This Side of Heaven (11 page)

The brisk wind raised chill bumps along her arms, and Caroline spent a useless moment regretting the loss of her cloak. She had no other; before the coming
of winter she must procure some cloth and make one. Or perhaps some of Elizabeth’s garments remained that she could make use of. Caroline felt a momentary pang for the loss of the sister she had barely known. Then she dismissed the emotion; never again, she reminded herself, would she look to the past.

As she walked along, she cast sideways glances at the forest that seemed far more menacing now that she was alone. Follow the stream, Matt had said. Well, she would, so long as that stream cut through cleared ground. Not for anything did she mean to venture alone into the woods. The Mathiesons could starve first!

Fortunately, the stream stayed in the open. Caroline hurried, trying not to start nervously at every unfamiliar sound. Her shoulders ached as the bucket and jug grew heavier with each step. The countryside was vast, the trees tall as mountains. Everything in this new world seemed bigger than its English counterpart! As she thought about that, Caroline pictured the well-muscled height of the Mathiesons and added silently, even the men.

Something moved in the forest. Something large, which seemed to be traveling parallel to her path. She caught the merest glimpse of it from the corner of her eye. Her head pivoted to her left, her eyes searching the leafy undergrowth. But now that she was looking at it directly, not a twig stirred.

Still, the movement had not come from her imagination. She was sure of that.

The weight of the bucket and jug ceased to bother her as she quickened her step. Constant quick glances
at the forest yielded the same results: nothing. Yet she could not rid herself of the notion that someone, or something, was watching her.

The stream led over a grassy knob. Caroline vowed that if she did not see the men from its top, she was heading back to the house. But the hideous thought occurred, would she be any safer then? Whatever was following her—if indeed something was—would in all likelihood turn around when she did.

Fear built inside her as she hurried up the knob. Her palms grew slippery with it even as her throat went dry. Gaining the top of the knob, she looked back over her shoulder—and found to her horror that something had, indeed, been watching her. Or, rather, someone.

A savage, naked except for a cloth swathing his loins and a few stripes of bright paint, stood beneath the overhanging trees. His skin was a deep clay color, his hair hung black and lank to his shoulders, and his face was as harsh as a hunting hawk’s. He was watching her intently, and even as Caroline registered his presence he began to move toward her, his swift stride graceful.

Caroline gaped, willing the apparition to be no more than a figment of her imagination. When he didn’t vanish, but instead kept coming toward her, she started to back away. The bucket slipped unnoticed from her hand and rolled clanking down the way she had come, spilling its contents as it went. The jug dropped too, with a heavy thud. It landed on its side in the tall grass, but, being stoppered, held on to its contents.

“Unnhh!” The man glared at her, gesturing fiercely
—and that was enough for Caroline. She raised both hands in fists to her mouth and screamed.

Behind her she heard a volley of shouts, and realized with devout thankfulness that the Mathiesons were somewhere close at hand. The savage heard too, and stopped as if undecided. Caroline screamed again, and turned to run. Even as she did so Raleigh hurtled past her, barking ferociously and flying toward the savage. The man took one look at the huge dog, turned on his heel, and fled.

“What the devil?” Despite his limp, it was Matt who reached her first. Whether he had been the closest or whether her obvious terror had spurred him to superhuman effort she had no idea. All she knew as she threw herself against his chest was that he was solid and safe and known and
there
, and that in her fright she needed him. She clung, gasping, unable to force out words, her face pressed into the hard warmth of his chest, her fingers wrapped in the soft linen of his shirt. Against her breasts she could feel the unyielding strength of him; her thighs pressed against the iron muscles of his legs. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of man—and then his arms, which had wrapped around her, instinctively, she thought, dropped. His hands came up to close over her elbows and thrust her back from him. The gesture was unnecessary. As soon as Caroline realized where her fright had put her, she was pulling away. A blush suffused her cheeks. Even as she colored up, her gaze met his.

