Toward Love's Horizon

by Michele du Barry

  “You know, Angel. I had the papers sent to you in London.”

  “What papers?”

  “Do you mean to say you didn’t receive them? This gets better and better!”

  “What papers?”

  “Why the suit I brought against you for a divorce.”

  “Divorce!” she screamed struggling in his grasp, aqua eyes incredulous in a now white face. “You are divorcing me, but why?”

  “Your reputation has preceded you, Your Grace!” Scott threw her onto the bed and she crouched there like a cat ready to spring. Sitting on the chair he stretched his long legs out before him regarding her with hard, disparaging eyes. “We may be sixteen thousand miles from London but rumors fly here on the wings of birds.

  “You are a disgrace, an unfit wife and mother! Did you think I would never find out about your escapades? How as soon as I left you were gallivanting all over the city and sleeping with half the lords?”

  She made a tiny squeak of protest and collapsed limply on the bed. Scott couldn’t be saying such things to her, not after this afternoon, not after everything they meant to each other. She was frozen to the rumpled covers in an impotent rage as Scott continued on a rampage with words.

  “It was bad enough your being the mistress of the Duke of Remington and his brother at the same time, but did you have to keep the younger one as your paramour? Was it necessary to play one against the other until they dueled? You lying treacherous shrew! You even wagered yourself in a game of cards to win your favorite lover a title and wealth. And all the time you were married to me, dragging my name through the mud in a way I never did even at the height of my trial!

  “Oh, but the best is yet to come. Not content with two lovers you added a few more to your bed—the stalwart Keith Montgomery and the Prince of Wales. Could four fulfill your insatiable lust, or were there others that no one knew about? Then, you committed the ultimate offense by marrying Montgomery! Not only are you a four-timing slut but a bigamist!”

  “It’s not true,” Angela said in a very subdued voice. “To think that you would believe rumors, lies. You know how people gossip. You know how one little incident is blown up into a thousand indiscretions by the scandalmongers of London. Anyone not as corrupt and decadent as they are, they want to smear with dirt—bring them down to their own level, which is the gutter!”

  “You deny it then?” Scott shouted jumping to his feet and towering over her. “None of it is true—not one thing?”

  “Well—”

  “Well nothing! I don’t want any lying explanations. I’m sick of deceit and sick of you! The Queen of Hearts, the prince called you, but he should have called you the Queen of Whores!”

  She was crying, big silent tears slipping down chalk-white cheeks and he looked at her in disgust and crossed to the table. He dumped the contents of her jewelry box onto the bed beside her and picked out the diamond bracelet.

  “Spare me the dramatics,” he sneered holding the sparkling jewels before her nose like an accusation. “Exactly as described by the .... scandalmongers. Six heart-shaped diamonds. Who gave it to you?”

  “The .... the Prince of Wales.”

  “And why would he have that bracelet specially made for a woman who was just a casual acquaintance?”

  “He admired me.” Angela’s voice wasn’t above a whisper.

  “Admired you! That’s a good one! A man doesn’t give away a fortune in jewels unless he gets something in return. And what about the Vaughns—did they fight a duel over you?”

  “Yes—but—”

  “And did you agree to marry the Duke of Remington if you lost a card game?”

  “Yes, but I thought you were—”

  “Shut up! Did you marry Keith Montgomery?” His voice reached a thundering crescendo.

  “Yes,” she gasped almost totally destroyed by his accusations.

  “I notice there were no buts about that one.” Scott grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her knees, his face snarling just inches from hers. “If I weren’t in this predicament, if I weren’t a convict bound to Mrs. Carew for another ten years, I would leave this colony where you are so fast it would make your head spin. Why did you follow me? It was almost bearable with you half a world away but this whole country is not big enough to contain the two of us! I hate you!”

  “You can’t hate me,” she cried painfully. “I love you—only you! There was never anyone else for me. Please, just let me explain. Let’s talk like rational human beings and straighten out our differences. I know you still love me!”

