Swift Runs The Heart (2 page)

Somehow she got out of that room, and no sooner was she safely out of sight than she snatched up her bundle of possessions from the corner by the kitchen chimney. She had not unpacked much, there being no place to store anything, so it took but a moment to stow what was left inside the blanket, roll it quickly about the contents, tie both ends and sling the whole over her shoulder.

She rushed through the back door, just in time to collide full-on with a rangy brown horse being urged on harshly by its owner.

The stranger of the kitchen!

Well, he owed her and no one could be as bad as the men behind her. “Stop!” she whispered.

“You leave me little choice but to do so,” he whispered back in an equally fraught tone. “Move aside. I have to get out of here.”

“Not without me, you don't.” One of her hands clung desperately to the horse's reins. “I will not be left to the mercies of that crew in there.”

He looked down, anger scarring the mobile features, and she could feel the assessment in his gaze. Then a frustrated grunt shook him, and a lean hand reached down for hers.

“If the only way I can make it safely out of the Dunstan is with you behind me, then hurry and get up here.”

It might not be gracious, but she accepted nonetheless, one scared glance over her shoulder as they quietly moved off through the canvas shanties proving to her relief that they were as yet unseen.

He kept his horse to a careful, steady pace, to all appearances just one more among the hordes of arriving miners who sought a place to pitch a tent and stake a claim. How he did it, Geraldine knew not; tension knotted her insides and the urge to dig her heels sharp into the horse's flank almost overpowered her.

At last, they had left the tents and the crowd behind them. He took to the barren hills behind the township, rough and untracked but he seemed to know where he was going. It was hard going though, the land too rugged to give her the relief of a speedy flight. Then they were out again, back on the track that had first brought her to the Dunstan field. Looking around, she soon saw they were much further along it than she had expected. There was still the odd party of miners flocking toward the township, but too few to be of concern and those too weary to do little more than raise their heads in a glance at the couple on the horse racing so hard away from the township.

It was a long while before he pulled the horse up and turned it off the road down a small gulley to the river bank. It was quiet spot, hidden by the bank from the road traffic above and with steep ridges blocking scrutiny on either side. He slid off the horse, holding out those lean hands of his to help her down. That mesmerising grin was back, a knowing light vibrating in the depths of his eyes.

A frisson of fear rippled through Geraldine. This was a very lonely place.

“A drink, my lady.” His eyes were definitely bright with amusement and she snatched away from the electric feel of his hands on her waist. “Ah,” he said. “Do I take it that introductions are in order? Miss…?”

“MacKenny. Geraldine MacKenny,” she replied, before she knew that the words were to come out, then raged at herself for such carelessness. Using her real name indeed! Her head shot up proudly.

“And you? Who might you be?”

“Mr Sebastian Deverill. Entirely at your service, I do assure you.”

“Mr Deverill. A pleasure,” she replied with automatic cordiality. Sebastian Deverill.
Bas
Deverill! The hand she had proffered with the courtesy came back to her keeping. Why did the man have to grin at her like that?

“MacRae and his mob may want to kill me, but I promise you I don't share their method of dealing with troublesome strays,” he said, and there was a definite touch of laughter in his voice. “Though I perfectly understand you questioning your actions in leaping so precipitately onto my horse. A pity it's too late to rectify that mistake. There is no way now that Black Jack will not believe you to have been working with me all along.”

“No!”

“So I'm stuck with you.” There was a decided air of resignation in his voice. “For to leave such a pretty piece of appallingly stupid femininity to her own devices is more than even I can contemplate. Mind you, there is always hope of a reward for my kindness.”

“I can cook, clean and sew,” she said stoutly. “Anything else you might be imagining can stay inside your head.”

