Dream Time (historical): Book I (6 page)

§ CHAPTER SIX §

Occasionally, Nan was surprised by the realization she was coming to love Tom. Not with the wild abandon that she had felt for Miles but with a quiet, steadily growing affection that was as unbreakable a bond as fairy-tale love.

In that respect, Miles had shattered her dream. She meant to shatter his.

She shifted her focus from social climbing to shipping. A perplexed Tom listened as she explained her strategy. “I’ve even thought of the name of our enterprise—New South Wales Traders, Limited. What do you think?”

“Nan, we can’t go up against the Rum Corps. There is no way we can break their monopoly. They control what boats are allowed to dock. They control the dockhands. The Rum Corps would never permit another boat to be loaded. And if you don’t mind me asking, how the hell are we going to finance such a venture? We’re living in a hovel, Nan. My lieutenant’s salary barely stretches as it is.”

“The Rum Corps won’t last. The new governor will break them.”

“They’ve outlasted several governors, so I don’t—”

“This governor’s different. Trust me. I’ve heard he faced a mutiny aboard his former ship, was put adrift in a dinghy, and sailed four-thousand miles across the Pacific to resume his career. He’s tenacious. He won’t fail.”

“I won’t even ask how you know this.”

Listening, asking the right questions came naturally to her, something Tom couldn’t comprehend. “The Rum Corps and Bligh will lock horns, Tom. Already, they’re calling him Caligula. The day they rebel against him, I want you to resign your commission.”

“What?”

He came halfway out of his chair, and she put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Listen to me. Not only will your bold act impress the colonists and the governor, but by that time—six months to a year at most—we’ll be ready to begin our own trading venture.”

“Nan, you’re a female, you’ve never had experience in business. For that matter, neither have I. The only security we have is my commission, woman!”

She smiled serenely. “Trust me.”

Food had never been bountiful in any of the Sydney Cove households. Even Tom, who rarely took an interest in what Nan prepared, noted that dinnertimes had become skimpy affairs.

“The johnnycakes taste like they’ve been baked on a shovel. And yesterday’s lamb stew was little more than broth.”

Nan shrugged. “You know yourself the Rum Corps is controlling the price of what they import. We are paying dearly. With what you give me,
I barely am able to buy food to last an entire pay period.”

In actuality, most of the food was coming from what Nan bargained for when she visited the docks, outings of which Tom was unaware.

He was also unaware that at the dock she occasionally taught reading, writing, and ciphering to any soldier who was willing to part with a few hard-earned coins. Exclusionists rarely visited the docks. Her secret was safe.

He had quite forgotten her suggestion that they go into a mercantile business when nearly four months later, she said, “I’ve something to show you, Tom.”

“The glint in your eye intrigues me if nothing else.”

Evidently, he had thought she meant something close at hand. When she took up her parasol, his brows climbed in his high forehead. “Just where is it we’re going?”

She smiled. “Be patient.”

He followed her from their brick-thatched quarters and caught up with her as she approached the guard gate. Together, they descended the sloping streets leading to the wharves. Known as the Rocks, this derelict area of brothels and bars Nan had passed through in chains less than two years before.

She was understandably proud when she paused before a ramshackle board building that leaned precariously backward, as if unable to resist the might of the sea winds. Tom stared at it, then peered at her, his thick brows posed in question marks.

“The sign, Tom. Look above. The sign.”

His gaze followed hers. His lips translated what his widening eyes scanned. “New South Wales Traders, Limited.” His gaze slid to hers. “Nan, what shenanigans are you about now?”

“’Tis no joke, Tom. She looked at the signboard, poorly painted and barely legible. Pure pleasure, such as she had once found in Miles’s arms, filled her. For an instant the memory of his skin texture and his scent hounded her. “I’ve leased the building for six months.”

“You’ve what?”

“’Twill be slow going at first. I’ve my plans set on a stand of sandalwood a man named Jimmy Underwood knew about. The Chinese will pay highly for it. We can store it here, as well as seal hides.”

“What?”

“Are you deaf, Tom? Pulykara had told me certain warriors of her tribe could provide as many seal hides as a person could pay for.”

“I’m sure you will explain just how we will manage to pay for seal hides.”

From inside, a secret smile threatened to make its way to her lips. Already she had her husband accepting her idea of New South Wales Traders, Limited as a done deed. “As we’ve managed to acquire the monies for the first three months’ lease, by being frugal.”

