Into the Wilderness
Page 138

"Is that what I did?" he asked, smiling broadly.
Elizabeth nodded, her own smile more tentative. "Yes. I think so."
He pulled her close. There was a great deal of satisfaction and relief in his face. "And so I did. Very well, in fact. You see how well. No, don't stop me." He was tugging at her clothes impatiently, spreading his hands wide against her warm skin.
"Did I say the right things to him?" she asked breathlessly.
"Aye," Nathaniel said, taking her hands above her head to lay her back against the cot. "You did, indeed. I'm well satisfied with you, Boots. Maybe it's time I showed you that again, don't you think? Would you be interested in another lesson in satisfaction?"
In reply, she pulled him down to her, and buried her face in the curve of his neck. Speechless, for once, in the face of what he had to say to her.
* * *
Later, his high spirits left him. While she slept out her adventure and what they had done together, he sat quietly and thought it all through, and his conclusions were not easy ones. Todd was too much on his mind, and had distracted him from other problems. The idea of Jack Lingo in a frenzy because he smelled money in the air was more than just mildly irritating. He had put his hands on Elizabeth, and had made threats, and thus intruded himself on a set of circumstances which were complicated enough already.
They were expected in Albany, where Elizabeth would be asked to depose in a civil action being brought against her by Dr. Richard Todd for breach of promise. He was demanding satisfaction in the form of option to purchase lands included in her dower. Knowing he was out of his depth, Nathaniel had sought legal advice and found, to his immense relief, that she was not bound by law to appear. Mr. Bennett had been quite clear on this: she had not been formally served with summons papers, had she? When Nathaniel assured him that she had not, Bennett had shown his own relief and noted that it would be a very good thing indeed if the serving of such papers, on Elizabeth or on Nathaniel as her husband, proved impossible.
Nathaniel had paid Bennett's retainer and got out of Johnstown before Hichard or his lawyers could find him. On the way north he had stopped briefly in Paradise to see his daughter and father, and to lay plans. Before leaving he had made sure to visit Anna Hauptmann, and to tell her in plain hearing of half the village that he was off to fetch his bride to Albany so she could testify on her own behalf and clear up these misunderstandings. The idea was to put Richard's mind at ease, although it meant lying to Anna, which he didn't like doing. She had always dealt fair with the folks from Lake in the Clouds.
Tomorrow, Bennett would show up in court without his clients, and if all went well, Richard would be angry enough to set out into the bush to find Elizabeth and serve the summons himself. They would lead him on a chase for a week or so, enough time for Hawkeye to try to talk Richard's witnesses out of perjuring themselves. It was not the best of plans, and there was all kinds of room for trouble, but it was all they could come up with on short notice.
In the morning he and Elizabeth would go north, and Runs-from-Bears would go back to Paradise, where Hawkeye would be glad of his help in case Jack Lingo made good on his threat and wandered in that direction. Not to mention Many-Doves , who had been directly displeased to see Nathaniel come home alone.
When Elizabeth stirred and woke, Nathaniel would have to make all of this known to her. He hoped there was enough to satisfy her curiosity for the moment. With any luck, she wouldn't ask those questions he wasn't yet ready to answer.
Late in the night, Elizabeth lay awake watching the guttering of a single candle near its end. She knew that she must give herself over to sleep soon, as reluctant as she was. Her body had adjusted well to these demanding circumstances, Nathaniel's attentions, her own hungers, the increased work and physical activity, but she would need her strength for what was ahead of them. Still she could not sleep, not yet. It would be hard to walk away from Robbie tomorrow, but the idea of going off into the bush with Nathaniel was very welcome to her. The rift that had opened between them today had not yet been healed.
"Do you realize I've never spent a full day alone with you?" she asked.
"It won't be easy," he said. "The terrain's more than tough in places."
"I don't mind," she said. It was more than that, but she was shy to tell him. She was proud of how much she had learned and how far she had come, and she wanted to show him those things. And if it kept Richard Todd at bay and gave them a chance to settle this business, she would be content. The solitude would give them time to learn to know each other. This thought made her aware of other things, of the heaviness in her loins, and the fact that her lips were tender. She pulled hard on her plait, taken aback and made uneasy by how easy it was to become aroused, how easy to lose her train of thought when Nathaniel was near.
"There will be time to talk," she said out loud. There were so many things she didn't understand and needed to know about. Questions slid into her consciousness and then out again, lazily.
"You still don't know how to swim," he murmured.
She stretched a bit and turned in his arms. Felt the weight of them around her, the solid strength of him an endless comfort.
"Never mind," he said, sifting through her hair, strand by strand, but in a distracted way. "There'll be time for that, too." There was an awareness about him when he was thinking hard, an underlying hum that she could feel in the rush of his blood. Elizabeth did not like having his thoughts elsewhere, not at this moment. She moved closer to him, bedded her head on his chest, and looked hard inside herself for words that would not come.