An Unconventional Heiress. Paula Marshall

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      ‘I will try to remember what you have said,’ she offered him at last. She thought that he was obviously talking of Alan Kerr, and for the first time she wondered what it was that the doctor had lost—and why.

      ‘I’ve been impertinent, I know,’ Tom told her with his cheerful smile, ‘to speak to you after this fashion, but remember this, I shall always be only too happy to be of service to you, Miss Langley.’

      ‘Miss Sarah to you, Mr Dilhorne.’

      ‘Miss Sarah,’ he repeated, before calling over the young man to pick up the silks and trimmings that she had chosen. He made his farewell, not with a bow, but with a hand tipped to his head as though still he wore the battered felt hat in which she had first seen him.

      She had made a friend, a strange friend, a man who would never be her lover, but who would treat her as fairly as though no difference of sex existed between them. And if some odd things had begun to happen to Sarah in New South Wales, this was, perhaps, the oddest of them all.

      John was predictably annoyed when gossip finally reached him of Sarah’s long conversation with the Emancipist to whom he had forbidden her to speak.

      ‘Really, Sarah,’ he said, anger plain in his voice, ‘he cannot but think that you are encouraging him. It is neither wise nor sensible of you to consort with such as Dilhorne. Who knows how he may behave towards you if he thinks you…light?’

      ‘What I do know,’ she flung back at him, ‘is that he warned me himself against talking to him, and his manner to me when we did converse was more proper than that of many gentlemen or military officers whom I have met here, or back in England.’

      ‘And that statement merely confirms me in my opinion of your lack of judgement, Sarah. The man is an ex-felon, a thief, a ruffian—you cannot know what you are saying.’

      ‘I know that he is the Governor’s friend, as is Dr Kerr—’ and why should she mention him? ‘—and that Lachlan Macquarie is not a fool, whatever you may think of me.’

      ‘I only know that every person of consequence in New South Wales disagrees with him over his attitude to Dilhorne and his friend Dr Kerr—and those like them. You would do well not to offend the people among whom you have chosen to live. No gentleman will respect you if he becomes aware that you are hobnobbing with such a ruffian as Dilhorne—to say nothing of what judgement on you our military friends will pass.’

      Sarah felt suffocated. It was a feeling from which she had frequently suffered since Charles’s betrayal of her. To overcome it she turned angrily on her brother.

      ‘Gentlemen!’ she exclaimed. ‘The military! The proper thing to do! I sometimes wonder if we know what we are talking about. Do all these fine words mean that the men who utter them treat women with respect? If I had married Charles, how long would it have been before he took a mistress? As for the military, even innocent little Lucy Middleton knows that the officers, as well as the men, take their pleasure at the houses in The Rocks. Do not look at me like that, John. You know that I am telling the truth. I shall say no more, but I do reserve the right to choose my own friends, now and in the future.’

      ‘My only relief so far,’ he returned stiffly, ‘is that I am at least fortunate enough not to number Dr Kerr and Dilhorne among them. I can only hope that you will come to see the wisdom of what I have been saying.’

      ‘Oh, let us leave it at that.’ Sarah thought that she would begin to scream if this unseemly wrangle continued much longer. ‘I cannot say that confining myself to proper gentlemen has been very successful in the past. At least Tom Dilhorne spares me empty compliments and fine, meaningless manners. He talks more sense than all of the beaux I have ever met. Yes, yes,’ she added hastily when John began to reproach her again, ‘I will not speak of him in future, but I will not promise not to speak to him. And that is enough. Do not ask me for more.’

      ‘Quite so, you are determined to go your own way, I see, but do not be surprised if you find yourself left out of Sydney’s social life in consequence. I wish that I had never consented to bring you with me.’

      Sarah bit back yet another riposte and simply swept out of the room, wishing for the thousandth time that she had never left England. Damn Sydney, damn its social life, damn Charles Villiers and Dr Alan Kerr, too—and damn John for being such a pompous ass. Conversation with him had become impossible.

      What in the world was happening to her that she should use such dreadful language even to herself? If she weren’t careful, she would find herself saying these unladylike things aloud!

      Chapter Three

      ‘So the Langleys have left Government House, I hear,’ said Alan Kerr, who was eating a bachelor dinner with Tom Dilhorne in Tom’s home off Bridge Street.

      ‘Yes. The Governor not only found them a house, not far from yours, through his aides, of course, but he also had it furnished and managed to conjure up a housekeeper for them into the bargain.’

      ‘A housekeeper? However did he manage that? There’s a desperate shortage of such useful creatures in the colony.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Tom drank up his port before giving a short laugh. ‘Well, if I tell you that he supplied them with Corporal Hackett’s widow, you’ll gather that he did them no favour. On the other hand, she was probably the only woman available.’

      ‘Mrs Hackett!’ Alan nearly choked over his lamb. ‘Now that I should like to see. The thought of that high-nosed fine lady, trying to keep in order a woman who has created chaos in every kitchen and drawing room of those foolish enough to employ her, has quite made my day. You know that Major Menzies threw her out of his home after she had reduced the whole household to tears? Yes, any woman who can reduce Mrs Menzies to tears is well worth knowing.’

      ‘Now what should make you think that she’ll subdue Miss Langley?’

      ‘Come, come, Tom, you know that in the great houses in which Miss Langley lived all the real business of running a home was done behind the scenes so far as she was concerned. Here, she’s living in a little two-storey villa, on top of the kitchen, the cooking and the cleaning. Yes, I can only imagine how hard she’ll find it to cope with such a come-down in the world. I am still wondering what odd whim brought her here, so far from the comforts of her English life.’

      It was useless to argue with him. He had taken against Sarah Langley from the first moment they had met, and God only knew if he would ever be able to change his mind about her. Tom was sure that his friend was misjudging her badly, that he was unaware of the dark shadow in which the poor creature was living. He also knew that the misjudgement arose from the circumstances of Alan’s own sad past, and he could do nothing about that.

      Best to say nothing, then. After all, it was likely that the Langleys’ stay in the colony would be short, and then there would be nothing to provoke Alan Kerr into forgetting his better self, the self that had rescued Tom Dilhorne from the gutter, and was also fiercely maintaining the good health of Sydney by his tireless hard work.

      When Sarah heard that not only had the Governor found and furnished a house for them, but had also appointed a housekeeper to look after it for her, she was overjoyed.

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