‘How do you normally spend Christmas?’ Alice asked, slicing the apple in front of her with care. Mrs Peterson like things done just so and Alice was quickly learning not to argue over the small things with the housekeeper. If she wanted the apples for the pie chopped into inch-square chunks, then Alice would do just that, even though she knew the apples would bake better in thinner strips.
‘Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald, the old Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald, always made a big fuss over Christmas,’ Mrs Peterson said, pausing for a moment with her floury hands resting on the top of the rolling pin. ‘Presents everywhere, the drawing room decorated with flowers and plants, a sumptuous meal for the family to share. It was always young Mr Fitzgerald’s favourite time of year.’
Alice felt a smile spread across her face at the picture of Mr Fitzgerald as a young lad, tearing around the house in excitement.
‘Since his parents died he’s still celebrated of course, but the house has never seemed quite so full.’
‘He stays here on his own?’ Alice asked. As far as she knew he had no other family in Australia, the rest of his relations still living half a world away in England.
‘Not on his own, Mr Robertson and Mr Crawford used to come. Although with them having their own families now I don’t know what will happen.’ She sighed and shook her head. Alice waited for her to go on, but the housekeeper went back to rolling out the pastry for the pie.
‘You think that will upset Mr Fitzgerald?’
‘Good Lord, no. If you haven’t worked out he’s the kindest man on this earth then you must be blind. He would never begrudge his friends their happiness with their families. But whatever he says he will miss his friends at Christmas, just like he’ll miss his dear parents, too. I just wish he would find someone of his own.’
For all her prickliness with Alice there was no denying that Mrs Peterson loved the man she worked for, even saw him a little like a son. She thought of Mr Fitzgerald, his kindness, his generosity, and resolved that she would do her very best to make it a special Christmas for him.
‘Why hasn’t he settled down, do you think?’ Alice asked mildly. She couldn’t help remembering the moment in the garden a few days earlier where their eyes had met and their bodies swayed together. If it had been down to her, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from reaching up and kissing him, but Mr Fitzgerald had hesitated, had pulled away, and now he was avoiding her as though she were infected with the plague.
‘I wish I knew. He had the girls falling over him, of course. He’s rich and handsome and successful. And they don’t even know how kind and loving he is. But I suppose there’s just not been anyone who’s caught his eye.’
‘No one?’
‘No one worth talking about,’ Mrs Peterson said as she laid the pastry into the dish. ‘Now you get those apples boiling.’
Alice placed the apple chunks into the pan and added the boiling water, trying to keep her hands busy all the time. These last couple of days had been torture. Despite doing her very best to be busy every waking moment she had been unable to stop her mind wandering. Thinking about Mr Fitzgerald, about the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled, how the sun glinted off those green-blue eyes and golden hair. How his face lit up when he talked of botany or the animals he rescued. And how she’d felt whole again when he’d looked at her with desire in his eyes.
Alice had never expected to feel anything like this again and especially not after knowing someone for such a short time. After Bill she had sworn she would never let another man into her life, sworn she would never place herself in that vulnerable position again. And then the deplorable behaviour of the men on the transport ship and the archaic claiming of women that happened once they’d landed in Sydney had strengthened that resolve.
Then Mr Fitzgerald had come in and knocked it down with his kind gestures and chivalry.
Closing her eyes, Alice tried to force herself to remember the pain she’d felt inside when he’d pulled away instead of kissing her. There had been desire, a heat coming off him that was unmistakable, but he’d remembered himself, remembered their respective positions, and he’d stepped away. That had hurt, but the rational part of her brain kept trying to tell her it was for the best. There were hundreds of reasons even a single kiss would be foolish, no matter how much she longed to feel his arms around her body and his lips brush against hers.
‘Don’t jeopardise things,’ she muttered, reminding herself how lucky she was to have ended up here rather than in one of the dreaded factories back in Sydney. Those places were grim and the conditions little better than a prison.
