Whispers of Heaven (42 page)

She swung to face him again, her eyes full of something he wasn't used to seeing there when she looked at him, something he thought might be scorn. "Because the only person you have ever loved is yourself."

"Bloody hell." He straightened with a jerk. "And who have you ever loved?"

"You."

He gave a harsh laugh. "You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

Her face was bleached of all color now, her eyes wide and dark and hurting. "No. If I did, I wouldn't have told you."

She made as if to brush past him, but he snagged her arm and hauled her back around again. "I should think you'd be first to thank me for getting rid of that bloody groom. After all, it's your brother Jess is marrying."

She looked at him, at his face, then dropped her gaze to where his fingers curled around the braided cuff of her dress. He imagined he could feel her pulse beating there, thrumming through her, shuddering them both. But all she said was, "I don't think Jessie should marry Harrison."

He leaned into her. "Oh you don't, do you? Why ever not?"

She sucked in a quick breath that lifted her full, high breasts. "Because he'll never be what she needs, and she doesn't know how to handle him. He'll destroy her—they'll destroy each other."

He laughed again, although even to his own ears, his laugh sounded forced, jeering, a show of bravado thrown in the face of truth. "I never knew you had such a taste for melodrama."

"You never knew me at all," she said. And this time when she jerked away from him, he let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It was hard on Old Tom, taking over the stables again. He had other men to help him, and the boy, Charlie, of course. But without Gallagher, it was still too much for an old, sick man.

She found him alone, grooming Finnegan's Luck in the stables on a rainy afternoon. She watched him send Charlie off to the south paddock, to bring in a chestnut mare, then she walked through the wide double doors and stood near the cobbled entrance, where she'd be able to see anyone approaching before they came close enough to overhear what she was saying.

"Lass," said Tom, glancing up from cleaning the stallion's near front hoof. "Sure then, but 'tis a wet day for a ride."

She shook her head. "I don't want to ride. I need to talk to you."

He must have seen something in her face, because he let the stallion's hoof down and straightened, wiping his hands on his leather apron. "All right."

Finding it suddenly difficult to begin, she wandered the upper aisle, fidgeting with his grooming tools and running her hand over the smooth, polished seat of a saddle. The scents of saddle soap and leather and hay enveloped her, hitting her with a flood of bittersweet memories that seemed to twist all the hurting places inside of her, making her ache with sadness.

Dropping her hand, she swung about again, her gaze hard on the old man's weathered, gray-whiskered face. "I need

help, Tom. It's wrong of me to ask it of you, I know, but I have thought this over for endless hours, and I just don't see how I can do it on my own."

It was raining harder now, big drops that pounded the packed dirt of the yard and filled the air with the smell of wet earth. He glanced at the rain-drenched yard, then back at her. "What is it you're wanting to do, lass?"

"Break Gallagher out of Blackhaven Gaol and get him onboard a whaleship headed for Nantucket."

To her amazement, a gleam of amusement lit his watery brown eyes. "Oh, is that all?"

She felt an answering smile tug at her lips, although a moment ago, she'd have sworn she'd never smile again. "That's all."

He picked up a brush and began to work it over the bay's withers. "When would this be happening, then?"

"When the
Agnes Anne
is ready to sail. Lucas said it would be the end of the month, but I'll need to talk to the captain, to make certain."

"I want to help, too," said Charlie, scooting in through the door.

Jessie whirled, her heart jamming up into her throat. The boy must have only pretended to run off to the paddocks, then doubled back behind the stables to creep around the side and listen. He stood now in the entrance, his hands fisted at his sides, his freckled face white with fierce determination.

She reached out a shaky hand to touch his shoulder. "I am genuinely grateful for the offer, Charlie, but I can't allow you to put yourself at risk of punishment."

"They won't be able to do me nothin' if I go to America, too," he said, staring up at her with old, hard eyes. Eyes like that didn't belong on a boy his age.

She shook her head. "No. It's too dangerous. You might be recaptured. Even killed."

