Dream Time (historical): Book I

by Parris Afton Bonds

  He was also unaware that at the dock she occasionally taught reading, writing, and ciphering to any soldier who was willing to part with a few hard-earned coins. Exclusionists rarely visited the docks. Her secret was safe.

  He had quite forgotten her suggestion that they go into a mercantile business when nearly four months later, she said, “I’ve something to show you, Tom.”

  “The glint in your eye intrigues me if nothing else.”

  Evidently, he had thought she meant something close at hand. When she took up her parasol, his brows climbed in his high forehead. “Just where is it we’re going?”

  She smiled. “Be patient.”

  He followed her from their brick-thatched quarters and caught up with her as she approached the guard gate. Together, they descended the sloping streets leading to the wharves. Known as the Rocks, this derelict area of brothels and bars Nan had passed through in chains less than two years before.

  She was understandably proud when she paused before a ramshackle board building that leaned precariously backward, as if unable to resist the might of the sea winds. Tom stared at it, then peered at her, his thick brows posed in question marks.

  “The sign, Tom. Look above. The sign.”

  His gaze followed hers. His lips translated what his widening eyes scanned. “New South Wales Traders, Limited.” His gaze slid to hers. “Nan, what shenanigans are you about now?”

  “’Tis no joke, Tom. She looked at the signboard, poorly painted and barely legible. Pure pleasure, such as she had once found in Miles’s arms, filled her. For an instant the memory of his skin texture and his scent hounded her. “I’ve leased the building for six months.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “’Twill be slow going at first. I’ve my plans set on a stand of sandalwood a man named Jimmy Underwood knew about. The Chinese will pay highly for it. We can store it here, as well as seal hides.”

  “What?”

  “Are you deaf, Tom? Pulykara had told me certain warriors of her tribe could provide as many seal hides as a person could pay for.”

  “I’m sure you will explain just how we will manage to pay for seal hides.”

  From inside, a secret smile threatened to make its way to her lips. Already she had her husband accepting her idea of New South Wales Traders, Limited as a done deed. “As we’ve managed to acquire the monies for the first three months’ lease, by being frugal.”

  “Frugal, ye say? We can’t get any more frugal. Your gowns are threadbare, our bedding is tattered, and our food supply would sour a convict.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “No, it wouldn’t. Until you’ve eaten convict’s dole, you don’t know, Tom. We’ll survive quite well, just as we've been doing. Another six months, our warehouse will be filled.”

  “And then what?”

  “When the Rum Corps’ monopoly is broken, we’ll be among the first to start trading openly. Sandalwood to the orient, sealskins to London. But only at first.” Excitement grew in her as she talked. “We’ll need a ship, but I’ve tracked down Jimmy Underwood. I told you about him. He worked on the prison farm and carved that bark cradle.”

  Wisely, she didn’t remind him for whom the cradle had been carved. “Jimmy has the inestimably useful skill of knowing how to build sloops. We’ll buy the remainder of his sentence—”

  “Nan, you go too fast.”

  “Not fast enough. There’s not enough time to do everything that needs to be done. And only you can do it, Tom. Why, with your knowledge of India and the United States, we can begin a trade with Calcutta and Madras and Philadelphia and Boston that will rival anything the Rum Corps even attempted.”

  Her gray eyes blazed with purpose, and watching her in that dying afternoon sunlight, Tom thought she was almost beautiful—and overpowering at the same time.

  Nan’s every thought was directed toward an enterprise that was based on two equally strong needs: the need to become firmly entrenched with Sydney’s aristocracy and the need to break Miles Randolph.

  Besides dealing in the rum trade, he had also undertaken staffing a workshop with convicts assigned to make consumer goods that were in erratic supply—candles, soap, boots, and leather hats. She had learned he was also constructing one of the largest private houses in the colony, with two stories and a basement.

  Standing at the comer of High Street and watching the house go up, she swore her own would be of three stories, and with an elegant veranda and slender columns.

  “Daydreaming, bluestocking?”

