by Téa Cooper
‘Undergarments?’
‘Yes. Specifically a corset.’
‘I have corsets.’
‘I would suggest that they would not be suitable for this dress. It will require a much smaller, briefer corset to complement the neckline and pinched waist.’ She picked her words carefully, not wanting to cause offence and spoil this unexpected opportunity. How to explain that without the right undergarments the dress would not hang correctly and that she was more than capable of creating both.
She didn’t have to.
‘Well in that case, if you can make me one I shall have a new corset as well.’ Mrs Winchester smoothed her hands over her hips, her eyes sparkling. ‘I can’t wait. Alice, what about you?’
‘As I said, I have a dress for the ball, I had it made in Sydney.’ She sighed again. ‘I fear you will put me and every other woman to shame.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Alice. You have a fine figure.’
‘That is exactly the problem, Grace, under-developed, not fine.’ She rolled her eyes, attempted a smile and then returned to picking at the now frayed ribbons.
The poor woman. She was not unattractive. Her hair was thick and her eyes were a pretty, flecked colour. It was simply the colours she’d chosen. Worse even than Mrs Blackmore’s brown satin, and she at least had the physical attributes to set her dress off. That is what Lady Alice lacked. Her waist was tiny, otherwise she had the figure of a boy.
‘Then we are organised. You have my measurements. My driver will deliver the material tomorrow.’
Roisin managed a nod of her head. If she opened her mouth she’d squeal or worse, fall to her knees and cover Mrs Winchester’s hands in kisses. What a wonderful opportunity. In a swish of satin and rose water, the ladies departed. Roisin closed the door behind them and collapsed into the chair, clasping the illustration of Mr Worth’s evening dress close to her heart as though her very life depended on it.
Ten
There wasn’t another place on God’s earth Carrick would rather be. He swirled the rum in the enamel mug and leant back against the chimneybreast, enjoying the simple pleasures of being free of the forest. The picture Roisin painted heated him more than the fire. Her body vibrated with excitement, her eyes flashing, her fingers never still.
‘I don’t know how you keep going. Is it not time for a rest?’ The light had long since faded and she’d been at it all day.
‘I have to. I have to for myself and for Ruan. And besides, this is such good fortune.’
‘Can you be doing all this work alone?’
‘I’m not alone. I have my pocket sewing machine, which makes it much faster. I could make you a shirt in about an hour, by hand it would take me a good day.’
‘Next time I’m needing a fine suit of clothes I’ll be remembering that.’
‘Mrs Winchester is coming back for her fitting soon. Then I have just three weeks to have the dress cut and stitched.’
‘Ready, as in finished. You’ll never have it done.’ He’d seen the pictures of the dress. It looked more complicated than anything he’d ever seen. All lacy bits and billowing skirts. Right now all she had was a pile of material sitting in her front parlour, pretty though it was. How it could become a ball gown didn’t bear thinking about.
‘I intend to. Maybe not all of the embellishments, just ready for Mrs Winchester to try on. I’ve almost finished sketching the pattern and tomorrow I’ll cut the dress. I worry that the smell of food in the kitchen will taint the material. I have a little more stitching to do tonight, but I can’t do it in here.’
‘In that case I should be lighting the fire in the parlour.’
‘Would you?’
He wiped a smudge of charcoal from her cheek.
‘Have I got a dirty face? Charcoal makes such a mess.’
‘You’re spotless now. Perfect.’ He tightened the shawl around her shoulders and then clasped her hands in his. ‘You’re cold. I’ll go and light the fire.’
Carrick placed the first log on the fire and then another, moving the kindling aside so the air rushed in and made the flames leap and dance. It wasn’t only desire she sparked in him, though there was more than enough of that to keep a man happy, it was a fierce protective urge. Deep down he had a need to see she lacked for nothing.
The chill of the small room would vanish in a moment once the blaze caught. It was a good job he’d kept up the supply of wood for her. This winter was one of the coldest he could remember. The rows of timber ran across the back of the woodshed, three or four deep. It’d be more than enough until he and Slinger got back. He’d not tolerate the thought of any of the local men working for her. He straightened up and turned.
