Chapter Two

André stepped out of the inn and collided with a cartful of eels. Limp black fish lolled over the edge and licked his wide skirts, streaking them with slime. Waving the profuse apologies of the fisherman away, he wiped the stain with one gloved hand and then continued on through the mud.

He was wearing his best French outfit, an ensemble he had bought in Paris for the sole purpose of appearing in front of the officials responsible for holding back his inheritance. But the damned green coat fitted too tightly, the silver buttons were nothing but nuisances, and the seams dug into his skin and itched. The matching breeches strangled his legs at the knees, where they were gathered and gartered with a spray of emerald ribbons—the least feminine of his options at the time. He wanted nothing more than to toss his tight shoes, his wretched coat, and his damned breeches in the St. Lawrence River. Maybe the laundress wouldn’t be able to get the eel–slime stain out of the fabric, and he could do just that.

He splattered into the middle of the street, his red–heeled boots sucking into the mud, and continued his way toward Madame Jean Bourdon's house. A breeze wove through the buildings of the lower town, carrying the scent of a recent rain. The sun glittered off the towering granite mass of the Cap–aux–Diamants, the cliff that formed a backdrop to the town at its foot. Several warehouses nestled close to its base, and in and out of these flowed a line of settlers carrying the local currency—beaver skins—strapped across their backs. High above, in the upper town, the church bells rang for the first Mass of the day.

André clutched the medicine bag straining against the second and third buttons of his coat. He tugged on it so the ties dug into his neck. Damn Indian magic. A good Ojibwa shaman could read signs of a man's future in the wind and the weather, but André didn't need Indian wisdom to know what a blue sky and bright sun portended. It annoyed him that there was no rain, thunder, lightning.

He was a fool to believe in such things.

He knew which house belonged to Madame Bourdon the moment he turned the corner onto her street. A crowd of men swarmed around the door like bees scenting nectar. Several officers milled on the outskirts.

“André!”

André lifted his plumed, wide–brimmed hat to shade his eyes and saw sunlight glinting off Philippe's ridiculous curled wig.

“Look at this, will you?” André said as he approached. “It’s rutting season in Quebec.”

“Last batch of the king's girls for the year.” Philippe tucked his hat under his arm. “I'm pleased you finally came to your senses. I was sure I'd see you swinging by the neck before year's end.”

André glowered at the closed door to Madame Bourdon's house, and then he looked up the black cliff of Quebec toward the palisades of the upper city. Nearly two months he'd prepared for this voyage, and too frequently he'd come up against something—boatmen unwilling to sign on with him, merchants unwilling to accept his credit, provisions held in warehouses for “inspection,” bureaucrats turning away from the sight of gold gleaming beneath his hand. Now the first breath of autumn cooled the evenings, and every day another flotilla of canoes headed west as he watched on the shore, thrashing inside like a mountain cat trying to find a way out of a trap.

“You've done the right thing,” Philippe said. “Marriage, even a reluctant one, can have its benefits, hmm?”

“Not this marriage.”

“Come, come, old friend.” Philippe tapped his wooden cane into the mud, clinking on a block of stone beneath. “A warm bed, a willing woman. Such things I've never known you to turn away.”

“This will be a marriage of convenience only.” André slapped his hat over his dark wig, snapping one of the ostrich plumes in the process. “When I come back in the spring, I'm getting an annulment.”

“André—”

“I'm in no mood to hear you rhapsodize about the wonders of the conjugal bed.” André rubbed his elbow against his side to scratch an itch. “I'm marrying because I have no choice. I’ll marry for now. But there's no requirement that I stay married.”

A murmuring began among the crowd as the door to Madame Bourdon's house cracked open. André pushed forward, and soon they were all herded into a ragged line.

Philippe said, “In rather a hurry, André, for a man doomed to a frustrating wedding night.”

“The sooner this is done, the sooner you'll get me my fur trading license, the sooner I can be off.”

“Marietta will be disappointed.” Philippe used his cane as a barrier, eyeing anyone who dared consider cutting in on them. “There are few enough educated women in Quebec who aren’t nuns. She was looking forward to getting to know another King’s girl.”

