That night at the supper table, O'Reilly found Miss Davenport noticeably subdued.
Oh, she told Liam off for slurping his soup, and reminded Missy to sit up straight. But the crusading fire with which shed set out to reform them all that first night was absent, and she took little part in any of their conversations.
Lounging at the head of the table, O'Reilly sipped his wine and thoughtfully eyed the auburn-haired, fine-boned woman across from him. He'd spent most of the afternoon making repairs to the shearing shed paddocks and worrying about how he was going to channel in enough water to wash the wool. But several times during the day he'd been surprised to catch himself looking forward to tonight, to seeing her, to watching her flush when he teased her. He was a bit disappointed now to find her so distracted, so drawn in upon herself. As if the last forty-eight hours had simply proved too much for her.
She excused herself right after dinner, saying she wanted to do a few things in the schoolroom before she retired. O'Reilly wandered outside to smoke his pipe, then read Missy a story and tucked her in bed. After that, he brooded on the sofa in front of the parlor fire while he watched Liam trounce Hannah at a game of chess. They were setting up for a rematch when O'Reilly finally followed the promptings of an uncharacteristically guilty conscience and visited the schoolroom.
She'd lit a small, clear glass coal oil lamp and set it near the end of the battered cedar schoolroom table. The flickering flame cast a pool of golden light over the bookshelf-lined wall but left the rest of the room in shadow. The night was cold and the fire on the hearth had long since gone out, but she hadn't tried to relight it. She'd thrown a tattered shawl around her shoulders and was awkwardly holding it in place with one hand while she ran the fingers of her other hand along the spines of the books on the shelves.
"Lookin' for somethin' to read?" he asked from the doorway.
With an audible gasp, she jumped and whirled to face him, her eyes dark with wariness, her full lips parted in sudden alarm. The book she'd just pulled from the shelf clattered to the floor, and the hand holding her shawl spasmed at her breast. "I beg your pardon. You startled me."
"I can see that." He sauntered forward and bent to retrieve the book she'd just dropped. Turning it over in his hand, he realized it was a slim volume of erotic love poems by Sappho.
"Interesting selection." He held it out to her. "Plannin' on practicin' your Greek?"
He enjoyed watching the color flood her cheeks, and the way her breasts rose when she sucked in a quick, hitching breath. Sappho's poems were very naughty. And the oh-so- proper Miss Davenport must have read them, or she wouldn't be squirming like this.
"I wasn't actually looking for something to read myself." She took the book but refused to meet his eyes. "I was simply—familiarizing myself with what is available. You have an unexpectedly impressive collection here."
He grunted. "Unexpected, is it?"
She wasn't listening. She'd been nervously fluttering the pages of the book between her fingers when she came upon his name, written in a boyish scrawl on the flyleaf. She stared at it. "This book was yours," she said wonderingly.
"That's right. I've had it since I was a lad. What's the matter? Did you reckon I was pretty close to illiterate or something?"
She had, of course. He could tell by the way her gaze flew to his, then flitted away.
He propped one shoulder against the bookcase and looked down at her. "When I was a boy, my father used to send me out to watch the sheep for weeks on end. I was used to having my sister and brothers at home, so those days out in the hills got pretty lonely. I don't know what I'd have done without books. I reckon you'd be surprised at how many I got through."
"I didn't have any brothers or sisters," she said quietly. "Books were my only companions. Always." She shoved the volume back into its space on the shelf. He saw her hand tremble noticeably, and she grasped the edge of the case as if to steady herself.
He didn't like this woman, and her attitudes irritated the hell out of him. But she looked so small and fragile and vulnerable, standing there in the golden lamplight, that he reached out and closed his fingers, lightly, around her slim wrist. "Did the children do something else to you today? Is that what's bothering you this evening?"
It was a simple touch, a spontaneous gesture of sympathy and support. But he was unprepared for the effect it had on him.
