Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  “Where’s Runs-from-Bears?” Nathaniel asked.

  “He went out this morning, hunting. Why?” she asked, and then she looked away, knowing why. “It’s full light,” she said.

  Nathaniel caught her waist between his hands. “We’ve had this discussion before,” he said. “But the last time we were very rudely interrupted.”

  “So we were,” she agreed. And then, with a frank gaze which pleased him inordinately: “I wondered if you’d remember.”

  He laughed then, and buried his face in her neck. “I couldn’t forget if I wanted to,” he said against her ear. “Will you have me in the daylight, Boots?”

  She nodded; it was all she could do, he could see that. And this pleased him, too. Everything about her pleased him. Outwardly, she was hardly the same woman, wearing buckskins with her hair plaited. Her eyes were all the grayer for the browning of her skin in the sun. But when he touched her, when she spoke to him, she was still there, the woman he had married. Elizabeth, with her warmth and her smile, her intelligence and curiosity and bravery. Robbie had seen those things in her, although she could not see them in herself.

  With a little shrug and a smile she had left him to take the cook pot off the fire and cover it, and then scatter the coals. She would not look at him, although he kept his gaze on her.

  Elizabeth went to the cabin and glanced over her shoulder at him, and Nathaniel followed her into the dark, warm caverns inside the mountain.

  They were completely and utterly alone. Outside there might be winter, or a hailstorm, or a world on fire, and they would not know, here in the middle chamber, the one where Elizabeth slept. Nathaniel piled the packets and sacks from the canoe in the space already crowded with the odds and ends of Robbie’s life. The torch in the corridor smoked a bit, but here the air was clear and warm and flickering with the light of beeswax, for Robbie had left a brace of candles, clearly his best and most precious supply. Elizabeth had hesitated about lighting them, but Nathaniel had not, pointing out what she knew to be true: that Robbie had wanted them to use the candles; this was his wedding gift to them. They burned bright and they smelled sweet, and Elizabeth was glad of them, here in the heart of the mountain.

  “What are you thinking?” Nathaniel asked, and she realized he had been watching her face. He was crouched down, rummaging through the plunder from the canoe.

  She drew in a breath. “That we are more alone here than we were … under the waterfalls.” She looked down the corridor, and thought of something she could offer him. “Would you like to bathe?”

  “Later,” he said, grinning up at her. “I brought you something.”

  “I don’t have anything for you.”

  “Ah,” he said. “But you do.” And he hooked her leg out from under her so that she sat down hard next to him, her breath bursting from her with a surprised whoosh.

  “Oooh.” She laughed, rubbing her backside. “You might simply have asked, Nathaniel.”

  He put a small packet in her lap. She opened it carefully, feeling his eyes on her. Inside the paper there was a handkerchief, a beautiful piece of the finest linen embroidered white on white, edged all around with exquisite lace. Elizabeth looked up at him, surprised.

  “You never got to use the wedding hankie you bought from Anna,” he said.

  “Did you know about that episode with Anna?”

  “Curiosity told me.”

  “Curiosity.” She smiled. “We owe her a great deal.”

  “Aye,” Nathaniel agreed. “We do. But she’s pleased with herself and with you. She said to tell you that you did good.”

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to laugh. “I doubt that my father agrees with her. Her part in our getting away isn’t known?”

  “Seems she managed that pretty well. You don’t need to worry about Curiosity,” Nathaniel noted. “And your father looks none the worse for wear, although I didn’t talk to him.”

  Elizabeth didn’t want to talk about her father just now. “How are things at Lake in the Clouds?”

  He ran a knuckle down her arm. “You worried about Hannah?”

  “You are reading my mind again. I’m not so sure that is a desirable trait in a husband,” she teased. “But yes, I have been wondering how she feels about all of this.”

  He smiled. “She’s taking full credit for the whole plan. You don’t need to worry about her, Boots. You’ll be a good mother to her.”

