This Side of Heaven (40 page)

“Surely you’re not feeling shy of me?” he asked, seeing her jump and flush.

“I want to wash.”

“So wash.”

He was not perfect, this man she loved. In fact, he was far from perfect. Insensitivity to certain finer points of gentlemanly behavior was one of his failings. But if he could school her in the art of loving, then she could tutor him in manners. It seemed a fair enough trade.

“I require a certain amount of privacy,” she said gently, and was not surprised when he looked at her with impatience.

“Is there something more of your person that I have yet to see?”

That was just the kind of response she had expected.

“Would you please just make yourself scarce for a bit?” Exasperation won out over gentle guidance, but then exasperation worked. Matt snorted as if at the folly of women, but—taking back his shirt, for which he exacted a forfeit from each of her breasts—he pulled on his clothes in a minimum amount of time, picked up his musket, and headed outside.

Keeping a wary eye on the wall of boughs, Caroline washed herself as thoroughly as she could, given the freezing conditions and inadequate facilities. From somewhere outside she heard Matt’s voice roaring a hymn, and for a moment she stopped what she was doing to listen, a tender smile curving her mouth. Then, as the sound stopped, she recovered her wits, found her clothes, and began to dress. She was sliding on her last shoe when the
boom!
of the musket being fired made her stiffen.

She hurried to look outside and found him striding
toward the shelter, the still-smoking musket in one hand and a freshly killed rabbit in the other. As he saw her, he grinned and raised the animal by its hind legs.

“Breakfast!” he said, and came inside for his knife. When he returned, in an amazingly short time, the carcass was skinned and cleaned and ready to be cooked.

“We’ll have a feast.” Caroline smiled at him as she relieved him of the meat, skewered it with a sharp stick, and propped it over the fire to roast. Matt shed his coat, washed his hands, and sluiced his face with the last of the water. He came up behind her to slide his arms around her waist. Standing, looking down with a frown at the juices that already dripped down to sizzle in the fire—would she do better to move the meat to a cooler part of the fire?—she was caught by surprise when his hands moved up to cover her breasts.

Instinctively she stiffened, and then, as he pressed his lips to the hollow beneath her ear, she relaxed. After a moment she turned in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and rewarding him with a lazy kiss.

Still, when she felt his hands start to unfasten the hooks at her back, she pulled a little away to frown at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off your clothes.”

“But I just got dressed!”

“And very fetching you look too. But I prefer you naked.”

Exactly how he meant to occupy the rest of the
morning burst over her like sunshine over the horizon. By this time her dress was unfastened to the waist, and he was tugging it off her shoulders.

“But it’s full day!”

The sincere dismay of her protest drew a grin from him even as he bared her breasts.

“ Twill make it all the better,” he told her, and, stripping both her and himself, tumbled her down again into their nest. Rolling her onto her back, he kissed her protests from her, then with hands and mouth and body demonstrated to her that the day was a very good time for what he had in mind after all.

It was much later when Caroline, awakening from a doze, smelled burning meat and bethought herself of the rabbit.

With a shriek she catapulted out of his arms.

“What the devil …?” Instantly alert to meet whatever threatened them, Matt jackknifed into a sitting position, the coverings falling away from his naked chest.

“ ’Tis burned!” Caroline moaned, rescuing the rabbit from its funeral pyre with a stick.

“So we’ll scrape away the burned part and eat what’s left.”

Unconscious of her nakedness in her distress, Caroline knelt and set the charred meat on a flat stone that jutted up from the floor just inside the entrance. To her annoyance, Matt began to grin, and then to laugh.

Then he was out of the covers and coming to fetch her.

“You are a constant source of joy to me, my poppet. Come back to bed.”

“But the rabbit …”

“Never mind the confounded rabbit. You’re naked, and it’s cold, and we’ve nothing else to do but spend the day pleasing ourselves. ‘Twill be awhile before we get another such chance.”

“Yes, but …”

Even as she mourned the rabbit, Matt picked her up in his arms and carried her back to their pallet. It was quite some time later before she had another chance to think of food.

But finally, as outside the shelter the shadows of the trees lengthened toward the river, she did get to eat. With Caroline wrapped in the fur coat and naught else—Matt had taken the lesser warmth of the Indian blanket over her protests—they sat together on the pallet and devoured the remnants of the bread and sausage and apples, washed down with more water melted in the empty rum bottle. Matt took a swig from the other bottle—just a swallow, no more—and then they stretched out side by side, her head on his shoulder, replete.

