by Darry Fraser
She looked at him and saw he was intent on finishing a sleeping area for himself. When he was done, he began to build a fire.
The sudden cool of the late afternoon breeze on her sweaty skin through her shirt had an undesired effect on her body. She looked at Dane again.
‘Well?’ He glanced up, oblivious.
‘I need to—to—’
‘Go. But don’t go too far. I don’t want to think you’ve taken off again.’
Georgie reddened and suddenly very much needed to do what she had suggested. She hurriedly took herself off to a clump of scrub entangled around a thick tree trunk. She’d just pulled at the old piece of bed sheet under her shirt when his voice drifted over.
‘Give me a shout—else I’ll come looking for you.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘I’m here.’ A low chuckle was the only response. She tugged the piece of fabric, finally pulling it free, and dumped it over the bush in front of her.
‘And again.’
His drawl grated on her nerves. ‘I’m still here.’ She struggled with her breeches but couldn’t do anything once she’d come free of them.
‘Louder.’
‘If you don’t stop talking I shall never be finished,’ she yelled at him, past any embarrassment, seeking only to relieve the urgency.
‘That’s better,’ he said and she heard another chuckle.
Finally, she pulled up her breeches. ‘Act like adults,’ she muttered, and grabbed the strip of sheet from the bush.
‘What did you say?’
She tried her best to convey a certain indifference as she marched back to him with the strip of bed sheet in hand. She went straight to Douglas and began to wipe him down with it. He deserved a good grooming, but her strength was waning.
‘Please clarify certain things you accused my Papa Rupert of.’ She stopped to catch her breath. ‘All this talk of debtors’ prison and the like. If you knew him, you’d know it could not be true.’
Dane looked over from where he squatted. He studied her for a minute, which started her rubbing Douglas more firmly. ‘Take off your boots.’
Startled, she stared at him. ‘Why? They are all I own from my stepfather now.’
‘I’m not stealing them. You might be a princess, but only a fool would run in these parts with no boots. Take them off.’
‘I won’t run.’
‘And I am Queen Victoria.’ He turned back to his little fire, the makings smoking cheerfully. ‘Your boots.’
‘I can still ride without my boots, you know.’
‘But you won’t get far walking without them. Your boots.’
She dropped to the ground and unlaced each boot, taking her time. ‘I’m not an imbecile.’
‘Don’t make me comment on that.’
She flung a boot at him, and then another. He caught each one and tucked them under MacNamara’s saddle. He turned to watch her, his arms folded. ‘Since your arrival at Jacaranda, the family fortune, such as it was, has been on a slide into non-existence.’
Georgie felt hackles rise. ‘That could not be my fault.’ She checked herself. It would do no good to enter into an argument again.
‘It seems my uncle, your dear Papa Rupert, has been begging for funds to keep himself afloat.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘So, much of my parents’ hard-earned savings, and it seems my payments to them, have gone to him these last years. Combined with the downturn in wool prices and keeping you alive, the family is now no longer able to sustain its own bank notes. So the bank is threatening to foreclose.’ He found a fallen tree branch and sat on it.
She turned to finish rubbing Douglas, who began to flinch under her determined hand. He’d said it so calmly. She began to wonder if all her drama was part of some strange delusion conjured by an overworked brain—his or hers, she couldn’t decide.
She turned to him and tried to be equally calm. ‘It just cannot be. If you knew Rupert, you would know it’s impossible. He is not a man to gamble, or—or whatever else he is accused of. Your mama knows he is not—they are brother and sister. He married my mother and took me in—that’s not the action of a man obsessed with destroying himself. When I left England he was quite—’
‘I barely knew my uncle,’ Dane said dismissively. He rubbed his forehead. ‘When I left Jacaranda the first time over ten years ago, it was a fine run. The stables were full, we had kitchen staff and jackeroos, flocks of sheep.’ He spread his hands. ‘I returned every year for six years, and all was well. But this time I come back after four years away to find you in situ, and the place less than grand. There is no money. The money I wired has all gone.’ He slapped both hands on his thighs. ‘Yet, there have been no improvements on the property since then, no fine clothes on anyone’s backs, no new stock, no staff to mention. Nothing. My father says he sent most available funds to your stepfather.’
