by Laura Parker
His tongue met hers, taught it a lively jig that needed only the bodhran of their hearts for accompaniment. His embrace relaxed and she slipped lower until the hard length of him was pressed between her spread legs. Somewhere a distant fear chimed. This was wrong, wicked, sinful. And then he kissed her again and the chiming ceased.
His embrace tightened again, and she lifted herself against him in an unconscious need to assuage the throbbing of her lips, her breasts, her loins.
He entered her in one thrust, directing her movements as he murmured indecipherable assurances into the deep cleft of her breasts. Each push/pull of pleasure forced a small cry from her until her cries formed a hoarse chorus of joy.
She knew then that she had been lied to. They were wrong, those who said there was no magic. The magic was now, here, in this place, with this man.
He was a man born with the art of persuasion. She had thought that gift of charm lay in his words. But that was before she had known this pleasure in his arms.
His fingers dug urgently into her buttocks, his rhythm quickening as he joined her cries with short grunts of desire.
Aisleen held him tighter, and tighter, kissing his sweaty cheek, his brow, crying, laughing, holding him so tightly that she hoped to solder them forever as one. The final rotating thrusts of his pelvis plunged deeply into her. She knew it was the first time that they were really and completely one.
* * *
She awakened in the curve of Thomas’s arm, her hair spread out under his head, the copper flood a dramatic backdrop for his ebony locks. She raised up on an elbow. There was peace in his sleeping face, and joy, and wonder. Her eyes followed the length of his arm until she saw the place where his hand lay. Beneath his spread fingers on the curve of her hip was the rose-red birthmark of her heritage. Had he seen it?
Even before she lifted her gaze she knew that they were not alone. He was there, as he had been outside her hotel window, this time a purple shadow behind the bright ribbon of the waterfall. He raised a hand in salute.
“Go away!” Aisleen whispered. “Please let us be!”
Croosheening in the voice of a gean-canach, the apparition replied, “Nae, avourneen machree!”
Thomas’s eyes opened and the figure vanished. “What’s wrong, darling of my heart?”
Aisleen glanced down at him in bewilderment. Those were the words the phantom had spoken. “Nothing,” she lied and pressed her cheek into the curve of his neck.
“There’s naught to fear, macushla.” Thomas sighed. “If only ye would believe.”
*
Aisleen could scarcely credit her eyes as she and Thomas rode double through the gently rolling countryside west of the Blue Mountains. Everywhere small plots of land were under cultivation. Wheat, corn, and vegetable plants thrust upward from rich red earth in neat squares of plowed fields. Sheep grazed in cropped meadows. Cattle ruminated in the shade of pale-green trees. The scene was not English in character. The sun was much too vivid, the sky too blue. Native trees of myrtle, eucalyptus, and wattle, with their sparse limbs and willowy trunks, drew a stark contrast to the dense, rounded silhouettes of the elm and oak forests of Britain. Yet there was the sense of prosperity and settlement carved out of the wilderness.
After more than a week in the bush, Bathurst appeared to be a city in Aisleen’s eyes. This was no mere collection of daub-and-wattle huts with stringy bark roofs. A genuine village emerged as they neared the settlement on the banks of the Macquarie River. The main streets were broad avenues whose traffic included smart enameled rigs and elegant carriages as well as the more serviceable buggies and travel coaches. Women dressed in the latest European fashion strolled on the arms of smartly dressed gentlemen. There were banks and hotels of stone as well as townhouses with neat patches of lawn.
Aisleen bit her lip in disappointment when Thomas rode past the more prosperous section of town. The beckoning temptation of the lace-curtained windows of one hotel had been particularly appealing. Soon, however, she realized that he did not mean to stop in the charming town at all.
“Where are we going?” she asked when the main street gave way to the surrounding farmland once more.
“To Hill End,” he answered. “I thought, being that ye are gentry and a gently reared lass, ye should see what a common man of wit can hope to make of the bush.”
“What of the sheep?” Aisleen protested, realizing that everything she owned was in the cook wagon.
