Night in Eden (16 page)

"Because I'm not a whore," she said quietly.

"Bloody hell." He straightened up, towering over her. "I'm talking about making you my mistress, not turning you into a whore."

She scrambled to her feet and backed away from him. "And what exactly is a mistress except one man's private whore?"

"You're looking at this all wrong, Bryony." He took a step toward her. "I want you to think about it. Consider it."

She flung up one hand, to ward him off, and he stopped. "No. Don't you see? When they made me a convict, they took away from me everything they could. My freedom. My children. My home. But things like my pride and my principles, they're in here." She curled her hand into a fist and pressed it tight against her breast. "No one can take those away." She dropped her hand, still clenched, to her side. "And I'm not about to give them to you. You can force me. But I will never come to you willingly."

He let his breath out in a long, ragged, frustrated sigh. "I don't want to take your pride, Bryony. And I don't want to destroy your principles, either. I only want to give you pleasure. It can be good between us. Think about it."

"No."

She thought she saw a glitter of anger in his eyes. But he reached out his hand and ran the backs of his fingers lightly down the side of her neck. "Think about it," he said softly. And before she could say no again, he turned around and left.

She heard the front door of the house slam behind him, and sank down on her bed, hugging herself, almost quivering with reaction.

She had come so close. So close to giving herself to him. She still couldn't believe it had happened. How could she have allowed herself to react to him that way? To let him see how much she desired him?

It was because it had all happened so fast, she decided, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, as if she were suddenly cold. That was it. She had lost control because of the shock of finding herself in his arms. Because of the swift, unexpected intensity of her arousal. She hadn't been prepared. Next time she would be prepared.

Her hands stilled at the thought.
Next time.
He had decided he wanted her for his mistress, and Hayden St. John was not the type of man to give up easily. There would be a next time, and a time after that, and a time after that, she was sure of it. And each time she would be tempted. Each time she would have to fight not only him, but herself.

He didn't come back for dinner.

Gideon walked up to the house a few hours later and told her the master had ridden into Green Hills and didn't expect to be back until sometime the following day. She hadn't realized how tense she was about seeing him again until she felt herself sag in relief.

The next morning, she decided it was time to introduce Simon to solid food.

She supposed in some way it was a result of her confrontation with his father. She didn't know how her refusal of Hayden was going to affect her future at Jindabyne, but if there was any chance that he might send her back to the Factory, then the sooner Simon became accustomed to solid food, the better.

She sat beside the dining-room table, Simon balanced in her lap, and dipped one of Laura's silver relish spoons in a bowl of fine, thin porridge. "Come on, Simon," she coaxed. "Open up."

Simon eyed the unfamiliar concoction with decided suspicion. She touched the spoon to his lips, and he sucked it inside...

Then opened his eyes wide and made a sound that sounded suspiciously like
"yuk."

Bryony laughed. "It can't be that bad."

A long shadow fell across the polished surface of the dining-room table. "If you made it, it probably is."

Bryony looked up to find herself staring into Hayden St. John's startlingly blue eyes. They were narrowed, gleaming with the memory of everything that had passed between them the last time they were alone together. His words might have been light, his tone teasing. But his expression was intense. Tension twanged between them.

He walked forward, not stopping until his knees almost touched her skirt. He peered into the bowl and wrinkled his nose. "What is it, anyway?"

"Rice powder, mixed with milk." She wished he wouldn't stand so close to her. "I made it for Simon. I don't exactly expect him to eat it yet, but I thought it would be good to introduce him to the idea that nourishment comes in more than one form."

His gaze dropped to her breasts. "And what's wrong with the form it takes now?" he asked, his voice low and just a bit wicked.

"N-nothing." Her hand came up to her chest, as if to protect herself from the heat of his gaze, then fluttered away.

He looked at the small bowl of white paste. "Where did you get the milk?"

"Where do you think I got it from?"

He didn't understand at first. But she watched as comprehension slowly dawned. A dark flush spread across his sharp cheekbones, and she stared at him, conscious of an unwelcome softening, a tenderness that bloomed within her at the realization that a man as hard and aggressively masculine as Hayden St. John would actually blush at
the thought of a woman expressing milk from her own breasts.

