But tempted, nonetheless.
It was a pity, Amanda decided, that one could not actually die of humiliation.
After what had happened to her today, even death seemed preferable to facing the O'Reillys again. She glanced toward the western window and saw that beyond the closed curtains, the light was already fading. She let her breath out in a sigh. It would be dark soon. Hopefully she wouldn't need to see any of them again until morning.
She dug her finger into the bowl of thick white paste and held her wrapper away from her body. Twisting around, she strained to dab some of the mixture on each of the dozens of angry red bites that decorated her white buttocks and thighs.
She had no idea what the concoction was, but it brought soothing relief. She had mixed it herself from the white powder in a small blue bag Patrick O'Reilly had brought to her door.
"My grandmother always used it," he'd told her, his warm gaze lingering first on the hair that flowed loosely around Amanda's shoulders, then on the open neckline of her sapphire- blue silk wrapper. "Just add water to it, and it'll take away the sting. I'd offer to help you put it on, but—"
Snatching the bag from his hand, she'd slammed the door in his face.
Remembering the incident now, Amanda was shocked at how rude she had been. But then, they both knew where most of her bites were. Amanda straightened. Just the thought of that man's sparkling blue eyes seeing her like this, of his strong, tanned hands touching her so intimately, brought a fresh wave of hot embarrassment washing over her and caused an alarming fluttering sensation, way down low in her belly.
She let her wrapper fall back into place and went to the washstand to rinse her finger. She was reaching for the towel when it occurred to her that Patrick O'Reilly had already both seen her and touched her. Intimately.
She brought her hands up to her hot cheeks. "I want to die," she said aloud to the darkening room. "I just want to die."
She didn't really want to die, of course. She simply wanted to get away from here—far, far away from this wild land and that impossible man and his three fiendish children. She should never have taken this position, she thought despairingly. If she could leave tomorrow, she would.
She raked her loose hair back from her face and groaned. The problem was, she couldn't leave. She didn't even have the ten pounds she needed to pay her fare back to Adelaide. And what would she do when she got there, anyway? Unemployed, homeless, and impoverished, she really would die. Or sink to selling her body on the streets.
Shivering, she hugged her wrapper closer. She was stuck here. Stuck with that vulgar, ill-bred, foul-mouthed man and his detestable, unnatural children. At the thought, a sick, panicky feeling pressed in on her, making her heart beat wildly. Her blood thrummed in her ears, repeating the words like some kind of crazy refrain. Stuck here, stuck here, stuck here.
Gritting her teeth, Amanda pushed away from the wash- stand and went to rummage through her opened trunk for some dry clothes. She was trapped here all right. For twelve months. But Amanda Davenport had no intention of being defeated by three half-grown children, a convict's grandson, and an ants'nest.
Throwing off her wrapper, she yanked on a clean pair of drawers and a chemise. She might be stuck with the O'Reillys, she thought, wrapping her corset around her waist and sucking in her stomach so she could do up the hooks. But the O'Reillys were also stuck with her.
She buttoned on her camisole, crinoline, and petticoat, and shook the wrinkles out of her second-best gray dress. Patrick O'Reilly had hired her to teach his children, and teach them she would. She would teach them how to behave like proper, well-mannered children, not heathen savages. She would teach them to respect their elders. And she would teach their father—
A knock at her door brought her head around. "Who is it?" she called, fumbling with the hooks at the back of her gown's high neck.
There was no answer.
Turning the faceted crystal handle, she yanked open the door to find herself confronting nothing but the gloomy silence of the empty parlor. It wasn't until she started to close the door that she noticed something had been left on the floor outside her room.
Bending down, she picked up a chipped blue pottery pitcher stuffed with ranunculus, lavender, and a small yellow flower she recognized as a native wildflower. Beneath the pitcher, someone had left a folded piece of paper. Amanda set the flowers on her bedside table and opened the note.
I is sory the ants bited yu, read the large, wobbly letters. I holp yu feel beter soon. Missy.
