don’t take well to wearing horns.”
“Trust me, Julien won’t give them to you.” She swiveled and headed for the woods. “So don’t punish the boy for picking me out of the mud.”
“I’ll have his hide hanging from the nearest tree,” he growled, “for idling away in the forest instead of doing his job.”
“No you won’t.”
“What?”
With her free hand, she hiked her skirts above her ankles, revealing a pair of splattered boots and delicate ankles, and ducked under a low bough, following the thread of a path through which Julien had just disappeared. “I said, you won’t hang …..Julien’s hide by the nearest tree.”
“The hell I won’t…”
“The secret is out, Andre. I know you’re all bluster.”
“What in blazes does that mean?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, the fallen tresses of her hair swinging against her neck. “Julien told me the whole story. How long did you think you could hide it from me? The day you introduced me to that motley crew of yours, I knew there had to be a reason why Julien, who looks like he’s never seen the side of a tavern, was canoeing with acknowledged heathens and philanderers and God knows what other criminals on the other canoes.”
“Julien is a convicted thief.”
“Pah! He was an indentured servant who escaped from his master. He told me you saved him from the whipping post.”
Damned wench. She probably batted those eyelashes and smiled that clean-toothed aristocratic smile and wheedled the entire story from the boy. “Julien is young and strong, and he’s not the first man I’ve hired from prison.”
“But you bought him from his master, set him free, and gave him a position in your canoe as a voyageury
“He’s cheap. He’s working for me for the food I put in his mouth.”
“Is that why you brought him on, a boy who, before Lachine, had never held a paddle?” She brushed past a sapling in her path and it whipped back, striking him in the belly. “Julien told me he had three more years of servitude with his master. You could have kept him working like a slave for you for three years and no one would have questioned it.”
Andre frowned and watched her skirts sway back and forth with each step as she negotiated the rocky path down the side of the hill. The last thing he needed was Genevieve thinking he had a heart of gold, when his intentions for her were as black as they could be. “One year in the wilderness is worth three toiling in the soil. That pork-eater has no idea what he’s gotten himself into yet.”
And neither, my wife, have you.
“From what he told me, anything is better than his master’s whip.” The path twisted precipitously down and she released her skirts to grasp the sticky rinds of the trees as she negotiated the slope. “Though sometimes I wonder if being humiliated by two dozen merciless canoemen is much better.”
“You’re showing great sympathy for a boy who ran away from his obligations.”
“Anyone looking into that boy’s eyes can see that he’s honest.” Genevieve clambered over a jutting stone, lifting her skirts high enough for him to see the frayed stockings covering her shapely calves above the edge of her boots. “And you should talk, the man who took pity on a convicted thief.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her e
ye. “Julien isn’t the only man on this journey that you’ve set free. Wapishka told me—”
“Jesus! I see now why my men are slow on this portage.” He shifted his shoulders to loosen the burden on his back. “They’ve been telling tall tales and waiting on you hand and foot.”
“Wapishka used to be a slave, he told me. It was that tribe—those wigmakers—who took him captive from the settlements. They took him to their village because they had never seen a Negro, but then they began to torture him.” She switched her case to her other hand and flexed her reddened fingers. “Wapishka told me you saved his life.”
“My men are braggarts.”
“He was bragging about you.”
“I was nearby, with the soldiers from the Carignan-Saliere regiment. We were going to attack, anyway—”
“But you didn’t wait.”
“I don’t relish the sound of a man screaming in agony as his burned fingertips are being chewed on by sharp-toothed children.”
“A strong slave like him would have brought you a fine purse of gold.” She whirled around a twist in the path and stopped for a moment, eyeing him. “His original owner would have paid you well for his return. You set him free and gave him work.”
Andre nodded to a fallen trunk across the path. “Watch where you’re going.”
“I see where I’m going.” She released the branch and toed her way down the rubbled hill. “I only fell once, and it was because a branch got tangled in my skirts.”
