Ben Morgan's Mistake
by
Victoria Aldridge


"Am I your property?"  Ben asked.

"For the time being, and for your safety only."

Emma stiffened as she felt his fingers brush across her abdomen.

"There's no need to go overboard, Mr.  Morgan--this is only a display
of affection for the chief, so that he doesn't follow his perfectly
natural impulse to slit your throat."

"Is that so?"  Without warning he jerked her towards him, so that she
collided against his chest.

"How dare you!"

"I was only displaying my affection."

Victoria Aldridge is a fifth-generation New Zealander.

She married young and happily, and spent some years travelling before
settling down with three children.  Her husband has his own company,
and due to his unfailing support she has been able to complete her BA
and begin writing.

BEN MORGAN'S MISTAKE

Victoria Aldridge

MILLS & BOON

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imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone
bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired
by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents
are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in
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First published in Great Britain 1998

Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

Victoria Aldridge 1998

ISBN 0 263 81285 5

Set in Times to man 10 on 12pt.

04-9901-71515 C1

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book
Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow

Chapter One

They buried Thomas on a Sunday.

There had been no rain for weeks, and the soil was little more than
dust, floating lightly, blackly through the air as Kahu threw one last
shovel of earth over the mound that was the Reverend Thomas Augustus
Johnson's last resting place.

"It's not right, Mrs.  Johnson."  Kahu leaned on his shovel to survey
his handiwork.

"The reverend always said no work on Sundays, just Church.  He wouldn't
have liked you doing this."

Her late husband would certainly not have liked the unmistakable ring
of satisfaction in his servant's voice, Emma thought.

"Burying the dead isn't work," she said defensively.

"Besides, we had to do it today.  With this heat..."

It seemed too indelicate to finish the sentence, even with Kahu's
interested dark gaze upon her.  She knew he was wondering why she was
not crying.

Perhaps she should try to pretend, perhaps she should pull out a
handkerchief and bury her face in it until Kahu went away and left her,
satisfied that the mourning rituals were complete.  But today she
seemed to lack the energy to do even that.  She turned her head away
from his curiosity.

She was standing now on top of the hill where Thomas had wanted his
church to be built.  They had already cut down a few of the
heavy-fronded ponga trees in preparation for the foundations and it was
in this clearing, with the Whanganui River sliding quietly by below,
that they had put Thomas to rest.

He would have approved of her choice of site, she knew.  For the first
time in her life she had done the right thing, and he wasn't here to
witness it.  Burying him that was the easy part.  Carrying out his
life's work, now--that was quite different.

"The church," he had said, in a voice that was halfway between a wheeze
and a whisper, and which had frightened her terribly.  He had made a
feeble gesture and she had taken his hand, careful not to show her
revulsion at his hot, dry touch.  His fingers had clutched at her as if
clawing at her own health and strength, his bones brittle beneath the
pale, stretched skin.

"The church... Promise me!"

Emma had nodded quickly, anxious not to upset him, but it had not
prolonged his life.

"So much left undone..."  he had said in a whisper so faint that she
barely caught his words, and then he was gone.

Leaving her here, alone.  She turned away from the grave and looked out
over the hills, steep, tree dark endless.  How many miles to the
nearest European settlement?  Fifty miles?  One hundred?  Were there
any inland at all?  No, the only way to leave was surely back down the
river, although it had taken them over a week to get this far upriver,
to the Place-With-No-Name.  That was what she called it in her head,
although the Maoris had a name for it, a name in their beautiful,
melodic language that meant something like "The Place Where Three
Chiefs Met and Ate Fish'.  She had tried to learn it, but Thomas had
decided that the site of his new church was going to be called
Redemption, and sO there had been no point.  It no longer mattered what
name the place went by--now it would always be
The-Place-Where-Thomas-Is-Buried.

Kahu was treading down the earth over her husband's grave,
half-humming, half-singing "The Lord is my Shepherd' under his breath.
They had sung the psalm, she and Kahu, and she had found the relevant
passages in Thomas's bible to read over the blanket-wrapped body.  None
of the native people had come to the funeral.

It was not as if they didn't know of Thomas's death: Emma was certain
they knew everything about her and Thomas, down to the most intimate
details.  From the moment they had arrived at the village there had
been a swarm of enthralled observers watching everything they did.  Day
and night the Maoris squatted around the campsite, commenting
cheerfully to each other on the white-skinned strangers' clothes, food
and ablution habits and making off with whatever they thought would not
be missed.  It would have been so easy then to have befriended them.
Emma was fascinated by the language, their openness, their dark beauty.
Beguiled by their smiles, drawn by their beckoning fingers, she would
have wandered into their village at once, but Thomas would have none of
that!

"Tell them, Kahu," he had ordered on that first day, as he carefully
drew a line in the soil around his and Emma's belongings.

"Tell them that within this line is our property.  Not theirs.  Tell
them."

Kahu looked surly.

"They won't understand, Reverend."

"Perhaps Kahu is right," Emma ventured nervously.

"This is their village, after all, and we don't want to impose..."  She
looked at Kahu for support and was taken aback by the hostility in his
eyes.

She, too, did not understand.  But, oh, how she wanted to!  Instead,
the opportunity to learn was lost, and Kahu gracelessly translated
Thomas's directives to a bemused and uncomprehending audience.

Enough of Thomas's intention had got through,

however, to ensure that offence was taken, and the open-handed offers
of friendship were tacitly withdrawn.

That was why there had been no other mourners at Thomas's funeral
today.  She knew enough about the Maoris to know that they were a
people with an elaborate set of mourning rituals.  Yet the only
acknowledgement of Thomas's death had been a lessening in the number of
observers that day, and that unsettled her.  No, Thomas had not been
liked here.  Not even respected.

Kahu, who had been with them ever since Wellington, had not liked
Thomas either.  He would never have come this far up the river with
them had Thomas not promised him good wages.  But they had needed an
interpreter, and someone to help with the heavy work, and Kahu had
seemed willing enough in the beginning.  Emma watched him stamping hard
on the grave, the soft earth puffing up between his toes.  At any
moment she expected him to break into a little dance.

"What am I going to do, Kahu?"  she asked suddenly.

"Do, Mrs.  Johnson?"  Kahu lifted his heavy shoulders in a shrug.

"Go back downriver.  That's the only thing to do."

She hugged Thomas's bible closer to her chest, trying to conjure up his
presence.  Tall, thin, slightly stooped from a lifetime of study.  Grey
hair worn a little too long, because Thomas had not cared for the
vanities of the body.  And his eyes.  Dark, intense eyes that had
seemed to penetrate to one's very soul, seeking out any evil that might
be lurking there, and always finding it... She shivered.

"I could go back downriver, I suppose," she thought aloud.

"Or I could stay here and build the church.  Thomas wanted it so much,
and I wouldn't want to disappoint him."

Kahu made a noise of disbelief through his nose.

"How can you disappoint him, Mrs.  Johnson?  He's dead now.  With his
Maker."

"Yes, he is, but I'm sure he's still watching us."

And he knows what I'm thinking, she thought with a rising sense of
dread.  He knows that when I woke up this morning, the first thing I
felt was free.  Free and young.  I'm only twenty-three, after all, My
life is only just beginning... Your life of service is only just
beginning.  She had to stop herself from glancing back over her
shoulder, so clearly did Thomas's familiar words sound in her head. How
often had he had to remind her of the enormous debt she owed: to the
Lord, to the Church and, most of all, to himself.  He had been right to
do so, of course.  She had so much to atone for, and she owed Thomas so
much.  But did she have to repay the debt here, all alone?

"Kahu, if I go back downriver, will you come with me?"

He shrugged again, his eyes sliding away from her.

"Maybe, Mrs.  Johnson."

"I can pay you, Kahu," she said steadily and completely untruthfully.
If Thomas had any money left over after purchasing the materials for
the mission, she could not find it.  Kahu had not been paid since
before they left Wellington--she had heard the men arguing about it.
Once she had dared to ask her husband about funding for the mission,
and Thomas had haughtily reminded her that--if she only had faith--the
Lord would provide everything they would need.  But not, it seemed, a
little hard cash with which to bribe Kahu.

"Maybe, Mrs.  Johnson," Kahu repeated stonily.

Her heart sank.  If not Kahu, who else?  She dared not ask any of the
local men to take her.  She knew nothing of their language, and what
guarantees did she have that they would not find it less bothersome to
simply tip her into the river, or worse?  The Maoris who had rowed them
up here had left as soon as I Thomas had paid them, taking the canoe
with them.

How long would it take to make the return journey?

If she walked, it could take weeks.  And there were all those native
villages they had passed.  What if they weren't as friendly as this
tribe had been?  What if she became lost, or injured, or... Oh, this
was not fair!  she found herself thinking.

How could Thomas have put her in such a position?

Why had he refused to listen to her pleas and that of the other
churchmen in Sydney that they go to one of the Missionary Society's
settlements?  They would have been safe then, with others of their own
kind, in a part of the country where the Maoris were known to be
friendly.  But Thomas had denounced the Missionary Society as spineless
and lacking in dedication.  And of course she, as his wife, had to
meekly follow where he led... Guiltily, she thrust her disloyal
thoughts from her.

Thomas was dead now, and this situation was for her alone to resolve.
Anger would change nothing.

Her head was aching with the heat and the worry, so she went back to
her hut and made herself a pot of the sweet manuka leaf infusion that
had to pass for tea.  The sun was approaching its zenith now, and under
the heavy black folds of her voluminous dress the perspiration was
trickling down her back and between her breasts.  Paler colours would
have been so much more suitable to these temperatures, but Thomas had
insisted that she dye all her clothes black the day after their
marriage.  Black was the colour Of sobriety and penitence, he had told
her, the colour of humility and duty: all the virtues she had to learn.
It was also the colour of mourning, now perfectly appropriate.

She sat in the shade of the fragrant, white:

flowered manuka trees surrounding the little hut, made of wood and
raupo reed, that she had built herself and had so recently shared with
her husband.

Around her a few brown shadows flittered under the trees and then she
heard the padding of bare feet along the track to the village in the
hilltop.  It was too hot for missionary-watching today, especially when
the one remaining missionary was doing nothing more exciting than
sitting still.  Why not find somewhere shady to lie down by the cool
river and sleep away the midday heat?  So they went away, leaving Emma
alone for the first time.  A light breeze had sprung up and she
loosened the strings of her bonnet, wishing she could take the whole
thing off and let the air ruffle though her hair.  Thomas had never let
her bare her head, maintaining as he had that a woman must never
immodestly flaunt herself so.  Now that he was dead... Her hand dropped
to her lap.  How long would it be before she was free of the feeling
that he was hovering somewhere overhead, watching her?

Despite that, it was soothing to be able to sit in peace, with no one
to tell her to collect firewood or prepare a meal or gather for
prayers.  Yet again she had to clamp down hard on the restless tide of
freedom surging within her.  Thomas had constantly had to warn her of
her natural inclination towards sloth and irresponsibility.  She must
be strong without his surveillance and finish what he had not been
given time to do.  But how?

She tried to make some sense of the Varbulence in her mind.  Staring
down at the river helped, watching the play of light on the smooth,
green ripples.

She found herself focussing on the soothing, surging rhythm of the
water, the quiet roaring sound that surrounded her, feeling the chaotic
threads of emotion gradually sort themselves into strands of coherent
thought.  It was hard to think for herself again, after a year of
marriage.  Thomas had told her when to eat, sleep and work.  What to
wear, who to speak to, what to read and what to think.  It had been
such a straggle in the beginning to accept his discipline, but in the
end she had submitted, just as he had always known she would.

Now she was alone, with no hope of immediate rescue: The Maoris had an
extraordinary reputation for savagery and cannibalism, and although
they seemed friendly, it was impossible to tell what they really
thought of the white-skinned foreigners with their strange ways.  And
Thomas had set himself against the chief from the very first... She saw
that her hands, wrapped around her cup, were shaking.  But I must be
strong!  she told herself firmly, if the Maoris had not been especially
welcoming, at least they had not been hostile.  Even on the day of
their arrival, when Thomas had gone to Tawhai, the chief, and berated
him for the open licentiousness of his tribe, they had not taken
offence.

In fact, Tawhai had nodded and smiled and listened attentively to
Kahu's translation of Thomas's words.

The chief would think about what the Reverend said, Kahu had told them
briefly, although Tawhai had responded in a long, measured speech. Emma
had wondered at the time just what Tawhai had said, and how accurate
Kahu's interpretation had been.

She would have liked to learn Maori, but Thomas had forbidden it,
saying that the sooner the natives learned English, the sooner they
would be able to read God's Word.

"Thomas was wrong!"  she said aloud, and then stopped, horrified at her
boldness.  But no thunderbolts descended upon her head; the earth
beneath her did not open up to swallow her whole.  The birds continued
their drowsy twittering in the high trees, the cicadas trilled on in
competition with the whispering water.

"Thomas was wrong!"  she said again, louder.  And then jumped at the
sound of a high giggle, hastily broken off.

She turned her head slowly, so as not to alarm her observer.  The
little girl she had noticed before was there again, only the white of
her teeth giving her away against the darkness of the ferns she hid
under.

"Hello," Emma said softly.

"Haere mai."  Welcome.

Come to me.  They were the only words of Maori she knew.  The white
teeth disappeared as the little girl ducked her head, considering. Emma
held out her hand and sat still, waiting.  After a minute she began to
think that the child wouldn't come after all, but then the fern fronds
shook as the girl stood up.

She could have been no older than seven, although her thin arms and
legs testified to a short lifetime of malnourishment.  Under a wild
thatch of black hair her eyes were huge and meltingly dark.

As Emma leaned forward encouragingly the child cowered back, looking
ready to run at the slightest threat.  The other children here were
quite different:

inquisitive, confident and endearingly cheeky.

"Haere mai," Emma said again and smiled.

Like a small, wild animal the girl approached, testing each step,
always poised to take flight at the first sign of danger.  But Emma sat
patiently, her hand outstretched, her smile never fading even as the
sunlight revealed the child's pathetic state.  The child came closer,
until she dropped to her haunches just out of Emma's reach, her face
wary.

"Would you like something to eat?"  Emma reached over and pulled the
protective cloth off the bread she had set to cool on a stone beside
the hut.

She had baked it yesterday shortly before Thomas had died and had
forgotten all about it.  Taking one of the loaves, she deftly tipped it
out of its tin and broke off a piece.

"It's good," she soothed, as the child shrank back.

"Look... She put the piece of bread in her mouth, chewing vigorously
and with an expression of great enjoyment, and the girl shuffled
closer, fascinated.

Delicately, she took a little piece, tasted it, and her face lit up
with a huge smile.

"Kapai.t "Kapai?  That means "good", does it?"  Emma laughed and held
out the rest of the bread.

"Good heavens, you're hungry, aren't you?  I wonder if you've ever had
enough to eat."  She touched herself on her chest and said slowly,
"Emma.  I'm Emma."

The little girl swallowed a huge mouthful of bread.

"Hemma," she said, and giggled.  Emma pointed at her.

"And your name?"

The child hesitated and then understanding dawned.

"Rima!"  she said firmly, and tapped her bony ribcage.

"Rima!"

"Well, Rima," Emma said, 'and what are we to do with you?"  The girl
was naked, as were all the children in the village, and her arms and
back were covered with small, weeping sores.  A large, unhealed wound
on her upper ann concerned Emma--she guessed that the injury had
occurred some time ago but that the child's fragile body was unable to
adequately fight off infection.  It took a little persuasion before
Rima allowed her to clean her sores and put an antiseptic salve over
them, but when Emma wrapped a small bandage around her injured arm it
was plain that Rima thought she had been given the most marvelous gift
imaginable.

"Keep it on," Emma told her, trying to communicate her meaning in, sign
language.

"Tomorrow I'll change it for you.  No--' she brushed away the small,
inquiring fingers as they plucked at the knot she had made '--leave it
on, Rima.  Oh, how I wish you could understand me..."

She suddenly knew then, without a shadow of doubt, just what she had to
do.  She had seen other children here like Rima--not in such poor
condition, but with injuries and infections that she had longed to
treat.  From childhood she had assisted her father in his medical
practice in London, and later in the shanties of Sydney.  Although
unable to openly practice medicine because of her sex, she had been
taught most of what her father knew by the time of his death.  Thomas
had never made much of her skills, but it had made her valuable to him
as a wife, none the less.  She had accompanied him to New Zealand to
provide schooling and medical care for the Maori, while Thomas was to
look after their souls.  And now the strongest possible evidence of the
need for her skills was squatting just inches away, devouring the last
of the bread.

After Rima had left, one hand possessively over her precious bandage,
Emma made her preparations.

In one of the trunks she found pen and ink, and a blank journal, and
these she put into a satchel.  Then, hands clenched tightly to steady
her nerves, she took the track along the hill up to the village.  Kahu
was there, talking to the local woman he fancied as she strung eels on
a pole, ready for smoking.  When Emma told him what she planned to do,
he stood up reluctantly.

"What do you need to learn Maori for, Mrs.  Johnson?

Better that you go back downriver, eh?  Safer."

"But if I go, will you come with me?"  she asked, and when he hung his
head she sighed.

"Then I must have the protection of Tawhai.  Perhaps he will help me.
Will you speak to him for me?"

Kahu glanced at her in quick surprise, and then recovered himself to
shrug carelessly.

"All fight, Mrs.  Johnson.  I will speak for you."

She had only seen Tawhai from a distance, as it had been Thomas who had
made all the contact with the Maoris.  But now, as a lone woman, it
seemed logical to Emma to ask for the protection of the local chief.
The last thing she could afford to do at this time was to
unintentionally make any enemies.

Tawhai was sitting in the sun outside his hut, deep in conversation
with other men of the tribe.  As Emma and Kahu drew near, he rose to
his feet.  He Was a solidly built man with a fierce face made even more
fearsome by the tattooed whorls on his forehead and cheeks.  His long
black hair was tied back in a knot, giving him even more height and, as
he pulled his dogs king cloak around him, she caught a glimpse of
heavily tattooed, muscular thighs.  She knew that the Maori spent much
of their time fighting between themselves, that a chief must possess
courage and skill to protect his tribe, and Tawhai looked every inch
the warrior.  As their eyes met he threw his head back a little,
arrogantly, and spoke to Kahu.  It did not sound particularly friendly.
Too late she remembered that the Maoris considered it discourteous to
look a superior in the face, and she bowed her head humbly and sank
into her best curtsey.

When she peeped up from under the brim of her bonnet she saw with
relief that Tawhai's expression had softened a little.

"Kahu, can you please tell the chief that I would like to speak to
him?"  she said quietly, still not rising.

Kahu said something and Tawhai grunted.  He held out a hand, indicating
the flax mat beside him and she took her seat, arranging the folds of
her dress with care so as not to touch the chief accidentally.

From under her lowered lashes, she saw one of Tawhai's wives hovering
in the background, proudly bearing Rima's prized bandage around her
arm.  Appalled as she was, Emma resisted the temptation to say anything
and kept her eyes lowered in an attitude of submission.

Tawhai spoke, obviously a question.

"The chief says, what will you do, now that your man is dead?"  Kahu
translated for her.  Emma took a deep breath and answered, her voice
low and soft.

"I would like to stay here for a while, with the chief's permission."

"Na te aha ?"

"Why?"  Kahu said.

"Because I have nowhere else to go.  And because I have some healing
powers--I can help his people."

Tawhai laughed at that.

"The chief says that your healing powers did not save your husband. The
tribe have their own ways of healing," Kahu translated and then
added,"

"You would not care to anger the tohunga, Mrs.  Johnson--the priest of
the tribe.  To do so would be most dangerous."

Emma nodded, aware of the keen brown gaze of the chief upon her.

"I understand that.  But I am also a healer among my people, and I
would like to share my knowledge with this tribe.  My husband died of
an illness--I think it was an illness borne by the water--and I was
powerless to save him.  Perhaps with the knowledge of the Maori that
would not have happened."  She spoke in bursts, giving Kahu time to
translate between each sentence, and for once she believed that he was
phrasing her words accurately.  Tawhai said nothing when she had
finished speaking, only stating at her thoughtfully.  She kept her eyes
firmly averted to a spot by hits left elbow.

"Kahu, could you also tell the chief that I would be honoured to learn
hits language.  I want to make a dictionary of it."

Kahu shifted hits weight awkwardly.

"Dictionary?

There is no word for that, Mrs.  Johnson."

"A book, then.  I want to make a book with all the words that the Maori
speak in it."  At Tawhai's sound of incomprehension she produced the
satchel and brought out the pen, ink pot and journal.  She opened the
journal to the first page, dipped the quill in the ink and carefully
wrote her name.

"Emma.  That's my name."  Kahu translated, but Tawhai looked blank. She
wrote another word.

"Tawhai.  That's your name, see?"  The chief shrugged, scowling.  Emma
sat back, looking around her, and then pointed to the hut behind
them.

"Kahu, what is the name for a house?"

"Whare, Mrs.  Johnson."

She wrote the word 'house' and then alongside it wrote 'whare', saying
the words as she did so, Tawhai was delighted, and the journal was
handed around everyone present to be admired.  When Emma got it back
the ink was smudged, but she was sure that her intention was now
clear.

"He says you can stay," Kahu told her, and she sensed that he was
almost as relieved as she was.

"You can put words into the book and you can learn from the healers of
the tribe.  You are an honoured guest and are welcome."

"Tell him thank you," Emma said gratefully, and noted that the words in
Maori were "Tena koutou'.

Once taken under the protection of the tribe, Emma found life to be
quite different.  Each morning the women left food outside her door:
eels, fish, watercress and sweet potatoes ('puha' and 'kumara' she
noted in her dictionary), and she felt free to walk around the village,
or 'pa'.  She had little difficulty adapting to the protocol
required--simply by watching and listening she soon learned what was
appropriate behaviour and what was not.  It didn't take long to realise
that she had acted correctly in approaching the chief so
submissively--women, especially young women, had a low status in the
tribal hierarchy.

Much to her relief she found Maori relatively easy to learn, and soon
filled her 'dictionary'.  She could find only fourteen letters with
which to reproduce the soft sounds, but it was a subtle language, with
rich layers of meaning and inference beneath what superficially
appeared to be a basic vocabulary.

Surrounded by the language every minute of her waking day, she had
learned enough to be able to hold a reasonably fluent conversation
within six weeks.  It was as well that she could, as Kahu quietly
disappeared one morning with the local woman he had been courting.  His
defection did not take Emma completely by surprise, and by then she was
becoming so adapted to her new life that it was not the worry that it
once would have been for her.

Understanding the language enabled her to learn from old Kaharangi, the
tohunga.  At first she was a little apprehensive of the holy man, but
he had wisdom and a keen sense of humour and--once he had judged her
sincerity---he was happy to share some of his knowledge with her.

The Maori relied on plants for their medicines;

poultices of flax reduced septicemia in wounds, and infusions of manuka
reduced fever.  Kaukau bark purified the blood.  The barks of trees,
the grasses, even vegetables, all seemed to have a specific use.  Emma
learnt that the spirit was regarded as being as important to treat as
the body, and the concept of faith as an aspect of healing intrigued
her.  But, as she demonstrated her own skills, she found Kaharangi just
as keen to learn from her.  She showed him how to pull teeth, set
broken bones and lance boils.  Her cough remedies and mustard plasters
soon became very popular, and each day she had an increasing number of
Maoris squatting patiently beside her whare, waiting for the 'medicine'
they so loved.

There was an ongoing battle with the bandages, however--they were
regarded as desirable pieces of adornment, and it was not until Emma
became flu-em enough in Maod to strongly state why they should not be
handed around from person to person that she was able to use them for
their correct purpose.

Like all her possessions, her medical supplies often seemed to simply
vanish.  At first it had infuriated her, walking up to the pa and
seeing one of her bonnets on one of Tawhai's wives, or her buckets
being used as playthings by the children.  But such was the tribe's own
generosity that she came to understand that their attitude to personal
possessions was quite different to that of the Europeans.

It had been such a misunderstanding that had set Thomas at odds with
the tribe on the day of their arrival.

Every day Rima came to squat beside Emma as she worked, seemingly happy
to just be beside her and to watch.  She quickly learned to hand Emma
the items she needed in her medical preparations, and showed
considerable intelligence and wit.  At first Emma had not wanted to
encourage her too much, in case she inadvertently offended the child's
mother, but as she learnt more Maori, she discovered that Rima had no
mother--she was a slave, spared her life when her tribe lost in battle
to Tawhai's tribe, and now destined to a life of servitude.

Her father had been.  eaten after the battle, she told Emma
matter-of-factly.

Emma grew very close to the child.  It pleased her to watch how the
extra food she gave her added visibly to her height in just a few
weeks, and how well the painful sores on her skin responded to cleaning
and treatment.  Whether by accident or design Rima slowly became her
full-time assistant, and Emma welcomed her company.

As each day passed she felt more apart of pa life, and more accepted.
The days ran one into the other--long, hot summer days filled with hard
work and a growing sense of fulfillment.  She was needed here, just as
she had been needed in the slums of London and Sydney.  Using her
healing skills had always given her the greatest satisfaction and here,
in this place, her knowledge seemed doubly valuable.

If she was lonely sometimes, or frightened about what the future held
for her, she took strength from the quiet nights.  Lying drowsily in
her cocoon of warm blankets, watching the brilliant display of stars
above her, listening to the rustle of the river and the owls that were
called ruru calling in the trees... Then her world seemed made of
magic.

Christmas came and went uncelebrated, and on the first day of 1841 she
sat quietly in the clearing that would one day be Redemption's church,
listening to the song of the cicadas throbbing in the warm air.  She
had placed fresh rata flowers on Thomas's grave, winding the scarlet
branches around the wooden cross she had erected.  Already small ferns
were thrusting their way through the soil, covering the turned earth,
and she was reluctant to pull them up.  The soft growth made Thomas's
grave more permanent, more respectable, somehow.

She pulled up her skirt to knee height and let the sun warm her pale,
outstretched legs.  They were much more muscular than they had been,
and marked with bruises and cuts.  She had long since given up wearing
stockings--Thomas would have been horrified at her immodesty, but they
were heavy, impractical things to wear when one was living outdoors.
Often she had to wade out into the river to empty an eel trap or kneel
on the ground to pound a herbal mixture.  Her stockings were already
heavily darned, and would not last many more wears.  She would need
them, though, when the winter came, if she were still here.

She envied the Maoris their easy acceptance of their own
bodies--clothing was worn only for warmth or adornment; if it was
easier to work or fish naked, then they discarded theft clothes without
hesitation.  Thomas had at first tried to shield Emma's eyes from the
sight of large men calmly working in the kumara gardens without a
stitch on, but she had soon grown used to it, and could not but think
of it as most sensible.  She had made Rima a couple of little shifts,
one for day and one for nightwear, although the child wore them only
when she was with Emma--they would have been torn from her back if she
had dared to wear them to the pa.  Emma supposed that she should try to
put the women into something more decent, but she had brought very
little material with her.  Besides, how could she say to these women
that their beautiful strong bodies were something to be ashamed of, and
should be hidden?  Thomas had had no qualms about saying exactly that
but--as in so many things, she thought sadly--she lacked his
convictions.

She threw a guilty look at Thomas's grave.  She had been a widow for
seven weeks now, and had still to shed a tear.  It was true that there
had been no love in their marriage, but she had committed her life to
her husband, and she should be grieving for her loss.  Was she really
so shallow and selfish that she could not even cry for Thomas?

"So, Hemma, you have legs," said an amused male voice in Maori.  Emma
blushed violently and pulled down her skirt--she had not heard Tawhai
approach over the racket of the cicadas.  She went to stand but already
he had settled himself companionably beside her, his arms crossed over
his knees.

He nodded thoughtfully.

"You have legs, you are a woman.  I was not sure--under your..."  He
brought his hands out to his sides.

'"Dress"."  Emma shifted uneasily.  What on earth could Tawhai want
from her, that he should seek her out alone like this?

"Dress.  Ah."  The chief nodded again and looked down, beyond the
trees, to the river where it flowed on relentlessly, with a powerful
life of its own.  The heat shimmered in waves above it, like a twin
river.

"So now I learn your language, just as you learn ours.  Do you know the
name of the water there?"

"Whanganui," she said.  It meant "The big wait'.

"Do you know why it is called thus?"  he asked.

She shook her head.

"Ah.  The great chief Hau was pursuing his wife Wairaka, who had been
unfaithful to him.  When he came to the water here he did not know how
to cross.  He thought, too wide to swim, too deep to wade.  I will wait
for the water to turn."

Tawhai smiled.

"A big wait, eh?"

Emma chuckled.

"And did he find his wife, Ta-what?"

"Yes.  He found her by the sea, a long way from here.  He made her go
into the water to fetch him paua to eat, and when she did so he turned
her into a rock.  She stands there still, as a reminder to all wives
that they belong to their husbands."

Emma sat very still.  This was the Maori way, she knew--their laws,
their hiStOry, were all derived from an oral tradition of
story-telling, and Tawhai was using the ancient myth as a warning.  But
of what, exactly?  The chief said nothing more, only stretching himself
out in the sunlight with a grunt of satisfaction, like some great brown
cat.  The silence stretched on until she could stand it no more.

"Tawhai, my husband is dead.  Why have you told me the story?"

The chief opened one lazy eye and looked at her.

"Is it not a good story, Hemma?"

"Yes, but you told it to me for a reason," she said doggedly.

"Ah."  Tawhai closed his eye again, "You are a woman without a man."

"Yes..."  Emma said dubiously.

"You need a man," Tawhai said firmly.

"No, I don't," Emma said just as firmly.

He pushed himself upright and looked at her in surprise.

"You need a man," he repeated, and used a word she had never heard
before.  At her blank look he extended his hand and made an explicit
motion in the direction of her skirts, one that left her in no doubt at
all about what he meant.  She felt her face scorch, and yet there had
been no obscenity intended in his gesture.

"You need a man," he repeated, simply.

She wet her lips and found her voice again.

"I... I

am in mourning for my husband, Tawhai."

"Ah, yes.  The God Man."  There was another long pause, while Tawhai
plucked a blade of grass and began to pick at his teeth.  Emma gained
the distinct impression that the real reason for the chief's visit was
about to be revealed.

"There is another white God Man I have heard of," he said at last.

"He is living where the river meets the sea."

Emma's heart skipped a beat.  Another missionary?

A man who could take over from where Thomas had left off?

"This God of yours, he is greater than all the others, this man says.
Is this tree?"

"Yes."

"Ah.  You will teach us the ways of this God?

How to please him?"

"I could," Emma said hesitantly.

"But I think it would be much better if the other missionary could come
and tell you--' "No!"  Tawhai slammed his fist down, making her jump.

"No, Hemma, there is no time.  One day soon the Ngati Tuwharetoa come
down the river to do baffle.  We need your God on our side if we are to
win.  You understand?"

She stared at him in dismay.

"Tawhai, that is not how it is--' "Hemma, that is how it is.  This God
that you tell us is the greatest God, he will win the battle for us,
eh?  You come and tell me tonight how we worship him, so that he will
lend strength to our arms and give us victory."

"But, Tawhai--' "Tonight, Hemma.  I will hear no more argument."

He got to his feet and began to walk away.  Passing her little whare,
however, he slowed, then stopped.

"Hemma?  What are these things?"

She had washed her undergarments that morning, and now they lay spread
over the bushes, drying in the sun.  He fingered the fine material of
her chemise, picked up the heavy square that was her corset.

His face puckered in a frown of curiosity.

"My ... my clothes," she managed, resisting the impulse to grab the
garments from his prying fingers.

"Ah.  And this?"  He held up the corset.

"What is in this?"

"Bones.  From a very big fish, called a whale," she said.

"Whale."  He tried the unfamiliar name on his tongue.

"Ah.  A taniwha?"

The taniwha were magical monsters of the deep, great fish-spirits that
possessed wonderful powers of good and evil.  The river was filled with
them, according to the Maoris, and they must be avoided or appeased
according to tradition if the river was to be travelled in safety. Emma
tried hard to think of another description of a whale, but the right
words failed to come to mind.  After a moment she nodded.

"Yes, from a taniwha.  Well, a kind of a taniwha,..  "Ah."  He smoothed
the corset with an envious hand.

"Taniwha.  I like this."  She said nothing as he waited and at last he
put it regretfully back down across the bush.

"Tonight you come and teach us, eh?"  And away he went, leaving Emma
with her mouth agape.

What would Thomas have done?  She went over to the little wooden cross
on his grave and placed her hand on it, hoping for some sort of
direction.

She knew nothing about teaching the bible--that had been her husband's
work.  She was only a wife, useful for her labour and her healing
skills.  That was all.  How could she set about converting a tribe,
especially when their sole motivation for learning about Christianity
was to give themselves an advantage over their enemies?  She should
have known better--the Maori were a proud, aggressive race, to whom
warfare was as natural as eating and sleeping.

Old slights, ancient grievances, were nurtured and remembered even
under the guise of friendship, and retribution was always taken.  Oh,
she had been crazy to have stayed on here!  She should have taken
Kahu's advice at the very beginning and fled back down the river to the
town of Whanganui, where there were other Europeans and some degree of
protection I But it was too late now for such regrets.  Tawhai would be
unlikely to let her go now, while he thought she could be of such use
to him.

She slumped down on Thomas's grave in despair.

What had she got herself into?

Chapter Two

Ben studied the pa on top of the cliff with growing unease.  From down
here on the river the palisades looked huge, great walls of wood that
spiked the sky.  The other settlements downriver had been peaceful
enough, although the inhabitants had come running out to stand on the
riverbanks and stare at the big canoe as it passed.  Some had waved,
some had called out to them, but no one had made any move to impede
their steady progress up the river.

At night his Maori crew had pulled ashore, choosing deserted stretches
of riverbank rather than settle-merits, and they had never had any
problems.  But this pa was built for war.

He quickly estimated the height of the hill and sketched it, before
securing his survey map in the waterproof bundle under his feet that
contained all his instruments.  There was tension evident in the backs
of the rowers in front of him, and they had picked up speed--something
told him that he might need both hands free in the next few minutes.

A quick pat of his jacket pockets reassured him that his revolvers were
still there---only one shot apiece, unfortunately, but he hoped that
even that would be enough.

"Em," he said quietly to the sturdy rower alongside him, 'what is the
problem?"

"Problem?"  Emera shrugged.

"This is a bad tribe, like to fight.  They get hold of you, you end up
in the cooking pot."  He grinned broadly, although his face was
strained.

"You scared, eh, pakeha?"

"What do you think?"  Ben picked up a paddle.

"Let's get past here as fast as we can."

But already they had been spotted and a warning shout echoed across the
river.  Almost at once a horde of people poured from the gates of the
pa and down the hillside to where canoes were tied up at the river's
edge.

"Speed up!"  Ben shouted to the crew, but enough of them had already
decided to turn back to ensure that the canoe did nothing but start to
spin slowly around.  Within minutes they were surrounded by the canoes
from the pa.  They might be friendly, Ben kept telling himself
optimistically, resisting the urge to produce his weapons.  He smiled
and nodded and tried to look relaxed--until a warrior in a canoe
alongside gave a mighty shout and clubbed the rower sitting directly in
front of Ben.  His body fell into the water with a splash.

"You bastards!"  Ben yelled, and started to stand up.  Emera tugged him
back down into the canoe.

"Quiet, Ben!  It is not you they want!"

"But..."

"Quiet!"

Against all his instincts Ben stayed sitting until his canoe was towed
to the bank.  There were maybe a hundred Maoris on the bank
now--warriors, old men, women, children... Not one of them looked or
sounded remotely friendly.

"Can you tell them we only want to pass by in peace," he shouted above
the noise.

"Tell them we mean them no harm, we only want to go upriver."

Looking doubtful, Eruera began to rise to his feet, but had spoken no
more than a single word before a spear was thrust forcefully upwards
through his throat.  He gave a horrible gurgle and toppled heavily
across Ben's knees and into the water.

Oh Lord, Ben thought, I'm next.  His fingers closed over the revolver
and he fired a single shot into the air.  Like magic, the crowd backed
off, all eyes riveted to the gun in his hand.  He held it up for them
to see.  He knew it was highly unlikely that any of this tribe had seen
a gun before--if he could keep them afraid of it, at least until he and
what was left of the crew could get away... A movement on the hill
caught his eye.  Someone running down fast towards them, pushing
through the crowd.  Ben stared at the apparition in amazement.

It's a woman, he thought blankly, a woman in European clothes.  No--it
was a European woman!  Middle-aged from what he could see of her face
under the shading bonnet, rather dumpy... He caught the glint of a
crucifix swinging free from the ample folds of her black-draped bosom.
There must be a mission here of the French nuns whom he knew to have
established themselves in the northern part of New Zealand.  Well, that
was a stroke of luck!

The men beside him shifted uneasily in warning.

Sure enough, the warriors on the shore had begun to surge forward
again.  At least three spears were aimed directly at his heart, the
others ready to pick off his terrified, unarmed crew.

"You!"  he said quickly.

"Do you speak English or French?"

"I'm English," the woman said, her voice breathless and well-spoken.

"Please, I beg you!  Put away those guns!  Don't you understand what
you're doing?"

He risked a quick glance of surprise at her before realising that from
where she stood she could not see Eruera floating face-down in the
river, his body trapped between the canoe and the riverbank.  Short of
a miracle, he and the rest of the crew would be lying there too in a
matter of minutes.  He took a deep breath and steadied his remaining
loaded revolver.

His hands felt cold, the metal too slick in his wet palms.  One wrong
move, one second's inattention... "Do you speak their language?"  he
demanded.

The nun moved forward, her hand outstretched.

"Please give me your guns," she said in the same calm, matter-of-fact
voice that she might use to a recalcitrant child.

"I don't think you know how much harm you can do here.  Believe me,
these people will not hurt you."  Behind her, a warrior took careful
aim at Ben's heart with his spear.

"I'm not putting down my guns," Ben said tersely.

"If you can speak their language, tell them to get back.  Now!"

"But there are children here, and..."

"Listen, lady, I don't give a damn about the children.  Just tell them
to back off or I'll shoot.  D'you understand?"

Her mouth shut tight.  Her face, under the ugly black bonnet, went
white.

"How many shots do you have left?  One?  You can't kill all of them
with just one bullet.  Do you want me to tell them that?  I will,
unless you put your guns down."

"You bitch," Ben said under his breath.  She was over ten paces away.
If he leapt ashore and grabbed her, held the gun to her head, would the
savages back off?  For a moment he contemplated doing it.

But if the canoe shifted under him at the crucial moment, if she backed
away, then his only advantage would be lost.  And what if the savages
couldn't care less what happened to his white hostage?  That was a very
real possibility.

He had no choice.

"Ah well, what the hell..."  he muttered and very, very slowly replaced
his pistols inside his jacket.

The woman gave a small nod of approval before turning to speak to the
warrior beside her.  The Maori answered rapidly, shaking his spear in
emphasis in Ben's direction, and she turned back to him with a frown.

"You have someone with you from another tribe.  I don't quite
understand why they are so angry with him, but his tribe have taken
something from this tribe..."

"Heads," Ben said abruptly, inwardly cursing his carelessness.  He
looked down the length of his canoe.

All his rowers were afraid but one of them, a small wiry man he had
brought up with him from Kapiti, was rigid, his eyes glazed with
terror.

"It's you, isn't it?"  Ben said softly.

"You're the one.  Well, you'd better get going.  Right now."

The man dived over the side of the canoe, striking out wildly as the
current dragged him swiftly downstream.

With a great shout the people on the shore, even the children, surged
forward into the water after him.  As they did so Ben took careful aim
with his pistol just above the bobbing head and fired.  The swimmer
threw up his arms and sank beneath the water as the current swept him
around the bend and out of sight.

"I've killed him," Ben told the woman.

"Tell them that."

"How could you?"  she said hoarsely.

"To shoot a man like that, a defenceless man trying to get away.

He'd committed no crime..."

"He was from a tribe that has head hunted from around here.  Obviously
that's crime enough to these people," Ben snapped.

"Tell them that I've killed him, dammit!  Now, before they jump in and
try to capture him!"

Her eyes widened in comprehension and she turned to the tribe, her
voice raised over the hubbub, waving her arms in the air to attract
attention.  Those already in the water began to scramble back onto the
shore.  She was obviously 'held in high regard, Ben realised, despite
her lunacy; he could have used her as a hostage after all.  He wondered
if all the other nuns were as bloody-minded as this one.  The woman
turned back to face him.

"You must come ashore.  Your men are safe, and the chief has promised
me that you will not be harmed either."

He eyed the warriors on the riverbank.  They looked no less dangerous
than they had a minute before.

"All I want is to be allowed to continue upriver.

If they'll just let go of the canoe, we'll be on our way."

"No."  She shook her head emphatically.

"Tawhai wants to speak with you.  You must come ashore."

Then, as he opened his mouth to argue, she added, "I've told them that
you have no more bullets left."

"You've what?"  he demanded incredulously.

"You haven't, have you?  Not in your pistols, anyway.  I suggest you
come ashore immediately.  To delay any longer will make them suspicious
and offend Tawhai.  Believe me, they mean you no harm."

"No?"  he said, with a cynical lift of his brow.  He nodded towards
where Eruera's body bobbed in the current, his blood streaking the
water darkly.

"And what about him?"

She looked and then screamed, her hands flying to her mouth.

"Oh, my Lord!"

After that, everything happened too fast.  Taking advantage of the
distraction that the nun's scream created, the men in the canoe thrust
themselves away from shore, using their long oars to shove against the
bank.  The sudden lurch under his feet made Ben lose his balance, and
for a moment the sky, the trees, the river lurched in a wild circle
before his eyes.  He heard rather than felt the crack of his head
against the wooden side of the canoe.."  and then there was nothing but
blackness and the rushing of water--or blood ming his ears.

A long time later he slowly awoke to other sensations.

Something comfortable underneath him, the soft rustling of leaves above
him, a woman's gentle, deft touch as she lifted his head from the
ground.

He lay somewhere between sleep and consciousness, unable to remember
what had happened, unable to open his eyes.  The woman ... yes, it was
a woman.  He could smell the sweet, sun-kissed female scent of her
skin.  Her hands were gentle as no man's could be, and her slight
intake of breath as she carefully moved his head was the most feminine
sound imaginable.  As she lifted him her breast pressed momentarily
against his cheek and he wished he had the strength to turn his mouth
against its soft firmness.  Through the dark haziness of his mind, the
desire to see what this ministering angel looked like grew compellingly
strong.  It took an almighty effort to raise his eyelids.

The darkness cleared to reveal a dappled roof of leaves against the
clear, blue sky.  And, watching him, a pair of serene, green eyes.

