Toward Love's Horizon

by Michele du Barry

  “And maybe I will not!” Angela’s eyes were sorrow-haunted. “You are right, Ezra. If he was here he would know I’m looking for him. Somehow, some way, Scott would get word to me. You have faced the reality that he isn’t in this colony—now so must I.” Her voice sounded dead and she pulled free of his grasp running from him in desperation.

  Ezra caught up with her again. He couldn’t let her out of his sight for fear of what she might do. He had seen her like this before and in spite of her protests or anger he couldn’t let her rush about the streets of Sydney alone.

  “Go away, Ezra. Leave me alone.” People were looking at them curiously, at a huge Negro accosting a very upset and obviously well-to-do lady. Even in Sydney such goings-on wouldn’t be condoned for much longer. So Ezra fell back and let Angela continue blindly out of the park and down the street. But he followed her at a safe distance and it wouldn’t have mattered if he was only one step behind her for she wouldn’t have noticed.

  It was hotter now and Ezra had been following her for the better part of an hour at a quick walk. Dust from the street trailed behind her like foaming waves and still she kept going. They were in a business district of stores and a few scattered houses. Sawdust from the lumber mill filled the air.

  Angela stopped for just a moment to catch her breath. Her heart beat madly and she felt faint from the sun beating down on her unprotected head. She had left her wide-brimmed straw hat on the rugs in Hyde Park and her face was pink from exertion and the sun. Then she didn’t feel faint at all for a sudden revitalizing spark surged through her and she found her eyes riveted on a heavy wagon halfway down the street.

  It was being loaded in the midday sun by two convicts in trousers with bare chests and heads. She watched them go into the store and come out with sacks and boxes and thought it looked like hot work. A handsome stallion was tied to the back of the wagon and quite a few men were openly admiring the fine piece of horseflesh.

  The street was crowded with women shopping, convict servants, and various vehicles. Several horsemen trotted down the road. There was nothing extraordinary about the scene but Angela was breathing even faster and for all the world she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. It was the same strange sensation she had realized last night before the ball.

  A tall, lean man emerged from the store and stood in the shadow of the overhanging roof watching the loading of the wagon. Now she couldn’t breathe at all!

  He wore a white shirt open to the waist and black trousers tucked into dusty boots. He moved to help steady a tottering box and the sun glinted on his bronze hair. He turned, issuing an order and his profile burned into her memory like a hot brand.

  Ezra had been about to approach Angela again since she was still for so long just staring down the street, but his mouth fell open in amazement as she streaked down the road. Her hands held her dress free of her feet and he caught the slim flash of her ankles as she became a blurred motion.

  She ran at full tilt into a man and he caught her shoulders, spinning around to save them both a fall. Then, much to Ezra’s surprise, instead of releasing Angela he clutched her to him as if he was a drowning man holding onto a ship’s timber to save himself from a furious ocean.

  Their lips met in a fiery paroxysm and his tongue engaged hers in an intimate duel. Lightning entered into Angela coursing through her veins with all the fury of a Caribbean thunderstorm. Her hands were beneath his shirt feeling the suddenly tense muscles of his back, running frantically up and down, pressing him closer.

  And he was like a great solid oak, caught too in their storm of passion and shaken to his very roots. Sanity fled and feeling took over. There was no dusty street, no blazing sun, no curious ring of onlookers growing larger by the second. The only sound that reached their ears was the rushing wind of their own desire.

  The crowd was huge now and Ezra was part of it, shoving his way to the front. Shopkeepers had abandoned their stores and joined the amazed ranks. They all stood with their eyes popping out of their heads like a catch of glassy-eyed fish.

  The kiss went on forever with no sign of ending and whispering broke out. Someone recognized Angela as the Duchess of Brightling and the rumor spread like fire through dry bush. They were practically raping each other on the street and Ezra had to do something to bring them back to their senses.

  “Scott Harrington!” The name ripped through their reunion like a blast of winter snow, for Ezra had no doubt who the man was.

