Chapter Twenty-Seven
Leading Isabelle inside the tent, Guy sat on the fur and pulled her down beside him. He took her into his arms and captured her lips in a possessive kiss feeling her instant response. Deepening the kiss, his tongue probed the edge of her mouth, slipping between her lips the way he had before. She opened to him, giving as good as she got.
Slowly, unwilling to break the contact but needing to, he pulled away from her, but kept her tightly clasped in his arms. Somehow, they had ended up lying on the fur.
“Izzy,” he whispered, his body partially covering hers, his arousal hard against her. “When I realized you were missing, I wanted to die. I knew the Mohawk wouldn’t kill you, but the thought I might lose you to another man almost destroyed me. When I saw you today, I wept, both out of joy and relief. You’ve unmanned me. I’m not ashamed to say it. I can’t live without you. I love you, Izzy. I have for as long as I can remember. I know you still love Pierre…”
She put her finger up against his lips.
“Shush. Stop. You know nothing. Yes, I love Pierre. I always will. He was my friend, my companion, my husband, but the way I feel about him is vastly different from the way I feel about you. I love you, Guy Poirier. I was mad about the shy young boy who brought me flowers—which I still have—but when you didn’t come back to me, I buried those emotions deep inside, thinking what I felt for Pierre was love. My lord, you’re the man who holds my soul. Make love to me, Guy. Make love to me here. Now. Let me pledge my body to you the way I have my heart.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, overwrought with emotion. She loved him. What more could he ever want?
“I’ve never been more certain of anything,” she whispered.
He needed no more urging. Gently he removed her clothing as if he were unwrapping the most precious gift, and she trembled under his fingers. In the dim moonlight filtering through the tin fabric of the tent, he marvelled at her beauty and hurried to shed his own garments.
She slowly reached out to touch him, her trembling fingers tracing the scar that ran from his side to his knee as well as those on his chest and shoulders where the arrows had penetrated.
Unable to allow this exploration of his body to go unchallenged, he bent his head and traced her jaw with his lips, moving down her neck to the perfect breasts he’d glimpsed when he’d surprised her in the bath. He filled his hands with them and her nipples puckered beneath his thumbs. He lowered his mouth to suckle them.
Isabelle groaned, her hands continuing to explore his fevered flesh.
When he spread her legs and entered her, it was everything he’d hoped for, nothing he’d ever experienced. Together, beneath the stars, they tumbled into ecstasy.
Afterwards, replete, he held her tightly to him, unwilling to let her go yet, afraid that if he fell asleep, he’d wake to discover this was all a dream.
She snuggled into his chest.
“I’d no idea it could be like that,” she said.
Guy smiled. “It’s only like that when souls meet, my love.”
“Souls meeting. I like that,” she murmured.
“You’re mine, Izzy, tonight and forever.”
He kissed her and began to caress her body once more.
The sun wasn’t up yet when he woke her.
“I have to go,” he said. “Akhilesh wants to surprise them before they break camp. Balavas and Henri will see you, Marianne, and the children fed. They’ll be back with the prisoners—if there are any.” He hoped there would be. Dead men told no tales. “If we’re lucky, Anue and I will be back with des Courts and then we’ll head home. Tonight you’ll sleep in your own bed. The trip will be a long one, but I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe inside the settlement.”
“Be careful,” she begged, her hair tumbled around he face.
“Always, my love, always.”
He kissed her gently and left to follow the rest of the men into the woods.
Despite the darkness still, Akhilesh and his men had no trouble finding their way through the dim forest. The sun was low on the horizon, barely up.
Henri and Balavas would break camp as soon as they could. Henri and Isabelle would wait for him, but Balavas and one of the other Mohawk braves would take one of the larger Mohawk canoes with Marianne and the children, and head to Ville-Marie, going all the way today. It would be a long stretch in the boat for the children, but they would stop when they had to once they were well and truly away. The birch bark canoe would travel quickly with such a light load. Nuts, berries, and pemmican, a combination of fat and dried meat, would have to do for food and they would have plenty of water. After the skirmish, Alain and the other Mohawks would follow Balavas and take whatever prisoners they captured to Ville-Marie.
