She left the house by the rear door, walking through the kitchen garden where the family’s vegetables grew, toward the stable, which was some two hundred yards distant. To her left were the orchards, which provided Lowella with bananas, oranges, lemons, figs, and guavas in season. Dark-skinned aborigines worked among the groves, picking from the leaves the insects that were a constant threat to the crop and crushing them between their fingers before throwing the carcasses to the ground. The trees and the vegetable garden were green, thanks to a newly constructed windmill just beyond the orchards, silhouetted against the blue haze of mountains to the east. Its rhythmic groaning as the broad paddles turned with the wind had become as much a part of the summer as the heat; Sarah was scarcely aware of either anymore. To her right as she walked was ordinarily a flower garden. Now it was a collection of dried stalks protruding forlornly from the earth. In this time of drought, water was too precious to spare for flowers. The normally green lawn had suffered a similar fate. It rustled dryly against Sarah’s skirt as she moved.
Sarah shook her head sadly as she glanced back at the house. With its sheltering grove of eucalyptus nearly leafless, the sprawling structure looked almost ugly. Edward and a small band of aborigine workers had built it years ago from sun-dried planks that they had hewed and shaped themselves. Sarah had often wondered if her father had had any kind of a plan when he began, and, if so, what had happened to it. Certainly now, with the additions that had been made through the years, the house looked to have been put together at random, with wings jutting out in odd directions from the original two-story structure. Wide porches had been added to the front and rear when Sarah was a child, and the whole structure had been painted white. Now, exposed to the glare of the sun without the protective canopy of leaves that usually sheltered it, the whitewash was blistering in places. The feather flowers of the wattles on either side of the porch steps drooped sadly; their color and perfume had been baked away by the heat. Without the softening influence of the trees and flowers, the house’s imperfections became glaringly obvious. It looked like what it was: a house built by a man in a hurry.
The few horses in the corral by the stable huddled together in the building’s shadow, nose to tail as they obligingly twitched at one another’s flies. They were feeling the heat too, poor things, Sarah thought as she entered the relative coolness of the stable. Still dazzled by the glare of the sun, Sarah, bestowing an absent pat on Clare’s thrusting nose as she passed, could see nothing but shadows as she made her way to the stall where Malahky, her favorite riding horse, nickered a welcome. Despite the heat, she felt like riding. She would go down to the river, where the trees still retained most of their leaves. It would be blessedly cool.
“Saddle Malahky for me, please,” Sarah instructed the shadowy figure that she took to be Jagger, the aborigine groom.
“Yes, ma’am,” came the reply, almost mocking in its subservience. That was not Jagger! That gravelly voice with the illusive, lilting accent . . .
Her eyes were gradually growing accustomed to the dimness; she squinted at the man who had answered, realizing that he was too tall, too broad, too big altogether to be Jagger. Then his features swam into focus. In the midst of that lean, dark face, she had no trouble at all recognizing the dazzling blue eyes.
IV
“Gallagher.” Sarah identified the convict she had hoped never to lay eyes on again after that disastrous night at Yancy’s place. What was he doing in the stable? With his injured back, she and her father had agreed that he needed several weeks of Madeline’s nursing and rest before being put to work.
“You know my name.” Now that she was used to the relative darkness, she could see one jet-black eyebrow winging upward. He looked much better, she thought, eying him with a trepidation that owed as much to his sheer size as to the memory of her previous exchange with him. She had known he would be tall, but she had not expected to be dwarfed by him. Still lean, he was no longer emaciated. His shoulders admirably filled the clean white shirt he wore, and his legs in their sober black breeches looked well muscled. Her gaze had run over his body involuntarily; the overwhelming maleness of him aroused in her a curious unease.
