Heaven in His Arms

by Lisa Ann Verge

  He opened the flap and crawled in. Beneath the tarpaulin the air was warm from the heat of her body, smelling faintly of tanned leather and dampness. He kicked off his wet moccasins and slid up beside her, pulling a deerskin and a red woolen blanket over him.

  Instinctively, she rolled up against him. She was all softness and curves, all warmth and fragrance. Her breathing was deep and even against his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and cursed to himself, vowing that he’d make one of the Roissier brothers or Julien caulk the canoe next time—even if they knew nothing about it.

  Her voice startled him.

  “What took you so long?”

  Andre ran a hand over her head, pushing the hair out of her face. He couldn’t see her expression in the darkness, but he sensed her alertness. His blood coursed in anticipation. “I had to repair the canoe.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Her small hands found their way up his chest to wind around his neck. Her breasts, those warm, heavy globes, pressed against him. Hungrily, he searched for her lips in the darkness, finding instead her smooth forehead, then her nose, before finally landing on her generous mouth.

  He drew slowly away from her lower lip, tasting the spicy remnants of Tiny’s squaw’s medicine. Control, he thought. He wasn’t going to climb on her in lust if she was still as weak as a newborn calf.

  “You’ve been ill, Taouistaouisse.”

  “The Indian medicine helped.”

  He rubbed his hardened loins against her thigh, asking huskily, “Are you well enough for this?”

  “Mmm.” She kissed him. “I’ve been waiting for that medicine all night long.”

  Her lips parted. Andre drank in the sweet, hot breath of passion. All rational thought fled. He plunged his tongue deep into the silken cavern of her mouth, toyed with her tongue, traced her teeth, tasting the cherry-sweet essence of her. He filled his hand with a breast and felt the peak tighten against his palm, ruthlessly tweaking it beneath the layers of her bodice and shift until it stood out sharply against the fabric. Each gasp of pleasure she released spurred him on, for he wanted to hear her cry out beneath him; he wanted to feel her body throb around him in ecstasy; he wanted to taste and touch and hear and see her pleasure.

  Genevieve removed her hands from about his neck, pulling at the laces of her bodice until it gaped open, giving him free access to her breasts. Andre buried his hand in the warmth beneath her shift, feeling the tautness of her nipple bead against his hand. He released her lips to feast on the fullness of her bosom, to suck greedily on the dark areola until it throbbed, every flick of his tongue against its rigid bed making her entire body arch against him.

  He felt that urging again, the same urging that had driven him over the edge of sanity on Manitoulin Island. It was as strong and powerful as the winds across Lake Superior. He released her breast and slid against her, letting her feel the proof of his desire. Andre silently cursed her clothes. He wanted to hold her bare body against his bare skin. He wanted to fold her nakedness in his arms, to merge their bodies into one, to hold her tight against him, not just now, in the midst of their passion, but tomorrow and the day after.

  He tried to push it out of his mind. Possessions had a way of cluttering up a man’s life. He must be mad to be thinking about having a woman, now and always—but right now, in the midst of desire, he could think of nothing better than merging their bodies and making her his. He wished he could see her in the darkness. He wished he could watch her face as he drove into her.

  Andre nudged her knees apart and slid his hand up her leg, under her skirts. She was ready for him, oh, so ready, and he felt a thrill of victory as he realized she wanted him as much as he wanted her. And he would have her. He would give her a woman’s pleasure, and for this night and the winter to come, he would utterly possess her.

  He squeezed his eyes shut as he rolled atop her. When he spread her legs and entered her tightness, he felt the heated passion of her sex sheathe and throb around him. Andre braced himself above her, buried his lips in her hair, and felt their hearts pound wildly as one.

  ***

  La Vieille, the old woman of the wind, blew soft and light and whirled around the sandy spit of land called Chequamegon Point, to swirl in the bay of the same name. Andre and his men had improvised a sail from the tarpaulins that covered the merchandise and some straight branches of birch wedged among the kegs and bails. It puffed full, now that the wind was blowing from the right quarter, and propelled the vessel deeper into the bay. The men took their ease, sharing the last of their tobacco, tossing the ashes into the water as a ceremonial sacrifice in order to remain in the good graces of La Vieille during this last stretch of their long journey.