"You're beautiful," he told her.  The angel's lips curved into a smile,
changing the flawless oval of her face into something even more
perfect.  To his wonderment Ben found that his hand was obeying him as
he reached up and touched the smooth cheek, inches from his face.  Then
he slid his fingers behind her neck and brought her face closer.  His
lips brushed hers so very gently ... before the' angel pulled back with
a gasp and Ben's head hit the ground hard.

"Ouch!"  The pain at the back of his skull reverberated through his
body.

"I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have done that," a voice said severely,
and Ben watched aghast as the angel transformed into the nun. Obviously
embarrassed, she picked up her hideous black bonnet and began to stuff
the glorious red fire of her hair under its folds.  He moaned aloud in
protest and she stopped at once, a frown marring her forehead.

"Are you in much pain?"

"Yes," he muttered, although in troth the pain was receding now to
nothing more than a dull throb.  But he did not want her to leave him.
She might be a nun, but the bulky black gown could not entirely obscure
the lush curves beneath, and even her stern expression sat oddly on a
face made for passion.  It was her bottom lip, he decided.  Sensuous
and full of promise... What a waste, to be buried out here in the
wilderness when she could be gracing the bed Of any man she chose. His,
for example... He closed his eyes to block out the sudden and
all-too-clear image of her spread wantonly beneath him.

"What happened to me?"

"You hit your head on the side of the canoe as you fell into the water.
From what I can make out, you have a shallow cut and some bruising."
She was observing his reactions carefully as she added, "Do you
remember anything of that?"

"No."

"You will, in time, I'm sure."  She raised her hand.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

He opened his eyes again and looked.

"Three."

"Good.  You're focussing well and your coordination seems unimpaired."
She flushed slightly, looking at his lips.

"Do... do you remember being in a canoe?  You were stopped along the
fiver-bank, and two of your men were killed."

"God, yes, I remember!"  He went to sit up and groaned at his
protesting body.

"The others... ?"

"The others in the canoe got away downstream," she soothed.

"The tribe gave chase, but fortunately had no chance to catch up with
them."

"Damn," he said.

"Damn and blast."

She blinked.

"They'll be halfway to the coast by now, at the rate they were
travelling.  I'm sure they'll be quite safe."

"Oh, I'm sure they'll be safe enough, gutless bastards that they are,"
Ben snapped.

"It's my equipment I wanted.  I suppose it's lying at the bottom of the
river by now."

Her wonderful, kissable lips compressed into a disapproving line.

"Was it a long, thin package?"

"That's it.  How did you... ?"

"Your men threw it overboard as they left.  I have it safely in my hut,
although I'm afraid it got rather wet.  I haven't had a chance to see
what kind of condition it's in, though, I'm sorry."

His shoulders slumped in relief.

"It'll be all fight.

It's all wrapped in sealskin."  He could see that he had upset her, and
so gave her the special smile that always worked on women.

"Thank you.  Thank you for everything."

It worked on her.  She flushed and looked away, charming in her
innocence.

"I've done nothing, simply bandaged a little cut on your head, that's
all."

"I suspect you've done a great deal more than that, and I'm grateful. I
owe you my life," he said softly.  He stirred and became aware for the
first time of the harsh abrasion of woollen blanket on bare skin.

"My clothes.  What happened to them?  Did you... ?"

"The warriors who brought you up here undressed you," she cut in
quickly.

"Your clothes were soaking."

"Oh?"  He grinned wryly.

"That'll be the last I'll ever see of them, then."

She gurgled with laughter and somewhere in Ben's mind a memory prodded
uncomfortably.  Another woman had laughed in such a way, deep in her
throat--a sensual, earthy laughter that had stirred his senses... "No,
I have them safe, and almost dry now, although I admit that I had to
argue for their return!"

He touched her arm as she turned away.

"I do know you, don't I?  We've met before."

"No."  She shook her head.

"We've never met."

"I think we have."

"No!"  she said sharply, her voice rising.

"How can you be so sure?"  Ben persisted, curious now.

"Because I would have remembered you," she replied and then broke off,
a becoming flush rising from her collar.

"I mean ... well, I don't even know your name, do I?"

"Ben.  Benedict Morgan."

The woman lowered her eyes and deliberately moved her arm from under
his fingers as if he were unclean.

"Mr.  Morgan.  My name is Mrs.  Johnson."

"Mrs!"  He stared at her.

"Then you're not..."

She waited.

"Not what?"

A slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

"It doesn't matter.  So--what brings you all the way out here, Mrs.
Johnson?"

She bent her head and began to wind up a length of unused bandage at
lightning speed.

"My husband and I came here to establish a mission.  Now, Mr.  Morgan,
would you like something to drink?  I have some boiled water, or
perhaps you would prefer tea?

It's not the real thing, I'm afraid, but quite palatable..."

"Sydney," Ben said suddenly.

"That's where we met, I'm sure of it."

The woman visibly paled.

"No, you're quite mistaken.

I've never been to New South Wales.

Please---lie still for a while and I'll bring you something to drink."
She got to her feet, almost stumbling over the heavy folds of her dress
in her haste to be gone, and hurried away out of his vision.  Ben
settled back against the blankets.  That had been stupid of him.  He
hadn't meant to imply that the missionary's wife was some Sydney-side
light skirt but that was plainly how she had taken it.  He must have
hit his head harder than he had thought to have made such a blunder.

There had been so many women over the years, and he hadn't always been
sober enough to take in their faces, let alone their names, but he
would have remembered a face like hers for certain.  So gentle and
innocent and good, untouched by the grime of experience.,. Hell, she
would have stood out a mile on the Sydney docks!  Still, some small,
elusive memory nagged away in his subconscious, something he knew he
should remember.  His head began to ache with the effort.  Well, it was
of no consequence, no doubt he would recall in time whatever or whoever
it was that the missionary's prim and proper wife reminded him of.

He carefully turned his head and watched her standing motionless by the
fire.  Even the hideous black bonnet and dress could not hide the
perfect lines of her face and voluptuously feminine body from his
practised eye.  She was a lovely little thing, and the sixth sense he
could always draw upon when it came to women told him that there were
depths of sensuality there that he could easily tap into.  For a second
he toyed with the idea of pursuing her.  A little light dalliance...
She might welcome a bit of fun, imprisoned as she was out here.  But he
dismissed the thought as swiftly as it.  had arisen.  She would succumb
quickly enough, of course--they always did--but it wasn't worth the
risk.  He needed the assistance of these missionaries much more than he
needed a quick roll with the missionary's wife.

Besides, for all her earthly promise, she could well prove to be a
disappointment how did one set about corrupting an angel, with a face
like that of a stained-glass saint?  Poor woman, he thought in
amusement, as he closed his eyes.  If only she knew what a sinner she
gave succour to... He knew!  He knew about her!  Emma felt as if her
lungs wOUld burst from her chest with the tight constriction of panic.
Of all the people to meet.  here of all the places on Earth, why
someone who knew her?  He would remember in time, she was sure of that.
And then... Oh Lord, what could she do?  What would he do?  What would
he expect of her?  The can of water slipped from her unsteady fingers
and she stood staring blindly at the streaks of water soaking into the
dry ground.

Nothing.  He could do nothing to her.  The wild thumping of her heart
slowed and steadied as she began to reason it out.  What could he
prove?  Even if he was right, even if he had known her in Sydney, he
would never be able to prove it.  It had been a bare-faced lie,
certainly, but she had been right to deny to him that she had ever set
foot in New South Wales.  She was the respectable widow of a
missionary, and this was nothing more than a test of her courage and
resolve.  Besides, as soon as he was recovered, he would be on his way
and she would never see him again.

Unless... She held her breath, scarcely daring to form the thought in
her mind.  What if she went back with him?  Why, in Whanganui she would
be sure of finding a ship back to Sydney!  For one long, thrilling
moment the memories warmed her.  She missed her house so much, the
beautiful house that Thomas had brought her to as his bride.  And how
she would love to see her little sisters again, to make sure that they
were happy in the foster home she had found for them.  She even missed
Charlotte.

Thomas had banned her eldest sister from his house after their
marriage, but she wOUld love to go back and set things right between
them, to put the past behind them once and for all

Absently, Emma scooped up another billy can of water from the pail and
set it over the fire.  Yes, leaving here would solve all her
problems!

"You are sad, Hemma?"

"What?"  Emma started at Rima's high voice beside her.  After only a
few minutes of conversation with a man of her own race the Maori words
returned with an effort to her lips.

"Oh, no, Rima, I'm not sad."

"But you are frowning.  It is the white man, eh?

He makes you angry?  Was it what he did to your face--that strange
thing?"

"Strange thing...?"  Comprehension dawned and she laughed to hide her
embarrassment.

"Oh.  That was what we call a "kiss", Rima.  You know how when your
people greet each other you press your noses together in a hongi? Well,
white people press their lips together instead.  Sometimes."

Rima screwed up her face in disgust.

"Eeeeh!"

"Yes, I suppose it is," Emma said thoughtfully.

She added some more twigs to the fire and sat back, pulling Rima's warm
little body against her own.

As she sat there, staring into the flames, the enormity of the dilemma
she faced dawned on her.  She would have to leave Rima here, as well as
the child she was treating for a skin infection, and the woman who was
due to have a breech birth any day now.

If there was going to be a battle with another tribe, there would most
certainly be many injuries to attend to.  And then there was the
promise she had made to Thomas.  How could she desert these people,
when they had taken her in and treated her like one of their own?  When
they needed her so much?

She sighed and then managed a smile for Rima.

"You were fight, after all, Rima.  I am sad."

"It is the white man, eh, Hemma?  I don't like him."

"No?  Why don't you like him?"

Rima darted a quick look at the man across the clearing.  He looked to
be asleep, his harsh profile turned away from them.

"He has strange eyes."

"His eyes are light blue," she explained.

"In my country--England---only some people have beautiful brown eyes
like yours.  Lots of other people have grey eyes, or green--like
mine---or blue..."  But not that ice colour, she thought.  Pale and yet
intense, the coldest eyes she had ever seen.

Rima shook her head firmly.

"His face says one thing, his eyes say another thing.  He does not care
for anyone but himself, Hemma."

As if he heard and understood them, Ben stirred and threw one arm free
from the restricting blankets.

He was powerfully built, a man who had spent perhaps his entire life in
manual labour.  The joking comments the warriors had made about his
size had been so obscene that Emma had been forced to busy herself
elsewhere while he was being undressed, but there was no denying that
he was a big man.  He frightened her, physically and emotionally, and
she wanted nothing more than to see him gone.

As if in protection she gathered Rima close.

"You're right, little one.  You're very clever."

The child twisted in her arms to stare up at her.

"Clever?"

"Yes, because you've made up my mind for me."  She laughed and pulled
Rima's hair over her puzzled little face.

"Now, go and collect manuka, Prima.  I want to make Mr.  Morgan some
tea before he leaves us."

Chapter Three

Mr.  Morgan slept on through the afternoon, so still that several times
Emma bent low over him to check his breathing.  A short negotiation
with Tawhai ensured that a canoe was made ready for him and it lay tied
up and waiting, together with his dried clothes and a few provisions.
The mysterious package that was so important to him was still in her
whare, safe from curious fingers until Mr.  Morgan left.

"His weapons," Tawhai had said flatly.

"They stay."

"But they are useless without the ammunition," Emma protested.  With a
casualness that she was far from feeling she picked up one of the
pistols from the mat in front of Tawhai.

"Look.  I pull the trigger, so.  And nothing.  They don't work, TaWhai,
not without the powder and the balls that go inside them."

Tawhai grunted and examined the other pistol.

"Then we need this "ammunition".  Ask him where it is."

Emma shook her head.

"He has none left.  If he had, do you not think he would have used it?
No, Tawhai, the guns are useless to you now."

"Hmm."  He thought for a moment, weighing the heavy pistol in his
hand.

"Then I will keep the weapons for giving him a new canoe."

"But, Tawhai, the pistols belong to Mr.  Morgan!"

Emma said desperately.  The chief grinned at her.

"What does it matter, if they are useless now, eh, Hemma?  Of course,
if he finds that he had some "ammunition" left..."

He was much too pleased with himself to listen to Emma's common sense.
Heavy-hearted, she re-mined to her patient.  The day was beginning to
close in, and soon it would be too dark to send Mr.  Morgan on his way,
and he would have to Spend the night.  She didn't want that.

She knelt beside him.

"Mr.  Morgan?  Mr.  Morgan, wake up."

When he did not stir, she rapped hard at the mg covering his chest.
Still he did not wake up.  With a sigh she sat back on her haunches and
studied him in exasperation.

She guessed Mr.  Morgan to be somewhere around thirty.  He was passably
good-looking, she supposed.

Not in the conventional manner, but she could imagine that some women
would find him attractive.  He was darkly tanned for a white man, with
the kind of tropical tan that distinguished the men who worked in New
South Wales's harsh interior lands.

But he had not been there recently--his eyelashes were dark and only
the ends of his hair were bleached almost white.  He was in dire need
of a haircut, although his smooth chin indicated an excess of
vanity--Thomas had required only that Emma give his beard and hair a
quick trim every month or so; more than that required constant preening
in mirrors and was therefore unmanly.

Her medically trained eyes detected a slight thickening at the bridge
of his nose---it had been broken at least once--and a barely
distinguishable network of scars on his forehead looked suspiciously as
if a smashed bottle had been ground into his face at some stage.  He
had a distinctive way of speaking, with his mouth closed and tight, and
yet when he had smiled at her--oh, so confidently !--she had noticed
that one of his front teeth had been chipped.

So, he was an outdoors man, And a brawler.  And a womaniser.  With her
index finger she prodded him unchristianly hard in the ribs.

He sat bolt upright, taking her by surprise.

"What?"  The pale eyes focussed on her.

"Oh, Mrs.... Johnson."

"Mr.  Morgan," she acknowledged tightly.

"How do you feel?"

"Much better."  He ran his hand cautiously over his bandaged head and
she averted her eyes as the blanket slipped to his waist.

"Have I been asleep for long?"

"A few hours.  While you were asleep I dried your clothes for you, and
a canoe has been prepared.  You can leave as soon as you wish."

"Thank you," he muttered, making no effort to move.  He was still pale
under his tan, she noticed with a twinge of guilt at forcing him to
leave so soon after his accident.  He looked past her to the campfire
where her dinner simmered.

"Is that chicken stew?"

"Pukakho," she corrected him automatically and then hesitated.  To send
him off in such haste that she did not even offer him a meal would
surely be a mistake.  Less than graciously she said, "I ... I suppose
you would like some dinner before you leave, Mr.  Morgan?"  She sounded
too abrupt, she realised at once.  She did not want to make him
suspicious.

He began to struggle to his feet and she kept her hands behind her
back, resisting the impulse to help him even when he staggered.  He
stood for a moment, knotting the blanket around his waist, waiting for
the world to stop spinning around him.

"This friend of yours--the chief--he wanted to see me before I left,
didn't he?  I've got a few things I want to say to him, in any case.
And I must thank your husband for your kindness.  Where is he?"

"He's..."  Her eyes darted to the small, rata- adorned cross at the
edge of the clearing.  She should have pulled the thing Out while Mr.
Morgan was asleep, she thought, and then was appalled at herself for
the very thought.

"He's not able to see you, I'm afraid.  Look, here are your clothes--'
she seized them from the ground and threw them into his arms and if you
put them on and have something to eat, I'll take you to see Tawhai.
Then you can leave."

Hurriedly she turned her back on him and bent over the fire to ladle
out some stew.  It was imperative that she be rid of him as soon as
possible!  In her haste the ladle clanked against the edge of the bowl
and a splatter of hot stew burnt her wrist.  She dropped the ladle in
the stewpot and knelt back, sucking her burnt skin and blinking back
sharp tears of pain.

"Mrs.  Johnson?"  he said quietly, from a few inches behind her.

"What is the matter?"

She swallowed hard.

"Nothing, Mr.  Morgan."

He took the bowl from her shaking hand and placed it to the side of the
fire.

"Why can't I see your husband, Mrs.  Johnson?"  He was so close that
she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

His voice was gentle, but there was a thread of insistence beneath it
that terrified her.

"Because he is ... unavailable," she got out somehow.

"Unavailable ... permanently?"  He jerked his head towards the cross in
the clearing.

"Is that him?"

She nodded tightly as she fought an absurd compulsion to cry.

"Are you alone here, Mrs.  Johnson?"

She nodded again.  There was a long silence, filled only by the quiet
roar of the river and the sounds of the birds nesting for sleep.
Finally Ben turned away, shaking his head.

"This is unbelievable," he said flatly.

The memory of the fear and confusion she had felt at the time of
Thomas's death suddenly welled up inside her and now no amount of
blinking would stop the hot tears smarting in her eyes.

"It was a quick death, and he died believing in what he was doing..."

"He was a madman."

Her jaw dropped.

"I beg your pardon?"

"And what the blazes did the Missionary Society think they were doing,
sending you all the way up here alone?  Nobody's been this far upriver
before--maybe only a trader or two, and not all of those made it back
out again!  So why did they think that you two would have any chance of
surviving, let alone setting up a mission?"

Emma swallowed hard.

"My husband did not completely agree with the direction that the
Missionary Society was taking.  He was a fine man, Mr.  Morgan, a good
man."

"Then I have to admire your loyalty, if not your intelligence, Mrs.
Johnson.  Do you have children?"

"No."

He looked at her steadily, analysing her white face.  His eyes dropped
to the voluminous skirts gathered about her as she knelt.

"Are you expecting?"

"No/' she spluttered indignantly.  Good heavens, was nothing sacred
from this man?  He stood there, demanding the most personal information
about her and yet, to her horror, she heard herself stammering on in
self-justification, "We ... well, we were only married for a year.  It
wasn't long enough..."

"Obviously not."  He abruptly walked away to look down to where the
river rolled by into the gathering dusk.  He was still wearing nothing
but the blanket knotted around his hips and--as used as she was to
Maori warriors wandering around naked--Emma found her eyes drawn to the
long sinews of his back, the hard-packed muscles of his shoulders and
arms.  Despite his brawler's face, his body was a study of male
perfection, so different to Thomas's pale thinness.  Not that she had
ever seen Thomas undressed, even in intimacy... She gave a small,
inaudible gasp of horror and turned away, her face scarlet at the
direction of her thoughts.

"Mr.  Morgan, would you mind dressing, please, sir?"

He turned with a frown, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

"What?  Oh ... yes.  I'm sorry."  He picked up his shirt and began to
pull it on.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see him still
watching her.

"So," he said.

"You've been here ... how long?"

"Almost two months now."

"And your husband died... ?".

"A week after we arrived here.  From some sort of fever."  As she
watched his lips twist in derision she clenched her fists.

"At least he died doing what he believed in!  I'm sure you have no
comprehension of what that means, but it's true, none the less.  Oh, I
know What you're thinking!  But how dare you belittle him, just because
he might have made an error of judgement!  And what about you?  Two men
died today because you were foolish enough to choose your crew from a
warring tribe!  They might still be alive if you..."

"D'you think I don't know that?"  he flared at her.

"One of those men was my closest friend, and his death is something
I'll have to learn to live with.  I had no idea what the situation is
like up here.  I don't speak Maori..."  He broke off, his eyes lighting
with sudden intensity.

"But you do, don't you?"

She shrank back, wishing she had never spoken.

"A little, perhapS..."

"Rather more than a little, madam.  You're as fluent as any European
I've ever heard."  He nodded slowly.

"So that's the solution.  You can come with me upriver.  If this chief
of yours can lend me a CanOe--' "No!"  she burst out, horrified.

"I won't!  I can't!"

"Why won't you?"

"Because..."  She hesitated.  Because even had she wanted to---which
God alone knew she did not!--Tawhai wouldn't let her go.  But she knew
she couldn't tell Ben about the Ngati Tuwharetoa's planned invasion;
then he would be even more insistent that she accompany him.  She took
a deep breath.

"Because I can't leave these people, Mr.  Morgan."

"Why not?"

"Because my skills are needed here.  I heal their sores, tend their
illnesses..."

"With all due respect, madam, I'm sure they were doing very nicely for
themselves before you and husband came along to interfere in their
lives."  He stared down at her obstinate face in irritation.

"Can't you see that you can't stay here?  There'll be other
missionaries up here soon enough--this country seems to be swarming
with well-intentioned fanatics at the moment."

"Like those of the New Zealand Company?"

Emma sprang to her feet.

"I take it that's who's employing you.  You're a surveyor, aren't you,
Mr.  Morgan?  So just what are you doing here?  Drawing up neat little
plots so that your company can sell land that isn't theirs to would-be
colonists at a tidy profit?"

She was pleased to see that her words had stung him.  His dark tan
deepened as he flushed, but his eyes did not drop away from hers for a
second.

"It's either the New Zealand Company or the Missionary Society who are
going to own this country, Mrs.  Johnson.  Just how much land are your
people taking in the name of the Lord?"

"That's quite different!  The Missionary Society has to take the land
in trust for the Maori, to keep it out of the clutches of predatory
companies like yours--' she broke off abruptly, aware that they were no
longer alone.

"Yes, Rawhiri?"  she demanded of the young Maori man squatting beside
her hut.

"He aha mau?"

Rawhiri grinned widely.

"Is this man giving you trouble, Hemma?  Do you want me to split his
belly for you?"

"No, thank you," Emma said hurriedly, with a quick glance at Ben.
However, he looked quite uncomprehending at the rapid exchange of Maori
and began to button his trousers.

"What is it that you want, Rawhiri?"

"I have come to see if our guest is well enough to come to the pa now.
Can he walk?  Or perhaps he is so blown up with his own importance that
I must carry him?"  He rose slowly to his feet, mischief gleaming in
his eyes, and Emma knew a moment's panic.  Tawhai had been calm enough
when she had last spoken to him, but Rawhiri was one of the younger,
hot-headed warriors, and it would seem that the afternoon's massacre
had only whetted his appetite for more blood.  The impending battle
with the Ngati Tuwharetoa was something that the warriors were looking
forward to with great relish--the anticipation in the pa was almost
tangible, with tempers on a hair-trigger.  The two lives lost that day
on the river had meant nothing, and it was possible that Ben's life
would be no more important.  Unless... "You've got very pale, all of a
sudden," Ben remarked as he tucked in his shirt.

"What's the matter, Mrs.  Johnson?"

"The chief wants to see you now," Emma told him, her mind still
whirling with possibilities.

"Do you feel ready?"

"I certainly do."

Rawhiri spun around to head up the track towards the pa and Ben
followed him, walking with a sense of purpose that struck fear into
Emma's heart.

"I'm looking forward to telling this Tawhai bastard what I think of him
for murdering two of my men," he flung over his shoulder.

"Are you coming along to translate for me?"

She gasped and ran after him, bundling her skirts in both hands in her
haste to catch up.

"Mr.  Morgan!

Sir Walt?

"Why?"

"Because you mustn't upset Tawhal!  Or any of them!  Your life depends
on it!"

He slowed down slightly to allow her to run alongside.

"If they were going to kill me, Mrs.  Johnson, they've already had
plenty of opportunities to do so.  I'm still alive, I've still got all
my body parts, and I'm still bloody furious!"

"But that's just what you mustn't be, don't you see?  Things are so
tense here at the moment..."

"Why?  Are they preparing for war?"  He disconcerted her by abruptly
stopping and she almost ran into his shoulder.

"N ... no!  Why should you think that?"  she said quickly.

"Because this lot always are.  And it would account for why they were
so quick off the mark in killing my crew.  Look at me, Mrs.  Johnson."
Puzzled, she looked up and immediately regretted it as she found her
eyes held in unwilling captivity.  The calculation in his strange
glacier-pale eyes sent a shiver down her spine.

He gave a quick nod of satisfaction.

"I thought so.  You're a bad liar, Mrs.  Johnson.  So if they're going
to war, you can't stay here.  You're going to have to come with me."

Like hell I will!  she thought fiercely as they walked through th epa
gates, but it was no time to argue.

Once within the gates Ben, as a visitor, was challenged by a warrior in
the ceremonial way of the Maori.  Every occupant of the pa, it seemed,
had come to watch.  To Emma's relief Ben appeared to know the protocol
to follow and he stood quietly enough through the challenge and
subsequent welcome.

Tawhai was waiting for them outside his whare, splendidly dressed in
his chief's cloak of feathers, his eyes alight with the anticipation of
barter.

Before him, on a mat, lay Ben's two pistols.

To Emma's dismay Ben's patience seemed to abruptly run out at the sight
of his pistols.

"I want those back," he said, pointing to them.

"Tell him."

Tawhai did not need an interpreter for that.

"Tell him, Hemma, that he can have a canoe and food if he leaves me the
ammunition for the guns."

Emma looked helplessly from one implacable man to the other.

"Tawhai, I've told you he has no ammunition.  The guns are useless to
you."

"Then why does he want them back?"  Tawhai snarled.

"Tell him, Hemma!  Tell him to give me the ammunition or I will feed
him to the eels!"

"He wants the ammunition, does he?"  Ben was watching the interchange
intently.

"In exchange for a canoe," Emma said carefully, wondering how she could
tone down each man's demands.

"Tell him he can stuff his canoe up his..."

"Mr.  Morgan!"  she broke in, shocked.

"You're not helping matters by shouting!"

"I'm not shouting!"  he shouted.

"Just tell the thieving, murdering bastard that I want my pistols
back!"

"Aiee.t' With a hiss of rage Tawhai leapt to his feet, his fingers
closing around the ornate club hanging from his waist.  While he had
not understood one word, it was plain that he had the gist of Ben's
speech.

"So this is how he rewards our hospitality?  I shall send him to join
his friends in the river mud!  I shall tear out his heart and throw it
into the midden!  I shall slice his nose into tiny pieces and make him
eat it!  Tell him, Hemma!  Tell him what I shall do to him!"

"Tawhai, please!"  Emma threw herself imploringly between the two
men.

"Don't hurt him!"

"Why not?"  Tawhai stared at her, his eyes slowly narrowing in
comprehension.

"Ah.  You like him?"

"Yes."  It was the opposite of the truth, but she was desperate.

"Ah."  With insulting deliberation Tawhai walked around Ben, pretending
to study him from head to toe.  Emma held her breath, convinced that
Ben would flatten him any second.  Tawhai nodded his head.

"Very well then, Hemma, if he pleases you then you may have him.  He is
stronger than your last man."  He waggled his club in the direction of
Ben's trousers.

"Bigger, too.  You can take him back to your whare.  And perhaps then
he will tell you where his ammunition is."

"What is he saying?"  Ben demanded tensely.

"Why was he waving his club at me like that?"

"It's nothing!"  Emma said quickly, her face scarlet.

She linked her arm through his and looked up at him appealingly.

"Please come with me now."

His mouth thinned and he removed her fingers from his arm.

"Not without my pistols."

"The pistols are no good to anyone without powder and shot," she began,
and then the light dawned.

"Of course!  That's in your sealskin package..."

"So it is," he said, his eyebrows rising as he pretended to be
impressed at her stunning powers of deduction.

"But I'm not going to get anywhere up-fiver without a weapon, so just
be a good girl and get my pistols back for me, will you?"

Tawhai made an impatient motion with his hand, a scowl deepening the
tattoos on his forehead.

"It seems your chosen man does not want you, Hemma.  I told you he was
ungrateful."

"He ... he is just overcome by his good fortune."

Deciding that matters had gone quite far enough, she turned to face
Ben, placing the palm of one hand on his chest with a pressure that
defied him to remove it.  Beneath her fingers she could feel his heart
pounding fast.

"Come with me now, please, Mr.  Morgan," she said firmly.

"And it would help if you put an arm around me as we leave."

For one dreadful moment she thought he would refuse, but then she saw
amusement gleam in his eyes.  He slipped an arm around her waist
without further ado.

"Am I your property?"

"For the time being, and for your own safety only."  She stiffened as
she felt his fingers brush across her abdomen.

"There's no need to go overboard, Mr.  Morgan--this is only a display
of affection for the chief, so that he doesn't follow his perfectly
natural impulse to slit your throat."

"Is that so?"  Without warning he jerked her towards him, so that she
collided against his chest.

She was immediately and disconcertingly aware of a barrage of
sensations--the heat of his skin under his shirt, that thin-lipped,
infuriatingly smirking mouth just inches away, the hard muscular
length, of his body pressed against her, even through her thick
skirts... The inappropriateness of his arousal here, in this most
dangerous of situations, horrified her just as much as the
outrageousness of his announcement of it, She shoved him away
violently, "How dare you!"

: He looked at her in wide-eyed innocence.

"I was only displaying my affection."

Emma glanced at Tawhai but he, along with everyone else present, seemed
to have understood perfectly what had just taken place between them and
was grinning broadly.  Abruptly deciding that she no longer gave a damn
what happened to Mr.  Morgan, she gathered her skirts and strode out of
the pa, her head high.  So let Tawhai cut him into little pieces and
throw him into the river!  See if she cared!  And as for his accursed
ammunition, that could follow him into the water too!

Ben caught up with her as she reached her whare.

"Are you angry with me, Mrs.  Johnson?  Or should I call you
mistress?"

She took a deep breath as she struggled to control herself.

"Of course I'm angry!  Don't you realise how close to death you came?
Don't you care?"

"We've all got to go one day, Mrs.  Johnson."

She stared at him, incredulous, and he stared right back.

"You're insane," she said at last.

"I should have realised it before.  I should have let them kill you and
put you out of your misery."

He looked slightly affronted at that.

"Hardly Christian of you, madam.  All I wanted was my pistols back, and
I was reasonably sure that your Maori friends wouldn't kill me with you
around."

"I wouldn't be so confident about that."

"I would.  Now, why don't you sit down--' he took tier elbow and
somehow she found herself forced on to the log of wood that served as
her fireside seat '--and let your humble slave serve you your supper.
That poor chicken will have died in vain if we don't eat it soon."

"Pukakho," she corrected him futilely as he stirred the pot over the
fire and ladled the stew into the two waiting bowls.  One of the bowls
had been intended for Rima.  Emma stared hard into the shadows of the
trees around the clearing but could not see the child in the dark.  No
doubt she was hiding somewhere in the ferns, waiting until the loathed
Mr.  Morgan had gone permanently.

"Good stew," Ben said, scooping up the last morsels of food with his
finger.  In the darkness the leaping light of the fire made him look
almost satanic, the blonde ends of his hair above the bandage glowing
like flames.  She watched him in disgust, wishing with every fibre of
her being that he would simply vanish into thin air and leave her in
peace again.

Everything about him, everything he did, was so much larger than life,
so ... so excessive.  She very much doubted that he would know what the
word 'moderation' meant, let alone how to spell it.

"Can I have yours, if you're not going to eat it?"

he asked, and she handed him her bowl in silence.

She had to get rid of him as soon as possible.  The only problem was
that he wasn't going to go without his pistols, and the tribe was not
going to let him go until Tawhai had the ammunition.  Which she had.
She allowed herself a small smile at the ease of the solution. Tonight,
when Ben was asleep, she would take the source of all their problems
from his sealskin bag and throw it in the river.  Once Tawhai realised
that their visitor had no ammunition to give him, then Ben could be
forced to leave.

"That's better," said Ben.  He propped himself up on one elbow and
studied her.

"Yes, you look much prettier when you smile.  I'd begun to think that
the snarl was permanent."

"What snarl?"  she said indignantly, but he simply grinned and
stretched his alarmingly huge arms behind his head.  He had, it seemed,
the ability to make himself at home anywhere.  Rather like an annoying
stray tom-cat that didn't know where it wasn't welcomed.

"So, Mrs.  Johnson.  Tell me about yourself."

The small knot of panic began to turn in her stomach.

"I have nothing I wish to say to you.  You ridiculed everything I told
you this afternoon..."

He sighed.

"Then I apologise.  I guess it came as a shock, realising that you were
here all alone, with no man to protect you.  I'm sorry if I was rude--I
really didn't mean to be."  He studied her averted profile for a
moment.

"At least tell me where you're from.  "No."

"That accent of yours sounds like a London one."

She hesitated as anger warred with courtesy, and 'then she nodded
briefly.  There was no harm in admit ring to that much.  And, despite
herself, she was drawn to the warmth in his voice, the slight smile he
was wearing as he watched her in the firelight.

In fact, he could be positively charming when he chose to be.

"I'm from New South Wales.  Ever been there?"

She shook her head quickly, not trusting herself to speak.

He studied her response with close-lipped amusement.

"I'm not a convict, Mrs.  Johnson."

"I didn't think you were," she responded primly, although to be
strictly honest the thought had crossed her mind, at least until she
had seen his bag of surveying instruments.

"You're lying again, Mrs.  Johnson," he said, the laughter apparent now
in his voice.

She regarded him coolly from under lowered lashes.

"To tell the truth, I'm not in the least interested in where you're
from or where you're going, Mr.  Morgan."

"Fair enough--I guess it doesn't matter a damn, really.  We've both
ended up here."  He pulled a face at the darkening forest around
them.

"Whatever this godforsaken place is called."

"Thomas--my husband---called this place Redemption."

"Did he?  Bit rough on the people upriver, wasn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they'd all be beyond Redemption, wouldn't they?"  He started to
laugh and then saw her face.

"Sorry."

"As you should be.  My husband was worth ten of' you."

"I'll take your word for it.  Was he from London, too?"

"Yes."  She threw some more branches on the fire and rose to her feet.
It was time this conversation was terminated.

"It's just that ... I couldn't help but notice ... that the cabin
labels on your trunks are from Sydney."

She felt herself go cold and she sat down again quickly.  Lying had
never come easily to her-hadn't this obnoxious, prying man pointed that
out to her just an hour before?

"My husband spent some years in New South Wales, I believe.  But ...
but we met in London."  Her heart was pounding so fast that she could
barely get the words out.

"It's getting late, Mr.  Morgan."

"I knew a Reverend Thomas Johnson in Sydney," Ben mused.

"He ran a ministry down by the docks, saving the souls of sailors and
sluts ... if you'll pardon the word, madam.  That wouldn't be him,
would it?"

She had to lie; She tried to lie---oh, how she tried!

But her head nodded, seemingly of its own volition.

To deny Thomas would have been to deny his whole life's work, and she
could not do that to his memory.

"Really?  So you married old Thunderbolt Torn?"

He seemed caught somewhere between mirth and amazement.

"But--hell!--he was ancient!"

"He was a little older than me," she allowed tightly.

"He was a little older than God!"  He shook his head in disbelief.

"Well, I guess that explains why you haven't any children--' "Now
that's quite enough!"  She leapt up, her fists clenched.

"I've had enough of your insinuations and insults for tonight, Mr.
Morgan!"

"I should save some for tomorrow, shouldn't I?"

he agreed, getting lazily to his feet.

"So, which side of the bed do you prefer?  Not that I suppose it really
matters... She was grateful for the darkness that covered her violent
blush.

"You can sleep down by the river, or in the bush, or anywhere you want
to, but you are not sleeping in my hut!"

He blinked.

"But I have to.  I'm your property, aren't I?  Didn't you trade me for
my pistols with the chief?."

So that was what he was so angry about!

"If I had a dog it would sleep outside," she said coldly.

"And so can you, if you insist on hanging around my hut."

He was looking quite put out, she was pleased to see---plainly he was
not used to women turning him down.

"But if I sleep outside, I'll probably have a spear in my back by dawn.
You wouldn't want my death on your conscience, would you?"  he said
plaintively.

"I could live with it."

He shook his head sadly.

"You're a hard woman, Mrs.  Johnson."

Mercifully he made no further comment as he took the bedroll she handed
him and laid it out by the fire, and Emma was careful to ignore him as
she made her own preparations for bed.  She was satisfied that she had
resoundingly put him in his place, but an uncomfortable suspicion kept
nagging that his intolerable behaviour might have been due to more than
just his annoyance at her failure to retrieve his pistols for him.  It
was almost as if he wanted to deliberately shock and-provoke her.

That night she lay sleepless and tense for a long time on her bed of
woven flax.  Outside the occasional flap of blankets indicated that Ben
was also lying awake.  I wish he was gone!  she thought.  I wish he
would just disappear overnight, so that in the morning I wouldn't have
to face him and his questions and his horrible, sneering comments!  Her
hands were aching and she realised that she had been clenching them so
hard that she had broken the skin with her nails.

To think that he had wanted to lie here, beside her, where Thomas had
once lain.  He had even expected that they... She rolled over on to her
stomach, squeezing her eyes shut to drive away the image of him above
her.

How could he?  She had given him no encouragement, none at all.  And
yet when he had smiled at her, when the ice in his eyes had thawed just
that once, when he had kissed her... It was almost as if he knew, as if
he had seen through the black widow's weeds to the woman beneath.

Oh, don't be so stupid!  she told herself.  There was no way he could
know anything about her that she didn't tell him.  And the sooner he
left, the less information he could prise out of her.

Comforted by her own reassurances, she was almost asleep when Rima
crept in like a tiny black shadow and curled up beside her.  With the
child's reassuring presence against her back, she at last fell
asleep.

Chapter Four

The sound of the rising wind through the trees brought her to a state
of semi-consciousness.  The searing flash of lightning which split the
sky, followed almost immediately by a heavy boom!  of thunder, had her
wide awake and sitting bolt upright.

There was a flurry of raindrops and then the rain turned into a steady
tattoo on the roof of the hut.  But Emma had built the hut carefully
and it was covered with a heavy tarpaulin--they would remain dry and
comfortable, no matter how hard it rained that night.

She relaxed and was preparing to snuggle back into Rima's familiar
warmth when a huge black shape pushing its way in through the narrow
doorway had her screaming in fear.  Like a little feral cat, Rima
hissed and lunged at the intruder, her fingers curved.  There was a
curse of surprise, a Short struggle, and then Rima yelped in pain, a
sound that made Emma feel sick as she realised what had happened.

"Stop it!"  she cried, groping in the darkness as she tried to sort out
the tangle of limbs.

"Let her go!"  Her fingers skimmed across the wet, naked shoulder of a
man, tangled briefly in the hair on his chest, closed carefully around
the tiny, trembling arm of the child.

"Haere mai, Rima.  It's all right, you're safe, little one!"

"Ouch!"  Ben recoiled into the wall, and she felt the whole hut
shudder.

"What is it?  Some sort of an animal?"

"It's Rima," Emma said defensively, pulling the terrified child out of
harm's way.

"She's a little girl.

She lives here, with me, and you don't!  Get out of my hut!"

"In this rain?"  As if to give emphasis to his words, there was another
roar of thunder directly overhead.

He was right, she supposed--he could hardly go out and spend the night
under the trees in this torrential downpour.  She felt for the lamp and
tinderbox and a few seconds later the hut was filled with flickering
light.

Apart from her obvious shock, Rima appeared to have survived the
encounter unscathed.  Ben, with blood dripping down his hand, had not
fared so well.  A neat set of teethmarks on his wrist bore testimony to
Rima's ferocity.

"I should give you some salve for that," Emma said grudgingly.

"If you please."  He jerked his head at Rima, who met his glare
unflinchingly.

"By the looks of her, it'll be poisoned by dawn."

"She was only protecting herself and me."

Emma opened her medicine bag and placed a cloth and pot of healing
salve on the mat in front of him.

Nothing on earth would make her apply it to any part of his detestable
anatomy.  She wrapped a blanket and then her arms around Rima,
poignantly aware of the tremors that still shook the tiny, defiant
frame.

"You terrified both of us, barging in like that, without a word..."

"I asked if I could come in--twice.  I guess the thunder drowned me
out," he said curtly, swiping away the blood from the palm of his
hand.

"What's she doing in here, anyway?  Is she your servant?"

Emma looked down at the little upturned face that she had come to love
so dearly.

"She's my adopted daughter," she said after a slight pause, and the
words seemed exactly right.

"Hmm."  Ben stopped swiping and opened the lid of the jar.

"And what was that you called her?  Rat?"

"Rima!"

"Rat is more appropriate."  He took a dollop of salve and liberally
daubed his wrist.

"Is she all right?"

"Are you all right now?"  Emma asked in Maori, and when Rima nodded she
smoothed the girl's hair back from her face with tender hands.

"But you terrified her horribly!"  she told Ben severely.

"Good."  He screwed the lid back on the jar.

"So where is she going to sleep?"

"She sleeps here, with me."

He was obviously about to protest, but the look on Emma's face made him
think better of it.

"She can stay," he said magnanimously.

"But I don't like children.  Tell her to sleep on the other side of the
mat, will you?"

It was not worth arguing about.  Wordlessly Emma arranged a wall of
blankets down the middle of the sleeping mat, between her and Mr.
Morgan.

"Is he sleeping here?"  Rima demanded in horror.

"With you?"

"He can't sleep outside in the rain, Rima."

"Is he ... is he your husband, now?"

"Rima, no!"  The very thought was enough to make Emma blanch.

"But he must sleep somewhere, out of the rain.  It's only for tonight,
and when we lie down like this, we can't see him, can we...?"

But the slightest movement from Ben and Rima slithered over Emma's
restraining arm and glared down at him from the top of the wall of
blankets.

"For God's sake!"  Ben complained.

"She's gnashing her teeth at me!"

"Rima, stop that!"  She pulled the child back and tried to secure her
with blankets.

"Let him sleep in peace."

"But I want to kill him."

"Well, you can't.  I'm not allowing it," Emma said firmly, pleased that
their conversation was in Maori.

"Now, go to leep."

There was a silence of some five minutes, then' She still looking at
me," Ben complained.

"Oh, for goodness sake, stop whining!"  Emma sat up and turned off the
lamp.

"Now no one can see anyone else.  Rima, go to sleep," she instructed in
Maori.

"Mr.  Morgan, I don't want to hear another word from you, or I'll set
Rima on you again and you'll sleep outside for the rest of the night.
Is that understood?"

He made a comment that--while it did not sound in the least civil--was
at least muffled by the blanket over his face.  She lay rigid for some
time, waiting for his next move, but there was only the relentless beat
of the rain pounding on the roof, and very slowly she allowed herself
to relax into the soft warmth of her bedding.

She didn't expect to go back to sleep quickly, but she found there was
something oddly familiar about another adult body lying beside her in
sleep.  It seemed that she had only just become used to sharing a bed
with her husband when he had died, and yet she had missed the feeling
of... of security, she decided it was, at last.  She smiled wryly as
she drifted off to sleep.  Of all the people in the world to feel
secure with, Ben Morgan would have to be the most unlikely.

Gently, soothed by the sound of running water, she eased into a
beautiful dream.  She was floating on her back, not in the deep, cold
fast-running Whanganui but in a warm, languid, buoyant pool.

The feeling of peace was indescribable.  Her limbs felt heavy and
relaxed, and as she felt the sun caressing her skin she knew that she
Was naked.  The knowledge did not worry her in the least--on the
contrary, she felt powerful and beautiful, like a goddess.