“Ah. So I gather my first assumptions about you were wrong then? You really didn't know why Molly employed you so readily? Which is a sad waste of a beautiful woman such as yourself, I have to say.” She suddenly realised where his eyes were set, and hastily tugged her gown down over her bared ankles. It did nothing to quell the interested grin on his lips. He gave a quick lift of his shoulders before continuing. “As to what little you do offer me—I've survived the goldfields of Victoria, Tuapeka and now the Dunstan without domestic staff. I can manage sufficient cooking, cleaning and sewing to get by. In case you haven't noticed, the Dunstan is not Mayfair and my meagre skills are quite adequate for the company I keep.”

“Mayfair?”

“London,” he explained. “You have not visited that fair city, obviously.”

“No,” she said, hating the monosyllabic answers that were all she seemed able to summon. She shook herself, taking an unconscious step back from the uncomfortable blaze of energy he engendered. She squared her shoulders purposefully.

“Where to now?” she said in a firm voice.

“Ah. Now, there you have me. I know where I was intending to go, but it is no place for a lady.”

“That's for me to decide. Can Black Jack find us there?”

“It's unlikely.”

“Then where is this place?”

“That's my business, but it's isolated enough to keep me safe from Black Jack until some other problem makes him forget me. However, I usually take women to lonely places for one reason only and you tell me you are not about to oblige me in that. Or not without a parson's blessing, I guess you to mean, which is a noose I certainly have no plan to wear. So it's farewell. Dunedin is that way.” He pointed to the south track, heading to the Lower Dunstan. “You still have time to catch the ferry crossing the river, or find a bed for the night. You strike me as a resourceful woman, one who can find a ride back to the coast readily enough.”

It was so reasonable, drat the man. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog of fear that held her in thrall. She must think clearly. Furiously, she marshalled her arguments, all the while keeping one hand held tightly to the stirrup of her rescuer's saddle.

Could this be the end of her adventure? Was there really no choice but to go tamely home again? A grim frown flitted across her face as her eyes stared at the horizon, caught up in memories of past months. She ignored the quirky twist of interest in the eyes of the stranger.

What was there at home for her? A stepmother who resented and despised her; a home in exile with the widowed aunt from whom she had just escaped, a woman who viewed Geraldine as a holy mission in life and was intent on driving out the devil of rebelliousness she saw blackening Geraldine's soul; and a father who loved her dearly, but had come to a point in his life where he sought peace first and his daughter's happiness second.

No, that was unfair. Her father had loved her late mother deeply, but that did not mean he understood the spirit that drove her daughter. She was back to the same dreary dilemma that had driven her to the goldfields in the first place.

If she turned back now, she had two choices: the living death of her aunt's house in Dunedin, or home to her father's new run in Canterbury, to be forced to stand aside and watch as her stepmother drove her father to sell up everything he held dear, including the remote land of her earliest years. Only then could she truly make him settle into the narrow respectability of the Christchurch landed gentry his second wife craved so ardently.

Her eyes looked down the years ahead, and her head shook. The denial was automatic. She had tasted liberty too briefly and was not about to lose it. Not to Black Jack MacRae, and certainly not to this man who had ruined her hard-won escape. She looked up again, and a sudden gust of anger blew away the gloom. The man was laughing at her! “You said something about a drink,” she said curtly. “Water will do nicely, thank you.”

His shoulders shook harder, but he bowed, gently tugging her hand off the stirrup.

“The river is this way,” he said, and a decided ripple rang through his words.

Geraldine chose to ignore it. They had stopped by one of the rare, quiet beaches on the banks of the Molyneux, small slivers of peace giving respite from the ferocious, swirling waters of the mighty river of gold. Miners sought out such places, sifting the fine gravels for the gold deposits in them. The river was beginning to fall after the swollen floods of spring and more such places were becoming exposed. As yet, none of the thousands flocking to the fields had found this spot and they had it to themselves.

Carefully, she picked her way down the loose stones on the bank, stooping at the river's edge to lift a handful of icy water to her mouth. Her thirst quenched, she stood by, watching first the man, then his horse copy her action, noisily slurping at the water.

