Mary Brock Jones (3 page)

Philip had relaxed enough to laugh teasingly at this. “My sister speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and German like a native and can get by well enough in Turkish to manage the officials in most parts of the Aegean coast.”

“Very impressive, Miss Ward.”

Nessa blushed. “Maybe. It was more a matter of needs must. And none of that is of much use out here.”

“On the contrary. Miners have flocked here from all over the world. Someone with your skills would be a boon to those with little English. To help fill in claims or deal with bankers and storekeepers. You would be invaluable.”

“Maybe,” was all she would concede, even as she hid the smallest of yawns. He cursed himself.

“My apologies. I have kept you up chattering far too late. News of the world is always welcome, even with all the passersby we get through here. Please, Miss Ward, let me show you to your room. Then, if Mr Ward would like to accompany me while I check my dogs and stock for the night, he can check on your horse while you ready yourself for the night.”

He stood up, passing up the short hallway to the door opposite the parlour. It was his own room, but he did not mind in the least giving it up for Miss Nessa Ward.

“It’s basic, but the bed is comfortable and warm. We will see you in the morning.”

She thanked him very prettily and he wished heartily that her brother was not there. He badly wanted just one small kiss on her cheek. No, be honest, he wanted a hell of a lot more than that. Instead he must watch her close the door and then turn and clasp her brother on the shoulder.

“Come on, Ward. Let’s check the animals then we will set up our mattresses by the kitchen fire. Primitive I know, but quite comfortable.

He walked briskly enough out the door and was perfectly polite to his young guest; but late that night, he still could not sleep, and he glared over at the boy’s shape across the room from him. It was not the shape he needed beside him. All he could see in his mind’s eye was a fair cheek and dark curls lying on the pillow of his bed. And beside her, his own, large body. His hands ached to reach out and trace those haunting curves. He fell asleep at last, and could only hope to be lost in dreams—of her, of him, of what he longed to do with her.

Nessa woke early. She stretched. Something was different. Then she knew what it was. She felt safe.

And excited.

No, that couldn’t be it. Excitement had ruled her life as long as she could remember. The scary, fear-filled excitement of new lands and unfriendly strangers. The unknown uncertainties as she fought to find comfort, shelter, food. Whatever her small family might need.

Yet the feeling she had this morning
was
different. Something lay just before her, almost touching her hands. Not scary, not something to be feared or endured. Not the excitement of hushed voices and wary footsteps. This was …
wonderful.

A new word, that. There had been special times in her life. Distant memories of a gentle mother long gone. The joy of a baby brother and the fierce protectiveness that welled up in her at her first sight of his tiny face. Moments of playfulness later on. The pride when her father thought to raise his eyes from his book and notice the meal she had put in front of him. The delight at first seeing a new flower or tough little shrub or towering tree of a kind not seen before, and the thrill as she sought to capture with her paints the light and shape of the new plant.

The sun was coming through the window, touching her cheek with warmth, and she opened her eyes to see a rough-hewn wall and the brocaded whiteness of the bedspread covering her. It smelt faintly of mothballs, and she remembered a voice from last night. A present from his mother last Christmas, he’d said. Too fine for everyday use in this raw place. Yet for her, he had brought it out to make a bed “fit for a lady” were his words.

There it was again: that faint tingle of a promise of something to come. Now she knew the cause. Him. John Reid. The source of both the hitherto unknown sense of safety and the sparkle of excitement. Both came from the one man. Large, tall, solid. Brown hair and a gentle smile. He reminded her of the great oaks dimly remembered from a long-ago visit to her grandfather’s home. Old with the test of years they had been, but when she first saw them, they had just come into their spring leaf, alive with the joy of rising sap and summer about to come. Yes, that was John Reid.

She smiled. Then felt it slip from her. Don’t be silly. This was but a one night stop in their lives—hers and Philip’s. That other memory intruded. Her mother and a dark room in a rundown inn. “Keep them safe for me,” her dying mother had said to twelve-year-old Nessa.