Her body was sleek and strong, an instrument of delight as the water
ran over it, around it, between her thighs.  Her breasts were glowing
under the warm touch of the sun's rays, they tingled and seemed to
swell, rising up voluntarily to the source of all pleasure.  Up and up,
and she followed, her mouth opening in greed... She sat up abruptly,
her heart pounding.  Had she cried out?  She must have--she was sure
she had, but on either side of her Rima and Ben slept on undisturbed.
The sky lit with lightning, silent now as the storm moved away, and in
the momentary light Emma could see that Ben was lying with his back to
her.  His breathing was light and slow, that of a man deeply asleep.
Shakily she lay down again, pulling her thin nightgown up to her chin.
The top button had come undone, and the chill ak on her chest--her
chest, not her breasts, she told herself firmly--had given her the odd
sensations that had woken her.

Even so, she slept uneasily, waking up to a still, fine dawn.  She
gathered her clothes and quietly crawled out of the whare.  It had been
her habit for a long time now to bathe down by the fiver's edge before
the pa woke up for the day when, apart from Rima's occasional company,
her only observers were the thousands of birds giving rowdy welcome to
the morning.

She had already taken Off her nightgown when she noticed the smear of
blood on the collar.  She stared at it, while the possibilities raced
through her horrified mind.  It wasn't hers or Rima's.  Ben had been
the only one bleeding last night, and she hadn't touched his injured
wrist--she had been careful not to touch him.  Unless he had touched
her... He wouldn't!  He wouldn't have dared!  She would have woken...
But then, she had, hadn't she?

Her whole body seemed aflame with embarrassment and she scarcely felt
the chill of the water as she plunged in.  She could not swim, but a
fallen tree made a safe pool for her, despite the swollen river .  When
she climbed out, cold now and physically tired, it was to find Rima
sitting huddled on the riverbank.  Emma quickly grabbed her towel, but
it was plain that Rima was alone.

"What's the matter, Rima?"  Belatedly noticing the child's
tear-streaked face, she knelt beside her.

"What' S happened?"

"Nothing."  Rima shrugged her away.

"I see."  Emma began to pull on her clothes over her damp body.

"Does "nothing" mean Mr.  Morgan?"

Rima picked up a stone and began chipping erratically at the bank.

"Your husband."

"He's not my husband, Rima.  I've told you that."

The chipping became more vicious.

"You lie with him."

"But not ... not like a husband and wife," Emma said carefully.  It was
strange, talking to a child so young about such things, and yet of
course Maori children knew all about birth and death and the making of
babies.  She could not make the mistake of treating Rima's fears
lightly.

"You will lie with him like a wife, though," Rima said savagely.  She
threw the stone into the river, narrowly missing Emma's face.

"He wants you to."

"Rima, he does not--' "Yes, he does!"  Rima stormed.

"I hate him!  I want to kill him!"

Emma took her by the arms, shocked to find that the child was literally
shaking with rage.

"Rima, that is enough!  No one is going to kill anyone else!

Now, I want you to promise me that you'll leave Mr.  Morgan alone..."

"Then make him go!  Why won't you make him go?"  The tears welling up
in Rima's big brown eyes tore at Emma's heart.

"I can't make him go away," she explained patiently.

"Do you want him to stay?"

"No, no, I don't.  But I can't make him go away.

He wants to go away too, Rima, but he won't go until he gets his guns
back."

Rima perked up at that.

"Guns?  The loud thunder sticks Then give them back to him!"

"I haven't got them--the chief has."

"Then ask Tawhai to give them to you so that you can give them to
him."

Emma wished life was as simple in reality as it seemed to a child.  She
tried to hug Rima, ignoring the stiff little shoulders.

"But even if I asked the chief, he wouldn't give them to me they're
much too valuable.  Look, little one, I know you don't like Mr.  Morgan
being here, but for the time being we have to put up with him..."

"I won't!  I hate him and I hate you!"  With one quick wriggle Rima
slipped out of her grasp and ran away up the bank.

"I hate you!"  she shouted again, over her shoulder, before
disappearing into the forest.

Emma followed her slowly up the track, feeling as helpless in her way
as Rima did.  Life before Ben's arrival had been so uncomplicated...
No, her innate honesty reminded her, it only seemed that way in
retrospect.  There still remained the worry of the impending battle
with the Ngati Tuwharetoa.

The thought of the inevitable deaths and injuries among the tribe that
had made her so welcome depressed her far more than the mere irritation
of Mr.  Morgan's presence.

There was no sign of Rima or Ben at the whare.  Emma built up the fire
and hung a billy can of chopped kumara over it to cook for breakfast.
It was not until she was pulling out the bedrolls to air in the light
that she registered that Ben's sealskin package was missing.

"Damn!"  she hissed to herself.

"Damn, damn, damn!"  She should have taken it down that very morning,
opened it out and thrown the ammunition into the river, just as she had
planned to do all along!  How could she have forgotten to do so?

"Tut, tut, Mrs.  Johnson.  Language," Ben said breezily from where he
stood at the doorway of the whare, watching her.

"Where is it?"  she demanded, crawling out to face him, "Where's
what?"

"Your ammunition!"

"Oh, that."  He smiled.

"That's safe."

"Where?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Because I think you were planning to throw it in the river.  And if
you didn't--' he nodded towards her whare mt hen the chief would find
it.  They've already been in there this morning, looking for it."

"They haven't," she said automatically, even as she realised that that
was exactly what Tawhai would do.

"But when... ?"

"While you were down at the river."  He watched the colour rise over
her face as the 'implications of that sank in.

"But you needn't concern yourself, Mrs.  Johnson--they won't find it
where I've put it."

"The only safe place for it is in the river," she snapped.

"Don't you understand that?  These people have never seen a gun before!
Think of the damage it could do!"

He smiled politely, as if he were dealing with a difficult child.

"Look, Mrs.  Johnson, we're talking about my guns and my ammunition. In
a couple of years--in fact, I'd make that a couple of months--I'll bet
you that this tribe will be armed to the teeth, and a couple of small
pistols is not going to make one hell of a difference.  But, fight now,
it could make all the difference to my survival.  And, to be perfectly
honest with you, my survival is pretty important to me.  Do you
understand that?"

She stood in stunned silence and he nodded.

"Good.  Now, how about getting me some breakfast?  I'm starving."

A shrill scream shattered the air and, with a frown, he turned to look
up at the pa.

"By the way," he said, 'where's Rat?"

Chapter Five

She must die, Hemma.  You know that."

Emma's hands were clenched so tightly under her chin that they hurt,
but it was the only way to stop their frantic trembling.

"Tawhai, she's only a baby!  She was trying to please me by taking the
pistols, I've explained that..."

"Ah, indeed?"  Tawhai stared at her imperiously down his nose.

"So the pistols belong to you now, Hemma?  It was not enough that I
generously gave you the man you wanted, now you want the pistols as
well?  I am saddened beyond words!"

"I didn't mean it like that--of course they're not my pistols!  I don't
want them!  Rima just thought that giving them to me would make me
happy..."

Her words trailed away as Tawhai's frown deepened.

It's tree that I'm a bad liar, she thought despairingly; Tawhai can
tell that I'm not telling him the whole troth, but---dear God!--how
can

I?

At her feet, Rima cowered in the dirt outside the chief's whare.  Her
shift was torn and filthy, her eyes were glazed with fear, blood matted
her hair.  Every instinct in Emma's body was screaming at her to pick
up the child and hold her close, yet Tawhai's huge, ornately carved
wooden club hovered just inches away from Rima's head.  One more blow
and the little girl would be dead.

Ben strolled up behind her, his hands in his pockets.

"What's happening?"  he asked, in the same tone of voice that he might
enquire about the weather.

Emma scarcely trusted herself not to spin around and claw his eyes
out--this was, after all, his fault!

Instead, she clenched her hands together even more tightly.

"Rima was caught trying to steal the pistols from the chief's whare.
Now Tawhai is insisting that she be killed for doing so."

Ben regarded the chief and the child with interest.

"That's reasonable enough, I suppose.  Even I know that anything
belonging to the chief is sacred.  Even if they are my pistols in the
first place..."

Emma took a deep, sobbing breath.

"If that's all you can think of, Mr.  Morgan, I suggest you go away and
let me sort this out."

He looked at the tears shimmering in her eyes.

"Why don't you offer him an exchange?"

"W ... what?"

"What is it that he is saying now?"  Tawhai thundered, eyeing Ben with
dislike.

"Your new husband seems to have far too much to say for himself,
Hemma!"

The knowledge that she risked the lives of all three of them if she
made an error somehow kept her in control of the blind panic clutching
at her insides.

"He has suggested that we trade, Tawhai.  If I can exchange something
of value for Rima's life..."

"Ah!  Yes, indeed!"  The chief looked exasperated at the length of time
it had taken Emma to reach this stage of negotiations.

"The ammunition!"

She looked imploringly at Ben.

"He wants the ammunition, Mr.  Morgan!"

"So?"

"So give it to him, please!  Before he kills her!"

His eyebrows lifted in mock surprise.

"And what about all the principles you were browbeating me with
yesterday, madam?  Are you really suggesting I jeopardise the lives of
so many for the life of one child?"

"Please!"  Emma choked in anguish.

Ben looked at Tawhai's triumphant expression and shook his head.

"No."

Crestfallen, Tawhai lowered his club.

"He says no?"  he demanded of Emma.

"Even though you ask it of him?"

The tears were now pouring down her face and she wiped them away
viciously with the back of her hand.

"He doesn't care, Tawhal.  Oh, please, don't kill her!"

Ben turned to leave and then stopped, appearing to have a thought.

"Haven't you got anything else he wants, Mrs.  Johnson?  Really wants?"
At her blank look, he added helpfully, "None of your possessions?

It's always been my experience that the Maoris are very keen on
bartering."

Inspiration struck her.

"Tawhai, my corset--my taniwha corset.  Would you take that in exchange
for her life?"

The chief swung his club back and forth as he considered the offer.

"Perhaps," he said at last.

"Until your husband gives me my ammunition.  Until then ... yes, I will
accept it."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!  I'll go and get it now for you!"  Emma spun
around and ran out of the pa gates, back to her whare.  Ben turned to
follow her, scooping up the bedraggled child from the ground almost as
an afterthought.  Some of the warriors moved to bar his path, but he
merely smiled at them amiably and kept on walking, Rima tucked firmly
under one arm.

By the time he reached Emma's whare she was ready to return, the
whalebone corset clutched to her bosom.

"So that's what he wanted!"  He let Rima slip to her feet.

"Can you tell Rat to go and hide somewhere safe in the forest?
Somewhere where no one from the tribe will find her."

Emma brushed past him impatiently.

"Tawhai gave me his word."

"Did he?"

Some note in his voice made her stop and look at him uncertainly.

"He said that he would spare her life until..."  She knelt and brushed
the hair back from Rima's face, her heart aching at both the gash on
the child's forehead and her stolid acceptance of her fate.  The
thought of how close Rima had come to death had shaken her
immeasurably; she was shocked to realise how much more than her
husband's actual death.  Common sense told her to wrap the child up
warmly, to clean and bandage her forehead.

Instinct told her that Mr.  Morgan could well be right.

"Go quickly to the place where I keep my eel traps and stay there until
I come for you," she whispered in Rima's ear.

"Show yourself to no one, little one.

Only me.  Do you understand?"

Rima nodded and then was gone, only the smallest rustle of leaves to
show where she had gone.

Emma got to her feet and for a moment the world spun around her.  Only
Mr.  Morgan's hand on her elbow stopped her from falling.

"Are you all right?"

She looked up at his peculiar pale eyes, wondering how he could even
pretend to care about her well-being.  She shrugged him off without a
word and took the track to the pa, where, Tawhai was awaiting her
return impatiently.  Beside him stood Kaharangi, and it was he who took
the corset from her shaking hands.

"The taniwha belt!"  Tawhai said triumphantly.

Through the cotton Kaharangi felt the bones assessingly while Emma held
her breath.

"Perhaps," he said at last.

Tawhai scowled at him.

"They are the bones of a taniwha!"

Kaharangi pulled a sceptical face and handed it back.

"Perhaps."

Visibly deflated, Tawhai flicked a quick glance at Emma and then looked
away.

"I want the ammunition, Hemma."

"But you promised..."

He spun around and glared at her so ferociously that she stepped
back.

"How dare you argue with me, Hemma!  I have spared you the child's life
for now, so bring me the ammunition" "All right."  Emma nodded
quickly.

"But I have to ask Mr... ah... my husband for it."

"Then do so."

She turned and left.  Mr.  Morgan would never hand over the ammunition.
Rima's life would be over almost before it began.  The unfairness of it
all rose in her throat as if to choke her.  Why, oh, why had he come
here?  It was all his fault, all of it!

She stumbled into the clearing around her little camp, almost blinded
by tears.  Ben looked up from where he sat by the fire, eating a plate
of the kumara she had cooked for their breakfast.

"Good, you're back.  You'd better eat now."

"I'm not hungry."

"You will be."  He nodded to where a plate of steaming kumara stood
beside the fire.

"That should sustain you through the day.  But I'd eat it fast."

She ignored him and the food, sitting down on the opposite side of the
fire, arms crossed over her knees.

"I've taken only what we can easily carry," Ben said between
mouthfuls.

"A change of clothes from your husband's trunk, a billy can some
cups... But you'd better look through what I've packed first."

She stared at him as if she had never seen him before in her life,
"Why?"  "In case I've overlooked something.  And you'll need a change
of clothes too."

She shook her head sullenly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He took another mouthful and stared at her through narrowed eyes, and
suddenly she did understand.

And she felt a thin thread of fear down her spine as she realised
that--whatever he did--she would be dragged alongside him, willingly or
not.

"I'm not leaving!  I can't."

"But you can't stay, not if you want Rat alive, you know that."

Emma rested her forehead on her knees in utter exhaustion.

"So what do we do?  Do we go back down the river?"

"That's what they'd expect us to do.  There's a canoe ready and
provisioned for me, I understand.

I'll launch that, and with luck they'll follow it downriver.  But we go
inland, to the source of the Whanganui."

She stared at him wearily.

"Which is where you wanted me to go with you all along."

"As it happens, yes.  And we go now, Mrs.  Johnson, before they come
for Rat.  Because they will."

He was fight, she knew.  And yet she hated him for being right.  She
hated him for the position he was putting her in, for removing any
element of choice she might have in the matter.  She reached for the
kumara and began to eat, not even tasting what she chewed.

Ben got to his feet.

"Right.  Now pack a change of clothes and then go and find Rat.  In
about fifteen minutes I'll create a diversion down on the water.

When you hear it, make your way upriver as quickly as you can, making
sure no one sees you and that you leave no tracks.  D'you think you can
do that?"

"But there are dozens of people around!"  she protested.

"How can you possibly imagine that I can escape from here without being
seen by someone?"

He grinned.

"They'll all be busy elsewhere in fifteen minutes, believe me."

She waited until he had gone and then packed swiftly, putting as many
of her medical supplies as she could together inside her medical bag.
Utensils, her dictionary and a change of clothes were wrapped inside
two bedrolls.  Outside her whare she stood uncertainly, her arms full.
The rolls and bag were easy to carry, but far too bulky to disguise.
How was she to walk past the guards that always stood on lookout,
loaded down as she was, without raising suspicion?

Her question was answered minutes later by a loud crash down by the
water.  Through the trees she saw the flash of bodies as every man,
woman and child in the pa ran down to the river.  And she saw the
canoe, with what looked like two people in it, being paddled swiftly
away.  She didn't hesitate, but ran down to where she kept her eel
traps

"Rima?"  she whispered.

The child shot out of the forest and into her arms, hugging her with
all her strength.  Together they made their way along the riverbank.
Emma resisted the compulsion to run, and instead she moved cautiously,
taking care to replace the ferns they brushed past, and avoiding the
muddy banks where they could leave footprints.  The tribe would be more
likely to chase Ben, she reasoned, thinking that he had the ammunition.
And if they caught him .... Just for a moment doubt seized her and she
stopped in her tracks.  Rima stared up at her, puzzled.

What if they caught him, as they surely would!

And if they didn't, and if by some miracle he escaped and came back
upriver, how would he ever find them if the Maoris couldn't?  How had
she ever agreed to such a stupid plan?

"Hemma?  What is the matter?"

Emma shook her head, too breathless to speak.

Whatever happened, the most important thing was to put as many miles as
she could between Rima and the tribe--the direction wasn't important!

They followed the river for hours, pushing through the thick, clasping
bush.  Emma tried as best she could to clear a way for Rima.  Wet
branches caught at her bonnet and slapped against her face, but she
scarcely noticed them.  After a while Rima started to flag and Emma
piggybacked her, struggling to keep her balance on the slippery soil.
The land began to rise steeply, until Emma found herself literally
crawling on her knees, clutching precariously on to the bedrolls and
bag, with Rima's skinny arms knotted tight around her neck.  She was at
a point beyond exhaustion, her legs shaking like jelly, when she
finally collapsed on a bed of ferns that could have been feather down
for the comfort it gave.

She could find nowhere safer than here, she thought.  They were in a
small clearing, surrounded by dense forest, on the top of a cliff
overlooking the river, From here she would be able to see anyone
approaching from up or down the river, and she would be able to spot
someone walking through the bush below them.  She must have walked for
many miles--not one of the hills she could see from her vantage point
looked familiar.

The sun was directly overhead now, the air humid, with no trace of a
breeze.  With the enviable ability of the very young, Rima had fallen
asleep.

Emma pulled her under the shade of some flax and tucked a bedroll
finder her head.

Emma's thick black dress was unbearably hot and prickly, and was
plastered to her legs with mud.

Even out of the sun she felt dizzy with the heat and the residue of the
terror that had dogged every step of her escape.  It was impossible to
believe that they had not been followed.  Any minute Tawhai would
appear from the forest, demanding to know why she had run away.  Ben
was sure to be dead by now, and when the tribe caught up with them,
Rima would be killed too... It was all too much to bear.  She put her
hands over her face and finally allowed herself the luxury of tears.

"That's enough of that," Ben said firmly, if a little breathlessly.

"You can't afford to go falling apart at this stage."

She gave a small squeak of shock at the totally unexpected sight of him
squatting beside her, wet and muddied, but very much alive.  She
struggled up to a sitting position.

"Where did you come from?  I didn't hear you..."

"You weren't supposed to."  He sat down and began to take off his
boots, his fingers tugging impatiently at the sodden laces.

"You made pretty good time up here, though--and I don't think your
Maori friends will be able to track you if they decide to look up this
way."

"You seemed to have no trouble finding us."

"Yeah.  Well, I spent a lot of my earliest days in the interior of New
South Wales where, if you couldn't track your dinner down, you got
pretty damn hungry.  Here, in the forest, there are broken twigs,
footsteps in the mud ... it's even easier to hunt."

Emma shivered at the thought.

"As it will be for Tawhai and the tribe."

"I don't think so," he said confidently.

"They'll find the overturned canoe a couple of miles down-river.

With this flood, they'll believe our corpses will have been swept even
further downstream.  The last place they'll expect to find us is safe
and well upriver."

She watched as he upended his boots to pour out water and sand.  Where
his shirt and trousers clung to his body the material was already
starting to dry in long streaks.  She tried to raise a hand to wipe
away the perspiration trickling down from her hairline, but somehow
even that much energy was beyond her.  A dip in the river would be so
nice, she thought blearily, vaguely aware that he was saying' something
to her.  So nice and cool... Ben had been watching her out of the
corner of his eye and was half-expecting it when she slowly slumped
over in a dead faint.  He had been surprised at the distance she had
covered in just a few hours--she must have run all the way, no doubt
lugging the bedrolls and the child too.  Under her bonnet her face had
been scarlet when he had caught up with them.

And no wonder--the ugly heavy dress primly buttoned up to the neck must
be intolerable in the heat.

He untied the strings to her bonnet and pulled it off before deftly
unbuttoning her dress to the waist and slipping it off down her legs.
Underneath she wore several light cotton petticoats, which left her
arms and the tops of her breasts bare.  He ran his hand down her fibs,
feeling nothing but the soft curves of womanhood, confirming that her
figure owed nothing to the strictures of a corset.  Not now.

He grinned, remembering the ransom she had paid to Tawhai.

Her hair had come loose from its bun, spreading over her shoulders and
the ferns like a fiery river.

Something in her relaxed face, her outstretched bare arms and her
tangled hair arrested him.  Again, he had that same strong sense of
deja vu.  He had seen her like this before, surely... Then, like a
dowsing from a bucket of cold water, he knew where he had seen her
before.  Sydney, almost two years to the day.  He had been
celebrating--oh Lord, had he celebrated!--and he had been so drank that
he had thought himself to be all but useless to the whore the hotel
manager had obligingly sent up to his room.  But she had known exactly
what to do.  Even he had been pleasantly taken aback by her audacity,
her knowing hands and mouth.  He 'remembered her astride him, laughing
down at him with her hair flying over her naked breasts.  Why had he
recalled her haft as being blonde?  Maybe it had been a trick of the
candlelight.

He had cupped her breasts in his hands, wondering at how perfectly they
fitted in his palms.  She was made for him!

"I think I'm in love," he had told her and she had given that oddly
wicked laugh and wriggled her hips, making any further speech from him
impossible... Of course, in the morning she was gone, with his purse of
hard-won coins.  No matter that he had hidden them carefully under the
mattress, she had known where to look.  All she had left him was the
scent of roses on the sheets, an almighty hangover, and his shattered
dreams.

Two years it had taken to claw back what he had lost.  Two years of
planning every punishment in hell for that thieving slut.  And here she
was now, lying unconscious before him, completely at his mercy... But
was it her?  As the red mist of rage cleared from before his eyes, Ben
took a good, hard look at Mrs.  Johnson.

Damn, but she looked so defenceless lying there, his po-faced, pretty
little missionary's widow.  So soft-spoken and so prim that he felt
guilty about even his mildest cursing.  So modest that she would not
take off her bonnet in front of him, sO righteous that she blushed when
he reminded her occasionally that he was a man and she was a woman.

No.  He sat back on his heels with a frown.  It couldn't be her.  And
yet, if it wasn't, she was a dead-ringer for the bitch.  And the
Reverend Thomas Johnson had worked the docks of Sydney town for
converts... There was one way to tell.  Carefully, so as not to bring
her to, he slid the hem of her petticoats up over her legs to her
waist.  Her knee, length drawers were roomy enough to be able to be
eased up to her crotch... It wasn't there.  He let his breath out
slowly, more relieved than he had realised.  The whore had had a mole
on the very top of her right thigh.  He remembered kissing it.  And
that was another thing--the whore had been a natural blonde.  Mrs.
Johnson was very definitely a redhead.

Feeling almost ashamed of himself, he rearranged Mrs.  Johnson's
clothing to a state of modesty.  Then he snatched up her dress and
strode with it down the hill to the river.

The dress was so heavily caked in mud that it would be nothing but an
impediment once they started walking again.

The dress was like a black lead weight in the water.  Ben thought about
letting it float away down-river--Mrs.  Johnson looked so much prettier
wearing nothing but her petticoat and drawers--but in the end he simply
rinsed off the mud and left it to dry over a boulder.  As he took off
his shirt and dipped it in the water it occurred to him that he had
never had to do a woman's washing for her before.

But he was in need of Mrs.  Johnson's services right now, and that was
surely worth a few sacrifices.

When he returned to the clearing on top of the cliff, it was to find
Mrs.  Johnson fully conscious.  She was crouching behind the
still-sleeping form of the Rat, her eyes wild, her arms wrapped tightly
across her breasts.

"What have you done to me?"  She had put her regrettable bonnet back
on, of all things, but her hair was still tangled about her
shoulders.

"Where are my clothes?"

"I've washed out your dress--it's still down by the river."  He saw her
staring at the damp shirt in his hand and he held it out to her.

"Here, put this around your head to cool you down."  Instead she seized
it and began to pull it awkwardly over her arms, her hands shaking in
what he realised in amazement was real fear.  Not of the tribe of
bloodthirsty savages they had left downriver, but of him.

How the hell he had ever thought of her as a whore... "I want my dress
back!"

"It's wet," he said shortly.

'where is it?"

"I've told you.  I've washed it.  It's down by the river."  He waited
for her to thank him, but she only continued to stare at him with huge,
outraged eyes, and so he turned his back and began to empty out his
pack.  To his relief his surveying instruments were still intact and
his papers---carefully rolled in sealskin--were completely dry.  Thank
God he had also thought to bring a spare shirt.  Behind him he heard
the Rat stir and mutter.  When he looked around, Mrs.  Johnson was
helping the child to her feet, saying something to her in Maori.

"Are you ready to move on now?"  he interrupted.

Mrs.  Johnson's hand flew up to cover her bare throat and Ben kept his
face expressionless as the dark tips of her breasts were revealed
through the all-but-transparent wet fabric of his shirt.  He couldn't
afford to frighten her any further.

"I want my other dress, please.  It's in my bedroll."

"It's the same weight as the other dress.  It's too heavy to wear while
you're travelling in this heat.

Do you want to faint again?"

She swallowed in agitation and, despite his impatience, he felt sorry
for her genuinely outraged modesty.

"Then I'm ... I'm going to find fresh water.  If you can light a fire
for us..."

"No fires.  Not yet.  We're still too close."  He did up the last
buckle on his pack and slung it over his shoulder.

"We need to put a few more miles between us and the tribe before
nightfall, just to be safe."

Her fingers worked nervously at the material at her throat.

"You said they wouldn't look for us up-fiver... "They won't.  But it's
a calm day and I don't see the need to advertise our whereabouts with
smoke from a campfire."  Still she hesitated and he clicked his tongue
impatiently.

"What's the problem, madam?"

"Rima is tired and I need to tend to her injuries.

Can't we rest here just a little longer?"  Rat, clinging to Mrs.
Johnson's petticoats, looked up at him through her matted hair with
undisguised loathing.

Ben wondered how soon he could get rid of her.

"No.  We're safer moving on upriver."

"To where?"

"I've told you before--to the source.  The lake called Taupo."

"And once we get there?"

"Then my job's done and I've charted the entire length of the Whanganui
River for the New Zealand Company.  Whether We then go on to the coast
or return downriver is something we can decide when we get there."  He
caught the odd look on her face.

"What's the problem with going upriver, Mrs.  Johnson?"

"The Ngati Tuwharetoa."  She wiped the perspiration from her forehead
with the back of her hand in a gesture of weariness.

"The tribe from upriver.

My tribe were expecting to meet them in battle any day now."

"Inter-tribal battles are just one of the hazards," he said lightly. He
picked up the two bedrolls and her bag, deftly twisting them into the
shape of a pack that could be slung over one shoulder, like the one he
carried with him.

"I'll get your dress from the riverbank.  There looks to be a small
waterfall about fifty yards upriver--you can get a drink and cool down
there for a few minutes."  Without allowing her the time for further
argument, he strode away downhill.

Emma watched him go, her head thumping in pain.  Every muscle in her
body ached at the very thought of further movement.

"Is he going away?"  Rima whispered hopefully.

Emma shook her head.

"No.  We have to follow him, Rima, to get away from the tribe.  I know
you're tired, but do you think you can walk by yourself now?"

Each step was an effort, but they were encouraged by the cooling sound
of water splashing against rock up ahead.  Below them she could see Ben
standing silhouetted on a promontory, apparently engrossed in taking
measurements with a sextant.

At his feet lay his sealskin package, open to reveal his surveying
instruments.  The sight of them saddened her.

She knew the arguments on both sides by heart now, having heard them on
so many occasions over the last few years.  No one country had yet
claimed New Zealand as a colony, as the French and British governments
watched each other carefully to see who would make the first grab for
the world's furthermost territory.  And within New Zealand, the New
Zealand Company and the Missionary Society had clashed time and again
over the future of this country.  The missionaries wanted the land to
be held in trust by the Church for the Maoris, to guard against their
exploitation.  The New Zealand Company, backed by powerful friends in
England, argued for controlled immigration: farmers and tradesmen,
servants and labourers--resourceful pioneers who would turn this
beautiful, fertile land into a country of unrivalled prosperity and
social harmony.

Not, of course, that the directors of the New Zealand Company were
averse to making a healthy profit from their foresight... And Mr.
Morgan, his head down now as he scribbled in a journal, was doing his
level best to help them.  Emma sighed and turned away from the sight.

The small waterfall tumbled into a pool shaded by ferns and delicate,
feathery toi-toi.  They gulped mouthfuls of the sweetly pure water and
then rested their aching feet in the pool while Emma cleaned Rima's
forehead as best she could.  Like most head injuries, it had bled
profusely and looked worse than it was.  It was Rima's stoical
acceptance of the pain as just another affliction to be borne that
affected Emma the most.

"Are you ready?"

Emma and Rima both started at the sound of his voice.  Mr.  Morgan
looked huge towering above them, the two packs on his back lending to
his size.

His eyes were like the flat, cold river-stones.  Emma reached for her
boots, resenting the way he always flustered her.

"My dress..."

"I've got it."  He spun on his heel and strode away, as if determined
to give her no opportunity to talk.

In fact, with no burden to carry and relieved of the hot weight of her
dress, Emma found it not at all onerous to follow him at the pace he
set.  He had the bushman's ability to pick out the best paths through
the bush, and Emma and Rima found the going much easier than before. He
even held back the occasional low-lying ponga branch for them, which
Emma found an odd courtesy.  She had more than half-expected him to
demand that she carry her own pack, but he seemed to hardly notice the
extra weight, and so she didn't volunteer.

From time to time they stopped while Ben made more sketches and
measurements.  At one such stop by the riverside they could see the
long, black shapes of resting eels mere inches under the shallow water.
Unable to resist such an easy meal, Rima swiftly fashioned a noose from
flax and caught two of the big fish, "How clever you are, Rima!"  Emma
praised.

"What a fine meal we'll have tonight!"

Ben merely raised an eyebrow and turned away.

She found herself wondering how someone like him--without the benefit
of a gun--would manage to feed himself in these wilds.  Even if he had
had his guns with him, he couldn't have used them for fear of
attracting attention.  Did he know how to make a noose like the one
Rima had for catching eels?  Or how to make a basket for fishing, or a
snare for birds?  Rima must have thought the same thing--the two of
them exchanged a superior smile behind his back as they ran to catch up
with him.  Emma carried one eel and Rima the other, and they both
gathered handfuls of the broad leafed watercress the Maori called puha
as they walked.

Chapter Six

As dusk fell they stopped under a sheltered outcrop.

Below them the river opened out into a small lake, opal blue and
deceptively placid-looking, fringed with lush ferns.  The fluted canyon
walls rose like cathedral spires all around them, and the deep beauty
of the place made Emma's heart turn over.

"This'll do."  Ben shrugged the bags from his shoulders.

"We'll sleep here tonight."

By the time Emma had searched out the billy can he had built a campfire
with the aid of his tinderbox.

Emma lay the gutted eels over some smouldering manuka branches and
brought the puha to the boil with springwater in the billy can When she
pulled the eels out of the fire haft an hour later they were perfectly
done.  The skin was crisp and fell away, leaving only the strong, smoky
red meat.  Rima had plaited three small flax squares while she had
waited for her dinner, and derived particular satisfaction from
arranging the food on the 'plates'.

"I think we should say grace," Emma said pointedly as Ben reached for
his food.  Rima obediently copied her steepled hands and bowed head,
but Ben merely waited, as Emma made the prayer brief and in Maori.

She could not recall savouring a meal more.  The three of them ate in
silence until they were full, and then Ben stood to announce his
intention of taking a swim.  Emma almost told him to be careful but
then resisted the impulse.  Instead, she and Rima found comfortable
niches in the long grass and set-fled down to let their dinner digest.
They began counting the first stars appearing in the sky, but Rima was
asleep before they reached double digits.

I should get up and get a blanket, Emma thought.

And I should put on my other dress--I can't go on wearing just my
petticoats and a man's shirt.  It's not decent.  But the sun-warmed
ground beneath her was so comfortable, and her legs felt like lead, and
her eyes were growing heavier... From somewhere below she could hear
Ben as he dived into the river.

Was he naked?  she wondered drowsily, too close to sleep to rein in her
errant thoughts.

And she slept, to dream of a naked Mr.  Morgan lying beside her, warm
and smooth-skinned and powerful.  His breath was on her cheeks and his
hands were stroking her breasts rhythmically, taunting the aching tips
until they felt they would burst.

The pleasure throbbed between her legs and she welcomed it,
concentrated on it until she felt her body clench into spasms of
relief.

What am I doing?  she thought, even as the intense waves ebbed.  What
has he done to me?  How can I ever face him now, what can I say... ?

She opened her eyes to the blackness and the stars wheeling overhead. A
blanket had been laid over her, and over Rima who was sleeping
peacefully a few feet away.  That accounted for the warmth.  And her
own hands on her breasts accounted for the inordinate feeling of
pleasure that still pulsed through her body.  Mr.  Morgan was just a
barely discernible sleeping shape on the far side of the clearing.

Not again!  She sat up and threw off the blanket, feeling sick with
shame.  This time she couldn't blame him for what she was feeling.  No,
these horrible, lustful dreams were entirely in her own sordid
imagination.  But why?  Why, after years of atonement, was she being
tormented like this?  And why by the likes of Mr.  Benedict Morgan?

She knelt by the fire and began to poke it back into life.  Perhaps a
drink of hot water would help her to get back to sleep.  There were
herbs she had brought in her medicine bag that would certainly help,
but she didn't want to disturb the others by getting them out now.

"Are you all right, Mrs.  Johnson?"

He spoke softly, his voice sending small shivers through her.  She
swallowed hard, not daring to look at him.

"Thank you, I'm fine."

She heard the rustle of blankets on the grass as he propped himself up
on one elbow.

"That was quite some dream you were having."

She flicked a quick, horrified look at him.  He was fully dressed, she
noted with relief, and seemed to be studying the scattered remains of
the fire.

"Did.,.did I ... say anything?"  she said as casually as she could.

"Oh, nothing coherent."  He frowned and reached over to lay a precise
network of twigs over the emerging flames.

"You were mostly sighing and moaning."

Her face felt as hot as the fire.

"It was ... a nightmare... '

"Was it?"  He glanced up at her, grinned suddenly and then went back to
building up the fire.

"It didn't sound like one."

She watched him in hatred as he methodically added to the fire,
building it higher and brighter.  He would know, of course.  How many
women had he had in his life?  How many women had he pleasured

He would know exactly the private sounds that a woman would make in the
throes of sexual pleasure.  He must have elicited those sounds
dozens-hundreds!--of times.  Yet she had never made them before.  Not
once.  Not until now, in her sleep, of all times!

Unable to bear his smug, knowing presence for another second she stood
up and left the clearing.

He didn't call her back.  The moonlight was bright enough for her to
see her way clearly until she stood on the banks of the Whanganui.  The
water whispered by her feet, darkly gleaming, and above her the
multitude of stars merged into a great paint-stroke of light.  She sat
on a huge boulder and stared at them for a long time, picking out the
familiar shape of the Southern Cross.  The stars had never looked so
clear in Sydney for some reason.

The old memory came back to her, the one she had tried so hard to
forget, the one that would: still be haunting her on her deathbed.  The
nights she had stood alone in the dark outside the rOwdy dockside bars,
waiting for a customer, her stomach clenched with fear.  The smell of
rum and beer and salt water.

The sordidness of it all, the utter humiliation, and all for the sake
of a few coins... The memory never failed to sicken her, and she had
never been able to justify it to herself.  She had sold herself for the
very best of reasons---or so it had seemed at the time.  Thomas had
made her see how wrong it was, that there were other options.  She had
worked so hard to redeem herself, in his eyes as well as God's, and
when Thomas had asked her to marry him, all she had felt was profound
gratitude for his forgiveness.

And now it was all for nothing.  Her penitence, her resolution, her
hard work to put her past behind her, all worthless.  For two days now
she had felt nothing but disorientation.  Her body was so tense with
desire that even the slightest friction of fabric against her nipples
was enough to send her thoughts flying to subjects no woman should know
anything about.  Because, if she looked honestly into her own heart,
all she really wanted to do was lie down with the despicable Mr. Morgan
and let him do anything he wanted to her.

"It's not fair!"  she said aloud to the dark hills across the river.

"Life seldom is," Ben agreed.

She started so much that she almost lost her seating.

Only Ben's hand on her arm stopped her from staggering into the river.
Lord, how she hated his ability to creep up on her like a cat!

"I didn't hear you!"

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to startle you."  Again, his voice was oddly
unsettling, sending a tingle down her spine at his close proximity. His
fingers lightly caressed her arm, setting the fine hairs on end.

"You're cold, Mrs.  Johnson.  Or can I call you Emma?"

"Certainly not!"  She removed her arm from his grasp and stood up.

"I'd better go now..."

He refused to move out of her way, bating his teeth in a predatory
smile that sent a shudder of excitement through her all the way down to
her toes.

She stared hard at his chest, too frightened to meet his eyes.  After a
long moment of silence he sighed and raised his hand to gently stroke
the side of her face.  As he outlined her lips with a fingertip she had
to choke back a sob that was born of both fear and frustration.

"Why don't you just give in, Mrs.  Johnson?"  he whispered.

He leaned forward and kissed her, so lightly that she was barely aware
of the pressure, and yet the sensitivity of his lips against hers was
exquisite.

Then he lifted his head and drew her to him, and the warmth and power
of his body permeated her like a strong drug.

She tensed, expecting his hands to slide down to fondle her through her
clothes, but to her astonishment he simply held her close against him,
as if she were a panicked child in need of comforting.  It was like
being held in the sheathed paws of a tiger and yet, muscle by muscle,
Emma found herself giving into the overwhelming temptation to relax
against him.  How could she not, when it felt so good to be held like
this... For the first time in many months she realised that she felt
safe, protected, ineffably feminine.  It somehow seemed quite natural
to rest her head against his shoulder.  He smelt deliciously of grass
and clean skin and an underlying scent that was entirely, irresistibly
male.

The moments flowed on, like the river running by their feet, and still
Ben made no move to seduce her.  By the time he began to make small
circular movements along her spine Emma could have purred with
pleasurable anticipation.  The gently, rhythmic motion was soothing and
yet somehow most arousing.  Within seconds she was aware of the aching
peaks of her breasts beneath her shirt as they rubbed against the rough
hairs on Ben's chest, the growing heat in the juncture of her thighs as
he subtly pressed her hips against his hardness.  Her limbs felt heavy
and languid, and yet her fingers were trembling with impatience as she
pulled his shirt free of his shoulders and traced the length of his
shoulderblade with her lips.  The taste of his skin was musky,
intoxicating in her mouth.

He laughed deep in his throat and then caught her mouth with his own,
and the last traces of sanity left her.  Lost to the plundering of his
tongue, of his lips, she scarcely felt the cold stone on her shoulders
as Ben pressed her back to half-sit, half-lie on the great river rock.
His hands slid up between her thighs, parting them, as she fumbled
clumsily with his belt buckle, the desperation to feel him inside her
growing by the second.

Her breathing matched his, loud, ragged with passion, and she didn't
hear Rima's first, plaintive wail.

But she heard the second and immediately stiffened.

"It's ... it's Rima..."

"Later.  Later," Ben muttered against her hair and as she opened her
mouth to protest he kissed her again and again.  He helped her free his
belt buckle at last and he began to position himself between her
thighs.  Rima's cry changed to a scream of panic.

The high-pitched sound bounced between the wails of the river valley,
amplified almost beyond bearing.

It was only then that Emma realised what she was doing.

She must be insane.  What other explanation was there?  Here she was,
pressed up against a rock in the middle of nowhere, allowing a man she
barely knew to take her, and Thomas, her poor, saintly husband,
scarcely cold in his grave... She thrust hard with flattened hands
against Ben's chest, so quickly that he was taken by surprise and
staggered backwards.

"No!  I've got to go!  She needs me!"

"Oh, for Chrissakes!  She'll be all fight," he snarled, but Emma had
already gathered her disarrayed skirts about her and was running up the
hill, slipping in the dark in her haste.  By the time she reached Rima
the child was rigid with terror.

"What was it, Rima?  A bad dream?"

"Taniwha.  It came out of the water to get me and you were gone."  Rima
snuffled against Emma's shoulder and then yawned.

"There's no taniwha, sweetheart."  Emma pulled the blanket up to Rima's
chin and lay down beside her.

"And I'm here."

"But I heard it," Rima insisted drowsily.

"Down beside the river.  I could hear it breathing..."  Her eyelashes
fluttered and she was asleep within minutes.  Lost in thought, Emma
didn't stir until Ben put the billy can now full of water, over the
fire.  He flung himself down on his bedroll, his face impassive but
plainly angry.

"Is she all fight?"

"Yes.  But ... she heard us..."

"I expect she must have."

Emma looked guiltily at Rima's sleeping face.

"What if she had come to see what the noise was?"

she said quietly.

"What if she had ... seen us?"

He shrugged.

"She wouldn't have seen anything that she hasn't already seen dozens of
times before."

He saw her shocked expression and sighed heavily.

"Oh, for God's sake, Mrs.  Johnson, you've lived with these people.
They don't have parlours or beds with curtains or privies!  We might
not approve, but that brat has probably seen more of life--real
life--than you have in your lifetime."

"That doesn't excuse what we ... what you did!"

she snapped, stung by his patronising air.

"Oh, that's going it a bit thick, coming from you!"  He kicked a small,
errant log back into the fire with his booted foot.

"I could have had you any time I wanted!  You've been practically
begging for it from the first..."

"I have not!  How dare you!"  She clutched her blanket to her like a
shield.

"You ... you took advantage of a momentary weakness, that was all!"

He leaned forward intently.

"Momentary, was it?

Tell me something, Mrs.  Johnson.  Have you ever been made love to?
Properly made love to?  Oh, yes--' he waved a dismissive hand "I-I know
you were married, but old Torn would scarcely have been able to manage
more than a quick fumble before he relieved himself..."

With a short scream of disgust Emma shot to her feet, but he was beside
her in an instant, his hands on her arms restraining her from
flight--or from boxing his ears.

"Why are you doing this to me?"  she hissed.

"And to Thomas?  What has he ever done to you?  You're so loathsome and
disgusting and contemptible..."

"And right," he interjected gleefully.

"I am right aren't I?"  He grinned and if her hands had been free to do
so she would have scratched his horrible pale eyes out.

"Why, Mrs.  Johnson, I do believe you're practically a virgin..."

That did it.  With all her strength she used one of the two limbs that
remained free and kneed him in the groin.  Very hard.  She watched him
roll around on the ground with considerable satisfaction, not bothering
to intervene when he almost went into the fire and she could hear his
hair singe.

"Jesus, you've killed me!"  he managed at last, when he had his breath
back.

"I only wish I had!"  she retorted.

"And please keep your voice down, or you'll wake Rima."  He said
something completely unrepeatable then, and as he staggered to his feet
she took the precaution of seizing a burning branch from the fire and
holding it before her.

"One step closer, Mr.  Morgan, and I'll ... I'll..."

'kill me.  All right, all right, I get the message."