‘Pardon?’ Mrs Peterson said, reminding Alice she wasn’t alone.
‘Just telling myself to be careful, I don’t want to drop any apple pieces,’ Alice said breezily.
‘I hoped he might come home from England with a wife. Some pretty little aristocrat wanting an adventure, like Mr Robertson’s and Mr Crawford’s wives,’ Mrs Peterson said, pulling Alice out of her reverie completely.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint.’ Mr Fitzgerald’s deep voice came from the doorway. He was leaning against the wood casually, his arms folded over his chest and a smile playing on his lips. Alice felt something lurch inside her and had to grip on to the work surface to steady herself.
‘It’s high time you found some respectable girl to marry and started producing some cherubic children,’ Mrs Peterson said, seemingly not fazed at being caught out gossiping about her master. ‘This house is too big for you to be rattling about it on your own. And those good looks of yours won’t last for ever.’
‘Ah. Mrs Peterson, you think I’m good looking,’ he said, stepping into the room and taking the housekeeper by the hand. ‘If only you weren’t a married woman.’
‘Hush,’ Mrs Peterson said, her cheeks turning red, ‘Stop fooling around. You could have your pick of the girls—you just need to choose one.’
Alice was watching him as his eyes skimmed over her as if he were unable to stop glancing in her direction.
Mr Fitzgerald shrugged, as if he’d heard this a hundred times before, and turned to Alice. For a moment it was as if the world slowed down. Alice could feel every beat of her heart in her chest, every prickle of heat on her skin, every butterfly in her stomach. It was unnerving.
‘Excuse me?’ she said, realising he had started speaking and she had no idea whatsoever as to what he was saying.
He gave he a slightly bemused look, but started again. ‘I’m going into town,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to sort out the paperwork to confirm I’m taking you on as a convict worker and I need to visit my tailor. Do you feel up to accompanying me?’
It was more than a week now since she’d recovered from her infection, enough to start getting up and about around the house, although she hadn’t ventured further than the kangaroo enclosure yet. Still, her wounds were healing nicely and the good food and kindness she was receiving here at Mountain View Farm meant she felt stronger than she had in years.
She nodded, feeling nervous at the prospect of going back to Sydney. It held bad memories for her and, even though she knew it was irrational, she had a fear that one of the guards might grab her and pull her back to the whipping post to finish off her punishment.
Mr Fitzgerald stepped closer and Alice caught a hint of his scent, a mixture of the honey from his soap and something earthier she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
‘I’ll be right there beside you,’ he said quietly so only she could hear. ‘There’s no need to feel nervous.’
Alice swallowed, taking a moment to compose herself before she looked up. It still wasn’t enough. He was standing close, although not so close as to be considered inappropriate. The look of concern on his face was mingled with a smile of reassurance and Alice wondered what he would do if she just threw herself into his arms.
Nodding, she bit her lip, but then forced herself to smile. As he smiled back she wondered exactly what it was about him that had her feeling like a lovesick sixteen-year-old. Perhaps after her bad experiences it was his kindness she found so attractive, but as he turned away to address Mrs Peterson she knew there was the physical pull as well. It had been a long time since she’d imagined a man’s arms wrapped around her, but now she was finding it hard to think of anything else.
‘We’ll leave in half an hour,’ he said. ‘Do you feel up to riding or shall we take the cart?’ Before she could answer he shook his head. ‘If you don’t mind, we’ll take the cart—I’ve got a few bits to pick up in town that will be easier to bring home that way.’
The cart would be slower, of course, more time in close proximity with him. Alice nodded, of course she couldn’t protest. It would be a good practice for her to control herself while sitting next to the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.