It was so unexpected, so touchingly sincere, that Amanda had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment to keep back sudden tears. She reached out almost blindly to close her door, only to pause again at the low murmur of male voices drifting from the far end of the house.
"I don't like having to do this, Liam," she heard O'Reilly say. "You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let's get it over with, then."
The unmistakable snap of a leather belt cut through the still night air. Amanda quietly shut her door and leaned against it, smiling.
She didn't care that it had been only a matter of hours since she had scornfully rejected O'Reilly's suggestion that closer acquaintance with his children would change her attitude toward corporal punishment. She didn't care that she honestly did object—in theory—to spanking. She only knew that at the moment, the sound of such energetic chastisement being visited upon the backside of one of her tormentors was sweet music to her ears.
It was about half an hour later, when Amanda had almost finished her unpacking, that another knock fell on her door.
"One moment, please," she called. Lowering the lid on her trunk, she went to open the door, expecting to find someone with her supper tray. Her gaze fell on Liam O'Reilly and she said, "Oh."
He stood just outside her room, a skinny, sharp-featured boy with light-brown hair and unusual hazel eyes that glittered strangely. For a long, intense moment they stared at each other, each taking the other's measure, each remembering the ant incident and the beating it had earned Liam, each issuing and accepting a peculiar, wordless challenge.
The edges of his lips curled up into an unpleasant smile that showed a missing eyetooth. "Father says to tell you supper's almost ready."
"Supper?" She glanced beyond him to the dining room, where a Chinese man wearing a knee-length cotton jacket and baggy blue trousers was holding a taper to a branch of candles. The lamps had been lit and fires kindled in both the parlor and the dining room. And judging from the number of places laid at the table, it appeared that not only did Mr. O'Reilly follow the unusual custom of eating meals with his children, he also expected her to join them.
"I thought..." She cleared her throat. "That is, I assumed a tray would be sent to my room." It was the usual procedure in England, where governesses were effectively lost between two worlds. Considered too genteel to eat in the servants' hall or kitchen with the rest of the "help," they were nevertheless not good enough to be invited to sit down at table with the family, as a chaplain might.
"Father always has the governess eat with us." Liam's sneer turned into a snicker. "He says it helps our manners."
"How nice," said Amanda. "I can assure you, I am very much looking forward to improving your manners."
In reality, she was mortified at the thought of having to face them all so soon after publicly dropping her drawers on that ants' nest. But she kept her voice bright and her smile in place, and she had the satisfaction of watching Liam's smirk slip slightly.
"Like that, do you, mate?" crooned O'Reilly.
In response, Liam's kelpie stretched out his neck and thumped his tail enthusiastically against the side of the battered old settee. O'Reilly laughed and shifted his attentions from one upright ear to the other. Barrister shivered his delight.
The sound of Miss Davenport closing her door brought the dog's head around. O'Reilly glanced up and watched as the new governess advanced stiffly toward the small group gathered aro
und the fire.
She was wearing a high-necked gray dress almost as ugly as that brown thing she'd had on earlier today. She'd pulled her beautiful hair into a chaste spinster's bun, but even such a severe style couldn't dim its brilliance. She had some head of hair, he thought as she came into the halo of light cast by the fire. No wonder she hid it. Hair like hers gave a man ideas. The kind of ideas that scared women such as Miss Amanda Davenport.
She was trying to look serene, but the high color riding her normally pale cheeks betrayed just how mortified she was by what had happened that afternoon. He bet she'd have given almost anything—up to and maybe even including her precious, rigorously guarded virtue—if she'd never had to see any of them again. Yet here she was, facing them all with her shoulders back and her chin up. He wondered, idly, if she realized that holding her backbone as stiff as a mast on a Royal Navy vessel had the effect of making her magnificent breasts even more noticeable. He doubted it.
As she came up to them, Barrister lifted his nose and sniffed, his tail wagging faster. He took several tentative steps toward her, then a few more. "Barrister," O'Reilly commanded, surprised by the dog's lack of discernment. "Sit."
