“Miss Sarah, you ’ave to lie down! All right, I’ll tell you, though your pa will likely ’ave my ’ide. But you must lie down!” Mrs. Abbott was hovering anxiously over her now, her round face creased with worry. Sarah fixed her with smoldering eyes as she lay tensely back against the pillows.
“Tell me.” Was that her voice, that near-toneless command?
“You’ve been ’ome near a week, Miss Sarah. Gallagher came riding up bold as brass with you across ’is saddle on Tuesday last. Your pa grabbed you away from ’im, and ’e turned to ride out again. But Mr. Percival . . .” She hesitated a moment, then went on, her voice clearly reluctant, “ ’E ordered ’im to stop. When Gallagher just kept riding, ’e shot ’im clean out of the saddle.” At Sarah’s alarmed sound, she continued hastily, “’E didn’t kill ’im, or even ’urt ’im bad. Just caught ’im in the shoulder.”
“Dear God!” Sarah was no longer concerned about concealing from Mrs. Abbott the secret of her love for Dominic. Besides, she guessed from the woman’s reluctance to tell her what had happened to Dominic that Mrs. Abbott had shrewdly surmised much of how she felt. “Where is he now?” The question was a strangled croak.
Mrs. Abbott looked even more uncomfortable. “Mr. Percival locked ’im up in one of the sheep byres. You know, that one nearest the house. Mr. Percival was all set to ’ang ’im, for escaping, but your pa said to wait. ’E said ’anging couldn’t be undone just by wishing it. They argued for a bit, with Mr. Percival saying, ’ow did they know what the convict had done to you?—but still your pa said to wait. Until you were well enough to tell what ’appened. Then, if ’anging was deserved, Gallagher’d be ’anged.”
Sarah had sat up again as Mrs. Abbott spoke, ignoring the housekeeper’s worried expression. Now she swung her legs determinedly over the side of the bed. Her head spun for a moment, making her close her eyes. When she opened them again, the room slowly settled into place.
“Miss Sarah, you can’t get up! You’ll do yourself an injury! Please, Miss Sarah!” Mrs. Abbott’s hands were on her shoulders, trying to push her gently back into the bed.
Sarah gritted her teeth and shrugged free of Mrs. Abbott’s grip. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to give in and lie back on her soft nest of pillows; her head was throbbing so that made her wince. But Dominic was hurt, too, more badly than she, Sarah had no doubt. He had no soft nest of pillows to lie on. But she meant to remedy that without delay. And she didn’t give a damn what her father, or anyone else for that matter, thought.
“Mrs. Abbott, you go tell Tess or Mary to fetch that chair with wheels that Pa had brought out from England for my mother. Tell them to have it waiting at the foot of the stairs. Then you help me get dressed. I may need you to help me downstairs, too, and out to the byre. Call Jagger or one of the other men—it doesn’t matter who—to come along with us. If Dom—Gallagher is badly hurt, we’ll need a man to push the chair with him in it. Hear?”
Mrs. Abbott protested mightily, insisting that she would go herself to check on Dominic—she was fond of the boy herself, she said. But Sarah was determined, and she had her way. They made a curious procession crossing the yard, Mrs. Abbott supporting Sarah on her arm while Jagger followed, pushing the invalid chair with one hand and holding a rifle in the other. The rifle was for insurance. She doubted that there was any need for it, but she meant to get Dominic out of that byre. No matter what—or who—stood in her way.
By the time they reached the byre—a small shed erected near where the stable, now a blackened ruin, had stood; it was used to house any sheep that might need to be kept close at hand, for, say, a difficult lambing—the skirt of Sarah’s faded blue gingham dress was wet to the knees from brushing across the soggy ground. Mrs. Abbott’s skirts were in a similar condition, while the invalid chair made tracks in the field, which was still muddy from the torrential downpour that had ended the drought.
Heart hammering, Sarah had Jagger remove the thick plank that had been used to wedge the byre door shut, then, still supported by Mrs. Abbott, she stepped inside. For a moment she could see nothing in the pitch-dark interior of the small shed. Her nose wrinkled as a pervading stench assailed her nostrils. Mrs. Abbott’s arm beneath hers trembled as the woman was struck by the odor. Jagger, following them with the rifle, whistled softly in consternation. As Sarah’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw why.
