As she remembered the things he had done to her during that daft, wild night just past, she felt her cheeks pinken. Recalling the things he had taught her to do, the pink turned to rose. The recollection of their last coupling of what must have been at the very least half a dozen or more deepened the rose to burning red.
He’d caught her hips and pulled her down on him, and she’d ridden him with an abandon that would haunt her every time she caught his eye, for many and many a day to come.
At the thought of catching his eye, she panicked. What did one say to a man after such a wanton night? They had no more secrets from each other in truth now, and Caroline shut her lids at the thought of seeing his new knowledge of her reflected in his face.
Under his tutelage, she had discovered a capacity for strumpetry that she had never suspected lay dormant inside her. At the end, she’d no longer even needed his whispered encouragements to touch and caress, hold and fondle.
She’d done plenty of that on her own.
What she and Matt had done together bore no relationship to the horror that had, in her previous life, been forced upon her. The one was making love; the other was an abomination. After last night, the shade of Simon Denker would no longer cast a shadow of darkness over her life. She could put him and what he had done to her behind her, and get on with the business of living. Matt had set her free.
Was she really going to be his wife?
At the thought she almost fell to giggling like a silly schoolgirl. Only the knowledge that she must surely wake him if she gave way stopped her.
Suddenly she could not bear to face him as she was, naked and tousled with the marks of his lovemaking still everywhere upon her. She would get up from their bed and bathe and dress before he awoke. Besides, nature called, and the matter was growing increasingly urgent.
Getting up was not easy; even his limbs were heavy, and she had to shift them without disturbing him. But he seemed deeply asleep, and she managed to lift his arm and slide herself out from under his leg without even causing a disturbance in the rhythm of his soft snores.
Standing naked beside the rumpled pallet, Caroline discovered that it was, indeed, bitterly cold. Catching up Matt’s shirt, she quickly put it on, amused to discover that the sleeves hung a good foot past the tips of her fingers and the tails reached down past her knees. She must look ridiculous, but there was no one to see, and she meant to have a quick wash if she froze to death making the attempt. Accordingly, she stepped into Matt’s boots. She could almost have slept in one of them, so huge were they. Picking up the jug that was still half full of rum, she moved aside a few branches and headed out into the snow.
She went no farther than a step or so outside, wincing at the frigid temperature that made it hurt to breathe and stung her skin with icy fingers. The sun was rising, a hazy pale ball just visible as she looked toward the river, and the wind had eased. Though snow still fell heavily, it was no longer whipped into pellets that bit at the flesh. The sparkly blanket on the ground came up to her knees—she was thankful for the enormousness of Matt’s boots—but the blizzard had passed. If not that day, then surely the next, they would be able to start for home.
What would Davey and John and the rest of them think of their news? She and the boys had crossed a crucial bridge on that afternoon in the village, but would their newfound affection extend to welcoming her as their father’s wife?
Having taken care of the most urgent part of her business, Caroline emptied the remainder of the rum on a drift—everywhere it touched, strongly aromatic steam rose, and she was reminded of just how potent the drink had been—and quickly swirled the interior clean before filling it with snow. Then, shivering, teeth chattering, she stepped back inside the shelter with her prize.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
To her dismay, Matt was very much awake now. He stood, gloriously naked and apparently not a whit abashed, just beside their pallet, which he had clearly just left. His fists were planted on narrow hips as he scowled at her. She was so chilled that she could hardly speak, but she could look, and look she did.
With his archangel’s face atop that magnificent body, he was a sight to stop any living, breathing female’s heart. Caroline drank in the sheer glory of him, barely noticing how his eyes swept her in their turn.
“You little idiot, what possessed you to go outside like that?” Sounding far more irritated than a lover properly should, he reached down, dragged his fur coat from beneath the piled coverings, and stalked across the small space that separated them to wrap it around her.
