Whispers of Heaven

by Candice Proctor

  "No. Mother insists I rest for a few weeks." She hopped off the railing and went to stand at the edge of the porch, looking out over the broad, slow-moving River Daymond that curled around the estate's outbuildings. "How is she, Tom?" she asked quietly, without turning around. This time, they both knew Jessie wasn't talking about her horse.

  He knew all of her secrets, Old Tom. How could he not, when he'd ridden faithfully behind her wherever she went, for as long as she could remember? And the woman Jessie visited out on the headlands beyond Shipwreck Cove was her deepest and most dangerous secret.

  "She's missed you, sure enough," said Tom. "It gets lonely out there sometimes, with only the sounds of the waves on the rocks and the ghosts of the cove's wrecks for company."

  Jessie swallowed hard. "I couldn't even write to her. I was too afraid Mother would find out. No one minds their own business on this island."

  "Aye. We've a saying in Ireland: Chan sgeul ruin a chluin- neas triuir"

  "Which means?"

  "What three people hear is no secret."

  Jessie smiled. Looking down, she saw the old man's bagpipes on the table beside her. She reached out her hand and touched the slender reeds. "Do you miss it still?" she asked suddenly, looking up at him. "Ireland, I mean."

  "Aye." His face remained impassive, but she heard the rough catch in his voice, saw the over-bright sheen of his eyes before he turned his head away.

  "Why didn't you go back? You could have gone, long ago. Your pardon isn't conditional."

  He swung to face her again, his throat working. She thought he was going to say something. Then he shook his head and went back to his whittling. "You don't want to hear it, Miss Jessie."

  "Yes I do."

  He drew the knife with deliberate slowness over the block of wood, one thin shaving curling up to fall to the porch floor, then another, and another. "All right," he said, not looking up. "I'll tell you. I'd rather they'd hanged me, you see, than send me away from Ireland like that. I begged them to hang me. But when those soldiers dragged me onto that ship ... well, I swore then on my mother's grave that I'd never go back. Not until the day there's nary an English boot left on Irish soil."

  Jessie sucked in her breath in a startled hiss. "But you live amongst the English here."

  "Aye. But it's no' my country, now is it?"

  She watched the paper-thin curls of wood drop, one after the other, to the weathered plank floor. She'd never really given much thought to why Old Tom had been transported. If she'd considered it at all, she'd have assumed it must have been for poaching a rabbit or selling an illegal batch of poteen. Now, she wasn't so sure.

  "Do you hate us so much?" she said softly. "I never knew."

  He shook his head. "Not you, Miss Jessie."

  "Why not me? I'm English."

  "You are, and you're not. Besides, in your own way, lass, you're as hemmed in and controlled as any convict ever was."

  "I don't understand."

  "Don't you?" He looked at her shrewdly. "Why did you ask? Why now, after all these years?"

  "I don't know."

  They'd gone on to talk of other things then. About her mare Cimmeria and her brother's hounds and the homecoming party her mother was planning. But she hadn't forgotten his words. Oh, no. She hadn't forgotten.

  "Miss Corbett? Miss Corbett?"

  Jessie turned from the dressing table to see Emma Pope waiting in the center of the room, the silk evening gown held ready in her hands. Lifting her arms, Jessie let the girl drop the dress over her head. The teal blue silk shimmered sensuously in the candlelight, then settled in soft whispers about the hard, carefully corseted confines of her body.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next morning, Jessie walked down to the stables to watch the Irishman try his hand at "fixing" Finnegan's Luck. She told herself she went because of her interest in the horse. When a nigglingly honest inner voice tried to suggest a different reason, she ignored it.

  It had rained during the night, leaving the ground dark and wet, the vegetation of the garden lushly green and dripping. Clouds still bunched low and thick over the valley, turning the park's trees into murkily indistinct shapes that seemed almost to float in the opaque, flat light. The promise of more rain hung heavily in the crisp morning air, along with the scents of wet hay and warm horseflesh that intensified as Jessie neared the stables.

