Heaven in His Arms (16 page)

"Do this again, wife, and I'll leave you to your fate in this place—and leave my judgment to God."

He released her and she stumbled back. Her scalp tingled where he had yanked her hair, but the fury and pain of his words needled far deeper, far, far deeper. Without another word, he strode in the direction of the portage path.

Tiny loomed over her. His bushy brows, half blond, half white, drew together. "He shouldn't have done that." His gaze darted furtively toward Andre. "He's thinking of Rose-Marie."

Andre snapped, "Do I have to truss you up, wife?"

He was waiting for them, his hands on his hips. Wordlessly, she swept up her case and stumbled after as well as she could, for his steps were long and swift, and she had to run to keep up. Branches whipped across her face; sharp stones dug deep into the soft underbelly of her new moccasins, slicing the blisters and scratching new welts. But she hardly felt any of this, for a single question echoed in her head, louder and louder.

Who is Rose-Marie?

***

Andre crouched in the moss, his back to a lichen-covered boulder, hidden from a small clearing by the thin trunks of a few maple saplings and a dense mesh of dried, fallen branches. In the indigo light of predawn, the spiny web of denuded boughs above his head gleamed with moisture. Periodically, huge teardrops beaded along the length, dripped from the bark, and splattered in the litter around him. The whole forest pattered with the wet aftermath of the recent rain.

Above the splattering of the drops, he heard another distant sound, the sound he had waited for all morning—the light, rhythmic crackling of twigs that heralded the careful approach of a watchful man. He peered through the netting of branches toward the cook's canoe, no more than twenty paces from where he hid. Yesterday evening, while the rain threatened and growled overhead, he had ordered the cook's canoe to be newly caulked with pine resin— not because it needed the waterproofing, but so the stench of heated resin would be so strong that the canoe would be placed far from the others, and the cook himself would seek shelter from the coming rain under less offensive-smelling canoes in the main campsite. Now the vessel lay, belly-up, in the mud, wailing for the advancing hunter to deposit his latest kill.

The dampness of the soaked earth oozed through I lie soles of his moccasins. His muscles cramped from the uncomfortable position. Anger stirred in him as the footsteps grew swifter and louder. In moments, he would put an abrupt end to the hunter's secret courtship of Genevieve. It didn't matter that Andre had chosen to spend the rainy night beneath a crowded canoe with his men, rather than in the warmth and protection of a makeshift tent with his wife. However odd his relationship with Genevieve might seem to the other voyageurs, no man would get away with courting his wife beneath his very nose.

He straightened his back against the stone as he heard another sound, a familiar melody on the still morning air. He strained his ears and frowned in incredulity, for what he heard was humming—Genevieve's humming. Then he realized that the swift, light footsteps that he had thought were those of a wary hunter belonged instead to his fleet-footed wife.

Her humming stopped abruptly as she strode into the clearing. Her headrail sagged over one arm, showing the curve of a rounded breast. Her long hair lay in a tangled braid down her back. Despite himself, his loins tightened at the sight of her, bathed in bluish light, disheveled and unkempt from sleep. A linen sack swung over her shoulder and she held a palmful of something in her hand. As he watched, she popped whatever it was into her mouth.

He crashed out of his hiding place, filling the forest with the snapping of the branches and frightening a flock of sleeping birds into the sky. Genevieve whirled at the noise, and a shower of round little berries scattered all over the forest floor.

She dropped her linen sack with a thunk. "
Saccaje chien!"

"What the hell"—he swept up one of the berries, now mushed and unrecognizable—"is this?"

"Andre!" She slapped her hand to her breast. "Had you antlers or claws, you couldn't have scared me more! Mon Dieu! Why did you crash out of the bushes like that?"

He grabbed her hand and turned it over to see smears of purplish juice, the same juice that stained her generous lower lip and now her bodice where she had gripped it. "Where did you find these berries?"

She glanced at the mangled fruit he held in his hand. "There was a bush heavy with them back some ways—"

"A bush of what?! Winterberries? Baneberries? How the hell do you know they're not poisonous?"

"They're blackberries.'' She yanked her hand from his grasp. "I know what blackberries look like. Wapishka showed me days ago."

