Wildflower Hill (35 page)

“I’ll come down there,” he said. “We can watch the fire.”

He slid down off the roof and onto the parapet beside her. From there, they could see out over the fields and to the trees beyond, the orange glow reflected in the smoke.

“Is it going to miss us?” she asked.

“Looks like it. Unless the wind changes again.”

They watched in silence for a long time. The stable burned and fell in on itself with a great exhalation of ash and embers. Gradually, the roaring of the fire in the distance grew quieter. Beattie realized that she was still clenching her fists tightly. She released them slowly. Charlie stood next to her, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. She stole a glance at him and felt a sense of vertigo, of falling out of her own skin.

He sensed her gaze and half turned, seemed afraid to meet her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“That’s the second time you’ve saved something precious to me.”

He didn’t answer, but this time he allowed his eyes to meet hers fully. Adrenaline flashed through her.

“Charlie . . .” she started.

A long silence. Her stomach twitched. Her whole body was singing out to be pressed against his. She glanced at his lips—a half moment—then away. But the thought of those lips touching hers ignited her skin.

“Beattie,” he said in a tone so reasonable and patient that it warned her he was about to rebuff her, “you should go to bed. I’ll stay up here and keep watch.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

Beattie wanted to cry with frustration, exhaustion.

“No point in both of us being tired tomorrow. There will be work to do. You go and sleep. I’ll let you know if the wind changes again. You can trust me.”

“I know I can,” she said, and she meant it.

She woke four hours later to a grim dawn, a stinking black mess on the mountainside. Beattie stood at her window for long moments, horrified by the smoking bodies of trees. In the daylight, she could see how close it had come to Wildflower Hill. She wondered, with an ache that surprised her, how her neighbors had fared.

She glanced down, and there was Charlie, sitting beneath her window. His dogs were back, lying exhausted on either side of him.

Beattie pulled on her torn and sooty robe and hurried down. “Charlie?”

He turned to see her, and the weariness in his face made her ribs contract. Her darling Charlie.

“Hey, Beattie,” he said with a weak smile. “The fire went east. Made a fair mess up there, but we didn’t lose much. Just the stables and a view.”

Fear, exhaustion . . . many unnamable feelings. She had come so close to losing everything. She began to sob. He stood, awkward at first, a hand reaching out and then withdrawing.

So she fell against him and he caught her. His body against hers was hard and strong. His arms gingerly went around her, patted her back. “There,” he said. “We’re all right.”

She lifted her head to look into his eyes. What he saw there must have terrified him, because he took a step back.

“Beattie, I—”

She lifted her hand, pressed fingers to his lips to hush him. “I think I might die if you don’t kiss me,” she said.

The moment stretched out, her body tensed for his response. Then he took her hand away from his mouth and used it to pull her close again. With a soft groan, she let herself be folded into his arms, let him push back her hair, and let his hot mouth kiss her throat, her ears, and finally, her lips. His body was so hard against hers, his embrace so firm and strong. The whole world slipped away from her, and she existed only for that moment, only for the searing passion between them. His hands moved to her robe, slowly slipped it from her left shoulder. His lips were against her skin a moment later: warm, reverent. She pressed herself against him, feverish.

“Come upstairs with me, Charlie,” she muttered.

“I’m covered in soot and ash.” He laughed, extricating himself and standing back. Then his face was serious again. “Beattie, are you sure about this?”

“I am certain,” she said.

They lay in the sunshine filtering through the open curtains for a long time afterward, a tangle of limbs and shed clothes. The window let in the warm morning air, the acrid smell of smoke and crushed eucalyptus. Charlie’s fingers idly moved in patterns around Beattie’s left shoulder as she listened to the thump of his heart under his hard chest.

“I need to tell you something, Beattie,” he said, his voice gruff from lack of sleep and smoke.

“Go on,” she said.

“I’ve been in love with you a long time.”

She smiled, though he couldn’t see her face.

“What are we going to do now?” he asked.

“Forget about the world and love each other,” she said.

He fell silent, and next time she looked, he was asleep.