Dominic lay on his back on a heap of matted straw, his eyes closed, his body bare from the waist up except for a dirty, bloodied bandage that bound his shoulder. His beard was thick now, obscuring the lines of his jaw and chin. His hair, waving wildly around his head, was filthy. Chains linked his wrists and ankles, and more chains secured him to iron rings set into the wall. His feet were bare and as dirty as the rest of him; his breeches were torn and ragged. Dampness pervaded the air as noticeably as the stench, which to her horror Sarah began to perceive emanated from one corner, which he had used for his physical needs. The shed floor on which the thin layer of straw was strewn was cold, clammy earth.
“Dominic!” Uncaring of her audience, Sarah pulled free of Mrs. Abbott’s hold to take two tottering steps forward and drop to her knees at Dominic’s side.
His eyes opened as she said his name. They stared at her blankly for a moment, then filled with a terrible anger.
“Get the hell out of here, Sarah.” The voice was hoarse and weak, but, accompanied by the glittering stare he raked her with, it had the impact of a shout.
Once, Sarah would have been affronted by that hostile growl. But now that she had come to know Dominic almost as well as she knew herself, she realized that his anger stemmed less from the quarrel they had had—he must have forgiven her for that, if he had been willing to jeopardize his safety to bring her home to be cared for—than from shame at having her see him in such a state.
“Don’t be a fool, Dominic,” she said quietly. And, ignoring the vivid string of curses he flung at her, she calmly instructed Jagger to fit keys into the shackles until he found one that worked, and then to help Dominic to the house. Dominic could use the blue bedroom just along the hall from hers. . . .
“You can’t be meaning to let ’im stay in the ’ouse. Think of what your pa will say!” Mrs. Abbott whispered, upon hearing this last.
But Sarah ignored her, and Jagger’s equally alarmed face as he searched for and finally found a key that would work the lock on the shackles. When Dominic’s arms and legs were free, he struggled into a sitting position, and would have stood up if his strength had permitted. It did not, so he fell back, leaning against the shed wall and glaring ferociously at Sarah. Eyes narrowing, he deliberately called her a string of names that would have made a saloonkeeper wince. Mrs. Abbott gasped, clapped her hands to her ears, and stared at him with horror. Jagger stepped back a pace, jerking the rifle to his shoulder and pointing it at Dominic’s middle.
“You an’ me is friends, Gallagher, an’ I don’t wanta shoot ya, but I will if you keep talkin’ to Miss Sarah like that. She don’t deserve it.”
“It’s all right, Jagger,” Sarah assured him over her shoulder. Unconvinced, Jagger lowered the rifle with obvious reluctance. To Dominic, Sarah added calmly, “If you say another filthy word, I’ll have you hog-tied, and gagged, and carried to the house that way.” She fixed him with a long, cool look. He scowled back.
“Back to being a Good Samaritan, are we?” He was smiling nastily, hostility plain in his eyes. The hostility deepened as she reached to touch his bandage. As she suspected, it was damp.
“When necessary,” she answered calmly, and smiled when his only reply was a gritting of his teeth.
He could not walk unassisted, and Jagger was too slight a man to support Dominic’s much greater weight for any distance, so he ended up being transported to the house—with some difficulty because of the mud, which in places was inches deep—in the invalid chair that Sarah had brought along for that purpose. Dominic maintained a sullen, glaring silence throughout the short journey, w
hich was a relief to Sarah. Her family would be horrified enough when they discovered what she meant to do, without him being carted through the house cursing like a sailor.
Lydia and Liza, the first tight-lipped, the latter wide-eyed, were standing together on the porch as they returned to the house. Sarah, with Mrs. Abbott supporting her with an arm around her waist, was in the lead. She faltered only slightly when she saw the reception committee that awaited them, then walked steadily on. Jagger, pushing Dominic in the chair, followed. As they neared the porch, Sarah spoke over her shoulder, instructing Jagger to take Dominic in and make him as comfortable as possible in the bedroom she had designated. Mrs. Abbott could show him where it was. Then she shrugged off Mrs. Abbott’s support, finding that as her battle-readiness mounted so did her physical strength.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lydia said with icy outrage as Sarah indicated with a gesture that Jagger should help Dominic into the house. They had stopped just below the porch, and Lydia and Liza were staring down at them over the rail. Jagger helped Dominic from the chair and up the stairs, while Sarah hovered at Dominic’s other side. Lydia moved to confront them as they reached the top of the steps, an ugly expression on her softly dimpled face. “You can’t come in here!” she said to Dominic. Then, to Jagger, who looked distinctly alarmed, she added regally, “Take him elsewhere at once.”
