Boxed Set: Innocent Immigrant (20 page)

I was exhausted and satiated, as I imagine the men were, because all three of us collapsed in a heap on the bed.

After we recovered, they spoiled me, bringing a warm washcloth and tea to revive me.

Both men told me how much they loved me and how perfect I was for them, but still I was troubled by the niggling problem with Ari. I hoped it would correct itself but at odd moments it came to mind and bothered me.

Book 3, Part 9

ARI

It was two weeks since I’d first claimed Katie’s beautiful arse. Our lives were certainly enriched by her presence in our family, and as we sat around the table enjoying our breakfast I don’t remember ever feeling happier. Huhu, my pet tui, perched at the edge of the table drinking from the little dish of honey and water Katie prepared each morning. The talkative bird had also taken a strong liking towards her.

The mood was light, and Griff was teasing Katie about a new shipment that was arriving in town for the mercantile store.

“I think we should have a private showing so that our pretty wife can have first dibs on the delivery of lingerie and pretty corsets the Mercantile has arriving on the steamer this morning. We can examine the goods before they’re sent over to the store. What do you think, Katie?”

“Oh, I think I can wait,” Katie replied. “I don’t think there’s going to be too much demand for that sort of thing when most of the women in town are all but imprisoned at the Mission.” She grinned back at Griff.

The garments she’d arrived with had been functional and plain, and Griff and I had been talking about taking her for a trip to the large stores in Auckland to treat her to some new clothing. Already I was envisioning Katie dressed in pretty, more daring lingerie, and I was surprised from my fantasy when she changed the subject.

“There is something I want to talk to my men about,” she said.

In the first place, I loved how she referred to us possessively as
her men
, but the earlier lightness in her manner had certainly vanished.

“You can talk to us about anything, Katie, you know that,” I said.

“It’s a delicate matter.”

“She’s blushing,” Griff said, his eyes flashing with lust the way they always did any time Katie became coy and uncertain.

My stomach had tightened because I had a feeling I knew what it was she wanted to say.

“I’m puzzled about something, and I wonder if my men have made a decision between them...without my consideration. I thought that we were to make all decisions between the three of us.”

Griff’s eyebrows shot up, a look of bemusement crossing his face. “All decisions, Katie, except for the ones we would never involve a woman in.”

“I see—”

“But as we have no idea what you’re talking about, you’ll have to enlighten Ari and me.”

Her eyes swept down to her teacup as if the answer lay in the leaves that littered the bottom. She huffed out a breath as her head snapped up. “Why won’t Ari finish inside me?” she blurted.

Fuck.
My stomach went from tight to knotted in an instant. I glanced at Griff, who was frowning in a manner that meant he would take good time to consider the subject. Katie was fidgeting, and the pause in conversation grew to an uncomfortable silence. Both of them looked to me for an answer.

“I...I do,” I stuttered. That was true, in a sense, but I knew what Katie meant. I only came in her arse, or her mouth. Shame burned my face as I pushed my chair away from the table and stumbled from the room.

“Ari!”

I heard Griff’s call as the porch door slammed behind me.

“Do not leave while we’re discussing this.”

As his words hit me, I increased my pace to a jog and headed for the paddock to check on the mares and foals. Then I’d get straight to the stables where the presence of the workers would prevent any continuation of the discussion.

~o0o~

GRIFF

Poor Katie was in tears, and I didn’t know whether to stay and comfort her or to go and deal with Ari. I chose Katie because the way my hands had curled into tight fists I knew that until my temper had eased, I’d have trouble curbing my desire to thump him. I was furious with the idiot.

I took Katie into my lap and held her as she wept and declared all kinds of nonsense about how Ari didn’t love her. That just made me angrier because I knew that Ari’s feelings for Katie were as strong and overwhelming as mine.

Finally, her tears eased, and I wiped her eyes and sat her up. “Better now?” I asked.

She nodded and gave me a small smile. “I’ve ruined everything,” she said. “I should have kept my thoughts to myself.”

