by Lena Dowling
‘What?’
Somewhere in the drugged haze that was the back of her mind, she registered Samuel’s warm gravelly voice.
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
The dawn was breaking, enough light sneaking through a gap in the curtains to make out Samuel propped up on one elbow just watching her, his eyes sparkling, finding the glint of the first rays of the early morning sun.
‘Have you been out all night?’
‘Almost and I don’t fancy another night in the barn.’
Samuel’s lips found hers. He tasted treacly and sweet like rum but the flavour of raw alcohol beneath it brought her back to her senses. She wriggled away from him. He had eaten humble pie, held her and kissed her softly but that didn’t mean he wanted her — only that he was sorry.
‘Is this just the drink talking, because if it is…’
In answer Samuel got up and tugged back the bedclothes, his movements true and steady as if he had taken his last drink hours ago. Returning to lie beside her, he caught her by the middle, his huge stubby fingers splaying out along her side.
‘No, this isn’t the drink,’ he said, drawing his hand downwards where it fanned out around her hip. Her mind begged for him to draw it lower, but instead he teased her by raising his hand again, rough fingers brushing her cheek as he swept a lock of hair away from her face.
He had barely brushed her skin but it was as if the warm feeling of his touch had spread through her whole body. Warm at first, and then hot, so hot she wanted everything off her; not just the coverlet and the sheet but her shift as well. But pinned to the mattress she couldn’t move to pull it over her head, nor could she bring herself to shove him off as he kissed her again, his stubbled chin grazing hers taking his time, his tongue finding every corner of her mouth, the fervour sinking her further and further into the pillow.
She reached for the flap of his trousers, but he was ahead of her already, fumbling himself free, raking up her shift, nudging up between her legs, a blast of heat surging up through her. A blinding deafening heat that left her dumb to everything except his touch, the sound of his breath and the occasional mutter of her name.
He drew back and she crossed her arms across her middle, pinching for the material of her chemise, but before she could grasp her shift and pull it up over her head he took her hands and pushed them behind her, too hard, catching her knuckles painfully against the bedhead as if he didn’t know his own strength. She gasped in a worried breath, searching his face, wondering if he meant to do her harm, but all she saw was a mixture of wanting and pulling back, as if one was evenly matching the other, barely holding him at bay.
‘Tell me you agree to this, Colleen because I’ll not take you any other way.’
This huge strong man stopping to ask, when he could have taken and she could have done nothing about it, made her breath catch in throat, and only made the wanting more.
‘Yes,’ she squeezed the word out, barely able to make a sound.
His grip on her hands tightened and her breath caught as the desire in his eyes made the leap between them catching hold, burning her up.
‘Show me.’ His voice was thick and coarse as if he had only partly got the words out of his throat.
She moved beneath him in invitation.
‘Please, Samuel.’
Chapter 14
Samuel guided his horse into the shade of a gum tree, and scanned the horizon for stragglers that had become separated from the rest of the mob.
So far they had proved elusive but they had to drink sometime, and so he had decided the best thing to do would be to make for the billabong and wait it out. He had brought a couple of the farm dogs with him in the hope that they might prove themselves useful beyond lurking around the yard, barking at the cockatoos or flopping down for a scratch and a sniff. The sheep would seek water eventually and with only two places to get it on the property they would turn up soon enough.
It had only been a relatively short time since he had arrived in Parramatta but he was already sure he had made the right decision leaving England. Despite its sparse and barren condition he found he enjoyed the wide open space and the peace of the countryside.
And he had made his peace with what had happened with Colleen. For better or for worse she was his wife and for the last few of weeks he had been enjoying the ‘better’ and hoping the ‘worse’ never came.
For the first time in his life, Colleen had filled his cup with passion and he was supping from it every chance he got and damn the consequences.
There was so much that could be said for having a wife skilled in the bedroom that he had finally been able to lay his misgivings about her past occupation to one side. The woman knew things, like where to slip a teasing finger, exactly how to stroke his balls to maximum effect and how to grip hold of him with her insides in a way that sent his mind and his body into conflagrations of pleasure.
At times like this, in the quiet of the bush with the crows crying out like demented devil’s look-outs, as he picked his way over the hillside ever watchful for snakes, the residual fear that he had allowed himself to get too involved occasionally resurfaced.
But thoughts like that required energy, something he would have precious little of after a day of work.
A farm, he was discovering, was a tireless mistress. There was always something to be done, something requiring his mind or his brawn to sort out. Like now, when they had a breakaway mob.
He leaned forward in the saddle and called up the dogs as a thin white line rounded the brow of the hill beyond the billabong.
‘Get in behind, yer mongrels,’ he yelled, mimicking Tom’s command to the animals to better control the sheep.
Instinctively the dogs knew what to do, with one barking at the sheep while the other slunk off to the side covering an adjacent patch of scrub, silently daring the sheep to make a run for it. Eventually one turned and trotted for home and the other twelve or so followed.
Samuel guided his horse down the bank and around the billabong to fall in step behind them.
A dozen animals recovered.
Samuel grinned.
