Wanted: One Scoundrel (4 page)

Captain Fellowes grinned. “Women have a soft spot for a scoundrel. You should be thanking me.”

“Maybe later.”

Jed worked his way through the crowd. He felt like a cad, but he avoided the hopeful eyes of the wallflowers. He’d asked a number to dance already tonight, but now he needed to detach Esme from the smirking Bambury.

“Miss Smith, my dance I think?” He escorted her onto the floor in one smooth relentless charm offensive.

Her eyes snapped with annoyance. “I was talking with the governor—and you should have taken the opportunity to do the same.”

“It would have been suspicious.” With his arm around her waist and the music flowing them gently together, his tension receded. It couldn’t be jealousy. He was never jealous.

He lifted his gaze and looked around the crowded ballroom. Whoever had decorated it had made lavish use of pine boughs, cones and tinsel paper. They had even included gaily painted tin baubles. What they hadn’t managed to include was mistletoe—not even the artificial kind.

Ah well. Doubtless mistletoe would have encouraged rowdiness. But he would have liked to steal a semi-sanctioned kiss from Esme. He studied her lips’ ripe berry fullness wistfully.

“Mr. Reeve?”

Her tart tone shook him out of pleasant fantasies.

“Why would talking to the governor have been suspicious?” She followed him easily through the swirls of the Spanish waltz, the satin skirts of her gown wrapping around their legs, a gentle trap and release.

He spun them in additional circles, enjoying the sensation of being trapped with her. “What sort of man prefers to talk politics when he could be dancing with a beautiful woman? Trust me, asking you to dance made the best of impressions.”

Behind them, Nicholas Bambury glared.

Jed eased Esme a fraction closer. “And I think a Sunday stroll together would confirm that impression.”

“What impression?”

“That I’m a gentleman of impeccable taste.”

“Have you had a chance to travel north of the river, yet, Mr. Reeve?”

“Jed,” he reminded Esme. “And no, I haven’t.” His mouth twitched in amusement and he turned away to hide it. If he laughed at her annoyance, she wouldn’t ever forgive his high-handed behavior at last night’s dance.

By delivering her back to Captain Fellowes and swiftly taking his own leave, he’d left her with no choice but to accept the appointment for a Sunday stroll.

A lesser woman might have indulged her pique by claiming a previous engagement and being out when he arrived, leaving him to be turned away by a servant.

Esme simply descended the stairs dressed in a walking suit of English tweed, her white frilled collar fixed with a gold pin in the form of a stylized lion, roaring. Her chestnut brown boots and leather gloves matched the narrow-brimmed hat she’d perched on her coiled hair. She was aloof, practical and distantly gracious.

“How sharp are your hat pins?” he asked, following his own line of thought about possible revenges.

She blinked, then smiled. “I would never be so unsubtle. Although…” She reached up and slid a pin from the pert hat. “I ordered these from an American suffragist catalogue called ‘Modern Tools for Modern Women.’ It’s rather like a Swiss Army knife.”

An array of clever gadgets unfolded from the unsharpened end, including tweezers, scalpel blade and a needle.

“Ingenious.” He handed it back to her. “What else did the catalogue advertise?”

She refitted the pin. “Laughter capsules which I believe contain nitrous oxide. Guaranteed to enliven the dullest evening,” she quoted the catalogue with droll amusement.

“I could have used those a few times.” He offered his arm and they exited the house.

The sun shone clear and brilliant over the dancing ocean waves and the wide river mouth. Sea gulls glided on the updrafts. There had been rain in the morning, making the trip to church a wet one, but with the noon hour, the sun had broken through the steel grey clouds and now a brisk ocean breeze harried them eastward.

Esme led the way around the house to the carriage entrance. A gig with a glossy black horse in the shafts stood waiting, a groom at its head.

“I thought we might as well visit Bombaytown, the Indian center of town.” She accepted his assistance and stepped up into the passenger’s side of the gig. From the groom’s shocked stare, she usually drove. “I did think of cycling, but with the weather uncertain and…well, it is Sunday.”

“Is there a Sabbath prohibition against cycling in Swan River?”

“No.” She smoothed her skirts into place, catching his admiring glance at her ankles. “I was thinking of wearing my new Turkish trousers, but I thought displaying them for the first time on a Sunday might be a touch scandalous. And I really don’t like pedaling in a skirt. All those grease smudges and getting caught up. Men have life a lot easier.”

“Uh.” Was Jed’s smooth response. The vision of Esme in Turkish trousers occupied all his attention. The outline of her hips and sweetly rounded—

“Jed?”

“I think you made the right decision.” He didn’t want other men seeing or thinking of Esme in such a revealing manner. “Not on a Sunday.”
Not ever.
He climbed into the gig and took up the reins, nodding to the groom to release the horse’s head. “And it’s a nice day for a drive.”

