Night in Eden (28 page)

"They're usually acknowledged by the father. Why?"

When she didn't say anything, his hands fell on her shoulders and he backed her up against the side of the house until she could feel the rough, sandstone bricks digging into her shoulder blades. "Why? What are you trying to tell me?"

"The men in the yard are staring."

He cast a quick look over his shoulder to see that it was true, and dragged her through the French doors into the dining room. "Tell me."

"Do I really need to?"

He released her abruptly and took a step back, his breath expelling as sharply as if she'd hit him. He searched her face, but she couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking.

Then he said, "I thought from something you said the other night that you'd be pleased."

Unconsciously, she pressed her hands to her belly. "I
am. Or at least, I was. Until yesterday. I knew I wanted another child—wanted your child. But I don't think I'd stopped to consider what it would mean."

She turned away from him. "We're so isolated here. It's just you and me and Simon. And Ann and Gideon and the men, of course. But there's been no one to look askance at me, no one to condemn us. No one to make me feel like a whore carrying a man's bastard child. Which is what I am."

"Don't say that." He seized her arm and swung her back around. It was only then that he saw the tears she'd been trying to hide. The blazing anger died out of his face. "Oh, hell... Don't cry, sweetheart." He pulled her into the protective circle of his arms. "Don't cry. I'll take care of you, Bryony. You know that. I'll always take care of you, and our child."

She knew he meant it, but although she was relieved to hear it, it wasn't enough.

She wanted him to tell her she was the most important thing in his life, and that he would never, ever leave her or send her away. She wanted him to tell her he loved her as desperately, as hopelessly, as eternally as she loved him. But she knew it would never happen.

That night it started to rain.

All night the rain pounded on the shingled roof. A howling wind whipped about the house and found its way around windows and under doors.

The rain continued for days. The dry, parched ground was so hard and sunbaked it couldn't seem to absorb the steady downpour fast enough. Water ran off the surrounding hillsides in ever-widening rivulets.

The Hawkesbury River rose, and rose, and rose.

Bryony walked out onto the veranda and stood clutching her cloak against the cold wind, watching the river
rush past, incredibly wide and deep and treacherously fast.

"Louisa told me the river could get so high it'd reach halfway to the house. I didn't believe her."

Hayden paused beside her. He buttoned up his greatcoat and pulled on a pair of gloves. "No one does, until they actually see it in flood. It's only thanks to Louisa and Will Carver that I built the house this high. I originally wanted to put it there." He pointed to a spot now under some five feet of water.

She glanced up at him, and her heart filled with her love for him. He looked so tall and strong, standing beside her. Yet suddenly she felt an unexpected and totally inexplicable frisson of fear run through her. "I wish... I wish you wouldn't go out in this."

He pulled her roughly into his arms. "I'll be all right," he said, pressing his lips to her hair. "But there are a lot of families whose houses are under water, and they didn't all have the sense to get out of them while they still could."

She nodded. "I'll have blankets and plenty of hot water ready."

The woman clung to the roof of the hut with one clawlike, cold-numbed hand, and tried desperately to clutch two small, shivering children to her with her free arm.

Hayden maneuvered his boat as close to the woman as he could, then called out, "Hand me the children!" His shout was barely audible above the roar of the floodwaters and the howl of the wind.

"I can't!" the woman wailed, rain streaming down her white face. "I can't!"

"You must."

Her eyes widened with terror. "But if I let go of the
roof to try to hand one of them to you, I'll drop the other child and slide right off myself!"

"She's probably right," said Gideon, doing his best to keep the boat close in the swirling, rushing waters. "She musta been hanging' on there fer hours."

"Bloody hell," cursed Hayden under his breath. To the woman he called, "All right. Hold steady, and I'll climb up and get you."

Gideon's head swung around, and he stared at him in dismay. "Cap'n! You ain't goin' up there yerself?"

"Well, what the hell else can I do?" he said, tearing off first his greatcoat, then his boots. "Leave them up there to drown?"

