The Bushranger's Wife

by Cheryl Adnams

  Leaving Melbourne was a bittersweet day for Prudence. She was happy to be getting back to the countryside she had come to adore. She looked forward to riding Misha out into the fields and working with the other horses in the stables—when Grandmother wasn’t watching of course. But she was also sorry to leave Melbourne without seeing Jack Fairweather again. No matter how thoroughly, albeit surreptitiously, she had searched the assembly rooms on their way out, she had not seen him again at the ball once he’d fled after their kiss. He seemed to have simply vanished, and she had left for Carrington Manor the following day with her aunt and grandmother. Uncle Robert remained in town to complete some business, but after the attack on their carriage by Jack the Devil, he always sent an armed man along with the ladies.

  Even if Prudence had wanted to seek out Jack in town, she didn’t have the first idea where to look. She knew he kept an apartment in Melbourne and that he had a home in the bush. Since the main centre of operations for his legitimate business was in Ballarat, she assumed he lived somewhere near there. Ballarat was also, no doubt, the centre of operations for Jack the Devil.

  She’d spent a lovely Christmas day with her family, enjoying roast pork with all the trimmings, and the day after Christmas, as arranged, Frederick Grantham arrived at Carrington Manor. Prudence was in the stables when she saw the carriage pull up in front of the house.

  ‘So this is the man you’re going to marry?’ Brock asked over her shoulder.

  She turned and gave him a glare.

  ‘No secrets around here, Miss Prudence,’ he said with a shrug. ‘The workers hear things. I hear things.’

  ‘I’ve not said I’ll marry him yet.’

  Brock gave her a sympathetic look. ‘I’m not sure that matters, Miss.’

  Prudence rubbed at the headache forming between her eyes. She knew he was right.

  ‘You’d better get on inside,’ he added. ‘Can’t meet your beau dressed like a boy and smelling of horse manure.’

  Prudence huffed defiantly. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what I should do. He might decide I’m not marriage material after all.’

  He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Don’t you want to be married, Miss Prudence? I thought all women wanted to find a husband to settle down and have babies with.’

  ‘I have no issue with marriage,’ she said, handing him the curry comb she’d been using on Misha. ‘I am, however, beginning to have a small problem with arranged marriage. Especially mine.’

  His rich chuckle followed her as she wandered down the path to the rear of the house. Did she dare meet Frederick looking like one of the horsemen? Her grandmother would throttle her. She wasn’t completely averse to Frederick. If she had to marry, well … it could be worse she supposed.

  She rushed up the rear stairs to the second level and once in her rooms, she washed quickly and changed in preparation for dinner.

  Before she could enter the drawing room for pre-dinner drinks, Gerald handed her a large envelope.

  ‘I thought the post had already been collected,’ Prudence said, frowning at the envelope as she took it from him.

  ‘It came with a rider just now, Miss,’ Gerald explained.

  ‘Prudence, is that you?’ Her grandmother’s voice rang out from the drawing room.

  ‘I’ll have to look at it later. Please take it to my room, Gerald,’ Prudence instructed, handing the envelope back to him.

  She steeled herself and entered the drawing room.

  ‘Mr Grantham, you’ve arrived,’ she said, smiling as he took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘And wouldn’t it have been nice for you to be here to greet him,’ Deidre said, the censure in her voice unmistakable.

  ‘I apologise. I was working with the horses,’ she said quite deliberately to gauge his response.

  ‘That is what we have stablemen for.’

  She refused to let Deidre’s narrowed glare worry her. She knew her grandmother would never make a scene in front of their guest.

  ‘I like to groom my own horse after a ride.’

  ‘Ladies do love their horses,’ Frederick said with an almost pitying smile for her. ‘Men understand that horses are for work, they’re not pets.’

  At least she could be thankful he didn’t seem perturbed either by her not being there to greet him or by the fact that she enjoyed working with the horses.

