He kissed her eyelids and one of his legs lay sprawled across both of hers. “Maggie, do you think I’d ask total fidelity of you if I couldn’t give it in return?”
“Lots of husbands do exactly that,” Maggie mourned.
“Well, I’m not lots of husbands. I’m your husband. And I’m not such a randy bastard that I can’t restrain myself when there’s a need for it.”
Feeling better, Maggie began to laugh. “You’ve never restrained yourself with me,” she accused him.
He raised himself from the sand, pulling Maggie with him, and led her to the shore. They knelt, facing each other, in the shallows, and Maggie let her head fall back as Reeve bathed her in the tepid water, washing away the sand and the residue of their loving, washing away Maggie’s doubts and fears.
An hour later they were dressed again and walking back toward the house through the rustling cane, hand in hand. Maggie could not have been happier, and she was humming when she entered the kitchen to see how dinner was progressing.
Eleanor was racing back and forth between stove and worktable, her hair clinging damply to her cheeks and her neck. Sensing Maggie’s presence, she stopped, holding a kitchen towel in one hand, and took in her rumpled dress and unlaced shoes with a glower of understanding. “Can I help you with anything?” she demanded shortly.
Maggie smiled. “Only the cooking and cleaning,” she said, and then she turned and walked on toward the main house.
The next morning Reeve left the house at dawn to supervise the work in the cane fields, and Maggie began to learn the realities of living on a sugar plantation. She had her breakfast and wrote a long letter to Tansy, and then there was nothing left to do. Elisabeth was busy going over her numbers with Cora, and Eleanor was hardly Maggie’s idea of congenial company.
Maggie decided that a walk was in order and, since snakes were to be avoided, she chose the long driveway for her stroll. If she reached the main road and still felt restless, she would go on.
The banana trees rustled companionably on either side of her, their fruit covered with canvas bags to protect it from the birds. As quiet as Seven Sisters was, Maggie could have spent all her life there without complaint; the peace of the place was healing some mysterious wound of the spirit that she’d never known she’d suffered.
The distant rattle of carriage wheels on the hard dirt of the road made Maggie stop and listen, hoping for a visitor. But the sound faded away and she went on walking.
She was startled when she looked up and saw a black woman coming toward her, carrying a battered valise and trailing two little girls behind her. Maggie could hardly contain her relief when she recognized Kala, the housekeeper from Parramatta. The children, Goodness and Mercy, she remembered with a grin.
“Kala!” she cried, about to throw her arms around the woman.
Some kindly reserve in Kala’s dark, dark eyes stopped her.
“We walked all this way, missus!” crowed either Goodness or Mercy; Maggie had no way of knowing which was which.
“All the way from Parramatta?” Maggie was boggled at the enormity of such an undertaking.
Both little girls nodded, but it was Kala who spoke. It was the first time Maggie had heard her utter a word. “We hear of wedding, we come.”
Maggie was touched. She was also looking forward to seeing the expression on Eleanor’s face when she encountered Kala. “You must be very hungry and very tired,” she said to the three travelers. “Come, and I’ll see that you get something to eat.”
“Lemonade?” asked one of Kala’s young companions with a hopeful expression on her face.
Kala made an angry shushing sound and swatted at the child, who dodged her easily. “Pardon, please, missus,” she said.
When Maggie entered the kitchen building with Kala and the children behind her, Eleanor stopped her frantic cooking and smoothed her lank hair back from her face with both hands. “Well,” she muttered, clearly reading the situation for what it was. She took off her apron and marched out of the kitchen without a word. When Maggie checked her room, an hour later, Eleanor’s things were gone.
Chapter 23
ELEANOR’S PRIDE WOULD NOT PERMIT HER TO WALK around to the rear of Duncan’s house as a prospective servant might do. She set her bags down on the porch and, after smoothing her hair and her skirts, she rapped at the front door.
Her knock was answered by a sullen-looking boy with bright red hair and eyes of the same intriguing emerald green as Duncan’s. “What?” he snapped.
Eleanor sighed. “I would like to see Mr. Kirk, please.”
“He’s in Mr. McKenna’s field,” the boy said, “helping out with the work. Can you cook?”