"But... The whole hut's liable to give way any minute now!"

As if to underscore his point, the structure beside them shuddered violently.

"Just hold the boat as steady as you can and be ready to grab the children and the woman as I hand them to you."

The hut swayed alarmingly as it took his weight. He edged along the peak of the roof on his hands and knees. He realized he was sweating, in spite of the cold wind and driving rain. The wet shingles were treacherously slippery underfoot, and he decided that if he ever got his hands on the man who'd built this damned hut so close to the river, he'd drown the bloody bastard himself.

It seemed to take forever to reach the woman, and longer to make it back to Gideon with the first child. He had just taken the second child from its mother when he heard Gideon call,
"Look out!"

He turned. He had a brief, sickening glimpse of the trunk of a giant red gum hurtling toward him through the swirling, raging floodwaters. Then the tree crashed into the hut, and the entire structure flew apart beneath him. He pitched headlong into the swirling river.

He tried to roll, curling his body to protect both his own head and the boy he held from the debris. But it was a purely instinctive movement, because all he could seem to think about at that moment was Bryony.

And how the hell he was going to take care of her and their unborn child if he were dead.

"You stubborn, thickheaded, bloody fool."

The words, uttered on a broken, husky sob, penetrated his consciousness as a gentle hand placed a cool cloth on his forehead.

"I'd kill you myself if you weren't already half dead."

Hayden felt his lips twitch appreciatively, but a savage, angry pain pounded his head, and he wasn't ready to open his eyes yet.

"It's no thanks to you you're not dead, you pigheaded—" She paused, as if searching for the ultimate insult, but she couldn't seem to find it.

"If you're so bloody mad at me, Bryony, why are you crying?" His voice surprised him. It sounded weak and fluttery, like the wings of a dying moth.

He opened his eyes to see her beautiful face, swollen and wet with tears, bending over him. She didn't answer him. Just sobbed again and shook her head.

He reached up to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but his arm was as weak and shaky as his voice. She captured his hand in hers and cradled it against her as if she held something precious. He tried to sit up and take her in his arms, but a tide of sick blackness threatened to swamp him, and he eased back down again.

"What happened to me, anyway?" he asked when he could catch his breath. "My head hurts like hell. All I can remember is seeing this bloody big red gum barreling down at me."

"Gideon said the hut broke up under the impact of the tree and one of the slabs must have hit you on the back of the head."

"The child?"

"He's all right. You managed to hold on to him until Gideon could get you in the boat. Both children are asleep in front of the fire in the parlor."

"And the woman?"

Bryony shook her head.

"Christ." He squeezed his eyes shut, seeing once more a white face and dark, terrified eyes. "I'd like to throttle her husband."

"You can't. He's already dead. One of the little boys told me they had an older sister. She slipped off the roof before you came, and the father tried to go after her."

"Christ," he said again, then opened his eyes to stare up at her. "Bryony..."

"Hush." She took the cloth and rinsed it in fresh water. "You shouldn't try to talk so much."

He smelled lavender and valerian, and thought dreamily that it was probably from her garden. "I want you to marry me, Bryony."

Her hands stilled at their task. She sat for a moment, barely breathing. Then she gave him a wobbly smile. "That board must have hit you harder than we thought." She reached out briskly to replace the cloth.

He caught her hand before she could pull it away. "I mean it, Bryony. It occurred to me today that if anything ever happens to me, you'll be sent right back to the Factory. Our child would be taken away from you when he turned three and sent to the Orphan Asylum. I can't let that happen."

She had a curious, frozen expression on her face. He'd expected her to be overjoyed. All women wanted to be married, didn't they? Especially if they were already carrying a man's child. So why was she looking at him like that?

She twisted her hand from his weakened grasp and stood up. "Go to sleep, Hayden."

Bryony sat before the fire and watched a tiny finger of yellow and blue flame curl around a blackening log on the hearth. Outside, the wind howled and the rain poured.

"Bryony?"

She glanced toward the bed. His dark, handsome head had turned slightly against Laura's fine white pillowcase. He was staring at her with unsmiling eyes.