‘Would you pick up a few bits from town for Christmas? I need some dried fruit for the cake and see if those crooks down by the harbour have any nutmeg in, but don’t pay more than sixpence a measure. And we need some more of the good wine, that red you like.’ The housekeeper ticked off the items on her fingers, nodding her head in satisfaction when she had thought of everything. ‘I’ll make you up a parcel for lunch,’ Mrs Peterson said as Alice watched Mr Fitzgerald walk from the room. ‘It’ll take a few hours to get into Sydney on that old cart so you’ll be gone most of the day.’ She paused, then ushered Alice to the door. ‘You go get ready—and the master is right. Don’t you fret about going into Sydney. He wouldn’t let anything happen to you.’
Half an hour later Alice steeped outside into the sunshine. It was another scorching day with no let up in temperature in sight. Still they’d had no rain and she knew Mr Fitzgerald was becoming increasingly anxious about the lack of water down the wells and the dryness of the earth. Carefully she adjusted her bonnet to stop the sun pinkening her face and walked around to the side of the house. Mr Peterson was there with the horse and cart, loading on a basket that no doubt contained the feast Mrs Peterson had packed. As she got to the side of the cart she felt movement in the air behind her and a soft touch on her arm.
‘Ready?’ Mr Fitzgerald asked.
Alice nodded, feeling a crackle of energy between them as he took her hand to help her up on to the bench at the front of the cart. He settled in beside her, took the reins from Mr Peterson and they set off at a sedate pace away from the farm.
For a while they rode in silence, the swaying motion of the cart lulling Alice into an almost trance-like state. It was only when Mr Fitzgerald shifted beside her that she came back to the present, realising they must have been travelling for a good while as the scenery had changed a little.
‘That’s cooler,’ she said, loosening the straps of her bonnet. They were passing through a small forest, the road shaded by the tall trees, and with a sigh of relief Alice slipped the bonnet from her head, shaking out her hair so it fell about her shoulders.
She became aware of Mr Fitzgerald watching her as she settled the bonnet in her lap and felt the colour rise in her cheeks.
‘It’s unbelievably warm in those things,’ she said, wondering how long she would feel such a rush of heat whenever he looked at her. Two years was a long time—surely by the end of her sentence she’d be able to look him in the eye without feeling like a thousand butterflies were trapped inside her stomach.
‘I can only imagine,’ he murmured. As usual he was dressed in a simple pair of trousers and pristine white-cotton shirt. On any other man it would look ordinary, but he managed to draw the eye as if he were wearing evening wear made by the finest tailor. ‘Shall we stop for lunch?’
It was still an hour’s ride into Sydney and suddenly Alice was keen to stretch her legs and enjoy the shade for a while.
‘That would be lovely.’
They continued for another couple of minutes, the cart trundling slowly down the dusty track. Somewhere above them two birds called to one another, a sweet, high-pitched conversation in song that reminded Alice of the fat wood pigeons they used to get in her garden back home.
‘Here should do,’ Mr Fitzgerald said, pulling gently on the reins to slow the plodding horse.
Quickly he hopped down and held out his hand, as always treating her more like a lady of his class than the convict worker she was. Then he grabbed the basket Mrs Peterson had filled with food, offered her his arm and led her through the undergrowth.
‘You’ve been here before,’ Alice said as he picked his way through on an invisible path.
‘I have indeed. It’s my favourite place to stop on the way to Sydney.’
She was about to ask why when she looked up, her breath catching in her chest at the view in front of them. The space between the trees opened out to reveal a small lake of sparkling blue glinting in the sunshine. The bank was shallow and shaded, tapering gently down to the still water. Even here there was evidence of the drought, with a dusty, exposed foot of dried mud surrounding the lake that normally would have been underwater.
‘I can see why.’
From the basket Mr Fitzgerald took a blanket and laid it out, sitting down on one side and waiting for Alice to sit on the other.
‘Mrs Peterson is a good cook,’ he said, dipping into the basket again, ‘and she makes a fantastic dinner, but you can’t beat her picnics.’
