"Constantly," he whispered against her mouth. "We will do this at every opportunity."

* * *

Nathaniel brought her a bowl of water from the falls and tore strips from an old homespun hunting shirt so that Elizabeth could wash, but there was not enough time in the world to put herself in order. She brushed with increasing dismay at her wrinkled skirts and then, in near panic, she presented herself to Nathaniel.

"You look like you've been up to mischief," he said finally. He himself looked as he always did; buckskin did not wrinkle, it seemed.

"Mischief, is it?" she muttered. "It's not amusing, Nathaniel. I can't go back home like this. You know I cannot." In a fit of irritation, she turned her back on him while she tried to tuck her lace more neatly into the line of her bodice so that it covered the red flush that still mottled her chest.

"Do you take a chill easy?" Nathaniel asked.

She pulled up, surprised. "What?"

"Are you one of those women who take a chill easy in the cold? Get sick and take to bed?" Elizabeth raised her chin. "I haven't been ill enough to stay in bed since I was twelve and I knocked my head climbing a tree. I can't even remember the last time I had a fever." She said this with some pride, and was surprised by Nathaniel's grin in reply.

"Come." He took her by the wrist to pull her to the next cave over her protests.

"Please, Nathaniel, think a minute. What am I to do? We can't afford to have any suspicions raised—"

Just before the waterfall he stopped. "Has anyone taught you yet how to drink out of a stream?" He shouted, to be heard above the rushing water.

Mystified, Elizabeth shook her head. "Why?"

He grinned, grasping her firmly by her upper arms. "Because," he bellowed. "Folks generally fall in once or twice until they get the hang of it."

She realized too late what he was about. Before she could protest or try to extract herself he had tipped her back headfirst into the falling curtain of icy water, and pulled her back out, sputtering, every nerve in her hotly jumping in protest.

"Nathaniel!" But he was tipping her back again, and this time he leaned forward to kiss her as she went, claiming a mouth already open in exclamation. She clung to him, her fingers twined around forearms as unyielding as oak as she kissed him back, feeling the hard graze of his jaw like a blessing, his mouth like a hot brand in the stream of water cascading over them.

"Now," he said, when they had stumbled back from the precipice, dripping and gasping. "I expect you can go home without raising suspicions."

* * *

It was well past midday when Nathaniel announced Elizabeth's ascent up the cliff face with a three—note bird call. She came over the lip of the incline to find Hannah waiting for her. The child was sitting cross—legged on a flat rock in the sun, her braids gleaming blue—black. In her lap was a bouquet of wild iris not yet in bloom, slender purple heads nodding inside their paper like sheaths.

"How beautiful," Elizabeth said, but she was watching Hannah's face.

"Grandmother promised to show me how to make a poultice of these for Otter," the child said, matter—of—factly.

Elizabeth saw Hannah take in her damp hair and the sorry state of her clothing. For once, Elizabeth was supremely grateful for the Kahnyen’keháka sensibilities which forbade personal commentary or questions of a kind which would have come naturally to any of the other children. She considered the various things she might tell Hannah, and quickly discarded them all; this was not just one of her students, but a child she would raise, her responsibility. Her daughter. Elizabeth wouldn't start out by lying to her, and so she would say nothing at all.

When Elizabeth had put on her stockings and boots, they started back.

It wasn't until they had entered the birch and maple grove closest to Lake In the Clouds that Hannah stopped suddenly. Elizabeth tensed, looking around herself, but she could see no sign of trouble.

"What will I call you?" Hannah asked in her straightforward manner, but without her usual grin.

"What do you want to call me?" asked Elizabeth, who had been thinking of the same thing.

"I remember my mother," Hannah said, and for the first time there was a wariness there. Elizabeth wanted to touch the child, but thought better of it.

"That's a very good thing," she said. "My mother died when I was just a little older than you are now, and the memories I have of her are very precious to me."

Hannah nodded thoughtfully. Then, with her chin, she directed Elizabeth's attention to a steep hang deep in shadow, where Curiosity was crouched in a riot of new ferns. As Elizabeth watched, her long, thin frame unfurled and she waved in their direction.

"Hello, there," she called. It was amazing how quickly the older woman could move. Before Elizabeth could think of what to say, she was with them, and handing Elizabeth a basket full to the rim with every sort of plant and root the forest had to offer.

"It's time we got on home," she said. "Although I'd like to know where you got them flag lily this early, Missy Hannah. Never mind," she said with a halfhearted scowl in response to Hannah's grin. "I guess I ain't traipsing up to that spring on the ridge to get 'em. No, you go on now, get on back to Falling—Day so she can poultice that leg."

For the first time, Curiosity seemed to look closely at Elizabeth. "We got to get this one home. Looks like she fell in a stream. That what happened?"