Watching her, Amanda felt the faintest stirrings of pity for this narrow-minded, unhappy woman. Whatever breasts Iantha might once have had were now as withered as an old maid's dreams: dried up, shriveled away, as if from disuse. No babe had ever suckled at them. And a woman such as Iantha Thorndike had surely never allowed any man to let his hands wander there.
Conscious of a rising sense of distress, Amanda threw a quick glance down the row of faded English gentlewomen who lined the wall. Hands clasped in laps, identically gowned in shades of gray or brown, they sat sour and disapproving, their fading brown or blond hair scraped back into identical tight knots that were like parables of their wasted, virgin lives. Had any of these women ever ached for the touch of a man's hands on her breasts? Amanda wondered. Had they once yearned to know what it would feel like to have a man's hot mouth kiss them, there? Had they ever burned with the need to feel a man press his hard heat between their willing thighs? Looking at that row of pinched, severe faces, it was impossible to tell.
Is that what I'm going to look like in another ten years? Amanda thought desperately. Or...
Or do I look like that already?
Panicked by the thought, she turned away, her gaze searching the twirling dancers, seeking out the tall, lean figure of Patrick O'Reilly.
He looked almost respectable tonight, with his peg-leg trousers and midnight-blue satin vest and crisp white shirt. Except that his tawny hair was still too long, so that it curled reprehensibly against the collar of his fine coat. And there was nothing staid or respectable about the way his blue eyes sparkled, or the devilish smile that brought the dimples to his smoothly shaven, suntanned cheeks.
She watched him kick up his heels in an energetic Irish jig, and smiled when she noticed that hidden beneath the cuffs of his fine trousers he still wore his scuffed brown leather riding boots. The fiddle squealed through the tune, the accordion scrambling to keep up as the music whirled away, faster and faster.
O'Reilly jumped and spun, his feet flashing, his lean, taut upper body unbelievably controlled. Around him, the other dancers stopped to applaud and roar their encouragement. Lamplight glinted on his tumbled, sun-shot hair, on his sweat- sheened, flushed cheeks as he danced and danced and danced.
Amanda sat breathless, her heart filling with her love for him as she admired again the beauty of his healthy body and thrilled to his strength and the irresistible lure of his powerful masculinity. Heat glowed within her. Heat and need and a growing, insistent fear that she might never know what it felt like to take his hard, hungry body deep inside her. The fear that one day, ten years from now, she would find herself sitting against some wall, her hands clenched in her lap, her face sour and pinched with regret as she watched a young man dance.
And realized what she had missed.
The night pressed down hot and still, and so quiet the laughter and music from the woolshed must have carried out over the empty, rolling plains for miles.
O'Reilly stood beyond the rectangular splash of golden light thrown across the hard ground by the open eastern doors. He'd come out here for a smoke, but in the end he'd just wandered off with his pipe in his pocket, his thoughts on Amanda.
He hated seeing her sitting there against the woolshed wall, hated the very idea that she should consider herself a part of that pathetic row of shriveled-up, living mummies. He'd watched her surreptitiously tapping her toes beneath her skirt, noticed the way her sad eyes followed the dancers around the floor like a hungry calf looking for its mama. She wanted to dance, he was sure of it. She didn't think she should, and she was probably even a bit afraid of the prospect of letting go and enjoying herself after all these years. But she wanted to.
Problem was, how to get her to do it? She was such a damn stubborn woman.
Swearing softly to himself, he was fishing in his pockets for his pipe and tobacco pouch when something caught his eye. Something that looked like the beruffled bottom of his younger daughter sticking out from beneath the refreshment table dedicated to the gentlemen.
Stuffing his pipe back in his pocket, he sauntered up to the table, turned around as if he meant to use it as a prop for his backside, swooped down to grab a handful of ruffled skirt, and tugged.
Missy came out backward, her arms spinning like weather vanes in a high wind in an attempt to maintain her balance. Out of the corner of one eye, he caught a flash of white cut by black suspenders and reached out with his other hand to nab Liam by the back of his collar.
