Into the Wilderness (32 page)

"None
of that matters, if you don't want me the way I want you. If you come to
me—" He looked away for a second, into the shadows, and then back at her.
"You have to know what you're getting."

"I
can see what I'm getting," Elizabeth said.

"Can
you? You think you can see to my soul, do you? You don't know what kind of
husband I was to Sarah. You don't like it when I talk about her, I can see
that. But I think you'll have to hear about it sometime."

"What
kind of husband were you to Sarah?" she asked woodenly.

"Not
a very good one." His mouth was a thin line, his brows drawn together.
"We married for the wrong reason."

She
waited, uneasily.

He
looked over her head into the dark. "I been thinking about it a lot
lately. I guess I married her because I wanted to be red and she married me
because she wanted to be white. So neither of us got what we wanted."

"She
gave you Hannah."

He
nodded. "You're right," he said. "Hannah made it worth the
trouble. But there was trouble, no mistake, Elizabeth. We married too young.

"I'm
not so young," Elizabeth said. "And neither are you, anymore.

"Will
you listen," he said. "I'm trying to tell you—"

"What
a terrible man you are, how you beat women and bully children, and throw all
your money away on gaming and drink—"

"I've
killed some men in my time, not counting the ones in battle," Nathaniel
interrupted her.

"Well,
then, there must have been sufficient reason," Elizabeth said, a bit
paler.

They
stared at each other for a moment.

"Will
you try to stop me teaching school?"

"Of
course not."

"Will
you tell me how to run things? Will you listen, when I have something to say,
and act on it? You have so far. I think," she said, her voice trembling,
"that you'd be a good husband. Better than most, when you're not being
contrary."

"Maybe
you just want to get away from the judge."

"Of
course I do. But—" She felt a nerve in her cheek fluttering. "But I
wouldn't marry Richard Todd to get away from him, or any of the men I met in
New—York—"

Nathaniel
put a thumb on her chin, fanning his fingers over her cheek. "I think
you're saying that you're fond of me," he said with a half smile.
"And that you're willing to chance the rest because of it."

She
inclined her head into his palm. "In the past week, I have been thinking
that perhaps there is such a thing as friendship and equal partnership between
a man and a woman. Where there is respect and—affection."

Nathaniel
touched his forehead to hers, but she kept her gaze cast down.

"So,"
Elizabeth said lightly. "Why is it you're willing to . . . go along with
this?"

"Well,
I thought that would be obvious enough," Nathaniel said. "But since I
promised you the words, I'll tell you. I want you with me. I want you there to
talk to, and to argue with, when nothing else will do. I'm sure there'll be
enough of that."

Elizabeth
drew in a sigh and let it go, turning her head so that her face was hidden
against his neck, her mouth close to the pulse at the base of his throat.

"I
want to watch you with Hannah, see what you've got to teach her. To take you
into the wilderness in the spring and show you where the flag lilies grow. When
it's hot, to sleep with you under the waterfall. To kiss you whenever I please.
To take you to bed, and have you there with me whenever I reach out for
you." His voice was soft and low against her ear. "To get you with child,
and watch it change the shape of you as it grows."

Elizabeth
lifted her face up to him until her mouth waited just under his.

"That's
why I want you," he said. "If you'll have me."

"Yes,"
she whispered. Elizabeth put her arms around his neck, and turned her mind to
kissing Nathaniel.

His
hands were on her back, moving in circles. He kissed the corner of her mouth,
took her lower lip between his teeth and worried it gently. Touched her upper
lip with his tongue and then claimed her, his arms surrounding her, one hand
cradling her head.

She
let her eyelids flutter closed as the angle of his head deepened. At first
there were many sensations: the feel of a chest as hard as oak through layers
of buckskin and fur and cloth, the exquisite rough pleasure of a day's growth
of beard, the taste of him, slightly salty, and still sweet. Slowly, her whole
consciousness became centered there where their mouths joined: the soft but
persistent pressure of his lips, the way his head dipped and coaxed hers. He
had been gentle and tentative and now there was more, a direction and growing
intensity in this kiss, in the way his hands held her head so that he could
take her mouth in deepening and hypnotic waves.

His
tongue touched hers and she started, and drew away. She looked at him with eyes
slightly out of focus, and then leaned forward to put her forehead against his
shoulder.

"It's
late," Nathaniel said hoarsely.

"Yes,"
Elizabeth agreed. "It is late."

"And
you're tired."

"Oh,
yes. You must be, too. It was exciting, watching you on the ice."

"So,"
Nathaniel said, pulling her closer.

"So,"
Elizabeth echoed, faintly.

"I
want you," he said. "I want to be with you."

Elizabeth
forced herself to meet his eye, knowing how deeply she blushed, knowing somehow
that it would please him to see that.

"I
would like that, too," she said, her voice wobbling. "I think."

"Good.
Good. But"—he looked around himself—"not now, not here."

She
nodded. "All right."

"It's
getting late," he said again. "And there's a lot we need to talk
about. This will take some planning, if we've got to elope. It can't be before
mid—April, at any rate."

Elizabeth's
heart fell, to think of that: two months.

Nathaniel
took her hand, rubbed the palm with his own. "Well, now, Boots," he
said, his old teasing tone back. "It does me no end of good to see that
you're impatient about it. But we can't be on the run in the thaw. The whole
world turns to water and mud and we couldn't get anywhere, not having to go
north into the bush. And that's what we'll have to do if we don't want to be
caught. Anyway," he said, grinning down at her. "I want to have the
schoolhouse done first. Settle my business with the judge, so to speak, before
I run off with his daughter. And it gives you two months to get the school
started. Which is why you came to Paradise, after all."

