by Laura Parker
His coat was unbuttoned, and the heat of his body flowed through his shirt, through her bodice, and into her skin as they danced. She felt breathless, less solid than before, skimming along in her husband’s arms.
“Aye, it’s nice, dancing. Me mother called it soaring with angels,” Thomas agreed, reading her thoughts in her eyes.
He could not look away from those dark gold eyes wide upon his. Aye, he’d been right the first time. Her eyes were as rich and warming as any spirits he had ever drunk. Their power stirred his blood as rum had never done. She was as much a woman as any who danced beneath this roof.
Neither of them noticed his approach, but suddenly they were brought to a halt by a huge hand on Thomas’s shoulder.
“Jack!” Thomas greeted the human mountain. “Ye’re in!”
“Good evening, Mr. Egan,” Aisleen greeted warmly because his arrival meant they would be moving on, away from Hill End and the Mahoneys.
Jack stared at her a moment, his craggy features as immutable as stone, and then turned without a word to either of them and walked away.
“I’ll be back,” Thomas said, leaving her before he finished the sentence to hurry after the man.
“Mrs. Gibson! Over here!”
Aisleen turned to see Mrs. Fahey hailing her from across the room. The woman beckoned a second time, and she could not find any alternative to rejoining her now that Thomas had deserted her.
For the next half hour, she was led from one knot of people to the next, introduced, inspected, prodded, probed, and commented upon until her nerves were frayed and her own armpits damp. Her smile had become a frozen monument to civility. She did not care for any of the people she met. Their avid gazes were all alike, speculatively resting on her face, her hands, her hair, as if they could glean some secret knowledge from their inspection of her. What did they want?
“Well, Mrs. Gibson, have ye enjoyed yer visiting?”
Aisleen spun about at the sound of Thomas’s voice. “Tom!” she greeted and thrust a hand toward him. “Oh, yes, I’m quite weary—with the gaiety,” she added quickly.
“Then ye will nae mind leaving early?” he questioned, grasping her hand tightly.
“No, not at all.” She turned to Mrs. Fahey and the other ladies, and all at once she knew the reason for their interest in her. One and all, they were staring at her husband. It was written in each of their simpering smiles and coy glances. How many of them had he flattered and perhaps seduced over the years?
Not one. She knew it was the truth. They had sniped and dissected her out of envy for what they had not experienced, and would never, experience in the arms of Thomas Gibson.
“If you ladies will excuse me,” she said as she slid an arm through his. “It has been a charming evening.” She looked up at her husband and was surprised to see that he was gazing at her, completely unaware of the thwarted passions he had aroused.
When they had left the shed and walked across the clearing toward the trap that had brought them, Aisleen wondered why he was cutting short the evening. “Was Jack’s trip a success?”
“We’ll be leaving in the morning,” he answered shortly. “Jack says he’ll see to the sale himself.”
“If that is true, why could we not have left before this, as I asked?”
Thomas turned to her, his face stiff, but a sound attracted their attention before he spoke. Out of sight, beyond the Mahoneys’ trap, a woman was softly sobbing.
“Ah, Sarah, don’t be weeping so,” came the voice of Matt Mahoney out of the darkness. “Do ye think I’d care what her sort has to say? Neither should ye.”
“You didn’t—didn’t hear her,” came the softer, hiccupped syllables of Sarah’s reply. “No better than a whore, she called me!”
“What does a great cow the likes of her know?” Matt countered. “Talk, that’s all it is, lass. Talk.”
“It isn’t working,” Sarah answered. “I should have known better. I’ll bring you to ruin if I stay. Even Tom’s wife can’t bear the sight of me now that she knows. Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry!” The weeping began again, clearer and harder.
Aisleen realized that Thomas stood staring down at her, and guilt pricked her. She had not spoken her thoughts aloud, but they had been the same as those expressed by the woman who had insulted Sarah. “I can be such a fool!” she whispered and pushed past Thomas.