He lowered himself carefully on to Ms bedroll, Ms face creased with
pain, and for a moment she felt almost guilty.  But not for the world
would she ever apologise to Him.

The moon was hanging heavy and pale gold above the Mils, and there was
no sound except for the crackling fire and the strange, plaintive cry
of a kiwi foraging for its supper close by.  In the peace, Emma's rage
slowly subsided to a grudging acknowledgement that she might have
contributed minutely to the situation.  She could have said no from the
beginning, instead of encouraging Him.

What he had said about Thomas was utterly unforgivable, of course, but
then Mr.  Morgan was nothing more than an unmannerly boot.  He had no
doubt been born a boot, and he would most certainly die a boot.  He
just couldn't help it.  He deserved her pity, not her contempt.

The billy can over the fireplace was boiling away merrily by now.  From
the tiny, tightly wrapped packages of dried herbs in her medical bag
she chose two and sprinkled a little of each into the simmering
water.

Camomile and peppermint, her favourite herbs.

"I

think we both need a hot drink," she said aloud.

He sighed and lay back with Ms eyes closed.

"All right.  As long as you drink some first."

Despite everything she could not resist a smile at that.

"I have some laudanum, if you need it..."

"No, I'll survive."

When she gave Him a mug of tea he met her eyes squarely.

"I should apologise, Mrs.  Johnson.  For saying what I did about your
husband."

After a moment's hesitation she nodded graciously.

"I accept your apology.  And I'm pleased to hear you admit to being
wrong for once."

"Oh, I'm not wrong."  He settled himself more comfortably against his
bedroll.

"I'm just sorry that I told you, that's all."

Chapter Seven

A heavy mist clung to them when they awoke the next morning, dampening
the bedrolls and beading their hair with fine droplets of moisture.
Emma fed the struggling fire and poked cabbage-tree roots into the
embers to bake.  The tender, sugary roots were delicious washed down
with more of her herbal tea, and there were enough roots to wrap in
flax leaves and carry with them for eating later.

Ben was uncommunicative and Emma made no attempt to talk to him, apart
from a brief word of thanks when he again picked up her luggage and
slung it over his back with his own.  He walked on ahead, somewhat
stiff-legged, she noticed, and he seemed quite indifferent to whether
they kept up or not.  But they were climbing steadily higher, with the
rapids and twists in the river much more pronounced, and Ben frequently
stopped to make his measurements and sketches.

After some agonising, Emma had elected to continue wearing her
petticoat and Ben's shirt, and as the mist burned off to another hot,
cloudless day, she was glad she had put comfort ahead of modesty.

She still wore her bonnet, of course, and Rima had woven herself a
little flax hat to keep the sun off her face.

What had always enchanted Emma about the New Zealand forest was the
feeling that she never walked alone in it.  The trees were full of
birds, like the fat wood-pigeons that sat placidly on low branches,
quite unaware that they were a prized delicacy for the Maori, and the
glossy parson-birds whose bell tones made the forest ring and--most
companionable of all--the tiny fantails that swarmed around, piping
excitedly as passing humans stirred up invisible insects.

And the forest was a good provider if one knew what was edible.  Emma
and Rima both ate as they walked, snacking on bracken-tips and berries
they picked on their way.  A full stomach, cool, comfortable clothes,
beautiful scenery... Emma realised with surprise that she was actually
enjoying herself.

They were negotiating a particularly steep bank when suddenly Rima
scurried away from Emma's side and grabbed Ben's hand, making him turn
abruptly to face her.

"Ahi!"  she hissed.

He lOOked at Emma for clarification.

"Fire," she said, puzzled.

He sniffed the air and then shrugged his shoulders free of the
bedrolls.

"Stay here."  He disappeared through the thick bush, seeming to barely
disturb the branches as he went.  Emma lOOked down at Rima for an
explanation.

"life," Rima said patiently.

"Can't you smell the smoke?"

She couldn't, although Ben plainly had.  When he came back he motioned
to them to follow him at a crouch.  They moved slowly and as silently
as possible, keeping at the same height as the undergrowth.

Emma thought it an uncomfortable waste of time until she saw the pa
across the river.  It was a war pa like the one she had lived near,
heavily fortified, with dug-out trenches for defence cut into the
riverbank and high, spiked palisades surrounding the whares on the top
of the hill.  The armed guards on patrol were perfectly visible from
where she crouched, and a dozen canoes were tied up at the bank, ready
to be launched at a single shout of wanting.

It seemed to take forever until they gained the next valley, out of
sight of the pa guards.  It was all too easy to pretend that they were
the only humans in this exotic wilderness.  If it had not been for Rima
they would have blundered into full view of the pa.  The Maoris there
may or may not have been friendly, but the threat to Rima's life was
still too fresh in her mind, and Ben had the most dangerous tendency to
irritate his Maori hosts.  They had been lucky to have had Rima's sharp
little nose with them.

They stopped by a small pool in the rocks, to drink and eat more of the
baked roots.  Emma took off her boots and, taking care to arrange her
petticoat over her ankles, dipped her feet in the water.

It was oddly warm for springwater and Rima lost no time in jumping in
with a shriek of ecstasy.  She was like a little fish in the water,
Emma thought proudly, as she watched the child chasing koura, the tiny,
freshwater shrimp that were a delicacy for the Maori.

She glanced across the pool to where Ben sat carefully filling in
pieces of a complicated-looking survey map.  He looked tired, and she
hoped that he was not still suffering from her well-placed kick.

She watched him as he drew, almost mesmerised by the intent look on his
face.  His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, his eyebrows almost
met in a scowl of concentration.  He had not shaved since they had met
and his stubble, darker than one might expect from a fair-haired man,
was now pronounced.

It had rasped against her skin the previous night, and the hairs on her
arms prickled at the very memory of how it had felt.  The sharp jolt of
longing that plunged through her was enough to take her breath away.

Rima, watching Emma watch Mr.  Morgan, suddenly slammed her hands down
into the water, fingers outstretched.

"Rima!"  Emma spluttered with a laugh of surprise as the water sprayed
over her face.

"Kati rawa!  Stop it!"

Ben leaped up in fury, holding his dripping survey map as far away from
Rima as he could.

"You little cow!  Look what you've done!"

"She didn't mean it," Emma said indignantly, getting to her feet,
although the smirk on Rima's face indicated just the opposite.

"Don't shout at her--it was an accident."

"Like hell it was.  For Christ's sake, look at this--days of work
ruined'

She looked at the water-splattered pages, blotchy with ink.

"Maybe it's just as well," she said without thinking.

Then she met his look of incredulity and wished the words had never
left her lips.

"And what do you mean by that?"  he said slowly, each word sharp with
anger.

"Oh, don't tell me---I should have remembered.  The missionaries are
the only Europeans with the moral authority to be here,

right.9'

Emma bit her lip.

"I ... I just don't think you should shout at Rima like that.  It's
only paper, after all..."

Something that looked like murder flared in his eyes and she took an
involuntary step backwards.

"If you had any idea..."  he began, when a small, flailing koura hit
him squarely between the eyes and then dropped to wriggle frantically
on the papers in his hand.  Ben stood there as if frozen, staring as
the creature turned his measurements and calculations to an inky smear.
The only sound in the deadly silence was Rima's giggle.  Ben threw his
mined papers to the ground.

"Right..."

"No!"  As he moved forward Emmaplunged into the pool and reached up to
grab him.

"Please, no!

She's only a child!"

He tried to shake his arm free but she clung doggedly to it, her teeth
clenched with the physical effort of restraining him.  Her bonnet fell
unheeded into the water and her hair tumbled over her face, almost
blinding her.  But nothing would make her release her grip.

"Let me go!"  he snarled.

"I'm going to kill the little bitch!"

Shuddering with panic, Emma pressed closer to the arm she held
imprisoned, moving so that her left breast lay under his hand.

"Please," she whispered.  Tn do anything.  Anything you want me to.
Please don't hurt her."

She tried to see his expression, but his eyes gave nothing away.  Her
heart pounded under his hand and for a wild moment she wondered if he
was capable of ripping it out.  Behind her Rima whimpered in terror.

She felt his fingers flex around her breast and she closed her eyes,
scarcely able to breathe.  He would take her, and it would be violent,
but at least his anger would be diverted from the child and she ... she
would then know what she had always wanted to know about Ben Morgan.

With a curse, he shoved her from him.

She watched him gather his precious papers and disappear into the
forest.  Her knees abruptly gave way and she sat down heavily on the
side of the pool, her breath coming in great juddering gasps as the
implications of what she had done---of what she had been prepared to
do---dawned on her.  The previous night he had told her he could have
her any time he wanted, and he had just been proved right.

Yet he had walked away from his advantage... Rima gave a wobbly cheer
that was sheer bravado.

"You have chased him away, Hemma!  He has gone, with his evil eyes,
gone back down the river!"

"Oh, I hope not," she whispered.

"I don't want to be left here alone."  She shook her head in despair at
the little girl.

"What you did was very wrong, Rima."

"No, it wasn't!"  Rima's bottom lip stuck out defiantly, but it was
wobbling and her eyes were suspiciously bright.

"Yes, it was.  Like stealing the pistols from Ta-what was wrong.  Those
papers were very important to Mr.  Morgan."

Rima considered that.

"Tapu?  Like Tawhal's ku-mara?"

"Yes, sacred, like the chief's kumara.  But Tawhai can always grow
another kumara.  Mr.  Morgan may not be able to draw another picture of
the river."

The child bent her head and studied the ripples her fingers were making
in the pool.

"I don't care."

Deciding that there was little point in pursuing the matter now, when
tempers were still so frayed, Emma said nothing as she swung her out of
the water.  Rima's little shift was sopping, and so Emma took it off
and replaced it with one of her own shirts.

With the sleeves rolled up, the shirt hung down almost to the ground,
and Rima stroked the lace inserts reverently, all unhappiness forgotten
in the joy of temporary ownership.  No doubt it would have more than
one tear in it by the end of the day, but it would be worth it if it
put Rima in a better frame of mind.  Emma could only wish that Ben was
as easy to please.

They found him standing on the brow of the next hill, engrossed in yet
another measurement, another sketch.  As they joined him, Emma gave a
gasp of delight.  Before them the land flattened out and directly ahead
lay three mountains.  One was a long, flat, unremarkable protuberance,
one was a perfect cone with a gentle wisp of steam coming from the top,
and the other was massive, topped with snow even now in the middle of
summer.

"The volcanoes are Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu," Ben said shortly.

"The smaller mountain is Tonga-riro."

Emma would have loved to have asked him more, but he shoved his
sketchbook in his bag and walked on without a backward look.  She hoped
he was not going to prove to be as sulky as Thomas had been;

if Thomas had been put-out at all, especially over something trivial,
he would brood in silence for days.  It had always taken her repeated
apologies and cajoling before he would deign to speak to her again.  On
the other hand, she reflected, she always had Rima to speak to, so
perhaps what passed for conversation with Ben wouldn't be such a great
loss.

They travelled in silence, still following the river as it meandered
through dense forest to the west of the mystical, quietly steaming
volcanoes.  It was mid-day before they stopped to eat the last of the
baked cabbage-tree roots.  Tussock grass made comfortable seating above
an almost vertical gully, at the bottom of which the river flowed dark
and riotously.

At the end of the gully, framed perfectly for their enjoyment, Ruapehu
rose dramatically up into the clouds.

"Give him karaka-seed instead," Rima advised, as she watched Emma
unwrap the roots.

"Or rangiora leaves."

Emma shook her head.

"Why would we want to kill him, Rima?"

"Because we hate him."  Rima watched resentfully as Ben took his
portion of the roots.

"Wouldn't you like him to die, Hemma?  Then we could go back to the
tribe."

"We can't go back," Emma said absently as she peeled away the thick,
fibrous skin so that Rima could eat the flesh inside.

"Then where do we go?"

"I don't know.  To Sydney, I suppose.  I have a house there, and
family."

Rima's eyes lit with excitement.

"Sydney!"

"Sydney?"  Ben echoed.

Emma froze.  She had become so used to discussing her thoughts with
Rima in Maori that she had forgotten that Ben could well pick up on any
English part of their conversation.

"We ... we were just talking about where we might go when we... when
this is over."

"Mmm."  He took another mouthful of root and chewed thoughtfully.  'if
you're thinking of going to Sydney one day, why don't you start
speaking to her in English?"

"Because ... because I need to practice my Maori," she said lamely.

"And because I can't understand you, fight?"

She began to concentrate furiously on peeling Rima's root, remembering
what he had once said about her transparent lying.

"I have no reason to hide anything from you, Mr.  Morgan."

It was Rima who created the diversion Emma needed.  She had been idly
tapping a rotten log against a rock, watching the maggots of the hu-hu
beetle fall to the ground.  The fat, white grubs were a staple food of
the Maori, and Rima was always delighted by Emma's revolted reaction to
them.

Now Rima popped one in her mouth and smacked her lips noisily.

"Rima!"  Emma reproved her, as much for something to say as to
reprimand her for what she was eating.  Rima glanced at her and then
thrust a handful of the repulsive grubs in Ben's face.

"Thank you," Ben said and calmly ate one, biting off the squirming head
with the expertise of a connoisseur.

When he went to take another one, Rima snatched them back in rage and
gobbled them down so fast Emma thought she would make herself sick.

With a shrug Ben got to his feet and took his surveying equipment from
his bag.  There was a small promontory just below their picnic spot,
and it was here that he stood to sketch the gully and the surrounding
landmarks.  Emma stood to dust herself off, and was about to suggest to
Rima that they dig up some more roots when she realised that the child
was racing down towards the cliff-edge where Ben stood, her arms
outstretched before her, her intentions very clear.

"Rima, no!  Ben, watch out!"  she screamed.

As if in a dream she saw Ben turn and step aside in one fluid motion.
Rima, moving too fast to stop, missed him by a foot and plunged
headlong over the cliff.  Ben reached out to grab her as she fell, but
his fingers closed on empty air.

Emma ran down the bank to the river, heedless of the branches slashing
at her face and hands.  Below in the swiftly churning water she could
just make out Rima's head, pathetically small, bobbing up and down.
Around her swirled Emma' shirt, effectively hampering any attempt to
swim that Rima may have been able to make.

Scrabbling for a grip on the crumbling bank, Emma tried to think.
Perhaps if she could find a long branch to hold out to her... But
already Rima was spinning out of reach, missing a boulder by mere
inches.  Her head disappeared under a white-crested swell, to reappear
much further downriver.

In a few seconds she would be around the river bend and gone.

The fact that she could not swim one stroke no longer deterred Emma,
and she had already kicked off her boots when she heard the splash as
Ben dived in, some twenty yards further down fiver She watched with her
heart in her mouth as he swam strongly towards Rima, but suddenly an
undercurrent seemed to catch the child and drag her under.

As Ben dived to find her, Emma lost sight of him around the river
bend

It seemed to take an eternity to force her way though the dense bush.
An eternity with her heart pounding painfully in her chest, and the
only sounds that of her ragged breathing and the hateful roar of the
river.  She swiped impatiently at her face as her vision became
smeared, oblivious to the twigs catching painfully in her hair.

Her path was blocked by a massive fallen tree and she gave a scream of
frustration.  It took forever to clamber over it, but when she had, and
had tumbled down to a small, sandy bank, she was just in time to help
Ben pull ashore Rima's limp body.

Rima's small face was white and pinched-looking.

When Emma listened to her chest she could hear no heartbeat, no sign of
breathing.

"She's dead," she said flatly, unable to take it in.

She had seen so many deaths, had even managed to deal with her
husband's and her father's deaths with some measure of composure.  And
yet, to lose Rima... "Maybe."  Ben knelt beside the child and pressed
firmly on her chest.  Then he turned her on her side.

Emma watched in shocked amazement.

"Mr.  Morgan, please!"  she implored him.

"Let her be.  She's gone."

He ignored her and pulled Rima over onto her back.  He pinched her nose
shut and put his mouth over hers to breathe lightly, once, twice.  Then
he pulled her over onto her side again.

Rima's body convulsed in a sound that was half-cough and haft-splutter
as water poured out of mouth and her nose.  The sound of the air
dragging into Rima's lungs was the sweetest sound Emma had ever heard

Ben gathered the child in his arms and carried her up to where they had
left their luggage.  Swathed in bedrolls and held close to Emma's side,
she slowly regained her normal colour and old cheekiness.

"My throat hurts," she complained.

"And I'm hungry."

Emma watched as Ben, still in his wet clothes, coaxed a fire from a
hastily snatched handful of twigs.

"As soon as the water boils I'll make you a drink to soothe your
throat."

"Can I have some of the sleepy-stuff?"

Emma frowned in mock disapproval.  She had once given Rima a tiny dose
of laudanum for a mouth abscess, and the child retained fond memo-des
of the blissful release from pain.

"No laudanum, you little mischief!  Laudanum is for when you're in
pain, not for when you've had a nasty fright.  If your throat is still
sore when you wake up tomorrow, we'll think about it then."

A mug of hot herbal infusion did much to restore all their spirits. Her
drink finished, Rima looked up somewhat drowsily at Ben sitting on the
other side of the campfire.

"Ka nui to aroha," she said.

"She said..."  Emma began, but Ben silenced her with a shake of his
head.

"I understood that.  Tell her I accept her thanks," he said quietly.
Then, correctly reading Emma's expression, he gave a chuckle.

"No.  I don't understand much Maori.  But I know the word aroha."

The word meant affection, gratitude, love.  Emma pulled the bedrolls
warmly around Pdma's head, pleased that the little girl was slowly
drifting off to sleep.

"I have to thank you for what you did."

"Anyone else would have done the same."

"I don't know that they would have.  I do know that you didn't want her
with us.  And she did try to kill you..."

"Forget it," he said abruptly.

"You're probably the first person who has ever been kind to her--no
wonder she's so possessive.  And I can't imagine she'd have had much
kindness from a man before.  Why shouldn't she hate me?"

Emma felt touched.

"But you objected to her so much... "Yeah, I know I did.  And I still
think the ideal place for her would have been back with her tribe.

But we couldn't leave her for their cooking pot, could we?"

She shook her head.

"No, I don't believe they would have done that to her."

"Well, you should.  There may not be much meat on her, but she had to
die for stealing from your friend the chief, so why would they have
wasted her?  What do you think happened to my old friend Eru's body?
Thanks to your Missionary Society, most tribes seemed to be stopping
the practice now--but it does still go on."

"Then I have even more reason to be grateful to you," she said
softly.

"But that ... that way you brought her back from the dead..."

"She wasn't quite dead, Mrs.  Johnson."

"But she looked dead," Emma persisted.

"Her heart had stopped, I'm sure of it!  What did you do?"

"Just got the water out of her lungs and got her breathing again," he
said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"We did it to calves on the farm that were stillborn.  It doesn't
always work, but it's always worth a try."

"Calves!"  she said incredulously.

"Yeah."

"You breathed into the mouths of calves!"

"Well, you see, sometimes when we were a bit short of female
company..."

She started to laugh at the sheer extra ordinariness the sheer common
sense of the idea.  And then she burst into tears.

"Aw, now..."  Ben came around to sit beside her and gently disentangled
her from Rima's sleeping form.  With his arms around her Emma found it
irresistibly comforting to cling to him and sob her heart out into his
already damp shirt.  He held her much as she held Rima, carefully and
with great tenderness.

"It's been one hell of a day," he muttered into the top of her head
when the worst of her crying was over.  She nodded fiercely.  The
sooner it was over the better, as far as she was concerned.

Neither of them had the energy to go down to the river to catch eels or
a trout for dinner, and so they dug up cabbage-tree and bracken roots
and put them in the embers to bake.

The sunset that night was spectacular, lighting Ruapehu with a warm
rose glow, but as the heat of the day faded Emma realised that the
volcanic plateau they were now on was considerably cooler than the
lower reaches of the Whanganui River had been.

Rima was still fast asleep, wrapped in both her own bedroll and Emma's,
so when Ben suggested that Emma take his bedroll, it seemed only fair
that they should share it.

"Until Rima wakes up," Emma amended for the sake of propriety, as she
sat down beside him and arranged the blanket over her shoulders.  The
fire took care of warming her bare toes.

"Of course."

They lay back, not quite touching, saying nothing as they Watched the
sky darkening.  Emma felt inexplicably happy.

"Would you tell me, Mr.  Morgan, about your childhood?"

She felt him turn his head to look at her.

"Why would you want to hear about my childhood, Mrs.  Johnson?"  The
amusement in his voice warmed her.

"Because you understand about Rima--what her life has been like.  Was
your life like that?"

For a while she didn't think he would answer.

Then he said, "No.  Not at all.  My mother died when I was very young,
but I had a father.  And we used to have a lot of money, even given
that we were farmers--my family have been in New South Wales for
generations, and my mother brought a big dowry out with her from
England.  It wasn't a deprived childhood, if that's what you're
thinking."

"I'm sorry about your mother," she said softly.

"Don't be.  I don't remember anything about her.

Besides, I had lots of replacements."

The sudden edge to his Voice alerted her.  Propping herself up on one
elbow, she looked for, and found, the bias6 gleam in his eyes that
always saddened her.

"I remember my mother, and she could never be replaced."

"Yeah?  Well, apparently mine could be.  Only my father called them
housekeepers, and they all became like part of the family.  They even
shared my father's bed, that's how close we all were.  God knows how
many he went through over the years;

some of them stayed only a night.  They were convict women, mostly, in
those days--there are precious few women that aren't in New South
Wales.

When I was fourteen one of them started sleeping in my bed and that's
when my father decided to kick me out and send me as far away as he
could.  He took me down to the docks and put me on the first ship out.
Didn't even ask where it was going."

"Didn't he care?"  she gasped.

"No.  And if I'd been him, I wouldn't have, either."

"How horrid for you."

"No, it wasn't "horrid" for me," he said, mimicking the school girlish
dismay in her voice.

"I

never went hungry, I wasn't beaten or abused..."

"But you weren't loved!"

He threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh, Mrs.  Johnson.  No, of course I wasn't loved.  But most children
aren't anyway.  At least I saw the world, trained as a surveyor and
learned how to earn a crust, and I had the best education the school of
life can give you.  I count myself a lucky man to be disabused of any
romantic slop that early in my life.

Hell, my fatheR still hasn't been.  So save your pity for someone who
needs it, please!"

But he didn't fool her, not for a moment.  Twice today he had revealed
the man beneath the harsh exterior, and she now knew that the softness
of his heart was equalled only by his determination not to reveal it.
She snuggled down beside him under the blanket with a small smile.  She
had better be careful---she could almost come to like the man!

Chapter Eight

It took them another day to follow the river through the high plateau.
There were many tributaries to the Whanganui River to negotiate at this
point but, after the long spell of dry weather, they were relatively
easy to cross.

Emma found that the travelling was more pleasant than she could have
imagined.  Certainly they never seemed to have quite enough to eat, and
she hated having to rely on the inadequate shelter of trees during a
shower, and she would have sold her soul for a hot bath.  But they
stopped so frequently for Ben to take measurements that they never grew
too tired, and the scenery was so breathtaking that she was genuinely
sorry when they at last lost sight of the quiet volcanoes behind the
steep hills.

What was best, though, was the new camaraderie that began to develop
between the three of them.

Rima's feelings about Ben seemed to have taken a complete about-turn,
and she now idolised him, running after him like a small, eager puppy.
He was now "Pen', which was the closest she could come to pronouncing
his name, and her English was coming along in leaps and bounds as she
struggled to communicate with him.  Emma had been a little hurt at
first, but then she remembered what Ben had said about Rima having been
starved of a man's kindness.

Besides, she found Ben's reaction most intriguing.

It had always been her experience that only a few men could resist the
adoration of a small girl, and Ben was certainly not one of those
select few.

To her enormous relief he was able to redraw his mined maps, without
the loss of any vital information.

She supposed that he would be paid very handsomely for the completed
survey maps--certainly they involved such risks that he deserved a
fortune for them.

In a wide, densely forested valley the river divided into two and they
followed the southern branch as it meandered back around the volcanic
plateau.  The river now fell from a myriad of shallow rapids.  The
contributing streams were mountain-fed and delicious to drink from,
ice-cold and crystal-clear.

One evening they made camp on the foothills of yet another mountain
range.  As dusk fell Emma stood by the campfire, hands on aching hips,
staring at the jagged peaks.  For the first time in the almost two
weeks that they had been travelling she acknowledged to herself that
she was tired, and sore from sleeping on the hard ground.

And hungry, she thought wryly, contemplating the task of digging up yet
more roots for their dinner.

There were no eels to be found in the clear, swift-running river or its
tributaries--they preferred the mud.  Ben had been surprisingly good at
catching pukakhos and wekas, launching a flying tackle on the hapless
birds as they foraged, but now the ground was more open, without the
undergrowth the flightless birds loved.  Her mouth watered at the
thought of bird stew and She shook her head at the futile thoughts.  A
mug of hot water would keep hunger at bay for a while at least.

"Hemma, Hemma, come quickly!"  Rima called, her voice shrill with
excitement.  Emma found her crouched over what looked like a small fire
under a rock, prodding at it with a stick.

"How did you start a fire?"  she began, and then realised that it was
not smoke but steam rising from the fissure.  As Rima continued to dig,
bubbling mud began to trickle gently from the ground.

"Geothermal heat," Ben said; when they showed him.

"We must be very near the lake now."

Looking more closely at the hills, Emma could see that what she had
taken for mist was in fact small wisps of steam seeping palely from
under the rocks on the hillsides.  Excitement built in her.  Over those
hills, perhaps, and there would be Lake Taupo.  And then ... and then
what?  She had deliberately blocked all thoughts of the future from her
mind this last week.  Somehow she had been content to simply travel.

She watched as Ben filled a billy with water from the river and showed
Rima how the hot mud heated it just as effectively as a fire.  He was a
kind man, she thought, as well as protective and charming--on
occasion--and his sense of adventure was contagious.  Since Rima's
rescue he had been on his best behaviour, and she had nothing with
which to reproach him.  And yet sometimes her restlessness was so
overwhelming that she found it a struggle to contain it.  The strange
erotic dreams that plagued her had continued, although she had learned
to wake herself up as soon as they started.  But sometimes at night,
when she lay next to Rima and watched Ben asleep across the campfire,
she almost burned in tot-mem.

Madness, she told herself, madness!  But still she had to fight every
instinct that was telling her to go to him.  To take his hand and lead
him down by the river and finish what they had begun on that other
starry night.

Ben stood up abruptly.

"What is it?"  she asked.

He frowned, studying the misty hills.

"I thought I heard something.  Walt here."

Together they watched him wade across the river and disappear into the
forest.

"Hemma, I am scared!"  Rima said, and although Emma tightened her arm
around her, she did not trust herself to speak.  She felt the small
hairs lift on the back of her neck, so strong was the sensation that
they were being watched.

He seemed to be gone a very long time.  Aware of Rima's growing fears,
Emma forced a smile to her lips.

"Let's see if your water is boiling in the mud, shall we?"

When she turned around she was mere inches away from the heavily
tattooed face of a Maofl warrior.

Rima screamed and buried her face against Emma's side.  Her terror--and
the obvious look of fascination on the warrior's face--gave Emma
Courage.

"Term koe," she managed to say.

He grinned widely, white teeth startling against the dark-pigmented
decorative whorls on his cheeks.

"Bon your, madame."

She felt her jaw drop.

"You speak French?  English?"

The warrior frowned, plainly confused, and so she tried again, this
time in Maori.

"Where did you come from?"

He smiled again and gestured towards the hills.

Behind him more warriors emerged from behind the trees but she could
see that they were clearly a hunting party, not intent on war.  They
surrounded her, feeling her dress, touching her red hair where it
escaped from under her bonnet.  Their comments were admiring and
curious, and she knew She had little to fear from them.  Even Rima
began to visibly relax.

She began to worry again when Ben reappeared from across the river,
accompanied by another party of Maori warriors.  But to her amazement
he seemed to be quite at ease with them.

"They're from the lake," he told her.

"Very friendly.  They'll take us over to their settlement in the
morning."

"How do you know that?"  she demanded.

He shrugged.

"That's the odd thing--they don't speak English, but they've got a few
words of French.  There's a Frenchman living on the north side of the
lake, apparently.  The Maoris don't like him much, but they're prepared
to take us across the lake to meet him."  He grinned at her expression,
"I take it you don't speak French, Mrs.  Johnson."

"And you do?"

"I do.  Remember that ship I told you about that my father put me on in
Sydney?  I ended up in Marseilles."

He turned away as one of the warriors asked him something in the odd
garbled tongue that was Maori-French, and that was almost
indecipherable to her.  All she knew of the language was that the
Whanganui Maori had called the French Wiwi.

In the end, they ate very well that evening, on weka and kumara wrapped
in flax and cooked until tender in the boiling mud.  The warriors were
indeed friendly, and eager to answer any questions.  They were the
Ngati Tuwharetoa and so she glossed over the time that she had lived
with their old enemies down the river.  Tactful questioning on her part
revealed that they were not planning to carry out their threat to sweep
down the Whanganui in their war canoes in the near future.  However,
knowing the Maori as she did, it was probably only a matter of time
before the old grievance--whatever it had been--would resurface.

The next morning they set off for the lake.  The Maoris, somewhat
amused by Ben's insistence on following the river to its source,
watched intrigued as he took his measurements and drew his maps.  It
was a large, good-natured party to be travelling with, and Emma began
to thoroughly enjoy herself.

It was still only mid-morning when they scaled the last hill and saw
Lake Taupo lying spread before them, huge and enchantingly azure under
the summer sky.  Emma thought Rima's eyes would pop from her head at
the sight of so much water in one place.  There was something
distinctly mystical about Taupo, with its gleaming haziness and blue
hills.  She could just make out the hills across the lake to the north
where the warriors told her the Frenchman had built a house.  It
appeared that Ben's comments that the Maoris didn't like the Frenchman
was something of an understatement.  The Wiwi was porangi, the Maoris
said.  Mad.  They spat when they said the word, making her feel most
uneasy.  Yet the thought of seeing another European face filled her
with excitement.

The Maoris waited patiently for Ben to finish before leading the way
along the lakefront to the pa.

Here they were received formally and warmly.

Emma, with Rima attached firmly to her skirt, was taken away to sit
with the women, and she left with some misgivings.  What if Ben said or
did something to annoy this tribe?  Fortunately, Ben's command of the
Maori language was extremely limited, and the Maoris spoke only a
little French, so most of the male conversation was conducted in
sign-language.

From what she could make of the gestures the subjects seemed to be
limited to the universal male obsessions of food, fighting and
fornication, so she could only hope that Ben managed to avoid giving
offence on any of those subjects.

The women of the tribe were as delightful as the Whanganui women had
been, and made her just as welcome.  They had traded freely with
Europeans for some time now, and the evidence of this was apparent in
the pots and blankets in their whares, and in the European dresses some
of them wore.  But she could find out little about the Frenchman across
the lake, apart from the fact that he was not a recent arrival.
According to the women, the Wiwi had rejected all attempts by the local
tribe to be friendly, and the Ngati Tuwharetoa were now too offended to
continue trying.

With mischievous giggles the women pointed out many items of clothing
they wore, a cache of clothes pegs and even a washboard.  It appeared
that they made frequent raids on the Wiwi's washing line as retribution
for his slights.  She examined a dress they showed her, an exquisitely
worked concoction of velvet and lace, of the kind that only very
wealthy women could afford and very much in vogue.  How odd to see it
here, in this dark whare, lying on the dirt floor!

"So the Wiwi has a wife?"  she asked and they nodded and tapped their
heads meaningfully.  The wife was as crazy as her husband and would
chase away anyone who dared to come close.  If she caught you--and ai!
Was she fast!--she would beat you with a broom.  But if you were clever
and stayed out of reach she would throw things, handy things, like
buckets and shoes.  It sounded like a vastly enter-taming game, albeit
one-sided, and Emma felt a twinge of sympathy for this poor, unknown
woman, trying to keep her beautiful possessions out of the grasp of the
marauding locals.

"I'd like to meet this woman," she told them, and they nodded and said
yes, certainly, the next day they would take her.  It was all being
arranged.

Tree to their word, a canoe was prepared before dawn and a large
contingent of Maoris took Ben, Emma and Rima across the lake.  The
journey took hours but the warriors made it seem effortless, paddling
the huge, ornately carved canoe in time to a rhythmic chant.  There was
not a breath of wind and they seemed to be skimming over blue glass, so
smooth was the water.  Watching the dense forest slide by So swiftly
was a novel experience for Emma after days of walking.

She had prepared as best she could, washing Rima's shift and the better
of her black dresses, and leaving them to hang overnight to avoid
creasing.

Her bonnet was too badly torn from days of walking through the bush to
wear, and so she had been forced to restrain her hair in a neat bun at
her nape.

She was satisfied that they looked as respectable as was possible,
given the circumstances.

Ben was wearing his old moleskin trousers, and the shirt he was
wearing--while it had been roomy on Thomas--was rather close-fitting on
him.  But at least it was clean.  He was crouched in the bow of the
canoe, swiftly sketching the terrain, occasionally checking his
compass.  As they approached the north shore he packed away his
equipment with movements that had a distinct air of finality about
them.

Watching him as carefully as she was, she saw the tension leave his
shoulders and, when he caught her eye, he smiled broadly.

"You've finished," she stated unnecessarily.

"I have."  The satisfaction was evident in his voice.

"Have you decided which way you..."  she hesitated and then continued
'we should return?"

He was silent as he studied the nearing shore.  The spray from the oars
had dampened and tangled his hair, and his dark stubble had grown to be
almost a beard.  He had never looked so ruffianly, as SCruffy and as
utterly desirable as he did then.  She bit hard on her lip and dragged
her eyes away.

"I don't honestly know yet, Mrs.  Johnson.  If we go by the fastest
route back down the river, we run the risk of these very nice people
offering to take US."

She hadn't thought of that.  It would, of course, provide the Ngati
Tuwharetoa with the perfect excuse to escort them down the Whanganui
with a war-party, and her own tribe would scarcely overlook the
provocation.  However, the Frenchman must have come by an alternative
route, and he would surely have supplies brought in on a regular
basis.

He would be able to advise them with confidence.

They landed at a long, sandy bay on the north shore.

"Up there is the Wiwi," one of the warriors told Emma.  He showed her a
well-beaten path through the forest.

"On top of the hill.  We will wait here a while if you should decide to
come back with us.

We could take you to the Wiwi ourselves, but..."

He grinned and tapped his head in the by-now familiar gesture.  She
translated for Ben, who nodded and gave his thanks in French.

"After all," he commented to Emma, 'we may be no more welcome to him
than the Maoris.  Anyone who would choose to live all alone out here
has to be a bit ... what's the word they use?"

"Porangi.  '

"Yeah.  Porangi Or a missionary."  He slung their bags over his back
and grinned at her scowl.

"Well, let's go and meet this lunatic."

There were steps cut into the hill, making the climb easy.  On the brow
of the hill the path widened abruptly and the three of them came to a
halt.

"Good God," Ben whispered.

"It's a bloody chateau!"

Small, neatly pruned bay trees bordered the dirt path, leading to a
pair of huge iron gates.  Although the gates were closed, and looked to
have been for a long time, they presented no obstacle, as there was no
fence on either side.  Beyond lay what Ben had described as a chateau,
and indeed it was obviously intended to be a scaled-down replica of
such a building.  It had a turret either side, small battlements along
the roof line, and long, narrow windows.

The veranda at the rear, and the fact that it had been built in wood
and not stone, were almost the only acknowledgements that the house was
in New Zealand and not in France.  Despite its sheer eccentricity, it
was a grand house by anyone's standards, and absolutely the last thing
Emma had ever expected to see so many miles from civilisation.

They negotiated their way around the iron gates and walked up the path.
The garden had been formally set out in the European manner, with low
boxwood hedges and carefully measured plantings, but it was clear that
the introduced plants were straggling to survive in the acid volcanic
soils.  Set among the gardens were stone plinths, even an unadorned
fountain, and Emma thought it a safe guess that the missing statues had
been irresistible to the Maoris.

"So much work," she said under her breath to Ben, as they approached
the wide steps leading up to the front doors.

"But it's all rather..."

"Futile?"  he suggested quietly, and she nodded.

The doors were flung open with a flourish as they reached the bottom
step, and the man who was without doubt the owner of the house stood
there, his arms spread wide in welcome.  A man of perhaps fifty,
shorter even than Emma, with carefully arranged white hair and small
beard, he carried himself with an air of great dignity.  Immaculately
attired in dark trousers and jacket, he could have that moment stepped
straight from a Parisian salon.

"Bon your, mes amis' he boomed in a voice that was much larger than his
frame.

"I am the Baron de Visceni.  Welcome to my humble home."

Ben held out his hand.

"Thank you, sir.  My name is Benedict Morgan."

"Ah, welcome, welcome!"  The small man pumped his hand
enthusiastically.

"Aa Englishman, are you not" "I'm from New South Wales," Ben confessed,
and the Baron beamed even more widely.

"Delighted, sir, delighted!  And this lovely lady... ?"

"My wife," Ben said without a second's hesitation.

Emma had no time to object before the Baron swept her hand up to his
lips.

"Enchante, madame.  My wife will be delighted to meet another lady!
Please, both of you, come in!

Come in!"

They were ushered in so swiftly that Emma only just had time to grab
Rima before the door shut behind them.  They stood in a reception room
that was two floors high, panelled in dark wood.  The only light came
from the long windows, which were heavily draped in dark velvet.  The
dusty light' shone dully on a vast chandelier and highlighted the deep,
rich colours of the thick rags on the polished floor.

A woman stepped forward from the shadows.

Taller than her husband, she had the narrow, stern face of an
aristocrat.  Under her plain, beautifully cut black dress her back was
ramrod-straight.  Large diamond rings glittered on her fingers and at
her ears.

Wondering how much notice the Baroness had had that visitors were
arriving, or whether she always dressed like that, Emma automatically
made a small curtsy.  The Baroness's severe features softened
perceptibly.

"How kind of you to call," she said graciously, her voice as heavily
accented as her husband's, as she extended a few fingers to them
both--scented fingers, Emma noted.

"I am sure you would both like some refreshments after your journey?
"She spoke as if they had simply been passing by, instead of struggling
to this destination for weeks.

"Thank you," Emma said gratefully.

"That would be wond--' "Oh," the Baroness interrupted sharply.  She had
been turning towards one of the doors leading from the reception hall
but stopped abruptly as she saw Rima for the first time.  Her fine,
high-bridged nose wrinkled as if an unpleasant smell had wafted past.

"I see you have a child with you.  Would you care to leave her
outside?"

Ben reached over and ruffled Rima's hair.

"This is Rima, our daughter," he said with a disarming smile.

"I'm sure she'd like something to drink too, madame."

"Your child?"  There was a long silence in which Emma was sure that a
multitude of possibilities passed through the Baroness's mind.
Eventually she sniffed and nodded.

"This way, please."

The salon she led them to was as dark as the reception room, with
brocaded, overstuffed furniture and heavy curtains.  With an elegant
wave of her hand the Baroness indicated that they be seated, and tugged
on the bell-pull.  Emma sat stiffly on a small armchair, taking care to
tuck her muddy and battered boots beneath her skirt.  Ben took a chair
opposite, pulling the stunned Rima on to his knee as if it was the most
natural gesture in the world to him.  Only Emma knew that it was to
prevent Rima from flying around the room exploring.

When no servant had appeared after a minute or two, the Baroness
excused herself, and the Baron, insisting that a stronger drink was
called for, busied himself with pouring brandy into two large bowls for
himself and Ben.  While the Baron was thus occupied, Emma leaned
forward.

"Mr.  Morgan..."

"Yes, Mrs.  Morgan."  And the warning in his eyes was so explicit that
her words of protest died.  She sat back unhappily.  It was wrong to
lie, and goodness only knew what would come of this pretence, but she
had come to trust Ben's judgement by now.

If he was choosing not to tell the Baron and his wife the troth, then
he must have a very good reason for it.

Besides, she reflected, as she watched the Baron press a huge brandy on
to Ben, this was a most peculiar situation.

"Now, my friends," said the Baron jovially as he took a seat.

"This is such an unexpected pleasure.

Please tell me how you happen to arrive here?"

Ben took an appreciative swig of his brandy and settled down in his
chair, his grip on Rima tight-erring slightly as she tried to inch her
way free.

"My wife and I were looking to farm in this area.  We had hoped that
there would be some settlements around here but--' he gave an admiring
nod at their elegant surroundings '--we had no idea that we would find
this degree of civilisation."

The Baron beamed proprietarily.

"Well, I dare say I could make you a grant of a nice piece of land to
break in..."

"We were certainly not looking to infringe upon your own land," Ben
broke in, and the Baron laughed.

"My dear young man!  But this is all my land."

"Oh?"  Ben leaned forward politely.

"How far does your land extend, sir?"

For the first time the Baron looked slightly offended.

"How far?  How far can you see, Mr.  Morgan?

This is all my land.  My country.  I am the Emperor of New Zealand!"

Chapter Nine

Emma stared unhappily at herself in the gilt-edged mirror.  The old,
mellow glass threw back a softly flattering reflection, but there was
no hiding the ruin that the harsh New Zealand sun had wrought on her
complexion.  So much for remembering to wear her bonnet all the
time--it had not stopped her from tanning.  She touched her cheeks and
frowned.

Freckles!  She had not had those since she was a child.

There were pots of cosmetics on the dressing-table, and she turned to
look among them for a whitening cream.  Then she stopped, her hand
hovering in mid-air.  This was vanity, one of the sins she had been
most guilty of before she married Thomas.

Resolutely, she turned from the mirror.

The upstairs bedroom that the surly Maori serving girl had shown her to
was huge, panelled in dark wood like the rest of the house, and
opulently furnished.

The big bed with its ornately carved posts looked inviting after months
of sleeping on the hard ground, and Rima had bounced up and down on it
most enthusiastically before falling asleep.  Emma had covered her with
a feather down quilt.  She was almost tempted to lie down beside
her--it was still two hours before dinner---but somehow she knew that
even a nap would not be achievable in her present state of mind.

Hot water had been brought to the room and she had washed and changed
into one of the dresses that the Baroness had very kindly lent her.
Dark green, with a collar of ivory lace, it was as lovely as any of the
dresses she had owned in her life before her marriage, and it needed
only a little pinning to shorten the skirt.  The silk felt luxurious
under her fingers and she could not resist a little spin to feel its
soft weight against her legs.

From the mullioned windows she could see Ben and the Baron strolling in
the beautiful, sickly garden.

Snatches of their conversation, in French, drifted up to her on the
still air.  Ben had his head bent down towards the Baron, his face
intent, and she wondered what they were talking about.  It was odd to
have the tables turned on her, and not to be able to understand a word
they were saying.

