Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

  She listened into the gloom, tense but not certain why. Then heard it again. A sound on the roof. Not the rough skitter of the possums that sometimes woke her. Creeping footsteps.

  Tilly sat up, her pulse so hard in her ears she couldn’t hear. She forced her blood to be still, and listened.

  One footstep . . . another . . . a pause. Then again . . . trying not to be heard on the roof.

  Tilly threw back the covers, jumped to her feet, hastily donned her dressing gown, wrenched open the door, and raced light-footed to Sterling’s bedroom in the dark. She stopped herself before she knocked: if she could hear footsteps, then the person on the roof would hear knocking. Instead, she tried the door and found it unlocked.

  Sterling lay, half dressed, asleep diagonally across his bed. No doubt the long hours in the fields and mangroves today had taken their toll. He slept like the dead.

  Tilly reached for his bare shoulder and shook it lightly. He stirred, blinked open his eyes, startled when he saw her.

  She held a finger over her lips, and pointed at the ceiling. His eyes went upwards and together they waited.

  And there they were again, the footsteps. Sterling bolted upright, every muscle in his strong chest tensed. He stood, pulled Tilly close. For a brief, almost unbearable moment, her breasts were smashed against his chest through her thin dressing gown.

  “Go to Nell,” he whispered in her ear. His hot breath tickled her. “Bar the door. Don’t move.”

  Then he released her and rushed off, leaving her reeling with desire and fear. She hurried to Nell’s room, opened the door, and slid onto the bed next to her, her hand clamped gently over Nell’s mouth.

  Nell’s eyes flew open. Tilly motioned that she should be quiet and uncovered her mouth. She lay down so her lips were against Nell’s ear and said, “There’s a man on the roof.”

  “The prisoner?”

  “I don’t know. Your father’s gone to investigate.”

  “But they thought he was in the mangroves. Are there any warders outside? What if he attacks Papa?” she said in a desperate whisper.

  Tilly held up a cautionary index finger. “We need to be calm. Stay in bed. I’m going to bar the door.”

  Nell ignored her, grabbed Pangur Ban from the side table, and followed Tilly to the door. Together, they lifted the writing desk and moved it across the door. Nell dropped her end and it thudded against the floorboards. They both froze. Tilly’s heart ticked in her ears.

  Moments passed. Nothing happened. They relaxed. Tilly went to the window to check the latch was in place.

  Nell was right behind her again. “What if he breaks the glass and comes in?” she whispered.

  Tilly’s eyes had adjusted properly to the dark now, and she could see the girl was pale and shaking. “Perhaps we should hide under the bed.”

  So they clambered under the bed and lay there, in the heat and dust, waiting.

  No more footsteps on the roof. A long, dread silence. Nell started to cry.

  “Shhh, Nell. It will be fine.”

  “Yes, Papa is very strong,” she said cheerlessly. “Isn’t he?”

  “Very strong.”

  “And he will have taken the rifle.”

  Then the sudden sound of thudding and bumping, coming from the verandah. A scuffle. No sound of gunshots. Tilly felt helpless and hopeless, here under the bed. And while she recognized it was the safest place for Nell to be, she also had to make certain that Sterling wasn’t alone out there. She intended only to listen, hoping to hear the voices of other warders.

  “Wait here,” she said to Nell.

  “Where are you going?”

  But Tilly was already out from under the bed, across the room, and carefully positioning herself behind the curtain. She cautiously peeked out, but could see nothing on the verandah. Carefully, as quietly as she could, she reached out to unlatch the window and lift the sash an inch.

  Nell was under her arm. They both listened.

  A man moaning. Another man’s voice. Nell gripped Tilly’s wrist. “That’s not Papa’s voice,” she said.

  Tilly’s skin ran hot and cold. She was right. The man speaking—snatches came on the wind: “you pig,” “you tyrant”—was not Sterling. Which meant the other sound, the moaning sound, was Sterling.

  “Did he not take the rifle?” Nell whispered, harsh and frantic. “Why doesn’t he shoot him?”

