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He coughed, then bowed his head as she started to turn around.
"Harlow Steel, at your service, my lady," he said.
A sharp intake of breath. "How did you get in here?"
"I arrived on the sailing shipHooghly, under the command of Captain Peter Reeves, though we almost came to grief on the rocks outside the harbour. But that is immaterial. I am here at your service. You called for help, and I am here to answer your call." He dared to raise his head, to find her curious gaze fixed on him.
There wasn't an ounce of fear in her expression. "Are you Rochelle and Tacey's Moth Man? I have to admit, you look more like a gargoyle than a giant moth to me. Horns instead of antennae, and the rock hard sculpted muscles. I thought moths were more...fluffy. Well, whatever you are, those wings are amazing, not to mention the full body makeup. It all looks real."
"I am indeed real, and at your service. What is your wish, my lady?"
"It's Octavia, not anyone's lady, and I'm afraid I don't need special effects makeup, even as good as yours right now. What I'm in need of is an expert in early colonial construction and farming practices in 1820s and 30s Fremantle."
Harlow couldn't hide his smile. "Then I am indeed at your service, Lady Octavia. If I may be so bold, you have painted a remarkable likeness of the Swan River Settlement there." He rose to his feet. "May I approach to admire the painting more closely?"
She frowned. "Oh, the paintings were the work of Mary Ann Friend and Jane Eliza Currie. 1830 and 1831, respectively, as evidenced by – "
"The Round House on Arthur Head and the proliferation of limestone construction, among other things," Harlow finished for her. "In 1830, there were only a handful of huts and horse boxes among the canvas city."
"Yes." She stared at him in wonder. "How have I never seen you at the university? The archaeology department isn't that big..."
Not just a lady, but a lady scholar, and a lovely one at that. A woman worthy of protection, for certain.
"I'm no scholar, Lady Octavia. I just know my history."
"Pull up a chair, then. I'd value your opinion."
Hardly daring to believe his good luck, Harlow swore he'd serve Lady Octavia for as long as she'd have him, Grant and the rest of those idiots be damned.
FIVE
"See, while Fremantle is interesting and all, what I really wish I knew more about is Clarence Town, the place Thomas Peel's group settlement scheme landed and lived until he was allocated land to replace his original land grant. There are plenty of paintings and sketches of Fremantle, but Clarence Town...there's a couple of written accounts, usually from outsiders who didn't live there, some history books that put it at Woodman Point, which are definitely wrong, and then there are the archaeology investigation reports. Now, those reports support some of the accounts – like the fires and where the buildings were – but there's so little left, because people lived there for such a short time. Only a year or so, before they all dispersed. Whereas Fremantle just grew and grew until it became...well, this." Octavia waved her hand in the air.
"Well, the first thing you must know is only Thomas Peel and outsiders from the Governor's office called it Clarence Town. The passengers who sailed on theHooghlycalled the place Hooghly Town, for there wasn't even a source of fresh water there until the second officer from the ship stumbled across a spring. And sometimes it seemed like there were two towns, really, for theHooghlypassengers kept themselves apart from theGilmorepeople, though they shared both a graveyard and a tavern. And Peel stayed on the beach beside his storehouse, apart from everyone."
He'd definitely done his research. Maybe even more than she had.
"See, that's exactly what I want to know more about. I mean, my many times great grandmother arrived on theHMS Sulphurwith her brother in 1829. Then five years later, she married a guy who's listed as arriving on theHooghly, though he's not on the passenger list. Maybe he was crew, or someone they picked up at one of the ports along the way...but it's his life that's the mystery, or at least until he married Carline," Octavia said.
Did she imagine it, or did he react to the mention of her many times great grandmother's name? No, she must have imagined it. No one outside the family knew much about Carline. She hadn't featured in any of the history books, unlike her brother, though there were a number of family legends about her. How she'd been a crack shot with a rifle, and how she'd sit on the front steps of Bell Cottage with her favourite rifle across her lap to greet visitors. And the cats. Bell Cottage had always had the best mousers in the entire Swan River Colony, all descended from Salis, the ship's cat she'd adopted. The resident cat at Bell House, which no one had ever fed, yet it presented them with rat and snake corpses nightly, must be one of Salis's descendants. That cat was a mouse murdering machine.
She found Harlow staring at her, his eyebrows raised as if he expected an answer to a question she hadn't heard.
She shook her head. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Have you seen Clarence Town?" Harlow asked.
"Once," she admitted. "I drove down there to see if I could visualise any of what was in the archaeology reports. But it's just bush. I couldn't even find all of the tracks, and then it started raining, so I headed home." Because once the storm clouds came in over the ocean, there was nothing to stop the rain pelting in sideways in that lonely, unsheltered spot.
"We could head out there now, if you want. I can point out what I know of the place, to give you a better idea of what the camp looked like," he said eagerly.
A sensible girl would refuse, and go home to bed. It was nearly dawn, after all, and she'd been talking to Harlow half the night. Mum would be horrified if she ever knew she'd been talking to a man, alone, up here while the café was closed. If Mum found out she'd gone out in the bush with the same strange man she'd met in the middle of the night...
Octavia grinned. "Sure, why not? It's not dawn yet." She eyed him. Not that the costume wasn't sexy as hell, but... "Don't you want to change into something a bit more practical? I mean, bushwalking in winter won't be kind to your costume."
"I didn't bring any other clothes," Harlow said.
Of course he hadn't. People wanted to see the Moth Man, not a man in ordinary civvies.