It was a promise Nessa had kept through all the trials and grief since. It hadn’t been enough to protect her father, but she would keep Philip safe.

In that she must not fail. For there was another memory forever lodged in her heart. A bewildered seven-year-old crying at his mother’s grave. Philip had looked up at her that day, lost and frightened. “Where’s Mama gone?”

In the months after, she had watched Philip’s early childhood curiosity about their father’s work grow into a passion as he learned the hardest of lessons. Only when talking of work did their bereaved father notice his children.

How real was Philip’s interest in the ancient world, was a question Nessa had asked herself again and again. Was it no more than the desperate search by a child for love from the only parent left to him?

Philip must have the time and opportunity to find what it was that he truly wanted in life.

As for her dreams? Buried in the grave with her mother. She’d almost forgotten she once had any. She shook her head, flinging away the treacherous thought. Today they would move on and life would continue.

This gold fields adventure was Philip’s idea. “We can make our fortune in no time,” he’d told her back in the grey streets of London.

They had not brought Papa’s body back with to England with them. Far better he be laid to rest under the sun-warmed soil of the land littered with the memories of the ancient world he loved. It was in that world he had truly lived, far more than the world of every day, where butter must be haggled from a street vendor and the price of a room was cold, hard coins from hours of scrubbing and toil.

She rubbed her hands together and felt their rough chapping. No, hopes of joy were not for her. Not yet. She gave a last glance out the small window to the bright sunshine of the day and resolutely set her foot to the floor. They must leave this place soon, and there was work to be done. She began to dress.

Outside, the air held a dry crispness. By the sun, it was still early, and there was only a hint of the heat that would follow. She paused by the front door. He, Mr Reid, had sited this house exactly right. Up the slope enough to catch a stray breeze, but not so far that the sheltering comfort of the valley floor was abandoned.

She could see glimpses of other cottages nearby, down the hill and up the valley. Mrs Cooper’s, she guessed, and the other farm staff. Immediately in front of her were only the track and the rocky ridge. Beyond it she knew lay the river and to her right the long track that had brought them here. In this small valley, both were hidden and could be ignored.

Behind the house, she could hear dogs barking and, from the slopes beyond, a sheep bleating in sudden disturbance.

He had said it was good sheep country, and she must believe the pride in his voice, but it reminded her more of the barren uplands of Spain or maybe the harsh, dry slopes of Greece. That was goat country though. The only sheep country she knew was the green pastures of the Loire valley or the dimly remembered damp fields of the Romney marshes. Nothing like this place.

There were patches of green. Small, square plots of tilled pasture hacked out of the surrounding tussocks. But mostly the landscape was filled with native grasses and shrubs, and gone were the rocks they had stumbled over yesterday. Coming over the rise last night and seeing the land open out into this gentle valley had been like a deliverance. Now it seemed even more so. A blessed refuge from the toils and hurly-burly to which her life had descended.

A fantasy perhaps, but in the hopefulness of dawn’s light, she would indulge herself.

“Good morning.”

She jumped. He was coming down the slope from behind the house, a bucket in one hand and a trio of dogs gambolling about his heels. Mr John Reid.

“Excuse the boys here. They’re always a bit mad first thing.”

The dogs saw her and immediately deserted their master to explore this fascinating newcomer. John Reid hurried up, trying to pull the curious animals away, but stopped at her sudden laughter. She reached down, stroking the warm fur and soon managed to quell the overly inquisitive noses.

“Sorry about them.”

“Don’t worry. I love dogs. But I’ve never seen any quite like these.” They were smooth-coated, black and tan, with splashes of white on their muzzles.

“New Zealand sheep dogs. A bit of border collie, and a bit of whatever dogs shepherds have brought out from the home country. I bought these from a shepherd on Galloway Station. They’re bred for our big runs. Sometimes we have to drive sheep for days. You need a dog with a good, deep bark and able to keep on going for that.”

“Days?”
How big was his land?
“I thought you just had this land around the cottage.”

