Sweet Fire

by Jo Goodman

  She raised her skirt and turned her left foot in a series of circles. “See?” There was a fine blush to her complexion as she added, “I thought I proved that earlier this morning.”

  One corner of Nathan’s mouth was raised in a half smile. “So you did.” She had indeed. Lydia had been playful this morning, creative in her loving. They had used every inch of bed space, rolling from the scrolled mahogany headboard to the fretwork in the footrest. Was it any wonder that he wanted her again? “All right,” he said, sighing. “But think about tonight at Ballaburn. I have a bed there half again this size.”

  “Oh, my,” Lydia said softly. “I’ll need a map to find you.”

  A Cobb & Co. coach, as popular in Australia as Wells Fargo was in the States, took them from Sydney via the Parramatta Road. The coach was gaily painted, hung on leather springs to take the worst jarring out of the journey. Each one of the matched roans was carefully groomed. They wore blue saddle cloths, silver mountings, and their harnesses, oiled and polished, were decorated with blue rosettes.

  Lydia and Nathan shared the coach with twelve other passengers, their luggage, and the mail. The coach could have held more people but not with the trunks and valises that Lydia brought. She was more than a little embarrassed by her excess of riches though Nathan seemed completely unperturbed and none of the passengers commented.

  They traveled toward the Blue Mountains, the barrier along the Great Dividing Range. Evaporating oil from the forest of eucalypts caused a thick, distant haze and the play of light on the haze gave the mountains their color and their name. For years the dark and rugged terrain had held back the settlers with its dead-end valleys and steep sandstone cliffs. It had taken intrepid explorers to follow the mountain ridges, not the valleys, and discover the rich grassland beyond.

  The Cobb & Co. coach rattled over the mountain roads, making surprisingly good speed. Watching from the window, Lydia held her breath as the ground seemed to drop away from them into deep, rocky gullies. Where trees grew they were most always the fragrant eucalypts. The spreading crowns of coolabahs and snow gums, the giant mountain ash, and river red gums, shaded the road in some places. Scrubby brushwood littered it in others.

  Nathan tried to gauge Lydia’s reaction to what she saw. Could she see the beauty in the land or was it too foreign to her? Looking from the great height of the ridges, the country below often looked brown and barren, yet when the coach approached one could see there were meadows and streams, grass and water enough to support sheep and cattle and fertile enough to support crops.

  “Will we soon be at Ballaburn?” she asked. Some of the other passengers laughed. Lydia looked to Nathan quickly, wondering what she had said.

  “We’ve been crossing Ballaburn land this last half hour,” he told her.

  “Did you ever tell me how beautiful it would be?”

  Had he? No, he had told her about the bleakness, the unforgiving nature of the land when one didn’t know how to work with it, how to irrigate it, how to find water in the barren outback and food in the bush. “I wanted you to make up your own mind.”

  The main house at Ballaburn sat on a gentle rolling hill, surrounded by green-and-gold terraced grassland. A stream of blue water, a clear meandering tributary of the Macquarie River, mirrored sunlight and the eucalypt forests in the foothills framed the stone manor.

  Ballaburn was thousands of acres of land. Ballaburn was the livestock, the shearing sheds, the windmills and bores for water, the paddocks, the dams and fences, and the stables. It was a changing station for Cobb & Co. coaches and a place for passengers to take refreshment. It was the stockmen who worked in the far reaches of the station, protecting the property from bushrangers and the vagaries of nature. But first and foremost, the house was Ballaburn.

  Mad Irish had not designed or built the house himself. It had first belonged to the Shaws. In the gold strike of 1851 they lost it when their freed convict labor fled to mines near Bathurst and south to Melbourne. Bushrangers who viewed them as easy targets ravaged their livestock and parts of the property were lost to diggers in search of gold and squatters who demanded a share of the wealth. Quincy Shaw sold his property to Mad Irish that year and packed up his wife and five unmarried daughters and returned to England.

