———
Not a bad place, Sloan, considering. Not a bad place at all. Assuming you can just hang on to it. And you do have to agree, the European women on the house staff make it a lot homier. You got clean socks when you want them, the place stays cleaner and the food’s better. Sloan’s harem. There are worse things to have, Cole, boy.
He simply sat on Gypsy awhile and let her squirrel around in place as he admired his major possession. From down here at the bend, with the house just barely in view up ahead, it looked majestic, almost a manor. Soon as he got a little further out of the hole, he’d fix the place up. Add to it. Patch the roof better where the pandanus blew down, maybe even replace the treadle organ. He didn’t play—didn’t know anyone who did—but it looked good sitting in the parlor there.
He could just barely see Linnet out in the side yard hanging bed sheets on the line. Cute little number, but a bit young for his taste. She seemed fragile—a delicate orchid you almost didn’t dare touch. On the other hand, youth is its own excuse for being desirable.
Margaret came up the side path with a basket of mangoes on her arm and continued around back, no doubt to the kitchen door. She couldn’t have been down visiting the minister again; Vinson was out of town. How should he handle this? Just let her go awhile and see if the infatuation faded? If he forbade her to get near that wowzer, she might set her hackles and slip around all the more. The Irish were noted for their temper and stubbornness and with her reddish hair she looked as Irish as a shamrock.
The postman had gone rattling up the lane in his pony cart just ahead of Cole. He reached the front door, then climbed down and knocked. Strange. Until recently he simply blew his horn and expected someone to come to him. New postal regulations? Sam answered the door, smiling. They swapped goodies, the mail for a slab of bread and jam. No, not new postal regulations. Greed. The woman did bake good bread.
The old galah climbed awkwardly into his cart, holding his bread high, and went his way. Sam leafed briefly through the mail, her willowy body draped against the doorjamb. Surely she must have a past. She was too good-looking to have escaped every suitor’s clutches over the years. What kind of man warmed up this cool, efficient housemaid with the razor-sharp mind and overworked sense of honor? She lurched erect and walked inside, closing the door behind her.
Cole eased up on the reins, and Gypsy needed no urging. She pressed forward, homeward. He paused again halfway up the lane. The house definitely needed something along this south wall. It looked flat, blank, unattractive. Plain. That’s it. Plain was for people who couldn’t afford fancy or didn’t care.
Bushes. He’d plant some sort of ornamental bushes there. Something imported.
Sloan dismounted near the corner of the house and swatted Gypsy on the rump. She cantered off up the hill toward the stable. He stepped from bright sun into cool gloom and had to wait in the foyer a minute until his eyes adjusted. The house even smelled homier. The aroma was bread fresh from the oven, and the postman had beaten him to it.
He stuck his head in the kitchen door. “Bring me a pot of tea and a slab of that bread.”
“G’day, sir. Jam or marmalade?” She was whacking apart a large orangish fish at the kitchen table. The fish was dinner, probably. And probably in mornay sauce.
“Better bring ’em both; it’s too important a decision to make casually.”
She grinned, bright as the coral sea. Did she have a crush on him? She seemed to perk up when he was around, but then, he didn’t know how perky she was when he wasn’t around. And she kept up this facade, this mien of servanthood. Hard to tell, not that it made much difference to him. The girls he hired often did. Kathleen had been the boldest in letting him know.
Sloan’s harem.
Sam had left Sloan’s mail in a neat stack on his desk. It waited for him, simply smacking of efficiency and businesslike procedure. He had seen her dossier with her employment history, but he couldn’t remember that she had ever performed office and clerical duties. Too bad. She’d be a natural.
He popped the top straps on his boots, swung his feet up on the desk and scooped the orderly stack into a haphazard pile in his lap. The Brisbane bank. Now, what did they want? A note from Chestley, the Sydney buyer. Probably bunging on an act about how bad things were and why Cole shouldn’t expect him to pay full price for raw crystal this season.
His mind froze in mid-thought. A plain envelope, the same as that other one. Postmarked Townsville. Addressed to the son of Conal. He should throw this rubbish away without even thinking about it. But even as his mind resisted, his hands ripped the envelope open.
