The Secret Rose (36 page)

The harsh words were spoken barely above a whisper, but Aisleen trembled. He was very angry, angrier than she had realized.

“G’evening, Mrs. Fahey,” Thomas greeted as he paused before a middle-aged woman who wore a violet silk gown over her ample figure. “May I introduce to ye me bride?”

“That you may,” the woman answered in a cultured voice. The effect was spoiled as she suddenly barked in amazement, “Bride, did you say, Tom?”

Aisleen met the woman’s inquisitive gaze with a smile. “Good evening, Mrs. Fahey.”

“Gracious! A lady!” Mrs. Fahey’s frank surprise widened her eyes. “Do relinquish her to me, Tom. You’ve the look of a man with a thirst yet to be quenched. Come along, Mrs. Gibson. We will speak of things that would not interest a man.”

“Me very thoughts, exactly,” Thomas answered. “Of a surety, I’m thanking ye to be looking after me wife while I pay me respects in certain quarters.” Without a word to Aisleen, he sauntered off toward the group of men standing before a makeshift bar.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Fahey said as she snagged Aisleen by the elbow. “He’ll come back when he’s had his fill.”

The thought of a drunken husband was not a comforting one, but Mrs. Fahey would not be gainsaid, and so Aisleen found herself steered toward a row of chairs which she had not before noticed.

Mrs. Fahey settled herself and patted the chair beside her. “Do let’s become better acquainted, Mrs. Gibson. There’s so little of society readily available outside of Sydney. Who are your people, dear?”

“I am a Fitzgerald,” Aisleen answered calmly, though she was repealed by the woman’s avid gaze.

“The name is not unknown to me. I once met a Captain Fitzgerald of Cork who resided in Melbourne with his lady wife. Are you, perchance, related?”

“No,” Aisleen answered, casting an anxious glance toward the crowd. Sarah and Matt had entered the shed and stood chatting with Thomas. Reluctantly she brought her attention back to the woman beside her. Thomas had introduced them—the least she could do was make a good impression. “I am newly arrived in Sydney.”

“Then you knew Tom before? In Ireland?”

“No. Mr. Gibson and I met since my arrival in Sydney. We met through the offices of Mrs. Freeman, matron of Hyde Park Barracks. Mr. Gibson was kind enough to take an interest in me.”

“I see,” Mrs. Fahey replied in a tone which Aisleen could not mistake. “Hyde Park Barracks is, as a rule, a sanctuary for domestic servant girls, is it not? Yet you are educated,” she mused aloud, “and your manners are those of a genuine lady. But, my dear, there are so many parvenus in the colony one simply cannot be too careful, you understand.”

Aisleen glanced toward Tom once again, wondering if the woman meant her husband or the Mahoneys.

“For instance, the couple conversing with your husband is a case in point. The woman is well spoken, but her husband is the crudest sort—a Vandiemonian, that one. I’m amazed the magistrate issued a liquor license to him. Of course, though we’ve eliminated convict transportation, it’s nearly impossible to stem the flow of emancipists into the colony. I tell Mr. Fahey constantly that he should do more to hold the lines between the classes, but he will not hear of it.”

Liking the woman less and less, Aisleen noted with
distaste the damp circles on the violet silk beneath Mrs. Fahey’s arms and the faint vinegary odor rising from the woman’s damp skin. “It must be very difficult for you,” she murmured absently, thinking that Tom had gotten his revenge by setting the woman upon her.

“Mr. Fahey is quite a man of some distinction here in the west,” Mrs. Fahey said proudly. “The Hill End branch of the New South Wales Bank is but one of the feathers in his cap. I don’t mind telling you that its success is no little credit to him. The diggers are a mad lot, wildly extravagant with the gold they scratch from the earth. Why, if it were not for Mr. Fahey’s persuasion, I do believe they would prefer to be swindled by the gold merchants and sly grog shopkeepers who roam the fields like vultures. A strike, large or small, means only a further opportunity for women, wine, and song. I will admit my surprise that your husband traded his modest strike for property.”

She seized Aisleen’s arm. “Have you seen his station? I’m told it is quite the most extraordinary piece of property in all the New England region of the colony!”

