Toward the Sea of Freedom (34 page)

“So, you haven’t had enough of me yet. You can’t get enough of me. Here, take another drink. And then make me happy again.”

Lizzie had rarely worked as hard as she did that night, but by three in the morning—boarding was at five and departure at seven—David Parsley had emptied more than three quarters of the whiskey bottle. He slept like a dead man. Lizzie could empty his pockets at her leisure. Why wouldn’t she just take everything? Michael and she would need bags. It would be conspicuous to travel without them. Cold-bloodedly, Lizzie pocketed David’s wallet and carried his travel bag downstairs.

“My husband will be down in a moment,” she told the proprietress, moving past her before she could even ask.

Lizzie hoped the woman would not run upstairs and try to wake Parsley. But that was unlikely. As long as the man remained in her hotel, she could wait for the bill to be paid. And what did she care what “Mrs. Parsley” was doing in the middle of the night with her bag?

Michael stepped out from a niche as soon as Lizzie emerged.

“Finally! I thought you’d never be done. Who was the fellow? And what, what did you do?”

Lizzie tiredly handed him her victim’s passport. “That was David Parsley. And now you’re David Parsley. You don’t need to know more than that.”

As casually as possible, the two strolled along beside each other. Michael had thrown Parsley’s bag over his shoulder. He smelled of horse.

He told her of his adventures with Gideon. Amiably and tirelessly the stallion had carried him to Hobart. On the second day Michael had detoured onto side roads, and he told Lizzie colorful tales of the exotic animals he had encountered. “I swear to you, one of the beasts was a Tasmanian devil.”

Though he described a ferocious-looking black animal armed with powerful teeth, it had not dared get too close to giant Gideon. During the day, Michael had slept peacefully in the shadow of the massive stallion—and he attributed being intact to its protection. Though Lizzie thought she had heard that the snakes and insects in Van Diemen’s Land actually presented more danger than that strange, rather cute Tasmanian devil, she said nothing. Michael had clearly grown fond of the stallion.

“There would, naturally, have been a tidy sum in it if I had sold the horse,” he finally said regretfully. “But he drew too much attention. There would have been suspicion.”

“That was very clever of you,” Lizzie said. “What did you do instead?”

“I let him run free,” Michael said. “He’ll show up somewhere later today, probably in the pen of a nice mare. That farmer can decide between looking for its owner and figuring possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Lizzie thought that a fitting solution.

“This is the ship,” she said when they finally reached the pier. “The
Elizabeth Campbell
. And here are the tickets.” She handed Michael a couple more papers. “There’s also plenty of money in the wallet. You can . . .”

“Lizzie, I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done for me.” Michael looked desirously at the illuminated gangplank. The ship was being loaded, and passengers were already boarding. “But tell me, isn’t it a risk for you? If this fellow wakes . . .”

Lizzie looked at him, stunned. “Is it a risk for me?” she asked, disbelieving. “Michael, that fellow is Mr. Smithers’s assistant. And of course he’ll wake up. He’ll not be dead from a bottle of whiskey.”

“But then, then he’ll report you.” Michael looked concerned.

Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Michael, by the time he wakes, we’ll have long been at sea.”

“We?” asked Michael. “You want to come too?”

“What did you think?” Lizzie was too taken aback to feel hurt. “That I’d help you flee and then return like a good little girl to marry my—what do you call him? Leprechaun?”

“But how is this going to work?” Michael moved David Parsley’s travel bag from one hand to the other.

Lizzie was getting angry.

“Simply,” she told him. “You go to the skipper, or whoever’s responsible, and book passage for sweet Elizabeth Parsley, your loving wife. There won’t be any problems. Worst comes to worst, you’ll have to share a berth with me.”

“But they’ll get suspicious. Where did this David Parsley’s wife come from?”

