Dark Torment (9 page)

“Let me go! Get down!” she cried, squirming futilely
in his hold. Her frantic movements only made the situation worse as she felt
the enveloping muscles of his arms and legs tighten to keep her in position.
Suddenly her throat went dry. Her struggles stilled abruptly.

“You prefer to walk back to the stable?” He sounded
totally unmoved by the way she was nestled into him, Sarah thought bitterly.
Which, when she thought about it, was a very good thing indeed.

“No!”

“Nor do I.” With that calm statement, he touched his
heels lightly to Max’s sides. Obediently the horse moved off.
Sarah’s attempts to hold herself ramrod straight and away from him went
for naught as she felt herself slipping again, and had to clutch at
Gallagher’s shirt to save herself. Beneath the soft linen she could feel
the solid wall of his chest. Hurriedly she released her grip, and immediately
began to slide. He obligingly tightened the arm he had wrapped around her
waist, seeming unaware of her agitation.

“You have to get down. At once! Do you hear me?” Her
voice was shrill. Her fingers clutched at the pommel for balance so that she
would not have to lean so closely against him. The only trouble was, she had
this insane
desire
to lean against him. A convict! The knowledge
horrified her.

“If you think that I’m going to walk for miles in this
infernal heat, just because you think you’re too good to suffer my
touch—” The hostility was back in his voice. Looking up at him,
taken aback to find his face so close above hers, she saw that his eyes were
narrowed and his mouth was set in a bitter line. Clearly, he had misinterpreted
the reason for her agitation—thank the Lord!—and her frantic
protests had injured his pride. Sarah cast her eyes to heaven. On top of
everything else, to find herself concerned about a convict’s pride!

“Gallagher,” she said carefully—or as carefully
as she could with his arms all around her and his chin grazing her hair and the
heat and scent of him enveloping her like a heady perfume. “Whether or
not I think I am ‘too good’ has nothing to do with it. I
don’t know how you are used to behaving—at least, I do,
you’re making it fairly obvious—but you’re in Australia now.
And, like it or not, you’re a convict. However much it may go against the
grain with you, you’re going to have to learn to keep to your place. And
not to—to—be so familiar.”

“Am I being familiar, Miss Sarah?” The harsh mockery
was back in his voice. Glancing up at him again, Sarah saw to her alarm that
white lines bracketed his mouth, and his eyes blazed sapphire with anger. They
locked with hers; she could feel her own eyes widening and her mouth dropping
open. The menace she had sensed in him before was back, too, but she so close
to him that it was far more intimidating.

“Not half as familiar as I could be,” he continued
savagely, pulling Max to a halt. Sarah was shocked to feel his hand tangling in
her hair, pulling her head even farther back so that it rested on his shoulder.
She was so surprised that she didn’t even struggle, merely stared up at
him with golden eyes grown huge with apprehension—and, though she refused
to acknowledge it, a furtive excitement. He returned her look for a moment, his
eyes and mouth hard, cruel. His hand, twisted in her hair, hurt her abominably;
with a tiny, inconsequent part of her mind Sarah thought that it would be a
mass of rat’s tails later. His eyes bored into hers for what seemed an
eternity, brightly blue, furious, beautiful. That black head tilted toward her,
descending. . . . Sarah could feel her heart begin to pound. Her throat went
dry; her eyes, strangely heavy, fluttered shut. He was going to kiss her, she
knew. She was suddenly, avidly curious about how he would kiss. . . .

“Let me go. You’re hurting me,” she ordered
tremulously, dragging her eyes back open with an effort and forcing her
too-pliant spine to stiffen. To her surprise, he did, his head jerking back as
though she had slapped him, his hand releasing its grip on her hair. At the
same time, the arm around her waist was lifted. Without his brawny strength to
hold her on the saddle, she felt herself slipping.

When, a moment later, they both heard the pounding of
horses’ hooves, she was safely on the ground, breathing erratically as
she smoothed her skirt and then attempted to do the same to her hair. Her eyes
were bright with wariness and other emotions she preferred not to analyze as
she stared at the man who slid agilely over Max’s haunches to stand a few
feet away. When Edward, with Percival close behind, came galloping into the
copse, faces tense with alarm, horses lathered from such hard riding in the
intense heat, Sarah had regained most of her aplomb. She turned to face them
with surface calm. Overhead, a kookaburra let loose with a burst of raucous
laughter, mocking her efforts.