Right now, Guy had to get Izzy out of his mind and focus on the task at hand. When the fighting started, Luc, who knew des Courts by sight, would identify him to Okwaho, Akhilesh’s best marksman, who would shoot the man in the arm. Guy would sneak up on the wounded man and knock him out. When he came to, it would look as if he’d been left for dead. It should work. Thinking Guy had saved him, des Courts would befriend him and give him access to the information he needed.
The men, moving silently through the trees, approached the camp. As Akhilesh had suspected, most of them, other than two guards, were still asleep. Those were quickly dispatched, and Guy wouldn’t say a prayer for them. Judging by the way they were dressed—costumes that closely resembled those Marianne had described at supper—he would guess they’d been among the trappers who’d kidnapped her and her children and murdered her brother. The devil could do with them as he pleased.
At Guy’s signal, Okwaho gave the shrill Mohawk war cry raising the alarm and awaking the men. Frightened and disoriented, the men began to fire blindly at the trees. Akhilesh and his men were safely on the other side of the camp.
Luc touched Okwaho’s arm as well as Guy’s and pointed to a heavyset man trying to hide behind a bush. The coward wasn’t even trying to defend himself and the others. No doubt by now, he’d wet himself.
Guy nodded, and Okwaho fired the arrow catching Des Courts in the upper shoulder as they’d planned. The man fell backwards. Guy moved stealthily over to him. When he got there, the man had fainted, saving him the trouble of knocking him out.
By now, the Mohawks and Rioux had captured the rest of the party and were tying them together. Rioux walked over to Guy.
“It’s as you said. I offered them the choice between Mohawk justice or French,” Lucien Rioux said. “They’ve chosen French. That man over there, hasn’t stopped talking. I understand very little of what he’s saying. He’s a Dutchman from Schenectady. I’ve seen him before when I took furs there in the past.” He shrugged. “A man’s got to make a living. From what little I do understand, he claims his only part in this was to lead des Courts and his men to Albany.”
Guy nodded. The man would need someone familiar with the area to see him to safety. Unfortunately, since this was French soil and France was at war with the Spanish Netherlands, the man was looking at charges of treason.
Lucien indicated the rest of the prisoners.
“Four are dead, including the two guards. Okwaho claims one of those men delivered Marianne to them. He’s English. I know a few words, but ... Whatever he’s saying is upsetting the other one who keeps telling him to shut up—that I do understand. I’ll make sure they’re kept apart. We’ll divide the prisoners up amongst us and take the spies to Talon in Quebec. Those men, the ones trying hard to disappear into the ground, I recognize. They’re unscrupulous bastards. If anyone burned that farm and killed that man, it would be them. Can you imagine? Gadbois over there keeps trying to bride me with talk of a map that shows a river beyond the great lakes that leads south to an untapped area where large animals are numerous, and the native cities are made of gold. He claims by not allowing them the right to explore, the king is essentially giving all that wealth to the English or Spanish. Have you ever heard of this nonsense?”
Guy frowned. “I suspect it’s all lies and myths, but like everything, a tiny truth covers a multitude of lies. Years ago, one of the men from Navarre in my unit used to get drunk and talk about Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a Spanish explorer, who claimed there were cities of gold west of Louisiane. The Spanish sent many men to look for it, but no one ever found anything because they were looking in the wrong place. He swore one day he would go and find them himself.”
“Did he?”
“No, he was killed near Dunkirk. We have enough to worry about without someone adding myths and legends to titillate a man’s greed.”
Lucien nodded. “If the man doesn’t shut up, I’ll gag him. Alain and Akhilesh and the rest of his men will take them to Ville-Marie and have Marianne identify the one who killed her brother. I look forward to seeing them hung for their crimes. “I’ll go to Quebec with the spies. Talon knows me and your Huron scout Luc, so we shouldn’t have a problem.”
“Good. Make sure de Courcelle keeps them isolated. As soon as my part of the plan is complete, I’ll come to Quebec, too. Now, Anue and I have a job to do. We need to convince that worthless bastard that I saved his life.”
