Heaven in His Arms (34 page)

***

Genevieve stilled in the shadows of the shop as two drunken men staggered by, singing La Belle Lisette off-key and taking turns swigging from a bottle of brandy. It was nighttime in Montreal, and already the houses along Saint Paul Street trembled with the sounds of fighting and singing and swearing and drinking. The houses that weren't converted into dramshops had long bolted their shutters and locked their doors against the madness.

She stood alone, hidden under the eaves of a shop across the street from the Sly Fox Inn. The escape from Monsieur Lelievre's house had been easy. Swathed in the cloak as if weeping, she had left the shed while Marie pretended to be her, filling the air with some shockingly inventive curses. Genevieve had followed Marie's instructions to the letter, slipping calmly around the house and walking straight to the open gate of the redoubt, which enclosed a cluster of five or six buildings. The escape had gone without a snag, but the flight through the streets of Montreal was not as easy. There were so many drunken men wandering in the alleys that she was forced to escape into a small wooden chapel near the Hotel-Dieu until dark. Fortunately, a naked Indian had passed by, crazed with brandy, swinging his hatchet wildly, completely clearing the streets. Then she slipped out of the chapel and made her way carefully through the shadows to the inn.

She could tarry no longer. Soon she would be seen huddled against the wall, and besides, she didn't know how long it would take for the switch to be discovered. No matter how much she dreaded the confrontation to come, she had to face it now, or the opportunity would be lost to her forever.

Genevieve lifted her skirts and bolted out of the shadows, bursting into the inn. She scanned the common room, already filled with voyageurs drinking their fill of the inn's brandy. When she realized Andre wasn't there, she raced up the stairs before the men, startled by the sight of a woman, came out of their shock and called after her. For the first time, she wondered if Andre was even here. Genevieve barreled blindly through the dark hallway. She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her and she prayed Andre was here.

She didn't bother to knock. Gripping the handle of the door, she pushed it open and stumbled into the room. By the light of a half-dozen candles, she saw two men seated, with several bottles of brandy lying haphazardly on the floor between them.

Tiny whirled as she slammed the door behind her. He spit out a mouthful of brandy. "By the stones of Saint Peter!" With glazed eyes, he looked at the bottle in his hand and then at her, then at the beaver who rushed over to paw the hem of her dress. "What did that merchant put in this stuff?"

Andre didn't move. His elbows dug into his knees, his head sagged in his hands. His words shot out like bullets. "Tell him to leave the bottle and get out."

"If that's a he," Tiny slurred, "then I'm Saint Genevieve herself."

Andre lifted his head from his hands.

"Look at her, not at me!" Tiny released a body-shaking hiccup. "You've been drinking this swill, too."

Her eyes met his. A bolt of lightning couldn't have shook her more strongly than the sight of his face, brandy-ravished, tormented, so full of pain that it burned her heart to ashes.

She searched for words, her tongue and her courage failing her. What could she say to the man she had deceived, the man she had pursued until he had fallen in love with her and she with him?
Yes, yes, Andre. It's all true. I am a commoner, a liar, but I love you
. ... A hundred different words rushed to her tongue but stalled there, as she searched for a way to tell him, all at once, the fullness of her heart.

He rose to his feet, towering like a giant in the small room. The flickering candles threw strange shadows upon the walls. Even the beaver, sensing the tension, scuttled away from her.

When Andre spoke, his voice was hoarse and ragged. "Little bird?"

She pressed her hand against her chest, against the laces that strained to keep the edges of Marie's bodice closed over her breasts. Tears stung her eyes. "Oh, Andre . . ."

Suddenly, she was in his arms, her nose pressed up against the smoke-ripened deerskin of his shirt, his hand buried in her hair, his lips warm and moist on her temple. He smelled of cheap brandy but she didn't care. He slid a hand beneath her cloak and wound it around her waist, pulling her flat against his body. For a moment she pressed against him, speechless, reveling in the feeling of his strong arms around her. Then, like water rushing through a broken beaver dam, the words tumbled out of her mouth, without sense, without order, muffled against his shoulder, the only discernible meaning being that she never meant to hurt him, that she didn't want to lie to him, that she loved him.

"Guess you won't be needing these anymore.'' Tiny gathered the brandy bottles. They clanked against one another as he staggered past them, toward the door. "Maybe if I finish 'em, they'll conjure up an image like that for me."

