by Jo Goodman
“Nathan might have tried to take your life,” he said, “but he also tried to save it.”
“Nothing puzzling in that. That’s the kind of mates we are.” He sat up and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I don’t expect you to understand. We go way back, Nathan and me. I took him in, taught him how to live by his wits on streets meaner than anything you have here. He was my protégé and I was his mentor. I looked out for him for years. It was as much a part of my nature as breathing. Even sentenced to Van Dieman’s Land, I looked out for him until I was released and then I didn’t stop thinking about what would become of him. I traveled to Sydney, took a job in a printing shop, and met Mad Irish through some people there.
“He wanted a son and I made myself one to him. I did everything that man ever asked of me, and I came to love him like a father, but I would have given him the short shrift if he hadn’t taken Nathan in when the time came. Irish had no need for two sons, he said, but he hired Nathan on and let Nath prove himself. And Nathan did what I knew he could. Eventually he was moved from the outbuilding where he stayed with the other jackaroos and stockmen to the main house where I lived with Irish. I wouldn’t have thought then that anything could come between us.”
A ring of blue gray smoke circled Samuel’s head. His eyes were hooded as he took Brigham’s measure. The things he was being told now were all new to him. “My daughter came between you.”
Brig shook his head. He stood and poured himself another drink, leaning against the sideboard when he turned to face Samuel again. “Not your daughter. Marcus’s daughter.”
Ballaburn
“She asleep?” Marcus asked as soon as Nathan entered the parlor.
Nathan nodded. “Molly’s staying with her now.”
“Here, help me into my chair,” he snapped. “Never felt so damn helpless as I did when she fainted like that. What was it all about anyway? Or doesn’t she have any spine?”
Nathan didn’t answer right away. He crossed the room and took Irish’s wheelchair from where it had been relegated to the shadows. Pushing it over, he put it in front of Irish and took the blanket from his lap. Irish braced his powerful arms on the arms of the chair and hauled himself into it while Nathan held it steady. Beads of perspiration dotted his wide brow and he mopped them away impatiently.
“Give me that blanket. Can’t stand looking at these pin legs of mine.”
Nathan handed it over silently and poured whiskey into his tea while Irish tucked it in. Behind him he heard Irish wheel around sharply. “Your daughter has a great deal of spirit, Irish,” he said finally. He stirred his tea, dropped the spoon, and turned around. “Don’t crush it because you’re afraid of her.”
Irish practically sputtered. The expression in his cobalt blue eyes was indignant. “Afraid?” he demanded. “Of her? You’re not thinking clearly, Nath.”
Nathan shrugged. “Have it your way. You’ll lose her, too. She’s got spirit sure enough, but she won’t stand for your abuse. She’ll leave Ballaburn and you’ll never get to know her.”
“She’s your wife,” Irish argued sourly. “She’ll stay.”
“I don’t know how seriously Lydia will take our vows now that she knows she’s been tricked.”
“You’ll make her stay. Or you’ll lose the land. It’s a year, remember? We agreed that she had to stay in the country a year.”
“In the country. Not at Ballaburn.”
“Don’t split hairs. That’s not in the spirit of the wager and you know it. She must stay at Ballaburn.”
Nathan’s cup and saucer rattled as he set them down hard. “Word for word,” he said tightly, “the wager with Brig and me was this. Find my child. If Madeline had a son Ballaburn will be split equally among the three of you. But if she’s a daughter, and she’s unmarried, the man who brings her to Ballaburn wedded to him and can keep her in the country a full year after the marriage will receive the lion’s share of the land. The other will receive only the lion.” He raked back his hair, reined in his temper, and proceeded more softly. “The lion, as we both know, is that plot of land extending down from Lion’s Ridge to Willaroo Valley. It’s—”
“A thousand acres,” Irish interjected.