Another good day’s work with the night to come.
Colleen picked up some pretty pink thread, for a new combination of stiches that magically made tiny daisies that Thea had been teaching her. Her fancywork was coming on in leaps and bounds, or so her ladyship said. After practising on a couple of old pillowslips, Thea had allowed her to work on a tablecloth that when finished would be used in the big house.
‘Will you and Samuel join us for picnic down at the watering hole tomorrow? I think we should all enjoy a little Sunday afternoon outing. The children would love it especially. What do you think?’
Colleen was thrilled to be invited. Thea had been seeing more and more of the other farmers’ wives since that first afternoon tea, and although it’s what she had wanted, and Thea hadn’t forgotten her completely, she was feeling a bit left out.
‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated, thinking of how Samuel might react. ‘Samuel won’t be happy about us swimming. He was dead cross about the last time.’
Thea laughed, batting Colleen’s concerns away with a flick of her hand.
‘Oh you needn’t worry. James only permits me to swim at dusk, and the weather is cooling off in the evenings now anyhow, so you can tell him there is no danger of that.’
‘Good,’ Colleen said. Things were going so well between her and Samuel she didn’t want to go and ruin it.
‘You have been so much chirpier these last few weeks. Can I assume Samuel has been much less inclined to leave you alone?’
Heat seeped into Colleen’s cheeks as she remembered the way she and Samuel had been together. Once Samuel had come back in from the barn for good, he had broken up her pallet in the store room, thrown it outside, wrenched up her skirts and then pushed her up against the wall, not even waiting long enough to take her the few feet across the room to his bed. And since then, they hadn’t spen
t a night apart since.
The wave she’d felt that first time they’d made love had swelled to an ocean of wanting so that when he was gone all she could think of was how long till he would be home again and when they were together, how much she needed him.
She’d taught him everything she knew. He’d caught on quick, and now he was suggesting things, new things that were just between the two of them.
Colleen pursed her lips together trying to not give off any hint of what she was thinking. It would only have been an invitation for Thea to tease her.
‘We’re very happy and that’s all I’m sayin’ about it.’
Thea pulled her mouth up into a smirk as she sucked on a thread and then holding her needle up to the light pushed the cotton through the eye.
‘Wonderful. A picnic. That’s settled then.’
After Thea left, Colleen danced into the centre of the cabin and twirled around, hugging her arms to her midriff.
‘To think we’ve found our very own house, and a lovely big-hearted man with smilin’ eyes to be your da, just like I promised, little one.’
It hardly seemed real.
Before she even became aware of it, the movement of the twirl had transformed to a little dance and she was kicking up her feet into a jig. Ratatat-a-at-a-tat-tat, she felt the floorboards flex beneath her feet as she beat out the rhythm of the dance her own da had taught her.
But no sooner had she picked up some momentum than her feet slammed to a stop; a shrill voice echoing around the cabin, yanking her back to reality.
Out of puff from the dancing, Colleen gasped for air, gaping at the woman in the doorway.
Not waiting for an invitation, Liza stepped inside with a basket hooked over her arm and a face on her.
‘Did no one ever teach you to knock?’ Colleen said squeezing out the words between puffs.
‘Cook’s poorly. You’ll have to make your own dinner tonight.’ Liza thumped a pan and a basket down on the table, ‘If you’ve time for dancing then you’ve time to make your own supper.’
Liza turned on her heel and left, but her cheerful mood had gone with her, swept out of the cabin on the hem of the spiteful maid’s skirts. She tried to keep out of the girl’s way as much as possible but sometimes, like now, it couldn’t be helped.
So far the little minx had kept her mouth shut and likely as not if Liza was going to say something she surely would have done it by now, but it was a worry that with her dander up Liza’s venomous gob might run away with her. And worrying about secrets only made her worry more, like whether or not it was wise not to be telling Samuel the truth about the baby.
But it wasn’t a real out and out lie, more like a white lie, and there was so little she could give the baby the least she could do was give it a proper father, one who would love it like it was his own and not always be counting the cost of putting a roof over its head; but the closer she and Samuel got the more she thought about it.
Inside the pan were two pork chops and a lump of dripping. She lifted the cheesecloth covering the basket to find a hunk of bread and two apples.
Colleen had been relieved not to have to cook. It had been years since she had so much as lifted a pot let alone boiled anything in it. The last time she had cooked anything she had only been a child and she hadn’t so much as cooked as only helped her ma.
She looked at the provisions doubtfully. Was she meant to cook the apples up to eat with the pork or were they to be left raw? And how would she know when the meat was cooked through?
Taking a knife from the dresser she decided to peel the apples before cutting them up and adding the slices to the pan with the chops and the fat. She found a wooden plate and used it as a cover to discourage the flies. Rummaging through the drawers of the dresser for a flint which she found under some pieces of old towelling and some scrappy linens, she dropped it into the pocket of her apron.
The wood she needed she collected from the woodpile beside the washhouse, and when she returned, she arranged an armful of sticks in the grate.
With the wood kiln-dry from lying out in the summer heat Colleen had a fire going within minutes, piling on logs until she was overcome with smoke.
