The Landowner's Secret

by Sonya Heaney

  She touched a tentative hand to her hair, just a brush to make sure the curls were still as they were supposed to be. She’d won a battle with Bessie and only had a few styled on the front of her head, even though she’d been told current fashion called for a lot more of the things. Josephine curls, they were apparently called.

  When the curls had first been suggested—or, rather, when Alice had been ambushed that morning—she’d been dubious. Especially so when her transformation began.

  ‘I don’t know who this Josephine lady is, but I hope those curls look better on her than they do on me,’ she’d said as she studied herself in the mirror.

  Elizabeth had been more enthusiastic. ‘Ladies in the towns, and back in England, buy their curls and simply pin them on.’

  Alice had thought about it.

  ‘They pin things on the front of their heads? Don’t they fall off?’

  ‘I’m sure they do on occasion.’

  ‘That must end up bein’ embarrassin’.’

  Maybe the fancy ladies from town wouldn’t think her fashionable, but she’d prefer her hair to look antiquated than to look like one of Robert Farrer’s sheep.

  Maybe, she decided, she wouldn’t disgrace anyone that day after all.

  ‘Are you ready?’ a now-familiar voice came from the door, and Alice started ridiculously.

  ‘Lord,’ she said, pressing her hand to her chest in shock. ‘Mister Farrer, you sure aren’t meant to be in here.’

  ‘Robert,’ he corrected with a whisper and a hint of a smile, and seeing her as ready to go and be wed as she would ever be, he stepped across the threshold and offered his arm.

  She took it, and moved to leave, but his feet stayed where they were. Glancing up at him in question, she found him studying her close enough it made her insides squirm.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said immediately, but continued to stare. Alice brushed at her face anyway, wondering if she’d a smudge or something.

  ‘Somethin’ sure is, the way you’re starin’.’

  That seemed to amuse him. ‘You look very pretty, Alice. That’s all I was thinking.’

  While she blushed and stammered, about to deny it, he continued.

  ‘I’ve ordered a book,’ he told her.

  A book? What in the world was he on about?

  ‘It’s coming from Sydney—a book of saints. Catholic saints, of whom I’m not all that familiar.’

  ‘Catholic saints? What d’you want with them?’ Alice couldn’t be certain, but she thought there were Catholics in her family somewhere along the way—she’d the Irish name for it—but that’d all been lost at a time she was too young to remember.

  ‘Januarius,’ Robert murmured. ‘The word triggered a memory, and I think I might be onto something here.’

  That cockatoo took up its squawking again, and Alice spared it a quick glance.

  ‘Couldn’t you ask the priest in town?’

  ‘I did.’ Her soon-to-be husband smiled wryly. ‘He wasn’t a great deal of help. However, let’s leave it at that for now. I think we’ve something more important to do today.’

  He’d have started off then, had Alice’s feet not rooted themselves back into the floor. Her sudden panic surprised her, but she had something else that needed to be said before they could go ahead with this mad marriage, something needing to be clarified.

  And so she looked him straight in the eyes and said what needed saying.

  ‘Robert, I think my brother has gone and become a bushranger.’

  ***

  ‘I know.’

  Robert felt that he should be the one making confessions, but the deep concern in Alice’s eyes touched something inside him.

  ‘What do you mean, you know?’

  ‘Well, let’s say that I strongly suspected. It was the main reason I insisted you stay here instead of returning home.’

  She stared. ‘All right, that’s it. You’re a bloody dingbat. You should’ve sent me home immediately if you thought that.’

  ‘To live alone, possibly in danger?’

  ‘Uh, Mister Farrer, stop deliberately missin’ the point. What makes you think I’m not an outlaw, too?’

  ‘You’re not,’ he said immediately. The idea of it was preposterous, even hilarious. She was a victim of circumstance, and everything he’d learnt of her so far told him she did everything she could to stay out of trouble, not run towards it like her relations.

  She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. And then she touched a place near her throat.