  Elizabeth looked down at her hand in his. She saw how rough her skin had become in such a short time. It was sun-browned, the beginnings of calluses on the pads of her thumbs. But these were stronger hands, and she was not ashamed of them.

  Nathaniel had seen her hands, too, and his face was suddenly drawn.

  “You weren’t born to this life,” he said, all of his playfulness and teasing gone.

  “Then I’m very fortunate, aren’t I?” she said softly. “To have come to it the way I did.”

  She lifted the handkerchief to touch it to his cheek and, as she did, two pieces of jewelry fell out: a hair clasp of silver, and a pendant, a long chain slithering after it.

  “Oh,” she breathed, picking up the chain so that the single pearl enclosed in a clutch of silver petals and curling leaves twirled to catch the candlelight.

  “It was my mother’s,” said Nathaniel. “And the wedding ring, too. She left them to me to keep for Hannah, but I asked her and she thinks you should have them for now.”

  Elizabeth picked up the hair clasp, a wide lozenge of silver etched with a pattern of winding flowers. “Was this your mother’s, too?”

  “No, I bought that in Albany. I kept thinking about your hair, the color of it spread out, how it put the fisher pelts to shame …” He paused. “And so I bought it for you. You’ll be thinking me extravagant.”

  “I’m thinking that you are a love,” Elizabeth said, blinking hard. “Shall I put it in my hair now?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t want your hair up right now. But will you wear this?” He touched the silver chain.

  Elizabeth was already turning, gathering her plait away to expose her neck. The pearl touched the hollow of her throat and slid down between her breasts while Nathaniel’s fingers worked at the nape of her neck, his breath on her hair. Elizabeth felt her skin rising, every nerve awakening. His hands moved to her shoulders, and then there was his mouth, warm and open below her ear. She heard herself gasping, a strange, inarticulate sound.

  “Do you like it?”

  She flexed and turned in his arms, rising on her knees to come closer to him, and hugged him with all her strength. For once, she had no words and so she just held him.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He grinned.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said, taking his face between her hands to kiss him briefly, rubbing her cheek against his, enjoying its roughness. “Yes, I like it. Yes. Thank you.”

  His hands were on her waist, where they moved up and down, slowly.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, pulling her even closer, leaning in and then away, hesitating still.

  Elizabeth wondered at him, that he did not start what they both wanted to start. His hands drew slow circles under her arms, the thumbs stretching out to trace the swell of her breasts, but he was content to watch her face, it seemed. She was not content, not at all. Now that he was here with her after so long.

  “Is there anything wrong?”

  “Not a thing in the world,” he said huskily. But still he didn’t kiss her; there was just the sliding pressure of his hands, and the sweep of his thumbs.

  She met his eye and held it.

  “There’s no hurry, Boots,” he said easily, drawing her forward to kiss her, finally, just a brushing and then he was gone. “There’s no one in the world to interrupt us, and nowhere to go.” With his hand covering the small of her back, he brought her up against him and pressed his mouth to her temple, traced a path with his lips to her ear. The other hand slid up under her shirt to cup a breast at that moment that he fo
und her mouth and kissed her in earnest.

  “Unless you’d like to talk, just now,” he said a good time later.

  “You make me shiver so,” she murmured.

  Nathaniel laughed and buried his face in her neck. “Shivering is just the start of it.” “Of what?” she asked.

  “Of this,” he said, his hands moving again.

  “This …” Elizabeth echoed. “What do you call this?”

  He did not laugh this time, but she saw something else in his face, a kind of pleasure and power and satisfaction. Her lack of experience and her curiosity aroused him. She was aware of this, slowly. She could taste it in his kiss, feel it in the way his mouth moved on hers.

  “I’ve read about it,” she said. “But I’d like to know what you call this.”

  He stilled suddenly, surprised. “What have you read about?”

