Mary Brock Jones (8 page)

She shoved her elbow sharply back. “Let go of me, you ignorant oaf.”

“Now, sweetheart, that’s no way to talk to a man. All I want is a bit of fun.”

“Georgie,” she shrieked, one hand battering uselessly at the big hand holding her. The child had scampered ahead but turned back at her call, running madly in and tackling the stranger’s leg. The man shook Georgie off, sending the small boy sprawling. Nothing daunted, Georgie sprang up, put up his fists and stood in furious challenge.

“Let her go. That’s Miss Ward. You let her go!”

The man just laughed, holding Georgie off easily while starting to drag Nessa away.

“How dare you. Leave the boy alone. Who do you think you are?” She dug her hands into his, trying to claw them open.

“Just a man who wants a good time with a pretty lady.”

“And you think I would want anything to do with you?” She thumped madly at his arms, straining as hard as she could to get away from the hot, nauseating breath as his mouth came down on hers. Around them, a laughing crowd began to gather. Not a single man stepped forward to help. She recognised a couple of faces—men she had helped. They had been so grateful then. Now, they stood with the rest, egging on her captor. So much for her dream of safety.

“Go on, give her one.”

“Want to share her, mate?”

Between Georgie’s shouts, the crowd calls and her shrieking, the noise volume had reached mad levels. Then a single gunshot rang through the air. A dead silence fell.

“Move away from the lady. Now!”

It was a voice she knew so well, but had never really expected to hear again. He stood at the edge of the crowd, the rifle pointed straight at her tormentor as the crowd edged slowly away.

“C’mon mate. I just want a bit of fun. Go find your own piece of skirt.”

“You really are stupid, son.” There was a click of the rifle being cocked.

“Do as he says, boy,” growled another voice. Then another, and more joined in. The young man turned slowly to face the growing ranks against him.

Carefully, he lifted his hands away from Nessa, stepping deliberately back from her. “No harm done, sirs.”

No one else moved, all eyes shifting uneasily from the young miner to where John Reid stood watching the man leave, his gun slowly tracking the man’s movements. John did not lower it until the man was pulled swiftly by his mates into the crowd. One of them cuffed the man impatiently round his head.

“You idiot. That’s John Reid. You want the run holders and packers against us?”

The crowd quickly broke up now. John’s eye was on them all the time, gun set over his shoulder and ready if needed. Finally, only he and Nessa remained.

Now the threat was over, all Nessa could feel was acute embarrassment. She stared solidly at the ground. This was not how she hoped to meet this man again. Then a firm hand tilted her chin up.

“Are you all right?” said a deep warm voice. Her memory of that same voice had kept her from panicking throughout the trip here and she had called it to mind whenever she felt afraid. Those clear grey eyes were studying her. She saw concern in them, and anger.

Suddenly shy, she could only mumble a subdued, “Thank you.”

John saw the red blush tinge her cheeks and harshly clamped down on the anger shimmering through him. He wasn’t sure whom he wanted to thrash more—the idiot miner who had been bothering her, the idiot brother who had apparently abandoned her here in this lawless hellhole, or himself for not stopping her coming here. And what about the Johnston’s—a safe haven, he’d thought, with no one the wiser that it was he who had asked Garret to arrange it. Yet here she was wandering around on her own without any protection. Someone was going to answer to him.

“Hey, Miss Ward, you coming?” The bright-faced, dust-covered young boy grabbed her skirts far too freely, thought John. How dare the cub? Not when John wanted nothing more than to fold her into his own arms and keep her safe forever. As well as a few other things, he conceded ruefully.

“What about you, Georgie. You’re not hurt?” she was asking the lad.

“Nah. Just a bit of a dust-up I reckon. Now come on. Mum’s got bacon for lunch and we’re in for a right treat. She’s found where the dratted hens are laying.”

John raised an eyebrow, now recognising the scamp as the cherubic-looking hellion he had met last time he visited the Johnstons.

“You coming to lunch, too, Mr Reid? Mum’d be real pleased to see you again.”