Rima muttered in her sleep and Emma came to stand over her as she
slept, tenderness threatening to overwhelm her at the sight of the
weary little dark head on the big white pillow.  Ben had blithely
ignored all the Baroness's pointed comments about the child being
happier downstairs with the Maori servants, and so Rima had remained
with her 'par-ems'.

Dragging her eyes away, she turned and ran her fingers admiringly over
the collection of small figurines above the mantelpiece, over the
gold-embossed spines of the books--all in French----on the bedside
table.  A vase of full-blown crimson roses, the first she had seen
since Sydney, lent their heady scent to the warm air.  Under her feet
the thick Persian mg felt seductively soft and she curled her toes into
its depths in bliss.  She could not recall ever being in a house as
splendidly furnished as this.  It was a house befitting an Emperor, she
supposed.  It was a folly, a glorious piece of whimsy... And yet
something about the Baron's whimsy deeply dismayed her, although she
could not say what that something was.  The Baron was quite delightful
and the Baroness, while colder in manner, had been both gracious and
hospitable.  Perhaps they were both what they seemed, a charming,
eccentric aristocratic couple who had chosen to claim sovereignty over
a country that no one else appeared to want.  Eventually, of course,
circumstances would force common Sense upon them, but in the meantime,
was there really any harm in their fantasy?

There came the sound of Ben's quick footsteps on the stairs.  Closing
the door behind him, he studied the luxurious room with a from.

"I see the Baroness has made you very comfortable here."

Emma fiddled nervously with the collar at her throat as she saw him
look at the only bed in the room.

"I ... I believe we're intended to share the room, Mr.  Morgan--' "I'll
be perfectly comfortable in the chaff," he broke in evenly.  Then, as
he drew towards her, he screwed up his nose.

"What's that smell?  It's not you, is it?"

She looked around her, puzzled.

"I don't know.

The roses... ?"

"That's them."  To her horror he grabbed the gorgeous things out of
their vase and tossed them out of the window.

"I can't abide the stink of the things," he said by way of
explanation.

"Promise you'll never wear rose water around me, Mrs.  Johnson?

"I doubt that I'll ever have the opportunity," she said, quite taken
aback by his odd behaviour.  Perhaps the eccentricity of the de
Viscenis was infectious.

He stayed by the window, staring down at the garden below, and for the
first time she realised that he was distinctly uneasy.

"I don't think we should stay here past tonight," he said slowly,
confirming her suspicions.

She thought of the comfortable bed awaiting her that night.  Of the hot
water brought to her room earlier, the soft clothes on her back, the
thick carpet under her toes, the delicious smell of dinner wafting up
from the kitchen.  The small moan of dismay that escaped her lips was
entirely voluntary.

Ben moved away from the light in the window.

"I take it you like it here, Mrs.  Johnson."

"The Baron and his wife have been more than kind."  She came closer,
dropping her voice.

"But I don't understand why you're insisting that we say we're
married."

"You don't understand why I didn't introduce you as a missionary's
widow I picked up along the Whanganui River, and with whom I've been
sleeping every night this last couple of weeks?"

Emma swallowed her embarrassment.

"I would hardly describe our relationship as that..."

"I'm sure you wouldn't, but I think our hosts would."  He took her by
the shoulders and lowered his voice to a tense whisper.

"Listen to me, madam.

Charming as our host may be, he hates the New Zealand Company.  He
hates the English.  He hates the missionaries.  He hates the Maoris.
Have I left anyone out?  The only reason we've been asked to stay here
is because we're the only white faces they've seen in months and
because I'm an honest farmer from New South Wales.  Everyone else is
out to steal his country away from him, as far as he can see!"

She stared at him blankly.

"But they've both been so kind to us!"

"Because you had the good manners to curtsy to the Baroness and because
neither of us had the face to tell them they're both insane.  The Baron
firmly believes he is the Emperor of New Zealand by divine right."  He
gave her a little shake as she made a scornful face.

"Yes, you can humour him, and treat him like some kind of harmless
eccentric.  Except that I think he might be more than that."

"What are you saying?"

"That I think he might carry things too far.  And that we ought to get
out as soon as we can."

Emma sank down on to the edge of the bed, holding on to the bedpost for
support.

"Mr.  Morgan, why do I have the feeling that you're not telling me
everything?"

He sat down beside her, careful not to wake Rima.

"There's a treaty that's being signed this month at Waitangi, in the
far north, between most of the North Island tribes and the British
Government.

Have you heard of it?"  She shook her head.

"They were talking about it when I left Wellington in January.  There
was a lot to be sorted out, and the Missionary Society are interfering
in there as well, but there's every reason to believe that it will be
signed--if it hasn't been already--and that New Zealand is now a colony
of Britain.  Which leaves our friend the Emperor without a country to
rule."

She rested her head wearily against the bedpost.

It had taken so long to get here.  It was as if all the trials and
stresses of the long journey had suddenly caught up with her.

"And you want us to leave before he finds out."

"Yes."

Cautiously, as if not to frighten her, he took her chin in his hand and
made her meet his eyes.  His fingers against her skin were warm and
calloused and, to her dismay, she felt a strong lurch of desire shoot
through her stomach.  She could only pray that nothing of her
consternation showed in her expression.

"Trust me," Ben said softly, as if she had any choice in the matter.

Dinner was served promptly at eight o'clock, with an elegance that
quite took Emma's breath away.  In the long dining-room the crimson
velvet curtains had been drawn against the dark, and candlelight
glittered on the chased silver utensils that were laid with precision
on an ornate damask tablecloth.  They took their seats with due
formality, assisted by the Maori servants, each of whom was dressed in
the smart red livery of the Emperor of New Zealand.

The servants stood in the shadows, unobtrusive and silent.  When Emma
smiled at the young girl who filled her soup plate the girl
deliberately averted her eyes, her expression distinctly unfriendly.

"They're from Auckland," the Baroness said when Emma asked.

"I wouldn't have any of the local natives in this house.  They're all
thieves, all of them.

But at least none of these servants have relatives living nearby that
they can pass stolen property to."

She sighed dramatically and threw an accusatory look in the direction
of her husband at the other end of the table.

"You can have no idea of what we have to put up with here.  None at
all."

Emma glanced at the servants but, if they had understood the Baroness's
English speech, they gave no sign of it.  Not, Emma thought, that the
Baroness would have cared if they had.

In the hour before dinner, Emma had taken the precaution of requesting
cutlery from the kitchen and had given Rima intensive instruction in
how to eat at a table.  While she was sure that Rima would be well
looked after in the kitchen while she and Ben ate, she didn't want to
give the Baroness any excuse to separate her from the child.

"If you don't know what to do, just watch how Mr.  Morgan and I eat,"
she had advised Rima, correcting her grip on the fork for the umpteenth
time.

Rima had nodded, scowling fiercely with concentration as she pulled
apart the piece of bread they had been practicing on with the tines of
her fork.

"And Rima..."  Emma had hesitated, and then plunged on.

"If the servants should ask you about us, the baron and his wife call
me Mrs.  Morgan.

They ... they think I'm married to Mr.  Morgan."

Rima glanced up at her in surprise.

"You are married to him."

"Why do you say that?"

"You lie with Pen.  You're Pen's wife.  I don't mind now.  I probably
won't try to kill him anymore."

"Good," Emma had said weakly, wondering how she was ever going to adapt
Rima to polite society.

"And'do you know what Mr.  Morgan does, Rima?"

"He makes pictures."  Rima had looked around for the sealskin bag, but
Ben had taken the precaution of placing his maps in what looked like a
little-used upper cupboard in the bedroom.

"No, he's a farmer.  He works in a mahinga."

Which wasn't a lie, exactly.  He had been a farmer in New South Wales
and might well be again, one day.  And it was crucial that Rima not let
slip to the other Maoris that he was a surveyor.  But Rima had
shrugged, uninterested, and begun to attack the piece of bread again.

After the expectations that had been built up by the beautifully laid
table, the meal itself was a little disappointing.  Kumara soup,
indifferently stewed duck with more kumara, a salad of wilted puha-but
Emma was grateful for food that she had not had to kill or cook herself
and so she took pleasure in dining off the fine, gold-rimmed plates and
sipping the finest wines she had ever tasted from the array of crystal
glasses before her.  For the Emperor's wine collection was, by his own
boast, perhaps the best in the South Pacific.  With a different wine
for each of the four courses, Emma began to feel decidedly mellow as
the evening progressed.

She was careful, however, to keep her wits about her and follow the
background that Ben had created, that of a would-be farmer and his
wife, looking for a desirable place to settle in the central North
Island.

Fortunately, the Baron did most of the talking, breaking frequently
into French.  The baroness said little, apart from the occasional sharp
admonition in French to the servants.  That Emma plainly did not
understand a word of their language did not seem to concern either of
the de Viscenls.

Rima's presence was also ignored by their hosts, but she was doing
remarkably well, requiring only a little help from Emma to cut up her
duck.  When the final course arrived, of candied fruit and tiny
bonbons, Rima was almost beside herself with delight.

"Do you eat them?"  she whispered to Emma, as an exquisite
chocolate-coated confection was placed on her plate.  At Emma's nod she
took a tiny nibble and a look of utter bliss spread over her face.

Emma raised her head to find Ben watching them both, his eyes alight
with amusement.  He had shaved, and without the softening effect of
facial hair, his face was all harsh masculinity.  His smile, then, was
all the more potent, and Emma found her breath catching in her throat
at the sight.  I love him, she thought, and then scoffed at herself for
the very idea.  Love?  She had never been in love in her life.

She had become fond of him, that was all.  These weeks of closeness,
and he had been very kind to her and to Rima... So why did she feel
such a compulsion to touch him?  To go into his arms and lay her head
on his chest, to kiss him and stroke his beautiful, roughened skin and
then... It was lust.  That was all it was.  Another vice to overcome,
like those of vanity and her love of luxury.

She remembered Thomas and felt her resolve strengthen.  Ben's eyes left
hers and he reached across the table to remove Emma's glass from Rima's
hand.

"Wine is not a good idea for little girls."

The previously full glass was completely empty.

"Rima, no!  Hei aha?  You have water to drink."

Rima smirked.

"I want some more."  As Emma shook her head Rima glowered and kicked at
her chair.  It was clear that her period of good behaviour was over.

"Ka nui tenei.  That's enough, Rima."

As gracefully as she could, Emma excused herself and took Rima
upstairs.  By the time they reached the bedroom door Rima was yawning
hugely and it was the work of a few minutes to wash her hands and face
and tuck her up in bed.  Emma sat quietly on the bed for a while,
watching the faint flickering of the lamp on the bedside table.
Downstairs she could hear the Baron laughing uproariously at something
Ben said.  From the kitchen came the gentle, domestic noises of
clattering plates and the hum of Maori voices.  It felt so strange to
be in a European household again, and nowhere near as pleasant as she
had thought it would be.  Again, she felt a niggling sense of unease at
the elegant artifice that was the Baron's empire.  Something was very
wrong, and she was sure Ben knew what it was.

When at last she was sure that Rima was soundly asleep, she went
downstairs to find the Baroness waiting for her.

"We shall leave the gentlemen to their brandy," she said coolly,
cutting through Emma's stammered apologies.  Emma followed her into the
small sitting-room, where a pot of strong coffee awaited them.

Admiring the Baroness's embroidery at hand filled a few minutes but, as
the Baroness tended to respond to all questions in monosyllables,
conversation was a struggle.

"Do you prefer New Zealand to France, Baroness?"

Emma asked, taking the cup the baroness had poured for her.

"No."

"This is a particularly beautiful part of the country, don't you
agree?"

"It is wild and full of savages."  The Baroness picked up her
embroidery hoop and began to stitch a European landscape with small,
perfect stitches.  It had begun to dawn on Emma that the Frenchwoman
much preferred her own company.  She drank her coffee in silence,
hoping that Ben would not be long.  A small yawn escaped her attempt to
stifle it, and at once the Baroness laid down her hoop.

"You are tired, Mrs.  Morgan."

"Well, yes, I am a little..."

"Then you have my permission to retire."

Emma felt as if she should back out of the room, curtsying as she went.
In their bedroom Rima was still soundly asleep, but Emma felt far too
restless to join her.

After an hour or so she heard the servants moving around the house
extinguishing the lights for the night, but there was still no sign of
Ben.  Outside a full moon hovered, illuminating billows of milky steam.
Emma remembered the ornamental hot pools their hosts had shown them
that afternoon in the gardens at the rear of the house.  One pool, in
particular, had been landscaped for bathing.  Suddenly the thought of
hot, clean water was too tempting to resist.  Taking a towel, she made
her way carefully down the stairs and past the dining-room, where the
men were still talking quietly in French.

She had no need of a lamp to find the pool she was looking for.  On one
side a small half-wall provided privacy from the house, and the forest
overhung the pool on the other side.  The night was still, with only
the steady bubbling hiss of the hot underground fountains to break the
silence.  She undressed and stepped down into the pool, easing herself
slowly into the hot water until she was sitting on a submerged rock.
She felt the heat gradually suffuse through her body, soothing the
aches from her tired muscles.  Such luxury, such absolute bliss!

After a while it became a little too hot for comfort, and she moved
higher up the rock, to where the water was waist-high.  The moon had
moved higher in the sky, almost eclipsing the stars, and she tilted her
head back to watch, marvelling at the soft, magical light it threw over
the forest.  She could almost believe she was a part of the magic, a
mermaid perhaps, or no---a nymph of the forest.  She felt wanton and
free with the cold air on her breasts and the warm water caressing her
legs.  She shook her head, loving the feel of her hair falling free
down her back.  Fleetingly, she wondered what Thomas would have made of
this behaviour and, for the first time, found that she didn't care.

She lowered her eyes and only slowly made out the dark outline of a
man, seated on the low stone wall around the pool, watching her.  With
a gasp she slipped down into the water, even as she registered that the
man was Ben.

"What are you doing here?"  she spluttered.

"Looking for you.  I thought I'd better try to find you myself before
raising the alarm with our hosts."

He spoke slowly, with the careful precision of the very drank.

"You have beautiful breasts, Mrs.  Johnson.

Perfectly round.  That's rare in a woman."

She twisted around so that her back was to him.

"You must leave, Mr.  Morgan," she told him, but her voice sounded
hollow even to her ears.

"Yes, I should.  I'm sorry.  Only ... I can't help wanting you, Mrs.
Johnson.  More than I've ever wanted any other woman, and that's the
troth.  I want you, and I can't have you, and I think it's killing
me."

Despite the heat of the water a slow shiver of desire ran through her.
She stared up at the glowing sky and thought--why not?  I want him and
he wants me, and it's not as if he was the first... Why should I keep
on pretending that I am what I'm not?

Her words came out in a shaky rash.

"If you want me, Ben, then you.."  can have me."

The only answer she received was the quiet bubbling of the water.

"Ben?"

When she turned around he had gone, leaving her feeling foolish and
frustrated.  At least he wasn't there to hear the names she called
herself, names she had learned from the dockside taverns of Sydney.

Chapter Ten

As usual, common sense asserted itself with the light of day.  She had
no idea where Ben had spent the night, but when she and Rima came down
to breakfast the next morning he was at the table alone, obviously
nursing a sore head.

"Good morning," he said, rising to his feet.  As Emma took her seat he
remained standing, his eyes awkwardly fixed on the table before her.

"I ... I believe I should apologise for last night..."

"You had far too much to drink, Mr.  Morgan," Emma said calmly.

"And I think we should leave the matter there, don't you?"

He opened and shut his mouth, and then nodded.

"Thank you."

It was a delightful change to have him at a disadvantage for once, and
she thought the previous night's humiliation almost worth it.  The de
Viscenis joined them then, the Baron as expansive and the Baroness as
reserved as the day before.

Breakfast was delicious, consisting of coffee and small, hot rolls
served with strawberry conserve.

The Baron was more inclined to speak in English this morning, and he
chattered away most entertainingly about his library that, he assured
Emma, held many English volumes which she was welcome to read at her
leisure.

"Thank you," Ben broke in over her appreciation, 'but as I said last
night, we really must be leaving today."

Emma was certain she saw a flicker of relief pass over the Baroness's
rigid features, but the Baron looked positively stricken.

"Leave?  But--Mr.  and Mrs.  Morgan--have we not made you welcome?"

"More than welcome, thank you, Baron," Ben said firmly.

"But we must leave."

The Baron threw his small hands up in a Gallic show of horror.

"Back into the wilderness, Mr.  Morgan?

When I have offered you a portion of country here, a beautiful piece of
land?  You and your wife can stay here and build, surely?  I shall
arrange for stock, for seeds to be brought here..."

Ben shook his head.

"Thank you, Baron, but we must go."

The Baron's mouth pursed truculently, and for a second he looked just
like Rima in a tantrum.

"Non!  I forbid it.  You will stay here."  His wife opened her mouth to
speak but he quelled her with a single look.

"You will stay, I order it.  Now, Mrs.  Morgan, you would like to
finish your coffee before I show you my library?"

Perhaps sensing the strained atmosphere between the adults, Rima chose
that moment to abandon her struggle with the spoon and to tip the
entire contents of the conserve jar over her plate.  The Baroness took
this breach of etiquette so seriously that it was easy for Emma to
remove Rima from the table.

"He is joking, isn't he?"  she demanded of Ben when he later joined
them in their bedroom.  Although the de Viscenis remained in the
breakfast-room, she spoke quietly so as not to be overheard.

"He can't stop us leaving--I mean, why would he?"

Ben sat heavily in the armchair.

"He likes us here."

"He likes you here."

"True."  He got to his feet and lifted Rima away from the
dressing-table, where she had been decorating the mirror with face
cream.

"Do that again, Rat," he told her calmly, 'and I'll throw you out the
window.  Do you understand?"

Rima grunted comprehension and he put her down again.

"I think the Baroness would be delighted to see Rima and me go," Emma
said ruefully, grabbing Rima by the collar as the child ran to look out
the window to gauge the length of the drop.

"Yes, I think she probably would," Ben said absently, his attention
caught by some movement on the hills beyond the garden.

"If you can gather together our luggage, we'll leave tonight when it's
dark."

"That's a little rude, don't you think?  To leave without so much as a
"thank you" for all their kindness... "It's the only way to get away
from them, believe me," Ben murmured.  His hand on the windowpane
clenched suddenly into a fist.

"And if this is what I think it is..."

He turned on his heel and left the room.  Emma raised her eyebrows in
puzzlement at Rima.

"I wonder what the problem is?  I'm going to go and ask for a cloth to
clean up the mess you made on the mirror, Rima.  Promise me you won't
touch anything while I'm gone?  Please?"

But the noise emanating from the breakfast-room put all thoughts of
cleaning cloths from her mind.

A Maori she had not seen at the house before met her in the hallway,
desperation to escape clearly written over his face.  Behind him rose a
tirade of French and the sound of crashing plates.  Ben met her at the
breakfast-room door and barred her entry.

"Go back to your room, Emma."

She peered over his shoulder at the ruin of the breakfast table and the
Baroness in tears.

"What has happened?"

"The Auckland papers have arrived."

"Has ... has the treaty been signed?  The one you were talking about?"
she whispered.

"Yes.  Emma, go to your room.  I'll be up later."

Thoroughly unsettled by now, she returned upstairs to find that Rima
had tried to clean the cream from the mirror with a bedsheet.  She
tidied up as best she could, but could find no servants to inquire
about fresh linen.  When she looked out the window she saw them huddled
together Under the trees at the far end of the garden, presumably
waiting until the Baron calmed down.  She couldn't blame them.

Eventually the shouting died down, but there was still no sign of Ben.
Bored with being confined to their room, Emma took Rima on a long walk
along the lakefront to look at the hot mud pools

Hours later, Ben came to find them.

"I'm sorry to have left the house," Emma began, but he cut through her
apologies with a shake of his head.

"It was probably just as well that you did."  He lowered himself to sit
beside her in the shade of a spreading, gold-flowered kowhai tree, from
where she could watch Rima frolicking in the lake a few yards away.  He
looked troubled and tried, and she could not resist touching him
lightly on the sleeve in sympathy.

"Won't you tell me what's going on, Ben?"

A smile curved the weary line of his mouth.

"That's the first time you've called me by my first name, Emma."

It wasn't, quite, but she was hardly going to tell him that.  She
waited patiently and at last he sighed and looked away, across the
lake.

"The Baron declared this country his about four years ago.  As he saw
it, the British didn't want it, the French were only slightly
interested in it, and the Missionary Society had no right to it.  He
advised all three by royal proclamation, and as far as he was
concerned, that was the end of the matter.

"Living out here in isolation, he doesn't seem to have realised that
not only did no one take him seriously, but the British didn't like the
idea of this becoming a colony of France.  Hence the treaty that was
signed last week."

"I see," Emma said slowly.

"No wonder he's so upset.  But there's not much he can do about it
now."

"That's not the way he sees it."  He pointed to where a small canoe was
disappearing into the hazy horizon of the lake.

"That's a messenger from the Baron to the tribes of the southern end of
the lake.

A messenger has already gone to the tribes in the north.  They've all
been summoned here, to a meeting tomorrow.

"None of the tribes in the area have signed the treaty yet.  He
proposes to form them into an army to oust the British and the
missionaries, leaving himself as undisputed ruler of New Zealand."

Emma shook her head, caught between amusement and pity.

"Oh, the poor deluded man!  The Maoris hate him, Ben!  They'll never
agree to it."

"I rather think they will."  He rested his head against the tree trunk
and closed his eyes.

"He showed me his cellar last night, Emma.  Crate upon crate of dries,
boxes of shot, kegs of gunpowder, even a god damned cannon, all for the
Maods if they agree to join him against the British.  There's not much
of an army in the country at the moment--even if they call in the
troops stationed in Tasmania it'll take months before they get here. If
the Baron acts now, before the British start arriving in real numbers,
he can effectively take control."

"You should have told me all this earlier!  All this time I thought he
was just an eccentric old man, but this....t' "Emma, last night I
talked and talked to him until I was blue in the face.  Nothing I
said--nothing anyone says--is going to change his mind.  He's quite
convinced that just arming the tribes will achieve a peaceful surrender
from the British, and that when it's all over, everyone will realise
he's acting in the best interests of all parties.  He's not a bad man,
Emma--just a mad man."  He took her limp hand in his and said urgently,
"We've got to get out of here tonight, as soon as ii's dark.  We'll
take a canoe across the lake and travel back down the Whan-ganui.

It shouldn't take more than a week."

"And the tribes?  What happens to them once they have the Baron's
guns?"

He looked uncomfortable.

"You know what will happen then."

"They'll go to war with each other."

"Emma, stay out of this.  It's none of our business!"

"Yes, it is," she said firmly.

"We must stop it, because no one else is going to be able to.  Somehow
we must get rid of the ammunition and the guns.

The problem is how."

Ben said nothing, but his mouth was white with anger as he turned away
to watch Rima playing contentedly by the lake.  Emma continued to think
aloud.

"If we threw them in the lake---the guns and ammunition, I mean..."

"Too heavy," Ben said shortly.

"There's hundreds of the damn things down there, How d'you propose to
carry them a couple of hundred yards down to the lake in secrecy?"

"Hmm.  The gunpowder is in kegs, though, isn't it?  We can roll them
down to the lake."

"God spare me from well-meaning, interfering missionaries!"  Ben
snarled and got to his feet, but Emma had long since learned that his
tempers were short-lived, and she leapt up to stand beside him, quite
undeterred by the rage in his eyes.

"You know I'm right."

He gave an exasperated sigh.

"Yes, you're right.

You're always bloody right.  Just remember to tell Saint Peter that
when I'm banging on Heaven's gate for admittance, will you?"

She grinned impishly.

"You think they'll let you in?"

"Not a chance."

Without thinking, she stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his lips.

"You're a good man, Ben."

Ben caught her by the waist when she would have moved away, and kissed
her back, his lips passing swiftly over hers in a kiss that was so
tenderly affectionate that she never wanted it to end.

"I wish you'd let me prove just how good I can be, Emma," he said.  And
then Rima was upon then, splashing them with water and crowing
disgustedly about them kissing, and Emma lost the chance to reply.

By the time they returned to the house, late in the afternoon, things
had returned to some semblance of normality, The Baron was closeted in
his study, surrounded by maps of his "EmPire' and when he heard their
arrival he pulled Ben in to discuss military strategies.

"Go straight to your room.  Say nothing," Ben whispered to Emma before
the Baron shut the study door on her, and she could only hope that this
time Ben would be successful in making the Baron see sense.  Given the
excited light of baffle in the Baron's eyes, however, she somehow
doubted it.

The Baroness was in the parlour, dusting off an ornately braided jacket
that she informed Emma was the Emperor's coronation suit.

"He shall wear it tomorrow, when he addresses his people."  She frowned
at a small mark on the ribboned pocket and dabbed it with a damp
cloth.

"It is very smart, non?  I sewed it myself."

"It's very smart, madame."  Emma motioned to Rima to go up to the
bedroom alone and then turned nervously back to the Baroness.  Ben had
explicitly warned her against saying anything, but she could not stand
idly by when the Baroness could prove a powerful ally.

"Madame, this war that your husband is planning against the
British..."

The Baroness put down the jacket to stare at her coldly.

"The British know very well that my husband is the legitimate Emperor
of this country.  This treaty they have signed means nothing.  Nothing/
They have no power here.  They cannot usurp him."

Emma closed her eyes for a moment while she struggled for control.

"Madame, you cannot arm the Maoris!  They will turn the guns on each
other!"

"I see."  The Baroness carefully laid down the jacket on her escritoire
and opened a drawer.

"Of course, Mrs.  Morgan, you are English.  I had thought your loyalty
would have lain with your husband, but I am wrong, it seems."

Emma stared in disbelief at the small pistol that the Baroness took out
of the drawer and aimed at her.

"Please go to the study, Mrs.  Morgan.  My husband will know how to
deal with your treachery."

Ben looked up as Emma opened the study door, his mouth shaping an
obscenity as he instantly comprehended the situation.  There was a
rapid exchange of views in French between the Baron and his wife, and
then the Baron looked at them in genuine regret.

"I'm so sorry, my friends.  I offered you so much... But I need to
trust those around me at a time like this."

"I understand," Ben said tightly, his eyes on the barrel pressing
against Emma's forehead.

"Look, Baron, you're a busy man.  Why don't you just let us go on our
way so that you can concentrate on your meeting tomorrow?"

The Baron thought about that.

"I think perhaps you should remain as our guests until after the
meeting.  Then you may take our message with you out to your wife's
countrymen."  The Baroness broke in urgently, but he waved her
objections away with a regal hand.

"Please return to your room, Mr.  and Mrs.  Morgan.  And I do most
sincerely regret that this has come to pass."

As the key turned in their bedroom door, Emma met Ben's eyes
apologetically.

"I had to say something to her, Ben!  I thought she might see reason,
even if her husband didn't!  If I'd thought for a moment that she was
as insane as her husband..."

He gave a short laugh.

"Oh, she's much worse than her husband.  She wanted to shoot you there
and then.  At least the Baron is still hoping for a happy ending."  He
looked around the room.

"Where's Rat?"

Emma collapsed in an unhappy heap on the bed.

"I told her to come up here and she's disobeyed me again!  Oh, Ben, why
can't she ever do what she's told!"

"Hush!  She'll be all right."  Ben sat beside her and pulled her
against him so that her head rested on his shoulder.

"She's very good at taking care of herself, and our hosts don't seem to
notice her at all.  She'll be outside waiting for us."

Emma allowed herself to melt against his warmth and strength.

"What do we do now?"

"If no other opportunity turns up, I suggest we 'wait until dark and
then climb out the window.  This is hardly a fortress they're holding
us in."

"And then we take the gunpowder out of the cellar and take it down to
the lake?"

"I do that.  You and Rima wait in safety in the forest."

She rubbed her face against his shirt, breathing in the heady masculine
scent of his skin.

"We do that.  I want to make sure every last keg is submerged before we
leave."

"You're an impossible woman," he growled and kissed her.  She responded
with alacrity, threading her fingers though his hair to hold him
close.

Whether it was desperation or desire she felt, she had no idea.  All
she knew was that she had waited long enough.  He pulled his head back,
his eyes half-closed.

"Emma," he whispered, and his fingers came up to cup her breasts.

"Are you sure you want this?"

For answer she pulled apart the buttons of her bodice and placed his
hands inside.  The rough skin of his fingers caught on the tips of her
breasts, teasing them unbearably, and she groaned at the delicious pain
that shot through her.  Yes, she wanted this!  And much, much more
besides.

Ben rolled her on to her back, pulling at her skirts, and she helped
him, tugging impatiently at the impediment to her pleasure.  She
hesitated for just a moment when she first held him her hand, fearful
of his size, but then he was inside her, filling her, stretching her,
and all she knew was the plunging ecstasy as he moved, the wildness,
the joy as he brought her along with him on a journey she had never
known existed.

And then, with a gasp, he was still, leaving her taut and expectant,
quivering on the brink, of an abyss.

"I'm sorry," he muttered against her damp hair.

"I

couldn't wait.  You're so beautiful..."

She could have wept with the disappointment, except that she felt his
fingers reach between them and touch her, and suddenly she was bucking
and gasping and clawing at his back as the world seemed to explode
around her.

Afterwards she clung to him, so overcome that the words of gratitude
and affection caught in her throat.  He held her close, stroking her
hair as if she were a child, waiting as her breathing returned to
normal and she slowly came down from her euphoric heights.  Only
gradually did it dawn on her that they could have been disturbed at any
time, and she looked up at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"How could we have, Ben?  Here, of all places!"

He smiled his beautiful smile that made her want to start all over
again, and helped her sit up.

"I've always found fear makes me amorous."  He tucked her tousled hair
back behind her ears with a grin.

"Maybe that's why I've been in a permanently uncomfortable condition
ever since we met!"

It occurred to her that this was the time to tell him the truth.  Maybe
he would understand if she told him now.  On the other hand, maybe he
wouldn't.  Either way, she felt compelled to risk it.

"Ben."  She stroked the side of his face, loving the harshness of the
dark shadow under her fingers.

"There are things I have to tell you about me."

"I know all I need to know, Emma.  You're all I ever wanted in a woman
and never thought I'd find.

You're beautiful, courageous, honest, pure..."  He caught her fingers
as they stilled and brought them to his mouth.

"We have a lot to talk about, my love.

Later, when this is over."

She shut her eyes on the tenderness in his face.

No, she couldn't tell him.  She should never have acted so prudishly in
the first place!  If she had been as open about her desire for him from
the very beginning as he had been, if she had not sought refuge in her
facade of the prim missionary's widow, then perhaps they would have
stood a chance together.

Instead, it had all become based on a deceit.  She had effectively
mined any chance of a future, and she had no one else to blame but
herself.

"Hey, don't cry!"  He carefully rubbed away her tears with his thumb.

"We'll be out of this in no time, I promise you."

How strange it was to feel so awkward with someone with whom you had
just shared the most intimate of all possible acts.  To cover her
confusion she went to the window and stared blindly out at the dusk
gathering over the hills.  Somewhere out there in the evening shadows
was Rima, alone and no doubt terrified, despite Ben's assertions to the
contrary.  A movement in the trees beyond the hot pools caught her eye
and she leaned forward eagerly.

But it wasn't Rima who lifted a starlit face to her and then walked on
towards the house, but a heavily tattooed man.  Followed by another and
another... "Ben," she said faintly.

"The garden is full of Maori warriors."

He leapt off the bed with a muttered curse that made her bristle
despite her nervousness, and came to stand beside her.  The few
warriors had become dozens, all bearing their clubs and spears, moving
silently towards the house on their bare feet.  It was the most
terrifying sight Emma had ever seen.

"I thought the meeting was tomorrow," she whispered.

"It is, but you know what they're like, Emma.

Anything to get a jump on the other tribes."  He smiled slightly as he
watched the noiseless progression towards the house.

"I wonder how the Baron is going to handle this?"

They waited tensely, watching in the dark.  At last there was a polite
knock on the door and the key turned in the lock.

"Good evening," the Baron said.  He looked distracted, his hair untidy
and his cravat askew.  Waving his hands in the direction of downstairs,
he said hesitantly, "Mrs.  Morgan, if you would be so kind... I know
that you speak the native language, and your assistance would be much
appreciated..."

Emma remained standing composedly by the window, grateful for Ben's
quiet support behind her.

"Do we remain your prisoners, Baron?"

"No, no!  You were never that!"  He placed his hand over his heart, his
round little features showing his horror at the very thought.

"I only wished to delay your departure I'

"Where is the Baroness?"

"My wife is lying down.  Her nerves, you understand... Please, you must
come, madame!"

"I think not, Baron," she told him.

"I do not appreciate being ordered around at the point of a pistol."

"The pistol was not loaded, Mrs.  Morgan!  We would never have hurt
you, never!  Mr.  wife ... the strain, you understand..," The Baron
wrung his hands in agitation, looking pitifully old and close to tears.
Emma felt unexpectedly sorry for him.  He had plotted for so long and
on such a grand scale.  Now his dreams were turning into reality and he
was rapidly losing control.

"Go, Emma," Ben said and then added in a voice that was only for her
ears, 'and keep them occupied for as long as you can, my love."

She followed the Baron down the great, carved staircase to the front
door.  There, lit by dozens of burning flares, stood a hundred Maori
warriors or more.  She almost turned and fled back up the staircase, as
no doubt the Baroness had done.  She certainly wished that Ben had been
there beside her.

But somehow she managed to take her place beside the Baron on the
veranda, tightly clasping her hands before her.

"HaLt.  He mma!"  A burly warrior wearing the white feathers of a chief
in his hair shouldered his way through the crowd, raising his spear in
greeting.

"Tawhai!"  Her delighted recognition of a familiar face was immediately
tempered by the memory of the circumstances surrounding her departure
from his tribe.  But Tawhai seemed to have forgotten all about Rima as
he grasped her shoulders and pressed her nose with his in an
enthusiastic hongi.

"Tawhai, what are you doing here?"

He feigned innocence at her surprise.

"We have come to visit, to trade peacefully with the tribes of the
lake, Hemma.  What else would We be doing here?"

Clearly rumours of the Baron's munitions stockpile had reached well
down the Whanganui River.

She turned to the Baron.

"What do you want me to tell them?"

The Baron's eyes darted nervously over the crowd of warriors.  He
licked his lips.

"I ... I don't know.  Tell them to go away."

"But you summoned them here," she pointed out.

"Tomorrow!  Not ... not tonight!"  he said querulously.

"And what will be different about tomorrow if they come then?"  She
waited for his response, worried by the glazed stare that his eyes were
taking on.  The crowd shifted uneasily and began to murmur.

Their patience had a short fuse, but as the seconds ticked on, it
became glaringly obvious to Emma that the Baron was losing his
already-tenuous grip on reality.  At last she turned to the crowd and
began to speak in Maori.

"Haere mai, ha ere mai, ha ere mai," she greeted them formally.

"The Baron asks you to come to see him in the morning.  There are
matters he wishes to discuss with you.  But not tonight."

"We don't want to put the Baron to any trouble, "Tawhai said politely,
his eyes alight with mischief.

"Please ask him how we can help him tonight."

She stared at him sternly.

"Tomorrow, Tawhai."

"Tonight, Hemma."

"Tomorrow."

A slow smile spread over his face.

"We would like the guns tonight, Hemma."

A chorus of agreement greeted this statement.

Emma faltered, knowing that to deny any knowledge of the guns would
lose her all credibility.  Excited shouts emanating from beside the
house saved her from having to make that decision.

"Guns!  Many, many guns!  Come and see!"

A warrior walking around the grounds had found the cellar door at the
side of the house.  Within minutes the heavy wooden crates were being
smashed open with axes and the rifles distributed to every warrior
present.  There were a few tussles as some wanted more, but as crate
after crate was dragged up from the cellar and opened it was clear that
there were more weapons than all the gathered men could carry.  The
shouts of triumph were deafening.  Emma looked accusingly at the Baron
but he was siring on the veranda, his head in his hands, lost in his
own collapsed world.  Oh, where was Ben?  She could have screamed at
her own helplessness to stop the madness going on around her.

As the first burst of euphoria at their new possessions quietened down,
Tawhai came up to her again.

"The powder, Hemma.  The powder that makes the guns work.  There is
none."

She swallowed.

"You're right.  There is none, Tawhai."

He slowly began to climb the steps to where she was standing on the
veranda, and the crowd of warriors fell silent.

"Is it in the house, Hemma?  Shall I look for it?"

She fell back, arms wide to block his entry through the front doors.
They would go around the back, or climb in through the windows, of
course, but the thought of these warriors rampaging through the
beautiful house, carrying off everything that wasn't nailed down, was
unbearable.

"You will not enter this house!  I forbid it!"

Tawhai laughed indulgently.

"Such a little person to forbid me entry!  Stand aside, Hemma."

"Hey!  Tawhai!"

Al!  heads turned at the shout.  Ben was standing at the end of the
veranda, one of the Maoris' flax flares alight in his hand.  Tawhai
bared his teeth in rage and his fingers tightened around his spear.

"Yowl You vermin who crawls on his belly!  I shall tear out your lying
tongue with my fingernails!  I shall crush your testicles between two
shells!  I shall break every tooth in your head!  I shall..."

There was much more, and Emma could only be grateful that Ben didn't
understand Maori.  The crowd, however, was watching the one-sided
exchange with enormous interest.  Ben reached out into the shrubbery
with one boot and rolled out a large keg.

"Emma, tell your noisy friend what's in this," he broke in over
Tawhai's invective.

But as silence fell, it was plain that Emma didn't need to.  For a long
frozen moment all eyes were on Ben, standing very still over the keg of
gunpowder, the flickering taper in his hand.  Then Tawhai stepped
forward and at once Ben lowered the flare to within a foot of the
keg.

"Ben?  Emma quavered, sure that he was crazy enough to send them all
sky-high.  The pure terror in her voice was enough to convince any
doubting warriors of Ben's sincerity of intention.  Like wraiths they
backed away into the forest and within minutes it was as if they had
never been there.

Emma's knees gave way and she collapsed on to the veranda.  Seconds
later two thin arms were flung around her neck in a throttling hug.

"Rima!"  She hugged the child close.

"Where's Ben?"

"Here."  He bent over beside her, his hands on his knees, breathing
hard.

"I've just got rid of the last of the gunpowder and the shot."

"Where?"

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the rear of
the house.

"In the hot pools.  I don't know if it'll have any effect on the
underground geothermal water system, but there wasn't anywhere else
close enough.  Anyway, we're not staying here to find out.  I took one
of the Baron's rowing boats along the lakefront this morning.  If we
get going fight now, we should be well clear by daylight."

"We can't leave the de Viscenis."  Putting Rima aside, Emma looked
along the empty veranda.

"Where is the Baron?"

"Gone," Ben said cheerfully.

"About five minutes ago.  Along with his wife, the servants and as much
as they could carry.  I saw them heading north into the forest as I was
submerging the last of his kegs of gunpowder."

"Oh, the poor things," Emma said sadly.

"To have to leave this lovely house and all their dreams..."

"Yeah.  And you and me alone with a hundred armed Maoris, creating just
the diversion they needed to make their escape.  You don't owe them
anything, Emma.  Especially not pity."

He was fight, she supposed.  When she walked through the house to
retrieve their belongings her footsteps seemed to resound eerily
through the uninhabited rooms.  She felt like a thief as she packed
bread and cheese from the kitchen and took some warm clothes and
blankets from the bedrooms.  And even though she knew it was pointless,
she took care to shut the front doors behind her.  No doubt the mansion
that had been intended to be the royal palace of New Zealand would be
thoroughly ransacked within hours.

They found the small rowboat where Ben had left it earlier, hidden
under some overhanging trees.

Across the lake they could see the warriors' flares flickering along
the shore.  They were waiting until light to make another foray on the
house, although Emma was quite certain that Tawhai, for one, would be
pleased to know that Ben was leaving.

It was a perfectly still night, which meant that Ben had to row
silently and slowly until they could be sure they were out of earshot.
Only once the lights on the shore had reduced to tiny flames did Emma
dare to speak.

"We can't go back the same way, Ben!  It's such a long way, and we've
got to get past the Ngati Tuwharetoa pa, and then Tawhai's pa further
down the river..."

"Emma, listen!"  he said urgently, worried by the small note of
hysteria in her voice.

"Just think about the options.  If we head north, we'll run into all
the tribes the Baron contacted, and we'd have to cover at least a
hundred miles on foot to get to the nearest settlement.  The tribes
from the south will be staying overnight to sack the Baron's house,
which means we have a good head start on them.  We'll be going
downriver all the way, which will be fast and damned near effortless. 
I chose this boat over a canoe because it's light and we can carry it
overland if we have to.  And, if I've done my job properly, I've got
survey maps that show every pa, every rapid, every god damned hill
between here and the mouth of the Whanganui River.  How can we go any
other way but south?"

After a while, she nodded.

"You're fight."

"But?"

"I just can't believe... Oh, Ben, what have we done?  Now every Maori
in the district is armed, and it's all our fault..."

"No, it's not."  He began rowing again, speaking in bursts between
strokes.

"Emma, the guns would have come from one source or another
eventually.

They'll be traded for land, for a start--what do you think the New
Zealand Company uses for currency?

But your missionary friends have virtually eliminated cannibalism from
the friendly tribes---don't you think they can do the same with
warfare?"

"I don't know," she said woodenly.

"You should have more faith, Emma," he teased her gently.

He refused her offer to help row, and so she and Rima wrapped
themselves in the bedrolls and made themselves as comfortable as they
could.  Rima was eventually rocked to sleep, but Emma lay silently
staring up at the moon trailing across the sky.  So much had happened
that day.  Within the space of hours she had known love and passion and
terror on a scale which made the rest of her life seem insignificant by
comparison.

What she wouldn't give to be surrounded by nor real people again, she
thought.  People who were sane and spoke English and didn't have
impossible fantasies of owning entire countries... She thought of
Thomas's house in Sydney.

Thousands of miles to the north-west it was standing under the very
same moon, waiting for her return, the safe and secure haven she had
always craved.

She fell asleep, willing the miles away.

Chapter Eleven

As dawn broke Ben rowed them into the southern outlet of the lake.  The
swift-flowing current made it virtually unnecessary to row, although
Ben still had to use the oars like a rudder to stay clear of the eddies
and rocks.  They were traveling far faster than Emma had dreamed
possible, but the toll on an al-ready-weary Ben was heavy, and she was
relieved when he steered them into a quiet little bay around
mid-morning.

They secured the boat out of sight under some heavy flax, and Emma
shared out some of the bread she had brought from the house.  Ben fell
asleep before he had finished eating, one arm flung over his face.  He
had, she realised, been rowing steadily for over twelve hours. Overcome
with tenderness, she took the uneaten bread from his inert fingers and
pressed a kiss on his forehead.

"Eeeh."  Rima screwed up her face.