Andre smelled the juice of the berry, tasted it on the tip of his tongue, then tossed it away. He never knew what to expect of this reckless wife. His anger still hadn't faded from finding her bargaining with some strange Algonquin woman. He was sure her impulsiveness and unpredictability would be the death of her if he kept her on this voyage much longer. Picking wild berries in the dark and eating them without thought! He should wring her neck with a leather leash and tie her to the campsite—or better, turn her over his knee, pull up her skirts, and give her a good, long spanking. He pushed the thought out of his mind. The idea of touching her firm, white buttocks with his bare hand didn't in the least sound like punishment.

Instead, he glowered at her and planted his hands his hips. "What are you doing awake? Tiny hasn't even called Leve yet."

"I couldn't sleep. The rain kept me up all night."

"You've never had trouble sleeping before, wife. I usually have to do everything short of kicking you to get you up in the morning."

"What are you doing here, waiting in the bushes like a wildcat, ready to pounce?"

"I wouldn't have pounced if you hadn't bumbled in here so unexpectedly. Now take your fripperies"— he reached for her linen bag—"and find another place to do whatever women do in the morning."

"Leave that alone!" She seized a handful of the linen as he lifted it off the ground and yanked it toward her. "Don't you have any respect for a woman's privacy?"

"Since when is helping my wife with her load an invasion of privacy?"

"Just get your hands off it!"

He released it abruptly. She grabbed the other end but not soon enough, for the linen tumbled open in a sweep of white. The contents fell with a thump to the mud.

"Now look what you've done!'' She fell to her knees and swiftly blanketed the contents, but not before he caught sight of a mottled coat of gray fur.

"What the hell? ..."

He tore the linen away, exposing the creature beneath. It was a hare—a hare—and its gray coat had already begun to give way to thick winter-white fur. Incredulous, he fell on one knee and combed his fingers over the damp pelt. The hare was still warm. He could tell by the disjointed way the rabbit lay that its neck had been wrung—just like all the geese that had mysteriously appeared in the cook's canoe.

She clutched the linen to her chest and leaned away from him. In the darkness, her eyes were full of defiance and fear.

They are in it together. Anger flushed his cheeks free of the morning chill. He hadn't expected this. Andre knew some sort of tendre had sprung up between his wife and that boy, but he had foolishly thought Julien was too exhausted to graft him horns. Now he found his wife prancing around the woods in the predawn with a freshly killed rabbit in her hand, humming and looking by all accounts as if she had just had a good tumble in the mud. Rage shot through his veins. He curled his fingers into his hands to stop them from itching, to stop himself from shaking her in fury, for he could kill her now for making a fool of him, for giving herself to another man when she was his.

Andre shot up and peered into the dimness beyond the boulder. His words emerged through clenched teeth. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Don't bother protecting him. Nothing . . . nothing can protect him from me now. You'll see what a saint I am, woman. ..."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Genevieve stumbled to her feet and swiped the mud and twigs off her skirts with the linen. "Who am I supposed to be protecting from you?"

"Julien." One ragged nail pierced the callused flesh of his palm. "I'll shake you until your teeth rattle if you don't—"

"That's a fine way to speak to your wife," she snapped. "And how would I know where Julien is? Last time I saw him, he was being baptized near Calumet Falls."

"Is that when he snared this hare for you?" Andre let his gaze rove insolently over her exposed bosom. "Or is that when you paid him for his services?"

Shock filled her eyes and her mouth gaped open. She slapped her hands over her face and turned away, but not before he saw something else blossom in those green eyes. Fear. Fear and guilt.

Guilt.
He clenched his teeth on a roar and swung Wound, shattering the bark of an elm with his fist. Cheating little wench, she'd not gotten what she wanted from him and so she'd turned her wiles on an easier catch—damn sly creature. Andre kneaded his bruised and throbbing knuckles, rage hazing his sight, thinking even through the anger, with the slightest twist of admiration, that she was a resourceful one, this little aristocrat, determined and clever and strong.

"The gander might play, husband," she argued, her voice quavering, "but that doesn't mean the goose does, too."

"Are you denying that Julien caught you this hare?"