She looked up from her idle survey of the horse, to find him studying her.

“You may be a lady, but you're not drawing room bred.” he said.

“No.”

He waited.

“I was born in the colony,” was all she would add. He studied her further, but at her continued silence, he finally gave a quick flourish of a bow, the dratted grin back again.

“So I will not have to escort you back to Dunedin?”

She shook her head. “I made it here safely; I can manage fine.”

“An innocent woman on her own. I have been wondering how you achieved that.”

She blushed. “I was in disguise.”

He waited, with a look of supreme enjoyment.

“I dressed as a youth, if you must know.” She had a ridiculous urge to stamp her foot in frustration, even more so when he bent over with a great gust of laughter.

“Sweetheart, there is
nothing
boyish about you.” His hand lifted, gently grasped her chin and lifted her face to study, his fingers lightly stroking the curve of her cheek. “Absolutely nothing,” he said again, his voice husky. It touched something deep inside her, something she had never felt before, and she ducked her head away from that too-close scrutiny. She took a defensive step back.

“It was a very good disguise,” she protested. One she fully intended to embrace once this man left her alone. The thick jacket and baggy boys drill trousers had left her a shapeless mass, and the too-big wide awake hat had successfully enveloped the troublesome fall of hair. It had fooled those she met—whatever this man thought.

She would fool them again, too, but where to go? That was the problem—or was it?

It was her turn to study him now, seeing the strength in his fine bones and thinking of the inbred courtesy of his actions, regardless of what he might say. Could she trust him? Did she have any choice? A determined spur lit her heart and she reached for the reins.

“Oh, no you don't,” he protested, grabbing for them as well.

“You owe me,” she shot back.

“For rescuing you from one of the most dangerous men on the Dunstan Field?”

“It's your fault I came to his attention,” she pointed out. “I'm coming with you. It's you who are in my debt, not the other way round, so you can fix this mess you landed me in. After that, my hope is never to see you again.”

Suddenly Geraldine lunged onto the horse, swinging herself quickly into the saddle. “I'm off. You coming?”

“Why, you little vixen,” and he grabbed at the bridle, pulling himself up to lodge firmly behind her. “All right, I give in—for now. As soon as I can manage it, you
will
be on that stage to Dunedin. You're more danger to me than that whole pack of villains back there. One condition: we go where I say. Black Jack may want to have some fun with you, but he wants to kill me.”

Which was a very grudging admission of defeat, thought Geraldine, but who cared? Her adventure was not over. The grin on her face was almost a match for Bas Deverill's.

Two hours later, she was not feeling so cocky. Yet again, he had surprised her, riding away from the well-worn track to the goldfields and plunging back into the hills. The sun was nearly down and they were still lost in the rugged hills behind Dunstan township. He was travelling inland, not down to the coast as she had first supposed. Nor could she challenge him. By her own words, she was committed to his choice of route. It did not make her feel any easier.

The horse's hooves clipped tiredly along the dusty slopes, as it picked its way carefully around thorny clumps of matagouri bushes and treacherous, sliding shale. It lifted its head and Geraldine looked for the reason. They were riding down a barely discernable footpath and she now saw that what had appeared to be a rocky outcrop above the small creek below was in reality a small hut. Two-and-a-bit walls of stones set into the hillside, with shale slates for the roof and an iron sheet for a crude door. At one end, a chimney had been built and the floor and back wall, she knew, would be bare earth. It was a crude hut, typical of so many built by the miners in this treeless wilderness.

They pulled up outside. The strange young man who had plunged her so precipitately into adventure slid off the horse's back and then offered his hand to aid her own descent. One eyebrow flew quizzically up above the glinting blue eyes.

“Tired, hungry and decidedly cross,” he pronounced, eyeing her in amusement.

“Not at all,” she lied.

She held her back straight and strode forward defiantly as Bas held the makeshift door.
All that, and every kind of fool imaginable,
was what she said to herself.