Guy watched the men leave with their prisoners. They would change canoes as soon as they reached their old camp. Akhilesh’s men would come back for these later or he would send others to collect them. Good canoes were too valuable to scuttle.
The man at their feet groaned.
“He’s alive, lieutenant,” Anue shouted in French, using his military rank as his name. The surprise in his voice was meant to confound their captive.
“The saints be praised.” Guy bent down to attend to the man. “We thought they’d killed you, too.”
“My men are all dead?” des Courts asked, gritting his teeth in pain. “All sixteen of them?”
Guy momentarily wished he’d asked Okwaho to put a second arrow into him. There wasn’t enough pain the man could suffer for what he’d done, what he planned to do.
He and Isabelle had talked long into the night after they’d made love a second time and she’d told him everything Gerard had revealed. This man and his employers at the French West Indies Company were prepared to massacre every living soul in New France for the sake of profit. He was proof of what the priests so often said when they preached on money—the love of money was indeed the root of all evil. Greed had turned this man and God alone knew how many others into monsters.
“Yes. We’ve buried most of them.” He pointed to the piles of turned earth, false graves orchestrated as part of the lie, and the four bodies still there. Any good plan succeeded on its details. “There are four left to do. I thought you were the fifth.”
The man’s pale complexion whitened more, and he swallowed.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Forgive me. I’m Seigneur Guy Poirier. My estates are west of Ville-Marie. My friend and I were going on a hunting expedition. The soldiers at the fort tell me there’s a killer bear in these woods. Tore apart a man a few days ago.” He watched des Courts shudder as he was sure he would. “We haven’t found him yet, but we saw scat nearby. That’s when we found your party. As we said, we thought you were all dead. If the bear’s hungry enough, he’ll dig them up again, but hey,” he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s the best we can do.” He chuckled. “It’s a good thing I didn’t start with you.”
If the man could’ve gotten paler, he would’ve.
“It looks like a war party got to you—took your canoes, guns, whatever else you have of value. Mohawks from the arrows. Wouldn’t you agree, Anue?”
The scout bent down and looked at the arrow in his shoulder as if he were examining it for the first time.
He stood and spoke quickly to Guy, but what he said was gibberish.
“He says you’re lucky to be alive. This came very close to your heart. I’ll have to remove it and cauterize the wound or you’ll bleed to death and die on me for sure.” He shook his head. “Nothing like the smell of rotting flesh to attract that bear.”
Guy turned to the scout. “Do you have herbs with you to help with the pain?”
Anue made a great production of looking for herbs.
“Yes, lieutenant. I’ll boil water. You’ll need a fire to close the wound once the arrow comes out.”
As they waited, Guy described seeing a huge party of war canoes pass them on the river the previous day. Des Courts’s complexion worsened with every word he spoke. Once Anue had the water boiled, he added the herbs which included wild lettuce, chamomile, skullcap, and passion flower, used as a sedative to make the man stay asleep until they returned him to Ville-Marie. Guy made des Courts drink the entire cup down, enough to keep him under for several hours. The rest of the mixture went into the water skin they would offer him if he awoke.
Okwaho had made it a clean shot, the arrow head clear through. It would bleed, but it would be easier to remove than if the arrow had remained inside.
“This might hurt a bit,” Guy said, as his patient finished the bitter herbal brew.
He broke off the feathered end of the arrow, and des Court screamed in pain.
“I’m sorry, but it must come out to prevent infection and stop it from moving closer to your heart.”
Guy wasn’t in the least bit sorry. Truth be told, he was enjoying this. For what the man had done and planned to do, he deserved to suffer. He turned over and pulled the rest of the arrow out of the shoulder. Des Courts fainted once more.
Guy reached for the hot knife, barely searing the skin front and back, wishing the man had been awake enough to feel something.
The Huron shook his head. “He’s as weak as an old woman.” He laughed. “I’ll bandage his wound, pack the sleeping herbs in it to keep him under, and carry him. Let’s bury the dead first and then we’ll get going. If you’re not back soon, your woman will worry needlessly.”