  Tilly’s skin ran with cold fire. Who would come and save them if something happened to Sterling?

  Nobody. Tilly would have to save them.

  “Is there more than one rifle?” Tilly asked, closing the window and latching it.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, you will not. You will get under that bed with Pangur Ban and you will be as still and silent as him. Where will I find a rifle?” Her heart hammered.

  “Papa’s office. The cabinet over his desk.”

  “Wait here. You will put us all in danger if you don’t wait precisely here. Get under the bed and do not come out until one of us comes for you.”

  Nell choked on frightened sobs. “Come back safely. Please.”

  Tilly crept to the door and dragged the writing desk out of the way. She checked that Nell was back under the bed, then made her way down the hallway to Sterling’s office. Then changed her mind. She had no idea how to fire a rifle. Instead, she turned to the parlor, to the cold fireplace, and seized the brass poker. She took it back to her own room, which was on the same verandah as Nell’s. From here, she climbed out the window and listened for the voices. They were coming from the north verandah, behind the house. Her body shook with fear, but she couldn’t stand by and let Sterling be injured or killed. Where were the warders? Was everybody down at the mangroves? If she screamed into the dark, perhaps they would all come running and she could cower back inside where she wanted to be.

  Or perhaps that would prompt the escapee to kill Sterling.

  Tilly stopped at the corner of the verandah. She needed to peer around to see exactly what position they were in. Deep breaths. Then she darted her head out and back. In that split second, the scene on the adjoining verandah burned itself into her mind. Sterling, lying facedown as a fair-haired, grubby man crouched over his body, sitting on Sterling’s skull, pummeling him with fists and elbows.

  How dare he? How dare this low, low creature brutalize a man of such vision and compassion? How dare he hurt Sterling. Her Sterling. Fury wound up inside her. The escapee’s back was to her.

  Tilly gulped another deep breath and dashed round the corner. The escapee turned his face around in time to express surprise at the crazed red-haired woman, right before she smacked into his head with the heavy end of the brass poker. With a sickening intake of breath, he fell off Sterling. She slammed the poker across his face, hearing his nose break under it. Then once more around the head and he lay still, bloody and smashed, his chest heaving, breathing wetly. Still alive.

  Tilly panted. Sterling lifted himself up on all fours, spitting blood onto the wooden boards. He reached down off the verandah and retrieved his rifle from the bushes, pointed it at the prisoner. The night held its breath. But then he raised the rifle to the sky instead and squeezed the trigger. It was deafening, a flat smack in the quiet dark.

  He leaned on Tilly, dropping the rifle with a clatter. “Thank you,” he said.

  Lanterns started bobbing from all directions, called by the gunshot.

  “He knocked the rifle out of my hands,” he said, heaving, hands going to his ribs. “I should have protected you and Nell. I should have stayed awake. The warders on duty probably all thought I was.”

  “Nobody expected him to come to the house.”

  “I’m too merciful, Tilly. I had a clear shot. I could have killed him, but I tried to negotiate instead.” He indicated the unconscious figure on the ground. “I could have killed him now too. But I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m weak.”

  “No. You are strong. So strong. I admire you so greatly, Sterling.�
�

  Footsteps ran towards them. Voices shouting and overlapping. Tilly’s ears still rang from the gunshot, from the fear. Men in blue uniforms apprehended the prisoner. Their lanterns showed the extent of injuries to his face and head, and Tilly felt sick that she had caused them. Sterling, holding his ribs, barked commands at the warders. One of them—Tilly recognized him as the chief warder, Mr. Donaghy—reached for Sterling’s shoulder.

  “Go inside, Superintendent,” he said. “You’re injured. You must rest. Dr. Groom will be here tomorrow. Let us take care of this.”

  Sterling hesitated, confusion and exhaustion in his face.

  Tilly found her voice. “I’ll take you in,” she said. She became suddenly aware that she stood in front of a group of men while wearing only her dressing gown. What might they think of her? What gossip would it arouse?

