Heaven in His Arms (31 page)

To Genevieve, it was like a savage version of the Saint-Germain fair. The singing that rose above the babble of a dozen languages came from drunken voyageurs, not drunken Musketeers, and the items being sold were beads, pots, iron tools, and red blankets, not jewels, lace, and exotic timepieces. The currency wasn't dirty sous but thick pelts of beaver fur. A priest, who stood out among the gaudily dressed merchants in his black robes, checked for the illegal sale of brandy to the Indians. Genevieve even caught sight of a pickpocket among the crowds.

Never again. She hugged the thought close to her heart. Never will I have to do that again.

Andre picked up the beaver as the crowds grew thicker. They strolled along the Rue Saint Paul, past a closely spaced row of mercantile establishments, stores, trading posts, and warehouses. The scent of bread wafted out of one of the stores and she stopped in her tracks.

"I smell aniseed cakes."

He shook his head, sniffing the air curiously as she headed straight for the bakery. She pointed directly to the aniseed cakes lying on one of the tables and the baker wrapped up a dozen as Andre paid. Returning to the street, Genevieve stopped in a tavern and convinced the wife of the owner to boil a half-dozen eggs while they waited. Andre stood by as the rotund woman jawed endlessly about her first, second, and third pregnancies. Genevieve's mouth watered and her stomach growled angrily as they searched, in vain, for gooseberry jam in the establishments along the street. Finally, after what seemed like hours, she boldly approached a Jesuit in black robes. Appealing to his merciful nature, Genevieve managed to charm him into giving her a precious jar of gooseberry jam from the seminary stores.

Loaded with bundles, Andre finally steered her toward an inn at the end of Saint Paul Street.

"The Sly Fox," she exclaimed as she saw the sign swaying in the wind.

"The last time I stayed here," he said, "a beautiful woman insisted on spending the night in my bed."

"You were foolish enough to refuse."

"I intend to rectify that mistake, little bird."

She tossed her head. "Not until I eat dinner."

They strode into the inn. The common room was filled with bearded, buckskin-clad voyageurs drinking something out of tin cups. It didn't take long for Genevieve to realize that this room had been transformed into a dramshop, and the bright-cheeked, bright-eyed, loud-mouthed men were drinking their fill of brandy. It seemed most of the houses along this street had turned into dramshops of one sort or another. Andre warded off the men's curious glances with one piercing glare, but as soon as his back was turned to get a key from the innkeeper, Genevieve felt a dozen gazes return to the bodice of her low-cut velvet. She hefted up the beaver, holding him protectively against her chest, and was relieved when Andre shifted his bundles under one arm and placed his free hand on her waist to lead her upstairs to a room.

"You're not to leave the room," he said gruffly, "unless I or one of my men is with you."

"But—"

"Unless you want me hanged on the Commune for murder, Genevieve, there'll be no buts." His chin tightened. "White women—beautiful white woman—are as rare here as gold coins and just about as coveted. Those men probably haven't seen one in almost a full year."

She didn't argue. Men hadn't looked at her like that since her days on the streets of Paris, a hundred lifetimes ago. Andre's hand pressed against her back as he led her toward a room in the back of the inn. He slipped the key into the door and pushed it open, slamming it closed behind him and sliding the bolt into its sleeve.

"Put that creature down."

His voice was husky and ragged, and she released the beaver to the floor. He waddled away, sniffing around. Genevieve walked over to the window, leaned On the bed, and opened the shutters. Golden light Hooded the room. Just outside the window, a plum dee stood, its pale pink flowers filling the air with fragrance.

Suddenly, Andre was behind her, his hands winding around her body, resting possessively on her swollen belly. His beard scraped the tender flesh of her neck. She tilted her head to give him better access to her collarbone.

"I'm hungry for you,
Taouistaouisse
." His kisses grew insistent. Her knees weakened, and she leaned heavily against him. It had been so long since they had made love with utter abandon. His fingers worked at the ties of her bodice, freeing her breasts from the restraint. His hands slipped beneath the velvet and cupped each breast over the worn linen of her chemise, his thumbs working magic over her taut nipples, which had grown tender and sensitive during her pregnancy.