  “Love! It’s just a word dreamed up by poets. I don’t love you now and I never loved you!”

  “But—but—what about what just happened. . . .”

  “Lust, Angela. I wanted you when you threw that bewitching body of yours against me in the street today. So I took what you were offering and paid dearly for my pleasure. But that’s the last time. You caught me off guard today but never again! Hard as you may find this to believe you are not irresistible. I’ve known you were here since the day you began looking for me and managed to keep away from you. I saw you last night entering Government House and felt nothing for you but contempt.”

  “Liar!”

  “I will admit,” he said shaking her again to keep her still, “that I enjoyed laying you today. But that’s the only thing you are fit for. You are worse than the lowest prostitute and how could any man love a harlot?”

  “I’m not a harlot! I’m your wife. I’m the mother of your children!”

  “Worse luck for me! Soon you won’t be my wife, and if I ever get the chance I will take my children from you and you will never see them again!”

  “No!” Angela slapped him across the face as hard as she could and his lip curled in disgust as he sent her sprawling onto the bed amidst the tumbled splendor of glittering jewels.

  “You are dirt, Angela, and always will be! You deserve to be walked on and nothing more. Get out of here. Go home and destroy someone else’s life, like you are so very good at doing.” Scott walked to the door and turned staring at her coldly. “The divorce will take time but in a year or two we will both be free. In the meantime just remember—I hate you and I never want to see you again!”

  Scott slammed out of the house and Angela gave way to an agony of weeping. She clutched Jack’s emerald in her hand and even its warmth could not comfort her. The whole day had been a series of sharp contrasts, from elation to abject misery and she felt like a child’s ball tossed high into the air, finally crashing to the ground.

  Clyde stood dumbfounded on the veranda watching Scott Harrington gallop away. The man had brushed past him almost knocking him down, and Clyde didn’t even think Scott had seen him. So Angela had found her husband at last and from the looks of him things were not going well at all.

  Then Clyde heard her crying, the sound loud even from where he stood outside the front door. He remembered very well from his last meeting with the duke, his horrendous temper and he rushed into the house without even bothering to knock. If Harrington had touched even a hair of Angela’s head he would have him flogged to death—for a gentleman did not call out a convicted felon.

  The door to her room was open and he paused before the darkened room. The heartrending sobs made him feel sick with anger at her husband. Just last night she had been so happy and carefree, dancing like a butterfly, glittering beneath crystal chandeliers.

  “Angela?”

  She didn’t even hear him and Clyde entered the room. Curled on the bed surrounded by scattered jewels she shook like a small earthquake. A green velvet robe barely covered her and he could see one long leg bare to the thigh and a white shoulder marred with a scar.

  He went to her, gathering her into his arms, pulling the robe back over her and rocking her gently. He didn’t even think she knew he was there but he stroked her disordered hair and whispered soft crooning words.

  Slowly Clyde became aware of the state the room was in: the rumpled bed, her torn dres
s and underclothes lying scattered on the floor. It was obvious they had made love violently in this bed not long ago and Clyde felt a hopelessness descend on him. Angela loved and wanted her husband no matter what he did to her, and he wondered how this could be so. He stiffened—had Scott raped her? He was capable of it, and Clyde vowed to kill him with his own hands if that was so.

  Angela slowly became aware that someone was holding her, gently trying to help her overcome her grief. Through swollen eyes she saw the scarlet of his coat and knew it could only be Clyde. But still she couldn’t gain control of herself and went on drenching his uniform with a flood of tears. She had been so shocked by the confrontation with Scott, by the unexpectedness of the attack, that she hadn’t even fought back. And now he was gone thinking the very worst about her.

  Divorce! The word brought on a fresh wave of weeping that she was helpless to stem. He was suing her for divorce on the grounds of adultery and bigamy! The irony of it. The damage begun by Keith was tearing them apart.