H
enry sat in the car, the engine running, wondering what the devil was taking Molly so long. They’d pulled over in Lewinford on the way back from taking Lucy to Beattie’s, and Molly had insisted on stopping for something to eat on the way home. She never seemed to stop eating lately, was straining at her skirts. Henry had tried not to notice how fit and fine Beattie was looking by comparison.

Not that he would ever take Beattie back. Those feelings had gone cold many years ago.

Why must Molly drag her feet so? Could she not remember that he was always in a terrible mood when he had to say goodbye to his little girl? The child was the only thing that made him happy in the world: the rest—money, a good job, a faithful wife—were empty things. Only Lucy made his heart truly glad.

Henry cut the engine and climbed out of the car. He crossed the road and pushed open the door to the general
store. Molly stood at the counter in rapt attention. The young woman and young man behind the counter were talking to her, taking turns, in quiet voices.

“Molly? Are you ready to go?”

Molly turned. He saw her face was pale.

“What is it?” he asked impatiently. She was always overreacting to something.

“I’ve just heard the most despicable thing about Beattie,” she said.

Henry’s back prickled with irritation. He didn’t love Beattie, but she was Lucy’s mother, and anything that dragged

Beattie down dragged Lucy down, too. “Get in the car, Molly,” he said.

Molly gathered her purchase and scurried ahead of him. He gave the couple behind the counter a glare and headed out into the sunshine again.

Molly waited in the car, her hand in a box of chocolates.

“I wish you wouldn’t listen to gossip. Molly,” Henry said as he started the car and pulled onto the dirt road. “It’s beneath you.”

“I think we should know what kind of a woman is looking after our child when we’re not there, Henry. We’d be bad parents if we didn’t.”

Henry winced.
Our child.
“Lucy is as much Beattie’s daughter as mine.”

“Yes, but you’ve chosen as your wife a good churchgoing woman. I’m a good mother to Lucy. But the man Beattie has in mind for Lucy’s father is horrifying.”

A small barb of jealousy. Where had that come from? He didn’t want Beattie; he was absolutely sure of it. “What do you mean?”

“They tell me she has taken a lover.”

Henry glanced at Molly. She was licking her fingers.

“Go on.”

She paused for drama. “Charlie. The black man.”

Henry watched the road unfold under him, silent for a long time. In truth, he didn’t care if people were black or white or green. Charlie seemed a low sort of fellow but decent enough. Henry felt strangely displaced by the news. Was it the imaginings of the fellow touching Beattie in the way that Henry had once touched her? Or was it Molly’s warning that Charlie would not be a good father for the child?

“I see you think the way I do,” Molly said. “It must be stopped.”

“Beattie can choose to love whomever she wants,” Henry said, but his voice came out choked.

“I think it’s appalling,” Molly continued, as though she hadn’t heard him, and he began to doubt that he had ever said anything. “Imagine him kissing our little girl good night.”

It seemed to Henry as though his whole body were rumbling.

“I know that some of those dark fellows can be all right,” Molly conceded, “but I’d rather not have one quite so close to something I hold so dear.” Her voice dropped to a whisper; he almost didn’t hear her over the engine. “They say he’s a thief.”

“Be quiet,” Henry commanded, at a loss to understand
the currents of fear and anger that infused him. “I wish you’d never said anything.”

Molly sat back in silence for the rest of the trip home.

Charlie had finally moved into the house, though he insisted on a separate room. Lucy’s bedroom was between Beattie’s and Charlie’s, and Beattie told herself that for her daughter’s two-week visit, they would simply sleep apart.

Simply, it was impossible.

She had grown too used to the proximity of his warm skin, to the passionate touch of his fingers. Late at night, when she was sure the child was sleeping, Beattie crept down the hallway and knocked lightly.

He answered the door warily, eyes black in the dim light. “Are you sure, Beattie?” he asked.

“You always ask that, and I am always sure,” Beattie said.

He stood back to let her in, then closed the door behind them. She fell into his arms, surrendering her mouth to his lips, his tongue. His narrow bed waited for them. The stars beyond the curtainless window glowed soft and eternal. Charlie had quickly learned precisely the best way to meet her needs; by comparison, Henry had been positively clumsy. Charlie always left her spent, her ears ringing, and pulled tight against his hard chest, muttering to her words of love.