I tapped her nose and told her she must always speak out if something concerns her. “Leave it to me for now.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, as much with her words as the anguish saddening her emerald eyes.

“What I would like to do is beat some sense into him. But what I’m going to do is talk. Trust me that I know Ari well, and I believe I have an idea as to what troubles him. Don’t you worry, sweetheart, I’ll sort this out.” The problem was, if my idea as to his problem was correct, I had no idea how I’d convince him to change his mind.

“Maraea will be here soon. It’s your baking day, isn’t it?” I hoped a change of subject would improve Katie’s mood.

“Yes, we’re going to make pies; sweet ones and meat ones so you can look forward to a hearty evening meal.”

“Are you going to be okay, now?”

She sprang from my lap and assured me she would be fine.

My heart was heavy as I went to find Ari at the stables.

He saw my approach and called Josiah, one of the farmhands to help him with repairing a hinge on a loose box door. It was a ploy to stall our conversation, so I stopped Josiah in his tracks with a stern shake of my head and sent him out of the barn. Ari had clearly not been in a pleasant mood since he arrived at the stables because the poor lad scurried off with a look that spoke of relief.

“In there.” I pointed to the loose box.

“There are men about.”

“Then we’ll have to keep our voices down.” I waited until Ari entered the loose box before I followed him and positioned myself so that I blocked his exit.

“Tell me what’s going on, Ari. I’ve had Katie up at the house, sobbing her heart out because she thinks you don’t love her and that she’s come between you and me. She’s going to take some convincing that that isn’t true—”

“Maybe it is true.”

“Nonsense.” It couldn’t be true. I’d watched Ari and Katie together, and not just in bed, but around the farm, in the house. They truly appeared to enjoy each other’s company and the way Ari’s face lit up when she entered a room was not something he could fake. “You won’t convince me that you’d prefer to have Katie gone from our house—”

“Katie shouldn’t leave; I’ll go.”

Jesus. This was turning from bad to worse—now both of them were threatening to leave. I sucked in a breath, trying to appease my thundering heart. I was warring between taking a commanding stance and ordering him back to the house so the three of us could sort this out, and, taking a gentle approach to work at getting him to explain his concern.

I stepped towards him and placed a hand on his arm. He flinched as if my touch had branded him. I kept my voice low and calm. “Hey, Ari, you have to tell me what’s wrong. We’re friends, lovers...does our six years together mean nothing to you? I don’t want you to go, and neither does Katie.”

“There’s no room for me in your marriage, Griff. You and Katie need to settle into your life together without me hanging around. She’s wonderful...you’re wonderful...”

His words sounded to me like an excuse rather than the root of the problem.

“Talk to me, Ari.”

He shook his head, eyes downcast. “There’s nothing more to say. She’s...Katie...she’s too special to be spoiled by me. I’m staying down here from now on. I’ll sleep in the loft—”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Now I was angry, my voice raised to a point where I had to gather control so as not to alert the workers to our discussion. “If you refuse to share our bed,
for the time being
, then you will return to your own bed in the house.”

He pulled himself straight and looked directly in my eyes. “Don’t, Griff, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s right; I don’t, and I won’t until you tell me what’s troubling you.”

“I can’t.”

With that, I heard the blast of a ship’s horn. It would be the
SS Ngapipi
ready to drop anchor.

“Bloody hell! I have to get down to the ship.” I took Ari in my arms trying to force as much of my strength into him to keep him steady. “We haven’t finished, Ari, we’ll talk again when I return. Make sure you’re up at the house for lunch with Katie, please. She needs you. She’s still confused about this morning, and I don’t want her stewing on it all day. Do that for me?”

Ari never replied, and I had the feeling he’d be resolute in his decision to stay away from the house and Katie.

Book 3, Part 10

KATIE

Of course, Maraea immediately sensed something was wrong, and she spent some time encouraging me to share my problem with her. I talked around it and pretended it was just a bit of discord between us, something to do with having to get used to living under new circumstances and the trouble I’d had on my visit to town.

