Sixteen

They shagged again that night, though it still took some urging to convince Michael to let his animal nature run loose. Caitlin did like a good, hard fuck, but truth be told, she'd take him however he came at her: hard and fast or savoringly slow. Either way was pleasurable. And to do it only for herself—not for money, not for gain, but for the pure bodily pleasure of it . . . Perhaps this was a part of her dream, one she'd never considered before. To take control, not only of the farm and her livelihood, but of her own bedroom as well. Her own body.

Afterward, they lay together, naked and panting, listening to the sounds of the night beyond the open window. A wave of feeling rolled through her, propelling her hand to reach out and smooth his hair. Just ten minutes before, he'd put his mouth to her cunt, sending white hot lightning flashing through her entire being and bringing her to heights she'd not known possible. But now his eyes were closed, and a look of pure peace graced his features. He didn't flinch at her touch, so she supposed he was asleep until a soft groan came from deep in his throat.

The sound of contentment.

This was good for him too, wasn't it?

A shiver of unexpected joy raced through her. They had a whole year together.

And she need not worry about the possibility of children.

With John, she'd always felt guilty, knowing he couldn't plant a babe inside her no matter how much he tried. Not that he'd ever spoken of it. Knowing what she did now, it seemed quite possible he hadn't even cared. But with Michael, her barrenness was a liberation of sorts. A small blessing to come from that terrible night in the gaol in Cork when she'd lost the child she hadn't even known she was carrying. There had been so much blood, and then that awful doctor had come with his dirty hands and cold, sneering eyes . . . She'd burned with fever for weeks afterward. The pain had been unbearable. Her courses had been irregular and heavy for a few months, only to disappear completely on the passage to New South Wales.

She turned her attention back to the man beside her. Sleep was calling, but there was something she wanted to do first.

"Roll over." She stood and went to the dresser. "I'll put a salve on your back."

Michael didn't move. He watched her warily, eyes half closed.

"Turn over, then." She spoke more forcefully this time. "I won't hurt you."

"It's not necessary." He glowered at her.

"I know ‘tisn't necessary. But I want to." She paused, mellowing her tone and turning the command into a question. "Please?"

Reluctantly, he obeyed, rolling onto his belly and bringing his arms up so that his forehead rested on the backs of his hands.

Caitlin surveyed the ridged landscape of flesh. It could be worse. The wounds were healing, though not what one would call healed. There were some that seemed older and had faded to light pink, thin, puckered lines barely raised above his pale skin. Others were still red and scabbed over. He must have been flogged more than once. Poor man.

"How does this feel?" She opened her hand and placed it, palm down, on the criss-cross of flesh. It felt hot, as if burned by the sun.

He tensed. "Fine."

"Does it hurt you, still?" She ran her hand lightly over the expanse of his injuries.

"Not really. Aches a bit. Itches, mostly," he grunted. "The skin's tight when I move."

"Then this will help." She reached for the little tin of ointment. It was a recipe she made for her own chapped skin—beeswax and wool oil mixed with just a bit of tallow and lavender. "I'll be gentle." She unscrewed the lid, dipped her fingers into the cool, viscous salve, and began to spread it over his back.

At first he held himself so tight he barely seemed to be breathing, but as she kept on, smoothing the ointment in and kneading the muscles below, she could feel him begin to relax.

"They laced you more than once," she observed.

"Yes."

"How many times?"

He was silent for a moment. "Once before I left Sydney—fifty lashes. Then . . ." He trailed off, as if trying to remember. "A few times more. I can't say. Exactly."

"Whatever for?"

He snorted. "The first was part of my sentence. But at Moreton Bay they don't need a reason. The guards are bored and miserable. They just want someone to take it out on."

She scooped a bit more salve out and spread it lower on his back, avoiding the breaks in his skin that were still raw and scabbed. Then—though she knew he probably wouldn't answer—she asked the question that had been on her mind all day. "Is it what you were dreaming of when I woke you? Moreton Bay, I mean."

He didn't answer.

She shouldn't have asked. It was no business of hers. Best let it be.