THUS SAITH THE LORD!
JEREMIAH 32:18!
THOU RECOMPENSEST THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS INTO THE
BOSOM OF THEIR CHILDREN AFTER THEM.
VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAITH THE LORD
“Sir? Be ye ill?” Sam hovered over him like an anxious hen counting chicks.
He looked at her eyes, glowing gray-green eyes like her sisters’. Gorgeous eyes. “Yeah, you might say so.” He flipped the note onto the desk in front of her. “Here’s why I don’t want your sister anywhere near that preacher in the chapel.”
She picked it up and studied it a moment. “I cannae believe the Rev. Vinson would send this.”
“Posted in Townsville two days ago.”
“Have ye any notion what it means? Your father?”
“I had some labor problems a couple years ago, and my father did also, back when he was getting Sugarlea started. Our Bible basher there fancies himself the champion of the downtrodden.”
“Meg tells me ’tis a favorite theme of his. Something about white laborers resenting colored laborers and causing them grief. She says here in Queensland, according to the Reverend, was the worst of it, with the plantations bringing in men from abroad.”
“Favorite theme of his. Right.” He shrugged. “That’s about all I can come up with.”
“Pity. Likeable chap, that.”
On to more pleasant things. “Jam or marmalade? Marmalade or jam? Fix me one of each.”
She smiled suddenly, and Jeremiah or God or whoever that was faded to nothing. “You’ll never forge an empire, sir, if ye keep vacillating so.”
“On the other hand, by not choosing between, I get both. Cut yourself one, and sit a minute.”
“As ye wish, sir, and thank ye.” She carved off a modest slice and slathered it in the marmalade. She settled into the wingback chair. She looked tired, drawn, weighed down upon.
“What kind of bushes shall I plant along the south side there? It looks plain.”
“Were we back in Erin, sir, meself’d be quick to recommend box or privet. Neat habit of growth and stately texture. But I’ve nae the slightest inkling for here.”
Neat and stately. Sam. Of course. Neat and stately. He should be pursuing her romantically right now. She appealed to him more than he would have thought, and he wasn’t sure why he didn’t, except that he thought he knew how she’d take it. And he hated being refused. He didn’t mind claiming what he considered his in most situations, but there are some situations where simply seizing the moment doesn’t work.
“Sir? Be ye sure that note was sent by our Reverend?”
Now, why did she have to go and change the subject? “Who else?”
“And ’tis the first such?”
“Second. First arrived two weeks after he got here. Less. Caught up on local history quickly; or else he did his homework in advance and came with the intent of causing trouble. Now that I think about it, I don’t want you mentioning these notes to Meg. To anybody. See if he mentions them first. Understand?”
“Whatever ye say, sir.” She stood up, refilled his cup and left. The room suddenly became empty.
He went back to the rest of the mail, to Chestley’s fatuous note and the banker’s letter from Brisbane. Buyers and bankers. There could not possibly be a God in heaven; he was certain of it. No halfway decent God would let this mob of silvertails twelve
hundred miles away control the fortunes and destiny of Cole Sloan’s Sugarlea.
Chapter Six
Ruin
“Sam?” The door opened a bit. Meg’s tousled red head peeked in. “Ye be up yet, aye?”
“Aye. Writing to Mum. Come in.” Samantha laid her pen aside.
Meg closed the door behind her. “Ye nae be mentioning that croc, I hope.”
“No. Of course not. The tea’s gone, sorry. And how do ye like yer new job?”
Meg flung herself casually across Samantha’s bed. “Eh, being housemaid’s much better than what I was doing down at the mill, but of course there be not near so many men up here.”
“No matter, when ye have the Vinson lad at your beck and call.”
She giggled. “And yerself the Sloan lad, no less.”
“Hardly.”
“Meself has eyes.” Meg flipped around onto her stomach and elbows to face Samantha squarely. “That’s why I’ve come, Sam. For a favor. Ye’re in good with Mr. Sloan, more so than I …”
“Only because he doesn’t know ye as well yet.”
