Dawn on a Distant Shore

by Sara Donati

  An indignant squawk pulled her out of her trance. Nathaniel passed Lily to Elizabeth and scooped Daniel up, all flailing arms and legs and a furious expression that settled suddenly at the sight of this strange man. The two of them regarded each other for a long moment and then Daniel sputtered a hello in his father’s face.

  There was a knock on the door, and a murmuring of familiar voices: Hannah, breathless and happy, Runs-from-Bears, Robbie and Hawkeye. She had last seen Hawkeye on a hot August night, walking away from Lake in the Clouds. Leaving his home and kin because he had come up against laws that made no sense to him, white laws that did not fit the world as he understood it, a world that for him would forever be red. She had feared that she would never see him again, but here he was. He seemed unchanged by his long months in Montréal’s gaol, standing tall in the open door, as lean as leather. Under the mane of hair his gaze was as keen as it had ever been. He had one arm around Hannah, and with the other he pulled Elizabeth to him and looked hard at her.

  “I see you’ve brought me my grandchildren, daughter.” He kissed her cheek and bent down to look at Lily.

  “Hello, little girl,” he said.

  Then Nathaniel crossed the room and put Daniel in his grandfather’s arms, and Elizabeth watched Hawkeye change before her eyes.

  11

  It was full dark, the night tempered only with the vague light of a reluctant moon. Coming up on deck, Elizabeth could just make out the pale shapes of the mainsails, and the outlines of human forms at the rail: Hawkeye, Runs-from-Bears, and Robbie, deep in hushed conversation. But before she could join them, Captain Pickering had appeared at her side.

  “Madam. May I inquire, is all to your satisfaction?”

  She nodded. “Yes, very much so, Captain.”

  “It is a very small vessel for so many, but I hope it will still serve.”

  Elizabeth assured him that it would serve very well.

  Even in the kind light of the moon his face was not easy to look at, but his manner was sincere as he leaned toward her. “I hope you have forgiven me for my little performance on the dock at Sorel. I could not speak of your husband openly, but it did grieve me to deceive you. Your cousin the viscount did send his very best wishes for your safe delivery.”

  She smiled. “Please, Captain Pickering. There is no need to speak of deception, or forgiveness. I admit that I have never been so surprised in all my life as when I found Nathaniel here, but nothing could have given me greater happiness. I am not sure what we have done to merit all the trouble you have taken for our sakes—”

  He waved her thankfulness away with a gloved hand. “Had you heard that I am shortly to be married?”

  Elizabeth did know; she had had the whole story of Giselle Somerville’s dinner party, and its repercussions, from Hawkeye and Robbie. It was a strange set of circumstances, but she wished Pickering joy as if there were nothing unusual at all in the way he had come to his bride, or the party games the bride had chosen to play with other men while she was unattached.

  “I hope that we do not cause a rift between yourself and your new father-in-law,” she finished.

  “The lieutenant governor does not concern me,” said Pickering. “I offered my assistance not to thwart him, but to serve justice and to please his daughter.” His tone was cool, and it reminded Elizabeth that he might be a gentleman of good breeding, but Pickering was also an accomplished merchant commander and highly successful in his business pursuits.

  Elizabeth glanced at Hawkeye, but the men were still turned away from them and deep in conversation. “You surprise me, sir. I thought it was Mr. Moncrieff who had interceded to ask for your assistance.”

  There was a slight hesitation. “It was Miss Somerville who brought Mr. Moncrieff’s concerns to me. And a bridegroom can rarely deny his bride when she asks a favor, especially one with such merit. I do not believe that these men are spies, Mrs. Bonner, and I should have been very sorry to see them hang.”

  The words sent a small shower of gooseflesh up Elizabeth’s back. “Was there truly danger of that, sir?”

  He glanced up into the riggings. “I fear so. If Somerville had had his way. He is a man of strong passions—” He hesitated again. “And not easily put off his course. He is the kind who might well start a new war simply to ease his own wounded pride.”

  This was unsettling, and confirmed Elizabeth’s worst fears. “Then our debt to you and Miss Somerville can hardly be repaid.”

