Page 47 of The Autumn Wife
She squeezed her eyes shut, only to see the old nightmare unfurl upon the insides of her eyelids.
“A life,” he forged on, “like this one the captain built for Marie. We’ll have a home of our own, a warm hearth, a bit of land.” He trailed a fingertip down her cheek only to stop under her chin to force her face up. “A thousand horses couldn’t pull me away from you now.”
The tears welling in her eyes blurred the beauty of his face, but not the sight of his joy. What kind of woman would keep a secret from such a man? How could they be happy amid a web of secrets and lies?
“Oh, Theo.”
He pulled back a fraction, his gaze flickering.
“Would you still love me”—she whispered the words, choking on her breaking heart —“if I confessed that I murdered my husband?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
June, 1673
The sky was as blue as a marsh violet.
After Etienne left the cabin to hunt in the north pasture for small game, Cecile strode east into the woods, hoping to find some early-ripening berries or mushrooms. With a basket in the crook of her elbow and a flintlock slung across her back, she’d followed the banks of a tributary of the Saint Maurice River that spilled into the island-strewn headlands of the greater Saint Lawrence. The canopy of pine boughs cast a cool shade against a blazing sun that melted pine resin into a perfume that clouded the air.
Under her feet, the ground sank spongy after a week of rain, which she hoped would encourage the sprouting of orange-capped spruce boletes or—Etienne’s favorites—chanterelles. She would add them to the rabbit stew simmering over embers backin the cabin. When the day’s work was done, she and Etienne would eat together, just the two of them. Afterward, he would read aloud the stories of Gargantua and Pantagruel from the book Marie had lent her when they’d visited the Girards a few weeks ago.
Hearing a branch snap, she dropped her basket to the ground. Slinging the flintlock into her hands, she swung toward the noise. Bears and mountain lions and wolves roamed these woods, but what she glimpsed was a thousand times more dangerous. A man, loping along the riverbank, his face covered to the eyes with a ratty, unkempt beard.
Recognition shot through her like a hot lead plug.
“Put that down, woman.” Her husband’s teeth flashed as he stopped, planting the butt of his own rifle on the carpet of pine needles. “Your man is home.”
His voice funneled ice down her spine. Just at the sight of him, she felt the rippled scars on her hip tighten. Her right shoulder ached in remembrance of an old dislocation. Pain throbbed in the divot at her temple, where he’d struck her with a pewter tankard. The terrors seized her, silencing her tongue even as her mind screamed. She knew, if she didn’t lower the flintlock quickly, his fury would flare.
She’d deceived herself, thinking him gone long enough that his absence might be forever.
“Stop gaping at me, woman.” Dropping his weapon by the riverbank, he took a swaggering step toward her. “A wife should strip off her clothes when her husband returns from trapping.”
The stench of alcohol preceded him, as if it coated his ropy forearms and sank into the stains of his fringed deerskin shirt. Bile washed up her throat. She blinked once, hoping this was just a nightmare. He’d been gone nearly eighteen months. She had determined—if he ever returned—never again to placate him, or speak softly, or do what he bade in order to survive.
Never again.
The flintlock lay heavy in her grip, but she steadied her aim.
He laughed. “Still think you’re too good for the likes of me, woman?” He jerked his chin to the woods beyond. “Go ahead. Run. You know I like a good chase.”
Her finger sought the trigger and she realized with a dip of her stomach that she hadn’t yet primed the flashpan with black powder.
Quick—she had to be quick.
Seizing the powder horn at her waist, she uncorked it with her teeth. By the time she tipped the mouth over the flashpan, Eduard had closed the distance between them, seized the barrel of the flintlock, tore it out of her hands, and threw a clenched fist that hit her square in the jaw.
Light exploded behind her eyes. She twisted as she fell, the ground jarring her hands and wrists. Her mouth filled with dirt. Dry pine needles pierced her arms. She spit out blood and watched it soak into mud.
A bark of a laugh exploded above her. “There’s the position a wifeshouldbe in when her husband comes home after a long journey.”
Ice shot through her, her skin chilled as if with a rime of frost. She dug her elbows into the dirt and struggled to scuttle away, but Eduard yanked her still by the ankles, before throwing wide her legs.
Stinking of bear grease, he pinned her down, grunting and cackling as he tossed up her skirts. Air bathed her backside, which he slapped. Fighting him would be futile, and screaming useless. A husband could do what he wished with his wife—no outsider would intervene.
She wouldn’t dare make any noise anyway, for the person most likely to hear her scream would be Etienne. She’d bite through her own lip before summoning him to witness another degradation.
She curled her fingers into the dirt, bracing herself for what was to come. She heard him fumbling with his leather belt. She told herself,I’m not really here.She mentally put herself in the window seat at the Salpêtrière Orphanage, reading Virgil by the light of the sun pouring through mullioned windows.
