Once again Alice was reminded of the wildness of this place. It seemed ages since she’d left, but not a parson had ridden through in all that time to speak the vows for Peg and her man. Would she ever get used to the strangeness of this new land?
“Well, I’m married already,” she announced to Pegeen.
The girl’s eyes went immediately to Alice’s slender waistline. She frowned and shook her head slightly.
Alice laughed at Pegeen’s reaction and pinched her plump, rosy cheek. “We can’t all be quick as rabbits, girl. Give me time, will you?”
Chris, standing nearby, overheard the conversation and strode up, smiling broadly. He draped one strong arm around his wife’s shoulders and said to Peg, “I’m working on it, lassie, every chance she gives me. I’ll have your mistress wearing a barrel under her frock before you know it.”
Alice turned a shocked look on her husband as Pegeen giggled. “How crude, Chris,” she scolded.
“Well, you want bairns don’t you, love?”
“Yes, but the way you talk!”
“Don’t fret, mum,” Pegeen said. “I’m used to it here, the only woman among all these men. It’s so good you’ll be here now to keep me company. Why, I even enjoyed having that Indian woman around for a while. I’m that starved for female companionship.”
“What Indian woman?” Alice asked suspiciously.
She turned to Chris in time to see him put a silencing finger to his lips, but he was too late.
“Ishani,” Pegeen blurted out.
“She was here?” Alice cried.
“I’m sorry,” Peg said with a shrug toward Gunn. “I thought you’d have told her all about it.”
Just then Sheamus O’Dare called her. Relieved to be out of the midst of the trouble she’d stirred up, Peg scurried away.
Alice turned on Chris immediately. “Why was Ishani here?” she demanded.
“You needn’t worry about her any longer. She’s married now,” Chris said, trying to avoid a direct answer and a sure confrontation.
“To whom, one of the men at the fort?”
“No. A brave named Wannoak.”
“Then what was she doing here?”
“Her husband was off with the men of the tribe, and she came for a visit, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Alice cried. “I suppose you’re going to tell me next that she came to visit Pegeen. Christopher, how could you? You know how I feel about her.”
As she stormed away from him, Chris called after her, “That’s not how it was at all. Alice, listen to me. Come back here!” When she turned a deaf ear, he muttered, “All right, dammit, be that way!”
That night, for the first time since leaving Boston, the Gunns did not sleep in each other’s arms. When Chris went to find Alice, ready to leave for their cabin outside the fort walls, she refused to go with him.
“I want some time here at the fort to visit with Pegeen,” she lied. “You go on to the cabin. I’m sure you’ll find some way to amuse yourself without me.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” he replied angrily. “If you’re set on staying, I’ll stay, too.”
“No,” Alice said firmly, barring the door to her old room so that he couldn’t enter. “I want to be alone to think tonight.”
“Alice, this is crazy. Let me come in and talk to you,” he pleaded. “I’ll be gone soon enough. Then you’ll have all the time in the world to yourself.”
“You’re going away?” Alice’s anger turned to an empty ache around her heart. He couldn’t leave until they got things settled. “Going where, Chris?”
He stared at her, unbelieving. “You know where I have to go, Alice. How many times have I told you that I have to meet with the baron right away?”
“But I thought I’d be going with you.”
“To a war conference? You can’t be serious.”
“Where will you meet him?”
“At the Indian village up the river. It’s a hard day’s trip over rugged, dangerous territory. I wouldn’t think of subjecting you to such a journey, even if I could take you.”
“What do you mean, even if you could take me?”
“A white woman wouldn’t be welcome in the camp, especially not with important negotiations under way.”
Alice thought for a moment, then narrowed her eyes and said, “But I don’t suppose the Indian women will be sent away, will they, Gunn?”
“I don’t get your point. It’s an Indian village. Why would they send their own women away, Alice? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Now her anger was clear on her face as she tried to shut the door on him. Chris kept his hand in place, holding it open.
