Fortune's Son

by Jennifer Scoullar

  She hated the pain in his eyes, but she couldn’t stop. ‘And Becky, who pretends to be my friend. Does she know too . . .? I see she does. Who else has played me so false. Mama? Edward?’

  ‘No, Belle, I swear. No one knows except Becky, my mother and Molly, Angus’s widow. We met some weeks ago as I put flowers on his grave. She recognised me.’

  ‘And what of Edward? He admires you, counts you as a friend. Did he not recognise you?’

  ‘He did not.’

  Belle couldn’t speak, her throat too dry, her heart too sore.

  ‘It tore me apart to leave, Belle, but I believed Edward would provide a good life for you and our son. Since coming to know him, I’ve realised my mistake. He is a weak man, who has used you most ill. Forgive me.’

  ‘Was I ever to know?’ A mere whisper.

  ‘Yes, Belle. Yes, of course. I just wanted the time to be right.’

  She closed her eyes. Luke was alive. It should feel like a dream come true. Why, then, did it feel like a nightmare?

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘I won’t let you.’

  She stood up, rather shakily. ‘Now you sound like Eddie.’

  He buried his head in his hands. The hair peaked at the nape of his neck, just as she remembered. She wanted to kiss it. Instead, she turned and headed for the door.

  ‘Wait,’ he called. ‘I have a great deal to explain.’

  ‘I am in no mood to hear it.’

  He looked so crestfallen she almost relented. If he’d been the one who’d come to her . . . but as it was . . .? Luke had been in Tasmania for months. What game was he playing?

  ‘Goodbye, Colonel.’

  Luke followed her down to the paddock in silence. When she tried to catch Rebel, the horse had other ideas. Binburra’s lush pastures were a far cry from his regular diet of dusty chaff and coarse hay. The big chestnut wanted a bellyful of green grass, and was playing hard to get.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Luke, as Rebel cantered off up the hill. ‘I’ll harness the greys and take you into town myself.’ He clapped his hands. Sultan and Martini trotted straight to him.

  ‘They’re actually my greys,’ said Belle. ‘A present from Papa. Eddie had no right to sell them.’

  ‘Your greys then.’ Luke rubbed their ears. ‘Binburra is all yours, Belle. Lock, stock and barrel. I’ll sign the transfer whenever you want.’

  Despite her shock and anger, it was a thrill to have Binburra back again. A smile slipped out unawares. Who’d have thought the Colonel would just hand the place over?

  Rebel was keeping a wary eye on them from the far side of the paddock, snatching up mouthfuls of grass. ‘I can’t leave him. He belongs to Mr Chapman at the livery stable.’

  ‘That old rogue.’ Luke whistled loudly, and Rebel pricked his ears. ‘He’s a nice type, but he needs a good feed.’

  ‘I know,’ said Belle. ‘Poor thing.’

  ‘Let him stay. I’ll buy him when we get to Hills End.’

  Luke headed for the yards, with the greys following meekly behind. He still had a way with animals; that hadn’t changed.

  Whatever was she going to do? A wild, reckless part of her wanted to go after Luke; wanted to forgive him and offer to run away together. But where would that leave her pride? Where would that leave her children?

  The law set a very different moral standard for men and women. A man could get a divorce by proving his wife had committed a single act of adultery. Even being here alone with Luke was risky. Whereas wives needed to show both unfaithfulness and cruelty on the part of their husbands. With a bit of digging, she might be able to prove Eddie’s infidelity, and what could be crueler than him tricking her out of her birthright? But the courts might not see it her way, and she couldn’t risk losing her children. Luke was alive. It was a miracle. Yet she was as trapped in her marriage as ever.

  Belle moved down the hill in slow motion, trying to make each moment last. Luke was harnessing Martini and Sultan to the claret-coloured brougham, her favourite carriage. He was moving slowly too. Was it for the same reason? There was so much she didn’t know.

  At last, the brougham was ready. Luke climbed into the driver’s seat, fixed her with a steady gaze and held out his hand. ‘My lady.’

  She blushed as fiercely as on that first day. Belle had meant to ride inside, but she was so flustered she let him pull her up beside him.

