by Jo Goodman
Boy and man were both distracted for a moment, but the man recovered more quickly, cuffing the boy on the side of his head and knocking him flat to the ground. Bill considered the moaning child dispassionately, shook out his hand, and rolled down both sleeves of his shirt. Money exchanged hands as people in the crowd collected on their wagers. There was a shift in the circle as Bill pushed his way through and went back into the pub. The door swung loudly shut behind him and the crowd slowly moved away, some of the winners following Bill’s path to the Roo’s Rest.
The crowd had cleared before someone offered her a hand. It belonged to the urchin. He was little more than half her height with dusty blond hair and a thin solemn face. Poverty clung to him. It was in more than the ragged, mismatched clothes that he wore, or the dirt that was like a bruise on his fair skin. There was a certain vacant look in his eyes, an absence of hope, a wariness that came from expecting the worst and receiving it. It was a terrible thing to look upon in one so young. Even when he smiled, as he was doing now, it had no substance.
Lydia accepted the hand, careful not to pull him down as she got to her feet. “I thought I would be helping you up,” she said, pointing to the spot where he had been lying. She brushed off her dress and righted her bonnet. “Thank you. Are you certain you’re all right?”
“Me?” He jabbed himself with his thumb. “I’m all of a piece. Don’t worry ’bout me none. Ol’ Bill gets that way once in a while. Saw that he was goin’ to cuff me and I just took a little clobber on the chin. Laid there moanin’ like for effect. No sense in him taking another jab at me.”
“That was very wise of you,” Lydia said. She tried to put a little weight on her ankle but the effort made her pale. Her smile was gritty. “Could you help me onto the sidewalk there—” She broke off, wanting a name to put to the child’s face.
“M’name’s Kit. Christopher really, but Bill don’t like the name much.” He slipped an arm around Lydia’s waist and let her lean on his bony shoulder for support.
“Bill is a relative?” she asked, beginning to form a better understanding of the fight.
Kit shrugged. “M’sister’s husband. Only m’sister’s been dead these past six months. Bill’s got the pub and he got me. Only he didn’t want me. We have a regular blue, like the one we just had, every three or four days—whenever Bill gets shikkered. The grog’s no good for that one. Bound to feel crook later. How about you, Miss? You’re looking pretty crook yourself. What did you hurt when you fell?”
“I’ve twisted my ankle.”
“Here now,” he said solicitously. “I’ll get a carriage for you. Send you to the infirmary over on Macquarie. Some quack there will set you right again.” He started to run off, stopped, and backpedaled to where he left Lydia standing. “I’ll need some coin, miss. No driver will give me a second look if I can’t show him some coin.”
Lydia smiled faintly. She knew she was being robbed and she still gave up two golden sovereigns willingly. She closed Kit’s grimy hands over the money and bid him take it. He disappeared around a corner and into an alley and Lydia limped to a stone retaining wall farther down the street and leaned against it.
She had no idea how long she stood there, her ankle swollen and throbbing, her head aching with pain only slightly less than what she felt in her foot. Nathan saw her first. He stood on the opposite corner, watching her, forcing back the anger that had driven him up and down Sydney’s streets looking for her. He had imagined all manner of trouble that she could have found. That she was even in The Rocks without an escort was excuse enough to turn her over his knee. Couldn’t she see the place was a haven for harpies and sailors who had just crawled up from Sydney Cove, fresh from a month or more at sea? Didn’t she have the sense to know she could have been accosted even in daylight?
Lydia didn’t see Nathan until he was less than ten feet in front of her. His wolf’s eyes pinned her to the wall and it didn’t matter in the least. She couldn’t have moved anyway.
