AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I wonder what the early colony would have been like if the settlement scheme had been run by a better man than Peel. Someone who could have made it succeed. We might never have had convicts, or many of the other mistakes that were made in the first fifty years of the colony," Octavia said.
Harlow shrugged. "That's something for scholars like yourself to think about, not a simple farmer like me. I can only tell you what did happen, as I remember it."
Octavia shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound ungrateful. The information you have given me is far more than I could have ever hoped for. Details no one else knows...things no one else could have known, without standing here, in that time. You are a treasure, Harlow. Far more than just a simple farmer, because you're now the foremost expert on all things rural from two centuries ago."
Harlow snorted. "Don't be so free with the compliments yet. You haven't seen the house we lived in. Well, it was little more than a tent, really..."
He led her out of the graveyard and further along the trail, urged on by the breeze at their backs.
TWENTY-ONE
Harlow pointed out what looked like a pile of shells and limestone concreted together with sand, explaining that the concrete was in fact lime made from burned shells, which he and his brother had used to create a solid floor on which they'd erected a large canvas tent. They'd clubbed together with the other men from theHooghlyto build a row of cottages, all with limestone shell floors, and hearths built separately along the road, for they'd already experienced two bushfires carelessly lit by their fellow settlers, and had no desire to see another.
He paused, expecting Octavia to have a thousand questions, all of which he was only too happy to answer for her, if it was within his power, but she was frowning down at the small tablet she called her phone. "Those idiots," she muttered.
"Who? What's happened?" he asked.
Octavia blinked. "Sorry, I just got an update on my phone from one of the student group chats. The idiots who are making a musical theatre piece to celebrate Peel's life received word today that the Bicentennial Council has approved their grant. Everyone's congratulating them and saying they can't wait to see the show. Which means they'll all go and watch it, believing Peel to be some unsung hero, and if they even see my project, they won't believe it. Instead, they'll accuse me of lying, and try to destroy me on social media."
All her hard work, telling the truth about history, only to be accused of lying about it? No, Harlow would not allow it. He would protect her from this, too. "Well, then there's only one thing you can do, isn't there?"
"There is?"
"You need to show everyone your virtual world before their play is ready, so when they do go to the play, they already know the real story."
"But...the grant...and the support of the Bicentennial Council..."
"The Bicentennial is nine years away, if you mean two hundred years from 1829. Surely you will have this ready long before then. Are there not other ways you can show it to the world? So much is available on your internets. I have seen the miracles you work with only your phone, the information you can find almost instantly. Could you find a way to show people your virtual world on the internets?"
Octavia looked thoughtful. "That's what I'd originally intended, before I heard about the Bicentennial, and the grants they were offering. But yeah, there are other ways. I could gamify the content somehow, and release it on Steam or some other online platform, like that immersive flyover of Ancient Rome. There are crowdsourcing sites, too, but I'd have to ask Rochelle for marketing advice on how to make those work, plus I'd still have to have a pilot for people to sample before they gave me their money."
"Will your friend help you?" He would, of course, but all he could help her with was the history. Using modern technology like one of the people of her time was not something he was good at.
"Well, Rochelle does owe me a favour, for letting her stay in the studio when I was up north and she was having trouble with her ex. She's brilliant with a camera, too, and she knows her way around some of the software, so if she had time and she was willing, maybe she'd be able to help. But there's only so much camera work that can be done for this project. Like you said last night, so much of Perth had changed that it was hard to see anything of what it had been in those early days. What I'd really need is an artist who could draw what you remember, well enough for it to be digitised. I guess I could ask Ben, Rochelle's new boyfriend, if he's interested. He works at the café as Tacey's artist in residence in the evenings, so I could ask him the next time he's in..." Octavia's eyes fixed on Harlow's face, and she beamed. Then she threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you! I think this might actually work, thanks to you!"
He opened his mouth to tell her she was very welcome, or that it was nothing, because he'd do anything for her, but no sound came out. Instead, he kissed her.
TWENTY-TWO
The moment his lips touched hers, time stopped. There was no one and nothing else – just the two of them in the moonlight, with a world of longing she would finally see satisfied. She'd half expected him to feel like stone or a statue, but he was all man – hot and hard and strong, everywhere she needed him to be. And his hands...he held her like she was made of precious porcelain...but also like he never wanted to let her go.
She didn't want him to. Not now, not ever.
This was better than she'd ever dreamed he could be. Which made her wonder whether he'd be even better in bed...
Harlow broke the kiss, long before she was ready for him to stop.
"You're shivering. I'm living stone, so I barely feel the cold, but it must be close to freezing out here tonight. We should go back to your studio, or your home, where you can warm up, out of this winter weather."
Octavia touched a hand to her cheek. Her fingers were icy, and her cheek wasn't that much warmer. She'd been so focussed on how heated things were getting between them, she'd barely noticed the cold until now.
But now she did...she couldn't stop shivering.
"Here, I'll take you to the car." He scooped her up, camera bags and all, and took to the air. A moment later, he touched down beside the car. "Will you be able to drive? I could fly you if you can't."
She swallowed. "There's heating in the car. If we get in, and I turn the engine on, it'll warm up quickly, and I'll be fine."
Her head still whirling with euphoria from his kiss, Octavia barely noticed where they were going until she pulled up outside the café instead of her house. Maybe this was best. There was no one here, and they had the rest of the night...
