Dominic fingered his cheek where she had struck him with her reins. The narrow cut had healed now, but he could still see the fire in her eyes when she had lashed out at him, hear the rage in her usually quiet, courteous voice. She had surprised him then, as had her temper that first night in the inn’s stable. Who ever would have thought that such a do-gooding old maid was capable of such a fine flare-up of fury? Certainly not he. The spitting tigress she had become on both occasions was a fascinating contrast to the dowdy spinster who ordinarily inhabited her body. Maybe that was it: maybe he just wanted to discover which of the two women was the real one. Maybe then this aggravating, unbelievable attraction would disappear.
He hadn’t had a woman in months, of course, but that wasn’t it. If that had been all it was, he would have been hot for that young stepsister of hers, who was much closer to the kind of woman he usually preferred. The younger girl was round and soft in all the right places, and not afraid to be a woman—but he was not in the least attracted to her. And this despite the way she had taken to following him about the place, flirting with him so blatantly that he was hard put sometimes not to laugh, or, when Miss Sarah had just finished giving him another order in that uppity way of hers and he was feeling more enraged than usual, box the little minx’s ears. Young Liza was clearly ripe for a man. It would be the easiest thing in the world to take what she continually, and none too subtly, offered him. At nearly seventeen, she was old enough, so it wasn’t her age that held him back; he would wager the best horse he had owned in Ireland that she was more sexually mature than her prim and proper stepsister. But he could not summon up a single spark of desire for the chit, or for that rapacious bitch of a stepmother, either, whom he had caught eying him once or twice, and who, like her daughter, had suddenly begun taking a “healthful” afternoon walk. With his escort, of course. At least Mrs. Markham was more subtle than her daughter. Only her eyes had told him that she found him attractive. No, the only one of the Markham ladies he could envision in his bed was Sarah—Miss Sarah. And he was beginning to be positively haunted by visions of bedding her, if for no other reason than so that he could once again get a decent night’s sleep.
“I’ve brought you some lemonade, Gallagher. You look dreadfully hot.” It was Liza, of course. Dominic turned to look at her, dropping the cloth he had been using on the window into the bucket of soapy water at his feet and flexing his shoulders again, which were stiff as a board.
“That was nice of you. Thank you.” Ignoring her coy smile, Dominic reached for the glass and downed its contents thirstily. The unaccustomed heat of this infernal country was making him sweat like a chunk of ice near a bonfire; he needed all the liquids he could get. When he was finished, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and handed her back the glass. She took it, her eyes fixed on the expanse of chest that showed through his unbuttoned shirt. He would have shed the garment entirely if it hadn’t been for the marks on his back; not for anything would he advertise the shame of having been beaten like a dog—or a slave. Which, of course, was exactly what he was.
“You’d better go back inside. You don’t want to get your nose sunburned before your ball.” The words were a dismissal. No matter that it wasn’t for a slave to dismiss a lady of the house. He’d be damned before he’d act the part of humble servant to a seventeen-year-old chit!
“We’re in the shade.” Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she was batting her eyelashes at him. If he hadn’t been so out of humor, he would have been amused at her blatant flirtation. But he was out of humor; being ordered around like a damned lackey by Miss Prunes-and-Prisms Sarah was beginning to set his teeth on edge.
“So we are.” He acknowledged the valiant eucalyptus that cast a meager patch of shade over this bit of ground at the side of the house. “But I’ve finished this window, and the next one is not in the shade.”
She sighed impatiently, planting her hands on her hips and looking up at him with a pout that he was sure she must have spent hours practicing in the mirror. The dress she had on, a white dimity strewn with pink rosebuds, left her shoulders and the tops of her breasts bare. He wasn’t certain of how things were done in Australia, but in Ireland revealing so much so early in the day would have been considered highly improper. And he suspected that Australia was no different. Today young Liza was gunning for bear.
“I want to go for a walk. Pa said you were to come with me.”
