His Convict Wife Read online

  His Convict Wife

  Lena Dowling

  His Convict Wife

  Lena Dowling

  From the author of The Convict’s Bounty Bride comes a new Australian historical about a free settler and the wife he chooses from a workhouse...

  For Irish convict Colleen Malone, being framed, transported to Australia and forced into prostitution seemed like the worst that life could throw at her. Then she fell pregnant to a client and was sent back to prison by her cruel owner. Now, her only hope of a decent life for her and her baby is to find someone to marry.

  Widower and former London businessman Samuel Biggs arrived in Australia hoping to put his grief behind him. When James Hunter offers him a job on his Parramatta farm, he accepts eagerly. He’ll put his back into his new work, and bury any thoughts of new love and marriage in the rich earth of his new home.

  However, all plans are compromised when Samuel is manipulated into visiting a workhouse to choose a new housekeeper, and Colleen seizes her chance — literally grabbing Samuel and begging for her life. The only way Samuel can oblige is by marrying her, but on one thing he stands firm — there is no way he will fall in love...

  About the Author

  In her previous lives, Lena Dowling has been a lawyer, policy analyst, and an administration manager. While Lena was born and raised in New Zealand, it was during a stint working ‘across the ditch’ in Australia that she took up writing in earnest. Having found her inspiration in The Lucky Country, Lena writes Australasian themed romances about gutsy, intelligent heroines, and the men who dare to love them. Lena currently lives in beautiful, subtropical Northland, New Zealand, with her own computer-code-writing hero.

  Acknowledgements

  My heartfelt thanks to my Australian editor and now Trans-Tasman friend, Belinda Holmes.

  For my late grandmother, one of two special people, who fostered my endless fascination with trying to come up with a ‘good yarn’.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Bestselling Titles By Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  ‘May the little people come in the dead of night, wrench your evil eyes out from their sockets, and fry them on the griddle for breakfast for what you’ve done.’

  Colleen shook her fist at Danny O’Shane, the scoundrel who as good as owned her, and since he was liable to lash out she ducked in behind her cousin Nellie. Colleen was pretty enough but not as comely as her cousin. Danny was far too shrewd to mess up the face of his biggest earner.

  He had met them straight off the convict ship where he told the captain that O’Shane’s was a respectable boarding house and they would be working as chambermaids. On account of that he managed to get a Ticket of Leave for both of them written out right there and then.

  To start with, Danny only wanted Nellie — the one all the men swooned over — but Nellie wouldn’t go without Colleen. Her heart was in the right place but it meant both of them were scooped up from the stinking stew pot of a ship they had been simmering in for months only to be dropped over the side into the flames.

  ‘Did I say boarding house? Well now, what I really meant was bawdy house,’ Danny had said, his lips slithering up into a lecherous smile as soon as Nellie and Colleen clapped terrified eyes on the ‘boarding house’.

  Colleen would never forget seeing O’Shane’s for the first time. It was as if a giant trapdoor had opened under her feet, dropping her down into a pit below. She and Nellie gasped at all the lamps hanging in the windows and the gangs of sailors drinking rum and gambling on the veranda outside. They might have been poor Irish convict girls, but they hardly had a sack of dag-wool each for brains. They knew a brothel when they feckin’ well saw one.

  Looking as frightened as they did, Danny had clocked them for virgins. That night they were auctioned off to the highest bidder. They clung to each other, half out of their wits, Nellie whispering in her ear about what to expect.

  But it was the easiest night of their lives compared to what came after. They only had one customer each. One deflowered her, while Nellie satisfied the other with a smear of blood on the sheet after she pricked the end of her finger on the sharp edge of a buckle.

  Every night since, Colleen had seen five or six men, and Nellie eight or so, on account of being more popular.

  Danny folded his arms.

  ‘Colleen was deadweight before she got herself in the family-way, but in a month she’ll be worse than useless and she’ll be taking up a bed that could be used by a more productive wench.’

  ‘She can take her kip with me, like she does most nights anyway,’ Nellie said.

  ‘And what about feeding her? Will you share your food too?’

  ‘She’s me own flesh n’ blood. Course she can have half me rations.’

  ‘What about when the brat comes? How is she going to work then?

  Colleen tensed as Danny raised his hand, but instead of using it to strike, he reached out and grasped Nellie’s chin between thumb and forefinger, his enormous gold signet pressing into her cheek as he leered down at her with rat-brown eyes.

  ‘Even you, the legendary Nellie Malone, couldn’t do enough customers in a night to cover both your keep and hers.’ He laughed releasing his grip. ‘Anyway, I’m doing her a favour. They’ll let her keep the child, for a few years at least, at The Factory.’

  That bit was true. At the gaol for convict women, upriver at Parramatta that everyone called The Factory, they would let her keep her baby for a while, but there were seven years left on her fourteen year sentence and she wouldn’t be freed before they took the baby. Likely as not, she would never see her child again.

  Colleen clasped her hands to her belly.