She stood there staring at him. That contrived story wouldn’t fool a ten-year-old child, yet Dane MacHenry accepted it without so much as a whistle. She wondered whether she should again ask him to prove it.
‘What are you staring at?’ he asked.
A fool. A fool who’s been away from home too long to know anything about it.
She wanted to ask him if he knew how much Uncle Tom drank. Whether he knew how long Uncle Tom would stay away from the homestead, only to return thanks to free passage on some boat. They’d drop him off at the MacHenry landing on the river.
Her feet wouldn’t remain still, they tapped and shifted under her. She wanted to ask him if Uncle Tom’s absences had anything to do with his family’s demise, not to mention her impoverished state. She wanted to know if the condition of the homestead was indicative of the financial climate, or of poor management under the influence of a bottle.
She wanted to shout at him, ‘My Papa Rupert would not have drunk away all his money like your father has!’ And realised she had.
She pressed back against the nearest tree, conscious of his icy blue stare. She returned that stare, though the defiance that swept through her had dropped away. She twisted the grimy cloth of the wrapper in her hands, dimly aware it wouldn’t serve its original purpose again.
‘I just ask for proof of what you’ve been told.’
Dane remained immobile, his frown deep, his chest slow to rise and fall.
Georgie fidgeted under his scrutiny and a hot itch scurried all over. Her skin prickled, and a rush of heat burst across her back and shoulders, burned. ‘How can you blindly believe that?’
‘Enough. Please.’ He moved towards her and she pressed against the tree, her back now ablaze with fiery stings and intensely fevered pulses. He was squinting at her, scanning her, coming closer. Panic leapt in her throat, and the heat charging her blood made her light-headed, woozy.
He grabbed her by the shirtfront. Before she could utter any noise, he yanked her away from the tree and brushed furiously at her clothes. He started to laugh, holding her by one arm and brushing her pants and shirt with the other.
Georgie slapped his hands away. The itching and burning had become a stinging.
Through his laughter he managed to say, ‘Ants. Bull ants.’
‘Oh, God! Get them off me,’ she cried and started to jump and hop.
He let her go, doubling over as she wrenched away and rushed for the river. ‘Can you swim?’ His laughter burst again.
Georgie waded only a little way into the river and ducked well under the water. She surfaced, her back to the bank, kicking furiously to keep from drifting into dangerous depths. She found a place to stand and wrenched her shirt over her head and shook it with all her strength. Long-bodied ants floated about her in the water.
She kept her back to the bank while she wrung out her shirt. She slashed at the ants in the water, furious with them, herself and him. There was no semblance of modesty now. She struggled into the sodden shirt, checked it again for the clinging little beasts. She half turned, prepared to haul herself against the shallow undertow back to the bank … I wil
l come out of the water with my clothes clinging to my body, with not a dry stitch to protect my virtue. She was entirely dependent on his conduct.
‘You can’t stay in there forever,’ he drawled, laughter still in his voice. He squatted again. He obviously thought it very funny indeed.
Georgie waded towards the bank. ‘A gentleman would avert his eyes.’ She folded her arms across her chest and carefully felt her way out of the river to a spot in the sunshine. She didn’t know whether he had been a gentleman, but she assumed not. Her cheeks were on fire, and so were the bites on the cheeks of her arse.
‘You’ll need to get something on those bites.’
He didn’t sound so amused now. She flicked a glance at him. He’d stood up, no hint of laughter at all.
She was so uncomfortable. She couldn’t soothe the number of bites all at once, and her harsh rubbing irritated and inflamed them further. In desperation, she looked at him for help.
‘I have some oil in my saddlebags. It’s all I can offer.’
She nodded and he fetched it for her.