“Of scrub and sand and treacherous gullies. The only part of Ballaburn that amounts to less than nothing. It’s been mined and bored and it’s yielded neither gold nor water. You knew what you were about when you offered it as the loser’s prize. Well, I’ve won, Irish. I’ve brought your daughter to Ballaburn. I can keep her Down Under. But if you want to keep her at Ballaburn that’s your affair.” He started to walk away, going four steps before Irish called out to him.
“Don’t you leave me, damn you!” Irish yelled. “The land isn’t yours yet. The year’s not up and I’m not dead. I don’t even know that she is my daughter. You haven’t offered me proof of that.”
Nathan halted in his tracks and turned slowly. “It’s Nathan you’re talking to. Not Brig. He entertained the idea of bringing a fake, not me.”
Irish’s smile was smug. “That’s why I sent both of you. Knew that together you’d keep each other honest in your own fashion.” He waved Nathan over to the chair he had vacated. “Now sit down and tell me what’s happened. Your letter of two months ago was short on detail and Lord knows I can’t believe half of what I’ve heard since you’ve arrived in Sydney.”
Nathan hesitated. Mad Irish certainly had a way about him. Domineering. Demanding. Impatient. He was also one of the finest men Nathan had ever known. With a self-mocking grin, Nathan sat down and began answering the questions Irish fired at him.
It was at the end of the lengthy interrogation that Molly Adams poked her head through the open doorway. “I’m taking some tea and biscuits to Lydia now,” Molly said. “She’s awake and asking to see you, Nathan.”
Nathan nodded. “Get her whatever else she wants, Molly, and tell her I’ll be right there.”
“She didn’t ask for me?” Irish asked. Though he was unaware of it, Molly and Nathan both heard the thread of hope in his request, the need and anxiety he would not admit.
“Just Nathan,” said Molly. “And you’re lucky, Irish. Unless I miss my guess, she plans to tear a strip off of him.”
“I’m coming,” Nathan repeated. Molly disappeared and he heard her heavy tread on the stairs. “Molly’s probably right about what Lydia wants. You can hardly appreciate what you set in motion, Irish, and goddamn me for wanting what you offered. Ten years ago I would have been satisfied with the lion.”
Lydia was out of bed when Nathan entered the room. The covers on the large four-poster were disheveled as though it had been recently and hastily vacated. On either side of the bed was a large window with cream-colored curtains that were drawn back. Sunlight fell on the hardwood floor in two long rectangular patches. The room itself was exactly the way Nathan remembered it.
There was an armoire situated at an angle in one corner, a highboy dresser, oval tables beneath each window, one with a pitcher and basin and linens, the other with a lamp and a stack of books. A rocker, which was rarely used for anything but a pants rack, sat facing the fireplace. The mantel was bare. Their trunks and valises littered the floor but only some of the luggage was open and no attempt had been made to find a place for any of their belongings.
Lydia was standing in the stream of sunlight. There was a penumbra of soft golden color about her head and wisps of sable hair took on a fiery brilliance. Light glanced off her white shoulders and sifted through the cotton shift she was wearing. She dropped the gown she had been holding over the back of the rocker and her hands fell straight to her sides. She stood there, still and proud and silent, tearing a strip off Nathan with nothing more than her dignity.
Nathan shut the door behind him and leaned against it, waiting. When Lydia stepped out of the sunlight he could see the path of dried tears on her pale face. Her eyelids looked tender and swollen and the expression in her dark blue eyes was not accusing, but grieving.
“I’ve remembered everything,” she said quietly.
His eyes closed briefly and behind him his hands folded into tight fists. There was a deeply felt ache inside him that was only hinted at in his voice. “I thought that you had.”
“I can’t even think how to say how much I despise you.” She raised her arms and crossed them in front of her protectively. “It’s all been a lie.”
Nathan didn’t say anything.
Lydia looked away quickly and forced back the sob that hovered on her lips. After a moment she said, “Tell me about Brigham. Did I really shoot him?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly, as if she expected the answer but had hoped it might be different. “I thought perhaps it was part of the game you both were playing with me, some sort of trickery to make me think I had killed him.”
