by Sara Donati
It was her job to heal Daniel, and she must put all her powers of concentration in that alone; there was no time for guilt, Hannah reminded herself, and even less for self-doubt.
On a morning so damp and warm that it made her think of steaming bread, Hannah went to the stockade before first light, leaving Jennet asleep on her pallet. Over the weeks they had worked out which of the men were willing to let her in before the rest of the camp followers, in exchange for a few coins—another one of Luke's many contributions. When she was too tired to stop herself, Hannah wondered what would become of her brother if it ever became public knowledge that the grandson of the erstwhile lieutenant governor of Lower Canada was pouring so much money and effort into the care of the American invaders.
Hannah rose from her pallet and walked to the fort in quiet desperation, as a sister but mostly as a doctor, perplexed and undone by her own failure. She went to sit next to Daniel in the crowded pungent dark of the stockade and listen to his breathing, in the hope that somehow he would reveal to her the one thing she wanted most to know: how to save his life.
For all her life, Jennet had been a sound sleeper and possessive of that state. She could not be depended on to rouse herself; that Hannah did, most mornings, by shaking her or, when that failed, by flicking cold water on her face.
Now that Hannah had got in the habit of rising before first light to go to the stockade, Runs-from-Bears had taken over the job of waking Jennet, which he did by the simple expedient of sticking his head into the shack and letting out a shriek that made her jump to her feet.
In some part of her sleeping mind Jennet, struggling reluctantly toward a waking state, realized that Runs-from-Bears had forgotten about her. The piece of stretched doeskin that covered the single small window was glowing with sunlight, which meant that she had opened her eyes and was lying on her side; which meant that she was awake, and without prodding.
Hannah's pallet was empty, and more than that: someone was crouched behind her. Jennet held herself very still and closed her eyes.
It was not Runs-from-Bears or his son or any other Indian; the bear grease that they used to protect themselves from the flies was far too distinctive to miss. Jennet's heart kicked into a rapid gallop while her mind raced. A dry clicking in her throat she swallowed down only with great difficulty, and her ears ringing in alarm. She opened her eyes because she could not bear the dark.
A man's shadow passed the window and then another, and with them voices. Runs-from-Bears and Sawatis, talking easily together. She wondered if she could call an alarm quickly enough to save herself from whatever or whoever it was—a man, she told herself, no wolf, no dog—who had found his way here. A soldier, most likely; for weeks Hannah had been warning her that she flirted too much with them all, made light of the moon eyes they threw her way. A soldier would have a weapon. And if he did, why was he waiting?
Runs-from-Bears was talking again, something about the river and the wind. Mohawk was a fearfully difficult language but Jennet recognized some words, now, and was trying to learn more. Andiatarocté, she heard: tail of the lake, their name for Lake George. They had no idea that she was here, or that she was not alone.
She forced herself to breathe normally and, in one quick movement, made ready to roll away from the pallet.
A hand stopped her, clamped firmly on her waist; before she could scream another hand covered her mouth and without thinking she put her teeth to work even as she opened her eyes and saw Luke's face.
“Christ Almighty!” he hissed, and jerked his hand away. “That's a fine welcome, girl.”
Jennet pushed herself back and away, pulled her knees to her chest and blinked at him. “Luke.”
“What's left of me. You've got teeth like a beaver.”
“Well, why didn't you announce yourself?” Jennet asked, and then, to her horror, she heard herself giggle. The shock, she told herself, and the relief.
“That's it, laugh.” He was trying to look angry, and failing. “First you attack me and then you laugh at me. Call me a fool but I was hoping for a different kind of welcome.”
“I thought you were here to ravish me.” The words were said before she could stop them, and then she really did laugh. “I mean, I thought you were a stranger here to do me harm.”
Luke was busy wrapping his hand with a handkerchief—she had managed to draw blood, it seemed—and Jennet reached out and took it away from him. “Let me do that. And now tell me what you mean by sneaking in here and disturbing my sleep, Luke Bonner.”
“It's good to see you too, girl.”
He grinned this time, his familiar and beloved smile spreading across his face. The cool gray of his eyes grew warmer as they moved down her length. Her breasts pressed against the chemise that was her only nightdress, and he liked that; she watched his eyes go drowsy with arousal. Jennet made herself concentrate on his hand, the three small teeth marks oozing blood.
“Of course I'm glad to see you,” she said, almost prissily.
“How glad?” His free hand was on her arm, pulling her closer.
“As glad as I was to see you the last time you came,” Jennet said. “Until you started in being bothersome.”
“Bothersome, is it?” Luke leaned forward and put his mouth to her ear. “That's a new word for an old business. Come, hen, have you no better way to welcome me after a month of keeping to your lonely bed?”
Jennet let herself go to him then, moving into his arms and against him, her heart racing again but now for a good reason.
She said, “Hannah will be waiting for me in the stockade.”
Luke bore her back down to the pallet, laughing quietly against her mouth. “So she will,” he said. “And all for naught. There's some ravishment needs to be taken care of, first.”
