Lily's Leap (16 page)

His hand slipped to her breast, and he cupped it tenderly dropping his lips to her nipple and then he teased it with his tongue. She arched toward him, her knees buckling with weakness and desire. She grasped him tighter and moaned into his neck. She nibbled lightly on his earlobe and her tongue flicked over his ear. He growled deep in his throat and she thrilled at her ability to arouse him. Her muscles clenched deliciously deep inside her.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered as he lifted his face.

He closed his eyes breathing deeply for a moment. “Lily, I have to.” He placed one soft lingering kiss on her lips . “We have to, now because if we leave it a moment longer I will throw you on the ground and ravish you within an inch of your life.”

Lily laughed in delight and rested the palm of her hand flat against his chest as if to measure the frantic beat of his heart against her own. “I want you, Tom.”

An apologetic smile broke across his face and he shook his head slowly, “And I want you, too, Lily, more than you will ever know but until I can come to you a free man and ask for your hand in marriage, our wanting will have to be just that.” He pulled her shirt gently up over her shoulders and buttoned it as tenderly as he would for a child. “Let’s put an end to this adventure and turn to the rest of our lives.”

****

The remainder of their journey to Sydney was made in almost total silence except for the ever-present cicadas and kookaburras. The humidity after the rain coated Lily’s skin, covering it in a fine sheen of sweat; at least the riding was easy, something she was profoundly grateful for. She watched as the miles fell away and tried to be pleased they would make it to the docks in time.

Gone was the Tom of last night, in the cold harsh light of day he appeared to be somewhere else. She did not know where, somewhere she couldn’t reach. He was silent, taciturn speaking only to issue a terse command to Will or Jem. His dark eyes gaze scanned the road constantly. A bushranger waiting for a dose of his own medicine?

“The cicadas are noisy, aren’t they?” She announced loudly when his silence finally became too much.

“What would you like me to talk about?” he asked turning his face to her as if reading her mind.

“I’d like you to tell me about the strange collection of possessions you have stashed away at The Settler’s Arms.” She stared defiantly at him determined to get an answer. “And exactly who you are because nothing is making sense right now.”

“You wouldn’t want to know.”

His sullen response didn’t surprise her. The closer they got to Sydney the further away the carefree bushranger, her ardent lover of last night slipped and a different being emerged from the skin of the man she thought she’d come to know. And he was so very wrong. She wanted to know all there was about him especially after his declaration last night. A strange connection appeared to exist between him and her father and it sat like a heavy hard stone in her belly. “I do want to know Tom and I believe I have a right, especially it if it concerns Wordsworth.”

She looked across at him admiring the way his muscled body sat so comfortably astride his horse; the shadows playing across his rugged face made her heart contract. Of course she wanted to know everything about him, especially since he’d so successfully kidnapped her heart and soul. “Do you agree?”

“Oh, Lily.” The sigh of her name came from deep inside him, a great pit of pent-up emotion and passion trickling slowly to the surface. “Yes I agree. It’s not a tale I am proud of and even though I wish it otherwise I can do nothing to change it. Perhaps when you hear my story you might change your mind about me.” He made an effort to smile with a half-hearted grin and her heart ached for his pain.

“I doubt it Tom. I doubt it very strongly.” How could he believe that? She owed him a debt of gratitude not only for his support also for opening her eyes to feelings the like of which she had only dreamed.

“I did come to Australia courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government,” he said suddenly as if leaping into the fray. “But not in the way I allowed you to believe.”

She smiled at him nodding her head, thrilled. Deep in her heart of hearts she had known from the very first moment he was not the criminal he’d have her believe.

“When my father died my older brother inherited the title as was right and proper.”

“Title?” Her high-pitched squeaked surprised her.

“Yes title–it’s not worth getting excited about. The family fortunes are far from robust. When I came down from Oxford I had a degree in Mathematics and the two options my older brother gave me–the army or the church.” His derisive snort made Nero’s ears prick. “Neither of them appealed to me and he finally agreed to settle five hundred pounds on me on the condition I came to Australia and made my own way and never darkened the family doorstep again.”

Families, always families.
Lily shook her head. There were times when she believed it would have been preferable to be an orphan.

“Through the connections I had made at Oxford I managed to get an invitation to join the Surveyor General. I accepted a position as an assistant and I was sent to Newcastle to work marking the road from Newcastle to Wallis Plains, measuring reserves and grants. We worked steadily northwards until we reached the unsettled upper districts of the Hunter River.”

“That’s the area around Wordsworth.”

Tom grunted an acknowledgement. “I was a diligent pupil and I learned a lot. I became a skilled cartographer and surveyor and my services were in great demand.” His hollow laugh echoed across the road. “I even received a land grant for my troubles.”

Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle came together. His room at The Settler’s Arms flashed through Lily’s mind. The rolls and rolls of maps, the books, the compass, the chain and other instruments. Not a bushranger but a surveyor, an explorer. She reached up and took off her hat scratching her head where her hatband irritated the damp hair of her forehead. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “The title deeds, the ones George took, do they relate to your land grant?”

He nodded but his eyes were distant, seeing places and remembering things she could only guess at.

“What on earth are you doing on the road? Why aren’t you living on your property, a gentleman farmer, or even a politician? Surely you have a lot to offer the colony? Your knowledge, your maps?”

