Unto Death

by Lena West

  13

  There can only be one, surely, with the temerity, the boldness, to overstep the bounds of convention and steal her from under my very nose. I don't know who the bastard is. Yet. All I am certain of is, he exists; and he'll share her punishment when the time comes.

  It was Tabby, stropping himself against her bare leg, which brought Lucy to her senses.

  Picking him up, she buried her wet face in his fur, drawing comfort from his rumbling purr. At least Tabby loved her. The cat stood on her lap, pushing his face against hers, uttering plaintive little mews. Lucy stroked his back, growing calmer by the minute.

  The clock chimed again.

  She'd never get back to sleep, not with that hated scent clinging to Stephen polluting the air of the bedroom. And not when his very touch nauseated her, as it would, were she to return to his side before she had time to distance herself. She put Tabby down and drew some lukewarm water from the fountain on the kitchen range and washed the tears from her face in the sink.

  Feeling marginally better, she set a match to the kindling laid ready in the range and pulled the kettle over the heat. When the fire was burning steadily, she walked back to the bedroom and dressed hurriedly in her day clothes, then whisked back to the kitchen. When the kettle boiled she made a pot of tea and some toast and went outside with it to listen to the first birds announcing the piccaninny dawn.

  She'd drunk the pot dry and shared the toast with Tabby, who'd jumped onto her lap and promptly gone to sleep in a warm, furry ball. The Murphy women found her there, composed and greeting them with a smile, when they arrived to begin cooking breakfast.

  “I woke up early with the most dreadful headache,” she told them. “Since I couldn't get back to sleep I thought I might as well get up and make a cup of tea.”

  Stephen's kiss when he met her at the door of the dining room at breakfast time left a bitter taste in her mouth. Swallowing hard, she conjured up a smile, drawing on every last ounce of her acting ability.

  Her earlier cogitations had renewed her faith in her tactics. Unfortunately, flying high on her successes, she had once again allowed complacency to overcome caution.

  With an enemy like Isabella Cummings, as deadly and vicious as a brown snake protecting its nest, she couldn't afford to let her guard down.

  Until she detected a sure method of predicting their meetings and countering their plans, she was hamstrung. Minor defeats were inevitable.

  As long as she learned from them, she could minimise the damage.

  One strategy was working excellently, however, and she would continue to employ it. Keeping silent and seducing Stephen with her feminine wiles, out of bed as well as in it, was reaping major successes. Acting on the spur of the moment, she pulled Stephen's head down and kissed him again, making it a kiss redolent with promises of richer pleasures to follow.

  ***

  The very next day, while she was cutting flowers for the house, Old Pete shuffled up to Lucy, looking about to be sure they wouldn't be overheard.

  “Mornin' missus. Thought ye might like to know, like. Young Josh Watson was 'ere this mornin'. 'Ad anothir o' them smelly pink notes fer Mr Stephen.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “Thank you, Pete. Let me know if there are more, won't you?”

  “Right ye are, missus.”

  Pete meandered off to pick the vegetables Bridget wanted for the day's meals, his mission completed.

  He'd never liked that flashy piece Archie Cummings had hooked up with. Pity young Stephen was fool enough to get tangled up in her shenanigans. He was a good lad at heart, and when he grew up a bit more, he'd likely be as good a man as his father.

  Pete took real pleasure in helping the pretty, little, new missus to spike the dragon's guns

  Lucy laid her plans to keep Stephen from leaving the house after dinner, only to have all her careful scheming come to nought. The perfume on her husband's shirt when he returned to the homestead at dusk informed her Stephen had been in Isabella's company during the afternoon.

  Not tonight, at all, then, she thought, containing her sick fury.

  The enemy had changed the rules. Afternoons were undoubtedly more convenient for Stephen, she realised after due consideration. It was surely easier to set his men to a task and then vanish for a couple of hours.

  The men were used to him doing so when she was the one he spent his afternoons with. Further consideration elicited a grim smile. With Old Pete's excellent spy-work, she could use this knowledge to her own benefit.

