The Secret Rose (29 page)

Thomas cocked his head to one side as he surveyed her. Her hair hung free, ringlets climbing her brow and shoulders as it dried. But the lass of the afternoon with rosy-hued cheeks damp with perspiration and dusted with Australian gold was once more hidden behind a reproachful gaze. Why was the elusive woman who lay behind those wary eyes so seldom set free?

“Where’s the life in ye, lass?” he questioned in irritation as she continued to regard him with misgiving. “So prim and proper ye are, like all the breath and blood’s been sucked out of ye. Were ye never a free-running creature, skipping through the bog, dirtying yer face and careless of yer dress because the heart in ye was a beating up so high and hard that ye feared nothing but that the day would end too soon?”

The barb hit too close and Aisleen turned to the window, afraid that he would see her anguish because she was just pondering that very question. Yet her voice betrayed her as she said, “Yes, once I was very like the picture you paint with words.”

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

Aisleen shrugged. “I grew up, as we all must, learned to live as I must.”

He remained serious as he said, “Ye must take joy in the living. There’s no life, no real living, where there’s no joy “

“Is that how you see me, a joyless creature?” she asked a little desperately.

Thomas shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Maybe ye’re just afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That’s what I ask meself.”

“Perhaps your life has been easier than mine,” she suggested defensively. “Perhaps you’ve never been really alone or frightened, never wondered how you would live another minute if you had to endure—”

“If ye had to endure what, lass?” he encouraged softly.

Aisleen shook her head. It hurt too much to remember, even now—perhaps especially now because she felt so fragile. Like a spun-glass ornament, she feared that any sudden shock, a rough touch, and she would splinter into a thousand bright shards.

“Who hurt ye, Aisleen?”

She did not answer; she could not.

Thomas wet his lips. He did not know what to say to her in the serious moments between them. Laughter was easier, but she needed to be drawn out of herself or they would never settle into marriage.

“I believe that ye must have been a wondrous child,” he said softly. “Any son of Ireland would be proud to say ye sprung from his loins.”

The statement struck Aisleen’s ears with stinging irony. “You are wrong,” she whispered bitterly. “The man who sired me cursed me from my first breath to his last.”

Thomas frowned. “Cursed ye, a bairn as bright and pretty as I’d swear ye were? Why should he be doing that?”

She flinched at the blunt question. Why had she spoken? Why had she not kept the pain buried? “I was not the son he desired nor the dutiful daughter he demanded.”

“So, ye were always a contrary thing. I see how a man might grow wearisome of yer tongue were he nae convinced that there was more in ye than prudish airs and great parcels of words.”

Aisleen turned to him, stunned. She had been too unwary, too unprepared for the possibility that he would turn her most painful admission into a jest.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed at the sight of sick humiliation on her face. “Did ye never forgive him?”

She blinked at him in confusion. “Forgive him?”

“Aye.”

She shook her head. “It was not his lack but mine that ruined him.”

“How is that possible, with ye a wee bairn and him a grown man?”

Aisleen looked away. She had never told anyone about her feelings for her father. How could she share them with a near stranger? “My father was a dreamer,” she said slowly. “He had grand plans for his life, and when they did not come true he could not accept it.”

“That’s a failing that may be laid at many a man’s door,” he answered evenly. “I have cursed me lot a time or two and men lived to know the folly of the oath.”

“I saw none of his pain and much of his anger,” she answered. “We grew poorer every year while my father spent what little there was for bottles of poteen. Things worsened, and he drank even more until even whiskey was not enough; and he turned to madness and magic.”

“What magic?”

Aisleen shook her head. She had not meant to say that. “He was a drunkard who began to believe in the whiskey dreams at the bottom of the bottle.”

“And ye, lass, what did ye believe in?”

She was silent for a long time before she said, “I have learned to rely only on myself There is nothing more.”

She was half-turned from him, her hands clasped tightly across her middle as if to press out a sudden spasm. In reality, she had told him little, but he was not lacking in imagination. The thought of what a lonely child must have endured at the hands of a drunken father made him wince.

Anger pumped suddenly through his veins. He did not know her father, but he would swear to Saint Peter himself that she was guiltless of whatever sin her father had made her feel in his dislike of her.

“My grandma, a grand old lady if there ever was, had a saying for every occasion. I’m reminded of one that goes ‘A good man is not without fault and there’re two faults in every man.’ Yer da drank a bit overmuch and he was a dreamer. For all that, he gave ye life, and at this moment I cannae think too badly of him because of that.”

Aisleen looked up, seeking desperately to read his expression. There was no humor there, no half-hidden edge of a smile. Even so, she did not trust the feeling blossoming inside her. For the second time this day, he had taken her side. He had complimented her without pity, yet his words left her trembling. Tears tangled in her lashes, distorting her view of him. How pathetic her defenses were against this man. One more word from him, one more kindness, and the years of work to build an impenetrable fortress about the crystalline shell of her heart would collapse at her feet.

Aware of the danger of the moment, if not the reasons for it, Thomas cast about for a safe topic. When his wandering gaze spied the copper tub in a corner of the room, he seized on it gratefully. “Ye’ve bathed. Now it’s me turn.”

Aisleen’s eyes widened, and then she looked away as he went to pull the tub into the center of the floor. Without waiting for a dismissal, she headed for the door.

“Where’re ye going?” he questioned when he noticed.

“Below, to the parlor,” she answered and reached for the latch

“In yer night clothes? I’d like to see that!”

Aisleen halted. She had forgotten that she was dressed for bed.

“
Och
,
the water’s still warm,” he murmured in approval as he put a hand in it. “Won’t be needing more.”