  She didn’t have to turn around to see who it was who addressed her. Her gaze still on a sweating, half-naked convict who toiled over mortar and sandstone, she said, “Only reminding myself, Miles.”

  “I don’t have to remind myself about you,” he said, his voice low and deep, reaching only her ears, though occasional passersby spared neither of them a glance. “I remember your passion. I have found that in other women but never combined with such sharp wit. And tongue,” he added with his familiar dry humor.

  Her head half turned, and she peered up from beneath the lace ruffle of her yellow parasol. “And you never will. You will rue the day, Miles Randolph, that you left me to face a courtroom of incensed Tories.”

  “You will live to see the day that you thank me for that, Nan Livingston. Shrewd and passionate, you were. But also naive and untested. You are a far stronger woman, I wager.”

  “As you will fully discover one day.”

  Mockery inflected his politician’s rich voice. “Ahh, you plot to ruin me? I doubt you can even dream of climbing to the heights I intend. England might not want me but will have to recognize me as the leader of a country that will dwarf theirs.”

  At last, she turned to face him. Her heart was pounding with the fear of the weakness he engendered in her. Those blue-black eyes taunted her, and her weakness was burned away by her anger and pain. “We are both visionaries, Miles. But you set yourself too high and underestimate me, a woman though I might be. Good day, sir.”

  Returning to Fort Phillip, she admitted with the most reluctance and regret that she still wanted Miles. She also realized for the first time that it was those occasional encounters with him that energized her. She returned to her enterprise with renewed vigor.

  However, her vigor soon ebbed as the months passed and Captain Bligh did not strike at the Rum Corps’s officers as quickly as she had anticipated. Gradually, her warehouse became so packed it was impossible to move among the aisles.

  Viewing her wares and stock one sultry afternoon, a part of her took great pride in all that she had accomplished. Another part of her worried. She was a month behind on the lease as it was. If she didn’t find a legal outlet for her wares soon . . .

  Then on a hot January night, the Rum Corps, unable to tolerate another tyrannical order from Bligh, staged a coup d’état. From the fort, Nan and Tom could hear the musketfire over at the Government House and glanced at one another. His expression was drawn, hers ebullient.

  Early the next morning, word passed among the fort’s inhabitants—a military junta had assumed power. John Macarthur, who had clashed with Bligh over the right to run sheep, was the instigator and apparent leader. One of the sub-rosa members, Nan knew, was Miles Randolph.

  Retribution, however, did not appear to be forthcoming from Whitehall in London. As the months slid by, it became obvious that for this remarkable mutiny, none of the men involved would be hanged or even punished. Once again, Miles had flirted with danger and danced away.

  Bligh returned to England, the junta continued to rule, and Nan’s dreams of a shipping empire were fast fading.

  To retain the warehouse, she sold off articles to a whaler at barely over her cost—and in secrecy. If the Rum Corps—or worse, Miles—should ever learn what she was doing, she would be clapped back in chains.

  The danger of the enterprise was as stimulating as the danger of her relationship with Miles had been.

  She repeated this clandestine opera
tion time and again, cursing both the Rum Corps, Miles in particular, and herself most of all. Why had she formed no contingency plans?

  Good-natured Tom did not bring up the calamity that would have occurred had he resigned his commission as she had urged. All events pointed to what seemed the obvious—that Nan had erred.

  As if to further mock her, the whimsical gods struck next not at her intellectual pride but at her feminine ego. Miles hosted a party for the completion of his mansion that overlooked the harbor—and its slums.

  All the Exclusionists as well as officers from every regiment were invited, which meant that Nan and Tom presented themselves at the Randolph doorway. Nan glanced up at the elegant fanlight overhead and felt the sharp shaft of envy. Her good dress had been mended so often it was literally a patchwork. Everything she had managed to save had been put into the warehouse, all of which she was on the verge of losing.

