In the Land of the Long White Cloud (77 page)

John Sideblossom was unpleasantly surprised when Fleur entered the study in her riding dress and with her hair a mess—she could have cleaned herself up a bit. However, she still looked indisputably charming. No, it would not be difficult for him to conjure up a little romance.

“Miss Warden,” he said, “will you permit me to speak?” John bowed formally before the girl. “This is a matter that concerns me more than anyone else, and I am not the sort of man who sends others to do his bidding.”

He looked into Fleur’s shocked eyes and interpreted the nervous flickering in them as encouragement.

“It’s true I first laid eyes on you three days ago, Miss Warden, but I was enthralled by you from the very first moment, by your beautiful eyes and your gentle smile. Your kindness these last few days has given me hope that my presence was not objectionable to you either. And for that reason—I am a man of bold decisions, Miss Warden, and I think you will learn to love that about me—for that reason I have decided to ask your grandfather for his permission. He joyfully agreed to an alliance between us. I may therefore, with the permission of your guardian, formally ask for your hand.”

John smiled and sank down to one knee in front of Fleur. Gerald suppressed a laugh when he noticed that Fleur did not know where to look.

“I…Mr. Sideblossom, that’s very nice of you, but I love someone else,” she finally said. “My grandfather really should have told you, and—”

“Miss Warden,” he broke in, full of confidence, “whomever you think you love, you will forget him in my arms soon enough.”

Fleurette shook her head. “I won’t ever forget him, sir! I promised to marry him.”

“Fleur, don’t talk such bloody rot!” Gerald roared. “John is the right man for you. Not too young, not too old, socially acceptable, and he’s rich to boot. What more do you want?”

“I have to be able to love my husband!” Fleurette exclaimed frantically. “And I…”

“Love comes in time,” John explained. “So, come now, girl. You’ve spent the last three days with me. I can’t be all that disagreeable to you.”

Impatience flickered in his eyes.

“You…you are not disagreeable to me, but…but that’s why I won’t…marry you. I think you’re nice, sir, but…but…”

“Stop playing coy, Fleurette!” John interrupted the girl’s stammering. He could not have cared less about the girl’s objections. “Say yes and then we can begin discussing the formalities. I think we should have the wedding this fall—right after this unfortunate business with James McKenzie has been taken care of. Maybe you can even ride to Lionel Station straightaway…in the company of your mother, of course; we must go about this properly.”

Fleurette inhaled deeply, imprisoned by anger and panic. Why the devil was no one listening to her? She resolved to say clearly and in no uncertain terms what she had to say. These men had to be capable of understanding the reality of the situation.

“Mr. Sideblossom, Grandfather,” Fleurette said, raising her voice. “I’ve said it several times now, and I’m getting tired of repeating myself. I won’t marry you, sir! I thank you for your proposal, and I appreciate your attentions, but I am already spoken for. Please excuse me from dinner, Grandfather; I’m indisposed.”

Fleur forced herself not to run from the room, so she turned around in a slow and measured manner. She left the room with her head held high and without slamming the door behind her. But then she fled through the salon and up the stairs like the devil was on her heels. It was best that she shut herself in her room until John Sideblossom left.
She had not liked the flickering in his eyes. The man was no doubt unaccustomed to not getting what he wanted. And something told her that he could be dangerous when things did not go according to his plan.

T
he next day Kiward Station filled with men and horses. The sheep barons of the Canterbury Plains had not skimped on their promises: the number of participants in the punitive expedition had grown to the strength of a military company. Gwyneira did not care for the men Gerald’s friends had signed up. There were few Maori shepherds and farm employees among the men. It looked as though the breeders had recruited men in the pubs and the new arrivals’ barracks, and many of them looked to Gwyneira like fortune hunters, if not plain old seedy rabble. For this reason, she was happy to keep Fleurette away from the stables for the next few days. For his part, Gerald did not skimp either and ransacked his alcohol stores. The men drank and celebrated in the shearing sheds; Kiward Station’s shepherds, mostly friends of James McKenzie’s, stayed away, deeply uneasy.

“My God, miss,” Andy McAran said to Gwyneira, summing up their thoughts. “They’re going to hunt James down like a rabid wolf. They’re all talking about shooting him dead! Surely he doesn’t deserve to have this scum sent after his neck. All over a few sheep!”

“This scum doesn’t know its way around the highlands,” Gwyneira said, not knowing whether she wanted to calm the old shepherd or herself. “They’ll just step on each other’s toes; Mr. McKenzie will laugh himself to death over them. Just wait; they’ll run out of steam. If only they’d be on their way! I don’t like having these people in the yard. I’ve already sent Kiri and Moana and Marama away. I hope the Maori are keeping a good watch over their camp. Are you keeping an eye on our horses and saddlery? I don’t want anything to go missing.”

Gwyneira was in for a very unpleasant surprise. A number of the men had come on foot, and Gerald—starting out with a nasty hangover
but already drunk again by midday and still incensed at Fleurette’s renewed recalcitrance—had promised them horses from Kiward Station. He did not, however, let Gwyneira know right away, so she did not have time to have workhorses sent over from the summer paddocks. The men hooted as they divided up her valuable cobs that afternoon. Fleurette watched helplessly from her bedroom window as one after the other tried to ride Niniane.

“Mother, he can’t just give her to them! She belongs to us,” she wailed.

Gwyneira shrugged. “He’s only lending them to the men; they won’t be allowed to keep them. But I don’t like it either. Most of these brutes can’t even ride properly. That’s good for us, however. You can already see how the horses are bucking them off. When they come back, though, we’re going to have to break them in all over again.”