“No trickery,” said Nathan. He pointed to the open valises. “You were looking for the gun?” She nodded again. “I got rid of it shortly after you found it on Avonlei. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself with it.”
“Or hurt you.”
“That had also occurred to me.”
Unable to meet his eyes, Lydia stared at a point just over Nathan’s left shoulder. “Father Patrick didn’t marry us.”
“No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t.”
“And all that time on board Avonlei...”
“It was as if we were married.”
“As if.” Lydia laughed shortly, without humor. “We weren’t married.”
“No,” he said. “We weren’t. Not then.”
Lydia hugged herself tighter. “God, that I could be so foolish.”
Nathan pushed away from the door and took a step toward her. “Lydia.”
She shook her head furiously, withdrawing into herself to keep him at bay. “No, don’t touch me. I don’t think I could bear it if you touched me.” Her eyes felt gritty and her mouth was dry. “I wanted to believe, I suppose. It could only have happened because I wanted to believe in it so much. There were moments when I thought I was remembering something, moments when I was only a hairsbreadth from awareness, and I beat them down. I know that now. In some small dark corner of my mind I must have been afraid the truth would look like this.” Lydia’s smile was self-deprecating. “Thank you for never saying that you loved me,” she said. “That would have been the worst lie of all.”
She turned away then and went to the window. There were sheep grazing in the meadow and a stockman was currying a horse outside the stable. Lydia fingered the curtains with a hand that trembled. “I want to go home, Nathan. Please say that you’ll help me go home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“All right,” he said heavily. “I won’t do that. Have you thought what it would mean? There’d be an inquiry into Brig’s shooting and possibly a trial. Do you want to face that?”
Lydia blanched, but her voice remained composed. “It happened in your hotel room, Nathan. I was there at your behest. The note, remember? You wanted to see me about Ginny Flynn’s murder. I went there hoping to get back more of my yellow ballgown than the scrap you enclosed in the note.” She glanced over her shoulder at Nathan. There was a line between his brows and his eyes were remote, thoughtful. “No one saw me come and I’m willing to bet no one saw you take me out of there. You’re a far more likely suspect in Brig’s shooting than I’ll ever be.”
“Except for one thing,” Nathan said. “I didn’t do it, Lydia, and you won’t let anyone believe that I did. That’s not your way. You’d never let anyone take responsibility for something you’d done.”
He was right about her, she thought miserably. She had always thought honesty was a virtue and it hurt to have it wielded against her in this mean, backhanded fashion. She remembered the night Brigham had confronted her with such startling clarity that it seemed impossible now to have forgotten it. She could see the events unfold as though she were a spectator and not a participant, and hear her own voice begging Nathan to help her, swearing that she would do anything—even marry him—if only she would not be named a murderer. Had he heard her through his drugged sleep? Had she somehow forced his response?
“It was self-defense,” she said.
Nathan nodded. “I know. I told Irish the same.” When he had mounted the stairs earlier on his way to face Lydia, Nathan vowed that she would only hear the truth from him. She deserved at least that much. Now, faced with the prospect of her leaving, Nathan was sorely tempted to break his vow and beg no one’s forgiveness for it. He had no idea whether Brigham Moore was alive or dead, but he knew what Lydia thought and he could have used it. He didn’t. “I don’t think you killed him, Lydia.”
“I tried to reason with Brig,” she went on, lost in her own thoughts. “He didn’t want to hear anything I had to say.”
Nathan crossed the room and came to stand at Lydia’s back. She had nowhere to go, trapped by his body and the window in front of her. His hands hovered near her shoulders for a moment before they fell back to his sides. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. “I don’t think you killed him.”
Lydia turned suddenly. She stared at Nathan, her eyes wide. “What? How can that be? His pulse…I couldn’t feel a pulse…and there was so much blood.”
