The Secret Rose (31 page)

“For my need you would cease altogether!” she cried. “Please!”

The pitiful cry was too much even for his passion. Thomas jerked his hand from her hip and flopped across the bed onto his back. “Bloody hell! I’m no monster!”

Aisleen stared wide-eyed but utterly exhausted as she lay beside him. She had won. Yet she was inconsolably miserable. What she had wanted was for him to be kind to her, to make her smile. Now they were both miserable.

A dry sob racked her, and then another and another until she could scarcely catch her breath. Finally tears brimmed and coursed, running downward into her ears and onto his chest.

Thomas touched the droplet of water that fell upon his chest. “Do nae cry!” he roared.

Aisleen sat up, but Thomas caught her by the elbows and
roughly pulled her back down beside him. “Ye’re me wife and ye’ll sleep by me! That’s little enough to ask!”

Too drained to protest, she lay meekly still, her tears suddenly gone, but the place where her heart should be ached as though the organ had been torn out by its roots.

*

Aisleen sat on the hard wooden chair staring vacantly out into the impenetrable darkness long past the last shout, and last bang of the door, and last tinkle of glass below in the tavern.

Behind her Thomas sprawled in sleep, completely filling the narrow bed with his heavy frame. Once in a while, she heard a low, sonorous breath of deep sleep that bordered on a snore but failed.

What will I do?
The question hung unanswered in her mind. The revelation that had come to her as she lay wide-eyed beside her husband was that this was how her life would be from now on, for the rest of their lives, until one of them died. How was she to endure it?

You’ve been defeated, my girl
,
she thought sadly. She would lie beside him but spurn his advances until he grew tired of her or she gave up the struggle. Either way, she was lost…because he did not and never would love her.

The answer was so simple she did not know why she had not discovered the
source of her fear much sooner. From the
first she had been attracted to him. The first sight of him had been like gazing on a glorious sunset or a magnificent oak, or the face of a man she could love.

But what was she to him? She was chattel, no better than his horse or sheep or shirt: there when he had a need for her, but uncherished and unmourned in his absence.

The sharp pain of loneliness knifed down between her
ribs and she bent forward, covering her eyes with her hands, and wept.

Colleen?

The whispering of the wind across the treetops was louder than the voice, but Aisleen stilled, tears still seeping between her fingers.

Colleen?

She held her breath, waiting for the moment to pass. It was not possible. After all these years, it was not possible.

Colleen?

The third sigh of her name contained within it a heartbeat, and Aisleen jerked her hands away from her eyes.

In the yard below the faint glimmer of a white shirtfront was visible under the ebon shadow of a tree. A breeze brushed past her cheek, carrying in it the scent of roses. And then he was close beside her, so close she could feel the life breath of him warming the night air.

She did not realize when she gained her feet or even when she left the room, tripping down the stairs in only her nightgown. But suddenly dew pearled her bare feet as she hurried toward the spectral shadow.

At first she thought he had disappeared, the glowing white lost in the violet shadings of night. But then the blackest shadow moved, the shape of a man separating from the ethereal opacity of darkness.

“
Bouchal?
”
Aisleen questioned softly.

He paused, an alert silhouette.

Neither moved, each frozen in uncertainty. She thought he quickened first, but perhaps it was she. Suddenly she was in his arms, the arms of safekeeping.

*

Thomas awakened to the strange sensation of soft, cool lips plying his. One moment he held the soft, warm,
womanly body of his wife in his arms. The next his eyes were open, and he knew he slept alone.

She stood by the window, a tensely erect figure staring out into the night.

“Aisleen?”

She did not move.

“Aisleen!” he called more sharply.

She jerked at the sound and then swayed as though she would swoon.

The clear, pure scent of roses, sharper than even the soap fragrance, enveloped him as he leapt from the bed to catch her. She did not quite collapse but rather leaned her weight fully against him as he embraced her, so that the swollen buds of her nipples thrust against his bare chest and the soft curve of her belly hugged his bare loins.

“It’s all right, lass,” he crooned into her ear. “Whatever it is, ’tis all right.”
He did not know why he said that, for he did not know what she thought or felt, only that she
trembled as though emotion too big for her body sought release. He adjusted her in his arms, one hand going to the small of her back to press her lightly against him, the other
bracing the width of her shoulders.

Aisleen squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to
allow Thomas in but unable to deny the harder, rougher embrace that had replaced…

She raised her head and craned it around toward the windows. Nothing, no one stood in the shadow of the tree
below. It was gone. A dream. With a sigh of defeat, she sagged bonelessly against him.

Thomas scooped her up and carried her back to bed. She was cold to the touch, her skin chilled. He briskly rubbed her hands between his rough palms and then tucked her beneath the bedding, adding the warmth of his kiss to her unresponsive lips.

The sweet aching that had begun with another’s kiss
lurked just under her skin, the careless brush of a finger enough to ignite it. It was the source of her body’s betrayal during the dark hours of their wedding night. She could feel again the strummed vibrations of her wanton nature as her husband’s hand moved up under her gown to the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. A deep moan of pleasure shuddered past her lips.

Thomas’s self-discipline broke. He had to have her. She was his wife. He would take her gently, gently…if he could.

He climbed into the bed, lifting her gown up to bare her hips. Lush skin trembled under his touch, the subtle curve of her belly a tender swelling that he could not resist kissing. The sweet steam of her body filled his senses with attar of roses, fragrant musk, and woodland mosses. The taste of tears and sweat and salt became the sea, the sea that he knew from childhood. Desire twisted down tighter in his loins.

