Night in Eden (33 page)

He threw the kindling into the fireplace and watched it burst suddenly into flame. There was obviously more heat left in the coals than he had thought. He hefted a small log and balanced it with one hand, his gaze swiveling back to the woman standing as if she were frozen in the middle of the room. He had to ask, had to know. "I thought you might be glad to see him."

"I am glad to see he is still alive." She took off her old cap and dropped it on a nearby chest. "I'm glad that I will no longer have to carry the burden of thinking I killed him." She raked her fingers through her hair. "But that doesn't mean I'm glad to see him."

Hayden tossed the log on the fire, sending a shower of sparks shooting up the chimney. "Is there a difference?"

He saw her eyes narrow in a quick, almost angry frown. "What are you asking me? If I am happy at the thought of him coming here to take me away?"

"Yes. That's what I'm asking." He braced his hands on his knees and looked at her. Dread surged through him, pounded through him, making his chest ache and almost robbing him of breath, but he had to say it. "You're free, Bryony. Free to leave here. Free to go back to Cornwall the way you've always wanted. You don't need me."

He watched her lips part, then close again as she swallowed. For a long moment they simply stared at each other. "Should that change things?"

"Doesn't it?"

An eternity passed while he waited for her answer. Her brows drew together, and he saw her chest rise on a quickly indrawn breath. "For me, or for you?"

"For Christ's sake!" He pushed to his feet and faced her with his arms hanging loose at his sides.
"For you."

She shook her head once, an odd smile playing at the edges of her lips. "Hayden, what I want hasn't changed." She walked right up to him until she was close enough to lay her hands high on his chest and stare deep into his eyes. "
I
love you.
I want to be your wife. I want to stay here and help you make a home in this wild, wonderful place. A home for you and me and Simon and Madeline and this baby, and for all the other babies we talked about having."

Her hands slipped down to grip his upper arms. She tilted her head to one side and searched his face intently, her eyes dark with something he thought might be fear. "That's what I want, Hayden." She swallowed, her gaze still fixed to his face. "Now, you tell me what you want."

He dipped his head until his mouth brushed hers, his lips open, trembling. Then he rested his forehead against hers and squeezed his eyes shut. "How can you not know what I want?" His voice was hoarse, strained. He speared his fingers through her hair, rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks. "How can you not know?"

She searched his face. He saw a glimmer of wetness on her lashes and realized it was tears. "We talk a lot,
you and I," she said softly. "But there have always been some things we've never talked about. Some things we are always very careful not to talk about." A band of color stained her wide, high cheekbones, and her gaze dropped.

He molded his hands to the back of her head, shifting his thumbs beneath her chin to lift her head so that she stared into his eyes again. Their faces were only inches apart. Their warm breath mingled. "Bryony..."

She waited, utterly still, for what he was going to say.

"I love you,
Bryony. I know I should have said it before, but you must believe me now when I tell you I've never loved any woman the way I love you. No, listen," he said quickly when she made a small, startled movement of denial. "I know you're thinking about Laura, but don't. I loved Laura, but there was always something missing between us, something missing from my life when I was with her. Whereas with you..." He tightened his fist in her hair, his gaze intent on her face as he searched for the right words to say. "With you, nothing is missing. But if I lose you..." His voice broke. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her lower lip, but he still couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. Finally he drew in a deep, shaky breath and said, "I can't lose you, Bryony. Whatever I have to do, I'm not letting Oliver Wentworth or anyone else take you away from me."

She buried her face in his shoulder, her hands gripping his waist so tightly she shuddered. "God help us, Hayden... Can Oliver do it? Can he force me to go back to him?"

"If we hadn't married, probably." He stroked his hands up and down her back, feeling her flesh warm and solid beneath his touch. "As it is... I'm not so sure."

"But our marriage isn't legal," she whispered, her face still buried in his shirt. "It's..." He heard the horror in her voice. "It's bigamous."

He shook his head. "No, I don't think so." Wrapping
his hands around her arms, he drew her back so he could look down into her face. "Oliver was declared dead, Bryony. That must make a difference."

Her eyes were huge, full of fear and love and consternation. He wondered how he could ever have doubted her, how he could ever have questioned what she wanted.

"And if it doesn't make a difference?" she asked.

He almost said,
Then I'll kill the bastard myself,
but he didn't. Instead he pulled her into his arms again, so she wouldn't see his face. "We'll fight this, Bryony. I'm not letting him take you."

She laid her cheek against his breast. "What I don't understand is why he even wants me. It's not like Oliver to take back a wife that other men have... touched. Let alone come all the way out here to New South Wales himself to get me. How could he even
afford
it?"

Hayden rested his chin on the top of her head. "He didn't look like a man on the verge of being imprisoned for debt, did he? I wonder what he's really been up to the last two years?"

Bryony tilted back her head to look up at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't think he was picked up by a French naval ship. Smugglers would be more likely. And if he did fall in with smugglers, it would explain both what he's been doing for the last two years, and why he's suddenly in funds again, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, it would. But it doesn't explain why he wants me back."

"I think there's only one way we're going to find out the truth about that," said Hayden, setting his jaw.

A shade of anxiety passed across her face. "What are you going to do?"

Quincy slipped the bit into the mare's mouth, then glanced at Bryony over the horse's back as he led the reins through the check rings. "You sure the Cap'n knows you're goin' into Green Hills?"

Bryony kept her gaze firmly fixed on her own hands as she eased her gloves over her fingers. "Of course he does. Do you think
I
would be going if he did not?"

"Yes."

