Chapter Five

"À terre!”

The naked savage who stood in the front of the canoe twisted his paddle to aim the prow toward an island in the middle of the Ottawa River. Genevieve was tempted to dip both hands into the water and paddle—anything to hasten their arrival on dry land—but she knew if she felt the water flowing through her fingers, she'd lose what little control she wielded over her full bladder.

Her legs lay cramped beneath her, but she didn't dare adjust her position atop the wobbly keg. The men had stopped on dry land only once since they departed from Lachine this morning, and then only to eat a bowl of gritty cornmeal and to pay homage at a roughhewn church dedicated to Saint Anne. Groaning, she thought about the skin full of mountain water she had drunk to wash down the gritty sagamité. She wouldn't do that again, and by the sight of the squirming men, neither would they. She suspected that it was her presence alone that prevented them from standing up, pushing aside their loincloths, and relieving themselves in the wide, flowing river like the men in the other canoes did.

They neared the shore, nothing but a bare, flat rock surrounded by scraggly pines. André gave the signal and the men made one last stroke. Their paddles clattered in the boat, and before the momentum faded, they gripped the lashed edges of the vessel and sprung out of the canoe into the water. Genevieve gripped her seat as water sprayed over her, soaking her bodice and running in rivulets down her cleavage.

By the muffled, collective sighs of relief, she knew the men, waist–deep in the river, weren't waiting to reach dry land to ease their discomfort.

Genevieve glared at André, who pulled the canoe onto the shore as the rest of his colorful flotilla sliced its way through the water. Soon the men were pushing aside the tarpaulin atop the merchandise and starting to carry the cargo, piece by piece, to the island.

“Well?” she said, when her seat became loose enough to wobble beneath her. “Are you going to leave me here all night, or do you expect me to swim to shore?”

He sloshed through the water to the side of the canoe. “How did you find your first day afloat?”

“Long.” She tugged her wrinkled skirts from beneath her. “I'm tired enough to sleep on bare rock.”

“We'll do better than that.” He slid his arms beneath her thighs and pulled her against him. “Tomorrow we won't spend as much time on the canoes. There are rapids upstream and we have to portage around them.”

Genevieve wished he would stop using words like rapids and upstream. She stared at the forest beyond the clearing with a sort of lust and steered her thoughts in another direction. “What's the name of this place?”

“It has an Indian name your tongue couldn't hold. It means ‘Island Surrounded by Flowing Water.’”

She tightened her thighs, because the swaying motion of being carried in his arms was dangerous.

“No,” he mused, “that's not right. I think it means ‘Place in Center of Raging River.’”

He was grinning.

“Or maybe it's 'Where Stream Passes—’”

“It'll be called 'Place Where Frenchwoman Murders Insufferable Husband,' if you don't get me to the bank soon.”

His Adam’s apple stood out in the thick column of his throat when he laughed, and the sight affected her strangely so she looked away.

Julien handed her the case as soon as André set her down. She gripped the handle and set out toward the forest that rimmed the tiny clearing.

André said, “Hold up. You'll need an escort—”

“You stay right where you are.”

“It's a big island and you have no idea what creatures inhabit it. If you can't abide me, then take one of my men.”

“If I must choose between two philanderers, an ex–Jesuit, a giant, an acknowledged heathen, and a naked savage,” she retorted, “I'll take my chances with the wolves.”

“Then stretch your legs over there.” He indicated an area to the right of the clearing, far away from where The Duke just emerged from the woods. “Else you'll end up frightening more than the wildlife.”

“The only thing I want to do right now,” she muttered, “is water it.”

She forged into the woods, her case bruising her knees with every step. Despite the urge to crouch behind the nearest tree trunk, Genevieve pushed aside branches of saplings and stumbling over upraised roots until she could no longer hear André's laughter. She tossed her case upon a stone outcropping and burrowed in the privacy of the bushes.

Moments later she emerged, feeling much lighter and far more comfortable than she had all day. She rolled her head to stretch the tendons of her neck and watched as the sun cast its last light through the trees. She tugged on the knot of the linen head rail and let the scarf drift to the earth, then pulled on the laces of her bodice to ease the constriction around her chest. She took a deep breath, smelled the damp forest, the fertile scent of wet vegetation, and the more distant odor of camp fires, probably from the voyageurs, judging by the distant thwack of axes upon wood and the bawdy laughter of the men.