"Hold on a minute there, you two varmints." He swung them around to face him as Hannah quietly slunk from behind the side of the woolshed and ranged herself on the other side of Liam. The girl might be more headaches than a cartful of rotgut whiskey, but she'd never been one to let the others take the fall alone for something she'd been a part of, too.
"Look," he said, resting his hands on his hips as he stared down all three of them at once. "I'm not even going to ask what the hell you kids were up to out here."
His offspring exchanged guarded sideways glances of relief.
It was all he could do not to laugh. "What I want to know is, why aren't you in bed?"
"Miss Davenport said we could stay up till midnight if we were good," volunteered Liam.
"You don't look to me as if you were bein' good."
"Please, Papa," pleaded Missy, turning those big blue charmers on him. "You wouldn't tell, would you?"
He gave them a considering look. "Well," he said slowly, drawing out the suspense. "That depends."
"On what?" demanded Hannah suspiciously.
He grinned back at her. "On how open you three are to bribery and corruption."
Missy's forehead crinkled. "What's brib'ry and cor-cor—"
O'Reilly swung the little girl up onto his hip. "Missy, you need some serious educating here."
Missy scrambled up onto the empty wool bale beside Miss Davenport. Missy was feeling pretty proud of herself, because Papa had selected her for the starring role in what he called an impromptu play. Or something like that. He'd picked her because he said she could charm the stripes off a ring- tailed possum when she turned it on full blast.
It was a bit of a shock to discover that Papa knew she could turn her smiles and tears on and off whenever she wanted to, and that she wasn't above doing it for her own ends. But she decided that as long as it continued to work, she didn't need to worry about it too much.
"Miss Davenport," she began, only to have to stop when Miss Davenport gently touched her hand, hushing her.
A long-faced governess with a mouth like a dried-up dead worm, who sat on Miss Davenport's other side, was talking.
"... and of course one of the most trying aspects of life here is the total lack of improving conversation," the woman was saying. "I mean, all they ever talk about is sheep."
"Oh?" Miss Davenport raised her eyebrows as if in all innocence. "Don't the Brownes run any cattle at Wilpena Pound?"
Missy giggled, but the woman with a worm for a mouth just looked confused. "Yes. I suppose they do. Why?"
"Excuse me one moment," said Miss Davenport, turning. "Did you want something, Missy?"
Missy gave Miss Davenport her biggest, brightest smile. "Liam and Hannah want to know why you aren't dancin'."
Miss Davenport glanced over to where Liam and Hannah were systematically searching the crowds of men hemming the dance floor. "I already explained that, remember?" she said. "I'm here as your governess. It wouldn't be proper for me to dance."
"But Miss Tucker is dancing, and she's a governess." Missy nodded toward the pretty young woman with blond curls and a high complexion who was dancing with Papa.
A sad, hurting look dampened Miss Davenport's pretty gray eyes as her gaze followed Papa and Miss Tucker, but the worm-mouthed woman tested in disapproval and said, "Susan Tucker. She was born in New South Wales"
"I don't understand," said Missy.
Worm Mouth frowned at her. "She is not English."
"Don't English ladies know
how to dance?"
Worm Mouth's eyes boggled out, as if she'd accidentally swallowed a real worm. "Don't be impertinent, child."
Missy felt a spurt of irritation. This wasn't going to work at all, not with that horrible old woman pouring out her sour vinegar at every other word. Missy glanced over to where
Hannah and Liam had finally located Mr. Whittaker and corralled him between them. Papa had told them to use Mr. Whittaker only if they really needed to, but Missy decided they were definitely going to need all the help they could get.
Twisting sideways with her hand behind her back, she frantically motioned to her sister and brother to come up.
Miss Davenport turned to talk to the nasty governess. "I hear Wilpena Pound is well watered and forested, almost like a park. Tell me, do you ride?"
