“Go back to your husband, woman,” he ordered coldly. “Never show your face to me again.”
Silent tears rolled down Ishani’s cheeks. She turned from the two men and walked proudly back to her husband’s tent.
“That was big of you, Gunn,” the baron said. “I’m not sure I would have been man enough to let her off so easily.”
“Never mind Ishani,” Gunn growled. “Take me to Alice.”
“Very well. Follow me.” The baron stopped and turned, adding, “Gunn, she really doesn’t know you’re coming. I’ve kept her in seclusion these past days. It will be dark in the tent. If you wish, your identity could remain a secret.”
“You mean, not tell my own wife who I am? Surely she’d recognize me. I’d know her anytime, anyplace, daylight or dark.”
“I just thought it might be amusing.” The Frenchman laughed.
Soon Gunn was chuckling, too. “It might at that,” he replied.
Alice cowered in her tent. She had seen Ishani’s approach and had breathed a great sigh of relief. But then the woman had turned away. Now she was gone, but Alice could hear the heavy crunch of moccasins approaching.
“Dear God, what will I do?” she whimpered.
She glanced outside, but the guards were still on duty. There was no way to escape the tent. Frantic, she pulled back the furs and buried herself deep within the pile.
From her hiding place, she heard the baron’s muffled voice. “She awaits you eagerly. Let us hope the fertility rites we’ve witnessed tonight will honor this tent. Go now, and accept our hospitality.”
Alice peeked from the furs. Silhouetted against the moonlit sky outside, she saw the figure of a huge man, stooping to enter her tent. She shuddered and dug deeper into the pile of furs, her heart beating frantically, her whole body numb with fear.
For a few moments Gunn felt his way about the dark tent, searching for her. But the space was small and soon he stumbled over her form in the furry bed. With a groan of need and pleasure at his discovery, he fell down beside her, wrenching away the protecting skins.
Alice cried out when his hands closed around her, drawing her hard against the heat of his loins. The next moment his mouth captured hers and fire raced through her blood as he parted her lips forcibly, seeking a deep, wet, sweet kiss.
His kiss was a dead giveaway. No Abenaki warrior would kiss his woman. Chris had told her so himself. No other man, in fact, could kiss the way her husband could, she was sure of it. Alice clung desperately to him, aching with need, trembling with relief, but at the same time seething with rage.
Obviously, her husband had no intention of letting her know his true identity. How like both Chris and the baron to play such a dastardly trick on her. Well, she decided, she could play at this game, too.
Her first inclination had been to cry out his name, so happy was she to have him back in her arms, so relieved that he was not some stranger come to claim her. Now she vowed to keep silent except for moans and sighs at the appropriate times. Figuring out those times wouldn’t be difficult, she realized, as Chris’s hands found her breasts and a whimper escaped her lips.
He mumbled something to her in Abenaki as he fumbled at her clothes. Alice smiled in the darkness, certain now that he was trying to deceive her.
So be it, she thought.
She caught his hands in hers and brought them back to her breasts, making pleading little sounds. While he played with her erect nipples, she slithered out of her doeskin skirt and thrust her hips toward him invitingly.
Boldly she reached out to cup his crotch with one hand. “Oh, you Abenaki warriors are so much bigger than…” She let her words drift off into a series of excited gasps.
Gunn left off toying with her breasts and sat back on his haunches. Damn! he thought. She really likes this guy. Then he scoffed at his own flare of temper. This guy was her husband. Why shouldn’t she like him?
She wriggled her body toward him, letting her legs slide to either side of his crouching form. He sat there, still and silent, calculating his next move. Alice had never acted this way before. He wasn’t quite sure how to answer her wanton advances. When she thrust her hips upward again and gave a shuddery, pleading sigh, his hand, which had been poised to stroke her, dropped away. His fingers brushed her cool thigh and he felt a shiver run through her.
Whisking away the last of her garments with little effort, Gunn leaned down to her, tracing the tip of his tongue across her breasts, her belly, and down between her thighs.
Alice whimpered aloud, but dared not move. She lay very still, hardly able to breathe, not knowing what he would do next. She could feel the cool tip of his tongue against her hot flesh, moving ever so slightly, ever so maddeningly.
He moved slowly up her body again to kiss her breasts and suck at her nipples. Alice felt herself sinking into a passionate kind of madness. She had never wanted Chris so desperately.
His mouth trailed down between her breasts to her smooth, quivering belly. His teeth grazed her hip. She gasped aloud and tangled her fingers in his hair. He touched her again and she cried out. On and on it went—his torturing mouth, her pleading sighs.
Finally Alice could stand it no longer. “Now,” she begged.
Immediately she felt his sudden thrust. Her body seemed filled to near bursting. Chris sank deeply into her. She clung to him, gasping for air as they reached the crashing, numbing, wondrous heights together.
Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms, exhausted. When they both came to their senses again, Alice expected Chris to admit his deception, at which time she would confess that she knew him from their first kiss. Instead, he was soon back at his work, arousing her anew, and not one word had he spoken except in the Abenaki tongue.
The game continued, and, incensed by Chris’s silence, Alice threw herself into their lovemaking with new fervor. Only in a darkened tent, in the Maine woods, in a village of savages would she have thrown caution to the wind, loving her man with a fierceness that bordered on animal passion.
Near dawn, when both lovers were exhausted and beyond any further physical activity, they fell asleep, still clinging to each other.
It was late morning before they stirred awake. Bent on getting even with Chris for his deception, Alice thought carefully on her waking words. Rubbing her eyes and feigning total shock, she stared at her husband and cried, “Why, Chris, my darling, it’s you!”
He glared at her, his green eyes hard and cold. With a stream of curses that mingled rage and disgust, he stormed out of the tent to find the baron.
“Dammit to hell!” Gunn roared at the Frenchman. “Alice is not acting like my wife at all. What have you done to her?”
“She wouldn’t have you?” the baron asked, mistaking the cause of Gunn’s anger.
“Wouldn’t have me? She all but ate me alive!”
The Frenchman laughed heartily. “Then, my friend, whatever is your problem?”
“I took your advice and didn’t tell her who I was. She put on the most passionate exhibition I’ve ever seen from any woman in my life, and she did it all for a total stranger. I’ve never seen that side of her before. Obviously, she’d rather be with one of your Abenaki warriors than with her own husband.”
The baron bellowed with laughter at this. “Gunn, will you listen to yourself? That warrior she loved so well was you. How can a man complain so bitterly about having such an accomplished wife? Take her home with you now. You go with my blessing. I want both of you away from here so I can have some peace and quiet.” Castin shoved Gunn toward the door. “Go, I say, take her!”
Gunn turned back to face the baron. “No!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I don’t want her. You’ve turned her into a total wanton. You keep her. She’ll service your honored guests well.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Gunn. She’s yours and you’re taking her, like it or not.”
The two men moved outside, oblivious to the crowd that gathered to hear their argument. Alice, dressed now, had come in search of her husband to tell him the truth about the night before, but she couldn’t get to him. She could only stand on the sidelines and hear the two men arguing over her—not which would have her, but which would be stuck with her. Her spirits fell.
“I’ll pay you to take her, Gunn. Name your price.”
Hearing this, Alice shouted, “Christopher Gunn, I won’t be bargained over like so many hides at market. I’m your wife!”
He turned and glared at her. “Then why did you do those things last night with a total stranger?”
“I did those things with you!”
“That’s beside the point!” he yelled back. “You thought I was someone else.”
“You wanted me to think that, didn’t you? I just went along so as not to disappoint you.”
“I’ll give you ten beaver pelts to take her with you,” the baron broke in.
Ignoring the offer, Gunn shouted back at Alice, “You had no idea it was me until you saw my face this morning. I saw how surprised you were.”
The Abenaki began taking sides. A group crowded around Alice, cheering as she voiced each volley. A second gathering showed their support for Gunn.
“Twenty beaver pelts and my best bottle of brandy.” The baron upped his offer.
“You keep her and your brandy,” Gunn replied, moving away.
“You can’t do this to me,” the baron bellowed. “It’s not fair! She belongs to you.”
“I belong to no man!” Alice screamed at the two of them.
This brought Gunn around. “You’re my wife and, by damn, you belong to me and nobody else.”
“Thank God,” the baron muttered. “He’ll take her, then.”
“I won’t!” Gunn declared. “I just want rightful ownership understood around here.”
“The pelts, the brandy, my French saber…”
Gunn had coveted that saber for a long time. He turned and eyed the Frenchman. “The pelts, the brandy, your saber, and your best brood mare?”
“Yes, yes! Done, my friend!”
The baron made a sign and several braves ran to fetch the goods. They piled the pelts before Gunn, at the same time handing him the saber, the bottle of French brandy, and the black mare’s reins.
“You’ll need a sledge to carry the pelts,” the baron offered.
“No,” Gunn said with a grin, “my squaw will carry them on her back. It’s the least she can do to atone for deserting me and then agreeing to bed with another man.”
Alice hurled a proper witch’s curse at her husband’s head and other parts of his anatomy, but she soon found herself loaded down with beaver pelts and headed on foot out of the village.
They had walked less than a mile and were barely out of sight of the village when Gunn relented. He was angry with his wife, but it hardly seemed fair for her to struggle on afoot under the heavy burden of pelts while he rode, leading the spare horse along behind. Besides, he had made his point with Alice and with the Abenaki people.
“Whoa!” he commanded.
Alice turned and shot him a furious look. “I hope you aren’t talking to this pack animal,” she spat at him.
