Whispers of Heaven (40 page)

"Perhaps you'd play more correctly if you actually looked at the keys, Warrick," said an acerbic voice behind him.

"Mother." He twirled around on the stool to find her standing in the doorway, the flickering light from the candlestick in her hand throwing somber shadows across her pale face. "Missing the point, as always."

"I need you to select one of the men," she said, her gaze fixed on some irrelevant feature to his left. She rarely looked at him, if she could avoid it. And she'd been avoiding it since he was twelve. "Someone trustworthy—preferably one of the free workers. Send him to me first thing in the morning."

"Why?"

Beatrice swung her head to look directly at him, the features of her face pinching together in that way she had, as if she were mentally cataloging all of his faults and inadequacies, and despising him for them. "If I need any interference from you, Warrick, I will ask for it. In the meantime, all I require is that you provide me with a suitable individual in the morning."

Warrick watched her disappear into the candlelit darkness, a tall, cold figure dressed in black. Then he turned back to the piano and brought his hands crashing down on the keys in a violent, discordant note.

Two days later, Lucas drove Miss Jesmond Corbett to the dressmaker's in Blackhaven Bay.

She sat a proper distance from him on the plump leather seat of the shiny black shay, her shoulders back and chin up, her face turned slightly away from him as she stared out over sunlit fields growing lush and green in the warmth of late spring. No one seeing the two of them bowling down the road, side by side, would ever take them for anything more than a gentlewoman and her convict servant. But then, that's what they were, Lucas reminded himself, for all she'd taken his body deep into hers and tangled her fingers in his hair while she held his head to her naked breast.

Jerking his mind away from the image, Lucas spanked the reins against the mare's dappled rump, urging the horse into a faster trot that sent the shay swaying and lurching down the rutted road to the bay. He hadn't seen her since that night they'd shared beneath the brilliant splendor of the aurora, hadn't spoken to her. But he knew her now, and he knew that something was wrong.

"Is it because of what we did the other night?" he asked abruptly. "Are you regretting it?"

She swung her head to look at him, her eyes wide and dark with emotion, one corner of her mouth lifting in a sad kind of half-smile. "No. Never. I love you." Her gaze held his for one brief, powerful instant, then veered away, the silence between them filling with the rattle of the harness chains and the rhythmic tattoo of the mare's hooves on the dirt road. He knew what she was waiting for, knew what she needed to hear from him, but he couldn't give it to her. Not now, not ever.

"It's my mother," she said after a moment, her voice tight, strained. "She found out about my visits to the cottage on Last Chance Point. I should have told her myself, of course. Long ago." She let out a huff of breath in a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but wasn't. "It's funny; I have never thought of myself as a coward. But lately, I've realized that I am. I don't mean in the physical sense, but... emotionally. I have a very real fear of disappointing the people in my life, of making them angry, or hurting them. I simply cannot bear the hideous, tense atmosphere that comes with disapproval and anger. With the result that somehow, in the process of avoiding it, I seem to have lost touch with myself—who I am, what I want."

"I'd say most people prefer a calm life," he said, his attention on a turning in the road.

"Perhaps. But most people don't let their fear of disrupting that calm determine the choices they make in their lives."

"You're not a coward," he said quietly. "There's nothing wrong with trying to make the people in our lives happy. We just can't carry it too far."

She glanced up at him, the wide brim of her pale straw hat lifting to let the sun shine warm and golden on her face, the breeze of the carriage's movement fluttering the navy ribbons at her chin. He could see her confusion shining in her eyes, and also the glimmer of new-found but painful self-awareness and understanding. He ached to take her in his arms and hold her, simply hold her in comfort. But there was a fish wagon rattling toward them up the hill from town, and she was a gentlewoman and he her convict servant. He kept his hands on the reins and his eyes on the road.

He drove her to the dressmaker's, then left the horse and carriage at the livery stable and went for a walk along the pebbly shore. A warm spring breeze wafted around him, heavy with the briny scents of fish and hemp, and the reek of melting blubber from the tryworks south of town. Narrowing his eyes against the reflected sun, he studied the ships riding at anchor in the bay. There was the usual assortment of coastal craft, and what was probably an American whaleship, a storm-battered bark that must have just put into port and looked in sore need of a refit. Beyond that lay a two-masted schooner, ready to put out to sea, her decks swarming with constables, and with white smoke billowing from her portholes and ventilators.