  Andre’s gaze was fixed on a spot in the distance, where the endless forest of sugar maple, aspen, and birch trees gave way to a cleared section of the shore. He thought he saw movement upon the bank—movement of the human kind. He knew for sure that the pale blue smoke that curled up beyond the spiky tips of the red and white pines indicated a settlement of some sort. It could be an Indian village. He could only hope that the smoke came from the fort his men were supposed to build around the structures Nicholas Perrot had abandoned last spring. If it didn’t, Andre knew he would have to search every one of the low, flat islands that lay in the north part of the bay until he found it.

  All his worries disappeared as he neared and distinguished the flash of a dozen bright red capotes—the distinctive caps worn by the men of Quebec.

  “That’s it.” His blood surged with excitement. “They’re straight ahead, where the smoke rises.”

  Genevieve clutched his leg and rose to her knees, leaning to one side in an attempt to see past the gaping sail. “I can’t see anything but trees. Show me where it is!”

  He reached down and took her hand in his, pulling her unsteadily to her feet. The canoe wobbled wildly and twisted in the water, for already the Roissier brothers were tearing down the makeshift sail. After six weeks of paddling, the men intended to enter their home under their own power. Tiny broke the excited babbling with a rendition of Salut a Mon Pays.

  She struggled for balance on the craft, peering off to the distant shore. Her deerskin blanket fell to a puddle at her feet. Her fine dress, once rose-colored, was now nothing but a faded rag, webbed with mending and hanging in tatters around her legging-covered knees. But the sparkle in her eyes made her look as beautiful as if she were dressed to be presented to the Court.

  Andre felt a twinge of apprehension. He had been dreading this moment since the day he realized she was going to stay with him all the way to Chequamegon Bay. Over the past few nights, after their long bouts of frenzied lovemaking, she had asked him so many questions about the area and the life they would lead during the winter months. There was so much excitement in her voice. He had been tempted to tell her the truth … but he didn’t have the heart to crush her illusions, not yet. Soon, there would be no more hiding yet another secret he had kept from her.

  He reached for her, spread his legs for better balance, and pulled her back against him. Then he dipped his paddle in the water to steer the canoe landward. Soon enough, she would discover the truth. In the meantime, he planned to share her excitement at their arrival. “Can you see the bits of red? Those are the hats of the men of Quebec.”

  Genevieve stood tense, rising up on her toes and peering anxiously off to the shore. Her hair tickled his beard and felt like silk against his throat. He thought of this morning, when he had woken up with her poised over him, bright-eyed, wet-lipped, laughing as she lowered her small body upon him.

  “I see them!” A shiver of excitement shook her small frame. “There are so many people!”

  “Most of them are Hurons and Ottawas. There are a few savage villages nearby, and maybe even a Jesuit trying to save their souls.”

  She looked up at him, smiling slyly. “And I thought we’d be alone in the wilderness.”

  “We’ll be alone often enough, Taouist
aouisse, and we’ll have more damned privacy than we ever had at the campsites.”

  She giggled at his throaty growl and leaned against him. The canoe approached the shore with growing speed as the men increased the tempo of their paddling with the tempo of another song. An icy wind raised goose bumps on her fair skin. “I can hardly believe it,” she murmured, snuggling back against him. “We’re finally home.”

  Home. Apprehension twisted like a knot in the center of his gut. She could have stayed in Quebec with Marietta Martineau, safe in a warm cedar-shingled building with a stone fireplace, a straw mattress, and thick woolen blankets. For the sake of living in her own home, she had taken this dangerous journey with a strange man through the untamed forests to Chequamegon Bay. He had convinced her to come, with lies. Now she was about to see her home, for the first time, and he dreaded her response.

