The Secret Rose

by Laura Parker

  Aisleen caught back her wind-ruffled hair and smiled shyly, acutely embarrassed to have been singled out by her husband’s ringing voice. “How do you do?” she said softly

  “A lady!” the older of the two well-dressed women voiced in amazement. Aisleen did not need their shocked glances to tell her that she was filthy and disheveled, but they added to her discomfort.

  “She’s a bit road weary but, for all that, she’s as pretty a sight as ever I hope to see,” Thomas said proudly. “Now I’ll be seeing to her proper care.”

  The younger man took out his wallet, extracted several bills, and waved them under Thomas’s nose. “Very well. I’ve been in the damned colony long enough to understand what is required. Here’s five pounds for your trouble. With it I’m certain you will be able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere.”

  Thomas stared at him without a single glance at the bribe.

  The blond man looked disconcerted. “We were told that this is the best hotel for miles about.”

  “I would nae be at all surprised that ye’ll learn that they did nae lie to ye about that fact,” Thomas returned smoothly.

  The convoluted sentence took the man a moment to untangle and when he had, Thomas had already gained possession of the room key.

  “Now wait a moment!” he cried, anger crimsoning his fair skin. “What will it cost me to buy you out? Whatever it is, I’ll pay it! And the devil take you damned Irish!”

  Aisleen saw Thomas’s hand move toward his waistband, and even though she could not quite believe that he intended to pull his pistol, she rushed over and grabbed his wrist in both hands. “Tom, I’m very tired. Can’t we go now?”

  He angled his head toward her, his eyes strangely dark. “Tom? Please,” she begged softly but squeezed his wrist as tightly as she could.

  “Aye, aye,” Thomas repeated slowly. “We’ll be going up now.” His arm relaxed back to his side, but Aisleen did not loosen her grip. She tugged on his arm to pull him toward the stairs, giving the two women a brief smile.

  Thomas followed her without resistance, but the look in his eyes made the younger gentleman back away as he passed.

  “Ruffian!” the older of the two women called after them. “A lady like her wed to him. You can be certain there’s a story of heartbreak for some poor mother in that!”

  Aisleen did not care what was said about her, but when she reached the hallway on the second floor, she turned to Thomas and said angrily, “That was uncalled for!”

  “I agree entirely,” he answered with his usual charming lilt. “The things decent folk must deal with in the bush!”

  “You are laughing at me!” she replied, caught between relief and irritation that his anger had passed so quickly.

  “Aye, well, better a chuckle than I put a bullet through that English’s black heart.”

  The hair lifted on Aisleen’s neck. How casually he spoke of violence. “I do not agree with your decision. I think we should have offered the ladies our room.”

  The familiar cock of his head told her that her words surprised him. “Now why should ye be wanting to give up the bed yer poor body’s yearning for?”

  “Because those ladies appear to be, well, less suited to sleeping in tents and wagons than I.”

  Thomas’s lids fluttered down. “If ye believe that they’re better than us because they wear a finer cut of cloth, then ye’ve a thing or two to learn about life in the bush. They’d have taken yer room and told ye that ye did not deserve it, all in the same breath. Ye heard him call me a damned Irishman, and to me face he said it! I’d as soon lay me fist along the side of his head as spit on him!”

  Aisleen blushed because he had made his voice deliberately loud and carrying. Defeated, she turned toward the hallway. “Which room is ours?”

  Thomas came up beside her, wedging them in the narrow hall. He put a finger under her chin to lift her face to his. “Ye’re as good as any of them, better to me mind. Ye’d have given up the room out of the goodness of yer heart when they clearly did not deserve yer consideration. Ye’re a grand lass, and I’m a man with a bad temper and an empty stomach. Will ye be forgiving me?”

  Aisleen stared up at him because there was nowhere else to look in that moment. It was a pretty speech calculated to gain favor with her, but she could find no fault in the contrivance. He had taken her side, something she could not remember anyone ever doing before in all her life. It was so small a thing, so very simple a pleasure, but it brought tears treacherously close to the surface.

