Night in Eden Read Online Free PDF

chill through her that had nothing to do with the weather, and went far deeper than the marrow of her bones.
    Her gaze dropped to the baby sleeping peacefully in
    Gideon's arms, and she wondered how the other woman, the one who'd died giving his child life, had borne it. "Was Simon's mother his servant, too?" she asked in a queer voice. "An assigned convict?"
    "Mrs. St. John? Lord, no. 'Tes a real lady, she was. A viscount's daughter." An odd, rapt expression crept into Gideon's face. "Sure, she was like an angel, she was that beautiful. The daintiest, sweetest thing a man ever did see. The Cap'n, he fair worshiped her—cherished her like, if you know what I mean?"
    Bryony shook her head. She could imagine Hayden St. John ravishing a woman, but worshiping her? Cherishing her?
    "He ain't been the same since she died," Gideon was saying. "Took it real hard, he did. Blames himself, I reckon, for bringing her out here. Heard him say once, he never shoulda done it. 'Tes no place for a lady, that's sure."
    No place for a lady, Bryony thought. No, this wild, hard land was no place for a mere woman, either.
    She didn't want to look at St. John again, but she couldn't seem to help it. He stood gazing out over the cloud-shrouded hills, his feet braced against the movement of the boat, his long, dark hair tousled by the wind. He looked as frightening and hard as the land he surveyed.
    Yet he had taken to wife a lady, a viscount's daughter with a face like an angel and a temperament to match. She wondered what he would think of a woman like her—a felon. How would he treat her?
    But she already knew the answer to that. In the space of a few hours, he'd stripped her half naked and threatened to have her flogged. Twice. Bryony drained the bitter dregs of her tea, and sighed.
    "You look that tired, you do," said Gideon, stretching to his feet. "Why don't you try and get some sleep? I'll keep Simon here for a while."
    She would have argued about it, but Gideon just laughed and told her not to be daft, and walked away, the baby still in his arms.
    Bryony leaned back against a crate and gratefully let her eyes slide shut. She was so tired. She'd spent—how many days and nights? two? three?—fighting for Philip's life after the sickness took hold of him, clutching his wracked little body to her, too afraid to sleep even when he slept, lest she wake and find him dead.
    But in the cold light of early morning, Philip had died anyway as she watched. One moment he'd been there, alive and breathing. The next moment he'd been gone, and she'd been left holding nothing but his empty body. All her care, all her watchfulness hadn't made any difference.
     
    Bryony eased herself into the warm, sweetly scented bathwater, and sighed with rare contentment.
    She had expected to be put in the servants' attics. Or to be forced to share her master's bedchamber, as well as his bed. Instead St. John had ordered a pallet put up for her in the private parlor of the Sydney inn, where he was staying.
    In contrast to the crude, rustic inn where they'd rested beside the river in Parramatta, the Three Jolly Fishermen was a fine, two-story building of cut sandstone set high on the western rim of the cove. The private parlor was large and finely furnished, with a wide casement window overlooking the winding, rutted streets of the town and the choppy, mist-shrouded bay below.
    Bryony's eyes drifted closed as the warm water enfolded her, soothing her soul as well as her body. It was the first bath she'd had in a year. She didn't count the time at Gravesend when they'd made them all strip and then dunked them before giving them the government-issued clothing, which was to last them on their voyage and beyond. That had been an exercise in humiliation rather than cleanliness. She tried to forget it... although she doubted she ever would.
    When she opened her eyes, her gaze fell on Simon St. John, playing with his feet on the blanket she'd spread out on the floor beside her.