‘You’ll need to dab every bite. They’ll be merciless unless you do.’
Digging in her pocket for the handkerchief he’d given her earlier, she held out her hand for the oil.
Instead of handing her the bottle, he bent and peered down the back of her shirt. ‘They’ll need attention.’ Still holding her collar, he faced her.
She nodded. His assistance soothing these ant bites would be the least of her worries.
He dropped her collar and pulled MacNamara’s blanket from the tree. He spread it on the ground. ‘Lay face down and lift up your shirt.’
She knelt, then dropped to her elbows and fell forward, her face resting on the blanket. The stings seared long strips of flesh and her legs moved restlessly. Then the strong scent of eucalyptus oil rent the air, its pungent odour already soothing. A gentle press of the handkerchief he’d taken from her and the stinging reduced a little. His hands slid the oiled cloth over her back, dabbing along her rib cage and down the knots of her spine.
When she sobbed her relief, the cloth immediately lifted. ‘No, no—it’s too good. Please keep going.’
He pressed the bites once again, this time determined, deliberate. Firm. So gentle, it seemed as if he’d touched her lips with his fingertips.
Shivers sped along her skin and danced under his hand.
‘Lift the leg of those pants.’
He touched, daubed, the press of his fingers on her flesh tentative but resolute, the oil warm and soothing on her skin.
‘Now the other one.’ And his fingers slid along the calf muscles of her other leg. The press of the oiled cloth brought another soft sob to her lips.
She felt his hands leave her while he tipped more oil onto the cloth. She silently begged for the relief to continue, wriggled in agitation until his hand descended once again, pressed and slid.
‘There are stings on your … upper … ’
She dragged the trousers up over her knees and exposed the backs of her thighs. They burned like blazes until the press of the oiled cloth and the silken brush of his fingers crept over her skin. Her head felt funny, light …
He took the scrunched-up pants from her hands and pulled them down over her legs.
‘No.’ She needed more relief.
‘Hold the waist band down. You’ll have to help if you can.’ His voice was whisper soft, his breath close to her neck.
She struggled to push the pants down, fumbled with the rawhide tie at her waist then abandoned it. ‘I can’t.’
He gripped her pants and tugged an inch, two inches. More. Georgie felt her rump hit the air but the oiled cloth came down and pressed firmly before she could object. He daubed and patted some more, oil descended afresh once again. She felt herself writhe a little, wanting relief here … and there … and—
‘Here.’ He offered her the oily ball of cloth under her nose. ‘Turn over, just a dab or two on each bite—can you do all over?’
‘Yes.’ She pushed herself up, muddle-headed. ‘Thank you.’ She wriggled back into her pants, certain her face was as red as her arse.
He turned away and busied himself with MacNamara.
She quickly dabbed at her neck and chest and stomach. With a quick glance over her shoulder to check his activity, she pushed her breeches down further and dabbed at the angry red lumps at the top of her legs. She lightly rubbed the oily cloth over the hair of her private area. The horrible creatures had bitten her absolutely everywhere.
A few more dabs here and there and Georgie could do no more.
A little time later, the stinging dissipated and her nerves calmed. Exhausted, she lay on the horse blanket, hot all over.
His voice drifted across. ‘Better now?’
But she couldn’t even nod her head. She was just too tired.
Dane watched from a distance as the girl dabbed eucalyptus oil on the last of the ant bites. She seemed to fade and then slipped, boneless, onto her back. She’d fallen asleep, worn out. He waited until he was sure her breathing was easy. He reached across for the other blanket and took it to where she lay.
He knelt and placed it over her, brushing a lock of hair from her face. He remembered the sunlight shimmering on her blue-black hair as she rode and he suddenly longed for handfuls of it to bury his face in.
He sat back, alarmed.
A tiny frown twitched above her eyes and he wanted to reach out and smooth it away.
He stared at her a moment and stood up. What in God’s name was he thinking? He’d charged off to find her and thrash the living daylights out of her, to take her back to Sydney and have her work off her debts. But now …
He stared at the lovely face again. He must be going off his head.