They had such a noble and reasonable agreement: Luke would stay away from Nut Island for everyone's safety, and as soon as Hannah had settled in, Jennet would come to him in Montreal. Except that Hannah's work had never lessened and Jennet could not leave her, and so one day they had come back to the followers' camp in the evening to find him waiting there with Runs-from-Bears, deep in a discussion about how to get the prisoners out of the stockade, off the island, and over the border.
He had looked up at them as they came in and smiled as if it were nothing unusual that he would come to take his tea in this tiny shack. Jennet had been shocked and angry and pleased beyond measure to see him, and that night Hannah had taken her pallet to sleep somewhere else, anywhere else; Jennet had never thought to ask, later, where she had gone. Nor could she find it in herself to be discomfited by that. If anyone understood it must be Hannah.
Luke had come to try to get her to leave, of course. He had some ideas about Father O'Neill that first made Jennet laugh out loud and then made her angry. And wasn't it just like Wee Iona's grandson to see a great conspiracy behind every Roman collar, she asked, and did he hear himself, how he sounded more jealous than worried for her welfare?
But he hadn't risen to her goading. Instead Luke insisted that she write him a report every day on what the priest had said and done and who he had spoken to, and Jennet had asked him if he wanted her to spend more time with the good father, or less?
In the end it turned out that he had risked coming to Nut Island not only because he was worried about the priest, or even because he had letters and medicine and soap and lovely white-flour rolls with fresh butter, but because of a passion he could no longer control. And how could she stay angry at that? He had kept her flat on her back for most of the night, alternately arguing with her and making love to her, sometimes both at once.
In the morning he had slipped away again, never discovered by the guards or anyone else, as he had promised. And left her behind, because she insisted, and when he was gone how she had struggled to hide her disappointment. In him, in herself.
And here he was again, so beautiful that he took her breath away. Already the spring sun had begun to turn his hair lighter and his skin�
�covered now with a keen, sweet sweat—was darkening.
When she could breathe again, Jennet became aware of the sounds of the camp all around them: women's voices and children, the business of cooking and eating and getting ready for the day. No doubt they had made themselves heard, which should embarrass her unto death but Jennet could find no energy for that particular exercise. Later, of course, the women would want to know which of the men from the fort she had finally let into her bed; that would take a bit of handling, of course.
Luke turned on his side, his great strong hand on her shoulder, dark against light, his thumb stroking. Then he said, “Come with me to Montreal. We'll spend a month in bed. I want to see if I can make you screech like that again.”
She smacked him smartly and then rubbed her cheek against his hand. “You shouldn't ask, and you know it. I canna leave your sister.”
He nodded, as if she had given him the answer he expected and not a word more.
“And I don't screech.”
“Like a panther in the night.”
“Tell me this,” Jennet said. “First I was a beaver and now a panther. Why is it you must always think of me as some four-legged beast?”
“Now there's an idea,” he said, and flipped her over neatly. Jennet scrambled away from him, laughing and kicking and tumbling, until her back was against the wall and he held up his hands in surrender.
She could not keep the question to herself any longer, and so out it came in a hiccup: “How long can you stay?”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, as sweetly as a boy. “I'm already gone, girl.”
Her face twitched with disappointment, but she managed a small smile and saw the same things in his face that he must see in hers.
“Tell me about Daniel first,” he said.
Jennet thought about what to say while she pulled her chemise to rights. “He's in terrible pain. The damage to the nerves in his arm and shoulder, says your sister. Not that you would ever hear it from him, understand. There's never a word of complaint from him, but you can see it on his face, what it's doing to him. As if somebody had used a knife to carve it into him.”
Luke was silent for a moment. “And he still can't use the arm.” Asking her to say the words that he didn't want to hear.
“He can move it, but the pain is enough to make him swoon, if you can imagine that of Daniel Bonner. Hannah won't even let him walk about, she's that worried about keeping the arm still. Though he does, of course, when she's gone.”
“And the wound?”
“Healing,” Jennet said, and then: “More slowly than Hannah hoped it would.”
“It's the pain distracting him,” said Luke.
“The worst of it is, he's lost all hope,” Jennet said. “He barely talks to anyone except to Blue-Jay and Hannah, and there's a bitterness in him that breaks my heart, Luke. He's convinced himself he's going to lose the arm, though Hannah tells him that it's no the case.”
She watched Luke thinking, his expression blank but his eyes bright and a thousand thoughts moving behind them, weighing and calculating and weighing again. He wouldn't let himself feel his brother's pain because he couldn't afford that distraction. It was what she expected of him, but she admired it nonetheless.
He said, “We can wait another four or five weeks at the most. Jennet, listen.” He leaned closer. “My leaning is to tell you as little as possible of our plans, so you'll be as surprised as the next person when the time comes—”
“You'll get no argument from me on that count,” Jennet said.
“—but there is something I need to ask you. If things go wrong, it could be that I'll have to stay out of Canada.”
She looked at him then and saw no real worry in his face. “For how long?”
Luke shrugged, the muscles in his shoulder rolling. “For good, most likely. If things go wrong.”
“But what of the business? What of Forbes and Sons and the rest of it?”
