The Secret Rose (25 page)

She was not offended by his rudeness. She guessed the cause. She had seen his weakness, and he was too proud to accept the sympathy that must have been in her eyes.

“Tucker’s done!” the cook called to Aisleen as the other men rose, leaving their plates on the ground. She watched the men troop silently toward their mounts until the cook’s voice reached her once more. “If’n ye’ve finished, yer highness!”

The men’s heads swiveled toward her in unison, and she heard the mumbling of a comment too low to be understood and then galling masculine chuckles as they mounted up. Lips thinned in annoyance, she walked toward her tormentor.

When she reached the cook, she shoved her full plate at him and said, “It’s a wonder men eat the swill you serve. I, for one, cannot countenance it.”

The cook bared his ragged row of teeth as his face turned alarmingly red. “Swill, it is? Can ye do better?”

Aisleen lifted an eyebrow “I doubt I could do worse “

“Then, ye flaming slut, ye’re bloody well welcome to try!” He slammed down the plate she had given him and marched off, cursing roundly.

She watched him climb onto the wagon to grab his swag and then leap off. He glared at her, roaring, “Tell Tom I’ll collect me wages next time through!” before he set off on foot down the road from which they had come.

“Shouldn’t have done that.”

Aisleen looked up in unease to find Jack towering over her. Like an apparition, he unaccountably appeared when least expected. Had Thomas set him to spy on her? “Should not have done what?” she asked defensively as she gazed the long way up into his craggy face.

“Sacked the cook.” As before, he turned his back before she could reply.

She had not sacked the cook. He had quit. Jack must have heard the entire conversation, so why would he say that? Unless he, too, enjoyed her misery?

“I don’t care,” she murmured under her breath as she bent to pick up the tin plates. She had had enough of the cook’s insults and bad company. Certainly she could manage a meal that would not turn stomachs that had gulped down his inedible offerings.

When she had rinsed the cups and plates and put them away, she stacked the supplies in the back of the wagon and closed the tailgate, feeling quite proud of herself. But as she climbed up onto the wagon seat she realized the first of the problems the cook’s absence presented.

She gazed in misgiving at the traces wrapped around the brake lever. She knew nothing about handling a team, had never held reins in her hands before. Someone else would have to take the cook’s place on the wagon seat.

But when she raised her eyes, she saw that the sheep had begun to move, urged on by the whistles and cries of the drovers. Within minutes, men and sheep had disappeared
around a curve in the road, and she was left all alone in the midst of the clearing with only the hum of insects and strange bird calls for company. Thomas would quickly miss the wagon, she surmised, and sat back to await the chagrin and the profuse apologies she was certain he would offer her when he learned of the cook’s rudeness.

After the first ten minutes, she began to lose patience. Sunlight slanted down harshly among the tall, pale trunks of the trees, and small flies gathered to sip greedily the perspiration the heat raised on her skin.

When a full hour had passed, impatience had turned to
worry. More and more annoyed, she swatted at her face and neck continuously. Where was Thomas? Had Jack told him a lie that had made him too angry to return immediately for her?

She heard the pounding hooves of the horse a moment before she saw the rider on the track. She stood up in the wagon and waved her arms frantically, but it was unnecessary. The rider was heading straight for her. Recognition of Thomas made her stomach quiver with joy, her annoyance forgotten. But before she could greet him he reined in his horse and cried, “Where’s the cook?”

“He left,” she answered, a little disappointed that he had not asked first about her. In fact, the stern lines of his face were less than heartening.

“Left? Where’s he gone?”

“I do not know, nor do I care,” she replied.

Thomas stood in the stirrups and surveyed the area. “That won’t help,” she informed him crisply. “He left before you’d driven the flock out of sight. He quit.”

“Quit?” Thomas barked. “Why?”

For the first time in their acquaintance, she found she could not answer him with the complete truth. Her lashes fluttered down upon her cheeks. “He—he, I don’t know. Ask him yourself.”

Thomas swore under his breath and, pushing his hat down hard on his head, wheeled his horse about and galloped off.

Another long, tedious hour passed before she heard a horse coming back up the road. To her amazement, she saw that Thomas rode double—with the cook.

When they drew up even with the wagon, the cook slipped off and turned an indignant look on Thomas. “A man can take only so much!”

“Ye’re paid to cook, that’s a beginning and an end to it,” Thomas answered impatiently, his eyes on the road before him. “See that ye remember that!” Without a word to his wife, he kicked his horse into a canter.

Aisleen watched him in disbelief. He had brought the rude and vulgar man back without demanding so much as an apology to her from him.

Without a word, the cook climbed up beside her, unhitched the traces, released the brake, and, with an obscene shout and a flick of the stock whip, started the wagon rolling along the road.

*

“Ye’ll be knowing who to thank for the late tucker,” the cook said as new grumbles rose among the men who lounged about the campfire waiting for their evening meal. “City ways, mates. That’s the style this year.”

Aisleen ignored the snigger that accompanied his words as she tried unsuccessfully to lift the billy from its tripod without spilling water into the fire. The hiss of steam betrayed her failure, and the cook’s snigger turned into a blue streak of profanity that she could no longer block from her thoughts.

She turned to him and dropped the billy, sending scalding hot water in a flood toward his boots. “I quit!” she cried and stalked off.

“Can’t quit!” he called after her. “He’s yer boss more’n mine!”

Aisleen hunched her shoulders against the laughter that followed. The day’s journey had taken its toll. The jarring and lurching of the wagon had left her with muscles that trembled with fatigue and a head that throbbed. The cook’s return was humiliation enough. His taunts were beyond enduring. She could not understand why Thomas had brought him back. At the very least she deserved an explanation.