“They’ll not be catching up with us for a week yet,” Thomas answered. “Jack’s grazing them on some squatter’s land, just out of sight of the man, of course. Fattened jumbucks will bring more at market than a road-weary mob.”
It was nearly dark when she saw the glow of a community on the rise. The noise of a town under the influence of great revelry reached them long before they entered.
Soon they were surrounded by the camp city on the bluff of the Turon River, where gunfire and riotous laughter on the busy streets competed with the tinny notes of a piano and fiddles. Sea shanties and music-hall ditties spilled from the numerous pubs and saloons which lined the lanes.
Aisleen held tight to Thomas, growing more and more afraid of the din. He seemed to take it all in stride, shoving away with a boot kick the one drunk digger who dared to catch a handful of Aisleen’s muddy skirts. When they at last turned off the storefront street into a dark and quiet lane, Aisleen slumped in relief and weariness.
All at once Thomas reined his horse in. “Here we are, lass.”
Aisleen peered through the dark at the small whitewashed frame house where an argand lamp glowed warmly in the curtained window. Her spirits rose at once, only to plummet again as he dismounted and reached up for her. They had forded many tributaries of the Macquane River in their journey. The hem of her gown was stiff with dried mud, and underneath her petticoat was still damp. Her bonnet had wilted long ago, and she had no gloves.
“Aye, ye’re a wee bit mussed, but Matt and Sarah will nae think the less of ye,” he remarked as he helped her down.
“Who are they?” she questioned uncertainly as he tried to smooth the road dust from her skirts.
“They’re nae gentry, if that’s what’s worrying ye,” he answered as he tried unsuccessfully to perk up the soggy brim of her bonnet. “’Tis a saying among bush folk that the Scotch own the land while the Irish own the pubs. Matt Mahoney owns the finest drinking establishment in Hill End.”
With that dubious comment to bolster her spirits, Aisleen followed the push of his hand at her back as he opened the gate to allow her to enter the yard. A moment later his heavy knock brought footsteps to the door, and a man with blond curls and a full, bushy beard opened it. “Aye? Who’s there?”
“Now is that any way to greet a man, I’m asking ye! Damn yer eyes, Matt, that ye’ll nae be knowing the ugly mug of Thomas Gibson!”
“Tom!” The man swung the door wide in greeting. “Sarah! Come quick! It’s Tom, and he’s brought company with him!”
“Not company,” Thomas replied as he led Aisleen forward into the light. “’Tis me wife I’ve brought for ye to meet. Aisleen, this is Matt Mahoney. Matt, meet Mrs. Gibson.”
“Did I hear you say you’ve married?” came the feminine query an instant before a woman appeared in the doorway of the room beyond.
She moved slowly, and the reason for it was readily apparent. Advanced pregnancy stretched the limits of the periwinkle blue gown worn by the dark-haired young woman.
“Sarah, me darlin’!” Thomas greeted with a hug that half-lifted her off her feet. He winked at her husband. “I can see how Matt’s spent his time since I was here last.”
Color suffused her cheeks as Sarah playfully pushed him away. “Why, Tom, you devil!” She looked at Aisleen with a warm smile. “Just look at what you’ve done to her! Hurry, Matt, put the kettle on to boil and you, Tom, fetch a blanket from the chest. Poor girl, she looks all in.”
Before she could protest, Aisleen was enveloped in a maternal hug faintl
y scented with lavender.
“Welcome, Mrs. Gibson. You’ve been a long time presenting yourself. Tom had begun to think you would not appear at all.”
With those enigmatic words ringing in her ears, Aisleen was welcomed to Hill End.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face
—The Host of the Air
W. B. Yeats
Chapter Fourteen
Hill End: November 1857
Aisleen sidestepped the splash of mud thrown up by the wheels of a passing dray and clutched her bundle tighter to her bosom. Behind the dray came another, forcing her to jump up onto the wooden banquette of a storefront.
“’Ere! Mind your step, lovey!”
Aisleen blocked the path of a pair of women dressed in vivid shades of red and gold and holding silk parasols. “Pardon me,” she said and moved aside.
