Free Night in Eden by Candice Proctor

the bay, and for a moment, she might almost have imagined herself back on the waterfront of the village of Cadgwith Cove.
    Then she heard the rattling chink of chains, and turned to see a chain gang stumble toward the wharf. The men were half-naked and filthy, their bare backs crisscrossed with the scars of repeated floggings, their eyes sunken and despairing. The illusion of comfortable familiarity was shattered.
    Gideon came up beside her. She glanced at him, and saw a frown line appear between his brows as he watched the chain gang shuffle past.
    Abruptly she said, "What is Captain St. John doing here, Gideon? He's not with the New South Wales Corps, is he?"
    Gideon's nostrils flared with contempt. "The New South Wales Corps? No, he was never a part of that riffraff. He fought the French, in Europe. And then he was in India, with Wellesley's regiment. But he was wounded at Assaye. It was when he was recuperating in England that he married Mrs. St. John."
    "So what's he doing here?" asked Bryony, turning to walk slowly along the waterfront.
    "Sold out," said Gideon, falling into step beside her. "He tried going back to India with the army for a while, but the climate didn't agree with his wife's health."
    "No?" Bryony tipped her head back. From here she could see two windmills on the top of the ridge behind the Governor's house. She watched their sails whirling around and around, flashing white against the crisp blue sky. And she thought, idly, that the sky was the same color blue as Hayden St. John's eyes. "I would have thought he'd take her back to England, if she wasn't strong."
    Gideon laughed. "Do you, now? And what would a man like the Cap'n do in England?"
    Bryony tried to picture Hayden St. John in the role of a sedate English gentleman, riding about his carefully tended green fields, going to church every Sunday with his dutiful wife and children, and dispensing alms to the poor at Christmas like her Uncle Edward. Only she couldn't do it.
    In her arms, Simon yawned and rested his head on her shoulder. Bryony looked down at his flaxen head and felt a curious sadness well up within her. "Perhaps," she said softly. "But New South Wales must not have agreed with the Captain's wife any more than India."
    "No," Gideon admitted, following her gaze. "No, it didn't."
     
    Bryony pushed open the door of the parlor, then stopped short on the threshold.
    She'd expected the room to be empty. Instead Captain St. John and another man were sitting at the oak table near the window, drinking wine. St. John had his head tipped back, draining his glass. When he lowered it, she noticed the wine had wet his lips.
    "I'm sorry," she said hastily. "I didn't mean to intrude. I'll just go down to the kitchen and—"
    She would have backed out of the room, but St. John had already risen. He stepped over and pulled the door open wider. "No, come in, Bryony. This is Dr. William Redfern. I've asked him to take a look at you and Simon before we leave Sydney."
    Bryony looked from St. John to the pleasant-faced man of about thirty, then back at St. John again.
    In the warm light of the afternoon sun, his face looked surprisingly relaxed. He was actually smiling at her, but Bryony recognized that smile. It was the same smile she used herself when she was trying to coax a child or a particularly slow-witted servant to do something they didn't want to do. To have that look bent on her was both humiliating and infuriating.
    "I'll wait for you in the coffee room downstairs." He nodded to the doctor, and before she had a chance to say anything, he closed the door behind him.
    Bryony glanced back at the doctor, who by now had risen also and was standing beside the table.
    "Well," he said. "Let's start with Simon, shall we?"
    Simon was awake. He suffered the exchange of arms quietly enough, but when the doctor unwrapped him and laid him on the hard table, he began to whimper.
    "Hush, now, little one," said the doctor with a soft Irish lilt. "You remember