“But he was alive when I took you out. And I sent Doc Franklin to see him, gave him instructions to take Brig to your home when he was well enough to travel.” His tone became dry. “Your mother, I believe, will care for him.”
Lydia’s lips parted slightly on a tiny sound of pain. “He was having an affair with my mother, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Her stare was frank. “Were you?”
“God, no.”
She believed him. “That’s something, at least,” she said with bitter sarcasm. “So, the last you know of Brigham Moore is that he is settled on Nob Hill making a cuckold of my father.”
“I don’t know that at all. I told Doc Franklin to take him there. I don’t know if he made it.”
Lydia sidestepped Nathan and sat down on the edge of the bed, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of her shift. “You could have let me think I murdered him.”
“You may have.”
“I know. And I’ll find out when I write to my father. But you could have let me think it now, when quite the opposite may be true. Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t want you to stay here for the wrong reasons,” he said finally. He nudged one of the trunk lids closed with his knee and sat on it. “You shouldn’t be afraid to go back. Even if you killed Brig, even if there is a trial, no jury’s going to convict you. And if he is alive, you shouldn’t have to live one day thinking differently.”
Lydia’s eyes held Nathan’s for several long moments. She was the first to look away. “I’d like to be alone now, if you don’t mind.”
“There’s only one coach in and out of Ballaburn,” he told her. “It’s already gone.”
She nodded. “I know I’m not going anywhere today, but I’d still like to be alone to think about tomorrow.”
The dining room at Ballaburn had a western exposure. The brilliant white sun of the early afternoon had lowered and washed the foothills with pink-and-gold light. Flames crackled in the fireplace behind Irish’s lace at the head of the large table. He looked up at Lydia’s entrance and set down his water glass. His head bowed slightly in acknowledgment of her presence.
Nathan stood, skirted the table, and held out a chair for Lydia on Irish’s left. He felt her infinitesimal start of surprise when she saw Irish’s wheelchair, but her fixed, gentle smile did not falter. He returned to his own seat across from her and struggled for distance in the way he was seeing her and feeling about what he saw.
He was not even certain she would join them for the evening meal, and here she was, freshly bathed and coiffed, every last vestige of traveling dust and weariness washed away. Except for the heavy, faintly slumberous look
of her eyelids, there was no evidence that she had ever cried. She was wearing a deep lavender silk gown with piping, fringe, and buttons all just a shade lighter.
The collar was high and the tight bodice buttoned down the front well below her waist, making her seem breakably slender. She wore gold-and-pearl earrings that swung delicately when she turned her head.
Nathan glanced at her hands and felt a chill creep under his skin that eventually reached his eyes. Lydia was not wearing her ring.
“I’m pleased you decided to join us,” Irish said. “Molly thought you might. She wants you to especially try her bread. It’s just fresh from the oven.”
Lydia looked over the table. There was a steaming leg of lamb, roast chicken, boiled buttered potatoes, mint jelly and gravy, corn and beans, and a covered basket bulging with hot rolls. “Everything smells delicious. May I?” she asked.
Irish nodded. He expected her to fill her own plate. Instead, she bowed her head and said a blessing. Afterward she served him, then Nathan, and finally herself and missed the look that passed from Irish to Nathan, the look that expressed surprise, confusion, and a certain softness of feeling.
“What should I call you?” she asked, turning to Irish as she raised a slice of meat to her mouth. His hesitation almost made her regret the question, for in that moment she saw what he really wanted and it was impossible for her to comply. “I can’t call you Father,” she said gently. “My father’s in San Francisco. I hope you can understand.”
“Samuel Chadwick,” Irish said.
She nodded. “Mother calls you Marcus. Nathan’s always called you Mad Irish.”
Nathan grinned. “I don’t call him Mad Irish to his face, Lydia. No one does. I’d prefer we forget what I call him behind his back.”