“She'll get her heart's desire. Did you think I summoned you here just to be a witness?”

Philippe's blue eyes narrowed, and not against the glare of the morning sun.

“You’re getting a governess for the winter, old friend. You did say you needed good help.”

“You dog.” Philippe hefted up his cane to grip it in the middle. “I should have known you'd be up to something—”

“Now, now. Marietta is heavy with child. She'll need help with your three young ones when the new baby is born, yes?”

“You didn't think of asking me or Marietta first?”

“You do want me to go west and bring back a harvest of beaver like you've never seen before?”

“It's the beaver that you're leaving in my house that I'm concerned about.”

Philippe turned his back to the building and gazed over the black waters of the St. Lawrence, frowning. A team of oxen lumbered by, strapped to a cart laden with ribbed green watermelons, fresh from the farm. One fell off and splattered into the mud, spewing its fruit over the ground.

“Marietta could use the help, I suppose,” Philippe finally said. “But I’d rather you reconsider this annulment idea—”

“No consummation, no marriage.”

Philippe reached into his pocket and pulled out a circular gold case, which he snapped open with a click. He pinched out a puff of powder and pressed it against a nostril as he snorted it in. He was as expressionless as an Iroquois chief, the bastard, but André felt the disapproval coming off him as they inched closer toward the door.

Just inside, Madame Bourdon, an imposing woman dressed entirely in black, met them. She reminded André of a pursed–lip nun who'd tormented him as a schoolboy in Aix–en–Provence.

She said, “Your name, monsieur?”

“André Lefebvre.” He gestured to a stone–faced Philippe. “My friend only came to leer.”

“It has been some time, Monsieur Martineau.” The woman nodded to Philippe. “It doesn't seem that long ago that your wife was housed here as a king's girl. How is she?”

“She's well and expecting another child.”

Philippe puffed out his chest whenever he uttered those words, as if he had succeeded at some feat never before accomplished. In André’s opinion, it was the prevention of conception that was the trickier task.

“Send her my regards.” Madame Bourdon turned her attention back to André and raised a quill over a yellowed book. “Monsieur Lefebvre, what is your means of livelihood?”

André told her he was a fur trader, and that he owned some land outside of Montreal that had once belonged to his father but had been neglected for several years. He told her that during the course of the next year his wife would be housed with the Martineau family. Madame Bourdon's nod was noncommittal. Philippe then interrupted to inform her that André's father had been a Parliamentarian in Aix–en–Provence and that André had just returned to France after collecting his inheritance.

Her demeanor changed entirely.

“If I had known, monsieur, that you came from such an esteemed family, I would have made sure you did not have to wait among the others.” With a flutter of hands, she motioned for one of her domestics. “We have an exclusive group of women set aside especially for men like you. Well–bred women. Women of good family, who will grace your home with their charm and education.”

That was about the last thing he wanted from a wife, but before he could say anything, Philippe nudged him to follow the servant down the hall. They passed a room milling with young women in common dress, and then continued on up a narrow flight of stairs. Midway, André turned to Philippe and muttered, “You left a few things out of my biography.”

“Nothing of note.”

“You forgot to tell the good Madame that I've already spent my inheritance.”

“You'll be a rich man soon enough.”

“You also neglected to tell her that my father was a rebel Parliamentarian, exiled here during the wars of the Fronde.”

“That was decades ago,” Philippe argued, waving the detail away like a gnat. “Besides, it wasn't your father's money you were claiming, it was your brother Leonard's.”

“You know damned well that Leonard's money was my father's money. My father hid it amid Leonard's affairs.”

“Details.”

“Those details kept me tied up in the royal courts for years.”

“I don't think it's necessary for Madame Bourdon to know that you came from a family full of rebels. Leonard appeared to be a good royalist, and it is all ancient history now.” Philippe frowned. “Clearly I must take charge of this issue of choosing you a wife. All you need is a fur trading license, but I'm getting a governess for my children. I don’t want some broad–beamed dullard.” Philippe bowed mockingly before the open door, allowing André to precede him inside. “Of course, if she has any intelligence, she won't marry you, so we'll just have to settle for good manners.”