  She could still see Scott’s face in the myriad moods of this long afternoon: love, hate, disgust, lust, and studied unconcern. But through it all there had been an underlying rage so furious that he had been unable to conceal it, even when he had feigned indifference. He still felt something for her. Somehow, some way she had to find his one weakness, use whatever means she could to make him listen to the truth and effect a reconciliation.

  Unwittingly Scott had given away that one chink in his otherwise solid armor, carefully put on against her. His sensual nature overrode even his hate for her and she knew that was what she would use in her battle to reclaim him. She would use her wits and her body, every seductive trick she had learned since the night he had first raped her. He had taught her well and now she would turn all that knowledge into a plan that would ensnare him for all time. She would force Scott to acknowledge that in spite of everything, nothing could ever kill the love they felt for each other.

  Resolved in her mind as to what she would do, Angela’s tears gradually subsided. She became aware of Clyde, that she was half lying in his arms in a state of shocking dishabille, but she felt so weak that she just stayed where she was and let him comfort her. He was a true friend in her times of distress and this wasn’t the first time he had tried to help her. Good, sweet, uncomplicated Clyde with whom she didn’t have to pretend, but could just be herself and be assured of his adoring love no matter what.

  Scott galloped through the countryside surrounding Sydney until he and his horse were on the point of exhaustion. His hands shook as he held the reins and he couldn’t help thinking of Angela. Why couldn’t he keep that witch out of his mind? When he had learned she was in the colony seeking him, he had made the decision not to see her. It had been the hardest struggle of his life. He found himself starting for Sydney a dozen times a day to see her; But each time he controlled himself, turned his horse back to Thornhill and made violent love to Celeste.

  Seeing her outside Government House last night had been almost the last straw. He had recognized her even in the dark, her voice, her laugh, as she sat in an open carriage with a shadowy officer. Leave it to Angela to find another lover right away—the temptress! She could charm a corpse to life with just a smile.

  But today, to suddenly find her in his arms with absolutely no warning; that was more than a cold marble statue could stand and he had done the most natural thing in the world—made love to her.

  She was more beautiful than ever, with a maturity that enchanted him. But at the same time, and in spite of her almost twenty-five years she retained a youthful innocence that never ceased to amaze him. How could such a worldly-wise slut still look like a girl of eighteen? Why could she still affect him to the point of madness, the same way she had the first time he saw her? His blood boiled just thinking of her and when he touched her he dissolved into a seething fit of passion so strong and mindless only one thing could happen.

  Scott closed his eyes with a groan. He could still see her: those wild, sad aqua eyes claiming him as her own; the full pink lips, ripe and made only for his kisses; the perfection of her body, that made him forget her past and his hate; her black hair, long and shining, as soft as mist, twining around his neck, binding him, strangling him until he was utterly helpless to resist.

  And there were so many things about her that he didn’t know. How had she gotten that scar on her shoulder that looked like a gunshot wound? Had she been so desperately unhappy that she tried at one time to slit her wrists? That was the other scar, thin and white slashing across one delicate wrist. And above all why was she here when she had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that she didn’t need or want him in the intervening years? Why wasn’t she in England living with Montgomery who had finally gotten his wish and married her?

  He wanted to go back and comfort her, wipe away the tears that still had the power to devastate him. And yet, at the same time, he felt like whipping her within an inch of her life. He wanted to see his children and didn’t even know whether their third one was a boy or girl. Scott wished he had never heard the gossip, never learned about her indiscretions, and thinking back to their time together in Scotland he almost couldn’t believe what she had done during the last four years. But she had always been volatile and passionate, too easily ruled by her own body. Hadn’t she loved him violently even when she hated him?

  He had to put distance between them, and since he wasn’t free to leave, the only way was to make her go. Even London wasn’t far enough away to please him. If the moon was between them that would be too close. If they were a universe away from each other he would still yearn for the unattainable!

  six

  “Don’t go, Angela!” Clyde pleaded, pacing restlessly in front of the stable. “Let the divorce go through and you will be free of the monster! He hurts you all the time. He doesn’t love you! The whole colony knows about his affair with Mrs. Carew. You are a laughingstock!”

