An Unconventional Heiress Read online

  The anger over the military’s treatment of Ryan and Quinn was now transferred to Sarah. She would provide them with an opportunity for revenge on their hated oppressors by sacrificing her. Riley neither could, nor would, save her now. Alan and Sarah heard the roar in the distance that followed O’Brien’s last words, followed by the repeated shouting of her name.

  The roar also reminded Moll of her duties. She looked around for Sarah to find her gone. Her screams of thwarted rage gave the general alert and the whole camp began to search for her—to no avail. Fortunately for the runaways, the rebels’ first consideration was for their own safety. Sarah had been a useful hostage and might also have been a useful vent for their anger but, in the end, the realisation that they might share Ryan’s and Quinn’s fate if they did not move on quickly proved a powerful incentive, and the search was abandoned.

  ‘It’s no use, lads,’ shouted Riley when it became apparent that Sarah was not going to be found. ‘We can’t waste time running round in the bush looking for the bitch. She’ll not get far on her own. Let’s leave her to rot in it. We can’t kill her any more dead than New South Wales will.’

  He had to raise his voice to be heard above the clamour. ‘It’s vital that we leave here soon. Let’s sleep now, and move on as soon as daylight comes. If we don’t we’re gallows-meat—or the whipping post will do for us. You know the drill, men—aye, and women, too. You’re soldiers of Ireland, not a mindless rabble.’

  ‘We should have done for her last night,’ shrilled Moll.

  ‘Stow that—let’s ready ourselves to be up and away in the morning before the soldiers find us.’

  Once they were some distance from the camp Alan and Sarah began to hurry through the night without caring how much noise they were making. Alan had already decided that they ought not to worry overmuch about whether they could immediately rejoin the trail by which they had come, in case the rebels decided to follow them down it.

  He knew that Sarah possessed enough common sense to follow his lead without questioning it. What did trouble him was how far she could walk or run without becoming exhausted. He tried not to hold her hand too tightly, but when he loosened it she tightened her own grip on him as though she would never let him go. He had wondered if she knew how much it meant to him to be with her again, even in these dire straits, but that tightening clutch told him everything.

  Whatever her brother had said of her wishing to return home, her manner to him had not changed… He stopped himself. Why should he think of that here? Survival was all. They were alone in the bush, far from the rebels who would slaughter them if they were caught, but also far from Sydney. As soon as he thought that they were safely away, he pulled Sarah down beside him in the undergrowth so that she might rest. It was now his duty to prevent the bush from doing the rebels’ work for them by bringing about her death.

  Once she had stopped running Sarah sank down on the ground to lie there, supine, her eyes closed, white to the lips and breathing heavily. He had noticed quite early on in their flight that she was limping and that running was painful for her, but, gallant as ever, she had never complained. His love for her overflowed. He could not, would not, lose her now to this new enemy.

  ‘My darling,’ he said tenderly, ‘I ought to examine your poor feet. They are obviously paining you.’

  Darling! He had called her his darling. For that she must sit up and let him do as he asked. Sarah looked down at his dark head while he carefully removed her battered slippers to reveal how much damage their headlong flight had done to her feet, on top of the wounds inflicted by the forced march on the day before.

  ‘You must be in great pain, my love, and I fear that, out here, there is little that I can do to relieve it.’

  ‘They are already beginning to feel better,’ she murmured, while he peeled off her torn stockings as tenderly as he could, and used a little of their precious water to bathe her bleeding feet.

  ‘Rest a little,’ he said, ‘before I try to bandage them. The air will help them to recover.’

  ‘I can’t pretend that they are other than painful,’ she said, steadfastly, ‘but seeing you was an antidote for pain. I cannot tell you how much I have missed you, and this time I thought that I was truly lost, not only to you, but to life. What would have become of me if I had still been in the rebels’ power after the news of Francis Ryan’s death had arrived?’

  Despite the warmth of the night she began to shiver violently. Alan put his arms around her to warm and comfort her.

