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  The Convict’s Bounty Bride

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  The Convict’s Bounty Bride

  Lena Dowling

  Life as a convict in an Australian penal colony was brutal, but James Hunter had the advantages of raw physical strength and courage on his side. He survived, and now he is back; a self-made man of means, determined to take the bride he was promised.

  Lady Thea Willers knows nothing of the bargain her father made to save her brother, nor does she have any interest in marriage. It might be a radical idea, but what Thea wants is a career.

  The revelation that her brother’s liberty depends on her marrying James Hunter is devastating. But nothing, it seems, has the power to shake Thea’s world upside down like James himself, or the way he makes her feel.

  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

  With thanks to Kate Cuthbert and the Escape team.

  For my real life hero.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Also Available From Escape Publishing…

  Chapter One

  Lady Thea sat at the family breakfast table, a handkerchief tightly balled in one hand while she took tiny bites from her toast with the other. She was far too nervous to eat properly.

  She watched her father, the second Earl of Eastbourne, through the furthest corner of her peripheral vision. A week had passed since she had put her proposal to him. So far he had said nothing, except that he wanted time to think.

  The earl drained his cup and lounged back in his chair. Thea scrutinised his round, wrinkled face for a clue as to his mood. He appeared content, but she needed to be absolutely sure that he was in a favourable humour before she pushed him for an answer. She only had one chance. Her father often dithered, but he had such an aversion to decision-making that once he settled on a position, it was usually final.

  The butler stepped forward to refill the earl’s beaker, and Thea caught the distinctive, sweet, exotic scent of chocolate.

  She smiled. The drink invariably had a positive effect on her father’s disposition.

  The earl took a sip of the chocolate and let out a sigh of pleasure. Thea seized her chance.

  ‘Father, regarding the proposal that I put to you — the one that I might be permitted to pursue a career, joining you on the board of the bank? You did promise to consider my plan.’

  Thea’s mother, the countess, coughed, releasing a fine spray of tea.

  ‘What an idea. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous,’ the countess said.

  Trust her mother to object. Nevertheless, Thea had anticipated that she would be difficult and was prepared with two counter arguments.

  ‘I’ve heard that the Duchess of Peyton is now a partner in a bank,’ Thea said.

  The news that one of the pre-eminent ladies of the ton had inherited a counting house had been in all the papers. Everyone was talking about the legacy, and if something was good enough for one of the esteemed lady patronesses, the chances were high that her mother would follow suit.

  But perhaps not this time.

  Something heavy slumped in Thea’s stomach. Instead of seizing on the Duchess of Peyton as a beacon of the latest fashion in female occupations, the countess’s lips pursed upwards in her trademark sneer.

  ‘As you well know, Thea, the duchess’s grandmother and mother both failed to produce a male heir, but a lack of succession is not likely to be a problem in this family.’

  The countess relaxed her facial features sufficiently to allow her to smile in the direction of Thea’s brother, Stephen, Lord Willers.

  Stephen’s eyes were red, his sandy hair was matted into a felt, and his rumpled clothes strongly indicated that he had slept in them. Given his dishevelled appearance and the likely reasons for it, the countess’s look was a staggering indulgence. But as far as their mother was concerned, Stephen could do no wrong. If he did, she always managed to find some way to save his sorry hide.

  Thea overrode the urge to scowl at him. Instead, she stared at her father, eyebrows raised, in a silent plea for him to speak up in her defence.

  With Thea’s first argument in tatters, freedom now hinged on the success of her second argument.

  ‘Careers for women are advocated by the learned Miss Wollstonecraft,’ Thea said, hoping the mention of one of the intellectuals that the earl most admired would propel her father to her aid.

  Before the earl could say anything, however, the countess slammed down her teacup with enough force to dislodge a chip of Delft. The tiny shard of china clattered on to the tabletop like a milk tooth pulled by a sadistic nursemaid.

  Thea shivered.

  ‘Mary Wollstonecraft — that bluestocking. The woman’s ideas are the stuff of wild fantasy,’ the countess said.

  Thea was surprised her mother had even heard of Miss Wollstonecraft, let alone the nature of her radical philosophies. The fact that she had, however, did not bode well. Her father cowered before his wife in all matters not connected with his children’s education. On that one issue he was firm. Otherwise, her mother presided over everything to do with her and Stephen’s activities.

  ‘If it were up to me, you would never have been permitted to read such far-fetched nonsense, but your father will insist on educating his daughter, for all the good it does you.’

  ‘Ah yes, A Vindication of the Rights of Women,’ the earl said.

  Thea’s father glanced in his wife’s direction. The countess met his stare, straight backed, her rigid posture daring him to contradict her.

  The earl looked about to say something then clammed his mouth shut. Eventually, he gave a small cough. ‘A most interesting work, Thea — esoteric, yet nevertheless farsighted, and perhaps in time women may be permitted to engage in their own careers…’ He shot another look towards the countess who narrowed her eyes in response. ‘But sadly, probably not in either of our lifetimes, my dear.’

