Dark Torment

by Karen Robards

  Instead of taking her words as dismissal, Gallagher opened the stall door and stepped out. His height and breadth were intimidating. Sarah gritted her teeth and put up her chin. This was far, far worse than she had expected. All she wanted was to find a hole and crawl into it and quietly die of mortification. The memory of this man’s hands and mouth on her body made her want to cringe. But she looked at him steadily, hoping he couldn’t read her feelings in her eyes.

  “Thank you, Jagger.” Malahky was ready, and Jagger had chosen that moment to lead him forward. Sarah could have kissed his frizzy hair. Not looking at Gallagher, she put her foot in Jagger’s cupped hands as he stood half-stooped, waiting to help her mount.

  “If you’ll hold there a moment, Miss Sarah, I’ll saddle Max as quickly as I can.” Gallagher’s tone was still as respectful as she could have wished. Sarah eyed him as he deliberately set the pitchfork, tines up, against a wall and moved to the tack room, where he extracted a saddle and bridle, slinging the bridle over his shoulder and carrying the heavy saddle negligently with one arm. While his back was to her, Sarah noticed that the white linen between his shoulder blades was wet with sweat. She shuddered. The sight was so rawly masculine that it made her stomach quiver.

  “There’s no need for that.” Sarah tried to speak crisply as he led Max from his stall. Jagger had handed her her reins and was adjusting her stirrup for her. Inwardly Sarah screamed for him to hurry. She had to get away from Gallagher, or disgrace herself by being sick. . . . “I don’t need you to accompany me. You can go back to whatever work you were doing.”

  “Your father asked me to keep an eye on you when you’re away from the house. It’ll just take a moment for me to be ready. Miss Sarah.” He didn’t even look at her as he spoke.

  “I tell you it’s not necessary. I am quite accustomed to riding alone. Isn’t that so, Jagger?” He was fiddling with the stirrup strap, raising it one notch and then another, so slowly that Sarah had to fight an urge to kick him.

  “Yes, miss, it sure is. Miss Sarah is one bruisin’ rider.” This was addressed to Gallagher, who didn’t even bother to grunt in reply. He had tossed the saddle on Max’s back and was reaching under the horse’s belly for the girth. As he had promised, it would be no time at all before he was ready to go.

  Sarah panicked. She slipped her foot into the stirrup, not caring whether it was the right length, and gestured at Jagger to stand back. He did. Sarah touched her heel to Malahky’s side, and the animal trotted out of the stable. Behind her she heard Gallagher’s angry shout. Thus spurred, she put her heel to Malahky’s side again and urged him into a fast canter despite the heat. She rode straight for the orchard, knowing that once the trees stood between her and the stable there was no way Gallagher could follow her. He was not familiar with the countryside and would have no idea which way she had gone.

  By the time an hour had passed, it occurred to Sarah that she had only delayed the inevitable. Gallagher would still be waiting in the stable when she returned. It was ridiculous to feel nervous at the idea of confronting a convict, but she did. Nervous and embarrassed and so on edge that she wanted to scream from tension.

  When two hours had passed, Sarah knew that she could delay no longer: she had to go back. Malahky was flagging, and it wasn’t in her to be unkind to a horse. And it would be unkind to keep him out much longer in the baking heat. Besides, she couldn’t stay out indefinitely. Sooner or later she would have to return to the stable. And face Gallagher.

  Her heart was pounding as, a scant quarter-hour later, she rode Malahky back through the stable door. It was late afternoon by then, but the heat had not lessened. She was perspiring, and her hair was straggling down her neck. It itched, and she scratched at it dispiritedly. She was still scratching when she felt hard hands grab her around the waist and haul her from the saddle in an unsettling repeat of the attack on her days earlier. Malahky, alarmed, skittered into his open stall. Sarah kicked frantically until her feet touched solid ground.

  “Take your hands off me!” Those were the first words out of her mouth as she slewed around to face Gallagher, who was glaring at her as angrily as she was at him. His hands had left her waist before the words were out of her mouth. Sarah bit her lip, looking furtively around for Jagger. The angry command had revealed an intimacy between the two of them completely out of keeping with their mistress-servant relationship. But Jagger was nowhere in sight, as she should have guessed as soon as she felt Gallagher dragging her from the saddle. He would be careful; he could not be more anxious to advertise their hateful familiarity than she was.