  But then Mr. Donaghy stepped forward and said, “Yes. Go with Miss Lejeune, Sterling. Miss Lejeune, there is a first-aid kit in the superintendent’s office. Do what you can. If you are concerned that his injuries may be life-threatening, come to find me down at the eastern end of the stockade and we will send a boat across to the mainland tonight.”

  Tilly put her hand under Sterling’s elbow and led him inside. Nell sprang on them in an instant. “Papa! Papa!”

  “You were supposed to be waiting in your bedroom,” Tilly said, all her focus on keeping Nell away from Sterling.

  “Please, Nell, leave me be,” Sterling said. “I am bruised and shaken up.”

  “But I want to help, I want to—”

  “Nell!” Tilly admonished, hating herself for raising her voice when she saw how the girl cowered. She smoothed out her tone. “Nell, my dear. If you want to help your father, you’ll go to bed. I will call you if I need you.”

  “But it’s not fair. You won’t call.”

  “I will.”

  “The night my mother died, they never called.”

  Tilly released her grip on Sterling’s arm for a moment and bent so she was Nell’s height. “I promise you.”

  Nell nodded wordlessly, eyes brimming, and slipped slowly away down the dark corridor.

  Tilly led Sterling into the parlor, where he lowered himself into the sofa and she lit all the lanterns.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  “I can hardly move,” he replied with a wry smile.

  She went to his study for the first-aid kit, then to the kitchen for water and a cloth. When she returned, she saw that Sterling had stripped off his shirt. There was a bloody laceration near his collarbone and blood on his face. Tilly had a brief, alarming flashback to that night Jasper had come home from the fight with the Spaniard. She stifled a gasp. “I’ll have to clean those wounds.”

  Sterling was turning his ribs towards the lamplight. “I think it’s mostly bruising.” He took a deep, full breath in. “I can still breathe fine. I don’t think any ribs are broken.”

  “Dr. Groom will be the judge of that, Sterling. Hold still.” She cleaned away the blood from his neck to reveal a ragged bite wound. In the first-aid kit was a small white pot labeled in the doctor’s handwriting. She gingerly rubbed some of the ointment on the bite wound, then turned to cleaning Sterling’s face. The blood had come from his nose and hid no great injury.

  Sterling sat still and patient as she tended to him.

  “You hit him hard, Tilly,” Sterling said.

  “I had to,” she replied, realizing she sounded defensive.

  “And you, such a soft thing.” He touched her hand briefly.

  She smiled into his eyes. “I was angry.”

  “You are fearsome when you’re angry.”

  She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

  “There,” she said, closing up the first-aid kit and putting it aside. “He bit you?”

  “He was like a wild animal. Some of them . . . incarceration plays with their minds. He was in his fourth year of a five-year sentence for theft. This time next year he would have been free. But he got the idea in his head that he was going to punish me as I had punished him.”

  Tilly shuddered. “And you deal with men like that every day?”

  “They’re not usually trying to kill me, Tilly.” He paused, thoughtfully. Then said, “You do know he would have killed me? It’s not a way you want to die, being beaten to death.”

  She sank onto the sofa next to him. “Don’t talk of it, Sterling. It didn’t happen. You will be fine.”

  “Only because you saved my life.” He reached out again, brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. She shivered. “I could never have imagined, that day I met you in the church hall, that you would become so important to me.”

  And as hard and hot as her anger had come before, now came her desire. It roared over her skin, surged up through her core. She was rendered speechless, motionless by it, certain it would kill her.

  Sterling took her face in his hands, leaned in, and pressed his lips against hers softly.

  But softly was not enough. She pushed herself against him, on top of him. His arms encircled her waist. His hard body was under her fingers, his warm mouth under her lips, her tongue.

  “Tilly,” he said softly, urgently, pulling away. “Tilly, no.”

  And here it was, the rebuff she feared. The familiar feeling of having exposed her heart, her desire, too readily. Flames on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said, moving off him.

  “No.” He grasped her hand, smiling in the lamplight. “Not here. Come.” He stood, winced, and pulled her to her feet. “Nell might still be snooping about. I rarely lock my bedroom door in case she has nightmares. But tonight I will.”