  From then on, and most especially when Pete gave her the word, she packed a picnic, donned her riding clothes, and rode out to intercept Stephen wherever he was supervising the men, inveigling him into spending the afternoon with her, usually at the swimming hole. If he claimed he was needed to help with the work, she stayed on, sitting in the shade with her sketchbook, ready to join him if he tried to slip away.

  She smelt no more of that hated perfume on her husband's person or clothes, in spite of the delivery of several of those smelly pink notes, as Pete called them.

  Lucy wondered how Isabella liked being stood up. And for how long she would tolerate it? She had the woman's measure now and knew there was sure to be a backlash. Mentally she braced herself to meet it whenever, and however, it might come.

  His inability to keep the trysts Isabella arranged was fretting at Stephen's nerves.

  Several times in a row, he'd been forced to leave her waiting for him in vain. What must she think of him? He didn't even dare write to her to explain, for fear of the letter falling into Archibald's hands. Neither did he feel able to curtail Lucy's innocent pleasure in her picnic afternoons with him.

  He soon found out exactly what Isabella thought.

  On the day Stephen rode in to Merton's Store to collect the mail as he usually did, now Pete was spending more time on Lucy's gardens, he came face to face with Isabella driving her gig on a similar errand.

  Familiar with his habits, she dismissed Josh, whose task it usually was, to set out to fetch the mail for Far Horizons herself, in the hope of engineering a face to face meeting with her lover during which she intended to whip him into line.

  He didn’t leave her waiting in vain with impunity. Neither did he sever relations with her. He was hers, until she was finished with him and cast him aside herself.

  As he was about to discover.

  “Stephen, where have you been? I've sent you three notes now, and you've ignored every one of them.”

  Even before she reined the pony to a halt, she was treating Stephen to a tirade of recriminations.

  “Don't you love me anymore? Oh, Darling, I can't bear it!”

  Two fat crocodile tears trickled down her cheeks.

  The sight of them was pure anguish to Stephen, already writhing with guilt over the missed assignations.

  “Darling, I'm so very sorry. I really am. Lucy was with me, and I couldn't get away. She rides out to join me most afternoons, you know.”

  His words tumbled over themselves as he strove to explain his problem.

  “I told you ages ago that it wouldn't work, me getting married to provide cover for our love for one other, but you refused to listen. Marriage has vastly increased the number of obstacles in our way, not made it easier at all.”

  “Are you saying it is my fault you can't control your wife?”

  How dare he blame her! Isabella was having none of that.

  “Just tell her you don't want her underfoot, getting in your way at every turn!”

  Isabella was too impatient to be diplomatic.

  “Tell her to keep to the house where she belongs, not riding round the bush on her own courting who knows what danger?”

  Her words caused Isabella to pause a moment, the germ of an idea growing in her agile brain.

  “It shouldn't be at all difficult to think of a reasonable excuse,” she continued, mentally filing away the delicious revenge which had just then sprung into her mind.

  “You can't e
xpect me to think of everything for you.”

  The stubborn set of Stephen's jaw informed Isabella of his resistance to her suggestion, and she changed tactics. Although, truth be told, she was getting a trifle bored with Stephen Fortescue.

  He had changed. He brooked not the slightest criticism of his simpering little bride. In her opinion, he was becoming too much like his father. Too rigid and difficult to control. But he was hers, and she wasn't prepared to let him go till she was ready; and then only on her terms. That time had not yet arrived. She would see him toe the line first.

  Or else.

  “Darling,” she cajoled, “I love you so much. I miss you unbearably when we're apart. Please say you'll try harder to meet me in our little hideaway. If afternoons are too difficult for you, let's go back to evenings.”

  She was about to reveal to him the means by which she ensured Archibald slept through her nocturnal absences, when they were interrupted.

  “Hoy, Fortescue. I was hoping to catch you. Need a word, mate.”