The servant ushered them into a bright room facing the St. Lawrence on the second floor of the three–story house. As he and Philippe entered, a dozen women turned, fans fluttering like butterfly wings. André could guess their ranking by the richness of the ribbons and the quality of their dresses.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Choose one as a soldier chooses his mark?”

“You have an open field, soldier.” Philippe nodded a greeting to the one other man in the room, an aging officer of the Carignan–Salières regiment, who had fought in the Iroquois wars. “Any woman in this room would rather marry a fine buck like you than that aging stag.”

“They'd be better off with the aging stag. At least he'll be home to rut.”

“Don't choose the prettiest one.” Philippe swept off his hat and bowed to a nearby woman. “If I bring home a beauty, Marietta will cut off my balls.”

André pulled on his cravat as the scent of Parisian perfume wafted from the petticoats of a woman who’d wandered closer. She snapped her fan closed to reveal a tightly boned bodice and wide, shoulder–to–shoulder décolletage. His fingers itched to pinch one of those fleshy mounds. Certainly such an act would be allowed in this market. After all, one wouldn't take home a soft melon, would one?

“I am Renee,” she breathed, bouncing in a curtsy, “recently from La Rochelle.”

He bowed and felt his coat strain across his shoulders. “Monsieur Lefebvre.”

“What sort of position do you have here in Quebec, Monsieur Lefebvre?”

Currently, an extremely uncomfortable one.

Philippe intervened, “My friend here is my partner in a fur trading venture.”

“How romantic.” A second woman swept to his side and slid her hand up his forearm. She smiled at him like a doxy at the Marseilles harbor, all wet lips and shining eyes. “I've heard so much about men like you. Do you bring home many furs? Marten, mink?”

“Beaver.”

“Yes,” Philippe murmured, “today he may surprise us with a live one, I think.”

“Oh, I so much love mink. I had a muff of mink when I was in Rouen—”

“I understand that fur traders spend a great deal of time in the wilderness,” Renee interrupted. “The whole winter sometimes. Is that true of you, Monsieur Lefebvre?”

He met a half–dozen pairs of eyes, realizing that they’d gathered and now all awaited his answer. Such white creatures, these Frenchwomen, all perfume and narrow shoulders, all pinched nostrils and fair curls and delicate satins. They looked like exotic butterflies trapped in a jar, imported here and totally ignorant of the harshness of the environment outside the glass.

Doomed creatures, too soft for this new world.

His throat tightened. “I’m rarely in Quebec,” he said. “And my house is a ramshackle bit of timber and moss that hasn’t been lived in in years.”

The circle of women around them raised a collective, muffled sigh. They dispersed as Philippe elbowed him in the ribs.

But one woman was unmoved by his admission, the woman with the gleaming smile. She pressed her breast against his side. She was not a pretty woman, but she had an earthiness about her that in another situation André would have exploited to their mutual satisfaction. Instinct told him that this woman was too aggressive, that the wedding night would be a battle between sheets.

He needed a quiet woman, a shy one, a meek one. He raised his head from those fleshy mounds and looked over the room. Several girls stood on the periphery, avoiding his gaze. Farther away, in a corner, he saw three women huddled together, ignoring the presence of the men entirely.

Excusing himself with as much grace as possible, André approached the threesome. They talked among themselves until he cleared his throat. The three turned at the same time. One, a blonde with a spray of curls pinned on either side of her head, flushed as her gaze met his. She lowered her lashes. Not her, he thought. Too young, too green. Needs more time on the vine. Besides, Marietta would unman him with her sharp Italian knife if he sent this fair young beauty into her home.

A pitiful, retching string of coughs erupted from behind the ladies' skirts.

He said, “What in God's name—”

“She's ailing, monsieur.” The blonde twisted her fingers together. “We only arrived in Quebec hours ago and there's been no time to take her to the Hotel–Dieu.”

The bright skirts parted to reveal a tiny woman curled up on a chair. Lank hair, darkened with perspiration, dripped from beneath ragged linen. She blindly grabbed the dry handkerchief André held out for her as she dropped a sodden one to the floor. She yanked a blanket around her as she collapsed into a new fit of coughing.

