Heaven in His Arms (32 page)

Love had changed her.

She gripped the railing of the stairs and climbed to the second floor. With each step, she steeled herself to feign bright joy for the three months that remained before Andre returned to the wilderness. She wondered how she was going to live without him in this tomb of a building, for months and months untold, how she was going to live with the lie that was herself.

She wondered, for the first time in her life, if she could really survive.

***

Genevieve pushed open the inn's wooden shutters. She winced as the blinding morning light poured in over the tangled linens. But for the warblers chirping among the plum blossoms, silence reigned in the street.

Finally.

All night, she and Andre had been serenaded with the shrieks and whoops of drunken Indians, the sounds of brawling men, the pounding of feet as people raced along the thoroughfare. The street below looked as if an army had marched through the mud, for footsteps had pummeled the dirt into a morass. Embedded in the sod were discarded breechcloths, caps, and other clothing, along with empty and broken bottles of brandy. Two voyageurs, looking worse for wear, snored below her window against the wall of the inn.

Madness reigned in Montreal. It seemed as if no one cared what murder or mayhem was being committed in the streets. Not once had she heard the voice of soldiers. Andre had told her that Montreal was always like this during the spring, when the
coureurs de bois
returned from the interior and Indians from distant tribes came to trade their furs. It made him even more short-tempered than he'd been at his father's house yesterday. She'd tried to ease his anxiety the only way she could: by kissing him, by making love to him.

Genevieve smiled as she found the empty tin of gooseberry jam on the floor beside the bed, a remnant of their loving of two nights ago. She tossed it in the pile of debris to be removed from the room. Startled, the pet beaver reared back from the tin and waddled to the cut-off barrel that stood in front of the blazing hearth. Climbing in, the creature rolled and frolicked in what was left of the cool bathwater. She and Andre had bathed in that barrel earlier this morning. Looking at it now, Genevieve wondered how they'd managed to fit into such a small space.

She flushed. She knew exactly how they had managed to fit. They had shared a desperate lovemaking, merged their two bodies into one, and then sank into the tepid river water.

She straightened from picking up the remnants of a loaf of bread, tossed the ends in the growing pile, and ran her hands over the velvet bodice and skirts. Her stomach was growling again. He had left only a few moments ago to find her some goose liver pate— if such a luxury could be found in this wilderness. She wanted him back already, tracing the fullness of her naked belly with eyes full of wonder and awe.

A knock on the door startled her. Andre would never knock, she thought, then realized that as he left, he had probably told the innkeeper to send someone up to remove the bath and clean up the room.

"Come on, beaver. You'll scare the devil out of whoever has to pour out this bath." Genevieve reached in and grasped the slippery creature in her hands, soaking her velvet in the process. He flattened his webbed feet against her as she walked toward the door and swung it open.

She stared, startled, at the group who greeted her. She had expected a couple of the innkeeper's boys, the same ones who had lugged the pails of steaming water up the stairs to her room this morning. Instead, she was faced with a soldier in full uniform, a woman swathed in a voluminous cloak, and a very officious-looking man in a blue satin doublet with scarlet ribbons around his knees and falling from his shoulders.

The beaver bared his orange-enameled teeth and hissed. The officious-looking man stepped back in surprise.

"He's a pet," Genevieve said quickly. She shifted the squirming bundle of beaver into the other arm. "May I help you, monsieur?"

His eyes never left the beaver. "Is your husband here?"

Genevieve hesitated, peering at the three. They didn't seem to be a threat, at least not physically. "He's not here at present, but he should be back any moment now. He's gone to find some breakfast."

The officious-looking man turned and held out his hand for the woman who stood in the shadows. She walked forward until she was standing directly in front of Genevieve.

"Tell us, mademoiselle." The officious-looking man gestured rudely to Genevieve and spoke to the woman. "Is this the woman we are looking for?"

The woman drew the edges of her hood back until it fell against her shoulders. Chestnut-colored hair tumbled in neat, well-coiffed curls on either side of her face. She lifted her lashes and her tear-filled eyes met Genevieve's stunned green gaze.

The beaver squealed in protest as Genevieve's arms tightened around him.

"Forgive me, Genevieve." A single tear spilled out of Marie Suzanne Duplessis's eyes. "Forgive me."

Andre clutched a small clay pot of goose liver pate and hastened toward the inn. It had taken him a full hour to convince the tavern owner's wife to part with the delicacy, and it had cost him two beaver pelts in the process. The truth was, he would have paid a king's ransom, anything to coax a smile to Genevieve's face.