Ignoring her comment, he slid off his horse and went to her, loosening the bundle of hides.
“I think we’ve gone far enough,” he told her. “Sit down and rest while I make a sledge to pull these behind.”
Alice rubbed her sore shoulders as she slumped to the ground. “How could you humiliate me so? My own husband! No one ever treated me so badly in my whole life, Christopher Gunn.”
He stopped cutting birch saplings for the sledge and turned to her, staring. “Humiliate you? Is that what you think I tried to do?” He strode over and touched her bright hair with one hand. “You’re wrong, Alice. We both lost face with the Abenaki by fighting in front of the whole tribe. I regained their respect by giving you an order any one of them would have given to his own wife. You shouldered that pack without a word of protest. They saw you carry that load out of the village while I rode. You will be remembered by the villagers as the white woman who was as good as any squaw. Had we simply mounted up to ride out, we would have both left in shame.”
She was still rubbing her shoulders. “I’m not sure I believe you. I think you were just being mean.”
Chris reached out and gently moved her hands aside, taking over the job of massaging her neck and back. “Let’s not fight anymore. I’m sorry I tried to deceive you last night. It was a stupid thing to do. I should have known all the time that I couldn’t fool you.”
Alice tried a smile. It felt good. “You told me yourself that Indians don’t kiss when they make love.”
Chris laughed. “I outfoxed myself this time.”
“Yes, you did, darling.”
Hearing the endearment, Chris knelt beside Alice and took her hands in his. “You aren’t mad with me any longer?”
“Just a little bit,” she whispered. “But I’ll get over it in time.”
“How much time, love?”
Alice glanced overhead at the lacy canopy of limbs and leaves above them as if trying to decide. “Hmmm, that depends,” she answered at length.
“On what?”
“On how you treat me from now on.”
Chris laid his head in Alice’s lap. “I plan to treat you like a lady. Always.”
“Oh?” she murmured, disappointment in the word. “You don’t have to always, Chris. Sometimes it’s rather nice being your squaw instead of your lady.” She leaned down and brushed his forehead with her lips. “Like last night.”
He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her cool lips on his brow. “Ummm,” he sighed, “that was nice, wasn’t it?”
“Actually, last night was rather wonderful, darling. Do you believe in the Indians’ fertility rites? You know Mathilde is expecting. Maybe last night you and I…”
Chris opened his eyes and grinned up at her. “We could make camp here for the night and try again, just to be on the safe side.”
She smiled and hugged him. “I would like to stop here for the night. The sun’s going down already and I didn’t get much sleep last night. There was this great savage in my tent.”
Chris sprang to his feet, a boyish gleam in his green eyes. “Let’s catch some fish for supper. What do you say?”
Alice laughed. “I’ve never caught a fish in my life.”
“I’ll teach you how—the Indian way.”
A few minutes later they crept along the edge of a clear, cold stream. Chris had sharpened sticks to use for spears. “Careful now,” he whispered, “don’t make any noise and don’t let your shadow fall over the water. They’re mighty smart, these critters.”
Alice tiptoed along the bank, her sharp eyes searching the smooth pebbles of the stream’s bottom. Suddenly she spied a fat green and black pike lazing in the shallows. Without a word she motioned for Chris. He nudged her out of the way and stabbed at the water. The pike swam slowly away.
“You missed!” Alice cried. “I should have gone for him myself.”
“You scared him,” Chris accused.
“I did not.”
“Did, too.”
Not watching his step as he playfully argued with Alice, Chris slipped off the bank’s edge and tumbled backward into the stream. Alice howled with laughter, threatening to spear him for supper.
“Stop that, woman, you’ll run me through,” he bellowed.
“Oh, Chris, you look so silly, lying there all wet.”
“Quit your giggling and give me a hand,” he ordered gruffly.
Alice stood at the very edge of the bank and reached out as far as she could. Their fingers touched and a moment later she felt herself plummeting in after him, helped along by a mighty tug.
“It’s cold!” she shrieked. “You devil, you did that on purpose.”
“Of course I did. I won’t be laughed at and called silly-looking by my own squaw, woman.”
Alice clung to him, shivering, but soon she began to grow accustomed to the temperature, and it felt good after the day’s hot trek. Deciding a bath was in order, she began shedding her wet clothes.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chris demanded, more pleased than he sounded at the sight of her naked body emerging before his eyes.
“Washing the dust off,” Alice replied. “Join me?”
Soon they were both tossing their clothes toward the bank. A short time later they swam naked, side by side, through the clear stream.
“Ah, I feel wonderful,” Alice said.
Chris reached out a hand and smoothed it over her white buttocks. “You certainly do, darling.”
A moment later he closed his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. The stream was shallow. Chris sat on the bottom, drawing Alice down to sit in his lap.