  ‘Hush, my love. Do not think of it. You are safe from them now. Think only that we are together again and of how we may find our way back to Sydney.’

  He kissed her grimy cheek before she turned in his arms and hid her face on his broad chest. Gradually her dreadful shuddering stopped when the shock created by her suffering began to diminish. She pulled away from him with regret and began a futile attempt to pin up her streaming tresses. Alan was wearing a thin black ribbon around his stock and he tied her hair back with it.

  Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he put his arms around her again and held her to him. In her exhausted condition it behoved him to be as gentle as possible with her so that she would feel safe from harm or mistreatment. For the moment neither of them wished to think, or to speak, of the cruel past, either before or after she had been captured.

  ‘Is it safe enough for us to rest here a little?’ she asked. ‘I fear that it is weak of me, but I am so tired that I am not sure how long I could keep going if we started off again immediately.’

  Alan rose to his feet and looked back along the way that they had come. All was silent.

  ‘I don’t think that we’ve been followed. I don’t suppose that they even know that there is a “we”. They’ve probably decided that you are on your own and consequently doomed. At the moment we’re safe enough for us to sleep for a little now. Lie down and I’ll keep watch.’

  Sarah did as she was bid.

  ‘Before you try to sleep,’ Alan told her, ‘I feel that it is only right that I should be frank with you. I know that you are both brave and resourceful. Our chances of survival are good, but they depend on our not becoming over-exhausted, on being as sparing as possible with our food and water, and finally on not losing our direction. Now that the moon and stars are coming out I think that I know enough about the night sky to navigate our way towards Sydney.’

  Sarah felt drowsily that so long as she was with Alan she could bear anything, even her aching feet and her fear of dying in the wilderness. She dozed for a little and then sat up suddenly to find that Alan was keeping watch a little way away from her.

  ‘Alan,’ she said, her voice stronger than it had been since they had run away from the camp, ‘do you think you could sit by me for a little while before we start again? I should so much like to know how poor Carter is, how you found out that I had been captured, and what has been happening in Sydney. Is John safe? I collect from what was said back at the camp that the Rising failed.’

  Alan came over to sit beside her and take her hand in his. ‘Of course, you know nothing of what happened. Yes, the Rising failed badly and rapidly. Many of the rebels were wounded and their leader, Ryan, was killed. John and all your friends are safe. I saw Pat Ramsey just before Tom and I left to try to reach you on your way home before the fleeing rebels did.

  ‘We found Carter lying badly wounded beside your carriage. To try to save his life Tom took him back to Sydney and I came after you into the bush.’

  ‘Poor Carter,’ said Sarah faintly. ‘I am so glad to learn that he is still alive. I thought him dead.’

  ‘Do not raise your hopes too high: he was far gone when I last saw him. I am sure that the military and Tom will come looking for us. The only question is, when. Now let me bind your feet. We can use my neckcloth and your petticoat.’

  Together they ripped up their available linen and bound Sarah’s feet, retaining her light kid slippers beneath the bandages as some
further protection before they set off again in the direction that Alan hoped would take them towards Sydney.

  Their progress was slow, but before the night was too far gone they had covered a reasonable distance. Alan was privately of the opinion that they were successfully making their way back to the place where Sarah had been captured and which joined the track which led to Grimes’s farm. If they could find that, then their route to Sydney would be a straightforward one. It was becoming increasingly plain to him that Sarah was not far from collapse, but that her gallant spirit would never let her admit it: it was time for her to rest again.

  They hid themselves in the shade of a stand of gumtrees, surrounded by small shrubs, and drank sparingly from Alan’s water skin. Tired though she was, Sarah could not sleep. She lay against Alan, holding his hand.

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ she murmured drowsily, ‘you do not know how pleased I was to see you. When I was captured all that I could think of was those wasted weeks when we never met one another. Worst of all, I could not bear to think that I was going to be killed in the bush without ever having seen you again.’