She stood framed in the doorway, a gentle smile of gratitude on her face, reward enough for his paltry efforts. ‘Thank you, Carrick, for all your help. It makes my life so much easier.’
She closed the door behind her and sat in the chair by the fire, reaching out her hands to the flames. ‘It’s colder here than in Sydney and if my hands are cold I find it difficult to sew.’ She reached for the silky pool of material on the small table beside her, running her long, pliant fingers across it as she spread it on her lap.
The movement made him shudder and he dragged his eyes away. Instead, he made a show of feeding the fire, poking and prodding, all the while gazing at her out of the corner of his eye as she lifted the thread of silk and held the needle to the light, pulling it through the eye and picking the tiniest spot to insert the point. She caught him watching her and glanced up. ‘Is it cold in the forest?’
‘Not when we’re working, the exertion heats us, and at night there’s the fire, rum and exhaustion.’ And thoughts of a girl with red-gold hair and the little lad who might have been his own. ‘What are you sewing now? It’s not the dress.’
Colour stained her cheeks as she eased the needle through the flimsy material and clasped it on her lap beneath her hands. ‘Unmentionables.’
The murmured word caused him to sink to the floor at her feet. ‘You can’t mention it? Is it a secret?’
The sweet peal of her laughter sounded in the small room. ‘Unmentionables. A lady’s garment to be worn beneath her dress.’ She dug the needle into the material then shook it out, her eyes sparkling. ‘Promise you won’t discuss this with your friends in the forest, or worse down at the inn? They’ll think I’m a woman of ill repute and I’ll be drummed out of town.’
He doubted anyone would drum her out of Wollombi. The locals were far too pleased with the attention her little business had brought from the Sydney ladies who spent their money in the local store when they came to call upon her.
She pinched the sides of the material between the fingers of both hands and held it high.
The dangling pair of drawers with their satin ribbons and lacy frills made him laugh aloud. ‘Unmentionable perhaps but very pretty.’
‘Mrs Winchester has ordered a set to match the corset I’m making her. They’ll be trimmed with rose embroidery, the same colour as her dress.’
‘And this is what these highfalutin ladies are coming here to buy? I imagined dresses, coats perhaps, or hats.’
‘Those as well. Just because something isn’t on display to the world there’s no reason it shouldn’t be pretty.’
Pretty they were, yet how much prettier with a body such as hers within them. He shook his head and stretched out his legs, attempting to banish the thoughts playing havoc with his peace of mind. ‘Your stitching is very fine.’
She plucked at the silk pooled back in her lap. ‘I’d like more lace. I’ve run out and it’s very expensive to order from Sydney.’
‘I’m sure the lady will be more than happy, and her husband, too, I don’t doubt.’
That brought a delicious flush to her skin and she fanned her face. ‘Enough of this talk. Tell me about the forest. I know nothing of it. Have you always worked as a cutter? What brought you to Australia?’
Surely she knew he’d come as a convict. Maisie or Elsie
would have told her, along with all the rest of the blathering and blame the town lay at the cutters’ feet. Some of it was justified, though he’d not be admitting that unless she pushed him.
‘The one good thing the redcoats did for me. The soldier who threw me that first axe and set me chopping has my eternal gratitude. My hands took on a life of their own, as if they had always known how to wield the axe, how to cut the timber. Slinger and I worked the government cutter teams. When I got me ticket of leave I managed the team. By then the red gold was in me blood and even with me freedom I couldn’t give it away.’ He could have given it away if there had been a quicker or easier way to earn the money for his passage home. Still, it hadn’t taken much more than three years and the job was all but done.
The flames jumped and hissed and he prodded a log aside with his foot and reached for another. Soon, soon he’d set foot on Irish soil and even the score. He scrubbed at his shoulder and settled back on the rag rug. Why spoil an evening such as this with dark thoughts and miserable memories?