Disturbed by her own feelings, she pushed the bowl away and stood up, walking to the open French doors to look out toward the distant river curling around the base of the hill.

The late afternoon air was heavy with an approaching storm. Clouds piled up overhead, hanging low and threatening, and the breeze that sent dry leaves scuttling across the veranda was cool and pregnant with the smell of rain.

"It would be better if Simon had access to cow's milk," she said, being careful not to look at Simon's father. "So he could get used to it. I was surprised when we got here and Gideon told me you don't have a dairy."

"I'm trying to build up my herd." He strolled past her onto the veranda, and stood gazing out over the valley, squinting at the coming storm.

She walked to stand several feet away from him. She, too, looked at the storm. "It would only take a few cows. And then we'd have not only milk, but cheese, and butter, and—"

He swiveled his head around, and she felt as if his gaze had slammed into her. "No one here knows a damn thing about keeping a dairy."

"I do."

One dark, flaring eyebrow rose even higher. He leaned back against a veranda post and pulled a cheroot from his pocket. She was acutely, agonizingly aware of him as a man. Of the length of his lean legs, stretched out in front of him. Of the length of his tanned fingers, slowly stroking his cigar. She remembered the way those fingers had felt, stroking her flesh. A silence stretched between them that was taut with emotions that had nothing to do with cows or dairies.

"Well?" she said at last.

He stuck the cigar between his teeth but kept his hard, restless eyes leveled on her face. "Well, what?" She sucked in a deep breath. "May I have a dairy?"

He lit his tinderbox and held it to the cigar. "I'll think about it."

She whirled away, conscious of a turmoil of feelings, but unsure what half of them meant.

"I came here to tell you I'm going to Sydney tomorrow." He exhaled his smoke long and slow. "I'll be gone awhile."

She spun back around as something tight squeezed her chest. She didn't want him around her. She worried about what would happen when they were together. But she found she didn't want him to go away, either. 'Tomorrow?" she said, not quite able to keep the dismay out of her voice.

He nodded, eyeing her through the smoke. "A message came. There's some business I need to attend to. I thought I'd tell you in case you wanted to write a letter to... to someone. I can see that it gets sent on to England for you."

"Th-thank you," she stammered. "Yes, I would like to write."

He straightened up and turned away, stepping off the veranda, headed toward the stables. But he paused for a moment, and twisted around to look at her over his shoulder. "See that your letter is ready tonight," he said. "I leave first thing in the morning."

There was something about his pose that reminded her of Laura's sketch of him, now safely hidden in her bottom drawer. Just the thought of the raw, sexual drawing was enough to make Bryony go hot all over. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat, and all she could do was nod.

And think that it was probably a very good thing he was going away tomorrow, after all.

The candle on Laura's marble-topped bedside table had gutted low in its socket by the time Bryony signed her letter and reached for the blotter.

Since leaving Britain, she'd written Uncle Edward only one other letter, which she'd managed to send from Cape Town. A sailor who couldn't write had dictated a letter for his mother to her, and in exchange he'd promised to see that her letter went out with his. But she'd never really been sure he'd kept his promise.

That first letter had been hard enough to write. To avoid dwelling on the miseries of life on the transport ship, she'd filled her page with talk of Philip, telling Madeline all about her new baby brother. Because it was really Madeline to whom she wrote, Madeline she was desperate to keep from forgetting about her, Madeline whose face she held in her mind now as she described the beauty of the harbor at Sydney, the vivid colors of the birds that flickered through the tops of the gums, the cuddly looking little animal that Hayden told her was called a koala, which she'd seen sleeping in a tree fork.

It was easier by far to tell Madeline about the clear blue Australian sky than to tell her about the muddy grave that held her baby brother now. Easier to tell Uncle Edward about the merino sheep being bred here than to tell him about the man to whom she'd been given to use in any way that a man could use a woman.

She sealed the letter and set it aside, then blew out her
candle to lie awake in the darkness thinking of all the things she couldn't write about to anyone.

Such as the way she felt, sometimes, that she didn't even know herself anymore. It wasn't only her world, her life that had changed, but she'd changed, too. Maybe if she could tell someone about the agony of guilt she carried with her, always, it might be more bearable. Or if she could tell someone about the weight of loneliness and sorrow she sometimes feared would smother her. If she could tell someone about the
fear.
There was so much, so very much she feared.

