Dark Torment (37 page)

“Well, he did not.”

“Dominic . . .”

“I won’t go back, Sarah. And that’s my last word
on the subject.”

Sarah looked at him, sighed, and recognized defeat. “What
will you do? Where will you go?”

He met her eyes very steadily. “I mean to go back to
Ireland. It’s my home—though they sold my farm to pay the fine that
was levied at my trial. But I can start again, and I mean to.”

“But what about me? About—about us?” The
question burst forth in an agony of pain.

“You could come with me.” His eyes were suddenly very
blue as they looked into hers.

Sarah stared back at him, conscious of a rising anger. “As
your camp follower? Your easy woman? Your mistress?” Her lip curled.
“Do you really think . . . ?” She was working herself up into a
fine rage, fueled as much by her hurt at his refusal to consider returning to
Lowella with her, for her, as by his suggestion.

“As my wife,” he interrupted quietly. Sarah stared at
him. “I’m asking you to marry me, Sarah,” he said when she,
shocked into silence, didn’t reply.

His wife, she was thinking, his wife! Her heart leaped at the
idea. She would be Mrs. Dominic Gallagher. . . . Suddenly she faltered. Mrs.
Dominic Gallagher—the wife of a convict. In Australia, that would be to
put herself beyond the pale. Her family would disown her; she could never go
into society again; her children, their children, would be tainted. . . .

“I can’t marry you!” she blurted. His eyes
narrowed. She had not meant to say the words, at least not that way. She needed
more time to think. . . .

“Why not?” He wasn’t giving her more time. His
eyes were hard as they raked her face. “Why not, Sarah? Last night you
said you loved me.” His voice mocked her.

Still she couldn’t say anything, though she sought
desperately for words. He could not expect her to make a decision like that,
now, here, without giving it careful consideration. He could not be aware of
the enormity of what he was asking. If she married him, she would never be able
to go home again, never see Lowella. . . .

“Is it because you’re ashamed of me?” His eyes
scorched her. “I’m good enough to be your lover but not your
husband, is that it? Because I’m a
convict?
”

The words were savage. Sarah’s eyes widened on his face as
she sought desperately for a way to make him understand her position.

“Dominic, you don’t understand. . . .”

“The bloody hell I don’t!” He leaped to his
feet, roaring, and began to pull on his breeches and then his boots while she
watched helplessly. She stood, too, clad only in the blue shirt that left her
long, slim legs bare, reaching automatically for his arm. He shook her off. The
face he turned on her was so vicious that she recoiled.

“Dominic, if you’ll just listen!” She was
growing angry herself as he jerked on his shirt and began to throw some gear
together.

“I’ve listened enough to be sick of myself and you.
Stand aside, Sarah!”

His eyes flashed blue murder as she stepped in front of him, her
hands going out to catch at his arms. As he had done before, he shook her off,
then reached out to grasp her shoulders and lift her out of his way. That done,
he stalked past her toward where the horses were tethered, his saddle and other
gear over one arm.

“Dominic!” Angry or not, when he started to throw the
saddle on Kilkenny she ran after him. “Dominic, wait!”

He had tightened the girth and was slipping the bridle over
Kilkenny’s head. Untying the tether, he swung himself into the saddle.
Sarah stood watching him, one hand to her mouth, unable to understand how they
had gone so quickly from being tender lovers to bitter enemies.

“Go home, Sarah,” he told her harshly, raking her with
one last hard glare. Then he was riding away.

“Dominic . . .” But it was too late. He was gone.
Sarah stood there staring after him, feeling as though her heart would burst.
Her anger was fading, to be replaced by a sickening knot in the pit of her
stomach. She was very much afraid that she would never see him again. And she
knew that she had made a terrible mistake. No matter how her father, Lydia,
Liza, or their friends and neighbors, would view the union, she loved him and
suddenly realized that she wanted very much to be his wife. Why hadn’t
she come to that conclusion while he was waiting for her answer? It had been
such a surprise, of course. She had never expected him to suggest marriage. She
didn’t know what she had expected. That they would exist in their dream
world forever and ever . . .