  When dinner was announced, Prudence sat beside Frederick and made a good study of him as he ate and conversed. She was happy to see that he treated their staff with respect and not just as lowly servants. Through discussion, she discovered he was well read and that they shared an enjoyment of the poems of Keats.

  ‘I found a book of poems recently by an American named Walt Whitman,’ Prudence said, happy to have someone she could talk with about her love of the written word. She didn’t let on that it was Brock who’d given her the book.

  ‘The only good poets are English poets,’ Frederick responded, receiving a nod of agreement from Deidre. ‘One mustn’t be confused by modern ideas coming out of the Americas. Tradition is tradition for a reason.’

  And just like that, the happy bubble burst.

  ***

  After dinner, Frederick asked Prudence to take a walk outside in the gardens. The sun was just beginning to set but the evening was still warm.

  ‘The days are so hot out here in the bush,’ Frederick said.

  ‘Perhaps you should remove your coat,’ Prudence suggested. ‘We are a little more relaxed in the country.’

  ‘No matter the temperature, there is no need for a lapse in decorum.’

  ‘It’s hot in the city too,’ Prudence said, turning away from him so he couldn’t see the irritation on her face.

  ‘Yes, but my home in Altona is near the seafront and we get such a lovely evening breeze. It cools things down dramatically. You’ll enjoy Altona. It’s a wonderful place and we’ll be so near to town.’

  ‘Will there be somewhere for me to stable Misha?’

  ‘No, my dear,’ he said, using his hat to fan away the night bugs that had begun to gather. ‘Besides, when we are married you won’t have time to ride horses. You will be running a household. It will keep you occupied I can assure you. My home is quite large and I have many staff.’

  They walked the gardens quietly for a while and stopped beneath a large eucalypt. She examined Frederick as he stood so straight and still in the twilight. He was slim, but not bad looking. His lips were not as full as Jack’s but she found herself wondering what they would feel like against hers.

  ‘Frederick.’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’

  ‘If we are to be married,’ she began, unsure of the intelligence of her next statement. ‘Do you think perhaps we should …’

  ‘Should what?’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to, you know, try a kiss.’

  He blinked, obviously stunned at her suggestion.

  ‘It is not improper for a man to kiss the woman he is betrothed to,’ Frederick said, a small frown between his brows as he thought it over. ‘I suppose we could try it. Are you so keen to enjoy the physical allowances of marriage to me, Prudence?’

  The thought of enjoying physical allowances with Frederick did take the shine off her little experiment. ‘I just think that it would be another way to confirm that we are compatible.’

  ‘Very well.’

  She watched him place his hat on the wooden bench beneath the tree and stepping up to her, he leaned down to her height and put his lips to hers. Flat, wooden, unmoving and uninspiring. He stood upright again and smiled.

  ‘How was that?’

  She smiled politely. ‘Lovely. Perhaps just one more time.’

  He hesitated a moment, appearing a little confused, but gave in and leaned forward again. This time, Prudence put her hands to his shoulders to hold him closer to her and she moved her mouth over his lips, the way Jack had done with her. When his lips parted on a surprised gasp, she pressed her tongue in between.

  He pulled away quickl
y and stared at her in appalled shock.

  ‘Prudence, what was that?’

  ‘A kiss.’

  ‘Young ladies don’t usually kiss like that.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked. It had been how she’d kissed, and been kissed by Jack. Was that not the normal way of kissing between men and women?

  Woops.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frederick,’ she said. ‘I suppose I have no frame of reference, having never been kissed before. Was it so bad?’

  Flustered, he frowned down at her. ‘Never mind, my dear. You are young and inexperienced. I should not forget that. Come, let’s go back inside for a brandy before bed.’

  Prudence sighed and followed him into the house.

  ‘I think I will pass on the brandy, thank you, Frederick,’ she said at the foot of the stairs. ‘I’m tired. But thank you for a lovely evening.’

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing it.

  She nodded and headed up the stairs to her rooms.