“Alice, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!” she screamed. “Just leave me be, Christopher Gunn. Go to your squaw, if that’s what you want. I hope you’ll both be very happy. But don’t expect me to welcome you back with open arms. I suppose the two of you planned this little rendezvous while she was here with you at the fort. How cozy! How disgusting!”
Alice finally succeeded in slamming the door, catching the tip of one of Gunn’s fingers in the process. He stormed toward the gate, muttering oaths as he sucked on his hurt finger.
Gunn spent that night alone in his cabin, and the next day he rode off toward the baron’s camp. He did not bother going back to the fort to plead his case with Alice. Let her stew in her own juices while he was away. Maybe she’d be more agreeable by the time he returned.
Stew Alice did. A few days later she poured out the whole story to Pegeen’s eager ears.
“So, I just told him to go,” she concluded. “I won’t be a party to his jolly little threesome.”
“Oh, mum, you shouldn’t have sent him off that way,” Peg replied, her gray eyes clouded with worry. “Not with Indian customs being what they are.”
Alice turned to stare at the girl. “What are you talking about, Peg? What customs?”
Pegeen glanced about and lowered her voice so Sheamus wouldn’t hear what she was saying from the room behind his shop. “It ain’t that they’re really a sinful lot,” Peg explained. “They’ve just got a peculiar way when it comes to hospitality. You see, when an outsider comes to camp, they don’t like to see him go wanting for nothing. So, come nightfall, they parade out their eligible women, and the visitor must take his pick or insult the chief.”
“Surely you jest!” Alice said, horrified.
Pegeen shook her head. “It’s God’s own truth. I’ve heard the men talk. Most of the fellers here will face any sort of danger to take official messages to the Indian camp. They claim they get the pick of the lot when they go, not diseased whores, but chief’s daughters and the like.”
“You’re telling me that my husband is going to be forced to sleep with an Indian maid while he’s at their camp?”
Pegeen shrugged. “Not so much forced as obligated. After all, he’s on a diplomatic mission. He can’t very well insult them, can he?”
“No wonder he refused to take me along,” Alice wailed.
“Well, it wouldn’t be so bad except that Ishani is in that very camp, and I know how you feel about her.”
“You mean how Gunn feels about her,” Alice remarked sarcastically. “At least she’s married now.”
“Mum, you must have misunderstood me. It’s the married ones they choose from. They don’t let their unwed maids lie down with any man. Ishani being a special friend of your husband’s, she’ll be his likely choice, I suspect. Her lying with a man who’s such a brave hero to them for saving the baron’s life will bring honor on her own husband and all his people, so she’s not likely to refuse if he asks for her.”
“Oh, Pegeen, shut up! Just shut up!”
Never in her life had Alice felt tears so near the surface. Why, oh, why, had she sent Chris off with such unreasonable anger? If anything happened, it was all her fault, she told herself. She felt too guilty and sick
to allow herself to shed a tear.
Except for small raiding parties, the Abenaki had not yet left their winter quarters on Canoe Island up the Penobscot River because of the special event that was about to take place there. Gunn’s hard day’s ride to meet with the baron was long and solitary, giving him more time than he wished to think about Alice and the harsh words that had passed between them before his departure.
What was he doing wrong? Back in England he’d deftly handled women with temperament and spirit equal to hers. When had he lost his knack?
He glanced about. The tall pines rose over him, blocking out the noonday sun, giving a haunted look to the woods he rode through. His horse whinnied softly and pricked his ears. Gunn realized he was listening more closely, too. A jaybird squawked off in the distance, and closer by some small animal made its way through rustling pine needles. But no real danger lurked nearby—there was no smell of it in the clear spring-scented air. Gunn eased his tense body and let his mind drift back to Alice.
