Chapter Four

He was too handsome.

Genevieve paced in a tiny room in the back of the inn but she felt as if she raced through a Parisian marketplace, a stolen purse in her hand, as if she were chased by gendarmes. Long ago, she had learned never to ignore the prickling at the back of her neck, yet now, when the prickling had turned to needlelike stabs, when the knots of her belly had solidified to stone, and when the screams grew so loud that her ears rang, she knew she must do exactly what every sinew of her body warned against.

She must trust a man whose grin held the same sly wickedness as the gargoyles carved into the stone of Notre Dame.

Falling to her knees, she groped along the floor of her room to search for her scattered clothing. Someone should have warned her that he was young, tall, broad–shouldered, that his chest was as hard as rock. Someone should have warned her about his lazy smile, his roving eyes, and his strong hands. Someone should have warned her that one kiss would make everything she had planned to say melt like butter on her tongue.

A bubble of humorless laughter slipped out as she shoved her arms into her rose–colored bodice. It had been her first real kiss. He'd sensed her surprise, and he'd probably mistaken it as innocence. She’d always known the price she would have to pay for the protection of a husband, but André hadn't pawed her with rough hands. And when his mouth brushed hers, her entire body had jolted with the shock of something she'd never felt before, something she’d never expected. Her heart had raced and tumbled as if she had been running away from the royal orchards with a skirt full of ripe apples.

She wanted no part of that feeling. She didn't understand it.

She didn't trust it.

Genevieve finished dressing and then clutched the handle of her case. The birds were just starting to chirp outside. The sooner they started on this voyage, the sooner they would reach their new home. Straightening her bodice, she strode out of the room. The door swung shut behind her, echoing in the silent hall.

The darkness reeked of brandy and stale sweat. She trailed her hand along the wall, stumbling twice over prone bodies, before she found André's door. She rapped on the wood and waited.

No answer.

No shuffle of linens, no grunts of sleepiness, not even the patter of footsteps.

She knocked again, this time more insistently, and the door gave way under her fist. Startled, she pushed it open.

Light spilled through the cracks of the wooden shutters, splashing stripes of color across the room. André's pack was missing from the corner. The covers lay half on the bed, half on the floor, and the bed was empty.

The stinking son of a poxed whore.

This must have been what he'd been planning all along. Short of sleeping in the hall outside his room, she'd had no choice but to take him at his word. She raced down the stairs to the common room, ignored the sleeping innkeeper slouched behind a small counter, and barreled through the front door.

A bluish, early–morning light bathed the shore. A breeze ruffled the expanse of the St. Lawrence River, rippling the pale light on the waves. Most of the long, narrow boats that had littered the shore the evening before were gone. A long line of men, hefting kegs and bales, trudged westward, parallel to the row of compact wooden houses that formed the settlement of Montreal. Genevieve searched for André's silhouette, but she couldn't see a feathered hat or a wide–skirted coat among the men on the banks. Beyond, the great western forest loomed, the peaks of the pines stark against the indigo sky.

She suddenly saw herself, standing in the mud outside this Montreal inn, clutching all her worldly possessions. Beyond these well–fortified stores and warehouses were nothing but forests and savages, and no roads but those forged by men like André.

Abandoned again.

She should have known better. He’d confused her with that kiss, made her wonder why a hot–blooded man wouldn’t take her to his bed. But then she remembered that after he’d discovered that she was his wife, he had looked at her like she was manure caught on the heel of his boot.

She had to face the truth. André had manipulated her as easily as a puppet at the fair of Saint–Germain.

“Madame Lefebvre?”

She glanced at the driver of a cart that had pulled up in front of the inn. The man leapt off the wooden seat and strode toward her. She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted and instead choked on the words.

André's shaggy mane of brown hair was now tossed back from his forehead. Fringe hung from the sleeves of his form–fitting deerskin shirt, belted low. His hand rested on the butt of a pistol, which jutted from a beaded sash, accompanied by the hilt of a dagger. Below the hem of his shirt his thighs were naked.

Naked.

Her case fell with a thunk to the mud. She had the distinct feeling that she was staring at her husband—her real husband—and that last night she had been fooled by a wolf in sheep's clothing.

“Having a change of heart, my wife?” He gestured to the case at her feet. “Last night you were screaming like a brandy–crazed squaw to come with me, and here I find you packed and leaving.”

“You were gone,” she said. “I went to your room and you were gone.”

“I had to make special accommodations for you.” A sly, dangerous smile slipped over his lips. “I didn't expect you to wake so early.”

“You weren’t planning to leave me behind?” Her glance dropped to his bare, sinewy thighs. “As you left behind your breeches?”

