Maggie paled slightly and held up both hands to stop her friend in mid-sentence. “Have you ever heard of a governess serving as a hostess as well?”
“Sure.” Tansy shrugged. “Leastways, back in England. Is that what you are, then? A ’ostess?”
Quickly, Maggie explained about the list of clothes Mr. Kirk had instructed her to buy and related her doubts regarding the propriety of that. Tansy’s eyes grew wider with every word.
“And ’as ’e laid a ’and on you, this bloke?” she wanted to know the moment Maggie had finished speaking.
Maggie was quick to shake her head, her eyes sparkling now as she remembered the good news she had to tell. “I’m a free woman, Tansy. Mr. Reeve McKenna has bought my papers, and he gave them to me!”
Tansy frowned. “Reeve McKenna? That ’andsome one from the ship?”
Maggie nodded. There was no denying that Mr. McKenna was handsome. “And don’t ask me what he expects in return, Tansy, because there’s nothing.”
Tansy found a marble bench and sank down on it, stunned. “Me own news pales by the side of it!” she muttered.
Maggie sat down beside her friend. “What news is that?”
“We’re all of us—from the other ’ouse, I mean—takin’ the omnibus to Parramatta Saturday noon, when we’re done with our work. It’s a gay time we’ll be ’avin’, Maggie, and I wanted you to come along.” She took in the new dress thoughtfully. “Though I’m supposin’ you’re too grand for the likes of us now. You wouldn’t care for races and preachin’ and picnics and such.”
“I would!” protested Maggie, not wanting her status in the Kirk household to alienate Tansy as it had Mrs. Lavendar and Susan Crockett and the rest. “I would too. I’m free at noon Saturday myself, Tansy Quinn, and all day Sunday as well!”
Tansy clasped both Maggie’s hands in her own. “Then you’ll go? Oh, Maggie-girl, that’s grand! We’ll ’ave the best time ever! Bring your kit, ’cause we’ll be spendin’ the night, of course.”
“Where will we sleep?” Maggie asked, already mentally packing her “kit,” the reticule containing such necessities as soap and tooth polish and a nightdress.
“The gent I work for ’as a property at Parramatta, Maggie, a noble place to ’ear the kitchen girls tell it, and we’ll all pig in together in the carriage ’ouse and the barn. There’ll be a flock of us, I’ll wager, and we’ll ’ave such fun!”
“You sound as though you’ve done this before,” Maggie observed with a grin.
“Oh, I ’ave, love—last time I was in Australia we did it every chance. People come from miles around, and there’s food and music and dancin’—”
“And preaching?” Maggie asked, surprised. Perhaps she’d been mistaken and Tansy hadn’t mentioned that after all.
But she had. “Yes, me friend, but it’s tolerable when you know you’re going to ’ave a wondrous-good time.”
Maggie wasn’t so sure that the experience would be “wondrous,” but she knew it would be an adventure and she was already looking forward to getting away from this house, where the servants were afraid to talk to her in sight or hearing of the formidable Mrs. Lavendar. “When do we leave?”
“We’ll stop for you, me friends and I, at noon Saturday. Be ready, too, for that old crow that runs the ’ouse is bound to make us wait in the garden!”
Maggie smiled. “I’ll be ready.”
With a nod Tansy rose to go. “See you are, miss. We’ve got to catch the streetcar right on time or we’ll miss the ’bus to Parramatta.”
Good-byes were said and the two young women parted, one returning to a household where all the servants were friends, one about to eat a lonely supper in a room more befitting a princess than a governess or even a hostess.
When she’d finished her meal, Maggie carried the tray back downstairs herself, hoping for a chance to strike up a conversation with Susan or even Mrs. Lavendar. The kitchen was empty, but through an open window Maggie heard the ring of laughter. She looked out as she scraped her dishes and set them neatly in the sink.
Susan and half a dozen other young ladies in bombazine dresses, aprons, and mobcaps were sitting happily on the lawn, chattering and giggling as they ate their suppers. Maggie longed to join them, but she knew that she would not be welcomed, and she turned away sadly, at a loss for something to do. It was far too early to retire and anyway, she didn’t think she could bear sitting all alone in that silent room of hers, just twiddling her thumbs and feeling left out.