She met Quincy's knowing brown eyes and let out a puff of breath. "All right. He doesn't know. He's planning to go into Green Hills himself in the morning."

"And yer goin' in this afternoon instead, because yer afraid if he gets his hands on that husband of yers again, he'll kill him."

Bryony nodded. "Maybe if I can see Oliver this afternoon—talk to him calmly, explain things—he'll agree to leave us alone." She threw an anxious glance toward the river, where Hayden had taken some of the men to move stock away from the low ground. A wild, ugly storm had been hovering over the mountains for days now, and Hayden was worried about a flash flood.

"Hurry, Quincy. Someone might come by and see us and mention it to the Captain."

Quincy checked the harness. "It'll probably be dark before we get back. You do know that, don't you?" He turned to squint up at the distant cloud-shrouded peaks. "And if that storm decides to move down the valley—"

"Quincy."

Perched high beside the riverbank, the Buckingham Arms Hotel in Green Hills was a pitiful, single-story colonial structure with an awkward-looking veranda tacked on across the front.

Oliver stood gazing out the narrow, double glass doors that opened from his room directly onto the veranda. Just a few steps beyond the hotel, the rough track of red mud
that passed as a street ended. A jumble of gray, weathered wood formed a crude combination ramp and steps that led down the steep bank to the jetty and the river.

Oliver's nostrils quivered with distaste. An untidy wilderness, this, he thought, staring out beyond the struggling, primitive village to the coarse fields and rough bushland beyond. Winter lay heavy and wet upon the land, yet everything still seemed desiccated and half dead, as if the scorching, merciless sun that beat down on this continent for so many months of the year had seared the freshness, the very life out of everything. He thought of the neat streetscapes and achingly green fields of Britain, and an impatience swept over him, an impatience to have done with this business and be gone from here.

A cart pulled by a matched pair of high-stepping grays turned down the street, drawing his attention. On the wooden seat beside a slim, dark-haired youth sat a woman. Her gown and spencer were surprisingly fashionable, and cut from what looked like an expensive blue serge. Nice, full breasts swelled noticeably above a high waist. Oliver smiled. He'd always had an eye for good horseflesh and a fine woman.

Then the woman's head swiveled around, her gaze raking the facade of the inn as the cart pulled up across the street, and Oliver Wentworth recognized his wife.

He really hadn't believed it yesterday when that man, St. John, claimed he had married her. Tumbled her and impregnated her, maybe. But married her? Oliver hadn't thought it likely.

On the off chance it was true, though, he had gone to the trouble last night of hunting up a half-dead, half-drunk lawyer who had been transported for embezzlement. Oliver had not liked what the old sot had to say.

It turned out that if Bryony had indeed remarried, then it would not be the simple matter of bigamy Oliver had at first assumed it would be. It seemed it made a difference that Bryony's first husband had been declared dead. The
old fool had been too fuddled to be certain which of the two men Bryony would be considered legally married to, but he thought if the marriage had indeed taken place, then Oliver's position would be questionable, to say the least.

Now, as he watched the landlord usher Bryony into the room and shut the door behind her, Oliver felt a surge of uncertainty that bordered on alarm.

Her gown was definitely new, and probably devilishly expensive in this far-flung corner of the world. She wore her heavy auburn hair twisted up into a neat coil at the top of her head and covered with a smart hat. She didn't look like a convict, or even a servant. She looked like a wealthy man's wife.

It was a complication he hadn't counted on. There were not many men who would be willing to take back a wife who had been through the kind of handling Bryony had undoubtedly been subjected to these last two years, no matter how great the inducements. Oliver had expected her to be duly appreciative and grateful, humble even. He hadn't expected her not to need or want him anymore.

He searched her face and found it at once familiar and yet... different. She'd always been a handsome girl, attractive enough to have made him fall in love with her even if she hadn't brought Cadgwith Cove House and its valuable acres to their marriage. But there was a new look of wisdom, a hint of great sufferings borne and overcome about her lovely brown eyes, a more pronounced strength about her mouth and chin.

"Oliver," she said. She was watching him warily, he realized, and he cursed himself for a clumsy fool. He'd obviously frightened her yesterday, and he warned himself to be more careful. She'd always been an independent-thinking woman, difficult to manage. He couldn't afford to turn her against him.

He held out both hands and gave her his most
charming smile. "Bryony." After a minute's hesitation, she came to him, placing her hands in his. He was wise enough not to press for anything more. He simply squeezed her hands, then let her go. "Would you like something to drink?" he asked, turning away.

"No, thank you." She pulled off her gloves in quick, jerky motions. "But please, go ahead if you'd like."

"If you don't mind." He picked up a decanter of Madeira. The distant sound of men's voices and laughter carried from the public rooms down the hall. But except for the liquid swirl of the wine filling the glass, the private parlor was uncomfortably silent. He glanced up and found her watching him. "I am glad you came," he said, picking up his glass. "I wanted to talk to you alone, but I wasn't quite certain how to arrange it."

She gripped her hands together before her and said, "Oliver, I have come to tell you that I do not wish to be your wife anymore."

For a moment he froze, his wine raised halfway to his lips. He forced himself to take a sip and swallow.

"I am grateful that you came out here to find me, that you did everything that was necessary to free me. But too many things have happened, Oliver. Too many things have changed. I cannot go back."

He set his glass down on the table with a snap, feeling a rush of annoyance that he had to fight to keep from coming out as raw fury. "I realize it has been a shock for you, Bryony, thinking I'm dead all these months, only to discover I'm alive. But with time, especially once we get back to Britain, you'll—"