Heaven in His Arms (23 page)

"No!"

The vessel rolled in the other direction and his feet lifted from the ribs of the canoe. Andre felt weightless for a moment, suspended in the air, and then the cold river clutched him.

The water gurgled around his ears, gorged his nostrils, and flushed past his ears, creating a painful vacuum. The warring currents yanked him downstream, deeper into the river. Andre extended his legs and flattened his feet to rake the rocky riverbed, searching for footing as needles of rock sliced his moccasins and tore the callused skin of his feet. Gasping, he swam up from the icy chill, filling his lungs with air, coughing out the river. He jammed his toe into one hold and lost it, then found another as the current thrust him toward a smooth rock jutting above the surface. He winced as he slammed into the stone, but before the current could whoosh him around it, he grasped the slimy skin and dug his fingers into the grain. Lodging his feet in the cracks beneath the surface of the water, his thighs bulging, Andre fought against the pounding of the river.

He climbed onto the stone. His ribs ached where he had been pushed against the boulder. The canoe suddenly rushed past him and knocked against a rock downstream. The craggy boulder sliced through the bark hull like a knife through soft butter. He saw The Duke's dark head as the Indian clung to the stern of the vessel and, somehow, found a foothold in the riverbed.

Andre peered through the dripping curtain of his hair, desperately looking for Genevieve. A log whooshed by, bobbing high on the current, crashing in a spectacle of wet splinters a dozen meters downstream. He searched the rocky shore for a glimpse of her faded pink skirts, for the sight of her auburn hair. The deep gorge had widened and there were places along the shore where she could hold on. If she could hold on. If she could keep her head above water in the rush of the rapids. If the river hadn't thrust her against one of its embedded rocks and knocked her unconscious.

He yelled her name, but his voice was lost in the tumult. There was no sight of her. No sound. His heart pounded in his chest. He slid down the opposite edge of the boulder, submerging himself in the eddy behind the stone. The current swept on either side of him, encasing him in a triangle of whirling water. He balled himself up and thrust his body into the current. It assaulted him and shoved him downstream. The water was chest-deep and swift, and Andre struggled to keep his head above the river, struggled to slow his forward motion by planting his feet firmly against the gritty riverbed. He searched the shore, the treacherous scattering of jagged rocks, desperately seeking a scrap of pink petticoat, a length of copper-colored hair. A sudden drop in the riverbed forced him below the surface and he struggled against the undertow, only to be spit up like a bobbing piece of wood a few meters downstream. He lost control. Ahead, he saw a treacherous scattering of boulders funneling the river into a dozen different arteries. He could not avoid them. Andre braced himself for a knocking, but instead a crosscurrent whirled past a verdant outcropping of the bank and thrust him into the sudden shelter of a swirling cove.

His knees scraped against the pebbly bottom, and the deerskin and the flesh tore. He shook his head to dislodge the water clogging his ears, dragging himself unsteadily to his feet. The eddying current pulled weakly at his knees as he scanned the cove, searching for her. His breath came fast and deep. A pile of flotsam lay on the pebbly shore, thrust there by the same current that pulled him into this small bay.

Oh, God, Genevieve.

Andre stumbled through the water toward the other tip of the crescent-shaped cove. His heart thudded against the walls of his ribs. He reached for the rough, thin trunk of a jack pine, pulling himself out of the cove and onto the sheer edge of the bank. Digging his fingernails into the lichen, he clambered up over the bare rocks. His breath burned in his lungs. A hundred disjointed thoughts flooded his mind. He remembered Genevieve vividly, laughing with him on the floor of the forest, her hair the color of aged claret in the last light of day, her eyes sparkling with life, her clothes stinking of skunk. Genevieve, a daughter of the petite noblesse, slogging through the woods with the intrepidness and courage of any
coureur de bois
, looking regal and seductive nonetheless in her torn, mud-stained skirts, her cheek livid with scratches. Genevieve, lying huddled beneath her blanket in the twilight, bantering with the voyageurs as they sucked on their pipes and bragged about their adventures by the campfires.

Oh, God, Genevieve. Genny.

He had been a fool, distracting himself with thoughts of her when he should only have been thinking of the danger. He knew the rapids were treacherous and unpredictable, that the water level could cause dangerous funnels that disappeared when the river rose. He'd dragged her with him because they would frighten her, hoping to scare the living wits out of the wench so she would cry Enough! Enough! and he could be rid of her. He could say Yes, yes, she's like all the others, then send her away from him before he let himself do something he'd sworn he'd never do. Christ, he should have stifled his own lusts for a time when he could get Genevieve alone, someplace safe, and instead he might have killed her . . . killed her. . . more blood on his hands . . . more blood on his hands.