She focused on the feeling of her cool hands sliding over his skin—

"No." He drew a long breath. "Snakes." His voice had a dull, hollow ring to it, and she suspected he wasn't telling the whole truth. "I was dreaming of snakes."

" Snakes ?" Caitlin felt her brows raise. "Well then, you should go to Ireland."

"Ireland?" He turned halfway to look up at her.

"Aye, Ireland." Gently, she pushed him back down. "There are no snakes in Ireland, you know. Not since St. Patrick drove them out. They can't abide the smell of Irish earth." Michael didn't answer, so she kept talking, hoping to distract him from whatever dark place her question had sent him to. "Did you know, there was a gentleman near Port Hunter, an Irishman with a large land grant. The poor chap was so plagued by snakes that he had five hundred tons of good Irish bog soil dug up and shipped to him in biscuit barrels."

"Biscuit barrels?" Michael spoke into the mattress, his muffled tone betraying his amusement.

"Aye, biscuit barrels." The corners of Caitlin's mouth twitched up. It was a story she'd heard from one of her assigned men, years ago. Absurd, yet somehow amusing. "They arrived at King's Wharf, safe and sound. Then he dug a trench ‘round his farm and filled it with that Irish dirt." The last bit of salve soaked into his skin, and she bent down to press a kiss to his scarred back. "Wouldn't you know it—he never saw a single snake ever again."

Chuckling, she rose, put the tin away, then blew out the candle and lay herself down beside him. He'd rolled onto his side and was looking at her, his features outlined by the silvery moonlight, his eyes indigo blue as the night sky. A smile, a real one—if a disbelieving one—grew from within him.

"What?" she asked. "You don't believe me?"

"Of course I do." He grinned at her. "Why wouldn't I?"

She laughed. Then she leaned in and kissed him. "Goodnight, Michael."

"Goodnight, Caitlin."

The wheat was indeed a record harvest, more than four hundred bushels in all. Michael even found a man in Sydney to buy the extra straw, something Caitlin had always wanted to do, but never managed to convince John the worth of. Summer flowed into fall and the rains came exactly when they should. The pasture stayed lush and green, and there was cream enough from the cows to make butter to sell into the winter. The hogs grew beautifully fat and fetched a king's ransom. Even the bees seemed to be on her side—Caitlin pressed more honey and collected more wax than ever before.

By the time everything was sold, she was closer to settling John's debts than she'd ever dared hope. Only twenty-three pounds remained to be paid.

It was hard work, especially with only two field hands. Caitlin spent most of her hours away from the house, but she always made time to come in for her reading lessons. They were the best part of her days, made even better by the warm, buzzy feeling she got from Michael's encouragement. On one of his trips to Sydney, he bought a child's reader filled with poetry and prose, and one day in early April, she finally reached the end of it.

Simplicity , the last poem inside it was called, and Caitlin would remember it as long as she lived. But it wasn't the words that were important, not really. They were merely the spell that conjured the feeling of that afternoon. The way the autumn sun slanted through the windows. The sight of Michael, sitting across from her, his golden hair shining, his blue eyes—as fathomless as the sky above—fixed on her with rapt attention, urging her on.

Our water is drawn from the clearest of springs, And our food, nor disease nor satiety brings: Our mornings are cheerful, our labors are blest, Our evenings are pleasant, our nights crowned with rest.

She looked up from the page and grinned sideways at him. The corners of his lips curled up in response. Though, as always when he was acting the tutor, he tamped them back down. "Finish it."

She kept reading.

Since such are the joys that Simplicity yields, We may well be content with our woods and our fields, How useless to us then, ye great, were your wealth, When without it we purchase both pleasure and health.

She closed the book, and Michael allowed his impulse to get the better of him. He grinned, a sudden burst of sunshine as bright as the rays that flooded through the windows. "Well done," was all he said, but the way he said it . . . Caitlin had never felt so proud.

What a wonder it was, to be able to make sense of words on paper.

And this man . . .