Then her stomach growled, loud and insistent, and he stopped abruptly. "That child is likely to eat us out of house and home." He reluctantly released her. "Let's feed him so we can get down to more serious business."

Light-headed and woozy with desire, she sank on the bed. He walked over to where he had dumped the packages and tossed them on the worn coverlet. She reached for the package of aniseed cakes and ripped it open. Her mouth watered as she bit into one, savoring the taste of licorice.

Genevieve had finished two more before he had completed peeling the shell off one of the hard boiled eggs. He handed it to her and she bit eagerly into the rubbery texture, sucking out the crumbly yolk, finishing the white, then licking her fingers clean.

When she looked up, Andre was staring at her. He handed her another egg, watching as she bit off the top and eased out the round yellow yoke with her tongue. She arched a brow at him as she finished the white. "What about my gooseberry jam?"

He searched among the debris for the tin. "I'll give it to you on one condition."

"Beast! You're going to withhold gooseberry jam from a pregnant woman?"

"I will," he said, "unless you take off your bodice."

She sucked in her breath. His eyes were dark in passion. A smile hovered on her lips as she slowly arched her back and peeled off her open, gaping bodice. Her nipples hardened and poked against the threadbare linen.

Andre leaned over the bed toward her, rising to kiss her lips. She met them, brushed her lips against his, then pulled away. "My jam, husband?"

Reluctantly, he sat back. A muscle moved in his cheek. He fumbled with the knife hanging from his belt, then opened the tin and spread some of the crimson jam over a torn end of bread.

Genevieve took the warm bread from his hands and raised it to her lips, moaning as the tart sweetness of the jam filled her mouth and made her teeth sing. She finished every bite of the bread, then licked her fingers clean, looking at him expectantly.

"No more," he said, his voice hoarse, "until you take off your skirt."

"That's extortion, husband." She held out her hand, but he made no move to give her any more. Abruptly, she stood up and removed her skirt. Her boots tumbled to the floor. She lifted her shift and untied the ribbons that held up her stockings, sending them flying to the middle of the room.

The tin of jam tipped dangerously in his hand as he sat back down on the bed dressed in nothing but a shift.

"I think that means I get at least three or four more pieces," she demanded, her attention drifting nonetheless to the bulge beneath the hem of his shirt. "Are you still hungry?" "Starved."

Andre glopped the jam on the bread, handing her three pieces in rapid succession. She ate them, licked her fingers clean, then waited for more. He stared with intent at her shift. She didn't need any prompting. Her blood pounded hard in her body, fueled by the promise in his eyes. She sat up and pulled the offending garment over her head. The warm summer breeze flowed in through the plum blossoms and caressed her naked skin. She waited for him to move.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked.

"Not for gooseberry jam.'' Her body throbbed with a different sort of hunger, a different sort of need. "Not anymore."

"Then it's my turn to feast." He clattered the jamb on the windowsill. With one rapid sweep, he cleared the bed. Debris flew across the floor. The beaver squealed and scattered into a corner. Andre leaned over and pressed her down so she lay flat on the mattress. He kissed her hungrily, his lips parting hers, his tongue exploring deep into her mouth. Genevieve wound her fingers in his long hair and pressed him close, wanting him to possess her, to keep her with him forever.

Even as his kisses grew more heated, more demanding, even as his hand closed over her breast and lifted her peaked nipple to his hot mouth, she knew she could never really have him, not the way she could have a home or land or even security. His life, his spirit, his dreams, all resided in the wilderness.

She couldn't hate him for it, she couldn't blame him for it, for she had fallen in love with that half-savage man, and he would not be the same if he didn't crave the freedom he knew only deep in the woods. Trying to capture him was like trying to capture the wind.

She had him now. Genevieve held him, like an eddy of tropical air in a cove, whirling about for a time before siphoning its way out. She would hold him for this brief moment and treasure it forever. There was so much she wanted to share with him. His hand slipped between her legs. She gasped and parted them for him, eagerly inviting this invasion of her body and soul.

Gently, he pulled away from her. His breath came fast between his lips. Andre rid himself of all his clothing, tossing his garments in the growing pile on the floor. Bare flesh met bare flesh, and she lay back and closed her eyes.