For just a moment, as they looked at each other, the memory of the morning hung between them. Caroline’s eyes widened at what she again thought she read
in his. They were bright blue, blazing blue in the hard darkness of his face, restless eyes, wanting—and then, before she could be sure, or even respond with a shudder of distaste, they changed. Even as Robert and Thomas and Daniel thundered up beside them, the heat went out of the blue depths. They grew shuttered, cold, and distant, leaving Caroline to wonder if she had mistaken the brief flare of masculine awareness. Had she only imagined, out of her own oversensitivity to such matters, the hunger she thought she saw in his eyes?

“What happened?” Daniel demanded, panting. Matt’s hands released their grip on her elbows. Still shaken and unsure, Caroline pulled her eyes away from Matt’s to look at his brother.

“It was a savage,” she answered in an unsteady voice, pointing back toward where the man had stood. “He came out of the woods over there.”

“All that fuss over an Indian?” Robert said in a scathing tone. Caroline’s gaze slewed around to him, but before she could speak Thomas forestalled her with a shout.

“Our food!” he yelped, pointing back down the knob toward where only the apples and onions remained of her carefully prepared luncheon. Raleigh, an expression of what looked like utter delight on his face, was wolfing down a loaf of bread. Even as the men bellowed in unison, the dog gulped down that loaf and grabbed the second, shaking it free of its cloth.

“Drop it! Drop it, you mangy beast!”

All four men started running down the knob in instinctive response. Raleigh, sensing that his prize was
about to be stolen, raced into the woods with the loaf in his mouth and Robert and Thomas in shouting pursuit. Matt and Daniel, already perceiving their mission’s uselessness, had left off the chase a quarter of the way and halfway down the knob, respectively. Feeling somehow guilty—-although how anything that had happened could be laid at her door she didn’t know—Caroline watched as Matt, without so much as a glance at her, began to gather up the scattered apples and onions. The meat had apparently gone the way of the bread.

“It was truly a savage,” Caroline said, succumbing to the absurd urge to justify herself as Matt, arms full of reclaimed apples and onions, climbed up the knob again and stopped beside her, looking down into her upturned face.

“The Indians hereabouts are friendly, as a general rule. We even trade with them from time to time. Likely he wanted something, and your screams scared him off.” Matt’s expression was completely unreadable, but Caroline felt guiltier than ever. She also felt foolish, both for her panic over the savage (though it hadn’t seemed at all foolish at the time) and her feeling that Matt had experienced a bout of intense masculine interest in her person. He was as cool and remote as ever now, and she was sure that what she thought she had seen and recognized in him had been as much in her head as in his eyes.

“At least the ale didn’t suffer.” Daniel, ever cheerful, had picked up the jug and was hefting it aloft as he joined them.

“Wonderful. We’ll dine on apples and onions and
ale,” Robert said sourly as he, too, reclaimed the top of the knob with Thomas, who bore the now-empty bucket in his hand.

“Because she was afeared of an Indian.” Thomas’s voice dripped scorn.

“Because your ill-behaved dog ate the food intended for you, rather!” Caroline rounded on Thomas, arms akimbo.

“You can’t put the blame on Raleigh when ’twas you who dropped the bucket in the first place!”

“Oh, can’t I just? That beast may think himself fortunate if he does not end up in my stewpot!”

“Harm him, and …”

“Enough!” Matt roared, and Caroline winced at the sheer volume of the sound. But it silenced Thomas and the rest of them. “Apples and ale will do us until supper. We’ve passed many a day with less. Though ’twould be nice if you would keep in mind that we’ve had little in our stomachs today when you prepare the evening meal.”

This last, directed to Caroline, was a not too subtle reminder of the previous night’s shortcomings.

“Oh, I’ll prepare enough for the King’s entire army this time, you may be sure!”

“Cromwell’s, rather.” At that Matt smiled at her. It was a mere curve of his lips sparked by amusement, but her eyes widened at the sheer dazzling handsomeness it gave to his face. Roundhead or not, maddening or not, man or not, he was a gorgeous specimen. Had her heart not been permanently armored against men, it might be in grave danger from such as him.

“I’ll leave you to your meal, then,” she muttered, dragging her gaze away from him with an effort.

“Such as it is,” Thomas sniffed, even as Caroline started back down the hill.