  ‘See — your cousin knows what’s good for her and the little bastard she’s got growing inside her. Look lively and say your goodbyes. There’s a turnkey waiting downstairs, and I doubt it’ll pay you to keep him waiting.’

  ‘If your ma weren’t dead and buried clear across the other side of the world her spirit would claw its way out of her grave to haunt you, so it would. You’re a low-life filthy blackguard, Danny O’Shane!’ Colleen lunged toward him, blood pumping in her ears, her heart kicking up a jig in her chest, but Danny sidestepped her, heading out the door back down the stairs, and Colleen fell to the planks of the timber floor.

  Nellie threw herself down on top of her cousin, resting her head on her back, a keening noise rising from deep in her throat like the sound the old women made back home when they laid out a corpse.

  Colleen sniffed and sat up, forcing Nellie to sit up with her.

  ‘Oh Coll,’ Nellie said between sobs, ‘You can’t be mouthin’ off now. You’ve got a babe on the way to think of.’

  Colleen swivelled around and clutched Nellie by the shoulders.

  Her cousin blamed herself for the sorry state they were in. It fair ripped at Colleen’s heart watching the guilt gnaw away at her every day.

  ‘No you’re not to be worryin’, I’ll be alright, Nell.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I did this to you, Coll. All of it. If it weren’t for me you’d have married some young lad and had a proper family by now.’

  ‘Don’t fuss. It wasn’t you. It was that evil witch.’

  ‘I let me eyes
run up above me station. I should have known better, and now see where we are.’

  ‘Look on the bright side. I won’t have to lie on me back for a crust and a pallet no more.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Nellie bawled. ‘But they’ll have you breaking stones, and they’ll cut off your beautiful curls.’

  Nellie took a lock of Colleen’s hair that hung naturally in ringlets and pulled it to her cheek, ‘Oh, Jesus. May God forgive me.’ Nellie had barely gotten the words out of her mouth and she was back with the wailing again.

  Colleen pulled Nellie into her arms and hugged her tight.

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive, Nell. Truly there isn’t. It weren’t your fault. None of this is.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Good God, Biggs, is it really you?’ James Hunter squinted at him. ‘Until you spoke I wouldn’t have known you. What have you done to yourself?’

  Samuel knew he was hardly the same man who had farewelled James Hunter from London five years earlier, but he hadn’t appreciated the extent of the alteration to his physical appearance, nor had he expected the changes would cause James to doubt his identity.

  ‘A difficult passage, sir. The crew fared worse than even the most wretched of the passengers. Illness saw a great number heaved over the side to watery graves with not enough left to make up a crew. A few of us who had paid for our berths volunteered to make up the numbers on deck. It was either that, or hazard the chance that the motley bunch remaining would exhaust themselves and sail us into deeper treachery.’

  Samuel had always been sharp, relying on his wits to sidestep trouble — wits that had led him into successful business dealings. But on the ship, it was brawn not brain that was of the highest necessity. He had been obliged to throw his underused muscle into the fray to save his own and the skins of his fellow passengers. The hideous journey from Woolwich Docks to New South Wales had heaped physical on top of mental pain, chiselling Samuel inside and out. He was no longer the corpulent ‘man of business’ he had been in London, sealing his deals in the taverns, where he was wont to overindulge in ale, oysters and pies.

  ‘By the most wretched, I take it you mean…?’

  ‘Yes.’

  James’ face compressed, no doubt recalling his own transportation to the colony.

  ‘The ship’s surgeon was a tolerable fellow. The prisoners were reasonably treated,’ Samuel said quickly.

  James’ expression lightened. ‘Yes, I hear there have been improvements. Although don’t bring up the topic within earshot of Lady Hunter. Next to raising our children, improving the lot of the convicts forms her primary industry these days.’

  ‘Children? My belated congratulations, sir.’

  James grinned.

  ‘Yes, Betsy is four now, and little Stephen is two.’

  ‘Stephen…of course.’

  It had been more than five years since Lady Dorothea Hunter’s scoundrel of a brother, Lord Stephen, had met his ignominious demise from a laudanum overdose.

  ‘Lady Hunter insisted on naming our first son after her brother. I have to say, I was less than enthusiastic about calling any child of mine after that degenerate, but since my son will take Lord Willers’ place as the next Earl of Eastbourne, I suppose in that sense it is fitting.’

  ‘I should say, very fitting indeed,’ Biggs hesitated for a moment before continuing, ‘And if I might be so bold as to add, sir, the spurt of Hunter blood in his veins will provide the shot in the arm the Willers’ line so desperately needs,’ Biggs said, recalling Lady Hunter’s rather ineffectual and mealy-mouthed father, the current Earl of Eastbourne.

  ‘Indeed. Although, that is another sentiment that is best not expressed in the presence of my wife. Despite Stephen’s shortcomings, Lady Hunter was deeply fond of her brother.’ James grimaced, closing his eyes for a second as if to reproach himself. ‘It was my wife’s tendency to go her own way, among her many other virtues, that attracted me to her in the first place. I mustn’t now criticise her for its excesses.’ James shook his head. ‘But where are my manners? Take a seat, Biggs. After the journey you’ve had, you must be positively done in. Claret?’

