Fire Along the Sky (47 page)

“Listen to me,” Simon said. “I love you now as I loved you when we struck that bargain. More, God help me. But until I can be sure of why you want me, we'll wait.”

“And what if I love you?” She forced her tone down and down, to a whisper. To a plea.

“Do you love me, Lily?”

Oh, the way he looked at her. Hope and love and wanting all wound together in the tilt of his mouth and the set of his jaw, and his mouth, his beautiful mouth. If he would only smile.

She said, “I want to love you. I mean to love you.”

It was the sharpest truth; she saw what it did to him and something inside her clenched. So she went to him and stood on tiptoe, for he wouldn't come down to meet her, and she kissed his mouth. “I will, I will love you.”

His arms came around her, trembling a little, unsure, and so warm and familiar and welcome. Lily kissed him again, and this time his head dipped and his arms brought her up and he kissed her back, a tentative kiss, a question. She sighed into his mouth and he slanted his head to kiss her openmouthed and deep and passionate, the kind of kisses she had dreamed of every night while he was away. His mouth, his smell, his hands on her body.

Then he pulled away and looked at her so fiercely that Lily trembled.

He said, “Three months, then. In three months' time, I'll ask you proper and you'll answer and then we'll be married. Am I worth three months' wait, lass?”

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him. Counted to three and then to ten, tried to organize her thoughts.

Three months. Three months of Missy Parker's questions and Nicholas Wilde's forlorn looks and gossip and jokes about the wedding lace her brother had sent. Three months of waiting and . . . wanting.

She said, “All's fair in love and war, do you remember?”

He laughed gruffly against her hair. “Aye.”

“Well, then,” Lily said, her hands sliding up his chest to lock around his neck. “As long as we're clear on that.”

He frowned down at her, one corner of his mouth twitching in an alarming way. For a moment Lily thought he was going to laugh at her, and then instead he gave her a dry smile.

“You're up to no good,” he said, running a hand down her back.

“Oh, aye, you can wager on it,” Lily said. She gave him her brightest smile and pulled away. “But first you'd best talk to my father.”

In the privacy of their chamber Elizabeth moved into her husband's arms and shuddered once, and then again.

“Do you think Hannah told the whole truth? Do you think he's out of danger?”

Nathaniel's hands made circular motions over her back. “She wouldn't lie about something like that, to save our feelings.”

“No,” Elizabeth agreed. “She wouldn't. Thank God. And Runs-from-Bears is there.”

They stood like that for a long time, and then Elizabeth said, “Do you think we can trust Lily and Simon alone?”

He gave a short and very surprised laugh. “That depends on what you mean.”

She pulled away a little to look up into his face. “You don't sound especially worried. It's your daughter's reputation we're talking about.”

“Is it? I thought that was pretty much shot. Don't make faces at me, Boots. I could remind you of some things that happened back before we ever got married . . .”

She pulled away and went to the window, where she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back on her heels. “That was different. I wasn't in love with someone else when I . . . when I came to you.”

He was silent for so long that in the end she turned to face him.

Nathaniel said, “She's got a temper, and she's headstrong, I'll give you those things. But don't forget she's your daughter and mine too, and a better judge of character than both of us put together. She always has been.”

“That is true,” Elizabeth said. “Remember how she made a friend of Dutch Ton.”

“And Gabriel Oak.”

“And Gabriel Oak,” Elizabeth said softly. “But she misjudged Nicholas Wilde.”

“No, I don't think she did,” Nathaniel said. “The man is good at heart. You would have been satisfied, had you heard the things he said to her. An honorable man, in the end.”

“But a weak one.”

“You're a hard judge, Boots, but then so is your daughter. I don't think she'd have him now, even if he was free.”

She pulled away from him a little. “You want to believe that, Nathaniel, but is it true? She was so long attached to him.”

Nathaniel's mouth quirked at the corner. “Not that attached, or she'd never have got to this point with Ballentyne.”

“Ah,” she said. “Then you see it too.”

“Hard to miss, the way they look at each other.”

After a moment's thought Elizabeth drew in a deep breath. “And if she falls pregnant, and must marry Simon? Will you be so philosophical then? Ah. I see by your expression that you would not.”