“What will people think, do you suppose?” The question had been nibbling like a troublesome mouse at the edges of her happiness for some time.

“Think of what?” He ran a lazy finger from one sated strawberry-tipped breast to the other.

“Of us. Being wed.”

“What should they think? ’Tis no concern of anyone save ourselves.”

“But you—-I—I’m not universally liked in the town, you know.”

“You’re not marrying the town.”

“True. But …”

“Ahoy the cave! Matt, is that you in there?” The hail from outside the shelter startled them both. Caroline gasped, scrambling to make herself as decent as she could with the coverings pulled to her nose, while Matt stiffened and sat up.

“ ’Tis Daniel, curse his black soul,” he said to her tightly, then raised his voice to bellow back an affirmative.

42

“G
et dressed.” Matt was already on his feet stepping into his breeches as Caroline, not needing his admonition, searched for her shift. Spying it before she did, Matt tossed it to her, and her petticoat and dress as well. Caroline yanked her shift over her head while Matt threw on his shirt.

“Matt!
Cooee!”
muffled imprecation followed this renewed shout. It sounded as if Daniel was encountering difficulty in getting to them, but giving it a good try.

“May the devil take you, little brother,” Matt muttered, trying to stomp his feet into his boots and button his shirt at the same time.

Caroline frantically tied the tapes of her petticoat about her waist and reached for her dress while Matt, minimally decent now, headed for the bough barrier to hold Daniel off.

“ ’Tis me, right enough,” she heard him say in a rather more sour tone than Daniel’s efforts on their behalf warranted.

“Praise the Lord! I feared that either Indians or the blizzard might have done for you, though I should have known better: you’re too blamed ugly to kill.”

If Matt responded to Daniel’s attempt at humor,
Caroline, who was in no position to see his face, couldn’t tell.

“Is Caroline with you?” Robert asked. She started, fastening her dress as best she could and pulling on her stockings, wondering all the while just how large the rescue party might be.

At the thought of emerging from their love nest to confront a gossipy throng, Caroline shrank inside. Though no one could know for a certainty exactly how she and Matt had passed the night, they would no doubt speculate uncomfortably close to the mark. Tying her garters and hastily dropping her skirts, Caroline felt like the veriest Jezebel.

“Aye.” There was something decidedly off-putting about Matt’s terse answer. “You made good time tracking us.”

“We did but follow the river, and then saw your smoke. Stand aside, brother. ’Tis confounded cold out here, and we could use a bit of the warmth from your fire.”

With a quick glance over his shoulder to assure himself that Caroline was presentable, Matt stepped back inside the shelter. Daniel followed almost immediately, and Robert came after him. Both men were dressed in long fur coats and wide-brimmed hats and boots, and they stomped the snow from their feet as they entered.

Caroline had just finished wrapping herself in the blanket, and knew that she was as well covered as she had ever been. Still she could not prevent the bright red flags that flew in her cheeks as Daniel and Robert, who had cast quick, comprehensive looks around the
small shelter, nodded at her. Daniel did not quite meet her eyes, while Robert’s held an amused glint.

“ ’Tis clear we worried and hurried for naught,” Robert said, spying the second jug of rum that Matt had set to warm. Going down on one knee beside the fire to uncork the jug and then hefting it high, Robert availed himself of a long swallow.

“I see you’ve all the comforts of home,” Daniel remarked, his eyes on the rumpled pallet even as Robert, with a nudge, passed him the jug.

Caroline could not have felt more ashamed if they had sewn the badge of an adulteress onto her breast.

“Caroline and I are to be wed,” Matt announced abruptly, his eyes moving from Caroline’s scarlet face to his brothers’ knowing ones.

“Wed!” Daniel sounded poleaxed, his gaze shooting from Matt to Caroline and fixing there.

“Wed! Well, by all that’s wonderful!” Robert’s reaction was more exuberant. He crossed to Matt and clapped his shoulder, then grinned at Caroline. “Are you sure you want to marry big brother here? He’s not my idea of a cozy armful!”

“Watch your mouth, Rob,” Matt growled as Daniel came forward at last to offer his brother his hand.