Oliver's face floated before her, ghastly white against a swirling background of gray.

He was falling away from her, falling down, down, into a sucking mist. Someone was laughing, laughing wildly, and she thought she was the one who was laughing. But that was all wrong, because she hadn't meant to make him fall.

She called out to him, and he looked up at her. And then she realized that he was the one who was laughing, and that he wasn't falling alone. He had her children. Dear God, he was taking her children with him, taking her children away from her.

She could see Madeline's tear-streaked face, see her thin, frail arms reaching up from the swirling gray mist. But Philip had his eyes closed and he looked...

He looked dead.

Bryony screamed and leaned into the abyss as Madeline began to struggle against her father's grip. She could hear her little girl calling to her, over and over again.
Mama!
I'll be good
Mama.
Don't let him take me.
Mama? Mama!

"Bryony."

Rough hands seized her shoulders, holding her back, keeping her from reaching Madeline. She tried to fight—

"Bryony!"

She opened her eyes and stared into Hayden's harsh face as he jerked her up and shook her.

The curtains had been hastily pushed back from the French doors. The uncertain light of a cloud-tossed moon filled the room. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his warm, strong hands still gripping her shoulders.

"It was only a dream, Bryony," he said softly.

She realized she was shaking so badly her teeth chattered. She shook her head. "No it wasn't. It was real."

He relaxed his grip on her shoulders and slid his palms down over her back, pulling her closer, holding her against the warmth of his body. "It was a dream."

Barely realizing what she was doing, Bryony brought her hands up and clung to him, digging her fingers into the muscles at the base of his neck. She must be crying, she thought, because his chest was wet against her cheek and she tasted salt. A great sob racked her body, and he brought one hand up. It hung in the air for a moment, as if he hesitated, then he brought it down on the back of her head and began to gently stroke her hair.

She relaxed against him completely, letting the tears come, holding his warmth and strength to her, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek and luxuriating in the feel of his strong fingers stroking, stroking.

"Who is Madeline?"

Her head fell back, and she stared up into a face that was dark and shuttered—taut with tension, like every muscle in his body.

"Who's Madeline?" he said again.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Madeline... Madeline is my little girl." Her chest lifted with a ragged breath.

His gaze fell to her breasts. She didn't have a night rail, and since she hadn't bothered to tie her shift up
properly after the last time she'd fed Simon, it gaped open, revealing most of her full, swollen breasts.

She thought for a moment he might have shuddered. He released her abruptly and went to stand by the window. He rested one hand against the frame and leaned into it.

"And Oliver?" He twisted around to look back at her over his bare shoulder.

He was half naked, she now realized. He'd pulled on his breeches, but they were only half fastened. He wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Oliver was my husband."

Seconds ticked by. In the distance a dog howled. No, not a dog. She knew by now it was a dingo. Still, he stared at her, his face tight, his eyes glittering bright in the darkness.

'Tell me how you killed him."

She blinked and looked away, bringing her knees up to her chin so she could hug herself. "Don't make me tell you," she whispered.

"I need to know, Bryony."

She could have asked why, but she didn't, because she knew why. She clutched her knees to her chest almost wildly, as if by doing so she could still the rapid thudding of her heart. In the cradle on the other side of the room, the baby stirred.

Hayden shoved away from the window and came to stand beside the bed. He looked down at her, his legs braced wide, his arms folded across his bare chest. She was painfully aware of the sheer, raw power of him, of the nearness of him, of her nakedness beneath the covers and her thin shift.

His lips narrowed into a thin line. "Tell me."

"I'll tell you," she said, feeling a pain in her chest that was almost unbearable. "But not here. Not now."

"Now."

The night was cold, dark. The moon had been hidden completely by clouds. The trees farther up the hill were only restless shadows. He watched Bryony pull her cloak closer to her as she let herself out onto the veranda. All was silent except for the hum of a cicada and the sighing of the wind in the branches of the gums. He drew hard on his cigar. The tip glowed, and his nostrils filled with the acrid smell of burning tobacco.

He pushed away from the veranda post and walked toward her. He'd put on his boots and shirt but not his coat. He felt the sleeves of his shirt nutter against his arms in the wind. He should have been cold, but he wasn't. He burned from within.

