Chapter
3

Didn’t Ebenezer have anything better to do with his life than to spend it controlling every little thing she did?

Angelique turned her back on the man, feigning that she hadn’t noticed him poking his balding head out the back door of the tavern to check on her again.

She released a long breath and then sucked another one through her mouth, careful not to breathe in the stench. Cleaning the hen house was the dirtiest job in the world, and she’d thought she would get a break from Ebenezer’s constant supervision while doing the spring chore.

“Shoo now,” she scolded one of the hens attempting to enter the coop. “I don’t need you checking on me too.”

The hen squawked and fluttered, then finally strutted—as if seriously offended—outside into the fresh air and the yellowed matted grass that was slowly coming back to life.

Through the open doorway, Angelique counted the dozen hens and the rooster roaming the picketed yard. Beneath the smattering of lusterless feathers, the chickens lacked the plumpness and fullness they needed. The winter had been hard on the few animals left on the island—the few that had escaped butchering.

Thankfully the hens had continued to lay eggs, though not nearly as often as they should. She’d worked hard to ward off frostbite to the chickens’ thin bodies, rising early every morning to provide the extra light they needed for egg production in the dark Michigan winters. Yet even on a good day, she’d been lucky to gather ten eggs.

Angelique dug her shovel into the slimy muck that covered the floor beneath her boots. The dried maple leaves she’d laid out last fall had decomposed under the constant droppings of the birds and now only added to the filth and dust coating the hen house.

“If only the war would end soon,” she whispered.

She rested the shovel against the wall of the tiny shed Jean had helped her construct and reached for the bucket of muck.

And if only she’d married Jean before he’d had to leave the island.

Jean had been willing, had in fact preferred it so that he wouldn’t have to leave his mother on the farm alone.

But at the time she’d only been sixteen. And her stepfather, Ebenezer, had refused and then accused Jean of being a traitor for not signing the Oath of Allegiance to the British. It didn’t matter that Ebenezer had already made an agreement with Jean, that Jean had paid the exorbitant bride-price Ebenezer established.

In a matter of one day after the British invasion, Jean had become an enemy because of his unwillingness to compromise his American citizenship. Some of the islanders like Ebenezer had no qualms about switching their loyalty and supporting the British. They’d been allowed to keep their businesses and homes on the island. All the other American men had been deported.

In the two years Jean had been gone, they’d received several letters from him. He’d joined up with the American militia near Detroit and was helping to fight against the British to preserve the American independence that had been won thirty years ago.

Although Angelique didn’t really consider herself either British or American since her mother had been French Canadian and her father Scottish, she’d decided to side with the Americans for the sake of Jean and Miriam.

“Oh, why did Jean have to leave?” she whispered, lifting the bucket and lugging it across the hen house, through the door and into the bright sunlight that bathed the afternoon with glorious warmth.

She tried to conjure up the image of Jean—his gentle features and his fair skin and hair, so much like that of Miriam—but she caught only a glimpse of him before Pierre’s weather-bronzed face flashed into her mind, along with his handsome grin and the devilish mischief in his eyes.

She couldn’t deny that Pierre had always been the more handsome and dashing of the two brothers, that he’d been the one to capture her heart, to make her laugh even when she’d had nothing to laugh about, and to fill her with unexplainable longing.

“Pierre is a louse,” she said into the spring air, dragging in a fresh breath. “He’s a selfish louse. No, I don’t want to see him again. And no, I don’t miss him.”

But even as the words slipped out, she knew they weren’t true. One glimpse of Pierre yesterday had been all it had taken to unleash a swarm of eagerness for her erstwhile friend.

The back door of the inn squeaked open again, this time revealing Betty’s thin face. With a furtive glance over her shoulder into the kitchen, Betty opened the door wider and stepped outside.

Angelique hefted the bucket higher and moved toward the necessary.

Had Ebenezer sent Betty outside to check on her?

Out of the corner of her eye, Angelique could see the young woman put one hand on her protruding belly and one on the small of her back. She didn’t know how many weeks Betty had left before giving birth, but from the looks of it, the time was growing near.

“Ebenezer left,” Betty called after her.

Angelique stopped, surprise charging through her.

Betty’s shifting gray eyes kept returning to the open door, as if she expected Ebenezer to barge through at any moment. Not a single strand of Betty’s hair hung outside the plain white mobcap she wore. Her unadorned collar stretched high up her neck, and the hem of her skirt covered her feet all the way to the tips of her toes—just the way Ebenezer expected.

Angelique’s fingers went involuntarily to her own high collar.

Even if her life under Ebenezer’s care was oppressive, she couldn’t complain about his extreme standards for modesty. The plain, unattractive attire kept away unwanted attention on an island populated mostly by men. It also kept her from becoming anything like her mother.

And of course the high collar had kept Ebenezer from seeing the bruises around her neck. She could only imagine his anger if he’d discovered them. As it was, she kept waiting for the quartermaster to pay Ebenezer a visit and tell him that she was doing more than fishing during the early morning hours.