He bent one knee to show her the fringed tube of deerskin that covered his leg from mid–thigh to ankle, held up by thongs that gartered somewhere under his shirt. “They're called leggings. You'd best get used to the look of them. All my men wear them.” His smoky gaze slipped over her. “We've got a lot of distance to travel, and these clothes are more durable, more comfortable.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t manage anything else, because when he twisted to squint at the men on the shore, she saw a dimple in the side of his buttock.

“We’ll be taking those canoes into the interior,” he said, gesturing to three men heaving a boat upon their shoulders and heading down the muddy bank toward the edge of the forest. “We can't launch here because there are rapids just upstream of Montreal. We're going to cross the island and launch at Lachine to avoid them.”

Lachine. She frowned. He was toying with her, as if she knew nothing about geography. She'd had enough lessons forced upon her by that wart–faced old priest Maman had hired as her tutor.

“China,” she said pointedly, “is rather far for us to walk.”

“Lachine is the name of the launching point. It's only a few leagues away.” A wildness lit his eyes. “We're going much, much farther than Lachine. We're going to places you've never heard of before, places that aren't even mapped. Are you afraid?”

“Why should I be?” Genevieve winced—this man believed she was a pampered daughter of the petty nobility, who should be frightened by the unknown. “I have no fear because you're escorting me,” she said more primly, “and we have a home somewhere out there, yes?”

“In a place called Chequamegon Bay.” He nodded to the empty cart behind him. “I spent the morning looking for a cart and oxen to borrow. You can ride with me to the launching point. It's no carriage, but it's better than walking.”

Genevieve felt like a ship at full speed whose wind had been sucked out of its sails. He hadn't escaped without her, but rather had made arrangements for her comfort, which only confused her more.

“You won't need that.” He reached for her case. “I'll make arrangements to store it in the inn—”

“I'm taking it.”

He shook it and heard the contents rattle. “What do you have in there?”

“My dowry from the king.” She tightened her grip on the handle. “Pins and needles and scissors and a comb and two knives—”

“You won't need all that. All you'll need is a blanket to sleep in.”

“I'll need it to set up a household.”

“There's no room for it in the canoes,” he argued. “We're packed to the gunwales.”

“If there's room for me, there's room for it.” Genevieve wrenched it from his grip. “It is all I have in the world.”

She hated herself for sounding like a poor waif clutching her last crust of bread, but she had already left more than half of Marie's clothing at Marietta's, and she had no intention of parting with what remained of her possessions.

He opened his mouth to argue, and then that strange look passed over his face again, the one she’d seen last night. “You'll have to carry it,” he said. “My men have more than they can carry as it is.”

“Fine.”

“Are you always this pleasant in the mornings?” He reached for her case. This time she gave it to him, making sure her fingers didn't come into contact with his hand. He slung the case in the back of the cart with a clatter. “Or is it just the lack of sleep?”

“It's a lack of trust.”

“That's no way to start a marriage.”

“Neither,” she said pointedly, climbing on the cart, “is making funeral arrangements for your bride.”

***

The morning light cast shadows upon the forest floor when André first glimpsed the water of Lake St. Louis through the forest. As he urged the oxen on, the cart reeled over the rutted earth, its wheels sinking into the mud and plowing new furrows among the older tracks. The rickety boards squealed in complaint, creaking against one another as the vehicle plodded its way beneath the pines.

“I trust you can handle a boat better than you handle these oxen,” his wife said as the cart tilted, only to right itself as it found even ground. “If this cart were a boat, we'd have drowned by now.”

André suppressed a grin. He had discovered, several leagues back, that the only way to stop this woman from barraging him with questions was to make the cart sway like a canoe in rapids. As it stood, she had already wheedled too much information out of him. She knew the voyage was going to take six or seven weeks—and it should, if weather permitted and if there were no injuries, wolves, bears, or Indian attacks on route, all of which he didn't mention. But she was dangerously close to discovering that he had never been to Chequamegon Bay, and he knew little about the “home” she asked so much about … even if it existed.

Nothing—not even a stubborn, willful French wife—was going to come between him and this expedition now.

He watched from the corner of his eye as his wife clutched the edge of the seat, the bones of her hands standing out against the soft kid gloves. Her green eyes were fixed forward. He had wondered last night, as he tossed and turned in his empty bed, if this woman would be as fetching in the bright light of day as she had been by candlelight. Now he could see the freckles speckled over her tip–tilted nose. He could see he hadn’t imagined the full curve of her lower lip. The dawn light reflected off her hair, and the tendrils, struck by light, shone like Pierre’s finest brandy. She was not a beauty by the standards of many—his Provençal mistress would have called this woman gamine, a little chit of a country girl—but he found an allure nonetheless.

She pointed to a stretch of water that sparkled into view. “Is that it? Are we at the launching point?”

André saw his three largest canoes floating in the placid water, low and heavy with merchandise. “Welcome to Lachine.”