If they were in England, things would be so simple. He knew how she expected him to act—the proper husband, always presentable, always accommodating, a gentleman to the core. But this was not England. Maine was a wild land populated by wild men. To survive among the Indians a man had to think and, at times, act like a savage. Therein lay the root of the problem. Alice had decided to marry him thinking he was one kind of man, only to find out that he was quite a different sort.
As a man, Gunn knew the rougher side of life and had learned to adjust to it. As a woman, Alice refused to admit that her existence could be anything short of the perfect picture her first husband had painted for her. They would both have to change their ideas if they meant to make a go of their marriage.
Gunn let out a long sigh. “Just let me be done with this mission, and I swear I’ll go home to Alice a changed man. We can and we will make it work.”
He spent the rest of his time on horseback listing his failings and deciding how he could change to suit Alice. He’d been a fool to take her in the woods that first night, he decided. He should have waited until he could bed her properly with all the pomp and ceremony a bride expected of her groom. He would give her what she wanted the next time, he vowed.
Gunn threw his head back and smiled, thinking of that night in the pine grove. Alice might not have been happy, “But Lord, Lord, it was sweet,” he murmured aloud, remembering the flames that had singed his very soul as the spitfire clawing and slapping him had turned miraculously into his own purring, sighing woman, her body hot and pliant in its need to be loved. There was no denying that his wife was a passionate female. He’d give all the mythical gold of Norumbega to be with her this very minute, kissing those pouting lips, nibbling at her nipples, fingering that fine down between her thighs until she begged him to sink into her.
A groan escaped Gunn and he eased to a more comfortable position on his horse’s broad back.
Stop thinking such thoughts, he warned himself.
Just then he spied the first signs of the Abenaki camp up ahead. A long canoe of birch bark awaited his arrival to take him across to the island. Gunn dismounted and walked cautiously toward the riverbank. He knew his every move was being watched and had been ever since he left his cabin, even though he had spied no other human being in the forest all day long.
Tying his horse to a silver birch sapling, he opened the leather bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out his white mooseskin ceremonial costume. Quickly shedding his buckskins, he glanced about, embarrassed. If he was being watched, and he was sure of it, the spies about him got a clear view of the full erection caused by his thoughts of Alice. He pulled on his breechclout, anxious to cover himself, then tied on his leggings, the fur sleeve, and the flowing cape that completed his Abenaki attire.
Gunn then climbed into the canoe and shoved off from the bank. He took the single oar from the bottom of the craft and dug it deep into the cold, clear water. Ahead he could see a small greeting party in ceremonial dress gathering to await his arrival. He spotted Ishani among those on the bank, and a fleeting moment of dread shot through him. Tonight—after his powwow with the baron, after the smoking of the pipe, after the feasting and dancing and drinking—his mettle as a diplomat would be put to the test. How would he explain his way out of accepting the tribe’s hospitality without offending their leaders?
Alice stayed busy, setting her mind and her house in order, anticipating the return of her husband. She’d been wrong and she realized it now. All she would accomplish by fuming and fretting was to make them both miserable. The last thing she wanted to do was drive Chris away permanently, but that seemed the course she was on. She was determined to change her ways the minute he got home.
Although she was afraid to sleep alone in the cabin outside the fort’s walls, she went there the day Chris left. With Pegeen’s help, she scrubbed the place down to the bare boards, burned the shabby bed linens, and cleared away every evidence that her husband might have shared his abode with another woman.
When they finished, the cabin looked clean, but bare.
“Lord, mum, what’s your man going to say when he walks in here? It looks nice, of course, but not homey like it did before.”
Alice glanced about. Peg was right. “You just leave it to me, girl. Christopher Gunn won’t know the place when he walks in, but he’ll be pleased as can be when he sees how I’ve fixed it up.”
That afternoon Alice prevailed on two of the off-duty guards from the fort to haul her trunks out to the cabin on sledges. She’d left all her household goods stored at the fort, taking only her clothes to Boston. Pegeen oohed and aahed over the finery as they unpacked. The bare windows were soon draped in rich tapestries. The corner cupboard, which had earlier held only cracked pottery and tin dishes, now gleamed with heavy pewter, crystal, and silver. Oriental rugs in colors of ruby, sapphire, and topaz glowed on the clean heart-pine boards of the floor.