  Scott raised his head and angry golden fire leaped in flames from his brown eyes scorching everyone in sight. He looked up at the huge negro man who had called his name and who looked back at him with recognition in his amber eyes even though they had never met. Angela lay against his chest shaking, as limp as a wet dishrag.

  The next thing she knew she was sitting in front of Scott on the magnificent stallion looking down at the upturned faces of a sea of people. There were numerous conflicting emotions reflected on every face: jealousy, envy, lust, curiosity, shock, and several people were smiling with nostalgic expressions.

  He wheeled the horse around and the mass of tightly packed people fell back and parted. The wind fanned her face as the horse broke into a trot and her loosened hair blew back caressing Scott’s sun-browned face. One arm was tight around her waist and with the other he easily controlled his mount. The pressure of his hard thighs was intoxicating and she leaned her head back on his broad shoulder so she could again see his profile.

  The ascent from the depths of despair to the verge of rapture had been a wild, dizzying journey and Angela was not sure she wasn’t dreaming. If she was she never wanted to wake up as she was swept off by her own husband like an ancient war lord carrying off a battle prize.

  “Scott! Scott!” she whispered not caring if the whole world dissolved in flames at that exact moment because nothing could touch their happiness.

  “Angel,” he murmured huskily, the hard line of his mouth relaxing into a curve of triumph.

  Her heart soared with love and pride that he was her husband and they were together once again. Soon they would be reunited in every way and that was just as it should be. Too many wasted years lay between them to make up for and she ached with a terrible longing to know at last the total fulfillment of their love.

  Somehow the ride was at an end and she was too dazed with happiness to question how he had found the way to her house. He dismounted and held his arms out to her and Angela fell into them eagerly with exuberant laughter and he joined her. They laughed crazily as Scott carried her to the house and a startled Maggie appeared in the doorway with large frightened eyes.

  “It’s all right, Maggie,” she cried over his shoulder, unable to stop laughing. And then they were alone in her bedroom with a solid door between them and the world. Then it was as it had been before, everything shut out of their lives but their all-consuming need of each other.

  There were no words said between them for their lips were too busy exploring and rediscovering the delights of kissing. With a frantic impatience Scott all but ripped the dress from Angela, all the while holding her close against his pounding heart. He laid her on the bed and it took only seconds for him to remove his own clothes and join her.

  Shudders coursed through her at just the look in his eyes as they blazed a smoldering trail over her body, taking in every detail. Her eyes turned as dark and unfathomable as a tropical sea at night and this time she held her arms out to him writhing with pleasure as the weight of his body descended upon her.

  Scott kissed the dimples in the hollows beneath her cheekbones, her closed eyelids and her temples, then traced a trail to her delicate ears and nibbled at the pink lobes. He fingered the scar on her shoulder and then let his hand cup the firm fullness of her breast. She couldn’t help gasping at the contact—it had been so long!

  The slightest brush of his lips or movement of his fingers set her trembling on the brink of bliss. When she returned his caresses with a boldness designed to drive him wild he
tore her hands away from his shuddering flesh.

  “Don’t, love,” he groaned, “or it will be over before we start,”

  Demanding lips captured each rosy nipple in turn, torturing her with exquisite delight until they blossomed hard and quivering in his mouth. Angela was gasping for breath, her head lashing back and forth on the slim column of her neck, tangling them both in a web of long black hair. Her fingernails dug into the corded muscles of Scott’s biceps as he leaned over her teasing her beyond endurance.

  She could stand it no longer and neither could he and their bodies melded together with a frenzy not to be denied. The tumultuous motion carried Angela past thinking, like a swift mountain river sweeping her helplessly along in its current. There was thunder in her ears like the pounding of a great waterfall not far off and the torrent carried her closer and closer to the edge of ecstasy. The final thrust plunged her over in a wild fall of icy water, hot sun, and froth-pounded rocks below.