He closed the door quietly behind him.

Through her tears, she gazed up at him. "After all this, you still want me?"

"Ah,
Taouistaouisse
." He ran a hand over her forehead and brushed the hair from her face. "How could you doubt it? I love you."

"But I lied to you. I told you I was something I wasn't—"

"I fell in love with the woman who journeyed to Chequamegon Bay with me—whatever her name."

"All day I've waited for you to come and see me," she continued, breathless, not daring to believe. "I was afraid you didn't want me anymore."

"They wouldn't let me see you." His brows lowered in anger. "Even after I sold my soul for your freedom."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't Lelievre tell you when he released you?"

"He didn't release me." She leaned back, showing him her clothes. "I escaped."

"Escaped?" Andre glanced at the black dress that fit so oddly on her figure. "Those are Marie Duplessis's clothes."

"Marie and I switched places again."

"Again? They told me you took her place by force in Paris."

"They lied. Marie warned me they would." She flattened her hands against his chest and looked up at him imploringly. "You must believe me. Marie and I switched places in the Salpetriere willingly. She ran off with the Musketeer she loved, and I took her place among the king's girls. Unfortunately . . . something happened and she was forced to return to the Salpetriere."

"And admit to the whole scheme."

"Yes." She dug her fingers into his shirt. "She hates it here. She brought me supper this evening, and she insisted we switch places again. She thinks that if she helps me escape, they'll ship her back to Paris." Genevieve lifted her hand and lightly traced the blood-encrusted lump on his forehead, just above his temple. "She told me she saw you this afternoon, battling through the fortress to get to Lelievre—and to me."

His arms tightened around her. "I would have killed the bastard if your fate hadn't been in his hands."

"So instead," she whispered, "you sold your soul for my freedom."

"Yes." His lips brushed hers. "Lelievre told me that the royal council in Quebec would send you back to Paris to face justice. I offered him everything I owned if he would set you free."

"All the furs?" She gripped his shoulders. "The whole winter's haul?"

"Everything. But it wasn't enough for him."

"Andre . . ."

"He made me another offer." Andre wound a shimmering claret-colored tress around one finger. "He told me that if I agreed to be the seigneur of a tract of land across the Saint Lawrence from Montreal, then he might be able to convince the authorities to release you. The land is in Iroquois country. It would be the first attacked if war broke out between the Iroquois and the French again."

"You did refuse," she insisted. His whiskey-colored gaze wandered over her face. She drew in a deep, ragged breath. "But you could never go out into the wilderness again."

"It was the only way to free you." Her body shook with a powerful tremor, her eyes locking with his. This was a sacrifice ... a sacrifice he had never before been willing to make ... a sacrifice that would cost him dearly. He would be paying for her freedom with his own.

"It will not be so bad." A teasing half-smile shaped his lips. "Now I won't be torn in half every year when. I leave for the interior."

A wave of guilt inundated her. Not only was he making the sacrifice, but he was doing it willingly, and he still didn't know the extent of her lies. He didn't know the full truth, not yet. She was not worthy of this sacrifice . . . not until the air was cleared between them. "Andre, there's so much you don't know about me."

"I will know everything, Genny. ..."

"There are secrets . . . secrets that even the people of the Salpetriere didn't know." The doubts assailed her again, for the truth was uglier than the lies he was told. "I'm not what you think. I've stolen. I've poached in royal forests. ..."

"Stealing to eat is no crime."

"I've picked pockets, and cut purses, and lied to priests and nuns."

"I don't care if you've committed murder."

"My mother was ... a courtesan."

"You have her passionate nature, then."

"I'm a bastard, Andre."

"Some people call me a bastard, too."

"I'm serious."

He tilted her chin up. "You are my Genevieve, my wife, the mother of my child. Nothing else matters."

"But . . . but I've done things ..."

"You did what you had to. It's a wonder you emerged from Paris with any innocence at all. You've survived." His eyes darkened with old memory, and a muscle flexed tight in his cheek. "You've survived.

This New World is not a place for the fainthearted, Genny. No man in all of Quebec has a finer wife than I."

She closed her eyes, thrilling at the feel of his rough lips upon hers, urging hers open. She tasted the brandy on his tongue. His hands roamed over her back, slipping below the open waistline of her skirt and clutching her to him through layers of linen. Joy filled her heart, and when the kiss ended, she looked up at him, basking in the love in his eyes.

