“And you’ve a place to stay in the meantime, Lieutenant?” asked Flynn. “I assume you’ve somewhere more appropriate than this fine establishment.”
Blackwell gave a thin smile. “I’ve lodgings at the home of a colleague. He and his wife are due to leave for Van Diemen’s Land shortly.”
“Ah,” said Flynn, his face lighting with recognition. “Captain Grant’s house perhaps?”
“That’s right.”
He chuckled. “I’ve been hearing about this little jaunt from Grant over cards for months now. At these very tables, in fact. He says the farmland’s better down that way. I told him his wife would take one look at the settlement and curl up in horror. I’ve heard this place feels like Paris compared to how primitive things are down there.”
I turned my teacup around in my hands. Ann shifted on her chair, making it squeak loudly. I wondered if I ought to offer her my tea.
“Give Captain Grant my regards,” Flynn continued. “I regret that he’s to miss our wedding celebrations.”
“Of course.” Blackwell tossed back the last of his liquor and stood a little too abruptly. “I’ll not keep you. I only came to say goodbye.” His eyes met mine. “And to wish you all the best.”
My throat tightened.
What was I to say? How did you farewell a person you knew you were never going to see again? I couldn’t bear the finality of it. I looked up at him. It felt as though Flynn and Ann were watching me; every nuance of my face under scrutiny.
“Have a safe journey home,” I managed, my voice sounding hollow and completely unlike myself.
“Thank you.” Blackwell opened his mouth to say more, then stopped. I could tell he too had no thought of how to proceed. “Take care.”
I swallowed heavily, forcing down a sudden swell of tears. “And you.”
Blackwell gave a short nod. And then he was gone.
The hollowness of it stayed with me into the afternoon. When Flynn and Ann returned to the farmhouse, I took a broom up to my room, biding time until work started that evening. I tried to focus on my cleaning, tried to let the rhythm of the sweeping still the commotion of my thoughts. I knew I was being foolish. How lucky I was to have a man like Arthur Flynn as my husband-to-be. But I couldn’t help feeling empty.
I leant the broom up against the wall and picked up my empty wash basin for refilling. I trudged out of the tavern and headed for Tank Stream, waving wildly at the flies as they circled my face. The heat was making my skin itch beneath my stays and I felt inexplicably close to tears.
As I stepped onto the muddy bank of the stream, an arm grabbed me from behind. I thrashed against my captor and whirled around, coming face to face with Patrick Owen and Dan Brady. My washbin thudded dully into the mud.
I knew it no coincidence they had appeared the same day as Blackwell. Had they seen him at the tavern? Or had they simply caught word he was in Sydney? Assumed they might find him with me? I had little doubt Lottie had told Owen where I was living.
I knew what they wanted, of course. A chance to go after Blackwell without the rest of the Rum Corps around. A clean shot out of the confines of Parramatta. I was sure even Owen knew his immunity didn’t stretch to the murder of an officer.
“He’s not here,” I said, before they could speak. Instantly, I regretted my words. I ought to have feigned ignorance, given them no hint that I knew anything of the lieutenant.
“Where is he?” asked Owen.
“Do you honestly imagine I would tell you?”
He took a step towards me and I stumbled back towards the water, the edge of the stream licking my boots. I forced myself to hold Owen’s gaze. My heart was thundering. But I knew he intended to scare the information out of me and I refused to let him win.
“How dare you lay a hand on me,” I hissed.
Owen gave a short chuckle. “Would you listen to her ordering us around?” He turned back to me, eyes close to mine. “Have you forgotten who you are, Nellie? You’re nothing but a factory lag.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, my voice rattling.
Owen grabbed my arm again. I heard myself gasp as his fingers dug into my flesh.
“Blackwell does not just get to walk away,” he hissed. “Not after what he did to my family. Tell me where he is.”
I yanked out of his grip. “I’ve no idea where he is.”
I grabbed my empty washbin and hurried back to the tavern.
Back in my room, I paced.
A fortnight until Blackwell’s ship left. And the rebels knew he was here. In the anonymity of Sydney Town, it would be all too easy for Owen to pull the trigger. All too easy for him to emerged unscathed from yet another murder.
Lieutenant Blackwell does not just get to walk away.
I had to warn him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I snuck a little rum in that tea for you,” said Charlie when I came down to the bar. “But you didn’t even drink it. Highly ungrateful if you ask me.”
“Do you know how to find Captain Grant?” I asked, pushing past his jibe. I prayed he hadn’t overheard our conversation in the tavern earlier. Prayed he didn’t know I was seeking out Blackwell.
Charlie frowned. “You all right, Nell? Something upset you?”
“Captain Grant,” I pushed. “He plays cards here with Arthur Flynn. Do you know where he lives?”
“I know where everyone lives.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Except Patrick Owen.”
Charlie chuckled. “I know where everyone important lives.”
I managed a small smile at that. Nodded impatiently as he rattled off directions, and then I was out of the tavern before he could ask questions.
Grant’s property was not far from the Whaler’s; the house guarded by a high wooden fence with a gate cut into one corner. I stood for a moment, hesitating. Would it be wildly inappropriate for me to just knock on the door? I was beginning to lose sense of what was right and wrong in this place. All the lines I knew had been blurred.