  “You stupid little bitch.” Gallagher bit the words out, his hands clenched at his sides as he obviously struggled to keep them off her. Sarah’s eyes widened in angry amazement at his temerity in speaking so to her.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” Her voice trembled with anger. It was all she could do not to launch herself at him, tearing at that handsome face with her nails, savaging him with her teeth. She wanted to lash out at him so badly that she ached. . . . In the one part of her mind not wholly given over to fury, Sarah marveled at the strength of the rage that shook her. Before meeting Gallagher, she had prided herself on her self-control.

  “I’ll speak to you any bloody way I please.” He was still biting off the words, looking as if he wanted to throttle her. “I don’t give a damn if you blush all the way down to your prim little toes every time you look at me. From now on, when you go riding, I go with you. Understand?”

  Sarah fairly quivered with temper. “Who do you think you are to give me orders? Just because—just because . . .” His eyes darkened, and she abruptly abandoned that line of reasoning. “You don’t give the orders around here, Gallagher. I do!”

  She was shouting. Gallagher’s hands fastened on her arms in a grip that would have made her wince if she hadn’t been so angry. His eyes narrowed to gleaming blue slits.

  “You heard about that fire in the west field? It was set, Sarah! This morning, maybe by a gang of runaway convicts like the one who attacked you, maybe by someone else. Nobody knows. But whoever set that fire was on the station this morning, and they haven’t been caught and there’ve been no signs that they’ve left. What if you’d run into them? What do you suppose they’d have done to you, you stupid female? You were shamed by what I did to you last night? You should bloody well try rape for comparison!”

  “You’re disgusting!” Sarah felt her cheeks crimson with rage and mortification. Her hands clenched into fists. She jerked free of his hold and swung a fist at him with all her strength. It never connected. He caught it in his hand, squeezing it cruelly, making her wince.

  “I warned you before about violence,” he snarled. Before Sarah had time to do more than gasp, he yanked her against him, his arms locking her to his body in a bone-crushing embrace. His grim mouth descended. . . .

  The kiss was brief, hard, and brutal. Sarah kept her mouth closed until his hand reached up to clamp around her jaw, forcing her teeth apart. Then his tongue invaded, conquering territory that had surrendered the night before, forcing her to accept that, in physical strength at least, he was her master. Sarah could not fight him; he held her too closely. She chose the next best course, standing rigid in his arms, refusing to concede him an inch of ground. Whatever he had from her, he would have to take.

  Finally, with an ugly oath, he lifted his head, thrusting her away from him with such force that Sarah nearly fell. Recovering her balance, she backed away from him toward the stable door, her face contorted with rage.

  “You dirty convict,” she hissed, choosing the one word that she knew would infuriate him more than any other. “How dare you manhandle me! I’ll make you sorry you were ever born!”

  Jaws clenched, Gallagher took a step toward her. Sarah’s bravado vanished. Whirling, she gathered up her skirts and ran for the house. As she bolted through the stable door, she sped past Liza, who ducked around the corner out of sight. Sarah did not even notice her.
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  * * *

  It was long past midnight, and Dominic was lying awake in his hard, narrow bunk in the long shed that housed all the convicts and a few of the aborigines, who kept together at the far end. All about him came the sounds of men asleep. Phipps, in the bunk to his right, a burly footpad as tall as Dominic himself, whimpered like a child as he slept. He would keep up the keening off and on all night, just as he had every night since Dominic had arrived. Dominic had learned to ignore the ragged sounds. Brady, on the opposite side, a short, thick, good-humored Yorkshire man, slept like an innocent babe. Which only showed how little one could rely on the quality of a man’s sleep as a way of gauging character, Dominic thought. Phipps, who despite his thieving ways had never harmed anyone, cried in his sleep. Brady, on the other hand, a professional smuggler who had murdered, with a hunting knife, his wife and her two young children when he caught her being unfaithful to him, slept like an angel from the time they turned in at night until they were booted awake by the convict trustees who oversaw their labor during the day.