"You keep doing that to him!  Stop it!"

Just to tease, Emma grabbed her and covered her with kisses until Rima
was a helpless bundle of giggles, wiping her face in mock disgust.

"You like your husband now, Hemma?"  Rima asked when they had composed
themselves.

Emma lay down beside her, squinting at the cloudless sky between the
fern fronds.

"He is a good man," she said carefully.

"I like him."  She began giggling again.

"I like him because Tawhai hates him!  Hai, I thought Tawhai would kill
him, he was so angry, but Pen didn't care.  He is very brave."

Emma stared at her aghast.

"You were there, when Ben was going to set the gunpowder alight?"

"Yes, I was hiding in the bushes.  Pen told me to run and hide by the
lake, but I wanted to see what was happening.  It was fun, wasn't it,
Hemma?"

"No, it wasn't!  Rima, why don't you do what you're told?  Ben told you
to run away because there would have been a great explosion if he had
set light to the gunpowder.  We would all have been dead!"

Rima scowled.

"Pen would not have done that.

He was only pretending!"

"I don't think he was pretending."

"I do," Rima said confidently.

"He would not have killed you, Hemma!  He likes you now.  He didn't
used to."

Not for the first time, Emma wished life was as simple as Rima
perceived it to be.

In the afternoon they launched the boat again.

Several times Ben deemed the rapids too dangerous to risk, and so they
had the opportunity to stretch their legs along the bank, tying a rope
to the boat and letting it run the rapids unmanned.  To Emma's relief
Rima didn't even notice as they passed by the place where she had
almost drowned the previous week.  Instead she chattered away happily,
wildly excited by everything she saw, Ben kept insisting on speaking to
her in English, and by now Rima's speech was a slightly confusing
muddle of the two languages.  Within another couple of weeks Emma was
sure that Rima's English would be perfectly comprehensible, which would
help her settle wherever Emma stayed.  Where that would be was
something to which Emma found herself giving a lot of thought.

It was dark by the time they left the great volcanoes behind then and
slipped quietly by the pa on the hill.  The flares on the sentry
platforms were reflected in the water, but the moon was partly obscured
behind cloud.  Ben kept the boat close to the far side, in the shadows,
and within minutes they had swept by unseen and safe.

A few miles further down the river they pulled ashore for the night.
Rima was yawning by the time they finished their bread and cheese. Emma
wrapped her up in a bedroll and lay beside her until the child was fast
asleep.  When she finally sat up Ben got to his feet and held out his
hand.

In silence she.  took his hand and allowed him to lead her further up
the hill.  There, on a bed of soft ferns, Ben threw down a bedroll and
took her in his al' IllS

"You're shivering," he said quietly.

"Are you cold?"

"No."  She steadied her hands against his chest, feeling the rough hair
under his palms.  Then she reached up and kissed him, his mouth, his
nose, his ears, anywhere she could reach.

"Emma!"  He was laughing as they rambled to the ground, his chest
shaking against her breasts.

"What's funny?"  she muttered against his skin.

"You're so enthusiastic, I... Oh, God, Emma!"  he gasped as her fingers
found him.

"Don't do that yet, sweetheart, or this will all be over in ten
seconds!"

And he made her wait, ignoring her whimpers of complaint, until he had
satisfied her fully.  Only then did he take his own pleasure, driving
into her until she thought she would die from the ecstasy of his
violent possession.  As he shuddered in his climax she looked up at his
beloved outline blocking out the stars and knew she would never feel as
intensely about anything ever again.

Afterwards they lay entwined, their heartbeats and their breathing
slowly returning to normal.

Emma mentally explored her body, testing the places she ached,
wondering how she could enjoy it so.  It embarrassed her to have to
acknowledge that it was she who was demanding the fast, rough pace of
their love-making, even though Ben was more than happy to follow.
Surely intimacy between a man and a woman should be more restrained and
delicate?  What was wrong with her, and why didn't Ben mind?

He raised himself on one elbow and gently pulled back the tangled mass
of her haft.

"I love you, Emma."  He kissed her, and for the first time she tasted
herself on his lips.  Horrified, she wriggled away and began to grope
for her clothes.  Somehow he had managed to take them all off her.  But
then, she had torn off his.  She was as guilty as he was.  Ben put out
a lazy hand and wrestled the chemise from her.

"Don't put that on, I haven't finished with you yet.  Unless you're
cold?"

"No.  I'm just not used to..."

"Being naked?"

She nodded, although it was really the intimacy that she found so
unnerving.  He ran his fingers possessively down her spine.

"Not even with Thomas?"

She tensed at her husband's name.

"No."

His hand stilled on her thigh.

"It was as bad as that, was it?"

She sat still and silent.  It had been neither good nor bad with
Thomas.  It had been simply an act that her husband had performed
infrequently for his relief, and one to which she had submitted
modestly, as a good wife should.  Never in her wildest dreams had she
thought that the same act of union could be like that she had just
experienced.  Thomas had been almost fifty when he had married her,
and he had been proud that he had never lain with another woman.
Whereas Ben... "How many women have you known?"  The question was
blurted out before she could stop it, but Ben didn't look at all put
out by her forwardness, "A lot when I was younger.  Far too many,
probably.

But I had a bad experience a couple of years ago that taught me a
lesson or two.  I've been celibate ever since."

She waited, but he was staring at her, a frown gathering between his
brows.  Suddenly nervous, she covered her breasts.

"What's the matter, Ben?"

"Nothing.  Just for a moment you looked..."

"Looked like someone else?"

"No," he said emphatically, but she knew he was lying.  She remembered
when he had first mistaken her for another woman, someone from Sydney,
and once more the feeling of terror gripped her insides like an icy
hand.  It hadn't been her!  It couldn't have been her!  Could it?

Ben lowered his head and bit her hard on the hip, and she gasped at the
sharp, erotic pain.

"I love how responsive you are," he whispered against her stomach as he
pulled her down to lie beside him.

"I love how beautiful you are.  I'm glad I'm the one to have shown you
what love can be, Emma.  I'm glad I'm the first."

Oh, Lord, I'm a wicked woman, she thought.  I deserve to burn in all
the fires of Hell for this.  But as she welcomed Ben inside her again
she wondered if even eternal punishment wouldn't be worth these hours
in Ben's arms.

A heavy mist hung over the river the next morning and they felt safe
enough under its cover to light a fire.  Rima had caught a giant eel
before dawn and they made a hearty breakfast of it sandwiched between
two slices of bread.

Rima was her usual ebullient self, boasting about her eel, excitedly
asking questions about how far downriver they would be traveling that
day.  In fact, her spirits were a little-too high, Emma thought with a
twinge of anxiety.  The child was slightly flushed, with glazed eyes,
although she didn't appear to have a temperature.

"We'll try to get past your pa, today," Ben told Rima.

"Will you stop and beat up Tawhai?"  she demanded breathlessly in
Maori.

"Rima!"  Emma translated and Ben choked as he swallowed his tea the
wrong way.

"No, I think I'll give it a miss, Rima.  But thank you for the
suggestion."  He finished his tea with a gulp and put his mug in the
pack containing their bedrolls.

"Which reminds me that we'd better make an early start of it if we
don't want your friends catching up with us, Emma."  She was stamping
out the campfire and he eyed her haft-drunk mug of tea.

"Can I finish that if you don't want it?"

"No!"  she said quickly, but he had already brought it to his lips.

"It's foul!"  he exclaimed and then he sniffed it.

"I've smelt this before.  What is it?"

"Just ... just a tea I make for myself sometimes."

She held out her hand for it but he made no effort to hand it over.

"What's in it?"

"Herbs, that's all," she said quickly.

"Would they include pennyroyal by any chance?"

His expression hardened as he watched the colour rise to her face.

"No wonder Thomas never gave you any children, Emma."

She snatched the cup from him and defiantly gulped down the revolting
brew.

"What medicines I take are none of your business!

What is it to you if I choose not to conceive a child out here in the
wilderness?  You're not my husband!"

He grabbed her wrist so hard that she winced.  His eyes were ice-hard
and furious.

"I will be, Emma.

One day."

"You haven't asked me!"

"Haven't I?"  He loosened his grip and stood back.

"I thought it was understood.  I'm sorry.  I wouldn't have slept with
you had I not intended to make you my wife."

"Really?  You never married any of the other women you slept with!"

"None of them was you."  He leaned forward and kissed her, hard.

"Be a good girl and throw out the herbs, will you, sweetheart?  No
decent woman should take that sort of thing."  He picked up Rima, who
fortunately had not understood a word of their exchange and ruffled her
hair in the way he knew she hated.

"Come on, now, Rat.  Into the boat and we'll be off."

"Ben..."  Emma began, but he shook his head.

"Enough, Emma.  We'll discuss it no further, do you understand?"

He turned away and missed the stunned look on her face.  The words were
exactly those that Thomas had said to her on an almost daily basis,
over issues ranging from what time dinner would be to whether they
would go to New Zealand.  The prospect of a lifetime of marriage to Ben
loomed before her as little more than a repeat of her first marriage,
with the added shackle of children.  And the single consolation of
Ben's extraordinary love-making to sweeten the union might not last
constant pregnancies and crying babies... She followed him down to the
boat, the worry and indecision chewing at her insides like a cancer.

The rapids gradually became fewer and then disappeared as the river
became deeper, racing between the towering banks.  They entered wide,
serene valleys where the water ran placid and silver under the sun, and
then the river would plunge into secret, winding alleys, the water
turning an even darker green than the dense, overhanging ferns.  No
wonder the Maoris talked of magical taniwha and other monsters of the
deep on this river, Emma thought, and was a little surprised that Rima
slept through most of the journey.

Late in the afternoon they arrived at a point just north of Tawhai's
pa, where they landed and hid the boat.  The pa would not have been
left entirely unmanned, and it seemed a good idea to pass by under
cover of darkness.  The morning's mist had returned, thick and drizzly,
and they sought shelter under a thick canopy of rimu leaves.

"I want to make a few sketches and measurements from the top of the
hill behind us," Ben said.

"What with one thing and another, I didn't manage to survey this area
very well when I was here last."

"Be careful," she said, and he kissed her and promised that he would
be.

"I have some dried fruit left," Emma said after he had gone and she
settled down next to Rima.

"Would you like some?"

"No."  The girl was curled up into a tight ball and Emma instinctively
touched her forehead.

"Rima, you're burning up!  Do you feel all right?"

"My head hurts.  Go away," Rima grumbled.

For the next few hours Emma sat beside her, watching anxiously as Rima
tossed feverishly, her nose and eyes streaming.  She strongly suspected
that Rima had contracted a cold from someone at the Baron's house.
Before the Europeans had arrived in New Zealand, the Maoris had never
been exposed to the relatively minor contagions like measles or the
common cold, and in recent years Emma knew that many hundreds of Maoris
had died from such illnesses.  And only a few miles away was the place
where Thomas had died and been buried... She hugged her knees and
rocked in silent misery.

When Ben returned she told him her fears and he sat back on his heels,
his face concerned.

"Do you think we should stay here until she's better?"

"That could take days, and we have no shelter.  I even thought of
taking her to the pa, but I know you wouldn't be welcome there, and
Tawhai may not have forgiven Rima."

"Then we'll keep heading downriver.  Once we're past the pa it doesn't
matter if we travel by day."

He put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him
gratefully.

"Three days, Emma.  I don't think it will take any longer than that to
get to the sea."

They wrapped the feverish, shivering child in the bedrolls and Ben
carried her down to the boat, where they made her as comfortable as
possible.  He prepared an oil lamp and, as soon as the sleeping pa was
behind them, they lit it and Emma leaned over the bow, holding it aloft
to light their way.  A reluctant moon eventually came out from behind
the clouds to guide them from the path of any overhanging branches or
protruding rocks.  By the time the sky began to lighten Emma was close
to exhaustion, but they had covered many miles.

They pulled ashore briefly for a hot drink and something to eat, and
then Emma curled up in the bow with Rima, half-dozing as Ben steered
their way through the currents.  They travelled like that all day and
most of the next night.  Rima slept and muttered and thrashed around,
and all Emma could do was keep her cool and as comfortable as she
could.  In the dark hours before dawn Rima went into convulsions, and
when they finished Emma soothed the tiny, flushed face with the damp
edge of her skirt and cursed her own helplessness.

"She'll live," Ben said shortly, and she glared at him, hating him for
his callousness.

"She won't.  She's sick, and I can't bring her temperature down.  She
needs a warm, dry bed, and a room with no draughts.  Not ... not this!"
She indicated the rugged, mist-shrouded banks rising around them with a
shaking hand.

"You've written her off before," was all he said, and she sat silently,
knowing that it was wrong to make him the brunt of all her anger and
frustration.

He had been rowing now for days, denying himself rest, trying to get
them downriver to civilisation as soon as possible.

By the next morning the river had widened so much that the travelling
was easy.  For the first time Emma saw a small European-style house
high up on a hill, smoke trickling from its chimney, washing fluttering
colour fully on the line.  She nearly tipped the boat over in her
excitement.

As if on cue, Rima chose that moment to open her eyes.

"I'm hungry," she announced in her usual imperious voice.

Two hours later they were pulling the boat ashore at the mouth of the
Whanganui River.  Emma stood on the beach, stamping her feet to regain
circulation after so many hours cramped in the boat, amazed at how the
small town had grown in just the few months since she had left it.  A
half-dozen ships from as many nations were tied up at the docks, and
new buildings were being constructed on every street.

Ben hoisted a wide-eyed Rima over his shoulder and picked up their
bags.  Emma looked at him, suddenly overwhelmed as the practicalities
of their situation dawned on her.

"What do we do now?"

He grinned.

"That must be the most stupid thing I've ever heard you say, Emma!  We
go to a hotel, we have a huge meal and a good night's sleep..."

"No, I meant ... we have no money!"

"We're staying at the best hotel courtesy of the New Zealand Company.
They can afford it.  Come on, ladies."

The best hotel in Whanganui was perhaps nothing compared to those found
in larger towns, but the room they were shown to was more than
comfortable.

Ben deposited their bags by the door and looked around him in
satisfaction.

"I'd better get to the offices of the Company with the survey plans.
Make yourselves at home, order anything you want.  I might be a while."
He caught Emma to him and kissed her possessively, "Then we'll make our
plans, btam?"

She nodded woodenly, unable to trust herself to make a reply.  Growing
in her was the conviction that she had to leave him- before he bound
her to him too closely for her to ever break free.  She remembered all
too clearly what life with Thomas had been like.  She had tasted
freedom now, and she was not prepared to exchange one prison for
another, no matter how appealing the jail or

After he had gone the innkeeper's wife brought up hot water and bowls
of mutton soup.  Emma washed Rima and put her in one of the two beds in
the room.  With a tummy full of soup, Rima's chatter gradually trailed
away and she dozed off, leaving Emma in peace to scrub herself
thoroughly and wash her hair.  She did some necessary laundering and
hung up what clothes she had, but still there was no sign of Ben.

Outside the temperature had dropped and' the drizzle had turned to
heavy rain.  She put another blanket over Rima and moved to stand by
the window.

The wide main road was rapidly turning to mud.  Somewhere out there was
Ben.  Presumably at the offices of the New Zealand Company, wherever
they were.

It occurred to her that perhaps he had gone.  After all, what man would
willingly saddle himself with a penniless woman and a small child?  He
would be paid for his work now.  He would have money in his pocket, in
a town with bars and women and ships going anywhere in the world.  He
had even taken his bag with him, the one that contained not only his
maps but his clothes, too.."  He wouldn't do that!  a small voice of
reason told her, but another small voice asked insistently, What if he
had?  What would she do now, with no money and no friends in this
isolated town?

She let herself quietly out of the room and asked the innkeeper's wife
to keep an eYe on Rima for a while.  Two doors along from the hotel was
the bank she knew Thomas had used when they first arrived at Whanganui.
It was a long shot, but she at least had to ask if Thomas had left any
funds in the bank before they had traveled up the river.

"Mrs.  Johnson!"  Mr.  Conroy, the bank manager, recognised her
immediately, much to her surprise, and she was promptly ushered through
to his office.

She took a seat, uncomfortably aware of the manager's furtive scrutiny
of her bare head and worn clothes.

"Tell me, Mrs.  Johnson, what can I do for you?"

She studied her splayed fingers on her lap, wondering how friendly he
would be if she asked him for a loan.  Probably not very, she decided,
but what option did she have?  She took a deep breath and plunged on.

"My husband died shortly after we arrived at his chosen site on the
river, Mr.  Conroy.  I only arrived back at Whanganui this morning."

He tsked his sympathy.

"So you'd like to return to Sydney, Mrs.  Johnson?"

"Yes.  My husband still owns a house there--a substantial
one--and..."

"Much the most sensible course of action, then," the manager agreed,
reaching for a pen and paper.

"How much would you like to withdraw?"

Emma hesitated.  She had been about to ask if she could use Thomas's
house as collateral.

"Withdraw.

Ah ... how much is there in my husband's account?"

The sum he named had Emma almost falling off her chair in shock.

"That much?"  she squeaked.

"Available here in New Zealand, yes, Mrs.  Johnson.

There's no problem in your accessing the funds, as your late husband
gave instructions that you were to be given all assistance in the
unfortunate possibility of his demise.  You will, of course, have to
advise the authorities in this country of the circumstances of Mr.
Johnson's death..."

He talked for a while about probate and wills, but even in Emma's dazed
state it was clear that Thomas had prepared fully for her widowhood.

Somehow it had never occurred to her that he would.

When she returned to the hotel Rima was still asleep, so Emma undressed
and lay down on the other bed.  She stared sightlessly at the ceiling,
her head still spinning.  She thought of her mara Sage and the dresses
she had patched, the shoes she had stuffed with paper, the little
luxuries she had denied herself.  As the youngest of the numerous
offspring of a baronet, Thomas had received what she had assumed was a
modest allowance from relatives in England.  His house in Sydney was
beautiful but sparsely furnished, and he had never given any sign of
wealth in all the time she had known him.  And all this time he had
been saving every penny for his church at Redemption.

"Oh, Thomas!"  she whispered to the silent room, caught between anger
at the grandeur of Thomas's dream and guilt at knowing that she would
never be able to make his dream a reality.  He had wanted her to, she
knew, but nothing would ever convince her to go back up the river and
start again.

And yet, just months ago, she had never dreamed that she would one day
go against his wishes.  She had changed so much since his death.

It took time to think it through, but at last she knew exactly what she
had to do.  If she couldn't build Thomas's church on the Whanganul
River, she would leave sufficient money here with missionaries who
could.  There would still be enough money left over to take her and
Rima back to Sydney.  She had a house there, she had family, she had
work to do among the poor.  Thomas would have understood.

She was wrestling with the problem of how to break the news to Rima
that Ben was probably not coming back, when the days of sleeplessness
finally caught up with her.

It was evening when she awoke, and still raining heavily, the heavy
drumming on the tin roof drowning out any sound from the street.  As
she stirred she became aware of Ben lying behind her, his hand resting
on her hip, his shallow breathing indicating that he had been asleep
for some time.  So he had come back after all.  She didn't know whether
to be pleased about that or not.

"I'm hungry!"  Rima had been watching her eyelashes flutter as Emma
woke up.

Emma put her finger to her lips, but already Ben was stirring.  He
stretched and then slipped a proprietorial arm around her waist,
pulling her hard against him.

"Did you complete your business at the New Zealand Company?"  she
asked, making the question an excuse to move away and turn to face
him.

"I did.  My plans are now all signed, sealed and paid for in full.  In
fact, I think they're sailing out tonight for England.  I've turned
down another job in the South Island.  I'd just finished one in the
Marlborough Sounds before I took on this one, and I've had enough of
living rough for a while..."  He stopped and his smile of satisfaction
faded.

"What's the matter, Emma?"

"Nothing."  Unable to trust his close proximity, she sat up and swung
her legs to the floor.

"Are you still upset that I work for the Company?"

"No.  If it wasn't you it would be someone else."

She began to pull on her dress, her fingers cold and refusing to do her
bidding.

"I'll go and see if I can order some dinner.  Rima, do you want to come
with me?"

Dinner was taken with the other hotel guests at the long table in the
dining-room.  Despite being the only child present, Rima was not as
intimidated by the European meal as she had been at the de Visceni
home, and Emma had little to correct as far as her table manners were
concerned.

With a little judicious manoeuvring she ensured that Ben ended up
seated at the far end of the table from her and Rima, thus denying him
any opportunity to talk to her.  Apart from the other guests' mistaken
but necessary assumption that she was married to Ben, she enjoyed the
chance to talk with strangers who were, in the main, prospective
settlers from Britain.  It was only when Rima's chin came gently to
rest on her lap, and Ben picked up the sleeping child and carried her
upstairs, that Emma knew she could no longer avoid him.

She moved quietly around the bedroom, lighting a single lamp while Ben
tucked Rima into bed.  Outside the rain still plummeted down, creating
an uneasy feeling of isolation from the rest of the world.

Emma began to feel apprehensive at what she had to do.  When Ben turned
towards her, she clutched the edge of the washstand, no longer sure of
the continued support of her legs.  He stopped when he saw her
expression.

"What's the matter, Emma?  You've been acting oddly ever since we
arrived," he said gently.

"Have I?"  She fought to control her breathing.

"Ben, we really do have to talk."

"I know."  He sat on the bed, his face so tender that she was suffused
with guilt, despite all her resolve.

"Emma, look, there's no easy way to tell you this.  I tried to get a
special marriage licence today, but it can't be done."

"It can't?"  she said, trying to keep the note of hope out of her
voice.

"No.  There's all this paperwork and certification to prove that Thomas
is dead, and with the country now a colony, it's well-nigh impossible
at the mo-mem.

So many officials, and none of them wanting to take responsibility for
getting anything done!

You'll have to swear an affidavit before a justice of the peace, but
even so, it could take another six months.  I'm sorry, Emma.  I know
how difficult this must be for you."

"Difficult?  In what way?"

He frowned, surprised at the question.

"Sleeping with me, possibly bearing my children, without the benefit of
marriage.  A woman like you... It must be an untenable situation for
you."

She gripped the washstand even harder.

"Ben, even if you'd been able to get the special licence, I couldn't
have married you.  I ... I wouldn't have married you."

He slowly got to his feet.

"What?"

"I don't want to marry you."  There, it was said!

He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"What do you want, Emma?"

'[ want to go back to Sydney..."

"Back to Sydney?"

His voice cut through her stammering like a whip, silencing her
utterly.  Too late she remembered her staunch denials that she had ever
been in New South Wales, and she felt her heart flutter in fear as he
came to stand before her, looming huge in the flickering lamplight. She
flinched as his fingers cupped her chin, gently but relentlessly
forcing her eyes up to meet his.

"Emma," he said, his voice softly dangerous, 'this might sound an
absurd question, but I've got to ask it.  Were you ever a whore on the
Sydney docks?"

Her mouth opened and shut wordlessly, but her silence was more eloquent
that anything she could have said.  She saw the flicker of hope fade
from his eyes and his hand dropped from her as if she was contaminated.
He backed away until his boots hit the bedstead, the look on his face
holding such revulsion that she wanted to shrivel up and die.  She had
wanted to spare him this... "I ... I'm sorry..."

"Jesus, I've been such a fool," he whispered.  He reached inside his
jacket and pulled out a wad of banknotes.  Without looking at them he
tore off the top few and flung them on the bed.

"That should see you back to Sydney, Mrs.  Johnson.  I guess you can
always turn a few tricks here in Whanganui if it's not enough."

"I don't want your money!"

He picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

"You may as well take it," he said casually, but his mouth was set in
white, bitter lines.

"It's not the first time I've paid for my pleasure, and I doubt it will
be the last."

As he closed the door carefully behind him Emma slid to the floor and
buried her face in her hands.  Damn, damn, damn her past!  Would she
never be free of it?

Chapter Twelve

Mrs.  McDuff let out a long sigh of disappointment.

"Another girl.  He won't be pleased."

Emma was silent for a moment, scrubbing off the blood on her hands and
arms in the basin on the table.

"How many does this make, Mary?"

"Five girls, now, all living.  The boys I've had just don't make it.
Maybe it's meant."

"Maybe."  Emma smiled at twelve-year-old Kate, the eldest girl, Who had
struggled in with all the clean sheets and buckets of boiled water Emma
had needed through the birth, and who now stood quietly beside the
table, holding out Emma's towel.  Her sisters were crowding at the low
door of the tiny house, silently watching the new arrival lying beside
their mother in the bed.

"Thank you, Kate.  You've been very helpful.

Your mother is going to be needing rest for a few days, so are you and
your sisters going to be able to manage?"

"Aw, the bairns can look after their father all right, Mrs.  Johnson,"
Mrs.  McDuff said.

"He's going to be in a bad mood when he finds out he still hasn't got
his son, but he'll come fight."  She studied the small, red-faced
bundle in her arms.

"Pretty little thing, ain't she?  What d'you think we should call her,
girls?"

Jenny, who-came roughly halfway in the middle of the family, took her
thumb out of her mouth.

"Emma.  Mrs.  McDuff's prematurely lined face creased with laughter.

"Why not, lass?  Emma it is, like all the other new wee lassies born in
Sydney this year."

She shook her head at Emma.

"You know we can't pay you until later, Mrs.  Johnson..."

"And you know I don't mind," Emma said firmly.

The McDuffs would never be able to pay her at all, but Emma had never
worked just for the money.

She paused to take one last look at the tiny but perfectly healthy baby
girl, and felt the familiar glow of content at a job well done.  Mrs.
McDuff had done all the work, of course, but at least Emma had been
able to ensure that the baby arrived in a clean, undistressed
condition.  The McDuffs might have no money, but they were a close,
hard-working family, and baby Emma stood every chance of growing up
healthy and happy.

Emma tied up her bonnet and picked up her medical bag.

"I'll call by the day after tomorrow to see how you both are, but you
know where I am if you should need me earlier.  And I've brought a few
things that the ladies of the parish make for new arrivals."  There was
also cheese, fruit and some treats for the other children in the
covered basket she had left on the table, but Emma thought the girls
might enjoy finding those for themselves.

In the narrow alley outside the McDuffs' house she checked the time on
the watch pinned to her jacket.  It was still half an hour before
three, so she had plenty of time to collect Rima and her sisters from
school.  She walked briskly, delayed every so often by patients or
parishioners wanting a chat.  As her father had been before her, she
was a well-known sight in the district, walking through the streets at
all hours of the day and night with her black bag.  And, while the
streets her patients lived in were some of Sydney's roughest, she had
yet to meet with anything but goodwill from the residents.

Such had not been the case when her father first started in practice
years before--the Sydney Emma remembered then as she worked alongside
her father was a much tougher, vicious place.  But with the cessation
of convict transportation to New South Wales the previous year, there
was a new mood in the town now, a sense of optimism and citizenship, as
Britain's rejected people earned their tickets and forged new lives for
themselves alongside the other settlers.  Emma firmly believed that one
day the hard work of families like the McDuffs would be amply rewarded
in this vast, demanding country of opportunity.

School was still in progress when she arrived at the small, wooden
schoolhouse beside the church of St.  Paul in Carlyle Street.  She made
herself comfortable on a bench under the trees while she waited.

It was sometimes hard to tell when spring arrived in the southern
hemisphere, but the tall oak she sat under, planted decades before by
someone homesick for England, was not fooled and was gently unfurling
its leaves.  All too soon it would be the sticky heat of summer again.
Emma turned her face up to the soft warmth of the sun and closed her
eyes.  It was almost a year to the day since she and Thomas had left
for New Zealand... She wrenched her thoughts away from that path.

It was all in the past.  Now she had a new life, a wonderful life.  A
house that she could call her own, a child she could call a daughter, a
life's work that was more intensely satisfying than she could ever have
thought possible.

The Reverend Collins, who was looking for an excuse to take a rest from
digging a new rose bed by the church fence, saw her and came over for a
gossip.  She moved over on the bench for him with a warm smile.  She
liked the Reverend very much--a kindly, middle-aged man, he had been a
fellow-bachelor and close confidante of her late husband for many
years, and had even officiated at their wedding.

Now the two of them were settling into a comfortable relationship,
where her money and medical expertise helped promote the spiritual
health of the Reverend Collins's Sydney ministry.  Together they had
made a special mission of alleviating the misery of the colony's women
convicts.  For her own reasons, Emma wanted to ensure that no woman was
ever forced into prostitution, and in that she had a willing and
supportive ally in the Reverend.

"Ah, now, Emma, and how are you?"  He took off his hat and fanned
himself gently with it, squinting rather shortsightedly at her.

"And how was Mrs.  McDuff?"

"Another lovely little girl, James.  They're both well.  And I called
into the Joneses in Bums Street--she's expecting again.  Their little
one has the croup... They talked for a while about their latest
project, a hospital to be attached to the Women's Factory, in which
they had enlisted the assistance of Governor Darling himself.  Emma had
persuaded some of Sydney society's leading matrons to assist in the
fund-raising, and already there was almost enough in the purse to start
building the foundations.

Emma always felt completely comfortable with James Collins.  She was
certain that he was quietly waiting out her year of widowhood before
declaring himself, but she was equally certain that he would take her
refusal in the same easy stride that he took all life's little
knock-backs.

James reluctantly returned to his digging as the school doors opened,
promising to see her on the following day.  First out the door, vying
with each other to see who could reach her first, came her youngest
sisters, Martha and Caroline.  Emma reached out both arms to hug the
nine-year-olds.

Thomas had not wanted to share his household with her sisters and so,
after her marriage, she had been forced to accept a request from a
childless couple keen to adopt the twins.  Now the girls were so happy
with the Carsons that Emma had at last reluctantly agreed to leave them
where they were.  Besides, the Carsons lived only a few doors down the
same street as Emma and Rima, so there was endless coming-and-going
between the houses.  It had turned out to be a very satisfactory
arrangement all around.

"Where's Rima?"  Emma asked when the first rush of excited chatter was
over.

"She hasn't been kept in again?"

Caroline rolled her eyes expressively.

"She bit Timothy."

"Well, he was teasing her about being a cannibal," Martha stuck up
stoutly for their friend.

"Rima says if she's a cannibal then Timothy can be dinner.  It's his
fault for being beastly to her."

Emma shook her head in despair.  In the seven months since they had
been in Sydney Rima had made vast strides towards becoming
Europeanised.

Her English was almost fluent now, and she exhibited such a voracious
appetite for learning that Miss Fenton, the schoolteacher at the church
school, forgave her most misdemeanours---cannibalism in the school
grounds excepted.  But nothing, it seemed, would ever quench Rima's
fiery, impetuous personality, and somehow Emma suspected she would
never learn how to tam the other cheek.

"Are we coming for supper tonight?"  Martha asked, jiggling up and down
in excitement.

"You said we could, last week."

"Of course you are.  Charlotte is coming too," Emma said.  Ignoring the
twins' pout at the mention of their eldest sister's name, she added
brightly, "She said she had some exciting news to tell us."

"Prob'ly got her hair done differently," said Martha

"I don't know what her news is," said Emma, giving the giggling
Caroline a quelling glance.  Martha, like Rima, never needed egging
on.

"But she left a note at the house this morning, saying that she wanted
all her sisters to be there when she told us."

The school door slammed loudly and Rima stamped down the stairs,
scuffing her boots as she did so.  One of her hair ribbons was missing,
her dress was torn, and her pretty face was wrinkled into a ferocious
scowl.

"I hate Miss Feuton!"

"Did she cane you?"  Martha asked breathlessly.

"She wouldn't dare!"  Rima hissed.

"If she tried I would kill her, and then I would hang her on the school
bell and I would get her cane and I would hit her and I would..."

Plainly Rima had been caned and, much as Emma deplored physical
chastisement, she could hardly blame poor Miss Fenton.  Taking Rima
firmly by the shoulders, she turned her towards the school gates.

"Let's go home, girls.  We'll talk about this later, Rima."

"But--' "Later, Rima."  The prospect of spending the evening keeping
the peace between her sisters, and then having to lecture Rima as well,
was one that exhausted her.  As she propelled the children homeward, it
occurred to her that Ben would have known how to deal with Rima, and
that compounded her irritation.  She had managed not to think of him
all day.

Emma loved going home.  The honey-coloured brick house that had been
Thomas's and was now hers was built on a slight hill to gain the best
view of the bay.  It was large by Sydney standards, with no less than
five bedrooms and a study, as Thomas had intended originally that it be
used as a religious retreat, before he fell out with the Missionary
Society.

Now there was only Emma, Rima and Mrs.  Stott the housekeeper to live
in the big, sun-filled rooms.  Occasionally Emma would bring home a
patient in need of special care for a week or so, and she was always
hopeful that the twins might change their minds and come to live with
her, but she was honest enough to acknowledge that she loved the peace
and privacy that the big house gave her.

They opened the front door to the wonderful aroma of stew.  Although
the evening sun still poured through the high windows, Mrs.  Stott had
lit the fires in the dining-room and parlour, and the house was filled
with warmth.  The girls dropped their school bags and pelted outside to
play in the large garden at the rear of the house.  Emma wearily took
off her bonnet.  She had been called out to her first patient before
dawn, and it had been a long day.

She checked on the progress of their supper with Mrs.  Stott and then
sat quietly before the fire to wait for Charlotte to arrive.  She was
tired enough to have dozed off, but the prospect of seeing her eldest
sister was enough to keep her awake.  What was Charlotte's 'exciting
news'?  she wondered.  It had been weeks since she had last seen her
sister, and they had quarrelled then, as they always did.  Emma loved
all her sisters desperately, but sometimes she wondered if Charlotte
was even their flesh and blood.

She was, of course, at least in appearance.  When they were younger she
and Charlotte were often mistaken for each other if they were wearing
bonnets.

Only their hair colour was different--Charlotte was a delicate pale
gold that Emma used to envy before she grew to accept her own
unfashionable dark red curls.  As they had grown older, the differences
in speech and dress had become more pronounced, so that few people
remarked on their similarity now.  Charlotte had always had an innate
sense of style and a sparkling vivacious personality that fixed her
indelibly in people's memories.  In her childhood Emma had longed for
just a little of her elder sister's flamboyance, but now there was
nothing Charlotte had that Emma would have wanted.

It was growing dark when Charlotte's imperious banging off the door
interrupted Emma's reflections.

"Darling!"  Charlotte lightly kissed Emma's cheek, leaving a lingering
trace of her familiar tuberose fragrance.

She carelessly tossed her stylish bonnet on the hall stand and hurried
into the parlour.

"It's so cold tonight!"  She pulled off her gloves and warmed her hands
by the fire.

"Supper smells wonderful.  Can I have just a tiny little drink?  No,
don't stir yourself, I know where you keep the sherry!"

She darted around the room in her usual graceful flit that always
reminded Emma of the New Zealand fantails.  Then she sank elegantly to
the rug before the fire with her glass and such an affectionate smile
that Emma knew she wanted something.

"You're looking very well, Charlotte," she said warily.

"What news do you have to tell us?  Or would you like to wait until the
twins come in?"

"I think I'd better tell you first."  Charlotte smoothed her ringlets
in a gesture that struck Emma as uncharacteristically nervous.  For the
first time, in the firelight, she could see the lines of dissipation on
Charlotte's lovely face and she realised that in another couple of
years her sister's beauty would be gone, lost to all the drink and the
men and hard living.  Impulsively she leaned forward to take her
hand.

"Are you all fight, Charlotte?  Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yes, and yes."  Charlotte hesitated and then said in a rush, "I'm
getting married.  Next week."

Emma hugged her.

"How wonderful!  Charlotte, I'm so happy for yoU!"  Charlotte looked at
her oddly.

"Are you?"

"Yes, of course!  Why shouldn't I be?"

"Well..."  Charlotte pulled a wry face.

"I know you weren't happy in your marriage..."

"I may not have been as happy as I had hoped, but I never regretted
it," Emma said firmly.

"Thomas did care for me, in his way, and he did give me my faith and a
sense of purpose in my life."

Charlotte gave her an odd little smile.

"And of course, he gave you this house.  And the annuity.

Are you still getting that, by the way?"

The calculating look on her face made Emma heartily wish that she had
never: let slip about Thomas's financial arrangements to her sister.

"It's paid to me as Thomas's widow for as long as I live, or until I
remarry.  But I didn't marry Thomas for what he owned, Charlotte.  In
fact, when we married, I thought this house was all he had."

"Did you?  Well, you're different to me, Em.  I couldn't marry a man
unless he had something substantial to offer me."

"And unless you were fond of him, too," Emma added hopefully.

Charlotte sighed.

"I suppose so.  And Edward is rather sweet."

"Oh, I'm so pleased!  Tell me about ... Edward?  Is that his name?"

"Oh, he's a farmer, with a property out on the Hawkesbury River.  His
family has been here for generations, but there's not a drop of convict
blood in the Morgans.  And pots and pots of money."

"Morgan."  A small dart of shock pierced her at the sound of the name.
But it was a common enough name, surely.

"Is ... is he from a large family?"

"No, just him now.  His wife died over twenty years ago, and he has no
surviving children, thank God!  The last thing I want is to be a step
mama and start competing for an inheritance with someone's mewling
little brats."

"Twenty years a widower?  How old is he, Charlotte?"

"Fifty-four, which is only a little older than your Thomas."  She
smiled slightly.

"And probably a damn sight livelier in bed."

"Charlotte/' Emma instinctively checked that the girls had not entered
the room unannounced, and Charlotte burst out laughing.

"Oh, you're such a prude!  Don't pretend you don't know what I'm
talking about.  You've never needed physical satisfaction, but I have.
It's important to me."

Emma covered her eyes in despair.

"I've never understood you, Charlotte.  Never.  How you can do the
things you do..."

"Emma."  Charlotte reached over and prised her ?

sister's hands away from her face.

"Look at me!  You may not understand me, but you know me.  You know
what I am.  I may be what you call a whore--your late and unlamented
pillock of a husband certainly called me that--and I'll admit I ask for
payment for what I do.  And I've made a lot of money, because I'm very
good at what I do.  But I only ever do it with men I like and want,
because I enjoy it.

It's my only skill in life, Emma.  Am I so very wrong to use it?"

"Yes, of course you're wrong!  Because you lie with men to whom you're
not married, and with men who may even be married to other women!"

Charlotte's green eyes narrowed to cat-like slits.

"Is that so?  And can you truly sit there with a clear conscience and
preach to me?  You, of all people?"

"Of course I can't," Emma whispered, stricken.

"But I did what I did from necessity, Charlotte you know that.  After
Father died and left us destitute... I didn't even have anything to
feed the twins!

There was no one to help us, and you had gone..."

"I couldn't have done anything anyway," Charlotte said harshly.

"I had money problems of my own then.  You seem to conveniently forget
that I was sick too, with that accursed fever.  I could have died..."

"Father did die!  And you could have come home any time."

"Hardly," Charlotte snapped.  She got to her feet and poured herself
another sherry, filling the glass to overflowing.  Her silk skirts
swished loudly in the silent room.  It was their old argument again,
and Emma was heartily sick of it.  As always, it was she who made a
move to peace.

"Charlotte, we shouldn't fight.  Not when you're about to start a new
life with a man you love.  I'm very happy for you."

Charlotte put down her glass and looked amused.

"You are happy for me, aren't you?  Why?  Because I'm going to be
respectable at last?"

"Respectability can be very pleasant, Charlotte.  I take it Mr.  Morgan
doesn't know about your... manner of making a living?"

"No, he doesn't, and it goes without saying that he mustn't find out,
at least until after the wedding.

He's been buffed in the outback for the past few years, and he doesn't
really know anyone in Sydney.

I've been very careful since I met him last month, and I don't think
he's heard any gossip.  None of my gentlemen ever knew my real name
anyway."

She finished her sherry and once again Emma saw the calculating look
slip into her eyes.

"This is my only chance at a fresh start, Em.  He's very eligible, and
very wealthy, and he's desperate to marry me.  I can't let him slip
away."

"He sounds wonderful," Emma said softly, "He must love you a great deal
to want to marry you so quickly."

"Mmm.  Well, I won't go to bed with him until I get a ting on my
finger, so he doesn't have much choice," Charlotte said tartly.

"But there is one small problem."

"And that problem is what?"

"Em, this man is wealthy!  You should see his house!  He's having it
rebuilt, which is why he's in Sydney so often these day, but it's going
to be a mansion when it's finished.  He could marry any woman he wants.
A woman with money!"

"Which is why it's wonderful that he wants you."

"Em!"  Charlotte said in exasperation.

"I've ... oh, I've told him that I've got a property."

"But you haven't, have you?"

"No.  Oh, I've got lots of lovely dresses, and even some nice pieces of
jewelery that my gentlemen have bought me over the years, but I haven't
got a house of my own, Em.  That's why I thought that you could perhaps
help me out."

"How?"

Charlotte took a deep breath.

"I've told Edward that this house is mine."

"Charlotte!"

"Em, I've got to appear as if I've got something of my own!  Otherwise
he'll just think I'm marrying him for his money!"

"Charlotte, I think you are!"  Emma burst out.

"You can't do this!  What will he think of you when he finds out the
truth?"

"He won't!  He thinks Father left this house to me as the eldest child.
I'll just tell him after we're mar-tied that I've made the house over
to my widowed sister, and he won't think twice about it, truly, Em!

Look, compared to what he owns, this house is nothing.  But I can't go
into this marriage looking as if I'm penniless."

"But if he loves you..."

"He might want me, but he's not a fool!"  her sister said sharply.

"You've only got to go along with the pretence for a week, for
goodness' sake.  And this is likely to be the only chance I'll get to
marry someone like Edward.  Please, Em, are you going to begrudge me
even that?"

She poured another sherry at speed while Emma wrestled with her
conscience.  Finally Emma said, "You're basing your marriage on a lie.
Why don't you go to Mr.  Morgan and tell him the truth?  If he really
cares about you..."

"You don't know a thing about men, do you?"

Charlotte hissed.

"If I told him the truth about me, he'd run a mile, or at least as far
as the next woman!

Men always prefer the fantasy to the reality, Emma, believe me!"

Emma closed her eyes.

"I do believe you," she said, so quietly that Charlotte didn't hear.

Charlotte began to pull on her gloves, jerking the fabric over each
finger in controlled rage.

"There might not be many free women in the colony, but I can assure you
there's more than one ambitious mama with a young daughter to marry
off, who would snap him up in an instant.  However, if you are so
determined to ruin my life and insist on the absolute truth, perhaps
you could set an example and tell the good parishioners of St.  Paul's
and all your patients what you did before you married Thomas?  Or would
you prefer me to do it for you?"

"Charlotte, you wouldn't!"  Emma whispered in shock, knowing full well
that she most certainly would, and would relish the telling.  They both
knew the power of scandal in a small society like Sydney's in which a
large proportion of the population were either convicts or the
descendants of convicts, and where the reputations of free citizens
were jealously guarded.  A respectability earned by a lifetime of good
works could be wiped out in hours and never regained.