She let the unmentionables fall to her lap and curved towards him, the light from the fire dancing in her hair. ‘Australia is my home. I was born here. I can’t imagine the thought of being sent away. Leaving Sydney was bad enough. You must long for your homeland, your family.’
‘Aye.’ He did long for his family, always would, though there was naught he could do about it. The English had taken care of that. ‘I’ve almost enough for my passage home now.’
‘You’re leaving?’
As soon as he and Slinger had taken King Polai he’d be leaving. He didn’t need Brinkworth to tell him the exact amount he had sitting in the Bank of New South Wales. Enough for his passage and enough to buy himself a fine horse and the information he’d need to track the bastard agent down.
‘Soon enough. Slinger and I have one more job. It’s as much a secret as those unmentionables you’re stitching.’
She lowered her needle and tipped her head to one side.
‘There’s a tree deep in the forest. I’ve saved it till the last. King Polai. It’s as straight and as tall as any I’ve ever seen. It’ll pay more than my passage back to Ireland.’
Her face shadowed and she turned her gaze to the flames. ‘When will you leave?’
‘We’ll be taking the boys to Morpeth and then we’ll head off.’
‘I shall miss you.’
His heart gave a stumble. Would she? Just the wood in the shed out the back or these quiet moments he’d always cherish?
‘Will you return to Australia?’ She lifted her head and pinned him with her eyes. Green as the grass of home, yet here in Australia, a million miles from the pain.
He shrugged; she’d asked him this before. Who knew what would happen once he returned to Ireland?
‘Could you make your home here?’
Aye that would be the easiest thing in the world to do. And build her a little house down by the brook, maybe take a land grant and settle. A farm that would flourish, not like the miserly plot he’d once called home. No. The promise he’d made he’d fulfil, and then he’d look to the future, once he’d taken his revenge and the devil no longer prowled this earth.
The laughter slipped from his eyes as his defences lowered, and deep anguish scored his face. A face she’d come to know and heaven forbid, like, like a lot. She could love a man like this, a man with poetry in his soul and eyes as dark as the deepest ocean. As she gazed at him the lines she associated with laughter became lines of pain, of stress. The flash of his ravaged shoulder drifted across her mind and she picked up her sewing again. With her hands occupied she found it easier to talk. The man was such a mass of contradictions, soft one minute, as hard as rock the next. ‘Tell me about your family in Ireland?’
He didn’t answer, just stared into the flames, brooding, full of anger and turmoil, seeing something beyond her understanding. Her needle dipped and bobbed through the silk as she tacked the fine pleating into place, filling the silence, keeping her hands busy while her mind swirled. Perhaps she shouldn’t ask about the past. She was no better than Maisie and Elsie. To see the pain on his face made her want to soothe it away, and sometimes it helped to share.
He poured another mug of rum and lifted the flagon in an unspoken question. She shook her head, not wanting to speak, not wanting to break the fragile silence. He took a swig and rested back against her trunk, his long legs stretched in front of him towards the fire.
‘They’re long gone.’ His jaws clenched as his teeth clamped, making his cheekbones stand out in the flickering shadows of the fire. ‘It’s a sorry tale, and of my own making. Had I not had my head in the clouds with thoughts of a better world my darlings would be with me today.’
‘We all want a better world for those we love.’ Wasn’t that the very reason she’d left Sydney? So Ruan could run free, go to school and grow without the shadow of his conception hanging over him.
‘It’s the injustice of it all I couldn’t stand, cannot stand.’ He slammed his hand down on the floor, making the rum slop up over the brim of the mug, forming a damp spot on his thigh. His eyes flashed and every muscle stretched taut. ‘The bloody English landlords bending the laws, hacking away at our lives and our land until we’d barely enough to scrape a living. Me rations on the convict ship were more than I was able to provide for Liam and Brigid.’
Liam and Brigid? Her fingers froze and her heart twisted tight. She dropped her sewing to her lap. ‘Your family?’
‘Me wife and darling boy they were.’
‘I didn’t know.’ She moistened her lips, her throat tight with unshed tears, tears for this man who’d lost his child and tears for herself. She couldn’t imagine … Her stomach clenched. If anything happened to Ruan, she couldn’t live. He was her world.