Behind her, Old Tom let out a derisive snort. "And 'tis a fine future he'll be having, then, if he stays here in Tasmania, is it? The way I see it, if the boy's willing to take the risk, it's no' your place to stop him. It's his life."

Jessie pivoted her head to meet the old man's gaze, and smile sadly. "Wise Tom. You're right, of course." To Charlie, she said, "I would like your help. I think we're going to need it."

It was later, when she was leaving the stables, that she turned to put her hand on Old Tom's arm and ask him suddenly, "What does
mo chridh
mean?"

He looked at her with sad, knowing eyes.
"Mo chridh?
It means 'my sweetheart,' lass. My love."

"You need to find someone competent to help Old Tom in the stables," Jessie told her brother the next day as he sent the shay rattling down the hill to Blackhaven Bay. The morning was cool, but fine, the sun reflecting off the blue waters of the bay in bright, dazzling glints. But all Jessie could see was the fortress-like sandstone walls of the gaol, standing dark and somber at the edge of town.

Warrick looked up from handling the ribbons, a boyish scowl settling over the perfect features of his face. "I
had
someone—the best bloody groom I've ever seen. Until you decided to use him for something else entirely." He spanked the reins against the mare's rump, urging the dapple gray on even faster. "I tell you, Jess, I never expected you to serve Harrison such a backhanded turn."

She swung her face away, one hand coming up to grasp the brim of her bonnet to keep it from flying off as the shay lurched and rattled along at a dangerous speed. Warrick always drove too fast. "I wasn't
using
Lucas Gallagher for anything, Warrick. I love him."

"A convict, Jess? A bloody Irish convict?"

Her gaze jerked back to him. "My God. You sound like Mother. I'd no notion you were such a snob."

An unexpected band of color stained his perfect cheekbones. "I'm not a snob," he said in a peculiar, strained voice.

"You certainly sound like one. Oh, Warrick ..." She reached out to touch his sleeve in a sudden rush of emotion and need. "I would have expected you, of all people, to understand the confusion of my feelings about Harrison."

The color on his cheeks deepened, but he only pressed his lips into a tight line, and said nothing.

They had reached the outskirts of town now and were turning to run along the strand. She could see some three or four ships riding at anchor, along with the smaller coastal craft. She studied the rocking hulls and waving masts, and found the
Agnes Anne.

"Sometimes, friendship can deepen, Jess," Warrick said suddenly. "Even when you don't expect it to."

She looked at him, surprised by his words. "This one won't."

"Then why are you getting married next month?" he asked, looking at her hard as he reined in before the livery stable, but she only shook her head. "I'll not be letting you near the gaol," he added, "if that's what you're thinking, coming here with me today."

"No, of course not," she said with forced lightness, stepping down without his help. "I only want to visit my dressmaker, and then perhaps go for a walk along the bay. Shall I meet you here in, say, two hours?"

Jessie sat on a low stone wall facing the beach, near the edge of town, and watched a tall seaman with sandy-colored sidewhiskers and the forthright, direct gaze of an American walk toward her. He had a hitch in his stride that seemed to emphasize the rollicking nature of his gait and made him look faintly rakish, like someone Lucas would know. The thought made her smile sadly.

He didn't come right up to her, but paused nearby, his gaze fixed on the faint line of the horizon, where blue sky met blue, blue water. "I hear y' been lookin' for me."

Like him, she stared out to sea. "You are Captain Chase?"

"Aye."

"I understand you are a good friend of Lucas Gallagher."

He glanced down at her, quickly, then away. "Aye. That I am."

"Did you know he's been put in gaol?"

"I'd heard."

"Well, I'm going to get him out."

She didn't wear a nightcap.

Warrick hadn't known that about Miss Philippa Tate, and it surprised him now, looking at her asleep in the shadows of her big four-poster bed, her hair spread across the pillow in a dark satin wave. She'd been right, what she said to him that day. He didn't know her, not anymore. She'd always known him, always accepted him for what he was—his wildness, his pain, his dreams and fears. Warrick thought he must have known her, once, when they were children. He wondered when they'd lost that.