Caroline, having set the jug close to the fire so that the snow could melt, was just straightening as he reached her, and she was grateful for the sudden warmth. Her teeth still chattered, and her skin tingled as it thawed, but she had not been outside for long enough to do herself any damage, she knew.
“We n-needed water for w-washing.”
“You went outside practically naked for that?” The volume of his voice escalated to a near roar on the last word.
Caroline scowled right back at him. “Don’t you dare roar at me, Ephraim Mathieson!”
“I’ll roar if I want—and don’t call me Ephraim.”
“I will if I want to. Actually, I rather like the name.”
“Oh, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re feeling mighty cocky this morning, I see. Don’t think I can’t deal with impertinent chits.”
“Pooh—you don’t scare me! For all your big talk, I’ve never seen you so much as put a hand to the backside of one of your boys!”
“They’re good boys and don’t need that kind of correction. But don’t think I won’t put my hand to your backside, if you ever again do something so foolish as to go outside next door to naked in freezing weather to fetch water so you can wash!”
Put like that, it did sound rather witless.
“There were—other reasons too,” she said lamely.
Her very hesitancy told him what she meant. As realization hit, his lips compressed and his frown lightened. “Next time get dressed first. Have you never heard of frostbite?”
“You’re a fine one to be telling me to get dressed! Look at you, as naked as a babe!”
“You happen to be wearing my clothes!”
“Not all of them.”
“Enough.”
“You’ve breeches remaining, and stockings, and …”
“Caroline, do you really want to spend the entire morning arguing with me?”
Put that way, the answer was clear. “No.”
“Good. Because I can think of numerous things I would rather do.” He smiled then, a slow wicked smile that set her insides to doing flipflops, then walked over to her and slid his hand under her chin to tilt up her face for his kiss. As his mouth touched hers she wrapped her arms around his neck and rose on tiptoe and clung, kissing him back.
“That’s better.” He lifted his head to flick her nose with his finger. “If you’ll give me my boots, I, too, have business outside.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
Occupying such close quarters was going to have its embarrassing aspects, Caroline could see. She went pink to her ears as she passed over boots and coat, pulling on his stockings—they were of heavy wool, and far warmer than her own cotton ones—and wrapping herself in the Indian blanket instead.
Still naked beneath the coat and boots, Matt stepped outside for no more than a few minutes before he was back. Caroline had had time to remove the now-melted and warmed snow from the fire, but certainly not enough to wash. Crouching by the pallet, in the act of wetting a piece of linen she had ripped from her mutilated petticoat, she jumped as if caught out in some nefarious deed as he slid back inside and replaced the branches that she had dislodged.
“Surely you’re not feeling shy of me?” he asked, seeing her jump and flush.
“I want to wash.”
“So wash.”
He was not p
erfect, this man she loved. In fact, he was far from perfect. Insensitivity to certain finer points of gentlemanly behavior was one of his failings. But if he could school her in the art of loving, then she could tutor him in manners. It seemed a fair enough trade.
“I require a certain amount of privacy,” she said gently, and was not surprised when he looked at her with impatience.
“Is there something more of your person that I have yet to see?”
That was just the kind of response she had expected.
“Would you please just make yourself scarce for a bit?” Exasperation won out over gentle guidance, but then exasperation worked. Matt snorted as if at the folly of women, but—taking back his shirt, for which he exacted a forfeit from each of her breasts—he pulled on his clothes in a minimum amount of time, picked up his musket, and headed outside.
Keeping a wary eye on the wall of boughs, Caroline washed herself as thoroughly as she could, given the freezing conditions and inadequate facilities. From somewhere outside she heard Matt’s voice roaring a hymn, and for a moment she stopped what she was doing to listen, a tender smile curving her mouth. Then, as the sound stopped, she recovered her wits, found her clothes, and began to dress. She was sliding on her last shoe when the boom! of the musket being fired made her stiffen.