  ‘Yah.’ He shook the reins and the horses moved off.

  Belle looked at her hand, her fingers tingling where he’d touched them. A jolt went through her when Luke brushed against her thigh, sending a shock of love to her heart. How could she ever go home to Eddie now, knowing what she knew, feeling what she did? She had regained Binburra, but would never know peace in her life again.

  CHAPTER 63

  After Belle returned from Hills End she shut herself away at Coomalong. Existing in a fog of confusion, where nothing was clear and the ground moved beneath her feet. Luke lived, and the foundations of life had unalterably shifted.

  For more than a week Belle kept the windows closed and shuttered. She ignored knocks on the door. The ringing phone went unanswered. Letters slipped through the mail-slot went unread. She had no wish to engage with a treacherous world.

  The reality of Luke’s existence sidetracked every thought. He’d been gone for years. Now that she’d found him, she was paradoxically crippled by an overwhelming sense of loss. As if all her griefs had been focused through a magnifying glass.

  Her entire adult life had been based on a lie, and she didn’t know who or what to believe. Not Luke certainly, the chief instigator of her misery. Not Becky, her best friend. Not Alice Tyler, Robbie’s grandmother. These people, whom she loved, had played a cruel trick on her.

  What about her parents? Luke had sworn they knew nothing. She examined her own memories of them in the light of this new information. She could think of nothing in Mama’s or Papa’s behaviour to suggest that they knew Luke lived. Papa had been devastated by the rockfall. That, at least, was a relief. She couldn’t bear to believe they’d been in on the deception.

  Eddie. Was it conceivable he’d spent so much time with the Colonel and not recognised him? Perhaps. She’d had the advantage of seeing Luke as she’d always seen him. At Binburra, at a task she’d seen him perform countless times before. She’d seen his scarred back. She’d looked into his face as they moved together under the waterfall. She’d loved him.

  Eddie had barely known him, and it was as a poor miner, a farm labourer, a common fugitive. He’d met Luke again in an entirely different context. At the club, impeccably dressed, with everyone hailing him as the famous Colonel Buchanan, war hero and diamond king.

  It was possible, even probable, that he’d been fooled. The bigger mystery was why? Why had Luke returned after all this time? Why had he acted out this charade of friendship with Eddie? Why hadn’t he come to her and revealed himself? These unanswerable questions went round and round in her head. She needed a crystal ball.

  In the afternoon, Belle opened up the glass door onto the balcony, the final renovation her mother had made at Coomalong before she died. Such a change from the former small-paned window and heavy drapes. The summer sun burst in her face. Mama had been updating the house, combining its old-world charm with an open-air lightness in the latest style.

  Her mother had been intrigued and enthusiastic about the advances of this new century: motor cars, electric lighting, telephones. A relaxation of the rigid Victorian moral code. Federation. King Edward on the throne: a modern monarch, patron of the arts and science. Mama loved that interior décor was evolving too: simpler themes, brighter colours, less clutter. She talked about it all the time. Belle never took much notice. It had seemed almost quaint, how excited Mama had been by current fashions.

  Belle watched sunbeams glance off the stained-glass sundial set into the window. Something stirred inside her as she grasped her mother’s vision. What a condescending fool she’d been. The joy Mama had found in
these contemporary styles was the same joy Belle herself found in the play of sunlight on a waterfall, or the gleam and quiver of gum-leaves after rain. It was the joy of life itself.

  A sudden realisation hit her. Mama would hate how she’d locked herself away. Mama would hate how she’d locked up Coomalong, excluding air and light, shutting out the world. It was an insult to her memory.

  Belle ran through the house, unfastening shutters, opening curtains and windows. A summer breeze blew in, room by room, chasing away the staleness. Sunshine flooded dark corners and the scent of boronia and honeysuckle wafted on the air. The house was coming alive.

  From Papa’s study, she saw Becky come through the side gate from the school. Moments later, a knock came.

  Belle went to the front hall and opened the door.

  Becky took off her hat. ‘Thank God. You know I’ve come by every day.’

  ‘I saw Luke.’

  ‘He told me.’ Becky looked past her into the hall.

