Untamed Read Online Free PDF Page A

were expected to perform certain duties in marriage—to lie near their husbands and to bear their children—and Amalie knew from Sister Marie Louise, who’d taken vows after her husband and children had died of smallpox, that these wifely duties—did a man really mount his wife as a ram mounted a ewe?—were onerous even when one felt affection for one’s mate. To hear the good sister speak of it, childbirth was akin to the tortures of hell.
    “I’d rather spend my life kneeling on a cold stone floor than suffer such agony again,” she’d whispered one afternoon as they’d tended the herb garden together. “God demands far less of a woman than does a husband.”
    What little Amalie knew of birth seemed to prove Sister Marie Louise’s words true. It was not uncommon for a young girl to be left at the convent to bear a child in shame, and more than once Amalie had been awoken by the piteous cries that marked the throes of labor. Hadn’t her own mother perished in childbed? If Amalie were ever to suffer so, it would be on behalf of a man she loved. She wanted a husband who cherished her and whom she cherished in return, a man who, like her father, would value her opinions more than her obedience, who would see her as more than a helpmeet and the mother of his children, who would truly see her .
    Certainly, Lieutenant Rillieux, while possessed of many admirable qualities, was not such a man. After her father’s death, he had begun to show an interest in her, pressing his suit with her guardian despite her insistence that she did not wish to be his wife. He did not seem to understand that his disregard for her opinions was the very proof she needed that they would not make a suitable match. And so she had pleaded bereavement, feigning confusion over which path to take—that of a novice or that of a wife—and Bourlamaque had relented in his efforts to find her a husband.
    Yet she knew her reprieve wouldn’t last. Neither Monsieur le Marquis de Montcalm nor Monsieur de Bourlamaque wished her to remain at Fort Carillon any longer than was necessary, insisting that the frontier was no place for a woman without a husband. If it hadn’t been for MacKinnon’s Rangers, whose lurking presence made the forest around Fort Carillon perilous, Bourlamaque would have sent her back to Trois Rivières when Montcalm had traveled north to Montréal. But the destruction of several supply trains and the loss of almost thirty soldiers to the horrid Scotsmen had convinced him that she was safer for the moment staying at the fort.
    What will you do if the British prevail and the war is lost, Amalie?
    She could not journey to France, for she knew no one there. Nor would she seek out her mother’s kin, whose customs and language were strange to her. From two different worlds, she seemed to belong in neither.
    The thought doused her last spark of appetite. She set her silverware aside.
    “You haven’t eaten a bite, Amalie.” Bourlamaque frowned. “Are you feeling ill?”
    Amalie had come to feel affection for Bourlamaque, the sort of affection one might feel for a favorite uncle. She did not wish to seem spiteful. “I fear talk of another battle has ruined my appetite, monsieur. Forgive me.”
    “There is nothing to forgive.” He smiled indulgently. “We soldiers must do better to govern our tongues in your company.”
    Lieutenant Rillieux took her hand, stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “You have nothing to fear, mademoiselle. There is not a soldier at Fort Carillon who would not fight to protect you. Is that not true, messieurs?”
    “But of course!” Fouchet and Durand insisted, almost in unison.
    Amalie pulled her hand free, tucked it in her lap. “I am not afraid for myself, messieurs, but for the soldiers. Almost two hundred have perished since I arrived last spring. I would hate to see more crosses planted in the earth.”
    Lieutenant Rillieux chuckled. “Your concern is to be commended, Amalie, but they were