About to turn away in discouragement, Eleanor was caught off guard by the lad’s question. She just stared at him.
“Can you cook?” the urchin repeated, this time indulgently. Eleanor enjoyed a brief fantasy, during which she boxed the little bleeder’s ears.
“Yes, I can cook,” she said coldly. “But since you haven’t the authority to hire me—”
“I’ve got that all right,” the boy insisted, swelling his little chest. “Papa said you might come here once you’d learned how hopeless it is, what you’re up against—”
Eleanor arched one dark eyebrow and bent to look directly into the lad’s freckled face. “What,” she asked, “am I ’up against’?”
“You want Mr. McKenna for your own, I think. Just like Papa wanted Maggie. He’s learned that there’s no separating those two—best you learn the same, mum.”
“You are an impudent little scrap, do you know that?” Eleanor jutted out her chin. She was not used to being insulted.
“Yes, mum. My name is Tad and I’m the eldest son, so someday I’ll own most of Papa’s property. Won’t you come in now and make us some lunch?”
Eleanor pushed a strand of damp hair back from her forehead and bent to grasp the handles of her suitcases. “You’ll inherit, all right,” she replied under her breath, “if some deranged cook doesn’t poison you in the meantime.”
“Beg pardon?” Tad asked sunnily, looking back at Eleanor over one thin shoulder.
Eleanor smiled a winsome smile and ignored the question. “Show me the way to the cookhouse, lad, and I’ll see that there’s a fine meal awaiting your father at midday. I’d like you to go and tell him so, in fact. That way, he won’t be eating at the McKennas’ when he needn’t.”
Tad grinned. “First let me show you to your room, miss. You look some the worse for the walk, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Would it matter if I minded?”
The obnoxious grin widened. “No, mum.”
Tad Kirk was a challenge, but Eleanor had dealt with far worse in her lifetime. “At least we understand each other, don’t we, Master Kirk? That’s more than a lot of people can say.”
In a hurry to begin cooking, and thus impress Duncan with her skill and assure herself of a place a stone’s throw from Seven Sisters, Eleanor set her suitcases down in the room Tad indicated without even looking around.
Duncan arrived at noon, covered in a mingling of soot and sweat. As he washed up at a bench in the corner of the kitchen, Eleanor was, for the first time, aware of him as a man rather than a means to an end. He was a well-built specimen, she reflected, watching the play of muscles in his back as he splashed water over himself and then shrugged back into his filthy shirt.
He grinned at her from beneath a thatch of soot-blackened hair as he sat down at the trestle table to eat the stew and biscuits she’d prepared for him. “So, you’ve made the same discovery as I, Miss Kilgore,” he observed not unkindly. “Do sit down and have a bite of lunch—I can’t abide people pacing while I’m trying to eat.”
Eleanor sat, but she hadn’t the appetite for stew and biscuits or anything else. “What discovery is that, Mr. Kirk?” she responded.
Duncan was chewing. When he’d finished, he replied, “You want Reeve and you’ll probably never have him. I, on the
other hand, wanted Maggie—but fair as she is, she’s not worth my life, so I’ve had to give up the idea.”
“I have an advantage over you, Mr. Kirk,” Eleanor said frankly. “When Mrs. McKenna grows fat with his child, and not so eager for her husband’s loving attentions—”
Duncan arched one skeptical and quite dirty eyebrow, interrupting without apparent chagrin. “The advantage,” he pointed out flatly, “is Maggie’s, I’m afraid. I can’t imagine her turning that man away for any reason—she adores him—but even if she were to do that because of a difficult pregnancy, at any rate, Reeve would even be more indulgent, not less so.
“You waste your valuable time seeking McKenna’s bed, Miss Kilgore. Especially when you would be so welcome in mine.”
Color surged up over Eleanor’s bosom and into her face. If the truth be known, she didn’t find the prospect at all untoward. “Rumor is,” she said primly nonetheless, “that you’ve taken Miss Loretta Craig for a mistress.”
