The Isis Knot (29 page)

He listened intently.

“So I’ve been thinking,” she went on, “that if I didn’t feel anything for you myself, if there wasn’t a base attraction there to begin with, wouldn’t I feel revolted by this manipulation? Wouldn’t I want to fight it?”

“Aren’t you fighting it right now?”

“My head is telling me to, but I really, really don’t want to. I’m having the hardest time reconciling that.”

He stared at her heavily from beneath his lashes. “I think I understand.”

“I don’t want what I’m starting to feel for you to come from anywhere but my own heart. I don’t want to touch you with anything but my own body and mind. And I’m not sure that’s the case.”

“It’s okay to be scared. I’m here. I’m not leaving.”

“Because of Amonteh?”

“No. Because of you.”

The top of her head tipped forward, coming to rest on his chest. “I need time. Please give me time.”

“I get a go wit’ ’er after you,” slurred another male voice.

William whirled, sweeping Sera behind his body. “Touch her,” he growled to the drunk pissing into the water thirty feet away, “and I’ll fix you like I fixed Riley.”

Squinting into the darkness, it took a moment for the weaving drunk to comprehend the threat. “Ah. So you’re ’im. From tonight.”

William hugged her tighter against his back. “Aye, I’m him. If anyone goes near this woman they answer to me.”

The drunk threw up his hands and stumbled off. William’s protective grip on her loosened.

“No man’s ever fought for me before.”

William looked at her over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine that’s true.” He took her hand and the feel of it was warm and solid and…right. “Come. Let’s go back to Waldgrave’s. Whatever is meant for us, we’re not going to find it here.”

And she couldn’t help but wonder, as they made their way back to their decrepit little room, if he meant Sydney’s harbor or New South Wales or this year.

CHAPTER 18

“Where’s Jem?”

The sound of Sera’s sleepy voice drifted over from the corner in which they’d slept last night, separate but still somehow together. William turned in the chair to see her peeling back the blanket and stretching, her back arching off the cold stone floor, the long shift Francine had given her doing nothing to hide her body’s shape.

The first night she’d huddled underneath her own blanket, her big eyes set on William but her body nowhere near him. But last night, after she’d watched him fight Riley, and they’d touched and confessed things by the water, she’d fallen asleep with her leg flush against his. And when they’d awakened, her elbow was crooked over his arm, her forehead resting on his shoulder.

Amonteh approved, but William loved it more.

“Gone out already,” he said as she rose. “He said he wanted to do something before Waldgrave needed him in the tannery, and it’s early enough I thought it would be all right. I mean”—he had to think for a moment—“okay.”

She smiled, but it was strained. He understood. There was so much to ask about her life, and even more to try to comprehend. Almost too much.

“What are you doing?” She advanced toward the table.

He spread out the paper he’d brought home yesterday and frowned at the letters. “I’m…trying.”

“To what?” She peered over his shoulder. “Oh.”

He tried to push the paper away in frustration because the sounds of the letters and the way they looked just didn’t match up. The harder he tried, the more difficult it seemed. But she pressed the heel of her hand to a corner and held the paper in place.

“Would you like me to read it to you?”

He looked up at her in surprise and awe. She could read? And then he remembered. It was easy to forget sometimes when she was standing in front of him or touching him.

He nodded, humbled. She sat on the other chair, the one he’d hammered back together, and picked up the paper. He nudged the lantern closer and she smiled at him in thanks, then began to read about shipments recently received and news from Mother England.

“Go back,” he interrupted. “Read that line again.”

As she repeated the part about Macquarie’s plans for the abandoned, unfinished Fort Philip up on the bluff west of the Rocks, William rose and went around the table to stand behind her.

“Can you…I mean, will you point to the words as you read them?” He hated the hiccup in his voice, but he liked the way she gazed at him, her brown eyes wonderfully dark and big in the dim room. He liked it even more when she did as he asked.

One hand braced on the table, the other on her chair back, he bent closer, setting his cheek to hers. His eyes followed her finger on the page, and he tried to match up the letters with the sounds on her tongue, but the pull between them was distracting. Disarming. He did not, however, move away.

“Now you try.” She pointed to a four-letter word. Her voice came out stilted and a little breathless.

“That’s an
h
, isn’t it?” He gently rubbed her with his scruffy chin, and she exhaled.

The door to the hidden room opened, throwing the table into light. They both looked up.

Jem stood there, his face a distorted mask of disappointment, hurt eyes trained on William. In one hand he held a pen and ink, in the other a fresh sheet of paper.

Excellent. New tickets of leave. They’ll buy us some time.

Jem’s eyes narrowed and shifted to Sera, and his expression twisted into a bitter, accusatory glare. “
I
was going to teach him to read and write.”

William straightened and pushed away from the table. “Calm yourself—”

Jem marched into the room, threw the inkpot onto the table, and spat at Sera, “Do you have to have
everything
?”

She calmly stood up and raised her palms. “I had no idea that’s what you wanted to do. How was I supposed to know that?”

Excellent question. Jem only glared harder, his breath wheezing in and out of his large nose.

“I’ll leave you to it, if you like. I can go see if Francine needs any help.” As she moved to the door, Jem watched her like a mother bird eyeing a predator who was circling her baby. It put William at great unease.

Once she’d left, Jem’s expression tumbled into shame and embarrassment. William had no idea what to say.

Jem poked the inkpot. “’Twas supposed to be a surprise.”

“And it’s a good one.” William’s instinct was to placate, though he was slightly disturbed by Jem’s outburst. “I would greatly appreciate it if you taught me to read.”