  She knew that he would kiss her, and she did not even try to escape. The gentle brush of his lips on hers was more disturbing than she could have imagined. When he moved away and his face came back into focus she remembered his promise that they would discuss the matter between them.

  Shaking, she turned away. This was something to guard against, she told herself She was beginning to like him.

  I knew that I had seen, had seen at last

  That girl my unremembering nights hold fast

  Or else my dreams that fly If

  I should rub an eye…

  —The Double Vision of Michael Robartes

  W. B. Yeats

  Chapter Twelve

  Aisleen sat by the window as she pulled a comb through her freshly washed hair. The pure blue of the mountains had intensified as the sun set until, with darkness, it faded into indigo. And with the change her mood had altered, gradually becoming as dark as night.

  Gregarious voices, sudden starts of laughter, and the thread of a tune squeezed out of a concertina drifted in from the tavern next door. The bullock drivers had arrived an hour earlier. Thomas was below with them and his drovers, whom she had seen ride in at dusk. His laughter rang out clear and strong above the others, a sound she had heard often this night.

  He struck up acquaintances easily, she mused. Why could she not be like him, more at ease with the world and herself? Most often, she gave the matter no thought, but tonight, listening to Thomas’s laughter magnified her feelings of isolation. She envied those who made him laugh and those who laughed with him.

  She would have liked to have gone below, to sit quietly in a corner and listen to his conversation, but she did not have the courage. He found joy in the simplest things, like a ride on horseback. He had made a difficult day easy for her just by entering it. Would he remain nearby this time? Did she want him to?

  She set the comb aside and leaned forward to cup her chin in her hands, braced by her elbows on the window-sill. The solitude of the night settled about her like the cool mountain breezes. In all her life, she had, made no lasting friendships. She was close to no one, had never been more important than necessary to the people in her life.

  As a child, whenever loneliness had threatened to overwhelm her, she had escaped in dreams. Now she had a husband and a new life. It was just short of miraculous, and yet she was lonelier than ever before.

  She shut her eyes tightly, quite unaware of what she was doing until it was done. Oh, bouchal, you were right. Adventures are better if they are shared!

  The admission shocked her, and her eyes flew wide. What had she done? Addressing an imaginary playmate of childhood fancy was preposterous. Was she so frightened of the future that a return to childhood was preferable? Whence had come this melancholy yearning?

  Thomas came through the door at that moment, a strange look on his face.

  Aisleen rose quickly to her feet, embarrassed to have been found sitting by the window like a neglected waif.

  “Will ye nae come below?” he questioned. “There’s a lass I want ye to meet.”

  “A lass?” Aisleen questioned, the image of Sally the barmaid flashing to mind. “What lass?”

  A quick grin lifted his features. “Why, the sweet colleen who whispers to me in me sad moments. Did I nae tell ye? I’m in league with the wee folk of the old sod.” The jest did not elicit the smile he hoped for.

  Aisleen’s expression stiffened. If there was some woman whisperin
g in his ear, no doubt she was all too human. Perhaps she had shared his company in the tavern. The reason for his laughter took on new, intolerable possibilities. While she sat near weeping for want of his smile he had—had—humiliation stung her eyes. “If you must cavort with women, please refrain from doing so in my presence!”

  Thomas cocked his head to one side as he surveyed her. Her hair hung free, ringlets climbing her brow and shoulders as it dried. But the lass of the afternoon with rosy-hued cheeks damp with perspiration and dusted with Australian gold was once more hidden behind a reproachful gaze. Why was the elusive woman who lay behind those wary eyes so seldom set free?

  “Where’s the life in ye, lass?” he questioned in irritation as she continued to regard him with misgiving. “So prim and proper ye are, like all the breath and blood’s been sucked out of ye. Were ye never a free-running creature, skipping through the bog, dirtying yer face and careless of yer dress because the heart in ye was a beating up so high and hard that ye feared nothing but that the day would end too soon?”