  “This—” she said with an edge of impatience. “What goes on between men and women. My uncle’s library is very extensive, and I have read all of it. In the Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas most usually uses the term carnal intercourse, and then there’s coition, or vera copula, but it is hard for me to think of—us—in those terms. I remember a medical text very clearly which used the term venery. I think to the effect ‘The Passions of the Mind have great Influence, as also excessive Venery.’ Although more commonly I think that word is used to refer to love of the hunt.” Seeing the disbelieving look on Nathaniel’s face, she stopped.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Well,” she said slowly. “There were other terms. Sexual congress and consummation, and of course the biblical fornication, but as we are married—” Her voice trailed away.

  “Vera copula?” Nathaniel echoed. Elizabeth felt herself begin to flush, not with embarrassment this time, but with irritation.

  “It’s a simple question, Nathaniel,” she said. “I just would like to know what you call this act, as almost all of the terms I have read do not seem appropriate.”

  He was smiling at her, and she didn’t like it. She began to pull away, but he held her tight.

  “Let me go.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Why are you laughing at me?” she demanded, her throat tight with longing and mortification.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he said, dipping his head to kiss her, but she turned away and he caught the crest of her cheek instead.

  “You are. It’s quite clear that you’re laughing at me, and I won’t have it. I’ve been worried about you for so long and waiting and … wondering. And you gave me this necklace of your mother’s and now you are laughing at me.” She knew she made no sense, but the choices available to her at this moment were anger or tears, and she would not weep. She would not.

  Nathaniel’s face had cleared of all laughter, but he didn’t try to kiss her again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I just can’t imagine you sitting in your uncle’s library making a study of this topic in his medical texts.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “I read all his books.”

  He shrugged. “Why not. Well, I suppose because you were so set on yourself as a spinster. I’m surprised you could bring yourself to read about something that didn’t concern you.”

  “I hope to never have plague or gout, either, but I read about those things,” she said, knowing that she sounded peevish. She was not being completely honest with him, and it irritated her to be made to explain herself when all she wanted, really, was a simple answer. And the demonstration he had promised her so many days ago on the nature of satisfaction. She glared at him, but he looked back at her without flinching.

  “And I was curious,” she added, reluctantly.

  Nathaniel nodded. “Aye, I can believe that. But most young ladies don’t have the opportunity or the nerve to take up a study of the subject, do they?”

  This insight took Elizabeth by surprise, and she nodded.

  “Wait a minute,” Nathaniel said. He stood, unfolding his long legs and pulling her up with him. Then he settled himself on the cot, and her next to him, tucked into his side with his arm around her shoulder. Elizabeth came to him willingly, although she was a bit surprised at this change in direction and purpose.

  “So tell me about the other words.”

  Elizabeth sat away to look at him, but his face was open and his expression guileless, and he waited for her response. “What do you mean?”

  “You said almost all the terms that didn’t suit. Which ones did?”

  She tried to turn away, but he kept her where she was.

  “No,” he said. “We’ve started this discussion and we’ll finish it, by God, otherwise you’ll never be satisfied. Tell me what you read, Boots.” He still was not grinning, and Elizabeth settled in next to him, with some reluctance.

  “Two phrases come to mind,” she said slowly. “The first is from Timon: ‘Lovelle Venus sported and with Mars consorted.’ ” And because Nathaniel was quiet, she carried on without daring to meet his eye. “The other was from a collection of letters. I can’t remember anymore who the author was, but the sentence remains with me. ‘They were made one flesh by bodily fellowship.’ ”

  “Is that all?”

  “Do you want to hear more?” she asked, surprised.

  “If you want to tell me.”

  She shook him a little, in frustration. “This all started because I wanted you to tell me about your words, and now you’ve made me give you a history of my reading habits and I must say, Nathaniel, you have quite ruined my mood.”

  “Oh, have I?” His hand had moved up her arm to her neck, where his fingers tangled lazily in the loose hair curling there. Her skin rose at this gentle plucking, and she gave up her frown with a small sigh.

  “Maybe not altogether, then.”

  “Perhaps not,” she conceded, as his fingers continued on their quest.

