Whispers of Heaven (24 page)

Turning, Jessie watched the captain work at untying the ropes that still held a coughing, half-drowned girl to Lucas Gallagher's back. The wail of a frightened child cut through the air as another child, a smaller girl, was passed from one man to the next until she reached the arms of the broken and sobbing mother.

From over the water came a hoarse shout, drawing the attention of those still clustered near the surf. Another boat had finally appeared around the headland, a pinnace from the British frigate anchored in Blackhaven Bay. Then a wave broke against the beach hard enough to knock Gallagher, still bent beneath the weight of the older girl, off his feet. Hands reached out, supporting him, helping him rise from the swirl of water as the second child was lifted from his back.

At the edge of the sand he collapsed again, sagging to one knee, a hand braced on his thigh, his head bowed, his chest shuddering as he sucked in air. The muscles of his bare back flexed tight, the flesh wet and cold and drained of color, the old flogging scars standing out white on white.

Torn apart by conflicting needs and compulsions, Jessie stared down at him. She trembled with the urge to go to him and wrap her warm arms around his cold, shuddering body. She wanted to hold him close, to cradle his exhausted face between her hands and kiss his lips.

She wanted him to be hers.

Instead she walked stiffly to where they had left the blankets and warm drinks. Someone had already thrown a blanket around his shoulders, but she poured him a tin pannier of hot cider, and took it to him. "Here," she said, touching his bent shoulder, for she was allowed to do that, surely? It was such a natural human gesture of comfort. "Drink this."

He flung up his head, his eyes wide and dark, his face gaunt, his mouth open as he continued to gulp in air. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a cut near his eye, and he had a bruise purpling on his ribs where he must have struck a rock or debris from the ship. "The boy," he said hoarsely, his hand closing around the mug. "Is the boy all right?"

And then Jessie became aware of the sound of a woman sobbing up near the fire, her voice breaking as she screamed,
"Taylor:
But where is Taylor?"

Hot cider spilled steaming into the sand as Gallagher surged to his feet, the blanket slipping from his wet shoulders, his narrowed, bloodshot gaze scanning the heaving, wind-whipped waves where a score of men splashed back and forth, searching, shouting to the sailors in the pinnace. "Aw, Jesus," he said on a harsh expulsion of breath, and started forward, back to the sea.

Jessie's hand lashed out, snagging Gallagher's arm. "No! You can't go back out there again. You can't."

He swung his head to look at her, his gaze locking with hers, and in his eyes she saw such a fierce agony it stole her breath. "You don't understand. I told him ... I told that boy I'd watch out for him. He was right behind me. I thought they had him. I thought—"

"No." She shook her head, wanting desperately to comfort him, to fold him in her arms and draw his head down to press his pain-ravaged face to her breast. But she could do nothing, because he wasn't her man. He was a convict, an
Irish
convict, and her whole world was watching. All she could do was say lamely, "You tried. The men in the pinnace are looking for him. They'll find him."

His head jerked, nostrils flaring as he sucked in air. "I'll find him."

And then he was gone, running back into the crashing waves, and all she could do was stand there and watch him go.

It took him what felt like forever to find Taylor.

Too many minutes of fighting the thunderous surf, of willing the muscles of his increasingly cold, exhausted arms and legs to obey him. Too many minutes swimming from pigs' carcasses to dark bobbing casks to broken spars. From the fringes of his consciousness came awareness of the splash of oars from the pinnace, crisscrossing the cove, bent upon the same hopeless task. Then his seeking hand touched matted brown hair and smooth young flesh, soft and cold. So very cold. Lucas gathered the boy to him and struck out for shore.

Jesmond Corbett was waiting for him there, in the surf, when he staggered to his feet, the boy's thin body cradled against his chest like a babe. "Is he ..." she began, her face pale and drawn, her voice faltering as she reached out her shaky hand to touch the child's pale cheek.

