The Bushranger's Wife
Page 30
Jack still didn’t seem to understand.
‘I told you I wouldn’t let you go to prison.’
‘Pru, what did you do?’
She bit her lip, knowing he was going to be mad at her. ‘If you were found guilty and sent to prison, Bobby was going to bail up the prison transport and get you out.’
‘What? Prudence! I don’t know whether to be angry or proud,’ Jack said with a stunned laugh.
‘We would have run with you, Jack. Me and Henry.’
‘And I would never see my grandson again,’ Deidre added, obviously having heard more of the conversation than Pru thought. ‘Where is he by the way?’
‘I left him with friends. Would you like to see Henry, Grandmother?’
‘I would,’ she answered, and Pru thought she saw a weak smile peek out from her gran’s thin lips. She began to stand with the aid of her walking stick and Jack moved to take her hand but she waved him away.
‘Alright, alright, I’m not for the knackery yet,’ Deidre snapped, pushing herself upright.
‘Madam, I was simply going to kiss your hand,’ Jack said, taking her hand again and laying his lips lightly to her thin lace glove.
‘I see now why you were so taken with him,’ Deidre said, surprising Pru with a chuckle. ‘He’s a smooth one, isn’t he?’
Epilogue
The giant Christmas tree in the corner shone like a beacon. A beacon a child couldn’t resist, and being a child, Henry made a beeline for it, crawling like a crab towards the sparkling lights and ornaments. Luckily, his father was faster.
‘No you don’t, young man,’ Jack said, tossing Henry into the air and catching him. It was Henry’s favourite game, only slightly overtaken recently by the ‘disassemble the Christmas tree’ game.
‘We need to put a cage around that thing,’ Pru said, sipping cool tea over ice.
‘The tree or Henry?’ Jack joked.
They lounged around the drawing room, a large pork roast with all the trimmings having been devoured a few hours before sending them all into a contented state of restfulness.
‘I’ll never get used to these hot Christmases,’ Deidre said, waving a fan with one hand while she sipped sherry with the other. ‘It just doesn’t feel like Christmas.’
‘It feels very much like Christmas to me,’ Pru said, standing to kiss her husband and baby. Although, he was no longer a baby. One year old already. How the time had flown. Her little boy was growing up. ‘I have all I want for Christmas. My husband is not in gaol and my family is reunited.’
She smiled at Deidre and attempted to take Henry and prepare him for his nap. Henry had other ideas and began one of his famous tantrums. He was overtired, Pru realised. Too much excitement for a little boy, too many presents. Most of which had come from none other than Deidre.
‘I still say you spoil that child,’ Deidre admonished, making Pru shake her head with the irony of it. ‘One year old or not, he should have better manners.’
Jack just chuckled and Pru wondered at how he never seemed to get flustered or annoyed at anything her grandmother said. That was almost as infuriating to Pru as her grandmother’s constant advice and criticisms about their parenting skills. But Jack took it all on the chin, said something smooth to Deidre to make her laugh, and that was that.
‘I should put Henry down for his nap,’ she said, fighting the little boy as he squirmed and leaned towards his tin truck abandoned on the floor. She gave in and put him down to play a little longer.
‘What is that you’re drinking, Jack?’ Deidre asked. ‘There is condensation on the bottle. It looks cool.’
‘It is cool, and refreshing,’ he told her. ‘It’s beer, Lady Carrington. Would you care to try it?’
‘Beer,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it.’
‘Much more refreshing than a sherry,’ he said. ‘Sherry will make your face hot. Beer will cool you to your toes.’
Deidre thought on it for a moment before summoning Gerald, the butler.
‘Gerald, bring me a bottle of cold beer please,’ she instructed. ‘And get one for yourself and the other servants. It’s Christmas.’
Gerald nearly tripped over his own shoes with shock at the gesture, before he stepped back out of the drawing room to fetch her beer.
When he began to pour the beer into a glass, Jack stopped him with a shake of his head.
‘Out of the bottle, Deidre,’ he instructed. ‘It’s much nicer that way, and stays cooler longer.’
