by Peter Watt
He glanced up at her, surprised, as if she had read his thoughts. ‘Yes. I guess I was,’ he answered.
‘Fiona did not recognise you,’ Penelope frowned. ‘She saw only a ghost, and ghosts frighten her. But apart from anything else, any future with my cousin was doomed from the very beginning. You must have known that you would never be socially acceptable to the Macintosh family.’
‘But I’m “socially acceptable” for you to go to bed with Baroness,’ he mused, staring into her eyes with a grim smile on his face.
‘You do not know my reasons for wanting to have you Michael,’ Penelope said, dropping her eyes. ‘Now, I am not so sure myself. At first I thought I was . . . ’ She tried to find the reasons: a desire to prove to him that he was no more than another of her play things to discard; an unconscious desire to hurt Fiona for being a Macintosh? ‘I wanted you, that is all,’ she concluded, as if dismissing the muddle of reasons in her own confused thoughts. ‘I suppose it would come as no surprise, if I asked what became of you,’ she said.
‘That is a long story and I am not about to bore you with its account,’ he replied mischievously. ‘Let us say that it pays to make the right kind of friends.’
‘But why the report that you had been killed?’ she queried.
He ceased smiling and stared into the crystal goblet. Burgundy and blood had the same rich colour. ‘Because when you are dead people soon forget about you. Even the traps,’ he replied softly.
‘Then what happened in your life when you left New Zealand, as you obviously did?’ she persisted. She found the mysterious man more fascinating than she dared admit to herself and wondered how much of himself he would reveal.
Her question evoked pain in his face as he took a deep breath and let it out with a visible heave of his broad shoulders. ‘Then I found myself in America. Right in the middle of another war. Too much has happened since then to talk about,’ he answered, dismissing any further discussion on the matter. ‘Maybe some day I might tell you. But I don’t think so.’
Even as she listened to Michael answer her questions she could feel her physical desire rising for him. The damned man had that effect on her. Who was in fact master of the situation between them, she wondered irritably.
But it was time to get down to the business and other more pleasant diversions would have to wait for the moment. ‘I think we should discuss why you are here Michael,’ she said formally.
‘So you aren’t interested in a narrative of any further scars tonight?’ he asked with a wicked hint of mockery in his voice.
She preferred not to answer. The feeling of being filled by him was still with her.
‘My husband has a task that requires a man of your experience,’ she replied, ignoring both his gentle taunt and her own desire.
‘My experience?’ he asked with interest. ‘What do you mean by my experience.’
‘Manfred had been informed of your, should we say, colourful exploits in South America, as well as your illustrious war record in America,’ she explained. ‘He felt that you would be the right man to help him in a matter of great importance.’
‘You know about my “exploits”, as you call them, in South America?’ he echoed, in awe of the Prussian’s knowledge of his supposedly secretive career as a soldier of fortune.
‘My husband has many contacts in America. And there is little he does not know about what you have done there. He felt that you had the right kind of experience to help him in his mission. But I think he would even be more impressed if he knew all that there is to know about Michael Duffy.’
Michael pulled a candle towards him to light one of the cigars that had been left on the table. As he puffed at the cigar, a halo of blue smoke curled around his head. ‘I think it would be better for us all if your husband just knew about Michael O’Flynn, Baroness. Michael Duffy died a long time ago, as we both know.’
‘If that is your wish. Then I will respect it,’ she replied as she watched the smoke around his head and tried not to smile at the strangely symbolic shape. Michael was certainly no angel!
‘This mission your husband has?’ he asked bluntly. ‘What is my role?’
‘That I am not at liberty to tell you at this stage,’ Penelope answered guardedly. ‘I am only in a position to offer you the job – and the money. Would two thousand dollars American interest you for, say, two months’ work?’