  Everything had been going so well. There was no talk of the coming spring, no discussion of what he would do next summer, after they returned to Montreal. It was as if she had resigned herself to enjoying what she could now, here, and left the future to take care of itself. He liked the situation as it stood—he didn’t want it to change—and he didn’t want to think of the future, either. Right now, the future was a hazy thing, undefined and far, far away.

  They approached the shore. Andre recognized the leader of his advance contingent and raised his hand in greeting. A crowd of Indian maidens sang their own song of welcome to the newcomers. The Duke pounded the blunt end of his cedar paddle on the thin glaze of ice that rimmed the edge of the broad cove, cracking a wide path so the men could work the canoes through to the shore. Andre urged Genevieve back down and helped push the ice away.

  When he could see the sand beneath the water, he leapt off the side arid plunged his legs into the frigid bay. The water froze the skin of his thighs so badly, it burned. He turned to wade to the shore.

  “Wait!” She rose to her knees and held open her arms. “Take me with you.”

  “No … stay here,” he ordered, more harshly than he intended. “I’ll come and get you later.”

  “Andre!”

  His stomach twisted, more painfully than the slosh of the icy water against his bare thighs, but he didn’t turn back.

  A thick-thighed voyageur with a mane of dark hair stopped dead in his tracks as Andre approached. He pulled his red cap off his head and stared at the canoe. Andre turned to find his wife standing, arms akimbo, in the vessel. Her deerskin blanket gaped open, showing the tightness of her boned bodice and the magnificent fullness of her breasts above. The song the men on shore had been singing died off in a strange, distorted note. Andre suddenly realized that everyone—the voyageurs, the Indian maidens, the few Indian men who stood aside—were all staring at his wife.

  He frowned and turned to face David, the leader of his advance contingent. “It’s good to see you made it.”

  The dark-haired voyageur didn’t acknowledge Andre’s words. His gaze was fixed beyond, on Genevieve.

  Andre tried again. “Is everything built as I ordered?”

  The man’s glazed eyes focused on Andre for a moment, then returned to the woman on the canoe. He gestured to her dumbly. “That’s … that’s a Frenchwoman.”

  “I’m glad you’re familiar with the species,” he said dryly. “By the way you’re all staring, you’d think she was some new breed of moose.”

  “How did she … why is she . ..”

  “She’s my wife.” Andre frowned as a surprised murmuring arose among the other voyageurs, while the Indian maidens huddled to one side, wide-eyed and gesturing wildly among themselves. “If you’re through gaping at her like an ass, you can show me the fort.”

  Recovering, David nodded and replaced his cap. He walked away from the shore toward the shelter of birch and aspen trees. Not more than fifty paces from the shoreline, a high stockade stood in a clearing. Scattered around, near the walls, stood a dozen small bark huts—Huron huts—probably belonging to the Indian wives of the Frenchmen.

  “There’s a Jesuit here by the name of Marquette,” David said, his voice returning to normal. “He’s got a little bark chapel called Saint Esprit about a half league down the coast, and he visits once a week, on Sundays. When we arrived here a few weeks ago, all that was left of Perrot’s post was his house, a storehouse, and a building large enough for the men to share. We had to cut the trees and sharpen the ends to set up the stockade, and that took most of our time. This past week we’ve been replacing some of the boughs that thatched the roofs because all of them leaked, and we whitewashed the inside of all the buildings with a white clay …”

  Andre barely heard David’s report as he strode through the tiny Huron village. It was empty now, for everyone congregated on the shore where his men were unloading the merchandise for the last time. Blue smoke curled out of the open holes in the center of the bark roofs. A tiny grouse carcass cooked over an open fire, unattended. A webbed snowshoe leaned against one of the huts, discarded as the mender ran to the shore to greet the newcomers. A deerskin, with half the meat scraped off, hung on a pole dug into the ground. A wide bowl lay tilted, half filled with ground cornmeal and half filled with corn.

  He eyed the stockade critically, noting the tight fit between the wooden palisades. He gripped one and shook it for stability as he passed through the gate.

