Ironbark (54 page)

He rose. There would be no argument. ‘I'm taking her with me, Sister. Nothing and no one is gunna stop me.'

Sister Mary Bridget nodded. ‘Don't forget your prayers, child.'

The time had come to begin again. Jake took Pearl by the hand and walked out into the sunlight. She needed to skip to keep apace with him.

‘Where are we going, Papa?' she asked.

Jake lifted her up onto Horatio's back. ‘I don't know exactly. But you can be sure of one thing. I ain't never going to let you out of my sight again, girlie!'

In the days that followed the Trafalgar Day party Keziah felt frustrated that her path had almost crossed with Jake's but failed to deliver a meeting. Why hadn't he visited her? Was Jenny back in his life? Keziah felt Jake was as close to her as her own heartbeat, but the gift she had relied on since childhood now failed to predict his movements.

She arrived home from school that day, stunned to find under her door an envelope addressed to Saranna Browne from the man who never wrote letters. Two lines leapt out at her between the ink blobs and the spelling was quite original. There was no date but the message was loud and clear.

Listen a lot of stuff happened. I'm on my way back to Ironbark. Got someone with me. Do me a favour. Try and stay out of trouble till I get back, mate. Jake

Keziah had no choice but to await his return.

A knock at the door raised her hopes but when she flung it open she was face to face with Caleb Morgan. She realised she hadn't seen him for days. Hat in hand, he studied her with serious eyes. For once his Morgan air of superiority seemed diminished. He looked strangely vulnerable – a very different man to the born-to-rule gentleman who had presumed he could move back into her life, sweep her off her feet and carry her and Gabriel off to Sydney Town.

‘I had a chat with that odd Currency chap, Andersen, at Dr Ross's party. Ever since then I've been avoiding something I didn't want to face.'

Keziah gestured him to be seated, intent on reading the real message behind his words.

‘I am not the man I used to be, Keziah. I suspect this country changes you – if it doesn't kill you. But even in the desert when I thought every day would be my last, I was never bored. At Home everything bored me – Cambridge, gambling, flirting with Father's hand-picked heiresses. It was as if my life only really began when I fell in love with you. That's why I kept searching until I found you.'

He hesitated. ‘I have been forced to suspect that my hopes of winning your love are rather on a par with my search for the Inland Sea. In my arrogance I believed I would be the man to find it and make history. I was proved wrong. Am I also wrong about us? I am not sure I really want to hear your answer, Keziah, but I can't avoid the question. Have I lost you forever?'

Keziah said the words softly. ‘I'm sorry to hurt you, Caleb.'

‘It's that Andersen fellow, isn't it?'

‘I can't help it. He's in my blood.'

Caleb stared at her for a long time. At last he took from his breast pocket a legal document sealed with red wax. Keziah flinched, preparing for the next round in the battle.

‘No need to fear me, Keziah. You are too proud to accept help from me, but please remember I am at your service should you ever need me. I don't fancy living alone in the Sydney townhouse I intended for the three of us. I've a mind to go to Melbourne Town to take up land, but you'll always be able to contact me through your lawyer friend Joseph Bloom. I have instructed him to set up this trust fund for Gabriel.'

He placed the document on the table then bowed farewell. At the door he gently touched her lips with his finger to prevent her saying the word he could not bear to hear.
Goodbye.

With mixed feelings Keziah watched him ride away, his shoulders slumped. But by the time he reached the gates of Ironbark Farm his
back had straightened, as if ready to face the road to a new unknown adventure.

• • • 

The table had been set for two all morning. Keziah interrupted her baking, drawn to the window in anticipation of something important. Her heart leapt at the sight of Jake riding Horatio. When he dismounted she saw there was something particularly purposeful about the way he swaggered towards her cottage.

When he entered Keziah was busy removing a cake from the oven. She assumed an air of calm to disguise her anxiety. She must never lie to Jake, but must she tell him the
whole
truth about Caleb? No, she decided, not while everything is hanging in the balance.

Despite Jake's swagger she sensed how nervous he was. A bruise over one eye was evidence of a recent fight. The word around Ironbark was that he'd won a whole string of prize fights lately, as though his life depended on raising money.