“Frugal, ye say? We can’t get any more frugal. Your gowns are threadbare, our bedding is tattered, and our food supply would sour a convict.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “No, it
wouldn’t. Until you’ve eaten convict’s dole, you don’t know, Tom.  We’ll survive quite well, just as we've been doing. Another six months, our warehouse will be filled.”

“And then what?”

“When the Rum Corps’ monopoly is broken, we’ll be among the first to start trading openly. Sandalwood to the orient, sealskins to London. But only at first.” Excitement grew in her as she talked. “We’ll need a ship, but I’ve tracked down Jimmy Underwood. I told you about him. He worked on the prison farm and carved that bark cradle.”

Wisely, she didn’t remind him for whom the cradle had been carved. “Jimmy has the inestimably useful skill of knowing how to build sloops. We’ll buy the remainder of his sentence—”

“Nan, you go too fast.”

“Not fast enough. There’s not enough time to do everything that needs to be done. And only you can do it, Tom. Why, with your knowledge of India and the United States, we can begin a trade with Calcutta and Madras and Philadelphia and Boston that will rival anything the Rum Corps even attempted.”

Her gray eyes blazed with purpose, and watching her in that dying afternoon sunlight, Tom thought she was almost beautiful—and overpowering at the same time.

Nan’s every thought was directed toward an enterprise that was based on two equally strong needs: the need to become firmly entrenched with Sydney’s aristocracy and the need to break Miles Randolph.

Besides dealing in the rum trade, he had also undertaken staffing a workshop with convicts assigned to make consumer goods that were in erratic supply—candles, soap, boots, and leather hats. She had learned he was also constructing one of the largest private houses in the colony, with two stories and a basement.

Standing at the comer of High Street and watching the house go up, she swore her own would be of three stories, and with an elegant veranda and slender columns.

“Daydreaming, bluestocking?”

She didn’t have to turn around to see who it was who addressed her. Her gaze still on a sweating, half-naked convict who toiled over mortar and sandstone, she said, “Only reminding myself, Miles.”

“I don’t have to remind myself about you,” he said, his voice low and deep, reaching only her ears, though occasional passersby spared neither of them a glance. “I remember your passion. I have found that in other women but never combined with such sharp wit. And tongue,” he added with his familiar dry humor.

Her head half turned, and she peered up from beneath the lace ruffle of her yellow parasol. “And you never will. You will rue the day, Miles Randolph, that you left me to face a courtroom of incensed Tories.”

“You will live to see the day that you thank me for that, Nan Livingston. Shrewd and passionate, you were. But also naive and untested. You are a far stronger woman, I wager.”

“As you will fully discover one day.”

Mockery inflected his politician’s rich voice. “Ahh, you plot to ruin me? I doubt you can even dream of climbing to the heights I intend. England might not want me but will have to recognize me as the leader of a country that will dwarf theirs.”

At last, she turned to face him. Her heart was pounding with the fear of the weakness he engendered in her. Those blue-black eyes taunted her, and her weakness was burned away by her anger and pain. “We are both visionaries, Miles. But you set yourself too high and underestimate me, a woman though I might be. Good day, sir.”

Returning to Fort Phillip, she admitted with the most reluctance and regret that she still wanted Miles. She also realized for the first time that it was those occasional encounters with him that energized her. She returned to her enterprise with renewed vigor.

However, her vigor soon ebbed as the months passed and Captain Bligh did not strike at the Rum Corps’s officers as quickly as she had anticipated. Gradually, her warehouse became so packed it was impossible to move among the aisles.

Viewing her wares and stock one sultry afternoon, a part of her took great pride in all that she had accomplished. Another part of her worried. She was a month behind on the lease as it was. If she didn’t find a legal outlet for her wares soon . . .

Then on a hot January night, the Rum Corps, unable to tolerate another tyrannical order from Bligh, staged a coup
d’état. From the fort, Nan and Tom could hear the musketfire over at the Government House and glanced at one another. His expression was drawn, hers ebullient.

Early the next morning, word passed among the fort’s inhabitants—a military junta had assumed power. John Macarthur, who had clashed with Bligh
over the right to run sheep, was the instigator and apparent leader. One of the sub-rosa members, Nan knew, was Miles Randolph.

Retribution, however, did not appear to be forthcoming from Whitehall in London. As the months slid by, it became obvious that for this remarkable mutiny, none of the men involved would be hanged or even punished. Once again, Miles had flirted with danger and danced away.