Since it matched exactly with what John wanted, he accepted the invitation and ignored Nessa’s quick look of surprise at Georgie’s familiarity. Hopefully, she would assume that he was just well known among the miners, though why that should be so in a camp so many days’ travel from his own property was more than he cared to explain. His name was certainly well known as a supplier and friend to the packers, as she had seen today. But not many knew him personally, not the way the Johnstons or Jean-Claud did. He wasn’t that free with his confidences.

George was still chattering madly as they turned into the track to the Johnston’s cottage. John used the many holes in the road as an excuse to take Nessa’s arm in his. She stiffened at first, but he held her lightly and was soon rewarded. One hole was big enough to cause her to lean into his side. He kept her there and she made no demur. It was enough for now. The churning seas of anger washed easier on his heart. Someone would pay for the fright to her, but not till after lunch.

The scent of her surrounded him as the quiet grace of her voice mingled with the young boy’s, sometimes answering the child and occasionally venturing to respond to his own sallies. Then she asked the question he had feared. The one he couldn’t answer, not yet.

“What brings you so far from home?”

“Business,” he said, hoping against hope.

She looked at him, clearly in doubt. Then put on a polite smile. “I trust it turned out well, after such a long journey … and I cannot be other than grateful for your timely arrival.”

He had escaped, yet felt strangely disappointed and knew why. The formal words sank into his heart. His reasons were no concern of hers, they said. Yes they are, my darling.

How was he to convince her of that? It was starting to drive him crazy. He would swear he had not imagined that look in her eyes when he arrived. And not just because she was frightened.

Or was he fooling himself?

The Johnston’s house was a welcome sight, the cheerful gabble of words that accompanied the family’s welcome even more so.

He could only stay in the Arrow two days. There was too much work at home, and to stay longer might frighten off his Nessa. In those two days, he snatched whatever time she would spare to him. Hope grew. She was attracted to him, he was sure of it. Her pleasure in his company was too real, as was her determination to resist it.

Out of loyalty to her brother? That seemed to rule her life to the exclusion of all else, and what that boy had ever done to deserve such loyalty was beyond him. Then he found out. One afternoon when John came to the Johnstons’ house, Mina was there but no Nessa. The older woman gave him a knowing smile when he queried after Miss Ward. “She’s out with the children, bringing in the washing. Wait here and I’ll fetch her.”

John was left on his own and glanced idly around. All was as he remembered from previous visits, except for the extra cot tucked into an alcove on the far wall. Nessa’s cot. John grew still.

There was a book on her bed. Hand bound, with a cover of stiff card decorated with one precisely drawn, single white rose. John could not resist. He picked it up, brushing his hand across the fine brush strokes marking out each petal. She liked to draw, she had said, not that she was an artist.

He opened the cover and saw it confirmed. He became aware that he was holding his breath.

Leaves, flowers, trees, plants of every kind brought to exquisite life in pencil or paint. Each page had been carefully hand stitched into the folio with a brief note on the back. Name, location, year. A bald recital of her life. Laurel, England, 1856. Herbs on a hill, Thessaloniki, 1860. Now in a child’s hand but with her talent already obvious; a caption that said Seaweed, Beach, Italy.

These were her special sketches, the jewels she kept with her. He lifted over each page slowly, carefully. So many places, so many memories. Some bright and gay, flowers of brilliant reds and yellows gleaming in brightest sun, others dark and glum. From England were grey bushes, dull with water and mist. From Provence, a single pale cluster of flowers shining against a dark wall. Evening, he guessed, from what appeared to be moonlight. Then the seaweed on the Italian beach, black against the sand with edges of frazzled dryness. She would have been a small child when it was drawn.

Then came Greece, Spain, the Aegean Sea, colour festooning the tough and twisted trees—flowers, bushes and grasses so real he would swear they moved in a breeze.

He kept turning, greedy to know more … and came to a face: a woman, tired, worn but with so much love in her eyes, then a little boy running along a beach, followed by a man digging in a rocky soil. They were pencil sketches, their lines simple and lacking the precise complexity of her later drawings. So much love shone in that woman’s eyes.

He turned the pages over, seeking the names on the back. Mother, 1850. Philip, 1851. Father, 1859.

He had to turn back, to look again at the images. The boy was so carefree; but there was the man he would become, in the eyes and the bright curls on his head. He could see the son in the mother’s face. Nessa’s mother.