Once, convicts had stowed away on ships leaving Tas- manian ports. They'd been known to hide themselves in barrels of cheese, or wrap themselves in spare jibs in the sail lockers—anything to escape their island prison. Now, all ships leaving Tasmanian ports were required to undergo rigorous searches by the local constables. The American captains, especially, resented the British officials banging on the ships' casks, and thrusting bayonets into bales and sacks, and setting off their stinking sulfur bombs. But there was no real choice; the captains either endured the humiliation, or they went elsewhere for their supplies and repairs.

The constables were leaving now, climbing down the ladder into their waiting boats. Lucas turned away, to find a man walking toward him across the strand. The man was tall and thin, with a long-boned, New England face framed by straw-colored, swooping sidewhiskers. In spite of the sun, he wore a seaman's peacoat and black wool bell-bottom trousers stained with whale oil, and walked with a familiar rollicking gait ruined in midstride by a slight limp.

"Lucas, me lad," he said, his craggy face breaking into a wide smile that revealed two gold eyeteeth. "What in the name o' all that's holy are y' doing here at the bottom o' the world?"

Jessie stretched onto her back, one arm bent up behind her head, her breath coming in long, deep gasps.

They lay together in the warm afterglow of their love- making, in the hidden sea cave behind the waterfall. The sand felt cool and sensuously soft beneath her naked flesh, the surge of the waves on the rocks below mingling with the thunderous rush of the waterfall to fill the cavern with a natural melody of vibrant life.

She rolled slowly onto her side and smiled softly as she gazed at the man beside her. He had his eyes closed, his lashes lying dark and impossibly long against the bronze thrust of his cheekbones. At rest, he looked younger, she thought; more vulnerable. She let her gaze drift over the laugh lines beside his eyes, the gently sculpted curve of his lips, and felt her love for him swell in her chest, warm and aching and wondrous.

The beauty of his male body awed her, the hard strength of his muscles beneath the unexpected softness of his flesh, the perfect symmetry of torso and limb. She followed the long, powerful line of his naked legs down to his ankles, with their raw red scars, and knew a swift stab of the sick anger and fear she felt every time she thought of how much he had suffered.

How much he could suffer, still.

She glanced back up at his face to find his eyes open, watching her. He smiled. "What are you doing?"

She raised herself on her bent elbow, chin propped on fist, and smiled back at him. "Looking at you."

Reaching up, he tangled his fist in the loose fall of her hair and tugged her off balance, so that she tumbled laughing onto his chest. "Do you like what you see?" he asked, his voice husky, his eyes gleaming with Irish mischief and a sensuous, exciting promise.

She gazed down at him. "I could look at you forever," she said, suddenly serious, "and still it wouldn't be enough."

He sucked in a quick breath, his lids drifting half closed, hiding his eyes from her gaze. A swift rush of inexplicable fear seized her heart.

"Jessie ..." He sat up, drawing her with him so that they sat facing each other, knee to knee. "There's something I must tell you." He laced the fingers of one hand with hers, squeezing so tightly it almost hurt. "I met an old friend of mine in Blackhaven Bay this afternoon. A whaling captain from Nantucket, named Abraham Chase."

"An American?" she said in surprise. "How do you know him?"

A flash of wry amusement lit up his dark features, momentarily dispelling the unusual solemnity. "Never be asking a true Irishman how he knows an American sea captain."

"I'll try to remember that piece of worldly advice," she said lightly, although inside she was still afraid. Very afraid. "So, what is your Captain Chase doing here, in Tasmania, at this time of year?"

"His ship was hit by a bad storm, to the west, a month or so ago, when they were on their way home. They put into an uninhabited island and managed to make enough repairs to limp back here." He paused for a moment, his gaze falling to their linked hands, a muscle bunching along his tight jaw, as if he found it difficult to go on.

