Angelfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  He started kissing the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck and his hand moved beneath the water. “Ummm?”

  “Damn you,” Bliss gasped as he began causing her an exquisite pleasure. “Baby or no baby, I won’t be had in a bathtub!”

  Jamie laughed again and lightly bit her earlobe. “Won’t you, Duchess?”

  Increase Pipher traveled to Brisbane and appeared before the magistrate in person. “James McKenna is an escaped felon, Your Grace,” he said, pushing an old handbill under the man’s nose. “And he’s being harbored illegally at Seven Sisters, his brother’s plantation near—”

  “I know where Seven Sisters is,” the magistrate broke in, sounding impatient. He was studying the tattered paper with a frown puckering his brow. “This bloke is Reeve McKenna’s brother, is he?” Without waiting for an answer, he sighed and added, “Old bit of business, this. Best forgotten, don’t you think?”

  Increase trembled, putting most of his weight on his walking stick, and young Walter Davis hurried forward to support him. “It was thanks to that young hellion that I lost the strength in my legs, Your Grace,” Pipher bit out, barely able to keep his tone civil, “as well as a year’s crop of sugarcane, my house—”

  And the only woman I ever really wanted, he added in his mind. Something far down in the dark, twisted depths of his soul began to expand. The sensation was at once heady and painful.

  “Very well.” The magistrate sighed. “I’ll order McKenna taken into custody for questioning.” He shook a finger at Increase in warning. “Anything beyond that will require that you file formal charges, Mr. Pipher, and you will need witnesses for that. Proof.”

  Increase smiled broadly. “Thank you, Your Grace,” he said with a cordial nod, and then he nudged young Davis in the ribs, a signal that he wished to vacate the magistrate’s chambers with all haste.

  In the street outside, he laughed outright and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “At last,” he said. “At last!”

  Walter was frowning at him. “It’s been so long, sir. Do you really think—”

  Increase glared at the lad. He’d suffer no cowardice in his ranks, not when revenge was so close at hand. “Worried about that red-haired snippet, are you, Davis?” he demanded. “You shall have her for a plaything, once her wounds heal.”

  Davis blanched. “God in heaven, Mr. Pipher,” he whispered. “Bliss has done nothing to hurt you or anyone else!”

  Increase smiled. “She is a means to an end,” he exulted, relishing the thought of what lay ahead, his right hand flexing and unflexing. “We’ll see Jamie McKenna on his knees—on his belly, begging like the dockside whore’s whelp he is—and all because of sweet Bliss!”

  Davis was silent. He was a smart young man, was Walter, Increase reflected. Smart enough to know when he’d said enough.

  * * *

  Jamie was awake when Reeve’s soft rap sounded at the door. He sat up carefully, not wanting to awaken Bliss, and got out of bed.

  “Aye, Reeve,” he called in a loud whisper, “I ’ear you.” Swiftly, he pulled on his clothes and strapped the scabbard into place, then joined his brother in the hallway. “So they’re comin’, are they?”

  Reeve’s eyes were suspiciously bright in the light of the kerosene lamp he carried. “Does it ’ave to be this way, Jamie?” he asked, and the lilt of the distant land neither of them would ever see again was in his voice. “I’m a powerful man, if I do say so meself. I can get you out of this—”

  Jamie shook his head, putting on his hat, and looked back through the open doorway toward the tangle of shadows where Bliss lay sleeping. “That would take too long, Reeve. I can’t risk bein’ be’ind bars when Increase makes ’is move.”

  Reeve nodded and gave his brother an affectionate slap on the shoulder. “I’d feel the same in your place.”

  “You’ll look after the Duchess, then?”

  “You know I will,” Reeve replied as the sound of horses’ hooves became audible in the distance. “Now, get out of ’ere, damn you!”

  Jamie’s throat had shut. He went back into the bedroom, to touch Bliss’s tousled hair once more, and then he strode down the hall to the rear stairway.

  At the top of the steps, he turned and, with a sad grin and a gesture of his hand, said good-bye to his brother.

  Reeve’s eyes glistened as he raised his own hand in response.

  Someone was shaking Bliss hard. Mumbling, half in a dream and half out, she raised herself on one elbow and peered into the darkness.