  Mark Mannering galloped up, interrupting their tete-a-tete. Bidding both men a curt farewell, Isabella flicked the reins, and drove off.

  ***

  “Oh, by the way, Dad,” Stephen made way for Colleen to remove his empty dinner plate, then continued. “I met Mark on the road this morning. He wants me to join him and a few others in an effort to rid ourselves of those damn dingos once and for all. They've been creating havoc on several properties, as you know, and the others reckon we might have more chance of success if we join forces. We're going to get together in the next day or so to make our plans.”

  Coming so close on the heels of his discussion with Isabella, it had occurred to him that Mark had provided the perfect excuse for him to absent himself one evening with the minimum of lies told. Now all he had to do was wait for Isabella's note. This time he'd make it to their rendezvous without fail. Isabella's pleas had torn at his heart.

  When Josh was given the note to deliver the following morning, he deliberately dawdled along the way, arriving too late to catch Stephen before he rode out with the work gang.

  Isabella's breakfast tea had been spilt, resulting in her losing her temper with her housekeeper, Mrs Watson, who was also Josh's mother. Isabella had raged at the hapless woman, slapping her across the face and threatening to turn her off. Archibald had intervened, calming both women, but Josh was angry.

  The missus didn't ought to 'ave slapped my mam, he thought as he swiped a stick at the bushes beside the track.

  Wondering whether or not he should follow after Stephen, he was relieved when Pete Smith stepped up to him.

  “'ere, laddie. Give thet there letter t' me. I'll see the young boss gets it orright.”

  Pete wrinkled his nose at the scent as he slipped the pink envelope into the pocket of his trousers. Watching for his chance, he grinned in toothless triumph when he gave his prize to Lucy.

  “You devious old man.”

  Lucy smiled her fierce, warrior's smile.

  “I do thank you, Pete. And see, I'm not empty handed either. I had my husband fetch this from Merton's Store yesterday when he went for the mail.”

  She handed her co-conspirator a packet of his favourite pipe tobacco.

  “Ta, missus.”

  Slipping the tobacco into his pocket, he went on his way, thoroughly pleased with himself. It was nice the missus appreciated his efforts enough to reward him, even though he was quite happy to help her out for nothing.

  Waiting till Bridget and her daughters were out of the way, having their morning tea on the kitchen veranda, Lucy took the note out of her pocket, turning it over and over in her hands as she plucked up her nerve.

  It was addressed to Stephen and he'd have every right to be furious with her if she tampered with it. But it was from the woman he was betraying her with, so did that give her the right to interfere?

  Yes, she decided.

  Before she could change her mind, she grabbed a knife and heated it in the kitchen range.

  Carefully she slid the hot blade under the wax seal and opened the note, read it; then read it again, and carefully resealed it.

  Slipping it out of sight again in her pocket, she retreated to the small sitting room which had been converted from a spare bedroom to allow herself and Stephen to share private moments. Free from interruption, she tamped down her anger and considered the implications of the short communication over her own tea and her favourite ginger biscuits. It had been brief, and to the point.

  Stephen my darling,

  I'll be waiting for you tonight at ten o'clock. Don't fail me again, or I might have to give you up; and I love you too, too much to contemplate a future without your love to make it bearable.

  Your Isabella.

  That Woman had added the rouged imprint of her lips at the bottom.

  How vulgar, Lucy thought. Really, it's quite arrogant. I'd have credited Stephen with better taste.

  She wrinkled her nose disdainfully. While not at all the sort of note she would write, it did seem to indicate that her own tactics were succeeding rather well.

  If Isabella meant her threat seriously, maybe now the war would soon be over, and her husband would be hers alone.

  At last.

  She thought she might have the sort of news to share which would compensate him for the loss of his worthless mistress, but it was still too soon to be sure.

  Tapping the offensive missive against her palm, she studied the room thoughtfully, wondering what to do with it. Her first instinct was to set a match to it, but what if Stephen learned of its existence and searched for it? The trail led directly to her. He might never forgive her if he became aware of her interference in his private business.