Guy nodded. The sooner he was back in Isabelle’s arms, the better he would feel, too.
Less than two hours later, they got back to their old camp where Isabelle and Henri waited.
“Is he dead?” she asked as the Huron dumped his burden on the ground. Henri rushed over to look at him.
“No, he’s alive, and probably scared to death.” He looked up at Guy. “Do you think it worked?”
“I hope so. Let’s load him in the canoe. We need to get back to Ville-Marie as soon as we can. He may have associates nearby. Akhilesh says there aren’t any others on the river, but they could be on land. We’ll have to travel straight through, my friend. It’ll be a long day and night.”
“Come on, Izzy. It’s almost over. Let’s go home.”
* * *
Isabelle stood in her room dressed in the cream and brown striped gown she’d chosen as a wedding dress. Her hair had been washed and curled and shone red in the sunlight. She added stain to her lips and reached for her gloves and bonnet. After a three-week delay, today was finally her wedding day. The deputy-governor, des Courts, his wife Des Anges, as well as Lucille, Gerard’s widow, and a few of Guy’s friends who knew nothing of the conspiracy would attend the wedding feast Henri and Aline had planned. She was nervous and excited at the same time. It seemed as if she’d waited her whole life for this moment.
Des Courts, who’d remained unconscious all the way back to the settlement, was recovering nicely in seclusion at the Sulpicians monastery, although he would attend today’s festivities. He was convinced Guy had saved his life and had promised to introduce him to the rest of the colonies nobility, those who were granted land by the company—some of whom were no doubt involved in the conspiracy. Within days they would know who else in the colony was on the verge of committing treason, and put an end to the danger they posed. Akhilesh had gone to the various chiefs, explaining what was happening and in the process, six families had been reunited, but the danger was far from over. Not only had they not identified all the coureurs de bois involved, they’d yet to find the person orchestrating this conspiracy. Soon, they’d trap him, too.
Once des Courts was safely in the Sulpicians’ care, Sophie rather than Isabelle, had made a great show of giving him the letter and maps Irene had been expected to give him. At the last minute, they’d decided that since everyone in Le Havre knew Sophie had sailed on L’Aigle Doré, and that Monsieur Giroux had also been on that ship, they made it seem as if Irene and Gerard who’d died from his injuries, had approach her and asked her to bring these to the colony to him for her, since she’d had to remain in France a few days longer and would take a different ship. He’d grabbed at the materials greedily, and Sophie had claimed she’d had to fight hard to keep the disgust she felt for him off her face.
Guy, under guise of danger from renegade attacks, had sent a patrol to collect des Courts family, and Des Anges and her three children were currently housed with the Sulpicians, too. Guy was eager to see where des courts would send her once he left for France. One of the former gunsmiths from the regiment had taken over Gerard’s business, and had moved into the back room of the small house where he not only ensured Lucille and her children had food to eat and a roof over their heads, but watched to see who came looking for the gunsmith. So far, it seemed word of his death had spread to the area. A few men had come looking for promised weapons, but nothing suspicious. No doubt the man’s lack of inventory was a result of his recent months in France. Interestingly though, none of the cargo Gerard had off-loaded from the ship was in his shop. Another problem for Guy to solve.
The sound of the door opening pulled Isabelle from her thoughts.
“Are you ready?” Sophie asked, dressed in her purple dress and the amethysts.
Isabelle smiled. “I’m more than ready.”
“You look beautiful, Izzy. Your mother and father would be glad to see you so happy.”
“I believe they’re watching. I think Pierre is, too. God has been so good to me, Sophie. I thought I’d lost everything when I left France, but I didn’t. I’ve gained more than I ever had.”
Sophie smiled and led the way out of the room and down the stairs to where Henri and the carriage waited.
Soon, she would be joined forever to the man she loved more than life itself. Today, she’d start her new life in a new land. This land would grow strong and prosper, and her children and their children would reap what had been sown.
Everything would work out as it should. She hadn’t lost her honor; she’d found true love.
The End
Coming soon: The Canadiana Series, Book Two, The Price of Courage