She found Thomas with the horses. He had stripped off his shirt, and his back gleamed palely in the amethyst twilight. As she neared, she saw that he rubbed the sweat from his horse’s flanks with a cloth. The muscles of his back rippled smoothly as be worked, but that was not what brought her to a stumbling halt. All at once, she knew that he was not alone.

Her skin began to tingle. The moon had risen. High overhead the boughs shifted in the breeze, scattering the moon’s pearly effluence over the violet shadows of twilight.

She saw him, no more than an adumbration before the softer shadows of the night. The scent of roses came strongly from him, blotting out the stink of horse and sheep and sweat. He took a step toward her, a hand outstretched, and moonlight cascaded across his tattered sleeve.

It could not be!

Thomas heard a gasp and swirled about. When he saw Aisleen, he reached for his sweat-soaked shirt. “Ye should warn a man when ye’re about,” he said nervously as he put his arms in his shirt.

Aisleen gazed at him blankly. What had happened? Had her eyes played a trick on her?

“Did ye want something?”

Aisleen blinked. Yes, of course, she wanted something. “I came to talk with you,” she said in a distracted tone. “About the cook.”

Thomas nodded and returned to his work. “He’s back. That’s an end to it.”

“Hardly,” she said tartly, drawn from her momentary confusion by his unsatisfactory reply. “He’s rude and vulgar.”

He looked up sharply. “He’s not laid a hand on ye?”

“That is the only thing he has not dared. His language is coarse enough to strain the patience of a saint. As for his manners, he has none. He orders me about as though I were a lackey. I will not endure his bullying a moment longer!”

Thomas shrugged. “Ye’ll learn to pay him no mind.”

“I will do no such thing!” Aisleen moved closer to him. “You must dismiss him.”

Thomas shook his head. “That I will nae do.”

“I am your wife. How can you permit his disrespect? He calls me a—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “A slut!”

Thomas sighed. So that was the problem. “I will speak to him.”

“I don’t want him reprimanded. Dismiss him.”

He turned to her, his head cocked to one side as he folded his arms across his chest. “Maybe,” he agreed, “when we’ve made the journey west.”

“West?” Aisleen frowned. “You said your station was north of Sydney.”

“And so it is,” he agreed. “We’re nae going home just yet.”

“Then where?”

“West across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst. I’ve agreed to lift this mob of sheep to slaughter.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

He shrugged. “It did nae concern ye.”

“Of course it concerns me,” she answered. “I think I should have been consulted.”

“And I’m thinking ye should be helping with the tucker,” he replied. “When a man’s hungry, his temper’s less than reliable.”

“Does that mean you will do nothing?”

“Ye have a fine way about ye. Ye’ll win him round to yer way of thinking.”

“If you will do nothing, then I must demand to be
taken back to Sydney. Immediately!”

“Ye’re me wife and beside me is where ye belong.”

The simple, implacable statement made Aisleen angry. “I will not work beside that man. One of us must leave.”

“If I was to sack the cook, who would be taking his place?”

“I would,” Aisleen answered quickly.

Thomas grinned. “Would ye, lass? Can ye make damper? Slaughter a lamb? Skin a haunch? Who’d carry the water barrels and cure the meat? Can ye start a fire in the rain or drive a team of horses? When we trade them for bullocks…” Words failed him at the thought of his lady wife fighting to control four tons of snorting, intractable oxen as they traversed the Blue Mountains.

Every word he said made Aisleen feel more foolish and useless, but she resented his easy victory over her objections. “You think very little of my abilities.”

“I think enough of ye to not be wanting ye worn and wearied to death.” His grin deepened. “Ye might learn a thing or two from the cook or not. As ye please. Once we’re home, ye can keep me house, cook me meals, and raise me children.”

A blush suffused Aisleen’s face. Raise his children? Did he still harbor the belief that she would agree to have his children when she had spurned his touch? Yet as she stared at his handsome face she was aware of confusion and unease that made her stomach jump and tremble.

When she did not deny his words, relief suffused Thomas. He had been right to hope for a change in her attitude. Instinctively he reached out to touch her, but she wheeled away from him.

“Don’t you dare!” she said sharply, too aware of the need he brought so easily to the surface to temper her response. He had spurned her pleas for help. She must not answer his callousness with weakness or he would use it against her. “I’ve endured enough this day!” She turned and stalked away.

“Damn!”

Thomas kicked the ground. He had been so close to gaining her confidence until he rushed the moment by attempting to touch her. She was as skittish as a brumby. He needed patience. But he had no patience. He wanted his wife.

He rubbed his jaw where a new growth of whiskers bristled. Soon he would have a beard, and that reminded him of a more pressing problem.

They had made good progress the first days, despite the bruising path that had unsettled Aisleen and made him the victim of her wrath. The cook was an irascible old devil but a reliable hand with the tucker. If he was rude, that was small discomfort in return for three hot meals. Aisleen would learn to appreciate that better as the days wore on.

Still, it rankled to know that she still shied from his touch. He groaned. The night was before them. How would she behave when he crawled into the wagon beside her? If she cried out or fought him, they would both be humiliated.

Uncertainty churned his middle. All he could think of was her sweet mouth and the feel of contentment he had awakened to the morning after their wedding night. She had been his only for that one night. And that was not nearly enough.

He turned and began resaddling his horse. When it was done, he walked back to the cookfire to eat the meal the cook had hurriedly thrown together. When he was finished, he volunteered for the first watch with the sheep.

“Makes a man wonder,” one of the remaining drovers
mused and nodded toward the wagon where Aisleen had bedded down alone for the night.

“Wonder all ye damned well please,” another drover answered, “but keep yer bloody gaze off his wife or Tom will make ye bleeding sorry ye ever saw her.”