The Landowner's Secret Read online

  The Landowner’s Secret

  Sonya Heaney

  romance.com.au/escapepublishing/

  The Landowner’s Secret

  Sonya Heaney

  New South Wales, 1885

  When Alice Ryan wakes to find thugs surrounding her cottage, on the hunt for her no-good brother, she escapes into the surrounding bush.

  It is wealthy landowner Robert Farrer who finds her the next morning, dishevelled, injured, and utterly unwilling to share what she knows. With criminals on the loose and rumours that reckless bushrangers have returned to the area, Robert is determined to keep Alice out of danger, and insists on taking her into his home—despite the scandal it may cause. Convincing her to stay on with him for her own safety, however, is going to take some work.

  What Robert doesn’t expect is his growing attraction to the forthright, unruly woman staying in his home. Before either of them can settle into their odd new situation, their home and wellbeing come under threat and they will need to trust each other to survive. But they are both keeping secrets, secrets that have the potential to ruin their burgeoning love, their livelihood … and their lives.

  About the author

  SONYA HEANEY began her professional life aged eight, as the Changeling in Queensland Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After many more years of hard work, even more blisters, and plenty of pretty tutus, one too many injuries forced her out of her pointe shoes.

  Between then and now she has worked in a posh Dublin hotel (that didn’t last long), pulled pints in London pubs (that lasted years), taught English in Korea (her apartment was broken into and her computer was stolen—along with many half-finished manuscripts), and worked on costumes backstage in various theatres (it was always chaos).

  Sonya holds a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing, and spent years putting it to use in nonfiction fields before turning her hand to romance.

  After working her way around the world, she once again calls Canberra, Australia’s gorgeous capital city, home.

  If you’d like to know more about Sonya, her books, or to connect with her online, you can visit her webpage sonyaheaney.com, follow her on twitter @HeaneySonya, or like her Facebook page @SonyaHeaneyAuthor.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my editor, Chrysoula Aiello, who understood my book at least as well as I did. Thank you also to Johanna Baker and the rest of the team at Escape Publishing and HarperCollins Australia. I am so grateful to Christine Armstrong for creating such a gorgeous cover.

  Queanbeyan, New South Wales, a place I’ve visited thousands of times over the years, served as inspiration for Barracks Flat. I hope I’ve done you justice!

  Finally, credit has to go to my family, who never once told me I was crazy for quitting a perfectly good psychology/law degree to study writing!

  Thank you to Queanbeyan, New South Wales, my inspiration for Barracks Flat.

  And for my grandmother, Sophia Jacyszyn (1922–2015), who made the town her home.

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Southern Tablelands, New South Wales

  Late April, 1885

  Alice Ryan woke at the first shout, and sat bolt upright at the second.

  With her mind still muddled by sleep, her body shook with fright before she even realised what was happening. She felt the unease, the disturbance in the night. This far out the bush was usually still, the quietness punctuated only by the odd scuffle of a possum or rustle of wind in the trees. But right now there was an energy that didn’t belong.

  Curling her fingers into the counterpane, she waited in dreadful anticipation.

  There. A voice—faint, but distinct—reached her ears, becoming louder as she sat frozen in place.

  Someone was out there, in the dark.

  ‘Ian?’ she whispered, uncertain. Who else could it be but her brother, and yet … Some instinct stopped her from calling out and confirming she was home. And just as it took complete hold, a second voice joined the first.

  Slipping free of the blanket and pressing her bare feet to the floor, she clutched the bed’s footboard and waited. And waited.

  The light of a flame—so dim at first she thought she’d imagined it—flashed not too far beyond the cottage’s small window. It wasn’t much, but it was so foreign in the darkness of the scrub.

  She strained to make out any sounds that weren’t meant to be there, but heard next to nothing over the pounding in her ears. Moments later the light flashed by again. It was closer this time.

  Alice startled; clapped a hand to her mouth.

  This was all wrong. Nobody had a reason to be there, on a road that led to nothing but her home. This far out she was all alone, except for—

  Endmoor.

  If she could slip out unnoticed, she could reach the big homestead beyond the trees on foot—thieves or troublemakers would be mad to try anything with Robert Farrer. The landowner was too wealthy, with too many men on his property, and no doubt he had better weapons than she did if it came to that.

  Alice made her decision in an instant.

  Moving fast, she struggled into her frock and grabbed her shawl from the end of the bed before slipping a hand beneath the mattress for the small packet she kept hidden there. She stuffed it down the front of her bodice, shaking with fright and determination.

  Trying her best to be quiet, she scrambled across to press her back against the cool wall near the door.

  One of the men spoke again but she still couldn’t make out the words. There were at least two of them and they weren’t just talking, but laughing. Whacks echoed through the night air, as though they were hitting at the scrub with sticks, and then she heard more laughter in amongst the other sounds of the night.