His first question was deceptively casual. ‘Where's Gabe?'

‘Nerida's taken him and Murphy out for the day to teach them how to gather bush tucker. It's a big treat for Gabriel to sleep with them in Nerida's
goondie
tonight.'

Keziah had tried to match his nonchalance, hoping the fact that she would be alone tonight had registered with Jake. It had.

Jake glanced at her best china, laid out for two. ‘Did you see me coming in your funny cards, Kez? Or are you expecting to entertain that flash bloke Morgan?'

‘I don't see
everything
ahead of time, Jake. What brings you here? Your note didn't say.'

‘Been offered a contract to go to the Swan River settlement,' he said. ‘If things pan out, I won't be coming back.'

Keziah felt almost overwhelmed by panic. Wasn't Swan River thousands of miles away on the western side of the continent? And who was the ‘someone' his note said was travelling with him?

‘You know I'll always wish you well,' Keziah said evenly. She saw they'd reached a stalemate so in desperation she tried a different tack.

‘Mac Mackie told me you and Caleb had a barney at Leslie Ross's Trafalgar celebration. Is that how you scored that colourful bruise?'

‘No. I got paid for this one. I won in three rounds. Enough to finish paying Bran for a new wagon he's been building me.'

Jake kept fiddling with the brim of his hat. ‘That Morgan bloke talks big. Says he can pull strings, get your marriage to Dan annulled. Marry you. Make Gabriel his heir. That right?'

‘That's what he's offered.'

‘Good bloke,' Jake said casually. ‘You couldn't do better.'

‘Doubt if I could,' she agreed.
Mi-duvel! What's he really saying, I can't read him.

After a lengthy pause Jake forced himself to ask,
‘And?'

Keziah made him wait. ‘I should seriously consider his offer. For Gabriel's sake.'

Jake seemed to lose his place in his speech.

‘So what are you waiting for? Him being Gabe's father – well, he is, isn't he?'

Keziah chose her words with care, trying to ignite a spark of jealousy.

‘Caleb is an honourable man. Handsome, too. My marriage to him would give Gabriel an important family name and a fine education.' She watched Jake's jaw tighten. ‘But I believe a man deserves to be loved for himself, not for his money and high position in society.'

‘Well yeah, I reckon!'

Keziah asked the question as if from polite interest. ‘Did you only come to say goodbye, Jake? Or is there something else on your mind?'

Jake searched the walls as if for clues to guide him. ‘We're mates, Kez, so I don't want to be guilty of misleading you. You're a good woman but even if you were free, I could never marry you.'

Keziah gasped. ‘Did I propose to you?'

Jake waded in. ‘Listen, there's ten bloody good reasons I'm dead wrong for you.'

‘Only
ten
, Jake?' she asked sweetly.

‘I go on drunken binges when the going gets tough. I've done time in gaol and I've often been thrown in the lockup for brawling.'

‘Ah well, you're just a man after all,' she said.

‘Gets worse,' he promised. ‘I go to a brothel to avoid having my own woman.'

‘You're single, so that's your business, but just between mates, did you visit those girls when you were living with Jenny?'

‘Hell, no! I was a family man!' He quickly recovered his ground. ‘I worked my guts out for Jenny. Lost the lot, wife, child, farm. No woman will ever shackle me again!'

Keziah tried to look amiable. ‘The roving life suits you perfectly. But that's only four reasons. What are the others?'

Jake shuffled. In broken phrases he told her how he'd rescued Pearl from a convent where Jenny's fancy man had abandoned her.

‘She's only seven years old for God's sake. Nobody wants her.' Jake looked her straight in the eye. ‘From now on Pearl and me are a team – it's a case of love me, love my daughter.'

Keziah reached out to touch his hand, her heart in her eyes. ‘She's a lucky little girl but I warn you, you'll have your work cut out. I've seen seven children in your palm.'