“More’n that, I aver. And I wish ye to sound him out about selling back me indenture. See what he says sort of, aye?”
“Ye promised a promise, Meg. I’ll not be a party to ye breaking yer word. Nae.”
“I said naething atall about breaking me word. I’ll pay him off, every penny. Ye know that. Just ask. Please?”
“And where might ye find this money? Luke Vinson doesn’t make enough to buy a cat out of hock.”
“Just ask, aye? There’s a good girl!”
“Perhaps, on the morrow or sometime when the mood seems right.”
“He’s still up now, ye know. Ye could ask him now.”
“Ye’re in a blooming hurry.”
Meg popped to her feet. “’Tis important, Sam, please? G’night.” She blew Samantha a kiss and bounced out the door.
Samantha sighed as she wiped off her pen nib. Why? Why did she not simply say a firm no when Meg or someone came up with something like this? Mr. Sloan told her to spy on the hired help and now the hired help was seeking her collusion. She hated this sort of intrigue. So why was she standing up and taking off her apron? Besides …
Why should Meg think that she had a stronger “in” with the master of the house? Why didn’t Meg ask Linnet? She and Linnet were much closer companions. Because Mr. Sloan was not particularly well pleased with Linnet’s frequent failure to get all her chores done in a day, that was why.
And was Mr. Sloan satisfied with Sam’s work? Seemed so. That pleased her in a warm, funny little way. She always took pride in her work, always did the best she could, but this was somehow different. She enjoyed immensely pleasing Mr. Sloan.
She walked slowly down the dark stuffy hall, listening. Mr. Sloan had more or less tacked his office onto his house. The L-shaped house, almost a bungalow, sprawled out ever so casually, with lots of windows and airy light. The kitchen and servants’ rooms comprised the back leg of the L and the house proper—parlor, dining room, Mr. Sloan’s private rooms—formed the front leg. Making the L into a lop-sided U, the office stuck itself to the back of the far end.
The only light in the dark corridors was the yellow line below his office door. Dare she? She got within two steps of the door before she came to her senses. Of course she dare not! Let Margaret sound out her employer herself. Samantha was neither above nor below Meg and certainly not her sister’s keeper. Meg had indentured herself—Samantha had nothing to do with that—and now Meg could handle her own affairs. What could she have been thinking of?
Someone was knocking on the door out front. Samantha frowned. She seemed to be the only servant out and about; funny how the new housemaid disappeared so conveniently. She hurried back the hall and out through the parlor to answer it.
The man was no more than a black shadow under the porch roof. Samantha could not make out his features. “John Butts to see Mr. Sloan, please.”
“Come in.” Samantha led the shadow through the foyer into the parlor. “I’ll see if he’s receiving guests, sir.” She curtseyed and walked smartly back to the office door. She should have provided Mr. Butts with a light; why did she not at least light the little electric lamp by the window?
She rapped at the door and pushed it open cautiously.
Mr. Sloan sat in his big chair with arms and legs draped at casual angles to each other. His sprawl reminded Samantha of Papa back home and her heart pinched just a bit. Papers alone and in stacks cluttered the floor in a broad circle around him.
“Mr. Sloan, sir, John Butts to see ye.”
“Bring him through and serve us tea.”
“Aye, sir.” As she turned away, from the corner of her eye she saw him leaning down to tidy up his papers. When she returned with Mr. Butts, though, he had ordered only a little of the worst of the mess.
He stood up and offered his hand. “John, been a long time.”
She left them. The coals were still warm, the water still hot. She didn’t need long to bring the kettle up to boiling. She had served the Fortnum and Mason black pekoe, Mr. Sloan’s favorite, at dinner. Tonight she’d prepare a pot of the Murchie’s Queen Victoria blend. Perhaps there would be some left after Mr. Butts departed, and Queen Victoria was her own favorite.
When she entered the office with her tray, John Butts had made himself at home. The leather-covered chair had been pushed back into a corner and the visitor slouched in the brocade wingback chair immediately in front of Mr. Sloan’s desk. Mr. Sloan now sat erect in almost prim repose, his elbows on the chair’s arms, his fingertips forming a peaked cage.