“’Ere that, Cora? A lady!” the woman in the gold gown exclaimed. “Wait a tick, luv.” She grabbed Aisleen’s arm in a glittering beringed hand. “What brings you to Hill End?” She paused, her mouth forming a crooked “O” before she said, “Ye wouldn’t be one of them actresses from London?”
Aisleen shrugged off the woman’s greedy touch. “Certainly not! If you will kindly allow me to pass.”
“La de da!” the second woman sang. “Ain’t we the lady with airs? Just so ye know, ducks, this lane here belongs to Polly and me. Shift yer wares somewhere else. Take my meaning?”
Harlots! “I’m sure I don’t!” Aisleen answered indignantly and walked purposefully around them.
As she passed the storefront, a man with top hat and cane emerged. He tipped his hat in respect, and she nearly responded to his politeness with a smile until she saw that while he wore a frock coat and cravat, he also wore a golden loop in each ear and a drooping black mustache. When he smiled, she was dazzled by the flash of a dozen gold teeth. This was no colonial gentleman but a Spanish digger who had made a strike. Averting her amazed gaze, she marched away.
His laughter did not disconcert her as much as it might a short time ago. She was becoming accustomed to meeting with the unexpected in this gold-diggers community. Each day in the bush brought instances of wonder or surprise or rude awakening. After little more than a week in Hill End, she was even beginning to understand the lure that had brought the bold, the desperate, and the dreamers into the bush to prospect for gold.
It was in the air: the gambler’s fever. For some, it was the chance to begin a new and better life. For others, the hope of canceling out a lifetime of misery and failure with a single lucky strike lured them west. Expectancy pervaded every instance of life in the community. It had brought to this bush frontier a human flood as diverse in ethnic and economic backgrounds as any port city in the world. Cornishmen who employed the tin mining methods to crack the stone walls of the sandy cliffs along the river, buckskin-clad Americans who handled a pickax and their fists with equal ease, Spanish sailors and Chinese coolies, even European aristocrats: one and all they had come to New South Wales seeking the elusive prize. All spoke a common language. From casual conversation to business deals, nothing long prevented people from the one and only satisfactory topic of conversation: gold.
A sudden cheer went up from the passersby on the street, and Aisleen turned to discover the cause. It was the armed gold coach, arriving to collect from the gold merchants and banks the latest cache of gold nuggets and dust. Four men in military blue uniforms rode atop the coach. She noticed several more in the dim recesses of the interior. Too late, she realized her mistake in pausing in the street as mud and water flew up from the coach wheels and splashed her skirts. Several young boys who did not mind braving the splattering ran behind the vehicle, waving and whistling in excitement.
She turned away, brushing ineffectually at her skirts. It had not rained since early morning, but the street ran with mud and water and the collected refuse of the sewers. Once more, she regretted not heeding her husband’s advice that she remain in their room until his return.
Her husband. Aisleen smiled. It seemed impossible that she should be made so happy by the thought.
Just like the men and women around her, she had gambled everything in coming thousands of miles to this wild, unfamiliar place in hopes of beginning a new and better life. Like most of them, she felt that her prize was just below the surface, around the corner, in the next turn of a stone. Yet the prize she sought was not gold. She had not even known what she was hunting for, could not even put into words the innermost secret longings of her soul until now.
She wanted to be loved wholly and unconditionally. And that love would be mined in her husband’s heart.
“Holy Mother, make it possible!” she whispered as she turned a corner and stepped through the gate of the fence that ringed the Mahoneys’ house.
“Mrs. Gibson, thank heaven!” Sarah Mahoney said when Aisleen walked through the door. “I nearly sent for the magistrate!”
“Whyever would you do such a thing?” Aisleen questioned as she set her bundle down on an occasional table and began drawing off her gloves.
“Matthew won’t hear of me traversing the streets unescorted. You might have been abducted.” Sarah fanned herself against the warmth of the December day. “What would I have said to Tom, had he returned and found you gone?”
Aisleen smiled indulgently at her. “Poor dear, I’ve worried you needlessly. I can assure you, I would not allow myself to be abducted.”
