Amanda paused with one hand on the fence's top rail, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the power and raw sexuality of the magnificent bay stallion. This could only be Fire Dancer. He pranced around his mate, his neck arched, each strutting stride bunching the powerful muscles that rippled beneath his sweat-sheened, bloodred hide. Then he threw back his head, his nostrils flaring, and the wind whipped at his dark mane as he closed on the quiescent, waiting mare.
Amanda could see his sex organ, proud and engorged, as he reared back and mounted the mare, biting her on the neck as he entered her. The mare shuddered and screamed.
Amanda's hand closed into a fist that she shoved against her lips. She could not tear her gaze away from the two animals mating before her. It was brutal and frightening and indescribably fascinating. The stallion, so blatantly dominating and conquering; the mare, submissive, subdued, accepting.
At long last, it ended. The stallion's hooves flashed as he thundered around the yard, neighing his triumph, kicking up a fine dust that shimmered golden in the sunlight. The mare stood where he had left her, forgotten, dismissed. Amanda looked away...
And found herself staring into the narrowed eyes of Patrick O'Reilly.
He had been watching her. She knew it by the intensity of his brilliant blue stare, by the taut, unmistakable look of arousal on his face: While she had been watching the horses, he had been watching her. And he knew. He knew that this animal display of sexuality had excited her. He knew that within her chest her heart pounded and that, even now, beneath the stiff bodice of her prim gown, her breasts felt full and her nipples had hardened into two erect nubs.
They stared at each other across the dusty stockyard, aware of each other as only a man and a woman can be. Physically aware. Aware of the possibilities. Aware of their desires.
Someone said O'Reilly's name. His gaze jerked away from her, breaking the spell. Amanda swung around, sucking in air as if she were winded, her back pressing against the high rails of the fence for support. The wood felt warm and rough through the cloth of her dress, the spring breeze fanned her cheeks. But inside, she was in turmoil.
She realized that one of the men had caught the stallion and was leading it toward the stables. The dust began to settle; the men, to disperse. Through the thinning crowd she saw Hannah again, saw the fascinated expression sharpening the girl's face as she watched the stud being led away. And Amanda thought, a girl that age should not have been allowed to watch such a spectacle. She would have to speak to O'Reilly about it.
But at the thought of confronting him about it, Amanda felt her stomach clench and she knew she could not face him. Not now. With something like a moan, she fled back to her room.
"Did Miss Davenport talk to you about this afternoon?" Liam asked when O'Reilly went in to say good night.
"No. Why?" O'Reilly asked, leaning against the footrail of the boy's bed.
Liam plucked at the edges of his white sheet. "She lit into Hannah and me right before supper. About us watchin' you breedin' Fire Dancer. She said it wasn't proper, especially for Hannah." He shot his father an appraising, sideways glance. "You're not going to let her talk you out of havin' us help around the station, are you?"
"Hardly." O' Reilly pushed away from the bedpost and went to twist off the lamp. He paused for a moment. "What do you think of her, anyway?"
Liam looked up at him in surprise. "I don't know. Why'd you ask? You never asked about any of the other governesses."
O'Reilly shrugged. "She seems ... different from the others in some way."
"She's a lot smarter, that's all. It makes her harder to trick. And she's got more grit than the others, too. You wouldn't think it from first lookin' at her, but it's true."
O'Reilly laughed softly. "Good night, Liam."
He wandered back out to the empty parlor. A log collapsed on the hearth, releasing a fanfare of sparks that shot up the chimney. He stood for a while, gazing thoughtfully down at the glowing coals. Then he adjusted the lamp on the table, picked up the book hed been reading, and settled into a corner of the sofa. At his feet, Barrister thumped his tail, then lay quiet again.
About half an hour later he was surprised to hear Miss Davenport's door open. She usually scooted into her room right after supper and rarely poked her nose out again until morning. He kept his head bent, but he could see the hem of her drab skirt appear at the edge of the circle of light as she approached him. He rested the book on his knee and looked up.
She had her arms crossed over her beautiful breasts, her wonderful, fiery hair raked back in a rigidly controlled bun, and her luscious mouth cinched. But her eyes ... Ah, her glowing, heated eyes betrayed her.
He felt desire, unbidden and unwanted, surge through him at the sight of her. He damped it down and gave her a lazy, teasing smile. "Evenin', Miss Davenport. Something on your mind?"
She hugged herself tighter. "If I could have a moment of your time?"
He stretched his boots out toward the fire, linked his hands behind his neck, and slipped his rump a bit farther down on the old sofa. "Sure thing. Have a seat."
He watched in amusement as she hesitated. He could tell she'd much rather say what she had to say on her feet, probably so she could make a quick getaway. But she evidently didn't feel she could as long as he continued to sprawl at his ease.
He didn't budge, so she compromised by coming around to perch on the edge of the chair that sat at a right angle to the sofe. "It's about Hannah," she said, folding her hands together primly on her lap.
"What about Hannah?"