  Ballaburn’s style was in the tradition of great English homes, though on a much smaller scale. It had two floors, a sweeping veranda on the second, and a terrace on the first. The entrance was flanked by white columns and led up to by a circular stone drive. The windows were large and rectangular, set deeply in the stone with broad sills and no shutters. Smoke curled from three of the four chimneys and a brightly colored fairy wren, his tail cocked, strutted across the edge of the sloping slate roof.

  Crossing the stream on a sturdy narrow bridge, the coach slowed as it approached the house, stopping sharply in front of the terrace. From somewhere in the house there was a great cry as Nathan jumped out of the carriage. He held out his hand to Lydia and helped her down while their trunks and valises were being lowered to the ground. The other passengers alighted, milling around and stretching their legs while the coach and driver moved off to the stable to exchange worn horses for fresh ones.

  Ballaburn’s door was flung open and out came an apple-cheeked woman with a cupid’s mouth and two chins. She stood just under five feet, had deep-set blue eyes, dimpled hands, and fine silver-blond hair that curled away from the coil at the nape of her neck. She did not look like she commanded an army, but Lydia swore she saw several men straighten to attention when they saw her, Nathan among them. Then again, perhaps it was the duster she wielded with such authority that made them jump.

  “Refreshments will be out directly,” she announced. “I’ve got shandy for you and biscuits if you’ve a mind to have some.”

  Lydia knew from her stay at Petty’s that shandy was a mixture of lemonade and light ale. She nearly blanched at the thought of drinking it again.

  Molly Adams saw Lydia’s look and shook her head. “Not for you, ma’am. I’ve got fresh tea brewing if your husband would take it in his head to bring you inside now.” Molly turned on her heel and marched back into the house.

  Lydia glanced at Nathan for an explanation. “Is she always so…so—”

  He shook his head. “Only when she’s furious.” He took Lydia’s arm and crossed the terrace into the house, stopping just at the door to let a serving girl pass with a pitcher of shandy and glasses. “Don’t pay it any heed. I don’t. Didn’t you hear her shout when the carriage stopped? It has something to do with our wedding, I’m sure, and the fact that she wasn’t at it.”

  “Tea’s in here,” Molly said, wiping her hands on her apron. She opened the second door leading from the wide entrance hall and gave a quick jerk toward it with her thumb. “Just brewed a cuppa for Mad Irish. He’s waiting for you, same as he has been since he got your letter from San Francisco, same as he has been since the Avonlei arrived, same as he—”

  A stentorian voice boomed from the parlor. “That’s enough, Molly. Show them in.”

  She winced. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she whispered, shaking the duster at Nathan. Molly smiled suddenly. “Ah, but it’s good to have you back, Nath.” She pushed open the door a little wider and ushered Nathan and Lydia into the parlor.

  Mad Irish was a robust man in his fifty-eighth year. At first glance he was not a handsome man, but there was something about him that commanded a second look and then a third, and finally caused one to revise the first opinion. There was a certain ruggedness to his features that was attractive to women and forbidding to men. His dark blue eyes were set wide and he sported a thick iron gray mustache that covered part of his upper lip. He had a square, tight jaw and a chin that jutted forward. Broad-shouldered and thickly muscled, with a ruddy outdoor complexion, Mad Irish gave the impression of power and strength.

  He was sitting in a large wing chair turned halfway between the open door and the fireplace, a wool lap blanket covering his legs. He did not
rise upon their entrance, but held out his hand to Nathan instead.

  Nathan accepted the near bruising handshake from his employer without comment. He took a step backward from the chair and motioned Lydia to come to his side. He put an arm around her waist when she did so.

  “This is she, then,” Irish said, not waiting for introductions to be performed.

  Lydia felt herself being assessed by eyes that were very much like her own and found herself keeping back the hand she would have extended in any other circumstance. She held herself proudly, refusing to be intimidated by such an obviously rude man. It was difficult to believe Nathan had been taught anything in the way of good manners from Mad Irish. Her host’s silence went on so long that she came close to telling him just that.

  “She has the look of her mother about her,” Irish said, turning to Nathan. “Haughty.”

  “I was inclined to believe that was your influence, Irish.”