Removing the pins that held her chignon at the nape of her neck, she let her hair tumble down her back. Genevieve opened her case and felt around inside until her hand curled about the smooth handle of her brush. She pulled it through the knotted mess. It was so quiet here, beneath the shade of the pines. All was silent but for the sighing of the wind in the boughs, the occasional crackle of leaves falling into the litter, the swoosh and gurgle of the river, the splash of a jumping fish.

Genevieve bent at the waist and shook her hair so it flowed over her head and the ends brushed the ground. The ache in her lower back eased and she felt the pleasant stretch along the cramped back of her thighs. She hoped her wretched husband had been telling the truth when he'd said that tomorrow they wouldn't be on the canoe all day. He'd said they would be walking, but she didn't dare believe him—André lied as smoothly as he told the truth.

She flipped her hair over her head and shook it so it fell over her shoulders. Tossing her brush in her case, she walked to the edge of the river. In Paris, she never would have dared step into the muddy, turbid waters of the Seine, for it was always thick with runoff from the Parisian streets. But this river flowed so swift and clean that she could see the pebbles rolling on the bottom. She knelt and dipped her hands in the frigid water, splashing a handful of the clear, sweet–smelling liquid on her face. Then she cupped her palms and drank.

Not since her youth in Normandy had she tasted such fresh, clean water. It reminded her of the creek that twisted down the mountainside behind her mother's manor house. It reminded her of a hot summer day when she and Maman had decided to walk through the forest, and they had come upon the creek, peeled off their silk stockings, tucked their satin skirts between their knees, and dipped their bare feet into the icy stream. She had done a little courtly dance for her mother along the smooth, flat stones in the creek, and Maman had laughed.

Maman had laughed so seldom during those few happy days before their world was destroyed.

Genevieve stood up and pushed the memories aside. That was a thousand lifetimes ago, and it hurt too much to remember. She turned her back on the water only to stumble to a stop a few steps from her case.

“Hell and damnation!”

André stood in the shadow of the pines, a tall, brooding figure whose deerskin clothing and bronzed skin merged naturally with the fading colors of the forest. She stilled herself from seizing the dagger wedged in her boot.

She sputtered, “How long have you been standing there like a ghost?”

“Long enough to have stolen all that glorious hair from your head, if I were Iroquois.”

“What in God's name is an Iroquois?”

“The name of the Indian tribe that once claimed this territory.”

She tried to still her racing heart. “The only savage in these forests is the one dressed in animal skins, carrying a dagger, and sneaking up on me like a thief.”

“If you come upon the other kind, you won't live to tell the tale. The French have been warring with the Iroquois for decades.”

“What do I have to fear from a tribe of wigmakers?”

“Wigmakers?”

“If they want my hair, they can have it,” she retorted, grabbing it by a handful. “It knots up in the faintest breeze and it’s always in my eyes.”

“The Iroquois take scalps as war trophies.”

“Oh, please, not the savage stories again. The least you could do is not insult my intelligence by telling me those ridiculous tales. And any decent man would have let a lady know he was near while she was in the middle of her toilette.”

“A lady doesn't say ‘Hell and Damnation.’”

She'd slipped. Marie Duplessis would never curse, but it had been so long since she'd acted like a lady. “You scared the wits out of me.”

“It's a pretty sight to come upon a Frenchwoman in the middle of the woods, all clean and undone.”

His gaze slipped to her loosened bodice. Genevieve became acutely aware of the cloth that covered her suddenly tingling breasts.

She toyed with the hanging ends of her bodice laces as her heart began to race for a new and different reason. “So you were prowling in search of me?”

“You shouldn't have wandered so far from the campsite.”

“Certainly I’m allowed a moment of privacy.”

“This isn't Paris.” He reached out and took her hair between his fingers. “There are no walls to keep out the dangers.”

His fingers grazed the skin exposed by her bodice and she found herself drawing in a deep breath. She saw something bold in his tawny eyes. She'd seen that look a hundred times before, and hadn’t liked it … not until now.

He wants me.