“Sarah, my God, Sarah, are you all right? What did he do to
you?” Percival was off his horse in a flash, rifle in hand and pointed at
Gallagher, who looked back at him with a silent taunt. Sarah, taken by
surprise, gaped at Percival for a moment.

“Answer the man, daughter,” Edward advised,
dismounting in a more leisurely fashion. Sarah looked from her father to
Percival and back again, anger kindling in her eyes.

“If you mean Gallagher, nothing,” she said. That was
literally true, but what had almost happened—what she had almost
wanted
to happen—made her flush. She turned to Percival, and spoke sharply in an
effort to disguise her embarrassment. “For goodness’ sake, put that
rifle down. You’re being ridiculous.”

“You don’t look as if he did ‘nothing’ to
you,” her father pointed out in a neutral tone, his eyes surveying her.

Sarah, suddenly conscious of how she must look with her riding
skirt stained with earth and grass, her shirtwaist torn so that her chemise
peeped forth, and her hair tumbling in streaked-gold tangles to her waist, felt
herself flushing anew. Self-consciously she clutched the edges of her
shirtwaist together again—she was ashamed to remember that she had
forgotten all about the revealing tear during her exchanges with
Gallagher—and shook her hair back from her face as she met her
father’s eyes with a calm she did not feel.

“You’re right, he did not do ‘nothing,’
” Sarah said slowly. She met Gallagher’s eyes for a moment and saw
a faint wariness there. The moment was too brief to allow her to savor her
satisfaction in having disconcerted him. Small revenge for the unthinkable
feelings he had aroused in her. Percival turned to look at her, his expression
belligerent. The sharp click as he cocked the rifle reverberated in the still
air. “He very likely saved my life,” she finished quickly, spurred
by that ominous click. Percival wouldn’t need much of an excuse to shoot
Gallagher down like a dog, she suspected.

“How so?” her father asked, looking from her to
Gallagher and back again. While not as angry as Percival, Edward looked grim,
too. “Were you thrown? I wouldn’t have thought . . . But I’ll
grant you that Malahky was wild-eyed when he came running back to the
stable.”

“I’ve never seen you part company with a saddle in all
the years I’ve known you, Sa—Miss Sarah,” Percival
interjected harshly. “You’re the best damn—ah,
danged—female rider I’ve ever seen. Don’t let your modesty
betray you into protecting a convict.” He nodded once in
Gallagher’s direction. “It’s obvious that he attacked you.
That rip in your dress didn’t come from any fall. And look at his
face—he didn’t have that scratch on his cheek this morning.”

Sarah longed to give Percival a set-down he wouldn’t soon
forget for daring to question her, but she didn’t want to exacerbate his
anger at Gallagher. Just why she should feel that way, she wasn’t
certain; perhaps it was because the brief glimpses she had had of Gallagher
when he wasn’t angry or mocking her had shown her how humanly vulnerable
he could be. Or perhaps—dreadful thought!—it was because his
slightest touch had the unprecedented power to awaken her physical responses.
The notion was so appalling that she immediately banished it from her mind. No,
she assured herself, her motive was pure philanthropy. Of course it was!

“If you will give me the chance to speak, Mr. Percival, I
was about to tell you what ‘really happened.’ ” She raked
Percival with an icy stare, then turned to address her father, who was
regarding her closely. He stood a few feet away, idly holding his reins in one
hand while his horse stood with its head lowered, panting for breath.
“Really, Pa, surely you know me better than to think that my modesty, to
use Mr. Percival’s word, would prevent me from shouting it to the
rooftops if indeed Gallagher had offered me any kind of violence! Yes, I was
attacked—by a runaway convict, I think. He pulled me off Malahky and was
trying to drag me away into the brush when Gallagher intervened.
Gallagher’s cheek was hurt in the ensuing fight. You should thank him
instead of standing idly by while Mr. Percival threatens him with that rifle as
if he were rabid! I told you, he very likely saved my life. Certainly he saved
me from being mauled.”

Her father looked at her meditatively for a long moment, his
ginger-colored eyebrows knitting as he considered her words, then shifted his
gaze to Percival. “Put that rifle down, John.” Percival,
reluctantly, did as he was bidden. Edward’s eyes then moved on to
Gallagher. “I do indeed thank you for coming to my daughter’s
rescue—what is your name?—Gallagher?”