Her skin felt smooth and soft and sensuously delicious beneath his hand. He found he wanted to run his palm slowly, exquisitely up her arm. He wanted to lean in closer, to turn her in his arms and breathe in the fragrance of her hair, to explore the curve of her neck and learn the taste of her full, wide mouth.
He felt her go utterly still beneath his touch. Felt her pulse flutter. She cast a quick glance up at him, her eyes wide, her pupils seeming to dilate in the darkness. He sucked in a deep breath. And let her go.
"The children?" Her voice quavered, her head carefully bent away from him again. "No. Oh, no." He watched her rub her hand over and over the wrist he'd just touched. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it.
"Are you not telling me what they did because you're afraid I'll give them a whippin'? Because if that's it—"
"No." She turned, pressing her back against the bookshelves and bringing her arms up to hug herself as she stared off into the darkened corners of the room. "Truly, it's nothing to do with the children. It's..." She swallowed, and raised her chin in that arrogant gesture that had irritated him before, but now for some reason faintly amused him.
"If you must know," she said in a rush, "I find I am rather disappointed in myself. Because of the way I reacted to the goanna this morning. I had not thought myself such a pathetic creature. So... cowardly."
"You think you're a coward?"
"Yes."
"I don't."
She jerked. "Don't be ridiculous. My reaction was shameful. I even screamed ." Her voice was rough with self-loathing.
He rested his arm along the shelf beside her head and leaned into her. "I doubt there's many people in this world who could watch a strange four-and-a-half foot reptile come slithering into the room with them and not get scared. After all, you didn't know it wasn't particularly dangerous—and believe me, you wouldn't have wanted it to take a chunk out of your leg, in any case. Yet you didn't run off and leave the children, or faint. You stood your ground."
He saw her jaw tighten. "I was terrified," she insisted, determined to flail herself with what she saw as her shortcomings. "I hate hysterical females, yet that's exactly what I acted like."
"You didn't look hysterical to me. Just scared. There is a difference." He watched her slender throat work as she swallowed, and knew an unwelcome tug of admiration. Here he'd assumed she'd been overset by everything that had happened since her arrival or by some new trick his children had pulled on her. Instead, she'd been berating herself for what she saw as her own lack of courage. And this from a woman who'd ended up stranded alone and penniless in a land she hated because she'd refused to sail for home and leave an old woman to die alone.
"Being brave doesn't mean not feeling fear," he said gently. "The way I see it, it doesn't take any courage to confront a danger you're not afraid of. It's when a man—or a woman— stands there and faces what terrifies them, that's what takes courage."
Her head swiveled so that she could look at him. He watched her nostrils flare in sudden surprise as she realized just how close to her he was. Close enough that his breath stirred the loose tendrils of flame-colored hair beside her ear. Close enough that he could smell her scent, a mixture of rose- water and starch and her own unexpectedly desirable, vibrant essense.
She stood, flushed and still, studying him in a way that made him wonder what she saw. She was so tiny, she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, and her neck arched invitingly.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to dip his head and kiss her. But no sooner did the thought flicker through his consciousness than he wondered wh
ere the hell it had come from. She was his children's governess, for Christ- sake. And the exact opposite of the type of woman he admired. She was too feminine and delicate, too straight-laced and corset-pinched, too ostentatiously virtuous, too English. Bloody hell, he didn't even like her.
Yet something about her piqued his interest, stirred his blood, and provoked his unwilling admiration. He looked into the dark gray shimmer of her eyes, watched her tongue creep out to wet her lips, and was almost lost again.
"There is so much here to fear," she whispered. "I don't know if I have the courage to face it all."
"You could always leave." Even as he said it, he knew he wanted her to leave. He needed her here, to teach his children. Yet for his own sake, he wished she would go away.
She shook her head, the movement causing the glow from the lamp flame to glance off the glorious wine-red highlights in her hair. "No. I won't leave until I've earned enough to get back to England."
"Then if it's that important to you, you'll do what you have to do." He shoved away from the bookcase and was half out the door before he turned. "By the way, how'd you like supper?"