  Nodding, she strode over to where Stephen's desk was set in front of a window and tossed the note on top of a pile of loose papers.

  Pushing up the sash, she waited. Sure enough, the brisk wind which had so relieved the heat, soon blew the pile of papers, note and all, onto the floor. It only required a nudge of her toe to poke the pink envelope out of sight under the bookcase. She bent down to wedge it in securely, then, leaving the window partly open and Stephen's papers quite naturally scattered about on the floor, she took her empty tea tray back to the kitchen.

  Now she could safely 'forget' all about the dratted thing, and if she should be asked, she could truthfully say she had put it on the desk. The wind was responsible for whatever else happened to it.

  ***

  Thomas, as was his practice, left the young ones to their own devices once the after-dinner tea tray had been cleared away.

  Lucy took the opportunity to slide onto Stephen's lap and twine her arms around his neck.

  “It's still very hot, isn't it? Much too hot for bed.”

  After it had performed such sterling duty that morning, doing Lucy's bidding, the breeze had dropped. It had been Stephen himself, arriving home at midday, who discovered the wind-strewn havoc in their sitting room, and picked his papers up from the floor. Lucy had held her breathe, praying he didn't look far enough to catch a glimpse of the distinctive pink envelope. She let the breath go with a sigh when her prayer was answered. Now she was setting about consolidating her latest victory, hoping she could give up being devious at last.

  Lucy brushed her lips slowly back and forth over Stephen's, finally indulging them both in a series of long, drugging kisses, before sitting up and returning to her subject.

  “Since it is way too hot, darling, I was hoping you might like to go swimming with me in the moonlight. We've not done that yet, and it sounds so romantic.”

  Nothing loath, Stephen set her on her feet and helped fetch towels and a blanket

  ***

  Isabella, in the foulest of tempers with Stephen over his latest failure, made life miserable for everyone in the Far Horizons household. Left to her own devices when Archibald escaped to supervise the building of new stockyards, a task the foreman was more than competent to handle on his own, she stor
med off and flung herself down on her bed. Outwardly calmer, she swore to take her revenge for the insult.

  No man treated Isabella Johnson Cummings so cavalierly and got away with it.

  It was all the fault of Stephen's prim and proper little bride. Therefore, it would be so very fitting for Lucy to be the agent of Stephen's punishment. She remembered the deliciously wicked idea that had sprung into her mind during their meeting on the road.

  Yes!

  That was it! When she finished with the uppity little madam, she wouldn't be looking down her nose at anyone, ever again. She'd be lucky if the Fortescues didn't send her back to her family in disgrace. For sure, Stephen would never be able to force himself to share a bed with the chit again.

  He'd turn to her for comfort. Then, with him once again her slave, she would cast him aside. In a mood of pure evil, Isabella plotted Lucy's downfall.

  14

  I say they shall not prevail! The bible tells us we shall reap what we sow. Let them be warned!

  I am the instrument of their destiny!

  They hide behind my back, smirking and sniggering in delight over their disgusting humiliation of me; indulging in their dirty little games. I've seen the bower down by the dam where they make a fool of me. Where they cuckold me!

  There, I admit it. My wife, whom I adored and showered with gifts; with all the clothes and jewels she could possibly wish for; with whom I've shared my kingdom. My wife for whom I would have given my very life.

  She has cuckolded me.

  They think themselves unaccountable, and so very clever. Clever enough to dupe me and escape the wages of their villainous sins unscathed. They are wrong.

  I am their Nemesis!

  “Mr Thomas! Mr Thomas.”

  Will Murphy galloped into the mustering camp, scattering dogs and men. He leapt from his badly lathered horse and dragged Thomas to one side, out of hearing of the curious men watching open-mouthed. Nervous about being overheard, he was careful to keep his voice down.

  “Boss, what I gotta say sounds bloody incredible, but I swear ta God it's the truth. Ye know how ye sent me across ta Far Horizons ta borrow a fence strainer till we get a new one ta replace the one what broke?”