“Yes, sir.” If Sarah was surprised to hear the
respectful note in Gallagher’s voice, she hoped she managed to hide it.
At least the man was not stupid, as he would have been had he permitted his
pride to make an enemy of her father. “It was my pleasure, sir.”

“You . . .” Edward began, but Percival interrupted.

“And just what were you doing out here in the first
place?” Percival’s voice as he addressed Gallagher was sharp with
dislike. “I put you to work in the stable—and I don’t recall
giving you permission to go pleasure riding, especially on Mr. Markham’s
best horse.”

Gallagher’s eyes narrowed on the overseer. Sarah, seeing the
anger flash in their blue depths, hurried into speech before Gallagher could
condemn himself with his own words. Though why it mattered to her if he did,
she couldn’t have said; or if, just possibly, she could have hazarded a
guess, she refused to allow herself to do so.

“I asked him to accompany me. I believe my orders must take
precedence over yours, Mr. Percival?” To her father: “I remembered
about the convict uprising over at Brickton last month, and I suddenly felt
nervous about riding on my own. And very rightly, as it turned out.”

As Sarah was very seldom nervous of anything, and her father knew
it, she was not sure that this fabrication would be accepted without
skepticism. But, to her relief, it was.

“Yes.” Edward nodded. The heated flush in his cheeks
was starting to fade, but perspiration still streaked his forehead and darkened
his red hair. He had forgotten his hat, Sarah noted, or perhaps had lost it in
the rush to come to her aid. In either case, she suddenly thought he did not
look well.

“Let’s get back to the homestead, Pa. I’m hot
and tired and, as you can see, dirty.” If she suggested that concern for
his health prompted her, he would stubbornly stay out in the heat until
nightfall. Edward hated to be fussed over; he thought illness was womanish.

“Good idea. I want to get a party together to catch the man
who attacked you. Can’t allow a rogue like that to roam free. In the
meantime, Sarah, I don’t want you riding out alone. You take Gallagher
here with you anytime you’re further than shouting distance from the
homestead. Even walking. I’ll tell your sister and mother to do the same.
Understand?”

Sarah’s eyes widened slightly as she shot a quick,
involuntary glance at Gallagher. He was still standing beside Max, one hand on
the horse’s glistening black rump. Percival’s attention had
shifted; he was frowning at Edward. Sarah thought she was the only one to catch
the faint, taunting smile that twisted the corner of Gallagher’s mouth
and then was gone as quickly as it had come. She was sure she was the only one
to guess that half-smile’s significance. He was enjoying himself, the
swine, enjoying watching her trapped in the corner into which she had painted
herself with her lies on his behalf.

“Yes, Pa,” she murmured, inwardly vowing not to set so
much as a toe outside the boundary he had prescribed for her until the
scoundrel who had attacked her had been caught. Not even for the pleasure of
escaping the house for an occasional ride or walk would she put herself in the
position of having to endure Gallagher’s company. As she had discovered,
he could not be trusted to keep to the line; and she found his refusal to stay
in his place unsettling, to say the least.

“If I may say so, Mr. Markham, I don’t think Gallagher
is the right man to set to escorting the ladies, although I agree they do need
an escort. With your permission, I’ll undertake the chore myself.”

Edward snorted. “Don’t be daft, John. You know I need
you working the sheep. You can’t be spending your days trotting about
after the women like a pup on a leash.”

Percival pursed his lips. He wore a hat, Sarah saw, but it had not
kept his face from being burned a dark red by the sun. The angry color did
nothing to improve the appearance of his features, which, in such near
proximity to Gallagher’s chiseled good looks, barely escaped being ugly.
For the first time, Sarah noticed how thick Percival’s lips were.
Probably because she could not get out of her mind Gallagher’s long,
hard-looking mouth as it had descended toward hers.

“Still, there are any number of men I could set to the job
who would be preferable to this—one.” Percival eyed Gallagher with
open dislike. Gallagher’s face was bland as he met that look. Again,
Sarah had to admire his cleverness at dissembling so thoroughly before her
father. Edward would never guess that he had just given license to a fox to
mind his hens. “Mr. Markham, I think you must be forgetting the
circumstances under which we acquired him. The man’s a rogue himself.
He’s not to be trusted.”