  The door was opened by a man in red livery. Nan’s discerning eyes identified furniture by the master craftsman Chippendale. The floor of the large drawing room was of green, gray, and white marble, polished enough to satisfy even a Windsor. Hundreds of candles bedecked a crystal chandelier, heating the already overheated room.

  “Nan,” Tom said aside to her, “just what are we doing here?”

  Her lips drew back in a tight smile. “Making contacts. Invaluable contacts.”

  Mingling with the guests was not the nightmare that Bligh’s reception had been. The number of Emancipists slipping inside the fine weave of the Exclusionists’ mosquito netting was increasing. A man named Simon Lord, transported for stealing several hundred yards of calico and muslin, had come up through the rum trade. Doubtless, Miles and the officers felt that by using such shady men as distributors, they were saved from demeaning contact with the penal colony’s lower echelons.

  While not exactly snubbing Nan, the majority of the guests found her bold manner irritating. She knew this and cared not. They would need her services one day—and pay dearly.

  While Tom went to the refreshment table, flanked by vases of tall fronds, she scanned the guests for sight of Miles. In profile, he was talking to Macarthur and his wife and niece. Nan studied the young woman, who appeared maybe twenty at the most. She was one of those softly rounded women men loved to touch. At once, Nan’s gaze returned to Miles’s face and searched his attentive expression for other signs. She found only a formal politeness and sighed her relief.

  As if he felt her eyes upon him, he turned, made his excuses to the three, and started in her direction. Occasionally, he paused to speak when someone detained him. He was so singularly handsome that every female eye followed him. She darted a glance at Tom, afraid he would return before she was able to speak to Miles alone. Tom was still enmeshed in the press of people at the refreshment table.

  “Does it measure up to Windsor, Nan?”

  She looked up at Miles. She hated that sardonic smirk. She hated even more her wanting of him. If Tom was more attentive in bed . . .

  “A touch of the nouveau riche, more gild than gold, but impressive all the same.”

  “And you still possess that same razor-edged tongue.” His narrow-lidded gaze raked downward, past her throat, bare of adornment, to appraise her worn gown. His lips curled in private satisfaction.

  Her pride rankled. “I am still in the game, Miles.”

  At that, his smile broke into a broad grin. “Your threat to see me labor in chains—a disappointment to realize that it was only a woman’s temper tantrum. I had you pegged for better than that.”

  He turned his back on her. A calculated affront. Watching him walk away, she assuaged her fury by telling herself that he would always seek her out. If nothing else, he enjoyed the duel of wits she provided him.

  Surprising her, he turned back to her, a risky action, considering that many would note that he talked to her twice. He leaned close, so close she could smell his cologne. A tingle of desire bubbled through her.

  “Nan, dear,” he whispered, “I know about the wharf warehouse. Your operations are your secret— as long as you don’t step on my toes. The rum trade is my playground.”

  Stunned, she stared at his broad back as he made his way back to the Macarthurs and their niece.

  What happened next sucked the air from her lungs. Tom had returned with a cup of pine punch for her when the portly John Macarthur stepped upon the dais and held up his palms for silence. The buzz of conversation ebbed.

  “Fellow colonists, it gives me pleasure to announce that my niece Lucy Bentwater will not be returning to London. Instead, she will remain here to share a new life with her future husband and a partner of mine, the esteemed Miles Randolph.”

  Applause rippled across the room. Nan’s hands refusal to obey her brain’s command to clap politely. She wanted to appear unaffected by the news, but that moment she could do little more than stand.

  It wasn’t as if she still hoped that Miles would come to love her. Yet all of her survival instincts had been grounded in that man-woman thing between them.

  “Are you all right, Nan?” Tom asked.

  She managed to nod. “Yes, just feeling a little queasy. The beef was stringy, didn’t you think?”

  Out of his element at the party, he seized the opportunity. “Let’s go home, then.”

  Her father used to quote something about God closing one door and opening another. She didn’t believe his god took an active part in the affairs of man and had told him so. Facetiously, she had said, “If I were omnipotent, I could do a much better job to alleviate suffering and pain.”