Genny's blood on his hands.

Then he heard the cry. A weak wail, like the meow of a kitten, and it was swallowed up almost immediately by the rumble of the rapids. Andre yanked himself to the top of the boulder and stumbled to his feet. He raced to the edge of the outcropping and searched below, where a motley collection of timber and leaves and debris had gathered, forming a dam between the bank and a rounded boulder a few meters away from the shore. He heard the cry again, and then he saw a bit of faded pink among the foam.

Andre scrambled recklessly down the outcropping, slipping on the slimy moss, shifting a spray of pebbles into the water, clawing the stone with his free hand as he bumped his way toward the water. A fallen log had lodged with one end against a boulder on the bank and the other against a boulder in the water, and among the shattered branches bobbed Genevieve, her skirts tangled in the tree. The current pounded her against the log, battering her back incessantly.

"Genevieve!"

She opened her mouth to speak but coughed instead as the water pounded her. Her hair lay in dark tendrils all over her face. She slipped below the surface for a moment, her skirts tugging on the branches, but she struggled up again and clutched the trunk with both arms.

Andre splashed into the water, heedless of the stinging of the icy liquid on his raw knees and thighs. The log was unstable, likely to be dislodged at any moment. The current here was fierce. He clutched the trunk for support as he worked his way toward her. She watched him, her eyes wide with fear. Bits of wood—twigs and splinters—dug into his bare side, propelled there like needles by the force of the rapids. The riverbed dropped suddenly and he struggled to regain his balance. The water rose to his chest, but Genevieve was only an arm's length away.

He held out his hand and she reached for it. Grasped it. Tiny frozen fingers in his hand. He yanked her toward him, but her skirts were tangled in the log's branches. Heedlessly, he ripped the worn mate-rial from the netting of branches with his bare hands, leaving bits of cloth and thread hanging from the ends. Her skirts fell into the water and were swiftly sucked beneath, pulling her with them. Genevieve gasped and her grip slipped on the trunk, but he pulled her toward him until their bodies slapped together.

Her cheek was as cold as ice against his neck. Her body bucked with the force of a cough. He closed his eyes and smelled the scent of her, rising from the warmth still trapped in her hair. The current pulled heavily on her skirts and yanked on his legs.

"Hold tight."

He headed back toward the shore, each step careful, the bundle held tight in his arms. Something banged against the log, dislodging it from the shore. It shot past them as they climbed out of the water, disappearing beyond the outcropping. He fell to his knees on the rock, dragging Genevieve up with him.

Andre held her while she coughed the last of the river from her lungs, hacking until he knew her throat was sore and raw. He ran his hands over her body, warming her, searching for injury. She was as skinny as a wet kitten. The remnants of her skirts clung to her legs, and her leggings sagged over one foot. She'd lost her moccasins in the rapids and her right foot protruded, bare and unprotected, but nothing seemed broken. He boldly felt the swell of her breasts, felt her heart beating rapidly beneath her bosom, then he dragged her hips closer and lay atop her, his body sheltering her from the cold air, his loins pressed into hers, where they belonged.

Where they belonged.

He framed her face in his hands. She trembled like a wild thing, her lips tinged purple from the cold. Her skin was so pale and translucent that he could see the bluish veins beneath the surface of her cheeks, and her freckles stood out like flecks of cinnamon. A gritty streak of mud stained her forehead and a dozen welts seared her skin where she had been struck by debris. He knew he should just hold her, for she was weak and exhausted, hurt and dangerously cold, but those damned eyes, those damned bruised, frightened, grateful eyes . . .

Her lips were as cold as ice, but the inside of her mouth was not—it was warm and fragrant and soft and welcoming, and he tasted the sweet, crystal purity of the mountain water on her tongue. This was Genevieve, his wife, spit back at him from the hell into which he'd sent her. The fierce wanting gripped him. He kissed the one woman on earth he had forbidden himself to touch.