  She could hear the drumming of hooves and a man's low, soothing voice even before she drew near the small paddock to the left of the stables. From his perch atop the high, whitewashed fence, Warrick acknowledged her appearance with only a grunt, his attention fixed on the big Irish Hunter that trotted past, powerful muscles bunching and flexing, noble head held high, dark mane and tail streaming in the wind as it circled the paddock, guided only by the sure hands and voice of Lucas Gallagher. She paused beside her brother, the fingers of her gloved hands coming up to curl in ladylike restraint over the top railing as she watched the magnificent, high-spirited horse and the man who worked it.

  He stood in the center of the paddock, his long legs braced wide, his dark hair fluttered by the wind as he pivoted grace- fully, the longeing rein held lightly in a series of loops across the palm of his left hand. Slowly, he began to draw out the leather with his right hand, his dark, strong-boned face taut with concentration as he urged the big bay stallion from a fast trot into a rolling canter, which took it in a steady circle around and around the man. A skinny, half-grown boy stood beside him, intently following the man's every move.

  He was brutal and lawless, a wild and dangerous rebel of the kind she had been raised both to fear and to despise. Yet the beautiful, evocatively powerful synergy of the man and the beast he controlled stole her breath. For one, unguarded moment, she gave herself up to staring at him, at the artistry of his scarred, long-fingered hands, the curve of his leanly muscled back, the strength of his hard, spread thighs. Then his gaze lifted and for one brief flaring instant their eyes met and held, and the moment spun out of time. She knew an odd tightening in her throat, a squeezing of her chest that left her breathless and light-headed. The relentless, rhythmic pounding of the stallion's hooves seemed to reverberate through her, a primitive, hypnotic beat that thrummed in her blood in a strange evocation of a need only dimly understood.

  Frightened and disturbed, she jerked her gaze away. "I fail to see how this is supposed to teach Finnegan's Luck to stop bucking," she said to Warrick, her voice coming out tart and disapproving.

  Her brother grunted, his gaze still following the stallion. "The man's simply getting to know the horse for now, Jess. He says these things can't be rushed if they're going to be effective."

  "Huh. Why didn't you have Old Tom work with Finnegan's Luck?"

  Warrick glanced down at her, his delicately arched brows drawing together in a puzzled frown. "It was Old Tom who suggested Gallagher. Tom says the man knows what he's doing, and I believe him. Don't you?"

  "Of course. It's just that—"

  The sound of a firm step behind them brought her head around. Turning, she saw Harrison's tall, thin figure striding across the yard toward them. He was wearing an expensive bottle-green riding coat, buckskin breeches, and shiny, knee- high leather boots, and he looked so familiar and safe, with his calm demeanor and proud, confident carriage, that she felt a sensation of relief flood through her at the sight of him. It was as if she'd momentarily found herself drifting into a strange, somehow frightening world, and he'd brought her firmly back to earth.

  "Harrison," she said, stepping forward to hold out both of her hands as he came up to them. "This is a pleasant surprise."

  "Your mother thought I would find you someplace around the stables." Harrison took her hands in his and squeezed them, gently, before letting her go. "She offered to send someone to fetch you, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to come and see for myself this Irish Hunter I've heard so much about."

  "A faux pas, that one," said Warrick idly, his gaze once more following his horse. "I f
ear you have unwittingly deprived our dear mother of a unique opportunity to pry her daughter away from her outdoor pursuits and thrust her into the drawing room, where all respectable ladies supposedly belong."

  A gleam of amusement lit up Harrison's sober gray eyes. "Yes, I fear I did rather disappoint her. But I reinstated myself in her good graces by promising to bring Jesmond back up to the house with me in time for tea."

  Jessie laughed softly, and Harrison's features relaxed into the slightly crooked smile she'd always found especially endearing. Then his gaze slid past her to the cantering stallion, and he said, "So, this is Finnegan's Luck." Stepping forward, he leaned his forearms along the top rail of the fence and watched as the Irishman brought the bay back down to a fast trot. "Marvelous. Have you ridden him yet, Warrick?"

  Warrick caught Jessie's meaningful glare behind her be- trothed's back and flashed her a wicked grin. But all he said was, "I thought I'd let the groom work him for a few days."