She knew that Jake was almost cornered when he yelled, ‘Listen, will you! A divorce or annulment needs a bloody Act of Parliament – only the filthy rich like Morgan can swing it. The best I could hope for is a judicial separation on the grounds of Jenny's adultery, but that would expose her as a fraud. I promised in a weak bloody moment I'd never do that, so long as I can keep Pearl. I'll never be free to marry any woman while Jenny's alive!'

Keziah shrugged. ‘That's the way the world goes. Daniel needed a wife to gain his freedom. Caleb could get that marriage annulled.' She
looked him in the eye. ‘Because Daniel never consummated our marriage.'

‘No?' Jake couldn't conceal his pleasure but Keziah saw he was quick to come up with another excuse.

‘All our kids would legally be bastards.'

‘Only under
gaujo
law. Not
my
law,' she said firmly.

She sensed Jake was at last cornered, forced to reveal his agonising secret.

‘Listen to me, Kez! My whole marriage I failed my wife as a man. I just can't do it with a good woman.'

Keziah had to think fast. Any minute Jake would be out the door charging across the continent to the Swan River. She had run out of arguments to stall him, but her voice was honeyed with empathy.

‘Why were you afraid to tell me?'

Jake walked straight into her web. ‘Tell you what?'

‘That you'd prefer to share your life with a man.'

‘What?'

‘Daniel went to Sydney Town to study art, but you are the true reason he left me. He really loves you. He was afraid of losing your friendship if you knew the truth about him.'

Jake was stunned. ‘Jesus wept! I don't believe it!'

‘Don't be embarrassed, Jake. None of us can help who we love.'

Jake bellowed like a bull. ‘Don't you understand one bloody thing I've said to you?'

Keziah saw the anxiety in his eyes and remembered her grandmother's words.
‘Inside a little girl she is a woman. Inside a man he is always a little boy.'

She grew serious. The games were over. Her words were gentle.

‘There's only one thing wrong with you, Jake. You
think
you can only have fun in bed with a prostitute. You're afraid to have fun with a good woman because you
respect
her.'

• • • 

Jake felt utterly exposed. More naked than the day he was born. It was one thing to have confided his greatest fear to Lily Pompadour – and paid her to teach him how to fix it. It was quite another for Keziah to talk so calmly about his history of failures in bed.
Jesus wept. Is nothing private? Can't I hide a bloody thing from this woman?

Keziah had her back to him. ‘Tell me, Jake, what on earth made you think
I
was a good woman?'

When Keziah turned to face him Jake thought he was reliving that night she'd saved his life by exposing her breasts to One Eye's gang. No. It was happening right now. She swayed towards him as if in a tribal mating dance. She dropped her blouse to the floor, clutching her long skirt. Then she extended her open palm to beckon him.

‘You prefer to buy “a wife for the night”? Pay me in advance.
Buy me
, Jake!'

‘Stop this, you cruel little bitch!'

What Keziah did next stunned him. In the same way she had tamed the brumby, she placed a lump of sugar under her arm to absorb the heat of her body. Holding his gaze, she placed the sugar in his mouth.

‘Don't be afraid of me, Jake.'

‘God help me, Kez. I'd die for you! But I can never make love to you!'

But even as he said the words, Jake felt strength flood every organ of his body.

‘You're trouble! A man's crazy to take you on.'

He ignored his own advice. Their lovemaking began in a rough, hungry tussle. Each awkward movement led one step closer to the bed. He knew that the kisses they fought to give and take were a battle of wills. Tearing his mouth from hers, his hands shook with nerves.

‘I warn you, Kez. Give yourself to me and I'll make it so good you'll want more, but I'm leaving you tomorrow no matter what.'

Her chin rose in defiance. ‘Give yourself to
me
for one night and you'll crawl across the Nullarbor Plain to get back to me!'

‘Don't put your money on that!' He picked her up like a bag of chaff and tossed her onto the bed. He was quick to unbuckle his belt. ‘This is a big mistake!'

‘You won't say that in the morning!' she yelled, struggling to yank off his boot.

They were noisy, clumsy, angry, tender and hot with passion – at one and the same time. Then as if responding to an inner cue of music, they were suddenly locked in tune with the magic of their bodies – so long denied.