  Dominic himself could not sleep. He lay on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head, staring at the velvety black sky through the cracks between the ceiling boards, cursing himself steadily for his handling of Sarah. He had meant to be gentle with her when next they’d met, but first she’d scared him by going off alone, and then she’d made him so damned mad. . . .

  The thud of booted feet on the rickety porch outside caught his attention. Dominic looked toward the door as it opened and three men entered. In the darkness it was impossible to recognize them. He watched with wary interest as they passed down the rows of sleeping men. One of them held a lantern; he shone it discreetly on each of the sleepers in turn. Some sort of bed check, Dominic surmised, and wondered what had made it necessary. When they got to him, he blinked into the light, waiting for them to pass on. But they stayed where they were, surrounding his bed. The lantern was blown out. Instinctively all his muscles stiffened in alarm. He started up.

  “Take him,” one of them said.

  XII

  Gallagher had run away. Sarah was surprised at how that knowledge troubled her. He was a greenhorn, and the bush country was deadly to greenhorns. He should have known that, should have had more sense. Within hours of their arrival on Lowella, Percival always made new convicts aware of the hopelessness of running. Like others before him, Gallagher had clearly chosen not to believe Percival. Most of those who left perished in the miles of desolation around them; with the drought drying up most sources of water, Gallagher’s eventual fate would be even more certain. And if he came back to Lowella, as a few did, staggering with exhaustion and defeat, he would be whipped. But however severe the beating, surely it would be better than dying of thirst and exposure to the raging sun. Surely he would come back. . . . But a week passed, then two, then four. Sarah had to face the truth: Gallagher was very likely dead, his long, hard body lying out on the parched tundra, the flesh stripped from his bones by carrion eaters so that soon only a bleached skeleton would remain to attest that a man had lived and died. . . . The dingoes would carry off even the bones, Sarah realized with a shudder; nothing would be left of Gallagher at all. The thought haunted Sarah; she was preoccupied by day and unable to sleep at night.

  “Have you had any luck finding that convict Gallagher?” She could contain the question no longer. The family, plus Percival, who usually joined them, was at dinner, gathered around the large mahogany table. Candles provided illumination in preference to oil lamps, at Lydia’s insistence. Crystal and silver gleamed, while the dishes were of fine china imported from England and the white tablecloth was made of the best damask and lace. Dinner, Lydia said, was going to be civilized, even if nothing else was in this crude country. Edward sat at the head of the table, his black cutaway coat and white silk stock an uncomfortable concession to his wife’s badgering. Only Sarah, who remembered how her father had refused ever to wear a coat no matter what the occasion, recognized his donning of such apparel for the sacrifice it was. Lydia, resplendent in white silk and pearls, with a great deal of her bounteous charms on display, sat at the foot. Sarah and Liza, in beige muslin and yellow silk, respectively, sat on one side of the table. Percival, who was attired even more correctly than Edward, was directly opposite Sarah. Mary, the quieter and less clumsy of the maids, waited on table. Mrs. Abbott rarely appeared in the dining room; Lydia said that the sight of a convict while she was eating was enough to put her off her food.

  Edward shrugged in answer to Sarah’s question, glancing over at Percival, who picked up his wineglass and swirled the red liquid slowly.

  “Haven’t tried,” Percival replied indifferently, his eyes on the candlelight shining through the wine to form a red shadow on the tablecloth. “The man’s no loss; he was a troublemaker from the start, as I told you he would be.”

  Liza giggled. “I think Sarah liked him,” she suggested slyly.

  Sarah could feel herself turning pink even as she struggled to reply to Liza with the scorn the remark should have merited.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, and was pardonably pleased with the crispness of her voice. The fact that all eyes except her father’s were focused on her made her hope fervently that the color she knew was in her cheeks would be hidden by the dimness of the candlelight.