  The barb hit too close and Aisleen turned to the window, afraid that he would see her anguish because she was just pondering that very question. Yet her voice betrayed her as she said, “Yes, once I was very like the picture you paint with words.”

  “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  Aisleen shrugged. “I grew up, as we all must, learned to live as I must.”

  He remained serious as he said, “Ye must take joy in the living. There’s no life, no real living, where there’s no joy “

  “Is that how you see me, a joyless creature?” she asked a little desperately.

  Thomas shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Maybe ye’re just afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That’s what I ask meself.”

  “Perhaps your life has been easier than mine,” she suggested defensively. “Perhaps you’ve never been really alone or frightened, never wondered how you would live another minute if you had to endure—”

  “If ye had to endure what, lass?” he encouraged softly.

  Aisleen shook her head. It hurt too much to remember, even now—perhaps especially now because she felt so fragile. Like a spun-glass ornament, she feared that any sudden shock, a rough touch, and she would splinter into a thousand bright shards.

  “Who hurt ye, Aisleen?”

  She did not answer; she could not.

  Thomas wet his lips. He did not know what to say to her in the serious moments between them. Laughter was easier, but she needed to be drawn out of herself or they would never settle into marriage.

  “I believe that ye must have been a wondrous child,” he said softly. “Any son of Ireland would be proud to say ye sprung from his loins.”

  The statement struck Aisleen’s ears with stinging irony. “You are wrong,” she whispered bitterly. “The man who sired me cursed me from my first breath to his last.”

  Thomas frowned. “Cursed ye, a bairn as bright and pretty as I’d swear ye were? Why should he be doing that?”

  She flinched at the blunt question. Why had she spoken? Why had she not kept the pain buried? “I was not the son he desired nor the dutiful daughter he demanded.”

  “So, ye were always a contrary thing. I see how a man might grow wearisome of yer tongue were he nae convinced that there was more in ye than prudish airs and great parcels of words.”

  Aisleen turned to him, stunned. She had been too unwary, too unprepared for the possibility that he would turn her most painful admission into a jest.

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed at the sight of sick humiliation on her face. “Did ye never forgive him?”

  She blinked at him in confusion. “Forgive him?”

  “Aye.”

  She shook her head. “It was not his lack but mine that ruined him.”

  “How is that possible, with ye a wee bairn and him a grown man?”

  Aisleen looked away. She had never told anyone about her feelings for her father. How could she share them with a near stranger? “My father was a dreamer,” she said slowly. “He had grand plans for his life, and when they did not come true he could not accept it.”

  “That’s a failing that may be laid at many a man’s door,” he answered evenly. “I have cursed me lot a time or two and men lived to know the folly of the oath.”

  “I saw none of his pain and much of his anger,” she answered. “We grew poorer every year while my father spent what little there was for bottles of poteen. Things worsened, and he drank even more until even whiskey was not enough; and he turned to madness and magic.”

  “What magic?”

  Aisleen shook her head. She had not meant to say that. “He was a drunkard who began to believe in the whiskey dreams at the bottom of the bottle.”

  “And ye, lass, what did ye believe in?”

  She was silent for a long time before she said, “I have learned to rely only on myself There is nothing more.”

  She was half-turned from him, her hands clasped tightly across her middle as if to press out a sudden spasm. In reality, she had told him little, but he was not lacking in imagination. The thought of what a lonely child must have endured at the hands of a drunken father made him wince.

  Anger pumped suddenly through his veins. He did not know her father, but he would swear to Saint Peter himself that she was guiltless of whatever sin her father had made her feel in his dislike of her.

  “My grandma, a grand old lady if there ever was, had a saying for every occasion. I’m reminded of one that goes ‘A good man is not without fault and there’re two faults in every man.’ Yer da drank a bit overmuch and he was a dreamer. For all that, he gave ye life, and at this moment I cannae think too badly of him because of that.”

