Dark Torment (13 page)

Since then, she had spoken to him as little as possible, and then
only to assign him to some task or another. She had kept her words brief, her
manner cool. His replies had been equally brief, and entirely proper—too
proper: “Yes, Miss Sarah; No, Miss Sarah,” while his lilting Irish
voice mocked her and his eyes seemed to laugh.

Maddened, Sarah knew that her only recourse was to go to her
father and tell him everything that had transpired between Gallagher and
herself, starting with his appalling insolence and ending with his constant
refusal to recognize and keep to his place. The trouble with that was that she
would have to reveal everything, including that shameful kiss. And that she
could not bring herself to do.

* * *

The guests began to arrive the day before the ball. Because of the
distances between homesteads, some would stay for two or three nights. Everyone
would stay at least the night of the ball. Sarah was glad when Tom and Mary
Eaton and their three strapping sons arrived, followed shortly by Amos
McClintock and his only child, his daughter, Chloe. The single men would share
the convicts’ bunkhouse, which had been cleaned and furbished especially
for the occasion, while the convicts made do with bedrolls in the sheep barns.
Tom and Mary Eaton had been given Sarah’s own sitting room, which she had
converted back to a bedchamber temporarily. Chloe, who was one of Liza’s
particular friends, would share with Liza, as would Katy Armbruster when she
arrived. Sarah had moved out of her own room, which would serve for another of
the married couples among the guests, and up into the attic with Mrs. Abbott
and the maids. Supposedly, her reason was to make more room for their guests,
but really Sarah could not stand the idea of sharing her chamber with several
of the young ladies, which she would have to do if she remained. Nearly all of
them were closer to Liza’s age than to hers, and treated her with the
deference due a member of an older generation, combined with the almost
unconscious contempt accorded a woman already past marriageable age who had
failed to catch a husband. Sarah knew their attitude was not deliberate, but
still it hurt. She hated being reminded that she was an old maid, even if it
was the truth.

No sooner had the Eatons and the McClintocks been settled than
more guests began to arrive. They came in a steady stream throughout the day.
For the most part, they were bluff, hearty people, used to hardships and hard
travel in this country they had adopted for their own. The heat was a nuisance,
but no more. The distance was something one took in stride, even if it meant
camping out under the stars for a night or two on the way. Not all were
wealthy, though most were well enough to pass. All were graziers, and all,
without exception, were staunchly exclusionist. Looking at them, separately and
as a group, Sarah shuddered to think how they would titter if they knew that
she was caught in the throes of a devastating sexual attraction to a convict.

With guests on hand, Lydia bestirred herself to act as hostess. It
was a role she thoroughly enjoyed, sitting in the sparkling parlor that Sarah
and the maids had refurbished from floor to ceiling, dispensing tea from the
ornate silver service that Sarah had spent hours polishing because the servants
were busy with other tasks, making light, witty conversation so that the guests
remarked to one another how very charming the second Mrs. Markham was. And
beautiful, too. Liza had had a new ball dress for the occasion; Lydia had
ordered a whole new wardrobe. Every time Sarah saw her, resplendent in green
satin or orange taffeta, she winced, thinking of Lowella’s depleted
coffers. With the money that had been spent on clothes, food, drink, and
renewed hangings and furnishings and linens—the list was
endless—for this one occasion, the sheep could have been kept in grain
for a year.

With the house full, Sarah had less time to think of Gallagher,
for which she was thankful. Percival had sent him back to the stables while
there were so many guests about, and Sarah didn’t even have to see him.
Which was a relief. When he had been constantly about the house, she had never
felt comfortable. She always had the feeling that, even if he was out of sight,
he was somehow watching her.

She was surprised, therefore, the day before the ball, to hear his
voice as he greeted Mrs. Abbott. Sarah was in the small pantry off the kitchen,
checking to see that they had enough jams and jellies and other dainties on
hand to feed fifty-odd people determined to have a rollicking good time at
Lowella’s expense. Mrs. Abbott was in the kitchen, frantically trying to
save Liza’s birthday cake, which was supposed to be seventeen tiers tall.
Two of the layers had failed to rise, and Mrs. Abbott was in despair. Lydia had
been most insistent on having a tier for every year of Liza’s age.

