Night in Eden (18 page)

"Why did you buy these for me?"

His eyes narrowed. "Masters are required to provide their assigned servants with clothing."

She shook her head once, slowly, from side to side. "Not this kind of clothing."

"What do you think?" he asked, his voice harsh. "That I bought it for you as a bribe? To tempt you into becoming my mistress?"

It was exactly what she thought. For a long moment her frightened eyes held his hard, hungry ones. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came
out. The tension between them leapt and crackled almost unbearably.

He turned away and went to lean against the veranda post and stare out over the pale silver thread of the river that curled between the dark trees. She saw the flare of his tinderbox and realized he was lighting another cheroot. The silence was filled with the exhalation of his breath. They both watched the smoke curl away toward the evening sky.

"That's not why I bought it, Bryony," he said. He swiveled around to look at her, although in the growing darkness his eyes were mere shadows and she couldn't read the expression hidden there.

"Then, why? Because you felt sorry for me? I don't want your pity."

"It wasn't pity. It was..." He drew hard on his cigar. "Oh, bloody hell." He exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "You smile so seldom. I just wanted to give you something to smile about."

It was the last thing she expected him to say, and it touched her more deeply than she'd have imagined possible.

She kept the dress.

Two days later, he surprised her by offering to build a dairy for her.

She was in the kitchen, heating irons before the fire so she could press his shirts, when she heard him calling her. Hastily wiping her sweaty palms on her apron, she walked to the doorway and stopped short.

He stood in the golden, slanted sun of late afternoon, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his strong, tanned forearms. His broad-brimmed hat was pushed back far on his head, revealing startlingly blue eyes that sparkled with amusement and something else. Something hungry and quietly speculating.

He held the end of a rope halter in one hand. The other
end was attached to a brown cow that stretched out its head and went
mooooo
when Bryony appeared.

"Before I go to the trouble of building you a dairy," he said, resting his hands on his hips, "I want to be sure you know what you're doing."

She met the challenge in his words and threw it right back at him. "Tie her up at the bail, and I'll get a bucket and a stool."

She'd seen a bucket and stool in the kitchen, but the bucket needed to be washed, so it was a few minutes before she came out again. He had tied the cow to the bail and secured her with a leg rope, and now stood with his back braced against the sun-warmed brick wall of the kitchen, his arms crossed at his chest, his hips shot forward in that way of his.

"Where's her calf?" Bryony asked, positioning her stool beside the cow's flank. The cow turned around and stared at her suspiciously.

"In a holding pen behind the barn."

She set the bucket on the ground between the cow's rear legs, and watched the cow kick it over. She picked up the bucket. "Has this cow ever been milked before?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." She turned to look up at him, and saw his lips curl in amusement. "I decided to be nice to you."

Bryony reached for the udders, and the cow laid back her ears.

The air filled with the
whirr
of milk hitting the bucket. Bryony knew what she was doing, but barely. It had been a long time since she'd milked a cow, and she'd never done it all that much. But she managed to carry it off, sighing with relief when the bucket was full and she could stand up.

She put her hands at the base of her spine and arched her back. Then she realized the movement thrust out her breasts, and she dropped her hands almost at once. But not before his heated gaze had fastened onto the bodice of her gray work dress.

"I noticed there are some settling pans and a skimmer in the store," she said, suddenly self-conscious. "If you could send someone to—"

She was on the veranda, pouring the milk into the settling bowls and covering them with damp muslin when Hayden strolled back up from taking the cow to the barn. He leaned against the veranda post and watched her.

"Where did Sir Edward Peyton's niece learn to milk cows?"

"From my mother," she said simply, not looking up at him. "My grandfather was a local landowner, but my grandmother started life as a kitchen maid. My mother always said people go down as well as up in this world, and I'd better be prepared for whatever might happen to me. Prophetic, wasn't it?"

She paused for a moment, then went on. "My uncle didn't want my father to marry her, even though she'd inherited all of her father's property." He watched her smooth the muslin cover over one of the bowls with exaggerated care. "She wasn't considered good enough for a man who was a Peyton of Peyton Hall and an officer in the King's Navy."