  “Mr. Mosely! Mr. Mosely!” Celeste Carew looked around the dim store that smelled of pickles, leather, and dust, tapping her foot impatiently. “Damn! Where is that man?”

  Peter Mosely hunched lower behind a highly heaped counter in the corner of his store and hoped she would go away. He was a small toadlike man with a shiny pate fringed with gray hair and a paunch that hung over his belt. Small wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his long thin nose, the only feature about him that was not round.

  “Mr. Mosely, where are you?”

  She really sounded angry now and he cringed at the thought of an encounter with her. Mrs. Carew was a redhead with a furious temper when crossed and he didn’t want to be the one to break the bad news to her. He had seen everything of course since it had taken place right in front of his store. At the time he had been as fascinated by the shenanigans as everyone else, but not now. Now that shrew was standing in his store shouting for his attention and he wished he hadn’t witnessed anything.

  “Mr. Mosely! Come out from behind that counter! It’s no use hiding. I saw the light glinting off your glasses. What are you doing skulking back there—are you deaf?”

  “No, no, Mrs. Carew,” he stammered, most upset by her discovery. “I ... I was just—I had dozed off—”

  Haughty hazel eyes snapped down at him as he sidled from behind the counter, for she was a whole head taller than he was. “Now, suppose you tell me where my overseer is.”

  “Your overseer?” Sweat stood out on his bald head.

  “Yes, you dolt! He is only the man that has been my overseer for four years now. Are you going senile?” Her voice was contemptuous. “Stretch your memory to this morning. Where is Scott Harris?”

  “I ... I ... I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know!” Celeste slammed her parasol down on the counter snaking him jump with the sound. “My wagon is out in front of your store fully loaded with the horses waiting patiently. But it seems that my overseer, his horse, and two of my convicts have vanished into thin air. What’s going on around here?”

  Narrowed black eyes stared at her through the thick glasses. Everyone knew she was carrying on a flagrant affair with that overseer of hers. The man was as wild as a hawk and dangerous looking to boot. No, he wouldn’t want to inform on him. Rumor had it that he had been transported for murder and Peter Mosely could believe it when he looked at the dark piratical face and those hard flashing eyes. Scott Harris was not a man to cross.

  He had almost passed out when he had seen Mr. Harris by the wagon kissing the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. Peter Mosely could still feel that kiss right through him—and so had everyone else from the looks on their faces. They had practically fornicated in the street right in front of his store until a big Negro called out to him. But he had called him by another name.

  Then the overseer swept her off like a knight rescuing his princess—except she was a duchess, they said—the one that was searching for her husband, Scott Harrington! Yes, that was the name the Negro had called him, not a far cry from Harris now that he thought of it. So Harris was really Harrington and that made him the Duke of Brightling and her husband. The more he discovered the less he felt like telling Mrs. Carew.

  For all that he was a convict Scott Harris—Harrington, Peter Mosely corrected himself—was a much respected part of the colony. Everyone knew what had happened on that ill-fated ship he had come over on, Captain Carew’s ship. Cholera broke out only weeks after embarkation and swept convict and crew alike being no respecter of station. With most of the crew dead and half the felons gone Captain Carew had been frantic. An urgent appeal went below for anyone who knew anything about sailing a ship.

  What luck! Scott Harrington had owned a ship, he knew everything from unfurling the sails to navigation. He and the captain almost singlehandedly sailed the Columbine to Sydney. He arrived a conquering hero, though a convict, and was immediately assigned to Captain Carew for the length of his sentence. Then the captain succumbed to the loathsome disease himself and died in agony, but at least in his own bed, attended by his faithful overseer.

  Now Scott Harrington ruled supreme at Mrs. Carew’s vast estate on the Hawkesbury River. Thornhill was the prize of the district and year by year her overseer made the profits soar. He had the devil’s own luck, they said, and secretly Peter Mosely thought he might very well be the fallen Lucifer. But he didn’t envy him Mrs. Carew for a lover, the woman could tear you apart with her eyes. No, he wouldn’t be in Scott Harrington’s shoes for all the tea in China when it came time for explanations.

