Heaven in His Arms

by Lisa Ann Verge

  Or so she had thought. Marie Duplessis had arrived at her door this morning like a corpse risen from the dead. Genevieve wished Andre had been there, so she could turn to him and tell him the truth—the whole truth—so she could spill out the sordid details of her life and make him understand why she had done what she did. In her heart, she kept telling herself that he loved her for her, not for the name and the breeding of Marie Duplessis. In her heart, she grasped desperately on to the hope that he would come and speak to her, that he would seek her out and hear what she had to say, that he would understand.

  But a full day had already passed and the only person who had visited her was a maid with dinner. As she watched the rays of the sun lengthen on the packed earthen floor, Genevieve’s dreams dwindled and died an agonizing death. She realized that no man could stomach being proven a fool, certainly not a man as proud as Andre. He would pass off the night on the Lake of the Hurons as a harlot’s trick. He would harden his heart. He would discard her like a pacton of ruined pelts.

  In the course of a single afternoon, she had lost everything.

  No.

  Genevieve blinked open her eyes. Staring blindly forward through a haze of tears, she ran her fingers against the grain of her velvet skirts and clutched the rounded swell of her abdomen. She dug her fingers into the cloth. She had not lost everything. She still had one piece of Andre that no one could ever take away from her.

  She started as she heard voices outside the shed. It was the voice of the man who stood guard just outside the door, along with a woman’s voice— undoubtedly, the servant delivering her supper. Genevieve eased up and wiped the sweat off her brow just as the door opened. A woman entered bearing a tray with a hunk of bread and a steaming bowl of soup. The servant gingerly placed the tray on the floor and pulled back the hood of her cape … and once again, Genevieve looked into the eyes of Marie Duplessis.

  They faced each other across the room. They had not spoken a word to each other during the trip from the Sly Fox Inn to this house near the Hotel-Dieu.

  Marie had cried piteously into her handkerchief, making Genevieve suspect that she was not a willing party to the betrayal. But she was in no mood to listen to a weeping string of apologies.

  There were no tears in Marie’s eyes now, only splotchy red trails down her cheeks. Marie lifted a finger to her lips, then turned to peer through a crack in the wall. When she turned back, she untied the string on the cape around her throat and thrust the light garment off her shoulders.

  “We don’t have much time,” she whispered, fumbling with the laces of her bodice. “The guard is standing away from the shed now, but he’ll return soon and then he’ll be able to hear us.”

  “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  “I’m righting an old wrong.” She gestured to Genevieve’s clothes. “Come … you’ve done this before.”

  “Om, I certainly have, and that is what has gotten us in all this trouble.”

  “They forced me to accuse you. I didn’t want to do it.” Marie peeled open her bodice and tossed it on the pile with her cloak. “Francois abandoned me. I was alone, with nowhere to go. When I came back to the Salpetriere, they forced me to confess the whole story. If I had known they would ship me to this godforsaken place, I would have stayed on the streets of Paris forever.”

  Genevieve met Marie’s dry blue gaze and saw the pain in the woman’s eyes. There was little left of the innocent girl Genevieve had met in the shadows of the Salpetriere almost a year ago. Genevieve wondered exactly what happened between Marie and the Musketeer, and how long it had really taken to change that lovestruck young girl into the hurt, aching woman who stood before her.

  “Marie … we can’t do this.” Genevieve gestured to her swelling abdomen. “I’m nearly five months pregnant.”

  “I brought pins to fasten the clothes.” Marie slipped her skirts off her hips. “Besides, my cloak will cover you completely. It’s twilight, and even if the guard catches a glimpse of your face, he won’t know the difference between us. If you want to be with your husband, Genevieve, you’d better start with the laces of your bodice.”

  “You’re wasting your time.” Her voice caught in her throat. “My husband doesn’t want me.”

  “In a pig’s eye.” Marie flushed. “Your husband battled his way through a fort full of soldiers for you. He threatened to rip a man’s heart out through his throat. I’ve never seen such a sight! He was like some sort of wild … beast.”