Hayden stood gazing down at the proud angle of her head. "But he married her anyway?"

"Yes."

"He must have loved her very much."

Her hands stilled at their task. "Yes, he did. Their love for each other was... something beautiful to see. I don't think either of them could have lived without the other, so perhaps it was best..." She swallowed hard. "They drowned together, you see. When I was thirteen."

He studied the gentle tilt of her nose, the flaring of her cheekbones, the sensuous curve of her lips. "Did she look like you?"

"My mother?" She glanced up.

"Yes."

Her eyes met his briefly, and whatever she saw there made her turn away and blush. "I have her coloring. But as to looking like her... I don't know. She was very beautiful. And vibrant. I used to think she glowed with the joy of life." A sad smile played about her lips. "It was my mother who named me Bryony. She loved the white bryony and black bryony that grow wild along the hedgerows in Cornwall. She used to say she named me after it because I was born when they're in fruit, and because she wanted me to grow up to be as wild and free and beautiful as a wayside vine."

Her voice broke slightly, and she turned away from the settling bowls to go and stand at the edge of the veranda, looking up the valley toward the purpling ridge of mountains. "My uncle hated my name, just as he hated my mother. When she and my father died and I had to go live with him, he said I was like a wild filly that needed to be broken. He did his best to break me."

Hayden walked up behind her, resisting with difficulty the urge to pull her into his arms and soothe away the pain he sensed within her. "He didn't succeed," he said softly.

She turned around. "No." An evening breeze caught a strand of her flame-tinged, dusky hair and fluttered it across her pale face. "It took marriage and prison to do that."

He reached out and tucked the loose strand behind her ear. "No," he said, trailing the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "Your name still fits."

The work on the dairy began early the next morning.

Before she'd even finished the breakfast dishes, the men were already digging the foundations. To keep out the fierce heat of New South Wales, half the dairy was being built underground, the log walls reinforced with mud some two feet thick.

Bryony watched the progress on the dairy off and on throughout the day. When she stepped outside after putting Simon down for his afternoon nap, she discovered that Hayden had joined the men working to lay down the three to four feet of stringy bark that would act as insulation beneath the roof.

He had stripped down to his shirt and breeches. His fine white shirt was dark with sweat and clung to him, clearly outlining every bulge and hollow of muscle as he worked. His hair curled damply at the nape of his neck. Even the dark hair on his bared forearms glistened with sweat.

As she watched, he paused for a moment to lift his hat from his brow and wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. The sun glinted off his dark head, and sparkled on the bead of sweat that rolled down his cheek.

He was big and he was strong, and he was so much a man, and a slow, sweet yearning curled up within her as she stared at him. He made her acutely aware of her own body, of the fullness of her breasts and the flannel of her petticoat lying heavy against her thighs as
he stood beneath the hot Australian sun, watching him. She felt, in that moment, wholly in tune with herself, with the world around her, with him, and she wanted him so badly that she almost wished she were a different kind of woman. The kind of woman who could become his mistress, gladly. The kind of woman who knew nothing of pride and principles, but only of desire, and the slow, delicious ecstasy of a man's body, driving deep within her.

Then he turned, his arm falling to his side, and stared back at her.

"Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross..." Bryony gave Simon a little jiggle, and he giggled his delight. "... to see a fine lady upon a white horse..." Another jiggle was rewarded with another giggle, and this time Bryony laughed, too. "... with rings on her fingers and bells—"

She broke off at the sound of a shout from the yard. She knew the rhythms and sounds of the homestead by now. Something was wrong.

Lifting the baby to her hip, she walked out the open French doors to the veranda.

Will Carver, mounted on a big gray, thundered into the yard and reined his horse in hard. He pulled behind him a bound man who half ran, half stumbled in the effort to keep from being dragged over the rough ground by the short length of rope that tied him to the overseer's saddle. When the overseer stopped and released the tension on the rope, the man collapsed.