  "Hmmm." Harrison's eyes narrowed as he watched Gallagher skillfully keeping the horse always between his two, outstretched hands. "New man, isn't it?"

  Warrick nodded. "You don't often find a convict as good with horses as this one."

  By now, Gallagher had brought Finnegan's Luck to a stand. Harrison continued to watch, his face unreadable, as the Irishman walked forward to unsnap the longeing rein, then began to walk in a circle himself, the stableboy trotting behind him, and the horse, no longer restrained by the rein, obedient at his side. "Perhaps he's a horse thief," said Harrison.

  Warrick laughed out loud. "Perhaps. Although I suspect treason and rebellion are more likely crimes. He's Irish, after all. And he used to be a gentleman. You can hear it in his voice, when he forgets to lay on the brogue."

  As they spoke, Gallagher began to step back, moving gradually farther and farther away from the hunter until he stood again in the center of the paddock, the stallion still moving obediently in a wide circle around him.

  Jessie glanced up at her brother. Used to be a gentleman. It was an expression she'd heard all of her life, applied to those in degraded circumstances who had been born into better situations. But she'd never liked it, always thought it contradictory that the acquisition of wealth and fine clothes could never turn a base-born man into society's concept of a gentleman, yet the loss of those two requirements was nevertheless considered enough to send a gently born man tumbling from the ranks of the godly. Rather like a fallen angel, cast out of heaven.

  "What a singularly ridiculous expression," she said, voicing her thoughts aloud. " Used to be a gentleman. Really, Warrick; think about it. I can understand saying a man used to be a vicar, or used to be a doctor. But how does a man stop being a gentleman when he was born and bred as one?"

  Warrick made an impatient sound in his throat. "You know what I mean. Look at him, for God's sake."

  Jessie looked. Despite the morning chill, the Irishman wore only a drab waistcoat and a rough cotton shirt, his uncut, dark hair hanging long and ragged over the shirt's open, collarless neck. The years he had spent working ten- and twelve-hour days in the hot Australian sun had tanned his face dark and left clearly defined muscles in his forearms. He stood with his booted legs astraddle, his slim body turning in a slow, tight circle that matched the horse's wider ring as he now controlled the big stallion with nothing but his soothing voice and the inescapable power of his personality. He looked wild and dangerous and faintly menacing, but not like a gentleman. Not like a gentleman at all.

  "Frankly," said Harrison, removing some infinitesimally small particle of lint from the sleeve of his fine wool jacket, "I've always thought of such men as even more contemptible than those convicts from the lower classes. After all, a man born to privilege could have made of life whatever he wished. Instead, he brings himself to this." Harrison threw a speaking glance in the direction of the man in the paddock, and sighed. "It truly is a sad comment on such an individual's character and moral state."

  She had forgotten how pompous Harrison could sound sometimes, or the way his nose quivered when he contemplated something or someone he held in disdain. Looking at her betrothed now, she thought how very much he was the embodiment of everything an English gentleman was supposed to be, with his determinedly cool demeanor and inflexible, self-righteous attitudes. She couldn't imagine him ever doing anything that might set at risk the privilege and comfort to which he had been born. She had known him her entire life, yet it struck her in that moment that she really didn't know him at all, not in the ways a woman should know her husband. She had no notion of the dreams and passions that lived in the heart of him, the soul of him.

  "You're scowling at me, Jesmond." Harrison tilted his head in that way he had when he was teasing. "Quite fiercely. Do you think I judge your brother's new groom too harshly?"

  "I think you're very quick to judge someone about whom you know almost nothing."

  His eyes widened, then narrowed in concern. Reaching out, he took one of her hands in both of his, his grip cool and light. "You're right, of course, darling. How unchristian of me. But to demonstrate that my own character is not irredeemably lost, let me hasten to inform you that the Blackhaven Scientific Society is hosting a lecture on speleology, to be delivered by one Professor Heinrich Luneberg, this Saturday. Knowing your interest in the subject, I have come to offer my services as your escort. And Philippa and I would like to request your presence at dinner tomorrow evening. There. I've offered to feed your hunger for universal knowledge as well as the less exalted requirements of your mortal self. Am I forgiven?"