She hadn't expected this—at least, not yet. She’d come to the conclusion that she was being tested, that he needed to judge whether she was worthy to be a wife. Why else would he take her on such a dangerous trip? Why else would he so stubbornly resist her at the inn? Yet here he was, on the first day of the voyage, staring at her as men always stared at women, as if she were some sort of mountain to climb.

She smelled the smoke–ripened skin of his shirt, saw the gleam in his eye intensify as she made no motion to pull away. It was right to encourage him, she told herself. Once their marriage was consummated, all would be secure, all would be right, and her battle would be finished, even though she sensed in her heart that there was more to this than she could yet understand.

He said softly, “What a brazen bride. You're supposed to be frightened, little Marie, not staring at me like this.”

Little Marie.

“Don't call me that.”

“But you are a bold—”

“No. Not that.” She had prepared for this long ago, but she didn't expect to have to lie when her tongue was thick in her throat. “No one ever calls me Marie,” she said with a shrug. “There were a thousand Maries in the Salpêtrière.”

“What should I call you, then?”

“Genny,” she blurted. “It’s short for Genevieve.”

His brows raised. “You nearly wrote that name on the parish register.”

“I did?”

“You were so delirious that one of the other girls had to remind you of your own name. Marie is such a common name, but Genevieve, on the other hand … It suits you.”

His finger slipped to her mouth. He brushed her lower lip and it was like a spark on her skin. Time stopped. She heard the river lapping against the stones. She heard his slow, ragged breathing. She felt the warmth of his big body, so close to her own. Genevieve waited for him to lean just that one inch closer and take what was already his. Instead, he passed his hand over her breast then cupped its fullness in his palm.

She flinched at first, but she didn’t move away. The light was growing dim in the clearing, but she could see the gleam in his eye. He squeezed her breast gently. Her nipple hardened against his palm, she felt the tightening, echoing in a different kind of pull, between her legs. She knew he could feel her heartbeat through the layers of chemise and boned bodice. His hands were so warm on her body, the skin of his callused fingers scraping where he touched. Her knees felt ridiculously weak, though she stood as still as a doe sensing danger.

She chided herself. Come, Genevieve, you're no shrinking innocent. Come, come, you know something of the lusts of men.

“We could stay here for a while,” she whispered, reaching out to finger the fringe of his sleeve. “The men wouldn't interrupt us.”

A muscle moved in his cheek. He brushed his thumb against the rigid peak of her breast.

“I knew you would be like this,” he said. “All needles and sparks on the outside, but on the inside, all heat.”

She grasped his upper arms. She felt as if the solid rock beneath her feet had broken off from the shore and floated into the river. She wanted him to kiss her, as he had once before, and show her how it could be between a man and a woman when it was done right. Surely her mother’s blood flowed true through her—maybe it was the one thing she couldn’t escape.

She pressed her hand against his own, forcing his fingers hard on her breast, whispering, “André.”

He kissed his name from her mouth. His unshaven cheeks prickled her skin. He tasted of tobacco and something hungry. She opened her mouth to him, letting sensation fill her until she felt weightless, buoyed—until he abruptly released her.

He stepped away. “I didn’t come out here for this.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “I came here to bring you back to camp.”

“Stay.”

“Do you want to lose your virginity within shouting distance of the men,” he asked, “with your skirts bunched around your waist and your back in the dirt?”

She couldn’t answer. She couldn't tell him that the thought of his strong body atop hers, those hips between her thighs, the merging of their privates—it had robbed her of the power of speech, even as it brought a confused rush of other memories, cold, hard, and ugly, rusted daggers from a past she had determined to put behind her.

“Back to the campsite,” he commanded, “before I fulfill my own damned prophecy.”

***

Genevieve gripped the gunwale of the canoe. All around her the river seethed, whipping up a froth as it tumbled down a bed of stones. Here and there, jagged edges of rock thrust from the boiling cauldron, and eruptions of spray thrust high, then slapped down like thunder. Powerful whirlpools eddied by the steep banks, churning fallen branches and slender tree trunks into slivers of splintered wood.

Beside the canoe, in the midst of the froth and the spray, stood André. The water pounded against his bare chest as he clung to the gunwale. He guided the vessel upstream, maneuvering the keel around hidden boulders. His hair, dripping with water, clung to his head and neck, and periodically he would grin and shake it and send the spray whirling around him.