Bligh returned to England, the junta continued to rule, and Nan’s dreams of a shipping empire were fast fading.

To retain the warehouse, she sold off articles to a whaler at barely over her cost—and in secrecy. If the Rum Corps—or worse, Miles—should ever learn what she was doing, she would be clapped back in chains.

The danger of the enterprise was as stimulating as the danger of her relationship with Miles had been.

She repeated this clandestine operation time and again, cursing both the Rum Corps, Miles in particular, and herself most of all. Why had she formed no contingency plans?

Good-natured Tom did not bring up the calamity that would have occurred had he resigned his commission as she had urged. All events pointed to what seemed the obvious—that Nan had erred.

As if to further mock her, the whimsical gods struck next not at her intellectual pride but at her feminine ego. Miles hosted a party for the completion of his mansion that overlooked the harbor—and its slums.

All the Exclusionists as well as officers from every regiment were invited, which meant that Nan and Tom presented themselves at the Randolph doorway. Nan glanced up at the elegant fanlight overhead and felt the sharp shaft of envy. Her good dress had been mended so often it was literally a patchwork. Everything she had managed to save had been put into the warehouse, all of which she was on the verge of losing.

The door was opened by a man in red livery. Nan’s discerning eyes identified furniture by the master craftsman Chippendale. The floor of the large drawing room was of green, gray, and white marble, polished enough to satisfy even a Windsor. Hundreds of candles bedecked a crystal chandelier, heating the already overheated room.

“Nan,” Tom said aside to her, “just what are we doing here?”

Her lips drew back in a tight smile. “Making contacts. Invaluable contacts.”

Mingling with the guests was not the nightmare that Bligh’s reception had been. The number of Emancipists slipping inside the fine weave of the Exclusionists’ mosquito netting was increasing. A man named Simon Lord, transported for stealing several hundred yards of calico and muslin, had come up through the rum trade. Doubtless, Miles and the officers felt that by using such shady men as distributors, they were saved from demeaning contact with the penal colony’s lower echelons.

While not exactly snubbing Nan, the majority of the guests found her bold manner irritating. She knew this and cared not. They would need her services one day—and pay dearly.

While Tom went to the refreshment table, flanked by vases of tall fronds, she scanned the guests for sight of Miles. In profile, he was talking to Macarthur and his wife and niece. Nan studied the young woman, who appeared maybe twenty at the most. She was one of those softly rounded women men loved to touch. At once, Nan’s gaze returned to Miles’s face and searched his attentive expression for other signs. She found only a formal politeness and sighed her relief.

As if he felt her eyes upon him, he turned, made his excuses to the three, and started in her direction. Occasionally, he paused to speak when someone detained him. He was so singularly handsome that every female eye followed him. She darted a glance at Tom, afraid he would return before she was able to speak to Miles alone. Tom was still enmeshed in the press of people at the refreshment table.

“Does it measure up to Windsor, Nan?”

She looked up at Miles. She hated that sardonic smirk. She hated even more her wanting of him. If Tom was more attentive in bed .
. .

“A touch of the nouveau riche, more gild than gold, but impressive all the same.”

“And you still possess that same razor-edged tongue.” His narrow-lidded gaze raked downward, past her throat, bare of adornment, to appraise her worn gown. His lips curled in private satisfaction.

Her pride rankled. “I am still in the game, Miles.”

At that, his smile broke into a broad grin. “Your threat to see me labor in chains—a disappointment to realize that it was only a woman’s temper tantrum. I had you pegged for better than that.”

He turned his back on her. A calculated affront. Watching him walk away, she assuaged her fury by telling herself that he wo
uld always seek her out. If nothing else, he enjoyed the duel of wits she provided him.

Surprising her, he turned back to her, a risky action, considering that many would note that he talked to her twice. He leaned close, so close she could smell his cologne. A tingle of desire bubbled through her.

“Nan, dear,” he whispered, “I know about the wharf warehouse. Your operations are your secret— as long as you don’t step on my toes. The rum trade is my playground.”

Stunned, she stared at his broad back as he made his way back to the Macarthurs and their niece.

What happened next sucked the air from her lungs. Tom had returned with a cup of pine punch for her when the portly John Macarthur stepped upon the dais and held up his palms for silence. The buzz of conversation ebbed.

“Fellow colonists, it gives me pleasure to announce that my niece Lucy Bentwater will not be returning to London. Instead, she will remain here to share a new life with her future husband and a partner of mine, the esteemed Miles Randolph.”