  She began to shiver, and Alan took her in his arms again, saying, ‘We are together now and that is all that matters,’ He began to kiss her with a little of the passion that he had not dared to show before, and must keep muted now, for he wanted her to rest to be ready for the following day.

  ‘I never thought to be in your arms again,’ she whispered. ‘All those long weeks I was so lost and lonely. What did I do to turn you away from me?’

  ‘Oh, Sarah,’ he said, his voice broken with an emotion that was so deeply felt he could scarcely speak, ‘how can you say that to me when you are going back to England to marry Amborough’s heir?’

  Delight at finding his arms about her gave way to dismay. Sarah pushed him away from her. ‘Marry Amborough’s heir! Marry Charles Villiers! No such thing. From where did you get that strange notion?’ She paused, appalled. ‘Is that why you have been breaking my heart? Is that why you have been avoiding me?’

  His face in the moonlight was nearly as white as her own.

  ‘Your brother—’ he began.

  She interrupted him fiercely despite her near-exhaustion. ‘My brother? John? John told you that I was going home to marry Charles Villiers? How could he tell you that? He knew that I had written to refuse him after he wrote proposing marriage to me again. Marry Charles Villiers! I would as lief marry a kangaroo—and so I told John. How could he betray me so?’

  Aghast, the lovers stared at one another.

  ‘How could he?’ repeated Sarah. ‘It must have been that day when he met you at Government House—and you have been avoiding me all these weeks because you thought that I had been toying with you to pass the time.’

  Alan thought dizzily that the Fates could have contrived no more bittersweet ploy than for him and Sarah to find themselves in the wilderness, in danger of death from one of half a dozen causes, in order to discover what had parted them.

  He gazed ardently into her great green eyes, luminous in her ashen face. ‘My darling Sarah, so all the time that I have been playing the honourable fool and avoiding one promised to another, you have been thinking that I had discarded you. Tom was right. I am a fool.’

  ‘What else could I think but that you had changed your mind?’ Sarah managed painfully. ‘I was looking forward to the Governor’s dinner—and then, you never came. Besides, it had all happened to me before, when Charles Villiers betrayed me, so what was I to think but that I had been abandoned again? I thought that there must be something wrong with me—and all the time it was John. The worst thing of all is that even when I told him, again and again, that I would never marry Charles, even if we did go home, he never told you the truth.’

  She clutched at him as though she never meant to let him go. ‘No, that is not the worst thing, what is the worst is that I might have left for England without discovering the lie which John told to part us and I would always have thought that you were playing with me.’

  As Alan heard this, his embrace of her grew tighter still.

  ‘Oh, God, Alan…’ and now it was Sarah’s voice that was broken ‘…it may be forward of me to tell you this, but I love you so much. I cannot bear to think that we might never have met again.’

  ‘Never forward, Sarah,’ he told her tenderly, ‘never forward, my gallant girl.’

  Sarah had begun to sob, whether from pain or joy she did not know. ‘I think that I know why John deceived you. He always wanted me to marry Charles and he was fearful that I would stay here and marry you. He does not like it here, while I…’

  She fell silent. Alan kissed her hair—he did not dare to do more; the passion that he had always felt for her was beginning to consume him, here in the wilderness.

  ‘Yes, Sarah, while you…?’

  ‘I like it here. I think that I shall always like it where you are. The thought of England seems stifling to me after New South Wales.’

  Alan was moved. ‘I was a fool to doubt you, my darling—but I had reason, Sarah. Like you, I was betrayed once before. But let that pass. I understand your brother. He did not want you to marry an ex-felon, living at the end of the earth, and particularly one who had been convicted of treason, when you could go home and be Lady Amborough.’

  She put her hand on his lips. ‘Hush, that’s done with. I know your story and you need not be ashamed of it. I love you, Alan. and I would not exchange you for a thousand Charleses. It is enough to say that he deceived me once, and, were I to have married him, he would have deceived me again.’

