The Secret Rose (24 page)

Overhead the midday sun blazed down, making her scalp itch beneath her straw bonnet. The gingham gown she wore was two sizes too big, but she was too grateful for the circulation of air that the roominess provided to complain
about it or the fact that she had no crinoline to make the skirts stand out properly. Along with her petticoats, the crinoline was at the bottom of Parramatta River.

The gingham gown was a gift from one of the camp women. She had been too embarrassed to ask what explanation Thomas had given the people of the camp for the incident the night before, but she was grateful to put her wools aside.

The wagon shimmied over the summit of another rut and then dropped heavily into the backswell. She clung determinedly to the side of the wagon seat, refusing to utter a groan of protest. She had learned within the first hour that the cook would not respond to her pleas. In fact, she suspected that he drove over the ruts just to annoy her.

Nothing had gone right from the moment she was awakened by Thomas’s rough shake of her shoulder. It was not yet dawn when she stumbled from the tent. Even so, she had missed breakfast because the cook was anxious not to be left behind by the drovers. So here she sat even hungrier and thirstier than she had been the day before.

At least, she surmised with more cheerfulness than she felt, she was in no hurry to relieve herself. Still, her stomach ached with hunger, and she decided to brave another attempt at conversation with the cook. “Will we be stopping soon?”

The cook turned a baleful stare on her and issued a short, enigmatic grunt.

She recoiled from the rude syllable, but he did not seem to notice as his indifferent gaze wandered back to the road.

Thoroughly disgusted, she raised a hand to shield her
eyes as she searched for Thomas. He had been riding right
in front of them a moment before. Now she saw the backs
of the drovers weaving in and out of a roiling sea of
hundreds of sheep whose pink skins shone like bald men’s
scalps under the white ruff of their newly sheared wool. All the drovers looked identical. Like the others, Thomas wore a canvas shirt and moleskin britches. His shiny black hair was hidden beneath his wide-brimmed hat. Only the huge expanse of Jack Egan’s shoulders set him apart.

When the wagon suddenly lurched off the road and came to a halt under the doubtful shade of the trees, she turned a surprised face to the cook, but he set the brake and climbed down from his perch without signifying that she existed.

“Well!” she declared in annoyance. He was as rude as any man she had yet met.

Gathering her too-long skirts together, she stepped over the side of the wagon and climbed down. She was becoming accustomed to the maneuver, which was just as well, she decided.

“Missus!”

She turned toward the back of the wagon just in time to catch the heavy iron skillet which the cook heaved at her. For the first time, animation showed in the man’s face as the weight of the skillet forced her to lower it to the ground.

“Weak, ain’t ye?” he jeered with a snicker.

Anger caught fire in Aisleen’s face. “How dare you address me in that manner!”

He turned toward the dropped tailgate of the wagon and reached in and dragged out a large billy. Patting it, he said, “Water’s in the barrel on the other side. Put on the cha.” He grinned, showing gaps between every tooth in his mouth. “Unless ye’d rather do the slaughtering.”

Aisleen let the skillet drop. “I don’t intend to do either.”

The man’s weathered face stiffened. “Tom said ye would help with the cooking. Well, it’s time.”

“Thomas said—” Aisleen’s mouth snapped shut. Her husband had volunteered her for a job without seeking her consent or determining if she were equal to the task. “There has been a misunderstanding. I will speak with my husband.”

As she turned away, he exploded in profanity that shocked her more than he knew. Determined not to show it, she turned back to him. “The filth spewing from you will not solve my problem nor cook your meal. Therefore I suggest that you begin without me.”

“Bloody pommie!” she heard him hurl after her.

The blowing dust surprised her, for the ground was grassy for the most part; but the passage of hundreds of small hooves had stirred up the layer underneath, and she sneezed repeatedly as she walked toward the flock.

The sheep had poured forth in a widening circle from the narrow column that they had been forced to maintain by men and dogs. Now they spread across the grassy spaces between the tall trees which flanked the road. Feeling awkward as the sheep swirled in about her, she continued toward the drovers on horseback.

The barking dogs did not surprise her; they had been constant company the morning long as they helped the men keep the sheep moving smoothly. A long, low growl to her right did not unsettle her until she turned to face the gold-and-white dog a few feet away who had bared its teeth. Sheep, sensing danger, flowed away, leaving her and the dog inside an empty circle.

Misgiving flicked her spine as the dog lowered its head and flattened its ears back, but she was not afraid of animals. “Nice dog,” she said quietly, and tentatively offered the back of her hand for its inspection.

The dog’s snarling lunge for her hand came as a surprise, and she stumbled back with a cry of fright.

An instant later the report of a gun split the air, and with a yelp of pain the dog jerked and fell sideways, its legs jerking spasmodically.

“Oh, God!” She swung toward the source of the gunfire.

A few yards away Thomas sat astride his horse, a smoking pistol in his hand. Immediately he thrust the weapon back into his belt and dismounted.

“What the bloody hell were ye doing?” he roared as he caught Aisleen roughly by the arms.

“You killed it!” she accused, unable to believe that she had been in real danger.

“Bloody right I did!”

Aisleen stared up into his anger-distorted face, at his eyes bulging white about the deep blue
irises. Rage trembled through his hands into her arms where he mercilessly gripped her. She had never before seen a man so angry, and the fierceness of it made her feel watery with fear. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “What did I do?”

Jack Egan, his long legs dwarfing the size of the horse, road in close to the pair. “No good for the sheep, spooking them that way. Won’t be worth piss, they drop dead of fright.”

“Then ye’d best be calming them,” Thomas shot back. He looked about and saw that the other men had stopped to watch. “I’m paying ye wages for work!” he said roughly. “Get that carcass out of sight.”