“You have some explaining to do,” he said softly when he came to stand directly in front of her.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Her silence lit Nathan’s short fuse. He placed his hands on either side of her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “Look at me, Liddy! Are you ever inclined to act as if you have cotton between your ears? Have you taken notice where your feet have led you? This is The Rocks, Lydia. There’s no part of Sydney more squalid or dangerous. It’s like Portsmouth Square, only the dangers are real this time. If you wanted to explore this morning, you should have wakened me, or taken a carriage, or asked Henry where you might walk safely. Instead, you cast aside all manner of good sense and walk straight into a den of larrikins. These men would as soon throw up your skirts as look at you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Lydia bit her lower lip, her eyes downcast. Her face was the pale gray color of ash. “I understand,” she said quietly. “Will you take me home now, Nathan? I don’t feel well.”
The haze of anger cleared and Nathan realized she did not look well, either. His hands no longer gripped, but supported. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Just a small sprain, I think. It’s nothing. Can we go back to the hotel?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw the slow approach of a carriage.
“So something did happen,” Nathan said, disgusted. “Here, let me see. Which foot is it?” He hunkered down and lifted the hem of Lydia’s gown. His fingers were a mere fraction of an inch away from her ankle when he was attacked from behind.
Nathan toppled, set off balance by a pair of thin arms wrapped tightly around his neck and a pair of bony knees jammed hard into his waist. He tried to twist, grab at his assailant, but when he moved, so did his attacker. He did manage to reach over his shoulder and get a handful of hair. For his pains he was bitten on the side of his neck.
“What the bloody hell?” he said, grinding out the words between clenched teeth.
A clear, high-pitched voice answered him. “You ain’t fit to kiss her foot! Can’t you see she’s not some harpy?”
Lydia’s hands covered most of her face. She watched the scene played out through splayed fingers. The carriage driver had a good view from his perch and there were faces in all the windows across the street.
Kit screeched on, rolling onto the street with Nathan still in his clutches. “She’s probably got some rich sod for a husband who would tear your eyes out for looking at her!”
“Whose eyes do you think you’re tearing out?” Nathan demanded tightly. He rolled on his back and pinned Kit under him, making the boy’s fight quite ineffective. “Take your bloody knees out of my side and your rum daddles out of my pockets!”
Rather than giving up, Kit looked to Lydia for help. “I’ve got him now, miss. Hit him with your bag!”
Lydia’s hands slipped from her face. Kit’s large eyes appealed to her while Nathan simply glared. She spoke to the urchin. “He is my husband, Kit.”
“Good of you to tell him,” Nathan said as the grip on his neck eased. He got up, brushed himself off, and surveyed the onlookers who had paused in their steps to see what was going on. The look on Nathan’s face sent them hurrying away and the faces in the windows disappeared behind yellowing curtains. Only the driver remained with his carriage.
Nathan held out a hand to the boy and pulled him to his feet. “Kit, is it?” he asked. The boy nodded. “Well then, Kit, let’s suppose you give me back the ten-pound note you took out of my pocket, the platinum watch fob, and—” Nathan checked his vest, “—the sovereign.”
Hearing all of that, Lydia looked down at her hand to make certain she still had her ring. It was there, though she realized now she had been fortunate. She watched Kit hand his booty back to Nathan and thought about the pain in her ankle so she wouldn’t disgrace Kit or Nathan by laughing.
“I thought you were going to hurt her,” Kit explained with youthful bravado.
“I gathered that,” Nathan said dryly.
> Lydia limped a few steps forward. Nathan was immediately at her side and she leaned on his arm. “It was very gallant of you, Kit, to want to protect me, but as you can see, Nathan intended me no harm.”
Kit thrust his hands in his pockets. His forefinger poked through one of them. He rocked on the balls of his feet as he looked from Nathan to Lydia and finally to Nathan again. He spoke in adult tones, man to man. “I’d wail her good when I got her home, sir. That’s how m’dad did me mum and Ol’ Bill did me sis. Kept them in line, too. You never saw one of them going off where they weren’t allowed. Worse could have happened here today.” Kit plucked one of the sovereigns Lydia had given him out of his shoe and gave it back to her. “Here you are, miss. Don’t hate him when he wails you. It’s for your own good.”
Lydia was perfectly speechless, but Nathan was asking seriously, “Did your father use a switch or the flat of his hand?”