“Believe me, ma’am, I don’t want to profane your sacred house any more than you want me to,” Dominic growled at Lydia as Sarah, feeling stronger by the minute as her temper mounted, turned to confront her stepmother. In her unbecoming blue gingham dress, now muddied to the knees, and with her hair pulled back into a bun as she usually wore it, Sarah looked no different from the young woman who, before her abduction, had borne Lydia’s airs and megrims and verbal attacks without retaliating. Except for her eyes, which were flashing golden fire, and the snap in her voice as she told Lydia to move out of the way.
“Or I will knock you on your backside!” Sarah promised.
Lydia gasped, one hand flying to her mouth. Liza’s eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. Jagger looked even more alarmed, Mrs. Abbott chortled and quickly turned it into a cough, and Sarah could have sworn that even Dominic’s grim lips twitched a little. She ignored them all, fixing her stepmother with a menacing stare. That look said that she was no longer a motherless little girl to be bullied and broken and finally despised. She was a woman, ready to fight for herself if necessary—and for her man.
“Your father will have something to say about this!” Lydia hissed even as she retreated. It was defeat, and both she and Sarah knew it.
Sarah paid her no further mind, but gestured to Jagger to do as she had bidden him. He did, silent and scared—Sarah guessed he was hoping that he would not be blamed for this day’s work. Dominic, tight-lipped, suffered himself to be helped upstairs and bestowed on the bed in the blue bedroom.
“And if you don’t stay put I’ll have you tied to the bed,” she warned him, still feeling militant. He glared at her, mouthing an obscenity that should have shamed her into silence. But fortunately he was too weak for anything but talk. She ignored him, not even blushing as she turned to Mrs. Abbott and directed that Madeline be fetched to tend his wound. In the meantime, Jagger could help Dominic bathe and, if Mrs. Abbott would provide a nightshirt, get him into bed.
“If he gives you, or Madeline, any trouble, tie him to the bed,” was Sarah’s last instruction to Jagger before she left the room. Her strength was rapidly ebbing, her head was beginning to pound, and she knew that if she did not lie down again she would fall down. Dominic’s curses echoed in her ears all the way back to her own bed.
As Lydia had prophesied, Edward did have something—many somethings, most of them nearly as profane as Dominic at his worst—to say about a convict in his house, being cared for and tended like a valued guest or a member of the family. Lydia must have greeted him at the door with her tale of his daughter’s simultaneous recovery and perfidy, because he came bursting into her bedroom without even stopping to wash away the day’s grime. He yelled and stomped and threatened, then yelled some more, while Sarah, ensconced in her bed with an ice pack on her head, listened calmly, only occasionally wincing as a particularly loud roar found its echo in her head. Finally, when he threatened to have Dominic shot where he lay, Sarah interrupted. She never raised her voice, but the cool determination in her eyes made him stop yelling and listen.
“If you harm him in any way, if you even refuse to have him in the house, I’ll leave, Pa, and never come back. And if the thought of my leaving doesn’t particularly bother you, let me remind you that I keep the books and pay the bills and run the house. And if I go, who will you get to do it? Lydia?” There was a distinct sneer as she suggested her stepmother, who both she and Edward knew would be horrified at the notion that she should assume such duties, which she considered distinctly beneath the lady of the house.
Her father stared at her without speaking for a moment. His hands, which had been clenched into fists as he ranted and raved, slowly relaxed. The red color that once would have alarmed her began to fade from his face.
“What do you mean, if the thought of your leaving doesn’t bother me? Of course it bothers me! I’m your pa, girl!” This was said testily, while he looked her over with a frown.