“You cannot be too careful,” Sarah maintained. “There’s no end of swagmen, bushrangers, and diggers who would snatch a young lady right off the street. Just a month ago, the magistrate sentenced a digger to six months’ imprisonment for abducting the ten-year-old daughter of a fellow miner. The madman had offered to marry her, but the father refused. Can you imagine?”
Aisleen could not help wondering by her speech which Sarah considered to be the greater crime, the father’s refusal or the madman’s offer, but she tactfully refrained from asking. “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”
“Nothing, my dear. When you’re in your ninth month, you shall remember your question and my answer and you will understand. I do, however, find the thought of a thimbleful of gin to my liking.”
Aisleen schooled her features to show no amazement at this request. “Of course. I’ll fetch it.” The Mahoneys were another in the seemingly endless collection of friends Thomas had made in his shearing days. Because of Thomas, Sarah had graciously offered them shelter until the flock arrived. It was not her place to criticize her hostess’s predilection for gin.
When she had poured a small measure of the clear liquid into one of the crystal tumblers she brought it to Sarah. “Shouldn’t you be resting? You know your husband does not like you to be too fatigued to sit with him after supper.”
“Matthew worries far too much,” Sarah replied. “You would think it was my first child.”
This time Aisleen could not mask her surprise quickly enough.
Sarah smiled. “You are wondering about the others, since there is no child toddling about the parlor.”
“No, I do not wonder at all,” Aisleen lied. “And if I did, it is none of my affair.”
“That is true,” the woman agreed, “and because you have made such a pretty speech of it, I shall tell you. I have two lovely children in England, a boy and a girl, ages two and four. In fact, were I to return to my village in Somerset, I imagine I would be arrested as an adulteress.”
Sarah peered up at Aisleen through her lashes. “Don’t you wish to know how a mother could leave behind two darling lambs and a husband of some consequence, for he was, you see. My husband is a bishop with a stipend of no small sum.”
“It’s not my place to wonder anything at all,” Aisleen answered, growing more uncomfortable with every moment.
“You must have been a good and discreet governess,” Sa
rah replied. “Once I might have hired you myself if I could have trusted Sedgewick not to corrupt you. But then again, perhaps Sedgewick would not have had you because I believe I see in you an incorruptible soul. You are shocked down to your shoes by my frankness.”
“No, not at all,” Aisleen murmured, wishing now only to escape to her room, but she was not to be so easily released from the woman’s confidence.
“Sedgewick was a heartless seducer of women,” Sarah continued serenely. “His preference was for young, excessively silly maids who thought it a great privilege to pray in the presence of a bishop. The trouble came when they found themselves off their knees and on their backs.”
She paused to sip her gin. “When the third maid left us in disgrace, sworn to secrecy against the incursion of God’s wrath, I left Sedgewick. I wanted nothing belonging to him, not his children, his stipend, nor the contents of his house. I wanted freedom, and that is what I’ve found here in Hill End.
“You will think me the lowliest of degenerates because I was a parson’s daughter and bishop’s wife. But I tell you I have quite a high opinion of morality and think it should be observed in no small measure. I confess freely that Matthew and I are not wed, but I shall stare into the face of Saint Peter himself and dare him to bar me entrance unless Sedgewick is sent to accompany me to hell. In which case, I shall joyfully participate in Sedgewick’s unceasing torment.”
Sarah raised twinkling eyes to Aisleen. “Have you nothing to say, no thought on the subject?”
Goaded to reply, Aisleen said, “I wonder that you would bring a child into the world without the protection of his father’s name.”
“Oh, but he shall have Matthew’s name, as I have taken it!” A smile softened Sarah’s expression. “Matthew was transported in ’thirty-nine for stealing. An emancipist has little chance of making his way once he’s received his papers unless he’s willing to work twice as hard as the next. Because of me, Matt has worked thrice as hard. Now he’s an innkeeper with money in his pocket and a proper roof over his head. He likes to believe that I’m the cause of his success and that the child is God’s grace on us. Only a fool would deny it, and I’m not a fool.” She patted her prominent belly fondly. “This child will be loved better and more completely than the others who have their heritage free and clear.”