Dark Torment (36 page)

“Two years had passed by the time the
Avery
—that
was the ship’s name, the
Avery
—returned to London. This
time I didn’t bother to visit my mother. I was eighteen, and a man. . . .
I took my pay packet—precious little it was, too—and went home to
Ireland. But not to Fonderleigh—that was not my home, it was
his.
To Dublin. And I parlayed that pay packet into quite a stake, thanks to
obliging dice and fast horses. Luckily, I had the sense to quit before I lost
all I’d won. Dublin had never appealed to me despite its obvious
attractions, so I took the money and bought a farm near Galway. And I commenced
breeding horses. My stud was beginning to acquire quite a reputation when I
learned, through gossipy neighbors who had no idea I was in any way connected
with the family—since I had signed on the
Avery
I had been using
the name Gallagher, which was the only one that was
mine
—that
the countess of Rule was dying. I had long since thought that any love I had
once felt for my mother was dead, but this hit me hard. I went home and
brooded, and finally knew that I had to see her again. I drove to London and
went straight to the earl’s townhouse without even bothering to book a
room or change clothes. The butler was loath to admit a stranger at such a
time, but I was not taking ‘no’ for an answer. I forced my way past
him and took myself up to my mother’s bedchamber in the wake of a
frightened chambermaid. My mother was lying in the middle of an enormous bed,
alone except for a priest who was administering last rites, and her maid. I can
still see the huge fire that blazed in the hearth, though the weather outside
was mild. . . .

“I won’t bore you with the details of what passed
between my mother and me, except to say that we reconciled. Just before she
died she took my hand and slid the pearl-and-ruby ring that she had worn ever
since I could remember onto my smallest finger. Her fingers were so delicate
that, despite the fact that she had worn it on her ring finger, it would go
only as far as my knuckle. The earl burst through the door just as she breathed
her last. I almost felt sorry for him—he was too late to say good-bye,
and it was easy to see that he was shattered. But then he turned from her
bedside and saw me. And with a howl of rage attacked me with his cane. I merely
wrested the cane from his grasp, but he was demented: he screamed for the
servants, and every one of them in the house must have come running to his aid.
Two burly footmen held me while the constable was fetched. I didn’t
struggle; after all, the whole thing was ridiculous, or so I thought. But when
the constable came, he wouldn’t listen to my side of the story, and I was
hauled off to jail.

“I wasn’t seriously alarmed—until I was moved to
Newgate Prison, to await trial. To my amazement, I was told that the charge was
robbery—my mother’s ring, which I supposedly stole. I was still
more amused than alarmed at such a flimsy charge—until the actual trial.
I was not even permitted to appear. I was tried in proxy and found guilty. The
judge sentenced me to be transported to Australia, there to serve a term of
fifteen years at hard labor. Thus, I was as completely removed from the
earl’s world as if I had died—which I am certain he intended for me
to do on the voyage. After all, as the legal if not actual son of his marriage,
I was still heir to his title, and to the entailed portion of his estates.

“But then Captain Farley got greedy and arranged to sell me
to your father. When your father refused to take me, I was convinced that I
would be killed. And, sure enough, they had me strung up and would, I believe,
have beaten me to death. But for a flashing-eyed virago who set them all on
their ears.” He slanted her a whimsical look.

Sarah smiled at him, appreciating his description of her for the
teasing it was, though her eyes were wet with tears as she pictured the lonely,
frightened, mistreated little boy he had once been. In her opinion, his mother
was the one who deserved to be horsewhipped, but she wisely kept that thought
to herself. Just as she hoped that the darkness would hide her tears. She had a
feeling that he would interpret them as pity, and she knew him well enough now
to know that he would hate that.

“I wanted to kiss the hem of that awful skirt you had on
when you told them to cut me down. And I hated you for making me feel so
beholden to you.”

“Which was why you were so nasty to me that night at the
inn,” she said, remembering. She cast him a mockchiding glance. Her tears
were almost gone now. “I only wanted to help you.”