She hurried to look outside and found him striding toward the shelter, the still-smoking musket in one hand and a freshly killed rabbit in the other. As he saw her, he grinned and raised the animal by its hind legs.
“Breakfast!” he said, and came inside for his knife. When he returned, in an amazingly short time, the carcass was skinned and cleaned and ready to be cooked.
“We’ll have a feast.” Caroline smiled at him as she relieved him of the meat, skewered it with a sharp stick, and propped it over the fire to roast. Matt shed his coat, washed his hands, and sluiced his face with the last of the water. He came up behind her to slide his arms around her waist. Standing, looking down with a frown at the juices that already dripped down to sizzle in the fire—would she do better to move the meat to a cooler part of the fire?—she was caught by surprise when his hands moved up to cover her breasts.
Instinctively she stiffened, and then, as he pressed his lips to the hollow beneath her ear, she relaxed. After a moment she turned in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and rewarding him with a lazy kiss.
Still, when she felt his hands start to unfasten the hooks at her back, she pulled a little away to frown at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking off your clothes.”
“But I just got dressed!”
“And very fetching you look too. But I prefer you naked.”
Exactly how he meant to occupy the rest of the morning burst over her like sunshine over the horizon. By this time her dress was unfastened to the waist, and he was tugging it off her shoulders.
“But it’s full day!”
The sincere dismay of her protest drew a grin from him even as he bared her breasts.
“ Twill make it all the better,” he told her, and, stripping both her and himself, tumbled her down again into their nest. Rolling her onto her back, he kissed her protests from her, then with hands and mouth and body demonstrated to her that the day was a very good time for what he had in mind after all.
It was much later when Caroline, awakening from a doze, smelled burning meat and bethought herself of the rabbit.
With a shriek she catapulted out of his arms.
“What the devil …?” Instantly alert to meet whatever threatened them, Matt jackknifed into a sitting position, the coverings falling away from his naked chest.
“ ’Tis burned!” Caroline moaned, rescuing the rabbit from its funeral pyre with a stick.
“So we’ll scrape away the burned part and eat what’s left.”
Unconscious of her nakedness in her distress, Caroline knelt and set the charred meat on a flat stone that jutted up from the floor just inside the entrance. To her annoyance, Matt began to grin, and then to laugh.
Then he was out of the covers and coming to fetch her.
“You are a constant source of joy to me, my poppet. Come back to bed.”
“But the rabbit …”
“Never mind the confounded rabbit. You’re naked, and it’s cold, and we’ve nothing else to do but spend the day pleasing ourselves. ‘Twill be awhile before we get another such chance.”
“Yes, but …”
Even as she mourned the rabbit, Matt picked her up in his arms and carried her back to their pallet. It was quite some time later before she had another chance to think of food.
But finally, as outside the shelter the shadows of the trees lengthened toward the river, she did get to eat. With Caroline wrapped in the fur coat and naught else—Matt had taken the lesser warmth of the Indian blanket over her protests—they sat together on the pallet and devoured the remnants of the bread and sausage and apples, washed down with more water melted in the empty rum bottle. Matt took a swig from the other bottle—just a swallow, no more—and then they stretched out side by side, her head on his shoulder, replete.
“What will people think, do you suppose?” The question had been nibbling like a troublesome mouse at the edges of her happiness for some time.
“Think of what?” He ran a lazy finger from one sated strawberry-tipped breast to the other.
“Of us. Being wed.”
“What should they think? ’Tis no concern of anyone save ourselves.”
“But you—-I—I’m not universally liked in the town, you know.”
“You’re not marrying the town.”
“True. But …”
“Ahoy the cave! Matt, is that you in there?” The hail from outside the shelter startled them both. Caroline gasped, scrambling to make herself as decent as she could with the coverings pulled to her nose, while Matt stiffened and sat up.
“ ’Tis Daniel, curse his black soul,” he said to her tightly, then raised his voice to bellow back an affirmative.