Charlotte watched the capitulation on her sister's face with a small
smile.  She hadn't really expected any opposition from that quarter,
anyway.

Chapter Thirteen

Charlotte moved in the next morning, putting Emma's small household in
an uproar.  Mrs.  Stott, used to being allowed to run the house as it
pleased her, took great offence at Charlotte appointing herself as the
new mistress.

"I will not be told by Miss Brown what she wants served for dinner,
Mrs.  Johnson!"  Mrs.  Stott was literally quivering with rage, two
bright spots of hectic colour on her bony cheeks.

"I don't care that she's your sister and that she's only staying the
week--I will not cook this fancy muck she want tonight.

Plain, wholesome food I always cook.  It's been good enough in the
past, and if it's not good enough now, I'm off to where I'll be
appreciated."

"Go, then, I don't care!"  said Charlotte tartly as she flounced past
them and began to climb the stairs.

"Emma's always been a good cook, haven't you, Em?  You won't mind doing
something for tonight if this useless old hag disappears back down the
hole she crawled out of."

Emma miserably clutched her medical bag to her side.  She had been
hoping to avoid the inevitable spats by going out, but it didn't look
as if she was going to be successful.

"I do have some patients I have to see," she began, but Charlotte's
bedroom door had already closed with a bang.  She looked at her
outraged housekeeper with considerable sympathy.

"I'm sorry, Mrs.  Stott.  Her fiance is coming to dinner tonight, and I
know she wants to make the best possible impression.  What is she
asking you to cook?"

"She's even made up a menu!"  Mrs.  Stott opened her fist to reveal the
crumpled sheet of paper.

"I

can't make it out, fancy mumbo-jumbo that it is!"

Knowing Mrs.  Stott couldn't read, Emma smoothed out the sheet and read
through it.

"She wants consomme--that's just a clear broth.  A fish dish, a leg of
ham, a meat pie, some vegetables, a dessert..."  She ventured a
conciliatory smile at the housekeeper.

"It's rather more dishes than we would normally have for a meal, Mrs.
Stott, but nothing.

that you couldn't produce with one hand tied behind your back.  No one
has a lighter hand with pastry than you, and you do remember that the
Reverend said just last week when he came to dinner that he had never
tasted a finer custard tart?"

Mrs.  Stott sniffed, visibly mollified.

"The Reverend Collins certainly likes his puddings, I'll say that for
him.  Well, Mrs.  Johnson, I'll cook for tonight, but any more abuse
from her upstairs and I'm off.

And you'd better keep her out of my kitchen!"

Emma took her bag and made her escape.  She had had a similar scene
with Rima that morning, when she had found out that Charlotte was
coming to stay.  It had taken a combination of threats and bribery to
get Rima to go to school and not to stay at home and set booby traps
for the detested Charlotte.

She tried to get home before Rima did in order to peace make but she
had a great many patients to see, including Mrs.  McDuff who was
running a mild fever, although baby Emma was thriving.  When she
finally walked in the door she was met with pandemonium.

Charlotte had filled the house with flowers in preparation for Mr.
Morgan's visit and, when Rima had upended a vase while admiring them,
she had had her ears boxed.  In retaliation Rima had taken a pair of
scissors to half a dozen of Charlotte's best dresses.  By the time Emma
arrived home Rima had wisely taken herself to the safety of the top of
the big gum tree in the back garden, and Charlotte was searching for an
axe.  Mrs.  Stott had barricaded herself in the kitchen and was
refusing to come out.

It took all Emma's diplomacy to calm Charlotte and to talk Rima out of
the tree and dispatch her to the Carsons' for the night.  Within the
hour, however, peace was restored.  Charlotte had ordered several
crates of expensive wines to be delivered to the house--at whose
expense Emma dared not ask--and with a bottle opened and a glass
filled, Charlotte quickly cheered up.  Obviously, Emma decided, that
was the way to keep things calm until the wedding.

Charlotte had also spent a great deal on new cutlery and glassware to
make the dining-table look nothing less than magnificent, and Mrs.
Stott---once she could be coaxed from the kitchen---had worked wonders
at such short notice.  Silently appalled at what this was personally
costing her, Emma sincerely hoped that Mr.  Morgan would be suitably
overwhelmed.

Edward Morgan turned out to be a very handsome man, tall and solidly
built, his dark hair just beginning to turn a distinguished grey.
Despite his lengthy exile in the rural back blocks he was very much a
lady's man, slightly outrageous and full of extravagant compliments.
Only a blotched complexion, slightly shaking hands and a bottomless
thirst warned Emma that Mr.  Morgan was in all probability as much an
enthusiast for the bottle as her sister.

Still, she supposed that would make them all the more suited to each
other.

Having by now fully recovered her spirits, Charlotte looked beautiful
in a dress of creamy lace, cleverly cut to enhance her figure.  Emma
had dressed equally carefully, in one of the sober dark dresses that
her wardrobe was full of--she wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible
that night.

She took pains to say as little as possible over dinner, planning to
excuse herself as soon as she decently could.  However, when she began
to rise after the final course, she was mortified to find Mr.  Morgan's
hand firmly grasping her knee under the table.

"Please stay, Mrs.  Johnson," he said beguilingly.

"It's not often I get to enjoy the company of two such beautiful women
of an evening."

Charlotte's smile became a little steely.

"I'm sure you've got something to see to in the kitchen, haven't you,
Emma?"

Mr.  Morgan's hand would not remove itself, and so Emma had little
option but to resume her seat.

"That's better."  He gave her thigh a little pat.

"Now, isn't this cosy?  I think we'll all do very well together
here."

"I beg your pardon?"  Emma said frostily, deciding that she did not
like Mr.  Morgan one little bit, as his hand inched further up her
leg.

"This is a lovely house, Mrs.  Johnson."  He smiled widely, showing
that he still had most of his teeth.

"You've done a sterling job of looking after it for Charlotte.  I know
I'll feel at home straight away."

Now it was Charlotte's turn to look shocked.

"We ... we won't be staying here, surely, Edward?

Your house in the country..."

"Far too far away for you, my dear little bird of paradise!  You'll be
much happier here in the town, I know, with all your friends and the
shops and all that sort of thing that keeps you ladies busy!  There's
plenty of room for us all here.  Besides--' his fingers moved even
higher "I'm'm sure Mrs.  Johnson will enjoy having a man about the
house again, hmm?"

Deciding that matters on all fronts had gone on quite far enough, Emma
reached for the pickle fork.

"I think there are some details you ought to be made aware of, Mr.
Morgan," she said, "Why, Emma," Charlotte interrupted sweetly, 'if
you're going to tell Edward about your ... exciting life before you
married Thomas, why don't we go into the parlour and sit by the fire?
We may as well make ourselves comfortable."

For a moment her possible future lives flashed before her.  Was it to
be the speaking of the truth, social ostracism and utter disgrace, or
some obscene mdnage trois with her sister and Mr.  Morgan?  Both
scenarios were intolerable.  Mumbling something incoherent, Emma fled
from the room.

After Mr.  Morgan had gone Emma pulled a ket around her shoulders and
sat for hours on the veranda outside her bedroom.  It was a cold night
but clear, and the wind from the south brought it the scent of the sea.
The lights in the town below went out one by one, leaving only the odd
light and the mast-lights on the ships in to illuminate the night.

She knew she should sleep---she was tired after a day of hard work--but
she also that she would do nothing but toss and turn in bed until dawn.
The nights were like that for Z sometimes, and had been ever since New
It was much better to stay up and read, or sit like this in the quiet
dark, than it was to and sleepless in her big bed.  Or worse, to again
and wake up crying, clutching the to her in an agony of frustrated
longing

Perhaps she should, after all, take James up on the offer he would make
to her in Year, when her period of mourning was over.  Better, perhaps,
to live in quiet, contentment than to suffer this torment.  She even
conceive.  James would make a kindly and children would keep her busy
and outlet for her love and affection.

would come to forget the man who had made her burn.  The man who had
only had to touch her to send her mindless and boneless with lust.

Marriage to James would also give her a desperately needed ally.
Whatever Charlotte had planned, Emma wanted no part of it.  She would
never live under the same roof as Edward Morgan.  And at least James
knew about Emma's past there was nothing to fear from him there,
nothing Charlotte could do to rain that for her.  Perhaps, after all,
that was the only course open to her.

Emma stared unseeingly at the dark harbour, miserably aware of Life
simultaneously shutting all its doors of opportunity in her face.

She spent a sleepless night and was feeling wretched the next morning.
Even Mrs.  Stott seemed to sense her mood and unexpectedly left her
with a pot of hot coffee before she bustled off to the market.

The coffee helped restore Emma's courage, and she was ready to do
battle with Charlotte when her sister appeared, tying the ribbons of a
very fetching bonnet under her chin as she came down the stairs.

"And what did you think of Edward?"  Charlotte said chattily.

"I think it went very well, don't you?"

"No, I don't," Emma said coolly.

"Please come into the parlour."

"Said the spider to the flY," said her sister in a tone of mock-doom.
She followed Emma into the small, sunlit room and stood with her arms
folded.

"You're not going t be difficult, are you, Em?"

"Difficult?  About you and Mr.  Morgan taking over my house?"

"Oh, that."  Charlotte shrugged.

"Well, it does make sense, doesn't it?  I didn't really want to live in
the country anyway."

"I am not going to live under the same roof as that man, Charlotte!  He
he's detestable!"

Charlotte smiled sweetly.

"Well, you know the solution, don't you, Em."

"What?"

"You can leave.  And take that horrible little animal you brought back
from New Zealand with you.

You've got the money, so why don't you just go?

Now, then--' she opened her reticule "I-I need to go shopping.  I'll
need some money."

"Mrs.  Stott has already gone this morning.  Charlotte..."

"Oh, not for food, Em!  Be serious!".  Charlotte said scornfully.

"Can you honestly see me queuing up to buy your fish and beans for you?
I've still got my trousseau to buy.  How about an early wedding
present?  Not much--just a few pounds will do."

"I'm not giving you a penny," Emma said furiously.

"Nor am I going to leave my house so that you and that man can live
here!  Do you understand me, Charlotte?"

Her sister snapped her reticule shut.

"No, I don't.

You're being perfectly beastly about all this, but I'll leave you in
peace while you have a good think, and then perhaps you'll see sense."
She turned in the doorway and added, "And don't worry about the money.
Your credit is very good with all the shopkeepers in Sydney, I
discovered yesterday."

As the front door banged shut behind her, Emma knew what it would feel
like to murder someone in the heat of passion.  She groped for a chair
and sat down just in time.  She wanted to kill Charlotte and Mr. Morgan
both.  She hated them, hated her sister especially, hated what they had
driven her to... Eventually it occurred to her that she was behaving no
better than Rima, albeit with better reason.

She took the coffee pot and her cup back to the kitchen with hands that
were only slightly trembling and then walked quietly in the garden for
a while.

It was going to be a beautiful day, and the dew was drying rapidly on
the leaves.  Rosellas flashed their brilliant colours in the trees.
Magpies chased each other noisily across the lawn and rooted
enthusiastically among the rows of freshly turned earth she had dug for
her kitchen garden,

She turned back towards the house.  A few hours of hard work planting
her spring vegetables would help, she knew.  She had always done her
best thinking with her hands in the soil.

As she crossed to the stairs a sharp rap on the front door startled
her.  So much for her morning's gardening--her patients all knew that
she made her visits in the afternoons, but that they could call any
time if there was an emergency.  She checked that her hair was neatly
restrained and then opened the door.

The big, fair-haired man leaning against the veranda post was Ben
Morgan.  She saw the shock dawn on his face, mirroring her own, and
then he sprang forward.

"No, you don't!"  He shoved his shoulder in the way as she went to slam
the door.  It was absolutely the last straw for Emma.  Screaming, not
caring if any neighbours were about to hear her, she pummelled his
chest, kicked his shins, bit his wrists as he tried to restrain her.

"In with you, madam," he said breathlessly, pushing her back into the
hallway and shutting the door.

"Get out!  I hate you!  Get out!"  she yelled, horribly aware that she
was close to tears and knowing that once she started she wouldn't be
able to stop.  But he held her so tightly that she couldn't free her
arms and legs to beat him, and after a while she slumped against him,
crying noisily and helplessly.  Her hair was all over her face and his,
her nose was running, but she didn't care.  Ben held her carefully,
patting her back comfortingly, making vaguely consoling noises against
the top of her head.  At last the sobs ceased to rack her body and she
lay still against him, sniffing occasionally and feeling, oddly enough,
much better.

"I need a handkerchief," she mumbled.

"Here."  He produced one from inside his jacket and carefully wiped her
cheeks.

"Now blow."

She blew her nose obediently and he put away his handkerchief, studying
her blotched, stricken face with a frown.

"Oh, Emma, Emma," he said softly.

"You were the very last person I expected to see here."

She gulped defiantly.

"This is my house."

"Is it?"  She could see that the news wasn't welcome to him.  He
glanced about him, his grip around her waist tightening.

"Then we have some talking to do.  Are you alone here?"

"Yes, but..."  She turned her head away, but not for the world could
she summon the strength to move from his arms.

"I think you ought to go.

We've already said all we need to each other."

"I think not, Emma."  He forced her chin up and kissed her, and it was
as if Paradise had thrown its gates wide open to her.  She clung to
him, drowning in him, desperately clutching at all the pleasure and the
pain he offered.

Perhaps he had intended carrying her upstairs, but she was too tightly
melded to his body to allow him to pick her up.  Dazedly she was aware
of them falling on to the stairs, of his hands moving up under her
skirts to curve around her hips and protect them from the wooden edge
of the stairs.  He took her without preamble, there on the stairs, more
swiftly and violently than she could ever have thought possible, and so
pleasurably that she thought she would faint.  As they both gasped out
their climax Emma looked up at the portrait of Thomas's father scowling
down at them from the wall and wondered at her madness.

"That," she said, as soon as she had regained her breath and her
sanity, 'must never happen again."

"No," said Ben with a rueful grin that twisted around her heart.

"My knees are killing me."

"I didn't mean that."  She pushed at his chest and he slowly disengaged
himself, leaving her spreadeagled and splendidly tousled on the
stairs.

"God, you're lovely," he said hoarsely,; She pushed him away again when
he would have bent to kiss her breasts.  Given the opportunity, Ben
would make love for hours on end.

"Ben, anyone could come in!  I must wash, change my dress..."

He let her go reluctantly and she made her way a little shakily
upstairs, every muscle in her legs protesting.  In the safety of her
room she stared at her flushed face and shining eyes in the mirror, as
much appalled at the physical change that lovemaking had wrought on her
as by the thoughtless ease with which she had abandoned all her
morals.

The intervening months had not changed a thing, she thought in despair
as she went through the routine of her ablutions.  Had she not
developed any self-control at all?  Or was Ben like some delicious
addiction to her, something she could never resist, no matter how
sensible she was?  The best thing--the only thing--to do with an
addiction was to remove the temptation, surely?  She had to persuade
him to leave somehow, and leave quickly.  But how the devil had he
found her here?  He had seemed as surprised to see her as she had been
to see him.

Frowning, she came quietly down the staffs.  He had his back to her,
studying the portraits hanging on the hallway wall, and for the first
time she noticed his expensive clothes, certainly not cut by a colonial
tailor, and his highly polished boots, devoid of all workman's dust.
Ben Morgan looked like a man in the money.  Well, she was pleased for
him--he had worked hard for it, after all.

He turned at her light footfall, the familiarity of his beautiful,
beloved face piecing her heart.

"How is Rat?"

She forced normality to her voice.

"Rima's fine.

She's doing well at school.  She ... she misses you."

"Hmm."  He turned back to study the Johnson family portraits.

"This is Thomas's house."  It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes."

"Not your father's."

"No."  She looked at him in surprise.

"Why should you think that?"

"I was told it was."  He stood squarely before her, his hands on his
hips, studying her still-flus bed face as carefully as he had the
portraits a minute before.

She stood poised on the bottom step, glad of the confidence the extra
height gave her.  It seemed suddenly inconceivable that only minutes
ago they had been achieving the heights of ecstasy together on that
same step.

"Emma, I don't know what's going on here, but I'll not beat about the
bush.  I shouldn't have let you go.  It was a mistake.  I'd like to
start again."

"Start again?"  she repeated blankly.

"Yes.  I've forgiven you."

Somewhere inside her head the red mist of rage began to billow up
again.  She curled her fingers tightly around the handrail so as not to
hit him.

"How kind," she said woodenly, and he nodded slightly, seemingly
unaware of the heavy irony behind her words.  Not for the first time,
his pomposity struck her as being identical to Thomas's.

"So--I'll repeat the offer I made you in New Zealand, Emma.  Will you
marry me?"

She took a deep breath.

"Thank you for the kind offer, Mr.  Morgan, but I wouldn't marry you if
you were the last man left on earth!"

His pale eyes narrowed to wintery splinters.

"You'd rather marry my father, is that it?"

Emma was staring at him, quite stunned, when there came the sound of
quick, expensively shod feet on the veranda and the front door
opened.

"Hello!"  Charlotte said brightly, straggling to carry all her parcels
in the door at the one time.

"Have we got visitors?"  Ben turned around slowly and Emma saw the
immediate Ixansformation on her sister's face.

"Hello," she said again, and with unmistakable invitation as her eyes
slid appreciatively up and down Ben's impressive build.  Her lids
drooped slightly and she gave a quick little lick of her lips to wet
them.  Emma realised that she was seeing her sister in hunting mode.
Charlotte put her gloved hand out and gave a little gurgle of delight
when Ben brought it to his lips.

"I don't think we've met before," she said throatily.

"Please do the conventions, Emma."

Wanting to murder them both, Emma said shakily, "Charlotte, this is Mr.
Morgan, a gentleman I met while in New Zealand.  Mr.  Morgan, this is
my sister, Miss Brown."

Charlotte peacefully retrieved her hand.

"What a coincidence," she murmured.

"Morgan is my fiance's name.  Are you by any chance related?"

Ben smiled and, only because she knew him as well as she did, a shiver
ran down Emma's spine.

"If we're talking about Edward Morgan, then we're speaking of my
father.  And I take it that you, Miss Brown, are to be my
stepmother?"

Charlotte's hand fluttered to her throat.

"I think there is some mistake.  Edward has no surviving children...
"Just me."  Ben shook his head disapprovingly.

"He always was a careless parent.  I arrived from Auckland two days
ago, and when my father told me about your forthcoming nuptials, I
thought I'd better pay my respects in person."

Charlotte looked dismayed.

"I had no idea.  He-told me he had no children at all..."

"We parted years ago, Miss Brown, but don't worry."  He brought his
head down to her blonde ringlets and said confidingly, "He cut me off
without a penny.  I don't stand to inherit anything that should be
yours."

"Really?"  Charlotte said breathlessly, her eyes alight with relief,
and Ben nodded kindly.

"Not a bean.  You have my word on it.  Now why don't you put down all
those heavy parcels and the two of us will go and see my father?  I
want to offer him my heartiest congratulations on marrying one of the
most beautiful women in the colony."

Charlotte dropped her parcels with alacrity and slipped her hand
through Ben's proffered arm.

"I've sent the cabbie away Is that your carriage outside?"

"It is."  He paused at the door, looking down at Charlotte with open
fascination.

"What is that flagrance you're wearing, Miss Brown?

"Just tuberose."  She fluttered her lashes at him beguilingly.

"I always wear it, day and ... night.  I'm glad you like it."

"It's very evocative," Ben said.  He spared a quick, speaking look at
Emma as he led Charlotte out to the carriage but she was far too angry
to give it any attention.

God rot them both in Hell!  she thought as she rummaged in the pantry
for the vegetable seedlings.

They were two of a kind, and they deserved whatever came to them.  But
the certain knowledge that they would be lovers by the day's end
tormented her, and few of the delicate seedlings survived their rough
transplanting that morning.

If Ben and Charlotte did indeed become lovers that day, it was a rather
rushed affair.

Emma collected Rima from school and was just opening the front door
when a carriage drawn by two of the finest horses Emma had seen in the
colony trotted briskly up the drive.  Rima shaded her eyes against the
low sunshine.

"Isn't that Pen?"

Emma hesitated.  She had hoped to have time to talk to Rima about Ben's
return, but it seemed she was not going to be granted even that small
mercy by the Fates on what had turned out to be one of the worst days
of her life.  As the carriage drew closer Rima screamed in delight.

"Pen!  Pen!  Pen!"  She ran down the steps and only just avoided being
trampled by the startled horses as Ben drew them in.  She scampered up
on to the cage and flung her arms around Ben's neck, covering him with
enthusiastic kisses.  Laughing, Ben gave up trying to free himself from
her grip and had to climb down and tie up the horses with one hand.

"I see you two know each other," said Charlotte, watching the exchange
with great interest.

Rima glared at her from the security of Ben's arms.

"What are you doing with Pen?  He belongs to Hemma!"

"Rima, please let Mr.  Morgan go," Emma said sharply.

"Oh, but, Emma, why spoil such a touching reunion?"

purred Charlotte, who had given up waiting for Ben to help her down
from the carriage and had managed the manoeuvre by herself.  She
smoothed her crumpled skirts and smiled nastily at Rima.

"And just when did Emma take possession of Mr.  Morgan, Rima?"

"Why don't you go away?"  Rima demanded.

"Rima, go inside!"  Emma snapped.

"Go and wash your hands, and Mrs.  Stott will give you some afternoon
tea."

Rima pouted.

"But..."

"Come on, Rat, let's go inside," Ben said gently.

"I'd like some afternoon tea too."  Instantly Rima brightened and she
happily led him through to the kitchen, talking nineteen to the dozen,
her English now fluent enough to allow her to bombard him with her
entire store of memories and observations.

"They're very close," Charlotte observed tartly.

"Ben said you met in New Zealand, but I have to say he was a little
vague on the details."  She put her head on one side and looked at Emma
knowingly, "Does he know about your past?"

Emma met her sister's eyes defiantly.  Yes.  Does he know about
yours?"

"Why, Emma, if I didn't know you better, I'd think there was something
between you and the delectable younger Mr.  Morgan.  But, of course,
that's absurd."

Angry as she was, Emma realised with a great surge of relief
that--whatever had happened between Charlotte and Ben--he had told her
sister very little about their time in New Zealand.  She picked up her
medical bag with a shaking hand and turned to go inside.  From the
kitchen came Rima's shrill chatter and--wonder of wonders !--Mrs.
Stott's laugh.  Obviously Ben was turning on his charm.

"Did you have a pleasant time with Mr.  Morgan and his son today?" Emma
asked as she shut the door behind Charlotte.

Her sister paused by the hallway mirror and frowned at her reflection,
adjusting the neckline to better advantage.

"Very pleasant, thank you.  Whatever the silly fight was they had years
ago, it's all over now.  And at least Ben can support himself, so that
he won't be a drain on his father.  It's a pity he' snot done better
for himself, though--I'd rather have the son in my bed than his father
any day."

"Charlotte!"

"Well, it's true.  He has to be one of the best-looking men I've ever
seen, and he can be quite charming, just like his father.  But there's
something a bit odd about him.  A bit ... cold.  In fact, I wonder if
he's not one of those men that prefer other men to women.  Very
good-looking men can be like that, you know..."

They both turned as Ben cleared his throat, and Charlotte flashed him
her most brilliant smile to cover her consternation.

"Ben, darling!  Well, I must go and start my packing..."

"You have another three days," Ben pointed out politely..

"Three days?  Where are you going?"  asked Emma.

"Oh, didn't I tell you?"  Charlotte gave her hair a self-conscious pat
and began to sidle around Ben towards the stairs.

"Edward is taking me to England for our honeymoon!  I have to thank Ben
for that--it was his suggestion."

They were silent as Charlotte went to her room, and then Ben reached
over to take Emma's hand in his.

"Emma, it's imperative that we talk.  There's so much I have to tell
you."  As she hesitated he took the opportunity to draw her towards the
door.

"We'll go for a walk, shall we?"

She was about to acquiesce when Rima came racing out of the kitchen.

"You're not going away again?  Pen..."

"I'll be back tomorrow."  He picked her up and gave her a quick kiss.

"Tomorrow, Rat, I promise.

I'll take you riding with me."

"All right."  She gave him a last hug and screwed up her nose.

"Ugh!  You smell like her!  Like flowers!"

Ben looked at Emma's face and could have cursed.

"Emma?"

"Good night, Ben," she said, and shut the door on him.

Outside in the late, slanting sunshine Ben curled his hands into fists
of frustration.  Damn and blast!

All he needed was five minutes alone with her, but between Charlotte
and Rima even that seemed an impossibility.

He drove back to his hotel in the dark, lost in thought.  He was still
mulling over his course of action when he went up to the bare hotel
room that was now his temporary home.  Once there he took off his
shirt, grimacing as he realised that Charlotte's fragrance did indeed
cling to the fabric.  Bitch that she was!  He tossed the shirt on the
floor and flung himself onto his bed.

Staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his head, he thought of what
to do next.  By suggesting the honeymoon to England--at his expense,
but Charlotte wasn't to know that--he had successfully brought his
father's wedding forward.  The next decision was whether to let it go
ahead.  All it would take would be a quick word from him to either of
the happy couple to effectively rain the day.  On the other hand, if he
waited, he could ensure he mined their lives, and that would be far
more satisfying.

His father deserved no mercy, and his stepmother-to-be deserved even
less.

He closed his eyes tightly as he relived that moment in Emma!s doorway.
When his father had boasted that morning that he was to marry the woman
who lived in the big brick house on the hill he had come out of
curiosity, wondering what kind of woman would marry a lecherous,
alcoholic spendthrift like Edward Morgan.  He had not believed his eyes
when Emma had opened the door.

And then when Charlotte Brown walked in... Her sister!  Jesus, why had
he not thought of that months ago, in New Zealand?  The sisters were
like peas in a pod in all but colouring.  And character.

God, how he loathed that woman!  It might have been almost three years
ago now, but he had known her instantly.  The wonder of it was that she
plainly didn't remember him.  But the room had been dimly lit and they
had both been drinking that night.  No doubt she'd had a hundred men
since him.  He wondered what she'd done with the money in his wallet.

There had been over three hundred pounds there--half of it hard-earned,
the other half won in a brilliant streak of luck at the gaming tables.
And all of it ready to be handed over to the mortgagors of his family's
farm the next morning.  For him, losing the money had been two more
years of hard, dangerous work.  For her, stealing the money probably
meant no more than a new wardrobe.

No, he decided, he would say nothing until after the wedding.  In fact,
he would say nothing even to Emma until his father and his bride were
safely on the ship to England.  The revenge would be all the sweeter
for being slow and savoured.

He rolled over and seized his pillow in frustration, wishing it was
Emma's softness he was holding to his face.  He had long since given up
blaming her for anything she had done in the past.  What did it matter
if she had sold herself like her sister?  Even if she was doing it
now--which he doubted---he couldn't love her any less for it.  God knew
he'd done enough to be ashamed of in the past, and for no other reason
than pleasure.  Who was he to judge?

He had driven Emma away once before out of disappointment and hurt
pride.  It was not in his character to make the same mistake twice.

Chapter Fourteen

Charlotte and Edward Morgan were married on the Monday morning, the
wedding having been brought forward to enable them to sail out on the
afternoon ride to England.  Light showers in the morning drove the
wedding party indoors, but the ceremony was a private one in the small
church of St.  Paul's, witnessed only by Emma and Ben and celebrated by
the Reverend Collins.  Rima, Martha and Caroline jiggled about
excitedly in the empty pews, but were suitably silent during the
service.  Emma was proud of them.

Charlotte was a beautiful bride, radiant in dove-grey satin, repeating
her vows softly, her eyes fixed lovingly on her husband's face.  To
Emma's surprise Mr.  Morgan looked somewhat nervous for such an assured
man.  He muddled his vows twice and seemed to keep darting quick
glances at his son standing stiffly beside him.

Afterwards they returned to Emma's house for the wedding breakfast; a
wonderful spread of Mrs.  Stott's best 'plain cooking' and a rich fruit
cake

Emma had baked for Christmas.  Emma was pleased that she had insisted
that the children be present--if it had not been for their excited
enthusiasm it would have been a rather constrained occasion.  She had
received a formal peck on the cheek from her new brother-in-law--it
seemed there was to be no under-the-table groping in his son's
presence--but he seemed oddly out of sorts.  Charlotte was playacting
wildly, making an exaggerated fuss of her new husband.  And Ben seemed
to be offering no more than the bare essentials of courteous
behaviour.

Even the Reverend Collins noticed.

"Not the happiest of little family gatherings," he murmured discreetly
to Emma over his glass of champagne, a crate of which had been Ben's
donation to his father's celebration.

"What is the problem, do you think?"

"I don't know," she said quietly.  She looked across the loaded table
to where the happy couple was busily pouring each other a glass of
wine--Mr.  Morgan senior had perked up quite dramatically after the
first toast.  Ben, who appeared not to be drinking at all, was making
desultory conversation with the Carsons.  He looked up and caught her
watching him.  She quickly averted her eyes, but not before Mr. Collins
had noted the exchange.

"The younger Mr.  Morgan is an interesting fellow.

Seems rather fond of you, Emma.  You met in New Zealand, I
understand?"

James Collins knew almost everything there was to know about Emma, but
she had not told him about her unforgivable lapses of moral judgement
in New Zealand, and no intention of ever doing so.

Usually his tendency to harmless gossip amused her, but not today.

Meaningfully she caught Charlotte's attention and indicated the time on
the mantelpiece clock.  The Sarah Jane was sailing in less than three
hours time.

She left the girls to help clear the table under the direction of Mrs.
Stott, and went with Charlotte, Mr.  Morgan and Ben in Ben's carriage
down to the docks.  The bridal couple's trunks had all been stowed in
their cabin early that morning, and all that needed to be taken aboard
was their light hand-luggage.

Ben made some transparent excuse to visit the shipping office, and
strode off down the wharf without boarding.  Mr.  Morgan expressed a
keen desire to inspect the vessel before embarking, which left Emma and
Charlotte alone in the cabin.

Emma put the valise containing Charlotte's jewelery and personal
effects on the generous double bed and looked around her admiringly.
The Sarah Jane had caused some comment when she had first entered the
harbour three weeks earlier, being one of the new line of bigger and
swifter clippers.  The master cabin was spacious by anyone's standards,
with every imaginable luxury.  A huge vase of flowers stood on the
mahogany dressing-table, and a bottle of champagne and two glasses
awaited the honeymooners on a silver tray beside the bed.

"What a beautiful cabin!"

Charlotte pirouetted in front of the full-length mirror and smiled in
satisfaction at her reflection.

"Isn't it?  I had no idea one could travel in such luxury.  It even has
its own dressing-room and bathroom.  Still, Edward says he wants no
expense spared for his new bride."

"I hope you'll both be very happy," Emma said sincerely.

"Oh, I intend to be," Charlotte assured her.

"All the money I can spend, with a doting older husband-what else could
I want?  I've got plenty of your special herbal tea, so there won't be
any unexpected little visitors while I'm in England, ai-though--' she
stood sideways to the mirror and smoothed her tight-fitting skirt over
her flat stomach with a frown "I-I might just think about having a baby
when I return.  Just to make sure."

"Sure of what?"

Charlotte shrugged.

"That I inherit everything.  I don't trust Ben.  You can tell that he's
not happy about me marrying his father, no matter how polite a face he
puts on it."

Emma sat down on the edge of the bed.

"He-he seems quite happy about it to me..."

"How can you say that?"  Charlotte reluctantly dragged her eyes away
from the mirror and looked archly at her sister.

"You could see for yourself how he could hardly bring himself to
congratulate us at the wedding!  He must be furious to see his father's
money slip out of his grasp--although he's done the most dreadful
things to his father in the past!  You have no idea!  Did you know
Edward could never keep his female staff when Ben was a boy?  He'd
seduce them and then treat them appallingly.  Edward was always having
to cover for his son.  And he hasn't changed.  I did tell you that Ben
tried to seduce me, didn't I?"

"You told me that you thought Ben had no interest in women..."

"Oh, that was last week!  No, he's been most persistent in his advances
since then.  I had to be really firm with him.  In fact, last night I
had to virtually fight him off!  That's the reason for the sulks this
morning.  Still, there's nothing he can do now, is there?"

Her husband made his appearance then, apparently satisfied with the
seaworthiness of the clipper, and so Emma kissed her sister, said a
diffident goodbye to Mr.  Morgan and went to stand on the wharf.

She stood alone, as the Sarah Jane was carrying very few passengers,
but she still wanted to be there to wave farewell to her sister and her
husband when they left.  Watching the crew prepare to leave harbour was
always interesting, but as the sun began to set behind the clouds the
wind picked up, forcing Emma to take refuge behind the customs
building.

Ben came to stand behind her as the Sarah Jane cast off and pulled away
from the wharf.  She heard him catch his breath as the sails unfurled,
shining ochre in the setting sun.  When she stole a glance at his face
he was watching the clipper intently, his face oddly exultant.

"I can't see your sister," he said at last.

"She didn't come on deck," Emma replied, trying to keep the
disappointment out of her voice.

"No, she'll be in the cabin, ripping off my old man's trousers, about
now," Ben said calmly.

Emma longed to slap his face and would have done so if they had not
been in such a public place.

"I think your jealousy is demeaning to both yourself and my sister,"
she said coldly.

He managed to tear his eyes away from the billowing sails of the Sarah
Jane and look at her with genuine astonishment.  The?  Jealous?  Of
what, for Christ's sake?"

"Of your father.  For what he has and ... and for Charlotte."

For a second he looked as if he was going to laugh out aloud, but then
he took her firmly by the shoulders and turned her around to face the
harbour.

"Emma, what do you see out there on the water?"

"A ship..."

"My ship.  Well, to be truthful, I only own a third of her.  But by the
time she returns to Sydney in a year's time I expect to own another
third of her.

That's how I managed to wrangle the best Cabin on board at such short
notice.  And that ship is full of the colony's finest merino wool, a
goodly portion of which is mine.  From my farm.  And also on board, of
course, is my father and his bride, without a penny between them."

She shook his hands from her shoulders in irritation.

"What are you talking about?  Your father has money..."

"About as much money as your sister has."

"My sister's not..."  She stopped as she finally realised what he was
talking about.

"But your father is a wealthy man!"

"He used to be, when he inherited the farm from his father.  But he
drank and who red the lot away.

When I got back from England four years ago, the place was in the hand
of the mortgagors.  I'd brought some money out with me, and I worked
like a navvy for a year, and made up the balance on the gambling
tables.  The day I made the last penny I needed, the whole lot was
stolen and I had to start all over again.

But I did a survey in the South Island for the New Zealand Company, and
that paid for a deposit on the farm and a share in the Sarah Jane.  The
next three surveys I did for the Company--including the one of the
Whanganui--paid for the farm outright."

He smiled tightly at her expression.

"It's me who's got the money, Emma--not my father."

"But he must have some money, Ben!  My sister has nothing!"

"According to Charlotte, she owns that big house you live in.  Your
father left it to her.  And if you don't like living in it with her and
my father, you have her permission to leave.  She told me so
her-serf."

"But you knew the house was mine!  I told you!"

A horrible thought occurred to her.

"Why did Charlotte tell you that?"

"Because I asked her."

"When?  Last night, when you were trying to seduce her?"

He stared at her as if she was insane.

"Why the hell would I want to seduce Charlotte?  Good God, I'd rather
be celibate for the rest of my life than have that poxy bitch in my bed
again!"  Then his mouth tightened, as he realised that he had said too
much, and Emma suddenly felt very sick.

"Emma..."  He seized her hand as she pushed past him.

"Leave me alone!"

"You don't understand!  Let me explain!"  he said desperately.

Acutely aware of the curious stares that their little drama was
attracting, she stood still, her eyes fixed on their entwined hands.
From the corner of her eyes she could see the rapid rise and fall of
his chest.

"What is there to explain, Ben?  You've aLlowed a marriage to take
place under false pretences

"Yes, I did.  And I'm not going to apologise for it."

"And what happens when they get to England and find they have nothing
to live on?"

"YOur sister will be off and on to the streets within five minutes,
Emma.  I'm hoping they'll find out the troth about each other while
they're still on the ship.  I'd like to think of them cooped up
together in the same cabin for months on end, hating each other every
minute of the time."

She glared at him, her green eyes glittering with fury.

"You've had all this planned, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"But why?  I know you've never got on with your father, but .... why
Charlotte?  She was So happy!

This was her fresh start!  What has my sister ever done to You?"

"She was the oae: who took my savings; three years agog' "And how did
she do that?"

"After ... after we'd spent the night together.

Emma!"  He took her by the shoulders, wishing he could kiss the pain
away from her face.

"I was a different man, then.  I didn't know you, I didn't know you
were her sister.  I... Oh, God, Emma!  She took three hundred pounds
off me!"

"You slept with her," she whispered so faintly that he had to bend down
to hear the words.

"Once.  Years ago.  And after her I couldn't bring myself to take
another woman.  Emma, you've been the only woman I've been with in
three years..."

"Since my sister?  Should I be grateful?"

"Charlotte took everything, don't you understand?

Three hundred pounds..."

"Oh, to hell with your three hundred pounds!"  she shouted, heedless of
who should overhear them.

"It's only money!"

He stared at her uncertainly.  He had known she wouldn't take it well,
but he had not expected this.

"Emma, be reasonable.  I've forgiven you for your past..."

"You thought I was her, didn't you?  In New Zealand, you thought I w .s
Charlotte!"  she hissed.  She wrenched herself free, a look of such
contempt on her face that he would have willingly taken back every word
if he could.  She walked away, her head high under her black bonnet. He
thought of running after her but they were already the subject of open
speculation among the sailors and dock workers.

And even if he stopped her, what could he say to ::

make her calm down when he didn't even know;

why she was so furious with him in the first place?

With the greatest reluctance he decided to let her go.  Later, surely,
she would see sense.  Surely.

For the best part of a week Emma rifled her days with a rigorous regime
of work.  She embarked on a frenzy of spring-cleaning, her vegetable
and herb gardens were tended to within an inch of their lives, and a
rise in the number of patients presenting themselves with a feverish
type of cold kept her busy every waking hour.

The only boost to her spirits in that week came with the delivery of
the printed edition of her Maori dictionary.  She took quiet pride in
being able to donate these to the Missionary Society, for distribution
to those missionaries working in New Zealand.  If their availability
helped overcome some of the problems she and Thomas had faced on their
arrival among the Maori, she would consider her time in New Zealand
well spent indeed.

It was the nights that she dreaded, when she had only to close her eyes
for an image of Ben and Charlotte entwined to imprint itself indelibly
on her memory.  At first she had tried to rationalise the situation to
herself.  She had turned Ben's proposal down, so why should she care
who he slept with now or in the future Or in the past?  She had had a
lucky escape; shouldn't she be grateful to have avoided involvement
with a man who would betray her without a second's hesitation and who
was, moreover, capable of the most outrageous acts of vindictiveness?
But the unfamiliar emotion of jealousy had wound itself so tightly
around her heart that no amount of common sense would budge it.

She took what practical steps she could.  She wrote two letters
immediately--one addressed to the hotel Charlotte was to stay at upon
disembarking in Southampton, and one to Thomas's bank in London,
requesting that the next instalment of her annuity be paid instead to
her sister, Mrs.  Edward Morgan.  The letters were sent on the
Castletown, the next ship out of Sydney but, while she knew the Sarah
Jane was to spend two weeks in Cape Town, she worried that the
following, slower ship would still be too late.  However, the captain
of the Castletown had promised to ensure that her letter to Charlotte
reached her sister, and she could do no more.

Emma could only hope that Ben's wish did not come tree, and that
Charlotte and her new husband remained in blissful ignorance of the
state of their finances for the duration of the journey.  No matter
what crimes Ben might accuse his father of, no one should have to
endure Charlotte in a tantrum in an enclosed space for six months.

Early one morning Emma saw Rima off to school and then wearily pulled
on her apron.  It was one of those beautiful days typical of early
October, when the sun was melting off a sharp frost and already there
was real heat in the air.  Mrs.  Stott was noisily clattering the bread
tins and singing tunelessly to herself in the kitchen.  Emma decided
against disturbing her by making a pot of tea, and instead took
cleaning cloths and a tin of beeswax and lavender oil out of the linen
cupboard.  This past week she had washed and repaired every curtain and
item of linen in the house, had beaten every rug thoroughly, had washed
every window upstairs and down, inside and out.  Polishing the woodwork
and furniture should ensure that she was fully occupied this morning.

As she began work on the dining-table, she wondered how long it would
take before she allowed herself the time to think again.  Mindless work
was all very well, and certainly led to an immaculate house, but she
knew Rima and her sisters were feeling neglected.  Ben had fortunately
appeared to have returned to his farm on the Hawkesbury River.  Rima
was missing him desperately, but had soon learned that talking about
him would earn her nothing but a sharp reprimand from Emma.  It really
wasn't fair to her, and Emma felt guilty every time she saw the hurt
look on the child's face.  She would have to allow Rima to see Ben, if
that was what they both wanted, despite her own feelings.

If she had not been working close by, Emma would not have heard the
timid tap on the front door.  The child squatting, terrified, on the
doorstep was little Jenny McDuff.  Automatically, Emma bent and picked
her up.

"What's the matter, Jenny?  Is it baby Emma?"

Jenny nodded and then took her thumb out of her mouth to cough.

"You don't sound too well yourself, sweetheart.

Let's have a look at you."  She carded her into her study and opened
her medical bag, Jenny shook her head violently.

"Mam said come quick."

"I will.  I'll come right away," Emma soothed, while every instinct she
possessed told her to examine the child in her arms.

"But quickly, Jenny, open your mouth while I have a look inside, will
you?  I just want to see what's making you cough."

She looked and then put Jenny down while she found a small spatula.

"Just another look, Jenny, while I put this on your tongue."

It was a straggle to maintain her calm, professional composure.  At the
back of Jenny's reddened throat was a network of fine, greyish-white
mucous.

She had seen it before, in London, and had prayed that she would never
see it again.

"Jenny, I want you to stay here."  She threw the spatula into the
fire.

"Lie down here on the sofa and rest.  I'll bring you a mg to keep you
warm."

"But me mam..."

"I'll tell your mother that you're here.  She'll understand."

Almost running, she went into the kitchen and poured hot water into a
basin.  While she scrubbed her hands and arms she gave rapid
instructions to a most unimpressed Mrs.  Stott.  Jenny was to have
blankets, warm water to drink, and be allowed to sleep in peace.  Mrs.
Stott was not to move her, and if she touched the child she was to wash
her hands immediately.  Likewise, anything Jenny touched was to be
thoroughly washed.  Anyone who came to the door, even Rima---especially
Rima--was to be turned away.

"As if I haven't got enough to do!"  Mrs.  Stott said crossly, dusting
the flour from her hands.

