"She gave you Hannah."

He nodded. "You're right," he said. "Hannah made it worth the trouble. But there was trouble, no mistake, Elizabeth. We married too young.

"I'm not so young," Elizabeth said. "And neither are you, anymore.

"Will you listen," he said. "I'm trying to tell you—"

"What a terrible man you are, how you beat women and bully children, and throw all your money away on gaming and drink—"

"I've killed some men in my time, not counting the ones in battle," Nathaniel interrupted her.

"Well, then, there must have been sufficient reason," Elizabeth said, a bit paler.

They stared at each other for a moment.

"Will you try to stop me teaching school?"

"Of course not."

"Will you tell me how to run things? Will you listen, when I have something to say, and act on it? You have so far. I think," she said, her voice trembling, "that you'd be a good husband. Better than most, when you're not being contrary."

"Maybe you just want to get away from the judge."

"Of course I do. But—" She felt a nerve in her cheek fluttering. "But I wouldn't marry Richard Todd to get away from him, or any of the men I met in New—York—"

Nathaniel put a thumb on her chin, fanning his fingers over her cheek. "I think you're saying that you're fond of me," he said with a half smile. "And that you're willing to chance the rest because of it."

She inclined her head into his palm. "In the past week, I have been thinking that perhaps there is such a thing as friendship and equal partnership between a man and a woman. Where there is respect and—affection."

Nathaniel touched his forehead to hers, but she kept her gaze cast down.

"So," Elizabeth said lightly. "Why is it you're willing to . . . go along with this?"

"Well, I thought that would be obvious enough," Nathaniel said. "But since I promised you the words, I'll tell you. I want you with me. I want you there to talk to, and to argue with, when nothing else will do. I'm sure there'll be enough of that."

Elizabeth drew in a sigh and let it go, turning her head so that her face was hidden against his neck, her mouth close to the pulse at the base of his throat.

"I want to watch you with Hannah, see what you've got to teach her. To take you into the wilderness in the spring and show you where the flag lilies grow. When it's hot, to sleep with you under the waterfall. To kiss you whenever I please. To take you to bed, and have you there with me whenever I reach out for you." His voice was soft and low against her ear. "To get you with child, and watch it change the shape of you as it grows."

Elizabeth lifted her face up to him until her mouth waited just under his.

"That's why I want you," he said. "If you'll have me."

"Yes," she whispered. Elizabeth put her arms around his neck, and turned her mind to kissing Nathaniel.

His hands were on her back, moving in circles. He kissed the corner of her mouth, took her lower lip between his teeth and worried it gently. Touched her upper lip with his tongue and then claimed her, his arms surrounding her, one hand cradling her head.

She let her eyelids flutter closed as the angle of his head deepened. At first there were many sensations: the feel of a chest as hard as oak through layers of buckskin and fur and cloth, the exquisite rough pleasure of a day's growth of beard, the taste of him, slightly salty, and still sweet. Slowly, her whole consciousness became centered there where their mouths joined: the soft but persistent pressure of his lips, the way his head dipped and coaxed hers. He had been gentle and tentative and now there was more, a direction and growing intensity in this kiss, in the way his hands held her head so that he could take her mouth in deepening and hypnotic waves.

His tongue touched hers and she started, and drew away. She looked at him with eyes slightly out of focus, and then leaned forward to put her forehead against his shoulder.

"It's late," Nathaniel said hoarsely.

"Yes," Elizabeth agreed. "It is late."

"And you're tired."

"Oh, yes. You must be, too. It was exciting, watching you on the ice."

"So," Nathaniel said, pulling her closer.

"So," Elizabeth echoed, faintly.

"I want you," he said. "I want to be with you."

Elizabeth forced herself to meet his eye, knowing how deeply she blushed, knowing somehow that it would please him to see that.

"I would like that, too," she said, her voice wobbling. "I think."

"Good. Good. But"—he looked around himself—"not now, not here."

She nodded. "All right."

"It's getting late," he said again. "And there's a lot we need to talk about. This will take some planning, if we've got to elope. It can't be before mid—April, at any rate."

Elizabeth's heart fell, to think of that: two months.

Nathaniel took her hand, rubbed the palm with his own. "Well, now, Boots," he said, his old teasing tone back. "It does me no end of good to see that you're impatient about it. But we can't be on the run in the thaw. The whole world turns to water and mud and we couldn't get anywhere, not having to go north into the bush. And that's what we'll have to do if we don't want to be caught. Anyway," he said, grinning down at her. "I want to have the schoolhouse done first. Settle my business with the judge, so to speak, before I run off with his daughter. And it gives you two months to get the school started. Which is why you came to Paradise, after all."