Mary Brock Jones (29 page)

She lifted her hips in answer, inviting him in. He needed no more, rocking her gently, then harder and faster, so much more urgent, as her body desperately rose to meet his. They rushed on, and met the storm together.

Much, much later, she surfaced. She looked up at him. She could feel the smile on her lips and wondered if it was anything as sweetly tender as the one on his. One hand traced his chest, and she felt the other unconsciously clench, seeking a pencil or brush.

“I would like to paint you, like this. Right now.”

“The neighbours would be somewhat scandalised.”

“They wouldn’t see it. Only you and me. It would be for us alone.”

“Like this,” he murmured, capturing her again with his lips and body. Later still, they fell back again and she snuggled into his side. He caught her wandering hand and brought it to his mouth, tracing each fingertip with his tongue and planting a simple kiss in her palm. Then he closed the fingers gently over, trapping the warmth of his lips in her hand. “It can be your wedding gift to me.”

Her hand stopped. She dragged it out of his grasp, thrusting herself up and hauling the wayward sheet up to cover herself. “No.” She shoved herself out of bed and began to grope frantically for her clothes.

He stared at her, so stunned at the sudden change he didn’t think to help her or enjoy the view of her beautiful body, now hastily covered in stays, chemise and the sturdy cotton gown she wore to work in Chamonix.

“Why did you have to say that?” she said, before banging the door shut behind her.

By the time John had gathered his wits sufficiently to dress and chase after her, she was gone.

He stared into the gloom. She was already out of sight. He could chase after her. There was time to catch her before she reached the Coopers. He stayed where he was. He had seen the grief on her face.

Her scent still hung in the air, the smell of her was still on his skin and, despite making love twice to her, he was still half aroused. What would it take to bring her to her senses?

What if you can’t?

He shoved the thought aside, refusing to consider it. If only he understood what it was that made her cling so tightly to her role as guardian of her brother.

She had interrupted him in his nightly round. He slowly dressed again and went out to the animals.

“I’ve done everything I can think of to show her how I feel about her. What else is there?” he asked the dogs as he flung them each a piece of meat and bone. They barked, wagged their tails, then settled down to a noisy gnawing with the odd growl as a pack mate approached too close.

“I know how you feel.” He flexed his fingers. The thorough drubbing he had given Albert Fox had been highly satisfactory. A part of him wanted to do the same to any man who so much as smiled at Nessa.

The hens clucked angrily at him, running up and swarming around his feet as he walked into their house, pouring the grain into their feeder then counting them all before he shut them in for the night. A big red hen that was the boss swiped angrily at a lesser hen and shoved forward to take her place square centre of the feeder. “You tell ‘em, Big Mama,” he chuckled. “You wouldn’t like to try bringing my Nessa into line too, would you?” She lifted her head, glaring at him with the hen equivalent of “don’t be stupid”, then set to again, greedily pecking at the grain.

He had to laugh. Like recognised like, he guessed. He had always thought of Big Mama as the Ada Cooper of his flock—but he had a feeling Nessa was as much a kindred spirit to the boss hen as was Ada. Certainly he had long accepted that if—no, when—she became his wife, she would rule his home and his heart.

He walked into Ned’s stall. He filled the manger with more chaff and picked up a wisp of straw and began to rub the big horse down. It was as much a comfort to him as to the horse. He leaned his head against the horse’s flank, all humour suddenly fled.

“What am I going to do, big fellow? How can I win her?”

The horse snorted into his feed and swung his head round to look back at him. John obediently began again, long sweeping strokes over the horse’s back and down his hind quarters. It was an easy rhythm, one so familiar, and usually it brought him peace. Tonight, it reminded him of what he had lost.

“How can she think that boy not ready to be a man? You saw him, Ned. Did he look like someone who still needed his sister? That
boy
is near running that camp.”