Bryony heard the scrape of boots on the stone flagging of the veranda and turned to see St. John emerge from the house. He had washed and changed, but his clean shirt
still hung open and his hair curled damply against his tanned neck.

"What is it, Will?" he asked, fastening his shirt as he stepped down into the yard.

"This." Carver reached behind him to untie something from his saddle and held out what looked like an iron rod with the letters Q8J on the end. "I caught him red-handed, Cap'n. He had the fire lit and one of yer calves hogtied when I rode up. There was another one with him what got away, but not before I seen who it was."

Hayden walked over to gaze down at the man on the ground. Bryony had seen the young man around a few times, usually with Quincy, although she didn't really know him.

"Jennings," he said, staring down at the man with an expression so cold it sent a shiver up Bryony's spine. "Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

The man rolled over. His chest heaved painfully. He was covered in so much blood and dirt Bryony couldn't even see where he was hurt. "I ain't got nothin' to say, Captain," he managed to gasp.

"You don't deny it?"

"I don't deny it."

There was a long pause, during which none of the many people assembled in the yard made a sound. Hayden turned back to his foreman. "Put him in the lockup room for now. It's too late to take him into Green Hills tonight." He glanced over at the crowd of men who had gathered outside the huts. "Gideon, take a couple of men to help carry him in there and get him cleaned up. McDuff and Butler, saddle up and ride out with Carver to find the other man."

"We'll get the little son of a bitch, Cap'n." Carver spat into the dust.

Hayden eyed his overseer hard. "Just get him, Will. Don't kill him." The two men shared a look Bryony couldn't begin to
understand. Then the overseer reined his horse toward the stable. "Yes, sir."

A feeling of foreboding stole over Bryony as she hurried down the steps. "Who is it?" she asked. "Who is the other man?"

"Will Carver hates Quincy. You know that. How can
you believe him in this?" she demanded.

Hayden sat at his desk, mending a pen. The night was unusually warm and sultry, and he was stripped down to his breeches. Lamplight spilled across his cheek, throwing the other half of his face into hard shadows as he turned to stare at her. "It isn't just a matter of believing Carver," he said. "What do you want me to do, Bryony? Take you down to the store so you can hear it from Quincy himself? He doesn't deny it."

She hesitated, one hand on the frame of the door to his room. Simon was asleep, and the house around them was dark and still. They usually avoided each other after the sun went down. But the tension that thrummed between them tonight was angry and cold.

She twisted her fingers through her apron, but kept her gaze fixed firmly on his forbidding face. "What are you going to do with him?"

Carefully setting aside his pen, he stood up and came toward her. "I'm taking them both into Green Hills tomorrow, to the magistrate. Why?"

Bryony's stomach churned. "You told me you don't flog your assigned servants."

He came to a halt in front of her, his uncomfortable eyes staring down at her. "This isn't some lost pig, or even a lamb that ended up as someone's unauthorized dinner. Do you understand what was going on here? Jennings' sentence expires next year. He was planning to
use my calves and lambs as the nucleus for his own herd. Those men—"

"Quincy isn't a
man.
He's a boy."

He was close enough for her to see the shadow of the day's growth of beard on his cheeks and the creases left by the years he'd spent laughing with Laura. Abruptly he turned away. "Quincy's old enough to get into a man's kind of trouble."

"But he—"

He whirled back around suddenly. His gaze slammed into her like a fist in her stomach. She could see his pulse beating, hard, beneath the dark skin of his bare throat as he controlled himself with visible effort. "Enough, Bryony."

"But—"

Something flashed in his eyes, something bright and dangerous. "Enough!"

Bryony couldn't watch them drive away in the morning. She waited until the sound of the cart wheels and horses' hooves had faded with the distance, then she went into the parlor and uncovered Laura's harp. But while the music soothed her, it offered no real solace, so in the end she turned to the earth. She worked in Laura's garden all day.

She was planting a hedge of lavender cuttings when they brought Jennings and Quincy back. She stood up and brushed the warm earth from her old skirt with a shaking hand. She tried not to hurry, but when she came within sight of the yard and saw only Hayden St. John, mounted astride his big bay, and Will Carver, driving what looked like an empty cart, she broke into a run.

