Night in Eden by Candice Proctor Page B

glanced toward the open doors to the veranda. The breeze from the river now carried with it a growing murmur of voices. Someone called out an order, and then he heard a sound no one who'd spent eight years in the army—or any time at all in New South Wales—could fail to recognize. It was the snap of a cat-o'-nine-tails whipping through the air to slash a man's back.
    It was followed by the collective sigh of all those who had been assembled to watch.
    Lady Priscilla Baxter obviously heard it, too. "Amanda, dear; do play us something on the pianoforte," she said. "And Captain St. John, if you would be so good as to close the doors?"
    Miss Baxter obediently moved to seat herself at the instrument that was the symbol of every young lady's claim to gentility, and launched into a minuet without any hesitation. She played competently—and loudly. But not loudly enough to prevent Hayden, walking over to close first one door, then the other, from hearing the distressed cry of a baby.
    His baby.
    He excused himself and stepped out onto the veranda, closing the French doors behind him. The moon was only just up, spilling a silver path across the dark waters of the slow-moving river. From a stand of gums near the bank came the lonely, haunting cry of a curlew that formed a bizarre counterpoint to the sickening crack of the whip.
    He heard a groan, but there were no screams yet. Paddy O'Neal was obviously taking the lash like a man.
    Hayden followed the veranda through a covered archway that led to the large courtyard at the rear of the house. The courtyard was paved with sandstone slabs and surrounded by stables and carriage houses and various workrooms and servants' quarters. Near the center a triangle had been set up on a raised platform of stone blocks so that the unfortunate victim could be seen clearly by all who had assembled to watch his punishment.
    Young Paddy O'Neal, stripped to the waist, was tied with his arms pulled around the triangle and his chest pressed so tightly against the post that it was impossible for him to move in any way to resist the lash. The blows rained down unceasingly on the poor lad's thin back, one after the other, tearing at skin and muscle until the bones themselves showed through the pulverized bloody mess.
    Hayden scanned the courtyard full of people. It looked as if Baxter had ordered all of his servants assembled to watch the flogging, for it was intended to serve not only as a punishment for Paddy O'Neal, but as a warning to the other convicts as well. Hayden's servants, because they were here, had been ordered to be present as well.
    He finally located Gideon, standing on the far edge of the crowd, his face pale, his normally placid eyes narrowed in outrage. It looked as if he were trying to shield someone from the worst of the spectacle. Someone who held a baby.
    If Gideon was pale, Bryony was white. Though Gideon was doing his best to spare her, she stared at the mangled, writhing mess on the platform with wide, horrified eyes. Held tightly in her arms, Simon howled with all his newfound strength, but whether it was because she was communicating her anxiety to him, or because she was clutching him so tightly, Hayden wasn't sure.
    He wove his way through the gaping crowd, his gaze on his baby and the woman who held him.
    "Bryony," he said quietly.
    She was beyond hearing him.
    "Bryony!" He closed his fingers around her upper arms and pulled her around until she looked at him rather than at the calculated horror in the center of the courtyard.
    He was shocked by the sight of her. The fine bones of her face were sharp, gaunt, her beautiful brown eyes two dark smudges against pale, pale skin. She stared at him for a moment as if she didn't even recognize him. The pain and fear in her eyes was so raw he could have winced at it. Then she gave a small, hoarse cry and collapsed against him.
    Somehow he managed to disentangle the kicking, screaming baby from her arms. "Here," he said, handing the