The scent of the camp fires grew stronger as they approached. A few piles of kegs and barrels littered the shore, marked in black letters with their contents: saltpeter, shot, arrowheads, kettles, glass beads. His two dozen men milled about, heaving the bales upon their straining shoulders, sloshing through the water to deposit them in the canoes.

Tiny had done well in his absence, André thought. The men were ready to launch.

“Strange name for such a place," she said. “Why is it called China?”

“The man who used to own this land was named La Salle. For years, he stopped everyone returning from the interior and asked if they had heard anything about the route to the China Sea. So the men called this place La Chine, after him.”

“Is he here now?”

“No. He sold the land so he could go and look for the sea himself.”

She raised both brows. “‘Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.’”

That quote came from some classic poem, it came to him from the faded memories of his schoolboy days. Greek poetry and philosophy were common enough subjects to study as a boy but were exceptional in a woman, even a well–bred noblewoman.

“‘There is no genius without a touch of madness,’” he countered, quoting what he remembered of Aristotle. “It's a big country,” he said, "but someday some madman will discover where it ends.”

He leapt off the cart and sauntered around to help her down. When he rounded the oxen, he saw his wife jump off the cart of her own volition, exposing in the process a well–turned pair of booted ankles. She glanced at him, startled, then brushed past him to stare at the scene on the shore.

“Are all the boats yours?”

“Canoes, not boats. Everything you see here is mine.” He pulled her case out of the back of the cart, realizing the sooner he got her into the canoe, the better his chances would be of actually getting her into the interior.

“So the Onontio has finally come!” Tiny emerged from the water, his meaty thighs bare above his leggings.

André strode to meet him.

“After yesterday,” the giant roared, “I thought you'd be rousing us from our beds before the first birds awakened.”

He tilted his head toward his wife, who followed in his wake. “I ran into a delay at the inn.”

“Sacré bleu!” Tiny pulled off his red cap as she approached. “By the passion of Sainte Therese, where'd you find such a woman?”

“Certainly not in the brandy–house you spent the night in,” he retorted, backing away from the giant's breath. “Are all the men here?”

“All but the Roissier brothers. I sent Simeon to drag them out of the Widow Toureau's house, they’ll be here soon.” Tiny gestured to her with his cap. “Are you going to be a boor, old man, or are you going to introduce me to this heavenly vision?”

“Madame, I'd like you to meet my most experienced voyageur, Tiny.”

André saw her surprise. There was nothing tiny about Tiny. His shirt alone was the product of the skin of three stags, stretching across his shoulders and belly and barely covering his privates.

“The real name's Bernard Griffon,” Tiny said as he reached for her hand to kiss. “He forgot to mention that I'm as strong as a black bear and can carry four hundred pounds of cargo without breaking a sweat—”

“He's also a shameless liar,” André added.

“I've never said a lie in my life!”

“Ah, yes,” André mused, “as saintly as the blessed Virgin—”

“Let's not be committing blasphemy, not with a lady about.” Tiny turned his attention back to her. “Tell me, sweet creature, where have you been hiding from me, and where did this ruffian find you?”

She tilted her head. “Ah, so you think he's a ruffian, too.”

Tiny barked a laugh. “The woman knows to call a rat a rat when she sees one.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn't insult the rodent.”

Tiny's bushy blond brows rose high on his forehead. “Tell me you have a dozen sisters. Where can I find them?”

She said, “The same place where this ruffian found me—in front of a priest.”

“Going to Mass now, are we?” Tiny’s yellow teeth gleamed. “Praying we'll make it to Chequamegon Bay before the first frost?”

He shrugged. “Making marriage vows.”

“Making vows? Well, there's a fine way to—” Tiny choked to a stop.

“I hope the canoe isn't fully loaded.” He thrust his wife’s case into Tiny's belly, and then startled his wife by heaving her up into his arms. “We've got a bit of unexpected cargo.”

Tiny grew blue around the lips, and then he emitted a faint croak. André splashed into the water, leaving the giant sputtering behind him.

His wife's arms slipped around his neck. “You took great pleasure making a fool of him.”

“I've waited twelve years for an opportunity to leave that blowhard speechless.”

“Your men are gaping like visitors to a menagerie,” she said. “Did I mention that they look like they belong in cages, dressed as they are in nothing but feathers and beads and skins?”

“Shocked?”

“Surprised. I didn't expect so many.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is there something you've neglected to tell me? Are we off to find the China Sea like that madman La Salle?”

“So full of suspicions.” His grin widened, for success smelled good and he was close enough to taste it. “I wouldn't mind having my name bandied about after I'm rotting in the grave, so if I happen to stumble upon the China Sea during my travels …”

“Now you're making me think you're mad.”

“‘I am not mad, most noble wife, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.’”