Remembering his obscene suggestions and realizing how he might interpret her interest, she jerked her eyes back up to his face. And there they halted, widening. The brief glimpses she had had of him before, when he was dirty and unshaved and in pain, had not prepared her for this. When she had first seen his features on the Septimus, she had thought that under better circumstances he might be reasonably attractive. Now he looked the embodiment of a schoolgirl’s dream. His hair had been washed and trimmed; brushed ruthlessly back from his face, it nevertheless tried to curl. It was as black as her father’s Sunday boots, and as glossy. The planes and angles of his face were beautifully sculpted. She had never before seen such perfection. His forehead was broad, his cheekbones elegantly carved, his jaw lean and square. Above a determined chin, his mouth twisted up at one corner in a mocking half-smile; the lower lip was fuller than the upper. His nose was straight, high-bridged, and without flaw. The sickly paleness had left his skin, and its natural swarthiness had been darkened even more by exposure to the hot Australian sun. And of course there were his eyes. Set amid thick black lashes that any girl would envy, they were as devastatingly blue as jewels. As she met them, Sarah saw that they were bright with mockery. To her horror, she realized what construction he must be putting on her dumbstruck silence. Suddenly she thought of his insulting remarks the night she had tried to help him; a vision of him as he had looked without a shirt, all corded muscles and black-pelted chest, rose unbidden in her mind’s eye. She could even remember the smell of him.
Sarah felt herself blushing, which was something she did more than she wished, as she tried frantically to remember what it was that he had said before she had been struck dumb by his looks. Ah, yes, his name.
“I keep the station’s records,” she said evenly, determined not to let him see how he had affected her. “Your papers are among them. You’re Dominic Gallagher, age thirty-two, Irish, no dependents, sentenced to fifteen years for robbery. And I believe I asked you to saddle my horse for me.”
His eyes narrowed at her. Sarah was suddenly, overwhelmingly conscious of how alone they were. The stable was deserted; there were only the horses stamping and chomping contentedly in their stalls. Unlike the other time she had been alone with him, his hands and feet were unfettered; once they reached Lowella, convicts were never chained. It made for better morale; besides, there was little chance of their running away. Where would they go? The bush was unforgiving, especially of those unfamiliar with the country, and if they did happen to survive the relentless sun and scarcity of water, they would be hunted down like mad dogs. In the stillness Sarah could hear the drone of a buzzing fly. Through the open stable door, she could see the blinding sunshine. She longed to be out in it, away from the menacing hostility that emanated from this convict like the tangy smell of his sweat. Then, remembering who he was and who she was, she stiffened her spine. She would not be afraid of him; and if she was, a little, she would certainly do her best to make sure that he did not know it.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he had before. There was no mistaking the mockery this time. Sarah’s lips tightened. If they were ever to have the proper servant-mistress relationship, she could not allow the brute’s insolence to go unremarked.
“You may address me as Miss Sarah,” she instructed as he turned away to open the door to Malahky’s stall and lead the gelding out. He was good with the animal, she noted, watching the confident way he handled the big bay.
“Yas’m, Miss Sarah,” he said. His words were such an obvious parody of the aborigines’ obsequiousness that Sarah felt her temper begin to heat. What was it about this man that enabled him to anger her so consistently? Ordinarily, in the face of even the most blatant provocation, she reverted to icy hauteur. With him, it was all she could do to keep from exploding like a musket.
“If you’ll point out your saddle to me, Miss Sarah, I’ll be as quick as I can, Miss Sarah.” He was moving away toward the tack room as he spoke, leaving Malahky securely fastened to the halter line. Lips tightened angrily, Sarah followed. In grim silence she pointed out her own sidesaddle, blanket, and hackamore. He was deliberately needling her, Sarah thought, eying his broad back as he saddled the bay with controlled movements that spoke of the pain he must still suffer from the beating.
“Where is Jagger?” she asked when she could bear the uneasy silence no longer.
Gallagher glanced at her over his shoulder. His hands—funny how she could still seem to feel the imprint of those long fingers on her wrist—were deft as he tightened the saddle girth with a horseman’s competent ease.
“Your fiancé didn’t see much sense in having me lying around the bunkhouse eating my head off. He told me to replace—Jagger, is it?—three days ago. Jagger, I assume, is out digging wells in my place. Miss Sarah.”