"And what's wrong with the little madam, I'd like to know, that we've
got to treat her like the Queen of Sheba?"

Emma moved to the door and shook her hands dry.  She sometimes had her
doubts about the cleanliness of Mrs.  Stott's kitchen towels.

"I think she has diphtheria, Mrs.  Stott."

"Oh, the good Lord help us!"  The housekeeper backed away.

"So she'll die here, in this house?"

"Not if I can help it."

"I'm not staying in a house of pestilence!"

"Then go," Emma snapped.

"I will, don't you fear!"  Mrs.  Stott began to untie her apron, "I'm
not going to catch no nasty disease from some slum brat!  I'm going to
stay with my daughter."

"Do as you please.  Although I've yet to see an adult die from
diphtheria.  It only seems to kill children, the youngest children.
Just remember that if the McDuff family have it, most of the children
will have been exposed to it too."

Mrs.  Stott stopped in her tracks, obviously recalling that her
daughter's house was located no more than a block away from the
McDuffs'.  And her daughter had small children.  Emma could not spare
the time to argue further with her.  She tucked a blanket warmly around
Jenny on her way out and ran down the hill and through the streets to
the McDuffs', her heavy black bag bumping against her legs at every
stride.

Please God, let me be wrong, she prayed all the way down to the town.
In London she had seen the disease wipe out entire families of
children.  They had died horribly, fighting for breath, and it had been
the only time she' had seen her tough, seasoned father break down in
tears.  She thought of all the children she had nursed through
childhood illnesses and accidents, and knew she could not bear the loss
of even one of her children.

But one look at baby Emma, rasping desperately for breath in her
mother's arms, her tiny face scarlet with the effort, and Emma's worst
fears were confirmed.

Six-year-old Peggy was ill too, although the tell-tale network of
membranes had not yet developed in her throat.

"Kate," she summoned the eldest girl, somehow managing a reassuring
smile.

"Your mother and baby Emma and Peggy are going to come to stay with me
at my house.  Jenny is there already.  You're going to have to manage
by yourself for a while."

Kate nodded, and Emma resisted the urge to hug the poor, brave,
terrified child.  Nothing was known about the spread of the disease,
but her own gut feeling was that physical contact was the only
conductor.

She was not about to be responsible for spreading the infection any
more than it had already.

She gave careful instructions about the need for absolute hygiene, and
the importance of not coughing on each other or sharing spoons or cups.
Mrs.  McDuff clutched baby Emma to her, looking alarmingly close to
collapse herself.

"What is it, Mrs.  Johnson?  What's wrong with me bairns?"  Emma told
her as gently as she could of her suspicions, and Mrs.  McDuff nodded
politely, either unaware or unwilling to accept the implications of her
diagnosis.

She sent Mrs.  McDuff and her daughters to her house, with implicit
instructions not to stop and talk to anyone on the way, but she herself
went straight to St.  Paul's.  James was there, digging in the garden
as usual, and she stood a safe distance away at the gate and soberly
told him of her fears and what she wanted him to do.  The authorities
had to be told, even the Governor, and every doctor in the colony had
to be alerted.  Quarantine had to be imposed, schools closed... She
faltered in her recital, waving James away when he would have come to
take her arm.

"I'm all right, James.  I just... Oh, I wish I were wrong!  But I don't
think I am."

"I'll take care of it, Emma," he said, and she looked into his kind
brown eyes and knew that she could trust him to carry out all her
instructions.  She had heard nothing of any similar contagion in the
town but, because of her sex, few of Sydney's doctors would bother
themselves with informing her or, in turn, take a warning from her
seriously.  If the information were to come from a respected churchman
like the Reverend Collins, however, it would be an entirely different
matter.

"What about Rima?"  he asked.

"Shall I tell her to go to the Carsons' after school?"

"Yes.  She and the twins will have to stay there in quarantine until
until this is all over.  Until we at least know what this is."  For a
moment the magnitude of the problem loomed before her, but then she
squared her shoulders.  She had a lot of work to do.

At home she found Mrs.  McDuff and her daughters shivering on the
doorstep because Mrs.  Stott would not let them in, Emma not only let
them in but made them comfortable in the best guest-room, tucking Peggy
into bed beside Jenny, and lining a drawer with a soft shawl for baby
Emma, now fitfully asleep.

Mrs.  Stott was scandalised.

"I'm not cooking for them, Mrs.  JohnsOn!  I told you I don't want them
in this house, filthy things that they are..."

"And I've told you you're free to go!"  Emma said wearily.  Almost puce
with rage, Mrs.  Stott's mouth snapped shut and she did just that. Even
before the front door slammed behind her and her luggage, Emma had pots
of water boiling over the fire and was checking supplies in the pantry.
She put the loaves of risen bread in the oven and then carried a jug
of cooling boiled water up to her patients.  The two older girls had
fallen asleep, but baby Emma was awake, snuffling unhappily into her
mother's shoulder.

"This is for the girls to drink," Emma said quietly, setting the jug
and glasses beside the bed.

"We should try to get as much fluid into them as possible.

The baby is better off if you can nurse her as frequently as
possible."

"Can you give them any medicine, Mrs.  Johnson?"

Emma saw the expression of anxious hope on Mrs.  McDuff's face and
busied herself by opening the window a few inches.

"Until we know for sure what it is, Mary, all we can give them is
warmth and fresh air, and as much boiled water and good food as we can
get into them.

And Mary, since you'll be my guest for a few days, please call me
Emma."

Mary McDuff smiled tremulously.

"I heard your housekeeper leaving."

Emma nodded tiredly.

"We'll manage, Mary."

"I can cook and clean, Mrs.  Johnson.  We won't be a burden on you, I
promise."

Emma didn't like to tell her that she would more than likely be fully
occupied with her children should their condition worsen.  She was on
her way back down to the kitchen when she heard the second knock on her
door that morning.  She opened to a frantically worried dock-worker,
his two-year-old son scarlet-faced and coughing in his father's arms.

By the end of the day there were six children in her bedroom, and three
frightened parents.  James Collins came in the evening, bringing the
news that children all over the town had come down with the disease,
and there were already two reported deaths.

The consensus was that it was, indeed, diphtheria.

"Oh, dear God."  Emma leaned against the veranda post, beyond which she
would not allow James.

"How are Rima and my sisters?  Have you seen them?"

"They're well, and Mrs.  Carson has promised me that they won't be
allowed to leave the house until you say they may."

"Good.  It's also important that they have not contact with anyone who
may be carrying the disease.

Adults delivering foods, other children ... and they must never share
any cups or plates, or..."

"Emma," he said in gentle reproof.

"We don't know how this disease is passed!  There's no reason to go
around spreading unnecessary fears.  You haVe to be sensible about
this, my dear.  The children will die, or they will live.  Ultimately,
we' really in God's hands

She raked her fingers through her tangled hair in frustration.  This
was an argument she had often had, this belief of hers that contagious
diseases were not necessarily airborne and therefore avoidable by
methods like the burning of herbs.  Emma believed it quite possible
that infections could travel by means of body fluids like blood or
saliva.  Her father had held the same views, and it was from him that
she had developed the automatic habit of absolute cleanliness in case
she, the healer, should inadvertently become the carrier of
infection.

By the following afternoon her little hospital contained another seven
children.  Sick children filled every room, with one baby sleeping in a
sling she made between the legs of the upturned, still-unpolished
dining-table.  Emma turned away healthy children accompanying their
sick siblings, with explicit instructions to their parents about
washing their hands and anything the ill child may have touched. Within
her own house she insisted that the rules be followed precisely. A few
of the parents muttered about the futility of it all, but most complied
without complaint.  Some of them had the infection themselves, but they
would most certainly suffer from it no more than they would from a bout
of influenza.

During the night little Andrew, the dock-worker's son, died and the
condition of several of the other children worsened.  Emma sent
Andrew's griefStricken father to tell the undertaker.  Then, so fired
that she could hardly move, she wrapped the small body in a sheet and
sat with it on the front steps while she waited for the undertaker to
come.

It had been a still, cloudless day.  Her garden was filled with healthy
new buds and plants and the sweet, earthy scents of growth.  A
kookaburra watched her beadily from her front fence, leaping from
paling to paling, occasionally letting loose a raucous chuckle.  Emma
scarcely noticed him.  Her ears were tuned only to the coughs and cries
coming from the house behind her, and the colours and perfumes of
spring left her entirely unmoved.

She heard the steady clop of hooves and stood up, the small body in the
white sheet in her arms.

But it was not the undertaker, but Ben who rode up her driveway and
came to a stop before her.

"Emma?  Are you all fight?"  He swung quickly out of the saddle as she
staggered back and almost fell onto the veranda, still clutching
Andrew's body to her.  She nodded, not sure whether the feeling that
swept through her at the sight of him was happiness or misery.  He was
more tanned than she had seen him, and under his broad-brimmed felt
hat' his face was set in grim lines.

"Who's that?"  he asked, indicating the sheet.

"Andrew O'Shea.  He was only two."

"Best to put him down on the veranda, Emma.

The undertaker was a few streets away when I saw him," he said gently,
and she sat down because her legs would not support her any longer.  He
stood silently for a while, leaning against the balustrade, watching
her bent head "You've got a full house here, I understand, I came to
town to ask if you wanted me to take Rima and your sisters out to the
country.  We've no ign of the disease out there."

She shook her head slowly, as if even that simple action was tiring.

"If they leave Sydney, they could take the disease with them."

A fretful cry reached them from upstairs, and he watched her flinch.

"Why are you doing this, Emma?  Why don't you leave it to the
doctors?"

For the first time she showed some animation.

"Ben, I know I can't call myself a doctor.  But I've spent my whole
life learning how to take care of the sick!  All these children are my
patients.  They can't afford medical care, but I'm free, and I can do
just about anything a male doctor can do.  And if you're suggesting
that I should just walk away from them and let them die without at
least trying..."

He put up an apologetic hand.

"I'm sorry, Emma.

I didn't know.  I knew you had some medical knowledge, but... We never
really did learn much about each other, for all the time we spent
together in New Zealand."

"That's tree," she muttered.

"Yeah.  Perhaps we're not as different to Charlotte and my old man
after all."

She lifted her chin defiantly.

"Perhaps you're right.  Neither of us have been completely honest with
the other, have we?  We could have saved ourselves a lot of heartbreak
if we had been."

"It's not too late, Emma," He spoke so softly, his eyes were so bleak,
that for one mad moment she thought about winding her arms around him
and saying that he was right, the past should all be forgotten.  But
almost immediately common sense took control again and, besides, she
was too tired to do anything so energetic.  The undertaker's black
carriage was turning into her driveway and she picked up little
Andrew's body again.

"You must go now."

"Let me take the child for you."

"No.  Not unless you want to stay on here, because then you'll be
contagious."

"I don't care."

She put out a hand to restrain him.

"I care.  I don't want you here."

He waited while she handed the small, white-wrapped bundle to the
undertaker.  After he had gone, Ben said, "Then tell me how I can
help."

Emma shrugged and turned to climb the steps.

"You can't."

She supposed that he left after she shut the door on him.  Perhaps she
shouldn't have been so rude, but it was the only alternative to
collapsing into his arms in floods of tears, and she didn't want to do
that again.

Late that afternoon she was called downstairs by one of the mothers,
who had opened the door to a pile of boxes and bags, and a small,
pock-marked, villainous-looking man.

"Yes?"  she said curtly.

He thrust an envelope at her and waited patiently as she read the note
inside.

"Meet Matthews.  if you won't accept my help, accept his."

It was signed by Ben.  She folded the note and looked at Mr.  Matthews
in consternation.

"I don't understand.  Why are you here?"

He lifted his bony shoulders.

"Mr.  Morgan said I had to stay, missus."  And before she could move to
block him, the ugly little man had pushed past her with the first of
the boxes from the veranda--which she now saw contained vegetables and
groceries--and found his way to her kitchen.

"You can't stay here," she said as firmly as possible, following him
back as he collected the second batch of groceries.

"I have to, missus," he said dolefully and shut the kitchen door on
her.  One of the mothers called for her urgently and she ran upstairs.
She'd get rid of him later, when she had time.

An hour later she smelt something absolutely delicious emanating from
the kitchen.  An hour after that a yell brought her and some of the
mothers downstairs, where a huge pot of the most wonderful vegetable
stew with herbs and dumplings awaited whoever wanted it in the
dining-room.  Emma joined the others in eating it, suddenly starving
after days of not eating properly.  When she went into the kitchen
later to thank Mr.  Matthews, the bench was immaculately clean, with
the dishes washed and put away, but there was no sign of the little
man.  Later, from the upstairs window, she saw him in the garden,
furiously chopping wood by lamplight.

Well, she thought, turning away to check on one of her small patients.
Maybe angels come in all shapes and sizes.

Another night and day passed, with no further deaths in Emma's house.
All the children were severely ill, but for the first time she could
see a slight improvement in the condition of some of them.

Only baby Emma, just weeks old, was losing her battle for life.

That night Emma took the baby from her exhausted mother's arms and held
her quietly in a chair by the sitting-room fire.  She sat alone, the
only sounds the crackling of the fire and the almost inaudible rasping
breaths, each one more laboured than the one before, the most pitiful
sounds Emma had ever heard.  She closed her eyes and prayed for a
miracle.  When she opened her eyes, Mr.  Matthews was standing in the
shadows in the other side of the fireplace.

"I'm losing her," she said helplessly.

Mr.  Matthews glowered and shifted from one foot to the other.

"Mr.  Morgan would know what to do, missus."

She gave a small, humourless laugh.

"Maybe he would, Mr.  Matthews.  He saved my daughter's life once, when
she drowned."

"Ah.  Breathing into her, eh?  We do that on the farm, time-to-time,"
"Yes," she said slowly.

"Can't do that with this young 'un, missus.  Don't she have something
across the throat, what's strangling her?"

"Yes, a mucous membrane."

"So you've got to break it, eh?"

By mutual accord they went into the kitchen and, after rummaging in one
of the table drawers, Mr.  Matthews held up a bamboo straw.  Rima had
loved drinking lemonade through it.

Emma nodded.

"That'll do.  We need to boil it now, to make it clean and pliable."

It took ten minutes to boil water, and another twenty until the straw
was pliable.  In that time the baby was visibly struggling and Emma was
losing confidence.  She took the boiled straw in her fingers, waiting
for it to cool, and looked at Mr.  Matthews helplessly.

"I can't do this..."

"Wotcha got to lose?  It's gonna die, anyway."

Just then the baby stopped breathing.  Not allowing herself to think
any longer, Emma held her so that her head tipped back and carefully
inserted the straw down the tiny throat.  She felt the momentary
resistance of the membrane and baby Emma jerked slightly.  After a
second Emma gave the tiniest of puffs down the straw.  Under her
fingers she felt the baby's lungs fill and empty.  She did it again and
again, until baby Emma managed to breathe all by herself.

"You done it!"  Mr.  Matthews crowed.  Emma put the straw back into the
boiling water.

"For now.  She'll probably start to strangle again."

She sat down on a chair by the kitchen table and watched baby Emma
straggle to survive.  After a couple of minutes Mr.  Matthews put a cup
of tea beside her and pulled up a chair on the other side of the
table.

"It's a little baffler," he obserVed of the baby.

"Newborns usually die very quickly of diphtheria.

Theftair passages are so small.  It's a horrible disease," She dragged
her eyes away from the distressing sight and took a much-needed gulp of
tea.

How, she wondered, had Mr.  Matthews known that she always took her tea
black and un sugared She looked at his ugly little face with its
permanent scowl and he looked right back.

"How long have you been employed by Ben ... I mean, Mr.  Morgan?"

"I ain't an employee, missus.  I'm working off me ticket."

She tried to stop the look of shock on her face, but knew that he had
seen it.

"So,..you're a..."

"I'm a convict, missus, yes.  I got another eight years to go."  His
villain's face looked almost sympathetic when he added, "You're quite
safe, missus.

Mr.  Morgan wouldn't have sent me otherwise."

"I ... I suppose not.  Can I ask what...?"

"Mr.  Morgan never asked me what I got time for," he said firmly, as if
that was supposed to explain everything.

Emma finished her tea and let him pour her another.

If he was a murderer, he would have been hanged instead of transported,
she thought.  Presumably Ben knew something about this peculiar little
man that she didn't, or perhaps he thought the man's history didn't
matter.  And perhaps he was right.

"I was on Morgan Station while it was under the mortgagors, and it was
only his father there," Mr.  Matthews went on, as if he had never
interrupted her.

"Proper mess the place was then.  Different now the old man's gone."

"How is it different?"

Mr.  Matthews wagged his head.

"Well, you see, missus, old man Morgan is a rotten drunkard.  Has been
for years.  Some days he sobers up and you think he's all right--even a
nice sort of bloke.  Then he hits the bottle again and he's back to
living like a pig in his own filth.  When young Mr.  Morgan bought the
farm back off the bank, I thought he'd break down when he saw the state
his old man had let the place fall into.  He gave him money to go away,
but within the month the old man was back, looking for more.  He'd
spent the lot on drink and wimmin.  There was one hell of a fight, and
the old man ended up roped into the horse trough until he sobered up.
Darned cold night that, too.  Then Mr.  Morgan gets all soft and gives
the old man some more money, but this time he tells him he's got a year
to make something of himself.  Then Mr.  Morgan goes off to New
Zealand, and the old man goes and finds himself a rich young wife."

"My sister," Emma said quietly.

"Poor, poor Charlotte

Mr.  Matthews nodded.

"She'll have her hands full, all right.  But you can't expect Mr.
Morgan to keep his father, missus.  The old soak'd run through every
penny he was given and then some."

Emma regarded him with interest.

"Can Mr.  Morgan ever' do anything wrong in your eyes, Mr. 
Matthews?"

"No, missus."  His eyes dropped to the baby in Emma's arms.

"She's stopped again."

They had had to revive her twice more that night, but: when the morning
came and a sleepy Mrs.  McDuff came running downstairs in a panic
looking for her daughter, baby Emma was still alive.

Emma rejected Mr.  Matthews's suggestion that she go to bed, but she
did agree to sit for a while in the parlour.  He put something warm and
delicious laced with whisky in her hands and, when she woke up four
hours later greatly refreshed, she had been covered with a rug and the
fire had been built up.

She lay quietly for a while, listening to her household.

Upstairs, for the first time, she could hear the sound of childish
voices.  If baby Emma survived, and if the other children continued to
improve, the only death would have been little Andrew's and,
distressing as it had been, it would be a far lower mortality rate than
she would ever have thought possible.

Someone---she could guess who it was--had arranged flowers on the table
before the window, and the scent of fresh-baked bread was filling the
house.

Despite his sinister appearance, Mr.  Matthews had turned out to be an
angel in disguise.  He had the strangest ability to anticipate what she
needed before she even thought of it herself.  She stretched her
cramped arms and smiled.  Perhaps he was a psychic who read minds.  Any
moment now he would know she was awake and would come in with a hot
drink... "Ahem," said Mr.  Matthews behind her chair, and he handed her
a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

"Thank you," Emma said, bemused.

"How is... ?"

"Fine, missus."

"And--?"

"They're fine too, missus.  Now you sit there awhile and call me if you
need anything."

She watched him go back to the: kitchen and shook her head in
disbelief.  Thank you, Ben, she thought.  But I hope you don't want him
back.

Chapter Fifteen

The little church of St.  Paul's was packed for the Christmas Eve
service.  Candlelight twinkled off the polished wooden pews and the
silver on the altar.

Huge arrangements of roses, lilies and golden wattle-flowers filled the
air with heavy, cloying perfume.

Beside the altar the Sunday School were performing a Nativity Play,
complete with Mary, Joseph, a well-tethered sheep, three wise men--two
of whom were Emma's little sisters with cottonwool beards--and four
shepherds.  One of the shepherds looked perilously close to tears; she
had originally had the coveted role of Mary until it was decided at the
last minute that Rima could not be trusted with a wise man's' gift, a
shepherd's crook or the sheep.  Now Rima sat proudly cuddling baby
Emma, who was tired of being the Christ child and was grumbling
crossly.  Every time she rose to a wail Rima gave her a little shake
and Emma, close at hand in the front row, was poised to whisk the baby
away should Rima become too rough.

Ben, slumped in the back pew between two equally burly farmers, watched
hungrily.  In the usual course of his life he avoided churches like the
plague, and would normally have spent Christmas Eve working and
Christmas Day drunk.  But he thought he would go mad if he didn't see
Emma again, and the knowledge that this service would be particularly
well-attended had driven him in to town that night.

Emma looked beautiful in a plain gown of peacock blue with a small,
matching bonnet.  It was the first time he had seen her in a colour
that was not brown or black, and he recalled that her year of mourning
would have ended that month.  Beside her sat Matthews, staring fixedly
at the ceiling in obvious boredom.  Ben knew he would be running
through the menu for Christmas Dinner or mentally item ising a grocery
list.  When he had sent Matthews to Emma, he had been confident that
she would not send him packing----everyone needed a Matthews in their
lives.  Keeping him there gave Ben the security of knowing that Emma
was safe and cared for, as well as a line of information about her and
her household: a weekly meeting of the two men at a local tavern saw to
that.

When the baby began to wail in earnest, Emma rose gracefully to her
feet and prised her out of Rima's arms with a minimum of fuss.  Rima
grumbled something and kicked the crib, but Emma paid no attention.
Almost immediately the baby was contentedly lying on her shoulder,
watching the second row of worshippers with big, sleepy eyes.

In all his twenty-eight years, Ben had never given fatherhood a
second's serious consideration, apart from how to avoid the
possibility.  But the sight of Emma's perfect profile against the
candlelight was doing odd things to his imagination.  She was watching
the vicar reading the service with her usual serenity, one hand
automatically soothing the baby on her shoulder.  It should have been
his child, he thought suddenly.  His and Emma's.  A woman with as much
love to share as Emma should have a dozen children.  That was why it
had come as such a shock to find that she had been practicing
contraception like a whore.  Which, of course, she had been.

Oh God, he thought miserably as everyone else in the church got noisily
to their feet to sing a carol.  I should never have said anything to
her.  I didn't need to know.  It wasn't important.  None of it was
bloody important.  All I want is Emma back again.

He had dreaded the moment when the congregation would file out, but one
of the farmers beside him was deep in conversation with another man in
the pew in front, besides which Emma was kept occupied in handing the
baby back to its mother, calming the aggrieved Rima and the deposed
Mary, and marshalling her sisters.  Only Matthews, following glumly
behind, saw him and gave him a quick nod, but he could be trusted not
to give him away.

He sat quietly while the church emptied and the sound of people wishing
each other a Merry Christmas faded into the distance.  When he judged
it safe he got to his feet and retrieved his hat.  But his eScape
though the church door was blocked by the vicar, standing there
watching him, his round face tilted inquisitively.

"Mr.  Morgan, isn't it, sir?  How nice to see you again!"

Ben mumbled an insincere greeting and crammed his hat onto his head.

"What a pity--you've just missed Mrs.  Johnson.

But if you hurry along Carlyle Street you're bound to catch up with
her.  She has her sisters staying with her for Christmas, you see.  In
fact, I'm calling in myself soon-why don't we walk up together?"

"No," Ben said hurriedly.

"I must be going."

"Oh, what a pity," Mr.  Collins said with real distress.

"I'm sure she'll be most disappointed.  But I'll give her your regards,
shall I?"

Ben felt like throttling the little man with his dog-collar.

"Listen, Vicar, I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything to Mrs.
Johnson about seeing me here tonight.  All right?"

Behind the twinkling eyes, something hardened.

"And why should I do that, Mr.  Morgan?  After all, you are family, are
you not?"

"Hardly," he muttered.

"But you are!  Your two closest relatives are married to each other..."
He watched the expression on Ben's face with interest and continued,
"And when Mrs.  Johnson and I marry, I too will join the family.

Isn't life wonderful, the way that we humans join and blend together,
all ultimately joining in One great family of the Universe..."

He twaddled on, while Ben felt as if he had been punched in the gut.
Stumbling back into a pew, he sat heavily, his hat falling from his
fingers as he struggled for breath, "When are you marrying?"  he
demanded at last, interrupting Mr.  Collins's musings on the nature of
universality.

"Oh, we haven't set a date yet.  There's no hurry, after all.  And this
has been a most stressful time for poor Emma, what with her sister
marrying so suddenly, and the dreadful epidemic and now Christmas and
her sisters.  Such a busy time of year, I always think, but one in
which we must take time to reflect on all that God has given us and
which we must be grateful for..."

"So she's agreed to marry you?"  Ben said abruptly, stunned by both the
revelation and by the fact that Emma could possibly choose this verbose
little man over him.

Mr.  Collins sat down beside him and patted his shoulder consolingly,
albeit very carefully.

"I see you're a little upset, my friend.  Yes, I'm a very lucky man.
She's a fine woman, the best a man could wish for."

"Even with her past?"  The words were spoken in anger, but even as they
left his lips Ben could have cut off his tongue in shame.  How many
times had he told himself that Emma's past was unimportant?

And yet here he was, desperate to spoil her chances of a future with
Mr.  Collins.  How despicable and low could he get?

Mr.  Collins let out a long, soft sigh.

"I see that you know about her time as a prostitute.  Did she tell you
herself?."

"Yes, she did," Ben said miserably.

"Well," said Mr.  Collins after a pause, 'believe it or not, to me it
is not important."

Wordlessly, Ben shook his head.

"You see, Emma's father was a wonderful man, a great doctor, but quite
impractical.  He left his daughters with nothing when he died.
Nothing.

Emma struggled on for a while, but life here is very harsh for a woman,
let alone one with small children to support.  Certainly she was
trained as a doctor by her father--although I can't agree that it's a
suitable thing for a gently raised young woman to do---but of course
she couldn't charge for her services.  It's no wonder she gave in
eventually and went on to the streets.  Even if it was just for two
nights before the Reverend Johnson found her and showed her the error
of her ways, and took her and her sisters under the wing of the
Church."

"Poor Emma," Ben said quietly, trying to imagine What it would have
been like for her, alone and frightened on the streets, and yet still
determined to look after her sisters, no matter what it cost her.  And
he had been so quick to despise her.,.

"Still, it could have been worse," said Mr.  Collins cheerfully.

"She has never really spoken to me of those two nights, but I gathered
that ... well, she was too frightened to..."  He cleared his throat
delicately.

"I understood from the Reverend Johnson that when they married Emma was
still.."  ahem..."

Ben stared at him incredulously.

"She never took a customer?"

"It appears not..."  :" "So what is she so guilty about?"

Mr.  Collins blinked in surprise.

"A sin is no less for being committed mentally and not physically, Mr.
Morgan.  Emma chose to get aside her principles for gain.  Whether she
committed fornication or not, is beside the point.  She intended to,
which is the greater sin, surely?"

The answer Mr.  Collins got was so short, sharp and breathtakingly
obscene that he got quite a fright.

Ben got to his feet, his face pale with fury.

"I guess that's bloody typical of Emma.  She flagellates herself for
years over something she never even did, while you and that dried-up,
bitter old monster she married mouthed sanctimonious abuse at her to
ensure she stayed submissive and guilty!

Oh, for God's sake!  I'm going to see her now and tell her..."

"Tell her what?"  Mr.  Collins caught at his sleeve as he went to push
past.

"I'm going to tell her I've made a mistake."

"And will she be grateful?  Will she welcome you with open arms, Mr.
Morgan?"  He saw Ben hesitate for the first time, and pressed his
advantage.

"She's happy now, Mr.  Morgan.  Happy for perhaps the first time in her
life.  She has her little family around her, she is looking forward to
being my wife... You saw her tonight, how peaceful she looks.  How can
you possibly think of destroying her happiness?"

"She won't be happy with you!"  Ben burst out.

"Why?  Because you won't be happy without her?

That's a very selfish thing to say, Mr.  Morgan.  And besides, if Emma
preferred you, she would never be so untrue to herself as to accept my
hand, would she?"

For one dreadful moment he thought Mr.  Morgan would hit him, but then
the big man got to his feet and strode out, his booted feet resounding
loudly on the floor.  Mr.  let out his breath carefully.  Thank heavens
for that.  He felt a little guilty at his white lie, but he had had to
deter Mr.  Morgan from pursuing Emma somehow!  After all, the reprobate
had been quite openly infatuated with Emma's sister--he remembered the
undertones at the wedding very clearly.  And now to turn his attentions
to poor Emma... No, she didn't need a hot-headed, ungodly lout like Mr.
Morgan upsetting her now, just as her life was beginning to flow so
placidly.

He removed his vestments and blew out the candles.

There was' still just enough light to see by as he shut the church
door, but even so he was startled when Emma's man, Matthews, loomed out
of the dusk.

"What is it, Matthews?"  he demanded, more abruptly than he intended,
but something about the man's ill-favoured appearance and the looks he
gave him always unsettled him.

"Mrs.  Johnson says to see if you still want to eat, or are you going
to hang about here all night."

Mr.  Collins forced a smile.

"I'm sure she didn't use those words, Matthews.  And I'm coming now.
I'm looking forward to one of her delicious meals!"

"I do the cooking," Matthews snapped and stalked off.  Mr.  Collins
watched him leave with relief.  What Emma saw in the insubordinate
scoundrel he would never know.

Emma stood and rubbed her aching back.  She had been working off the
excesses of Christmas Day by weeding and cutting back the exuberant
growth of her herb garden since shortly after dawn, determined to
complete the task before the day grew too hot.

At the end of the garden, under the shade of the big gum trees, the
girls were playing on the swing, shrieking with laughter as they egged
each other on to swing ever higher.

She called a word of caution to them before making her way back to the
house, picking her way through the flowerbeds so neatly tended by Mr.
Matthews.

The big kitchen was invitingly cool with the stove fire low--there was
no need to cook when they had enough food left over from Christmas Day
to see them through to the end of the week.  Mr.  Matthews was sitting
at the kitchen table, drinking tea and gloomily staring at a plate of
buttered bread and honey.

Emma sat down opposite and poured herself a cup of tea.  She was about
to take a sip when she saw that the look on Mr.  Matthews's face was
even more morose than usual.

"Did you go out last night, Mr.  Matthews?"  she asked.  Although he
was still under sentence, she never bothered to ask where he went on
the occasional nights that he disappeared.  He was so indispensable to
her life now that it would have been churlish to have begrudged him
some time to himself, even if he was like a bear with a sore head On
his return.

"Would you like me to make up a remedy for yoU?"  she asked
solicitously.

"No, MisSus.  Fm not sick."

"Oh?"  She looked at him quizzically over the top of her teacup.

"Who is?"

"Mr.  Morgan, that's who," he said glumly.

Emma felt her whole body freeze in shock and she only just managed to
put her cup in its saucer without spilling it.

"What's wrong with Mr.  Morgan?"

"Dunno.  Heard last night from a bloke what works on Morgan Station
that Mr.  Morgan's sick."

"You don't mean injured?"

"Sick."

Oh," she said faintly.  She dealt with sick people all the time, but
somehow she had never imagined Ben as one of them.  She had seen him
injured of course, even unconscious, but even then she had felt the
indomitable strength of his life-force and known he would swiftly
recover.  He couldn't be ill!

"Real, real sick," Mr.  Matthews went on for emphasis.

Then, looking at her suddenly white face, he amended hastily, "Well,
pretty sick.  As I hear tell."

"Who's looking after him?  Is there a doctor out there?"

"No doctor, missus.  And he's too sick to bring in, poor bloke."  He
shook his head sadly, even while watching Emma to see how far he could
push it.

"All alone out there, no one to care for him..."

Emma stared into her cup as if the tea leaves would provide her with
some solution.

"He's a strong man.  I'm sure he'll survive."

"Mebbe."  Mr.  Matthews poured himself another cup.

"Course, I'll be needing some time off, missus.

For the funeral and that."

Emma warred with herself.  She was quite sure that Mr.  Matthews was
exaggerating, and yet he had never been anything other than truthful
with her until now.  And what if he was fight and Ben was dying?

And what if it was in her power to help him and she didn't?

She got to her feet.

"Could you please take the girls to the Carsons and ask Mr.  Carson if
we can have the loan of two of his horses please, Mr.  Matthews?  Tell
him we'll be back tonight."

"Long trip out there, missus.  You won't be back until tomorrow
earliest."

She hesitated.  She could hardly spend the night away from home and not
have it remarked upon.  Mr.  Matthews picked up her cup and his and put
them in the washing bowl.

"Mind you, if we get there and he's gone and carked it already, then
you might as well turn right around and come home.  Then you'll be back
tonight," he said over his shoulder.

Emma was left with no choice but to pack a small bag with overnight
essentials along with her medical bag.  Barely an hour had elapsed
before they set off towards the distant mountains in the west.

She had never traveled any distance inland be fore, but the road was
excellent and, despite the heat, they made good time.  This was one of
the earliest farming districts in New South Wales, and the holdings
were substantial.  Broad-verandaed houses, some of them quite grand,
sat amid the orchards and vegetable fields from which Sydney and
Parramatta drew their supplies.  Further inland the rolling hills
became dotted with sheep.  It looked peaceful and prosperous, although
Emma knew well of the floods and bush-fires that had swept over the
terrain even in the few years that she had lived in New South Wales.

Trying to put her fear for Ben to the back of her mind, she thought of
New Zealand, remembering its moist, Secretive greenness with nostalgia.
She had so loved its vivid colours and lushness.  This vast country was
very different, with its sun-baked shades and strange animals, and the
eerie quiet that could settle on it sometimes.  But the feeling of
unreachable horizons was the same.  She would not have given up either
for the teeming, dreary slums of London.

She was not used to prolonged periods in the sad-die and, though they
stopped several times to eat and drink, and once to cross the
Hawkesbury River on the ferry at Stempleville, the discomfort of
getting off and on a horse was quite unpleasant after a while.  Her
legs and back were aching by the time Mr.  Matthews rode off the main
road and up through a valleY.  The track was bordered either side by
golden poplars, and rose gently through well-watered paddocks.  Fat
sheep stopped grazing to watch them pass and a raucous flock of magpies
shouted abuse from the fence-tops.

The house stood proudly on the side of a hill, its roof glinting in the
late afternoon sun.  Built on one level, a deep veranda gave the house
an elegant line while sheltering it from the vagaries of sun and
rain.

Emma remembered that Charlotte had described it as a mansion, and in
truth it was impreSSively large, But as they drew closer she saw the
Piles of-brand bricks from the Sydney brickworks stored to the rear of
the house.  It looked as if the renovation work I had been halted for
some time.

Emma dismounted by the front door, fighting against cramp as she slid
from the saddle.  She untied her medical bag and looked rather
dubiously around her.  The house seemed oddly quiet and empty.  Perhaps
oh, surely she wasn't too late!

Mr.  Matthews was occupied in taking the tired horses around to the
stables behind the house, but she caught his sleeve.

"Where is everyone?"

"Dunno, missus.  What with the holiday and all they could be gone."

"And left him alone?"  she demanded, outraged.

She heard the front door open and when she looked up Ben was standing
there, staring at her with such genuine astonishment that she
immediately knew that he, at least, had not been a party to Mr.
Matthews's deceit.

"Emma?  What are you doing here?"  He was in his shirtsleeves and
braces, his feet were bare and mud was splattered all over his moleskin
trousers.

His hair was tousled and he had not shaved in some days.  He looked
tired, but perfectly well.

"You're not sick," she said coldly, feeling an uncomfortable
combination of relief and anger at having been duped.

"I'm sorry," he said blankly.

"Should I have been?"

"I was told you were dying."

"Were you?  I was just cleaning up after coming in: from work."  He
lifted the towel in his hand in explanation.

"Is that why you're here, Emma?"

She glared at Mr.  Matthews, who shrugged.

"Guess I shouldn't listen to gossip," he said dolefully He led the
horses away and Ben looked at Enuna for clarification.

"I hate that man," she said with feeling, and then lifted a hand to her
head as a wave of dizziness swept over her.  She felt Ben's arm around
her waist, but tried to resist the temptation to lean against him.

"I'm all right," she said breathlessly, as he scooped her up in his
arms and carried her up the stairs, shouldering the front door open as
they passed.  She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensation
of his arms around her, the thud of his heart under her fingers, the
heat of his breath against her hair.  She opened her eyes as he sat her
down carefully in a hard, high-backed chair, in a large, strictly
functional kitchen at the shady rear of the house.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"  he asked.

She blinked, trying not to feel foolish at the prosaic question.

"Thank you."

He moved around the kitchen with surprising knowledge for such an
undomesticated man.  She stole surreptitious looks around her as he
poured boiling water into a large, battered teapot.  Clearly the
kitchen was the hub of the house, and she guessed that most meals would
be taken here, at the kitchen table.  Despite the elegance of the
building, this was a working farm, with a heart.  She found herself
feeling oddly at home.

"Do you... Are there other people who livo here?"

she asked, eager to make neutral conversation.

"There's a staff of four in the house, and then the farm workers.  But
they've taken the two days off over Christmas to go into town or spend
with their families.  Usually it's pretty rowdy in here."

"Oh."  She cast about for another topic.

"The house is nice, Ben.  Very large."

"Yeah.  It was going to be much larger, but I rather lost interest in
it a few months ago, when... Well, one day I'll get it finished.  At
the moment we're concentrating on building up the stock levels.  We've
had an excellent spring and summer so far, so we've achieved a lot."

He put the teapot and two mugs on the table and sat across from her,
his face lit with a slight smile.

"You've had a long ride.  You must be tired."

"I am, rather."

He poured the tea carefully.

"Very nice of you to come."

"I was told you were seriously ill.  I would have done the same for any
patient."

"Would you?"

"Yes."

"I see."  He blew on his hot tea.

"So I'm not to regard myself as any more important than any of your
other patients?"

"You can't expect that of me, Ben."

"I guess not.  Not when you're marrying Mr.  Collins soon..."

"I'm not..."  She caught herself, seeing the triumph flare in his eyes.
She was not going to give him that satisfaction!

"I'm not sure that that is any of your business", she finished
cOOlly.

"So you're not marrying him."

"I might."

He shook his head with slow deliberation.

"I don't think so.  My spy tells me that you're involved in nothing
more exciting than charitable works with the Reverend James Collins,
despite what fantasies the good vicar might nurture."

"Your spy...?  Oh!"  she gasped.

"You mean Mr.  Matthews?  Is that why you gave him to me?  To spy on
me?"

"Well, I don't do anything nice for anyone unless there's a good reason
for it, Emma.  You know that."

"Yes," she said coldly.

"I've learned that lesson well.  "Hmm."  He took her hand as it rested
on the table and turned it over to study the palm.  Her hand looked so
small in his, so white against his deeply tanned fingers.  Then he
gently but firmly bit the soft pad under her thumb and she gasped as a
bolt of pure lust shot through her.

"Emma," he said softly, 'will you come to bed with me?"

The reverberation of his bite throbbed through her, reminding every
nerve-ending of how his body felt next to hers, in hers, above hers...
She had never been able to deny him.  God help her, she never would.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Good."  He put her hand down with a little pat and said briskly, "So
we can take it that you're not going to marry Mr.  Collins.  Now drink
your tea up before it gets cold.  I think there might be some bread
about, and I know there's some cheese in the safe.  Then I'll show you
around the house and farm before it gets dark."

She got unsteadily to her feet, flushed with humiliation and need.

"Forget it, Ben.  I'll take a fresh horse, if you can spare it, and if
you can't I'll walk.  I'll walk all the way back to Sydney before I
spend a night here with you.  How dare you play your horrible games
with me!  How dare you!  You ... you use everyone!"

"Emma!"  She evaded his grasp and stormed out into the huge hallway.
Plainly remembering the violence of her temper, he avoided touching
her, but blocked the front door before she could reach it.  She was
enraged to see that he was laughing at her.

"Get out of my way!"  she shouted.

"No.  You're staying here with me."

"No, I'm not!  You're not touching me!"

"Emma," he dropped his voice, 'you've already agreed to go to bed with
me."

"That was a mistake!"  she snapped.

"No, it wasn't.  Neither of us has an ounce of willpower where the
other is concerned, Emma."  He moved closer, his eyes and his voice
softening.

"I

can't think of anything but you, sweetheart.  You're like.."  like an
obsession.  And you might as well face it--you feel the same about
me."

She found herself shaking.

"To my shame, but then, what else would you expect from a whore like
me?"

"Emma!"  He took her arms so firmly that he hurt her, but she was too
upset to resist.

"Enough Of that!

Who gives a damn what happened in the past?

WI you or I had One lover or a thousand, it shouldn't change one thing
about the way We feel about each other!"

She stared into his eyes and realised what she saw there.

"You know, don't you?  Who told you?  James?"

"Yes," he admitted reluctantly.

"So now you've decided that because I'm not quite the whore you thought
I was, you'll have me back?"

"Dammit, Emma, I asked you to marry me months ago!  Long before Mr.
Collins took it on himself to interfere.  You can't have forgotten
that, surely?"

"No, I remember it very clearly.  You said you forgave me."

"Emma..  :' He went to slide his arms around her waist but she made
herself rigid, jamming her elbows into his chest to keep the distance
between them.

"I was still angry with you then.  But it didn't take long to realise
the mistake I'd made.  How could you possibly be honest with me, when
I'd never given you the chance to trust me?  You're the best, most
beautiful thing that's ever happened to me.  I see you in every other
woman's face, in every sunrise and sunset, You're my life, Emma.  I
love you."

"Oh, Ben," she said huskily, close to tears, but as he went to pull her
against him she dug her elbows in his chest again.

"What's that for?"

"I bet you rehearsed that."

"I did not!"  he said, so indignantly that she 0!"-most relented.

"Ow.  Now what?"

"My sister.  What you did to her was unforgivable, Ben.  I lie awake at
nights..."

"Thinking of me?"

"No!  Well, sometimes... No, I think of Charlotte, on the other side of
the world, probably deserted by your father, penniless..."

He let out an exasperated sigh.

"Will it make you happier to know that I gave instructions to the
captain of the Sarah Jane to let them back on board again if they
wanted to come back to New South Wales?  I've got no doubts the two of
them will be back here within the year, demanding we support them in
the manner they wish to become accustomed to.  Why don't you give your
sister your house, if you feel so strongly about it?"

She considered that.

"I don't know if I feel that charitable..."

He tested the pressure of her elbows against his ribs and found the
first sign of compliance.

"Why don't we go to bed?"  he suggested hopefully.

"I do my best thinking there."

"Really?"  She looked at him askance, biting back her laughter.

"I do my best thinking over a cup of tea."

"And/'ve had to go and make a fresh pot," Mr.  Matthews complained from
the kitchen doorway.

"You two ready to come and share it?"

Ben and Emma looked at each other.

"I think so," said Emma.

"Good," said Mr.  Matthews, and turned back towards the kitchen with a
loud sniff.

"It's taken you long enough."