He set out several dishes and packets, unwrapping each to reveal tantalising scents. He was right—it did look like a perfect picnic. Sandwiches and scones were set out next to not one, but three types of cold meat. There was a cake, a collection of apples and even a bottle of wine hiding in the bottom.
‘Let me get this cooling,’ he said, getting to his feet.
Alice watched him with interest as he tied a piece of string around the bottle and set it into the lake, tucking the other end of the string under a good-sized rock.
‘What would you like first?’ he asked.
She took a sandwich, biting into the fresh bread and feeling her stomach give an appreciative rumble.
‘How was your dinner with your friends last week?’ Alice asked. It had been the dinner party she’d been invited to, the one she hadn’t known whether to accept the invitation to or not, but her delirium from the fever had stopped her from needing to make the decision.
‘I didn’t go,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘You were unwell. I didn’t want to leave you alone.’ He looked at her for a moment, an amused expression on his face. ‘Don’t worry, I sent a note.’
‘Good,’ Alice said, unable to summon any other words. He’d cancelled. For her.
‘The dinner has been rearranged for later this week. This time Robertson and his wife are going to host. If you feel well enough.’
Alice shook her head in disbelief. She should be serving at the table, not invited to sit around it with his friends. It was intoxicating, this kindness he was showing her, something she hadn’t experienced in such a long time. If she wasn’t careful, she would get used to it and she needed to remember this wasn’t how the world really was. It wasn’t how people really were.
‘You don’t feel well enough?’ he asked.
‘It’s not that,’ she said quickly, not sure how to explain how she was feeling.
‘They don’t bite,’ Mr Fitzgerald said with a smile. ‘I know it seems daunting, socialising when all you’ve known for so long is work and punishment, but I think you would enjoy it.’
‘It doesn’t seem right,’ Alice said, looking down at her hands. ‘I’m a convict, a servant. They’re... You’re...’
‘Have I told you how I came to know Robertson and Crawford?’ Mr Fitzgerald asked, reclining back and kicking off his boots.
‘You mentioned they were convicts.’
‘They were. Transported as very young lads. They came to the farm as convict workers when my father was alive. They were quiet and sullen and scarred by their experiences.’
Alice shifted, making herself comfortable before taking another sandwich.
‘A few months after they arrived it was harvest time and we were all out in the fields. Even my mother used to lend a hand back then. I was working alongside Robertson and Crawford, even though we hadn’t really spoken before. It was hot and everyone was getting tired. I’d just turned around when Robertson sprang on top of me and I saw Crawford leap to one side, flinging himself on the ground.’
Alice watched as he got lost in the memory. It should have been a scary experience, but by the look on his face all he could see was the good that had come out of it, the friendships it had formed.
‘They saved me from a poisonous snake. Robertson tackled me out of the way and Crawford jumped on it before it could spring. They saved my life that day.’
‘That was very brave for two young boys.’
‘It was. My father brought them into the house and realised they were good lads, just held back by their circumstances. They still had a few years of their sentences to serve out, but Father moved them into the house, educated them beside me, treated them like sons.’ Mr Fitzgerald shook his head. ‘They are the two most generous and courageous men I know and that is partly because someone showed them some humanity during their time here.’
‘Your father sounds like a wonderful man.’
‘He was. In some ways, at least.’ He paused, looking over at Alice, and she sensed there was some deeper emotion he was concealing about his father, something painful and personal. ‘Do you know what he would tell me to do if he were here?’ he asked eventually.
She shook her head.
‘He’d tell me to remember every single person is worthy of time and attention, every single person deserves to be treated as the best version of themselves.’
‘I think your father would be very proud of you.’
He shrugged, then grinned. ‘What I was trying to say was that Robertson and Crawford share my view that no one should be suppressed due to their background. They would welcome you at their tables, they know what you’ve been through and they know that is not the entirety of who you are.’
‘And their wives?’
‘I don’t know them well, but Robertson and Crawford wouldn’t marry anyone who believed someone to be inferior purely because of their circumstances.’