She turned to suggest that fresh water be brought in any case, but the sight of him stopped her.

He had already pulled his shirt from his britches and unbuttoned it. As she watched, first one bronzed shoulder and then the other appeared as he peeled the shirt back and slipped his arms free. Mesmerized, she saw him reach for his belt buckle. “Stop!” she cried suddenly. “Stop that this minute!”

Thomas looked up in bafflement. “What have I done?”

“You know,” she said accusingly. “You know very well it’s what you were
about
to do!”

“Bathe?” he asked innocently.

“You were about to—to bare yourself!”

Thomas tried to sober his expression. “The water’s cooling. If ye are afraid of offending me modesty then there’s nae need. I’ll trust ye to be turning yer back, for I cannae wash meself in me britches.” Grinning, he loosened his buckle and began unbuttoning his fly.

Aisleen turned away from him and again set her hand on the latch, but it was an empty gesture. She would not leave the room in her bed clothes, and they both knew it.
Very well
,
she told herself, struggling for composure. She would remain and keep her dignity.

When she faced about she kept her eyes from straying to where he stood, but from the fringe of her vision she saw the pile of his dirty clothes and mud-caked boots and the governess in her took over. Head erect and spine straight, she crossed over and scooped up the offending items and carried them to the pile of her own gown and boots which lay by the door.

“Why’d ye do that?” he questioned, water splashing as he stepped into the tub.

“These things need washing. The hotel has a laundress who promised to have them ready by morning.”

“Ye’ll not be giving her me boots!”

“Why not?” She stood them beside the garments. “They need the mud scraped from them, and a shine would not do them any harm.”

“They’ll nae leave the room and that’s an end!”

She swung about at his stubborn tone. “Oh, my!” She had only a swift glimpse, but it was enough to send her rotating back to the door. He stood bare, hairy legs and all, in the basin. And curls—who’d have thought to find curls in such a place!

“Ye promised ye would nae look!”

His tone was reproachful, but she knew that he was amused. “You are a vile, vain creature, Mr. Gibson,” she said breathlessly.

“Are we back to that, and here ye were calling me Tom not three hours ago. A woman’s a fey creature, for all a man may love her,” he said in a wistful tone.

Aisleen took a deep breath and then another. Dignity. She would retain her dignity if it killed her.

Thomas watched her reach for the door handle. What could he say to send her spinning about again?

“I do nae suppose ye would consider staying to scrub me back?”

Sure enough, she stopped short but did not immediately turn back from the door. “Mr. Gibson,” she enunciated with extreme care. “I will remain only if you promise not to tease me for the remainder of the evening.”

“Fair dinkum.” He sat down in the tub and found his knees at eye level. Water sloshed over the sides and ran across the dry planks to disappear into the cracks in between. Sudden misgiving sent his hand diving between his
knees and under his left buttock, where he located a slimy semisolid. He dredged up the half-melted cake and sniffed it suspiciously. “Roses,” he declared in amazement.

“My attar of roses soap,” Aisleen said in dismay as she spun about. “I forgot to fish it out of the tub.”

“It’s melted,” he observed as he squeezed the soggy cake until the oily gel ran between his fingers.

She edged toward him, her hand outstretched but her gaze averted. “Give it to me.”

He grinned. “Would ye be denying yer husband the soap with which to scrub the dirt from his weary body?”

She jerked her hand back at the mention of his body.

“I know, lass, I’m uncouth,” he said with a gentle chuckle. “Poor wife, ye do have yer trials with the likes of Thomas Gibson. Ye must teach me different.”

“I doubt that’s possible,” she answered shortly, but a smile tugged her mouth.

“
Musha
,
if ye did nae think ’twas possible to mend me manners, then why did ye wed me?”

“Oh, do not ask impossible questions!” she answered impatiently and crossed her arms under her bosom, which Thomas could not help observing was a very flattering pose.

“If ye were to teach a man manners, truly, where would ye begin?”

After some thought she answered, “With your speech.”

“Well, that’s a fine thing,” he answered, freely splashing water over the side of the tub as he lathered up. “What’s wrong with the lilting voice of the old sod?”

Aisleen side-stepped to the chair by the window and sat down with her back to him. How would she have him sound? Certainly not like Major Scott or like Nicholas Maclean, with his Oxford vowels and London drawl. “I would not change so much how you sound as what you say,” she admitted finally.

“Like me calling ye ‘lass’ and saying how grand I think
ye are, all pleasing and proper in yer starched ruffles? Ye remind me, sitting there, of a wee lass who’s waiting to be tucked in for the night.”

The speech made her stomach flutter strangely. “You’ve never said anything of the kind to me.”

“Then ’tis an oversight,” he answered promptly. “I like the way yer hair shines in the moonlight. And I think it’s the greatest kind of sin for ye to hide the glory of it.”

“Now that is an example of what you should not say.”

“Whyever not?”

“It is too familiar.”

“Too familiar?” His brow furrowed in mystification. “Cannae a man say what he likes to his wife?”

“Not in polite society,” she answered, though she could not swear to that statement as truth.

Thomas sniffed the attar of roses lather smeared on his palm, speculating that it must smell even better on Aisleen’s warm skin. “What, then, does a man say to his wife when they’re alone?”

“Oh, I do not know,” she answered irritably. “Perhaps the weather or the evening meal, what he’s heard in the marketplace, or the wife might comment on a book that she read.”

“The weather’s been the same four days running,” he remarked affably as he rested his chin upon his soapy knees. “We have nae eaten yet. Bullock driver says there’s rain in the mountains. What book would that be that ye’ve been reading, lass?”