"I would like to linger here," he murmured, his voice choked with desire. "But we've got to hide you before they discover you've escaped. Neither I nor Lelievre knew if the council would even agree to the terms I've committed myself to." His arms tightened around her. "Now that I have you, they must agree, or we'll disappear into the wilderness and they will lose a new settler as well as a woman wanted by the Crown."

"No."

"It won't come to that, Genevieve. . . ."

"That's not what I meant," she interrupted. "I meant... we don't have to take that offer."

Her eyes sparkled. The idea was so simple, so perfect. It was the answer to all her dreams. She could never allow him to till the soil and clear the land when his body and his soul belonged free and unfettered in the wilderness. Part of him would die, and part of her would die along with him. This way, they both could be free.

He kissed her forehead. "We have to. It is the only way you'll be freed."

"I'm free now." She spread her arms, arching slightly away from him, smiling up into his face. "I'm as free as a bird. To the west of this settlement stretches a great, big country. We can fly somewhere where they will never find us. We can fly right back to Chequamegon Bay."

Shock reverberated through his arms. His hand rounded her back and rested on the swell of her abdomen. "But it'll be dangerous. . . ."

"I'm no fainting aristocrat . . . you know that by now. I've survived worse than what this world can give me."

"I can't do that to you." His voice was hoarse but ribboned with hope. "You deserve a midwife, clean linens, a soft mattress ..."

"The Indians can help me birth our child. They've done it enough in the wild." She covered his hand with her own. "If we leave now, before I grow any bigger, and if we're slow and careful, then we'll be back on Lake Superior long before autumn."

He shook his head, more with disbelief than with denial, and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "All we'll have in the wilderness is a temporary hut, a tent of bark, or an open fire. You want more, woman, you deserve more."

"I don't want to live in your father's house. It's full of grief, it's full of pain, and if I live there alone, I'll just fill it with even more grief. Don't you see?" Her breath caught on a sob of joy. "I can't stay, you can't stay; we must escape together. It's the only way we'll both be free."

He searched her face. Hope sparked new color into his amber gaze.

"Let our roof be the open sky or a canopy of summer leaves—I don't care anymore. My home isn't between four walls. It took me a long time, but I understand that now." She slipped her hands around his neck, closed her eyes, and whispered against his lips. "My home, love, is wherever you roam."

Rainy Lake, May 1672

The male beaver chewed industriously on a fresh poplar branch as he basked in the sun near his lodge. Another beaver, the female, waddled along the shore of the shallow lake, with two tiny kits following in her wake. The male beaver started and stretched up on his hind legs, showing the full length of his dumpy body. His brown eyes fixed upon Genevieve, where she sat in the shadow of a small copse of firs.

"He sees us, Christian."

Genevieve glanced down at her breast. Her nine-month-old son was asleep, a trail of milk drying on his cheek. Easing him away from her, she lay him on the thick caribou pelt, making sure that the bright sun dappling the gray fur did not shine on his eyes. She was glad he was sleeping. Soon, she'd have to strap him into an Indian cradleboard and carry him on her back. He hated being confined on the flat, carved board, but it was the best way to carry him whenever she traveled. Today was the day they would leave Rainy Lake in order to set up another post on some other, more distant lake.

Genevieve glanced back at the beaver. He had returned to his work on the poplar branch. Though she hadn't held her pet in her arms for nearly a year, she knew that he still remembered her. If he had sensed any danger, he would have cried out a warning until the female and the kits were safe in the lodge.

Her pet had disappeared into the woods last year, only a few days after she, Andre, and a small group of men had arrived at this lake after nearly two weeks of travel from Chequamegon Bay. Since her pregnancy was advanced and a village of Cree Indians was nearby, Andre had decided to settle here for the winter and build a new post. The beaver had threatened to eat through every log they cut, so Andre never regretted his disappearance, but Genevieve had worried. Only a few months ago did they find him again, when Andre and two of his voyageurs discovered a beaver lodge and a family of beavers in this stream. For the first time, they realized her pet was a male, who had found himself a mate.

It was a testament to how far they had traveled into the wilderness, that a family of beavers could live unmolested within walking distance of a new fur trading post. Genevieve had taken them under her personal protection, spreading a rumor among the local Crees that these beaver were sacred and spoke to her in her dreams. She could only hope that after they left this lake, the Cree would remember her words and would leave her pet and his family unmolested.