He took a step back. Every year about this time, the ships from France unloaded a whole new crop of diseases into the colony. Only God knew the cause of this poor woman's suffering. Her forehead gleamed with fever, and dark circles dug caverns beneath her eyes. Above the drooping edge of the blanket her collarbone jutted beneath translucent skin. She was hacking out her life in his linen handkerchief, and the effort sent tremors through her body.

He said, “She shouldn't be here.”

“There are no more beds, monsieur. So many girls are more ill than she that they've claimed all the beds upstairs.” The blonde shrugged prettily. “Marie will recover soon, I'm sure. She is strong. She tended me when I was sick aboard ship.”

The vice around his throat tightened. What had the officials in Paris been thinking? New France was a country only for the hardiest stock, and this chit looked as fragile and limp as a garden flower. He'd wager a barrel of brandy she'd be the first butterfly to die in New France.

Then a thought came to him. A terrible, wicked, brilliant thought.

“By God,” Philippe murmured as he returned to André’s side. “The last time I saw a look like that on your face, I spent three days in jail.”

“You haven't got your heart set on a governess, have you?”

“Scarcely.”

“Good. I’ve made my choice.”

Philippe glanced at the three women standing before them. The blonde flushed and a spark of alarm lit Philippe's eyes. “What the devil are you up to, André?”

He didn’t answer, too busy waving down a domestic. When the servant arrived, he pointed to the woman curled up on the chair. “Tell Madame Bourdon that I will marry …” He glanced at the pretty blonde for help.

“Duplessis, monsieur.” The blonde lowered her lashes. “My friend’s name is Marie Duplessis.”

***

“There you are!”

Genevieve woke from her doze. She blinked her eyes open and stared up at the branches of an apple tree, starting as a bird flew from its perch with a flurry of wings. All vestiges of sleep fled. She straightened on the wooden bench as she glimpsed, through the fence of knotted tree trunks, a flutter of gray robes.

Her hiding place had been discovered.

“Merde!”

One of the hospital sisters barreled toward her, and by the nun's determined stride, Genevieve knew the nun would try to take her back into the hospital. She grasped the edge of the bench and searched for escape. Behind her, the logs of a cedar palisade blocked her retreat. In front of her, the nun strode closer. She grasped the red woolen shawl that lay twisted about her hips and stood up. It was too late. She'd have to face the sister and the battle she knew would ensue.

For four days she had lain in the crowded hall of the hospital while the sisters tended her in her illness. Although fresh food, cool water, and sleep proved enough medicine to break her fever, the sisters insisted she remain in the hospital until she fully regained her strength. Genevieve wanted only to leave. She didn't trust her long stretch of luck, and she didn't want to tempt fate any longer by lingering. This hospital reminded her of the dreaded Hotel–Dieu in Paris, where once she had been forced to spend several weeks recovering from smallpox. It was a place of death, and now that she had made it to Quebec, she was determined to live.

The nun halted in front of her. She planted her hands on her formidable hips. “Marie, we've been looking for you all morning.”

“I needed the air, Sister Ignatia.” Genevieve made a show of inhaling. “It's the first breath of fresh air I've had since I left Le Havre.”

“Do you have any idea what diseases come with the autumn winds in Quebec? And you out here in nothing but a shift!”

“There's no one here to see me.”

“I'm not concerned about your modesty, I'm worried about your health.”

“There are more diseases in that hall,” she said, nodding toward the building. “I don't want to catch whatever my two bedmates are suffering from.”

“Then listen to the woman who changed your bedding and fed you broth and wiped you down during your fever. Come inside.”

Genevieve dug her heels into the brown grass. “The sunshine is reviving me.”

“A sharp tongue and a stubborn disposition is no measure of health. The color of your cheeks says you've still got a fever.”

“The color of my cheeks is from the sun.”

Sister Ignatia folded her arms. “I wouldn't have bothered looking for you, you insolent girl, if our Reverend Mother hadn't summoned you.”