Her heart pounded loudly against him. He pressed a hand against her chest, against the sound, feeling the proof of her survival vibrate against his fingers. Beneath her shivering skin he felt the coursing of her blood, the trembling of muscle, the rush of air in and out of her lungs. Genevieve broke free to catch her breath. He tasted the sweet river water running in rivulets over her temples, dripping from the soft lobe of her right ear, dampening the heat of her long neck, pooling in the fragrant hollow of her throat.

Her chest filled and collapsed with every deep, ragged breath. Andre rolled her nipple, as hard as a pearl, against his palm. He looked up into her eyes . . . eyes that had brightened to the color of sunlight falling on a shaded forest pool. Relief poured through him, mingling with passion, with that blind, reckless yearning. . .
She's alive, alive, alive
....

"I knew . . . you would find me." Her voice was husky and raw. "I knew . . . you wouldn't ... let me die."

And suddenly he realized that his breechcloth was full with passion, that he was seducing her here, on the banks of the river, when he had just pulled her from the maelstrom of the white water. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was she turning him into, this red-haired chit of a girl? She was hurt, she was frozen, and he could think of nothing else but laying with her.

Andre gathered her limp form in his arms and rose to his feet, guilt stabbing through him. How had she crawled so deep under his skin? Why did he push her and push her, test her over and over, though he knew—damn it, he knew she could survive anything she faced? Now he'd pushed her over the edge of a canoe into some of the most vicious white water he'd ever run. In some black part of his heart, did he want her dead? Was he destined to murder every wife he had?

No. He gripped her tightly, feeling the contours of her wet body press against him. He was her enemy, yes, her enemy, for she wanted something from him that he would never give. She would never be safe in his presence. He'd wanted her frightened, not dead. He'd wanted her so frightened that she'd run away from him. For he knew, from somewhere deep inside, that he couldn't let her go.

He was fighting to protect her from himself. And then he knew the truth.

The raw emotion roared inside him, primitive and undeniable, an emotion he dared not name.

Genevieve drifted on a warm cloud. She felt as tranquil and comfortable as a well-fed babe swaddled In soft cloth and held against her mother's breast. Sounds drifted in and out of her consciousness: the voices of the voyageurs as they argued, the wind soughing in the trees, and something flapping, like the billowing sails of a ship. The scents of spicy pine fires and sweet tobacco smoke floated around her. She heard rustling nearby and felt gentle hands massaging the arches of her feet.

It was this languorous sensation that tempted her from the edges of her slumber. Genevieve blinked her eyes open and examined her surroundings. She was inside a tent, a tent whose sides collapsed and extended with the battering of the wind. In the corner, a strange collection of round stones radiated feeble waves of heat. A heavy deerskin blanket smothered her from the chin down. She pushed the soft, smoke-ripened leather away from her face and peered around the rest of the tent.

"Awake,
Taouistaouisse
?"

She saw his eyes first, gold and intense. He sat just inside the entrance to the tent, cross-legged, wrapped in a woolen blanket. Beneath the blanket his chest was bare. His beaded bag swung against the hollow of his chest as he kneaded her left foot.

"You've been out since yesterday afternoon." He ran his thumb over the pads of her toes. "I was beginning to think you'd sleep till All Saint's."

The foggy remnants of her languor skittered away as she remembered the terrible sucking of the rapids, the white blindness, the icy rolling, and the feel of the frigid water gorging her lungs. Genevieve sucked in a ragged breath and felt the soreness in her chest. She didn't dare move, for even lying still, she could feel the aches in her joints, the bruises on her skin, the sting of a hundred scratches.

His warm hand tightened around her ankle. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know." She swallowed dryly. "Am I?"

His hand gently traced the bone that ran over the top of her foot to her big toe. "You're safe now. Nothing's broken. Your legs and arms are scratched up, and you'll be blue with bruises for a few days."

She carefully wiggled her fingers and tested her limbs, wincing as pain shot through her body.

"Lie still, little bird."

She groaned as she tried to twist, and every muscle and joint screamed in complaint. "I feel like someone has spent the night scraping me against a washing board."

"Lie still."

His hair fell over his brow as he concentrated on her foot, rubbing the hollow behind her anklebone with his thumb, then digging his fingers gently into her arches. It felt good, the slow, soothing caresses, and she was reluctant to speak anymore, reluctant to distract him from his work, for the warmth of his touch seeped up her leg and eased some of the soreness in her muscles. She watched the way his hair fell over his face, the way his large-boned hands spread over her sole, the way his fingers found all the tense points between her toes and gently pressed them until she closed her eyes, easing into forgetful slumber.