She sucked in a deep breath that caused her breasts to lift enticingly. "I have been meaning to speak to you about her for some time now. I think Hannah is reaching an age at which she should no longer be allowed to roam freely about the station, dressed like a boy and witnessing spectacles such as the one she was exposed to this afternoon."
Spreading his elbows wide, he tipped his head back and regarded her through half-lowered lids. "Well, I sure as hell ain't man enough to wrestle her into stays and a petticoat, if that's what you mean. But you're more than welcome to try."
"You could forbid her to wear trousers."
"I could, but I'm not that stupid. I make it a practice not to pick a fight unless I'm bloody well sure I can win it."
"What a peculiar way of putting it," she said, her nostrils quivering with that disdain she was so bloody good at showing. "I would have thought it simply a matter of exerting your parental authority. Or is that too much to expect? Because when it comes right down to it, I frankly haven't noticed you paying much attention to Hannah at all—unless it's to quarrel with her. In fact, I suspect it's half the girl's problem."
He dropped his arms and leaned forward to shake his index finger beneath her thin, patrician nose. "Now, wait a minute here. Don't you go interfering between me and Hannah. We get along just fine."
She stared him straight in the eye. "I hadn't noticed."
"Bloody hell." He reared up onto his feet, knocking the forgotten book flying. "I hired you to teach my children, not to raise them. You leave the raising to me."
She rose gracefully to face him. "Perhaps if you were doing a better job of raising them, you would not have such a difficult time getting a governess to stay here and teach them."
Her words were such a close echo of something Hetty had once said to him that it flicked him on the raw. He thrust his fingers through his hair, raking it back off his forehead. "Christ- almighty, lady—"
"And you can stop swearing at me."
Her gaze held his steadily, her voice quiet but unwavering. Slowly, his hand fell back to his side as he stared down at her. And it came to him that the only reason she was here arguing with him was because she cared about Hannah—genuinely cared about all of his children in a way that none of the endless procession of governesses before her had done. And he knew a stirring someplace deep inside that he did not want to feel.
He did not want to like this woman, although he'd bee
n finding it more and more difficult not to. Teasing her, maybe even trying to kiss her, was supposed to be fun. Liking her introduced an element of earnestness into the process that he didn't want.
Beside them the fire crackled and flared, sending golden light dancing over the fine-boned features of her face and burnishing her hair with a warm red glow. The rest of the house stretched out dark and silent around them.
They were alone.
He watched her eyes widen with the knowledge of it. There were flecks of black in the gray of her irises, sooty sparks that radiated out like a starburst. When she was aroused, the gray seemed to shimmer and the black deepened to velvet.
He took the two steps needed to close the distance between them. Her pupils dilated wildly as she stared up at him and her delicate white throat worked as she swallowed. But she didn't back away from him.
"Amanda," he said softly. He reached up and began to pull the pins, gently, one by one, from her chignon. At his touch, she quivered. He watched her lips part, watched her eyelids flutter half-closed. He pulled out three pins. Four. Then her eyes flew open wide and her hand clamped around his wrist.
"Don't."
"Why?" He brought up his free hand and eased his fingers into the heavy coil, loosening it. She kept her fingers clenched around his one wrist, but she made no move to stop what his other hand was doing. "Why do you scrape your hair back like this?" he whispered, freeing her hair, sending it cascading in fiery waves around her shoulders. "To convince people that you're as passionless and unexcitable as you like to pretend you are?" He cupped his hand behind her neck. "Or are you trying to convince yourself?"
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and deep with thoughts he wished he could understand. "I am as I seem."
He shook his head. "No."
He eased his hands down to her shoulders and began to knead the tense muscles there. "Relax," he said. "I won't do anything you don't want me to do."
"I don't want you to do anything."
He expelled his breath in a low laugh. "I bet you got into trouble all the time for lying when you were a little girl."
"I did not." Her breath came thick and fast, parting her lips, shuddering her chest. "1... was a very truthful child."
"That a fact?" He brushed his thumbs back and forth against the sensitive flesh just below her ears. "Well, you've grown into a very untruthful woman."
"No."
"No? Then why is your heart beatin' like crazy right now? And there's no point in denying it, because ..." He slipped his hand down to place it, palm flat, fingers splayed, against her chest. "I can feel it."
She stared down at his hand, its fingers curled around the edge of her left breast. He could feel her heart thudding wildly against his palm, see her chest rising and falling with her unsteady breaths.
She lifted her eyes to his, and he fell into them. She had such beautiful eyes, like the rain-drenched, storm-swirled skies on the edge of all of his tomorrows. He saw her lips part. Heard the wanting, whimpering sound that escaped from her throat. And he bent his head and kissed her.
Her lips were soft and smooth and willing. But he kept the pressure of his kiss gentle, tender. He slid his hands down to ride her hips as he moved his mouth easily back and forth across hers, letting her get to know the taste of him, the feel ofhim.
He saw her eyelids slide shut, felt her quiver in his arms. Then her hand came up, slowly, to touch the nape of his neck in a way that sent desire ripping through him, hardening his loins, shortening his breath. He groaned, and her mouth opened beneath his as her fingers spasmed in his hair, clutching him to her. Surprised, he deepened the kiss, his hands gliding to the curve of her spine, drawing her closer to him, pressing her breasts against his chest.