Too late. Three bounds brought the dog close enough to rear up on his hind legs.
O'Reilly expected Miss Davenport to shrink back in revul- sion, maybe even shriek in terror. Instead she brought up her hands and neatly caught the dog's paws before they landed on her gown. "Well, hello," she said with a smile, returning Barrister to all fours but softening the rejection by stooping to scratch him behind the ears much as O'Reilly himself had been doing. "The enthusiasm of your greeting is welcome, but not the form." She shifted her attention to the dog's neck, and Barrister sighed with ecstasy. "What's your name? Hmm, pretty boy?"
It was the first time O'Reilly had seen her smile, and he was surprised by the way it transformed her. It brought a sparkle to her sober gray eyes and called attention to her mouth, which was wide and full lipped and intriguingly sensual looking.
"His name's Barrister. I didn't expect you to like dogs," Liam said, with so much disappointment in his voice that it was obvious Barrister's presence had been another scheme to harass the new governess—only this idea hadn't worked.
"I had a dog when I was a little girl," said Miss Davenport, still faintly smiling. By now Barrister had rolled over onto his back so that she could scratch his belly; his tongue lolled out, until he was staring up at her with such idiotic devotion that Liam snorted in disgust.
Chow appeared in the doorway, put his palms together, and bowed. "Supper ready."
Miss Davenport snapped to her feet, so obviously flustered by the fact she'd forgotten her precious formality and dignity long enough to stoop down and scratch a dog's belly that O ' Reilly might have smiled—if it hadn't suddenly struck him as sad.
Watching her, he was surprised to find himself trying to picture the little girl this painfully repressed woman must once have been. He tried to imagine her as a child, with copper-colored ringlets falling around her shoulders and her pinafore dirty from wrestling with her dog...
Except the image wouldn't form. If that little girl ever had existed, he decided, she was so far lost in the past as to be beyond recall.
"I must wash my hands," she said stiffly. "1 shan't be a moment."
When she came back she was wearing such a prim, lady- fallen-amongst-the-swine look that it was obvious she severely regretted whatever impulse had led her to relax enough to pet the dog. Worse, it was soon clear to O'Reilly that she considered them a bunch of degenerate colonials, and had decided to embark on a mission to civilize them all. Sinking into her dining chair with carefully calculated grace, she spread her napkin over her lap with such ostentatious gentility that he was tempted to tuck his own napkin into the neck of his shirt, just for the perverse pleasure of watching that snooty little nose of hers quiver in disdain.
Only Miss Davenport wasn't looking at him. She was staring at Hannah. "Didn't you have time to change for supper, Hannah?"
In the act of reaching for a bread roll, Hannah stiffened and threw her a sulky look. "What do you mean? I changed my shirt."
"I thought perhaps you might put on a dress," said Miss Davenport.
Liam sniggered. "Hannah never wears a dress."
"But..." Miss Davenport's brows drew together in a frown as she stared at Hannah's hair, which hung as short and ragged as if it'd been lopped off by a drunken American Indian on a rampage with a tomahawk. "Whatever happened to your hair?"
Hannah concentrated on buttering her bread.
"Hannah," said O'Reilly. "Miss Davenport asked you a question."
"She cut it herself," said Missy hastily, glancing from his frown to her sister's mulish profile. "Last year. It was as short as Liam's when she first did it. Papa wanted to kill her."
"I could trim it for you, if you like," Miss Davenport said, swiveling to select a slice of meat from the platter Chow held for her.
Watching her, O'Reilly wondered if she realized that what she'd picked was kangaroo. He was about to tell her when
Hannah said in a pseudosaintly voice, "Papa made me promise never to cut it again. And of course I would never go against my papa's expressed command."
"I'm sure your father didn't mean to include judicious straightening as part of that prohibition."