  It was enough; they were together at last. All the misunderstandings were explained and over. They lay quiet in one another’s arms—consummating their mutual passion would have to wait for another time. They were not yet saved from their physical danger, even though the emotional one had been overcome. Time, which had stood still while they talked, was moving on again, and was reclaiming them. Alan said at last, ‘We must sleep now so that we may be on our way early tomorrow morning, in the cool of the day.’

  ‘I know.’ A smile touched her lips. ‘You know, Alan, when I was a little girl I used to plague my governess about the Christmas Star. I thought that it was the Pole Star, and she said, “No, that is not the Star of Bethlehem. It is Sarah Langley’s star.” But she was wrong,’ and Sarah pointed to the heavens where the Southern Cross blazed far above them.

  ‘That is Sarah Langley’s star.’

  ‘With God’s blessing, Sarah Langley’s star will watch over us as we sleep and keep us safe from harm,’ Alan said.

  And so it did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back in Sydney the Governor had been told by Tom of Sarah’s capture, and that O’Connell was still hanging fire about sending a troop into the bush after her.

  ‘I can understand his reasoning,’ the Governor said. ‘He probably feels that the needs of the colony come first but, from the latest news that has reached me, it seems that the Rising has been defeated and that most of the rebels still in Sydney have been rounded up. That being so, there is no reason for delay.’

  ‘If he delays any longer I shall round up a party myself to go after her,’ Tom said. ‘With due respect, every moment that we delay puts her life and Dr Kerr’s in greater danger.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the Governor, ‘but I’d rather you worked with O’Connell. He has no one skilled in tracking in the bush, while you, I know, have some talent in that direction. He’ll need you.’

  ‘Again with due respect,’ returned Tom, who was wryly amused—he had never before been so diplomatic with anyone as he was now being with the Governor, ‘my blackfellow friend, On and Off Abe, is far better at that then I am, and I will happily assist him to lead into the bush any party of which I am a member.’

  ‘So be it,’ said the Governor. ‘Now you must wait while I send for O’Connell and give him his instructions. I want him to work with you on this—I’m not having any nonsense about him having no truck with
Emancipists and aborigines—I agree with you that lives are at stake here.’

  While the Governor was reminding O’Connell of his duty, John Langley was suffering the pangs of remorse over his lies to Alan Kerr. He had endangered not only Sarah’s life but Carter’s and Kerr’s as well. The hours after Tom had brought Carter home with the dreadful news about Sarah passed agonisingly slowly. Word of her capture ran round Sydney’s grapevine and more than one Exclusive called to offer him his sympathy.

  His only practical visitor was Lucy Middleton. She defied her mother by visiting him on her own to find that, in his anxiety over Carter and Sarah, he had barely eaten since Carter’s return. She invaded the kitchen, ordered Mrs Hackett to prepare something easy to eat and finally made John eat it by telling him briskly, ‘Starving yourself won’t bring Sarah back.’

  She also told him that O’Connell, while grumbling over the Governor’s interference in matters that were the province of the military, had put Pat Ramsey in charge of a contingent to go into the bush. He would work with Tom Dilhorne, On and Off Abe—the aborigine Tom Dilhorne had befriended, who worked for him on and off and was so nicknamed—and a group of Tom’s men, on the grounds that all these were more familiar with the bush than the military were.

  ‘It’s a good thing that Pat’s in charge,’ said Lucy shrewdly, ‘since he hasn’t any silly notions about not working with Tom. Frank’s not with him, which is a relief. I should hate having to worry about him as well as Sarah and poor Dr Kerr.’

  Now that she had persuaded John to drink tea and eat something, however small, Lucy sought to distract him by informing him of Sydney’s latest piece of non-Rising, non-military gossip.

  ‘On top of all this, the rumour is that Fred Waring got drunk the night before the Rising, fell down the stairs and broke his neck, leaving poor Hester alone in the world, God knows what will happen to her now. Pa says that apoplexy would have killed Fred if he had lived to hear that Tom Dilhorne was enlisted by the Governor to work with the military to try to find poor Sarah, so it’s just as well he went when he did.’