  “It’s me, Maggie,” whispered her sister-in-law, her outline just visible in the gloom.

  Bliss yawned. “What—what is it?”

  “There are soldiers here,” Maggie said, “looking for Jamie.”

  Bliss was wide-awake. She reached toward his side of the bed and found him gone, and her heart twisted painfully within her. “Dear God, Maggie,” she mourned. “If they catch him—”

  “They won’t,” Maggie assured her readily.

  Bliss wasn’t comforted. Everybody knew that Yanks sometimes tended to be overly optimistic. “I want you to tell me that he’s gone back to New Zealand—but you’re not going to do that, are you?”

  Maggie shook her head. “He told Reeve that he’s got business here in Australia.”

  Bliss shuddered, knowing all too well what that business was. The guilt she felt was almost beyond bearing; if it hadn’t been for her, things wouldn’t have come to this. Jamie had to run and hide and live like a bushranger because of her.

  She was a liability to him. A hindrance.

  “The soldiers want to question you,” Maggie went on, keeping her voice low. “Reeve will be with you, and so will I, so don’t be afraid.”

  Bliss wasn’t afraid for herself, but she was terrified for Jamie. He was rushing headlong into a situation that could so easily destroy him. “What am I supposed to say?” she asked, wriggling out of her bed and hurrying to the armoire for a dress.

  Maggie was right on her heels. “Reeve wants you to tell the soldiers that you and Jamie had a dreadful row and you’re sure he’s not coming back. If you can shed a few tears, that will probably help.”

  Bliss sighed as she scrambled into a cambric dress. Crying would be no trick at all, not with Jamie out there in the darkness somewhere. “Maggie, this is all my fault!” she fretted.

  “Nonsense!” Maggie responded with typical spirit. “Jamie’s own thievery is the cause of this, far behind him though it is, and don’t forget that, Bliss McKenna.”

  Downstairs in the parlor, Reeve was chatting amicably with half a dozen men in uniforms. At Bliss’s appearance, he gave her a smile sympathetic to the point of pity and held out one hand. “Here she is now, gentlemen,” he said smoothly. “My poor sister-in-law.”

  Bliss felt color surge into her face. She was not used to having people feel sorry for her; it nettled her pride. Only Maggie’s subtle nudge from behind kept her from protesting. Biting her lip, she lowered her head to hide her expression.

  Maggie slid an arm around her shoulders and smiled at a tall man with an officer’s insignia on his coat. “Our Bliss,” she said with a fond sigh, “has had a most devastating week, Captain. And of course, it is the middle of the night—”

  “I’m aware of that, Mrs. McKenna,” the fellow responded. “I wonder if I could speak to your sister-in-law alone?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Bliss saw Reeve shake his head, and she was infinitely grateful. She gave a loud, wailing sob that wasn’t entirely feigned and clasped one hand over her face. “Oh, Jamie,” she called, “why did you leave me?”

  “Don’t overact,” Maggie warned in a sharp undertone as she hustled Bliss toward a distant settee. She seated her solicitously and even patted her on the head. “There, there, dear,” she said.

  Bliss sobbed again, but more moderately this time, and the captain, she saw through her splayed fingers, looked chagrined as he strode over and sat down beside her.

  “I’ll t
ry to make this as painless as possible, Mrs. McKenna,” he said gently. “Tell me, when did you last see your husband?”

  Bliss took a wild guess as to what she was supposed to say. “Today,” she began. Then, at Reeve’s glower, she retracted that with, “No, it was yesterday.”

  Reeve’s nod was nearly imperceptible.

  Bliss sniffled and accepted the handkerchief Maggie thrust at her, using it to hide behind. “He told me that our marriage had been a mistake,” she squalled. “There’s no room in his life for me or for our baby!”

  Reeve’s lips twitched slightly, and there was a light in his blue-green eyes.

  “Then he is most definitely a fool and a rounder,” sympathized the captain, going so far as to touch Bliss’s hand. “You’re better off without him, my dear lady.”

  Bliss gave a cry that would have done a banshee proud and buried her face in Maggie’s hanky.