Dominic looked her up and down, his eyes guarded. She was posturing prettily, her plump bosoms thrust forward, one hand on a rounded hip while the other fluffed the dark curls that cascaded over her shoulders—in what, he thought, must have been a hellishly hot style. With those sparkling brown eyes and pink cupid’s-bow of a mouth, she was a remarkably pretty girl. Why did she arouse in him nothing but the desire to shake her until her teeth rattled?
“Your sister particularly asked me to finish these windows this afternoon. Your walk will have to wait, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, bother Sarah! You don’t have to do what she tells you—at least, you don’t have to mind her any more than you do me. I’m your mistress as much as she is!”
“Now, that may be true. But, you see, she got in her orders first. So you will agree that she has prior claim on my time.” The words were another unmistakable dismissal. Liza looked affronted as Dominic bent to pick up the bucket. But before he could complete the action, another voice arrested his attention and brought him upright, the bucket forgotten at his feet.
“Liza, your mother is looking for you. You’re to go to her at once.” Sarah had rounded the corner of the house and stood frowning at them from the shelter of a wilted wattle some few feet away. Her bare arms were crossed over her small breasts; she looked as cross as he felt. The faded blue gingham dress she wore did nothing for either her face or her figure. Her hair—very nice hair, as he remembered from the one time he had seen it loose—was pulled back into an untidy bun. Her eyes—she had lovely eyes—were marred by the beetling of her brows above them. Next to her lusciously feminine sister, she was about as sexless as a grasshopper. Her very plainness irritated him. How could he possibly be tormented by desire for such an unfeminine female? It went against everything he’d ever known of himself.
“What does she want?” Liza asked, regarding her sister petulantly.
“You’d better go find out, hadn’t you? Perhaps your ball dress has arrived at last.”
“Oh, do you think so?” Liza squealed with delight. Her demeanor changed, and she looked like what she was—a young girl thrilled at the idea of her first ball. “I must go try it on.” With that she picked up her skirts and, despite the heat, ran around the side of the house.
“I want to talk to you,” Sarah said evenly when Liza was gone.
Dominic said nothing, merely leaned a shoulder against the frame of the window he had just finished cleaning and waited. She moved closer.
“I want you to stay away from Liza.”
He laughed, the sound derisive. She moved another step nearer. With her golden eyes glaring at him, she reminded him suddenly of a lioness he had seen once at a circus in Dublin. He had a sudden urge to bait the lioness, to madden her as she constantly managed to madden him.
“I mean it, Gallagher. She’s very young and impressionable. You’re not to flirt with her. You’re far too old for her, for one thing, and you’re a . . .”
She seemed to sense that he hated that word, because she broke off without uttering it.
“Convict?” he finished, too pleasantly, straightening away from the window. “Not fit to wipe your little sister’s shoes? Well, maybe I find her attractive—God knows, there’s a dearth of attractive women around here.”
That riled her, as he had meant it to. She seemed to be inordinately sensitive about her looks. Her eyes flashed angrily at him, and as her mouth tightened, he suddenly noticed how wide and full that mouth was; its softness was unmistakable evidence of her feminity that she could not disguise as she did her body.
He found himself wondering, idly, what she would look like if she took more pains with her appearance. Found a softer style for her hair, say, and wore a dress that fitted her instead of looking as if it had been intended to shroud Mrs. Abbott’s ample form.
“Are you listening to me?” She was practically right under his nose now, looking as furious as she sounded. Dominic suddenly found that he was enjoying himself. Baiting her was far more entertaining than washing windows.
“You wouldn’t be jealous of your pretty sister, now, would you, Miss Sarah?” He spoke softly, the Irish lilt rolling through the words. They had all the effect he intended. He could see the temper explode inside her like a firecracker.
“Why, you impertinent jackanapes! As if I would be jealous of Liza over a—a convict!”
“Wouldn’t you, Miss Sarah?” He grinned at her tantalizingly, prepared for the furious tensing of her body. What he was not prepared for was the sudden sting of her palm against his cheek. He stopped grinning. His eyes were at once as furious as hers as he lifted a questing hand to his face.