The grating of the safety match sounded abnormally loud in the stillness of the night. He held the flame to the wick of the candle of her chamber stick, watched it flare up, golden and surprisingly bright in the darkness of the night. Around them, the big house shuddered, as if wakened by the wind blundering against its walls. Then all was still again.

She must have sensed the light, in her sleep, for she stirred. He watched her eyes flutter open, close, then widen. She moved quickly, reaching for the dressing gown laid across the seat of a chair near the bed. His hand got there first.

"My congratulations," he said, giving her a smile that showed his teeth. "Most women would have screamed."

She sat back, her hands fisting in the covers, although to do her credit, she didn't yank them up to her chin in an ostentatious display of maidenly modesty. "You've been drinking," she said, that infallible calm of hers firmly in place. Most people thought her a model of conformity, of compliance. But she wasn't. She was just one of the lucky ones, for she was naturally much the way her society expected her to be. She didn't need to pretend, didn't need to hide—or at least, not as much as some of them.

"I have been drinking, yes," he said, giving her a low bow. "Only, not as much as you might think."

"Why are you here?"

Straightening, he raised his eyebrows and gave her his best leer. "In your bedroom? At one in the morning? Wouldn't you naturally assume I'm here to ravish you?"

She stared up at him, the candlelight gleaming over her pale face and throat, her eyes dark and huge. "Some might. I wouldn't."

"No?" He wrapped one arm around the bedpost and leaned into it. "Perhaps you don't know me as well as you think you do, either." He paused for effect, but when he didn't get one, he spun away. "As a matter of fact, we need to talk."

"Why here, now?"

"I found it appropriate."

He turned to find a soft smile curving her mouth. "You mean, because it is entirely inappropriate?"

"Yes, I suppose."

To his surprise, she threw back the covers and swung her legs out of bed. "Why do we need to talk?" she asked, standing up. She didn't try for her dressing gown again, but then, she didn't really need it, swathed as she was from neck to ankle in yards and yards of tucked and trimmed linen.

He stared at her across the six or seven feet of candlelit night that separated them. He was suddenly, utterly serious. "You told me the other day that you love me."

She crossed her arms in a movement that pulled the cloth of her gown tight against the full, naked breasts beneath. "Did I?"

He could see nothing but her slim white neck and bare feet and that faint outline of her breasts, and still, still he felt a curl of desire awaken deep within him. It disconcerted him, for he hadn't expected it, wouldn't have come here, now, if he had. "Don't play your parlor games with me, Miss Philippa Always-Oh-So-Correct Tate," he said, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You know you did."

"I was angry."

He thought she meant to deny it, and so he had a hard time bringing himself to ask the next question. He hadn't realized, until now, how vitally important her answer was to him. He'd always taken her so very much for granted, he'd somehow missed noticing how terribly much he needed her in his life. "Did you mean it?"

Her chin came up, and he held his breath, waiting for her answer. "Yes."

His breath came out in a slow, aching sigh. "How long? How long have you loved me?"

She made a low sound that might have been a laugh. "I can't remember a time when I did not."

"It's a child's love, then," he said, walking toward her.

"It was, when I was a child. I'm not a child anymore."

"No. No, you're not." He reached out to touch the dark hair that curled against her breast. To his surprise, his fingers were shaking visibly, and he let his hand fall to his side again. "Are you telling me that when you were betrothed to Cecil, and then to Reid, you loved me?"

"Yes."

He stared down into her still, upturned face. "If Cecil hadn't died, would you have married him, even though you loved me?"

"I told you I'm a coward." She brushed past him and went to stand at the closed windows, her back to him. "Besides, you were promised to the sea then, remember?"

"You say that as if you were jealous."

"Of the sea?" She put her hands on the drapes, opening them so that she could stare down at the moonlit gardens, a pale blue glow highlighting the finely etched features of her face. "I was."

"You told me the other day I should start sailing again."

She turned abruptly to face him. "Will you?"

"Perhaps." He went to stand in front of her, close enough that his body threw its shadow across her, and he could see the rapid beat of her pulse at the base of her throat. "How much do you love me?"