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Do you mean the pork? It was lovely. Why?"
It hadn't been pork, of course, but the goanna, and O'Reilly had just been waiting for the right moment to tell her about it. Only now that he had the chance, all he said was, "Yeah. The pork." He felt his lips twist into an odd smile. "Good night."
A piercing scream shattered the night.
Amanda sat up in bed, her heart pounding as she stared wildly into the cloaking darkness. She could see nothing. For a moment she felt disoriented, confused, unsure of where she was. Then memory returned, and she knew she was at Penyaka, in the Australian outback. And she realized that what she had just heard had been a child's scream.
She swung her feet out of bed, fumbled for her slippers, reached for her wrapper. Quickly knotting the sash, she jerked open her door.
The fire on the hearth had died down to a pile of embers that filled the darkened parlor with a reddish glow. She could see the vague, indistinct outlines of furniture, and the door to Patrick O'Reilly's room standing open, opposite hers. He was already up.
The flicker of a candle from the direction of the girls' room brought her head around. She saw a long, masculine shadow move across the wooden floor of the adjoining dining room and disappear. His voice came to her, a low-pitched, soothing murmur in the night.
She knew she should go back to bed. Instead, she crept forward, hugging the wall and keeping her footfalls light. She could see him now, hunkered down beside Missy's bed. The flickering candle glazed his bare shoulders with a golden light, glinted on his tawny hair, showed his dark hand against the white swath of Missy's sheets.
"And what did the leprechaun find, Papa?" Missy asked, her hand clutching his, her voice tight with fear.
"Sure then, 'twas a pot of gold, right at the end of that rainbow, where he thought it'd be." O'Reilly's suddenly thick Irish brogue made Missy giggle. "And now," he continued, drawing the covers up beneath the little girl's chin, "if you close your eyes and lie very still, I'll sing you a song."
Amanda drew back, her fingers gripping the neck of her wrapper, her eyes squeezing shut as an old Irish ballad, sung in a mellow tenor, floated through the still house. It was a sad tale, of doomed love and hopeless striving and inevitable loss. But it was not the words of the song that brought the lump to Amanda's throat or the rush of tears that stung her eyes. It was the sight of this man, so loving and giving, so tender in his care of his frightened young daughter.
Amanda sucked in a deep, painful breath, shaken by half- buried memories of all the nights she herself had awakened as a child, disoriented, afraid, wanting the comforting nearness of someone who loved her, someone she knew would take care of her. But no one had ever come to her, no one had ever told her stories, no one had ever sung her to sleep. She had been left alone to stare wide-eyed into the terrifying blackness of the night, to shiver, and to start at each small sound. To ache with loneliness and need. And cry herself back to sleep.
Now a grown woman, Amanda stood alone in the darkness and listened to O'Reilly's soothing voice, so warm with love and tenderness and gentle concern, it made her chest burn with some strange emotion. And she realized that she was suddenly, achingly envious.
Of Missy.
CHAPTER SIX
After lessons the next day, Amanda escaped to the garden.
The cold wind that had made the last few days uncomfortable had dropped, leaving the afternoon unbelievably warm for late winter. She was strolling thoughtfully along a box- edged path when the clip-clop of a horse's hooves muffled by the thick dust of the track brought her head around. She expected to see one of the stockmen, or maybe Patrick O'Reilly, coming in from the mustering. But the man who reined in at the gate was no stockman.
He rode a big-boned roan with a broad back and a pronounced wheeze. Shuffling to a stop beside the garden wall, the horse gave a snort and hung its head pitifully.
"I fail to understand how you can be as exhausted as you pretend, Hermes," said the man in a precise English accent. His saddle leather creaked as he raised himself painfully in the stirrups. "Given that you steadfastly refused to be coaxed out of a walk the entire distance from town, I believe I have worked harder getting us here than you, my friend."
At the sound of Amanda's soft laughter, the man slewed around in his saddle, his fist tightening in the horse's mane as if to keep himself from falling off.