  It was the kind of frothy nonsense Harrison always threw out to disguise his deeper emotions. And so while Jessie dutifully laughed, she didn't miss the earnest, strained look in his eyes. "Thank you, Harrison." She twisted her hand to link her fingers with his. "I'd like that very much."

  "Speleology?" Warrick slipped from the fence in one easy motion to cuff his friend on the shoulder. "Good God, Harrison, that is above and beyond the call of duty, even if you have committed yourself to marrying her."

  "Listening to lectures about caves 1 don't mind," said Harrison, drawing Jessie's hand through the crook of his arm as they started toward the house. "As long as Jesmond doesn't try to drag me into actually exploring the wretched things."

  Warrick and Harrison both laughed. Neither noticed when Jessie didn't join in.

  Walking between them, she crossed the yard, her hand on her betrothed's arm, her thoughts wandering far from the others' conversation. She could not understand what had driven her to defend that man, that dark, hateful Irishman, with his glittering, hostile stares and bitterly defiant attitude.

  She quickened her step, barely suppressing the urge to pick up her skirts and run. Run away from the thunder of the stallion's hooves and the caressing warmth of the Irishman's voice and a swirling onslaught of wild, dangerous impulses she didn't understand and didn't want.

  Cold but sweet and blessedly cleansing, the water closed over Gallagher's head. He dove deep, swimming along the bottom of the riverbed, pushing himself to go farther, farther, before finally arching upward, his legs kicking hard as he shot to the surface.

  From the hazelnut trees farther up the hill, near the stables, came the melodious call of a thrush. Lucas shook his head, clearing the tumbled hair from his eyes and smiling as he sucked the evening air into his lungs and felt the dirt and sweat of the day leave him. It'd been one of the things he hated the most about the chain gang—the festering, stinking, dehumanizing filth. On the chain gangs, a man could go for months at a time without being given a chance to get clean. Now, he came here whenever he could, to swim in the broad, gently flowing waterway known as the River Daymond that curled around the base of the high ground on which Anselm Corbett had built his fortresslike stone house and surrounding outbuildings. Once or twice a week, Lucas tried to wash his clothes, as well, if he could grab the time before the sun slipped too low in the horizon. It would be easier, now, with the coming of spring and the leng
thening of the days.

  Turning, he swam back against the current, back and forth, back and forth, letting the familiar rhythm cleanse his soul as the water cleansed his body. He'd been born in a low-slung, rambling old whitewashed house, overlooking the wild and turbulent Irish Sea. As a child, he'd practically grown up darting through the dangerous currents that swept along that part of the coast. If he closed his eyes, now, he could almost... almost imagine that he was there, where he'd never be again.

  No longer smiling, he opened his eyes and stood up to wade to the grassy riverbank. The air was heavy with the fra- grance of lemon gums and wattles, evocative yet alien scents that he thought, in a rush of homesickness, he almost hated. Reaching his spare set of clothes, he hauled a clean pair of canvas trousers up over his still-wet hips and let the warm evening breeze dry his naked torso as he hunkered down near the shallows, his work-stained clothes in his hands.

  The problem with physical labor, he decided, pushing his old shirt beneath the free-flowing water, was that it gave a man entirely too much time to think—endless hours, day after day, in which the body labored but the mind was left floating free to wander down often dangerous, tortuous paths. He suspected it accounted for the blank, staring expressions to be seen amongst the old incorrigibles, those men who had suffered under Britain's grinding, brutalizing penal system for twenty, thirty years or more. When a man finds his past too painfully sweet to be remembered, and his future too barren and hopeless to be contemplated, the result is a tendency to think of nothing. Nothing at all.

  Sitting back on his heels, Lucas watched the water ripple over the smooth pebbles of the riverbed. He'd thought, once, that he might be able to use this river to reach the sea, but it hadn't taken him long to discover that the River Daymond emptied into Blackhaven Bay. And Blackhaven Bay was home port to a Royal Naval vessel with little to do beyond apprehending absconding convicts.