Nicholas. Nicholas.
She hadn’t known he’d once had an Indian wife, hadn’t known he’d fathered a child.
He’d told her he’d been held captive by Indians, not that he had married into the tribe. That was something different, wasn’t it?
She felt the faint stirrings of jealousy, brushed them off.
Had he lied to her? Did he have reason to cover up his wife’s existence and, with it, her death? Or was there more to the story?
She prayed it was the latter.
Apart from that first day, when he’d ridden out of the forest on the brink of death, he’d been good to both her and Isabelle. He’d seen her through her travail with a gentleness that almost stopped her heart whenever she looked back upon it. He had saved Isabelle’s life. He’d saved her from being burned. He’d put meat on the table, taken care of the heavy chores. He’d done so many thoughtful things Bethie had lost count. He couldn’t possibly be a cold-blooded killer, the sort of man who used his strength to prey upon the weak.
Why, then, had the look in his eyes told her that he was?
Belle began to fuss again. She couldn’t possibly be hungry already, could she? Perhaps she was on edge, just like her mother.
Bethie set her spinning aside, lifted her daughter from the cradle.
The door to the cabin swung open, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
She clutched Belle to her breast, turned to see Nicholas step inside, the two Indian men behind him.
“Are you and the baby ready for bed?” Nicholas said something to the two Indians in their own language, pulled his gear out of the corner, and motioned to the space where he usually slept.
Bethie watched in stunned surprise as the two Indians unrolled furs and laid them on the floor. “Wh-what—”
Nicholas carried his gear across the cabin and dropped it on the floor behind her spinning wheel, lowered his voice. “It would be an affront to their notions of hospitality to make them sleep outdoors or in the barn. You’ve no choice but to go along wi—”
“Them? Sleep inside? With us?” She tried to keep her voice at a whisper, but she was so upset her words came out as a squeak. “Next time you want to have yourrelativesvisit—”
He took her shoulders. “Aye, with us.”
She looked at his gear behind the spinning wheel. There was hardly room for a child to sleep back there, let alone a man of Nicholas’s size. Worse, if he were all the way across the room, it would mean she would be closest to the Indians. And then she understood.
She gasped, stared up at him. “And you will sleep—”
He bent close, as if to kiss her cheek. “In your bed. Beside you. As your husband, remember?”
She stared up at him, shook her head. “But Nicholas—”
He took her jaw firmly in his fingers, tilted her face until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “If you wish to survive this night, you will do exactly what I tell you to do, Bethie.”
“And who am I to fear most—you or your former brother-by-marriage?”
His gaze hardened. “Get into bed, Bethie. And keep Belle with you.”
Bethie quickly changed Isabelle’s diaper cloth, then washed her hands and face.
The two Indian men sat on their furs near the foot of the bed, spoke softly to each other. The older one watched her every move. Then his gaze collided with hers, and he spoke in English, pointing to Nicholas. “He take Wyandot women, many in one day, every day, where all can watch him. Not with you, I think. We not watch him take you.”
Bethie gasped at the vileness of these words. Nicholas had lain with Indian women openly as others watched? Many each day? It could not be true! But if it weren’t true, why didn’t Nicholas say something?
Holding Belle close, her skin crawling, she turned down the covers of her bed, climbed in, wishing she could grow wings and fly away.
She lay on her side facing the fireplace, watched as Nicholas pulled in the door string, shed his shirt, yawned.
How could he possibly be sleepy with two armed Indians inside the cabin? How could he behave so calmly when one of them clearly hated him? Had he forgotten he had killed a man today on the doorstep of this very cabin?