She had been kissed before. The knowledge of it exploded in his brain as his tongue tangled with hers and the kiss caught fire. This was no shy spinster's embrace. Some man, at some time, had taught Miss Amanda Davenport about desire and sensuality and the ways of the flesh.
For one wild moment, O'Reilly's blood pounded hot and savage and demanding through his body. He wanted to strip away her ugly governess's dress and fill his hands with her heavy naked breasts. He wanted to draw her nipples one by one into his mouth and taste their warm muskiness. He wanted to lay her down before the fire and ease himself between her slender white thighs and sate the aching, hungry, burning need within him.
But this woman was afraid of passion, and he knew it. He also knew that at any moment she was liable to realize where this was all going, and panic. He swirled his tongue around hers, nipped at her lower lip, tasted the tantalizing hints of what it could be like. And somehow maintained enough sense to raise his head and end it.
He watched her eyelids flutter open. He stared down into her deep, dark eyes, and while she was still too languorous to complain about it, he dipped his head again and gave her one last, lingering kiss. "Good night, Miss Davenport," he murmured. Then he turned around and left her.
While he still could.
The washcloth grated roughly against the tender skin of Amanda's lips. She scraped harder, rubbing the cloth back and forth until her mouth hurt and the bitter taste of the soap stung her tongue. And then she scrubbed some more.
She told herself his kiss had been a vile, loathsome thing, that she scrubbed to remove any lingering traces of his scent, his taste, his essence. Only it was a lie. Because his kiss had been wondrous. Rapturous. A seductively exalting moment of enchantment and wicked arousal that she was desperate to erase.
She slumped against the side of the washstand, her head bowed in shame. She didn't understand how such a thing could have happened. How she could have allowed her fascination with that man to lead her to betray herself so blatantly. She pressed her hands to her heated cheeks and tried to imagine what he must have thought—what he must be thinking of her right now.
She had to find some way to make certain that such a thing never happened again, she told herself. Just remembering the hot, wet feel of his lips moving against hers, the strength of his man's body beneath her hands, the hard proof of his arousal pressed against her, was enough to trigger an onslaught of forbidden but delicious sensations that tightened her belly and made her hungry for something too frightening even to think about.
She let out a groan and dropped the washcloth to bury her face in her hands. What was happening to her? All the thoughts and feelings, needs and desires she thought she'd buried long ago had come back to torment her. Except it was worse, worse by far than she ever remembered it being.
She sank down onto her haunches, her arms wrapping around her knees to hug her legs tightly to her chest. In the distance, a dingo howled. She heard the wind come up, rustling the dry leaves and brittle branches of the gums down by the creek. She hooked her hands around her wrists and hugged herself, tighter and tighter, as if she were holding herself together.
Holding on to the woman she was determined to be.
He was stripping off his trousers and getting ready to go to bed when he heard the pounding on his door.
"Just a minute," he called, hitching his pants back up over his hips but not bothering to button them. "What the hell's the—"
He wrenched open the door and found himself confronting Amanda.
It had been a good half hour since hed left her beside the fire, but she was still dressed. She had a shawl clutched against her breasts as if for protection, and she skittered back a few feet when he opened the door, her eyes widening as she took in his bare chest and unbuttoned trousers.
"Amanda?" He instinctively reached for her. "Are you all right?"
"Stay away from me," she said in a low, tightly controlled voice, her face white. "I have taken the unorthodox step of approaching you at this hour for one reason and one reason only: to remind you, Mr. O'Reilly, that I came to this miserable, inhospitable corner of the colonies to act as governess to your children. And as long as I am employed in that capacity, I must insist that in the future you refrain from
ever again forcing your attentions on me in such a manner as occurred this evening."
"Bloody hell." He let go of the door and took a hasty step toward her. "I didn't force a bloody thing on you tonight and you bloody well know it."
She scooted sideways like a harried crab. "Nevertheless," she said breathlessly, refusing to be drawn on that point. "I must insist."
He opened his mouth to remind her of the way she'd explored his tongue with her own and rubbed her belly against the length of his erection. But then he thought better of it and clenched his jaw down tight on what he'd been about to say.
He never should have let things reach this stage between them, and he knew it. But he was damned if he was going to pretend that it had all been his doing. "All right, You've got it." He jabbed a finger at her. "Next time you want me to kiss you, lady, you're going to have to ask for it."
She sucked in an angry gasp. "As if I—"
Without even waiting to hear what she had to say, he stomped into his room and slammed the door.
"Do you know what I miss most about England?" asked Christian Whittaker as they drank tea together the following afternoon.
Amanda smiled and shook her head. "No. Tell me."
"Autumn. September in England. The brilliant pinks and yellows and oranges of the last roses splashed against redbrick cottages with thatched roofs. The sound of church bells, ringing out over a valley so lush and green and beautiful, it makes your soul ache to look at it." He glanced at her shyly, as if embarrassed by his lyrical flight. "What do you miss?"
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