  Pickering touched his hand to his hat, and bowed. “Please do not speak of it,” he said. “Now, I am sure you have matters to discuss with your family. If I may wish you good evening …”

  Elizabeth stood for a moment, watching the line of his back until he had disappeared into the dark of the quarterdeck. Her mind was racing in strange directions, toward Montréal and the gallows that would go untested, and then onward to Québec, where Giselle Somerville waited for her bridegroom and Will Spencer waited for them all. She went to join her party at the rail, her mind preoccupied. As she approached, their conversation stopped.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Robbie’s hand found her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Yer bonnie face is verra welcome, lassie. But have ye tired o’ Nathaniel already?”

  “Hannah needed some time alone with her father.”

  “Aye, faithers and dauchters,” said Robbie. “Nathaniel is a verra fortunate man.”

  Elizabeth felt Hawkeye’s gaze on her, and she realized how very much she had missed him, and what a comfort his calm silence could be. She touched his sleeve.

  “I have learned something on this journey.”

  He smiled. “And what’s that?”

  “What a fortunate woman I am.” She wanted to say the rest of it, to tell all three of them how glad she was to have them around her, but she was still too much an Englishwoman for that kind of public sentiment. Instead, she said, “It seems that Giselle Somerville and her father have not parted on good terms. Pickering tells me that it was Giselle who engaged him to bring you away from Montréal.”

  Runs-from-Bears’ head came up. “Ain’t she the one who held up Otter for so long?”

  “Aye, she’s the one,” said Hawkeye.

  “We are indebted to her,” said Elizabeth. “Whatever her history.” With my husband, she might have added, but even unspoken she thought it had been clearly heard.

  “Ye mustna judge her too harshly, lass.” Robbie’s tone was almost apologetic.

  Elizabeth turned to him in surprise. “I do not judge her at all, I assure you. Miss Somerville’s marriage and how she came to it is no business of mine. I am thankful for her part in getting the three of you out of Montréal. No more or less than that.” But it was not completely true; she was curious now more than ever about Giselle Somerville, and uneasy that they should be in her debt.

  There was silence for a long minute. The rigging whistled and clanked with the wind; on the quarterdeck there were low voices, the hiss of flame set to wick, and the sharp smell of tobacco. They had spent a happy few hours crowded around Captain Pickering’s table, but now all of the cheerful high spirits of their reunion had been replaced with something more thoughtful. Elizabeth tried to catch Hawkeye’s eye, but he was looking out over the water.

  “Is there something else wrong?” she asked.

  Hawkeye shifted. “Bears wants to set off overland for Lake in the Clouds,” he said. “He could be there in two weeks, maybe less.”

  Elizabeth searched out Runs-from-Bears’ face in the dark, but could make nothing of his expression. “You are worried for them.”

  He nodded. “We’ve been away a long time.”

  “Well, then,” Elizabeth said calmly. “When will you go?”

  “I’ll wait until you find passage out of Québec.”

  She drew up. “Passage? But I thought we had passage—” She gestured around herself feebly.

  Robbie coughed into his hand. “We didna like tae talk o’ it before the bairns,” he s
aid. “But Pickering canna take us aa the way hame, lass. The Isis will be waitin’ for him in Québec, and he mun sail wi’oot delay for Scotland.”

  Elizabeth leaned on the rail. She was thankful for the dark, for she feared she could not keep her anxiety from her face.

  “But they’ll be looking for us in Québec, too.”

  “I expect that’s true,” Hawkeye said. “But there must be seventy or more boats in port there at this time of year. They won’t be too fussy about passengers as long as the fare’s right. Moncrieff has been there a whole day, he’ll be sniffing around already for us.”

  “Moncrieff again,” said Elizabeth, pulling her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Is there no getting away from the man?”

  Robbie snorted softly. “He’s aye hard tae avoid.”

  Runs-from-Bears said, “It looks like he’s done you more than one good turn.”

  “Oh, that he has.” Hawkeye nodded. “And I expect we’ll have to put up with a few more before he sails for home.”

