Elizabeth drew in a shaky breath. "I don't know if I can pretend for that long," she said. "To be interested in Richard, I mean." She looked up at Nathaniel. "What if I can't do it? What if my father—"

"Don't mistake me, Elizabeth," Nathaniel said, his eyes narrowing. "I'll marry you one way or the other, and God help any man who tries to stop me. But I want to take you home to Hidden Wolf. If there was some other way to do it, I would. But I can't see one. Can you?"

She shook her head. "I wish" she said. "I wish with all my heart that my father would see reason and right and just sell you the land. I don't like starting out like this, with artifice. It makes me afraid."

Nathaniel began to speak, but she put a finger on his mouth to still him.

"There is no other way, I know. So." Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "I will play the game and hope that I can do you—us—some good in the process. But if I can't—" She looked up at him. "I would go with you into the wilderness, you know."

"Maybe you shouldn't be so hasty," Nathaniel said. "You haven't been introduced to the black fly yet. But between now and then I'll have to keep a wide berth of you. Can you ignore me, do you think, when we do cross paths?"  She smiled. "I'll try to think of Hamlet, and be 'cruel but not unnatural: I will speak daggers to you, but use none.

"You are the most quoting woman," Nathaniel said softly, raising his hand to smooth her hair out of her face. "And will you speak love or daggers to Richard Todd?"

"I am supposed to keep him waiting and hopeful," she said. "I don't think daggers would do the job."

"What about kissing? Is that part of the job?" Nathaniel was smiling, but there was something wolfish about it that made Elizabeth wriggle.

"Well, I don't relish the idea, but I suppose it might be necessary at some point."

"No," he said suddenly, pulling her close again, pressing her mouth with his own, hard. "No. Young ladies of good family don't let themselves be kissed, if I may remind you."

Elizabeth felt a completely idiotic grin overtake her; she couldn't help it. Despite the seriousness of the situation, despite everything there was to gain and to lose, she had to smile. Nathaniel wanted her, all of her.

"What a memory you have, Mr. Bonner."

"When Richard gets too close you remember that your kisses are mine, by rights." And he bent to her mouth. When he lifted his head she was breathing hard.

"Two months is a long time," Elizabeth whispered, reaching up for him again.

"You can send word to me through Many-Doves ," he said, between kisses.

"Many-Doves , yes," Elizabeth murmured back to him.

"But don't say anything to Hannah yet, she might let it slip."

"No, of course not," she mumbled against his mouth.

"Elizabeth," he said firmly, holding her away. "Early April, I'll be waiting for word. I'll meet you then, before you go to Johnstown with your father, and we'll settle the details."

She sat back, wiping her hair away from her face.

"Until then, you have to hold me far from you," Nathaniel said. "For all our sakes."

Chapter 17

Anna Hauptmann, looked up from a bolt of huckaback as the door to the trading post opened, letting in a blast of late March wind and Elizabeth Middleton. The preoccupied look on Anna's face was replaced suddenly with a smile.

"Miz Elizabeth! Well, it's about time," she said. "You ain't been by since the lake opened up. I was beginning to think maybe you forgot about us down here."

Elizabeth pushed her hood back onto her shoulders and pulled her gloves off, shaking her head.

"It's been very busy," she said. "I hope you'll excuse me."

"Never you mind, we're just glad to see you. Take off your wraps. There's room there by the warm, if these men will mind their manners. I wonder where Ephraim and Henrietta have got themselves to. They should come and say hello."

"Oh, don't bother them, please," Elizabeth said. "I came in because I was wondering if you happen to have material for handkerchiefs."

Anna was turning to the high wall behind her before the sentence was completely out of Elizabeth's mouth.

"Better than that," she mumbled, pulling out a drawer and peering in. "The Kaes girls spun twenty yard of good plain cloth in the fall and we sewed up handkerchiefs out of the rests, save you the needlework. Unless you was wanting lawn? I ain't had any nice lawn in a year or more. Now," she continued, without waiting for Elizabeth's reply. "The question is, where they got to since the last time I seen them. How many was you wanting?"

"As many as you've got," said Elizabeth. "It's one item I didn't think I'd need in the classroom, but I've come to see that I can't do without. The children seem to all have colds. The sudden change in the weather, I suppose."

"Thaw's the season for it, sure enough," said Anna, climbing up on stool to investigate cubbyholes out of her reach.

Elizabeth left Anna to her rummaging and turned to look over the room. There was a new sign on the wall. All grains and flowers took in trade, it read. An unbidden picture came to Elizabeth, in which her father attempted to pay for his tobacco with an armful of daisies, and she almost laughed. But then she saw how carefully the placard had been painted, and she bit her lip.