Night in Eden (24 page)

Bryony looked up from the stew she was stirring over the fire. "How do you know that, Quincy?"

"She told me.
I
stop by there sometimes in the mornin', when
I
finish here. Carver's always out then, and the poor girl needs help—she hasn't got a notion of how to do the simplest things."

There was something about the airy way in which this was said that set alarm bells to ringing in Bryony's head. "Quincy," she said levelly. "You be careful. You have enough trouble with Carver. You don't need more."

Simon lay on his stomach on the rug, a look of determination hardening the gentle features of his face.

Bryony set aside the shirt she was mending to watch him. He'd been restless the last few days, as if he wanted something but he wasn't quite sure what it was. His eyes were fixed on the bright red wooden rattle that he'd just dropped. He stretched his hand out toward it, but it had
rolled away from him, and he fussed angrily when his arm proved too short to reach it. He tried again, with the same result. Then, propping himself up on his elbows, he moved first one arm forward, then the other, giving a little half kick from behind with his feet so that he somehow managed to half drag, half push his fat little body forward.

He didn't move far, and it wasn't a very elegant motion, but it was enough to enable his plump little hand to close over the end of the rattle. He seized it in triumph and crowed his delight.

Bryony scooped him up into her arms and spun around with him, laughing in delight herself. "You did it! You really did it, Simon. You crept! Aren't you a clever little boy?"

She hugged him to her, wishing Hayden was here so she could tell him. But Hayden had gone to Parramatta to talk to Sir D'Arcy Baxter about sheep, and wasn't expected back until the end of the week.

She was still dancing around the room with Simon when she became aware of voices in the yard. Angry men's voices.

Shifting Simon to her hip, she walked out onto the veranda. What she saw there made her clutch the baby to her in swift, awful fear.

After the cool darkness of the house, the sunlit yard was hot and dazzlingly bright. A large crowd of men had gathered down by the barn. Bryony had seen this type of gathering enough times in the past year to recognize it for what it was.

It was a flogging.

The victim had been stripped and tied to a post. He was small and slim and dark, and his bared back already bore scars from the whip. Recent scars.

"Quincy," Bryony whispered.

Her horrified eyes focused on the big man with long, graying hair who was shaking out a cat with practiced ease. Will Carver.

"Ye cocky little son of a bitch," she heard him snarl. "Ye think you can mess with my woman? Ye been askin' fer this, boy, and now yer going to get it." He drew back his arm and sent the metal-tipped lashes whistling through the air to land with a sickening snap against Quincy's back.

The boy didn't flinch.

"I'm gonna peel yer hide right off ye, boy. By the time I'm through with ye, there's not a woman in this colony would take a second look at ye, 'cept maybe in pity."

The cat sang again.

He's going to kill him,
Bryony thought. She looked at the cold, mad hatred twisting Will Carver's face and knew that he wouldn't stop swinging that cat until the boy tied to the post was reduced to nothing but a bloody hunk of dead meat. And there was no one to stop him.

The cat snapped a third time.

Her heart pounding so hard it hurt, Bryony whirled and ran into the house. She laid Simon in his bed and passed through the communicating doors to Hayden's room.

The pistol was in the drawer of the bedside table, loaded and primed as he'd said it would be. She lifted it in her right hand, feeling its weight, then tucked it under her apron. It felt cold and deadly through the thin cotton skirt covering her thigh as she walked out of the house and down the yard.

The sun blazed hot on her back. She felt her upper lip grow damp, felt her dress stick to her sweat-slicked back. No one noticed her; everyone's attention was focused on the scene before the barn.

She stopped just outside the group of watching men and lifted the pistol. Supporting it with both hands, she aimed at a point on the side of the barn some four feet directly above Will Carver's head. She hadn't touched the pistol since the day the Aboriginals' dog had attacked her, and her hands shook alarmingly. But she gritted her teeth, held her breath, and pulled the trigger as Carver drew the cat back over his shoulder.

Bryony's bullet shattered the whip
just
above Carver's fist.

It would have been a brilliant shot, if she'd been aiming for it. As it was, it was so far off the mark she'd sighted on that it scared the very devil out of her. But she resolutely pulled back the second hammer and leveled the pistol at the overseer's chest as he swung around to stare at her.

Shock and fear drained Carver's face white. He dropped the broken whip handle as if it, too, might explode in his hand. But when he saw who challenged him, his look of fear slid slowly into a sneer. "Ye goin' to shoot me with that, ye worthless little strumpet?" His jaws worked silently as he pursed his lips and sent a stream of tobacco juice in her direction.

The crowd of men had fallen abruptly silent and drawn back, leaving Bryony to face Will Carver across a cleared space of perhaps fifteen or twenty feet. "If I have to," she said.

His grin widened to reveal yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. "Ye'll hang just fer pointin' that gun at me."

"Then, it doesn't matter if I kill you, does it?"

He seemed to consider this. "Thing is, ye might miss. Then what'll ye do? Ye only got one shot left."

"I didn't miss the whip, and it was a considerably smaller target than you, Mr. Carver."

He spat again, but Bryony saw his eyes narrow. "A lucky shot."

"Are you prepared to take that chance?"

She wondered what in God's name she was supposed to do next. It had never occurred to her that the man might refuse to back down. She took a deep breath and willed her hands to stop shaking. "Get on your horse and ride out of here, Mr. Carver."