The Irish mercenary raised his brow as an expression of interest. Two thousand dollars for two months’ work was a lot of money! He had long learned not to question closely the nature of such highly paid work. But he knew this job must be either very dangerous or unlawful. ‘I suppose it would be a waste of time inquiring any further into what I am to do for the money,’ he said, as he took another puff of the cigar.
Penelope could smell the rich smoke and guessed his kiss would taste of cigar and burgundy. ‘I wish I could tell you more but my husband does not share all his secrets with me and I have learned not to ask him about certain matters. But I do know Manfred has a mission that might change the nature of things. A mission of great importance to Germany. I do not know exactly what things will change,’ she confessed, and Michael could see that she was telling the truth by the puzzled expression on her beautiful face as she explained her husband’s wishes. ‘Will it bother you to take German money?’ she asked. He shook his head. ‘Good,’ she added, with an expression of relief. ‘I do know that Manfred has the greatest respect for your reputation and that is why he wants you to work for him.’
Michael fell into a silence as he contemplated all that she had told him – which was not a great deal. Two thousand dollars, however, was. ‘What happens next?’ he asked as he emerged from his silence.
‘Next week you will take passage on the Mary Anne sailing for Brisbane. There, you will change ships and sail for Cooktown. When you get to Cooktown you will meet a gentleman by the name of Herr Straub and recruit six men. Six men you deem to be not unlike yourself in experience. You will be authorised to pay them well and will have access to money from the Bank of New South Wales in Cooktown,’ she explained as she leaned forward in such a way that he was able to admire and remember the firmness of her breasts. ‘The men will be outfitted when Manfred arrives. But you will supply the rifles I believe you have brought from America with you. They have been paid for, as you will see when you check with Mister Hilary in George Street. As for the rest, Manfred will inform you when he arrives in Cooktown.’
‘Cooktown. Your husband planning on a bit of claim jumping up there?’ Michael asked wryly.
‘If I know Manfred,’ Penelope answered, ignoring his attempt at witticism, ‘he will be playing for far greater stakes than a mere gold mine.’ She did have a suspicion of what her husband was planning but preferred not to confirm it as this would only put her in conflict with loyalties to herself and her empire. She was pleased that Michael asked few questions. ‘There is one other very important matter I think I should mention,’ she said drawing a breath. ‘I sense that you have a great need to take your revenge on my brother for what he has done to you.’
Michael looked up sharply. She could see the grey eye staring at her with a cold hate. ‘Would you expect any less of me?’ he snarled.
‘You will not harm him Michael,’ she replied calmly. ‘For all that he has done to you he is still my brother and the father of Fiona’s daughters. And, if it is any consolation, I suspect that the ghost of your memory haunts him anyway. You will promise me that no harm will come to my brother at your hand.’ She could see the raging turmoil reflected in his face. His personal and abiding hatred would have to be tempered by the cold logic of the tactician.
‘I promise I will not harm him whilst I am in the employ of your husband,’ he reluctantly conceded. ‘After that time, all bets are off,’ he added savagely.
Penelope felt the tension flow from her body. The promise would hold him for the moment and it was the moment that counted in her experience. Now that she had passed on her
husband’s instructions and settled the matter of her brother there were other more pleasurable matters to pursue.
She rose from the table and with a mysterious smile took Michael’s hand in hers. With the cigar and the goblet of burgundy in hand he followed her upstairs to her bedroom. Penelope closed the door. ‘Take off your shirt and lie on the bed,’ she commanded in a throaty voice.
Michael placed his goblet on a bedside table and crushed the burning end of the cigar between his fingers. Something in her eyes worried him as he lay back on her big bed with its silk sheets. She had the expression of someone detached from their own body.
Penelope began to slowly shed her clothes, all the time fixing Michael with an enigmatic smile. The candlelit room cast strange shadows that made him uneasy. He could sense something dangerous around him but could not describe it in logical terms. ‘Did you play games when you were a little boy?’ Penelope asked as she stood naked before him except for a pair of long silk pantaloons split at the crotch. Her hands were behind her back and she stood with her legs apart.