Alice played with a loose thread of wool on the blanket, wrapping it around her fingers before releasing it and repeating.
‘Did you ever feel jealous?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Of your father treating them like sons?’
‘I was just pleased to have someone to share my lessons with, to run wild in the fields with. We’re quite isolated out at Mountain View Farm and even more so back then. Sometimes we might go for weeks without seeing an outsider.’ He sat up, waiting for her to meet his eye. ‘So will you come to dinner?’
At his words her heart beat harder in her chest and her skin flushed. She knew he was only asking to be kind, he’d said as much a few minutes earlier. Just like his father had shown Robertson and Crawford there was good in the world, that was what he was doing for her. Still, some part of her felt as though he were asking her to accompany him to dinner. To go as his guest, to ride alongside him, to walk in on his arm.
‘If you’re sure it would be appropriate,’ Alice said, suppressing the gushy yes that had threatened to spill from her lips.
‘Wonderful.’
He lay back again, stretching out, and Alice had visions of lying down beside him, resting her head on his chest as he gathered her to him.
‘I know we should continue our journey,’ he said after a couple of minutes. ‘But it’s so damn hot.’
He wasn’t wrong. She felt uncomfortable in her dress and for a moment she wished she could slip out of it and slide into the cool lake for a swim. As the thought popped into her mind she saw Mr Fitzgerald sit up and eye the water as if thinking the same thing.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ he said decisively.
‘What?’ Her voice came out in a half-strangled squeak, but Alice was too distracted to notice. A swim. In the lake. Right in front of her. Presumably without many clothes on. She swallowed, already images of him stripping naked and striding into the water filling her head.
‘A swim,’ he said. ‘I would invite you in, but I know you need to keep your wounds clean and dry.’
She nodded. Unable to form a single coherent sound. Invite her in, as if it were to have tea with an elderly relative. She glanced sideways at him. He had absolutely no clue as to how much he affected her.
Alice could only watch as he stood and pulled his shirt over his head. She had to stifle the sharp intake of breath with a hand over her mouth. The memory of him holding her tight to him as they slipped and slid in the muddy pond came crashing back.
‘Get a grip,’ she muttered to herself.
‘Pardon?’
‘Don’t slip,’ she said, managing to summon a smile.
‘I won’t. Thanks.’
He waded into the water with his trousers still on, pausing when he was almost waist deep before diving under the surface. It was a good thirty seconds before he surfaced again, just long enough for Alice to feel a prickle of concern.
‘It’s glorious in here,’ he called, kicking on to his back.
She did feel a little jealous, sitting in the sweltering heat while he must be wonderfully cool, but Alice knew if she went into that water with him she might lose control and do something she would only regret.
‘He’s your employer,’ she muttered, planning on listing all the reasons even dreaming about Mr Fitzgerald was foolish. ‘He is far above you in social class. You swore never to let a man into your heart or your life again.’ She paused, closing her eyes and feeling the tears building as the biggest obstacle to her future happiness came to the surface. ‘You’re still married,’ she whispered.
Unless Bill had been caught and his death sentence carried out she was still legally Mrs Alice Fillips. Trying to suppress the tears, she thought back to the rushed wedding he’d talked her into when she’d first run away with him. Of the heady feeling of coming out of the church a married woman. And the months that followed as she realised what a momentous mistake she’d made in tying herself to a man who disregarded her feelings and even sometimes her existence entirely.
By the time they’d been hauled away to face the magistrates, her for theft and him for murder, there were none of the feelings of love or excitement left for the man she’d married, only resentment for the lies he’d told her, the stories he’d spun and the promises he’d never meant to keep.
Now she was in a perpetual limbo. On the other side of the world, unsure if she was still a married woman or if her husband had been executed. At that thought she felt a lump form in her throat. No matter how cruel Bill had been in the end she never wanted to see him hanged. Once they’d been happy, for a short while, and it was that man she mourned, not the one who’d come after their marriage.