  ‘I hadn’t much when I came here. He took me mother’s locket—Ian did, I mean. Not that I’ve proof, but where else could it’ve gone? I had it hidden and now it’s not there anymore.’

  ‘We can get you another one,’ he said automatically. ‘Not that it would be the same …’

  He ought to have been outraged that the man could sink that low, but he knew his type, and had seen first-hand how greed and lawlessness and even desperation fed off themselves until any morals a man might have been born with evaporated entirely.

  ‘Never really thought I’d marry,’ she said more to herself than to him. ‘But I always thought I’d wear it if I did.’

  Robert nearly offered her a replacement to wear to the church then, but caught himself. An instinct he was beginning to develop about her told him it would only add insult to injury. Instead he strove for a happier tone.

  ‘So, you’re certain you won’t jilt me, Alice? I’d hate to be embarrassed at the altar,’ he said, adjusting his jacket.

  She laughed at him, and reached out to grab his hand in such a spontaneous gesture that it affected him immensely.

  ‘’Course I won’t, even though this is all madness. You’re not marryin’ me for a dowry, are you? I know we’re not madly in love, but I suppose that’ll be better. We can be sensible about this.’

  He flipped his hand so that he was holding hers, and used his thumb and forefinger to learn the joints and bumps, the rough pads on her palms, and the surprisingly smooth skin running along the back. She’d worked hard her whole life, but there was softness at surprising times. Her gloves waited for her on the dresser nearby and he was glad she’d not yet put them on.

  He heard her breath catch at the touch. They were going to be married, and this was the most intimate they had ever been. Robert felt an element of shyness about it all, as though they’d missed a few dozen steps to reach this point. He supposed they had.

  When he spoke again, his voice sounded odd even to him. ‘What do you know of my deal with Tom Wright?’

  ‘Enough that he’s a pest to you, and we wouldn’t be marryin’ if it weren’t for him.’

  He should have told her she was mistaken, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her about that.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself for choices I made, Alice.’ He touched a finger to the space between her brows, smoothing out her frown. ‘We’d better be off. I believe we’ve something important we shouldn’t be late for.’

  ‘But—what about my brother? What if he—’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he told her firmly.

  ‘But … we’ll be married tomorrow, and then it’ll be too late if you decide—’

  ‘I won’t,’ he said before she could finish. ‘When we’re married we’ll worry about these things. Together.’

  Finally, he urged her forwards, pausing only for her to gather her gloves.

  ‘This seems strange, to be goin’ to the church together,’ she said.

  ‘We’re being revolutionary. I take it as a good thing, not a bad omen.’

  She snorted at that.

  All the voices of the people waiting for them dropped to low murmurs at their appearance, and then together they suffered through a cacophony of compliments and a few very hard stares.

  Elizabeth, dressed in a fine but plain gown in dark blue, one Robert knew for a fact was chosen so as not to outshine the bride, offered him a private smile, and th
en she took over, ushering everyone from the house.

  ‘Well,’ Alice said with a wobble to her voice, almost masked by false bravado, ‘let’s go and be wed.’

  ***

  They were discussing her bridecake again.

  Alice kept the smile on her face and her groan firmly hidden behind it as the conversation swirled in circles, always coming back to the enormous concoction of fruit and flour that dominated the reception room.

  She’d been led to believe a wedding breakfast wouldn’t take so long. In fact, an etiquette book she’d stumbled across in her search for Latin translations had told her as much.

  Everyone ought to have gone home long ago, but apparently this far out in the country people weren’t too fond of following rules. A little desperately, she looked across the room at Robert and his closest friend, accidentally catching John Stanford’s eye and then looking quickly away again.

  Her hands tightened around the glass in her hands.

  ‘Only the best would do,’ one lady to Alice’s right said as she helped herself to another dainty bite of her slice. Only parts of the cake could be eaten, as the rest was a construction of pillars and sugar and small figurines that Alice had marvelled at when it’d been delivered all the way from Sydney.