She tried so valiantly to hide her feelings from him, but he knew the meaning of those long, unexpected silences, the hours she spent petting the beaver and staring off at the river. During the trip from Chequa-megon Bay, her spirits had sunk deeper and deeper the closer they came to the settlements. Even her infrequent laughter held a quiver, and her eyes brimmed with sadness. Over the weeks, he had discovered that there were only three ways to make Genevieve happy: tease her, feed her unusual cravings, or make love to her.

The situation tore him to pieces. He had considered bringing her back into the interior with him. He reasoned that childbirth was a natural process, that the Indian women could help her during the birth. Certainly the natives knew more about the birthing process than any French midwife, for in all his time in the woods, he had only known a handful of squaws who had died in childbirth, while in the same period, he had known of a dozen Frenchwomen who had died of the same in the settlements. The more he thought about it, the more possible it seemed. Then he remembered how Genevieve had suffered through the voyage from Chequamegon Bay, when her pregnancy had been only a gentle swell in her abdomen. She would never survive the voyage come fall. Furthermore, he could never ask her to take that risk.

She belonged in his father's house, seated behind the harp, strumming sweet music with white hands.

He tightened his grip on the jar of pate. Now was not the time to think of such things. They had the entire summer before them. Now was the time to store up memories, in preparation for the long, lonely winter.

Andre burst through the doors of the Sly Fox Inn. He kicked away broken chair legs and brandy bottles that littered the floor as he strode through the common room, then took the stairs two at a time. He heard someone call his name, but he ignored it; his wife and his child were hungry. Andre approached his room and pushed open the door.

"Genevieve?"

The cut-off barrel in which they had bathed still stood in the middle of the room. The beaver whined and waddled toward him, his chewed-off leash trailing behind him. The fire had died down to embers.

Genevieve was nowhere to be found.

"Monsieur, I tried to find you. ..."

Andre whirled around and glared at the innkeeper, who stood in the doorway, rubbing his hands nervously on his stained apron.

"Where is she?"

"They took her away."

"Was she ill?"

"No, no, monsieur."

"What is it, then?" His heart pounded. "Who took her away?"

"Monsieur Lelievre took her." The apron knotted more firmly in his hands. "He came just after you left and demanded to know which room she was in."

Andre clutched the innkeeper by the shoulders and heaved him up flat against the door. "Who the hell is Monsieur Lelievre?"

"The ... the sub-delegate to the Intendant." The innkeeper's voice emerged as a squeak. "Sweet Mother Mary, I couldn't stop him! He had a soldier with him."

"Where is she?"

"He said ... he said he'd be waiting for you." The innkeeper coughed as the neck of his shirt dug deep into his throat. "In the western fort."

***

Andre stepped over the body of the soldier he had just knocked down with a blow to the face. A chair fell as the barricade he had erected against the outside door began to crumble beneath the efforts of the soldiers on the other side. He ignored it and scanned the room, striding over to the only other portal, the door that had to lead to Lelievre's inner offices. He kicked the carved door open just as the barrier fell. A soldier cried for him to stop. Andre ignored him and entered the inner office. His glare riveted on the man in blue satin who calmly stood up behind a rosewood desk.

Andre stopped a few feet from the desk. His chest heaved and a rib twinged where one of the soldiers had struck him with the butt of his musket. He flexed his sore fists and felt a ribbon of blood drip down his temple and over his cheek. Glaring at the man in the shimmering satin, Andre saw the crimson ribbons falling from his shoulders, the pristine white lace at his throat, and debated whether to kill him outright or to make him suffer.

But first he needed to find Genevieve. It was that, and only that, that checked his bloodlust.

"Put your muskets down, men." Lelievre waved one beringed hand toward the soldiers who rushed in behind Andre. "I've been waiting for this man."

Andre's nostrils flared as he watched Lelievre walk to a side table with a marble top and calmly pour some brandy into two tankards.

"I was told you were once a soldier, Monsieur Lefebvre." The glass bottle clinked against the side of the pewter cups. "A good soldier would determine whether he could enter at will before he attempted a full-scale siege."

"Where's my wife?"

"Yes . . . your wife." Lelievre held out a tankard but Andre ignored it. He shrugged and placed it on his desk. "I suppose with such a goal in mind, a man doesn't think much of strategy. I trust there aren't too many casualties?"

Andre took one step forward. Behind him, muskets clicked into readiness.

"Monsieur, this situation is utterly distasteful as it is." Lelievre sat down in his chair and gestured to another on the other side of his desk. "It will be easier if you sit and let me tell you about the whole sordid affair."

"If you don't bring me my wife," Andre began, his voice deceptively quiet, "there's going to be one more casualty."

Monsieur Lelievre lifted a brow, and to Andre's rage, a ghost of a smile passed over his lips. "I've always found you
coureurs de bois
to have tempers that explode more quickly than saltpeter." He toyed with the curl of his long periwig and gestured again to the chair. "Dampen your powder. Violence won't help your wife, who is safe and in my custody. Now please. Sit."