“Quoting the Scriptures won't convince me otherwise. You didn't tell me this was such a large expedition. There must be thirty men here.”

“You sound disappointed.” He leaned over and toppled her onto the oilskin, toward the rear of the canoe, where the French flag in white with gold fleur–de–lys snapped in the wind. “Did you think we'd be alone?”

“I suppose there are always ways for two people to be alone in a crowd.” She smiled at him, a slow, easy smile that worked to raise his mast.

“For a lady,” he said, watching her settle her bottom in the center of a keg, “you have a disconcerting habit of speaking your mind.”

“And you, my husband, are as slippery as an eel.” She lifted her hands to her hips, and then thought better of it as the canoe wiggled beneath her. “Now, convince me again that we’re going to this chewywagon place.”

“Chey–WAY–megon.” He nodded toward a young man clutching the end of the canoe. “Julien, make sure she doesn't drift away. I'll be right back.”

He walked away from her, handicapped by a swelling third leg. He should have joined the men at the Widow Toureau’s last night. Now he was faced with five or six days in the wilderness with this bold creature, and he hadn't touched a woman for too long. The first Indian village they passed, he'd best get himself a squaw–wife, for his sake and his wife's, for she had no idea that she was tempting her own ruin.

“Married, my ass!” Tiny thrust his wife’s case back at André as he reached the shore. “By all the flaming martyrs, you almost fooled me. How long are you going to leave her bobbing out there?”

“It's no trick.”

“By sweet Saint Anne.”

“The Intendant's ruling, remember? Or were you too drunk to pay attention? I married her right after the last ship arrived.”

“What did you do, pluck her off the ship before it even warped into its moorings?” Tiny squinted against the sun to get a better look at her. “The fops of Quebec would never let such a fine piece slip out of their net.”

“I'll have time enough to tell you the story after we're far away from this place. She's running over with questions and I can't keep her still.”

“Shouldn't have left her out there with that boy.”

André turned around and saw his wife, dressed in her rose–colored, beribboned, boned dress atop a savage–looking canoe, talking with animation to a blushing young canoe man. With a groan, he swiveled on his heel.

“… it's made out of bark from a birch tree,” Julien was saying, with an excitement that made André sigh. “The bark is stretched over some cedar beams, and it's all sewn tight with spruce root and caulked with pine resin so it's watertight. There's not a nail in the whole damn—excuse me, ma'am. It can hold almost two thousand pounds of weight without cracking the gum or sinking, and it's light enough to be carried—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tiny said, wading past André. “Eh, pork–eater, are you ready to start your first voyage? Are you ready to live hard, play hard, sleep hard, and eat dogs?” Tiny placed one meaty hand firmly over Julien's head, the other on the gunwale of the canoe. He dunked the boy in the water and smiled at André's wife. “Didn't mean to frighten you, ma'am.” Julien sputtered and struggled beneath the giant's grip. “You see, the boy needs to be baptized, it being his first trip and all.”

She lifted a brow. “Will I be baptized as well?”

“Oh, no.”

“But it is my first trip.”

“But you aren't a voyageur, madame,” Tiny explained. “You're a guest.”

Julien surged up from the water and shook his head. His long brown hair flattened against his forehead and cheeks. He wiped it out of his eyes and glared at his attacker, his cheeks darkening as he glanced at the woman perched upon the canoe.

Hip–deep in lake water, André waved for his men to join him. He took his position near the stern.

“Wife,” he said, “let me introduce you to the men who will be our companions for the next six weeks.” He held out his hand to them, one by one. “This black–bearded rogue is Simeon, our resident religious who has recently recanted his Jesuit vows. Those bleary–eyed men are the Roissier brothers, Anselme and Gaspard, looking worse for wear from a night at the Widow Toureau's house. You know Tiny and Julien already.” He watched his wife as he gestured to the knotty–armed African standing across from Tiny. “Wapishka is an old friend of mine, an adopted member of an Algonquin tribe. The man at the bow is The Duke, a Huron Indian. He'll be guiding the canoe.”

He didn’t wait for her response. He gave the signal. He and the seven men surged up the side of the canoe to tumble in. Julien, exhausted and inexperienced, tumbled in late. The vessel rocked, but within minutes, as the men took their positions, the canoe balanced itself, and all that was left of the wild motion were the waves radiating onto the surface of the lake.

He was pleased to see Genevieve clutching the gunwale with white fingers.

André stood up behind his wife and picked up the cedar paddle, his men doing the same. He heard her gasp. As he steadied the canoe, he noticed that she was staring at The Duke, who stood at the prow wearing nothing but a breechcloth.

“So,” he said, as he thrust his paddle into the water and pushed out into the current, “what do you think of my motley crew, wife?”

“If you expected me to be frightened of heathens and fallen angels, you’ll be disappointed,” she said, glancing balefully up at him. “I've already met you.”