A rope tied to the canoe's curved bow led to the shore, where Tiny and Wapishka pulled the canoe on a parallel route forward as they stumbled over rocks and stumps and climbed over trees growing out of the stone. The other voyageurs traveled a path farther inland, carting over land most of the merchandise that had cluttered the vessel, to protect it from damage and to make the boat lighter and easier to maneuver. André had suggested, with a wicked smile, that she ride in the canoe while he pulled it upstream.

It will give you a taste, he said, of the voyage to come.

She’d got a taste, indeed, but despite clinging to one of the cedar ribs in the canoe’s half–empty belly, despite the weathered wooden crosses that dotted the shore, it wasn’t fear she was feeling. Breathless, exhilarated, she watched the roar and tumble of the river with awe—saving some of that awe for the sight of her bare–chested husband, waist–deep in the water, his arm muscles bulging.

Tiny stopped and waved from his perch atop an elevated clump of rock, yelling something to her that was lost in the noise but was understood by André. André loosened his grip on the side of the canoe and guided it forward, letting the gummed edge graze the washboard of his abdomen. She wanted to ask how much longer they must fight through these rapids, but talk was a waste of energy, for the current dispersed all sound. He concentrated on directing the canoe farther upstream to a place where the men could pole or paddle again. His smoldering golden gaze alit on her briefly, as it had a dozen times since they'd left the campsite.

They had exchanged no more than a few words since last night. After their kiss, she had followed him back to the campsite and lain down on a springy bed of spruce boughs the voyageurs had made for her, but her husband had not joined her on the pallet. Her thoughts had tormented her worse than the little gnats the men called mosquitoes. She told herself she must encourage him, she must seduce him. Once their marriage was consummated, she'd have the home she’d crossed an ocean to secure. Yet there was something more to her boldness than cold–blooded utility, something she was afraid to name. What bothered her was the part of her that yearned for that seduction, in a way that would prove all her old enemies right—that hot blood was inherited, and in her it ran deep.

André's knuckles whitened on the gunwale as he stopped and searched for safe footing. The water reached his chest. A stinging spray spattered over the edge of the canoe. The rope attached to the bow of the canoe hung heavy with water, though Tiny and Wapishka tried their best to keep it taut. André eased the canoe past the outcropping and into a small bay. Genevieve felt the lessening of the current through the thin bark. She sat straighter in the vessel as she smelled burning tobacco, evidence that the voyageurs had stopped their work to smoke one of their frequent pipes. On the shore, she saw that poor boy Julien fighting yet another baptism in the waters of the Ottawa River.

André said, “Well, wife, how did you like your ride?”

He’d draped his arms over the rim of the canoe as his men approached to unload it. His chest heaved. Red welts rose on his skin at the level of his dark nipples. Veins bulged like bluish lead wires over his biceps. She was intensely aware of her husband's eyes roaming over her body.

“I feel,” she said, arching her back and pressing a hand against the soreness caused by the cedar rib bumping into her spine, “like a bean in a baby's rattle.”

He wiped his dripping chin with his forearm. “There's twelve more miles of this before we hit calm water.”

She wasn't worried about the journey taking a heavy toll on her. She had been through worse—much, much worse. She nodded toward the banks, where the men gathered among piles of merchandise. “Why are we unloading the canoes here?”

“There's a waterfall less than a mile ahead.” He reached into the canoe and slid his arms beneath her back and knees. “We've got to portage around it.”

She wound her arms around his neck. He smelled clean and wet and he felt very naked.

Suddenly, she felt very hot.

As soon as he reached dry land, André released her onto the shore and returned to the canoe. She scattered away from the activity of the camp, trying to find a place where she wasn’t in the way. Another canoe rounded the outcropping and eased its way into the bay, and soon the men were hard at work unloading its wares. The voyageurs helped each other strap kegs and bales onto their backs in a sort of rope harness. Genevieve watched in horror as Tiny heaved three pactons onto his back and adjusted the thick leather strap around his forehead. She knew that each of those packages weighed almost as much as she did.

“If you keep watching him, he'll add a fourth for pride's sake.”