“But Niniane…”

“I can’t do anything to change it, dear. They want Morgaine too. Perhaps I can talk to Gerald again tomorrow, but he’s taken leave of his senses today. And this Sideblossom fellow is behaving as though he owns the place: he’s telling people where they can stay and ordering them around; he acts as though I weren’t even here. As soon as the fool’s gone, I’m going to cross myself three times. In any case, you won’t be attending the banquet tonight. I’ve already explained that. You’re sick. I don’t want Sideblossom to catch sight of you again.”

Secretly, Gwyneira had long since planned to take their horses to safety that night. Under no circumstances would she send her valuable broodmares into the highlands with the search party. She had arranged with Andy McAran, Poker Livingston, and her other trusted workers to drive the horses away that night. As long as they just pranced about the pastures, she would have time enough to gather them up again in the coming days. The men would fetch the workhorses and place them in the stalls. It might cause a bit of uproar in the morning, but John Sideblossom surely wouldn’t delay their endeavor over different horses.

She did not tell Fleurette that, however. She was too afraid the girl might want to take part in the action.

“Niniane will be back the day after tomorrow at the latest,” she comforted Fleur. “She’ll throw her would-be rider and come home. She won’t put up with such nonsense. But right now I need to change. Dinner with the captains of the military expedition awaits. What expense over one man!”

Gwyneira retired, and Fleurette stayed behind, brooding angrily. She was not about to acquiesce to her helplessness. Gerald was giving Niniane away out of pure spite. Fleur hatched a plan. She would lead her horse to safety while the men were getting drunk in the salon. To manage it, she would have to slip out of her room right then, since every path to the stables led through the salon, which was empty for the moment. The guests attending the banquet that night were changing, and sheer chaos reigned outside. She would not be noticed if she put her hair under a bandana and hurried. It was only a few steps from the kitchen door to the barn. If someone saw her, they’d take her for a kitchen maid.

Fleur’s plan might even have succeeded if Paul had not been watching his sister. The boy was once more in low spirits; his idol, John Sideblossom, ignored him, and Gerald had gruffly turned down his request to be allowed to partake in the expedition. Since he had nothing better to do and was prowling around the stables, he was naturally very interested when he saw Fleur hide herself in the barn. Paul could piece together for himself what she had in mind. But he would make sure that Gerald caught her red-handed later.

Gwyneira needed all her patience and forbearance to get through the banquet that evening. She was the only woman present, and without exception they were all drunk by the time they sat down to dinner. Before starting to eat, they downed another couple of glasses; then wine was poured. The first one soon began to prattle. They all laughed at one another’s dumb jokes, yelled dirty jibes at each other, and behaved toward Gwyneira in anything but a gentlemanlike manner.

She only began to feel truly uncomfortable when John Sideblossom suddenly approached her after the final course.

“We need to speak, Mrs. Warden,” he said in his typically direct fashion, once again appearing sober among all the drunkards. However, Gwyneira had gotten to know him a bit better and knew how to recognize the signs of intoxication in him. His eyelids hung a bit lower, and his gaze was suspicious and shifty instead of cool and distant. Although Sideblossom still kept his feelings reined in, they simmered just beneath the surface.

“I think you know I asked for your daughter’s hand yesterday. Fleurette turned me down.”

Gwyneira shrugged. “She has the right. In the civilized world, women are asked before they’re married off. And if Fleur did not like you, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You could put in a good word for me, madam,” Sideblossom said.

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good,” Gwyneira remarked, her own feelings slowly bubbling to the surface. “And I wouldn’t do it of my own accord anyway. I do not know you well, Mr. Sideblossom, but I don’t like what I’ve seen.”

John Sideblossom grimaced. “Well, look-y here! The lady doesn’t like me! And what do you have against me, Lady Warden?” he asked coldly.

Gwyneira sighed. She had not wanted to get into a discussion…but fine, if that’s what he wanted.

“Going on the warpath against a single man,” she began, “does not seem appropriate to me. And you exert a bad influence on the other farmers. Without your whispering to him, Lord Barrington would never have sunk so low as to join such a band of ruffians as the one now camped outside. Your behavior toward me is insulting, even leaving Fleurette entirely out of this. A gentleman, Mr. Sideblossom, in your position would strive to change the girl’s mind. You, on the other hand, give affront to Fleurette by initiating this business with the horses. That was your idea, was it not? Gerald has been too drunk for such schemes for a long time.”

Gwyneira spoke quickly and full of wrath. Everything was fraying her nerves at that moment. And there was Paul, who had joined them and avidly followed her outburst.

John Sideblossom laughed. “Touché, my dear! A little tongue-lashing. I don’t like it when people don’t listen to me. But just you wait. I’ll get your little girl yet. I’ll push my proposal when we return. Against your will if I must.”

Gwyneira wanted to bring the conversation to an end. “Then I wish you luck,” she said stiffly. “And you, Paul, come with me upstairs, please. I hate it when you slink behind me and eavesdrop.”

The boy cringed. But what he had heard here was worth the dressing down. Perhaps Gerald was not the right audience for his information on Fleurette. It would cause her much more pain if this was the man who thwarted her “horse theft.”

When Gwyneira retired to her room, Paul turned on his heels and went looking for John Sideblossom. The farmers looked increasingly bored in one another’s company. No wonder—aside from him, everyone else was fall-down drunk.

“You…you want to marry my sister?” Paul spoke to him.

Sideblossom looked down at him, caught off guard.

“Well, that’s my intention. You got an objection too?” he asked, sounding amused.

Paul shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, you can have her. But you should know something about her. Fleurette acts all innocent. But she’s already had a beau. Ruben O’Keefe.”

Sideblossom nodded. “I know,” he said, disinterested.

“But she didn’t tell you everything!” Paul upped the ante. “She didn’t tell you that she did it with him. But I saw it!”

Sideblossom’s interest was aroused. “What did you say? Your sister’s not a virgin anymore?”