She decided, since Mr. Kirk was away and Mrs. Lavendar was nowhere in sight, to explore the main floor.
There were the usual parlors, as well as a drawing room and a small study, but it was the library that intrigued Maggie and made her forget that she was an outsider in this household. There were books of every kind, all neatly cataloged and carefully dusted. There was a chess table with a board of inlaid ivory, and two leather-cushioned chairs to attend it.
Maggie sank into one of those chairs, stunned by the beauty of the chess pieces themselves. They were tall and ornately shaped, one side of a shimmering, iridescent white, the other of the rare black opal. The set was surely priceless.
Maggie admired the pieces for a long time, but to her, books were the greater treasure. She caressed their fine bindings with wondering hands, delighting in the scent and weight and texture of them.
She was just opening a remarkable volume of drawings when Mrs. Lavendar startled her with an eloquent, “Ah-hem!”
Maggie blushed guiltily, like a thief caught in Ali Baba’s cave, holding the book of drawings close to her bosom. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say in her defense.
“I see you’re preparing lessons for the lads,” Mrs. Lavendar said, surprising Maggie almost as much by her kindness as by her sudden appearance. “Mr. Kirk would like that, I daresay. Take any books you want, and there’s paper and pens and such in the desk drawer.”
“Thank you,” Maggie managed to say.
“Nonsense. Books are a part of your job. Just see they get back to their proper shelf when you’re through with them, miss. Mr. Kirk is somewhat choosy about how they’re treated!”
Maggie let her eyes wander over the staggering wealth of reading material and sighed. “I should think he would be,” she replied, and then, like a child given free rein in a toy shop, she began dashing about, choosing books on botany and history and other subjects she wanted to share with her charges when they returned. She took paper and pens and inks from the desk, too, as well as the book of drawings she had been examining in the first place.
Like a pirate with loot, Maggie dashed up the front stairway, eager to be alone in her room now. On the small table near the fireplace she spread out her booty and sighed with pleasure.
Mrs. Lavendar found her making out a lesson plan for a study of botany when she entered some minutes later, bringing tea. This gesture of friendliness caught Maggie quite off guard—for the second time that evening she found herself thanking the housekeeper for an unexpected kindness.
Any hopes Maggie might have had of striking up a conversation with the woman were dashed, however, when Mrs. Lavendar simply nodded and hurried out of the room.
Far into the night Maggie labored over her lesson plans, saving the beautiful book of drawings for her own pleasure, when she donned one of her new cotton nightgowns and crawled into bed, propping pillows behind her and wriggling until she was comfortable.
The pleasure Maggie got from that rare book was not exactly the sort she had expected. Closer examination proved that the volume contained a great many renderings of men and women in various stages of lovemaking. Embarrassed but too curious to put the book aside, Maggie settled deeper into the pillows and went right on turning pages, learning more about a subject that had previously mystified her with every flip of the leaves.
The pictures were not ugly or sordid in any way, even though the subjects were nude and engaged in acts of the utmost intimacy. Feeling a warm tingling within the de
pths of herself, Maggie studied each drawing, sometimes turning the book sideways or even upside down in her effort to understand the rites of pleasure depicted in those pages.
Two of the drawings especially interested Maggie, one showing a woman bending over a man who was sitting in a chair, her breast caught gently in his mouth, her face a study in gentle ecstasy; the other was of a woman leaning back against a wall, eyes closed, lips curved into a tender smile, while a man knelt before her, his face buried in what Maggie sincerely hoped was her belly.
The warm ache between Maggie’s legs told her that the man wasn’t kissing the woman’s stomach at all, and she slammed the book closed in a spate of short-lived righteous indignation.
Soon enough she was sleeping and dreaming of Reeve McKenna and this time her erotic dreams had a sweet likeness to the pictures in that frightening, amazing, beautiful book.
