under her long eyelashes until he backed away.
As she rose she had to hold her dress to her body to stop it slipping down and George quickly shrugged off his jacket, placing it gently over her shoulders.
‘What’s your name?’
Ten seconds passed, then twenty. He knew she wasn’t mute after hearing her screams not ten minutes ago, but right now she didn’t look as though she would answer him.
‘I’ll not be your whore,’ she said eventually.
‘Excuse me?’
‘That’s why you saved me. So I could be your whore. I’ll not demean myself in that way.’
George had never been lost for words before in his life, but found his mouth opening and closing in surprise.
‘Thank you for your intervention, but I will take my chances at the factories.’ She began to hobble away, every step the pain evident on her face.
‘Stop,’ he called out, wondering whether to assure the young woman he hadn’t asked the Lieutenant Governor for her just so she could serve him in the bedroom, or to point out that it didn’t much matter what she wanted—she’d been assigned to his farm. ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding.’
He could see the anxiety in her expression, the naked fear as her eyes darted over him. Alongside that there seemed to be a hint of anger, directed at him even though they’d only just met. He moved a fraction closer, spreading his hands out in front of him to try to make himself look less intimidating. ‘I merely wished to employ you on my farm, nothing more.’
‘Why?’ she asked, still looking mistrustful, but standing her ground, her eyes narrowing.
George hesitated. In truth, he didn’t know. She was nothing to him, a stranger, yet he’d risked a whipping for getting in between her and the guard’s harsh but lawful punishment. And now he’d lumbered himself with a convict worker he did not need.
‘Call it Christmas charity,’ he said with a shrug. ‘My good deed for the year.’
‘It’s not Christmas for another month.’
‘Then I’m banking it for later.’
They stood five feet apart, both regarding the other for a long minute. Then she gave a gracious nod, as if she were a queen and George a lowly servant requesting a favour.
‘You don’t touch me,’ she said, thrusting out her hand and stabbing a long and dainty finger in his direction.
‘On my honour.’
She inclined her head once again and allowed him to guide her along the street, the most unlikely of couples.
‘It doesn’t need to be anything fancy—just a shirt and trousers will do. Anything’s better than that shredded old dress.’ Alice listened to the voices outside the door for a moment before sinking fully under the water, revelling in the warmth and watching the bubbles rise to the surface in a neat little stream. It had been agony for the first few seconds in the bath, the open wounds on her back throbbing and stinging as the water came into contact with them, but she knew the importance of getting them clean. Open sores like that could fester. She’d seen more than one person’s wounds start swelling and weeping after a whipping on the transport ship on the way over to Australia and that could be fatal.
Now though, after her body had got used to the sensation of the water against her open flesh, the bath was soothing and she silently gave thanks for having the opportunity to bathe before the journey ahead.
Rising up to the surface, Alice could hear the argument still going on outside the door.
‘I’ll not dress a woman in a shirt and trousers. It’s not right. It’s not Christian.’
‘Whatever you can find,’ said the deep voice in reply. Her saviour. Mr Fitzgerald. A man with kind eyes, eyes that it would be all too easy to trust. Alice snorted—she wouldn’t be trusting him any time soon.
With a sigh, she rose up out of the water, letting it drip from her body before she stepped out of the bath. She grabbed the towel from where it had been hung within easy reach and began to pat down her body, grimacing as she laid the soft material against her back. Six lashes, that was all she’d had, and the guard had made sure every single one would leave a scar. He’d ripped open her back with the first lash and continued the damage with the next five. It wasn’t the first time she’d been whipped, but it was the most painful.
Alice heard the door click open and the landlady slipped in, brandishing a dress that was going to be much too large. Her own coarse grey sack of a dress lay shredded on the chair, stained with her blood and ripped past repair. However, looking at the garment the woman was holding in her hand, Alice wasn’t sure this would be much better.
‘It’s a little large, my dear,’ the woman said, her deep Yorkshire accent making Alice think of home. ‘But it’ll protect your modesty well enough. Now let’s have a look at that back of yours.’
With a series of tuts and sighs the landlady helped her dress, leaving the material loose at the back so it wouldn’t stick to the open wounds. Alice peered in the steamed-up mirror, noting the wet strands of hair hanging around her face, the pink skin on her sunburned nose and the freckles that had appeared on her cheeks these last few months. The dress hung off her, inches too long at the bottom and sitting all wrong around her hips. She looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothing.
‘You’ll do, child,’ the landlady said, looking at her with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m sure Mr Fitzgerald will sort you out with something that fits once he gets you home.’
Home. The very word sent a slither of dread into her core. This was exactly what she’d been avoiding for the nine months she’d been in Australia. Most of the other women she’d been transported with, and many who’d arrived after her, were settled with a man by now. Either the free-men, landowners, workers—any of the men who had the right to select a convict woman to be theirs, as a wife or something more lurid—or with other convicts, men who promised to look after them in this frightening new life.
Alice had resisted both. Her life was little enough her own as it was, she didn’t want a man controlling what few choices she did have. She’d made that mistake in England, saddled herself with a man who’d promised her the world, slowly reduced her to a shadow of her former self, then led her into the situation that had resulted in her arrest and transportation.
Now it would seem that she didn’t have a choice. Of course she was grateful to Mr Fitzgerald for stepping in when he did, but what would be the price?
‘Come, dear, he’s waiting for you. Eager to get back home, I would think.’
Alice smiled weakly, allowing the landlady to usher her out of the room. Mr Fitzgerald had insisted she get cleaned up and a change of clothes before they headed for wherever it was he lived. Alice was grateful; she felt much more human now she’d washed the blood from her back and the dirt from her hands.
As she descended the stairs she saw him
