“Shh,” he said, rising above her. His smile was gentle. “Quietly, darling.” He kissed her until there was only the soft moaning sound of her hunger.
Madeline’s hands slipped under his open shirt, her fingers curling like talons. She scratched his back as her body moved sinuously under his.
Brigham caught her by the silken wrist and brought her hand around. “None of that,” he said softly. Raising her wrist to the spindles in the headboard of her bed, Brig fastened the scarf tightly to one of them.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. Her leg stroked his and her knee nudged his erection. She was more excited than alarmed.
“Something I like to do when a woman wants to put more scratches on my back.” He spread kisses across her face and neck while he worked the silken belt free of her robe. When he had the belt he used it to secure her other wrist. He sat up, straddling her thighs. “You like it, don’t you?”
Madeline didn’t answer. She twisted under him, struggling in the way she imagined he wanted. His eyes were incredibly hot and dark. Her tongue came out to wet her lips as Brigham stroked the underside of her outstretched arms.
“I think you should come with me,” he said softly. “Do you know what it’s like to make love on a ship?” His hands neared her breasts, circling, brushing her with his knuckles. “Come with me, Madeline.”
It was difficult to talk. Her skin leapt in anticipation of his touch. “George is going with you.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let him follow me all the way to Sydney?” he asked pleasantly.
Madeline couldn’t think for a moment through the haze of her excitement. What was Brig saying?
“He’s not welcome where I’m going.” He bent over Madeline and placed his mouth on hers. His tongue traced the line of her lips. “You’re welcome, though. The voyage will be very lonely if you don’t take my offer.”
Madeline averted her face. “What will you do with George?”
Brig’s hands caressed her breasts, her rib cage, and the taut plane of her abdomen. He could feel the excited flutter of her heart and hear the quickness of her breathing. “You don’t really care about George, do you?”
She shook her head, closing her eyes as Brig’s touch forced a wave of pleasure through her.
“I didn’t think so,” he said softly. He kissed her mouth again, deeply this time. His hands left her briefly, long enough to pick up the pillow that was lying near her head.
He raised it and his mouth at the same time. This time when Madeline cried out, the pillow smothered the sound. He held it there long after her body had gone still. “You shouldn’t have threatened me,” he said finally, easing off her. “I was undecided until then.”
Moving quickly, with the rote precision of a task long since refined, Brigham took the ebony-handled letter opener from Madeline’s escritoire and cut her wrists. He removed the bloody scarf and belt from her wrists, stuffed them in his trouser pocket, and arranged her body on the bed to suit his fancy. Practicing Madeline’s handwriting for several minutes at her desk, Brigham finally finished the note she had begun for him. It now read:Ican’t live with this ache in my soul.He locked the door to her room and left via the window and the balcony, entering the house again from the side entrance on the ground floor.
He slept deeply that night, fully aware that no one expected Madeline up at dawn to see him off. He would be hours at sea before her body was discovered and even then Brigham doubted he would be a suspect. The suicide note had been a masterstroke.
She really shouldn’t have turned him down, he thought. He might have been able to let her live until they reached Sydney.
Lydia satin the kitchen with Molly, spooning nut and raisin filling onto pastry squares. Every few minutes she would glance out the kitchen window, see the bright winter sunlight, and sigh. She hadn’t been out of doors for longer than a few minutes since coming to Ballaburn. After the first day a steady rain had misted the valley, swollen the stream, and driven most everything toward shelter except the sheep and Nathan Hunter. He had been gone for four days and three nights, riding out to the far reaches of the station, taking inventory of the work that had gone undone in his absence.
Irish had kept to himself most of that time. Lydia saw him at meals, but their conversation was stilted and superficial, so uncomfortable that they were both relieved to get away from the table. Lydia was many times more at ease with Molly Adams, the housekeeper and cook at Ballaburn for a dozen years, confiding in her almost without being aware that she had. No one at the station knew more about what Lydia thought and felt than Molly, and Molly would have sooner been burnt at the stake than break a confidence.
“You don’t have to stay in here and do this,” Molly said. She wrapped a towel around her hand and opened the hot oven door a crack, checking her pastries. “I’ve been doing it alone these past twelve years and I’m not the worse for it. If I need help I’ll find Tess. She’s not had anything to do this morning besides a little dusting.”
“There’s no coach today?” Lydia asked. It was Tess who served the refreshments to the passengers. The girl lived for the arrival of the coach with its surfeit of male travelers. She flirted and teased, all of it fairly harmless as far as Lydia could tell, and made each weary passenger feel welcome at Ballaburn while the horses were being changed.
“No coach. And it’s a good thing, too. Jack’s not going to put up with much more of her antics. He’s been trying to catch her eye since Brig left and she’s having none of him. She needs to be plonked on the head with a waddy and dragged off to a minister. That shiela’s always wanting what she can’t have or doesn’t need.”
A dollop of filling slipped off the end of Lydia’s spoon and splattered thickly on the tabletop. She scooped it up with her finger and destroyed the evidence of her surprised reaction by eating it. “Tess and Brig?” she asked casually, still sucking on the end of her finger.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Molly said. She dusted her breadboard with more flour, slapped the dough down hard, and began rolling it out with more energy than was strictly necessary. “Forget you ever heard it—or at least that you heard it from me.”
“It’s forgotten.”
“Go on with you,” she said, jerking both her chins in the direction of the door. “The boys will fix you up with something in the stables. It’s about time you’re seeing more of Ballaburn than the inside of this house.”
Lydia laid down the spoon. “I don’t know my way around,” she said, a little uncertain about going off on her own. It was not the same as riding along the Pacific shore or cantering through Golden Gate Park. “Tess says that—”
“Tess is it now?” Molly scoffed. “Probably filled your ears full of tales about the blackfellows and God knows what else. Well, if you’re really worried, then take someone with you.” She paused and caught Lydia’s line of vision squarely. “Take Irish.”