There had been an argument while he was at Campbell’s. A minor boundary flare-up between two miners with adjacent claims. It was Philip who had settled it, ordering the other miners to pull the brawling men apart then checking each one’s license. He had set down the boundary pegs, told each man where he could and could not dig, and made them agree. Granted, the boy was better educated than most there and was handy enough with gun and fist when they had run off Albert Fox—but it was more than that.

“You remember that spoiled, self-centred brat who turned up here that first day, Ned?” The big horse shook his head, snorting into the chaff. It was probably just a bit of dust up his nose, but John took it as agreement. “Well, he’s gone. The boy’s turning out all right. Having to survive on his own has been the making of him; and he fully understands what he put his sister through by coming here. He wants to look after her now … if Nessa would let him.”

He thumped the big stallion’s flank. “But she won’t let anyone do that. Does she think she’s owed nothing in life? If those precious parents of hers were around still, I’d tell them a thing or two. What did they think they were doing, dragging a young girl to those places? Did that father of hers never notice the work she did, the danger she was in?”

The horse kicked back at him, and he realised he was tugging on its mane.

“Sorry, boy. That girl is driving me crazy. I need so badly to keep her safe, and she won’t let me. I can’t trust the woman to do anything she’s told.”

He finished rubbing down the horse, checked the stable and secured the latch for the night. He began to walk slowly back to the house. His last words kept repeating in his head.

“Do what she’s told.” Over and over, drumming into his head with each footfall.

By the time he got to the house, he was feeling the lowest kind of worm. Told. Ordered. Had he ever asked? Or had he been as guilty as her family, as her parents and her brother? Always, it was what they needed. What he needed. Had he ever asked Nessa what she needed, what she wanted?

He slammed the door after him.
That will change
, was his last thought as he fell into his bed, sinking into dreams with the warm, womanly smell of her surrounding him still.

He did not expect his good intentions to be put to the test first thing the very next day. John looked at the packer standing in front of his house the next afternoon, unsure what to think.

“Preacher’s at the Lower Dunstan,” the man was saying, “but I don’t know how long. Seems everyone wants a preacher these days. You better get your lady’s leg shackled right smartly, before some other fella grabs her.”

John scowled. He went back to work, lifting a stone and setting it in place in the broken part of the garden wall he was repairing. Wood was scarce in these parts, and John had learnt to use stone for most of the fences around the homestead.

The man did not take the hint, or even change the subject. “I hear tell there’s a place over at The Dunstan,” he continued, warming to his subject, “where the madam only hires ugly girls, to stop them being married off so quick-like. Last one she hired was so damn ugly it were a whole three weeks afore a bloke proposed to her. Guess if a woman can cook and clean, it don’t really matter what she looks like. Long as she feels good in the dark, eh!” He chortled happily at the thought.

“Miss Ward is nothing like those women.”

His fury at the coarse words must have shown in his face. The packer bit down hard, mumbled an apology and hurried away.

What to do now? A day ago, John would have marched over to the Coopers and told Nessa they were being married as soon as Ada could ready a wedding breakfast. Now, he was forced to rethink.

That evening, he resumed his practice of visiting with the Coopers, but he waited till after the evening meal was over and the women would have finished the cleaning up. He also changed from his work clothes, wearing a clean linen shirt and new twill trousers. Any more would have looked ridiculous. Or maybe he already did, he thought, seeing Bob’s raised eyebrow and hastily stifled grin.

“Would Nessa care for a stroll? I need to tell her something,” he said, dredging up every bit of the courtesies his mother had drummed into him.

Bob just nodded, and soon after, Nessa appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. They stilled when she saw him. Then she hastily untied the apron, tugged it off and thrust it behind her, handing it to one of the little girls who had followed her out.

“Why is he all togged up for Sunday?” piped the little darling.

He could feel himself going beet red. Thank God for the weathered tan of his face to hide it.

“Never you mind,” snapped Nessa sharply to the girl. She bent down to whisper in her ear, turning the now giggling child back inside to her mother. “You wanted to see me, Mr Reid?”