  Whatever they were about, it was a game to them. Likely a drunken game …

  Alice curled her toes against the freezing floor and hugged herself tightly, willing them to just go, just leave her be and make their fun elsewhere. The voices came more loudly from the front of the house. Her only way of escape was through there.

  Cursing her rotten luck, her absent brother, and all the trouble life brought down on her, she took a big breath for courage and lurched past the window as fast as she could, scrambling in the darkness for the small knife she’d left on the table.

  ‘Ian, you bastard!’ The call came from so close by her heart nearly stopped.

  Desperation took over then, and she chose speed over silence. Fumbling in the shadows with frozen fingers, shoving her way through the bits and pieces she’d left on the table that evening, she patted about desperately until they hit a strip of cold metal. The knife.

  ‘Help me, help me,’ she whispered to a God who’d never listened before, and gripped the handle firmly, her other hand shaking, while she once again backed up against the wall.

  Bracing herself for anything, she pulled back the curtain only enough to get a glimpse of the clearing around the porch. In a sliver of moonlight she could just make out the figures of grown men dotted around the clearing. Further down the trail, near the road, she saw more forms and shadows. Horses, s
he realised with even more dread in her belly. She sure as hell couldn’t outrun those.

  Shaking more, she cast her mind out beyond them all, mapping herself a route of escape. If they were here for Ian, they were out of luck. As usual he was nowhere to be found.

  She let the curtain slip back through her fingers and then bent to grasp the laces of the boots left beside the door. There was no time to tug them on, nor to find her stockings.

  She nearly shrieked with surprise when something whacked directly against the outside of the house, but held fast and slapped a hand over her mouth again as she waited for what’d come next.

  ‘Are you comin’ out, or are we comin’ to get you?’ one of them called. It was not a familiar voice.

  ‘We don’t have all night!’ yelled another.

  There was more laughing. More jokes.

  Alice rose carefully, quickly tugging the shawl more tightly around herself without letting her grip on the knife loosen. She edged the door open the tiniest amount, trying to peer beyond the intruders to find the fastest direction into the trees. The boots banged lightly against the old wood, and she pressed her lips tightly together in frustration.

  ‘Maybe there’s no one ’ere. I swear, James, if we’re out ’ere freezin’ our bloody arses off for no reason …’

  ‘Someone’s ’ere. There’s smoke comin’ from the chimney and I saw movement at the window just now.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Alice whispered, becoming number and shakier than before. ‘Bloody, bloody hell.’

  There was silence then except for the shuffling of shoes in the dirt. And then a third man spoke.

  ‘Maybe it’s the sister.’

  ‘There’s a sister?’

  An awful pause followed. And then, ‘Is she pretty?’

  Alice wished the bottom of the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Fear icier than the chill in the air ran over her from head-top to heels. She knew more about physical fighting than any proper lady ever would, but she was still a scrap of a thing and not likely to get far before they …

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’ The first man said. ‘James? Kick in the door.’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ she whispered. She’d go to the devil before she let that happen or let a single one of them put his grubby paws on her.

  And with those thoughts giving her fresh determination, she flung the door open and ran.

  There was a shout of surprise, and then a bark of amusement at the sight of her, but all she focused on was the security of the trees ahead. She bolted like a barefooted colt for an opening between two old eucalypts.

  Gasping in pain at the scrapes of sticks on the ground and—worse—the dull thuds of bone connecting with rocks buried in the dirt, in her urgency she almost smacked face-first into the nearest tree. A low branch scraped along her cheek as she slipped into the cover of the bush, and she sucked in a short breath at the sting.

  She ducked behind a big gum tree and stared hard into the night, willing her eyes to adjust to the frightening, sudden darkness while more calls came from close by.

  She needed those boots on before she ruined her feet too much to run. Stuffing the knife quickly into a pocket, she dropped down and slipped her bare feet into the worn leather; there was no time to bother with the laces. It was going to rub terribly, but she’d had blisters before and there were worse things in the world.

  Rising with a hand against the trunk to steady herself, she knotted the shawl at her breast as tightly as she could, gathering her courage to leave the cover of the plants, and ran on.

  The men tracking her had no such qualms about keeping quiet; she bit her lip hard when they spoke again.

  ‘Ian, we saw you, you fool. Are ya goin’ to hide in the bush all night?’

  ‘Are you daft? That’s not Ryan, not unless he’s wearing a frock.’

  That set them all off laughing. The whole night was just so much fun for the lot of them. And then they took up the chase with a thunder of footsteps as they dived after her full into the scrub.

  Alice gasped for breath, the autumn chill in the air burning her throat, and only fear of stumbling into a dark ditch and breaking an ankle made her moderate her steps. This part of the land dipped and rose at the oddest times, which was why her father had never bothered with the clearing of it.

