She was a respectable woman. Married as a maiden, a faithful wife for years, a widow now. Actually, she hadn't seen her husband for years before his death, but she stayed true to him and never swayed. Never was tempted. She believed that what happened between a man and his wife, however enjoyable it may be, should stay in the marriage. An affair always seemed to her to be something low, carnal and completely unfitting for an aristocrat. A lady, especially. Maybe that's why the rumours about her husband were so straining for her nerves.
She was a respectable woman with a strict set of rules for most of her life. It started changing the day she arrived to Australia.
"A trusted man" of her husband, the man that destroyed her luggage and had a nerve to pass her her unspeakables in front of the entire town, that man was a very strong one. Manly. Exactly the type she never was attracted to and always felt a bit uneasy around. Too primal, for her taste. Much too primal. But he had kind eyes and for some reason she didn't think him as primitive as others of his kind.
And then there was the show. She was pretty sure he wasn't giving one, he couldn't know she was watching, at least in the beginning, but it definitely looked like one. The men Sarah was taught to find attractive were all aristocrats, none of them have ever worked a day in life. They kept themselves more of less fit mostly by hunting, cricket and other acceptable pastimes. Some level of agility and a flat belly was the most that could be asked of them – and much more than was generally expected. What she had in front of her was a perfectly shaped chest and nicely lined abs. Muscle, real muscle, lean and strong, shaped by everyday's hard work. She had never seen such figure, not that she's seen much – walking around shirtless would not be acceptable in the presence of a lady. For some reason when the prospect of sleeping close together in one tent turned out to be just a joke, she felt disappointment. She wouldn't really mind sleeping close to that.
She liked to think that what made her consider him a good candidate for Faraway Downs' manager were his qualifications or personality. He did know life in the outback like nobody else and he was a man that could – as ironic as it sounded in the light of her first impression of him – be trusted. She liked to pretend that it was the love growing slowly in her heart that made her ask him to dance with her by the campfire and later invite him to the ball. Maybe in part it was, she certainly was not indifferent, not even at this point. What she would never admit was that how the evening ended was exactly the outcome she had really hoped for. She had wanted him in her bed and she got him, it was a really long time before she thought clearly enough to analyse all the implications. At this point she was long past caring.
There was an equilibrium in Drover's actions that she could not help but appreciate. Passionate but caring, a perfect mix in a lover. He knew what he wanted and he had no problem with getting just that, but for some reason what he wanted was her being happy and satisfied. And she was, she was happy and satisfied in this basic, carnal way she had always despised so much. God, wasn't that liberating.
She used to be a respectable woman. But now she lived with a man she wasn't married to, a man that spent most nights with the open sky over his head and had the most glorious chest she could imagine, and she loved it.