Aisleen held herself in check against the inclination to back away from the woman, whose features had grown alarmingly red. “Would you care for a drink, Mrs. Fahey? Perhaps a cup of tea?”

“Tea?” Mrs. Fahey flushed a deeper shade of red. “My dear child, a glass of Bengal rum would do quite nicely.”

Aisleen’s eyes widened, but she remembered her manners. “Rum. Of course. I shall fetch a glass directly.” She stood and started across the floor.

Rum. Imagine, a banker’s wife who openly consumed liquor in public! She was not surprised by Sarah’s conduct, once she learned the woman’s history, but Mrs. Fahey’s intoxicated state quite shocked her. The morals of the entire colony were reprehensible.

“Mrs. Fahey gave ye up,” Thomas said when she
reached him. “I’d not have thought she’d allow ye to leave her side for some good while.”

Glad that the Mahoneys had slipped away as she approached him, Aisleen confided in a shocked whisper, “That lady is quite…quite flushed.”

“Is she now, and me thinking her a wee bit flummoxed,” Thomas answered amicably.

“You knew she was drunk, and still you allowed me to be—?” Aisleen stiffened at his chuckle. He thought it a jest. “Where may I find a cup of rum?”

He glanced at his tin cup and then offered it.

She eyed him coldly. “It is for Mrs. Fahey.”

“I was afraid ’twas so,” he replied in a regretful tone. “Ye might learn a thing or two from a sip now and again. Ah, well. Ye do nae drink but ye do dance, Mrs. Gibson?”

She could not resist the challenge in his eyes. “Yes, I do, sir.”

“Sir, is it? And how’s that sound to a husband who’s asked his bride to dance? ‘Thomas’ will do for dancing,” he said carelessly before draining his cup and tossing it aside. “When we’re home again, there’s another name or two I’ve a mind for ye to call me.”

He was smiling that charming smile that made Aisleen wish she had spurned his offer, for the music had turned toward the slower tempo of a waltz.

“Have I told ye what a charming piece of work ye made of that muslin?” he asked as his arm slid about her waist. Her right hand was caught up in his left, and then he stepped off into a turn. “Ye’re so clever with words and with yer fingers. ’Tis a wonder ye’re nae so clever when it
comes to people.”

“Perhaps I’ve had less experience with people,” she rejoined. He was unexpectedly close, much closer than Monsieur Pardieu, the dancing master, had ever dared.

“Why are ye showing the folks yer quite nice face
screwed up as though ye’d been asked to swallow a dose of cod-liver oil?”

She blushed as she met his gaze. “I am concentrating. I have never before waltzed with a gentleman.”

“Good! I like knowing that there’s many a thing ye’ve shared only with me, and yer body’s the most important!”

Aisleen took a backward step to separate them, but with a neat turn, he brought her back to him, holding her closer than ever. “Please!” she whispered in embarrassment. “People are watching.”

“And so they should, being that I’m dancing with the prettiest lass here,” he answered unabashedly.

His body seemed to flow into every inch of space hers provided, as though he had no sense of separateness from her. The hand on her waist rose to the small of her back, arching her closer until she had to rely on its support or lean against his chest. There was nothing to do but give herself up to the moment.

His coat was unbuttoned, and the heat of his body flowed through his shirt, through her bodice, and into her skin as they danced. She felt breathless, less solid than before, skimming along in her husband’s arms.

“Aye, it’s nice, dancing. Me mother called it soaring with angels,” Thomas agreed, reading her thoughts in her eyes.

He could not look away from those dark gold eyes wide upon his. Aye, he’d been right the first time. Her eyes were as rich and warming as any spirits he had ever drunk. Their power stirred his blood as rum had never done. She was as much a woman as any who danced beneath this roof.

Neither of them noticed his approach, but suddenly they were brought to a halt by a huge hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Jack!” Thomas greeted the human mountain. “Ye’re in!”

“Good evening, Mr. Egan,” Aisleen greeted warmly
because his arrival meant they would be moving on, away from Hill End and the Mahoneys.