He chuckled. “That, and the lease on a parcel more.” He stood there in the sunshine and his hands pointed to the horizon. “We run up the top of the range and over the other side to the south, back a ways to just before the packers’ settlement at Chamonix to the east, over that rocky ridge to the river, and northwest as far as Butcher’s Gully. Mind you, much of it has now been declared a goldfield, but I can still farm it. Once the gold’s gone, the sheep and I will still be here.”

She turned slowly, looking to the boundaries he’d just claimed. Or to where she imagined they must be. His fingers had gestured beyond the edges of the valley, and that was big enough in itself!

“And all that is your
run
?” She’d never heard the word before and saw a lazy grin come to his face.

“That’s what we call it out here. Most is leased from the government. You can only own a few acres around the homestead outright. But it’s mine right enough, all signed for and sealed.”

“But that must be thousands of acres!”

“Something like that,” was all he said and she didn’t like to ask him to elaborate, suddenly awkward. She sounded like an old aunt prying into his financial status.

She leaned down, ruffling the nearest dog’s ears to cover her embarrassment.

“It’s a lovely spot, sir,” she said politely. “And we thank you for your kind hospitality. I promise we shall be on our way as soon as possible. We have trespassed quite long enough on your generosity.”

“No, never that.”

She looked up, surprised at his vehemence.

“We’re well used to passers-by staying a night hereabouts. You are no trouble at all.”

She could not help thinking that was not what he had meant to say.

“In fact,” he added, “why not stay on a day or two. To … ah … get your bearing in this land. Mrs Cooper would be only too glad to give you some pointers. It’s not an easy life in these parts.”

His voice was almost too hale, and he had moved closer. It gave her a very pleasant feeling of being protected. What it was about him that made her feel so, she could not say, but it was undeniable that to be close to his large frame and gently smiling face made the worries of the world seem far away.

It was not a feeling she dared indulge. She moved back.

“Thank you for the offer, but my brother is keen to get on to the fields proper.”

She left it at that, and he did not press her further. Nor did he seek to rid himself of her, seeming to enjoy having her follow after him as saw to his animals—releasing yet more dogs, carting buckets of water to their pens, and to the hens, pigs and a large lamb that tried to follow him out of its makeshift pen of stone walls and hillside.

“I reared her from a baby, and she still thinks she’s more human than sheep. I draw the line at her sleeping in the house, though. Much as you’d like to, hey Daisy.” He laughed as the very fat, half-grown lamb butted him yet again in the legs.

There were eggs to collect, the wooden fence around his vegetable patch to check for intruders, grain to feed to the ever-hungry hens. He left that to her, laughing when she could not resist squatting down to let one particularly greedy bird peck the grains right out of her hand.

Afterwards, he agreed to let her cook him a proper breakfast. She turned to the well-kept fire area, placing chops on a pan and slicing bread for toast, while stirring the oatmeal he had set to soak the night before into a warm and filling porridge.

There was something about this valley. A sense of being at home quite foreign to her. The sun came in the back door, and she could hear him chopping the wood for that night outside the door. She straightened, set her hands on her hips as she watched the chops sizzle, and gave a sigh of utter contentment. Then chuckled to herself. So maybe orphans can still dream.

Sometime later, even Philip leaned back, replete. “I didn’t know I was so hungry.”

“A fine breakfast, Miss Ward. My thanks,” said John

Nessa glowed. For so many years, she had placed food in front of Papa and Philip, only to see it eaten with scarce a glance at their plates. So engrossed in their discussions were they that Nessa often thought she could have served them pigs’ mash and they wouldn’t have noticed.

“It was the least I could do after your kindness, Mr Reid,” she murmured.

“It was my pleasure. Good company is a rare gift and one to be welcomed.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Philip, pushing out his chair and rising. “But now we must be on our way. Nessa, I’ll saddle up the horse and collect your bag while you tidy up.”

She couldn’t help it. She knew her face had fallen to mirror the cloud that had descended on her heart. It had been a nice dream while it lasted.