  The week following what she had come to think of as Miles’s engagement party, she discovered that Miles’s engagement might have closed one door for her, but another indeed opened in the least expected way.

  “You are looking bonnier, lass.”

  Nan glanced up from the ledger. Josiah materialized out of the warehouse’s gloom into her circle of candlelight. “Your ship’s late by two weeks.”

  He peered down at her through narrowed lids. “Don’t be telling me you missed me.”

  She bent her head and began tallying. “This is a business deal, Josiah. Purely business.”

  He sighed. “Tis a cold heart you have, lass.”

  Something about the tone of his voice made her look up at him again. She respected him and was disturbed that he should so categorize her. “Not a cold heart. A numb heart.”

  “And I’m not the man to restore feeling, am I now?” He spread his giant hands. “Well, I’m not complaining. For the little you ask of me, I can enjoy a woman’s body with a man’s brain.”

  At that she had to smile. “I’m not certain if that is a compliment or not. Shall we do business?”

  He thudded one of the crates with the flat of his hand. “Business—and then pleasure. Then I must be on me way. Randolph’s cargo beckons me.”

  Her hand tightened on the quill. “What happens when the rum trade is squashed? It will be, you know. The Crown is losing too much money."

  “I’ll find other more profitable cargoes. It's not that diffi—”

  “No, I mean to Miles Randolph, and the others involved in the rum trade?”

  “The others—I don’t know.” Those bulky shoulders rose in a shrug. “As for Randolph, men of his ilk can smell trouble a’coming. He’ll be heading for politics if I know anything.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me about Miles.”

  He took the quill and ledger from her and set it on one of the crates. “You aren’t in love with the man, are you now?”

  “Love? No. Not love. He’s merely a competitor, a tough one.” Something about Josiah’s expression prompted her to ask, “Why?”

  “Randolph is into, er, unnatural things. He buys convicted boys arriving at the docks on the transport ships. Randolph enjoys combining—” he paused, “—sex and sadism.”

  “You are sure about this?”

  “I found a twelve-year-old, a Morton Freely, stowed away on my ship this m
orning. The lad appears to be badly beaten. Claims Randolph was responsible. The Freely lad escaped the Randolph mansion last night. Says Randolph would have his throat slit for revealing this.”

  “I’d like to see the boy before you sail.”

  “Later.” He pinched out the candle, and its acrid smoke filled the darkness. His hands clamped on her shoulders and drew her against him. She liked the feeling of his solidity. Comfort. With Josiah, she felt comfort. With Tom, she had to be the stronger; with Miles, she had to be wary.

  Josiah drew her down onto the sawdust floor.

  “My dress,” she murmured. “We’re getting it dirty.”

  He kissed her neck just below her ear. “Forget the dress. I’ve brought one for you. Made by one of the best seamstresses in London.”

  She laughed against his beard. “You wouldn’t be bedding that lass under the same business terms and conditions, would you, Josiah?”

  With a chuckle, he loosed the strings of her bodice and palmed one small breast. “No complaining now, me lass. You were the one who specified this was to be a purely business relationship.”

  Her body responded to his rough touch with inner tremors. “Subtle whoring, you called it.”

  On his knees over her, he pushed up her skirts and parted her thighs. “With your mind and your passions, you would have made a marvelous and most successful madam.”

  “Alas, I want respectability more.” She arched when he plunged into her, then began moving in unison with the big man.

  Even though September’s spring weather was balmy and cool, inside the warehouse a stagnant heat lay over the two pumping bodies. Sweat rolled off Josiah onto her. Normally fastidious, she reveled in this. That restrained part of her was temporarily free.

  Tom would never have understood.

  Miles always had.

  Shafts of sunlight seeped between the warped door and its jamb. Gazing up at her business partner, she couldn’t help but think what a gentle soul he was despite his rough-hewn ways.

  When Josiah, at last, discharged his months of abstinence in a burst, he rolled from her. He stretched out on his side next to her.