  It was as solid as stone. The scent of pine smoke hovered in the air, for to one side of the open fort, two broad flanks of moose meat hung from a stand, slashed, drying in the air with the help of the wood-fire smoke bathing its flesh. Leaning against the side of what he assumed was the warehouse were a half-dozen willow frames with dark, silky beaver fur stretched over them. The trading had already begun. “… plenty of food. The deer sometimes wander right into the village. There’s a couple of Ottawa and more Huron villages about an hour’s walk south, and they’ve got enough maize and squash and pumpkin to feed all of us at least until Christmas. We’ve started setting seines into the river for the whitefish …”

  Andre walked to the corner of the stockade, where a tiny dwelling stood apart from the storehouse and the large house set aside for the men who didn’t have Indian wives. There was a window cut into the logs, and an oiled skin flapped lightly against the wall. A mud and stone chimney sagged on one side.

  “We were planning to wall up the window in this and use it as a smokehouse,” David said, “but I suppose with you having a wife and all …”

  Andre stared with growing dread at the tiny cabin. It was so small, he could cross the width or length of it in four strides. The chimney would have to be cleaned and partially rebuilt, or the house would fill with smoke every time a fire was lit. But even if he cleaned the chimney and walled up the window, the wind would still whistle coldly through the cabin. The logs that formed the walls were ill-fitting, and the mud that had been used to clog the chinks chipped and flaked. The dried boughs that thatched the roof were held down by poles that hung askew upon the peaked top.

  He stared ruefully at his new home, thinking that no self-respecting settler in Montreal would house their pigs in this place.

  “There you are! Why didn’t you take me with you?” Genevieve strode through the gate. “I had to ride on Tiny’s back to get off that canoe, and those Indian women were poking and prying at me as if I were a fat goose to be slaughtered.”

  He turned to face her. Her hair, tangled and falling out of its plait, glowed in the light. Her cheeks flushed with excitement and indignation. Wapishka, Tiny, and Julien followed close behind her, glowering at the crowd of Frenchmen who wandered in, staring dumbstruck at the ragged Frenchwoman in their midst.

  “And how long have your men been in the woods?” Genevieve asked David, pulling her deerskin around her. “They’re staring at me as if I were a pet bear at the Saint-Germain fair.”

  “The Indian women have never seen a Frenchwoman,” David explained, as Andre stared mutely at his wife. “And my men … you’ll have to excuse them, ma’am. They�
�ve never seen a Frenchwoman out here.”

  “They’d best get used to it, because I’m here to stay.” She peered around, examining the inside of the stockade for the first time. “Where’s our house, Andre? Is it here or is it somewhere else?”

  His tongue felt like a molten ball of lead in his mouth. In his lifetime, he had walked twenty-mile portages in the driving rain, he had willingly run the wildest of rapids, he had faced and fought a group of brandy-crazed Indian warriors—and he had lived through all of it. Yet right now, in the face of Genevieve, he felt as weak and unarmed as a naked child.

  “That’s it.” His voice was a croak. He jerked his head toward the cabin. “That’s our . .. home.”

  His neck muscles stiffened to stone as she walked around him and stood before the house, her hands on her hips. She approached it, brushed away the length of deerskin, and peered into the single window. A clod of mud fell from the top of the sill. He waited, motionless, bracing himself for the outburst he knew was to come.

  “It looks … as if it needs some work.”

  The lump in his throat choked off all words. She approached and took his hand. Then, incredulously, her lips stretched in a soft smile.

  “When it’s done, Andre, it’s going to be absolutely beautiful.”

  Chapter 14

  Flakes of freezing snow bit into Andre’s face above the edge of his beard. The frigid air stung his lungs as he drew in an icy breath. He lifted his leg, wincing as his sore thigh muscle tightened and quivered from the exertion, and took a giant step forward, planting his webbed snowshoe on the sinking snow. Leather straps dug deep into his shoulders as he leaned forward and dragged his laden toboggan one step deeper into the blizzard.

  “God’s wounds!” Tiny’s bellowing voice was battered and dispersed by the howling wind. “This snow is as thick as bear grease! We should stop and camp until it blows over.”