The black horse snorted and its ears twitched, waiting for the command to walk on.

“Gee up.”

It was well trained, as he’d have expected from any animal Esme owned. The gig traveled smoothly down the driveway and Jed turned the horse for town.

“You’ll want to take the second street on your left. Bombaytown is over the bridge, just north of the rail line to Perth.”

“I know the direction.” He urged the horse to a trot. “We have Chinatown in San Francisco. Would Bombaytown be something similar?”

“I expect so, if Chinatown is an enclave of Chinese attempting to replicate a slice of home in alien environs.”

“That captures it perfectly.”

“Bombaytown is actually quite welcoming—regardless of whether you’re Indian. A number of British settlers spent time in India and enjoy reliving elements of that experience. I like the spices and the hint of the exotic. Many women buy the silks and muslin for their dresses at Indian merchants’ warehouses.”

Every man and his dog were out taking the air. Maids and mistresses, dressed in their Sunday finery, strolled along the high street down to the harbor to observe the boats at anchor. On one crowded corner, the gig paused long enough for Esme to exchange greetings with a friend before Jed took advantage of a gap in the traffic.

The slight lurch pushed Esme back against the gig’s seat and the jolt triggered the automated parasol behind her to unfold. It wobbled upward, stuttered and folded back as she turned and hit the retract button.

“I’d rather have the sun.” She turned her face to its warmth. “I love the fact winters here aren’t too cold. I can’t imagine living somewhere grey like England or where it snowed.” She peeked at him. “Here it’s warm enough to paddle in the river—not swim—even in winter.”

“Miss Esme,” he pretended horror. “Never say you paddle.”

The vision enticed him, of Esme stripping off her stockings, holding her skirts to her knees, frilly petticoats bunching as she waded into the shallows.

She laughed. “Not where anyone can see me. Although in summer I do visit Bather’s Beach for a morning swim. I admit, it’s one time when I appreciate the segregation of the sexes. Modern swimming costumes are awfully form-fitting.”

I’d like to see that.

An idiot on a rusty penny-farthing wobbled toward them and saved him from making that admission out loud. Esme wasn’t being saucy. He heard the note of nostalgia for childhood freedoms in her voice.

“Idiot cyclists.” He twitched the reins and the black horse responded instantly, veering to the right and putting on a burst of speed. They clattered onto the bridge in fine form.

“The best part of paddling in the river are the minnows. They nibble your toes.”

Lucky minnows.
He swallowed and nudged the conversation into safer channels. “It’s a wide river.”

“Wide, lazy and surprisingly deep just here. Before the bridge, people lost their lives being ferried across, particularly with animals. Cows are stupid creatures. They panic.” She smiled. “Not that I’d say that in Bombaytown. Most of the people are Hindu. If you see a cow, don’t smack it or shove it aside. They’re all quite tame and must be treated with respect. Straight ahead and turn left. We’ll stable the gig at the Chai House.”

The Chai House turned out to be a large timber and tin building with deep verandas and a blue roof. A boy ran out at the sight of Esme. He took charge of the horse and a coin.

Bombaytown was nowhere as large as the Chinatown he knew back home, but it was a unique and surprising experience in this remote Australian settlement.

A small spice market held exotic scents, intensified by the smell of food cooking in surrounding homes. Voices rose and fell in the sounds of family life, but the language was strange to him. No mistaking though, the laughter of children and a mother’s scolding voice.

There were tea merchants and textile warehouses, as well as smaller shopfronts with little cards offering professional services: doctors, lawyers, moneylenders, ayurvedic practitioners. He questioned the latter.

“An ancient form of healing,” Esme said. “It cures colds and helps consumption. I think most households in Swan River have something from here in their medicine chests. Bombaytown actually started before the goldrush. Swan River is quite close to India—not so much in distance as in the absence of nations in between. We are linked by the Indian Ocean and we’ve supplied India with horses for a number of decades, and then, there’s the sandalwood.” She paused and inhaled appreciatively. “The scent of sandalwood is always on the air here. It’s one of the things I love about Bombaytown.”

She indicated a large pile of branches that he’d taken to be rubbish piled against the side of a warehouse. “That’s cut sandalwood. It grows naturally to the east of Perth and some farmers are also trying to establish plantations of it. There’s a voracious market for sandalwood in India. They burn it as incense and use it in soaps and herbal compounds.”

Beyond the pile of sandalwood branches a shallow tin dome, perhaps an arm span across, sat alone in a bare batch of ground. As they walked closer, Jed saw that a lively scene of tigers, monkeys and coiled serpents had been beaten into the tin.

“A fire pit?” he hazarded.

“Almost. Mrs. Dam calls it her radiant monster. She’s an inventor. You met her at our tea party.”

“The taller of the two Indian ladies?”