  His bedroom. He was inviting her to his bedroom. The thought of it made her knees weak.

  In the dark, they softly stepped across the hallway together. All was quiet from Nell’s end of the corridor. Sterling ushered Tilly ahead of him, closed the door with a low clunk, and dropped the latch into place. He turned to her, grazing her throat and face with his warm hands, then gently taking the edges of her dressing gown and pushing it off her shoulders, so that only her gauzy nightdress came between his body and hers. His hands gathered her breasts, thumbs brushing her nipples and making her ache hungrily. His eyes met hers, held her gaze a moment, then he pressed his lips against hers.

  “Sterling,” she murmured against his mouth. “Oh, God.”

  His hands were on the hem of her nightdress now, pushing it up. She lifted her arms and tore it off, threw it to the floor. He fumbled with the band of his trousers, wriggled half out of them, nearly fell over.

  They laughed, stumbled to the bed.

  “Be gentle with me,” he said in the dim room, indicating the bruising on his ribs.

  “I think I’m the one who is supposed to say that,” she said with a smile.

  “We will be gentle with each other,” he said, rolling onto his back and pulling her down astride him. Her breasts fell over his face, his hands reached for her hips, massaging the soft flesh that gathered there. Warm skin on warm skin. She ran gentle fingertips over his ribs, then firm hands over the dense muscles of his arms and shoulders. She closed her mouth over his. As he entered her, she gasped with a brief sharp pain, but his mouth over her breast soon turned pain to pleasure. He cupped her buttocks and they moved together, wild with both desire and heady relief, their bodies molded together as though they had been designed for one another.

  •

  Sterling led her to her own bedroom afterwards, after she helped him pull his clothes back on. He chuckled about how he had felt no pain during their embrace, but how it was all rushing back now.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Never apologize for what happened. But, Tilly, we cannot risk Nell finding us sharing a bed . . .”

  “I understand. We will talk tomorrow about . . . this.”

  He leaned down to kiss her. She parted her lips and his mouth lingered, firm and loving. But then he drew back. “Good night.”

  She smiled. “Good nigh
t.”

  Then she was stripping off again, on her own this time, and sliding into her bed.

  She lay there a long time, going over the details of their lovemaking in her mind. What beautiful, fluttering, diving, soaring feelings he had aroused in her. She groaned softly remembering it, ran her hands over her body wondering how she had felt to Sterling. Soft and curvy. She wanted to do it all over again.

  But in time the happy thoughts began to dissipate, and gave way to much darker ones. What business did she have falling in love with Sterling? She couldn’t love him, and she certainly couldn’t allow him to love her. She was living a lie and such a lie could only continue to function if she never grew close to anyone.

  The thought kept her awake as surely as pebbles in her bed might. This side, that side, covers on, covers off. Dawn glimmered outside her curtains. Then it occurred to her: she had saved Sterling’s life. Surely that went a little way towards canceling out her other, darker deeds.

  And suddenly it was clear: the guilt was permeable. It didn’t need to crush her forever. She could erase her actions of the past with her actions of the present, she could make herself free to love Sterling.

  Her tired brain was shutting down now; she balanced on the edge of sleep. For some reason, Hettie Maythorpe came to mind, so far from her children. She fell asleep as the sun crept over the horizon.

  •

  The day after was a day of bedlam in the house. A constant stream of people—warders, administrators, doctors, investigators from the mainland—came and went. Somehow Tilly and Nell were supposed to concentrate on schoolwork.

  At one point, Nell threw her French grammar book down and proclaimed theatrically, “Too many footsteps!” It was true, the sound of feet going up and down the stairs and around the verandah was a constant distraction, but for Tilly, the much greater distraction was wondering when she’d be alone with Sterling again.

  “Come along. Four more exercises and then we’ll find something else to do.”

  Nell put her head down, but then the door opened and Sterling stood there. Tilly hadn’t seen him since last night. He had been holed up in his office since before breakfast, dealing with the aftermath of the escape. He looked tired, but his cheeks had good color under his thick sideburns, and his eyes shone.