‘You knew him?’
‘Don’t look so thrilled,’ he said, concern folding his brows together. ‘You shouldn’t be so eager to learn about the darker side of bushranging. It’s not as adventurous as those periodicals back in London will have you believe. After Morgan left, my partner and I spent more time around the Bendigo area, ran with another gang for a while, ’til they moved on to New South Wales. Then we joined up with a man named Viktor. Better known as Viktor the Vicious. And he could be. Brutally vicious. One day we were robbing a coach. It should have been an easy bail up, but Viktor took a liking to a lady’s engagement ring. He grabbed for it, wrenching the woman’s hand and her fiancé or husband made the bad decision to fight Viktor for it.’
‘Bad decision? To fight for what was his?’
‘You were lucky the day I robbed you.’
‘Lucky?!’ She shot out a derisive laugh.
‘Yes, lucky,’ Jack said. The sudden darkening in his demeanour wiped the smile from her face.
She could see he was struggling with something until he finally spoke up.
‘Viktor slit the fiancé’s throat with a hunting knife.’
Prudence’s hand went to her own throat and then to her mouth. Jack seemed to slump over his horse a little, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
‘What happened?’
‘I’d already decided I wouldn’t work with Viktor again and was going to tell him when the police got there first. He was arrested for murder. The girl in the carriage identified him from the scar across his left eye. Bobby and I decided it was time to leave Bendigo and we headed back to Ballarat. We watched the trial of Viktor closely. He never mentioned us, never said a word about who’d been with him that day.’
‘A loyal murdering bushranger?’ She couldn’t have been more surprised.
Jack nodded. ‘So you see. You were lucky that day, that it was I who robbed you. Not all men would have been as generous as to leave such a beautiful woman with her virtue,’ he said. ‘Or her life.’
She understood his meaning, but the warning in his words got lost in the compliment he had paid her.
‘You think I’m beautiful?’
He didn’t answer but his expression softened as his eyes moved across her face. Finally looking away, he urged his horse forward again.
She did the same and made a thorough study of him as they walked quietly for a moment. ‘I don’t believe you are dangerous at all.’
He huffed lightly. ‘Do you not?’
‘No.’
‘Well, don’t let that get around, you’ll ruin my hard-earned reputation.’
‘I doubt another bushranger, especially Viktor the Vicious, would have returned my necklace to me. Why did you?’
She could see his unease at her question, but he recovered quickly and grinned that mischievous grin.
‘I returned it because you kissed me, remember?’
‘You kissed me,’ she tossed back. ‘I simply stood there.’
‘If it makes you feel better to think that, then please, do go on deluding yourself. But I was not the only person having input into that enjoyable moment.’
Prudence felt the heat rise in her cheeks again and looked away from him to the road ahead, but his finger was under her chin, turning her face towards his.
Her face was a furnace as he studied her with such intensity. ‘Such beautiful green eyes.’
Her belly quivered and she found herself hoping he might kiss her again. She even leaned towards him, but he dropped his hand and broke eye contact.
Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she silently reprimanded herself for being so foolish. ‘I must get back.’
She kicked her horse into a trot, but instead of letting her go, he followed her.
‘You do not need to escort me any further, sir. The estate is just past that collection of trees by the creek.’
‘I will see you to the edge of the property,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument.
‘I take it you do not have a wife or a lady friend who is missing you,’ she said and then wished she hadn’t. Why did she care about his marital status?
She saw his lips quirk with a smile. ‘Do you think I would kiss you if I had a wife waiting for me at home?’
‘I don’t know you,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You are a thief. Would adultery be such a stretch?’
‘I am not married and I do not have a lady friend,’ he said, the arrogant grin firmly back in place. ‘I have many lady friends.’
She rolled her eyes again. ‘Of course you do.’
‘I am a solitary man, Miss Prudence. No woman will tie me to a house or make an honest man of me.’
Reaching the collection of trees by the creek that separated her uncle’s property from Crown land, she stopped her horse and turned to look at him.
‘Well, now I feel sorry for you.’
‘And why is that, Miss Prudence?’
‘You are destined for a very lonely existence, Mr Fairweather,’ she tossed back with a heavy sigh. ‘Who will you grow old with, who will share the spoils of all your plundering when the bushranging is done?’
She didn’t bother to wait for an answer. It had been a rhetorical question anyway.
***
As Prudence rode away, Jack turned his horse and started down the road towards Ballarat. Looking back once, he could still see her in the distance as she rode across the plains. Panic choked him as she leaped the horse over the high boundary fence. Only once she had safely landed on the other side, and was racing far too quickly across the uneven paddock, did he breathe again. Foolish girl could have killed herself!
She was reckless. Conversations with bushrangers on the road aside, she rode like a crazy woman. Her grandmother ought to keep a better eye on her.
Instead of heading directly back to Ballarat, he decided to take a little diversion and moved the horse onto the road that led to his country home. He had rarely been to the homestead since he’d bought it two years ago. But just now he didn’t feel like being surrounded by thousands of people in the gold-mining town.