"Julien can barely walk after a full day's work." Genevieve tossed her plait over her shoulder, tugged her bodice down, and met his gaze evenly. "What makes you think that between the endless baptisms and the constant work, he'd have time to snare me a rabbit? Or I'd have time to pay him, as you so crudely put it?"

Andre stared at her, trembling from the intensity of his anger, realizing from the steadiness of her gaze and the conviction in her voice that she and Julien were not making a cuckold of him—not yet, at least. Furious relief rushed through him like water on a blazing fire, and he thought only of one thing: She was still untouched, she was still innocent, and she was still his for the taking.

And he was a damned fool.

"You're jealous."

Damn right, but I'd sooner trust an Iroquois before I'd admit it to you, woman.

"If you joined me in my tent," she continued softly, "you'd stay a lot drier and a lot less ornery, and you would never have reason to suspect I was wandering off with another man."

He kicked the hare with his foot. "Someone is hunting for you, and you know who it is."

"Is that why you're here, lurking in the bushes?"

"Tell me," he demanded, stepping closer and lowering his voice, "who you've charmed into doing your bidding, Genevieve."

"Unfortunately, not you. I've been complaining about the food—or lack of it—since we left Lachine. You haven't done anything but laugh at me and tease me and tell me to wait until we get to that chewywagon place—if I don't starve first."

"I'll ask one last time."

Her bold gaze faltered and then fell. She wrapped the linen around her hand, up her wrist, then unwrapped it and toyed with it as if she were considering folding it. Finally, she shrugged and draped the cloth over her forearm.

"It's very simple." She tilted her chin. "I found him."

"You found him?"

"Yes. It was ... in a snare of some sort. I assume it was laid by Indians. I came upon him as I was looking for a place to brush my hair. He was just lying there. Since we haven't had fresh meat in a while, I wrapped him in one of my old shifts and decided to bring him here, to the cook's canoe."

Indians caught hares in nets or killed them with arrows or darts, he knew that well enough. But there was no sign of any blood on the hare's sleek coat. And if it had been caught in a net, it would still be alive, not lying on the ground with a broken neck. Not unless his aristocratic wife had wrung it herself, and that possibility was too preposterous to consider. Not would an Indian leave fresh game dead in the forest, where it would be ripe for attack by foxes, wolves, and whatever other creatures came upon it. He met her vivid green eyes. "Did you find the goose in Indian snares as well?"

"Yes."

"You're lying."

She frowned and swiveled away. "If you're going to insult me—"

"Indians kill geese with bows and arrows, and there wasn't a drop of blood on those birds." He snagged her arm. "Who are you protecting, Genevieve?"

"I'm protecting no one."

"Think of a better explanation than that, wife. You're not leaving this clearing until you do."

She jerked in his embrace. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth."

"I won't believe your lies."

"Very well." She jerked herself free, then rubbed her arm where he'd held it. Faint morning light silvered her skin, "I caught the hare."

"Stop it . . ."

"It's the truth:'

Damned fool woman, he'd wring her neck if she didn't stop spitting lies at him. But she stared at him again, evenly, with a determined, haughty expression:
How dare you mock me. How dare you doubt my word.

"Laugh if you will, but it's true," she retorted. "My mother used to hire a hunter in season." She mangled the linen between her hands. "I had a very unconventional upbringing. My father died when I was quite young, and my mother had to raise me alone. I was alone a lot. I used to follow the huntsman as he stalked through the woods of my mother's estate. I used to watch him catch small game in the forests. He always told me I was a quick student."

Genevieve untied the linen and shook it out in front of her. She pointed out the stones sewn in the corners of the old shift, explaining how she had climbed a branch overhanging a gaggle of migrating geese that were resting in a shallow pool, then dropped the makeshift net upon them to capture one of the birds in the flock. Faltering, she told how the previous night she had dug a pit and covered it with grasses and moss to trap the rabbit after she had seen fresh pellets in the area.

She tossed the linen to the ground and paced about the clearing, wringing her hands together. Andre remembered The Duke's strange dream, the dream of a red bird and a goose, and the revelation took on new meaning. He shook his head. It was one thing for an aristocrat to bargain like a peddler out of desperation, but it was another thing altogether to. ... It couldn't be possible. It couldn't be possible.