  ‘If you have it, sir, I’d much prefer a measure of rum.’

  James raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m surprised, although I don’t know why. You look every inch the sailor, it makes sense that you’d drink like one too. And as to having it, the whole colony runs on it.’

  Samuel looked down at his coarse canvas trousers and loose blouse-like linen shirt which was open at the neck, suddenly realising how rough his attire must have appeared to James Hunter, gentleman farmer and merchant.

  ‘My apologies. I should have changed before presenting myself. After my boat docked at Parramatta, the first person I stopped to enquire of your whereabouts offered to convey me to my lodgings and then forthwith to take me on to your home. I was so anxious to reacquaint myself with a familiar face, I took the man up on his offer without a second thought.’

  ‘No need to apologise, Biggs. You’ll find the attire of most in the colony is more casual than anything they might have worn back in England, and in the same spirit of familiarity I really must insist on you calling me by my Christian name, and I must call you by yours. We don’t stand on ceremony here. You are in Australia now, where all free men are to be equal and judged not by their rank, but by the contribution they make to this fledgling society.

  ‘You have aligned yourself with the Emancipists then?’

  Samuel recognised the sentiments. Stirrings of discontent from freed convicts dissatisfied with their exclusion from the higher echelons of society were being reported back in London.

  ‘Even though my conviction has been overturned, I could hardly do otherwise. I lived shoulder to shoulder with convicts who were, in the main, good men, cowered by circumstance and disproportionately punished, and in many cases unjustly accused in the first place.’

  James paused, his face drawing into a frown.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ Biggs asked.

  ‘What is your Christian name? I’m damned if I can remember it, or if I ever knew it in the first place.’

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, James. Even my wife called me Biggs, but my given name is Samuel.’

  ‘Called? Mrs Biggs has not made the journey with you?’

  ‘My Amelia died.’

  ‘Jesus, I am sorry, Samuel.’

  ‘How long…?’

  ‘A scant six weeks before we sailed. I couldn’t stay in London; not without her.’

  Every place he had frequented with his wife, every acquaintance held in common was a gut-wrenching memory. Amelia had a knack for decoration; filling his sparse former bachelor’s lodging, pouring all her care into finding little treasures that turned it into a beautiful home. After her death every furnishing, every ornament and trinket was an aching reminder. ‘I thought the thing would be to have a fresh start. I remembered how well you had done out here and decided to try the colony for myself.’

  ‘You have a situation arranged?’

  ‘Not yet. I planned to visit the local drinking establishments tonight and ask about.’

  James went quiet, scratching his chin.

  Samuel looked around the room into which he had been received. It was long and narrow, and appeared to be a dining room, drawing room, and study in one. It housed all the requisite furniture — fine quality pieces, clustered in three distinct areas within the one chamber. The house, although stylishly furnished, was no more than an oversized cottage. When the cart pulled up outside he had noticed a number of hastily erected outbuildings in a fenced area out the back of the dwelling, as if from the moment it was built the Hunters had outgrown it.

  ‘Well, I’m looking for an overseer. In the beginning, my wife did a reasonable job of supervising the running of both the household and the estate, leaving me free me to maintain my business interests in town, but with the children and her benevolent causes, she is too busy now. I have to be honest, Samuel — the Biggs of
old wouldn’t have lasted a day on this terrain, and I’d barely have considered it, but you’re hardly the same person.’ James hesitated again, clearly trying to reconcile Samuel’s new physique with the man he had engaged to manage his affairs in London. ‘If you want it, then the job is yours.’

  To be provided with employment right there on the spot was an enormous relief. If he was frugal Samuel had sufficient funds to tide him over for a few weeks, but not much more.

  He offered up his palm. ‘I’d be pleased to take the position.’

  James gripped his forearm and gave his hand a vigorous shake in return. ‘Well then, all that remains is for me to say: welcome to Hunter Downs.’

  It might have been unlike anything Samuel had done before, but with his new-found physical strength he was undaunted by the prospect of hard work. When he left London he had done so with the expectation that his life in Australia would be different.

  ‘There’s a cabin.’ James said, releasing his hand. ‘Well, more a lean-to or a hut, to be fair, at the back of the house, that comes with the job.’

  ‘Thank you, James. That will suit me very well.’

  He had secretly hoped that James might facilitate a situation for him. Back in England he had envisaged something more akin to the man of business services that he had performed for him there, but after his experiences working out in the elements he now almost relished the idea of working on the land.

  ‘I’ll arrange for your luggage to be uplifted and delivered from where you had lodgings arranged, and of course tonight, for your first evening with us, you must join Lady Hunter and me for dinner.’

  ‘Papa, who’s the pirate?’

  A child toddled into the room and pointed at Samuel with a diminutive finger. Startling blue eyes stared up at him from beneath a helmet of golden hair. Even five years on, Samuel could have mixed the correct pigments to illustrate those sapphire blue eyes and wheat husk yellow curls from his paint box. The hue of both were precisely the same as the child’s mother.