She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Whoever you thought you saw, on the street or wherever, it wasn’t—”
“It was you. Three months ago I was on the deck of the John Barry, staring up at the stars, and I saw you. It’s why I tried to go after you when I saw you in that wagon. It’s how I knew why I’d been sent to New South Wales.”
“I don’t understand.” But she did. A little. Her heart was listening, and it was telling her he was truthful.
“Ever since I was rescued from that cave eighteen years ago I’ve had visions. Similar to dreams, only I’m not asleep. They tell me to do things, and I have to obey.”
Now her heart was slamming against her ribs. “The cave did that?”
“I’d always thought so, but since I met you, I believe now it was the bones. The bones of a man, the skeleton I disrupted. Nothing happened to me until after the navy took me back to England. I was in Portsmouth, recovering. I was throwing dice with another man in hospital, in clear daylight, when I had a vision of a woman with a mole on her chin and thinning gray hair that stuck out of a red kerchief. It just appeared to me, giving me a terrible headache. I didn’t think much of it, since I’d taken my share of medicine that affected my head, but the first day I could walk on my own out of hospital I had this unrelenting urge to find that particular woman. I wandered down to the harbor and there she was, selling mussels and clams.
“I didn’t know what to say to her, and she didn’t know me at all. But I bought two clams from her and ate them while another man approached to make his own purchase. He was dressed well and when we got to talking he found out I had been a sailor. He inquired whether I would be interested in a job in his boatyard in Cornwall.”
“And you went with him?”
He nodded. “I worked for him for three years until the next vision came and I was compelled to leave. Because that’s what happens when a vision comes—I can think of nothing else. Everything I do is focused on discovering its meaning. I’m a man obsessed. It’s why I went after you so suddenly. Those months at sea after I saw your face in the stars, with me unable to search, they were the worst form of torture.”
How was that even possible, when Sera had, technically, yet to be born?
“Back in Britain,” he continued, “I followed wherever the visions led me—to Cardiff, to Worchester, even to Edinburgh—until they took me back to London. By that time I’d moved around so much I couldn’t keep a wage and had no trade. I couldn’t rejoin the navy; they thought me ill and insane after what had happened in Egypt, and the ranks were thinning because of the end of the war. I was beginning to think myself mad, too. So I took to fighting for coin.” He flexed and tightened his hands, the scars on his knuckles whitening. “Until I had a vision of a pair of boots. That’s all, just boots. For months I didn’t understand, until I was walking near St. Paul’s Cathedral and saw them sitting there in the window, shiny and new and so expensive. The urge was too strong. I smashed the window and took them.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “And got sent here.”
“You were sent halfway around the world for stealing a pair of shoes?”
“There are people here who’ve done far less, and far worse. My point is, the thing behind the visions—I’ve called it the Spectre—wanted me to be sentenced to Transportation Beyond the Seas. It wanted me to find you here. And it’s all because you and I were both inside that cave. That has to be the reason. Don’t you see?”
She did see. On one level it made a great deal of sense, and on another it only created more layers of confusion. It still didn’t answer how the hell she’d been sent here. Or why.
“What I just told you”—he leaned forward—“it’s the truth. And it’s the lot of it. I’ve never told it to anyone before.”
She’d meant to just hold up a hand, a gesture to reassure, but instead her fingers stretched for him. The power inside her wanted to touch him. Something snapped and sizzled between them. Not visible, but tangible nonetheless. A lick of heat, a pleasurable buzz, a yearning that pushed and pulled with equal strength. She went a little dizzy.
“That.” Those blue eyes flipped up to hers. “Tell me you don’t feel that.”
“I can’t. Because I do.” Her hand hovered inches above where one loop of his suspenders draped down over his thigh. “There’s something else I should tell you. Something about my past.” Something about the future.
His mouth said, “Then tell me,” but the heat in his eyes said, Then touch me.
So she did both. Her palm found the hard muscle of his leg just above his knee, warm even through the damp of his pants. The way his eyes danced was indescribable.
She opened her mouth, the truth right there on her tongue. “About me…I don’t know how it’s possible, but I—”
Downstairs, the main doors to the church opened with a screech.
She froze, seizing her hand and abruptly severing the connection between them. William instantly, silently shifted onto his feet and blew out the candle.
Someone entered below, shoes clomping across the floor, moving about in the sanctuary just underneath the balcony.
If they were caught in here together, her claim to be “married” to Viv would evaporate and William would be questioned. Not to mention the fact that he was a bolter. She’d been here long enough to know how serious an offense that was.
He grabbed his wet shirt and pulled it on. She swung Viv’s big duster over her shoulders, stuffing her hands into the sleeves. Maybe it was stupid to think of Viv just then, but he lived with so little that she didn’t want to leave anything of his behind.
The old Sera—the one who knew how to steal and pick locks and slink around—would have abandoned the one thing that kept the old man chugging along. But she wasn’t that person. Not today. Hopefully not ever again. She carefully slung the bag of wrapped rum bottles over one shoulder.
A mumbling male voice floated up to their ears—something about a card game—and then, “…wet. Why’s the floor wet?”