Sarah stopped what she was doing and stood motionless for what
must have been the first time in a week as she heard Gallagher’s voice.
Then she heard his footsteps approaching, and became suddenly very busy again.

“I need to have a word with you.” His voice came from
directly behind her, deep and low and full of the lilt that made it different
from any other she had ever heard.

“Yes?” she said, turning slowly to face him. Reluctant
to do it, she nevertheless made her eyes meet his. Their blueness startled her;
she always thought that they could not possibly be as blue as she remembered,
and they were always bluer. He was frowning slightly as he stood in the door of
the pantry, his head brushing the top of the doorjamb and his big body
completely blocking her exit. He was clad in the loose white shirt and snug
black breeches that were standard attire for all the convicts on Lowella.

“I overheard some of your guests getting up a race for this
afternoon. They mean to put Max with one of the dunderheads up against another
boy with a new horse that he says is the fastest thing for a hundred miles
around. It’s too damn hot: they’ll kill those horses. I want to
stop it when they come for Max, but I don’t have the authority. I need
your permission.”

He was looking at her very steadily. Sarah had to fight the
impulse to let her eyes drop away from his. It was very, very important that he
not guess how nervous she was in his presence.

“Why come to me? Why not my father, or Mr. Percival?”

“Mr. Percival has taken a group of the men shooting. Your
father is off somewhere with another group of men showing them his beloved
sheep.”

“Oh.” She dared to look away from him for a moment. It
was ridiculous, the way she had to fight to keep her eyes from wandering from
his face to his body. That tall, strong body that had felt so hard pressed
against hers . . . “Of course you have my permission. You’re right:
it’s far too hot for a race.”

“Thank you.” He inclined his head and turned as if to
go. Sarah was surprised at how much she hated to see the back of him. Then he
looked at her over his shoulder and gave a mocking grin. “You have flour
on your nose. Miss Sarah.” She gaped at him, astonished at his sudden
reversion to his former manner, while her hand flew to her nose. His eyes raked
her once, and then he was gone, his booted feet making noises on the stone
floor of the kitchen as he let himself out the back door.

* * *

The day of the ball dawned as hot and dry as the six weeks
preceding it. Sarah, in the attic, which was hotter by several degrees than the
lower floors, had slept with her window open; the first thing she did upon
arising was to pull back the insect netting shrouding it and lean out, hoping
for a breath of cooler air. The hope was futile, of course. The air outside was
just as stuffy as the air within.

The windmill groaned in the distance, protesting wearily at the
impossibility of its task. Hot gusts of wind blowing down from the mountains to
the north kept the paddles turning sluggishly. When the winds ceased, as they
inevitably did, Percival had rigged up some sort of contraption with ropes and
a wheel, and mules to turn the wheel, that got the windmill going again.
Without the windmill, there would be no water for the house and orchards. And
probably no water for the horses. Edward was perfectly capable of refusing
every creature on the place, except for his sheep, a drop of water if it got
scarce enough.

The guests were still sleeping, of course—most of the men,
especially, got too few chances to sleep in at home—but the aborigines
were already in the orchard, crooning their native songs as they picked insects
from the leaves before the day grew too hot. Mrs. Abbott was in the garden,
harvesting the vegetables she would need to feed the crowd of guests for the
day. Tess was there with her, digging industriously at the potato hills. Sarah
started to call to them, but just at that moment a man strode from the stables
toward the house. Gallagher. Sarah watched, fascinated at the way the already
bright sun picked up shimmering blue highlights in the ebony waves of his hair,
at the broadness of his shoulders and narrowness of his hips in comparison, and
at the length of his stride as his long legs ate up the short distance. She
heard the lilt in his voice as he greeted Mrs. Abbott and Tess, and heard the
affection in Mrs. Abbott’s answer as she straightened away from the rows
of vegetables and urged him to come into the house for a bite of breakfast
before anyone else was up. Mrs. Abbott knew as well as Sarah did that no
convicts ever ate in the house; her invitation was a flagrant violation of one
of Edward’s unspoken but universally understood rules. But Sarah would
not reprimand Mrs. Abbott for her transgression. Despite the weight Gallagher
had gained since she had first seen him on the convict ship, and despite the
breadth of his shoulders and the hardness of his muscles, he was still too
thin. He needed feeding up.