‘Of course I did,’ Michael replied with a slight frown. The feeling of danger was increasing in the room. He had always had a sense for dangerous situations and in the past the instinct had given him an edge to survive. Now all his instincts told him to walk away. His fears were confirmed when Penelope’s hands came from behind her back and he saw the light flicker along the edge of a thin-bladed dagger. He felt his body tense as it prepared to fight or flee of its own accord. Penelope was smiling as she advanced slowly towards him.
‘This is a beautiful knife,’ she said softly. ‘I was given it by an Italian Count when I was in Italy some years ago. He told me that it is called a stiletto, a favoured weapon of the assassin.’
‘I have seen them before,’ Michael said, attempting to sound calmer than he actually felt. ‘A woman’s weapon,’ he added scornfully.
Penelope now stood at the end of the bed with a dreamy expression of complete detachment on her face. ‘We are going to play a game Michael,’ she said, as if from afar. She climbed onto the bed. ‘A game where you will experience the ultimate pleasures of life. Exquisite pleasures that you will take to the grave with screams of rapturous joy.’
She is going to kill me, Michael thought in alarm. She has planned this for a long time as her way of revenge. But revenge for what? She had him at a disadvantage and he knew he must remain calm. He must play down the situation until he could strike and disarm her. ‘What game are we about to play?’ he asked with a confident smile. His seemingly fearless expression seemed to satisfy Penelope.
‘A game of absolute trust,’ she replied, as she knelt facing him with her legs apart. He could see that she was highly aroused and despite the continuing fear felt his own arousal. ‘But involving some physical pain. I am sure you will be able to bear it. I know you are a man well acquainted with pain.’
Their eyes locked across the short distance between them as he attempted to explore her soul. He searched for malice but, oddly, he saw none. Just a smouldering lust for pleasure.
‘I may be the world’s greatest fool or a man who gives you his complete trust,’ Michael said softly. ‘We both know that you hold in your hand an instrument of death.’
‘I will not kill you Michael,’ Penelope said. ‘That I promise you. But I will promise you pain.’
‘Then what is your game?’
‘I will show you.’
She turned and edged her way up to his head where she straddled his face. He could smell the strong perfume of her arousal and taste the wetness of her desire. Suddenly he felt a stinging pain as the needle-sharp point of the stiletto raked his chest. His body arched and he muffled a cry of pain. ‘Taste my sweetness,’ Penelope ordered as she leaned forward. Her long blonde hair brushed his chest as her tongue sought out the tiny river of blood spilling down to his stomach. ‘As I will taste you.’
With maddening and deliberately frustrating slowness his tongue probed her body above him. The damned man was deliberately showing his power over her rising desire, she thought, as the blood from the wound covered her face, matting the ends of her hair. He was tormenting her in a way that made her want to have him fill her. His exquisite torture was an eternity of pleasure. She was hardly aware that he had turned her on her back and was entering her from above.
The ecstasy continued through the night, into the early hours of the morning. When sleep at last came to them Michael once again walked the terrible corridors of his recent life. There was a young man screaming as he held his bowels in his hands. He was staring at Michael with the despair of a man who knows he is dying. Fourteen, fifteen. Did age matter on the battlefield where every man was locked in the absolute terror from the unseen? Which battle had it been when he had lost all hope for his soul? In the forests of New Zealand? Or was it in the blood-soaked cornfields of the American South? Red was the paint of his life, not the brilliant blues of the paintings he had once dreamed of exhibiting to the world. And sleep was not always a welcome guest.
This night was such a night and Penelope wondered at the world Michael had entered as he twitched and moaned beside her. But it was not something that was new to her. Her own husband occasionally slept as fitfully as Michael did now. She had come to accept that it was just something that soldiers who had seen combat suffered from.