  Genevieve’s blood throbbed wildly in her veins. “He scared the life out of me,” Marie continued, crossing the shed and working on Genevieve’s laces while the pregnant woman stood numbly in place. “I knew this place would be full of rough, wild—” Marie paused, then concentrated on Genevieve’s laces. “I told Monsieur Lelievre to tell your husband the truth—the real truth—but I’m afraid he has filled him with lies.” “Lies?”

  “They’re telling everyone that you kidnapped me and stripped me and beat me so I couldn’t cry out until you were gone on the ship to Quebec. They’ve painted you like some sort of crazed harridan.” Marie tugged the last lace out of the eyelets. “They’ll do anything not to admit that I, a Duplessis, willingly ruined myself with a Musketeer. They’ll do anything not to besmirch the reputation of the king’s girls.

  They can’t stand the thought that we concocted this entire scheme under the nose of Mother Superior of the Salpetriere, under the nose of the king himself.”

  “Stop, Marie. Stop.” Genevieve pushed the girl away. Her bodice gaped open, but she made no attempt to retie it. She realized that Andre had fought his way in to see Monsieur Lelievre before he knew the truth. “You don’t understand … I’m an imposter. Now my husband knows it. I’ve been here all afternoon and he hasn’t visited me. I don’t know … I don’t know if he wants me anymore.”

  Marie’s eyes flickered away. She peered anxiously through the cracks in the shed, searching for the guard. “Your husband didn’t look like the kind of man who would give a fig who your parents were.”

  “Andre thought he married you.”

  “He didn’t break down a door in order to get me back.” Marie waved her white hand. “In any case, there’s only one way for you to find out for sure. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain if you escape this place.”

  Hope and fear battled in Genevieve’s breast. Did he love her enough to give her the benefit of a doubt? Or did he hate her for her lies? She feared more than anything that she would find hatred, and then there would be no more hope.

  “When they discover what we’ve done,” Genevieve murmured, struggling with her waistband, “you’ll be punished.”

  “I’ve already been punished for my ignorance, for my stupidity.” Marie helped Genevieve with her skirts. “The truth is, you will be doing me a favor. If we’re successful, they’ll ship me back to Paris. I would rather spend a lifetime in the Salpetriere than one more day in this wretched, uncivilized place.”

  ***

  Genevieve stilled in the shadows of the shop as two drunken men staggered by, singing La Belle Lisette off-key and taking turns swigging from a bottle of brandy. It was nighttime in Montreal, and already the houses along Saint Paul Street trembled with the sounds of fighting and singing and swearing and drinking. The houses that weren’t converted into dramshops had long bolted their shutters and locked their doors against the madness.

  She stood alone, hidden under the eaves of a shop across the street from the Sly Fox Inn. The escape from Monsieur Lelievre’s house had been easy. Swathed in the cloak as if weeping, she had left the shed while Marie pretended to be her, filling the air with some shockingly inventive curses. Genevieve had followed Marie’s instructions to the letter, slipping calmly around the house and walking straight to the open gate of the redoubt, which enclosed a cluster of five or six buildings. The escape had gone without a snag, but the flight through the streets of Montreal was not as easy. There were so many drunken men wandering in the alleys tha
t she was forced to escape into a small wooden chapel near the Hotel-Dieu until dark. Fortunately, a naked Indian had passed by, crazed with brandy, swinging his hatchet wildly, completely clearing the streets. Then she slipped out of the chapel and made her way carefully through the shadows to the inn.

  She could tarry no longer. Soon she would be seen huddled against the wall, and besides, she didn’t know how long it would take for the switch to be discovered. No matter how much she dreaded the confrontation to come, she had to face it now, or the opportunity would be lost to her forever.

  Genevieve lifted her skirts and bolted out of the shadows, bursting into the inn. She scanned the common room, already filled with voyageurs drinking their fill of the inn’s brandy. When she realized Andre wasn’t there, she raced up the stairs before the men, startled by the sight of a woman, came out of their shock and called after her. For the first time, she wondered if Andre was even here. Genevieve barreled blindly through the dark hallway. She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her and she prayed Andre was here.