He shifted suddenly, his arm under her head pulling her closer,
his other arm fitting itself around her waist beneath the shirt. She could feel
the heat radiating from his hair-roughened body as he hugged her to him,
brushing her cheek with the softest of kisses. Her own arms slid around his
neck. He held himself a little away from her, looking down into her face. Her
head was pillowed on the hard muscles of his upper arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding contrite.
“I was a . . .” His voice trailed off tantalizingly as he made her
wait for the description, which she was fairly certain would be too pungent to
be proper.

“Swine,” she interjected firmly.

“Swine,” he agreed, laughing. And then he kissed her
soundly on her eager mouth.

“You made me furious,” she said against his mouth.
“I could never remember being quite that angry before.”

“I shudder to think what would have happened to me if that
brute of an overseer of yours had not come along. If I had known then what I
know now, I would never have chanced that temper of yours. You likely would
have shot me, or clubbed me to death, or . . .”

“I don’t have a temper. Usually,” she temporized
as he laughed again, delightedly.

“Oh, Sarah. How little you know yourself. You have a
glorious temper, and I love you even more when you lose it. It’s such a
fascinating change, from prim lady to spitting hell-cat.”

Sarah was silent for a moment, her eyes widening. Dominic stopped
laughing suddenly, his body going very still as he met her eyes. If it
hadn’t been absurd, she would have sworn she saw trepidation in those
blue depths.

“Dominic,” she said faintly, after carefully replaying
his words in her mind. “What did you say?”

He stared at her without answering, looking as if he was trying to
make up his mind about how to reply. Then, with a grimace, he rolled onto his
back and stared up at the cloudy night sky.

“I love you,” he said, very gruff.

Sarah lay without moving for several heartbeats, her eyes wide as
she stared at his averted face. Then it was she who rose to lean propped on her
elbow as she looked down at him, her hair forming a trailing brown-gold curtain
that shut them away from the world. He met her eyes reluctantly, his mouth taut
and straight, his eyes defensive.

“Do you mean it?” she asked, scarcely breathing. He
didn’t say anything. “Dominic . . .”

His mouth twisted. “Yes, I mean it.”

“Oh, Dominic!” It was a soft cry straight from the
heart as she toppled onto him, her arms locking around his neck, her lips
pressing a flurry of kisses all over his dark face. He suffered her onslaught
for several seconds before catching her elbows and rolling with her so that
their positions were reversed, with her lying flat on her back while he loomed
over her.

“It would be nice to hear that my very flattering sentiments
are reciprocated,” he muttered, frowning down at her.

“What?” She grinned at him, delight shining from her
huge golden eyes. He glared, then surrendered with a groan.

“Oh, hell, Sarah, do you love me?”

She stared up at him. Faint traces of starlight peeping through
the black clouds illuminated his hard, handsome face and picked out the blue
highlights in his midnight-black hair.

“Yes,” she said, suddenly knowing that she did love
him.

His face relaxed, he even managed a smile. Sarah reached up to
kiss him, to press her lips to that lovely male mouth, to stake her claim in
the most basic way of all, but he held her off.

“Uh-uh. Not till you say it.”

“Dominic!” Looking at him, suddenly she felt absurdly
shy.

“Say it, Sarah.”

It came to her then that he was as vulnerable as she. Not his
height and strength, nor his blatant masculinity, nor his dazzling good looks
protected him from the insecurities of the heart. Like her, he had not expected
to fall in love, and it had caught him by surprise. And also like her, he was
frightened by it.

“I love you, Dominic.” She had not meant them to be
so, but the words were solemn, a pledge. Her lips trembled as his eyes searched
her face, locked with her eyes. His expression was very grave.

“Again.”

“I love you, Dominic.”

He groaned, a guttural, animal sound, and lowered his head to
capture her mouth with his. His kiss was such sweet torture that it made her
want to cry. . . . He made love to her the same way, with a ferocious
gentleness that had her crying out and clinging to him, locking him to her
forever with her arms and legs and mouth as he whirled her away with him on a
tempestuous floodtide of passion.