I clicked open the gate and stepped into a neatly manicured garden. Saplings surrounded a small, circular pond, grass hemmed with roses that had withered and browned in the heat.
And there was Blackwell, leaning against the house and lifting a pipe to his lips. He was without his jacket and waistcoat, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. His dark hair hung over one eye. He turned suddenly, catching sight of me. And at once he was striding towards me, the pipe left smoking on the garden path. The deliberateness of his movements made my heart jump into my throat.
“I know I shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I just—”
He grabbed my hand and led me around the side of the house, where the fence was covered with white-flowering vines. We slipped through the door and wove through empty servants’ quarters, before climbing a wooden staircase to the second floor. Blackwell led me into the guestroom and locked the door behind us.
Before I could speak, he reached out and pulled me into a tight embrace. I felt myself sink against him, my arms sliding around his waist.
I stepped back, my hands tight around his bare forearms. “Captain Grant and his wife have left?”
“No. Not until tonight.” His voice was low. “But they’re in the front wing. They needn’t know you’re here.”
I nodded. Standing there before the tall, wide bulk of him, the idea that the rebels could touch him seemed almost laughable.
“Patrick Owen found me at Tank Stream,” I said. “He must have caught word you’d visited me. Followed me from the tavern.”
Blackwell’s eyes darkened. “Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No. But I’m worried he’ll come after you.” I swallowed. “I know he wants you dead.” The words caught in my throat. Speaking them aloud made the brutality of it sting.
I needed to know the truth, I realised then. I needed to hear Blackwell’s version of what had happened in that little hut near Squires’ inn. In two weeks’ time, he was to disappear on the sea, and all I
would be left with would be Owen’s tall tales.
“Patrick Owen says you killed his family,” I said. “In their kitchen. After the uprising at Castle Hill.”
I saw something pass over Blackwell’s eyes.
“I told him I knew it was a lie.”
But right then, I questioned it. Had I allowed myself to love a man who had done such things? For that was the other realisation that swung towards me as I stood there holding his gaze; that I was irrevocably in love with Adam Blackwell. I felt like a fool. I had no place to love such a man. All it would do was break me.
His lips parted. “You think it a lie?”
I stepped away from him, and stared at the polished floorboards. Blackwell moved towards the bed, the floorboards groaning loudly beneath his weight. He sat on the edge. Laced his fingers together and looked up to meet my eyes.
His story of the uprising was not the same as Owen’s. There were no heroes; not the rebels, nor the Rum Corps. Just an impassive retelling of the rebels’ attack on the government farm at Castle Hill, and of the way they had beaten down their overseers. Of their advance towards Parramatta, and the way the army had so quickly responded. A midnight march to meet the Irishmen. The surrounding of the rebels at nearby Rouse Hill. Firing lines formed to cut the croppies down.
His story emotionless, a thing of duty.
I thought of the rows of crosses in the clearing outside Parramatta. That day, I had seen emotion in Blackwell’s eyes. When he had thought no one was looking, he had let it slip above the surface.
“And afterwards?” I asked.
“We were sent out to hunt down the rebels who got away.” He spoke calmly, evenly. “We were told to find every one of them. Told that if we let them live, they’d overturn the order we’d created in this place. Undo everything we’d worked for.
“I found the Owens’ hut out behind Squires’ inn. Three of them were hiding there. I saw the stolen muskets up against the wall.”
“You killed them.”
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. It was not surprise I was feeling. Not shock. Just a quiet acceptance that I had known this all along. I had seen the guilt within him the day I had followed him to the rebels’ graveyard.
“You speak of it so calmly,” I said finally.
Blackwell looked up at me. “How would you have me speak of it?”
I tilted my head, trying to see behind his eyes. “Do you regret what you did?”
“I was doing my job. Doing as I’d been instructed.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
For the first time, I understood Owen’s hatred. But I also understood my own love. It was deep and unyielding. Unmoved by the blood on Blackwell’s hands. And this, I realised, was my biggest betrayal of Lottie. I saw then how right she was to have refused to share things with me.
I would never see things from her point of view. How could I? Not only was I an Englishwoman of a far higher class, I would give my life for the man who had pulled the trigger.
There was regret in him; I could hear it in his voice, could see it in his eyes. But perhaps it showed too much weakness for him to speak of it, especially in front of a government lass. Perhaps it went against everything he had committed to when he had taken on his commission. Went against everything this place expected of him.
“I saw you at the graveyard outside Parramatta,” I said. “Do you go there often?”
He let out his breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“What of the Owens’ cottage? Do you ever go there? To pay your respects?”
Something flickered across Blackwell’s face. The look in his eyes told me I was right; that he had returned to that cottage, as he had returned to the rebels’ graves. Seeking what? Forgiveness? Absolution? The thought of it filled me with dread. If Owen or any of his remaining family were to discover the lieutenant alone at the cottage, he would likely not return.
I took a step towards him. Placed my hands on the broad plane of his shoulders and looked down to meet his eyes. He reached up, tracing gentle fingers along my bare forearm. I shivered.