  “You can see how upset my sister-in-law is,” protested Reeve’s wife, patting Bliss’s shoulder with tender industry. “I do think you could let us all return to our beds, Captain.”

  The officer sighed and then spread his hands. “We shouldn’t have disturbed you,” he apologized. “It was our hope that we might be able to have a talk with Mr. McKenna—we only wanted to question him, you understand.”

  “After you’d shackled him, of course,” Reeve put in dryly, lifting a glass of whiskey to his mouth.

  The captain looked annoyed. “Good night,” he said in clipped tones, striding toward the doors opening onto the entry hall, his troops following wearily behind him.

  When Bliss was upstairs again, she did not undress and crawl back into bed, but sat in the window seat, staring out at the night. She examined the situation from every angle, and there was no escaping it. There was one person in all the world who could save Jamie, and she was that person.

  She went to the door of her room and looked in one direction and then the other, squinting. There was no one up and about.

  Cautiously, she began creeping toward the stairs. She went down one, down another. And came nose to chest with a human wall.

  Looking up, Bliss made out Reeve’s square jaw and caught a glint of moonlight in ebony hair.

  “And to think I didn’t believe Jamie when he warned me you might try this,” he said, striking a match and lighting the lantern he carried in one hand.

  Bliss swallowed hard. “I was only planning to get something to eat,” she said.

  Reeve shook his head in mock amazement. “He said you’d lie as well,” he marveled. Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned a little closer to Bliss. “Listen to me, love. Jamie probably wouldn’t lay a hand on you, being your husband and all, but I regard myself as your brother, and I’ve got no qualms at all about turning you across my knee and paddling you just as I would Elisabeth, should the situation warrant it. Is that clear?”

  Bliss climbed a step higher on the stairs, trying to decide whether or not Reeve was bluffing. She was certain that he was, but taking the chance seemed highly inadvisable, and anyway, he was as impassable as a mountain.

  For the moment.

  Meekly, Bliss turned and went back to her room, where she lay tossing and turning all the rest of the night.

  If only Jamie hadn’t left without her. She almost hated him for doing that, she thought, drying her eyes on a corner of the sheet. Almost.

  In the morning, Peony prepared to depart for Brisbane with Reeve and Maggie’s neighbor, Duncan Kirk, and a half dozen of his men for an escort.

  She called Bliss to her in the parlor, and said, “I can’t leave with you thinking that Jamie and I have ever been anything more than friends.”

  Bliss lowered her eyes. She’d been giving the matter a lot of thought of late. “I’m sorry for the way I acted, Peony. I guess I just love Jamie so much that I can’t imagine another woman not wanting him, too.”

  Peony smiled. “Take care of him, Bliss. There’s never been another man like Jamie, and there never will be.”

  Bliss nodded, her throat thick, and the two women embraced.

  Everyone watched Bliss when she came forward to say another good-bye an hour later, as though they expected her to bolt and run. Of course, it wouldn’t have taken any genius to guess that she was waiting and watching for her chance.

  The rest of the morning passed before the opportunity arose. For once, there was no one watching her except Elisabeth, who was sitting quietly on the floor of the parlor, sketching.

  “That’s a ’roo,” she said proudly, holding up a drawing Bliss would have been glad to claim as her own.

  Bliss gave the kangaroo only a cursory glance, since she was occupied in checking names off a mental list. Reeve, in the stables, where a valuable mare was foaling. Maggie, that turncoat, upstairs feeding the baby. Kala, the housekeeper, down the path, in the cookhouse... .

  Bliss rose cautiously to her feet. Elisabeth’s aquamarine gaze shifted to her face in an instant, suspicious and accusing.

  “You’d better not go anywhere,” the child warned with the authority of one who had had disciplinary dealings with Reeve McKenna before. “It’s bad to run away. There are snakes in the ’cane and bushrangers on the roads.”

  Bliss smiled and patted Elisabeth’s head. “Thank you for those reassuring words,” she said, knowing that such a chance wouldn’t come again. “Sweetheart, you love your Uncle Papa, don’t you?”

  Elisabeth nodded, a smile lighting her beautiful little face.

  Bliss crouched, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial, child-to-child tone. “I love him, too. And I think he’s in terrible trouble. Elisabeth, I’ve got to go and help him, before it’s too late.”