Mr. Butts tugged at his tie, loosening it until its knot lay beside his second shirt button. “Frankly, Cole, I’m at wits’ end. This last storm ripped the roof off my storage shed and soaked over a thousand pounds of tea. Good tea, ready for market. Spoiled now. With that ergot or blight or whatever it was, I didn’t show a profit last year and I’ll not again this year. And the new lot I planted won’t be ready for at least another eighteen months. The bank learned somehow about the ruined tea and refuses to advance me any more until I service my outstanding loans.” He raised his hands helplessly. “It’s all gone against me.”
Samantha set out the cups and saucers.
“Pity.” Mr. Sloan’s eyes followed her, probably without seeing her. “Can’t you dry out that lot and dump it in America?”
“Not since they passed their good-tea law back in ninety-seven. Very picky about the tea they import now. You can’t sell just anything to them anymore.”
Mr. Sloan sighed. “I was really behind you, John. If this area is going to thrive and prosper, we need a rich variety of produce. Not just bananas, or my cane or your tea or whatever, but a wide range of enterprises. We all need each other if any is to do well from year to year. Broad labor pool, all that.”
“I agree. Diversification. That’s why I feel I’ve let you down—that I’ve let us all down, for that matter.”
“Hardly, John. You did your best. A few bad breaks.” Mr. Sloan shrugged and watched his teacup fill. “Miss Connolly, bring us some of that fruit bread you served for dessert at dinner.”
She left as Mr. Butts continued his tale of woe. When she returned with the coffee cake and two dessert services, the man seemed considerably more relaxed.
Sloan watched her hands as she sliced off generous slabs.
“I should have waited until morning, but I—well, I guess I’m just too distraught. I finished my books tonight and simply had to go out and commiserate with someone. Ah, but you—” Mr. Butts waved a hand. “It doesn’t look like the storm did you much hurt. Sugarlea appears to be rolling right along.”
“We’ve been fortunate in many ways—save for the tragic loss of my cook a few days ago.”
“My foreman told me. Dreadful.” Mr. Butts took his first bite of the coffee cake.
“And yet even that black cloud has a silver lining. Miss Connolly here took over the cooking and is do
ing splendidly, as you just now learned. Delicious fruit bread, is it not?”
“Mmbph. Crrtphly ifsh.” The man nodded vigorously and smiled at Samantha.
She refilled teacups and tried to hide her own delight behind a stoic servant attitude. He was praising her before strangers and almost sounded like he meant it!
Mr. Sloan sat forward and the look on his face startled Samantha. It reminded her of his appearance when he stood on the shore of that listless pond, determined to destroy a crocodile. He wasn’t grim now, or angry—and yet, the look was there.
“Have another piece of the fruit bread, John. It’s been a long day. Miss Connolly, we’ll probably use another pot of tea. How about the Fortnum and Mason black pekoe this time round?”
The corners of her mouth tipped up a bit in spite of herself. “Certainly, sir.”
Mr. Butts could speak again. “There, you see? You must import the tea you use because I can’t provide it for you—you and the rest of Australia. And yet the clim …”
She left the flowered china pot of Queen Victoria on the tea table and returned a few minutes later with the speckled blue pot.
“ … keep you going awhile. So what do you think?” Mr. Sloan sat back and extended his cup for Samantha to fill.
“Cole, this is exceedingly generous of you.” Mr. Butts was studying a hand-written sheet of heavy paper.
As she topped off Mr. Butts’s cup her eyes dropped almost involuntarily to the paper. The script was Mr. Sloan’s hand, very largely written, no doubt to be read quickly and easily by an older man without his spectacles. The sheet mentioned the amount of a loan—a very large loan—and in a few telling words and phrases, none of them a coherent sentence, listed terms of repayment should the tea crop fail again. And if she interpreted the hieroglyphics rightly, it blatantly transferred ownership of the land to Mr. Sloan.
She feigned disinterest and cut two more slices of coffee cake. She could hardly wait to hear how Mr. Butts would tell her employer where to discard this ridiculous offer.
Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) Page 6
