Ghost Gum Valley (59 page)

‘No counterfeit love this time,' Garnet said the words under his breath and fervently hoped it was the truth.

Isabel's voice was teasing. ‘Marmaduke, it's perfect. But haven't you forgotten something? One day, maybe a little nursery?'

Marmaduke stiffened. Quickly recovering his composure he took hold of her upturned face between his hands. ‘My darling girl, we have each other. That's enough for you, isn't it? I never lied to you. The Gamble line must die out with me.'

‘But we're both healthy. You could well take after your mother.' Her eyes were pleading. ‘Just one babe? I'm willing to take the chance all will be well.'

‘But I'm not!' Marmaduke drew her into his arms and kissed her hard as if by the sheer force of his physical passion he could put an end to the forbidden question. Recognising the sad resignation in her eyes, he appeared to capitulate.

‘You deserve to be a mother and I'm the man to give you what you want. I intended to surprise you but I can see you need to know what the future holds. I've already sent a letter inviting your Aunt Elisabeth to join us in the Colony. And to bring out the babe who is your family responsibility. They could live here with us at Mingaletta.'

‘Rose Alba! What have you done?' Isabel pulled away in distress but Marmaduke turned her to face him.

‘What's wrong? I thought this is what you'd want. They must be close to your heart, I know you send your aunt the allowance I give you.'

‘Of course they're dear to me, but how ever will I explain the truth to Garnet?'

‘Simple. Call the child your little sister or cousin. What the hell does it matter? I'll adopt Rose Alba. Give her the Gamble name if you'll allow me.' He gave a wry laugh. ‘I haven't a clue how to be a good father. My parents fought over me like I was their personal War of the Roses. But I can learn, can't I? Rose Alba is part of you, darling, so I'll love her as I would my own child.'

Murmuring soft reassuring words, Marmaduke drew her down to lie in his arms in the shade of a tree. Garnet watched how quickly his son's kisses aroused the girl. His hand caressed her naked foot and moved gently up under the folds of her skirt. Isabel's hungry cry of surrender forced Garnet to acknowledge it was time to leave them in their own private world. Marmaduke's pistol belt lay abandoned on the grass, his normal sense of caution lost in the moment. Garnet withdrew a short distance away, averting his eyes from the lovers as he kept guard, hearing Isabel's cries of ecstasy.

When he finally rode away he was in no hurry to return home. His eavesdropping had delivered more truth than he had bargained on hearing. His thoughts were tangled threads of pleasure and pain. He replayed in his mind the words Marmaduke had said lightly, for once without any deliberate desire to hurt him. Words spoken from his son's heart were all the more painful...
to be a good father...my parents fought over me...their own personal War of the Roses...the child is part of you...so I'll love her...as I would my own child...

Suddenly profoundly weary, Garnet admonished himself. ‘You fool. You wanted the truth and you bloody well got it served up in spades. Marmaduke won't risk the possibility of passing on my malady to future generations to avoid a replica of me. Who could blame him?'

Garnet dug his heels into his horse's flank to break into a gallop. He had no intention of returning home without a thorough exploration of the past hour's revelations.

Isabel's shocked response to her aunt's future arrival triggered Garnet's memories of the pale, romantic young Elisabeth de Rolland, the unwitting cause of his transportation. The babe was unlikely to have been born to Elisabeth, who was his own vintage. Rose Alba: a pretty name for whoever she was. A white rose of York. He considered what the advent of a toddler at Bloodwood Hall would mean.

I built it in the hope Miranda and I would fill the rooms with little tykes. This child is welcome to my name. Rose Alba Gamble. It has a good ring to it.

He thought about the significance of Isabel's likely sufferings as the impoverished ward of Godfrey de Rolland's whose family motto should have been ‘Honour For Sale to Highest Bidder'.

It's London to a brick that Rose Alba was born on the wrong side of the blanket. No wonder the de Rollands were keen to trade Isabel. But I played the winning hand. Isabel has made a man of my son. The only problem is Marmaduke. He's not shy of servicing her, just Hell-bent on avoiding progeny.