  In other words: No, Thea.

  The butler smirked and skulked away as if he had only been hanging about the sideboard to listen in. Lately, he always seemed to be eavesdropping. Thea made a mental note to speak to her father about it, but she would do that later. Not now, when her proposal was poised to disappear, sucked out on an ebbing tide of her wretched mother’s disapproval. Right now she needed to come up with another argument.

  Fast.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do not contradict your father, Dorothea.’

  The countess’s face was fixed in a sneer again, an expression Stephen had dubbed ‘the grim reaper stare’, and Thea turned to her brother for backing.

  ‘Stephen?’

  Her brother’s chin dropped to his chest. He snorted, sat up, and looked around the table bleary eyed.

  Thea glared at him.

  ‘What’s wrong, Tee?’

  Her heart sank. Stephen was going to be no help at all.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, sis. You know it only ma
kes you ugly.’

  He pulled a silly face before his head dropped again.

  Thea chomped down on her toast.

  At one time her brother had been an ally, but since he discovered laudanum he was rarely lucid. He called himself a writer, saying the drug enhanced his creative faculties, but so far he had failed to produce a single completed work.

  Thea swallowed a piece of crust and, as an afterthought, took a mouthful of tea and swilled her mouth of crumbs with all the gusto of a thirsty horse at the trough. It was a last stand, pure petulance, designed to irritate her mother who couldn’t abide any lapse in manners. Petty and small-minded, perhaps, but she might as well salvage some modicum of satisfaction. There was no point arguing her cause any further. Once the countess had made up her mind, it was doubtful whether even the charms of the Prince Regent himself would have had the power to sway her.

  The countess swiped at imaginary crumbs on the tablecloth.

  ‘In any case, Dorothea, you will soon have precious little spare time. Now that you have a voucher for Almack’s, our social calendar will expand significantly. Not that prior to that mortifying riding incident there should have been any question you would secure a place. Riding astride, indeed.’

  Thea bit her tongue to prevent the smugness that was expanding inside her from escaping out on to her face. Conspiring to be observed mounted astride Stephen’s horse on her father’s estate had been a masterstroke of careful planning and execution. Her mother’s latest favourite for her hand had been on the verge of making a proposal, but once the gossip about Thea’s ride made the rounds, he went stone-cold on the idea.

  A good job too. The thought of that pasty toad’s hands anywhere on her body sent Thea’s stomach into a dry retch.

  Thea sucked in a breath and rested her fists on the table.

  ‘Side-saddle is a ridiculous impediment; it’s hardly riding at all.’

  Disagreeing with the countess again in such short order was brave, possibly foolhardy, but the illicit jaunt had been heart stopping. Thea had not expected to enjoy the ride so much, and she meant to do it again the moment she got the chance. She closed her eyes and inhaled. She could still smell the peaty turf dislodged under the stallion’s feet as they flew, and the wind hitting her face, as the horse soared over each hurdle. The fences had been half as high again as she would have managed on her much smaller mare.

  Thea envied Stephen’s liberty — freedom he seemed determined to squander. He had been permitted to pursue a career. Stephen had entered the bank at sixteen only to declare, after barely a few months, that he intended to quit.

  ‘Enough, Thea. Not one more word on that disgraceful business. You must not take your brother’s steed again. You hold a voucher at the pleasure of the lady patronesses. One slip and your position will be lost, and you might never marry at all.’

  Never marry at all.

  Not ever.

  Thea knew her mother had intended the words as a threat. The thought should have been horrifying, but instead, as an idea, it dangled rather enticingly.

  It was unlikely any husband would ever tolerate her radical theories, or penchant for riding astride, or swimming for that matter. More than once she had stolen out at dusk on a summer’s night to bathe in the dam on her father’s estate at Marven, and each time she had revelled in the delectable, unclothed, unrestrained movement of it.

  As a spinster, those activities could continue. The earl was a most unusually permissive patriarch, and Thea could usually manipulate her brother. Stephen, bless him, also kept their mother, the bane of their mutual existences, increasingly busy worrying about his exploits. The effort required to staunch the talk about him swirling around the town meant the countess had far less time to monitor Thea’s activities.

  Unmarried, Thea would have the freedom to take up nursing, run a little school, or even pursue her own writing like her heroine Mary Wollstonecraft had done.

  She sighed.

  If only she could find a way to escape marriage altogether and have a career like Wollstonecraft. Thea’s brain whirred faster than a waterwheel. She was going to need a new plan, better than anything she had come up with before.

  James Hunter looked around his lodgings, fitted out with quality furniture and fine brocades, with approval. Satisfied, he walked to the fire that had been set by his obliging landlady, flicked back his tailcoat, and took a seat closest to the warmth. He motioned for Biggs, his man of business, lurking politely just inside the doorway, to likewise pull up a seat.