Genevieve startled. For two days she'd been insisting on seeing Mother Superior, ever since her fever broke. Only the Reverend Mother would have the power to release her over the protestations of the sisters.

“Yes,” the nun said to Genevieve’s unspoken query. “Mother Superior has agreed to see you. She's been waiting all this time while you lolled in the sun.”

Genevieve brushed past the nun and raced down a row of trees toward the side entrance of the Hotel–Dieu. She grasped the handle and pulled the door open, holding her breath as she was assaulted by a wave of stink. She plunged into the room. The door slammed closed behind her and the sound echoed off the stone walls, mingling with the endless wails and coughs and moans of the ailing. Genevieve strode through the two rows of straw–filled mattresses, crossing herself as she passed a priest in black robes administering last rites to one of the dying. The scent of incense lingered in the air, not quite strong enough to overwhelm the odor that reeked from the floorboards.

At the end of her pallet lay the battered woven case and the blanket given to her as part of the king's dowry. She tossed her red shawl over the dirty limbs poking out beneath the woolen coverlet, fell to her knees, and untied the rope that held her case closed. She yanked out the best of Marie's clothing—a pale pink bodice and matching broadcloth skirt. With swift fingers she slipped the skirt on over her shift and thrust her arms through the sleeves of the boned bodice. She'd lost weight, yes, more than she'd expected, for the dress fit her far better than it ever had. She laced up the straight front and tucked the ends beneath the beribboned edge of her bodice. With the help of Sister Ignatia, who suddenly hovered behind her, Genevieve tied the linen sleeves of her shift with pink ribbons, creating three soft folds. She shook out a head scarf of fine linen and draped it over her bare shoulders, tying it just above the edge of her bodice in front. Then, searching through a smaller woven basket, she found a few precious hairpins. She brushed her hair and coiled it into a roll at the base of her neck.

“Enough of vanity,” Sister Ignatia said. “Come, come, our Reverend Mother is waiting.”

“I’m coming.” Genevieve tossed her brush back into her woven case and she glimpsed a wadded ball of linen. It was not part of Marie's belongings, nor had it been given to her as part of her dowry from the king. It was the handkerchief given to her on the wedding day she could barely remember, by a husband she didn't know.

André Lefebvre.

His name was all she knew of him. Mother Superior must have finally received a message from him, that’s why she’d sent for her. She swiftly pulled on stockings, gartered them, and stepped into her boots to follow an impatient Sister Ignatia through the hall.

Mother Marie de Saint–Bonaventure–de–Jesus squinted up from her task of writing as Genevieve was ushered into her office. The Reverend Mother's gaze rested on her for a moment, then returned to the paper. Genevieve stood just inside the doorway and remembered enough of the nuns at the Salpêtrière to keep quiet until spoken to. A row of high–backed chairs lined the wall. Lace draped the edge of a small window, which afforded a view of the orchards, and sunlight splashed over Mother Superior's polished and paper–cluttered desk. A fire raged high in the grate. A mountain of cut wood lay next to the hearth.

“You are late.”

The elderly woman's face was as white as the cap of her order. “Forgive me, Mother Superior. I was walking in the orchards and didn't know you summoned me.”

“Come closer.”

She approached the desk. She felt the nun's perusal as her gaze swept from the dishevelment of her hair to the dark leather boots peeping out, unlaced, from beneath her skirt.

“You are healthier than Sister Ignatia led me to believe.”

“I am fully recovered.”

“So the patient has become the nurse, has she?” A smile softened the lines of her face. “You gave the sisters a fright by disappearing from your pallet.”

“Forgive me, Mother, but there's hardly enough room for me in it anymore.”

“The ships have brought much disease this year. Soon we're going to have to house the sick in the church.”

“Which is why I wanted to see you. I would like to offer my pallet to someone who needs it more.”

“Sister Ignatia told me you should stay three or four more days to regain your strength.”

“I can regain my strength just as well in my husband's house.”

“Child, a sickly wife is useless to a man.”

“Do I look sickly, Reverend Mother?”

“Sister Ignatia has been a sister in this hospital for years, and she knows what is best for you.” Mother Superior leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her belly. “You're a king's girl, aren't you?”