“It’s best that you leave,” he said, but his hand slid around me as he spoke. Came to rest on the small of my back. A gentle pressure, guiding me closer.
His body felt heavy against mine, at once both weighted down and liberated at having spoken of the cottage. I wanted to give him a little in return.
I drew in a breath and sat beside him on the bed. “I was transported for high treason,” I said. “I ran counterfeit coins across London.”
I made no mention of Jonathan. I wanted to claim my crimes, just as Blackwell had done.
He said nothing. Just gave a nod that made my guilt fall away. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and ran his thumb along my cheek.
And then his lips were on mine. This was not what I had come for, I told myself. I had come to warn him about Owen. But a part of me knew that a lie. I had also come for that goodbye I had been deprived of at the tavern.
My mouth opened beneath his, deepening the kiss. My hands in his hair, pulling him towards me.
For all his urgency, Blackwell was hesitant, uncertain, his fingers sliding to the hooks at the front of my bodice, then pausing there, as if awaiting permission. I reached down to pull apart the first hook, sighing against his lips as his fingers slid beneath.
I pulled his shirt up over his head with a fervour I didn’t recognise. Perhaps this place had corrupted me. Perhaps I had grown to fit the label the colony had saddled me with.
I didn’t care. At least not there in the humid, sea-scented air, with Blackwell’s breath on my skin.
It was me who loosened the last laces of my stays and let them ghost against the floor. Me who lay back on the bed, pulling him down over me. My hands slid up and down his back, over his shoulders, the backs of his thighs. I could feel the tension draining from his body; replaced with something far more urgent, more temporal.
“I missed you,” he said, close to my ear. “I missed having you in my home. I missed seeing you each morning.”
In the half-light, he pulled my shift up over my head, his lips moving over the pale skin of my shoulders, coarse fingers finding the warmth between my legs. I heard myself murmur, and pulled him down over me so he might trap the sound within his lips.
Was I marking myself as a loose woman? Perhaps. But the rest of the world couldn’t see inside this room. The only man who knew this side of me was to disappear on the seas. I dug my fingers into the hot skin on the back of his neck, wanting to mark him as I was marking myself.
And his broad, tanned body was over mine; covering me, consuming me, filling me. I felt that barrier around him splinter as he groaned into my ear, worked his lips along my neck. Felt his control slipping and shattering as we moved together in the hatched sunlight spilling across the bed. The shame was there at the back of my mind. But I felt far too alive to care.
I lay in the shadows, feeling his heart beating against my ear. His arms were warm against my bare skin. I felt like all the things Reverend Marsden had accused us of being.
And I thought of her then, beautiful Sophia, with her doe eyes and her perfect curls, and I felt her husband’s body shift beneath me.
Look what I had become.
I was always doomed to fail. I had been playing opposing games – on one hand, challenging myself not to give in, not to fall for him, not to succumb and be that weak, indecent concubine the female register had labelled me as. And at the same time, I had sought power. Tempted Blackwell to forget his wife, his God, his morality. Somewhere along the line I had fallen in love.
A losing game.
Blackwell’s breathing grew steady and rhythmic, his chest rising and falling beneath my head.
I watched him in his sleep. I wanted to hold him, love him, take away the guilt and regret he refused to speak of. Take away the memories of that bloodstained cottage near S
quire’s inn. Perhaps that made me as bad as him. Perhaps those men who had fallen deserved more than for the memory of them to be taken away.
I climbed from the bed, careful not to wake him. I had to leave. I was due back at the tavern. And I needed to leave Grant’s house before anyone realised I was here.
I took my shift from the floor and slid it over my head. I had left a thread of coppery hair on Blackwell’s pillow. I stared at it as I laced my stays.
I felt an emptiness inside me. Now the line had been crossed, what did we have left for each other? He had Sophia, I had Arthur Flynn. I felt certain that when I stepped out of that room, I would never see him again.
I crossed the room, each step carefully placed to avoid the creak of the floorboards. I slipped out into the hall without looking back, that coil of red hair stark upon his pillow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I crept down the stairs, each footstep carefully placed to avoid making a sound. Eyes down, I headed towards the empty servants’ quarters. But as I stepped into the hallway, I came face to face with a tall, well-built man, whose grey eyes flickered in surprise. A regular fixture at the Whaler’s Arms.
We stared at each other for a long second. I knew there was no need for questions. He had seen me come down from Blackwell’s room.
There was a silent understanding between us that this was to remain wordless. Unspoken. I turned abruptly, and disappeared out of the house.
The shame gathered over me as I made my way back to the tavern. I had been caught as a concubine. Caught behaving as what Marsden’s register had made me out to be.
But beneath the shame, there was a hint of relief. The afternoon I had spent with Blackwell would allow me to move on. Allow us both to. He, back to England where Sophia was waiting. And I could marry Arthur Flynn, without feeling caught in an unfinished chapter. I knew such a marriage was the only way I would ever have a future.
The next afternoon, I went to see that future. Flynn had sent one of his farmhands to collect me in the trap and I sat in the back of the wagon, winding up towards the edge of Bridge Street where the colony met the wilderness.
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