She’d called his father a drunk. It hadn’t unduly surprised him. But he didn’t want to press the issue with her—it was none of her business.
Although it was her business and should have been his more than anybody else’s. He thought on that. She was right. Tom certainly looked like a drunkard.
He went back to his tree branch and sat against it—after he checked for ants. His eyes settled on Georgina but he wasn’t seeing her. He went back over the dilapidation of the homestead, the state of the place, the lack of staff, the neglect in the paddocks. It was not just recent. He knew, really.
But he didn’t understand any of it. And why would his father choose a defenceless girl as his scapegoat? What happened to send Tom off his head like that—and when did it all start?
He would talk to his mother about it. But she would stand by Tom through the very worst, and act as though the world was all put to rights. Perhaps not so much any more. She looked tired, worn out. And Elspeth seemed to run riot. He couldn’t understand that either. Despite whatever had befallen Georgina, she could still behave properly—when she wanted to, he conceded.
Well, almost. She could certainly swear with the best of them. And flounce about the countryside looking like a beggar in the clothes she wore. He pursed his lips as he focused on the sleeping girl.
How could he hold her responsible for what had befallen his family? There was clearly no benefit to her that he could see. Her pride had bothered him, he admitted. He wanted to see that fall ahead of anything else. She was beautiful and courageous. She was intelligent and an excellent horsewoman who loved her animals.
Despite his behaviour, she had kept her pride, even as she was hopping up and down with those damned ants crawling all over her. He laughed again. A rush of warmth for her hit him solidly in the chest. A tight coil began in his belly.
He didn’t want that. No, no, no. He had his plan set, his life was in Sydney for another year then—
He studied her anew. She had the breeding—that was obvious in spite of the immoral dress habits, the spit and fire. The swearing.
She’s brave and quick to temper and utterly feminine. Perhaps—
He pushed at the growing erection in his pants.
What the hell am I thinking? Why am I wasting time on her like this? There are dozens like her where I’ve just come from. Rebecca for one …
He sighed aloud. Fooling yourself, MacHenry.
This slip of a girl already had him by the balls like no one else.
Certainly not Rebecca. Rebecca was as far removed from Georgina Calthorpe as she was from the moon. Rebecca with the gorgeous face and voluptuous body, insatiable appetite for men and money. He laughed at himself for comparing spirited Georgina to the worldly, painted creature who was Rebecca Middleton. He had certainly never entertained ideas about making Rebecca his wife. He pushed her out of his mind. Her presence sullied the new avenue his mind was exploring.
And what of the homestead? Of Jacaranda and his devil of a father?
He’d visit the family solicitors in Melbourne to see what could be done by formalising a partnership with his father, though he doubted it would achieve anything. If his father needed five hundred pounds, he couldn’t help him. Five hundred pounds. He couldn’t imagine the type of financial trouble Tom had encountered to incur a figure of such debt. But Tom was a drunkard. No point hiding from the truth. Was that where the staggering amount of debt had come from—gambling and drinking?
Georgina Calthorpe knew, and Joe had said anyone within coo-ee of Jacaranda knew. So, how could the debt have escalated? Why hadn’t someone stopped Tom or alerted Dane?
He kicked the ground. There was more to this than he understood. And he admitted a measure of guilt, too. All those years working away, sending his money back to abdicate his responsibility, living with Reuben Cawley’s exceedingly rich family in Melbourne and Sydney while the homestead went to wrack and ruin. A young man’s carefree life …
He shook his head. I’m not responsible for this.
Yes, he had chosen to stay away from Jacaranda, working hard elsewhere, building wealth to underpin his next move: the dream that was Jacaranda.
A chill drifted in the air. The light was fading. His stomach was empty, but he wasn’t uncomfortable. He took Douglas’s saddle and carried it over to where Georgina slept. With the saddle for a pillow he settled beside her, taking some of the top blanket for himself.