She found herself regarding a pleasant-looking young man of no more than twenty-five or thirty. He had soft brown eyes, a neat brown mustache, and the bloom of an English rose in his cheeks. His clothes were those of a gentleman: a modestly cut, brown wool frock coat lightly powdered now with dust from his ride, a conservative satin waistcoat, and a starched white shirt with its stiff collar buttoned up properly beneath his cleft chin.
At the sight of Amanda, he reached with one hand to doff his bowler hat and smiled, revealing even white teeth. "You must be Miss Davenport. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Christian Whittaker, keeper of accounts for the Brinkman mine, tutor of unwilling small boys, and unfortunate owner of a horse known as Hermes."
Amanda laughed again and came forward to offer him her hand. "How do you do, sir. I had heard you were to ride out today, but I must confess I had begun to think you weren't coming after all."
Settling his hat back on his head, Mr. Whittaker leaned over perilously to take her hand. "It is a small man who blames others for his own shortcomings, so I shall not attempt to shift responsibility to this fleet-footed beast here." Hermes jerked his head up and whipped his tail back and forth, almost unseating his rider. Mr. Whittaker let go of her hand and made another grab at the mane. "I fear the problem is that I never did much riding before coming to Australia."
Amanda smiled at him. "Then do hasten to get down and come in. Liam is waiting for you in the schoolroom."
"With eager anticipation, I am sure." Mr. Whittaker gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes in a way that made Amanda want to laugh again. She suddenly felt very gay. It was so good to talk to someone from Home, to hear the rich, full vowels of her childhood. To be treated with polite respect rather than with a teasing, faintly suggestive familiarity that aroused all sorts of wanton, half-forgotten thoughts in one's head.
She watched in quiet amusement as Mr. Whittaker grasped his horse's mane with both hands and leaned forward. Levering his right leg up and over Hermes' broad back, he slid to the ground in a clumsy rush. He was not a big man, like Patrick O'Reilly, but small, and slightly plump. He did not tower over her, intimidating her with his size and his strength and his aggressive masculinity.
"There," he said, bending over to brush off his dusty clothes. "Safely to earth again. Now all I have to do is take care of Hermes here."
At the sound of his name, the roan laid down its ears and tossed its thick head. Discovering that Whittaker had released
the reins in order to deal with his disheveled clothes, Hermes began to back.
Amanda's hand closed around the roan's reins just below the bit, stopping it. "Let me take him for you. You'd best go in before Liam disappears."
Mr. Whittaker looked up from straightening his waistcoat, his jaw slack with surprise. "You, Miss Davenport? Oh, but I could never ask such a thing—"
Amanda shook her head. "I don't mind. I'll lead him down to the stables and give him to one of the men."
A look of relief passed over Whittaker's features, although he still visibly hesitated. "If you are quite certain you can handle the brute..."
"Quite certain."
He smiled. "I don't know how to thank you."
"You can thank me by joining me on the veranda for tea after your lessons," said Amanda, shocking herself with her own boldness. "And talking to me of England."
The rosy color in Mr. Whittaker's cheeks deepened endearingly. "With pleasure," he said, doffing his hat one last time before unhooking his leather satchel from the saddle and hurrying off toward the house.
With her free hand, Amanda reached up to rub the big horse's velvety nose. "I think he's a very nice young man," she whispered softly in Hermes' ear. "And you have treated him abominably. So if you try any of your tricks with me, you ill- mannered, misnamed oaf, I shall thump you squarely between the eyes. Consider yourself warned."
The roan rolled his big brown eyes and stared consideringly at her. Then he hung his head in contrite obeisance and followed Amanda to the stables.
"Liam told me about your recent reptilian visitor," said Christian Whittaker, delicately taking a sip of his tea as he sat with Amanda on the eastern veranda. "It sounds as if it were probably a Gould's goanna—that's technically a Varanus gouldii," he added conscientiously. "Although it's difficult to be certain, since the remains have unfortunately been consumed."
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