  ‘You have made all the preparations and investigations as I instructed, Biggs?’

  ‘Yes, sir, the earl’s daily activities are most regular. My informant tells me that he breakfasts with his family at ten o’clock every morning before retiring to his study to carry out paperwork. Later in the afternoon he meets with his children to discuss recent acquisitions of scholarly works for his legendary library. Several times a year, he attends the Willers Bank board meetings in his position as chairman. The family also habitually retires to Marven, their country estate.’

  ‘And the image I requested of the lady?’

  Biggs jerked his head upwards in recollection, then pulled a diminutive object in a velvet cover from his satchel.

  ‘I took the liberty of producing one myself, sir, based on covert observations.’

  At the sight of the picture, James’s eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘Why, Biggs, you have concealed talents.’

  Rotund and balding, with an orderly mind and an excellent grasp of commerce, James would never have predicted that his man of business would possess artistic proclivities.

  Biggs flushed with the compliment.

  ‘Most rudimentary, sir; the miniature doesn’t do her justice. She is quite a beauty. If not a diamond of the first water, her ladyship would be, at least, an emerald or a ruby.’

  James turned the fine watercolour on ivory towards the light of the fire. He focused on the woman’s blue eyes.

  A sapphire, definitely a sapphire.

  The painting depicted a woman with a delicate countenance, hair the colour of corn silk, and an ample bosom that would be the envy of many a courtesan. The eldest daughter of Willers the Weak, as he and his colleagues at the bank had once dubbed the Earl of Eastbourne, had bloomed even more favourably than he dared expect.

  James had returned to London as a man of considerable resources. The harshness of Terra Australis and the penal colony of New South Wales was the making, not the death of him, as Eastbourne would surely have hoped. Although, in all fairness, the earl was not the only one who had considered his demise a foregone conclusion. When calling on acquaintances since his return, James had the satisfaction of watching most turn to quivering curds in a junket at the face they took to be a ghost.

  ‘My admittance to White’s and the other establishments?’

  ‘All arranged, sir. I have secured sponsored stranger’s tickets to the city’s most exclusive clubs.’

  James’s renewed wealth, courtesy of the colony’s rum trade, bought anything, it seemed, except complete respectability. He tensed as a familiar determination filled him. The Earl of Eastbourne would be made to fulfil his promise.

  But all in good time.

  Satisfied that the necessary preliminaries were in order, James returned his attention to the miniature, attracted by the boldness Biggs had captured in her gem-like eyes and the subtle quirk of her lips.

  ‘The lady’s persona?’

  ‘My enquiries reveal that she is a woman of keen intellect, and due to some of the earl’s more unorthodox views, she is also educated, almost as well as any man. Eastbourne is reputedly feeble in character, nothing like the previous earl who founded the bank, and on all accounts much henpecked by his wife, but he fancies himself as something of an intellectual. His views have extended to providing his daughter with the best of tutors, instructing her in the usual fashion, along with the classics, philosophy, and mathematics. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Lady The
a is considered headstrong and opinionated, with the outlandish views of Wollstonecraft holding a particular influence over her.’

  ‘Wollstonecraft? I’ve never heard of him.’

  ‘Actually, he’s a her.’

  James raised an eyebrow as Biggs pulled three volumes from his satchel and laid them on an occasional table, beyond the immediate heat of the fire.

  ‘I also took the liberty of acquiring some of her writings, along with a memoir by her husband, for your perusal.’

  Good.

  It would be useful to gain an insight into the philosophies that guided the woman’s thoughts and predilections.

  Hiring Biggs had been the right decision. He appeared to have thought of everything.

  ‘Anything else I should know?’

  ‘There has been a murmur, not so much a rumour as a suggestion, that the lady may…’ his man of business coughed, turning pink, ‘like to ride astride, sir.’

  ‘Does she now?’

  James laughed.

  The practice was not unknown on the farms at Parramatta where, with the shortage of quality overseers, wives sometimes managed their husband’s lands. With the harsh and expansive nature of the colonial countryside, social convention was often set aside in the face of necessity. In polite English society, however, the activity was still frowned upon in many quarters. That a well-born woman would risk the activity had him intrigued.

  ‘I assume her experience as a jockey extends only to beasts of the equine variety? It is imperative that she be unsullied.’

  Biggs’s blush deepened to a bright red.

  ‘Yes, sir. The accusation is one of wilfulness, as opposed to anything unsavoury.’

  James envisaged bedding his new wife only as often as necessary for the purpose of ensuring the continuation of the Hunter line. Whenever else carnal urges struck, women skilled in the arts of earthly pleasures could be bought among the convicts. Women like the lovely Nellie Malone; his favoured girl for comforts of the flesh, or in a pinch, her homelier but equally skilful cousin Colleen.