"So you did it to please her?"

"Aye, I'm afraid so. But remember, I was barely eighteen, and at that age a man lives between his legs, mostly. Though some hide it better than others, or deny it. The thing about Iron—Dog was that he lived and worked among us as a man, but he had none of a man's needs."

"Nathaniel," Elizabeth began slowly. "As a part of his training he was taught to suppress such urges—I think it was Saint Augustine who said that complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."

"That's just it," Nathaniel said. "I spent a long time watching the man, and I came to the conclusion that he never had any appetites to start with. It wasn't a struggle for him. He never looked twice at the women when they went bare—chested to work the fields, or worried about the way young folks would disappear into the woods—he just didn't care about those things, and that made him unusual for a priest, and for a man, too. It's part of the reason he lasted so long among the Kahnyen’keháka."

Elizabeth turned onto her stomach and put her chin into the cup of her palm. "Are you trying to tell me that he had ... unnatural leanings?"

Nathaniel drew up, surprised. "No, that ain't what I meant at all. It wasn't that he liked his own kind—I've known a few like that, and that wasn't it at all, with him. There was no hunger in him at all for human touch, of any kind at all."

Elizabeth was disconcerted by the comparison of such a man to Will Spencer. She sought in her mind for examples of her knowledge of him that would disprove what Nathaniel was proposing.

"You saw him greet me," She said. "Surely you could find nothing cold in him there."

"I never used the word cold."

"You might have," she said. "You are accusing him of a lack of interest in things worldly and mortal, as if he were some kind of ... would—be saint. You are perfectly at your leisure to dislike Will, if you must, but perhaps it has less to do with him than it does with you."

Nathaniel's face went very still for a moment, but there was a great deal of movement behind his eyes as he thought. She could see him weighing words and rejecting them.

"I never said I didn't like him, Boots. I don't know him well enough to come down on either side of that, yet. But you've put your finger on something. Maybe there is something of the saint in your Will Spencer, the way there was in Iron—Dog. And maybe it's me that's at fault, then, because I might respect a saint, but it's damn hard to like one."

"He is not my Will Spencer," Elizabeth said, her irritation getting the upper hand. "He is an old friend and my cousin's husband. I can see nothing saint like about him at all."

"Well, you don't share a bed with him." Nathaniel grinned; his mood was shifting as clearly as the moon moved down the night sky."Maybe that's what your aunt meant when she said you did better for yourself than Amanda."

She rolled onto her back to glare at him. "Your ears are altogether too sharp. That comment was not meant for you to hear."

"Really?" he said, one brow raised. "I ain't so sure about that." He seemed on the verge of saying more, and then he stopped, and ran a finger down her neck and into the opening of her nightdress.

"I'll spend some time with Will this week, see if I'm wrong."

"Good," Elizabeth said, somewhat mollified. And then, after a long pause while his finger traced her collarbone: "It's late, perhaps we should sleep."

"Aye, I can see you're tired." His hand continued on its quest over her shoulder. "Tell me to stop, then."

She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and closed her eyes. "It is very late," she said hoarsely.

"Tell me to stop." His breath was very warm against her ear.

"I don't want to," she said, turning to him. "You think you're the only one with strong appetites, Nathaniel Bonner. Well, I am here to prove you wrong."

He laughed then, his hands moving on her, stripping her nightdress away. Even in the gentle touch of candlelight his expression was severe with desire. And it struck her suddenly that Amanda did not know of this, might have never known what it was to see this look in her husband's face, to feel wanted in this way. Elizabeth tried to imagine that, the lack of wanting in Nathaniel's eyes, and she was overwhelmed with thankfulness for him, for his hands beneath her and his strong kisses, the touch of his tongue. When he was over her she spread her hands on his back and arched up to meet him to tell him so, but he took the words from her, stole them from her with his look, that look that came over him when he was inside her: intent on more, always more, intent on disappearing into her, on becoming part of her, sweat and blood and seed.

"You see?" he said, stealing her words and then feeding them back to her, stroke by stroke: "You see?"

Chapter 59

Elizabeth's week was consumed by aunt Merriweather. On those few days that she was not expected at her father's, her aunt came to spend the day on the mountain. She sometimes brought Amanda and Will with her but more often came alone, accompanied only by Galileo, or Benjamin. She drew everyone who came across her path into conversation, curious about each small detail of life at Lake in the Clouds. Examining the pelts on their stretchers, Aunt Merriweather expressed a strong inclination to see an animal which could produce a fur of such value and utility. Between Runs-from-Bears and Hannah, she marched off to the nearest beaver pond at dusk and waited patiently, getting her boots wet but coming back to the cabin highly satisfied with her success.