“Come help me hang this drape,” Alice called to Peg.
“Oh, mum,” the girl whispered, fingering the rich, golden-tasseled scarlet velvet. “That’s so lovely it’s absolutely sinful!”
Alice laughed. “Don’t you recognize it? It’s the bed curtain from my room back at Balfour Manor. We’ll put it up here, across the opening between the main room and this little cubbyhole where we’ll sleep.”
As for the bed itself, Alice had plans for it as well. The two women restuffed the hard mattress with goose down. The rough homespun lengths that had served Gunn as sheets were soon replaced by silk. A down quilt went on next and finally a handwoven bedcover from Italy, rich reds and greens shot through with golden threads.
When they were finished, Gunn’s crude cabin looked like a palace in miniature. As a final touch, Alice placed scent bags containing crushed lavender and attar of roses in every nook and cranny. When Peg was not looking, she placed one last little sack under the mattress. This special blend of dried herbs and precious bits of this and that was a concoction her own mother had made before she was hanged. She’d told her daughter it was a secret potion that she should use on her wedding night to ensure happiness and pleasure for the bride and groom. Alice had never before tried the love potion, but her mother had guaranteed its effectiveness.
“There. What do you think?” Alice turned a beaming smile on her helper.
Pegeen giggled. “I think, mum, that your man’s going to want to know where his harem is. The place is too gorgeous and sweet-smelling to belong to any common man. Must be the pleasure palace of some high and mighty spice merchant from the East.”
“Oh, Peg, how you do go on,” Alice said, smiling in spite of herself, thinking that her handiwork was sure to delight and arouse her husband on his return.
To Gunn’s amazement and delight, he found that his presence at the Indian camp had been demanded not for further peace talks this time, but to act as best man at Baron de Saint Castin’s wedding.
“There’ll be no need for powwows fo
r now,” the smiling Frenchman told Gunn. “The minute you return to the fort, inform your commander that he need fear no raids this summer. We wound up almost even last season, and we’ll stay that way for now. I declare a truce between our people for the next few months.” Looking down at the shy, lovely maiden beside him, he added, “I’ll have more important matters at hand than whipping the tails of you bloody English dogs. We can take care of that later. Agreed?”
“I’d like to call a truce for all time,” Gunn said.
The baron shook his head sadly. “You and I, we’ll see peace in heaven, not before then, I’m afraid. But let’s make the most of this happy occasion, my friend.”
Gunn stared at the bride-to-be; he couldn’t help himself. The baron had certainly chosen well. Chief Madockawando’s daughter was a beauty by any standards—dainty, fragile-looking, pale of skin and dark of hair, and seemingly as shy as a ruby-breasted hummingbird. But when she looked up at her tall Frenchman, her black eyes glittered with soul-deep love. There was nothing shy about the passionate looks that passed between the two of them.
“I’d introduce you,” the baron said to Gunn, “but damned if I can pronounce her name. We’re changing that at the ceremony tomorrow. From now on she’ll be Mathilde. A good French name for a good Catholic wife.”
In Abenaki Gunn paid his respects to Mathilde and wished her much happiness, many children, and a long life.
She looked up at him with a shy smile on her perfect, heart-shaped face and answered in beautifully accented French, “We are glad to have you with us, but I wish you had brought your wife.”
Feeling the passionate charge enveloping Mathilde and the baron, Gunn answered, “I do, too, more than you could know.”
Chapter 13
Two weddings took place the following day. The arrival of the Catholic priest from Quebec to join the French baron and the Abenaki princess had been well planned and thoroughly prepared for. However, the advent of the parson at the fort ahead of schedule came as a welcome surprise.
Silver Tears Page 20