He moved quickly over her, prying her reluctant limbs apart with a firm but cautious hand. When he knelt between her thighs, a fleeting feeling of anxiety spun through him. The first time the amorous intoxication of rum had made him too eager. This time he would go slowly, gently, and pray that she would in some measure understand the gesture.

Aisleen clawed the bed as he entered her, the slow penetration more a torment than a torture. She knew the exact moment when her body relaxed enough to accommodate him. This was not invasion but a filling of the sweetly swollen center of her, a hidden void she had never before suspected.

Nails digging deeper into the tick, she bit her lip to keep from answering with loud cries of pleasure his deep, hard, slow thrusts. The instinctive need of her body to rise and meet him answered them instead.

Perspiration broke from their bodies, bathing them in the
slick wash of the emotional tsunami which he rode gratefully and she struggled to comprehend.

The cresting came too soon for both, but they rode together the bursting, foaming wave of desire.

Later, when he found the strength to move, he pulled her close and tucked her tenderly to him.

*

Thomas lay for a long time watching the indistinct silhouette until he was certain she slept. When satisfied, he rose and went to the window to look out.

The night was still, the faint whispering of leaves in the
eddy of mountain breezes the only sound and movement beyond the window.

Give to these children, new from the world,

Rest far from men.

—A Faery Song

W. B. Yeats

Chapter Thirteen

Aisleen wiped the perspiration from her face, lifting aside the veil she had adopted to keep her face from becoming more sunburned. Ahead the drovers had brought the sheep to a halt when on the road beyond an argument had erupted. Beside her, the cook sawed on the traces as the pair of bullocks who now drew their wagon bawled in protest and lumbered to a stop. Stock whip still in hand, the cook jumped down from the wagon and ran toward the fray.

She did not watch. During the morning, there had been innumerable arguments among the travelers over the right of way on the mountain road. After the first few, she realized that the frays ended as quickly as they began.

The general profanity of the argument subsided quickly as Aisleen gazed about. Over the last few days, she had become inured to the crudities and blasphemies of the men among whom she lived, but she had not grown accustomed to the
startling beauty and breath-arresting sights of the Blue Mountains.

In the beginning, she had been amazed by the number of people and vehicles traveling west. They had been alone during the first leg of their journey from Sydney. Now that they had reached the mountains they were frequently overtaken by wagonettes full of waving children and grim-faced parents, horsemen in expensively cut coats and finely tooled boots, and itinerant workers on foot. Once an overland coach had rumbled past, its passengers hanging on for fear of their lives. One and all, the cook had informed her in one of his rare moments of speech, they were headed for the goldfields, with names like Blackman’s Creek, Ophir, Hill End, and Mookerawa, which lay west of the mountains.

The road was far from the fine highway she had expected. The narrow passage through the towering peaks was often harrowingly steep. Once they lost half a dozen sheep when a sudden noise sent them stampeding over the edge of a sharp turn in the road.

In reality, the mountains were not blue at all. The vertical cliffs that seemed at times to run straight to the sky were sand-colored sandwiches of stone streaked rust-red or impurpled brown. A blue haze rose from the thickly wooded bush of the lower elevations. The oily green fragrance had been pleasant at first, but after a few hours, she began to feel as though she were trapped inside a closet pomander. Today the strong aromatic odor hung heavily in the air above the canyons. Nearby the strange laughter from what the drovers called “bleedin’ kookaburra birds” could be heard in the underbrush.

“G’day, lass.”

Aisleen nodded shyly and stared ahead as Thomas stopped beside the wagon. Since they had left the community at the base of the mountains, they had not exchanged more than a dozen words. She slept alone in the back of the cook wagon, while he spent his nights with the drovers. Nothing seemed changed.

Yet everything had changed inside her. She could not look at him now without the desire to be truly loved by him rising uppermost in her mind. The knowledge left her profoundly shaken and more wary than ever before. He could not know of her feelings, yet she knew that he sensed a difference in her. There was an enigmatic question in his gaze. It was not lust or impatience or cockiness, but a quixotic question which she could not decipher.

“We’re coming out of the worst of it,” he offered with a ghost of his old smile. He looked distinctly uncomfortable as he said, “Would ye care to ride a bit?”

Aisleen nodded again, and the brilliant smile that she received in reward set her heart knocking against her ribs. The strength of her reaction embarrassed her. She was truly and thoroughly distracted to react so to his pleasure.

He moved his horse alongside the seat and reached for her hand to guide her. She slipped easily onto the horse’s broad flanks and, without any encouragement from him, adjusted her skirts.

“Ye’re nae afraid this time,” he commented over his shoulder. “’Tis good to know ye trust me.”

It was a simple statement, but she realized the truth of it as he turned his horse and sent them cantering down the road. She
did
trust him about many things. It was herself that she had begun to doubt.

They did not travel far before Thomas slowed and turned his horse off the highway and down into a shallow gully. At once, they were plunged into the shadows of the surrounding forest. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of spindly, pale-limbed trees and became a pale green opaline haze illuminating the underbrush.

“I’ve something to show ye that I discovered the last time through,” he said. “For meself, I cannae think of a more pleasant way to spend any part of a day.”

He reached back to pat his saddlebag and instead found the shapely thigh of his wife under his hand. He felt her stiffen but thought better of apologizing. “Ye’re tempting, lass, and more tender than the gentlest lamb, I’d be swearing, but ’twas a joint of mutton I was reaching for.” Reluctantly he moved his hand past her thigh to the leather pouch.