Shit. Sera and William went still as rock, their stares colliding.
Footsteps shuffled toward the spiral staircase, where their trail of drips and wet footprints plainly gave away their location. They’d been counting on no one entering a dark church in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm, and they’d been wrong.
“Who’s up there?” By the warbled tones of his voice, the newcomer didn’t sound too healthy. Or that sober.
William flexed his scarred knuckles again, and she remembered what he’d said about fighting. But he couldn’t afford to punch out a stranger, not as a bolter. What if the man was some sort of clergy? No fighting. They had to get out of there without being seen.
She turned in a tight circle. Examining. Thinking.
She’d ignored the sickly pinch of her stomach when she fled a scene before, under far less innocent circumstances. Back then it had been a pocket full of stolen jewelry and a tail who’d flushed her out of an abandoned school on the Vegas outskirts.
Here it was a boot hitting the first step on the curved staircase.
She touched William’s arm then pointed to the balcony railing and mimed jumping over. She didn’t give him a chance to question. She just threw one leg over the rail, then the other. Facing him, she crouched down so her ass hung over the edge and her hands gripped the posts.
More footsteps came up the stairs.
William swung his body over the railing. Together they crouched low, eyes on each other. Then she slid her feet off and let her legs dangle, holding on only with her burning hands. He aped her.
The guy kept climbing into the balcony. She had to time this right so that when he realized the intruders were still in the church, they’d be able to escape without him giving chase.
“One,” she mouthed, “…two…”
The footsteps reached the balcony. Stopped. The man cried, “Who’s there?”
“…three.”
It was impossible to land soundlessly, but she was count
ing on the fact that the church worker sounded out of shape, and the tight, blind curve of the staircase would impede any speedy pursuit. It worked.
She and William dropped ten feet to the sanctuary floor and sprinted for the main door, which she knew hadn’t been re-locked because she’d been listening for it. The man’s shouts chased them out, but he did not.
It was still pouring rain outside. She ran as hard as she could through the thick mud, heading straight out of town.
“No.” William’s hard grip on her elbow yanked her off her feet. They tumbled through a door and into a woodshed. The space inside was even tighter than the barrel-cave on the brothel porch, and it smelled of wet wood.
“We need to get out of town,” she whispered.
He ignored her and wedged himself deep inside the shed, pressing his back against a wall of jaggedly cut logs, and lowering himself to the floor, bringing her with him. He pulled her into the V of his legs.
It happened so fast. The inside of his legs pressed against the outside of hers. His chest was solid along her shoulder blades. One of his arms slid around her waist. The thrill and fright of the leap and flee faded. She was surrounded by him, breathing hard. She wasn’t touching the cuff and yet her whole body hummed. Before, in the church, when they’d been in danger, she’d known exactly what to do. Now she had no clue.
“We’ll stay here for now,” he said low into her ear, and she had to shift to disguise the pleasurable—or was it terrified?—shiver that coursed through her.
“It’s too close to the church.” She tried to push him away.
He held on tight. “Exactly. If he looks for us, he may assume we’re trying to get out of town as fast as possible. And if we did try to run into the bush, we’d be seen out in the open. There’s nothing out there.”
He was right.
Voices outside, short beats between the rain. She didn’t know what they said or how many there were, or if she and William were being hunted or not.
There was no room between the wood stacks for them to sit side by side or even foot to foot. There was just enough space for how they were situated now. She could only pray that the rain would let up during the night, that the drunks would eventually wander home, and that William’s touch would stop messing with her head.
But as the seconds of the night ticked by, and his body cocooned her in warmth and his steady breath feathered across her neck, the presence and power inside her wished just the opposite.
CHAPTER 11
Sera’s sleep was filled with dreams of a couple fucking.
The woman in the dream undulated on top of the man, hands braced on his damp chest, their eyes locked, their mouths open in twin expressions of desire. That woman didn’t have Sera’s face or wear her clothing, but Sera felt every bit of her pleasure.
She woke, her eyes bleary, her body wired and tingling, her mind wondering if what she’d felt in sleep had actually occurred. But no, she was alone, and she hadn’t had sex in months. Until her body was jostled by an outside force and she realized the wall she was slumped against had moved. Up and down, up and down. The wall was so warm and solid.
The bright burn of sunlight sliced its way through the stacks in the woodcutter’s shed, shining upon the male hand resting limply on the top of her thigh. The sight of it pulled her back to reality. She’d fallen asleep in William’s arms, curled slightly onto her side, her cheek against his shoulder. Suddenly uncomfortable, she tried to pull away but his arm tightened around her waist, even though he seemed to still be asleep.
Then he, too, blinked awake. His hold on her loosened and she slid away, coming to her knees between his legs. His hair was dry now, wavy and shining yellow and brushing his chin. The soft growth of his facial hair glinted red-gold.
The way their eyes locked reminded her of the couple in her dream.