She supposed it would always be like this. She, Andre, and their contingent of voyageurs would stay in a place long enough for her to know the hills and valleys, long enough for her to understand the new dialects of the natives, long enough to form a bond with the land, and then they would move on again, always westward. Genevieve had come here today to say her own private goodbyes, not just to her old pet, but to the land where her son had been born, to the lake that had given them water and fish, to the land that had given them berries and corn, and to the creatures that had given them meat. There was a sadness in the farewell, but it was mingled with a sense of hope and excitement.

"I knew I'd find you here."

Genevieve looked up and saw Andre striding through the trees. He had shaved his winter beard, and his teeth gleamed white and even. His tawny gaze slipped over her hair, then fell lower and clung. She realized she hadn't laced up her dress after breastfeeding their son and it gaped open.

She stood up, smiled, and made no move to hide her body from him. Her gaze fell upon the pouch at his waist. An idea struck her. "Do you have any tobacco?"

"Deciding to take up the pipe,
Taouistaouisse
?"

"No . . . this is for something else."

He opened the pouch, pulled out a twist, and cut off a hefty chunk for her. She curled her fingers over the leaves, then turned around and took two steps to the edge of the lake. She held the tobacco to her breast, then ceremoniously spread the leaves upon the waters.

When she had finished, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I'm glad there's no Jesuit to see you do that. He'd think you've turned heathen."

"Perhaps I have. It's been a long time since I've seen a black robe." She hugged his arms to her. "I suppose everyone is waiting for me."

"The men from Chequamegon Bay are anxious to leave. They've been too long without their Indian wives. They're waiting in their canoes to wish you farewell before they return to that post with our furs.

"And your men?"

"They're still packing up the merchandise brought up from Chequamegon Bay." He glanced at the beaver lodge. "Your pet seems to be doing well."

"Yes." She bit her lower lip. "I hope he doesn't return to us as a pelt."

"You've convinced the Crees you're some sort of medicine woman. No other tribe will hunt these grounds."

In silence, they watched the sun glitter on the shallow lake. They listened to the warblers singing in the boughs of the trees, and the nuzzling of squirrels and other rodents in the forest litter. In the distance, she heard the voices of the voyageurs as they worked by the wooden stockade. Genevieve glanced at their son, sleeping peacefully in the thick caribou pelt. She signed, breathing in the rich, fragrant air.

"It won't be so bad," he murmured. "The lake the Indians call Winnipeg is said to be full of fish and have fertile ground. ..."

"I know." She leaned back into his warmth. "That wasn't a sad sigh, it was a contented one."

"You'll miss this place."

"Of course I will. Christian was born here."

"Someday, he might return."

"It's more likely he'll follow his father, blazing trails westward."

"Yes," he laughed. "He'll do that. Maybe he'll find what eludes me."

"The China Sea?"

"Mmm."

"Perhaps he will."

She tightened her grip on his hands. He had taken several trips deep into the interior that winter and had discovered that the "Big Water" the Indians had told him about the winter before was nothing but a large lake. He wasn't disappointed, however, for he had soon found a mighty river that poured into the lake from the west, a river the Indians called Saskatchewan. She knew that this time next year, they would head up that river in search of the sea.

It was an enormous country. Still, she knew it could not be endless. Someday, they would find that sea. Someday, they would run out of land. She could only hope that she and Andre would be very old and very gray when that happened. She could no longer imagine a world where there were no more trails to blaze.

He slid his hand beneath the open edge of her deerskin dress to cup her breast. Her eyes fluttered open as he teased the peak into attention. His warm lips settled on the sensitive skin behind her ear.

She lifted her hand and buried her fingers in his hair. "The men are waiting for us. . . ."

"There's another ritual to perform before we go." With his free hand, he swept her hair out of his way and gently attacked the nape of her neck. "It's a way of christening a place and making it sacred."

Her laughter dissolved into a throaty moan as he picked her up and lay her against the caribou pelt, with their son sleeping fitfully nearby. Andre stripped her of her deerskin clothing and made long, leisurely love to her under the open sky.

Much later, Genevieve rose from her husband's side and dressed. She picked up her babe and held him against her breast, watching as Andre brushed the nettles from his hair and clothing.

"Come, love," he said, holding out his hand. "The world waits for us."

She took his hand. They walked westward, following a trail of sunshine.