She pulled up her apron, fanning it away from her but the fumes kept coming until the whole cabin was a smoky haze. For a second there was the sound of rain and a hail of soot fell from the chimney. Her eyes filled with tears and choking for breath, she picked up her skirts and ran for the door and into the fresh air outside. A few paces from the cabin she fell down to the ground coughing, beating her fist in the dirt, gasping for air.
‘Colleen, what’s happened? I smelled the smoke all the way over in the barn.’
A warm hand gently massaged her back.
Mr Biggs’ voice sounded worried, the way he always did if he thought she was hurt. His boots and the bottom of his legs and filled up her vision, or the part of it not clouded with tears. She tried to splutter out a reply but it was drowned out by her coughs which kept coming until she feared she might actually heave up her lungs.
The best she could manage was to gesture up at the chimney from where no smoke was escaping, pouring instead out of the cabin door.
‘Chimney’s blocked?’
Colleen nodded her head vigorously, until she managed to croak out a couple of words. ‘Tried to cook supper.’
‘The food? It’s not burning is it?’
Colleen pointed in the direction of the cabin. ‘Table.’
Mr Biggs disappeared for a moment down the side of the cabin and reappeared with a bucket of water. Then putting his forearm to his nose, he dashed inside.
He returned with the basket and the pan by which time she was able to speak.
‘I see you have your priorities straight then. While I’m dyin’ out here your first thought is for rescuin’ the food.’ Mr Biggs mouth opened into a perfect speechless ‘o’ until he copped her expression and grinned back at her.
Making Mr Biggs smile was as satisfying as sparking a flint, his eyes going all bright and fiery. She sat up smiling back at him, resting hands on her hips.
She had always felt so safe and secure with him but now even more so. She was sure now she could tell him almost anything.
The thought was enough to bring her down. Almost anything — but not everything.
While Mr Biggs hauled some rocks into a rough circle she picked up a nearby stick and stabbed at the dirt with it wondering if maybe she shouldn’t tell him after all about the baby and be done with it. It wouldn’t be the same for the little ‘un having only a stepfather and not a real da, but then she would only be carrying one secret instead of two, weighing her down like she was forever dragging a sack of rocks behind her.
But that would make the telling of it for her, to ease her burden. Not telling wasn’t about what was easiest for her. Not telling was for the baby’s sake.
‘I could use that if you’ve finished with it.’
‘What? Oh.’ She handed him the stick.
‘You looked like you were miles away. Penny for your thoughts?’
‘Nothin’, just dreamin’ about helpin’ with the cookin’ back in Ireland with me mam, that’s all.’
Samuel, tilted his head, and squinted at her, and she stiffened thinking he was going to ask her what she had really been mulling over, but then he shrugged and threw down an armful of wood and a handful of tinder that he lit, gently huffing on it, coaxing it in to life.
Once the flames took hold and died back down again he placed the pan on the fire. Soon the pork chops and the apple slices were sizzling and her nostrils twitched with the enticing aroma coming from the pan.
He knew what he was doing, not making it up as he went along as she would have been, and when he flipped the chops all fried up to a delicious golden brown Colleen’s mouth watered.
Judging that the pork chops were done, Mr Biggs ate his straight from the pan while he presented Colleen with hers on the plate that she had upturned over the pan.
&nb
sp; ‘I never knew of a man who cooked before, well besides the man they have that cooks on a ship, that is,’ Colleen said finally once her belly started to expand and she began to feel sufficiently full that she could concentrate on something other than the food.
He cocked his head at her, his eyes twinkling. ‘You’re not back on that molly business again are you? Because I can always drag you over to the barn and remind you just how far that notion is from the truth.’
‘Oh no. I think we’ve established you’re not a molly after all,’ she giggled then stuffed her mouth with a bit of meat.
Samuel reached into the basket for the bread and pulled off a couple of hunks, keeping one for himself and passing the other to her.
‘I’ve always thought a man should always know how to feed himself.’
‘How did you learn?’
She couldn’t picture Samuel in a frilly apron learning at his Mam’s knee.
‘From the street vendors down near the docks, not that they set out to teach me as such, it was just that I was often in their company. I wasn’t always this size, you know — I used to be twice the man I am now.’
So that’s why his good clothes were all too roomy for him.
Even so, when Colleen tried to imagine Samuel on the blubbery side she couldn’t see it. ‘You’re pullin’ me leg.’
‘I’m telling the God’s honest truth — back in London I had a fair bit in common with our dinner here,’ Samuel said holding up his chop and swinging it back and forth like a pendulum.
Colleen gnawed on hers until every last scrap of meat was gone and as she picked the last morsel from the bone with her teeth, Samuel looked at her again chuckling softly.
‘What are you chortlin’ at?’
‘Colleen, if you could only see yourself right now. You’re an absolute picture.’
‘What?’
She swiped the back of her arm against her face and held out her sleeve. The material was streaked black. She laughed. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I was too hungry to pay much attention before. But now…’ Mr Biggs laughed, unable to finish the sentence.