A HAZARD OF HEARTS (60 page)

Hearing the wistfulness in his voice, Elly moved
closer, touching his arm fleetingly. ‘I had forgotten you were losing someone,
too. That was selfish of me.’ She studied the strong profile which had
attracted her the first day they’d met in the lonely bush, a face grown so dear
to her over the months and years since.

Paul had drawn back a little, as if her touch
disturbed him. ‘I still have other friends – Frenchy and all the men who work
for political change.’

‘It’s not the same. We each need someone close
to confide in, to tell our deepest thoughts, to comfort us. Paul, I want to
talk about the night when you saved me from death in the fire.’

‘Must we? Can’t we put it all behind us?’

‘No, because something important came out of it.
When I lay chained in that cellar, believing that I would soon die, my whole
life-view changed focus. I fought Cornwallis, knowing I had too much to live
for to give in, knowing that if I did escape, somehow, I would do things
differently in the future.’

He stepped forward, hesitated, stopped. ‘Elly.’
He cleared his throat. ‘That night changed me, as well. I suddenly realised
what mattered to me, and it wasn’t what I’d always believed I wanted.’

Their gaze met and held. Elly could feel her
heartbeat in her ears, not racing, but measured and deep, like combers breaking
on a cliff wall. Would he say it? Did he feel as she did, that they had wasted
too much time looking in opposite directions? That all that mattered was to be
loved?

‘Elly, darling,’ he said softly, with a note of
tenderness she hadn’t heard for so long. ‘I’ve longed to call you my own
darling. Oh, Elly, Elly. I have been a fool. I’ve known it for a long time.
Only stubborn pride held me back, and fear that you had ceased loving me. I
couldn’t admit to my own stupidity. I couldn’t face another rejection.’

She stiffened, peering into his face, now a pale
blur in the dusk. ‘Do you mean to say that you knew you loved me after all, yet
didn’t say so? You’ve let me exist in misery for months, gnawed by regrets,
vainly striving to kill off my own love for you? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I suppose it is. But –’

‘You worm! You utterly blind, unfeeling toad!
Ohhh! I could hit you.’ She shook her fist at him, and had it grasped as he
pulled her towards him.

He said, half-laughing, ‘Elly, you spitfire!’ His
mouth descended on hers forcefully, quelling her by the simple method of
stopping her breath. An instant later he released her hands and gathered her to
him again, burying his face against her neck. ‘My own dearest girl. I’ve
hungered for you so. Forgive me. Forgive me.’

Elly closed her eyes, her mind reeling. It was
her dream, she thought. How many times had she acted out this same scenario,
night after night, knowing that she would waken to disillusionment? This was
how Paul felt in that dream. This was how he touched her and how she had
responded. Her head was swimming. Her pulse thundered like Niagara in her ears.
She could hardly hear his dear voice above the sound.

She pulled from his clasp, saying, ‘I... think I’d
better sit down,’ and, regardless of her finery, sank onto the grass. She
smelled the sweetness of clover crushed beneath her, saw Paul’s anxious face
hovering above hers as he knelt beside her. ‘Paul, are you sure this time? I
don’t think I could bear it if you found you were mistaken. This isn’t about
pride or self-esteem, it’s about breaking a heart.’

‘What can I do to make you believe me? If it’s
any consolation, I’ve suffered like the damned for weeks, thinking I had lost
all chance. I didn’t dare to approach you after my ridiculous high-flown words
about the impossibility of our loving each other and how we should remain
simply friends. God! What an idiot I’ve been. I knew what a dreadful mistake I’d
made on the night when you lent me your strength and saved my sanity as well as
my leg. But I thought it was too late. You had made your life without me. Then
when Cornwallis took you, when only
my
strength stood between you and a
horrible death, I knew I would lay down my own life to save yours. I couldn’t
have gone on alone if you had died.’

 She cupped his face, bringing it closer to
study it. ‘Don’t! We must bury the memory completely. My love, I was the one
who parted us. When we danced together at Botany Bay, then walked on the beach in
the evening wind, you told me that you wanted to spend your life caring for me.
I remember every word you said, the way you held me. It’s been a fire in my
body ever since. Yet, like a fool, I rejected the greatest gift a woman can be
given, mouthing about my ambitions and the sacrifice I’d have to make if I
became your wife. How little I knew then.’

He drew her back into his arms, his lips against
her forehead, stirring her hair. She began to tremble.

‘What do you know now that’s so different, my
darling girl?’

‘That there is such a thing as compromise. It’s
been a hard lesson.’ She sighed. ‘Like your programme for vengeance which
turned out to be so sterile and destructive. I finally saw how narrow my
outlook had been, that I couldn’t channel myself exclusively to nursing, and
that I wasn’t some sort of heroine put on earth to save others. I needed love
and support, like most other people. But I’d cut myself off from your love, as
I thought.’

‘Never. You could never do it. I know at the
time my ambitions were paramount in my life, but that’s no longer true. They
are important still, but not as valuable as you are to me. I live to cherish
you, my dear love. Don’t you know you’re the pulse in my veins, the very breath
that keeps me alive?’

Elly had no answer. She raised her mouth for his
kiss, which started gently, then swiftly grew more demanding. Held fast in his
embrace she surrendered wholly, offering herself and accepting his own wordless
offering, knowing that the freedom she discarded would be replaced by a
lifetime of loving interdependence and support. Paul would always be there
beside her. Whatever differences might separate them for a time, their love
would soon heal and close them over. Together they could halve difficulties,
endure disappointments, take on exciting challenges. And she need never feel
solitary again.

With her head on Paul’s shoulder she gazed out
over the harbour lights reflected back from water like black glass and saw a
different world, no longer sad in the dusk, but brilliant, vibrant with promise
for the future.