  “I don’t care!” she cried, sitting astride her bay gelding anxious to be wherever Scott was. “I love him, I always will, and nothing will change that! I don’t give a damn what people are saying about us, and never, never will I give him a divorce!” Her voice rose and the horse pricked up his ears at her irritation.

  “There are things between us so binding that neither of us will ever be free. I fight for what I want, and I want Scott! I want him for my husband and lover. I want him to be the father to my children again. I want him no matter what he has done—and he wants me!”

  “Well then he has a strange way of showing it! He hasn’t been seeking you out, has he? In the past week even the servants at Thornhill have been outraged by their behavior, and they have known about it all along!”

  “Scott is angry, he’s furious at what he thinks I have done. And what better way to show me than by flaunting another woman beneath my nose? Well I won’t stand for it a day longer! I have a temper too and when I get through with that woman she will wish she was dead! I’m going to get him back and I don’t care what I have to do!”

  Clyde looked up at her, hope sinking in his heart. She was as wild as the Highlands and as wayward as a spoiled child. Did she really think that just because she willed it her husband would see things her way? And when he saw her so angry that her eyes almost incinerated him with a glance, he knew that he would do anything to have her.

  “Are you coming or shall I go alone?” She dug her heels into the horse’s flanks and sprang off leaving Clyde to hurriedly mount up and start after her.

  It was a long, hard, hot ride and Angela rode most of the day wrapped in silence with Clyde wondering what she was plotting. It took the whole day to reach the Hawkesbury even though they had left early in the morning and they would have to spend the night somewhere along the river. That was no problem because hospitality to strangers was an important commodity and anyone turning people away from the door was marked by his neighbors.

  Angela knew where she was going to spend the night—in Scott’s bed, once s
he got past his stubbornness. She eyed the lowering clouds apprehensively and hoped the weather would hold until they arrived. But an hour later stinging drops lashed down, growing into a downpour that in minutes left both of them soaked to the skin.

  Her blouse was plastered against her and they stopped beneath a large tree to wait until the worst was over. But instead of letting up it seemed to rain harder and after noticing the way Clyde kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye she got a short jacket out of her saddlebags and struggled into it even though it was too hot.

  Rain dripped off her nose and sweat trickled down her shoulder blades and the storm went on and on. “I don’t think it’s ever going to stop,” she observed miserably. “Why don’t we just go on?”

  So they began again with the road churning to mud beneath the horses’ hooves. She swore beneath her breath at the untimely rain. How was she ever going to attract Scott when she appeared out of a wall of water looking like a mud-spattered, drowned rat? He would take one look at her and retire to Mrs. Carew’s bed. She thought of turning back but night was almost upon them and the road was quickly becoming impassible. The horses were having a rough time of it and kept slipping in the mire.

  Thornhill sat on the crest of a hill, high above the Hawkesbury River. The rain beat steadily on the roof only adding to the cozy atmosphere of the two that sat at the dining room table. They were halfway through the meal when a knock sounded at the front door and silent convict feet went to answer it swiftly. Celeste looked up at the interruption wondering who could be calling on such a bad night. A frown marred her smooth brow. She wanted no interruptions tonight, not with the mood Scott was in and had been in for the last week. It had given her a scare when he informed her of his wife’s arrival, but he had more than made up for the bad news by his insatiable physical demands ever since.

  The frown dissolved. Just thinking of their frenzied week brought color to her cheeks and a smile to her lips. And she was immensely pleased about another matter too—Scott had asked her to marry him when he was free of the shrew that was his wife. Celeste had been hoping for that ever since he had told her of the divorce suit the year before. There would be difficulties in marrying a convict, but on the day of their wedding the governor would hand over a pardon and all their problems would be over.