“Take care, Genevieve. I doubt you’ll take well to The Duke’s medicines.”
“Such concern for my welfare.” She tossed a knowing glance over her shoulder and smiled widely.’ ‘The wolf I thought I married is turning out to be a gentle puppy. He saves young boys from the whipping posts and sets slaves free—”
“You’re my wife. What tales do you think my men are going to tell? They know where their next meal is coming from.”
“Mmm, and I think they know, too, that you wouldn’t deny it to them, no more than you would deny milk to a child.”
The path widened and Andre brushed past her. His gaze slipped over the disorder of her tumbling auburn hair, over the freckled tilt of her nose.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she murmured, wrinkling her nose at him, all mischief. “It will be our little secret. There’s something charming about a strong man with a soft heart.”
“You’ve listened to too many fairy tales, woman.”
He ground to a halt in the mulch, swiveling around her. Genevieve gasped in surprise, then grabbed on to a sapling to steady herself on the uncertain path. Nose to nose they stood, so close he heard her breathing, the sweet, ragged breath of excitement. He focused on the dirt smeared over the pert tilt of her tiny nose; a child’s nose, ridiculously small, but the full lips beneath spoke of a woman’s sensuality… . Those lips parted, showing a glimmer of moist tongue, and Andre leaned closer, drawn to that mouth, to the quiver of those lips.
Wretched witch, staring at him, tempting him. He was no damned saint. She’d see soon enough, out, soon enough, when those white hands of hers cracked with pain from cold and exertion, when those slim ankles of hers wobbled under the strain of climbing, when her white skin chapped with cold and wind; then she’d see the pith of him. How long would it take? How long did he have to watch her breasts rising and falling, soft warm mounds straining against her snagged bodice, before the journey finally took its toll and stole the roses from her cheeks? It was already taking too damned long. Someone had woven steel into this bit of lace.
Her lips quivered in the faintest of smiles; mocking him, she was, the fool. He clutched her by the waist and thrust her against him. Her breasts surged against his chest, the nubbed hardness of her nipples raking his shirt.
“Careful, Genevieve.” He whispered the words against her cheek, fluttering a tendril of hair curving soft to her shoulder. “These woods make savages out of the most civilized men.”
The case clattered to the ground; her hands swept up his chest. He seized one hand and squeezed it, cruel and tight. “Remember this: There’s one rule on this journey, woman. Don’t slow me down.”
He released her. She reeled back and snatched a sapling to steady herself. He turned away and strode down the hill, faster than safely allowed with the heavy weight unevenly distributed on his back. “From here,” he called over his shoulder, “there’s no turning back, Genevieve. No matter what.”
Andre increased his pace, increasing the distance between him and his muttering wife. Twice he slipped on the sleek rug of pine needles that matted the forest floor, maintaining his footing only by force of will. He needed to get away from her eyes, he needed to get away from the guilt that was nipping at his innards. She was beginning to trust him, the foolish wench. Damn fool men, conspiring to paint him like some sort of kind-hearted hero—and well they might, since they didn’t know his plans for this woman. He hadn’t even told Tiny, not yet.
He had no intention of bringing this spitfire all the way to Chequamegon Bay. He had no intention of spending the long, cold winter nights anywhere near her voluptuous little form. She would not be his wife. Ten days. Ten days, if all went well. Then they’d reach Allumette Island. She was still spritely now, but ten days traveling the rapid-strewn Ottawa River should be enough to exhaust his wife to the point of collapse; he would see to it. By then she would be screaming to return to Montreal, too bone-weary to continue any farther on the journey.
Then he would leave her with the Algonquin Indians and Jesuit missionaries who wintered every year on Allumette Island.
Andre trudged toward the shore, where the rest of his men were unloading their harnesses and loading the canoes floating in the water. Come next spring, as he returned to Montreal from Chequamegon Bay, he would pass by the island, pick her up, and bring her back to civilization. He could already imagine those green eyes snapping at him with all the power of nine months of pent-up fury. But it would be too late for her to wreak vengeance, for he would annul their marriage and then they’d both be free to do what they willed—he to return to the woods unencumbered, and she to marry some docile settler she could control.
