Chelsea’s eyes were glazed with desire and something more, something he hoped was love. He smiled down at her, drinking in the sight of her, knowing her to be the most sensual woman he had ever known, a woman in touch with her own needs and wants and able to communicate those same aching demands to him. She gave herself to him unequivocally, trusting him to gentle her, soothe her, find his own delight in her.
He murmured his praise of her. He whispered his wonder at how beautifully her body fit to his, how her skin was softer than satin, how she made him feel things he had never felt for another woman, how no other woman existed for him now that he had come to know her.
Chelsea responded to his love words, feeling them touch that secret core within her and fill her very being. Liquid fire bathed her in its heat; wave after wave of pleasure coursed through her veins. Being with him this way, bringing him pleasure, being pleasured, loving and being loved, was a woman’s triumphant victory. When he placed himself between her thighs and she felt the weight of him pressing down upon her, she welcomed him, guiding him with her fingers, stroking him with the flat of her hands, urging him deeper and deeper into her velvet sheath. Her passions were ripe, her body so willing. His body moved upon her, filling her, the sweet friction between them rising, rising, carrying them upward. She strained toward him, opening herself to him, seeking and finding that certain touch, the delicious pressure that would transport her to a place beyond rapture.
He was watching her face, seeing the myriad emotions cross her lovely features with lightning quickness. First, the parting of her lips, the ragged gasps of her breathing, the furrows that formed between her winged brows as she drew deep within herself, and finally the victorious smile of rapture found. He took delight in her fulfillment; her satisfaction inspired his own, and finding his release, he buried his mouth against the hollow at the base of her throat and breathed her name. “Chelsea, my own little love.”
They lay together for a very long time, holding, touching, caressing … but neither spoke a word. Chelsea couldn’t trust her voice, afraid tears would choke her, more afraid that she would be unable to stop herself from begging him to keep her, to refuse to send her back to Harlow and a marriage that should never be.
The scent of her lustrous hair flooded Quaid’s senses. How could he let her go? he wondered. He wanted this woman in his life, needed her. If only she would tell him this was where she belonged, say that Harlow Kane’s fortunes meant nothing to her without love, that she would leave it all behind just to be with him. It was a bitter wine to swallow that Chelsea’s ambitions could be satisfied by another man, more bitter still that he was less important to her than enjoying the benefits of Bellefleur. Most bitter that she could not say she loved him.
“It’s almost time for me to go back,” she whispered, her voice breaking the silence of the room.
“I want to tell you to stay here,” he murmured, drawing her closer to him. “I want to say, ‘Don’t go back there, love. This is where you belong, here with me.’”
“Then why don’t you?” She couldn’t trust her voice. It seemed her next breath would never come. Silently, she waited.
“Because of Clonmerra,” he said at last. “Because I can’t offer you marriage and Harlow can. Remember, I said can’t, not won’t. Not yet, anyway, if ever. I want to ask you to trust me, Chelsea, but I don’t think you ever will.”
She lay very still, trying to digest his words, trying to find the trust he said he needed. But one question kept reverberating throughout her brain. Why couldn’t he marry her? Why? It was a single word, spoken through a sob. “Why?”
“Because you’re not the only one who keeps secrets, love. We all have them, even myself. I can’t offer you marriage, Harlow can. And there are reasons I can’t marry you, things in my past, the uncertainty of the future.”
“I don’t understand.” She pulled away from him, propping herself up on her elbow and looking down into his face. “What things in your past? You ask me to trust you, and yet you won’t trust me.” She saw him turn his face away; she saw the misery in his eyes. And she also realized that he wasn’t about to reveal whatever he was keeping from her. He was afraid she’d use it against him somehow. Chelsea was shattered. Slowly, she moved from the bed and went in search of her clothes. “I’ll have to be getting back now.” Her voice deadened at the thought of returning to Harlow and Bellefleur.