Before sunrise she awoke. Michael was still sleeping and Penelope gazed down at his sleeping face. Terrible, uninvited thoughts came to her and a frown clouded her face. This wonderful and intelligent lover – sensitive to a woman’s deepest desires – could be dead within a couple of months, she thought sadly. Such were the missions her husband was prone to embark upon. She might miss Michael for a short time, she grudgingly admitted to herself, but his death would be in the best interests of those he once knew. For Penelope realised that the man who lay beside her was as dangerous to women as he was to men. Should he ever meet again with Fiona . . . Penelope felt a chill in her soul and shuddered. The consequences were too terrible to even consider.
Gently she stroked his chest until he awoke. At least for now she could use his body for her own pleasure in love while her husband used his body in war.
‘Where did you learn to play your games Baroness?’ Michael asked sleepily as he stirred beside her.
‘From a man not unlike yourself,’ she answered, as she remembered that memorable night when Morrison Mort had stroked her with his sword. ‘A man just as dangerous as you Michael.’
THIRTEEN
Peter Duffy followed his best friend Gordon James up the hill along the winding narrow track overhung with rainforest giants. The two boys were stripped to their trousers and their chests streaked with scratches from the sharp vegetation that plucked at them as they climbed with great effort after the black warrior leading them upwards into the hidden places of the jungle.
‘Hey Gordon, slow down,’ Peter called irritably, as he puffed with exertion. ‘You’re going too fast.’
Gordon turned his head to flash him a triumphant smile. Where the climb turned in on itself in places hardly recognisable as a path he continued making his way up the track hand over foot. Although they were friends and as close as true brothers the competition between the two boys had always been the same. Around town they were an inseparable pair – and a duo the other town boys had come to respect for their ability to fight when forced to. Like his father who would not tolerate the sneering references to young Peter being a half-caste, Gordon would not tolerate jibes at his friend’s mixed race parentage.
The Aboriginal ahead of them paused and turned to ascertain the two young boys were still following. He stood watching the white boy clamber ahead of the Darambal blood boy with a sense of uneasiness. He knew who the white boy was, as his identity had been revealed in a dream. This was not a good sign, he thought, as Gordon reached him sweating but obviously still with the reserves of strength to go on, while Peter lagged badly as he struggled to keep up.
‘Peter Duffy
, son of Tom and Mondo, you must beat the white boy,’ Wallarie said.
Peter did not understand the strange language and yet the sound was familiar to his ears as if he had been born to hear the words spoken in the Nerambura dialect. ‘If you do not beat him now he will kill you one day.’
Peter glanced up at Wallarie standing up the hill from him. Yes! He knew the words and now remembered the man who spoke them. ‘Wallarie!’ he called wide-eyed up the hill.
The big warrior grinned down at him. ‘Baal you forget Wallarie,’ he replied in English, grinning with pleasure at the boy’s distant memory of another time and place. ‘Wallarie not forget you.’
Gordon watched the exchange with boyish curiosity. He had originally wondered why Peter had insisted on following the Aboriginal who had stepped out from the ranks of the Kyowarra tribesmen they had befriended on the outskirts of Cooktown and gestured for them to follow him away from where the tribe was camped a safe distance from the towns-people and miners. Now there was a hint of an answer in the apparent connection it seemed that the Aboriginal had with his friend Peter.
The boys had stumbled on the Kyowarra campsite in one of their many far-ranging explorations of the surrounding thick bushland. As they were merely boys, the normally wary tribesmen recognised that they were not a threat to their safety and accepted their presence without fuss. It was obvious to the tribe that one of the boys had Aboriginal blood from some other tribe. And the Darambal man amongst their number confirmed that the Kyowarra were right when he identified the one he called Peter as having Darambal blood.
Peter reached Wallarie who turned his back and continued to climb the hill. This time Peter called on all the strength he had to get ahead of Gordon. A tacit agreement was reached between the two boys that they were in a race to the top.