  Aisleen looked up, seeking desperately to read his expression. There was no humor there, no half-hidden edge of a smile. Even so, she did not trust the feeling blossoming inside her. For the second time this day, he had taken her side. He had complimented her without pity, yet his words left her trembling. Tears tangled in her lashes, distorting her view of him. How pathetic her defenses were against this man. One more word from him, one more kindness, and the years of work to build an impenetrable fortress about the crystalline shell of her heart would collapse at her feet.

  Aware of the danger of the moment, if not the reasons for it, Thomas cast about for a safe topic. When his wandering gaze spied the copper tub in a corner of the room, he seized on it gratefully. “Ye’ve bathed. Now it’s me turn.”

  Aisleen’s eyes widened, and then she looked away as he went to pull the tub into the center of the floor. Without waiting for a dismissal, she headed for the door.

  “Where’re ye going?” he questioned when he noticed.

  “Below, to the parlor,” she answered and reached for the latch

  “In yer night clothes? I’d like to see that!”

  Aisleen halted. She had forgotten that she was dressed for bed.

  “Och, the water’s still warm,” he murmured in approval as he put a hand in it. “Won’t be needing more.”

  She turned to suggest that fresh water be brought in any case, but the sight of him stopped her.

  He had already pulled his shirt from his britches and unbuttoned it. As she watched, first one bronzed shoulder and then the other appeared as he peeled the shirt back and slipped his arms free. Mesmerized, she saw him reach for his belt buckle. “Stop!” she cried suddenly. “Stop that this minute!”

  Thomas looked up in bafflement. “What have I done?”

  “You know,” she said accusingly. “You know very well it’s what you were about to do!”

  “Bathe?” he asked innocently.

  “You were about to—to bare yourself!”

  Thomas tried to sober his expression. “The water’s cooling. If ye are afraid of offending me modesty then there’s nae need. I’ll trust ye to be turning yer back, for I cannae wash meself in me britches.” Grinning, he loosened his buckle and began unbuttonin
g his fly.

  Aisleen turned away from him and again set her hand on the latch, but it was an empty gesture. She would not leave the room in her bed clothes, and they both knew it. Very well, she told herself, struggling for composure. She would remain and keep her dignity.

  When she faced about she kept her eyes from straying to where he stood, but from the fringe of her vision she saw the pile of his dirty clothes and mud-caked boots and the governess in her took over. Head erect and spine straight, she crossed over and scooped up the offending items and carried them to the pile of her own gown and boots which lay by the door.

  “Why’d ye do that?” he questioned, water splashing as he stepped into the tub.

  “These things need washing. The hotel has a laundress who promised to have them ready by morning.”

  “Ye’ll not be giving her me boots!”

  “Why not?” She stood them beside the garments. “They need the mud scraped from them, and a shine would not do them any harm.”

  “They’ll nae leave the room and that’s an end!”

  She swung about at his stubborn tone. “Oh, my!” She had only a swift glimpse, but it was enough to send her rotating back to the door. He stood bare, hairy legs and all, in the basin. And curls—who’d have thought to find curls in such a place!

  “Ye promised ye would nae look!”

  His tone was reproachful, but she knew that he was amused. “You are a vile, vain creature, Mr. Gibson,” she said breathlessly.

  “Are we back to that, and here ye were calling me Tom not three hours ago. A woman’s a fey creature, for all a man may love her,” he said in a wistful tone.

  Aisleen took a deep breath and then another. Dignity. She would retain her dignity if it killed her.

  Thomas watched her reach for the door handle. What could he say to send her spinning about again?

  “I do nae suppose ye would consider staying to scrub me back?”

  Sure enough, she stopped short but did not immediately turn back from the door. “Mr. Gibson,” she enunciated with extreme care. “I will remain only if you promise not to tease me for the remainder of the evening.”