“Violent little thing, aren’t you?” he growled, a savage satisfaction lighting his eyes. “Well, it’s time you learned that violence begets violence, Miss Sarah!”
And with that he reached out and hauled her toward him, not caring if his hands bruised the smooth bare flesh of her arms. She gaped up at him, her eyes huge, her lips parted in angry surprise. He bent his head and caught those lips, grinding his own roughly against them as he had dreamed of doing for weeks. Only a single thought penetrated the rage that engulfed him: He had been right about that mouth. It was every bit as soft as it looked.
VIII
At the first touch of Gallagher’s mouth on hers, Sarah went rigid, fighting to ignore a frightening excitement in favor of healthy outrage. How dare he do such a thing, she ranted inwardly. He was hurting her, his lips brutal as they crushed hers, forcing her lips hard against her teeth. Focusing on the physical discomfort he was causing her was her best defense against a nearly overwhelming urge to melt in his arms and let him kiss her as he would, she knew. She concentrated . . . then tasted blood from a split lip, and moaned. That small sound seemed to be all he was waiting for. His hands on her upper arms tightened cruelly, his fingers digging into her flesh. But, try as she might, she could not seem to care about the pain that shot through her arms. Instead she was drowningly aware of that hard mouth as it moved harshly on her own; of his tongue as it thrust its way into her mouth.
She moaned again, shuddering, as she felt the intimate invasion. His hands left her arms and came around her, pulling her hard against him. She felt the heat and strength of his body, his unmistakable arousal pressing crudely against her belly. Her arms were crushed between them; with a last, frantic effort at sanity, she tried to use her arms to force a distance between them. She would not, could not let this happen. . . . Her hands encountered the bare skin of his chest, roughened with a thick growth of hair and wet with sweat—and were suddenly still. Her fingers curled of their own volition into that curling mat, her nails scraping his skin. He groaned, the sound guttural, rasping. His hold on her changed, became less brutal although no less tight as he bent her head backward so that it rested against the iron muscles of his upper arm. His breathing quickened. Sarah could feel his heart pounding through his chest against her breasts. His thrusting tongue gentled as it began a hot exploration of the inside of her mouth. Sarah suddenly lost the battle for control of her wayward senses as a gusher of fire shot from their joined mouths all the way to her toes. Her eyes, which had been glaring furiously at him, fluttered shut.
Under the intoxicating influence of his mouth, she forgot that he was a convict and she was a lady. She forgot everything, able to concentrate on nothing except the hot pounding of her blood, the trembling hunger that made her small breasts seem to swell as they pressed against his chest, the wonderful, moist, aching weakness that pulsed to life in that secret, shameful place between her legs.
When his tongue moved again, she responded mindlessly, her own moving fiercely to meet it. He stiffened against her; she could feel every hard muscle and sinew of his body pressing into her yielding flesh, including that one that both excited and embarrassed her even to think about. His lips seared hers; she felt as if she would be reduced to cinders at their touch. Her lips clung to his in convulsive response. If she could have freed them, her arms would have been tight around his neck.
He ended the kiss as abruptly as he had begun it, his hands moving back to her arms and thrusting her away from him without warning. Sarah whimpered a protest, blinking at him bemusedly for an instant, noting even through her daze how his glistening blue-black hair, his hard mouth tight now as he stared grimly at her, and his blue eyes could take her breath away. Then his mouth twisted, and his hands clenched on her arms.
“Someone’s coming,” he said through his teeth.
The words didn’t penetrate at first. He shook her, impatient, in what she took to be rage. As her head snapped back, her reason returned—and with it came growing horror. It showed in her eyes as she stared at him, her hand coming up to press against her suddenly trembling mouth. The voices of the approaching workers seeped through to her consciousness, and she went crimson. If they had seen . . . if anyone had seen . . .