  “Now, about those words you’re so curious about. If you ain’t satisfied with the fancy terms you know, Boots, then I suppose we must find others that will suit.”

  She stilled then. His hands were moving over her, but it was his voice that had her whole attention. He kissed her cheek, the corner of her mouth, her ear. “I’m going to undress you now. And then I’m going to make love to you—that’s the name we’ll put to it for the time being—and as we go along, I’ll tell you what you want to know.” He blew lightly on the moisture he had left on the soft flesh under her ear and she shuddered with that. “I’ll tell you what it is we’re doing, in my own words. Will that serve?”

  She nodded, because she could not speak.

  “And I’ll ask you questions now and then to see if you’ve been paying attention.”

  Elizabeth’s mind was fuzzy with the heat of his mouth at her ear and the pressure of a palm against her breast. It seemed that suddenly there was not enough air to breathe. He took his time kissing her, a long, soft kiss that made every nerve in her flare and then pulse. In response to his gentle prodding, she raised her arms over her head and Nathaniel pulled the shirt up and away, his hands so warm on her naked arms, running down her sides to pull her shift out and up. Then it was gone too and her skin rose in gooseflesh; he was looking at her, his eyelids heavy and his wanting so clear on his face.

  “And if you get confused, well, then we’ll start again.”

  She looked down at herself, her plait lying over one shoulder, a dark cable against her white skin. Her breasts, and between them the flower of silver and pearl. Nathaniel leaned back and pulled her down against him so that it was caught between them, her breasts pressed flat against his chest. He kissed her mouth while his hands moved lower to cup her hips. There was a spreading sensation in her that ran like a warm tide.

  As she sank further and further into the universe that Nathaniel created with his hands and mouth and body, Elizabeth’s perception of their physical surroundings faded, the smells of mineral springs and beeswax giving way to Nathaniel. On some level she had an awareness of her pores opening and her own scent
rising to meet him. He was murmuring to her, talking to her between kisses and tangled clothing, laughing softly against her mouth, puffy with his kisses.

  As they lay on their sides face to face, Nathaniel slid a knee up her thigh until it lodged there at the juncture of her. He was watching her face while he did this, his eyes flickering with satisfaction at her gasp. The warm, hard surface of his knee rocked against her, and her flesh answered with an increasing dampening and a sparking rhythm. In the back of Elizabeth’s mind a connection was made, between the pleasure of this particular kind of touch and what might be possible, what he might have meant about satisfaction. Because she could not find the words to ask this question, she hooked her knee over his hip to draw him closer, but he held back.

  “Not yet,” he whispered against her mouth. “Patience.”

  Patience took on a new meaning, then, in the next long minutes. She had often used the word with her own students as they strove toward some new skill, and she vowed to herself never to use it again.

  “Nathaniel!” she said finally, her voice breaking, and he looked up from her breast.

  “There’s no special word for this that I’m aware of,” he said, grinning at her. In response she batted at his head, hit him with the heel of her hand above the ear. He caught her hand and then the other one, coming up to take her chin in his mouth, suckling softly. She moaned then, and he stopped it with a kiss, his length against hers and his weight concentrated where their hips strained together.

  “Yes, there is,” she gasped finally, her fingers flexing and stretching without effect. “It’s called teasing. And if you tell me to be patient—”

  “But if you’re patient, darlin’, you’ll hear those words you wanted. If you still do want them. Aye, I see that you do. Well, then, listen, listen to me.” With his mouth at her ear he flexed and suddenly he was poised there at the quick of her. She gasped, her eyes wide and startled, at the silky, hard touch. “Do you know how fine you feel to me?” he murmured, his eyes flickering with this, with his pleasure.

  But he drew away, his mouth trailing down between her breasts. She cried out in disappointment and frustration and then stilled, her whole being startled and frozen, as Nathaniel finally settled between her legs and set about the business of teaching her, with great deliberation, about one kind of satisfaction.