That soothed Jem some, the bunch of his shoulders unwinding. He started to sit, then stopped. “She gets so much of you.”

He remembered Jem’s words to him just before they’d returned to Sydney.
I forget sometimes, when I’m with you. I forget what happened to me, what Riley did. You make me feel safe.
Perhaps William’s preoccupation with Sera and Amonteh and Ramsesh had stolen Jem’s sense of security.

He could never tell Jem that Riley frequented the Rocks, that he slept in the Hyde Park Barracks not too far away. It would send Jem into a quivering ball, like he’d been that day cowling beneath the steps of the
John Barry
. It would make Jem cling to William’s apron strings even tighter.

Which also meant he couldn’t tell Jem he’d beaten Riley to a pulp in his honor.

He drew a deep breath, nudged his chin at the paper and ink, and gave Jem what he could. “Shall we begin then?”

Jem grinned.

#

A few hours later, William climbed the steps and knocked on Waldgrave’s door. Francine answered and sent Sera out. She’d tied back her hair again, which showed off the roundness of her face and the tint to her skin that had deepened during their walk from Parramatta.

There was something about seeing her for the first time after an absence, even if that time apart had been short and even if the space between them had only been a ceiling and floor. The way her face changed, sweetening and turning slack with desire all at the same time, made his heart pound.

“I’m here to apologize,” he said.

She exited the Waldgraves’ flat and closed the door behind her. “For what?”

“On behalf of Jem.”

She started to roll her eyes, but didn’t. “Why doesn’t he do it himself?”

“Because I don’t think he understands his own behavior.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. When she did speak, he was fairly sure it wasn’t what she’d originally wanted to say. “You have to explain something to me. I mean, I get why he’s attached to you—he’s a young man who’s still quite a boy, emulating someone older—but I don’t understand what he is to you.”

William frowned and she touched his arm.

“You have a good heart, an excellent heart, but he seems to be more of a…” She faded off.

“A hindrance?”

Her eyes softened. “Yes. I guess.”

He considered the sky, which was intensely blue that day, then lowered himself to the top step. Patting the spot next to him, she also sat.

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “but you’re becoming resentful of him. And he believes you’re taking me away from him. Maybe you should know.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“I never told you how he and I met.”

“On the ship. The
John Barry
.”

“We were sitting in Portsmouth harbor for six months before we set sail, to allow the prisoners to fill up the hold, you see. I kept to myself because I was lost, wondering why the bloody hell the Spectre wanted me to get pinched and sentenced overseas. Then they brought aboard Richard Riley.” When her eyes widened, he nodded. “Yes, the man I fought last night. He quickly took over the ship, made two other convicts his mollies. They enjoyed it, though. They wanted his attention and loved to follow.”

“Sorry. ‘Mollie’?”

He couldn’t look at her. “I heard Jem before I saw him. Heard his screams, and his pain and humiliation. The two mollies were holding him down and Riley was behind him…”

She gasped. “Holy shit. Mollie.”

“Yes.” His throat hurt. He could still see the scene as plain as day, even though he’d tried hard to forget. “Jem was crying and screaming and there was blood… So even though I’d spent the better part of my life with my head down and mouth shut, I still had my fists. Still had my days of street fights. So I stepped in, pulling Riley off Jem. And I made sure that Riley never touched the lad again. Or anyone else who didn’t want it.”

He finally looked at her, and she had both hands pressed to her lips, her eyes wide and wet.

“I’ve gladly stood in front of him because of that, and because he’s been unable to stand on his own. But I’ve been hoping that he would grow over time, to learn not to need me. I had someone like that once. I wasn’t assaulted as Jem was, but I had someone who showed me what it was to be a man. I keep hoping that one day Jem will find that in himself. That’s why I haven’t been able to leave him.”

Her hands dropped from her face and wrapped around her waist. She bent forward. “Oh God, I’ve been thinking the most awful things about him. Getting frustrated and feeling selfish, thinking only about how he’s been such a handicap. But now so much makes sense.”

He gripped her gently just above the elbow. “You can’t say anything to him. You can’t let on that you know, or that I’ve told you.”

“No, of course I won’t.”

She looked heartsick, and even though he felt terrible for telling her Jem’s ugly secret, perhaps it would change things for the better between them. Perhaps, now that Jem had taken pleasure in teaching William his letters and sounds, things would be better overall.

He sighed, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his hands. He wanted to ask her about the word
mollie
, about what something like that would mean in her time. He wanted to ask her everything about her time. He wanted her to draw pictures of what it looked like, and to tell him stories, and to—

Above, where the staircase switchbacked higher into the Rocks, a portly woman exited a door and started stringing up the wash. She saw the two of them sitting on the stairs and paused, her expression growing wary.

William tried to stay off the streets during the day, and he quickly jumped up, giving the woman his back.

“I’m going to dice at Cook’s,” he mumbled to Sera. “The man writing those newspapers frequents there and he might have information about new ships coming in. Or about the
Remembrance
.”

Her face was as full of questions as his. As full of words and stories and futures unspoken. She reached for him, sliding her hand into his. She bounded down the stairs, pulling him along behind.

The bottom of the steps emptied into the cool, shadowed courtyard. The lanes leading into and out of the heart of the Rocks snaked off in opposite directions. It reeked of piss and rot, but it was out of the eye of the curious woman above.

Sera pulled him next to her, their backs against a sandstone wall. “Don’t go. Stay here.”

He tightened his fingers around hers. “Would you like to go back inside?”

“No. Not at all. That room suffocates me. It depresses me. I need air.”