Thomas moved aside in amazement as Aisleen headed toward the wagon where Sarah and Matt stood.
Aisleen rounded the trap without preamble and startled the pair.
“Mrs. Gibson!” Sarah said with alarm and pushed quickly out of her husband’s arms to rub away the telltale signs of her tears.
Aisleen pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and offered it. “Wipe your eyes, Sarah. It can’t be good for a bairn to have his mother weeping so. You’ll have him afraid of the sea, with all that saltwater sloshing about inside.”
She turned to Matt. “I will not pretend that I did not overhear a part of your conversation, and I’m glad I did. The woman who insulted Sarah should be shunned. Whatever one’s personal opinions, there is no reason for rudeness.” She turned back to Sarah. “I apologize for my behavior earlier today. I feel very small and uncharitable and mean-spirited at this moment.”
“And so ye should!” Matt answered harshly, “being that ye’re nae so grand a lady that ye did not wed yerself to an emancipist! Aye, yer Tom’s the same as me. Ask him!”
Aisleen looked up as Thomas neared her. “Is it true?”
“Aye.”
It was too dark to see her face, but Thomas felt his heart contract as she continued to stare at him. “I see,” she said after a long interval.
Aisleen turned to Matt. “Is it not time to leave? Sarah must be worn clean through, and I myself feel an attack of the megrims coming on.”
She scarcely noticed that Thomas took her arm to help her up into the vehicle, and she did not retain any details of the ride home. Only when she lay in bed, with the shutters closed against the usual carousal of the night, did she draw a deep breath. Matt and Thomas’s voices could be heard droning on in the parlor.
She was wed to an ex-convict. What was his crime? Was he a thief, a smuggler? She shivered. Was he a murderer? Perhaps he was a political prisoner, an Irish loyalist, branded as a rebel by the English Crown. Yet if that were so, why had he not simply told her the truth?
Would ye have believed him?
Aisleen sat up with a start.
In the deepest shadow beyond the window something stirred. “Who goes there?” she whispered in Gaelic.
Ye know, came the answer deep in the silence.
The scent of heather and the sea wafted through the room, stirring the curtains drawn over the shutters.
“I don’t believe in you!” Aisleen whispered as she held the covers tightly to her chest.
I know, came the regretful reply
She knew the exact moment he disappeared. It was a fleeting instant before Thomas opened the bedroom door.
I broke my heart in two
So hard I struck.
What matter? for I know
That out of rock,
Out of a desolate source,
Love leaps upon its course.
—His Confidence
W. B. Yeats
Chapter Fifteen
Thomas rose from Aisleen’s side at dawn, dressed, and left without a word. She waited until she heard the front door close before hurrying to dress. After a quick look right and left, she gathered her skirts in one hand and lifted a stockinged leg over the windowsill and climbed out of the bedroom window of the Mahoneys’ home.
Alert to every movement, she rounded the house to gain the street from the alley behind. Hill End was curiously quiet in the mornings. The diggers always deserted the pubs and hotels for the goldfields before first light. She had debated all night what she should do, and by dawn she knew the answer. She must return to Sydney. She could not continue to travel with a man she did not know or
any longer trust.
From the very first, Thomas had lied to her. Because he was capable of one lie, he was capable of any and all duplicity. Sarah was wed to one man while she lived with another. Thomas not only knew but approved. Had he, too, been wed before? Perhaps he had lied about his wealth. Of course, there was the corroboration of Mrs. Fahey that he had bought property, but he might have lied to others as well. Then there was the story of his having made a lucky strike in the goldfield. Why had he never told her that he was once a digger? Why had he not told her how he earned his wealth? What was he hiding?
These and many other thoughts had whispered and seethed in her mind during the sleepless night until, finally, she did not want to know the truth.
