“I’m not that! I’m a murderess—he wouldn’t even defend himself! I shot him down in cold blood because of what he did to us!”
“Shh! It’s not your fault. He deserved it.” Scott pulled her closer. “Come here, Angel, I want to kiss you.”
“No! I almost killed you last night in a blind rage.”
“And I deserved that!” Scott lifted his head with a grimace and pulled her to him but she pushed away and jumped to her feet. “Look, Angela, we have both done things we regret. I treated you abominably and you retaliated. Let’s forget it. Let’s wipe the slate clean and start over again. Come here,” he coaxed. “Sit beside me again, or else I will get out of bed and come to you!”
She went swiftly to his side pressing him back down and he caught her hand and kissed each finger and then the palm. Angela brushed the hair from his eyes and he kissed her wrist with the scar.
“And this?” he asked. “There is more. And the scar on your shoulder?”
“Oh,” she laughed tremulously, “only an encounter with the Maroons, who were intent on making me the sacrifice of a voodoo ceremony. Only a small slave revolt with Rosemont burned to the ground and Annee Wallace flayed alive.”
So she told him about that, all the details he wanted. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the pirate attack, the scuttling of the Dark Lady, or Molly, Angus, and Captain Darnell. She couldn’t bear to utter Gaston Laporte’s name or tell of her captivity, subjection, and rape. And Clare—how could she speak of her illegitimate daughter?
“Angel, there’s something else.” He looked at her bowed head, her lowered lashes and the guilty pink flush at his words. “Look at me, love—tell me!” He put a finger beneath her chin and forcibly lifted her face.
“I can’t,” she pleaded struggling to keep back the tears. “Please don’t make me! I can’t bear even to think of it!”
“That bad? Worse than everything else that happened?”
“Yes—much worse, a thousand times worse!” Her nostrils flared and her bottom lip trembled treacherously so she caught it between her teeth.
Scott watched her, aching to know the rest, wanting to hold and comfort her. She looked so pathetically brave trying to keep from crying but with her big eyes threatening to overflow.
“Come, come,” he said trying to let her know that nothing could be that bad but those were the words Laporte had repeated so often and she shied away from him, pulling free and running from the cabin.
Then Scott got out of bed very stiffly and pulled on a pair of trousers and his boots. It took longer than he expected and when he emerged from the cabin Angela was gone. But he circled the cabin and found her out back crying silently against the trunk of a peach tree.
She spun around with her face streaming and shouted, “It has nothing to do with us or our love. Don’t torture me! I can’t tell you yet! I can’t! I can’t!” There was a hysterical edge to her voice.
“Shh, sweetheart,” Scott soothed taking her into his arms. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I love you just the way you are.”
He kissed her wet cheeks, her quivering eyelids and her hair. “I love you, Angel! Don’t cry. Everything is all right now. You’re safe with me and I will protect you from ever being hurt again.”
Scott’s lips closed over hers tenderly, without passion, gentling her until he felt a response start and her arms went around his waist.
“I think you should get back in bed,” she finally said with a smile breaking through her tears.
“I agree, but only if you join me!”
Celeste lay in her darkened room where she had spent the last week, ever since that disastrous night. She couldn’t stop thinking about it and even dreamed about it when she slept. So she slept badly and there were dark circles under her eyes. She touched her wrist where Angela’s teeth marks were fading and then thought of the ugly long line that marred her body.
Scott had come to see her once, tried to explain that he and his wife were back together again. He had apologized for everything, and the whole time she had felt like dying. He was in love with that she-devil even after she had tried to murder him. He admired her spirit and Celeste gritted her teeth so she wouldn’t say the things she wanted to. She felt like screaming and throwing a tantrum, crying and having him comfort her. But instead she had kept silent and plotted Angela’s downfall.
Their lives had been perfect before his wife had arrived and Celeste wanted it that way again. If Scott could believe the worst about his wife once, he could again—but this time let him have solid proof. If he saw some damning evidence against her with his own eyes, actually saw her cuckolding him, he would have to believe it.
So Celeste planned and plotted sure that Clyde Macdonald could be put to use in her idea. After all he mooned over her like a lovesick calf. They both had much to gain by separating Scott and Angela.
Celeste smiled. Separate them she would even if she had to tear them apart with her bare hands. Then she would have Scott again and Clyde could take Angela home to England far from temptation’s path.
A knock on the door interrupted her web-weaving for the moment and her maid came into the room bringing her lunch and the latest gossip.
Everyone, from the governor to the chain gang convicts, knew of the events at Thornhill. How the duchess had routed her husband and his mistress right in her house. The fight was embellished and rumor had it that she had knifed her husband in the back as she caught him in the act. The gossips had Scott at death’s door but once more madly in love with the virago that disguised herself as a lady.
