Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [97]
But much as Tench wanted Mary, he knew he couldn’t do it. He was too bound by convention to take a woman and her children from another man. It wouldn’t be right not to give her the security of marriage. Nor could he bear to see her slighted by his friends and family, as they surely would if they knew her history.
Besides, he could be fooling himself that she felt as he did. She had never said anything to suggest she felt anything more than friendship towards him.
He looked at her slight figure bent over the water, and there was determination in every inch of her body. She would find some way to help herself. Somehow he knew she wasn’t destined to be anyone’s slave.
Chapter eleven
1791
‘You have the money?’ Detmer asked in his heavily accented English.
Mary nodded and held out a bundle of clean washing. ‘It’s in a handkerchief,’ she whispered. She lightly touched the bundle he was carrying. ‘Are they in there?’
It was 26 March, Detmer was due to set sail back for England in two days’ time with Captain Hunter and his crew from the wrecked Sirius.
Mid-morning on the wharf was busy and noisy. Detmer’s seamen were rolling along barrels of fresh water for loading, Marines patrolled, male convicts building a new shed hammered and sawed, and a gaggle of women convicts returning from cleaning duties in the officers’ houses were shouting to one another. There were many children too, dirty, semi-naked little urchins boldly climbing on the many packing cases for loading. From time to time someone would shout and order them off, and they’d disappear like rats down a culvert, only to appear again within minutes.
The cutter had been repaired, just as Tench said it would be. As it turned out, the accident had been fortuitous, for now the boat was in far better shape than it had been previously.
‘Yes, they are in there. A sextant and compass. I wouldn’t cheat you, Mary,’ Detmer said, his smile slightly reproving. ‘Will you come out to the ship for a farewell drink?’
‘You know I daren’t,’ she said, glancing around her. She was very aware that Detmer’s ship was being watched closely, for there had been stowaways on the Scarborough when it left Sydney Cove. They were discovered before the ship got to the Heads and were immediately put ashore. But since then all the troops and officers had been far more watchful. She could see a couple of officers coming down from Government House, and knew it would be advisable to get away from the wharf and suspicion as quickly as possible.
‘I wish I could do more for you,’ Detmer said with a sigh. ‘Had I met you anywhere else in the world, I believe there would have been a different outcome.’
Mary blushed and lowered her eyes. She never knew how to take Detmer and his often very personal remarks. Some days she felt certain he did have strong feelings for her – why else would he risk so much to help her and Will? Yet at other times she felt she was just a pawn in his game to upset Captain Phillip.
‘Look at me, Mary,’ he said, his voice soft and insistent.
She looked into his clear blue eyes and felt that all too familiar tug of desire for him. He looked even more handsome than usual today – his fair hair had been trimmed, he had shaved and his white shirt was spotless. Even his long boots were highly polished, and she wondered if all that was for her.
It was extraordinary that once again she should be attracted to a man so far above her. For two months now Detmer had invaded her thoughts and dreams in the same manner that Tench always had. But whereas Tench would always have a special place in her heart, and she intuitively knew that his feelings mirrored hers, with Detmer it was purely physical.
He came across to her as a man who had never been answerable to