Up ahead the iron gates came into view and he smiled. Passing through the slightly askew gates, he made a note to get them straightened out so they’d close properly. If he didn’t, one day he’d come home to find squatters had moved in. Riding beneath a canopy of willow trees some long-ago owner had planted, he could see the house. Not quite Windsor Castle. But a man’s home was his castle, was it not? And so he had named it Little Windsor.
The garden looked rough. There’d been no rain for a few months so it was to be expected. But the sandstone façade was in good condition and the iron roof looked as sturdy as when he had purchased it.
He’d only been back here once. He’d bought it three months before in readiness for his retirement. That had been the plan. He had stayed only one night before it had felt much too big for just one man. Since then he’d continued to stay in boarding houses and hotels as he ran his transport company, and roamed the highways when the mood took him.
Stepping inside the house, he watched a small rodent dash away into a corner. The front door opened directly into a large living area with enough space for the plain dining table he’d bought at an auction. It could seat six people, should he ever be inclined to invite anyone for a meal. It would more likely be used for a game of cards with the lads.
A wide archway connected the living area with the kitchen. Two bedrooms adjoined the space on the right side, and attached to the kitchen was a small utility room that led out onto the back veranda. He had loved that the veranda wrapped all the way around the house, the way he’d seen on much grander mansions. It made him feel the king of his little castle.
But standing in the middle of the spacious living area, he felt the same sense of emptiness. And—dare he say it?—loneliness.
You are destined for a very lonely existence, Mr Fairweather.
Dammit. Her words had gotten to him. Would he end up like
Mad Dog Morgan? Damaged? Crazed and dead? Or was he destined to live to be an old man, alone and solitary with only the spoils of his thieving to keep him company in this big empty house?
Backing out of the house, he took one more look before climbing back onto the horse. His thoughts were too loud. Perhaps thousands of people and Ballarat were appealing after all.
Chapter 5
A week before Christmas the temperature soared above one hundred degrees. How strange it was to have a hot Christmas, Prudence thought as she wandered the halls of the manor festively adorned with decorations. It would probably be snowing at their house in the English countryside where Stanforth Christmases had been held for generations.
Did she miss the cold and white Christmas? Not particularly. Although, despite having chosen her thinnest dress to try to combat the heat, the high lace neck still made it stifling. Annoyed, she tugged at the material, accidently tearing the lace away. She turned to look in a hallway mirror and gasped at the jagged tear from the seam of the collar down to the décolletage. Oh dear, what would her grandmother say?
A breeze brushed past her and she sighed audibly and closed her eyes. Oh, that felt deliciously, wickedly good. Examining the fabric again, she shrugged at her reflection.
‘Well, it’s too far gone now.’
With one strong tug, and a rebellious grin, she ripped away the entire lace panel, revealing her throat and collarbones.
Feeling free, and much cooler, she skipped lightly down the hall to the stairs. Pausing at the top of the grand staircase, she ran her hand along the smooth wood of the banister. Listening for a moment to gauge if anyone was coming, she giggled quietly and hopped up onto the banister.
‘Prudence! What are you doing?’ Her grandmother’s voice came up the stairs from the drawing room.
Her head fell back and she groaned at the ceiling. Dear God, it was like the woman had a sixth sense that she was about to do something fun.
‘Nothing, Grandmother!’ she called back. Lamenting the slide that could have been, she jumped off and trudged down the steps into the drawing room.
‘Prudence, what are you wearing, child?’ Deidre asked. ‘What happened to your dress?’
She looked down at herself. ‘It tore, Grandmother. I think my clothes are literally dissolving in this heat.
‘Then it’s just as well,’ Deidre said, her expression stern. ‘Have the maid pack your trunk.’
Panic flared. ‘My trunk, Grandmother?’
Had she finally done her dash with her grandmother? Was she being sent away?
‘We are travelling into the city for a few days,’ Deidre continued. ‘Robert has business, and I believe we deserve to do some shopping in town. I have not had a new dress since we arrived in this country, and clearly you are in need of some new clothing. The stores in Ballarat do not stock the appropriate fabrics. Hardly surprising really, it’s such a God-forsaken place. All those grubby gold miners and their new money.’
Her grandmother’s eyes scanned her from head to toe, her nose turning up as though she’d tasted sour milk. ‘Just because we are now country folk does not mean we should allow ourselves to be reduced to country fashions.’
‘No, Grandmother.’
‘Robert left early this morning,’ Deidre said, sipping her tea. ‘Alicia will join us on the train to Melbourne. We shall stay at least a fortnight.’
‘Wonderful.’ Prudence let loose a genuine smile. A trip to the city! It was just what she needed—an adventure! Two weeks in town, shopping, eating in glamorous dining rooms and mixing with people her own age again. And the busyness of town would take her too idle mind off a certain handsome bushranger.
Jack Fairweather was a hard man to figure out. A gentleman? Hardly. A complete scoundrel? Possibly. Either way she found him fascinating. Yes, it was improper for a lady of her standing to be interested in such things. But, dammit, she was tired of being nothing but her breeding, her heritage. She was a woman. A woman with a mind, and since the kiss at the races, she had discovered she was a woman who could be incited to passion by a man who knew what he was doing. And Jack ‘the Devil’ Fairweather knew what he was doing. What did she call him? It was all so confusing. She hoped she didn’t see him again in public for fear that she would give him, and his double life, away. Beneath it all, though, she found herself hoping she did see him again.