Lucas collapsed to the sand, his body heaving, his mind oddly, blessedly numb. "He's dead."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jessie stood beside the three open graves, the soothing tones of the vicar's voice washing gently over her as she stared out at the waters of the bay. The once fierce wind had dropped to a cool spring breeze that whispered through the leaves of the oak trees on the hillside and nudged the now gentle sea into small waves that threw back the sun in a random pattern of sparkling diamonds. Then, all at once, the terrible beauty of the sea below overwhelmed her, and she had to turn her gaze away, to where Lucas Gallagher stood, his head bowed, his hat in his hands.

He had driven her here in the shay, this man who had risked his life to save two small children he didn't even know. But he was only her groom, a convict groom, and so he stood a proper distance from her, near Genevieve. Watching them, it struck Jessie that she now had not one, but two forbidden friendships. Only, it wasn't friendship she felt for this man, but something far more dangerous and frightening.

She wondered how it could have happened, how that strange awareness and reluctant fascination had shifted, subtly, inevitably, to something different, something deeper and more powerful. Something her woman's heart could no longer deny.

She watched the breeze ruffle the devil-dark curl of hair that fell forward onto his tanned forehead, watched the strong sinews of his throat work as he swallowed, watched the muscles of his lean cheeks bunch as he set his jaw, and the reality of her love for this man, the pain of it, the awful killing impossibility of it, slammed into her with a force that took her breath and brought the sting of tears to her eyes.

He could never be hers, not in the way she wanted, and she wanted him in every way a woman can want a man. She wanted him in her life, at her side, not just now, but forever. She wanted to share his dreams and his joys and his sorrows, and to share hers with him. She wanted to know the wonder of taking his body into hers, and the joy of bearing his children. She wanted to spend a lifetime coming to know the mystery that was him, to grow old watching the play of emotions across his beloved face. She wanted, wanted, wanted.. . and none of it could ever be, for it was forbidden, what she wanted. Forbidden, impossible, and dangerous.

She wished she could speak of these things with Genevieve, but there had been no time yesterday. And Jessie knew she would need to be particularly careful now with her visits to Last Chance Point, for there was no knowing how many people on that storm-wracked beach yesterday had seen the two women arrive together in Genevieve's cart, had seen them gripping each other in support through that interminable wait at the surf's edge, had seen, and wondered, and whispered. Jessie wished she did not care. She wished she could follow the promptings of her own will, with no thought to the confining expectations of her family and their society. But she did care, and there was no sense in simply pretending she did not.

"... in the midst of life, we are in death," droned the vicar's deep voice, drawing Jessie's gaze, again, to the open graves. They were burying not one, but three victims today, for the seaman who had tried to swim to shore when the ketch's cables first snapped had never made it, and the body of one of the oarsmen from the smashed small boat had been recovered only this morning. Death came quickly, and often, here in Tasmania.

It was after the graveside service, when she was preparing to climb to the shay's high seat, that the children's father came up to them. He was a balding man with the brown hair and

thin pointed face of his dead son, and he grasped Gallagher's hand in both of his to thank the Irishman, again, for saving his two daughters.

"I've written to the governor," he told Jessie, turning to her, "asking that your man be granted a full pardon for what he did. Such heroism and self-sacrifice should not go unrewarded."

She saw the sardonic gleam that flickered in Gallagher's eyes, even as he mouthed the appropriate words in response. For Lucas Gallagher, she knew, there would be no pardon. And she found herself wondering, once again, what he could have done that had earned him such implacable enmity from the unforgiving nation that had conquered his island homeland.

The shay lurched and swayed up the muddy road that led to the top of the hill where the road from Blackhaven Bay came together with the tracks from the Point and Shipwreck Cove. Lucas held the reins loosely in his hands, his boots braced wide against the unpredictable sliding jolts that came whenever the big iron-rimmed wheels hit another wet patch. Except for the boggy condition of the road and the fresh green exuberance of the gums and acacias, yesterday's storm was already a memory. The sun bathed his face with a gentle warmth, but inside he felt cold, so cold, as if he were still in the grip of the deadly currents of Shipwreck Cove.