  There was a slight furrow between Lydia’s eyebrows as she looked to her husband. “Nathan? I don’t understand.” But she did. Or she was beginning to. She was coming to wakefulness faster and faster, aware suddenly of things she had not known before. The numbness in her mind was fading and the pain was hot, sharp, and intense.

  Irish frowned. “You haven’t told her?”

  “That was your condition, remember? She wasn’t to know.”

  “Nathan?” Lydia asked again. Her legs felt weak and she realized she was leaning more heavily against him. She closed her eyes briefly.

  “There’s no easy way to explain, Liddy,” he said quietly, staring hard at Mad Irish. “This fellow is being a stiff, rude bastard right now because he doesn’t know what to say to you, and that’s the truth of it. So it’s up to me to make the introductions.” And pay the consequences, he added silently, for surely he would be made to pay. “Mad Irish, this is Lydia Chadwick Hunter, my wife. Lydia, this is—”

  “Your da,” Irish interrupted. “I’m your father, Lydia.”

  Lydia stared at him blankly. There was a blinding white light behind her eyes. “Marcus O’Malley.” Someone said the name aloud but she wasn’t certain if it was her own voice or Nathan’s or Marcus himself. Lydia’s hands went to her head and she held them there, trying to keep back the pain, trying to force back the memories.

  Nathan caught her as she slipped to the floor in a dead faint.

  San Francisco

  Brigham Moore found his trousers at the foot of the bed and put them on. He eased into his shirt, careful not to pull at the bandages that still swathed his chest. Compounded by Brig’s battle with pneumonia, his bullet wound had been slow to heal.

  “You’ve got some of your color back,” Madeline said. She slipped into her silk wrapper and belted it securely around her slim waist. “Dare I hope that I put a little of it there?”

  He despised her coyness, her constant need for reassurance. He answered as expected. “You know you did. You, my dear Madeline, have the most amazing mouth.” His eyes grazed her and settled briefly on her lips, letting her know that he was thinking of the things she had just done to him. “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed?” he asked, glancing at the clock on the mantel. “Samuel will be here soon.”

  Madeline sashayed to the window and looked out. “He’s coming up from the stables now,” she said casually. “Better hurry if you don’t want him to find you with me.”

  “Bitch!” Brigham’s fingers flew over the buttons of his shirt. He yanked his suspenders over his shoulders. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? It’s what you’ve been trying to accomplish all along.”

  “Yes.” Madeline swiveled her head like a striking cobra. “Yes, if it means keeping you here. Why do you have to go after Lydia? She chose her own path. Let her suffer for it—the way I did.”

  “I don’t have time to argue this now,” he said tiredly. “We’ve been over it before. Let me handle Samuel first, then we’ll see.” He ducked into the hallway carrying his shoes, shutting the door on the glass figurine Madeline hurled at his head. He hurried to the guest bedroom he had been using since the beginning of his recuperation and finished dressing. He brushed his hair quickly and took a last critical look at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t tell he’d spent the last hour in Madeline’s bed, how could her husband?

  God, but the jealous bitch was going to ruin everything for him. Brig started downstairs. He’d have to think seriously about what he was going to do with her.

  Brig was waiting for Samuel in the study. He had a tumbler of Scotch poured for each of them. “I thought you might want this,” he said as Samuel entered. The older man was looking preoccupied and careworn of late. His hair had grown remarkably grayer since Lydia’s disappearance. Brigham knew that, like Madeline, Samuel did not trust him entirely. Unlike his wife, however, he suffered Brig’s presence in the house as a means to an end. In Madeline’s view Brig was an end to himself. She was miserable when she thought about him leaving.

  Samuel took the tumbler, thanked Brig shortly, and sat down. “George Campbell tells me that he’s booked passage for both of you on the Falworth.”

  “Yes, sir. Just this afternoon. We’ll be leaving in two days time.” Brigham sipped his drink. “You know, it’s not strictly necessary that George accompany me. I could do this just as well on my own.”