Genevieve opened them abruptly as she felt him rub something sticky and cold over her left breast.

His eyes sparkled with devilry, and his finger and her breast gleamed with gooseberry jam.

"It's my turn to feast," he murmured, just before his hot mouth descended.

She groaned and buried her fingers in his hair.
Yes, feast, my love
. Soon there would be nothing but famine.

***

"We're here."

Andre waved vaguely toward the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River. The canoe lurched as Genevieve clutched the rim and teetered to one side, peering beyond her husband's stiff shoulders to the bank. A tattered wooden pier jutted out onto the river from a snarl of brush and saplings.

The beaver churred upon her lap as Genevieve curled her fingers into its slick coat. All along the river route from Montreal, patch after patch of newly cleared land had stretched from a sliver of the river's northern shore deep into the forest beyond. Neat little log houses had perched just beyond the river's edge, belching blue kitchen-smoke from stone chimneys. But here, so far away from the main settlement, a nest of growth shielded from the river the merest glimpse of Andre's father's house. The house that would soon be hers. Her belly quivered, stronger than the vague flutterings of the babe. A cool breeze, tinged faintly with sea-salt, lifted a tendril of hair off her cheek. Somewhere in that tangle of wild woods stood the fulfillment of her dreams, the home in which she'd spend the rest of her living days, the place where she'd raise one child, perhaps more, God willing. Now, so close to it, Genevieve trembled with the old, familiar yearning, along with a strange, shimmering emotion that swelled to bursting in her chest.

The sweetness of success, she told herself. She'd fought for this and prevailed.

The canoe's rim slid alongside the pier. Andre wedged his paddle into one of the missing slats, grinding the vessel to a halt. Genevieve heaved the beaver off her lap and dumped it onto the platform, then gripping the damp edge of the canoe, she gingerly stepped out of the rocking vessel. Andre leapt out as gracefully as the mountain cat she'd seen on the trip back from Chequamegon Bay, all bunched muscles and economy of motion.

Tears swelled and blurred her vision. She ducked her head and brushed the chaff from her skirts as Andre pulled the canoe deep into the brush and tied it to a clutch of brush. What a foolish woman she was becoming, collapsing into tears at the merest memory. All the way from Montreal, her emotions had shifted like the winds. That's what pregnancy would do to you, the baker's wife had told her. Make a woman all weepy and strange. Well, she wouldn't give in to it. She wouldn't shame herself in front of Andre or ruin this moment of triumph, all because of a woman's weakness.

"Look, Andre." Genevieve tipped her chin at her beaver, who had dropped the wedge of wood he'd been chewing and set to chipping away at the trunk of a sapling upon the shore. "Do you still think him useless?"

Andre's jaw tightened. "It'll take more than a single beaver to clear this shore."

"Then I'll have to find him—or her—a mate."

She leaned close to him and smiled, but her smile faded as his expression remained stony, his gaze fixed on the woods. He'd been in a strange mood all morning, silent and grim, avoiding her eye throughout the trip from Montreal. In some deep place present in all women, Genevieve knew it was a memory that had cast this shadow upon his face. Memory of the charred remains of another house, on the far end of his father's holding; the shadow of a home in which he'd left another wife, many years ago. A memory all of her loving and all of her care could not dislodge.

She wound her fingers around his upper arm and battled a fresh surge of tears. "Are you going to stand here all day, or are you going to show me my house?"

He shook off his stillness and strode up the crumbled muddy steps of the pier. "The house could be in ruins. Seven years is a long time to leave a place untended in this country." Andre bent a sapling out of his way. "Impulsive wench. You should have let me send someone ahead."

As if she cared what it looked like now, as if she cared if it were a palace or a hut, after all this time. "Oh, bother. What difference does it make? Did you expect me to sit idly in Montreal all summer?"

"I could have had the house repaired. I could have brought you here like a man should bring his bride." Genevieve patted her swelling middle. "We're well beyond the honeymoon, Andre."

"At least," he argued, gritting as he arched a branch out of her way, "I could have had this land cleared."