She prayed he’d been too drunk to remember the encounter.

“I saved an extra piece of bread for you,” Betty said.

Angelique hesitated, resisting the urge to press her hand against her aching stomach. “Why don’t you eat it?” Angelique said. “With the weight of your babe, you have much greater need of it than me.”

She didn’t think Betty was a day older than sixteen and seemed much too young for a man like Ebenezer. But after his last wife died in childbirth, he’d needed another woman to do his washing and cooking and to tend the customers who stayed at the inn. It was much cheaper to have a wife do those duties than to hire someone.

And it was much more convenient for satisfying his lusts.

Angelique cast her eyes away from Betty to the garden plot, to the rich dark soil she’d recently hoed and readied for planting.

She hated that her tiny dormer room rested above Ebenezer’s. And she hated that in the silence of the night she could hear his awful grunts as he sated himself. It had been that way with her own mother, and the next wife, and now with Betty.

If only Ebenezer could be completely satisfied with his wife. In the spring and summer after the Indians arrived on the island, she often caught him lurking down by their camps and on more than one occasion sneaking an Indian woman into his room.

Angelique’s head shot up.

Indians.

Had they returned to the island? Is that why Ebenezer had left the inn?

She dropped the bucket of muck to the ground and stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer over the cedar fence that surrounded the tavern plot. But the boards were too tall and blocked the view of the beach and the harbor.

“Have the ships come?” she asked.

Betty nodded. “Ebenezer just left for the beach. Now’s your chance to eat.”

“You have the bread. I insist.”

Angelique had given up hope of forming a friendship with Betty when she’d first come to the island as Ebenezer’s new bride. From the start, Betty had regarded her with suspicion and most of the time had met her attempts at conversation with silence. Even after Ebenezer had explained that Angelique was his adopted daughter, that he’d sworn to her mother to take care of her until she was married, Betty had still eyed Angelique with mistrust.

During the winter, when they’d both been hungry most of the time, Angelique had done her best to keep Betty’s growing belly full. And in return, Betty had often tried to sneak Angelique food, even when she’d had to miss, like that morning when Ebenezer had taken away her bread for arriving home a few minutes late.

But today, Angelique wouldn’t need the food, not with the ships arriving. Tonight the islanders would feast on the beach with the Indians. There would finally be enough food to sate their shriveled stomachs.

Unable to contain a smile, Angelique raced toward the back gate, dodging the hens, breathless anticipation giving her feet a new lightness.

As she stepped through the gate and rounded the tavern to Main Street, the air was charged with excitement. Homes and shop doors stood open and men poured out of the distillery and fur warehouse. The workday had come to a complete stop.

The road, which was nothing more than a dirt path along the shoreline, was bustling with townspeople rushing toward the docks, too anxious to take the time to prepare themselves properly. Splattered aprons, smudged cheeks, hatless, and even half dressed, the entire village spilled out onto the wide sandy shore to welcome the arrival of the British supply ships.

A few straggling soldiers were hurrying from the fort on the rise above the town. They tugged on their bedraggled coats and hats as they ran down the sloping path to join the others who’d gathered to greet the first arrivals and give a hand in unloading the long-awaited barrels and bags of provisions.

Angelique stood back a distance, especially when the doctor’s wife frowned and pinched her nose as she passed. Angelique knew she should have bathed first and rid herself of the horrid odor that permeated her clothes after spending half the day cleaning the hen house. But she couldn’t resist the pull to watch the new arrivals.

Two schooners docked in the bay, their large white sails billowing in the breeze. The sunlight glinted off the water, turning the sails into diamonds and the ships to royal jewels, making them sparkle against the cloudless blue sky.

Behind the schooners, the voyageurs were drawing closer in their canoes, wearing their bright red sashes and caps, wielding their colorful paddles that dipped into the water in unison. Their boisterous songs were faint but grew louder with each stroke.

Angelique’s smile widened. She could picture Pierre with his handsome smile and voice raised in a song, as he’d done so often in the past when they’d fished or swam together.

What were the chances Pierre was in one of the canoes?

Every spring she’d watched the canoes, searching for his familiar face, though she’d despised herself for doing so, for missing him, for wishing he’d return.

But how could she keep from missing him when he’d been such a good friend, like the brother she’d never had? Even if he had hurt her—hurt them all—with his leaving, there was no denying the gap his absence had left.

Jean had tried hard to fill the holes left from Pierre’s absence. He’d been extra sweet and had done all he could to help her forget about Pierre. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that Jean loved her, had probably always adored her in a way Pierre never had.

It had come as no surprise when Jean had finally asked her to marry him. He’d told her he would never leave her. He’d promised to stay on the island with her forever and assured her that she’d fall in love with him someday too.

Eventually she’d known she couldn’t resist his attention and his effort to win her any longer. And when he’d asked her to marry him for the fourth time, she’d told him yes.