She saw now, with the wisdom of hindsight, that even if Dominic
had agreed to return to Lowella with her, even if she had managed to persuade
her father not to punish him, it wouldn’t have worked. Dominic was a
proud man, almost too proud. He could never have tolerated the notion that she
owned him, when all was said and done. That she could, if she would, force her
will upon him with whips and chains. He would soon have hated her. And she
realized now that having Dominic hate her would break her heart. As would never
seeing him again. She lifted her hand to her eyes, staring in the direction he
had taken. He was already out of sight. Tears welled to her eyes and rolled
unheeded down her cheeks. And for the first time in years, Sarah succumbed to a
feminine weakness she had always despised. She sank to her knees, dropped her
head to her hands, and cried.

The ominous rumbling of thunder roused her at last from her
misery. She lifted her head, scrubbed at her swollen, tear-wet eyes with both
hands, and stood up. As she had always suspected, crying had not done a bit of
good. She still felt miserable, and Dominic was still gone, probably for good.
Added to that were a stuffy nose and stinging eyes. . . . Those eyes widened as
Sarah took in the sky. It was no longer a mass of soft, cottony gray rain
clouds, but a solid ceiling of near black. At its center, tongues of lightning
darted. It was going to be a bad one. Sarah knew that even before she became
attuned to the nervous nickering of the horse behind her. He sensed the
ferocity of the coming storm and was frightened.

Sarah did not stop even to gather up her gear. She quickly
finished dressing, threw her saddle on the horse’s back in record time,
bridled him, then released him from the tether—being careful to keep a
firm hold on his reins in case he should try to bolt—and swung into the
saddle. The breeches made it easy for her to mount unaided and to ride astride.
The horse—she was going to have to come up with a name for him, she
thought distractedly—threw up his head and whinnyed as she kicked him
into a canter. He was spooked, ready to take fright at the slightest
provocation. Sarah clung to the saddle with her knees, wary of the
beast’s reaction to the storm. Some horses went wild. . . .

She stayed near the creek, knowing that, upset as she was, it
would be fatally easy to let her mind wander so that she got lost in the bush.
There was time enough to go overland when she was safely on station land. She
was familiar enough with the station to chance it. The wind had changed
direction, beginning to blow from the east. It was hot and fierce, whipping her
hair, which she had not taken time to secure in a braid, around her head so
that the ends stung her when they struck her face. The thunder was closer now,
booming rather than rumbling. The black clouds roiled overhead, and the
searching arms of lightning were getting terrifyingly near. The horse beneath
her was whickering with fear, ready to bolt if she did not keep a firm grip on
the reins. And maybe even if she did. There was an acrid smell on the wind, a
smell that reminded her of something. . . . The night the stable burned. She
looked around, eyes widening as she saw an orange glow lighting up the dark sky
five or six miles behind her. A forest of dense tan and gray smoke was rising
to join the ceiling of clouds. Bush fire! They were words to strike terror into
the heart of any Australian, and they struck terror into Sarah’s heart
now. The tongues of lightning must have found their target in the dry trees and
brush, and as a result the whole plain was on fire!

Sarah abandoned the steady canter to which she had been holding
her horse and kicked him into a gallop. He spread out beneath her, as
frightened as she by the raging inferno that was consuming miles of brushland
at unbelievable speed. It would not take long for the flames to catch them up.
Worse, bush fires were unpredictable—they could start in a dozen spots at
once, and once started they moved fast. There could be more ahead of her, to
the east or west, anywhere. Even at Lowella . . . Lowella could be burned to
the ground. Sarah knew it, but still she headed for home. Her father would have
all hands marshaled to save Lowella—it would be marginally safer than
anywhere else, and it was where she wanted to be.

Her thoughts turned to Dominic. Would he recognize the
significance of the orange glow in the air and head for safety? He was not
familiar with the speed and ferocity of brush fires. But there was nothing she
could do to aid him, no way she could warn him, because she had no idea where
he was, so she tried to force all thoughts of him from her mind. Time enough to
dredge up bittersweet memories when she was safe . . . She thought of Dominic
trapped by a rushing outcropping of fire, surrounded. . . . Shuddering, she
banished the image from her mind. And rode on.