“Yes, from Paris.”

“So you don't know the rigors of setting up a household in this settlement.”

“There can't be much rigor in setting up my household.” Genevieve remembered the fine embroidery that edged the handkerchief her husband had given her. “My husband, André Lefebvre, is a man of means.”

The Reverend Mother puckered her forehead in thought. “His name is unfamiliar to me.”

“Certainly he must have sent several inquiries by now.”

“I've received no messages for any of the girls.” At the sight of Genevieve's stunned expression, the nun added, “It's harvest time, my dear. The men of the colony are working their fields or catching the season's eels. Your husband is undoubtedly too busy preparing for winter to send a message.”

“My husband is not a farmer or a fisherman.”

“Wealthy men must prepare for winter as well. The last ships are leaving for France, and accounts must be settled, letters must be written.”

Four days had passed since her marriage, four days and not a word? “Perhaps if you let me send a message to him—”

“Sister Ignatia warned me that you were stubborn.” Mother Superior pursed her lips. “But, I suppose if he is a wealthy man, he should be able to see to your care himself, and we need every bed we can get.”

She sensed victory, but knew better than to let it show on her face.

“I'm sure I have his instructions somewhere.” The nun riffled through a pile of papers stacked on one side of her desk. She removed one, then placed a pair of spectacles on her nose and began to read.

Genevieve couldn’t read his words from where she stood, but she did notice that her husband had a bold, slanted script. A shiver traveled up her spine as she realized that soon she would meet the man who had penned these instructions, the man whose home she would tend, whose children she would likely bear. There would be no more hunger, no more fear. The past was over and the future was about to begin.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and tried, for the hundredth time, to remember something about him. The day she had married, her illness had been at its peak. She'd had no strength or inclination to scrutinize the man who had so swiftly chosen her as his life's mate. Genevieve vaguely recalled the strength of his arm as she'd clutched it during the ceremony, for the floor felt like it was bucking and rolling beneath her feet. She remembered leaning her cheek against his green coat, for the room in which they married had been as stifling and hot as her cramped berth on the ship. She also remembered the pleasant feeling of being buoyed up in his embrace and placed on the cart that brought her to the Hotel–Dieu. But she couldn't remember his face, his expression. She wished she had a clearer picture of him to prepare her for what lay ahead.

Oh, what did it matter? He could be a disfigured troll and she wouldn’t care. As long as he could provide a roof over her head and roots under her feet—as long as he was kind, as he must be, to have chosen her when she was sick.

Mother Superior's face sank into dour folds. “My dear child, I didn't realize you were married to a fur trader.”

She wondered why the nun said the words ‘fur trader’ with such bitter contempt.

The nun pressed her hand to her chest. “You were ill the day you married, weren't you?”

“Yes."

Mother Superior set the paper away from her as if it were full of blasphemy. “It’s unfortunate that such a man chose to marry you, my dear.” She pulled off her spectacles, clattered them on the desk, and then curled her fingers around the polished head of her cane. She rose from her chair and tried to regain her composure. “I fear he took advantage of your illness and the fact that you are so fresh from France.”

“I don't understand.”

“You wouldn't, would you, my sweet, innocent Marie?”

Genevieve stifled a scowl. What was the old biddy so twisted up about? “Reverend Mother, you said you didn't know my husband—”

“But I know his kind all too well.” Mother Superior came to her side and wrapped her fingers around Genevieve's arm. “This is a savage place, little Marie, and the men who come here grow savage as well. It's better that you enter marriage knowing the true nature of your husband rather than to walk in ignorance.”

“Tell me.”

“It's the wretched brandy.” The words burst from the nun's lips. “For every one heathen soul the Jesuits save, two more are lost to brandy. The natives have no tolerance for it. Every spring, this hospital is full of men with hatchet wounds, and nearly all of them inflicted because of drink.”

She didn’t understand. “What does brandy have to do with my husband?”

“It is the fur traders who sell the brandy to the Indians in defiance of all the laws against it. No matter how many of the traders the bishop excommunicates, they continue to sell it to the natives out of pure greed.” Mother Superior's fingers tightened on Genevieve's wrist. “Your husband is one of them, child. He’s a coureur de bois.”