Night was fast falling when Garnet approached the rear of Bloodwood Hall from the opposite direction to the one he had taken to ride out. For the past hour he had felt a discomfiting sense he was being observed. Yet each time he checked the lay of the land nothing was visible except a mob of grazing wallabies or some red-bellied black snake slithering through the yellowed native grass.

It wasn't until Garnet arrived at the aviary that he understood the unnatural silence. Budgerigars were never less than excited. The metal door of the aviary was wide open.

Garnet gave a bellow of rage. ‘I'll have the balls of the bloody fool who forgot to close it! I've bred Miranda's birds for years. Now all of them are lost in the bush.'

He leapt down from the saddle, slammed the door on its hinges in a vain attempt to release his frustration. Then struck by the thought the fault might have been Isabel's carelessness, he swung open the door and stepped inside.

The truth turned him ice-cold. The entire floor of the aviary was covered with the tiny corpses of budgerigars – blue, gold, green,
speckled white, all lying with their tiny beaks wide open, their eyes glassy in death.

Breathing heavily he looked around him. Found the cause lying in the corner. An empty bottle printed with a single word. Laudanum. He knew by the smell of it the seed bowls were covered with the same deathly liquid.

Garnet knew this was the handiwork of a sick, vengeful mind. These tiny helpless creatures had paid the price in a cowardly act of terrorism aimed directly at him and those he loved. Marmaduke and Isabel.

The shadow of death had returned to blight Bloodwood Hall again, but this time Garnet knew the game was lethal. Personal. No one in his Gamble empire would ever be safe again.

Garnet hurried to the stables. He confronted Davey quietly.

‘You want to gain your ticket-of-leave? Earn wages like a free man?'

The boy blanched and nodded.

‘Then fetch a shovel and hessian bags. Remove every dead bird and feather from the aviary. Bury 'em so deep the Devil couldn't find them. Spread the word they escaped. I don't want my womenfolk to panic on the heels of that Grantham business. Hear me?'

The boy nodded mutely.

‘If no one finds out the truth I'll get Magistrate Summerhayes to grant your ticket. But if the panic spreads I'll see you're chained in the stocks for the magpies to peck your eyes out!'

The boy sucked in his breath. ‘Be Jasus!'

Garnet did not wait to see his order carried out but returned to the house. The aviary would be cleared and, by the time the lovers returned from Mingaletta, the birds would be buried for eternity.

Chapter 41

Each day the rider collected the post from Bloodwood village the tally grew of handwritten or formally printed cards from those on Garnet's invitation list, stating their regrets that they must decline his invitation to the banquet at Bloodwood Hall. Some used the euphemism ‘due to unavoidable circumstances', the loophole that fooled no one. Most of them feared that they might be the next target of the still unidentified trio of assassins. It was widely believed that Aboriginal trackers working for the mounted police had given descriptions of the wanted men's height, weight and gait from the evidence of their footprints.

None doubted all three were bolters in the bush. Since Grantham's murder there had been a pattern of robberies fanning out across the far side of the marshland south of George's River, cowardly attacks by two or three young men. Their leader always threatened death.

Marmaduke raised the subject during dinner. ‘The police expect to announce the names of Rupert's murderers at any moment. No doubt the fear through the Colony has affected your plans, Garnet. Rhys tells me the guest list has shrunk to a few local bravehearts, Magistrate Summerhayes, the local quack and maybe one member of the Quality – the gentleman who has leased Penkivil Park while the colonel's stationed in India.'

‘What would Rhys Powell know?' Elise snapped and everyone looked at her in surprise.

‘Everything, I should hope, given he's Father's right hand.' Marmaduke said dismissively then turned to Garnet. ‘Isabel's friends and mine seem to be made of sterner stuff. Edwin has promised to be here and Isabel's shipmate, the Scotsman, Murray...?'