Andre ignored the offer. He took two steps and laid his fingertips on the top of the rosewood desk. He heard the soldiers move restlessly behind him.

"I don't give a damn that six loaded muskets are aimed at my back." The words filtered through Andre's clenched teeth. "I don't give a damn that your chandelier is made of crystal or that you have the king's own brandy in that tankard. I don't give a damn who you are. If you don't tell me where my wife is and why you took her away, I shall rip your heart out through your throat even as your soldiers shoot me down."

Andre heard a quiet feminine gasp. He turned his head sharply. In the corner of the room sat a young woman in black clothing, her blue eyes wide with fear, her hand clamped over her mouth.

"Get her out of here." Andre pointed at the woman. "There's no need to shock her with the sight of your bloody innards."

"You don't understand." Monsieur Lelievre swallowed and pressed back in his chair. "You don't know who she is. . . ."

"I don't give a damn if she's the Queen of France."

"Tell him," Lelievre stuttered. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He looked at the girl. "Tell him your name."

Andre reached across the desk and crumbled a wisp of lace in his hand. He dragged the delegate up off his seat until he smelled the onions on the man's breath. The soldiers cried out sharply. Andre tensed, waiting for the slam of musket balls in the muscles of his back.

"Stop! No, please!" The girl leapt up and waved frantically at the soldiers. "Don't shoot, please!" She turned her frightened blue gaze on Andre. "Monsieur . . . you must listen. Please listen."

He glared at the woman. She hesitated, then shrank back and gripped the arm of her chair.

"Tell him," Lelievre implored, his voice hoarse and uneven.

"My name," she said, "is Marie Duplessis."

Andre frowned at her. "That's my wife's name."

"No." The woman dropped her gaze and fretted with her hands. "Your wife's name is . . . Genevieve Lalande."

Andre stared at her, as expressionless as an Iroquois. A memory returned, swift and vivid.

Don't call me Marie. There were a thousand Maries in the Salpetriere.

Then what shall I call you?

Call me . . . Genevieve.

He glared at the girl. She and Genevieve were the same height, but their coloring was completely different. This woman wore fine white gloves and a well-tailored dress of black wool. The toes of her expensive leather boots peeped out from beneath the hem of her skirts. Her hair was parted in the middle and hung in ringlets on either side of her face. Her skin looked as if it had never seen the kiss of the sun.

Disbelief roared in his ears. "What's the meaning of this?"

"If you would . . . kindly . . . release me," Lelievre said, his voice choked and dry, "I could explain everything."

Andre shoved the delegate back into his seat. Monsieur Lelievre coughed and readjusted the tightness of his cravat, then reached for the tankard he had offered to Andre and finished the contents in one gulp.

The woman sobbed quietly. Lelievre gestured to one of his soldiers and waved wordlessly at her. She glanced up in surprise as the soldier took her arm and began leading her out of the room. "No." Andre barked. "She stays."

"Please, monsieur, for decency's sake," the delegate murmured, "let the child leave."

"He must know the truth,'' the woman interrupted, between sobs. "Tell him everything. Everything."

"He will give me no choice."

Lelievre waited until the girl had disappeared through the doorway and her sobs could no longer be heard in the halls of the building. Then he pulled down the edges of his doublet, took a deep breath, and gestured to the opposite chair.

"It's a rather complicated story, Monsieur Lefebvre. Complicated and fantastic ..."

"You have five minutes." Andre glanced at the gilded, imported timepiece clicking above the mantelpiece. "Starting now."

After a shocked pause, he began swiftly. "I assure you that it is not in my nature to arrest a woman, especially to arrest her while her husband is away. In light of—he rubbed his reddened throat—"recent events, I believe I was wise to do so. I wanted to avoid a public scene, not for my sake, mind you, but for your own, and there's no longer a doubt in my mind that you would have fought to the death." The delegate gestured to the doorway. "That poor child is the real Marie Suzanne Duplessis, the woman you thought you married in Quebec this past fall. The woman in my custody—the woman you know as your wife—is named Genevieve Lalande."

Andre waited in stony silence.

"You see, there seems to have been an incident in Paris, at the Salpetriere, the charity house." He rushed on. "Both Marie Duplessis and Genevieve Lalande lived in that charity house, but in very different sections. Last year, when the king's girls were chosen, Marie Duplessis was one of them, Genevieve , Lalande was not. When the time came for the girls to be transferred to the ships, Mademoiselle Lalande took Mademoiselle Duplessis's place among the women of good family—with brute force." He waved to the empty doorway. "As you see, Mademoiselle Duplessis still hasn't recovered from it. She was kidnapped, tied up, forced to switch clothing—and then Mademoiselle Lalande took her place in New France. She married a man of your stature by using Mademoiselle Duplessis's own good name."