Sarah woke the next morning to a sky so filled with heavy gray
clouds that it seemed to be only inches away from her small nose. Safe in the
shelter of Dominic’s arms, she grimaced at the sky, knowing that she
should be pleased, because the clouds meant rain at last. But she wasn’t
pleased: she was depressed, nervous, uneasy. Those lowering clouds warned of a
terrific storm, and even ordinary storms in that part of Australia were
devastating. Without shelter on the open range, they would be scourged by
lightning, pelted by hail, drenched by rain. Their wisest course would be to
head at once for Lowella, which was half a day’s ride away, or less if
they hurried. Which brought Sarah back to why she was feeling
depressed—here was the “someday” she had been dreading. Today
the future had to be faced.

“Dominic.”

There was no point in delaying the inevitable, she thought as she
gently shook his shoulder. They had to get moving if they hoped to miss the
rain. The arm clasping her waist tightened as she said his name again. Slowly,
reluctantly, one blue eye opened to slant a disgruntled look at her.

“Go back to sleep,
cuilin.
”

“No, I . . . What’s
cuilin?
” She was
momentarily sidetracked by the unfamiliar word.

He sighed, releasing her to turn over onto his back, rubbing his
face with his hands. Looking down at him, at the tousled black hair and
unshaven jaw, at the wide, bare, bronzed shoulders and black-pelted chest,
Sarah wondered suddenly if she hadn’t been dreaming the night before.
Surely such a splendid male could not be in love with
her
. . . . Then
his hands dropped away from his face and she found him smiling tenderly at her,
and she knew that, however unlikely, it was true.

“You—maid with the beautiful hair,” he said, and
reached out to pull a lock of the hair he praised. Sarah slapped his hand
lightly in response; he caught her hand then instead of her hair and pulled her
toward him. “It’s Gaelic. Come here.”

“No, Dominic,” she said, resisting.

He saw that she was serious and let her go. Sarah sat up,
unselfconscious at being clad only in the thin blue shirt that revealed the
shape of her breasts and the outline of her nipples to him. He had seen her
breasts, and indeed the rest of her, in far more intimate detail. And he
himself was naked beneath the blanket drawn modestly—by accident rather
than intent, she knew—up to his waist. She smiled to herself as she
remembered how shocking she had once found his nakedness.

“What’s the matter, my own?” He lounged back
against the saddle, his arms crossing behind his head to reveal the luxuriant
black forests of hair beneath each arm.

Sarah looked at him, feeling a queer little pang of pain grip her
heart. She loved him so much—it would be hard not to be able to touch him
whenever she wished, to talk with him and kiss him and share his bed. . . .

“It’s going to storm, Dominic.” The words were
harmless enough, but he seemed to sense that she was trying to say something
more.

His blue eyes regarded her steadily. “Is it now?”

“We have to go back, Dominic. To Lowella. We can’t put
it off any longer.”

He studied her for a long moment before he spoke. Then he seemed
to choose his words with care.

“I can’t go back there, Sarah.”

She moistened her lips. “Of course you can. I’ll tell
Pa how you saved me from those bushrangers—”

“And how I abducted you,” he interjected dryly.

She frowned. “I wouldn’t tell him
that.
”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he conceded. Then he
sighed, and levered himself into a sitting position. He looked magnificent,
sitting there bare to the waist, but Sarah was not in a mood to appreciate his
appearance. “Let me put it another way: I
won’t
go back to
Lowella, Sarah. I’d have to be out of my mind if I did. What if you
can’t convince your father that my rescuing you outweighs everything else
I’ve done? He ordered that buffoon of an overseer of yours to have me
beaten to death the last time. If I go back, I’ll be throwing myself on
his mercy, and so far I haven’t found him to be particularly
merciful.”

“I’ll tell him—”

Dominic snorted, cutting her off. “Sarah, my love,
you’re fooling yourself if you think your father will welcome me with
open arms. He was ready to have me killed even before I helped plan a raid on
his station, participated in stealing his prized sheep, and abducted his
daughter. How do you think he’s going to feel about me now?”

“My father is a just man. I know that’s hard for you
to believe in light of what was done to you, but that’s something I still
don’t understand: ordering that you be whipped isn’t like him. He
would at least have given you the opportunity to speak.”