“Let me go,” she said, pulling against the hold he still had on her. He hesitated for a moment. Then his hands dropped from her arms. A group of aborigine workers came into view, heading for the orchard. Sarah took that moment to back away, her hand still pressed to her mouth. When she was safely out of his reach, she turned and ran for the house.
* * *
The next three days were hectic as preparations for Liza’s ball were completed. Sarah had a thousand and one tasks to attend to, and she could not concentrate on any of them. The burning memory of that kiss drove all else from her mind. That she had been kissed by a convict was shameful; the friends and neighbors who were so shortly to be their guests would be scandalized if they knew. But that she had actually returned that kiss. . . . She shuddered every time she remembered how she had responded. Gallagher’s mouth on hers had robbed her of her senses; that was the only explanation she could find for behavior that in anyone else she would not have hesitated to condemn. If, for instance, she had caught Liza kissing Gallagher like that, she would have recommended to her father that the girl be shipped off to a convent without delay!
Sarah had been kissed before, of course—twice. The first man to kiss her had been Michael Argers, the son of one of the neighboring station owners; he had had too much to drink at one of the graziers’ infrequent get-togethers and had surprised her in a dark hallway. He was seventeen at the time, the same age as she, and clumsy, but if his mouth had not been rancid with whiskey she would have quite enjoyed the experience. He had used his tongue, too—but there all comparison to Gallagher’s kiss ended. Not by the largest stretch of the imagination could her reaction to Gallagher’s kiss have been described by such a tepid sentiment as “quite enjoyed.”
Percival had been the source of her other kiss, when he had begun to lose patience with her refusals of his proposals of marriage. Apparently he had thought to sweep her off her feet with a show of ardor; or perhaps he had merely hoped to drive home the fact that he was a physically superior male, and that she, as a weaker female, should submit to him in all things, including marriage. It hadn’t worked. Sarah had found his kiss downright distasteful, and had told him so in words of icy rage when he had at last released her. He had never tried such a thing since. Whether he had decided that such a tactic would not aid his cause, or whether he had simply found their kiss as distasteful as she had, Sarah couldn’t say.
She dreaded having any further contact with Gallagher, but as he was constantly around the house during those three days it was impossible to avoid him. Sarah wanted to die of mortification every time her eyes met his. She knew from his expression that he was remembering their kiss just as she was. His eyes mocked her eve
rywhere she went; he seemed constantly to be underfoot. But there was no way to rid herself of him without it being obvious to him how much his kiss had affected her. And she thought he despised her enough without that.
The worst part about it was that he had kissed her in anger, as a means of retaliation for that slap. It had been no more to him than answering the blow she had struck. How he must have laughed inside when she had begun to kiss him back! Because of course he had not felt the same bewildering surge of fire through his body as she had. Long ago she had faced the fact that she was plain. Gallagher himself, on that never-to-be-forgotten night in the stable at Yancy’s place, had called her scrawny and said she had about as much feminity as a broomstick. While he, if she had been mentally concocting a portrait of a dream lover, would have fitted it like a glove.
He had made a fool of her—no, she had made a fool of herself, Sarah corrected bitterly. If she had only maintained her poise, had held to a semblance of icy detachment or even righteous fury, she would not now be writhing with humiliation. Instead, she had let a convict kiss her; worse, she had behaved like a wanton in his arms, kissing him back with a fervor that she would have gladly slit her throat to be able to erase from both their minds forever. But the fact was that it was done, she had kissed him back in that feverish way, and she must deal with it.
Sarah had determined that, for the sake of what self-respect she had left, Gallagher must have no inkling of how deep her embarrassment was. She would act as if nothing, nothing at all, had happened—after making their relative positions crystal clear to him. . . . When she had run away after that traumatic kiss, she had fled to her room and flung herself on her bed, reliving every shameful nuance of what had happened. Even then, when her mortification threatened to choke her, she had realized that she could not remain in her room forever and would inevitably have to face Gallagher again. He must be made to understand that nothing between them had changed: he was still the servant, she the mistress. She would tolerate not the slightest deviation from that.
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