Genevieve closed her eyes to prevent herself from rolling them. She didn't care a fig if her husband sold brandy. She had broken enough commandments in her lifetime to forgive a graveyard full of sinners—enough to send this nun reeling away to make the sign of the cross, if she knew the truth. The Reverend Mother was working herself into a lather over nothing.

He was a good man. The fact that he had married her, sickly and feverish, when a dozen eager and healthy and far more beautiful women were available to him, proved that he was a man of deep compassion.

“This is why he hasn't contacted you,” the nun continued. “He's roaming in the woods, committing unspeakable sins.” The nun released Genevieve and patted her arm. “It's best you stay here for a few more days and then—”

“Oh, no!” She would rather drink the putrid waters of the Seine. “I must see him as soon as possible. How can I contact him?”

“He's gone by now, probably to Montreal.” Mother Superior fingered the paper and squinted over it. “Yes, yes. He was instructed that we contact a Monsieur Martineau in the lower city. You are to stay with Monsieur Martineau's family.” The nun nodded in approval. “A good man, Monsieur Martineau, and a fine wife. Three children they have, and she's due to deliver another—”

“Can't I just send a message to Montreal?”

“Dear, this is not Paris. We have few horses, no roads, and no men to spare for such a task.”

Genevieve clamped her jaw tight. She was tired of delay, but she supposed she could swallow her impatience for a little while longer. “Very well, then. How long must I stay with them—with the Martineaus?”

“Until May or June of next year.” The nun shrugged. “Whenever the ice breaks on the river.”

Her breath caught in her throat. A burn worked its way up her chest, over her neck, choking her. May or June—eight or nine months away.

Genevieve stepped forward and snatched the paper. She raised it to the light and read the instructions swiftly. Then, stunned, she read the paper again.

“I don't understand this.” She shook the paper so it rattled. “My husband leaves instructions for my burial.”

“He was just thinking of all possibilities—”

“I wasn't that ill.”

“Clearly he didn’t think so.” Mother twisted the knob of her cane with a gnarled hand. “Clearly he was thinking of nothing but the Intendant’s new ruling, which has brought nothing but grief.”

“What ruling?”

“It’s a ruling from the king. All single men in the colony must marry within a fortnight of the arrival of the king's girls. If they don't, they'll be denied their precious fur trading licenses.”

The truth slapped her like a frigid wave of seawater crashing over the bow of a ship. “He married me,” she stuttered, “because he thought I would die.”

Genevieve blindly snatched one of the plums lying in a bowl on the Reverend Mother's desk. She sank her teeth into the reddish–purple flesh without even asking permission. Her mouth puckered from the sour taste, but she didn't spit it out. The sourness fueled her anger. It reminded her that the men who lived on these shores came from the same seed as the men who lived in France. She should have known that here in Quebec she would find the same cruelty as she had known in Paris.

“I’m afraid that might be true, my dear,” the nun said. “These men are devils, all of them, preferring the profligate life of the savages to taking a good, honest wife. I'm surprised they're not here in this hospital right now, fighting over the pallets of the dying girls, demanding the priest perform the sacrament of marriage before the sacrament of the last rites.”

Well, she was back from the grave, Genevieve mused, sucking another bite of the sour, fleshy fruit. She had come clear across the Atlantic, nearly losing her life in the process, for the chance at a home. She had waited too long, worked too hard, and risked too much to let a single man ruin everything. She would not wait eight months for a resolution.

She would not wait another day.

Tossing the plum pit in the bowl, Genevieve clutched a handful of her skirts and hiked them over one shoulder. She tugged free the ties of a lumpy bag slung around her waist.

“My dear girl!” Mother Superior looked away from Genevieve’s bare thighs. “Have you no modesty?”

Genevieve clanked the bag onto the table. “I have some money, Mother.”

“Dear child, there's more gold in your hand than in all of Quebec.”

“My dowry from the king,” she lied. “I must find my wayward husband and help him see the error of his ways. We are bound by holy matrimony. Surely you will help me in this cause, won’t you, Reverend Mother?”