“I don't like the idea, I'll admit that. But she's a woman grown, Elizabeth, and we have to let her make her own mind up. Have a little faith in her.”

“I do have faith in her,” Elizabeth said. “I truly do, but her temperament sometimes does get the best of her.” And then: “How long do you think we need leave them?”

That got her the kind of grin that he saved for times like this, when they were alone.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Don't look at me that way.”

He had already come around the bed to catch her by the elbows and pull her up close. “Don't look at you how, Boots?”

“Like that,” she said, when he had finished kissing her. “Like you want to swallow me whole.”

“I suppose I could stop looking,” Nathaniel said, backing toward the bed with her firmly in tow. “But I got a better idea. Close your eyes and I'll whisper it to you.”

At that moment, Gabriel flung open the door with all of his usual energy. Then he and Annie came to a stop just where they were, mouths hanging open.

“Oh,” Gabriel said, blushing furiously.

“Just a little kissing, son,” said Nathaniel. “No cause for alarm. Come on in, and tell us what it is you want.”

“They're yelling at each other, Simon and Lily.” Annie said this breathlessly, her hands clasped in front of herself. “She called him a cheat.”

“Annie,” Elizabeth said, holding out a hand to the girl and motioning her closer. “Were you two listening where you weren't supposed to be?”

Gabriel's face clenched. “I don't like him,” he said. “And neither does Lily, by the way she's talking to him. She said—”

“Never mind what she said.” Elizabeth stopped him firmly. “We do not eavesdrop.”

Nathaniel laughed. “What your mother means, son, is that she certainly would like to hear what they're saying to each other, but it ain't polite, so she's not going to ask.”

“Well, then, can we tell you, Da?” Gabriel asked.

“Not me either,” said Nathaniel. “But you can come up here and set with us while we wait until they're done.”

“Wait until Lily gets done arguing,” Gabriel said with a huffing breath. “We'll all starve to death.”

“I've made your daughter a promise,” Simon Ballentyne began, late that evening.

They had eaten a simple supper together, talking quietly of nothing of real importance, while Gabriel scowled at Simon and Lily avoided his gaze. When the dishes were wiped and put up and Gabriel was in bed, they came together again in front of the hearth.

Now he sat with his hands on his knees, looking at Nathaniel and Elizabeth evenly. The lower half of his face was still paler than his cheeks and forehead; it gave him an oddly lopsided appearance, but all in all, Elizabeth liked him without his beard. She wondered if Lily had asked him to shave it, and then decided she would rather not know the answer to that question.

“More than one promise, I'm guessing,” Nathaniel said.

“More than one, aye,” Simon agreed. He used a handkerchief to wipe perspiration from his brow.

“Come now,” Elizabeth said. “How bad can it be? Just go on and tell us what it is you have to say.”

Simon's dark eyes met hers for three long heartbeats, and then he nodded.

“My mother's name before she married was Fiona Moncrieff. She had two brothers, both of whom you've had the misfortune to meet. Angus and John Moncrieff.”

Nathaniel saw Elizabeth's color rising, in surprise and something else that he couldn't put a name to straight off. All these years later Elizabeth was still unable to talk about Angus Moncrieff with anything approaching the logic and reasoning she otherwise held so dear and took such pride in.

He put a hand on Elizabeth's arm and pressed. He said, “Go on.”

“There's naught to say except this: I hardly knew my uncle Angus, for my mother distrusted him and would no have him in her house. What he did, the harm he caused you, it all brought shame on the family name that canna be denied. As far as my uncle John is concerned—you knew him as Father Contrecoeur—I couldn't tell ye where he is in the world, or if he's even alive. No more do I care. The last time I saw him was almost twenty years ago, when I was a lad in Carryckton.”

The fire ticked in the hearth like a clock. Nathaniel counted Elizabeth's breaths, and watched Simon Ballentyne, who withstood this particular test: he waited, poised, expectant, and said nothing at all.

“Is there more?” Nathaniel said.

“Aye. I love your daughter, and should she decide to take me as husband, I'll spend my life taking care of her.” He was watching Elizabeth's face when he said it.

“Does my stepson know about your connection to Moncrieff?” Elizabeth asked. Her tone was sharp, but Ballentyne didn't flinch from the question.