  Kissing Frederick had been nothing like kissing Jack. Where was the passion? If she was going to marry Frederick, she needed to know there would be passion. Jack had more passion in his left thumb than Frederick had in his entire being. Jack could excite her with only a look. His lips and hands could incite wildfires in her body. Frederick could barely strike a match. She knew it was foolish and futile to compare Jack to Frederick but she couldn’t help it. How could she marry Frederick, knowing what she would be missing out on?

  ***

  The warbling song of the morning birds nudged Prudence from sleep. Magpies. A pretty song, but something to be avoided during nesting season. Brock said they could swoop down and cause a man to bleed with their sharp beaks if you got to close to their nests, the devils.

  Devil.

  Jack.

  Her sleep over the last few nights had been filled with dreams of Jack. Hardly appropriate with her soon-to-be fiancé just down the corridor.

  Growling in her frustration, Prudence threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Washing the sleep from her eyes in the water basin, she reached for the towel and huffed, annoyed when she knocked her hairbrush to the floor with a clatter.

  Bending down to retrieve it, she noticed something beneath the chair. Picking it up, along with her hairbrush, she realised it was the large envelope Gerald had shown her on the day of Frederick’s arrival. She’d forgotten about it, and somehow it must have ended up falling from the armoire where Gerald had left it and stayed beneath the chair for several days.

  Moving across to the window seat, outside she could see mist rising as the early sun warmed the ground and burned off the frost. Reaching absently into the envelope, she pulled out several formal documents.

  Reading the cover letter she was baffled. It made no sense to her. But as she read on her heart leaped into her throat. It was from lawyers in London stating that her mother had left her some things in her Last Will and Testament.

  ‘Oh.’ Her fingers went to her lips and her eyes welled. Both her parents had been killed in a fire in Cornwall when she’d been only a few months old. Had it taken twenty-two years for them to find her mother’s Will? She read on and flicked through the pages stopping when she came to a copy of a death certificate notarised and dated …

  Her breath caught. She read the date again. Read it a third time. There had to be some mistake.

  Moving quickly, battling her impatience, Prudence washed and dressed and inside twenty minutes she was rushing downstairs to the breakfast room.

  ‘Grandmother,’ she blurted as she entered the room, puffing and out of breath.

  ‘Good morning, Prudence. I trust you slept well.’

  She gave Frederick a quick look, so intent on her mission she hadn’t registered him sitting at the dining table.

  ‘Uh, good morning, Frederick. Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t you look lovely this morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she answered again, impatiently walking across to her grandmother at the head of the table.

  ‘Good Lord, Prudence, why do you always look as though you’ve run a mile?’

  Ignoring her grandmother, she placed the papers on the table.

  ‘I received these documents from London,’ she said without preamble.

  ‘What are they?’ Deidre asked, barely sparing them a glance as she sipped her tea.

  ‘The Last Will and Testament of Olivia Stanforth.’

  The teacup froze at Deidre’s mouth and her steely eyes moved again to the papers. The cup shook a little as she lowered it to the saucer, and shook again as she slowly raised the linen napkin to delicately dab at her thin lips.

  ‘Odd.’

  ‘Odd?’ Prudence was stunned and irritated at her grandmother’s calmness. ‘It’s more than odd, grandmother. After twenty-two years someone finally miraculously finds my mother’s Last Will and Testament?’

  ‘Papers go missing all the time, child.’

  She remembered the death certificate. ‘But, Grandmother, it doesn’t make sense. These other papers include a certificate of death for Olivia Stanforth.’

  ‘That’s no surprise, child, you know your mother died.’

  ‘This certificate is dated only twelve months ago.’

  Like a statue in a museum, Deidre sat, her back straight as a ruler. Only her eyes moved and Prudence noticed they could not move in her direction.

  ‘A mistake,’ Deidre said, lifting her teacup again. ‘A disgraceful error by one of those dreadful officials.’

  ‘A mistake, Grandmother?’ She could tell when she was being lied to.