“I've already hired another manager, and I can sell out my shares on short notice—”
“If things go wrong,” she finished for him. “You're willing to risk everything you've built up for yourself in Montreal?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, some of the old humor there in him, the fearlessness of the younger man she had known in Scotland. “For my brother? Of course. The question I'm putting to you is, whether you're willing to settle down someplace else. Boston or Manhattan or Albany.”
He was watching her closely, as if he weren't quite sure of what she would say but meant to hide his worry.
“Madame del Giglio said I would be traveling farther than Montreal,” Jennet said, suddenly remembering.
“Well, then,” Luke said with a sour grin. “That settles it. We might as well pack up right now and get ourselves on the road.”
“Tease me if you must,” Jennet said, fighting back the irritation that pushed its way up. “But here's your answer: I came this far for you, Luke Bonner, and I'm not about to give up now. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth if I must.”
“Let's hope that won't be necessary,” he said, reaching for her with a tender expression. She caught his hand in her own and held it, feeling the energy there and the heat of him, the nature of his purpose.
“There's something else,” Jennet said, and she wondered at herself that her body should be roused by nothing more than the way he was looking at her. Such sad, terrible, important things still needed to be said and here she was, covered with gooseflesh at the touch of him.
She said, “I fear Hannah won't leave when the time comes.”
Luke raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, and Jennet went on.
“You may spirit Blue-Jay and Daniel away without a peep, but in the end I think she'll stay for the sake of the others. She won't be able to turn her back on them.”
Luke raised a hand to push a curl out of Jennet's face and then his fingers moved down and flicked open the buttons on her chemise she had finally managed to do up. “Of course she wouldn't leave the prisoners,” he said. “We knew that all along.”
Jennet caught his wrist and held it. “Oh, you did. Then pray tell me, how did you plan to get her away from here? Are you going to knock her senseless and carry her off in a sack?”
“Don't be silly.” He pressed a knuckle to her breastbone and then ran it down to her belly so that she gasped and tried to turn away.
“What then?” Jennet said, fumbling to contain his hands; too late.
“We'll take them all,” Luke said. “So there's no one for her to stay behind for.”
“Wait.” Jennet twisted with all her strength to stop him, pushed with both hands against his shoulders. “You intend to empty the whole stockade? A hundred prisoners or more, they'll just walk away with the blessing of the commander?”
“More or less,” Luke said, taking her hands and pinning them to the pallet to either side of her head. “Any more questions?”
“Not just now,” Jennet said, and pulled him to her.
Chapter 38
Up to her elbows in soapy water, sweat-soaked in the heat, Lily looked up from the floor she was scrubbing to Curiosity, who stood on a stool, her arms full of curtains.
“Hope you got some sweet talk ready,” Curiosity mumbled around the pins in her mouth. “Here come Simon, and he don't look pleased.”
Lily sat back on her heels and wiped the hair out of her face. There was a slight breeze coming up from the lake, and the idea came to her, odd but very appealing, of simply dashing down the path and jumping into the water. Along the way she could shed her clothes and loosen her hair, she thought. After all, if the villagers got such pleasure out of gossiping about her, she might as well give them something at least halfway true to talk about.
Then Simon was at the open door, blocking the light and the breeze.
“Is it so?” he asked shortly. “Have you put off the wedding again?”
“Just a week,” Lily said, gathering her skirts and hoisting hers
elf up. He stepped forward to take her by the elbow and lifted her effortlessly.
“So that the cabin will be ready,” she finished, and found herself almost nose to nose with the man she was supposed to have married ten days ago.
“The cabin,” he said.
She pulled her arm away and blew a hair out of her eyes. “Yes, Simon, the cabin. This cabin. Our home. You don't want to move into a pigsty, do you?”
His mouth twitched, whether in preparation for laughter or shouting, Lily wasn't quite sure. He was frustrated, that much she could see.
At the window Curiosity said, “You two got a lifetime ahead of you for arguing and making up too. Right now I need help. Come on over here, Simon, and give me a hand with these ornery curtains.”
The cabin was two small rooms in a clearing, no space even for a decent kitchen garden, which was why nobody had showed any interest in it in the years since Jack MacGregor had died. But Lily liked the way it sat on a little hill looking over the lake. She liked the fact that the sun filled the larger room for most of the morning. And most of all she liked that it was only ten minutes' walk to the village and the meetinghouse; that was worth a great deal.
Simon had agreed that the cabin was well situated and would suit, and he helped cheerfully enough, cleaning out the well and carrying water and digging a trench for the necessary. With a little wheedling Lily had even got him to make her new shelves and a number of other small things that tried his patience but pleased her mightily.
Curiosity ordered him about too, but he didn't seem to mind. He did his best for her, but he talked while he worked and asked the questions Lily had answered before and must answer again: did it really take so long to get the bed linens in order, and why it was that pewter had to come from Johnstown, and was it sensible for Lily to be asking for a new stove when she didn't much like cooking, after all, and more than that, why were they going to so much trouble to furnish a cabin where they would live for less than a year?