Or perhaps I am afraid of the truth. Aisleen steeled herself to enter the main street. The truth was that she was very near not caring what Thomas had done if only he would continue to be kind to her. She had known the depths of torment during the night while lying beside him, their bodies touching at shoulder, hip, and thigh, unable to turn to him or move away. She had trembled with the need to throw over all her scruples, morals, and pride for love. If she did, she would be lost to herself forever.
Aisleen blinked repeatedly as she walked up the street toward the Hill End Hotel, where she had seen a coach from Bathurst drop off passengers earlier in the week. It was better to flee before the temptation. She loved Thomas. It was the best and worst thing that had ever happened to her. She was no longer a spinster, forced to live her life without ever experiencing the passion between a man and a woman. That was small comfort to a shattered heart.
She approached the hotel entrance, where two men in expensive suits stood chatting. One tipped his hat, but the other merely surveyed her in an insolent manner. They parted so that they flanked the doorway, thus forcing her to pass between them to enter.
“G’day,” the first man said as she passed him.
Aisleen ignored him
The second man was not so easily dissuaded, she discovered when a large hand reached out and grabbed the back of her skirts and brought her to an abrupt halt. Furious to have been so ignobly detained, Aisleen turned to face him.
He was not much taller than she, but broad. The shoulder seams and sleeves of his jacket were stretched tautly over bulging muscles. He wore a flowing mustache. Above it his nose was wide and flat, as if a hand had shoved it against his face. His cheeks and brows were sickled with old scars.
“Me name’s James Dennys, but you can call me Jim,” he said with a grin.
“I will call for help if you do not release me immediately,” Aisleen answered, undaunted. “This is a public street, sir, and I cannot be molested without it coming to someone’s attention.”
The man’s face puckered up. “She don’t know me, George,” he said in offense.
The second man, small, more dapper in appearance, lifted his hat from his head. “This here is Gentleman Jim, the boxer. World heavyweight champion, he is, come to fight one and all in this backward colony. You’re to be flattered that you’ve taken his fancy. He’s dined with crowned princes, Jim has.”
Aisleen favored the man with a polite but distant smile. “I’m sure that is all very nice for him, but if he does not remove his hand from my gown this instant, I shall be forced to resist, and you may tell him that I’ve gotten the better of many a ruffian schoolboy!”
The speech was so absurd that Gentleman Jim was surprised into releasing her when she smacked him in the face with her purse. “There!” she cried and darted inside the doorway before he could react.
The hotel was small but surprisingly well decorated with paintings, velvet draperies, and horsehair couches which she noted as she crossed to the desk. “I wish to make arrangements to leave Hill End this morning,” she said to the clerk. “When does the next coach leave?”
“Not long after he gets here,” the young man answered.
“What time would that be?” Aisleen rephrased the question.
The young man shrugged. “Like as not, he’ll be coming before dark, that is, if the river’s not swollen. There’s been rain east of here. Could be the river’s flooded.”
“How will you know if he’s coming?”
“When he’s here, he’s here. If he ain’t, he ain’t.”
With those words of wisdom ringing in her ears, Aisleen turned away and crossed the lobby to sit on one of the chairs which flanked the fireplace. She clutched her purse and heard the clink of coins inside. She retained most of the first month’s wages Thomas had paid her, but it was not enough to buy passage on a ship bound for England. She would return to Sydney and seek out Mrs. Freeman’s help. Once the lady learned of the curious circumstances of her marriage, she was certain Mrs. Freeman would agree that she had done the right thing in leaving her husband.
Her husband. Aisleen crossed her arms tightly over her stomach to keep at bay the flutterings of misgiving. She had been married under pretense. She had made a horrible mistake. But, unlike her mother, she would not remain trapped and miserable. She would not!
Her eyes constantly on the door, apprehensive that at any moment Thomas would stride through it, she did not miss a single person who passed by as the morning sky caught fire with the rising sun. The street filled slowly, businesses opening on their own schedules. Finally the curtains of the milliner directly across the street from the hotel were drawn back on a glass display window.
Aisleen frowned as she glanced at the gown in the window. It was strangely familiar. Suddenly she was on her feet. The gown was familiar because it was hers.