Worm Mouth shrugged. "It is true the land is not as dry and desolate as what one sees in most other areas of the Flinders. But as to riding ... Well, what is the point of riding without a destination? There are no settlements or other homesteads within comfortable riding distance."
At that moment, Hannah and Liam strolled up with Mr. Whittaker pinned between them. He looked kinda uncomfortable and bemused, as if he didn't know what he was doing there but couldn't figure out how to get away.
Hannah waited patiently, her head tilted to one side, until Worm Mouth stopped to draw breath. Then she pounced. "Miss Davenport enjoys riding. Don't you, Miss Davenport?"
Miss Davenport smiled at Hannah. Hannah was wearing her usual moleskins and a red shirt. But she had pulled her hair back with a red satin ribbon for the dance, and the way Miss Davenport was beaming about it, you'd have thought Hannah had decked herself out in hoops and lace.
"Yes. Although until recently I haven't had as much opportunity to ride as I did when I was a girl." She looked a bit wistful when she said it, as if she were remembering something that had once made her happy. Except remembering it now seemed to make her sad.
Mr. Whittaker cleared his throat. "I must admit, I personally have never understood the attraction of riding as a form of recreation. More an unavoidable means of transportation, to be endured rather than enjoyed, I say."
Behind him, Liam rolled his eyes and made a face, but Missy remembered what they were supposed to be doing, and leapt at the chance to pipe up and ask, "Don't you like to dance, either, Mr. Whittaker?"
Mr. Whittaker smiled down at her and said in that peculiar tone of voice some grown-ups reserve for small children, dogs, cats, and other presumably slow-witted creatures, "Why yes, of course."
"Then why aren't you dancing?"
He managed to keep the smile in place, although it slipped a bit, and Missy noticed his cheeks got red. "Well, err..." He looked flustered, and the coloring in his cheeks deepened.
"Yes, why aren't you dancing?" asked Hannah.
"Well, actually, it is because of Miss Davenport here," he finally said with a hearty kind of bluffness that didn't quite ring true. "It didn't seem right, somehow, for me to dance when she has decided she should not participate."
He threw Miss Davenport an apologetic look, and she smiled back at him so warmly that Missy had to stop herself from scowling at Mr. Whittaker.
"It doesn't seem fair for you to miss out on the dancing, when you like it so much," Missy said slowly.
"No, really, I assure you I'm not actually very fond—" began Mr. Whittaker.
"Yeah," said Hannah, turning to Miss Davenport. "I think you should dance with him."
Miss Davenport was so startled, she almost jumped. "It really would not be proper—"
"But he likes it so much. And he won't dance unless you do," said Missy, giving her governess her best big-eyed, soulful look.
Miss Davenport sighed. "Missy, you don't understand—"
"Come on, Miss Davenport," said Hannah, seizing the governess's hand and giving it a tug. "Dance with him."
"But Hannah—"
Missy grabbed Miss Davenport's other hand and jumped up to help Hannah pull. It seemed to Missy that Miss Davenport wasn't really as reluctant to dance as she tried to pretend she was. She certainly came up off the wool bale easily enough.
"You embarrassing children, the man hasn't even asked me for this dance!"
Liam gave Mr. Whittaker a nudge, and he stepped forward right on cue and bowed to say, "If you would do me the honor, ma'am, I would be privileged."
Miss Davenport laughed. "After such an effort on the children's part, I really don't see how I can refuse." She put her hand on Mr. Whittaker's arm and let him lead her off to join the nearest square for the country dance that was just forming.
Liam and Hannah exchanged triumphant grins and went off to tell the fiddle player that Papa wanted them to make the next dance a waltz.
But Missy lingered beside old Worm Mouth, who was leading the other governesses in a chorus of tsskings and exaggerated head-shakings. "Excuse me, ma'am?" said Missy, assuming her Innocent Child face. "Do you have a hanky I could use? I seem to have lost mine."