Jack stared at her a moment, his craggy features as immutable as stone, and then turned without a word to either of them and walked away.

“I’ll be back,” Thomas said, leaving her before he finished the sentence to hurry after the man.

“Mrs. Gibson! Over here!”

Aisleen turned to see Mrs. Fahey hailing her from across the room. The woman beckoned a second time, and she could not find any alternative to rejoining her now that Thomas had deserted her.

For the next half hour, she was led from one knot of people to the next, introduced, inspected, prodded, probed, and commented upon until her nerves were frayed and her own armpits damp. Her smile had become a frozen monument to civility. She did not care for any of the people she met. Their avid gazes were all alike, speculatively resting on her face, her hands, her hair, as if they could glean some secret knowledge from their inspection of her. What did they want?

“Well, Mrs. Gibson, have ye enjoyed yer visiting?”

Aisleen spun about at the sound of Thomas’s voice. “Tom!” she greeted and thrust a hand toward him. “Oh, yes, I’m quite weary—with the gaiety,” she added quickly.

“Then ye will nae mind leaving early?” he questioned, grasping her hand tightly.

“No, not at all.” She turned to Mrs. Fahey and the other ladies, and all at once she knew the reason for their interest in her. One and all, they were staring at her husband. It was written in each of their simpering smiles and coy glances. How many of them had he flattered and perhaps seduced over the years?

Not one. She knew it was the truth. They had sniped and
dissected her out of envy for what they had not experienced, and would never, experience in the arms of Thomas Gibson.

“If you ladies will excuse me,” she said as she slid an arm through his. “It has been a charming evening.” She looked up at her husband and was surprised to see that he was gazing at her, completely unaware of the thwarted passions he had aroused.

When they had left the shed and walked across the clearing toward the trap that had brought them, Aisleen wondered why he was cutting short the evening. “Was Jack’s trip a success?”

“We’ll be leaving in the morning,” he answered shortly. “Jack says he’ll see to the sale himself.”

“If that is true, why could we not have left before this, as I asked?”

Thomas turned to her, his face stiff, but a sound attracted their attention before he spoke. Out of sight, beyond the Mahoneys’ trap, a woman was softly sobbing.

“Ah, Sarah, don’t be weeping so,” came the voice of Matt Mahoney out of the darkness. “Do ye think I’d care what her sort has to say? Neither should ye.”

“You didn’t—didn’t hear her,” came the softer, hiccupped syllables of Sarah’s reply. “No better than a
whore
,
she called me!”

“What does a great cow the likes of her know?” Matt countered. “Talk, that’s all it is, lass. Talk.”

“It isn’t working,” Sarah answered. “I should have known better. I’ll bring you to ruin if I stay. Even Tom’s wife can’t bear the sight of me now that she knows. Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry!” The weeping began again, clearer and harder.

Aisleen realized that Thomas stood staring down at her, and guilt pricked her. She had not spoken her thoughts aloud, but they had been the same as those expressed by the
woman who had insulted Sarah. “I can be such a fool!” she whispered and pushed past Thomas.

Thomas moved aside in amazement as Aisleen headed toward the wagon where Sarah and Matt stood.

Aisleen rounded the trap without preamble and startled the pair.

“Mrs. Gibson!” Sarah said with alarm and pushed quickly out of her husband’s arms to rub away the telltale signs of her tears.

Aisleen pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and offered it. “Wipe your eyes, Sarah. It can’t be good for a bairn to have his mother weeping so. You’ll have him afraid of the sea, with all that saltwater sloshing about inside.”

She turned to Matt. “I will not pretend that I did not overhear a part of your conversation, and I’m glad I did. The woman who insulted Sarah should be shunned. Whatever one’s personal opinions, there is no reason for rudeness.” She turned back to Sarah. “I apologize for my behavior earlier today. I feel very small and uncharitable and mean-spirited at this moment.”

“And so ye should!” Matt answered harshly, “being that ye’re nae so grand a lady that ye did not wed yerself to an emancipist! Aye, yer Tom’s the same as me. Ask him!”

Aisleen looked up as Thomas neared her. “Is it true?”