Quaid tumbled from the bed and took her into his arms, holding her fast against him, his lips buried in her silky hair. “I need time, Chelsea. Give me time to work things through. I don’t want to lose you, yet I can’t seem to keep you.”
Chelsea leaned against him, her heart telling her to put her trust in him. But life had taught her never to trust anyone but herself. If she came here to Clonmerra, she’d be a kept woman, Quaid’s whore. She’d never gain respectability and position after that, not even if Quaid married her a hundred times. Much as she wanted him, much as she loved him, there was just too much at stake—her future.
“Let’s just leave it the way it is between us, Quaid,” she said softly. “It’s never been a secret between us what I want out of life. Without marriage, you have nothing to offer, nothing.” Only this, she thought, an agonizing pain clutching her heart as she tilted her face up to his and sought his lips with hers. A sound tore from his throat, a strangled sigh of torment that reverberated through Chelsea’s soul.
The sun was a bright orange, low on the horizon, when Quaid silently walked Chelsea out to her buggy. Unwilling to part with her, he held her lovingly with his eyes and possessively with his hands, pulling her so tight against him that he could feel the elegant length of her thigh through her skirts. He was about to lift her into the buggy when a movement on the hill behind his house caught his eye: a woman’s figure outlined by the sun. Squinting, he recognized the woman’s posture, shoulders high and square, arms crossed over her chest. Martha.
He stared for a long moment, thinking he should mention it to Chelsea, but something perverse prevented him. Let her go home to Harlow, whispered a tiny voice inside him. Let Martha tell, and let Harlow throw Chelsea out. He would gladly pick up the pieces.
Chapter 11
The night crickets chirped their last song before dawn. Cockatoos and English sparrows received the melody and harmonized with the rainbow-colored parakeets who called to one another through the still morning air. Dawn, pink and mauve, spread over the low hills, painting the countryside from its artist’s palette.
Chelsea slept fitfully in her garden house sanctuary, dreaming of promises broken and vague betrayals. When she finally tore herself from sleep, forcing her eyes to open, she was breathing laboriously as though running from her night terrors. For a moment she lay perfectly still, aware of a presence in her room. Her eyes widened, fingers reaching to draw the light sheet up to her neck, inching as far back against the bedstead as she could. “What do you want? Who … who are you?” Chelsea demanded through her panic. How long had this … this person been watching her as she’d slept? She had to be the largest woman Chelsea had ever seen, bigger even than Harlow or Quaid, awesome and frightening with her chocolate-brown skin and piercing black eyes. Chelsea’s eyes dropped to the woman’s hands—long, graceful hands, large, with long, long fingers and short, tapered nails that were stark white against her skin. One of those hands could cover Chelsea’s face and wrap around her ears. The woman’s well-shaped head was close-cropped, tight curls of burnt sienna hair, with a long, lovely neck. Shoulders wide and powerful, body lean and athletic. Chelsea didn’t know whether she was more intrigued or frightened.
“I am Tingari.” Her voice was husky, melodious, and she smiled as she spoke, showing larger, strong teeth.
“What are you doing here? Why were you watching me?”
“Tingari sleep. Mitjitji sleep, Tingari sleep.”
Chelsea frowned; none of this was making sense. “Do you mean you often sleep here?”
The woman laughed, a deep, lusty sound.
“Mitjitji needs a bed. I, Tingari, am woman of the desert, can sleep anywhere.”
A sigh of relief escaped Chelsea. At least this black Amazon understood adequate English, and she seemed to speak it fluently enough. “Where do you belong? Do you have a home? What do you do?”
Tingari lifted her arm, long as a tree branch, and extended it toward the door. “Everywhere is home to a woman of the desert, whatever pleases. I work when there is work, if it pleases me.”
“How do you live? How do you eat?” Chelsea’s fascination grew, and without being aware of it, she crept slowly out from under the covers.
“People of the desert forage and hunt. It is called yiwara. People of the earth live from the earth. Now it pleases to work.”
“You want to work for Mr. Kane, is that what you’re saying?”