  She didn’t bother to knock. Gripping the handle of the door, she pushed it open and stumbled into the room. By the light of a half-dozen candles, she saw two men seated, with several bottles of brandy lying haphazardly on the floor between them.

  Tiny whirled as she slammed the door behind her. He spit out a mouthful of brandy. “By the stones of Saint Peter!” With glazed eyes, he looked at the bottle in his hand and then at her, then at the beaver who rushed over to paw the hem of her dress. “What did that merchant put in this stuff?”

  Andre didn’t move. His elbows dug into his knees, his head sagged in his hands. His words shot out like bullets. “Tell him to leave the bottle and get out.”

  “If that’s a he,” Tiny slurred, “then I’m Saint Genevieve herself.”

  Andre lifted his head from his hands.

  “Look at her, not at me!” Tiny released a body-shaking hiccup. “You’ve been drinking this swill, too.”

  Her eyes met his. A bolt of lightning couldn’t have shook her more strongly than the sight of his face, brandy-ravished, tormented, so full of pain that it burned her heart to ashes.

  She searched for words, her tongue and her courage failing her. What could she say to the man she had deceived, the man she had pursued until he had fallen in love with her and she with him? Yes, yes, Andre. It’s all true. I am a commoner, a liar, but I love you. … A hundred different words rushed to her tongue but stalled there, as she searched for a way to tell him, all at once, the fullness of her heart.

  He rose to his feet, towering like a giant in the small room. The flickering candles threw strange shadows upon the walls. Even the beaver, sensing the tension, scuttled away from her.

  When Andre spoke, his voice was hoarse and ragged. “Little bird?”

  She pressed her hand against her chest, against the laces that strained to keep the edges of Marie’s bodice closed over her breasts. Tears stung her eyes. “Oh, Andre …”

  Suddenly, she was in his arms, her nose pressed up against the smoke-ripened deerskin of his shirt, his hand buried in her hair, his lips warm and moist on her temple. He smelled of cheap brandy but she didn’t care. He slid a hand beneath her cloak and wound it around her waist, pulling her flat against his body. For a moment she pressed against him, speechless, reveling in the feeling of his strong arms around her. Then, like water rushing through a broken beaver dam, the words tumbled out of her mouth, without sense, without order, muffled against his shoulder, the only discernible meaning being that she never meant to hurt him, that she didn’t want to lie to him, that she loved him.

  “Guess you won’t be needing these anymore.” Tiny gathered the brandy bottles. They clanked against one another as he staggered past them, toward the door. “Maybe if I finish ‘em, they’ll conjure up an image like that for me.”

  He closed the door quietly behind him.

  Through her tears, she gazed up at him. “After all this, you still want me?”

  “Ah, Taouistaouisse.” He ran a hand over her forehead and brushed the hair from her face. “How could you doubt it? I love you.”

  “But I lied to you. I told you I was something I wasn’t—”

  “I fell in love with the woman who journeyed to Chequamegon Bay with me—whatever her name.”

  “All day I’ve waited for you to come and see me,” she continued, breathless, not daring to believe. “I was afraid you didn’t want me anymore.”

  “They wouldn’t let me see you.” His brows lowered in anger. “Even after I sold my soul for your freedom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t Lelievre tell you when he released you?”

  “He didn’t release me.” She leaned back, showing him her clothes. “I escaped.”

  “Escaped?” Andre glanced at the black dress that fit so oddly on her figure. “Those are Marie Duplessis’s clothes.”

  “Marie and I switched places again.”

  “Again? They told me you took her place by force in Paris.”

  “They lied. Marie warned me they would.” She flattened her hands against his chest and looked up at him imploringly. “You must believe me. Marie and I switched places in the Salpetriere willingly. She ran off with the Musketeer she loved, and I took her place among the king’s girls. Unfortunately … something happened and she was forced to return to the Salpetriere.”

  “And admit to the whole scheme.”