“Some people believed I had something to offer, however, it’s easy to make enemies especially when you threaten the privilege of others. After we mapped the Hunter we crossed the Liverpool Range to the plains. It was then I was accused of excessive spending and using my public position for private gain. I was called to stand trial.”

“Stand trial?” Did that make him a criminal? Surely he had the right to defend himself in a court of law as a free man. “What happened?”

“Something I’m not very proud of.”

She waited as the silence lengthened, dreading his next words.

“I ran.”

“You ran?” Relief flooded through her.

“I ran. After being used to the wide open spaces the prospect of being incarcerated on Norfolk Island or Van Diemen’s Land was more than I could stand. I took to the road. Jem and Will stuck by me and the rest as they say is history.”

“Not quite. Where is this land grant?”

“On the shores of the Hunter River, just north of Jerry’s Plains.”

“That’s–”

“Yes, that’s now part of Wordsworth.” His eyes were like jet-black chips as he turned to her and the stone in the pit of her stomach sank to her boots.

“The title deeds are to land my father claims squatter’s rights over.”

“Yes.”

“And you knew he wanted the deeds to the land.”

“Yes.”

His monosyllabic answers struck a chord. She had to ask the question even though she didn’t want the answer. “Did you know this Tom when you held us up at Payne’s Crossing?”

The silence stretched the length of the dusty road. Had it been more than a coincidence he was waiting for them as they travelled the last length of unpatrolled road? Goose bumps flecked her arms. Had he intended to use her to recoup his losses, get back what was rightfully his from her father? Was she simply a pawn in some complicated game of land rights that he and her father were playing?

He looked at her long and hard. “I think that’s enough of my history for now. We’re approaching Five Dock. None of it is important right now.”

“As you wish,” she said, the cold hand of reality wrapping around her heart. She needed time to think, time to clear her head. She resorted to counting the convict etched milestones and her mistakes.

By the time they passed Five Dock, she had made a decision and she needed facts. “What are you going to do now? You’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain. We’re in Sydney.”

“I’m coming with you.” he replied shortly. “You’ll need help getting the horses to the dock. We’ll go directly there.”

She turned away from him, her heart heavy despite her resolve. Once the horses were loaded there was nothing to keep him. She pulled out the winning purse from the racetrack out of her pocket.

“Here–catch.” The purse flew through the air and landed in his outstretched hand.

“What’s this for?”

“A down payment–payment for services rendered. I’ll arrange horses for the three of you. If you come to Wordsworth after Christmas I’ll have the rest of your money.”

“Lily, I don’t want your money.” He jiggled the purse in his hands. “The money was never for me. It would have gone to the parish, to the people in Wollombi. I have never taken anything for myself. It has always gone to the parish, my way of paying back the support I receive, my small way of trying to equalize the rank injustice rife in this wretched colony.”

“In that case come and get the rest after Christmas and you can give it to them, a late Christmas present.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand as she tried to control the sudden surge of anger flooding through her veins.

“I didn’t mean to be–”

“Contemptuous. Of course you did. But it is for the best. I know exactly where I stand. It’s agreed. The less said, the sooner we can go our separate ways.”

Chapter 9

Go our separate ways–he wouldn't have used exactly those words, then again he wouldn’t have said it at all. He was just doing what had to be done and soon it would be over. He had made his decision. He knew what he had to do and he would follow it through and wear the consequences.

If he had continued the conversation, told her about the corruption, the indignity, the hollow promises for the future, she might feel sorry for him. He didn’t want her sympathy or her pity. He didn’t want her to see him in a different light. It was better she got on with her life, filed away the last few days as an adventure she could tell her grandchildren on cold winter evenings around a blazing fire. He had nothing to offer her; a life on the road was no life for a woman–not even a woman like Lily, full of joy and adventure and more courage than he had ever seen. He couldn’t meet her expectations, he was not of her world and he had nothing to offer her. He’d left it all behind the day he sailed from Portsmouth. This last week had been nothing more than a halcyon dream, an interlude in his dirty and unpleasant reality.

Say nothing and move on. Get the job done. Leave.

And go where? Do what? Live on the road until he was too old to sit in the saddle? He shook his head. He’d work it out eventually. As they approached Sydney, Tom forced himself to concentrate on guiding the horses through the increasingly busy streets.

“We turn down here and the stables are a little further down on the left. There’ll be some paperwork to sign and after that we can leave everything in their hands.” Her voice held a steely quality he had never heard before, not even when she had raised her pistol to him.

They dismounted and Tom held Nero while he watched her retreating back, stiff and straight. She negotiated the path to a weatherboard cottage and raised her clenched fist to knock on the door. The stable master’s house, he realized. A ticket-of-leave man probably employed by Dungarven. Yet another ex-convict trying to make good, dependent on the whims of the squattocracy. His lip curled, the anger churning his stomach; thinking that way had caused him trouble in the past and undoubtedly it would again.

The door opened revealing a woman who was…not what he expected at all. Mature. Elegant. Tall, taller than Lily. Taller than him. She greeted Lily with a squeal of delight and enveloped her in an all-embracing hug. His heart clenched. Lily looked frail and fragile like a little bird. He wanted to cradle her against his chest and feel the rapid beat of her heart against his skin. He pushed his hat back on his head watching in amazement as the scene unfolded and Lily was held at arm’s length and inspected.