She turned to see André wrestling into a shirt growing damp on his chest and shoulders. “He'll hurt himself if he tries to carry all that.”

“He'll do the entire portage with that load if it kills him in the process.” He stood close enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his body. “At least there's one advantage to having a Frenchwoman around.”

“Meaning?”

“My men are acting like roosters in a henhouse, brawling and puffing out their chests for your sake alone.” He ran a hand over the spiky bristles of his unshaven chin. “We'll either finish this portage in half the time, or we'll end up with twice the injuries.”

“Your men are braggarts all, by the sound of the stories they swapped over the fire last night. If I weren't around, they'd just try to outdo one another.” She brushed a tendril of damp hair off her neck. “Perhaps, if you strain yourself, you can think of another advantage of having a wife.”

Oops.

His smoky gaze fell upon her. Her breath gathered in her lungs. No, she would not take it back.

He said, “The only other women we've ever taken on these journeys were Indian women. If you were a squaw, you'd be expected to paddle, to carry the canoe, to strike camp, to tend to the fires, and to carry nearly as much as Tiny.”

“So heathens treat their women as badly as European men, then.”

“Have I treated you so badly?”

“You’ve tried to bury me, abandon me, divorce me, and right now you're suggesting I should work like a common laborer.”

The corners of his lips twitched. “Can you at least cook?”

“It wouldn’t take much imagination.” She glanced toward the shore, where the cook heaved a copper cauldron on his shoulders. “We've been eating sagamité since we left Montreal, and the venison your cook flavors it with is getting as tough as leather.”

“Sorry, wife, but we left the royal chef in Paris.”

“It seems you left your wits in Paris, too, my husband, if you can't think of anything else to do with a wife but put her to work over a cauldron.”

He thrust her case at her, all humor leaving his face. “Here are the fripperies you insisted on taking with you. I warned you you'd have to carry them on these portages. They should feel like a hundred pounds in a few hours.”

“You'll thank me for these fripperies when we reach that chewywagon place.” She gripped the handle of her case and nodded to the men upon the shore. “Maybe you should ask them what they would do if they had a French wife—”

“They would drag you into the bushes and roll you in the mud whenever the urge struck them.” He swung her about to face him. “They would paw you like an animal in public. Is that what you really want?”

Genevieve tilted her chin. She was supposed to act like an innocent, fainting young lady, but that’s not what she was, really. The truth was, since last night, part of her could think of little else but lying with this man.

To secure a home, of course.

“Didn't the nuns at that charity house teach you anything?” His fingers tightened on her arm. “When a man makes a proposition like that, you're supposed to strike him or, at the very least, look at him in horror.”

“I was under the impression that we were married, and such behavior was acceptable.”

“You can't possibly be that innocent.”

Genevieve tried to blush but knew she failed. “Isn’t it my duty to 'roll with you in the mud,' no matter how messy it sounds?” The devil whispered in her ear and she gave him voice. “There must be a dozen bushes along this portage. If it's your wish—”

“There'll be no bushes for us, Genevieve.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “You're making it very difficult for me to consider your welfare.”

“I'm trying to honor my vows. Except for some scratches and bruises, I can't imagine it could be unhealthy—”

“Save your strength for survival, not seduction.”

“Seduction,” she said, letting her gaze drop to the stretch of glistening golden chest revealed by the V of his shirt, “doesn't seem to take much effort.”

“Follow those men.” He gestured to the edge of the clearing, where some of the men, already bent forward under the weight of packets and kegs, headed up a small path into the forest. “If my men catch up to you, step aside and let them pass. Wait wherever they pile the merchandise. We'll have to do several runs before we get it all to the end of the portage. And don't veer off the path. We won't have time to search for you later.”

She couldn't resist. “I promise I won't be hiding in any bushes.”

“Don’t tempt me, woman.” He frowned at her. “It would be dangerous for you to become pregnant before we reach Chequamegon Bay.”

Her smile dimmed. Genevieve knew there were ways for a man to prevent a woman from having a child. Ways any man would know, certainly one as virile as André. She nearly opened her mouth and told him her thoughts, but stopped herself in time, for Marie Duplessis would never know such things.

“My mother always told me babies were found beneath bushes.” She hefted the case more firmly in her hand. “Now I know exactly what she meant.”