  “Yes.” She dug her fingers into his shirt. “She hates it here. She brought me supper this evening, and she insisted we switch places again. She thinks that if she helps me escape, they’ll ship her back to Paris.” Genevieve lifted her hand and lightly traced the blood-encrusted lump on his forehead, just above his temple. “She told me she saw you this afternoon, battling through the fortress to get to Lelievre—and to me.”

  His arms tightened around her. “I would have killed the bastard if your fate hadn’t been in his hands.”

  “So instead,” she whispered, “you sold your soul for my freedom.”

  “Yes.” His lips brushed hers. “Lelievre told me that the royal council in Quebec would send you back to Paris to face justice. I offered him everything I owned if he would set you free.”

  “All the furs?” She gripped his shoulders. “The whole winter’s haul?”

  “Everything. But it wasn’t enough for him.”

  “Andre …”

  “He made me another offer.” Andre wound a shimmering claret-colored tress around one finger. “He told me that if I agreed to be the seigneur of a tract of land across the Saint Lawrence from Montreal, then he might be able to convince the authorities to release you. The land is in Iroquois country. It would be the first attacked if war broke out between the Iroquois and the French again.”

  “You did refuse,” she insisted. His whiskey-colored gaze wandered over her face. She drew in a deep, ragged breath. “But you could never go out into the wilderness again.”

  “It was the only way to free you.” Her body shook with a powerful tremor, her eyes locking with his. This was a sacrifice … a sacrifice he had never before been willing to make … a sacrifice that would cost him dearly. He would be paying for her freedom with his own.

  “It will not be so bad.” A teasing half-smile shaped his lips. “Now I won’t be torn in half every year when. I leave for the interior.”

  A wave of guilt inundated her. Not only was he making the sacrifice, but he was doing it willingly, and he still didn’t know the extent of her lies. He didn’t know the full truth, not yet. She was not worthy of this sacrifice … not until the air was cleared between them. “Andre, there’s so much you don’t know about me.”

  “I will know everything, Genny. …”

  “There are secrets … secrets that even the people of the Salpetriere didn’t know.” The doubts assailed her again, for the truth was uglier than the lies he was told. “I’m not what you think. I’ve stolen. I’ve poached in royal forests. …”

/>   “Stealing to eat is no crime.”

  “I’ve picked pockets, and cut purses, and lied to priests and nuns.”

  “I don’t care if you’ve committed murder.”

  “My mother was … a courtesan.”

  “You have her passionate nature, then.”

  “I’m a bastard, Andre.”

  “Some people call me a bastard, too.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He tilted her chin up. “You are my Genevieve, my wife, the mother of my child. Nothing else matters.”

  “But … but I’ve done things …”

  “You did what you had to. It’s a wonder you emerged from Paris with any innocence at all. You’ve survived.” His eyes darkened with old memory, and a muscle flexed tight in his cheek. “You’ve survived.

  This New World is not a place for the fainthearted, Genny. No man in all of Quebec has a finer wife than I.”

  She closed her eyes, thrilling at the feel of his rough lips upon hers, urging hers open. She tasted the brandy on his tongue. His hands roamed over her back, slipping below the open waistline of her skirt and clutching her to him through layers of linen. Joy filled her heart, and when the kiss ended, she looked up at him, basking in the love in his eyes.

  “I would like to linger here,” he murmured, his voice choked with desire. “But we’ve got to hide you before they discover you’ve escaped. Neither I nor Lelievre knew if the council would even agree to the terms I’ve committed myself to.” His arms tightened around her. “Now that I have you, they must agree, or we’ll disappear into the wilderness and they will lose a new settler as well as a woman wanted by the Crown.”

  “No.”

  “It won’t come to that, Genevieve… .”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she interrupted. “I meant… we don’t have to take that offer.”

  Her eyes sparkled. The idea was so simple, so perfect. It was the answer to all her dreams. She could never allow him to till the soil and clear the land when his body and his soul belonged free and unfettered in the wilderness. Part of him would die, and part of her would die along with him. This way, they both could be free.