“Then you will let Dom—Gallagher stay in the house until he’s well, and then see about getting his sentence commuted? As a reward for saving my life, if you like. He is really not guilty, Pa.”
“I suppose he told you that?”
“Yes. And I believe him.”
Edward’s frown deepened. “Just what is this man to you, daughter?” he asked, moving until he stood beside the bed looking down at her.
Sarah felt color rising in her cheeks as she considered confessing that she loved Dominic, but as she looked at her father she decided to wait. The belligerence had left his stocky body. His gray eyes looked tired, almost sad. Maybe she was being cowardly, but she thought such a traumatic announcement was best saved for another time. Maybe, after he got used to having Dominic in the house, he would be more amenable to the idea of her marrying him.
“He has put himself at considerable risk for me more than once,” she said. Then she went on to describe, with careful editing, how Dominic had put his life on the line to protect her from the bushrangers—whom he had just happened to encounter after the raid on Lowella; she reminded him of that earlier incident with the escaped convict, and finally of how Dominic had jeopardized his own safety and freedom to bring her back to Lowella after she had been struck by that falling limb. When she finished, Edward ran a hand through his thinning red hair and tugged on his dusty, loosened cravat as if it had suddenly become too tight for him.
“Sarah—daughter, forgive me, but I must ask you: Did that convict touch you?”
There was no doubt of his meaning. Sarah did not want to lie, but on the other hand she was afraid the truth might send Edward into a towering rage, and Dominic would suffer the consequences far more than herself. Then it struck her: surely Edward knew what had happened between herself and Dominic that night in the orchard. If he did not, why—and by whose orders—had Dominic been punished? But if he did, why would he ask if Dominic had touched her? He would already know the answer.
“Pa, tell me something,” she said slowly. “Did you give an order for Dominic to be whipped at any time?”
Edward ceased his nervous movements and stared back at her. “I don’t see what that has to do with my question, but the answer is no. I had no reason to, to my knowledge.”
“He was whipped, Pa. Brutally, just before he ran. And he was left to hang in a barn for days. If he hadn’t managed to escape, he would probably have been allowed to die there.”
Edward’s gray eyes narrowed. “Did he tell you that, too?”
“Yes. And it’s true. I saw the marks on his back.”
The color was seeping from her father’s face. He moistened his lips
before answering. “I gave no such orders.”
“It must have been Percival,” Sarah said under her breath.
“What?”
Sarah repeated herself.
“If so, then he did it on his own initiative. Although I can’t believe he’d do such a thing without a good reason.” Her father paused and looked at her hard. “Did he have such a reason, Sarah?”
Sarah hesitated. Then she decided to take the plunge. “He may have thought I was growing too fond of Dominic, Pa.”
She watched him as she spoke. He closed his eyes for a moment as if in pain. When he opened them again, he looked suddenly old.
“And were you—are you?”
This time it was Sarah who moistened her lips. She hesitated, then met his eyes with a calmness she didn’t feel.
“Yes, Pa.”
Nervously she waited for his reaction. But he did not bellow or roar, as she might have expected. Instead, he seemed to wilt.
“Sarah, I know that since your mother died I’ve not been the best of fathers to you. You look so like her, you see, that it hurt me to look at you for a long time after she went. Then I married Lydia, and . . . well, you know Lydia! She can he difficult. It just seemed easiest not to fight her. I know you haven’t been as happy as you might have been, and the fault for that is largely mine. What I’m trying to say is that I love you, girl. I want what’s best for you in life. I’ll let the convict stay in the house until he’s recovered if it will please you. And I’ll even do my best to get his sentence commuted.”
“Oh, Pa!” she said, tears welling into her eyes as she smiled up at him. He had not told her he loved her since she was a tiny girl, and over the years she had come to believe he no longer did. Because she was plain, and her sex a disappointment to him, when she knew he would have preferred that his only child had been a son. But just now he had compared her to her beautiful mother, and agreed to relax his long-standing prejudice against convicts for her sake, and told her he loved her. . . . Edward harrumphed loudly as the tears in her eyes glistened in the flickering light of the candles by the bed, then abruptly sat down on the mattress and pulled her into his arms. He hugged her quickly, while she hugged him back, the tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks.
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