At some point—Caitlin could never remember exactly when—there came a day when she woke up and couldn't imagine her life without Michael. He was there when she trudged in, bone weary from the fields, hot food ready on the table. He went to town whenever it was needed, learned to do the laundry and to milk the cow, to skim the cream and churn butter, to press honey and make candles. He even took to packing her pipe and pouring her grog at the end of the day, though he still never drank any himself. And he didn't do any of it simply because she told him to, or because it was his duty. He genuinely seemed to enjoy the rhythms of the farm and the act of caring for her—of giving her the little joys of her daily life.

They converted his room back into a dairy, and every evening after dinner they'd sit on the verandah to smoke and read the paper if they had one. Then they'd retire to Caitlin's room where they'd shag till they were both wrung out. On other nights, they simply held each other as they drifted off to sleep.

Simplicity, indeed.

It was the kind of contented country life she'd imagined for herself when she was a girl on the farm in Goleen. When she'd had time and hope enough to dream, before Father's lease was ended and they'd been forced down that muddy road to Cork.

The simple life seemed to agree with Michael as well. Or at least, she thought it did. Gradually, the gaunt hollows under his eyes filled out. His ribs and hip bones became less stark. She rubbed salve on his scars each night, and over time they faded—though, of course he'd live with them for the rest of his life. He seemed content. But even still, that shell he hid himself away in never quite wore away entirely. She saw long glimpses of the man beneath when they were in bed, or when he didn't think she was looking, but he still spoke sparingly and smiled even less. His nightmares still plagued him. It was as if he were marked not only by the scars on his back but by deeper wounds. Wounds he'd never allow Caitlin to see, much less soothe.

They never spoke of it. All too soon, Michael's year would draw to a close. There was no doubt in Caitlin's mind that he looked forward to leaving, finally a free man, able to set out on his own. Who wouldn't? But did he have a plan? Was he ready? Was she? Whenever the questions arose, Caitlin pushed them away, along with the sense of unease they stirred. It didn't matter. He was here now. No point in worrying about a future she couldn't change.

It was late October, eleven months into Michael's year at Swindale, when the truth of the matter finally became clear to her. It was raining, a steady downpour that seemed like it would never end. Caitlin had planned to plant in the garden, but instead she'd been forced indoors to sit at the kitchen table, cutting candle wicks. There was wax left from the fall, and Mr. Flemming was in need of more tapers. Michael had just finished putting a stew together for supper, and the savory smells of lovage and cooked meat hung like a cloud in the humid air. He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, kneading her muscles the way he knew she liked.

"Mmh." She stretched her head to one side, savoring his touch. "How many did you say Mr. Flemming wanted?"

"Twelve dozen, if you have them." Michael's thumbs found a knot of muscle, and he dug into it, making her squeal. He stopped. "Too much?"

"It is not. Keep going." Obligingly, his fingers came back to her nape. Caitlin let herself go limp, falling into his touch.

Damn, she'd lost count.

She set down the scissors and gave herself over to his ministrations. "That does feel good." So good she never wanted it to end.

And just like that, something inside her shattered into a thousand painful pieces.

She never wanted it to end.

But it would. It would end. And soon. He would leave, and she'd be alone in an empty house. Without Michael. In her bed. In her life.

His hands stilled. "You've tensed up again," he said accusingly. "If it's too much, I can—"

"It is not too much." She nearly choked on the words. Then she opened her mouth to tell him just how much his leaving would pain her, to ask him what he planned to do—but at the last second, she thought better of it. It was his business, not hers, and anyway, there was no sense in laying her troubles at his feet. "Keep going. Please," was all she could manage.

That night, she came at him with wild abandon. Michael seemed taken aback by the forceful way she rode him, by the tight embrace she wrapped him in afterward, as if she'd never let him go. But he said nothing about it, just fell asleep quickly in her arms. Caitlin lay awake for a long time, listening to his soft snores.

By morning, she was resolved. She would ask him to stay. Not to marry. Just to stay. To keep on as they had been. Such arrangements were common in the colony. It wasn't like in Ireland or England, where unmarried couples were shunned. Even still, he would probably say no. He would make a much better life for himself in Sydney than he could here, and she had so little to offer . . . But it was comfortable on the farm. He was used to the routine, and it was peaceful, something Sydney would never be. Perhaps room and board and part of the farm's profits would tempt him? At least for a time.

She'd just need to find the right time to ask.