“We talked about your trouble in town with the Pastor the other day, Keiti. At the time, you had very strong thoughts on the matter and decided the Pastor a jealous fool. Surely you haven’t changed your heart about that now?”

I hadn’t, of course; I was simply trying to steer Maraea off the subject. We were peeling apples together for the pies, and she took my knife from my hand and asked me to sit at the table.

“Let me bring you tea, and we can talk properly, the way the gentlewomen do.” She chuckled as she filled the kettle. “I have something to share with you that might help with the thing that’s troubling you right now.”

How she knew my problem without my having voiced it was beyond my comprehension, but it did give me an idea that perhaps meeting Pastor Mackay in town was part of what tormented Ari.

While Maraea fixed the tea, I set the table with cups and saucers, and butter and jam for the freshly-made pikelets; a sort of small pancake Maraea had taught me to make. She had removed her pinafore to sit at the table and judging by the look on her face, she had something serious to tell me.

“This is our private talk, Keiti, just you and I. You’re not to tell Ari what I’m telling you, but I think it will help you to understand him.”

Of course, I wouldn’t betray her confidence but my stomach churned at the idea of her telling me something so dire that it could not be shared. “Certainly, go on.”

She took my hand and squeezed it; her brown skin such a contrast to my pale hand she clutched that I believe we both stared for a moment at our connection.

“This Keiti,” she lifted our hands and gave them a single shake, “these differences bring Ari much heartache.”

“But he mustn’t think—”

“Shh, I talk now and you listen.” She nodded as if settling something in her mind, and the entire time she talked, she kept her palm covering my fist.

“You know, Keiti, Ari had a difficult life. His father disappeared back to his English home after he was threatened by his mother’s family for making her bear a half-colonial child.
Hāwhe-kāehe
or half-caste, like me, isn’t considered to be a bad thing, but within Ari’s family group, his
whanau,
they did not approve of cohabitation with the Pākehā.

“Ari has always felt in his heart that he belonged neither with the Māori or the Pākehā; as if he straddles two worlds, but cannot settle in one of them. At times, this made him very sad, and when as a young man, he was taken in at the Mission by Pastor Mackay to learn the ways of the Colonial, Ari was treated poorly. I think the Pastor had little inclination to do more than work Ari like a slave, and use him as one, too. That is where Griff rescued him and together they made their own family.”

My presence had come to wreck the only family Ari has known. I knew it this morning: that I should either go or make a different arrangement for living here.

“So, it is my coming to the house that has upset Ari’s disposition?”

“Keiti, no. I believe Ari has very deep feelings for you, and it would cause him pain if you were to leave. Because you are married to Griff, you are the wife of both men. If you can live in harmony with this arrangement, I believe you will all be very happy. But there is something very important for you to understand. Ari will not want to make a baby with you. It would cause him much pain to bring a child into the world who he believed must endure the same life of never belonging, the way Ari has.”

This explained so many things for me, but it also filled me with anguish for I believed that neither Griff nor I shared these feelings for any child I might bear. “You are also
hāwhe-kāehe
, Maraea. Do you feel the same way as Ari?”

She shook her head. “Not me. There are many like us, with Māori and Pākehā parents, and we are treated no differently among our people. What Ari feels comes from his heart.”

I planned to speak to him, to try and change the pain in his heart when he came for the noon-day meal, but he never showed, and I ate alone.

For the following week, Ari appeared only at the evening meal and despite Griff and I asking him to stay, he disappeared from the house as soon as the meal was done. I learned he was sleeping in the loft above the stables, and it saddened me that he had taken a place with the animals. Often Griff would follow him down there and always return in a dark mood, and it had now reached the stage where neither of the men would speak to me about the ever-increasing discord in our relationship.

The day came when I could no longer tolerate the situation, and I decided to take matters into my own hands seeing as my men were making such a poor effort solving the problem themselves.

We’d finished the evening meal, and I stood to clear the plates from the table. Ari stood too, about to make off.