  A rustle and a thud came from not far away, followed by a string of swearing. One of them had gone and smacked into a branch.

  Using the cover of their shouts to pick up a little more speed, she darted to the left, taking herself closer to those horses the intruders had arrived on, hoping against hope they’d not expect that. She’d no real idea what her plan was, but surely making it to the road was better than being tracked through the trees for the rest of the night.

  If those louts knew Ian, and if her brother owed them something, then none of this was good news. It wasn’t as though the either of them had anything much to hand over.

  Her pursuers veered off to her right and Alice realised she’d chosen the best path. With a pace increased to match her growing confidence, she picked her way along on the tips of her toes in an attempt to disguise her steps, and kept one hand outstretched to feel her way and not meet the same fate as the fellow with the branch, the handle of the knife in the other.

  Don’t go and stab yourself, Alice Ryan.

  The boots rubbed at the backs of her heels, and she hissed and then hissed some more at the sting of it.

  She was going to kill Ian the next time she saw him. And if she got back home in the morning and discovered those men had destroyed her neat house and eaten all of her food, she was going to board up the door and never let her useless brother back in.

  The next shout stopped her in her tracks and ripped her from her temper.

  It had come from in front of her.

  Alice dropped behind the nearest bush and clung to its rough branches as an argument unfolded up ahead. The tone of the words was harsh, carrying across to her only in indecipherable sounds at first. She snatched her hand back from a prickle when she grasped a twig too hard as she strained to hear.

  A crack of a branch and the shriek of a bat decided things for her: she used the cover of the quarrel to dart ahead, again risking sound for speed.

  ‘You want to wait out the whole winter? You’re daft if you do.’

  ‘It’ll be worth it, I reckon. Yes, I say we wait for the date like we’re told to.’

  ‘Madness. We don’t need Ian Ryan’s help for that.’

  Alice covered another ten or fifteen yards before the argument became louder, shouts echoing across the night, reverberating around her, surrounding her and lighting up the shadows. She no longer had any idea where the men were, only that she couldn’t risk running any more.

  Panting desperately, her heart beating so fast she thought she’d faint, she collapsed on the ground by a fallen tree, clasped her little knife tighter still, huddled into a ball, and waited.

  ***

  ‘Incredible, is it not, that the fellow survived the night?’

  Robert Farrer grimaced and inclined his head in agreement as he and John, his closest friend, walked east along the town road. Between them Robert’s heeler darted and weaved, nose to the ground as he investigated each and every new scent.

  The fog had rolled in some time over the course of the night, the first one of the season, and now it was slow to clear. Sunlight had begun to force its way through the haze, and dewdrops sparkled on the leaves of the bushes around them.

  Endmoor had been shocked awake hours earlier, long before dawn.

  The gunshot that’d brought the night to life had echoed around the valley, setting the dogs off barking and the men scrambling for weapons and coats.

  Confusion had reigned first. The Southern Tablelands were hardly a hotbed for violence anymore. No … that’d all gone by the wayside in the Sixties, with the demise of the likes of Hall and Gardiner. Now there was a lot more peace in the region than there was excitement.


  It was Robert himself who’d all but tripped over the wounded yet still living man soon after they’d set out. In the dim light he’d been nothing more than a slumped silhouette on the side of the road—but an ominous one. The fellow had had enough energy to demand that no physician be called for, just about making a run for it when Robert would have sent a message to town anyway, and then he’d fallen into a fever of pain they’d not been able to wake him from.

  One man, one bullet wound, and nobody else in sight, bar the tracks of multiple horses that had only become visible some time later. The knowledge of how close it’d happened to Endmoor’s gates sent another chill through him.

  He and one of his farmhands had transported the chap back to the homestead and done their best to patch him up, and by the time John Stanford had ridden out to see Robert after breakfast, the whole property was alive with activity and unease.

  ‘I wouldn’t say he was out of the woods yet,’ Robert said, glancing at his friend as they kept pace with each other, senses cast outwards, braced for anyone or anything to emerge from the bush.

  In fact, Robert wasn’t at all confident the fellow would see out the remainder of the day, God help him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and his fingers flexed on his weapon.

  Young, roughly dressed, and looking as though he’d not seen a bath for a considerable amount of time, the stranger was not a familiar face to Robert or to John, nor to any of the curious locals who’d poked their head into the staff quarters in the past couple of hours.

  John grunted in agreement, jaw tight. ‘It’s a nasty wound, that one. Never heard of a shot like that meeting a happy ending.’

  They trudged along, footfalls deliberately heavy in the dry, overgrown grass as a deterrent to reptiles that bit when startled. The sun climbed higher into the sky as the autumn mist gave way to another brilliantly sunny day. The new season had hit quite suddenly the week before, taking with it the worst of the summer heat, but leaving the land parched and brown and dangerous.