  ‘Mr Grantham,’ Deidre said, looking to their guest who watched on with bewildered interest. ‘Would you mind excusing us? My granddaughter and I have some family business to discuss.’

  ‘Of course, Lady Deidre.’ Frederick wiped his mouth and stood, nodding at them both before he left the room.

  Finally, her grandmother looked her in the eye. ‘I suppose it is time you knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Your mother didn’t die when you were young.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘When she fell pregnant with you, she was unmarried,’ Deidre explained. ‘A liaison with a boy she met during her coming out season. But he was to marry someone else. Olivia was sent to Cornwall to see out the pregnancy and, when you were born, we decided it would be better for everyone if your grandfather and I were to raise you ourselves.’

  A horrified numbness washed over Prudence and she sank into the nearest chair, only half listening as her grandmother told the whole sordid story of her mother’s reckless youth, and the web of lies that had been created to hide the shame she’d brought upon the family.

  ‘You mean … she’s been alive all this time?’

  ‘Yes. I believe she married a baker and had other children.’

  A gasp escaped Pru’s mouth. She had brothers or sisters or both?

  ‘You believe …? You mean … all this time … and you never contacted her? Did she ever contact you? Or did she let you just take me and then told herself that I no longer existed?’

  Her grandmother’s expression said it all. ‘She came to London once, during your debut. She wanted to see you, but so much time had gone by, there was no point in upsetting you before you went to court.’

  ‘No point in upsetting me?’ she was appalled. ‘You kept me from my own mother. Grandmother, please, help me understand.’

  ‘It was for the best,’ Deidre said, not giving an inch. ‘She had shamed the family. We survived it only because the young man’s family agreed it was in everyone’s best interests that neither Olivia nor the gentleman owned to having a child out of wedlock.’

  ‘You mean a bastard,’ Prudence spat. Her numbness was now replaced by a raging fury that heated her cheeks.

  Deidre’s expression darkened. ‘Prudence, I understand you’re upset, but you will not use such foul words in my presence.’

  ‘But that’s what I am, is
n’t it? A bastard. You won’t put up with the word, I’m surprised you put up with me for twenty-two years. You created a lie to ensure people didn’t know you were harbouring a bastard. I guess that’s how you lived with it yourself.’

  ‘Prudence—’

  ‘No!’ Prudence cried, standing so quickly the chair tipped backwards and hit the hardwood floor with a clatter. ‘Grandmother, how could you? How could you let me believe that my own mother was dead, when all along I could have known her? I could have known half brothers and sisters. And now she’s dead. She is actually dead, and we live half a world away, which was no doubt part of your plan. And now I will never have either of those things.’

  Prudence turned and ran from the room. She could hear her grandmother calling after her as she raced through the foyer.

  ‘Prudence, what is it?’ Aunt Alicia called as she descended the stairs. ‘What’s happened?’

  But she couldn’t stop. The tears began to fall as she reached the rear of the house, but as she was about to step out the door she spotted the housekeeping purse on the bench inside the kitchen. Without hesitating, she grabbed the little purse, and her riding coat that hung on a peg, and pushed open the back door of the house.

  Running as fast as she could, she found the sanctuary of the stables. She wiped her face and slowed her gait, not wishing any of the stablehands to see her distress. She was furious and upset and she had to get away as quickly as she could, and she didn’t want anyone trying to stop her.

  Without even bothering to saddle Misha, she tossed on a bridle, climbed onto her beloved mare and bolted out of the stables. Men scattered, trying to get out of her way as she sped out of the building and into the morning sunshine. Fleeing across the fields, she leaped the boundary fence and did her best to put as much distance between herself and Carrington Manor and all the lies of her life.

  Chapter 6

  Jack rode at a leisurely pace along the narrow path. There was no particular place he needed to be and it was pleasant to simply amble the countryside. The rhythmic clap of the horse’s feet on the hard dirt path lulled him, and the warm morning sun dappled across his face as they passed beneath the thin canopy of gum trees.