  “What are you looking at?” shouted Celeste Carew boiling over at the stupid, vacant eyes focused fuzzily on her face. “Where is Scott Harris? He was supposed to meet me two hours ago! You must know where he is!”

  Mr. Mosely just shook his head and shrugged his round shoulders inexpressively. No, he wouldn’t cross that devil and reap his wrath and that of Mrs. Carew. He wasn’t foolish enough to go mixing in other people’s business. That would be like mixing fire and gunpowder and he would be the one blown sky-high.

  They lay together exhausted in the darkened room. Three times they had made love with all the intensity of two colliding hurricanes. Angela’s head was on his shoulder tilted so that she could look at his face. Her breasts pressed against his side and one of her slim thighs rested over his. She wasn’t quite sure if Scott was sleeping or not but he lay very still with his eyes closed, breathing evenly.

  Joy radiated from her like light from the sun and she was satiated and wonderfully drowsy. But still she wouldn’t let herself drift off—not yet. She was too engrossed in studying him unawares. Scott was the same but different. The sun had worked its magic turning his skin dark brown, lightening his brown hair to a tarnished bronze. There were new lines on his face, around his eyes, and creasing his forehead. Marks of pain and suffering and their long separation.

  His eyes were the same golden-brown but more secretive now. Several times he had looked at her coldly, harshly even during the heat of their lovemaking. His body was even more magnificent than she remembered and Angela couldn’t keep her hands still. She smoothed her fingers across the mat of curly hair on his chest and felt his skin tense beneath her touch. Yes, he was the same but different and he wasn’t asleep, only pretending so that now that the fire was banked they wouldn’t have to talk.

  “Scott,” she whispered, leaning closer, kissing his ear. “I love you—now, more than ever! Our reunion was everything I thought it would be and more!”

  His eyes flickered open slowly and he looked at her very strangely for a long time as if memorizing her features. Scott’s lips curved into a bitter smile and she squirmed in his embrace.

  “Darling, is something wrong?” She smoothed the hair back from his forehead, a tiny worry starting in her mind.

  “Bitch!” He said the word with a ferocity that stunned her and turned pinning her to the bed and kissing her so brutally he knocked the breath from her. He hurt her purposely and she struggled a
gainst the sudden change that was starting.

  When he finally raised his mouth from her bruised lips she could only stare at him in complete confusion, with wide bewildered eyes.

  He laughed at her harshly, a sardonic expression twisting his face. “But such a sweet, beautiful little bitch! You can drive a man wild. I think you were born a whore!”

  She gasped in utter surprise and bafflement. No love words now, only a bitter torrent of abuse. He rose from the bed and began pulling on his clothes. Different—but what had brought about the sudden change? Or was it a sudden change—had it happened gradually over the four years they had been separated? He was looking at her as if he hated her.

  “Scott?” Her voice quavered and she got up reaching for a robe. She belted it around herself and faced him warily. The wonder of the day lay at her feet shattered into a thousand pieces. “Why are you talking to me like that?”

  “Here, Angel.” He took a coin from his pocket and threw it at her feet. The gold glinted dully in the shuttered room. “You were worth every penny!”

  “Stop it!” Angela kicked the money and it rolled beneath the bed. “Stop being so cruel, stop playing games with me!”

  “It’s no game, love. I always pay for services rendered.”

  Every time he spoke she jerked like he was stabbing her with a knife and fury began spilling from her blazing eyes. Hot spots of red mounted on her cheeks and she was so angry that her lips moved but no sound escaped them.

  Scott produced another coin holding it up for her to see. “Shall we do it again? I always did enjoy raping you.”

  Angela crossed the room and struck the money out of his hand but he caught her wrists before she could claw at his eyes.

  “Why are you doing this? Tell me why you are destroying everything that has happened here today.”