"Tell me."

She couldn't seem to look at him. She turned away and went to stand on the edge of the veranda, looking out at nothing. "I found him..." She stopped, drew a jagged breath, and started again. "I found Oliver with another woman." She passed her hand over her eyes, as if to wipe away the vision her words re-created. "We lived in a house on the cliffs above the sea, and I was going for a walk when I saw them. I was..." She paused. "I was very angry. I hit him. I hit him with a stick, and he fell over the cliff. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did."

He came right up behind her. She trembled, but whether it was a reaction to his nearness, or from fear of his intentions, he had no way of knowing.

"Did you love him very much?"

He watched her head lift, watched the night wind catch at her dusky hair and flutter it against her cheek. She swallowed painfully, and he watched the muscles in her slim neck work as he waited for her answer.

"I loved him. I was sixteen when we first met. He seemed all lightness and gaiety and laughter... everything life in my uncle's house was not. I thought that with him I would be free. Happy. So I ran away and married him."

Free and happy, Hayden thought.
Free and happy.

She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. He watched as her hand trailed slowly back down her cheek. "I was happy, for a while. Oh, he'd be moody, but there was always a reason. And then the sun would come out again, and he'd be gay and carefree. Sometimes he was so carefree I'd worry, but he'd only laugh at me—or get angry with me, and accuse me of not having faith in him.

"I tried to have faith in him. Really I did. But slowly I began to realize that he was like a child—a badly spoiled child who'd never grown up. What he wanted, he had to have—thought he could have. No matter how far in debt he was, he was always convinced he was going to come about soon." A sad little smile hovered around her soft lips. "And the amazing thing is, he usually did. He was always lucky." The smile faded. "I think that's why I couldn't believe he was really dead."

"It wasn't your fault."

She turned to look at him. Her face was white, drawn, her eyes dark with sorrow. And he thought he hated Oliver Wentworth for what he had done to this woman.

"Yes it was." Her voice was calm, strong. Like her. "It was fate. And it was his fault. But it was also my fault I've accepted that. I can even bear it. What I can't bear is the way my children have had to suffer for what I did."

He stared at her for a long time, not moving, and something caught at his chest. Something tender and sweet and painful. He wanted to take her in his arms and smooth the sorrow and pain from her face and make her laugh again. Make her feel free again.

But the problem was, that wasn't all he wanted to do. He also wanted to crush her trembling hps beneath his. He wanted to run his hands over her slim, white body and feel her swelling breasts shiver beneath his palms. He wanted to lay her down across his bed and take her. And it wouldn't be a gentle taking, because while there was much that was
tender in his feelings for her, he didn't love her, he just wanted her. And his wanting was hot and hungry and almost dangerously fierce.

He'd come damned close to taking her once already tonight, back there in her bedroom. Even though he knew she was afraid of him, afraid of what he wanted to do to her. Even though he knew she would not give herself to him willingly.

Not yet.

So he was careful not to touch her again. Careful not to hold her in comfort when he knew he'd end up wanting to do more than comfort her. Instead he drew deeply on his cheroot, but it tasted bitter, and it occurred to him he was smoking too damned many of the things lately.

He supposed it gave him something to do with his hands.

"Captain St. John!"

She came running toward him across the yard. She had her skirt and flannel petticoats bunched up in one of her fists, holding them free of her feet while she ran. He could see her shoddy shoes and the coarse stockings that covered her ankles and calves as her legs pumped back and forth. The golden rays of the rising sun touched the dark hair that tumbled out from beneath her cap with a hint of fire. Her lips were parted, and she called again, "Captain St. John!"

He reined in his horse, and she skidded to a halt beside him, holding up something white in her hand. "My letter," she said, breathlessly. "You said you'd take my letter."

He gazed down into her flushed face, and something within him tore painfully at the thought of leaving her, at the thought of how long it would be until he saw her again. He took the letter from her outstretched hand and turned it over. "Sir Edward Peyton," he read. He looked at her again, hard. "Who is Sir Edward Peyton to you?"

She stepped back, as if afraid to stand too close to him. "My uncle. He's my uncle."

"The one who has your daughter?"

"Y-yes."

He tucked her letter into his pocket, touched his spurs to his horse, and rode away.