But it was more than physical attraction. She sometimes felt as though her soul and his were magnetized to each other, always pulling together. They were made of the same stuff. He was the safe harbor she had been searching for all these years.

“We should get married,” Beattie said idly, after, when midnight was drawing close.

“I don’t know, Beattie. Folks in town wouldn’t like that.”

“We can’t just go on the way we are.” She sighed. “As though it’s a secret. As though we’re afraid of their opinions.”

“According to that lawyer of yours, we ought to be afraid of them.”

Beattie conceded. “All right, but as soon as Lucy is mine, then we won’t keep it secret anymore.” She had spent weeks wording the letter for Leo Sampson as precisely as she could. She’d felt guilty, enumerating Henry’s faults one after the other. But she had to remind herself that she wasn’t making any of it up: he
had
run away from his wife, he
had
drunk and gambled away their security, he
had
taken Molly back when she’d inherited money. In truth, Beattie didn’t think him a bad father; she knew that nobody could love Lucy more. But she had to say whatever would make the court decide that Lucy was better off with her mother. Her
real
mother and not Henry’s fretful, childless wife. Now Leo had the letter, and the papers had been signed and were ready to submit as soon as Lucy returned to school. Leo had told her it would take months to get through the courts.

“Imagine, Charlie,” Beattie said. “You and I could marry, Lucy would be with us. Wildflower Hill would be ours.”

Charlie laughed. “You know I don’t care about owning anything, Beattie.”

“But you should. Imagine if I died tomorrow and somebody else took over the property. You’ve done so much for it, and you get only the smallest rewards.”

“I’m happy with what I’ve got,” Charlie said. “It doesn’t pay to dream too big. Especially for a blackfella.”

Beattie sat up, gazing down on him. His dark hair was spread about him on the pillow, his strong bare shoulders. “Dream as big as you like with me, Charlie,” she said.

“If you don’t mind, Beattie, I might still take care.”

She bent to kiss his forehead. The smell of his skin filled her nostrils. “Everything will be fine,” she said. “You will see.”

Beattie took a long time to identify the feeling that itched in her stomach on the drive down to Hobart. It was guilt.

She was taking Lucy home, but everything was different this time. Yesterday Leo Sampson had sent papers to Henry and Molly’s lawyer. Sometime this week they would know that Beattie was going into battle for Lucy’s custody. That Beattie had committed to print all of their faults as parents.

Today they didn’t know. Today Molly came to the front gate waving when she heard Beattie’s car. Today was the last time they would be civil to each other.

“Oh, my dear girl.” Molly sighed, closing Lucy in a hug.

“Hello, Mama. I patted an echidna!”

Molly looked over the top of Lucy’s head at Beattie. “Henry’s been called in to work.”

“Tell him I sent my best.”

Molly smiled tightly, and Beattie grew afraid that she could read Beattie’s mind. “How are you?” Molly asked.

“Well. We’re looking at a good wool clip this year, and the boutique is selling my designs quicker than I can make them.” She told herself to stop talking so fast.

“And how is Charlie?”

Words got stuck on her tongue.

Lucy intervened. “Charlie showed me how to tie five different knots!”

“That’s lovely, dear,” Molly said, “but you should be careful about getting too close to a black man. They aren’t quite the same as us.”

Beattie’s spine grew hot with anger, but she knew better than to jump too quickly to Charlie’s defense. “Lucy takes people for who they are,” she said, “no matter how they appear on the outside.”

“Because she is a child,” Molly said smoothly, “and surely in time she will learn.”

Beattie knelt to hug Lucy, who looked confused and hurt.

“Charlie’s not a bad man, is he, Mummy?” she asked.

Beattie kept her voice low. “Charlie is a good man, and you are a good girl. I will see you in three months.”

“Thirteen weeks.”

“Exactly.” Beattie pushed away the intense sadness she always felt saying goodbye. Come July, Lucy might well be coming to stay with her permanently. “Goodbye, my darling.”