Duncan laughed. “Alas, that affaire decoeur is over. Loretta’s sold everything she has to organize her own theater troupe—I confess to contributing a few hundred pounds to the cause. She is sailing off to America, there to become a sensation.” He spread his marginally clean hands. “For all I know, she’s gone by now.”
Eleanor folded her arms. “Why have you stayed on here, all this while, if you’ve given up on having Maggie for yourself?”
“Good Lord,” Duncan breathed, “am I really so transparent as that?”
Eleanor only nodded.
Duncan sighed philosophically. “One always hopes, I guess. One always hopes. Some terrible accident could befall McKenna and leave his lovely wife widowed. Besides, I really rather enjoy working the land—it’s a welcome change from the stiff-collar doings in Sydney and Melbourne.”
“Perhaps,” Eleanor agreed, hiding a smile. “But I think there’s more—you want to be nearby so you can get reports from your spy. Tell me, Mr. Kirk, is Cora your mother, or your maiden aunt?”
Duncan’s mouth fell open.
“You didn’t think anyone knew, did you?” Eleanor asked, her tone sweet as marzipan. “It’s really not such a staggering deduction—after all, Cora is an American and so are you. And, of course, I’ve seen the two of you meeting—as if by accident—on a number of occasions.”
Duncan gave a long sigh and pushed away his bowl. He scowled at Eleanor. “Cora is my aunt,” he admitted grudgingly. “She came to Australia, at my request, to look after my sons. By the time she’d arrived, I was in love with Maggie and I asked her to seek a position in Reeve’s house—so I’d always know that she was safe.”
“We’re birds of a feather, you and I.”
“I don’t think so, Miss Kilgore. Whatever I’ve done, it’s been because I care for Maggie. You, on the other hand, would as soon see her drowned in the ocean as tip your hat to her.”
Eleanor sighed prettily. “Are you implying that I would murder?”
Without warning of any sort, Duncan grasped Eleanor by the bodice of her dress and, using both hands, he hauled her across the table. Her feet dangled off the floor and she could feel his breath in her face as he warned, “Do anything to hurt Maggie—anything, Miss Kilgore—and you’ll find me a relentless and formidable enemy.”
Besides fear, Eleanor felt a certain excitement. She nodded and Duncan let her slide the length of him, until her feet touched the floor again. Her heart was beating too fast and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
“There is only one way to keep you out of mischief, miss,” Duncan informed her in a hoarse undertone as his lips drew ever closer to hers. “And that’s to keep you so busy that you’ll have no time left for scheming. I’ll want a bath when I get back from the fields, and I’ll want you.”
Sweet shivers went through Eleanor as she lowered her eyes and permitted herself a half smile. “Your bed and your bath will be as you wish, Mr. Kirk,” she said softly.
Duncan caught his hand under her chin and wrenched it upward. She saw emerald fires burning in his eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You know my secret; I want to know yours.”
Eleanor had not craved any one man as much as this—not even Reeve McKenna—since Jamie. Duncan’s hand strayed inside the bodice of her dress and cupped her breast and she closed her eyes, half sick with the wanting. “The child—Elisabeth. Sh-she’s mine—mine and Jamie’s.”
Duncan’s fingers tightened and then went slack. “My God—you’re Jamie McKenna’s wife?”
“I was only his woman,” Eleanor confessed, and she was surprised that so much of the pain lingered even after more than four years. Desperately, she covered Duncan’s hand with her own, at her silent urging, and he began to caress her again.
Mercy burst into the cookhouse, where Maggie was peeling carrots. “He’s back, missus. Mr. ’Kenna’s back!”
Hastily, Maggie threw down both carrot and paring knife. She hurried through the doorway opposite the one where Mercy had entered and waited outside until Reeve and the other men were seated at the long trestle table and Kala was serving them their midday meal.
Then, after smoothing her tumbledown hair and drawing a deep breath, Maggie entered the cookhouse, smiling. The men sitting on either side of Reeve made room for her, and she sat down at his right.
“You’re filthy,” she remarked.
Reeve chuckled and looked her over. “You’ve worked up a bit of a sweat yourself. I didn’t know that was possible with embroidery.”