Carver threw back his head and laughed. "Ho! Ye goin' to make me, woman? And what if I decide to ride you, instead?" He took a menacing step toward her, his sneer turning into a leer. "I hear ye don't like what I been
doin' to Ann McBride. Well, maybe ye'd like to take her place. Maybe yer gettin' tired of servicin' jist the Cap'n, huh?"

Bryony took an involuntary step back, then hated herself for it. A gleam of triumph flashed in the overseer's eyes. He thought he had her measure. He thought she wouldn't shoot him.

Only, she would. She'd rather hang for murder than let this man touch her, and she was probably going to hang anyway for what she'd already done. But she knew she had only one shot, and she couldn't afford to miss, so she let him come on. She held her ground, the pistol growing oddly steadier as he advanced on her.

"Leave her be."

Carver stopped and swung slowly around to face the barn.

Gideon Shanaghan stood in the open doorway, a look of grim determination on his face and a pitchfork in his hands. "Leave her be," he repeated. "And get out of here while you still can."

Will Carver's face hardened. "Ye threatened me with a pitchfork once before, ye little Irish shit. I let it go then, but not this time. This time yer both goin' to hang. I'll ride out of here, all right. Straight to Green Hills. Only I'll be back. With a magistrate."

He took one step toward the stables.

"No," said McDuff, coming forward to range his bulk alongside Gideon. "I'm thinkin' ye'll wait here where we can keep an eye on ye, 'til the Cap'n gets back."

"Aye," said a second man, then a third.

And Bryony knew the worst was over.

The door of her room flew open with such force that it hit the wall with a resounding thud.

Bryony jumped, pricking her finger with her needle and almost dropping the gown she was stitching. She
carefully folded her sewing and set it on the table beside her chair, then raised her eyes to the man who stood, booted and spurred, on the threshold of her room.

"You're back," she said, unable to keep a slight quiver out of her voice.

"Obviously." He stood with his legs braced wide, his hands on his lean, knife-slung hips. "Do you care to tell me why my overseer is locked in the holding cell in my store?"

Her mouth felt suddenly dry, but she resisted the impulse to moisten her lips with her tongue. "Perhaps Gideon would be better able—"

"No. I want to hear it from you. After all, you seem to have been the key player in this little drama."

She rose shakily to her feet and smoothed her gray gown with a hand that was not quite steady. "Very well."

She walked past him, her head held high even though she was quaking inside. He followed her into the darkened dining room with a heavy, menacing tread. When she spun around to face him, he was so close he nearly ran into her.

He stood where he was, unmoving. She was the one who backed up.

"It started with Quincy," she said.

He walked away from her then, to where a decanter of brandy and some of Laura's crystal glasses stood on a table. "Somehow I thought it might," he said dryly, unstopping the decanter.

"He... he took an interest in Ann McBride."

He glanced up at her, one eyebrow cocked, a sardonic smile curving his lips. "You mean, he took her to bed."

"I don't know about that." She realized she was wringing her hands, and made herself stop. "He... he felt sorry for her."

He laughed softly. "I'm sure he did." Bryony watched him pour the brandy into a glass. "I take it Will Carver, however, was unappreciative of his sympathy?"

"He had Quincy tied to a post down by the barn and was flogging him. He would have killed him. There was no one to stop him."

He slowly eased the stopper back into the decanter and set it down. "So you stopped it. With my gun?"

"Yes."

He lifted the glass to his lips and drank from it, slowly. The heat of his gaze never left her face. "You realize you could be hanged for what you did?"

"Yes."

He drained the glass and reached for the decanter to refill it. "I've given Will Carver until tomorrow morning to clear out. After some persuasion, he agreed not to press charges against you and Gideon, in return for my agreement not to press charges for his assault on Quincy. And he'll be leaving Ann McBride here."

Bryony let her breath out in a soft sigh.

"It was a stupid thing to have done," he said. He refilled his glass and regarded it for a moment without making a move to pick it up. "I feel like beating you myself."

She stared at his dark, shadowed profile and noticed for the first time the traces of concern, even worry, that etched his forehead and deepened the lines about his lips. It was concern that fueled his anger, she realized; concern for her. He was angry because she'd put herself at risk by what she'd done. He was angry with her because he
cared.

Cared about her. Cared
for
her.

The thought caused a warm happiness to surge within her. Her love for this man flooded through her like something that could not be denied. It overwhelmed her. Submerged her.

"Someone had to stop him," she said.

He twisted his head around, and his hard gaze slammed into her. "As far as I can figure, there were some two dozen men watching that flogging. But
you
felt you had to stop it?"

"Yes."

He advanced on her slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. She knew he wanted her. Knew it by the arousal on his face, by the fire that burned in his shockingly blue eyes. He came right up to her, until he was only a sigh away from her. Then he turned away abruptly.

"Get out of here, Bryony," he breathed, his voice harsh, tortured. "Get the hell out of here now."

"No."

He spun back around. "Goddamn it, woman! Don't you know what I want to do to you? I want to lay you back on that bloody table there and rip that ugly work dress off you so I can fill my hands with your bare breasts. I want to wrap those long white legs of yours around my hips and bury myself inside you and take you... hard and fast and
now."

She felt the blood drain from her face as the heat of his words washed over her. But all she said was: "I know."

He stared at her with dark, intense eyes. "Then, why the hell are you still here?"

"Because I want you, too."

He snagged his fist in her hair, slamming her up against him. His breath beat hot and fast against her face. "You're playing with fire, Bryony. I won't be able to stop."

She placed her hands on his chest and curled her fingers into the fine linen of his shirt. "I don't want you to stop. I already burn."