The smell was worse now, and smoke was beginning to swirl in
teasing little tendrils beneath her nose. There must be fire ahead of her as
well as behind her. Instinctively she turned the horse, heading for the creek.
It might be her only salvation.

The smoke was growing thicker, making Sarah’s eyes water and
her nostrils sting. The horse was stampeding now, running headlong for the
water. Sarah made no move to check him. She was terribly afraid that the fire
was dangerously close. . . .

She screamed as, without warning, a solitary gum to her left
exploded with a loud boom. The heat had been too much for the volatile sap. The
tree burned brightly, instantly consumed in flames, as the horse beneath her,
maddened with fear, screamed, too, and reared and bucked in a frantic effort to
escape. Sarah, her attention momentarily, disastrously distracted, felt herself
flying through the air. She landed nose first in a gorse bush, and immediately,
without even waiting to check for broken bones or other injuries, forced
herself to her feet. It would need only a single spark from the living torch
that had only seconds ago been a tree to set the brush alight. As she shook
herself off, she saw her horse disappearing in the distance. Whether he was
heading toward the fire she had no idea, but she thought not. In a situation
like this, a horse’s instincts were often better than a human’s.
She was on foot now, alone in the bush, and the bush was afire. There was no
time to take further stock of the situation. A loud boom made her jump as
another gum exploded behind her and burst immediately into flames. Thick smoke
poured from the burning trees toward the sky; tendrils oily from the burning
sap escaped to coil around her. Sarah coughed, choking. Showers of sparks were
raising tiny flickers of fire in the grass. . . .

Sarah ran for the creek as the flames spread. The water, she knew,
was her only hope. She thanked God that she was wearing breeches. A long,
trailing skirt, impossible to hold off the ground altogether, might well have
been the death of her. As it was, she might die anyway. Gum after gum was
noisily exploding, until, as she reached the water’s edge and cast one
last, scared look behind her, it seemed as though the whole world was in
flames.

She felt heat blistering her cheeks as she plunged into the creek
and waded out to the center, which came no higher than mid-thigh. Sparks were
swirling in the air around her as she sank to her knees, submerging herself up
to her neck. She could only pray that the smoke wouldn’t get too thick,
or the fire heat the water to boiling. She shuddered at the idea of being
boiled alive. . . .

The next thirty minutes, as the fire leaped the creek to rage
ferociously on each bank and groves of gums and eucalyptus burst noisily into
flames, seemed like as many hours. The water was crowded with animals that had
flocked to escape the blaze. Koalas, dingoes, kangaroos, and other marsupials
huddled in the creek along with snakes and hares, emus, kiwis, and other birds.
In this time of emergency, none threatened the others, or Sarah. She
didn’t even shiver when a reptile some fifteen feet long slithered
through the water right in front of her nose, closely followed by another of
its kind. They were intent only on escaping the fire.

The heat grew so intense that she felt as if it was scorching her
lungs. She held her head beneath the water for as long as she dared, surfacing
only to draw a quick breath of the hot, smoke-thick air through the soaking
tail of her shirt before submerging again. Sparks fell like rain to sizzle on
the surface of the water; on the banks, flames raced through grass and up trees
to leap for the sky.

The water was getting hotter and hotter. The animals restless
shifting indicated that the fire was reaching its peak. Would they live or
would they die? Sarah could only pray.

Then, as if her prayers were answered, a miracle happened. The
heavens opened as though a giant hand had ripped out its bottom, and deluges of
icy water descended to soak the earth. In minutes the fire was out. The earth
steamed in silent relief.

It was some little while later before the animals, one by one,
began to slink and waddle and hop from the river. Sarah followed cautiously on
unsteady legs. Her face was sore from the heat, and the ends of her hair were
singed. Her lungs ached with every breath she drew. Her throat and nostrils
were raw. She shivered with chill as rain poured over her already soaked body,
but after the deadly heat of the fire the cold was a welcome relief. She wanted
to cry, laugh, sing. She was glad to be alive.