There was little of her daughter in the physical lines of the woman’s face, but the strength, the caring: those she had passed on. Nessa took more after her father in looks. There was a lean wiriness to the man that hinted at the slim grace of his daughter. He couldn’t see the man’s face. It was too resolutely set towards the hole he was digging, and away from his watching daughter.

He turned another page and stopped in shock.

Pictures, drawn in thick, black charcoal. A grave. A bouquet of roses, each petal meticulously outlined. A small boy lost and confused. Even in the simple sketch, the grief on the child’s face was obvious to John. Less clearly drawn, a man stood at the head of the grave, isolated from the boy.

He turned the next page. The boy huddled on the ground and a young girl crouched beside him, holding him. Her face was hidden but her arms were locked around him and her back was stiff. The boy clung tightly to her skirts.

He didn’t need to turn the page to know whom Nessa had drawn this time: her younger self and Philip. The sketch was a statement, both of a promise made and a challenge. She would protect her brother, love him, keep him safe.

His hand clenched in a fist above the drawing. How could he fight that?

“Here, what you doing with Miss Nessa’s book?”

It was young Georgie, barrelling through the door and glaring at him.

“Just looking,” said John softly.

“Not that book. That’s Miss Nessa’s special one. She don’t show it to anyone. You put it back.”

There wasn’t an ounce of fear on the young bantam’s face. John had to laugh. He put the book down, exactly as he had found it, and ruffled the boy’s hair.

“Tell your mother I’ll come back later. I’ve something to attend to now.”

Georgie nodded as he left, seemingly satisfied with the excuse. He hoped Mina understood well. He could not talk to her, not now. And talk to Nessa? Not till he’d had a walk—a very long walk.

It didn’t help, not as much as he had hoped. One day, she would let the boy go free. He had to believe that. One day. But he knew now that only she could decide when that day would come. It was a right she had more than earned. A right that would destroy her if he tried to take it away. Her drawings had shown him that.

Until then, he must keep her safe.

Starting with telling the Johnstons exactly what he thought of letting her roam around a mining camp like the Arrow with only young Georgie for protection—and he would show the Arrow just how important this woman was to him. How real were the packers and his arm of protection over her. Starting with that young idiot who had tried to assault her.

“The packers matter here, boy, and they take care for their friends. Remember that next time you accost a young lady without her permission.”

The man grunted, scowling as he set out for another field, another place where he hoped not to be known. Maybe John should feel guilty, but he had no intention of reversing his ban on the boy. The miners must know the penalty if they touched those under his care. Only that would keep Nessa safe.

Then the brother came back.

“Philip!” Nessa’s glad cry left him in no doubt of her brother’s place in her heart. The boy trudged up the pathway by the Johnston’s hut. John had walked over to escort her to work in the morning. He had been waiting since first light for the pleasure of feeling her arm tucked trustingly into his. Now it wasn’t going to happen.

“What are you doing here so early? Have you found something?”

Philip shook his head. “But I will, Sis. There’ve been traces of colour. Just a bit longer.”

“Of course you will. Now, come on in and have some breakfast. You look half-starved.” Nessa playfully poked him in the ribs. There was no missing the wince, no matter how hard Philip tried to keep a straight face. She stopped, turning him to the sun to see him more clearly. It was only an instant before he pulled away, telling her to leave him alone; but that was enough. His shirt was torn, his clothes smudged with dust, and he carried no bag. What had looked to be the normal wear and tear of the miner’s toil was something quite different.

“What happened?”

“Nothing … Of any moment, anyway.” Philip would not look at her.

“Your claim was jumped?” said John. Philip glanced at him, before answering his sister’s cry.

“I wasn’t badly hurt. You don’t need to fuss.”

“You were lucky then,” said John. Both of them needed to hear it, he decided, yet hated having to inflict the honest truth on Nessa. “There are plenty who were not so lucky.”

Philip scowled. “You don’t need to tell me that, Reid. I’m not totally naïve; but I got away with a few bruises this time. Equipment can be replaced, and they didn’t get the bit of gold I did have hidden away. Enough there to get me started again.”