‘Robertson,' Isabel supplied quickly. ‘He'll be here. Once a Highlander gives you his word you can count on him for life.'

Garnet was uncharacteristically silent so Marmaduke pressed his advantage. Mingaletta was everything. The date of the handover must not be postponed.

‘Well, we'll celebrate your birthday on the right day, no matter what. But I presume you've cut your cloth accordingly and cancelled the musicians and entertainers?'

Garnet beckoned the young manservant in livery to refill his glass.

‘The entertainers were prepared to risk the journey, more guts than most of the Quality, but I wasn't prepared to risk their lives. Naturally I paid 'em and Madame St John their full fee in lieu.'

Startled, Marmaduke and Isabel reacted in unison. ‘
Madame St John?'

‘Yes, the Yankee Nightingale. No doubt you know of her?'

Marmaduke and Isabel stumbled over themselves to assure Garnet his choice had been perfect but it was a wise decision to cancel all entertainment for the sake of the performers' safety.

Garnet appeared to grow increasingly edgy. ‘Where
is
Rhys Powell? Overnight in the village again? Been gone for two days, hasn't he? What the Hell's he up to?'

‘Who cares?' Elise said petulantly. ‘If you ask me, he's disloyal – a turncoat.'

Marmaduke exchanged a swift glance with Isabel. Surely Elise had heard village gossip. The usually abstemious Wesleyan had been on such a belligerent drunken bender for two days that the local police constable had been forced to put him in the lock-up. No formal charges had been laid due to Garnet's friendship with Magistrate Summerhayes.

“
You've certainly changed your tune, Elise. Only last week you were singing your teacher's praises.'

Elise chose to ignore Marmaduke and turned her full attention on Garnet, leaning forwards so that her large bosom rested revealingly in a sea of coffee-coloured lace.

Marmaduke was amused by the lack of subtlety in her performance. Elise's eyes were on the brink of tears and her pouted lips quivered.

‘Garnet, dear, it hurts me to have to say this when you have been so kind to your Welsh secretary, but you should know in all honesty I can no longer bear to be seen in his company. If you were not blinded by his servility and fawning manner you'd have sent
the man packing months past. There's much truth in that saying, “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief”. If you'd been able to read the fine print in your contracts no doubt you'd have discovered the truth.'

Marmaduke felt strangely resentful of her barbed reference to Garnet's illiteracy.

‘Ah, so
you
can read contracts now, can you, Elise? What wonderful progress,' Marmaduke said smoothly.

Elise looked distressed to be caught out in her lie. ‘Rhys told me,' she snapped.

Garnet eyed her keenly. ‘Strong words of condemnation, Elise. I've fired many secretaries, managers and overseers but never without just cause. Do you have proof of Powell's betrayal? Or would you like to tell us the true reason you are so upset with him?'

Garnet's words were delivered quietly but Marmaduke knew his father well enough to realise there was a hidden agenda.

Elise burst into a noisy flood of tears and fumbled for her napkin to blot her face. Isabel quickly offered her own handkerchief, a flimsy square of lawn that would serve no purpose beyond token empathy.

Marmaduke failed to be moved by the flood. He noticed Garnet's face was impassive.

‘You are unwell, Elise?' Marmaduke asked politely but more to impress Isabel that he was not a callous brute.

‘I should think I am,' Elise said. ‘And I am hardly done by. Garnet knows why!'

Elise turned to Garnet, her tragic dark eyes shedding rivulets of tears down her chalk-white face. She looked suddenly tired as if she had aged overnight and Marmaduke felt irritated by a twinge of pity despite everything he remembered he had once loved and now despised.

Fluttering her pale, be-ringed hands in a helpless gesture, Elise was desperately seeking support from whoever would rally to her aid. Intuitively turning to a female ally, she gestured imploringly to Isabel. ‘During all these long years I have been Garnet's faithful companion, he promised me he would take me in marriage on one condition. Well, if Garnet is loath to announce the news today, it seems I must. I am at last with child!'