"Dear God," she whispered. "He's going to help you escape."

He looked up and met her gaze. He didn't say anything, but she saw the answer written in his eyes.

"How?" she demanded, small tremors beginning to course through her body. She wanted this so badly, for his sake, but just the thought of it actually happening brought her more pain than she was sure she could bear.

"He'll let me know when the
Agnes Anne's
been made ready to sail. The constables will search the ship before they leave the port, so he'll have to send in a lighter to pick me up somewhere up the coast—Shipwreck Cove, or maybe here."

She bowed her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. She could hear the screech of gulls in the cove outside, a familiar sound that now seemed oddly out of place. She felt light-headed, adrift, removed from herself, as if this moment were happening to someone else. "How long?" she asked, her voice torn. "How long will it take before they're ready to leave?"

"Three or four weeks. The ship should be ready by the beginning of the month." He reached out to her, his hands spearing into her hair to draw it back, his thumbs lifting her chin so that he could see her face. "You knew. You knew this day would come."

She swallowed, the pain in her chest building, building, until it seemed as if she were nothing but this screaming, impossible pain of denial and loss. "I knew. And I want you to be free." She tried to smile, but her lips were trembling too much. "More even than I want you here with me, I want you to be free. But that doesn't make it any easier."

She rose swiftly and went to stand at the entrance to the cave, where the mist from the waterfall wafted cool against her skin. It should have seemed strange, walking about naked in front of him. But nothing had ever seemed more natural, more right. He knew her body better than she knew it herself.

"I can't go back to my old life," she said, her gaze fixed on the falling white torrent of frothy water. "Not now. Not after you."

She heard him rise to his feet, although she couldn't look at him, couldn't let him see her face. "Then make a new life for yourself."

She nodded, swallowing, swallowing, trying to swallow the threat of tears along with the pain. "The problem is, the life I want is with you."

"It can't be."

"I know." Her head fell back, her eyes painfully dry as she stared up at the smooth rock arching above. "Where will you go?"

"America, of course. 'Tis a grand nation they're building— better by far than anything the world has ever seen. I want to be there."

"I could come to America. I could find you."

He came up behind her, his arms slipping around her body to draw her back against the warmth of his naked man's body. "Your life is here," he said, laying his cheek against her hair, his breath warm against the side of her face. "Everything and everyone you love is on this island. It's your home. You wouldn't be happy anywhere else."

She turned in his arms, looked up into his beloved face, luminous in the refracted light from the falls. "You think I can be happy without you?"

"In time, yes."

She shook her head. "You're wrong. Oh, I'll survive. And I know I'll find moments of happiness. But I'm never going to stop loving you, Lucas Gallagher. I'm never going to stop missing you, never going to stop wanting to be with you."

He cupped her cheek in his hand, his naked chest rising and falling with his breathing, his eyes deep and dark with his own pain. "You'll be with me,
mo chridh
," he said, his voice breaking as he brushed his lips against hers in a kiss as soft as the mist. "For I'll be keeping you with me always, in my heart."

Early the next evening, Lucas was coming out of the last stall after feeding and watering the horses for the night when he walked straight into a fist.

Caught off guard he stumbled back against the stall door, his arms flinging wide to catch his balance, the bucket he'd been carrying hitting the cobbles with a rattling clang that sent oats hissing across the smooth stones. He straightened slowly, backhanding a bloody trickle from his mouth as he eyed the man who stood before him.

The golden light of the setting sun streaming in the high arched windows gilded the man's angelically fair hair and aristocratic features, contorted now in an uncharacteristic snarl of cold fury. "Lock him up in the wool press for the night," Warrick Corbett told the two men with him as he turned abruptly away, one fist cradled in the other. "We'll send the bastard into Blackhaven Gaol in the morning."

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

That night, a wind blew up from the Antarctic, a wild wind laced with freezing rain that pelted the windows and sent icy drafts whipping through the castle halls. If it had been winter, a fire would have been kindled on every hearth, but it was spring. At the castle, all fires were allowed to burn themselves out on the first of October, and out they stayed until the first of April, no matter how cold the weather.