Pru’s mouth dropped open when her grandmother put the dark brown bottle to her lips and tipped it back to take a slug of cool, frothy ale.
‘Refreshing,’ Deidre reviewed when she’d taken a sip.
Jack tapped his bottle to hers and they drank. Pru just shook her head in astonishment. Whoever said people didn’t change, hadn’t met these two.
They all heard the knock at the door and a moment later Gerald returned to the drawing room.
‘A telegram,’ he announced, but when Deidre held out her hand, he looked to Jack. ‘For Mr Fairweather.’
Jack took the telegram and read. ‘It’s from Harold Renstein.’
‘The lawyer?’ Deidre asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, this can’t be good,’ Pru said, placing a worried hand on Jack’s arm. ‘Have they found more evidence against you?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Then what?’ Pru asked as he read on. ‘Jack, please, you’re scaring me.’
‘They caught the real killer.’ Jack handed the telegram to her.
She took it and read out loud. ‘Paolo Cirrocco was arrested in Castlemaine yesterday for the shooting of Viktor Petrovic. He confessed he shot Viktor over stolen property.’
‘Seems Viktor finally robbed the wrong person,’ Jack said putting a comforting arm around Pru. It was finally over. Jack had been cleared of all suspicion.
‘I never got to ask you what happened when you went to see Viktor,’ she said, folding the telegram away.
‘I was furious,’ he admitted. ‘So ready to kill him. But he wasn’t there when I arrived and that’s when I went out looking for him. I think I went to all the pubs in Ballarat. And when I returned, as I was climbing the stairs of the hotel, I thought of you and Henry. By the time I reached Viktor’s room, I knew I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want Henry to grow up knowing his father was a murderer. Bushranger, yes, but not a killer. I had the money I owed Viktor. I’d intended on leaving it in the room and going home to you and Henry. But I heard the shot and opened the door to see you there.’
Pru smiled. ‘So, you really didn’t do it?’
‘Me?’ Jack asked with a huff. ‘I still thought it was you.’
‘Hah! Wonderful start to marriage,’ Deidre tossed in sardonically as she shifted to pick Henry up to bounce on her knee. ‘Each believing the other is a murderer. Trust between partners is paramount if you want your marriage to survive. You should work on that.’
‘Yes, Gran,’ Pru said, and laughing, she threw her arms around her innocent husband. ‘We’ll work on that.’
Thanks for reading The Bushranger’s Wife. I hope you enjoyed it.
Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you’ve read, and what you thought.
If you liked this book, here is my other title, The Girl from Eureka.
Sign up to our newsletter romance.com.au/newsletter/ and find out about new releases, must-read series and ebook deals at romance.com.au.
Share your reading experience on:
Facebook
Instagram
romance.com.au
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing...
Discover another great read from Escape Publishing …
The Girl from Eureka
Cheryl Adnams
On the sun-drenched goldfields of Eureka, a wild colonial girl and an honour-bound soldier will break all the rules to claim a love worth m
ore than gold…
Ballarat, Australia 1854
Gold miner Indy Wallace wants nothing more than to dig up enough gold to give her mother an easier life. Wild and reckless, and in trouble more often than not, Indy finds herself falling for handsome, chivalrous, British Army Lieutenant Will Marsh. But in the eyes of immigrant miners, soldiers are the enemy.
Will has been posted to Ballarat with a large contingent of Her Majesty’s army to protect the Crown gold and keep the peace. But once he meets rebellious Indy, he doubts he’ll ever be at peace again. As Will and Indy’s attraction grows, their loyalties are tested when the unrest between miners and the military reaches breaking point.
On opposite sides of the escalating conflict, can their love survive their battle of ideals? And will any of them survive the battle of the Eureka Stockade?
Find it here.
ISBN: 9781489291134
Title: The Bushranger’s Wife
Copyright © 2019 by Cheryl Adnams
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 13/201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
Published by
Escape
An imprint of Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Limited (ABN 47 001 180 918), a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited (ABN 36 009 913 517)
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth St
SYDNEY NSW 2000
AUSTRALIA
® and ™ are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and are used under license to the Publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in Australia, New Zealand, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
romance.com.au