He turned Aisleen away from the dead dog, pulling her along after him with a bruising hand on her upper arm. Only when they had cleared the flock did he pause and turn to her. “Never do that again, ye hear me?”

Aisleen nodded, unable to steady her voice for a moment. He was so angry, angrier than he had any right to be. “Is—is that all?”

The red cloud of rage that had overcome Thomas receded slowly. When her face was clearly before him he saw that her golden freckles stood out vividly on her too-pale skin. “Frightened ye, did it?”

She steadied her gaze on his. “You did.”

“Me?”

“You killed that poor dog,” she said, shrugging free of
his touch. “You killed it for no reason. It did not touch me. It was only doing its job of protecting the flock. That was no reason to murder it. How could you?”

Irritation needled Thomas. “I was protecting ye, lass.”

“I don’t need that kind of protecting,” she answered and turned to hurry back toward the wagon.

He watched her go in mingled annoyance and chagrin. It had never occurred to him that she would do something as foolish as wade into the middle of a mob. What had brought her out here? That thought sent him striding after her, but Jack came riding up to intercept him, leading his horse.

“Sam’ll bury the dog,” he said, and he tossed the reins to Thomas. His eyes flickered over the younger man before resting speculatively on his face. “Leg’s paining ye,” he announced in a flat voice before moving on.

With a curse, Thomas lifted himself into the saddle, ignoring the twinge in his left calf. Perhaps he had overreacted. He had more cause than most.

He looked again toward Aisleen, but she was nearly back to the wagon, and he had things to do before they settled down for the evening meal. “Bloody hell!” he muttered, turning his mount away.

As she walked rapidly back to the cook wagon, Aisleen tried to put out of her mind the image of the dead dog. Yet it would not vanish, nor would the niggling possibility that its death was her fault. Had she provoked it? She had not meant to. The dogs she had known through the years were docile creatures, wagging friendly tails to elicit a pat on the head. The dust had confused her or she never would have waded into the center of the flock.

“Finish herding sheep, have ye?” the cook asked as she approached, and she knew that he had witnessed at least a part of the incident.

She crossed her arms and gripped her elbows, her voice
defensive. “The dog attacked me. It might have caused me serious injury had my husband not shot it.”

“A man makes his choices. He can kill the thing that causes the trouble or kill the trouble. Seems like Tom took the long way round to it.”

“Hold yer tongue, ye bloody get!”

Aisleen looked back to find Jack’s long silhouette between her and the sun. “Ye’ll do, missus?” His tone belied interest in her welfare.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered, gripping her arms more tightly as she sensed his disapproval, She saw his gaze shift back to the cook.

“Tom says ye’re to show the missus the way of camp cooking.”

“Ain’t known ye to want a sheila along on a haul,” the cook ventured with a grin.

Jack’s voice was dry as dust. “Might improve the swill ye serve.”

“Bleeding better hope I stay!” the cook roared. “A pommie in the cha is as good as a dag on a sheep’s arse!”

Jack did not answer as he turned away.

“Well?” the cook barked at Aisleen. “What’re ye waiting for, yer majesty? Tom said I was to teach ye to cook and, by God, ye’ll learn or ye’ll flaming answer to me!” He picked up the billy can he had set near the fire and swung it across the flame to begin heating. “Get the tea.”

“Where is it?” Aisleen asked.

“In the flaming wagon!”

“If you do not cease that filthy language this minute, I shall report you to my husband,” she answered.

The cook unbent from his crouched position and took a menacing step toward her. “Ye do that, missus, and I’ve remedies that’ll see to it yer husband cannae plow yer field for some good long time!”

Aisleen did not understand the implications of the threat,
but she did understand that it was a threat. “I am prepared to be civil, if you will. Kindly tell me what I must do instead of cursing me for not doing it.”

The cook snorted and spat to one side. “Where’s that blee—blooming tea?”

“In the wagon, of course,” Aisleen answered with a smile as she lifted her skirts and went to retrieve the item.

“Bloody pommie sow!” the cook muttered and returned to his fire.

*

Aisleen sat on the burned-out stump of a tree and surveyed the contents of her tin plate. Chunks of lamb swam in a greasy broth along with bits of undercooked dumpling and some leafy green vegetable of unidentifiable origin. She speared a bit of meat and gingerly bit into it, discovering that it was every bit as tough as it appeared. With a resigned sigh, she laid her fork back in her plate and looked up to gauge the reaction of the other diners.

A little distance away, the drovers had hunkered down around the cookfire, conversing in low monosyllables and forking food into their mouths at a speed that left no time to chew. Thomas was among them, his back half-turned to her as he balanced his arms on his knees and ate. He was silent, seemingly listening to his men, but she suspected that he was aware of her and that his avoidance of her was deliberate. Two days had passed since the shooting of the dog, yet he had scarcely acknowledged her existence.

Disappointed, she waved a hand over her plate to discourage the flies who held her meal in greater regard than she. He was still angry and that disturbed her. And there was the dog. What sort of man shot a dog for no reason? She could not reconcile the action with the man she knew

Or thought I was beginning to know
,
she mused. There was no explanation for his rage.

From the corner of her eye she saw him rise to his feet, his meal finished. She rose, too, resolved to speak with him, but then he started across the yard.

He limped, his left leg thrown out stiffly each time. She had nearly forgotten about his limp. He had not favored the leg so strongly since the first day they met. She knew nothing about the cause of his affliction or the things that made it better or worse.

He turned toward her as if he had felt her stare, and their gazes locked across the distance. He was too far away for her to divine the expression in his dark blue eyes, yet she had the distinct impression that weariness was
there, and something more. He made no gesture, nor spoke. Suddenly he swung away from her, grabbed his horse’s reins, vaulted into the saddle, and rode off.