42
“Get dressed.” Matt was already on his feet stepping into his breeches as Caroline, not needing his admonition, searched for her shift. Spying it before she did, Matt tossed it to her, and her petticoat and dress as well. Caroline yanked her shift over her head while Matt threw on his shirt.
“Matt! Cooee!” muffled imprecation followed this renewed shout. It sounded as if Daniel was encountering difficulty in getting to them, but giving it a good try.
“May the devil take you, little brother,” Matt muttered, trying to stomp his feet into his boots and button his shirt at the same time.
Caroline frantically tied the tapes of her petticoat about her waist and reached for her dress while Matt, minimally decent now, headed for the bough barrier to hold Daniel off.
“ ’Tis me, right enough,” she heard him say in a rather more sour tone than Daniel’s efforts on their behalf warranted.
“Praise the Lord! I feared that either Indians or the blizzard might have done for you, though I should have known better: you’re too blamed ugly to kill.”
If Matt responded to Daniel’s attempt at humor, Caroline, who was in no position to see his face, couldn’t tell.
“Is Caroline with you?” Robert asked. She started, fastening her dress as best she could and pulling on her stockings, wondering all the while just how large the rescue party might be.
At the thought of emerging from their love nest to confront a gossipy throng, Caroline shrank inside. Though no one could know for a certainty exactly how she and Matt had passed the night, they would no doubt speculate uncomfortably close to the mark. Tying her garters and hastily dropping her skirts, Caroline felt like the veriest Jezebel.
“Aye.” There was something decidedly off-putting about Matt’s terse answer. “You made good time tracking us.”
“We did but follow the river, and then saw your smoke. Stand aside, brother. ’Tis confounded cold out here, and we could use a bit of the warmth from your fire.�
��
With a quick glance over his shoulder to assure himself that Caroline was presentable, Matt stepped back inside the shelter. Daniel followed almost immediately, and Robert came after him. Both men were dressed in long fur coats and wide-brimmed hats and boots, and they stomped the snow from their feet as they entered.
Caroline had just finished wrapping herself in the blanket, and knew that she was as well covered as she had ever been. Still she could not prevent the bright red flags that flew in her cheeks as Daniel and Robert, who had cast quick, comprehensive looks around the small shelter, nodded at her. Daniel did not quite meet her eyes, while Robert’s held an amused glint.
“ ’Tis clear we worried and hurried for naught,” Robert said, spying the second jug of rum that Matt had set to warm. Going down on one knee beside the fire to uncork the jug and then hefting it high, Robert availed himself of a long swallow.
“I see you’ve all the comforts of home,” Daniel remarked, his eyes on the rumpled pallet even as Robert, with a nudge, passed him the jug.
Caroline could not have felt more ashamed if they had sewn the badge of an adulteress onto her breast.
“Caroline and I are to be wed,” Matt announced abruptly, his eyes moving from Caroline’s scarlet face to his brothers’ knowing ones.
“Wed!” Daniel sounded poleaxed, his gaze shooting from Matt to Caroline and fixing there.
“Wed! Well, by all that’s wonderful!” Robert’s reaction was more exuberant. He crossed to Matt and clapped his shoulder, then grinned at Caroline. “Are you sure you want to marry big brother here? He’s not my idea of a cozy armful!”
“Watch your mouth, Rob,” Matt growled as Daniel came forward at last to offer his brother his hand.
“I wish you happy, Matt,” Daniel said, his voice steady but his face pale. Caroline, watching as the two shook hands, felt a queer little pang in the region of her heart. There was so much love between them, among all the Mathiesons, in fact, that she wondered if she would ever get over the notion that despite Matt’s declaration, she was an outsider looking in.
“Thanks, Dan.” Matt’s face eased into a smile as he cast a sideways glance at Caroline. “ ’Tis better to marry than to burn, you know, and I’ve been burning for better than half a year now.”
This Side of Heaven Page 31