She’d known from the very beginning the sadness in Carrick’s eyes when he looked at Ruan held more than he admitted. And his easy familiarity, knowing what to say, how to make Ruan feel good about himself. Oh he’d make a wonderful father. Life was so unfair.
Why had he deserted his family? He didn’t seem like a man who would leave his responsibilities. What crime had he committed? She needed to know. Besides, how could she let Ruan alone with the man if she didn’t?
‘It’s the thought of what they must have suffered that still makes me sick to me stomach and breaks me heart.’
‘Do you want to tell me? Sometimes it’s better to share a sorrow.’ Her duplicity twisted in her belly. Why was she asking—to ease his pain or reassure herself that Ruan wasn’t in danger? Not for herself, she didn’t care, but for Ruan. Oh, God, what if any harm came to Ruan because she’d let down her guard, because of the tall, handsome Irishman with a soul full of memories as black as his unruly hair?
He took another swig of his rum, his eyes still trained on the fire. ‘It’s a simple story. I wouldn’t bow to the landlord’s demands. He sent his agents to toss us out, we’d not paid the rent, no crops, no food. They’d come to get the women and children, take them to the Poor House. Some of us thought we could do better. Stop the bloody agent in his tracks. The bastard came with his band of henchmen.’ His voice broke and the empty mug toppled from his numb fingers to the ground. ‘I thought to waylay them. Kill the agent if necessary. Get rid of the pale-eyed sadist, except they were one step ahead of me, they’d brought dogs, the hounds of hell. We were no match. They set them on us. Like a bunch of scared rabbits, we were. Then when they’d had their sport they made us watch. Watch while the soddin’ agent torched the thatch and my darlings burned.’ Tears poured freely down his face, dropping to the floor.
She sank down on her knees and cradled his broad shoulders close, trying to ease the shudders racking his body.
‘I will have vengeance. I owe them that. Raise a stone for my poor darlings. I’ll seek him out, hunt him down. King Polai will give me the money for that. Then and only then can they rest in peace. I’ll take his life the same way he took my darlings.’ He put her away and stood, scrubbi
ng his hands over his wet face, then picked up a log and threw it into the fire, sending a shower of sparks across the floor. He stamped out the smouldering remains and turned to the window, his shoulders shaking. ‘Ignore me. ’Tis the rum speaking. A long-held grudge and nothing that should rest with you. I apologise.’
‘Aren’t we good enough friends now for you to know that if it has scarred you I carry your pain also?’
Her words didn’t register; his eyes were fixed on some far-off place she couldn’t reach. ‘God says I should forgive.’ His lip curled. ‘I can’t and I’ll not. Not until I see the bastard in his grave.’
He picked up the flagon and tipped his head back, his throat moving as he poured down the remains of the rum. ‘I’ll be leaving.’ He swayed, spreading his arm wide to steady himself against the wall, dwarfing the room with his big body and his misery.
She reached up and wiped his hair back from his face. ‘Stay a while. I’ll make some tea.’ She eased him back into the chair, running her hand down his cheek, hoping to soothe his pain. He grasped her hand and pressed her palm to his lips. ‘You’re a good woman, Roisin. A good woman.’ His hand fell limp to the arm of the chair and his eyes closed, his taut body relaxed at last. ‘Victim of an unjust system, rioting and aggravated assault,’ he murmured as his eyes closed.
Roisin tiptoed to the kitchen and placed the billy on the fire, then climbed the ladder to the attic to check on Ruan. He lay asleep on his side, the snakeskin draped across the blanket, breathing sweetly.
His wife and child. The Irish, Ireland, the Famine. She’d seen the Irish girls lining up outside the Sydney Barracks, riddled with tuberculosis and all manner of disease, their faces drawn and wan, their stick-like figures and sad, hollow eyes.
She lowered herself back down the ladder and dragged the quilt from her bed. She couldn’t bear to think of Carrick alone in the crude tent down by the brook with no one for company except Slinger and the ghosts of his past.