Maggie awakened a great deal wiser and feeling pleasantly miserable, craving a relief she could only imagine and certainly wasn’t about to seek out. She spent the morning avoiding the volume of drawings and working over her lesson plans. By midday she had a headache and a great need of fresh air. Wearing another of her new dresses, this one a pink cambric with tiny sprigs of green embroidered upon it, she set out for a walk.
Having no particular destination in mind, Maggie walked with a brisk aimlessness that soon carried her into a street she didn’t recognize. Was the Kirk town house that way? She turned pensively in the opposite direction. Or that way?
A little girl sat playing on the lawn of a very grand house with pillared porches.
Maggie approached the fence with a smile. “Pardon me,” she called brightly, “but do you know the way to Victoria Street? I seem to have lost my way.”
The child looked up at Maggie with blue-green eyes so like Reeve McKenna’s that she clenched the fence’s pickets in both hands and gasped.
The little girl studied Maggie in amicable silence for some time and then went back to her toy, a small, colorfully painted metal horse with wheels.
Maggie knew the child had heard her question and was puzzled by the lack of response. She was about to ask again when the door of the magnificent house opened and Reeve McKenna came out, striding down the walk.
In light of the odd obsession she seemed to be developing for this man, Maggie considered bolting and running. But that was silly; he had given her her freedom, after all, proving that he was not the fiend she had thought, and she did need to learn the way back to the house in Victoria Street.
“Hello,” she said, remembering the woman in the book, leaning back against the wall. Hot color flowed into Maggie’s face, for in her dream that woman had been herself and the man kneeling to please her had been the one walking toward her at this very moment.
Reeve saw the blush on Maggie’s cheeks and smiled a secret smile, as though he knew what she was thinking and was amused by it. Of course, Maggie told herself firmly, he couldn’t possibly know.
“I’ve lost my way,” she blurted out when Reeve was suddenly standing just the other side of the fence, his hands close to hers, his chest so near that she could feel the warmth of it. Not daring to look up into his face, she focused on the ever-present brass charm glistening in the dark hair covering his chest.
“I was hoping you’d changed your mind about working for me,” Reeve replied, and Maggie could feel his breath on the crown of her head even through her thick hair. She shivered, though she was warm rather than cold. Oh, entirely too warm.
Maggie forced herself to look up into those dangerous aquamarine eyes. “In truth”—she was appalled to hear herself saying this—“I’m at sixes and sevens about that. I did work hard at learning my lines on the way out and—”
At Reeve’s slow smile, Maggie’s words dried up in her throat. Almost idly, he tangled an index finger in a curl of her hair, just beneath her right ear, where the skin was sensitive.
“And?” he prompted her.
Maggie blushed all over this time, feeling the heat in her face and under her clothes as well. Those damnable pictures towered in her mind, not as drawings, but as flesh and blood. Her flesh and blood, and Reeve’s. “Well,” she managed to choke out, “none of that matters anyway, now, does it? I’ve agreed to teach Mr. Kirk’s sons and I always keep my word.”
“Do you?” The two words, spoken in a low and rumbling tone, somehow affected Maggie like a bold caress.
She stepped back from the fence and from the sweet warmth that seemed to radiate from this man’s person. “If you’ll just direct me to Victoria Street, please,” she said.
“How are you getting on with Duncan?” Reeve asked as though he hadn’t heard Maggie’s request at all.
She began to feel angry as well as deliciously miserable. “Quite well, since Mr. Kirk’s away at the moment,” she replied in stiff tones. “He’s taken the boys along with him.”
“You must be at loose ends,” Mr. McKenna ventured to say, and there was no discerning whether he meant the words as a polite comment or an insinuation.
Suddenly, it was very important to Maggie that this man not think of her for a moment as a retiring sort with nothing to do to amuse herself. “On the contrary,” she answered evenly, “I’m off to Parramatta, Saturday noon, to have a magnificent time.”
Reeve’s eyes were steady on her face, or was it expressly her lips that he was looking at? They swelled under his gaze and grew tingly and warm.
“Ummm,” he said. And then he seemed to collect himself and turned to point with one hand. “Victoria Street is that way. About six blocks over.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said, feeling slightly dizzy at the abrupt release from the spell he’d seemed to cast over her. “I am sorry I troubled you.”