She crossed the busy street nearly at a trot, her eyes fastened on the lavender silk and white lace gown. There could be only one explanation for its appearance in a shop window. Someone had sold it!
She entered the store in a breathless rush, the words already falling from her lips. “That gown in the window! The lavender silk taffeta one!”
“Oh, yes!” interrupted the young man behind the counter. “It is lovely, isn’t it? Knew right away we’d have no end of ladies vying for its purchase.”
“You cannot sell it!” Aisleen replied. “It is mine!”
“Yours?” the man voiced faintly and then smiled. “Of course. You saw it first and you shall have it.”
Aisleen took a deep breath. “Allow me to begin again.” She pointed at the display window. “The gown you have there cannot be for sale because it does not belong to you. It is mine.”
The young man’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” she answered. “But that does not alter facts. The gown, together with the bonnet you display there, belongs to me. I do not know how they came into your possession, nor do I care. Please remove my belongings from the window and give them to me!”
“What’s the trouble?”
Aisleen turned toward the voice and saw an older man in a top hat and frock coat who had entered.
“Mr. Russell!” the younger man greeted in a voice filled with relief. “This woman claims that the gown in the window belongs to her.”
The older man removed his hat from a head of thinning white hair. “Yes, miss? I am the owner. If you have a complaint you may register it with me.”
“Well, I have a complaint,” Aisleen answered, pleased that he was a man of some breeding “I do not know how these things came into your possession, but they belong to me.”
The man smiled sadly. “My dear young woman. As so often happens, second thoughts often follow the first. I am not a hard-hearted man. I am willing to resell to you your gown. Edward?” He indicated the gown, which the young man moved to take down.
“Resell?” Aisleen questioned. “There’s no reason why I should purchase what I already own.”
The man’s smile saddened. “There is no need for a scene, my dear, I assure you, I have dealt with all kinds, all kinds. I am willing to return your garments to you for, shall we say, fifty pounds?”
“Fifty pounds!” She drew herself to her full hei
ght, which was several inches more than his. “Even if I possessed that much, I would not pay you a shilling for what is rightfully mine. If you do not hand my belongings over immediately, I shall seek a constable to aid me.”
“Very well spoken,” Mr. Russell answered as he received the gown from his clerk. “I am almost persuaded that a young lady of such culture might prevail upon the constable’s sympathies and enlist his aid. However, the answer to him shall be the same. I paid for these items, and at a fair price, too.” He absently rubbed the lavender taffeta of the skirt between two fingers. “We don’t often get this quality of goods.” He looked up at Aisleen. “Would you not prefer to reconsider? You must have been in extreme circumstance to barter your clothing away. If you’ve come into money, it is only right that you should repay me.”
Aisleen shook her head. Was she speaking to a madman? “I never sold a single item to anyone. Those clothes were stolen, do you hear me? If you bought them, then you were duped.” She caught the hem of the gown and turned it over. “Do you see the name embroidered here? That is my name, Miss Aisleen M D Fitzgerald. This is my gown.”
“I never doubted it,” he answered implacably “But I’ve lived in the goldfields too long to accept that a seemingly proper young woman would never bargain away her clothing. For all I know, you spent your earnings on rum!”
Anger turned Aisleen’s eyes into golden flames. “Sir, I do not know you; therefore I will assume that the sort of women with whom you do business may be as nefarious as you say.” She wagged a finger under his nose. “But, sir, I am not that sort of person! It is my gown, and I shall take it back!”
“If you do, I will have no alternative but to have you arrested,” Mr. Russell answered heartily, though he looked to the young clerk, quite taken aback by the slender young woman’s forceful speech.
“Maybe she’s telling the truth,” the clerk offered. When his employer turned a flushed face to him he said, “Wasn’t this among the lot that swagman brought in yesterday? Said he found the belongings floating in the river. Figured they’d been swept off a dray or a coach and washed downstream.”