  “That the Earl of Carryck’s influence reaches so far surprises me,” said Elizabeth thoughtfully.

  “Ye dinna trust the man, it’s clear.”

  “I suppose that I do not,” Elizabeth admitted. “But I do not know him as you do, having spent so much time with him at close quarters.” She hesitated. “You’re not reconsidering the earl’s proposal?”

  Hawkeye grunted. “Got no interest in anything but getting this family home to Lake in the Clouds as quick as we can manage.”

  Elizabeth pushed out a sigh. “That is good to know,” she said. “The next task is to find Will Spencer and send him back to Amanda straightaway.”

  There was the sound of a new step on deck, and Nathaniel appeared from Pickering’s quarters. He crooked a finger in her direction, and then disappeared again.

  “Time enough to worry about this Will Spencer tomorrow,” said Hawkeye gruffly. “You’ve got a homecoming of your own to celebrate.”

  Elizabeth was glad of the dark, for she knew very well that she was flushing, both with anticipation and embarrassment. “But where will you sleep?”

  “The hammocks,” said Robbie.

  “Under the stars.” Runs-from-Bears was grinning; she could hear it in his voice.

  “But if it rains—”

  Hawkeye pushed her gently toward Nathaniel. “Then we’ll bed down with Pickering and his crew. Go on now, he’s waiting for you.”

  The first officer’s cabin was all they had, just off the captain’s quarters where Curiosity slept with the children. It smelled of raw sugar and coffee beans, and there was barely room for them to stand shoulder to shoulder without Nathaniel striking his head on the hanging lamp. But there was a small porthole left open for the breeze, a tiny washstand, and a cot. And a door with a lock on it.

  Elizabeth turned her face up to him. He might have taken her expression for displeasure, if it weren’t for the trembling of her hand in his.

  “You’re as nervous as a cat, Boots.”

  “Or a bride,” she said, finally managing a smile, and blushing to the roots of her hair. It made his heart clench to see it.

  “We were apart on our first wedding anniversary.”

  “Aye, so we were,” he said gently. “We’re together now.”

  There was a creaking overhead; the trill of the bosun’s whistle, men moving. In the other room Hannah was talking in her sleep.

  “It ain’t exactly Paradise.” Nathaniel pulled her down to sit beside him on the cot. “But it will have to do.”

  “Oh, it will do,” she said, not quite able to meet his eye. And then, in a rush: “It has been a very long time, Nathaniel.”

  “So it has.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You’ll have to remind me how to start.”

  She laughed then, a low throaty laugh, the very laugh that he thought of as his alone. Under his fingers the skin of her neck was cool to the touch, and as soft as he remembered. He traced the outline of her ear and then her jaw, and then he lifted her face to his and kissed her. A quiet kiss, a coming home very different from those first frantic kisses of a few hours ago. She tasted sweet and tart all at once, and his head filled with the smell of her. But she wasn’t quite with him; he could feel the hum of her thoughts just below the surface, moving her in a different direction.

  In one motion Nathaniel lifted her and settled her on his lap. The round weight of her, the touch of her breasts against his chest, was enough to make him forget everything, but he made an effort: put his forehead against hers so that she could not look away.

  “Are you shy of the close quarters?”

  Elizabeth turned to study the door as if she could look through wood to where the children slept. Then she spread her hand out on Nathaniel’s cheek. “No,” she said. “I expect we can … manage quietly. We’ve been in close quarters before, after all.” He could see her struggling for her composure, and he might have laughed out loud at the pleasure of seeing her flustered. But there was the worry line between her brows that he knew well.

  “Then tell me what’s on your mind, Boots. What’s wrong?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  Nathaniel kissed her, a hard stamp of his mouth. “I know you, Elizabeth. I know you as well as I know anybody pulling breath. There’s something else up, and it ain’t just getting out of Canada with our hides intact.”

  Her fingers began to pull at the ties on his shirt. Elizabeth wiggled slightly on his lap, her color rising. “Is it really talking that you want to do right now, Nathaniel Bonner?” And she tilted her head and kissed him, a soft deep kiss that made the blood rush in his ears.