"It was my fault."

Genevieve blinked open her eyes. She looked down at him, confused. His concentration remained on her feet.

"The rapids below the falls are dangerous." He put her left foot down and picked up the right, warming her toes in his palm. "But they're more unpredictable when the water is low. I wasn't paying attention." The blanket slipped off his shoulder, showing a long, strong clavicle and a deep hollow behind it. "My mind was on other things."

She remembered something, a flash of a memory, powerful and vivid. He stood at the stern of the canoe, soaked from head to toe, the white swath of the falls roaring behind him, his teeth bared in a reckless smile. His deerskin clung to the muscles of his chest and arms like a second skin. His hair was swept back from his face and his eyes were like molten gold upon her.

"I managed to climb on a rock in the white water after the canoe tipped. I saw The Duke save himself and the canoe, but I couldn't see you." His hands curled over her toes. "I swam the rapids myself, and I still couldn't find you."

Genevieve eased herself up on her elbows, watching the intensity of his features as he kneaded her foot.

She remembered when he had found her, but only vaguely, for it wasn't long after that that she had fallen into the darkness. She remembered the strength in his arms as he bore her up, the warmth of his chest as he held her tight against him. She remembered feeling safe. She remembered thinking that no man who caressed her like this could hate her, no man who held her with such desperation could wish her harm.

Strange thoughts. Born out of sentiment, she supposed, or out of the terror of the moment. She dismissed them. "I'm here. What difference—"

"If I had been a minute later, you'd be at the bottom of the Lake of the Hurons."

She shivered, with a cold that came from her heart, not from the chill air around them. For all her struggles in Paris, she'd never come so close to death before, had never felt its breath on her skin.

She shook off the feeling. "It was an accident."

"Do you believe that?" His eyes flickered up at her. "Or do you think I'm trying to send you to the Great Hunting Grounds before your time?"

She drew in a soft breath. The Great Hunting Grounds was The Duke's version of Heaven—the place beyond the sea where all departed spirits thrived, living on the souls of the animals they had killed during their lifetimes. She wondered why he'd think she'd suspect him of such a thing .. . and knew the answer even as the thought formed. Rose-Marie.

Something inside her reached out to him. How long would he torment himself with a past over which he had no control? How long would he look into her face and see the ghost of his dead wife? He must have loved that woman deeply, to hold on to such guilt for so long. The thought brought a new stab of jealousy.

"What's this?" She hated herself for the petulance in her voice. "Is the wolf feeling remorse?"

"You thought I had a scheme. You said as much before we left Montreal. I put you in danger. Intentionally."

"You warned me over and over about the dangers of this journey." Genevieve straightened to a sitting position, ignoring the pain shooting up to her shoulders. "It's a little late for a case of conscience—"

She cut herself off, for his hand had tightened over her foot like a vise. She looked down and realized the blankets had fallen to her waist, and she was naked. The pink tips of her breasts tightened into buds beneath his perusal.

Genevieve clutched the sagging deerskin, then crossed her arms over her chest.

"I tried to ease my conscience." His gaze slipped over the deerskin as if nothing covered her body. "When we made camp, I stripped off your clothes and hung them up to dry. I told myself I needed to tend to your cuts and bruises."

Her hair fell over her shoulders as she lowered her head. He had stripped her naked. "Indian women joined us at Allumette Island," she murmured, remembering the small canoes of the squaws, which had grown in number every day behind the flotilla. "You could have sent one of them to care for me."

"I wanted to do it. It was my fault you were so battered." His hand felt hot on her foot. "You have freckles on your thighs."

She drew in a sharp breath. "How gentlemanly of you to notice."

"I kissed them, Genevieve." His voice flowed over her like trickles of sand. "I was supposed to be tending your wounds. Instead, I followed the trail up your inner thigh. You moaned in your sleep."

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her thighs quivered like bowstrings. She probably had moaned. She probably had opened her legs wider, inviting him to explore more. For two weeks she had battled to suppress her desire for this man, since the day on Calumet Island, but her body stubbornly refused to listen to the dictates of her mind. Whatever else had happened between them, she could not deny this primitive, uncontrollable passion.

He leaned closer to her. His hand slipped up, under the covers, to caress the taut muscle of her calf. "You were in danger then, too,
Taouistaouisse
."

"Did ... did you . .."