  “It’s more to the point that you’re accompanying my man,” Samuel said, speaking his mind plainly. “If it weren’t for the fact that you know precisely how to find Nathan Hunter, I would be sending George on his own. I don’t know where your truths end and your lies begin, or where you mix the two, but I do believe you’re telling the truth when you say no one will give Nathan Hunter up. You see, I knew a few of the Sydney Ducks from the old days, and I remember what a tight gang they were, quite willing to cut one another’s throats but just as unwilling to give up any one of their number.”

  “No, sir. You’re right. We’re not a very trusting lot.”

  A gross understatement, Samuel thought. He put down his drink and picked up his pipe. Opening a tin of sweet, dark tobacco, he began to pack the bowl. “Which is why you will be going with George Campbell. I don’t criticize George when I say honestly that he would meet a dozen brick walls in his search for Nathan and my daughter. If I thought differently I would have dispatched him weeks ago, long before you were well enough to travel. I didn’t—for one reason. I expect you to find Lydia and George to bring her home.”

  “I know what your expectations are,” Brigham said. “I share them.”

  “Yes,” Samuel said, giving Brig a hard look, unconvinced of the other man’s sincerity. “See that you do.”

  Brigham finished off his drink and sat down opposite Samuel, his long legs stretched in front of him. His handsome features were relaxed and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I have a score to settle with Nathan.”

  “Just so you don’t have one to settle with my daughter.”

  “She was an innocent pawn.”

  Samuel nodded. “O’Malley’s plotting again. Nathan’s bullet would have been better spent in Marcus’s chest than in yours.”

  “There were times I felt the same way. Like when that doctor brought me here from the hotel in his carriage. I swear Franklin found every blessed rut in the road between the Silver Lady and here.”

  “You were fortunate that Nathan sent Franklin to you at all. You could have bled to death in the room. It’s always intrigued me, though, that Franklin was instructed to bring you here.”

  “I suppose, since I saved your wife’s life in that quake, Nathan thought I’d get the best care here.”

  “His actions are altogether puzzling,” Samuel said thoughtfully. “You say he sent a note to Lydia, asking her to meet him. She goes and he attempts to abduct her. You find out about his plan, intervene, and end up with a bullet in the chest.”

  “That’s the jist of it. I couldn’t stop him from leaving with Lydia.”

  “I’m surprised she agreed to meet him at
all. I thought she made her feelings quite clear to the both of you when she tossed you out of her bedroom window.”

  That incident still rankled, but Brigham didn’t show it.

  “She did, Mr. Chadwick. At least to me she did. I had quite given up on Marcus’s mad wager. I even told Nathan it was a draw—we both lost. But Nath doesn’t give in so easily. You’ve seen the proof of that. Lydia made an enemy that night.”

  Samuel remembered Nathan saying almost those very words. At the time he thought Nathan was referring to Brigham. Now he had reason to understand how wrong he had been.

  “My mistake,” Brig went on, “was in thinking I could reason with him. I should have brought help with me. I was trying to avert embroiling your daughter in a scandal. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for her.”

  “She was fine when you saw her, though?” Samuel asked anxiously.

  Brig had told him so repeatedly, but the older man needed to hear it again. “She was fine. Frightened, but physically well. You must believe that Marcus never intended any harm should come to his daughter. He only wanted to see her.”

  Samuel snorted, puffing on his pipe a little harder. “You’re speaking of physical harm. Lydia could be hurt in a thousand other ways. Her note to me said she was eloping with Nathan.”

  “She was forced to write it, I’m sure. He meant that she should give the impression of willingness in a play for time. He had to be concerned that you would find them before he could leave the country.” Samuel had never seen the second note meant for him, the one written by Nathan that explained more of the situation than Brigham ever intended to explain. Nathan had meant his missive for Pei Ling’s hands and then Samuel’s, but Madeline intercepted it quite by accident. It had been destroyed long ago and she, perhaps, would have to carry its secrets to her grave.

  “He chose a good place to hide in the meantime,” Samuel said, sighing. He had been able to trace Lydia’s message back to the orphanage through the person who delivered it. By then Lydia and Nathan were gone and Father Patrick was unable to tell him anything, bound by his vows at first, then by a stroke that left him paralyzed and speechless. Thus, Samuel was dependent upon Brigham Moore for answers, a situation he approached cautiously and with some repugnance.