Mrs. Abbott was already inside the house, Gallagher a few paces
behind her, when Sarah started to draw her head back inside. She had meant to
go straight down; now she would have to give Mrs. Abbott time to feed Gallagher
and get him out of the house first, or else, for appearances’ sake, she
would have to scold the housekeeper after all. Her head came into hard, painful
contact with the windowsill. Sarah cried out automatically, clapping a hand to
the injured spot and rubbing tenderly. Three stories below, Gallagher looked
up. His eyes locked with hers for a long moment, then moved swiftly over every
part of her that he could see, from the childish twin plaits that kept her hair
tidy while she slept, to the expanse of skin left bare by the skimpy cotton
chemise that she had worn in preference to a nightgown because of the heat.
Sarah crimsoned and immediately withdrew back inside the window. But not before
he had given her one of his nasty, mocking smiles.

For the rest of the day she burned with embarrassment whenever she
thought of that incident. And, as she attended to the myriad last-minute tasks
that were crucial to the evening’s success, she thought of it with
maddening frequency. When she directed the maids to give the front parlors a
final sweeping and dusting, it was at the forefront of her mind. When she
helped Mrs. Abbott peel the mountain of potatoes that would be made into potato
cakes for that night’s birthday feast, it hovered beneath the light
conversation she was exchanging with the housekeeper. The terrible thing about
it, she admitted to herself, was that, while she did not like the idea of
Gallagher seeing her in such dishabille, it was not the impropriety of it that
bothered her most: it was the knowledge of how unprepossessing she must have
looked with her infuriatingly straight hair hanging over the windowsill in
braids as thick as his wrist, and her lack of feminine curves readily apparent
in the chemise that did nothing to conceal her shape. If he had found her
unappealing before, what must he think of her now? And this, to her fury, was
the thought that aroused her blushes.

Liza and Lydia, and, for that matter, nearly all the female guests
except old Mrs. Grainger, spent the day in their rooms, resting up for the
evening’s festivities. Mrs. Grainger, a feisty old lady whose husband had
been one of the first white men in this part of Australia, could not be left to
her own devices. So Sarah, feeling duty-bound, joined her on the front porch,
where she listened as patiently as she could to the old woman’s
reminiscences, which at any other time would have been fascinating. Mrs.
Grainger’s husband, John, now long deceased, had come to Australia in
1770 on the HMS
Endeavour
under the captainship of Lieutenant James
Cook. Her tales of those early pioneering days were vivid, and occasionally
spiced with expressions not often heard on the lips of ladies, but which Mrs.
Grainger had culled from the vocabulary of her seafaring husband. By the time
Sarah was able diplomatically to suggest that it was time that both ladies
start dressing for the evening, she was torn between scandalized laughter and a
nagging headache that throbbed relentlessly at her temples. The knowledge that
she had still to see to a few last-minute details before she herself could
retire didn’t make her feel any better.

When Sarah at last made it up to the small, airless cubbyhole that
she had taken over for the duration of the guests’ stay, she just had
time for a quick wash and change of clothing before she had to be downstairs
again. Lydia’s hostessing did not extend to overseeing the final readying
of the food, the allocating of the staff, or the strategic placement of the
traveling musicians who had been engaged for the evening so that their music
could be heard to best advantage.

She was not able even to have a tub bath; the maids were being run
off their feet carrying hot water in cans up to the other women, and Sarah was
too hospitable to demand their attention for herself in preference to her
guests. And she was too tired to fetch the hot water herself. She contented
herself with stripping down to her skin and standing in a basin while she
washed herself with soap and a wet cloth. When she was finished, she caught up
the pitcher and sluiced the water remaining in it over her body to rinse away
the soapsuds. Then, feeling marginally refreshed, she dried herself.