Sarah gritted her teeth. The convict had a positive genius for riling her.
“If you are referring to Mr. Percival, he is not my fiancé,” she said coldly.
“So you’ve said before. But he seems to think you’re just shy.” He moved toward her as he spoke. Before Sarah had even the slightest inkling of his intention, his hands were closing around her waist and he was lifting her off her feet. She gasped, automatically clasping his bare, hard-muscled forearms for balance as he swung her around, her feet already high off the ground.
She felt ridiculously small as be held her before him. The sense of being helpless in the face of such overpowering male strength was new to her, and she definitely did not like it! The quickened beating of her heart was due solely, she told herself, to angry alarm.
“Put me down! How dare you! What do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes were enormous as she glared at him.
“Why, helping you to mount, Miss Sarah,” he said, the glint in his eyes taunting her even as she felt her bottom make contact with the smooth leather of the saddle. “What did you think I was doing, Miss Sarah?”
Bright color heated her cheeks as he guided her knee around the pommel so that she was in the correct sidesaddle position. The feel of his hand on her flesh, even through her gray cotton riding skirt and her single petticoat, unnerved her. He was so very male.
“You insolent . . .” she sputtered as he placed the reins in her ungloved hands. She jerked away from his touch; Malahky danced back in alarm. Controlling and soothing the animal took all her attention for a moment. Then she glared fiercely at Gallagher. Seated on Malahky’s back, she was head and shoulders above him. That difference in height, plus the strength of the horse beneath her, restored her confidence.
“If you ever do such a thing again, Gallagher, I will have no choice but to bring your behavior to either my father’s or Mr. Percival’s attention.” Her voice was icy, but she had to work to keep it so. Her every instinct urged her to scream at him.
“And they, as I’ve already discovered, don’t subscribe to your particular brand of Christian charity.” His voice was hard. His blue eyes met her gold ones with something like hatred. Sarah shrank inwardly from their unsheathed menace. “But do you know,” he continued, musing, “I find I prefer even their brutality to your treacly hypocrisy. At least it’s honest.”
This was the final straw. Sarah’s hand tightened around the reins; she lashed out, catching him full across the face with the dangling ends. The sharp crack of leather against flesh rang out. Gallagher staggered back a pace, his hand rising to his cheek. When he withdrew it, it was smeared with blood. More blood beaded in the hair-thin gash in his cheek.
As he looked down at his bloodstained fingers, his mouth contorted furiously. His blue eyes flashed to hers. Before he could take whatever form of retaliation he was considering, Sarah clapped her heel to Malahky’s side. Already made nervous by the unaccustomed human tension surrounding him, Malahky bolted. Sarah nearly lost her seat as he lunged past Gallagher and out the door.
Her ride was ruined, of course. Sarah laughed almost hysterically as she considered how that thought bothered her. Her first hour of freedom in nearly two weeks, and the taunting insolence of a convict spoiled it. The laugh died as she thought of the gash her blow had opened in his cheek. He had looked shocked at first, and then furious. She didn’t want to speculate on what form his anger might have taken if she hadn’t removed herself so precipitously from the vicinity. After all, he was a convicted criminal; she doubted that he was a stranger to violence. From his expression as he had stared at her after she had hit him, she knew he had been contemplating inflicting it on her. Sarah felt sick as she remembered the blood on his fingers and cheek; blood from a blow she had struck deliberately, in anger. She had never done such a thing before; she hoped never to do such a thing again. But something would have to be done about Gallagher. Her father had been right all those days ago on the Septimus: the man was dangerous. He was also insolent, and brutish, and . . . She thought of his hands touching her waist, her knee, remembered the heat and hardness of them, and felt her stomach quiver. The reaction she had felt then, and felt again now, remembering, was revulsion, pure and simple. There was nothing else it could be. The man was a convict. Sarah knew that if she gave her father or Percival even the smallest inkling of how he had behaved toward her, Gallagher would be punished. But did she want to be the cause of another beating like the one he had suffered on the Septimus? On her behalf, her father would be ruthless, she knew. And Percival would enjoy having Gallagher under the whip. The memory of that earlier beating made her stomach churn alarmingly. In that moment she knew that she could never wittingly expose another human being to such agony. But neither could she live the next fifteen years fearing to go outdoors on the off chance that she might encounter Gallagher and he might take his revenge for the way she had hit him. It was absurd even to think of it. He would have to be got rid of. But how could she manage that without revealing her reasons to her father?