"Don't clear it."

"What?"

She followed him through an overgrown thread of a path. Around her, spruce saplings bristled next to maple and slender white birch. Tufts of ferns and wild grasses choked the ground. Hot sunlight splattered through the low, uneven canopy. The buzzing of cicadas filled the air and a rabbit, startled out of its hiding place, flashed white feet as it ran away.

"I said .. . don't clear the land."

Leave it like this, as wild and untouched as the forests beyond Montreal.

"It'll be cleared, Genny, straight to the shore." He shook his shaggy head sharply. "I won't have you living like a squaw, not my wife, not anymore."

Memories flashed through her mind—of making love under the stars, of a smoked-filled log hut and a bed of furs, of long winter nights of loving. Oh, there it goes again, what was she to do about it? She dipped her head to avoid a low branch. She was tired of rocking on the thin edge between laughter and tears. Would there ever be a time in this wretched pregnancy when she wouldn't be blind with emotion? Genevieve tripped; a thin flagstone flipped, spraying chunks of loam before it cracked on another amid the weeds. She reached for Andre to steady herself . . . and clutched an arm as stiff and tense as stone. She glanced to where his steady gaze was directed, up the path of uneven paving stones, to a shape looming beyond a fencing of trees.

"Welcome." A muscle flexed in his cheek. "Welcome to your home."

Home.

Angrily, she brushed the tears muddling her vision out of the way, then buried her hand in her skirts and brushed by Andre. The patchwork of paving stones wound around a thick-trunked sugar maple, an older tree left standing after the original clearing—for shade in the summer, she supposed, or perhaps for syrup in the spring.

The wilderness had stretched its tentacles over and around the building, softening its rough edges with a luxuriant blanket of waxy green ivy, spotting the framework of timber with red columbine and nodding wild roses, still dewy in their new buds. Ruddy cedar shingles hung askew upon the patchy roof and peppered the ground below. Genevieve crackled through a dried-up garden, frightening a flurry of birds out of the eaves, then rattled the shutters, but they were closed tight. Peeling a woody vine off the sill revealed the silver-gray gleam of stone.

She ran her fingers over the rough rock. Every house she'd seen on the way from Montreal had been made of crude logs set upon one another; this house had a framework of timber filled with layers of hewn stone. A stone house. What an oddity in this land of endless forests. She remembered a tale her mother used to tell her, of three men and their houses of straw, sticks, and stones. Only the house of stone stood against the wolves.

"My father nearly went bankrupt building this thing." Andre leaned against the sugar maple, scowling at the house. "Used every able-bodied man from Quebec to Montreal to cut and transport the stone. He wanted a manor house in Quebec, a true seigneurie, finer than the one he'd lost in France." He gestured to the bristle of wild land. "He was planning to terrace the gardens before he died, like he heard King Louis was doing in Versailles."

Her mother's house had been made of stone, strong Norman rock yearly scraped free of lichen. The front gardens had been pruned and shaped into geometrical patterns of bushes and straight-edged hedges, a sharp contrast to the wild Norman woods tumbling out behind the manor. Funny, she'd spent so much more time amid the wild forests than skipping along the straight, pebbled paths.

She rubbed her damp hands along her skirt. "Can we go inside now?"

Andre scraped a rusted iron key out of a fissure in the stone sill of the opposite window, then turned it in the lock to creak open the front door. Silt sifted onto his shoulders as he stepped in. He brushed it off, disappearing into the dim interior.

Genevieve stepped into a hallway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. In the next room, wood clattered as Andre yanked open a pair of shutters. Golden light sifted through a mesh of dust and spilled through the portal, illuminating a stairway in the hall, with a carved railing that curled up to the second floor. Andre strode past her to the next room, clattering open yet another set of shutters.

She wandered into the room Andre had just vacated. It must be the air, Genevieve thought, as her breath thickened in her lungs. She ran two fingers up the leafy vines carved into the wooden frame of the parlor portal. A crystal chandelier draped in dusty spiderwebs chimed in a soft breeze, its facets capturing the pale sunlight. The brass of an ancient timepiece gleamed on a mantelpiece of marble, its hands frozen at twenty of two. The chairs were turned gently toward the hearth, awaiting a lady and her basket of needlework.