“I meant to stay awake and keep watch.” His voice was deep and groggy from sleep, and it didn’t do anything to cool or soothe the need in her body, nurtured from the intensity of the dream. “I’m sorry for—”
The sound of a horse and wagon rolling by outside drew his attention and he peered between the wood piles. All of Parramatta seemed to be awake, as evidenced by the creak of wheels as they splashed through puddles, the stamp of horses in the mud, the low drum of human voices calling to one another as life resumed after the storm.
Sera’s stomach growled.
“I feel the same.” He rubbed his flat belly. The motion undid the loose top button of his shirt, exposing a bit of chest.
She couldn’t afford to be distracted. The town was coming alive outside, and she could only assume someone would need dry wood relatively soon.
“We need to get out of here,” she said.
“We…” he echoed, the word hanging there between them.
She couldn’t believe she was about to say this to a man she’d only just met, but: “I don’t think we should separate.”
The way he curled his fingers on the tops of his thighs made it seem as if he was trying to keep from reaching for her. She understood the feeling.
His eyebrows pinched together. “I don’t think so either. I will know what’s happening between us, and I’ve only just found you.”
Suddenly she thought of what she’d meant to tell him last night before the man had come into the church. The time of her birth and the crazy occurrence of her presence in New South Wales had to come out, given all that they’d shared, but it required more than a cursory mention.
“What should we do? Where should we go?”
The way he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his face, was strangely hypnotic. “I don’t know.” Then, with a snarl of frustration, “I don’t know. But we do have to leave here, have to find someplace where no one will know us.”
That wouldn’t be a problem for her, but William was another story. She adjusted the strap to the bag of bottles on her shoulder, reminding her of why she’d come to Parramatta in the first place. “Shit,” she whispered under her breath.
He heard it and raised an eyebrow at her in wry, amused shock. “You’ll make me feel back at home on the sea with that mouth.”
The smile that flickered across her face was brief and entirely unexpected. “I have to go back to Viv’s.”
He frowned. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. He was sick when I left and I have to know if he’s all right. I need to bring him this rum and return his things. Plus, he worries about me. I’d regret just taking off. Lord knows what he would think.” He might assume he’d lost his Mary all over again.
“I’ll come with you then.”
She shook her head. “I can’t have a bolter there. What if someone found out Viv had knowingly hidden you?”
“It’s our only choice.” He got to his feet and cursed bitterly. “Ah, bloody hell. Someone else came with me. I can’t just leave him out there. I need to make sure he’s safe, and then I’ll come to you. We can leave Viv’s together.”
This was news. “Who?” She also stood, her body weak from hunger and thirst. “Someone to do with—?” She toggled a finger between them.
He waved a hand. “No, no. Another bolter. I am…responsible for him. Like your Viv, he would fear the worst if I didn’t return, and I couldn’t do that to him.”
Outside, two men walked close to the woodshed, their conversation about sheep.
“It’s possible there’s word going around about me,” William whispered once the men had passed. “And if the tavern keeper last night had caught sight of you when he discovered us between the barrels, you could be in danger, too.”
“I don’t think he did. But Amherst, the chemist, knows my face.”
“Then it’s best we’re not seen together in daylight.”
“Right. We have to split up.” She rolled her lips together, thinking. “I’ll head through town, make my movements look obvious, like I’m alone and I’ve got nothing to hide. If the tavern keeper or the church guy are looking for two p
eople, I may slip under their radar.”
He looked at her funny, then wrinkled his nose. “I only understand half of what you say.”
Crap. She’d never had to be aware of her phrases before. “Never mind. Can you get to Viv’s?”
“I can. And I will. Where is it?”
“Directly west. Last settlement before the wild. The only sheep station around. There’s a hill directly north of it with a giant, twisted white tree on top.”
William just stood there, and she could almost guess what he was thinking, because she thought it, too. What if they separated now and never saw each other again?
“When will you come?” she asked, slightly breathless.
He touched her. Just a brush of fingertips to the back of her left hand, below the cuff. The rapturous buzz filled her mind and body again, and a husky female voice, the words indistinct and strange, flooded Sera’s ears.
“When I can,” he replied.
A good-bye seemed like a terrible thing, a final thing, so she didn’t give one. With an inward groan of regret, she tugged her hand away. Blindly reaching behind her, she clasped the door handle and wrenched it open. He watched her the whole time. And then she was out in the bright, hot Australian sun.
While she wouldn’t have called Parramatta crowded by a long shot, far more people were around than yesterday during the height of the storm. The church was at her back, Amherst’s was coming up on her left, the brothel and tavern on her right. She kept Viv’s coat wrapped tightly around her body and the hat brim pulled low. Her boots sloshed through the mud and she had to slow her steps so the dirty water wouldn’t splash up her legs, when she really wanted nothing more than to sprint out of town.
A horse and wagon drew up in front of Amherst’s. The gaunt, surly man at the reins turned to the woman sitting next to him and barked, “Get out, Elizabeth.”
The woman didn’t respond. Didn’t move.
“Now.”
The hate laced through the man’s tone snatched a series of vivid memories from the recesses of Sera’s mind and blinked them in front of her eyes like an old, broken movie.
The Isis Knot Page 11