John was feeling ten times a fool, but he ploughed manfully on. “Would you care to take the air with me?” Too pompous. “It’s a beautiful evening.” Too facile. He shut up.

“That would be lovely,” he was relieved to hear. He would swear she was blushing as much as he, and suddenly everything was all right. This was Nessa. They had made love yesterday.
If you want to do it again, my lad, behave yourself
.

Want to? Yes—now, tomorrow, till the end of his days. But he also wanted to hear her laugh, wanted to wake up next to her in the morning, wanted so much more.

He put out his hand and helped her down the steps. Then drew her close and turned her across the slope and up the hill to where he knew there was a large slab of rock sitting in the middle of a clump of tall tussock. On the far side, they would be out of sight of the house, yet close enough that she could feel safe.

She leaned in to him as she stepped over a rough patch of ground. The smell of her enwreathed him and it was all he could do to hang on to his good intentions.

He waited till she had seated herself on the rock then leaned on the far side of it—not so close as to make her feel crowded but close enough to keep at the bay the clawing need in him. He cleared his throat, unsure how to start.

“You wanted to tell me something,” she prompted.

Her face was closed and he could not tell what she was thinking. He took a deep breath and took the bravest step of his life.

“I wanted to apologise to you.”

That, she clearly had not expected. Sweet confusion replaced the closed blankness.

“Ever since we met, I’ve been ordering you about. I want to apologise for that and tell you that, from now on, I will be asking not telling.”

“There was a half-smile on her face. “No more ordering me to marry you?”

Was that fear, or disappointment he heard colouring her voice?

“No more ordering you to marry me.”

“No more searching for a preacher?”

“I’ve found one, but it changes nothing.

“Oh.” She drew her legs up and under her skirt, looking like a young and nervous school girl.

“I would very much like to ask you to marry me—but I won’t. Not yet. Not till you tell me I can.”

She hugged her arms tight about her knees. “And if I can never tell you that?”

He took another deep breath. “Then I will have to learn to live with it … with one condition.”

She had relaxed, but her eyes turned wary. “And that would be?”

“If you find yourself with child, you must promise to let me know. I will not force anything on you, but I could not abandon a child of mine—or his mother.”

He watched her, holding his breath. He had such good intentions, but in this he knew himself too well. Then, with relief, he saw the hunted look vanish.

“No, you could not. Not you,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Then she looked up defiantly. “I’m not, you know. Not pregnant.”

“You cannot know that. Not after last night.”

She thought about it then shrugged. “We’ll see,” was all she said.

“So we have an understanding?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She let go of her legs, preparing to stand again. “Though I wish I knew what you are up to.”

He prayed she would not find out, not till it was too late. He had it all so carefully planned, but even yet he had no idea whether he could win what his heart so badly desired. Just how stubborn was his lady? For now, he ignored her words and offered his arm. “There’s still an hour or so of light … if you would care for a wander.”

She was no more eager to lose this moment of peace then he, it seemed. He tucked her small hand in his and led her farther up the slope.

They had not talked like this since that first day after they had met, speaking of nothing and happy to hear the other’s voice and their thoughts on the small and ordinary. He showed her the different kinds of tussocks that grew here, from the tall vanguards on the hill to the shorter tufts on the flat below where the sheep grazed. Together they examined the strappy Spaniard plant with its razor sharp leaves and the stunning spike of the flower head still present on the odd plant.

He told her of his family. Of his father in his comfortable manor farm and the brother who would inherit after him. Of his mother and her sweet voice, breaking in to periodic song as she bustled through the house, organising his sisters, his father, his brother and any other who came within her sphere. He even found himself telling her of the restlessness that had brought him here, needing to find a place in the world he could make his own.

In return, he drew forth snippets from her. Excerpts from a life he was hungry to know about. They were not enough, but it was a start.

In the following weeks, his visits became a regular part of their days. Not every night. That might bring back the wary look to her face. But enough that she came to accept him as a part of her life