She frowned as she moved back up the stairs to begin packing. This was exactly why she needed to get out and meet some more people and forget all about Jack the Devil.
***
A few days after arriving in Melbourne, Prudence stood in front of the bevelled mirror in her room studying her green taffeta gown. It matched her eyes and brightened the red of her hair. Spinning on the spot, she muffled an excited laugh. She would look like Christmas itself at the Lord Mayor’s Ball tonight.
She liked being in the city again. As much as she adored the country manor, her access to the horses and the freedom of the bush, she missed people. People other than her uncle and aunt, her grandmother and the servants.
Brock was her only true friend and she knew her grandmother would not be happy about their friendship. It was inappropriate to be so familiar with the staff, but he was the only person at the manor she felt she could really talk to. The only person who really understood her need for freedom and adventure. He was a traveller himself, having left America to bring the highly prized American Quarter Horses to Uncle Robert’s stud. Robert had made him an offer too good to refuse to stay on as a trainer. He’d fallen in love with Australia, he said, and just never went back to Kentucky.
She looked forward to the ball tonight and hoped she might meet some people her own age with whom she might strike up a friendship. Perhaps she might even meet an eligible bachelor.
Unbidden, she was struck with the memory of a kiss with a certain bushranger behind the grandstand at the races. Shaking her head, she was determined to put the man out of her mind. No good could come of thinking of his pale brown eyes with those long, long lashes, or the smooth, powerful lips that had made her belly quiver. There were plenty of men out there. Surely Jack Fairweather wasn’t the only one who could kiss a girl until her brain cells melted. Clipping the sparkling gemstone earrings she’d bought just hours before to her lobes, she wondered if businessman Jack Fairweather attended society balls.
‘Stop it!’ she scolded her mirror image.
Twenty minutes later, the carriage pulled up outside the hall and she followed her aunt, uncle and grandmother into the ball. The place was filled to exploding with elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen. She left her thin wrap at the cloakroom and shyly wandered behind her family as they said hello to friends and acquaintances.
Finally, settled in a corner with a glass of champagne in her hand, Prudence was able to survey the room and its inhabitants.
Lamps glowed yellow, flickering muted shadows across the high ceiling, and the room was quickly filling with the pungent smell and smoke of cigars and cigarettes.
‘I think I may step outside for some fresh air,’ Prudence said.
But as she was about to leave, Robert returned with a man by his side and her grandmother grasped her hand, forcing her to stay put with a terse, ‘Robert insists he is a gentleman worth knowing. Be sweet and subservient.’
Prudence blinked, stunned and a little blindsided.
‘Frederick Grantham, may I present my mother, Lady Deidre Stanforth, and my niece, Prudence.’
‘Ladies, it is indeed a pleasure,’ Frederick said and took Deidre’s hand, offering her a stately bow. Taking Pru’s hand, he bent to kiss it. She was surprised at his blatant study of her. And by the way her grandmother was beaming, she guessed Frederick was not here by accident, but by design.
As the gentlemen spoke about work-related things, Prudence took the opportunity to examine the man. He was at least ten years her senior, she guessed. Tall and slim, he didn’t strike her as a man who enjoyed galloping across the meadows in the sunshine as she
did. In fact, she doubted he partook in any exercise that required more effort than a gentle stroll. How a man could live in this new sun-drenched colony and still look as pallid as an Englishman fresh off the boat, she would never know. He certainly exercised his jaw enough though, and she was unimpressed with the sport he made of belittling other people in the room in an effort to make himself appear more impressive.
The orchestra began to play and couples moved out onto an area of the floor cleared for dancing.
‘Miss Prudence, I wonder if you might care to dance,’ Frederick asked her.
She smiled dutifully. ‘Thank you, sir. I would.’
Taking the arm he offered, they walked out to the dance floor.
Discussion was difficult given the tempo of the dancing and the changing of partners, but Frederick gave it a good shot.
‘How do you enjoy Melbourne?’
‘I like it immensely.’
She swung on the arm of a portly gentlemen for a few beats before ending up back with Frederick.
‘Your uncle and I do business on occasion.’
‘Do you?’ she responded, trying to muster the appropriate amount of interest before she was passed to another man.
‘I believe you enjoy riding,’ Frederick tried again when they were back together. ‘I’m not an accomplished rider myself, I prefer the carriage, but I would enjoy perhaps …’
She missed the rest of his sentence as she was spun away to yet another partner.
Glancing up at the man she had been passed to, she gasped and stopped dead as she stared into an equally stunned face.
‘Jack,’ she said breathlessly, before being knocked aside by couples continuing in the dance.
Jack caught her before she fell. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked, still holding her in his arms.
‘Yes.’
Unable to miss the looks of censure from the people around them as she stood in the arms of a man, she struggled against him until he finally let her go.
His trademark crooked smile was soon back in place. ‘How lucky I am to have such a beautiful woman simply fall into my arms. I’m sorry if my rugged good looks caused you to swoon just now.’
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