  Elisabeth McKenna might still be young, but she was nobody’s fool. She shook her head. “You’re supposed to stay here,” she said flatly. “No matter what.”

  Bliss sighed. To think that she had come to such a pass as to be held prisoner by a child. “I’ll just go upstairs and get a book to read, then,” she ventured when Elisabeth was thoroughly absorbed in her sketching again.

  “All right,” the little girl replied, so sweetly that Bliss felt guilty for planning what she did.

  Moving at a sedate pace, she proceeded out of the parlor and into the entryway. When Elisabeth didn’t sound the alarm, she crept to the front door and turned the knob. It made no sound, but the hinges creaked when Bliss flung herself headlong into freedom.

  Holding her skirts high, she dashed down the long road leading between two rows of banana trees, her heart hammering against her rib cage. Behind her, she could hear Elisabeth shouting for her papa.

  Bliss ran blindly on. Only as she was nearing the main road did it occur to her that she might be better off hiding from whoever was in pursuit. Hurtling down the driveway in her sunshine-yellow dress, she was easy prey.

  She leaped into the tall grass, praying none of the snakes Elisabeth had mentioned would greet her, and ducked, gathering her skirts around her as closely as she could. She hardly dared breathe, hearing Reeve’s footsteps on the road as she did, along with his curses.

  Finally, he paused, so close that Bliss might have reached out and touched the toe of his boot. “All right, Bliss,” he said, “I’ll give you your way. Come out, and we’ll go looking for Jamie together.”

  Bliss buried her face in her knees. She wanted to trust Reeve, but she didn’t. She hadn’t known him long enough, or well enough.

  It was a rustling sound in the grass that betrayed her. A milk snake passed by her right hip, going on its merry way, and she uttered a shriek of complete terror.

  Reeve reached down and caught her by the upper arm, causing her no pain but not exactly holding her gently, and hauled her up onto the road. “Do I ’ave to lock you up in the attic?” he demanded furiously.

  Bliss stared at him. Now she was going to find out whether he’d been bluffing that night on the stairs or not, and she had an awful feeling that she’d pegged Reeve McKenna wrong. Tears of fear and frustration sprout
ed in her eyes. “You promised that we’d go and find Jamie together!” she cried.

  Reeve surprised her by drawing her into his arms and holding her. “It’s all right, Bliss. I’m scared, too. Scared as hell.”

  Bliss rested her forehead against his strong shoulder and sobbed, and Reeve let her cry until the worst had passed, then led her back toward the house, his arm around her shoulders.

  “When are we leaving?” she demanded when they reached the porch steps.

  “Don’t press your luck,” Reeve countered, but there was something distracted about his manner. He was watching the horizon, listening for something, and Bliss watched and listened, too.

  Almost a minute had passed before she caught the sound of horses’ hooves on hard ground. She braced herself for more official questions from the captain who had come to call once before.

  Instead, Mr. Kirk and three of his men came down the driveway at breakneck speed. Reeve went to meet them, grasping the reins of his neighbor’s mount and biting out, “Good God, Duncan, what happened?”

  Duncan Kirk, a handsome man with a noticeable fondness for Maggie, was doubled over in the saddle. “They took her,” he said, and then he slumped to one side, Reeve barely managing to catch him before he fell. The whole front of his shirt, Bliss saw now, was covered with blood.

  “There were at least twenty of them!” one of the three men shouted.

  Duncan managed to stay on his feet as Reeve helped him up the steps and into the house, but just barely.

  “Maggie!” Reeve shouted.

  Bliss’s mind was reeling. “Who—what happened?”

  Duncan ignored Bliss; his words were directed to Reeve. “I’m sorry—God, I’m sorry—they jumped us from out of nowhere—they took Mrs. Ryan.” Kirk passed out just as Maggie dashed into the room. She and Reeve stretched him out on the floor and Reeve opened his shirt. He regained consciousness while they were examining the bullet wound that had torn his side. “Just—like old times—right, Maggie?” he choked out.

  “Don’t try to talk,” Maggie said, concentrating on his wound. “I’ll need alcohol, Reeve, and some sheets or something for bandages.”