"I wanted to." His fingernails dug into her calf. "I wanted to take you right there, while you lay beneath me. But I didn't. I want you awake when I make love to you. I want to see your eyes."

She could no longer feel the bruises and stinging welts that riddled her body. All she could feel was the hollow ache in her abdomen and his callused hands on the bare skin of her calves. He made no move to caress any higher than the tender hollow behind her knee, though she silently screamed for him to clutch her thighs, to lean forward just a little more and kiss her. . . . But Genevieve knew though he might be a ruthless, lustful, determined wolf, he had some scruples. He wouldn't take her unless she allowed him.

So here she was, in the very position she'd wanted to be in since she set out on this wretched voyage. But everything had changed that day on Calumet Island. She couldn't give herself to a man who promised her nothing in return but poverty and hardship. By sheer luck, she'd saved that one precious part of her, as the only treasure she truly had, to be given to the man who'd be her husband and protector. . . . She couldn't give it to a man who would, without second thought, abandon her in the middle of a forest hill of savages. Not to a man who wouldn't live up to his vows.

Even if he did give her blankets and leggings to keep her warm. Even if he did ride the rapids for her comfort, and then hold her in desperation when he pulled her out of the white water.

She couldn't give this part of herself to a man who didn't love her as, God help her, she loved him.

Her head throbbed. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was too confused to sort this all out, not now, when she had just awoken from her slumber, and his touch was making her weak and trembly. He shouldn't take advantage of her weakness, but she should expect no less from him.

"Damn it, Genevieve, you shouldn't look at a man like that."

He slid his hands down to her ankles, settling back with a growl of a sigh. When she opened her eyes, he'd reached between his legs and lifted up two pieces of buff-colored deerskin decorated with dyed porcupine quills.

"Here," he said gruffly. "You lost your moccasins in the river. I bought these from one of the squaws."

He yanked the whisper-soft material over her foot. She forced her voice not to quiver, not to show how close she'd come to succumbing. "Are we breaking camp?"

"Not yet." He slipped the second moccasin on her other foot. "The men spent yesterday afternoon patching the hole in the canoe with birch bark and caulking it watertight. It needs to dry well before it'll be ready for use. Tomorrow is soon enough to travel."

Her brows knitted. She'd been on this voyage long enough to know the rhythm of the campsite. If the canoe wasn't already watertight, she'd smell the pungent scent of heated spruce gum in the air, or she'd hear the voyageurs working upon it. But all she could hear was good-natured laughter, an occasional outraged shout, and the clatter of dice on stone.

He was lying to her.

"I'll bring you some sagamite. One of the men shot a deer yesterday, so there's fresh venison." He yanked the blanket down over her legs. "Your clothes should be dry by tomorrow. I'll get you some brandy."

Genevieve pulled her brows together more. He had jealously guarded their precious, illicit stores of brandy since the first day out of Lachine, when all the men were given a single ceremonial tote of the fiery liquid. He had driven the men onward in the worst of rains, even forcing them out on Lake Nipissing during a storm, and now he was allowing them to take a day off to rest, when their journey was far from over and the air seeping through the ragged edges of the tent was nippy with the threat of winter.

He's doing it for me
.

She watched him as he rearranged the heating stones with a stick, wondering if she'd ever understand the man who sliced deep wounds with one hand, then healed them with the gentle caress of the other.

"Andre . . ."

His name slipped through her lips without conscious thought, and a quiver warmed her body as he turned and fixed her with those molten golden eyes.

What am I doing?
Her breath rushed through her lips. She couldn't close her eyes. She couldn't block out the sight of him, tall and strong, his shaggy hair falling over his shoulders, his chest bare and hard . .. my husband.

No... not her husband yet, but a man torn between honor and his own passions; a man torn by guilt and the fear of making the same mistake twice; a man who kept pushing her away ... to protect her, perhaps? She didn't know. She couldn't think now, not with so much emotion muddling her senses.

She shouldn't feel like this—a woman like her— but she'd never felt like this before, and some secret part of her wondered if she ever would again. Some secret part of her whispered,
Love him. . . . Know what it is to love a man. Have a memory to hold against the others that still lurk in the shadows. . . . Purify me, Andre, baptize me.

"There must be ... a way." She bit her lower lip on the words, hating herself for not having the sense to keep quiet, for not listening to that instinct of self-preservation screaming in her head, for allowing herself to hope again. "For us to ... to prevent . . . complications. Like before. Isn't there?"