  Belle managed a half-smile. ‘Come in.’

  Becky took a seat in the parlour and Belle perched herself on the sofa opposite. They sat a while in awkward silence. Belle had a hundred questions that she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  Becky moistened her lips and adjusted her trumpet skirt. ‘I know what you must be thinking.’

  ‘I doubt that. Did Luke send you?’

  ‘He has no idea I’m here.’ A tear glistened in the corner of Becky’s eye. ‘You deserve an explanation, only I’m not sure where to begin.’

  Belle fought a surge of impatience. ‘How about starting with why Luke let me think he was dead all these years?’

  ‘Luke came to Mama and me in Melbourne, in the December after the cave collapse. Until then, we’d believed him dead too. He’d found a stash of money and gold in the hills, enough to set him up for years. He wanted to go back for you. I tried my best to talk him out of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Luke went to gaol once for my sake. Next time he’ll hang. He’s a wanted man in Tasmania, even now. You’d do well to remember that.’ Belle did not miss the note of censure in her friend’s voice. ‘But I couldn’t convince him. He was determined to return to you, even at the risk of execution. Then he found your letter . . .’

  ‘Letter?’

  ‘The one you wrote my mother. It said you were happy, looking forward to the baby, falling in love with Edward. Luke did not want to ruin that happiness.’

  Oh. For the first time, Belle tried to put away her own hurt, and see things from the other side.

  ‘His whole life in South Africa has been dedicated to you and your father. He’s set up game reserves that protect thousands of animals. He’s built village schools, not only providing poor children with an education, but also teaching locals about the importance of wildlife.’ Becky stopped for a long, shuddering breath. ‘He’s never married.’

  Belle looked down at her hands, ran her thumb along the skin where Luke had touched her. Twisted her wedding band. ‘Even so, now he’s back. A rich and powerful man, a great success. Why not reveal himself to me?’

  Becky threw up her hands. ‘For someone who professes to love my brother, you don’t understand him very well.’

  Belle leaned forward. ‘Help me then. Help me understand.’

  ‘All the money in the world won’t change how Luke feels on the inside.’

  ‘How does he feel?’

  ‘Like he’s not worthy. Think about it. Thrown into prison at fourteen. Flogged and treated like dirt. Then he’s on the run, unable to claim even his own name. Our father’s dead, leaving Mama a widow, and Luke thinks it’s his fault. You’re pregnant. He’s let everyone down. Then Edward steps up to take his place.’

  ‘Edward’s not a fraction of the man Luke is.’

  ‘Luke didn’t know that. He thought you and Robbie were happy, so he stayed away. And when you discovered the truth, that he’s alive, you blamed and rejected him. You confirmed what he’s feared all along – that he’s not good enough.’

  Belle sat in silence, digesting Becky’s words and what they meant. Unable to look at her friend. Her white-hot anger had died down to embers. How selfish she’d been, how full of self-pity and entitlement.

  ‘If he believed Eddie and I were happy, why did he come back?’

  ‘I wrote to tell him your parents were dead. He loved them, Belle, and wanted to pay his private respects. That’s why he came back. He intended to return to South Africa, however circumstances changed his mind.’ Becky cleared her throat and glanced over at the liquor cabinet. ‘Perhaps a glass of sherry?’

  In a daze, Belle fetched the bottle and two glasses, poured them both a generous serve. ‘Go on.’

  ‘At the cemetery, he met Molly, Angus’s wife. She has since confessed that she recognised him at Canterbury Downs on the night Henry Abbott died. Molly was the one who caused the Sergeant to come.’

  ‘I suppose it had to be someone . . .’

  ‘On Edward’s instructions.’

  Belle’s heart stopped beating. ‘No, Eddie tried to protect Luke.’

  Becky sculled her drink and poured herself another. ‘Your Edward paid Molly thirty pounds to betray my brother. We have the proof. Molly was so scared she’d be accused of stealing, she asked for an acknowledgement note. She still has it, signed in Edward’s own hand.’

