Page 15 of The Winter Husband
“Philippe.”
“The truth is, it wasn’t luck, Madame.” Philippe raised a brow at him. “Your husband has a history with these men. I have been following them since they first came to Quebec to challenge Lucas’s claim. Your husband has had a lot on his mind these past few days, and it’s my job to look after his best interests.”
Marie’s voice thinned. “This sort of thing happens all the time, then?”
“Yes…and no.” Philippe offered up the half-smile that had melted so many women’s hearts, before Philippe found Marietta and then looked at no other. “You have nothing to worry about, now that you’re under Lucas’s protection. There are good men and dangerous men everywhere in the world, though I must admit, a half-lawless colony may have a greater portion of the latter.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“If I had to guess, the cousins had big plans for that particular landholding.” Philippe raised his brows at Lucas. “According to rumors, they’ve both been spending a lot of time in Albany.”
Albany…an English settlement. “Were they selling furs to the English or the Dutch?”
“Illegal either way,” Philippe muttered. “Treason, really. If I were to guess, the cousins thought the landholding would be a fortuitous place to set up an illicit-trading station. It’s well-positioned at crossroads for both the French and the Huron traders. They could lure fur trappers coming in from the west to sell directly to him, and thus cut off the flow to Quebec.”
“Then he’d smuggle the furs inland to Albany,” Lucas said, “out of sight of French jurisdiction.”
“The English pay well.” Philippe tapped the rim of his own feathered hat and winked playfully at Marie. “They do love their beaver hats.”
At the bottom of the hill, they approached the silver-gray shore of the Saint Lawrence River. Walking to the laden-and-lashed canoe, Lucas flipped a coin to the Abenaki boy he’d hired to guard it. The boy, one of Philippe’s many young, fleet-footed messengers, set off toward Philippe’s warehouse for a bowl of sagamité and sleep. Before Lucas could seize Marie and plant her in the prow of the canoe, Philippe laid a hand on his arm.
“A moment, if you please.” Philippe made his smile a little brighter. “My dear Marie, if you would excuse us, there’s some private business I have to discuss with the captain before he brings you to your new home. I assure you it has nothing to do with drunken rogues starting fights.”
She nodded. The tip of her nose had gone pink in the cold. “Send my regards to Etta when you return. Kiss the children for me.”
“I will, dear girl.”
Lucas frowned at the easy affection between them. Such a charmer, Philippe. He could talk a bear out of its fur and make even the prickliest of women smile.
Philippe strolled a short distance away, indicating Lucas should follow, and then spoke in a low voice. “I took the liberty of adding a few supplies to your stock.”
“And on my bill,” he grunted, still looking back, noting the line of his wife’s jaw in quarter profile.
“Admit it. You haven’t the slightest clue what kind of things a young lady might need.”
Of course he didn’t know what a young lady needed. He couldn’t think past the next seven hours of paddling, never mind the next five months he’d spend breathing in little gusts of rosewater scent.
“Etta packed most of it. Needles and fripperies and such.” Philippe gazed off in the distance. “Etta also wants me to say a word to you.”
“Just one word?”
“You know what I mean. She’s perceptive, my Etta, and her advice shouldn’t be dismissed. Etta says that you have to understand that Marie is no farm-born country girl.”
“I noticed.”
Where the hell had she gotten that knife?
“She’s been raised gently,” Philippe persisted, “and then dragged against her will to a place where neither the men nor the place are gentle.”
He flexed his hands. “Get to the point, Philippe.”
“Etta suspects that Marie has been…hurt.”
The word struck him like the kick of a horse. “What do you mean ‘hurt?’”
“I don’t know precisely. I’m not sure Etta does either, but she didn’t elaborate. All she said was that something happened in Paris, before Marie was shipped here.” Philippe tapped the center of his own waistcoat. “She’s hurt in the heart.”
Lucas frowned. What the hell did that mean,hurt in the heart? You had to let someone reach that heart first in order to hurt it. It was hard to imagine such an ungovernable woman would ever offer her heart to any man.