“Aye,” said Simon. “Luke's known from the first.”

“So he went into partnership with you knowing, and he allowed you to court his sister while she was in Montreal—”

“I would not use the word ‘allowed,' Mrs. Bonner—”

Elizabeth's head snapped up sharply. “If you'll permit me to continue.”

She was trying, Nathaniel realized now, not to smile. He settled back, curious as to exactly where she was going with her inquiry. Elizabeth had a plan, and Elizabeth with a plan was a formidable force, one not to be tampered with.

She said, “Luke was responsible for his sister's welfare in Montreal, but he permitted”—she paused, her expression daring him to interrupt again—“you to call upon her, alone, I am presuming.”

“Aye.” He was looking at her without shame or apology, or even, Nathaniel was pleased to see, real fear. A man who couldn't stand up to Elizabeth would have no chance at all with Lily.

A movement on the stair caught Nathaniel's attention: his daughter, who had not wanted to be here for this interview, but who could not quite stay away either.

“Come on down here, Lily,” Nathaniel said, waving broadly. “Your ma's about to toss this suitor of yours out into the cold; you might want to watch how she does it.”

“She isn't,” Lily said, moving down the stairs. “She wouldn't.”

“Nathaniel,” Elizabeth warned.

He lifted his shoulders at her, palms up. “If you're trying to scare the man away, Boots, why then you're on the right road. Though he's not the kind to scare easy, it looks like.”

“I was asking questions, that is all,” Elizabeth said. “Have you no questions of your own for this man who wants to marry your daughter?”

“Well, sure I do,” he said. “Ballentyne, I recall your father pretty well. Thomas, was his name, is that right?”

“It is.”

“And he's still living, and in good health?”

“Aye.”

“He's a carpenter, as I remember. You learned that trade from him?”

The question took Ballentyne by surprise, but he answered it willingly. “Aye. But I've been a merchant since I came to Canada.”

“Good, then.” Nathaniel smiled at his wife. “That's all I want to know. Go on, Boots.”

She gaped at him. “Very well. As I'm the only one taking this seriously.” A pulse was beating frantically in her throat, but she managed to subdue her tone. “I have some things to say.”

Lily had crept closer, and now she stood, arms wrapped around herself, just behind Simon.

Elizabeth said, “Simon, I do not like the fact that you are connected to Angus Moncrieff, I won't pretend that I do. But you've proven yourself to be honest and trustworthy and hardworking, and from what I've seen of you, you're a bright young man. You have my permission to call on my daughter.”

Lily's head tilted to one side, as if she couldn't make sense of what she had just heard.

“With a few provisos,” Elizabeth finished.

From the top of the stairs, Gabriel's voice came high and thin: “What's a proviso?”

“Gabriel!” shouted Nathaniel. “Back to bed!”

“My conditions,” Elizabeth continued, spreading her skirt smooth with her hands, “are these. First, that you will make arrangements to stay in Paradise for a minimum of five months—”

“Ma!” cried Lily.

Elizabeth held up a hand to stop her daughter. “In that time you will lodge with Mrs. Freeman in the village; I will speak to her about it immediately. While you are here, you will work for me. I need someone to oversee the building of the new schoolhouse, as it is clear that Peter Dubonnet cannot handle it on his own. At a reasonable wage, of course. While you are in Paradise, you will call on Lily here, in her home, at reasonable times. On occasion you will be allowed to accompany her to a party or dance, as long as my husband or I or someone we trust is in attendance. You will always be chaperoned.”

Lily stamped her foot. “
Chaperoned?
And I have nothing to say about this?”

“Don't interrupt your ma just now, Lily,” Nathaniel said, trying not to smile.

“Very good advice,” Elizabeth said, without looking at her daughter. “Now, Mr. Ballentyne. You have done us some services, some very kind services, which I have not forgotten. And my stepson trusts you, which is worth a great deal. But it is not everything, I hope you'll understand. In the next months you will have to win my trust, and my husband's.”

“And mine, or doesn't that count for anything?”

Elizabeth raised her head very slowly, and looked directly at her daughter. For a moment she held the gaze, and then Lily blushed, and looked away. Simon saw this, and ducked his head, but not without first sending a look Nathaniel's way that told him everything he needed to know about the connection between the two of them.