Was it unbearably cold at the end? he wondered, staring out over the now deceptively calm waters of the cove below. Were you afraid, or did you find some measure of peace?

He didn't even realize he'd pulled up at the junction with the track that led down to the beach until Miss Jesmond Corbett said gently, "Don't blame yourself."

He turned his head to meet her troubled gaze. "How can I not? That boy trusted me, and I let him down." The words surprised him. He hadn't meant to speak them aloud to anyone. But then, he hadn't expected her to read his thoughts so accurately, hadn't expected her to care.

"That boy trusted you to help him try. That's all you could do."

He looked hard at the dark, sea-splashed rocks in the cove below. She was right, of course. He knew she was right. But that didn't make it any easier to bear.

"If you'd like to drive down there," she said quietly, "we've time. It might help."

He glanced, again, at the woman beside him. She sat a respectable distance away, her back ramrod straight, her expensively gloved hands resting on the voluminous folds of her somber black gown, relieved only by a simple round gold locket she wore pinned at the neck. They might have been any young lady and her servant, out for a drive . .. except for the high color that touched her cheeks whenever their gazes met, and the powerful energy that seemed to hum in the air between them.

For one stolen moment, he let his gaze linger on the exquisite line of her cheek, the finely etched arch of her lips. But it was an unwary thing to do, for there could no longer be any denying the dangerous strength of the physical pull between them, and he was too emotionally battered at the moment to trust himself to resist that other force, that rare yearning of heart and mind and indefinable being that scared him even more, for it was infinitely harder to withstand. "Would that be wise?" he said, his voice rough.

She swallowed, fluttering the wide black ribbons that tied her somber satin capote beneath her chin. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead. "No one would think anything of it, even if we were seen."

"That wasn't what I meant."

She swung her head to look at him, her eyes wide and still. "I'm tired of always trying to do what other people think is wise."

He held her gaze for one meaningful moment, while the breeze loosed a lock of golden hair to flutter against her cheek, and the gulls wheeled, calling, high above the sparkling blue sea. Then he spanked the reins against the horse's rump to send the carriage bouncing down the narrow, rutted track to the cove.

* * *

They left the carriage not far from the brooding ruin of the Grimes House, and walked over the dimes to the beach.

Refuse from the storm and the wrecked ketch littered the golden sand at the head of the cove and lay wedged high between the rocks near the base of the cliffs. Sun-bleached driftwood and giant whalebones lay jumbled together with freshly torn planks, broken spars, and shredded canvas sails, all draped with long tangles of brown seaweed that steamed sharp and salty in the warm sun. The scavengers had already been at work, carrying away most of what was of value, although the sea would continue to give up bits of its grim harvest for months to come.

Jessie sat on the smooth trunk of a long-dead gum and watched as Gallagher walked to where the waves lapped gently at the shore. He stood turned half away from her, his hands on his hips, his hat brim tipped low as he stared out over the cove. She ached with the need to go to him, to slip her arms around his waist and press her cheek in comfort and understanding against the tense muscles of his back. But all she could do was wait, one hand closed around the gold locket that had been hers since childhood, and give him the gift of her silent companionship.

They stayed that way a long time. Seagulls soared overhead, the sun bright on their outspread white wings, their calls mingling, bleak and a bit sad, with the rhythmic rush of the sea. The tide drifted in slowly, and after a while, she noticed he wasn't looking out over the cove anymore. He was staring at the sand beneath the sole of one restlessly moving boot.

"There was a cove below our house," he said, his words coming out soft and lilting in the tones of his lost homeland, "not too different from this one. It claimed its fair share of wrecks, as well."

"Is that how you knew the ketch was breaking up?" she asked, her hands gripping her knees. .

He raised his head, his hat brim lifting so that she could see his face, the sun showing her the strong, fierce line of nose, cheek, and chin that never failed to catch at her breath. "There's a certain sound ships' timbers make when they're under too much strain. If you spend enough time around them, you get to know their music."

"And you spent a lot of time around ships?"

He shrugged. "My father owns a shipyard, back in Ireland. I grew up with the music made by ships and the sea."