“I wish you happy, Matt,” Daniel said, his voice steady but his face pale. Caroline, watching as the two shook hands, felt a queer little pang in the region of her heart. There was so much love between them, among all the Mathiesons, in fact, that she wondered if she would ever get over the notion that despite Matt’s declaration, she was an outsider looking in.

“Thanks, Dan.” Matt’s face eased into a smile as he
cast a sideways glance at Caroline. “ ’Tis better to marry than to burn, you know, and I’ve been burning for better than half a year now.”

At that she stiffened indignantly, while the men exchanged hearty and very masculine guffaws.

“Did you fetch the doctor back from New London?” Matt was gathering their belongings together as he asked the question of Daniel. Watching him and then moving to help, Caroline realized with a quiver of sorrow that their sojourn away from the world was over.

Matt must have been thinking something along the same lines, because as he gathered up the makings of the pallet his eyes met hers. There was a gleam in them for her, and the sense of shared secrets heartened her. Whatever happened, she would have Matt.

“We brought him, and a learned man he is too. Which is fortunate, because we got home to discover half a dozen more stricken—and Mary ill.”

“Mary!” Caroline’s hand rose to her throat. Matt straightened and frowned. Daniel nodded grimly.

“Aye. She was not so sick as some, but I promised James I’d bring Caroline to her as soon as may be. He has already procured the services of the physician, but he is taking no chances with his wife.”

“We’d best be away then. You brought horses?” Matt pulled on his jerkin, settled his hat on his head, reached for his coat, and then, to Caroline’s surprise, settled the coat around her shoulders.

“You keep it. I’ll be perfectly fine with the blanket,” she protested, trying to shrug the garment off.

“Woman, if you are going to be forever arguing, I
foresee a stormy wedded life ahead.” Matt pushed her arms into the sleeves and came around in front of her to do up the fastenings. “I’ll have you know that I mean to be master in my own house. I will be obeyed, or you will face dire consequences.”

“Hoo!” Caroline said irreverently, but let herself be wrapped in fur to the chin.

“Lead him a dance, Caroline. Twill do him good to be brought down a peg or two,” said Robert, his eyes alight with amusement.

“I daresay she won’t make a particularly conformable wife,” Daniel put in more slowly, a frown corrugating his brow. The thought appeared to afford him some comfort, and as they kicked snow over the fire he seemed a degree more cheerful.

There were horses waiting, four of them knee-deep in the snow. Three of them were borrowed, Caroline thought, and the other was one of the two kept for riding purposes on the farm. The animals stomped their feet impatiently, rattling bridles and stirrups, as their breath crystallized in the air.

The snow came well up over the tops of Caroline’s shoes, which didn’t occur to her until she was ready to step into it. The men all had boots, and she was girding herself not to mind the icy slush when Matt, seeing her dilemma, came from behind her to scoop her up in his arms.

“I can …” she began even as he plodded into the snow with her.

“There you go again.” The words were grim, but his eyes teased her. Behind him, Robert burst into laughter,
while even Daniel, at Matt’s side, broke into a reluctant smile.

“I love you,” she mouthed at Matt where no one could see. His eyes sparked down at her in silent but satisfying answer, and his arms tightened around her, pulling her more firmly against his chest. Caroline clung to his shoulders, wishing she could kiss the stubbled jaw so close to her mouth. But, conscious of her audience, she was too shy.

At the last minute, Matt set his hat upon her head and tossed her up in the saddle before she could protest. Then he wrapped the blanket around himself, and the three men distributed their gear from the shelter among the horses. Caroline, watching them work together with a minimum of words but the kind of efficiency that comes from long and easy knowledge, smiled into the fur that tickled her lower lip and settled Matt’s ridiculously large hat lower on her brow.

The going was slow as the horses plodded through the snow, and the air grew increasingly chilly. Day turned into night, but the slender crescent moon reflecting off the thick blanket of snow lighted their way surprisingly well. The wind picked up, and from somewhere not too far away came the howling of wolves. Not one, but a pack, Caroline thought, shivering. The horses picked their way through the forest single file, with Daniel in front of her and Matt behind her. She was freezing, even with Matt’s hat and coat, and she knew that Matt must be in worse case. But there was no help for it but to persevere. If the cold was unbearable when they were moving, it was worse when they stopped, as they had to do occasionally to eat and rest.