Lizzie forced herself to be patient. “Michael, the captain doesn’t know Parsley. He could have been married ten years or just found the love of his life for all the captain knows, and for all he cares. He only wants the money. So go tell him you decided to bring your wife after all.”

“I don’t know.”

Lizzie saw Michael struggling with himself. On the one hand, he owed his chance to escape to Lizzie—who, seen in the light of day, was not very honest. Making off with a ship of the Crown as he had planned with Connor and the others, though it doubtlessly carried more risks, probably suited him better than what Lizzie had done. Now, however, there was no going back. It would be suicide to look for Parsley and give him back his stolen papers. On the other hand, though, she imagined Michael did not want to burden his new free man’s life in New Zealand right away with a theft and a whore.

“Well, I know!” Lizzie yelled as she grabbed Parsley’s wallet from a stunned Michael. “You’re coming with me or not at all. Think it over.”

Lizzie dangled the wallet provocatively over the pier wall. If Michael said the wrong thing now—or if she was startled by a clumsy movement . . .

“Fine. Then I’ll tell the skipper, tell him that . . .”

Lizzie sighed. “Don’t tell him anything. I’ll come with you,” she said resignedly. “And I’ll do the talking.”

“I do so hope there’s still room for me on the ship. There is, isn’t there?” Lizzie asked. She was fluttering her eyelashes in a manner meant to be demure, but to Michael’s overwrought imagination, every one of her expressions had a salacious echo. “Imagine, my husband’s letting me travel with him now. Though at first he was so concerned for, for us.” Lizzie stroked her entirely flat stomach with a fleeting motion and even managed to blush. Her smile was heart-warming.

The skipper grinned. “Of course, madam. And not to worry; you’ll travel as safely as in Abraham’s bosom on the
Elizabeth Campbell
. For a small additional charge, we’d even have an exceptionally comfortable cabin.”

“That would be wonderful,” Lizzie beamed. “Oh, did you hear, dear? The ship is called Elizabeth, like me.”

Michael acquiesced, grinding his teeth.

The “small additional charge” would consume almost all of their starting money, but the cabin was truly luxurious. Lizzie marveled at the white sheets, the porcelain washbowls, and the massive mirror. She looked herself over carefully and sighed.

No one could tell what she had done by looking at her. She looked proper and even somewhat homely in the gray dress Mrs. Smithers had given her for her questioning at the factory. She also wore a bonnet—not as jaunty as her flower-adorned little hat in London, but suitable for a lady.

“I’d like to wash,” she said, somewhat sheepishly, to Michael. “Could you . . .”

Michael immediately withdrew outside. Lizzie wondered if he held a grudge against her for something. He could not really hold it against her that she had stolen from David Parsley. And the circumstances . . . Lizzie blushed a bit. Why was it really so much worse to feign love than to steal boats and make moonshine?

While Lizzie felt halfway safe in their cabin, Michael strolled nervously across the ship’s deck. He should have asked what exactly had happened to Mr. Parsley. Had Lizzie really only gotten him drunk? What if he awoke early? They could not be caught now—he would die of shame, having profited from Lizzie’s betrayals and then been found out anyway. This would be the most embarrassing escape attempt since one of the convicts in Hobart had the idea of dressing as a kangaroo and trying to hop away.

Yet Michael’s fears did not come to pass. The
Elizabeth Campbell
weighed anchor punctually at seven, and the skipper steered it safely out of Hobart’s natural harbor and out to the high seas. Michael’s heart beat heavily with joy when, after a short time, the land disappeared from view. How would he have felt if he were sailing a stolen boat with Dylan, Will, and Connor now? Twenty days. After Lizzie had revealed the general voyage length, it became clear to him what kind of adventure he had planned to undertake. He had to admit that Lizzie had been right. This was the only way to escape to New Zealand without danger to life and limb, and the realization of this improved his attitude somewhat.

He returned to their luxury cabin. Lizzie sat at the porthole looking toward the strange land she had lived in for a year but had never really gotten to know.