  It seemed a ridiculous extravagance to her, but at least it’d turned into a greater spectacle than she was herself. If the guests insisted on staying all afternoon, then she’d rather them stare at the cake than at her. For the moment she was more than happy to sit to one side, temporarily forgotten, and watch.

  Elizabeth had gone from the room minutes before to fuss over some arrangement or another. ‘Tomorrow it’s my job to do all the worrying,’ she’d told her the night before, as they’d sat side by side on Alice’s bed, avoiding serious talk about what was to come once vows were exchanged and registers signed. ‘You’re to move about and perch on various chairs and look decorative and pleased with yourself, even if the food turns bad or the room catches on fire.’

  At least Elizabeth had made her laugh.

  Robert passed her then, bending to whisper in her ear. ‘We’re close to done with this nonsense,’ he told her. ‘I’ll make sure they head home soon.’

  ‘Mr Farrer … perhaps you ought not to say it that way while your guests are still here.’

  He sighed melodramatically. ‘I hope I’ll now be Robert in private, at least,’ he said softly, and then his name was called by another man. Alice hadn’t a clue of the fellow’s name.

  ‘Go,’ she coaxed when her new husband hesitated. When he was off again she looked down into her glass. Nice as it was for Mr Stanford to provide wine for the afternoon, she only wished it’d not been a syrah from Victoria. To drink red wine while everyone was watching her? She’d likely end with it spilt down the bodice of her frock—or forming an overlarge purple smile on her face.

  And so it went on. Alice smiled her sympathy each time one of the Farrer siblings was drawn away, did her best to perch decoratively, and ignored her growing anxiety about the mystery of the night to come.

  She was glad of the Wright family declining to attend. Even though she’d be seeing plenty of him in the future, Mr Wright’s was the one face she’d absolutely not wanted staring back at her over the course of the day.

  With the light now drawing long shadows across the ground, surely the guests would be off soon. Oughtn’t they to have gone by now? Oh, she wished they’d all just go. After the comments about her gown and her good fortune, and her handsome husband—and that bloody cake—most of the guests had all but run out of things to say to her and drifted back to their friends.

  What would happen next? She didn’t know, because she’d drifted through the whole day so far on other people’s instructions.

  Suddenly Alice wasn’t yet sure she wanted the guests to be off. She wouldn’t complain if she was forced to wait a couple more nights to find out what occurred when a man closed himself off in a bedroom with a woman. She was suddenly so very aware all the married folks in the room knew what they were about to do, whatever it was.

  It didn’t help one bit that Robert now looked at her differently, with something in his eyes she didn’t understand. It was as though he suddenly saw more of her, and she had to try hard to resist checking her frock was still buttoned properly and that her skirts weren’t suddenly revealing something they shouldn’t. She wasn’t sure she could be brave about it for much longer.

  Another half hour went on, and Alice watched as the sun stretched longer still across the ground, and then suddenly the mood of the room changed. The guests started murmuring about the time, and about making it home before the road was clogged with kangaroos crossing at dusk. Before she knew it they were all rising and moving to the door, and Alice made her way out to the carriage drive and through a series of congratulations and farewells.

  In the midst of it all, Elizabeth disappeared somewhere without Alice even noticing …

  And all of a sudden she was alone with Robert, and fervently wishing all the guests back.

  When her husband offered her his hand, she took it, calmness curiously settling in. And when he turned back for the house, she went with him.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked when he’d closed the front door behind them.

  Alice considered her options, and then decided to be honest. ‘No.’

  He met her eyes, and must’ve seen something there, because then his expression transformed.

  ‘Well, then. Shall we stay down here or head up?’

  ‘Let’s …’ Lord, it took so much courage to say it, but she did so with a nod, ‘go up.’

  Chapter 11

  ‘My goodness,’ Robert said from the opposite side of the main bedroom once the sound of Mrs Adamson’s footsteps had disappeared from the corridor. ‘That was hardly subtle.’