Maggie bit her lower lip and dropped her eyes. Her conscience smarted, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to confess that she hadn’t worked a stitch the whole of the morning. “Could I go back to the fields with you, just to see what it’s like?”
“No,” Reeve answered in a bland tone as he ate. “And mind you don’t go wandering through the cane to the sea either. There’ll be snakes aplenty, trying to escape the flames.”
Maggie had sweet memories of the white beach beyond those fields, and she felt color rise in her cheeks. She glanced at the black men sitting all around, some dressed in loincloths, and said, “I’d like to send for my friend, Tansy Quinn, if that would be all right.”
Reeve gave her a distracted look; it was obvious that he was thinking of other things. “Good idea. Someone for you to talk to.”
“We’d have to pay her wages—employ her as a servant—”
“Aye. I can manage that, I think. Send for the girl, Maggie, and give a man some peace.”
Maggie was stung. Tears welled in her eyes—she’d become overly sensitive in recent days—and she bounded to her feet. “I’ll give you all the peace you want, Reeve McKenna!” she hissed.
The Aboriginal men sitting around the table dipped their heads, studiously ignoring the drama going on under their very noses. Reeve got up with a long-suffering sigh, caught Maggie by the arm, and propelled her outside into the glaring sunshine.
“In the name of God, Yank, what is it that you want from me?” he asked patiently.
Maggie jutted out her chin. “A little of your attention, Mr. McKenna,” she whispered fiercely. “Every time I say anything to you, it’s ’give a man some peace, Maggie’! At night, instead of loving me, you just turn over and snore!”
Reeve grinned, his teeth startlingly white against his smoke-blackened face. “So that’s it. Maggie, I’m working long hours—when I get to bed, I want to sleep.”
“That’s obvious,” Maggie complained, folding her arms. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
“You know I do, Yank.”
Maggie looked in all directions before whispering, “Eleanor’s been gone to Duncan’s for a week. You haven’t touched me since the day she left!”
Reeve’s grin was gone. A glower formed in his features as dark and dangerous as the clouds before a Queensland storm. Taking an ominous step toward Maggie, making no effort whatsoever to keep the matter private, he roared, “By God, Yank, if you’re implyin’ that I’ve been flingin’ up that wom
an’s skirts—”
Maggie was hastening backward and trying at the same time to smile. She hadn’t meant to go so far as to invoke the brogue. “Reeve, keep your voice down, please.”
“I won’t keep me voice down, woman!” he bellowed, still advancing. “And I sure as ’ell won’t ’ave me morals questioned every time I’m too tired to make love to you!”
Maggie turned a rich crimson color, embarrassed beyond all bearing. “Reeve, please, you’re shouting—”
He glared at her and, at last, lowered his voice. “I’ll spend tonight at the inn,” he said in a hiss, “so don’t be thinkin’ that I’m with me nurse! On the other hand, Yank, think whatever ye damned well please!”
“Reeve!”
He was turning, striding away. Maggie waited in the house, forlorn, until all the men, Reeve included, had gone back to the fields. Then she returned to the kitchen to help clear the tables.
Kala slapped her hands away. “Sit down, missus. My girls can do this.”
Goodness and Mercy took over the work and Maggie slumped into a chair. It was too near the cookstove, but she was too upset to care. She began to sob. “My husband hates me!” she wailed.
Kala chuckled. “No, missus.”
“Yes, he does!” Maggie wept noisily. “He’s going to sleep at the inn tonight!”
“No, missus,” Kala said again. She heaped copper kettles in a pile on a table beside Maggie’s chair and then handed her mistress a cloth and a tin of dark powder. “Make shine,” she added.
Sniffling, Maggie began to polish the copper, rubbing the powder against the metal until each pot glistened. The work helped to distract her from her troubles, as did the soft songs Kala and the girls sang as they went about their own labors.
Goodness and Mercy had gone off somewhere, and Kala was out dumping the dishwater, when Maggie finished her polishing. She felt much better, and she was smiling as she threw several blackened polishing cloths into the cookstove.
The stove lids jumped as a series of startling explosions went off. Kala immediately ran inside the cookhouse, caught Maggie by the hand, and dragged her out. The men, Reeve included, were running from the fields.
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