They were having a field day telling and retelling the story of her arrival and search for her mysterious husband. That Scott had turned out to be the errant duke surprised no one. Hadn’t he proved his accomplishments beyond a shadow of a doubt, his virtues and his vices? They waited with baited breath for the outcome. Who would make the next move? Mrs. Carew wouldn’t give up easily but she had to contend with a woman said to be the devil’s daughter—or his wife! The duke was in between and on the shadow fringes Captain Macdonald also fit into the picture. Fans fluttered and calls were paid with unusual frequency during the hot summer days.
“I have a surprise for you, when you come to Sydney,” Angela teased, snuggling next to him in bed.
“Tell me now!” Scott demanded.
“No, you must wait. I want you to see it with your own eyes, read every word yourself. Then you can really believe it’s true. We must have a celebration!”
“I’ve had my celebration, having you all to myself for a whole week. I don’t ever want it to end, Angel.”
“It never will.” And she buried her face against his neck laughing at her own delightful secret.
Scott stroked her hair, never tiring of the silky warmth of her tresses. The past days had been an idyll of joyous renewal and he was beginning to understand Angela’s moods and caprices. He had found he couldn’t blame her for the events she had revealed to him but in the back of his mind he still wondered about that blank portion of her life that she wouldn’t share with him.
Each day brought further healing, not only of his back but of the wounds caused by time, separation, and suspicion. They were lazy and they laughed a lot, spending far too much time in bed. They hadn’t seen another person in days and didn’t need to because their present world encompassed only themselves. They basked in the warmth of their love and held it selfishly to themselves.
Angela cooked their simple meals and cleaned the small almost monastic cabin. And they talked and made plans for the future and she tried to paint a vivid picture with words of Robert and Lorna and the years he had missed of their growing up. He could never hear enough about the children and wanted every detail of every day she could remember.
They packed a picnic lunch and went out to the orchard and ate beneath the peach trees. The wine, the hot sun, and the smell of the fragrant summer made them drowsy so they lay watching the sky through a latticework of gree
n branches. Her hand curled warmly into his and they were content to remain silent, barely touching.
The peace they had both so badly needed spread over them like a golden haze, a wonderful fantasy from which they need never awaken. The past and all its problems had disappeared and there was only the present. The sun was hot but beneath the shade of the trees a cool breeze played and birds hopped about tending their nests, calling to one another. The future was distant and nothing could disturb this interlude.
Except Clyde Macdonald. He strode across the grass toward them looking uncomfortably hot in his uniform and presented Angela with an envelope. “It’s from Ezra,” he told her as she opened it. “I saw him yesterday and the children are sick.”
She read the brief note and knew where her duty was. The measles—why did they have to get it now? But they needed her and Scott needed her and she was torn with frustration.
“It’s nothing, darling,” she told Scott trying to hide her disappointment. “Just a childhood disease, usually not very serious as long as they are kept quiet and in a dark room.”
"I'll go with you!”
“No! You will open your shoulder and your arrival would only excite them too much. Wait till they are better.” She tried to smile. “Then I will come back and we can both ride to Sydney together.”
“I will be glad to escort Angela back to town,” Clyde volunteered and Scott glared at him thinking, I’ll just bet you would!
Angela looked at her husband, at the unmistakable jealousy glinting in his eyes and felt warm with the realization that he really did care for her.
“We can’t leave before morning anyway,” she observed, smoothing over the awkward situation.
Scott made her forget all about her disappointment in leaving that night. He alone had the power to make her drink from the waters of Lethe.
seven
It was a long wearying ride in the full heat of summer and Angela was tired to begin with. Clyde kept glancing at her covertly, at the shadows beneath her eyes and the kiss-bruised lips that he longed to claim for his own.
Why couldn’t she realize that she would never be happy with her husband? In a few days or a few weeks they would quarrel again and there would be something else to separate them. They fought like two gladiators, hacking away viciously at each other until they were both half dead, then barely waiting for the wounds to heal before they were at it again. If he was her husband their lives would be well ordered, peaceful, and serene, the way she seemed to want her life to be. But that man always got in the way.
He had seen Celeste the night before and found himself pouring out his thoughts to her in a way he would have deemed impossible. But she was such a good listener and she had agreed with him thoroughly, urging him to think of a plan. She felt the same way about Scott as Clyde did about Angela and proposed they pool their resources to find a way to break up the marriage. It shouldn’t be difficult at all. The foundation was shaky enough already.
With Angela wrapped in a cocoon of silence they made the journey back to Sydney. Even she noticed the way people craned their necks to get a better view of them as they rode into town in the early evening. She frowned and glanced at Clyde to see if he had noticed.
“Gossip,” he said. “They know everything.”
“So it’s starting again. I can’t leave my notorious past behind anywhere.”
“It’s not that so much as what happened at Thornhill.”
“But surely they don’t know everything about that!” Her fair skin turned fiery and Clyde wondered what else had happened in Celeste’s bedroom.
As they reached the house overlooking Cockle Bay Ezra greeted them at the door. He looked tired from caring for the children but brightened at the sight of Angela.
“How are they, Ezra?” Angela asked leaving the horses to Clyde and climbing the stairs to the front veranda.