“I hear there is new white lady here, Mitjitji, you. You sleep outside Boss Kane’s house.”
To Chelsea this last sounded like a judgment. “It’s a temporary state of affairs,” she explained defensively.
“And this means?” Tingari asked, her black, deep-set eyes fixed on Chelsea, waiting for an answer.
“It means I’m going to marry Mr. Kane, but until then I stay out here to protect my good name.”
“Tingari think Mitjitji not care for name and not care for Boss Kane.”
Chelsea bristled. “I do care for him. I’m very fond of Boss … Mr. Kane. I will come to care even more as the days go by.”
“A lie,” Tingari said. It was a statement without challenge.
“I don’t lie.”
“Everyone lies,” Tingari said offhandedly. “Boss Kane is not a lovable man, and he is hard on his women. I slept here when there was another Mitjitji.”
Chelsea could not help herself. “Alone—or with Mr. Kane?” she asked.
Tingari shrugged and, without trying to defend herself, replied, “Both.”
Disarmed by this tall, soft-spoken woman with the gleaming dark skin, Chelsea relaxed her hold on the bedcovers and smiled. “You could have lied to spare my feelings. You’re quite the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” It was an honest statement, and it seemed to spill from her lips unconsciously.
Tingari clucked her tongue and accepted Chelsea’s compliment. She’d heard comments on her unique beauty before, but always from men, never from a woman, especially a white woman.
“As far as I know Mr. Kane has no Aboriginals working here. Where are your people?”
A wave of her arm, an elegant gesture of her hand, spoke more than words. Her people were far, far away, and the expression of unspeakable sadness in those fathomless black eyes gave evidence of Tingari’s pain.
“Boss Kane will have Tingari. I will sleep with the Mitjitji.”
Chelsea became alarmed. “It might get a little crowded. I plan to stay here until I marry,” she said.
“Mitjitji will not bother Tingari, she is very small.”
At that, Chelsea laughed aloud. “No concern for me, eh? All right, you can stay.”
Sunlight streamed through the open window as Chelsea leaped out of bed. If she dressed quickly, she could join Harlow for breakfast and break the news that she had found a new servant. She was tying a ribbon in her hair as she crossed the backyard and went straight to the dining room. Breathless, she took her place at the table.
“Harlow, the most wonderful and amazing thing has happened!” Quickly she related her meeting with Tingari. “She fascinates me, she must be the most unique creature I’ve ever known.” Harlow’s frown warned her he was going to balk. “I want this woman, Harlow. She can be my personal servant. I’ve asked very little of you, and you must admit I’ve worked wonders with the house. I insist,” she said dramatically, sensing that to whine and cry would not work with this man.
“My dear Chelsea, it simply isn’t done!” Harlow seemed more amused than annoyed. “Aboriginals are not personal servants, and decent people wouldn’t allow them in the house. They’re shiftless, lazy, and can steal the shoes off your feet. You say her name is Tingari?” Not waiting for a reply, he continued, “There was a woman here who worked for a while on the grounds. We fed her. Aborigines have no use for money. One morning she was gone, simply gone. No, Chelsea, ask anything of me but this.”
Determinedly, she shook her head. “I want this woman. She can sleep in the garden house with me.”
“Absolutely not!” All trace of amusement was gone now, and the annoyance she had first perceived was taking its place. “I’ve never heard of such a thing; it simply isn’t done.” He turned back to his breakfast, dismissing the subject.
Chelsea’s back stiffened. “You never heard of such a thing? But you slept with her. She told me so.”
Harlow flinched. “And didn’t she tell you that everyone lies?”
“Do you, Harlow?” she questioned acidly. “Please, spare me the details. I’m perfectly willing to pretend I never heard a word. There are some women who would pack their bags and run if they were in my position. Are you refusing on the basis of not wanting an Aboriginal on Bellefleur, or is it this particular Aboriginal?”
“That’s ridiculous. These people expect no better treatment.”
