Into the Wilderness
Page 112

"No." Richard shook his head, his smile disappearing. "Hidden Wolf was promised to me as part of the marriage contract, and I intend to sue for it."
There was a pause in the room, a gathering tension that jumped from Richard to Nathaniel and back again. Elizabeth knew that she stood outside this flow of energy. They had come to the heart of the matter now.
"Give it up, man," Mr. Schuyler said roughly. "Your chances are next to none, and you'll do nothing but injure your own good name in the courts. And hers."
"Good name?" laughed Richard. "She has no good name left to protect."
Nathaniel had been holding Elizabeth back, but suddenly he was gone from her, moving forward in two powerful leaps, so quickly that she barely understood what was happening before his fist met Richard's jaw with a dull cracking sound. Richard staggered and then caught himself. Elizabeth's stomach turned over neatly and rose into her throat.
Mr. Schuyler stepped forward and pushed against Nathaniel's shoulder, hard. "You forget yourself." he shouted. "Think where you are, man! By God, I will put you both out if you do not control your tempers!"
Nathaniel was breathing hard. He looked away, and then back at Mr. Schuyler, dropping his head in a brief nod of acknowledgment.
Richard's eyes flashed with a narrow satisfaction. His jaw was turning color quickly, and a trickle of blood stained his lip, but he grinned.
"Nathaniel Bonner, called Wolf—Running—Fast," he said, his voice tight with menace. "Listen to me. I am going to Albany to file a breach of contract against this"—he swallowed hard—"lady of yours. And to that end, I insist that she accompany me there to face that charge, and to be questioned in this matter."
"Never," Nathaniel said. His voice, so low and reasonable, made Elizabeth's hair stand on end. He glanced out the window, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. When he looked back, his face was impassive. "You have no power over us," he said. "And I will warn you once, and only once. You will stay away from me and mine, and we will stay away from you. But if you can't do that, if you ever lay a hand on my wife again or on any member of my family, I will kill you."
Richard did not blink. "She will come and face the charges against her," he said. "Or I'll see that a bench warrant is issued."
"Dr. Todd, you go too far," Mr. Schuyler said, disgusted. He turned to Nathaniel. "Let me deal with the man," he said. "Please take your wife upstairs."
"Mr. Schuyler, I am not going to Albany with him," said Elizabeth.
"Of course you are not. Of course not. Please, go up to your room now and I will sort this out."
Elizabeth hesitated. Nathaniel took her arm, and she glanced up at him.
"Go on, now," he said, opening the door for her. "I'll be up directly."
Mrs. Schuyler and her sons were in the hall with Runs-from-Bears, who stood with his rifle cradled in his arms. He exchanged a glance with Nathaniel and then followed Elizabeth upstairs, where he stood outside her door with his back to the wall.
* * *
She paced. She paced the room, alternately reading aunt Merriweather's letter and then stopping to make calculations on a scrap of paper. In addition to the gift of seven thousand, they needed another three and a half thousand dollars, and they needed it today. She herself had about half that much in the Albany bank, her entire annual income from her mother's small bequest. She thought that Nathaniel probably had the rest, given the offer to purchase he had made to her father. But she worked the numbers again and again and came out always at the same place: not enough money to pay off Richard, and pay the outstanding taxes on her own property, and her father's. They were at least five hundred dollars short.
It was an hour before he came to her, closing the door quietly behind him. She walked up to Nathaniel and put her arms around him, her head on his shoulder, trembling in anger and frustration.
"I had no idea," she said. "That it was so very bad. Ten thousand five hundred dollars."
He stroked her hair and said nothing.
"Tell me I don't have to go to Albany."
"You don't have to go to Albany," said Nathaniel. "But I do."
She pulled away. "Then I'm coming, too."
"No." He smiled grimly. "No, you ain't. I'm going with Schuyler and Todd because things would look bad if I weren't there to represent your interests. As it is I don't know what's going to happen."
"Can he get Hidden Wolf?" she asked, barely able to control the tremble in her voice.
"I don't think so. Neither does Schuyler. But we don't know what tricks he's got left yet, and I can't ask Philip to handle this on his own."
"Yes you can," Elizabeth said, knowing that he could not, but unable to bear the idea of this.
He smiled, and stroked her hair.
"I don't want you to go," she said, feeling her chin tremble and wishing that she could stop it.
"I know that," he said. "I don't want to go, either. But this is bad business, Boots, and we've got to get it settled. Now, listen."
He leaned forward and kissed her, quickly.
"Schuyler got him to agree to let you stay behind. Which is the right thing, because we don't know who's waiting down there in Albany to speak against you. Could be your brother—" He put a finger on her mouth to quiet her. "We ain't talking about the truth here, we're talking about how he can make things look."