“Monsters!” He smiled rolling his eyes. “But really, they are pretty sick. Lorna got it first, not long after you left. I thought it was just a cold at first, until the rash appeared.”
“Has the doctor seen them?”
“Yes.”
They talked while she washed some of the dust from her hands and face and then she went into the sickroom where they all lay with various stages of the sickness.
Clare was asleep, her golden curls tousled and the rash just beginning on her face. Maggie smiled as she came in, a look of relief flooding her face as she sponged Lorna’s brow with cool water. Poor Lorna was feverish and covered all over with red blotches. Her face was puffy and her eyes bloodshot and she moved restlessly on her bed.
“Mama!” She brightened as Angela gave her a quick kiss and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I don’t feel good.”
“Of course you don’t, baby. But I’m back now and everything will be all right. And when you are well I have a wonderful surprise for all of you.”
“What?” Robert bounced from his bed and threw his arms around her neck.
“Now you must be good and stay very still or I won’t tell you.”
“But I itch and feel all wiggily!” protested Robert.
“I know—but the better you behave the sooner you will be well and then. . . .” She dangled the surprise tantalizingly before them and laughed as he scrambled back into bed.
“I’m good Mama! See how good I am?”
He was so exactly like Scott that she felt like crying but instead she went to change. What was the matter with her?
The next days did nothing to alleviate the way she felt as their sickness took its toll on her too. Ezra and the two Murrays helped but it was their mother that the children wanted and that left her drained. She slept too little and her appetite all but disappeared as the summer proceeded with a hot blast. Sometimes the air was so still and breathless she could hardly breathe.
Silent Maggie was irreplaceable in her care of the children. She was so patient and loving with them, a calming influence at times when Angela felt like pulling out her hair. Often it was only the convict girl that could put Clare to sleep and a special bond seemed to grow visibly between them.
On a moonless night of black intensity Angela strolled slowly through the garden. She could barely see the plants and flowers but their sweet scent was soothing and there was a breeze off the bay. It stirred tendrils of hair across her cheeks and she leaned wearily against the wattle tree gazing into the dark void that was the sea.
Here and there lights bobbed upon the waves, ship’s lanterns like skipping stars. The panorama of southern skies, different but now familiar to her eyes, was a hazy white veil against night’s dark mantle. The sounds of the waves were hypnotic, the smell of the sea intoxicating, and she closed her eyes with a weariness she had not believed could possess her.
Lorna was much worse, worse than the doctor had indicated a healthy child should be. She had a dry hacking cough and no appetite, fading away into a translucent shadow of her former self. She had difficulty breathing at night unless propped up on several pillows into a half sitting position, so after her brief walk Angela would return and spend the night by her side listening to the labored breathing.
Tears prickled at her closed eyelids as hot and sharp as needles. She could think only of her mother, the weakness of her lungs and the constant battle for breath. Could something like that be passed down from one generation to another? Could Lorna, such an active vital child till now, have inherited that predisposition?
Angela wanted Scott here, now, to help her shoulder the burden of her own worries. He could make everything right again. He would laugh and remind her of her overactive imagination and blow the cobwebs from the corners of her mind.
Footsteps sounded on the veranda and Angela opened her eyes to see a man silhouetted against the light from the house.
“Scott! Scott!” She ran straight to his arms.
He picked her up and swung her around crushing her against him. They kissed frantically and then she burst into tears, pressing her cheek against
his chest so he wouldn’t see her face. Scott stroked her hair, one arm around her too fragile waist.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Oh, darling, how can you ask!” she burst out. “But it has been so long.”
“Only two weeks,” he said tilting her wet face up and wiping her cheeks with tender fingers. “An eternity!”
His mouth claimed hers in a deep soul-satisfying kiss that left them hungering for more and then he held her away appraising her with critical eyes. Both hands spanned her waist easily and in the light spilling from the doorway he thought how tired she looked.
“Angel, you haven’t been taking care of yourself. You are far too thin—everywhere except here—” And his hand cupped her breast, hot through the cotton of her dress.
His eyes glowed down at her and Scott heard the slight catch in her breath, felt her nipple spring up beneath his touch. The tears dissolved into a smile and her lips parted as her hands slid up and down the front of his shirt. She needed him and wanted him more than she needed sleep and Scott swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom, her soft throaty laugh close to his ear.
She was a wild vixen in her demands on him and Scott could hardly contain himself after his abstinence of the past few weeks. For after their interlude together Celeste had retreated like a shadow and he was full of thoughts of Angela and no one else. How could he want another woman when perfection was his? His woman, his wife, his love! She was everything and more and his senses reeled as the softness of her breasts pressed against his face.
She was an innocent wanton, an enchantress, filling his eyes with her beauty, his nostrils with the dizzying woman-scent peculiarly her own, his head with bizarre fantasies that became reality when she was in his arms. Her soft moans and love words were urgent in his ears, her taut body accepted him with a sigh of pure pleasure. And then they ceased to be individuals, but were one in thought, movement, and purpose as they raced toward the ultimate goal and found it together in the whirlwind of their love.
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