Dark Torment (25 page)

“I’ll take care of it, Darby,” Dominic said
sharply, terminating the conversation. Sarah realized the man called Darby had
spun his words out simply so that he could ogle her longer. Before Darby could
launch another series of detailed instructions, Dominic wheeled the horse away,
heading toward where the men who were not on first watch had already built a
fire and were setting up billycans for tea.

“Steady,” Dominic said as he pulled up the horse and
Sarah swayed against him. She looked up at that, meeting his eyes briefly
before looking away over the dark plain.

“Can you get down?” he asked, sounding faintly
impatient as she sat there staring stonily away from him.

Sarah nodded once, the motion jerky, and slid awkwardly from the
saddle. To her humiliation, when her feet touched the ground her legs refused
to support her. After nearly twenty-four hours of nonstop riding, her knees
were like quivering masses of jelly. They folded beneath her, depositing her in
a crumpled sitting position on the ground. Dominic looked down at her briefly,
then swung one long leg over the saddle and dismounted.

“All right?” he asked, his expression hooded as he
looked at her.

“Fine,” Sarah answered curtly, belying her exhausted
posture. To her annoyance, her voice was a hoarse croak. To make up for its
weakness, she glared at him.

He ignored her, reaching beneath the horse to unhitch the girth
and then slide the saddle and blanket from the animal’s back. He dropped
the gear near the base of a thick gray gum a little distance away, then
returned to slip off the bridle and tether the horse to the hitching line to
which three of the other horses were already tied. The animals greeted one
another with soft nickers, while Dominic turned back to Sarah.

“What’s his name, anyway?” she asked idly,
indicating the Appaloosa, which looked to be far too fine an animal to belong
to bushrangers. More than likely stolen, she thought, and sniffed.

“I call him Kilkenny,” he said, eying her as if he
could not place what had prompted that disdainful sniff.

“Why?” Sarah asked, looking up at him, suddenly
interested.

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then
he shrugged, as if he had decided to humor her. “Because when I first saw
him, when he was rearing and lunging and refusing to let anyone near him, he
reminded me of a place called Kilkenny in Ireland: wild and beautiful, and
dangerous to the unwary.”

“Kilkenny,” Sarah repeated softly, suddenly liking the
name. “Is that where you’re from?”

“Near enough,” he answered shortly, and terminated the
conversation by reaching down a hand to haul her to her feet. With his arm
around her, he led her toward the campfire. Sarah took one look at the
unyielding lines of his profile and said nothing further.

They each ate a plate of beans flavored with a bit of bacon and
drank strong, bitter tea from tin cups. Each man carried his own utensils,
which meant that Sarah had to share Dominic’s. She found it strangely
unsettling to eat from his plate, although she had sole use of his spoon, while
he ate with the knife he carried at his belt—with considerable skill, she
noted with surprise, watching him expertly scoop beans onto the long flat
blade. Sharing his cup was worse; she went to considerable effort to avoid
placing her lips in the spot where his had been. She felt that he noticed her
avoidance, but he said nothing about it. When supper was finished, he left her
sitting by the fire while he went to rinse the utensils in the creek. Left
alone, Sarah slowly became aware of the thickening silence around her. Looking
up from the cup of tea she was nursing, she was alarmed to find herself the
cynosure of three pairs of male eyes.

Sarah hastily lowered her eyes back to her cup, wishing vainly
that the hat that dangled from its string down her back was still atop her head
so that its brim could shield her face from prying eyes. But she was aware of
the man who got slowly to his feet and began walking around the fire toward
where she sat with her back against a fallen tree. As she felt rather than saw
his approach, all her senses leaped in alarm. Where was Dominic? she wondered
frantically, then wondered at herself. What made her think that he would
protect her?

“Walll, little sheila, you gonna set over here by your
lonesome all night? Me and the boys has been lookin’ forward all day to
makin’ your better acquaintance.”

Sarah said nothing for a moment, but as the booted feet planted
firmly in front of her showed no sign of moving away, she lifted her eyes
slowly up the dusty, water-splotched herder’s garb to his face. It was
broad and seamed with years of exposure to the sun, homely but not actually
repulsive as had been the face of the man called Darby. A bushy red beard
obscured his mouth and jaw; his nose was bulbous, his eyes a pale, sun-faded
blue, beneath a fringe of hair the same shade as his beard.