“Now I’ll never see a Tasmanian devil.” Lizzie turned to Michael and smiled. Apparently, she held nothing against him. And her smile was captivating. Gentle and warm, it enchanted her unassuming face and dark-blonde hair. Moreover, she had scrubbed herself clean. Her skin shone; a wet sheen lay on her lips.

Michael suddenly became aware that he had not held a woman in his arms in a long time. He smiled back. “I could show you an Irish devil,” he said suggestively as he sat down next to her.

Lizzie moved away from him nervously.

“Lizzie, I, I don’t have anything I could give you.” Michael’s voice sounded pleading. “But I, look, we’ll be living here for three weeks. Lying beside each other like man and wife.”

“Or brother and sister,” Lizzie said, amused. It had been good to have patience. At first he might not have understood, but now—now, he was making an effort to declare himself.

“Lizzie, have mercy. I can’t! I’m a man, and I haven’t had a woman in so long. Would you, could you see . . . Please, Lizzie, share the bed with me!”

Now it was out. Michael looked at her imploringly. His eyes no longer shone; now they burned.

Lizzie smiled, then allowed him to embrace her.

Michael had learned the art of love in Miss Daisy’s brothel in Wicklow—and if the women there did it for free, they wanted to get something out of it. Daisy had personally instructed him, and he had enjoyed every moment with the older woman. Later, he had given Kathleen pleasure with his slow, tender lovemaking, and he would not disappoint Lizzie now either.

Lizzie, who had always associated physical love with pain or, at best, indifference, had until then been convinced she could never enjoy it. Men needed it, while women basked in amiable words, gentle kisses—and above all, the hope that men would protect them and make them a home. Lust had always been strange to Lizzie before, whatever Mrs. Smithers and others believed.

But that first day on the ship to New Zealand, Michael aroused sensations that she had not even known existed. He stroked and kissed parts of her body she had not bared to her customers, and when he pressed into her, he did so slowly and gently, as if he were approaching a virgin. At some point, Lizzie forgot everything around her. She no longer knew where her body ended and his began. Finally, she arched up beneath him, digging her nails into his back with lust, pressing her face against his throat and his strong chest.

“Michael,” she whispered. “Michael.”

Michael nestled his face into her breasts, breathing in her scent. “Kathleen,” he said quietly.

With that, something died inside Lizzie. She lay quietly, not bothering him—trying, though she knew better, to hold on to some magic. Michael caught his breath at some point. He propped himself up beside her and playfully stroked her breasts and stomach.

“That was wonderful,” he said softly. “I can’t thank you enough. Lizzie, you’re, you’re such a good person.”

Lizzie did not say a word. That night she slept for the first time next to the man she loved. But she cried herself to sleep.

Strength

Nelson, Kaikoura, Canterbury Plains

1850–1858

Chapter 1

Lizzie and Michael spent twenty-two untroubled days on the
Elizabeth Campbell
. They shared the bed in their luxury cabin at night, and during the day, people treated them like a married couple. Only a few passengers were traveling on the small ship, a fact that unsettled Michael.

“They’ll all remember us precisely when the soldiers come looking for us,” he said. “We’ll have to leave the city we land in—what was it called again? Nelson?—right away.”

“Their investigation won’t go that quickly,” Lizzie said. “As for descriptions of us, we didn’t hide our faces in Van Diemen’s Land either. But who’s going to look for us? Naturally, the Australian officials will inform the police in New Zealand, such as they are. That won’t happen right away. And you don’t really believe that the New Zealand authorities are going to spend all their energy on finding two escapees among thousands of free settlers, do you? I think we’ll be able to look around at ease.”

Lizzie feigned calm, but in truth, the thought of arriving in Nelson filled her with increasing dread. It had less to do with the fear of discovery and arrest and more to do with the end of forced cohabitation with Michael. Lizzie did not know what Michael had planned for this new country, but she sensed that his plans did not include her.