“That may be the way you see it, Harlow, but not me. I want this woman to stay, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Harlow knew when he was defeated. If Chelsea left after knowing him for little more than a month, how would it look to his friends? Besides, he didn’t want to lose her. He was already thinking of her as one of Bellefleur’s more valuable assets. “Very well, Chelsea, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when you wake up one morning and she’s gone. She can work in the kitchen for her food, and you’ll find her useful in the garden. See that she’s dressed decently at least.”
“Thank you, Harlow,” Chelsea said sweetly. For a moment she’d believed Harlow wouldn’t have backed down. Suddenly she remembered how utterly confident Tingari had been that Harlow would allow her to work at Bellefleur. Long after Harlow had left for the vineyards, Chelsea sat and sipped her coffee, telling Mrs. Russell, who had come in from the kitchen, that Tingari had been hired for her keep. Mrs. Russell, an Australian by birth, seemed to have no objection to having an Aboriginal underfoot.
“I’ve heard of this woman, Mrs. Harris,” Mrs. Russell said with a frown. “There’s those who say she’s a mystic or something. With Aboriginals you never know. Their race goes back centuries before ours, and they keep to the ancient ways. If you say she works here, then that’s that.”
“I received the impression from Mr. Kane that Australians don’t favor the Aboriginals,” said Chelsea.
Mrs. Russell shrugged. “I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. I’ll fix her a plate and bring it out to her.”
“Fix the plate, but I’ll bring it out,” Chelsea offered.
The day was already becoming hot when Chelsea went in search of Tingari, whom she found resting in the shade of a tree. The Aboriginal accepted the plate Chelsea offered but refused the spoon, preferring to eat with her fingers. Her actions as she picked up each morsel of fried potatoes were delicate, her long, tapered fingers bent and held with drawing room fastidiousness.
“Aren’t you going to eat your ham and eggs?” Chelsea asked.
“Tingari does not eat what is dead. Cricket, lizard, termite, these have living mamu—spirit—and impart life.”
Chelsea wrinkled her nose. She could just imagine Tingari’s long, long fingers stretching out, white palms showing, to trap a moth drawn to the light and pop it, wings still fluttering, into her capacious mouth. “Just don’t eat those things where I can see, or I won’t need Boss Kane to send you packing—I mean, Mr. Kane. You’re allowed to stay if you prove—”
“That Tingari is honest, that she does not steal or lie. I will stay. Until I am ready to leave.”
Shaking her head as though to clear it, Chelsea considered the woman’s words. What had she said? That she would stay until she was ready to leave? Again she had
the impression that this situation—all of it—had been engineered by Tingari, and neither Harlow’s reluctance nor her determined insistence had affected the outcome one bit. How strange. “When you finish eating, come to the garden house and I’ll show you how to make my bed and handle my clothes.”
“Boss Kane say I was to do this?”
“No. I said you are to do this. You do what I say, do you understand, Tingari?”
“Yes. If I like what you say.”
“If you don’t, then you’ll have to leave.”
“There are other places if Mitjitji does not want me.”
“If you were to leave here, where would you go?” Chelsea asked curiously.
“To the other place, to the man who owns the opals. I have been there before.” Tingari turned her head, a slow, eloquent gesture, and looked in the direction of Clonmerra.
“Tanner’s vineyard?”
“This troubles Mitjitji? You know this man?”
“Yes, I know him,” Chelsea said through clenched teeth.
“He works hard and loves the land. He is an honest man.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far. You sound as though you know him rather well.” She felt jealous and she knew she looked it. Harlow could have slept with Tingari for a hundred nights and she would not have batted an eye, but Quaid was another matter entirely. She could almost see how Tingari’s unique beauty would stir him, and the vision heated her blood.
“Tingari worked in Tanner’s kitchen and with his sheep. When I slept there last, he was gone.”
“I don’t understand. Do you just pick up and leave and sleep wherever you want? Don’t you want to have a home and stay in one place?”
“Why?”
To Taste The Wine Page 21