“Pray excuse me. I am very tired.” The words were as
cool and steady as she could make them. Her eyes met his without, she hoped,
any sign of the fear that was making her heart palpitate.

“Ehhh, listen to her talk! We got ourselves a lady,”
he chortled to the men across the fire, then turned back to Sarah.
“That’s all right, little sheila. The kind of acquaintance we has
in mind involves a lot of laying—flat on your back.” He chuckled
again at Sarah’s appalled expression, then reached out to take a clumsy
grip on her arm. “Come on, sheila. There’s four of us for now, and
four more for later, so you’d best be gettin’ a move on. Else you
won’t be gettin’ no sleep at all tonight.”

Sarah stiffened, all her muscles bracing for a fight to the death.
She would not submit to these—these animals! But before she could do
anything, Dominic’s tall form materialized out of the darkness. He
strolled toward her with infuriating unconcern, his head cocked a little to one
side as he took in the situation. Sarah felt temper at his nonchalance begin to
churn in her veins—until she noted the long rifle cradled negligently in
his arm.

“Now, Minger, the lady doesn’t look too excited about
the prospect of sharing a bedroll with the three of you. Maybe somebody told
her about your fleas.”

Minger, who had been scratching at his beard, stopped, looking
self-conscious. Across the fire, the other three roared with laughter. Dominic
himself was grinning as Minger glared at him.

“Dammit, Gallagher, we saved your hide. Are you gonna stand
between us and a little fun? We won’t hurt the lady none. She won’t
be nothin' more than a little sore, come mornin’.”

“But what about your fleas, Minger?” Dominic prodded
gently, coming to a halt beside Sarah. She stood up, moving close to his side.
He didn’t so much as look at her, but his solid presence beside her was
immensely reassuring. “You can’t expect me to share a horse
tomorrow with a lady infected with your fleas.”

More guffaws from the men who watched and listened with increasing
enjoyment from the other side of the fire made Minger’s face redden until
it was almost the color of his beard.

“Sheila can share my horse,” he muttered truculently.

“Now there’s an idea,” Gallagher said with
seeming approval. “But maybe we’d better ask the lady her
preference. What about it, sheila?”

The mocking way he called her sheila—a too-familiar
Australian name for any young female—made her long to kick him in the
shin, but prudence kept her feet planted firmly at her side. She looked
up—she didn’t think she’d ever get used to having to bend her
neck so far to look into a man’s face—and met his gaze. His eyes
were sending her a message. Be careful, they said. Play it light.

“Why, I thank you for your kind offer, Mr. Minger.”
Sarah smiled politely at the perspiring man who was only a couple of inches
above her own height. “But I’m deathly allergic to fleas. So I
guess I’ll just have to forgo the pleasure of riding with such a handsome
man in favor of Mr. Gallagher here. He may not be as good to look at, but he
won’t make me itch, either.”

The men across the fire roared again at her response. Minger eyed
her, then Dominic, his face growing even redder. For a moment the issue hung in
the balance. Then he joined rather halfheartedly in his mates’ chuckles
and retreated.

“Very good,” Dominic whispered in her ear when Minger
was once again on the other side of the fire, parrying the inevitable jokes
with what grace he could muster. “I didn’t know you had a sense of
humor,
Miss
Sarah. Surprising, all the talents you manage to hide
under that old-maid exterior.”

“I am not an old maid!” Sarah snapped without
thinking, stung by the slur. He looked down at her, smiling suddenly, a very
charming smile such as she had never before seen him wear. It made his blue
eyes twinkle in the handsome, sun-baked bronze of his face; his mouth tilted up
lopsidedly, while a lone dimple creased his right cheek. Sarah stared, dazzled.

“No, you’re not, are you,” he said, his hand
coming up to tug unexpectedly at a tangled lock of her hair. “Like the
proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, you merely pretend to be. When
something happens to shake you out of your prim ways, you become quite a
woman.”

Sarah could find nothing to say to this, which was, she thought,
in the nature of a compliment. But maybe not. He might have some ulterior
meaning that she, in her naïveté, could not even guess at. He might
even be alluding to that night when he had taken her virginity. . . . He must
have read her thoughts in the golden eyes that she had fastened on his, and
made his own associations, because abruptly his face hardened as his smile
vanished.