The Wilpena governess hesitated a moment, sighed, and handed over a neatly pressed square of white linen.
"Thank you." Missy reached down to wipe at a spot of dirt on the side of her shoe. "You see, I stepped in some dog doo outside, and it does smell so."
She wadded up the handkerchief and handed it to the governess, along with her best smile. Then, trying to whistle through the gap left by her newly missing front tooth, she wandered away to wait for the waltz. She and Liam and Hannah had done their part.
The rest was up to Papa.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was only one dance.
Surely she could be forgiven for indulging herself just this once, Amanda thought, as she scrambled to keep up with the nasal-voiced caller. She told herself that as soon as the music ended, she would rejoin that depressing line of aging Englishwomen and properly rot with them for the rest of the night. But for now... now, she was going to enjoy herself.
She'd forgotten how much she loved to dance. The rush of wind and giddy blur of lights as she spun from one partner to the next, her hands clapping, her feet flying, her heart racing, her hair coming down. She felt young and vitally alive, as if she had suddenly awakened from a long sleep to find the world a wonderful, joyous place.
But all too soon, the fiddle squealed to an abrupt halt and the dance was over. "Oh, that was too short," she said, holding onto Christian's arm as she gasped for breath. "But wonderful."
"Wonderfully exhausting." Christian puffed his ruddy cheeks and blew like a sorely pressed steam engine. "I think I'd rather go head to head with Hermes than stagger through another round."
Amanda laughingly squeezed his arm, just as a deep male voice behind her said, "I thought you weren't going to dance."
She spun about to discover O'Reilly staring down at her through narrowed, hooded eyes. "It was the children," she said quickly, her heart giving an odd little thump-bump. "They maneuvered us both into this." She pressed one hand to her pounding chest and tried very hard to sound nonchalant. "I was just about to rejoin the other governesses—"
"Oh no, you don't." She had managed to take only one step before O'Reilly's strong arm snagged her waist and hauled her back to face him. "Excuse us, Christian?"
"What are you doing?" Amanda's voice ended in an embarrassing squeak as O'Reilly drew her up against his big, male body. He smelled pleasantly of brandy, the warm night air, and himself, and it was so delicious to be this close to him that she swayed toward him dangerously. She felt the pressure of one of his strong hands, riding low on the small of her back, urging her even closer as his other hand swallowed hers.
"I'm dancing with you."
"But this isn't a waltz—" she began, just as the fiddle sailed into a rendition of "The Russian Prince."
"Yes, it is," he said, and spun her expertly onto the dance floor.
Her head fell back, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his shoulder as she stared up into his lean, smiling face. "It was you
. You put the children up to this. Didn't you?"
His dimples deepened in a way that made her feel hot and breathless. "Yes."
She threw a quick glance at the brown-and-gray line of governesses, fluttering and tut-tutting like a row of ruffled biddy hens. "You do realize that every governess from within a hundred and fifty miles is sitting over there right now condemning me as disgustingly ill-bred and common?"
His palm pressed her closer, guiding her into a sensuous circle that left her heart soaring and her breath shallow. He met her gaze, his expression unexpectedly serious. "Do you really care, Mandy?"
She loved it when he called her Mandy. She felt his strong hand tighten around hers, felt his breath warm against her cheek, felt her heart take wing and soar free. "Only in one sense," she said, still holding his gaze.
"What's that?"
"I feel sorry for them. They're so miserable. Yet they don't have to be."
He hugged her to him and laughed, and she laughed with him. Their laughter mingled together, joined with the wail of the accordion to rise up to the rough-hewn rafters. Then her laughter died away, slowly, as she lost herself in looking at him. At his flashing blue eyes and reckless smile. She moved her hand over his shoulder, felt his body warm and hard beneath her touch. She sucked in a deep breath of wonder, then another, and it was as if the shearing shed spun around her, enveloped her in the throbbing beat of the music and the golden glow of the lamplight and a kaleidoscope of brilliantly colored silks and satins and bright, happy faces.
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