Glancing up, she felt her chest constrict. Mr Fitzgerald was the total opposite of Bill. Kind and generous and not at all violent. But no matter how much she might want him to gather her in his arms and promise her a happy future, she knew it could never be.
As she watched he stood, the water flowing from his body as he rose up out of the lake. She knew she should look away, knew he could see her staring, but it was as though her eyes wouldn’t obey. As he waded through the water the sun glinted off the droplets on his skin and gave him a golden glow, as if he were a Greek god come to visit her.
‘That was the most refreshing swim I’ve had in my life. And I didn’t get eaten by a crocodile. Today is going to be a great day.’
‘What?’ Alice asked, wondering if she’d heard him wrong.
‘You know we have crocodiles here in Australia?’ he asked, looking at her with a bemused expression.
She did, but only vaguely. It was one of those facts that someone had told her on the voyage out here. Like tales of spiders the size of dinner plates and venomous snakes hanging from every lamppost. They’d talked of a gigantic man-eating lizard with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
‘Not here, though?’ she asked, her eyes darting across the surface of the water.
Mr Fitzgerald shrugged. ‘Probably not. I’ve swum here plenty of times and survived to tell the tale. It is the sort of place they might live, though. A clean, shady spot with shallow banks and deep water. A crocodile’s paradise.’
‘Why on earth would you swim here if there’s even the slightest risk?’ Alice shuddered at the thought of a crocodile fastening its huge jaws around an arm or a leg.
‘We have sharks off the coast,’ he said with a shrug, ‘and crocodiles in some of the freshwater lakes, it’s one or the other.’ He sat down beside her, his wet trousers clinging to his thighs, little droplets flying off him as he touched the ground and showering Alice in a cool spray. ‘You can’t spend your whole life afraid.’
‘Of a crocodile you can.’
He smiled at her, propping himself up on his elbow.
‘So if you’re not afraid of crocodiles and you’re not afraid of sharks, what does scare you?’ Alice asked, checking the undergrowth one last time to rule out the possibility of an overgrown lizard hiding among the shrubs.
‘Do you want the truth?’ he asked, lowering his voice.
Alice nodded, leaning in a little so her face was close to his. It was so tempting to reach out and touch him, to trail her fingers over his cheek. There was an intimacy between them, a closeness that she wished could last, but she knew that as soon as they got up from the blanket and continued their journey to Sydney the spell would break.
‘I’m not afraid of venomous snakes or spiders that can kill with one bite and I’m not afraid of the crocodiles or sharks that terrorise the waters,’ he said, his voice low and melodious and his eyes holding hers with a warmth and intensity that made an unbidden smile blossom on Alice’s lips. ‘But I am a little afraid of you, Alice.’
‘Of me?’ she spluttered. It was not the answer he was expecting.
‘Of you...’ He paused and she wondered if he was going to elaborate or leave her guessing as to his meaning.
‘I’m not dangerous,’ she said eventually.
‘Not in the conventional sense.’
‘Not in any sense.’
He sat up, the movement bringing them closer together, and Alice was momentarily distracted by the heat of his body so close to hers.
‘I think you’re dangerous to me,’ he murmured, reaching out and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a few seconds.
Alice felt the air being sucked from her body. Here was the man she had spent the last few weeks trying not to fall for admitting he was attracted to her, even though he knew it would be best for them to keep things strictly platonic. Her heart soared and she silently urged him to do something more. To trail his fingers down her cheek, to pull her to his body, to cover her lips with his own.
Instead he shook his head and sprang to his feet, pulling his shirt on in one swift movement, and started to gather the lunch things up.
Alice couldn’t move. She was poised to be kissed, her lips moist and her body willing. Slowly she closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus. He was right to not take things any further, of course he was, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she fixed a sunny smile to her face and stood, busying herself with packing the basket so Mr Fitzgerald wouldn’t see quite how disappointed she was.