"How do you feel?" she asked in a forced, light voice. "I have some soup here I've been keeping warm, if you're hungry. And some—"

"Bryony, come here."

She stayed where she was.

"Damn it, Bryony, if you don't come here, I'm going to get up and come over there, and since my head hurts like hell, I can promise you I won't be in a very good mood by the time I get there."

She got up, but she paused to ladle some soup into a bowl and carried it with her to the bed.

"Put the bowl on the table and sit down here."

She gripped the bowl between tense hands. "You should eat."

"I will. Just put the bowl on the table and sit down."

"I hate it when you order me around like that. It makes me feel like a—"

"A servant? I want to make you my wife, Bryony."

She set the soup down, but continued to stand beside the bed. "No," she said, shaking her head. "You don't want to make me your wife; you want to protect your child's future."

"It's the same thing."

"It isn't."

He captured one of her hands, a look that was more puzzlement than anger in his face. "What are you trying to tell me, Bryony? That you don't want to marry me?"

No, she wasn't trying to tell him that. She was asking
for something. She was asking him to tell her he wanted to marry her because
he wanted to marry her.
She wanted him to tell her he loved her. She wanted him to tell her...

Oh, foolish, foolish woman, she scolded herself. But it didn't stop her from trying again. "You can't marry
a
convict. You'd be ruined."

"Like that officer Lady Priscilla was telling us about?" He shook his head. "I've sold out, remember?"

"Maybe you can't be court-martialed, but you can still be ostracized."

"It doesn't matter, Bryony. Not compared to what's at stake here. Your future, the future of our children."

It wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear.

He pulled her down on the bed beside him. "As
a
convict, you'll need to apply to the Colonial Secretary for permission to marry, but in this case it'll just be a formality. And then, as my wife, you'll be able to get
a
ticket-of-leave. That means that even if something happens to me, Bryony, you would still be allowed to live here with the children. You'd be safe, Bryony, and so would they."

She lay down beside him and hid her face in the curve of his shoulder, so he wouldn't see her expression. A ticket-of-leave. Next to a pardon, it was every convict's dream, for it gave the holder the right to live and work where she wanted, until her sentence expired and she was given her certificate of freedom. Except for the ever present danger of losing the ticket as a result of misconduct, it was almost like being set free.

Bryony swallowed the lump that had suddenly arisen in her throat. A ticket-of-leave, marriage to the man she loved and the father of her unborn child—how could she be so greedy as to want more? How could she be so greedy as to want his love, too?

"I would be telling you a lie if I said we won't be ostracized." He ran his lean, hard fingers through her hair. "You especially. The military men and settlers who
came here free are very proud and exclusive. It doesn't matter how educated or wellborn a man was before he was transported, or how much money he makes after he's emancipated, he'll always be a convict as far as the exclusivists are concerned, and they'll never have anything to do with him. Oh, they might do business with him, or even take their wives to him for treatment as in the case of Dr. William Redfern, but they wouldn't dream of inviting someone like Simeon Lord or Andrew Thompson into their house for dinner."

He laughed softly. "It's a bit of a farce, isn't it? Lady Priscilla would let William Redfern deliver one of her children, but she wouldn't sit down with him for a cup of tea."

"Yet you forced her to drink tea with me. She'll never forgive you for that."

"Probably not. Bryony..." He tucked his fingers under her chin so he could lift her head and look into her face. "I expected this to make you happy. I thought it was something you'd want."

She reached up to brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead, letting her gaze roam freely over his dark, handsome face, sharpened now with confusion. Her love for him welled up within her until it was like an ache. He talked of marriage, but he had said nothing of love because he had none to give her. Laura had been his love, and he had buried her.

He was Laura's husband. Bryony knew that even if he married her, he would still be Laura's husband, always. He would never really be hers.

But he cared for her, she reminded herself. Cared for her enough to brave social ostracism by marrying her in order to keep her and her child safe.