She leaned against the portal, her hand to her breast. My God . . . my God. Not even in the most delirious of her fevered dreams on the ship from France had she imagined there'd be such opulence in this New World or that she'd be the mistress of it. Andre had never mentioned anything; he'd had her thinking it was a tumbled-down old place. She stumbled deeper into the room, in search of a place to sit . . . and saw the harp standing in the corner.

Her breath hitched in her throat. Somewhere deep in the house, Andre cursed as he struggled with yet another set of shutters. Genevieve clutched her chest and approached the instrument, daring to stretch out one reverent hand and touch the gilded frame, daring to lightly strum the dusty strings.

A shaky laugh of wonder fell from her lips. All this time, and the strings rang true ... or perhaps her ear was not what it had been, in those days when Armand taught her and Maman sat by the window watching with the softest of smiles on her lips. Genevieve ran her fingers over the basket of roses embroidered on the stool. A faint perfume, sweet with remembrance, billowed from the cushion as she sat upon it.

She raked her nails across the strings, then probed her memory for a tune. The music swelled in her, that lovely melody. . . . She could not remember the name, but Genevieve found herself plucking the strings, rolling her hands in that familiar way, yearning to hear that song again, to remember Maman and those golden days, when the world was gentle and simple and enclosed by an iron gate and a series of hedges, when she was still innocent, her mind pure and refined.

But all that emerged from her stroking was a screech of chords, a twanging mockery of the music of angels that she remembered. She released the strings abruptly and curled her hands into fists, to stop the cacophony. A sob heaved to her throat. What was she thinking, touching this instrument after so long? Did she think she could revive the skills of her childhood after all that had happened? Did she really think she could bring back the dead?

She blinked open her eyes and scanned the room, something sinking in her breast. This was a lady's house, the hearth of a fine family name. She did not belong here.

"You never told me you could play." Andre stood in the portal, his hands loose at his sides.

"You have an ear of tin." Genevieve jerked up with a swish of skirts and turned her back to him, feigning interest in the marble top of a chest of drawers. "I can't play at all."

"My mother played."

She trailed a hand over a moth-eaten bit of embroidery framed on the wall, forcing the hitch from her throat. "She must have been ... a fine lady."

"She could play like an angel. It was the only time she wasn't weeping, the only time she wasn't mourning all she'd left behind in France."

Bitterness seeped through his words. How hard it must have been for him, she thought, dragging her mind away from her own sorrow long enough to notice the shadows in his eyes, the stiffness of his shoulders. He'd told her he'd been barely twelve when his family was forced to move to New France, young enough to view the change as an adventure. Yet he'd lived in this house, watching his parents build this odd castle and spend their lives pining away over the past.

No wonder he escaped into the wilderness, she mused, where pretty objects meant nothing and a man was forced to live for the moment.

Genevieve approached him, her hands outstretched. "I'm sorry, Andre ..."

"It was a long time ago." He stepped back, turned away from her, then gestured toward the stairs. "Come upstairs. My mother had a carpet from the Savonnerie specially made for the master bedroom."

Her empty hands fell to her sides. She watched him climb to the second floor. Grief lay as thick as dust in this house. Now it was her duty to exorcise the ghosts, to fill the house with warmth, to make it a home.

She screamed a silent cry, then squeezed her eyes shut and grasped the carved portal to keep herself from falling into a heap on the floor. What a fool she was, a sentimental idiot. This place was more than she'd ever wanted, more than she'd ever dared dream. She'd be a rich woman, safe in a sturdy house; to the world around her, she'd be the perfect lady of the manor. With a child as well, a child of her own, to hold and to love. She should be singing praises to the skies, dancing in reckless abandon, for she'd triumphed, she'd survived and prevailed beyond all her imaginings.

But it was all a mockery. Marie Suzanne Duplessis belonged here, sewing embroidery and plumping pillows, not Genevieve Lalande. Genevieve was a fraud, her life was a fraud. She'd never wanted to hope for more than this, and now she couldn't help it. She'd been betrayed by her own convictions. Everything had changed.