“Just his hands, sir. O’course they were big as paddles. And now and again he’d use his fist, but that’s not sportin’. Not with a lady. Mum could hold her own, wallop him right back, she did. But your lady wouldn’t take to that.”
“I might,” Lydia said under her breath.
“I see,” said Nathan. “You’ve been quite helpful, young man. I’ll consider your suggestion.” He motioned to the driver, who hopped down from his seat and opened the carriage door. Nathan helped Lydia inside and tossed his sovereign back at Kit. “Get yourself some flash clothes and look the gentleman you are.”
Kit clasped the gold coin tightly. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. G’day, miss.” The carriage started to pull away. Kit ran after it briefly, waving. Just as it was turning the corner, he felt a beefy hand take him by the trousers and lift him off the ground. Bill shook him down for the sovereign then returned to Roo’s Rest.
Lydia wanted Nathan to stop the carriage. “Did you see that?” she asked. The tears in her eyes were only in part for her own pain. Mostly they were for Kit. “His brother-in-law took the money you gave him! We have to go back, Nathan. I’m not going to let that man bully that child.”
“And what do you propose to do about it? Think you can be by that boy’s side for the rest of his life? As soon as you leave, that bully will only take out his anger on Kit again and it will be worse for your interference.”
Lydia didn’t want to hear a rational argument then. She wanted Nathan to be as angry as she was over the injustice of it. Turning away, she stared blindly out the carriage window.
“Anyway, Liddy, it’s likely the boy will steal the money from the pub’s till.”
“That’s no answer.” Still, it made her feel a little better that Kit might get some of his own back.
“It’s part of life here in The Rocks.” His tone was not callous, but matter of fact. He slipped his hand in Lydia’s and squeezed gently. “Suppose you tell me what happened here this morning. Is this the sort of thing I can expect often—a nipper attacking me to defend my lady’s honor?”
Lydia shook her head and gave him a watery smile. Tears were an uncomfortable lump in her throat. She took a lace-edged handkerchief from her reticule and pressed it at the corners of her eyes. She told the story haltingly, without exaggeration, leaving out only the reason she had gone walking alone in the first place.
“So you see,” she said, coming to the end. “Kit surprised me. I really didn’t expect him to return with a carriage and change from the money I gave him. I didn’t expect him to return at all. I thought I would just stand there until someone offered help or I could walk again.”
“God,” Nathan said softly. “What a wait that might have been.”
“Do you know what people were doing while Kit and Bill were fighting?” she demanded, angry again at the thought of it. “They were making wagers on the outcome! No one lifted a finger to help or summon the police. They simply watched. I had to do something.”
“And what did it get you except a twisted ankle? Bill’s in his pub. Kit’s with Bill. Nothing has changed, not even your understanding of the people here. This isn’t San Francisco, Lydia. No one’s going to summon the police if they can avoid it, especially in The Rocks. The police are mostly despised; they’re too much like the guards who controlled the prisons. Our past dies hard here. We do what we can without interference from others, and in the main that means the government authorities. There’s still widespread sympathy for men on the outside of the law. They’re seen as rebels, an embarrassment to the government who can’t catch them all.
“No man here tells on his brother. Learn that, Lydia. It’s the honor code of a criminal community. Learn it, or die for breaking it.”
Lydia’s breath caught at the end of Nathan’s speech.
He was gripping her hand so tightly her knuckles were ground together. He seemed totally unaware of what he was doing. “Please, Nathan,” she gasped shortly, trying to ease out of his bruising clasp. “You’re hurting me.”
Nathan felt the pull on his hand and looked down at what he was doing. He released her abruptly. He turned away, but not before Lydia had glimpsed the stricken look in his gray eyes. None of that could be heard in his voice. “I’m sorry,” he said tersely.
She laid her hand gently over his. They rode back to the hotel in silence.
Chapter 10
Lydia’s foot was propped on an ottoman, supported by two pillows and ice wrapped in a linen towel. Her ankle was frozen, immobile, and still throbbing, but Lydia refused to complain. She was not giving Nathan another opening to lecture on her morning’s folly. He looked as if he were just waiting to say something. She could tell by the way he beat the pillows when he fluffed them.