She squinted against the glare and peered carefully at each canoe. The voyageurs were still too far away for her to distinguish any of them. But after the encounter with Pierre only yesterday, there was the very real chance that this year he’d actually be among the men returning to the island. And if he returned, this time she would make sure he knew who she was.

No. She ripped her attention away from the canoes and tried to focus instead on the silver waves slapping against the beach and the first gulls of spring that had gathered on the rocks, their sharp cries rising above the din of the gathered crowd.

What did she care if Pierre was among the voyageurs?

She’d much rather see what supplies the ships were bringing and get her first glimpse of the civilized visitors that would stay on the island for the summer.

Rowboats began to near the shore, bearing the first of those coming to the island from the schooners. The officer in charge of the fort, Captain Bullock, stood ahead of the other soldiers onshore, still managing to look smart in his uniform despite its hanging too loosely on his skeletal frame.

From her position behind the crowd in the tall sea grass, Angelique spotted the balding head of Ebenezer. He’d forgotten his hat, which meant he’d have to return to the tavern at some point in the afternoon to retrieve it.

But for the present she could take a few moments to watch the festivities without the worry of his censure.

It didn’t take long for the rowboats to arrive.

“There’s a new captain” came the murmurings. And finally the news filtered back to Angelique that it was Colonel Robert McDouall, a Scotsman, a veteran of eighteen years’ service in the British Army.

A Scotsman? She rose on her toes to get a better look.

Her father had come from Scotland, had talked with a brogue she’d loved and had a face full of bristly auburn hair that had tickled her whenever he hugged her, which hadn’t been often.

She didn’t remember much about him. But he had given her two things: her hair color and a love of the island.

He’d passionately loved Michilimackinac, had loved every rock formation, every tree, every beach, and every trail. And he’d loved his beautiful wife even more.

He’d adored her.

Only her mother hadn’t returned his love with quite the same fervor.

Painful memories still haunted Angelique. Her father’s heartbroken, gut-wrenching cries. Her mother’s pleading. The slamming of doors and crashing of crockery against the stone hearth.

If only her father hadn’t surprised them with a rare visit one winter. If only he’d stayed away until spring like he normally did.

Then he wouldn’t have discovered his French beauty in the arms of another man. Then he wouldn’t have rushed blindly away into an approaching winter storm. Then he wouldn’t have gotten hopelessly lost. . . .

A farmer near St. Ignace had discovered the body in the spring. Her father hadn’t been wearing his snowshoes, almost as if he’d given up, sat down, and decided to die.

Angelique had never been able to make up her mind which had killed her father first—his broken heart or the snowstorm. And she’d never been able to make up her mind who she blamed more for all the problems—her father for being a fur trader and leaving them every fall, or her mother for being so beautiful and unable to resist the attention men paid her.

Angelique pressed her hand over her chest to ward off the pain. She wouldn’t let the nightmares of the past trouble her today, not on a day meant for celebration, on a day that brought hope and life to their starving community.

Even though she wanted to stare at the approaching voyageurs, and even though everything within her tightened with the need to look again, to search for Pierre, she forced herself to look away, to find a diversion.

Her attention landed upon the woman standing behind the new captain who’d come ashore. The young lady’s features were too young and fresh to be the man’s wife. Maybe she was his daughter?

Her gown was much too fancy for the island. There were enough bows and ribbons to sew together and hoist into a sail for one of the ships. She wore a hat with enough feathers to attract a kingfisher looking for its mate. And she held an open parasol that threatened to carry her away with one gust of wind.

The young woman scanned the gathered islanders as if she were looking for someone. She skimmed over Angelique, but then just as rapidly her gaze jumped back. Her delicate eyebrows arched, and she studied Angelique, her eyes alight with interest and something else.

Was it pity? Did the woman feel sorry for her?

A whisper of embarrassment wafted over Angelique. She ducked her head and tried to move out of the line of vision of the newcomer.

She knew she was filthy, especially after her work in the hen house. But she didn’t mind. She figured if she kept herself plain and unattractive, that maybe she’d avoid suffering the same fate as her sister Therese.

So far, she’d survived. The townspeople didn’t notice her, except to occasionally acknowledge her as the “fish lass.”

She glanced again at the newly arrived young woman and, to her dismay, found herself still the object of the woman’s scrutiny. In fact, the lady had leaned toward Father Fontaine, the priest of St. Anne’s, and both of them were staring at Angelique. Father Fontaine was nodding in response to whatever the woman was saying.

A trickle of unease wound through Angelique. Just as she was turning to go, the boisterous voices of the voyageurs singing the song of Saint-Malo begged her to stay.

We’re going to glide on the water, water away.

On the isle, on the isle to play.

Did come sailing vessels fleet

Laden with oats and laden with wheat.

She hesitated, but then another glimpse over her shoulder at the young woman’s pitying gaze sent Angelique scurrying along the sandy path toward the tavern. Her heart thumped out a warning—a warning to avoid the pretty lady, that association with her would only lead to trouble.

Besides, she had no reason to linger on the beach to discover if Pierre had returned.

Jean was enough for her. He was all she needed.