  “He was a very handsome man,” Lydia observed, her languid tone masking the glitter in her eyes from everyone but Sarah. Sarah was too familiar with that look to miss it. She felt her stomach begin to tense as she waited for Lydia to home in for the kill. “I for one wouldn’t blame dear Sarah if he turned her head just a little bit. She has so few opportunities. . . . Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t mind me, Sarah. You know my wretched tongue. Of course, we have all learned to value you for your sterling character, and not give your looks a thought.”

  This was accompanied by such a poisonously sweet smile that Sarah glanced instinctively at her father, thinking that this time surely he would be able to see the hostility behind the pretense of affection. But he was spearing a chunk of mutton with his fork; Sarah doubted that he had even heard. And even if he had, he wouldn’t come to her defense. She had learned that long ago. He detested being made uncomfortable, and Lydia, if she got into a snit with him because of his championship of his daughter, was more than capable of making his life very uncomfortable indeed.

  “Of course you have,” she managed unconcernedly, knowing that to affect indifference was the best way to handle Lydia’s barbs. She spread some butter made from ewe’s milk on one of Mrs. Abbott’s caraway-seed rolls and bit into it with every appearance of pleasure. Her eyes met Lydia’s for the barest second. Both ladies smiled.

  “Found out anything more about that fire in the west field, John?” Edward asked placidly, changing the subject. He did that nearly every time Lydia launched one of her attacks; Sarah suspected that it was deliberate, aimed at diverting his wife’s attention from her, but she could never be sure. Her father was never interested for long in any conversation that did not deal with the station, and through it, directly or indirectly, his beloved merinos.

  “You know it was set.” Percival’s tone was suddenly brusque as he seemed to come to attention. Edward nodded, while the ladies listened in silence, Lydia and Liza clearly bored, Sarah attentive. “It could be that same group of convicts that burned Paul Brickton out a couple of months back. Or it could be a single convict. Or even an aborigine or a group of aborigines, though they don’t usually do anything like that. I don’t know. I do know that they won’t get a chance to do it again. I’ve got guards stationed in all the fields and outbuildings. If whoever did it comes back, they’re in for a nasty surprise.”

  “Good thinking, John,” Edward said absently. Percival inclined his head in silent acknowledgment.

  Lydia leaned forward so that the candlelight gleamed on the smooth white slopes of her full bosoms, exposed almost to the nipples by the dipping neckline of her dress. “To you, John Percival,” she purred, li
fting her wineglass toward Percival in salute. The smile that accompanied the gesture was meant to be provocative.

  Sarah, watching her stepmother as she flirted under her husband’s nose, wondered at her temerity. After seven years of marriage, Lydia still did not know her husband as well as she obviously thought she did. Usually her father was mild-mannered, largely because he was almost always preoccupied with his sheep. But if Lydia actually carried through on what her flirting promised, and her father found out, Sarah had not a doubt that Lydia would discover Edward Markham’s temper with a vengeance.

  “What would we do without you?” Lydia continued. Her smile had changed, becoming nothing more than polite now that her husband’s eyes were on her as he too raised his glass. Liza and Sarah, the latter reluctantly, followed suit. “May you soon become a permanent member of the family!”

  Sarah, in the process of taking the required sip of wine, nearly choked. There was no mistaking Lydia’s meaning. Her father was smiling at her, and Liza was suppressing giggles, while Percival looked smugly pleased.

  “I look forward to it as soon as Miss Sarah sets the date,” Percival replied as if their marriage were a settled thing.

  Sarah decided then to make it quite clear, before the whole family so that there could no longer be any doubt, that she would not marry Percival. “I have no intention, ever, of setting a date for our wedding, Mr. Percival,” she said evenly, looking at him across the table with steady eyes as she set down her wineglass deliberately. “As you know, for I have told you many times, I have no wish to marry you.” The words were calm, and even fairly polite, but their effect on the company was electric. Percival stiffened, glowering at her, while her father eyed her with dismayed disapproval. Lydia was smiling, pleased at the furor she had created, while Liza was staring first at Sarah, then at Percival.

  “Sarah!” Edward remonstrated. Then, to Percival: “Forgive her, John. Every lass likes a little courting, eh? She’ll come round in time.”