His eyes narrowed. "Is it because of what happened before, with Oliver? I'll be a good husband to you, Bryony, I promise you that. I—"

She pressed one finger against his lips. "No," she said. "I know you're nothing like Oliver." She lifted her finger
and replaced it with her mouth, kissing him hard. Then she raised her head so she could stare earnestly down at him. "I want to marry you, Hayden."

She watched a slow smile warm his face. "Good," he said simply, and she wanted to laugh at the sheer male arrogance of it. "It'll take awhile to clean up the mess left by this flood, but as soon as it's possible, we'll take the sloop into Sydney and make the necessary arrangements."

He tightened his arms around her to pull her down to him for a long, lingering kiss. "I can't promise I won't still try to order you around," he said a moment later.

"No, Simon, you can't get down," Bryony told the kicking, wiggling, squirming baby in her arms. "You'll get in the sailors' way."

"Give him to Ann," said Hayden, coming to stand behind her at the rail.

Bryony glanced toward Ann McBride, who was running from one side of the sloop to the other in an attempt to see everything there was to see as they sailed through the Heads into Port Jackson. She was giggling and exclaiming like a child herself, her red hair flying out behind her. "I'm afraid she might drop him overboard."

Hayden laughed. "You're probably right—if she didn't fall overboard with him. Now that he's weaned, you should have left him home with her. After all, we're coming here to get married."

Bryony leaned back against Hayden's chest and felt his arms go around her, hugging her close. The wind whipped her hair about her head, and the cold stung her cheeks; but the sun was out, and the sea and sky both sparkled with a clean, inimitable light that was pure Australia.

She couldn't help but contrast today with the last time
she'd sailed into Sydney Cove, less than a year ago. It had been cold that day, too, but dark and raining. Low, threatening clouds had obscured the surrounding rolling hills, turning the bay to a harsh gray and robbing it of much of its beauty. She had felt so alone that day; alone and terrified, facing an uncertain, bleak future and clutching a dying baby in her desperate arms.

She blinked back the tears that suddenly stung her eyes. Dear little Philip, hers for such a short time. She rubbed her cheek against Simon's chubby, rosy face and breathed deeply of his baby-sweet smell. She would never want to erase the memory of her own lost darling, but Simon did help ease the pain that remembering Philip or Madeline always brought with it.

Life goes on, she thought, looking out over the vibrant, sunlit hills, bursting forth with fresh greenery in the wake of the rains that had brought new life to the colony even as the flood had taken lives away. Life goes on. Even when you don't think it can, even when you're not sure you want it to, it goes on.

She shifted Simon to her hip, her hand lingering as it often did on her belly. She held a new life within her. A new child. It could never replace those she'd had taken from her. But, like Simon, this new child would help to ease the pain left by the loss of her other children. And one day soon, Bryony had decided, she was going to talk to Hayden about trying to have Madeline brought out to New South Wales. She didn't know what she could do if Uncle Edward refused to send her, but she had to try. She'd been tempted to ask Hayden about it, before, but as his mistress she'd always hesitated. Now she would be his wife. Even if he didn't love her, she would still be his wife.

A seagull floated by, just off the railing. Simon reached for it and chattered angry nonsense when he failed to grab it. "Here," said Hayden, lifting the squirming mass of arms and legs from her. "Let's go watch the sailors and give Bryony a rest, shall we?"

He walked away toward where Gideon stood at the front of the sloop. She watched the sun glint on his dark, handsome head as he held his son balanced easily on his strong arm, and she loved him so much in that moment that it hurt. He was such a wonderful man. He desired her and he cared for her, even if he could never love her. She was so lucky, so very lucky.

Then the scene darkened as a cloud passed in front of the sun. It was just a small, puffy white cloud, one of several floating high in the sky. But it was enough to take the warm sparkle out of the day and send a chill up Bryony's spine.

Perhaps it was because too many awful things had happened to her in her life, but she suddenly found herself afraid. Afraid this newfound happiness wouldn't last, afraid something would happen to snatch it from her.