She was halfway across the yard when Gideon caught
her in his arms and spun her around. "Don't look, Bryony."

"What do you mean, don't look?" She clutched at his shirtfront. "Oh God, Gideon! What has he done to them? Where are they?"

"They're lying in the cart."

"In the—"

She whirled back around. Some of the men were lifting two limp forms from the bed of the cart. At first she thought they'd been hanged, but hanging was neat and relatively quick. These men had suffered and bled. Their clothing was dark and stiff with their blood.

"Let me go, Gideon," she said, her voice low and calm.

He let her go. She walked slowly across the rest of the yard, her head held high, her hands pressed to her stomach in an effort to still the churning nausea.

Hayden had just handed his horse to one of the men. His face was remote, hard, his eyes forbidding. He was a stranger.

She walked right up to him. "You had them flogged."

A muscle tensed in his jaw. "Yes."

"How many? How many lashes?"

"Jennings was given three hundred."

She felt herself flinch, as if one of those lashes had landed on her. "And Quincy?"

He started to turn away, but she reached out and put a hand on his arm, stopping him. "How many did Quincy get?"

She could feel his steely strength through the fine cloth of his coat sleeve. It was as if she'd suddenly seized hold of the hot end of Jennings' branding iron. He swung slowly back around, his angry gaze colliding with hers. She let him go.

He took a step toward her and leaned into her, so close she wondered that the fury in those blue eyes didn't scorch her. "Go into the house. Now."

"How m—"

He laid his hands on her shoulders, his grip hard and a
little cruel. "You're not my wife, Bryony," he said, his voice low, his tone cutting through her in a way that hurt far more than the angry pressure on her shoulders. "You're not even my bloody mistress, although I doubt there's a man here who doesn't think you are. It's not your place to question me, let alone challenge me.
Now, get into the house."

His hands fell from her shoulders, and he swung abruptly away, dismissing her. Bryony went rigid. She turned and forced herself to walk slowly back toward the house, her head high.

She swallowed hard, trying to hold back the fiery well of anger and hurt that burned within her.

Quincy had been given seventy-five lashes.

It was Gideon who finally told her, when he came up to the kitchen that evening to help her fetch the water and wood.

She was kneading the dough for St. John's damper when he told her. She stopped dead still, feeling as if a piece of her—an important piece—had just been torn out and thrown away.

Gideon eyed her dispassionately for a moment, then said, "Yer wrong, Bryony—what yer thinkin'."

Bryony pushed her fist into the dough the way she'd like to slam it into Hayden St. John's hard, handsome face. "How do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Yer thinkin' he's no different from the others—the ones like Sir D'Arcy Baxter."

"He is no different."

"Isn't he? Bryony, if Jennings and Quincy belonged to Baxter, they'd be dead now—or on their way to a penal colony like Norfolk Island, which is worse'n being dead, in most people's way of thinkin'."

"The magistrate hands down the sentence, not the master."

"Sure he does. And why do you think the Cap'n went into Green Hills yesterday with those men himself, instead of jist sendin' 'em in to the magistrate with Will Carver?"

Bryony shrugged.

"He went to make sure the magistrate didn't hang 'em, that's why he went. And he's the only reason those two men are over there in their hut nursin' bloody backs, 'stead of bein' rolled up in bark and lyin' at the bottom of some unmarked grave."

She threw the damper into the Dutch oven and thumped it down among the coals on the hearth. "He didn't have to send them to the magistrate at all," she said, shoveling more hot coals onto the lid.

"Oh? And what was he supposed to do? Let them and any other man who takes the fancy steal all his cows and sheep?"

"Quincy is only fourteen, damn it. He's not a man. And I don't care how many calves he brands or servant women he seduces," she added, picking up the basket she used to gather greens, "he is still only a boy."

Hayden sprawled in his chair at the end of the dining table, his legs thrown out before him, his waistcoat unbuttoned, a crystal glass cradled in the palm of the hand that rested against his crotch. A bottle of port stood open and nearly empty at his elbow.