Life was a circle, he mused darkly, just as the Indians believed. He’d seen his own life come around again, though he’d fought it tooth and nail.
Another French wife, abandoned in the wilderness for the winter. A grimace stretched across his face, tight and humorless, as dark as the shadows in his eyes. The fates mocked him. They mocked him, indeed.
***
“Hell and damnation!”
An icy wave slapped her awake. Genevieve straightened up off her wobbly bed of cartons and kegs and gasped, opening her eyes, as the frigid water soaked through her clothing. She coughed, sputtering, and glared blindly around her, searching for the culprit who’d woken her so rudely from her sleep.
“Ah, the sweet music of a lady’s voice.” Andre stood outside the canoe, gripping one side as he pulled it in toward the shore. His eyes danced. “Tiny, you’ll have to watch your language. My wife is learning the native tongue.”
As she looked around, she realized the voyageurs surrounded the canoe, having just leapt off in their usual synchronized fashion, sending up the spray of water that had awoken her. They were red-faced, trying to hold back their laughter. Genevieve flushed. She would have to learn to curb her tongue. She had spent too much time taking lessons in cursing from fishmongers’ wives on the banks of the Seine.
She glanced at the rocky shore and groaned. “Is this another portage?”
“No.” When the water was hip-deep, he signaled lot Ins men to begin unloading the vessel. “We’re done for the day.”
Genevieve tried not to show her relief. For the past three days, they had done nothing but pole and pull upriver, only to stop what seemed like every half mile to unload and portage over terrain that was becoming steeper, rockier, and more and more overgrown. The Ottawa became so narrow and the water so swift that she wondered if the men were goi
ng to carry all the merchandise—six thousand pounds of it, according to Simeon—through the next five weeks of travel. The first few days, her muscles had merely been sore at night, but now they quivered with exhaustion at the end of each day. And when she awoke in the morning, it took all her strength to drag herself out of her bed. This morning, she barely remembered Andre carrying her out onto the canoe, until he woke her for the first portage. After each successive one, she would sink back down on her bumpy seat and drift back off into a jostled sleep.
She dragged her fingers through her nest of hair. Twigs and leaves fluttered to her lap. They scattered all over the canoe when Andre reached in without warning, swept her up, and carried her to the shore. Her stomach growled as she smelled the fires, set up ahead of time by the cook, who waited upon the bank.
Genevieve winced when he released her and her feet hit the shore. Blister upon blister had developed on her heels and toes after all the walking, for Marie’s shoes were too small for her feet. She had tried wearing two pairs of stockings, but instead of cushioning her sores, they only made the fit of the boots tighter. She was tempted to walk barefoot from now on. Sharp, jutting stones couldn’t do her feet any more damage than these wretched boots. Genevieve envied the men their soft deerskin slippers and even their shameless leggings, and found herself wishing she weren’t pretending to be a lady, so she could freely find something to wear other than rigid boots and a boned bodice.
She leaned over to stretch the aches in her back, surreptitiously loosening the ties of her shoes at the same time. When she straightened, she watched as the voyageurs moored the canoes offshore, laying one end of a long pole on the gunwale and the other end on the beach, then swiftly unloading them and piling the merchandise on the banks. The sun gleamed golden on the water and shimmered off the sheer rock cliff that rose up from the other side of the river.
Julien brought her her woven case, smiling at her shyly. She nearly dropped it as she took it in her hand. Not for the first time, she wondered how a basketful of clothing and pins could weigh as much as gold bars after a few hours of carrying. She vowed that she’d get Julien or one of the other voyageurs to fashion a rope harness for her, so she could sling it across her back. Then, at least, she’d have two hands free so she could lift her bedraggled skirts and push aside the thick foliage that obscured the paths.
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