Sarah was so caught up in worrying about the matter that she scarcely noticed when Malahky turned away from the river to head for the grove of eucalyptus that was his favorite munching spot. Sarah let him have his head, knowing that Malahky could be trusted eventually to amble back to the homestead without getting them lost. Which brought her thoughts back full circle to the problem at hand: how was she going to return Malahky to the stable with Gallagher there?
The eucalyptus grove, with its bubbling mineral spring that kept the surrounding foliage green despite the drought, was a lovely spot, but Sarah was in no mood to enjoy it. Even the beauty of the pink and gray galahs that rose from the shaggy tree ferns as Malahky approached failed to distract her from her thoughts. Here where the grass was green, Malahky grazed with relish on the first living blades he had seen in weeks. Sarah sat on his back, hands resting lightly on the pommel, absently listening to the gurgle of the spring and the whistling cry of a rosella in a nearby smoke tree. What was she going to do about—
Hands closing brutally around her waist brought her instantly back to the present. She was being dragged backward from the saddle. Malahky, frightened, reared and ran out from under her. Even as she screamed and had the scream abruptly cut off by a man’s hard hand on her mouth, she thought that what she had feared had happened: Gallagher had followed her and meant to take his vengeance on her away from the homestead, where there was no one to come to her aid. Then her skull was rammed painfully against a man’s hard shoulder. Swiveling her head around, kicking and squirming in a frantic effort to break free from the arms that bound her, Sarah got her first look at her attacker. The narrow, sunburned face with its grizzled hair and red-rimmed eyes definitely did not belong to Gallagher. Perversely, her terror increased tenfold. Doubling her efforts to escape, Sarah felt her elbow connect sharply with the man’s rib cage. He grunted, shifting his hold. She felt the hard heel of her riding boot find his kneecap in a kick that almost brought him to his knees. Cursing,
he staggered backward. Taking advantage of the sudden slackening of his hold, she bit down hard on the fingers covering her mouth and twisted furiously at the same time. She did not manage to break away from him, but her mouth at least was free. Another piercing scream escaped before his hand crushed her mouth once more.
As he dragged her back into the brush, Sarah sobbed with terror even as she fought. He was a white man, which meant that in all likelihood he was a convict. And he was not one of Lowella’s. Which meant that he was on the run, a rogue. Maybe he was one of those who had burned and pillaged Brickton, Lowella’s neighbor to the south, last month. Although Paul Brickton’s cruelty to the convicts assigned to his station was notorious, and an uprising there was almost rough justice, Sarah remembered that two of the Bricktons’ sons had been killed. . . . She shuddered as she felt the wiry strength of the arms controlling her struggles. Would he kill her?
He had lifted her off her feet when Sarah felt him stagger again. She writhed wildly in an effort to break free. His arms released her without warning. Sarah cried out in surprise as she tumbled to the ground. Thick bracken cushioned her fall, but pain shot through her elbows and bottom, which made the first, hardest contact with the ground. Scrambling to take advantage of her sudden freedom, she cast a scared glance up at her attacker. To her astonishment, he was struggling as frantically as she had earlier against him. A powerful-looking forearm was locked around his neck, strangling all utterance. One arm was twisted behind his back. Her eyes wide, the ringing in her ears subsiding so that she could hear the sound of masculine grunts and the shuffling of two sets of feet on the bracken, Sarah looked over her attacker’s head at her rescuer, who towered some inches above him. Dominic Gallagher’s handsome face was grim with effort. His eyes, too, were grim above the gash she had opened in his cheek as he tightened his hold on the smaller man’s neck.
Dark Torment Page 5