  The housekeeper, eyes bright, and if possible looking even more sprightly than she’d been that morning, had just abandoned the pair of them for the evening, claiming fatigue. Mrs Adamson, in other words, was a terrible actress.

  Alice resisted the urge to call her back, and only because she couldn’t think of a good reason to do so. What’d she have her do? Stoke the fire? It was already toasty in the bedroom. Smooth the blankets? Sweep the floor?

  She couldn’t hear the woman anymore, and she knew it was far too late for excuses now.

  Robert rose then and came to her. She watched him warily, trying to appear steady when she’d gone all wobbly inside and out. Something was happening now, or would happen very soon, and it was a bloody good thing she was seated, because she wasn’t sure how standing would go with her legs turned to jelly.

  He came onto one knee in front of her and then stroked a finger along her wrist, continuing the touch all the way down, until his fingertip came to rest on the gold ring on her left hand, the one he’d put there only that day. Alice watched with a mix of apprehension and wonder as he gently drew the shirt she’d been sewing up a hole in from her hands and set it aside.

  ‘That’s better. I can’t watch you do mending on our wedding day. Surely that’s against one of the rules in that housewife’s book of yours.’

  ‘I dunno. I never finished readin’ it.’ But the library at Endmoor was turning out to be full of help in many forms. Just not this. If there were books on what was about to happen, Alice was yet to find them.

  ‘Trust me on this one, Alice. It is against the rules.’

  He took her now empty hand in his own, his touch light, careful.

  ‘But you’ve a hole in the sleeve,’ she felt the need to argue feebly. ‘It needs fixin’. How’d you do it, anyway?’

  ‘The hole? Caught it on a nail when I was chasing a wayward Merino. There’s no need to worry about it now, though.’ The tone of his voice changed, deepened. ‘Some days aren’t for chores.’

  ‘There’s always mendin’ to be done,’ she said, hearing mild outrage in her tone. Robert heard it too, and smiled.

  ‘There’s no mending on your
wedding day. If necessary we’ll all wear holey clothes tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, that’d be a great way to maintain your standin’ in society. People’ll laugh at you behind your back.’

  ‘They’d better bloody not,’ he rejoined, shocking her into a laugh of appreciation for his poor language.

  She was still grinning at him, more relaxed than she’d been in days, when he took her other hand as well, and closed the distance between them, drawing his face within an inch of her own.

  They hovered there, one uncertain how to proceed, and the other expert at drawing out a precious moment.

  He was so very manly. Such a strong jaw, and just a little bit of stubble at such a time of the evening. The glow from the lamps and the fire, which was nearly unnecessary as the house was warm enough without it, framed his features in even a stronger light. His eyes always seemed so strongly focused on whatever it was he’d turned his attention to in that instant, and right then it was on her.

  Right when Alice thought she should pull back before she blushed any harder, he captured her chin with a soft touch of four fingers and a thumb, and kissed her.

  His kiss was all controlled power and encouragement. Light at first, but with no question he knew what he was about and how to encourage her to join him. Alice fought the instinct to close her eyes, and instead kept them focused on his, waiting for cues she didn’t quite understand, and watching the golden flecks of his irises as he used increasingly insistent pressure to coax her into responding.

  Oh, this wasn’t at all like she’d thought.

  Alice hadn’t been aware there was more to kissing than pressing her lips against the man’s and then being done with it. Robert caught her bottom lip briefly between his own, and then bent to press the chaste sort of kiss she’d been expecting at the corner of her mouth.

  He stayed there, close like that, and she felt him smile suddenly, lips against her skin. As he spoke, the small puff of his breath was warm against her cheek.

  ‘There’s someone lurking about in the hallway. I think we’d better stop before we give them too much to gossip about in the servants’ quarters. Though I don’t doubt that’s probably the intention,’ he added in a wry undertone.