Page 18 of The Winter Husband
“Lucas? You didn’t answer—”
“Why so many questions?”
She startled at his tone. “It’s called conversation.”
“Best to keep that to a minimum.”
“Why?” What had prompted this defensiveness? Was it simply her curiosity about his military service? “Are we to spend five months talking about food, or contemplating the weather, then?”
“Survival depends upon the weather. Wives and husbands talk about little else.”
“Are you so well versed in the habits of married couples?”
He squinted toward the sky. Probably to check the snow clouds, or send a prayer to the heavens, though he didn’t strike her as a religious man.
“You want to talk, wife?” He jerked his chin toward the marks on her wrists, exposed below the hem of her gloves. “Tell me what you did to earn a jail cell.”
She flinched as if he’d thrown an axe. “I’ve already done all the talking today.”
“Rumors say you set a common criminal free from the public jail.”
“She wasn’t a criminal.”And there’s nothing common about Genny.Genny was the bravest woman she knew. Her friend Cecile was a close second. All King’s Daughters, the three of them. Cecile had accepted her fate. Genny had embraced it with enthusiasm.
Marie had just run away.
But Lucas wasn’t done yet. “They say you snuck into the jail, switched places with her, and let the woman escape in your clothes.”
“You men of Quebec.” The idea of keeping conversation to a minimum suddenly seemed like the wisdom of Solomon. “You’re all like hens, gossiping over your knitting.”
He persisted. “Are the rumors true?”
“Of course they’re true.” Of all the sins she’d committed, breaking Genny out of jail was the one she didn’t regret. “Genny was my friend. She was put in jail because of my foolishness. To make things right, I set her free.”
She squinted as far upriver as she could see. The chill air bit the bottom of her lungs. Knowing Genny was out there somewhere—amid the woods with a husband who adored her—was the only thing that made the shame of breaking the law, and the loss of her own freedom, tolerable. She braced herself for more questions from Lucas as the prow of the canoe sliced through the water. She was of no mind to delve any deeper into details. He wouldn’t get another word from her.
Not today, maybe never.
The moments of silence stretched into minutes, and then hours. But for an occasional stop on a riverbank to relieve themselves, and a warning to be careful in the woods, they avoided conversation by mutual, unspoken consent. As the river narrowed, she searched the banks for all those monsters she’d heard so much about. She dozed for a little while, lulled by the gurgle of the water and gentle rock of the vessel. Lucas was tireless in his paddling, stopping only for brief moments to lay the oar across his thighs and take a sip of water from a bladder he kept in the belly of the boat, and urge her to drink from her own. The sky had begun to darken when she finally sensed a slackening of pace. She pulled herself up to a sitting position to find Lucas turning the canoe toward a stretch of cleared land on the southern side of the shore.
The keel soon scraped against the gritty river bottom. Lucas clattered the paddle into the canoe and leapt into the shallows with an agility that startled her. She gripped the gunwales as he yanked the vessel halfway up the riverbank. The last fuzzy tendrils of sleepiness fled as he splashed back into the water, reached over the edge, and seized her by the ribs.
She gasped aloud. She couldn’t help herself, though he’d done this several times today. He hauled her up as if she were nothing more than a sack of grain. She flew through the dimness, Lucas’s stone-carved, upturned face the pivot of her world, before the soles of her boots hit the frosted ground. She flung out her hands to steady herself, but Lucas had already turned away to heft a crate out of the bow.
Trying to ignore the imprint of his big hands on her ribs, she forced her attention elsewhere. In this case, toward the cabin coming into focus through the trees. It wasn’t at all like the little wooden shacks she’d glimpsed just west of Quebec. Stone-built, the house was set back in a small clearing studded with tree stumps. The light of a hearth fire flickered from two small windows.
Fire?
Maybe he’d sent someone ahead?
She turned to ask, but he swept right by her, a crate braced on his shoulder. She hurried to catch up, until a sudden creak of leather hinges and a splash of light across the porch brought her attention to the front door.
A young boy ran out.
Behind him emerged a beautiful young woman.
CHAPTER SIX
Marie stared at the intruder as a thousand thoughts raced through her mind. Was this woman a neighbor? Lucas had said he had no neighbors. A sister? Lucas said they’d be alone. A hired servant, charged with opening up the cabin? Marie swayed on her feet, contemplating any possibility other than the one that popped straight to her mind.