“Would you like something to eat?” he asked.
“No, I’m really not very hungry. But if you want to go to the dining room...”
He leaned back in his chair. “No. I can wait.”
“Oh.” Her smile flattened. She picked up the embroidery in her lap and began to work. She relaxed a little more when Nathan picked up a newspaper. They sat without speaking while Lydia’s mind wandered back to the morning. She went over everything, but most especially the things Nathan said to her in the heat of anger, and she kept coming back to the one thing that didn’t make any sense. Portsmouth Square. What had he meant by that? What had happened in the San Francisco rough quarter that wasn’t a real danger?
Lydia bit off a thread with her teeth and critically examined her work. There was an ache behind her eyes that wasn’t there because of strain. Did she really want to know about Portsmouth Square? No, probably not…but there was something else.
“What sort of wager did you make with Mad Irish?” she asked casually.
The newspaper stayed precisely where it was. “Wager?”
She nodded. “Father Colgan said something about it. Remember?”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Well, he did…or I thought he did. And Henry, he mentioned it this morning as I was leaving. I just smiled and pretended to understand. I know I didn’t imagine what Henry said.”
“I never said you did.” The paper was lowered slowly. “About Henry or Father Colgan. I simply said I didn’t remember.”
“But there was a wager, wasn’t there?” Something about it nagged at her. She could feel the prickling, the sparks and static. “What was it about?”
“We’re always making wagers. Will it rain on Tuesday? How many pounds of wool can Bob Hardy shear in a day? Who will win the next Melbourne Cup? It doesn’t mean anything in particular.”
“Yes, I’m sure it doesn’t. I was just curious. What was this one?”
Nathan’s face was impassive, his tone devoid of inflection. “Mad Irish wagered I’d never find anyone who’d have me.”
“Then you’ve won.”
He didn’t say anything immediately, then, “Yes. I won.”
Lydia’s sprained ankle delayed their trip to Ballaburn by seventy-two hours. Nathan half expected to see Mad Irish storm Petty’s Hotel in search of them. It was har
d to imagine that word of their arrival in Sydney hadn’t reached the station. He wondered if his employer had been gripped by cold feet after all this time. Mad Irish afraid? It was something to think about. He certainly had good reason to be.
Hobbling over to the bed, Lydia sat on the edge closest to Nathan. He was reading the Sydney Morning Herald, or at least pretending to read. The pages hadn’t been turned or folded in the last ten minutes. Lydia pulled on the bottom corner of the paper, lowering it, and peered over the top. “I’ve finished trying on the dresses from Hordern’s. They fit and they’re packed. Are we leaving today or have you changed your mind?” Again, she wanted to say. Have you changed your mind again? Lydia found her husband strangely reluctant to leave Sydney for Ballaburn. Packed with ice, her ankle had presented a problem only on the first day. She had been willing and able to travel after that, but Nathan professed to be more cautious. Lastly he used the excuse of waiting for her gowns to be finished. Now that was taken from him, too.
Nathan closed the paper and let it slip over the side of the bed. “Do I detect a bit of censure in my wife’s voice?” he asked mildly.
“Anxiousness,” she said. “Impatience. Eagerness.”
“No censure?”
“None.” She crossed her heart.
Looping his arms around her neck and shoulders, Nathan brought her close so that their foreheads touched. “Only one of us is dressed for traveling.”
“That would be me.”
“I noticed.” His fingers started to unfasten the long line of tiny buttons at Lydia’s back.
Lydia gave him a playful shove and danced away from the bed, closing the difficult buttons. “Oh, no. I only just got out of bed. I’m not going back in again.”
Nathan’s dark eyebrows curved upward. “It wasn’t meant as a punishment. You make it sound like some horrible sentence.”
“Do I?” She paused in her task. “Well, I suppose it was in a way. You’ve been out and about these past three days while I’ve been confined here. My ankle’s just fine.”