“Come with me.” He turned his back, speaking over his
shoulder as he walked away from her. “I think it’s best if we let
our friends cool down a little.” He nodded toward the trio who were now
swigging rum as they swapped stories and stared into the flickering fire. Sarah
quickly fell into step behind him. She didn’t want to be left on her own
with them again. Next time, Dominic might not appear so fortuitously—or
he might take it into his head not to intervene.

“How did you get hooked up with them, anyway?” she
asked, hurrying to catch up with him. His long stride was carrying him rapidly
into the darkness of the denser part of the gum grove.

“Sorry they saved my life?” The snarl was ugly. He
didn’t even look at her as he continued his rapid pace. Sarah winced,
sorry that she had asked the question. It had inevitably reminded him of her
supposed perfidy—if he had needed reminding.

“Not at all,” she answered stiffly.

His eyes gleamed in the darkness as he turned his head to look at
her. “I stumbled upon their camp about three days after I managed to
escape from your father’s idea of vengeance. They were getting ready to
ride on, and I was half-dead. I think they would have left me to die if they
hadn’t realized that I had come from the general direction of Lowella.
They asked me if that was where I was from, and when I answered a cautious yes,
they took one look at my back and guessed the rest—or the important
parts, anyway. They offered to give me a horse and let me ride with them, on
one condition: that I help them plan a raid on your father’s sheep. Not
having any particular love for your home, I accepted. And here I am.”

“You helped them set fire to the barns, and the
stable—do you know that some of the horses died in that fire? Mrs. Abbott
and I were the only ones left to rescue them, and we couldn’t get them
all out. You killed them, and stole our sheep, and sent a mob to attack the
homestead!” Sarah’s voice was shaky by the time she finished her
accusations.

He shrugged, looking faintly satisfied at her impotent anger.
“I did what I had to to stay alive. They would have raided Lowella with
or without my help, in any case. Besides, why should you expect any different?
You
did your damnedest to have me killed.”

“I did not!”

“Don’t lie to me, Sarah. I don’t like it.”

“I—” She broke off abruptly. He had stopped, and
was in the process of unbuttoning the few buttons that remained closed on his
shirt. “What are you doing?”

He smiled tauntingly at the horror in her voice. “What does
it look like? I’m taking off my clothes. So are you. Starting now.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Sarah. Strip.”

“I will not! Will you
stop
?”

He had removed his shirt and tossed it over a nearby branch.
Hopping from one foot to the other, he pulled off his boots and set them aside.
Then his hand moved to the fastenings of his breeches. Sarah whirled so that
her back was to him, closing her eyes tightly in horror. She would have run
away, but his arm sliding around her waist stopped her.

“Do you remember the little discussion we had earlier today,
Sarah?” He was close behind her, bending down to whisper in her ear.
Sarah quivered and tried to pull free of him, but he held her fast. “When
I told you that you were going to do just exactly what I said, when I said? I
meant it. So take off your clothes. Now.”

“No!”

“If you don’t—if you don’t . . .”
His voice was silky now, his breath warm against her ear. “I’ll do
nothing, Sarah, just like I promised. I’ll hand you over to Minger and
the others and just walk away. It’s your choice.” She made a single
abortive movement, and his arm tightened fractionally around her waist.
“And don’t try to get out of this by running, Sarah. I’ll
just fetch you back.”

Sarah said nothing, merely stood there with her eyes tightly
closed and her arms wrapped around her body. What could she do? She had no
doubt that the swine meant every word he said. He
would
turn her over
to Minger without a qualm, no doubt feeling that multiple rape was scant return
for what she supposedly had done to him. But almost as unthinkable was the
alternative—letting Dominic use her body in that animalistic way he had
once before. Because of course that was why he wanted her to take off her
clothes. There could be no other reason. Against her will, the memory of the
glorious feelings he had coaxed from her body surfaced from the place where she
had thought it safely locked away. If she was honest, a tiny voice whispered,
she would admit that being “forced” to experience his particular
kind of ecstasy again would be, in a vast understatement, no hardship.
No!
her mind asserted vehemently, even as her body began to react to the thought.
She shuddered inwardly. She could not so demean herself again.