  What he wanted was to lay her down on the narrow cot and to cover her, bury himself in her and stay there forever. Above all of that, what he wanted most in the world was to take away the worried look in her eyes.

  But she would have her way; she hushed him, twisting out of her clothing piece by piece until she stood before him in her shift and stockings. Her hair had come undone, a tangle of curls around her face. He took the hem of her shift to lift it over her head, untied one garter and then the other to drag the stockings down over the white skin of her calves. She lifted her feet for him in turn and then stood in the vee of his legs covered in nothing but gooseflesh. Childbearing had changed her shape, marked her for a mother; her hands fluttered up as if to hide the tracings on her belly and he caught them, held them away.

  “You know me better,” he murmured.

  Her breasts were heavier now, her nipples darker, berries not quite ripe. She put her face in his hair, her breath harsh at his ear as he leaned forward. The touch of his tongue drew a single drop of milk and a sigh. He might have pulled away but her hand guided him back, offering freely what he hesitated to take. Nathaniel cupped her hips, pressed his fingers into rounded flesh while he suckled, wide mouthed, both of them convulsing with the sweetness of it. She trembled so that he thought she might fall, her knees buckling until she was on his lap again.

  “There is a grave inequity here,” she muttered, plucking at his shirt. “Will you not undress?”

  “There’s no hurry.” Nathaniel laughed against her mouth, because it was a lie; he had never been in such a hurry in his life, but still he would not be rushed.

  “It is very strange to see you in breeches.” Cool fingers at his crotch, tracing him. “Leggings and a breechclout suit you better.”

  He drew in a sharp breath and caught her hand up to bite her palm. Then he stood to pull his shirt over his head and stripped down.

  There was too little room on the cot: they were all elbows and knees, awkward until he found her mouth again and they lay for a long time on their sides, kissing; the kind of kiss that had no end and doubled back on itself. Struggling to slow the rush of his blood, covered with sweat and the sweet stickiness of her milk, Nathaniel stroked her thighs, felt her quiver and quicken, sought out softly swollen flesh slippery to the touch.

  �
��Are you still tender?” He touched her and she shivered.

  “Yes. No. I am healed, but—”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No!” She caught his hand, pressed it hard. “Don’t stop.” This against his neck, hardly more than a whisper. “Nathaniel?”

  His fingers busier now, coaxing from her those words she found so hard to give. “What?”

  She grabbed his face, dragged it to her own. Gentle suckling and then harder, showing him what she wanted, thrusting her tongue against his. He cupped the saddle of warm flesh between her legs. His own flesh leaped in response, barely under his control.

  “I missed you.” She whispered against his mouth, harsh and gentle all at once. She was crying, dripping milk and tears and salty moisture over him, drawing him in like the sea. “I missed you.”

  “God knows I missed you too, Boots. The thought of you like this kept me sane all those weeks.”

  She wound her fingers in his hair, tugged hard. “Come to me now. Come to me. I want you, I want this.” Her legs sliding up and around him, living ropes: another kind of bondage, and one that he came to gladly.

  Elizabeth drifted up out of a deep sleep, aware first of the weight of Nathaniel’s leg over her own, and the cool breeze from the porthole on damp flesh. Up on deck the watch was changing, but it was Curiosity’s voice that woke her. She was crooning to the twins. Elizabeth’s own body told her that they would soon need more than soft words.

  She turned her head, hungry still for the sight of Nathaniel. In the vague light from the porthole she watched him sleep, resisting the strong urge to put her hands on him and convince herself that he was alive and well, that the tingling of her flesh was more than just a dream.

  He cracked an eye at her. “I can hear you thinking, Boots.”

  Caught out again. She felt herself blushing. “So you always claim.” And struck his roving hand away, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.

  Nathaniel came up on one arm to catch her wrist: his strong hands, broad and hard and warm and capable of the softest touch, enough to set her blood humming again. His eyes burning gold in the faint moonlight, the power of his wanting enough to turn her purpose and make her forget everything but the heat in her bones.