O'Reilly's eyes narrowed as he stared down the length of the table at the new governess. For a minute there, he actually thought he'd heard a quiver of amusement in her voice, but he decided he must have imagined it. "Of course it's not what I meant." He helped himself to a couple slices of roast lamb and several pieces of kangaroo. "But she's as stubborn as an Irishman in a beer-drinking competition, and twice as ornery."
Caught in the act of swallowing a mouthful of water, Miss Davenport choked. She frowned down the length of the table at him, then picked up her own fork with a great show of elegant forbearance. "What time do lessons begin in the morning?"
"Ten," said Liam.
She swung her head to look at him in surprise. "Ten? Goodness, that is late."
O'Reilly chuckled. "Let this serve as a warning to you, Miss Davenport. Liam here can spin a tale taller than anything you ever heard, and still manage to keep his face as solemn and sanctimonious as a bishop's at a baptism." He reached for the mashed potatoes. "Lessons begin at eight and run until one. Then again from two to three."
Miss Davenport transferred her frown from Liam to O'Reilly himself. "Surely that is not all the time these children devote to their studies?"
"I'm afraid so," he said, whacking a dollop of potatoes on his plate. "Here in the bush, children have a hell of a lot of things to learn that don't come out of books."
"But... six hours a day?" She stared down the length of the table at him. "That barely allows enough time for the basics, such as English and mathematics, and history and geography. Surely you would like Liam to be given a grounding in Greek and Latin as well?"
She sounded so genuinely upset about it that he almost warmed to her. Then she spoiled it all by giving him a tight smile. Not the smile hed seen before, but a prim curling of the edges of her lips that did nothing to soften them. "I presume that even here in the colonies a classical education is considered important?"
She had a way of saying the colonies that really set up his back. As if the colonies were synonymous with dung heap, or the nether reaches of hell.
"Do you know Greek and Latin?" Hannah asked, looking at the new governess with grudging respect.
Miss Davenport smiled at her. "Yes, I do. My father was a scholar, so my classical education was unusually extensive."
"Aw, no," groaned Liam, scooting down lower in his seat. "Don't I already do enough Greek and Latin with Whittaker?"
"Whittaker?" asked Miss Davenport.
"Christian Whittaker," O'Reilly clarified. "He's a bookkeeper with the Brinkman Mining Company. But it doesn't take up much of his time, so he rides out here every Thursday afternoon and spends a coupl
e of hours teaching Liam classics."
"Oh."
She sounded so disappointed that for some reason O'Reilly couldn't name, he said, "But I'm sure Christian would appreciate it if you could spend some time working with Liam, too."
Liam sat bolt upright. "Father."
"Did you say this man's name is Whittaker?" Miss Davenport asked.
"Yes. Why?"
She leaned forward, her face becoming unexpectedly animated. "I wonder if he is related to the Whittakers of Oxfordshire? Have you heard of them? It's a very old family. The late general Anthony Whittaker served with Wellington during the wars with France."
It was one of the things O'Reilly disliked most about English gentlewomen—this idea they had that who a man's grandfather had been was more important than what a man had managed to make out of himself. Katherine had been like that, and so had O'Reilly's mother. "Well," he said dryly, "I don't know if Christian is related to the General Whittaker, but I think he does come from Oxfordshire. You'll have to ask him. He'll be out here day after tomorrow. Maybe you two can have tea together on the veranda. Talk about Home and your mutual old friends."
"That would be lovely," she said with a smile. Not that brittle, supercilious tightening of her lips he hated, but a wide, genuine smile that reminded O'Reilly that when she wasn't being a sanctimonious pain in the rear, she could be a damn fine-looking woman.
For some reason he couldn't explain, he felt a sudden need to wipe that smile off her face. Picking up the platter Chow had left on the table, he handed it to Liam. "Here, why don't you pass this down to Miss Davenport. She seemed to like that kangaroo meat."
He watched the muscles in her slender throat tighten as she swallowed. "Kangaroo meat?" she said, so horrified her mouth fell open in a most ungenteel expression.
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