“Caroline!” Daniel stopped her. She looked over her shoulder at him inquiringly. “If you’re afraid to walk home alone, I’ll be glad to accompany you.”

From the expressions on his brothers’ faces as they turned as one to stare at him, such an offer was going to earn Daniel a good deal of ridicule. The memory of the savage surfaced to scare Caroline a little, but Matt had said that he was harmless and she trusted Matt. Besides, she would be boiled in oil before she would admit to fear again before the unfeeling lot of them!

“Thank you for your kind offer, but I’m not afraid,” she said rather more shortly than the occasion warranted, and started off again.

“Caroline!” She had not gone half a dozen paces when she was stopped once more, this time by Matt.

“What now?” Turning, she frowned at him, surprised to see that he was coming down the knob toward her. Surely he was not going to be so chivalrous as to walk her home? Strange how her pulse quickened at the thought.

Her brows lifted at him as he stopped in front of her.

“Now that you have treated us all to a rare display of your bare ankles …” His voice was low, meant for her ears alone, and there was an undertone of anger to it that raised her hackles even before his words penetrated. “You might consider spending the afternoon in fashioning yourself some more seemly gowns.
The one you wore when you arrived was almost equally as revealing of your bosom.”

As the sense of what he was saying sank in, Caroline’s spine stiffened and her eyes flashed with indignation. “The other gown was too large, and I merely pinned the hem up on this one so that I could walk unencumbered!”

“Be that as it may”—he was unsmiling still—“here in Connecticut Colony we are accustomed to seeing our womenfolk more modestly dressed.”

Then, before Caroline could give voice to any of the many outraged replies that popped into her head, he turned on his heel and strode away to rejoin his brothers, who were already disappearing over the knob.

11

T
hat evening, after supper, their little group was, on the surface at least, pleasantly domestic in appearance. While Caroline scoured trenchers and cleaned the kitchen, fully aware of how ridiculous it was to take such satisfaction in so homely a task but enjoying it nonetheless, the boys sat at the table doing their homework by candlelight. John worked on what seemed to be a vast number of sums, while Davey labored mightily to write the alphabet. Daniel mended harnesses and Thomas sharpened blades. Robert had retrieved the treetrunk-size chunk of wood that had graced the front room on Caroline’s arrival, which she had promptly ordered Daniel to carry off to the barn. Now Robert was carving what he said would be a chair out of it, although it presently bore little resemblance to one, to Caroline’s thinking. Matt was outside, doing chores. He had taken himself off immediately after the meal was finished, and Caroline had not seen him since. She had spoken not a word to him since that last exchange on the hill, nor had he spoken to her. And she still wore the dress that provoked his ire. The whole time she dished up the meal, she silently flaunted it like a badge of independence. But if Matt
even noticed, he said nary a word. Having geared herself for battle, Caroline felt almost disappointed.

Now, as she sprinkled fresh sand on the floor, Caroline watched Davey. He had his lower lip caught firmly between his teeth as he strove to scratch out the letters in a fair hand. Beside him an overturned mug contained his newest possession, a small pond frog. Every few seconds he swept back the ragged edges of his bangs, as they hung down over his eyes and threatened to obscure his vision. She had already spent the afternoon in washing, mending, and ironing his and John’s clothes and was looking forward to viewing their much-improved appearance when they left for school on the morrow. The only thing lacking, she decided, was a haircut. She was bound and determined to remedy the lack.

“Whew!” Davey said at last, shoving the bench back in an exuberant gesture of release.

“You made me make a blot!” John glowered at his brother from across the table.

“All done?” Caroline asked brightly, having already assembled scissors, chair, and comb. Not unexpectedly, Davey didn’t favor her with a reply, but the way he skipped away from the table to join Daniel by the fire gave Caroline her answer.

“Good,” she continued, just as if the child had spoken. “Now we have time to trim your hair before you go to bed. And John’s too, of course.”

Both boys’ heads swiveled toward her as if pulled by invisible strings.

“What?” John asked, mouth agape, while Davey,
spying the waiting scissors and chair, reacted more vehemently.

“Don’t want no haircut!” He scowled at her and sidled strategically behind Daniel even as she beckoned to him.