  Belle tasted bile in her throat. This was monstrous. Luke had risked his life for Eddie down that mine, and was repaid with treachery. She ripped off her wedding ring with a savage twist, and hurled it across the room. She could not return to Eddie now, not even if it meant losing her children. She’d rather die.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  Becky reached across and took her hand. ‘Luke has a score to settle, but that’s not why he stays. There’s no use me fighting him any more on this. He stays for you, Belle, whatever the risk. He stays for you.’

  CHAPTER 64

  ‘It’s not possible. What about the preliminary report? What about the independent valuation? The site samples alone were worth thousands.’ Edward used a handkerchief to wipe his face. The office was stifling, but there was more to his sweating brow than a stuffy room and a warm day.

  At George Bentley’s insistence, their own engineers had completed a survey of the new mine site. The chief geologist stood before them, wringing his hat in his hands.

  ‘Cut to the chase, man.’ Edward threw the report on the desk. ‘Did you find diamonds?’

  ‘We did, sir. Yet, wherever we found them, we also found garnets and zircons in too neat an arrangement for a natural deposit. In addition, the stones were found only in disturbed ground. We spent three days doing tests, which included digging ten deep trenches in a dry creek bed, where diamonds should have been distributed well below the surface. Yet there were no diamonds found at depths greater than three feet.’

  ‘What is your explanation?’

  ‘My explanation?’ The geologist squirmed like a bug on a pin. He looked imploringly at George for help, and received only a shrug. ‘My explanation is that someone has been pushing diamonds into the ground with a stick.’

  Edward steadied himself with a hand on the desk, then dropped into a chair. ‘Get out,’ he said. ‘Both of you.’

  The two men glanced at each other.

  ‘Get out!’ He sprang to his feet, fists clenched, and the others hurried from the room. Edward sank back down, weak with shock and confusion. He’d been had. The Colonel’s doing? But why? He and Lucas were co-directors of the new mining company, and between them owned one hundred per cent of the shares. Only they would profit by its success. Only they had everything to lose if it failed. There must be another explanation.

  Edward retrieved the report and read it again, this time more thoroughly. Hoping to find a flaw in its reasoning. It was a false hope; he couldn’t fault it. The diamond field was utterly worthless and he was the victim of a massive fraud.

  Edward felt sick. On top of selling half his ass
ets, he’d borrowed to the hilt to make this deal. He’d have to sell what was left at fire-sale prices to repay the loan. The prospect of being left penniless filled him with dread; the prospect of public humiliation even more so. He could see the headline now. The Great Diamond Hoax: How a Gullible Son Lost His Father’s Fortune. The papers would have a field day with how easily he’d been duped.

  CHAPTER 65

  A crystal clear Sunday morning, its peace broken only by carolling magpies and the occasional clip-clop of hooves. After a sleepless night, Belle had been up since dawn, staring out an upstairs window to the quiet street below. She was as nervous as a schoolgirl waiting for her secret beau.

  This would be a very different meeting to their last. Belle was possessed of the facts. She’d had time to adjust. She’d made up her mind.

  Shortly before ten o’clock, she heard the hum of an engine. It grew louder. She could see it now, a shiny green motor car, slowing down outside her house, stopping.

  She ran to the mirror, smoothed her dress, inspected her face, her hair. She’d changed three times already, settling on a tailored white blouse and skirt of pearl-grey satin. A simple silver chain with a cameo pendant. Now she wished she’d dressed up more. Her hair, swept into a top-knot, looked too severe. With unsteady hands she teased it out a little so a few soft curls fell round her face. She used powder to hide the feverish colour in her cheeks.

  The knock came. Belle couldn’t move; her legs were like lead. It came again, harder this time. With a wrench she turned from the mirror and went downstairs, her heart thumping in her chest, blood rushing in her ears. She grasped the doorknob, took a steadying breath, and opened the front door.

  There he stood. What a difference. No wonder Eddie hadn’t recognised him. She barely recognised him herself. Luke was dressed in a dark tailored blazer, pin-striped shirt and contrasting waistcoat of the palest dove-grey. Its hand-painted enamel buttons featured native tigers in different poses. His beard was neatly clipped and fair hair trimmed close. He cut a debonair figure, yet something suggested his polished veneer ran only skin-deep.