“Yes. Ayesha is clever. She thinks about things. Since it’s a rainy day, she’s pulled the cover over the mechanism. If it were open, you’d see the mirrors she’s arranged to intensify sunlight. She uses the heat to boil a thin layer of water. She thinks steam power ought to be cleaner than what we achieve by burning coal. It would be lovely if she could make it work. You’ve arrived in the worst of the winter weather, but mostly we have days of clear blue skies and sunshine. Using the sun to create steam makes sense.”

“It’s certainly an interesting idea. Does Mrs. Dam use any magnification?”

“I believe she’s exploring the concept. Be sure to ask her, you’ll make her day.”

“I will.”

In the open fields beyond the town, children ran laughing, launching paper kites into the air. The scraps of bright color soared high, tugging at the strings that held them to the earth.

“The kites are left over from Bombaytown’s midwinter celebrations.” Esme shaded her eyes with a gloved hand. “The children made them from paper donated by Fremantle merchants.”

Not all the children were Indian, either. Blond and red heads gave away the ethnic mix of the kite flyers. Jed commented on it.

“That’s the best part of our midwinter celebrations. Everyone joined in, sharing the best bits of their beliefs. Even Father left the children a gift before he went prospecting. He built an automated sweets-dispenser and set it up by the water fountain near the Post Office. The children emptied it in a day. It’s in the shape of the Three Kings and one of their camels.” She laughed. “A very odd-looking camel. Francis is keeping it filled with peanuts for the children to enjoy.”

“I’ll look for it,” he promised.

Their slow stroll brought them back to the Chai House with its bright-colored wall hangings and intricately carved wooden screens. They were shown to a table on the veranda facing the sea. A bronze wind chime, green from contact with the sea air, hung in a far corner.

“Unless you would prefer to be inside?” Esme paused beside her chair.

“This suits me. The air is bracing.”

“And the horizon extends forever.” She smiled and turned to the hovering waiter. “Two cups of chai, please, Chandra, and a selection of sweets.”

“Chai?” Jed queried.

“Milky tea with a mix of spices, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, pepper and some sugar. I can never make anything half so good at home, so I save it for a treat here. It is an Indian drink.”

He mourned the absence of coffee silently, until he tasted the chai. “It’s good.”

“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Her eyes laughed at him over her cup.

Jed adored Esme’s laughter. He kept sharing stories just to provoke it, of his two brothers—now seriously involved in business and politics—and of his youngest sister, innocently and mischievously enjoying her introduction to society.

“And what of yourself, Jed?” Esme asked as she finished her second cup of chai. “Did you get into scrapes?”

“I once built a clockwork rocking horse. Well, more a bucking bronco.” He grinned reminiscently. “I added springs to the legs and a wind-up mechanism that set it swaying wildly. It was actually more violently unpredictable than I’d expected. I was thirteen at the time. My brothers and I loved it.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“One of the housemaids snuck her boyfriend in to try it. He was a clumsy clod. He fell off and broke his arm. The maid had hysterics. Mom made me dismantle the bronco and build something safer.”

He paused.

“Go on.” Her face was alight with interest. “What did you build?”

“An automated pea-shooter. I peppered the mailman while aiming for the dog chasing him. Mom was not amused.”

They exited the Chai House on a wave of laughter and Jed again took the reins.

The bridge held a mix of traffic—pedestrians, dogs, horses, carriages and bicycles. Below them in the river, the steam bucket dredge lay Sabbath-idle.

A young man stood balanced on the edge of the bridge, showing off for his friends and a group of giggling young women watching nearby. He’d have been barely eighteen, his clothing showing the extreme of fashion with its wide collared jacket and padded shoulders and a blazing crimson waistcoat. He was Indian, slight and dark.

The gust of wind off the ocean was sudden and powerful. It slammed into him and he fell from the bridge, arms windmilling.

Women screamed. Men cursed and dithered. Someone shouted to throw a rope, but no one had a rope.

“He’s drowning.”

“He can’t swim.”

“Get a boat.”

Jed handed the reins to Esme, stripped off his coat as he kicked off his boots and dove from the bridge. The water was cold and, this close to the river mouth, salty. He spat out a mouthful as he surfaced and looked for the boy.

The young man was churning up the water with his frantic and ineffective efforts.

“Be still,” Jed shouted.

The boy either couldn’t or wouldn’t listen.

A few strokes were all Jed required to grip the boy’s collar and, when he continued to struggle, Jed hit him. Dazed, the boy floated and Jed headed for the riverbank.

“Hold on, mate,” an Australian voice called out, loud and cheerful. “We’ll land your catch in the boat.” A middle-aged man rowed out and turned the boat to drift with the incoming tide. “There we go.” He hauled and Jed pushed and the boy fell into the boat. The man shifted his weight to balance the boat and Jed heaved himself in.