Elizabeth
drew in a shaky breath. "I don't know if I can pretend for that
long," she said. "To be interested in Richard, I mean." She
looked up at Nathaniel. "What if I can't do it? What if my father—"

"Don't
mistake me, Elizabeth," Nathaniel said, his eyes narrowing. "I'll
marry you one way or the other, and God help any man who tries to stop me. But
I want to take you home to Hidden Wolf. If there was some other way to do it, I
would. But I can't see one. Can you?"

She
shook her head. "I wish" she said. "I wish with all my heart
that my father would see reason and right and just sell you the land. I don't
like starting out like this, with artifice. It makes me afraid."

Nathaniel
began to speak, but she put a finger on his mouth to still him.

"There
is no other way, I know. So." Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "I will play
the game and hope that I can do you—us—some good in the process. But if I
can't—" She looked up at him. "I would go with you into the
wilderness, you know."

"Maybe
you shouldn't be so hasty," Nathaniel said. "You haven't been
introduced to the black fly yet. But between now and then I'll have to keep a
wide berth of you. Can you ignore me, do you think, when we do cross
paths?"
 
She smiled. "I'll try
to think of Hamlet, and be 'cruel but not unnatural: I will speak daggers to
you, but use none.

"You
are the most quoting woman," Nathaniel said softly, raising his hand to
smooth her hair out of her face. "And will you speak love or daggers to
Richard Todd?"

"I
am supposed to keep him waiting and hopeful," she said. "I don't
think daggers would do the job."

"What
about kissing? Is that part of the job?" Nathaniel was smiling, but there
was something wolfish about it that made Elizabeth wriggle.

"Well,
I don't relish the idea, but I suppose it might be necessary at some
point."

"No,"
he said suddenly, pulling her close again, pressing her mouth with his own,
hard. "No. Young ladies of good family don't let themselves be kissed, if
I may remind you."

Elizabeth
felt a completely idiotic grin overtake her; she couldn't help it. Despite the
seriousness of the situation, despite everything there was to gain and to lose,
she had to smile. Nathaniel wanted her, all of her.

"What
a memory you have, Mr. Bonner."

"When
Richard gets too close you remember that your kisses are mine, by rights."
And he bent to her mouth. When he lifted his head she was breathing hard.

"Two
months is a long time," Elizabeth whispered, reaching up for him again.

"You
can send word to me through Many-Doves ," he said, between kisses.

"Many-Doves
, yes," Elizabeth murmured back to him.

"But
don't say anything to Hannah yet, she might let it slip."

"No,
of course not," she mumbled against his mouth.

"Elizabeth,"
he said firmly, holding her away. "Early April, I'll be waiting for word.
I'll meet you then, before you go to Johnstown with your father, and we'll
settle the details."

She
sat back, wiping her hair away from her face.

"Until
then, you have to hold me far from you," Nathaniel said. "For all our
sakes."

Anna
Hauptmann, looked up from a bolt of huckaback as the door to the trading post
opened, letting in a blast of late March wind and Elizabeth Middleton. The
preoccupied look on Anna's face was replaced suddenly with a smile.

"Miz
Elizabeth! Well, it's about time," she said. "You ain't been by since
the lake opened up. I was beginning to think maybe you forgot about us down
here."

Elizabeth
pushed her hood back onto her shoulders and pulled her gloves off, shaking her
head.

"It's
been very busy," she said. "I hope you'll excuse me."

"Never
you mind, we're just glad to see you. Take off your wraps. There's room there
by the warm, if these men will mind their manners. I wonder where Ephraim and
Henrietta have got themselves to. They should come and say hello."

"Oh,
don't bother them, please," Elizabeth said. "I came in because I was
wondering if you happen to have material for handkerchiefs."

Anna
was turning to the high wall behind her before the sentence was completely out
of Elizabeth's mouth.

"Better
than that," she mumbled, pulling out a drawer and peering in. "The
Kaes girls spun twenty yard of good plain cloth in the fall and we sewed up
handkerchiefs out of the rests, save you the needlework. Unless you was wanting
lawn? I ain't had any nice lawn in a year or more. Now," she continued,
without waiting for Elizabeth's reply. "The question is, where they got to
since the last time I seen them. How many was you wanting?"

"As
many as you've got," said Elizabeth. "It's one item I didn't think
I'd need in the classroom, but I've come to see that I can't do without. The
children seem to all have colds. The sudden change in the weather, I
suppose."

"Thaw's
the season for it, sure enough," said Anna, climbing up on stool to
investigate cubbyholes out of her reach.

Elizabeth
left Anna to her rummaging and turned to look over the room. There was a new
sign on the wall.
All grains and flowers
took in trade
, it read. An unbidden picture came to Elizabeth, in which her
father attempted to pay for his tobacco with an armful of daisies, and she
almost laughed. But then she saw how carefully the placard had been painted,
and she bit her lip.

The
usual crowd of men was gathered by the hearth. Elizabeth nodded to them from a
distance. Julian waved one hand over his head in her direction without
bothering to get up. Anna's father was sound asleep, the fringe of his long
gray beard spread over his chest like a moth—eaten blanket. Moses Southern gave
her a curt nod from his perch on a barrel of pickled eggs, but Jed McGarrity
jumped up and came forward to pump Elizabeth's hand with both of his own.

"I'm
glad to see you, Miz Elizabeth," he said. "I keep trying to catch you
after church on Sunday. Been wanting to tell you what a fine job you're doing.
You keep them young'uns hopping, that's sure enough so."

Elizabeth
smiled. "It is certainly good to hear that you're satisfied with the
progress your boys are making."