He grinned. “And I’m sorry for troubling you,” he responded.
His meaning was clear as a slap in the face, and Maggie turned away on one heel, fleeing at a brisk walk. She was grateful for the breeze flowing up from the glistening blue waters of Rushcutter’s Bay, for it cooled her burning face.
He knew, he knew, he knew. The horrifying thought clattered rhythmically in Maggie’s brain like the wheels of a train on their track. Reeve McKenna knew about the peculiar yearning he had aroused in Maggie, and she was mortified.
Maggie walked faster, and Reeve’s quiet laughter followed after her like a pesky puppy nipping at her skirts.
Upon reaching the Kirk house, Maggie went upstairs, found the offending book of drawings, and resolutely carried it back to its place in the library. As penance for studying the volume, let alone enjoying it so much, she forced herself to endure ten full pages of the wisdom of Socrates.
Saturday came none too soon, and when Tansy and her chums arrived at midday, Maggie was waiting for them at the garden gate, reticule in hand. In the past three days and nights she’d thought of nothing but Reeve McKenna and the ferocious wanting he’d stirred in her, and she was desperate for distraction.
Tansy quickly introduced all her friends and Maggie remembered none of their names. They set off for the same corner where Maggie and Susan Crockett had boarded a streetcar that eventful day of Maggie’s shopping expedition.
They rode to the edge of the city, where they boarded an omnibus drawn by no less than eight horses. There were others bound for the festivities in Parramatta, and soon Tansy had every passenger under seventy singing a lively ditty in perfect rounds. At last, as she sang, Maggie was able to push Reeve McKenna out of her mind.
Darkness had fallen by the time the omnibus reached Parramatta, and Maggie, her throat raw from singing and her bottom sore from the jolting ride over rutted roads, was much relieved.
Now Tansy surrendered the status of leadership to an older girl who had been to the property before. “It’s just down this road, not more than a mile,” the young woman called to her following.
Torches flared in the darkness up ahead, as well as huge bonfires, and Maggie caught the sounds of laughter and loud and spirited preaching on the
night air. A delicious aroma wafted from the camp, quite nullifying the underlying stench of horse dung.
“Supper cooking,” Tansy said, reading Maggie’s mind. “It’s Turk’s ’ead, and there’s dampers, too, I’m thinkin’.”
Maggie stopped so suddenly that she collided with someone behind her. Grudgingly, she began walking again. “What in the name of heaven is Turk’s head?” she demanded in a nervous whisper that would brook no evasion.
Tansy laughed. “It’s like a pumpkin, only different,” she answered after a moment. “They stuff it with fresh rabbit meat and onions and roast it underground. And dampers, since you’re bound to ask, is Bushman’s bread. It’s just flour and water, really, but it tastes splendid after bein’ cooked in the ashes the way they do.”
Maggie’s stomach rumbled and she walked a little faster. Soon enough, the group joined hundreds of other people milling about in the companionable torchlit darkness, and they were given plates and eating utensils in return for a few pence.
Abandoned by Tansy, for the moment at least, Maggie filled her plate with dampers and a sizable portion of the rabbit and onion mixture and found a place to sit on the end of a long log facing one of the fires.
The people around her seemed undaunted by the hellfire-and-brimstone preaching coming from one of several tents set up on the grounds; they laughed and told stories as they ate. Vaguely, the happy atmosphere reminded Maggie of other nights, in America, when she’d sat around blazing fires with circus people, listening to their stories.
For a moment she missed her mother and father desperately, but she was soon distracted from this sentimental train of thought, for Reeve McKenna sat down on the log beside her, bold as brass.
“Hello, Maggie,” he said as though he had every right to be there, startling her so that she’d nearly choked on her food.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, keeping her voice to a whisper for a reason she couldn’t have explained.
He shrugged. “I never miss the camp meetings,” he said.
Maggie gave him a look. Damn the man. It had taken her all this while to get him out of her thoughts and now here he was, intruding. Making her feel that strange, sweet malaise that no other man had ever made her feel. “For the preaching, Mr. McKenna?” she asked, sweetly sarcastic.
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