Call me Genevieve.

Andre's ears rang with shock. He stood, motionless, staring at the delegate. She had never said a word, never hinted at a secret identity. He thought of all those months in the hut on Lake Superior, when she had told him stories of her mother's harp and the hills in which she had grown up. How much were lies? How much was true? How much did he really know about the woman with whom he had fallen in love?

"You must be shocked, Monsieur Lefebvre, to discover that your wife is not a woman of quality." Lelievre raised his brows and looked down at his open hands. "It will shock you even more to know that Genevieve Lalande was one of the unfortunates of the institution. She was picked up on the streets of Paris, from a section of the city in which few innocent women dwell. She was put in the section of the Salpetriere reserved for—" he faltered, glanced up at Andre, then forged ahead, "for women of easy virtue."

Something snapped. Andre leaned over the desk. "My wife is no whore."

"Please!" The delegate raised his hands in defense. "I am only telling you what has been told to me by the Mother Superior of the institution. After so many months with the woman, you would know better than I the nature of her character."

He suddenly remembered the look on her face when he caught her with a goose in her hands, a goose she had just captured and killed. Everyone has secrets, Andre. He remembered her bartering with the Indian for a pair of moccasins, stowing away her old, muddy boots for future trading like a merchant's wife. He remembered her swearing like an angry voyageur in his cups. He remembered her insistence on having a home, her determination to survive the voyage into the interior at all costs. But most of all, he remembered the first night they made love, under the velvet autumn sky in the land of the Hurons, when he had taken her maidenhead and made her a woman.

She was no woman of easy virtue. He had taken her virginity that night, a virginity she must have battled hard to save if she once spent time on the streets of Paris. He wondered about everything she had kept secret from him; he wondered about her life before he had married her. Andre knew the delegate's story was true. The entire scheme smacked of Genevieve, for it was fantastic and risky, and she was so determined that it had almost succeeded. Why had she done it? What would drive her to spend the rest of her life masquerading as a petty noblewoman, in constant danger of discovery and imprisonment? Was her life in the Salpetriere so brutal? Was the chance to come to the New World her only hope?

Who are you, Genevieve?

The questions swarmed in his head. He searched for some sense in the madness. He wanted her here. He wanted to hold her and look into her eyes and ask her all the questions that raced in his head. There was more to this story than this petty official was telling him. There was a whole history he didn't know, and he wanted her to pour out her soul, to tell him everything she had been unable—or too afraid—to tell him before now.

Then he realized he didn't give a damn what her real name was. He didn't give a damn how she had found her way to him. He didn't give a damn how many years she had spent on the streets of Paris or what she had done to survive them.

She had survived. A woman such as Genevieve wouldn't throw herself overboard and take a child with her into death, for something as useless as honor. A woman such as this would fight to her last breath for one single moment more of life.

Genevieve was his wife. He loved her. He wanted her back.

Monsieur Lelievre stumbled onward, his voice an annoying drone. "... I wondered why you took her into the interior until two weeks ago, when the ship arrived carrying Marie Duplessis and orders from the authorities in Paris. I suppose your wife insisted on it; she must have known that we would catch up to her sooner or later. Unfortunately, it's obvious that your wife is well in the family way. No one could blame you. She was your wife and you were alone with her in the wilderness for a very long time. Normally, that would make it very difficult to obtain an annulment, but considering the circumstances, I'm sure we can arrange something. ..."

"There will be no annulment."

Monsieur Lelievre started in his chair. He looked up and faced Andre's steady glare. "I understand you are concerned about the child."

"She is my wife and she will stay my wife."

The delegate's brows rose high on his forehead, almost disappearing beneath the curls of his dark periwig. He spread his hands in his lap and shrugged. "If that is what you wish ..."

"I want her freed."

The delegate started. "I'm afraid that is not possible right now."

"Make it possible."

"Monsieur Lefebvre ..." The delegate straightened in his chair. "I'm sure you understand now that the situation is complicated. ..."

"It can be very simple, Lelievre."

"She took the place of a king's girl, and in the process put in question the reputation of every king's girl ever brought to these shores." Monsieur Lelievre shook his head. "The Crown doesn't take well to being fooled. They want her kept under guard until the case is heard by the courts."

Andre's eyes narrowed. He knew how this system worked. Nothing was impossible if a man were rich enough to pay for it. His gaze scanned the room, noticing the tric-trac board on a side table, the walnut commode, the Gobelin tapestries gracing the walls. This delegate didn't pay for these expensive trifles with his meager salary—he paid for them with furs.