Ella. Virginia Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ this trunk and get it out to the coach.”

      “You might be wantin’ to pack a change of trousers and your shaving gear.”

      “Don’t tell me how to pack my trunk. If I wanted shaving gear, I would have put it in.” Edward used a dangerous tone.

      Sam moved over to the trunk and flipped the lid shut. “Enough room in there for a couple of changes of boots as well, I’d say.”

      Edward ground his teeth. “Get them from the lobby and wrap them in newspaper. Leave that, leave that,” he said, referring to the strap around the trunk. “I’ll want to put in my shaving gear, too.”

      “Mornings is better for traveling. Don’t know why we can’t leave tomorrow. Don’t know why you didn’t get Mrs. Collins to pack for you.” Sam reopened the lid.

      “If I want anything around here done properly, I have to do it myself. And we leave when I say we leave. Where has that blasted woman put my trousers?”

      Sam ambled into the dressing room and came out with an evening suit, two spare jackets, and a jumble of trousers. Only his stumpy legs could be seen under the load. “You’re acting like a dotard, no lie,” he said in a muffled voice. He dropped the clothes onto the bed. “We should have left a couple of months back, if you ask me.”

      “I didn’t ask you.”

      “More’s the pity. No man’s an island.”

      “I’m bored here, that’s all. Here, give me that.” Edward took a pair of folded trousers from Sam and dropped them into the trunk. “It’s bound to be quieter in Adelaide at this time of the year. Everyone will be in the hills or on the coast.”

      “Quieter? Nowhere could be quieter than here. You mean if you might be looking for someone, you might find him.”

      Edward heightened his chin. “Irene extended a very gracious invitation to stay with her, and I’ve decided to take it. I need a rest. I can’t spend my life watching each thing every person here does and fixing their mistakes.”

      “Ha!” Sam folded a tweed jacket. “Pity you didn’t think that way years back and p’rhaps he wouldn’t’ve gone.”

      Edward crossed his arms, frowning. “I won’t have his name mentioned.”

      “Whose?” Sam asked, a triumphant grin on his face.

      “Shouldn’t you be outside harnessing horses?”

      “I left the lad at it. Thought he might have the idea of it after ten years training,” Sam said in a sarcastic voice. “Times, I can leave him to scratch his own arse.”

      “Yours is not such a complicated job that youngsters can’t do it.” Edward clamped his lips. He wouldn’t be criticized by an employee, even though the former hostler had arrived on the same ship with him from England some thirty-one years ago and helped Edward and his sixteen-year-old son stock parcels of land. Back then, they hadn’t decided on sheep, but his son, Henry, had a good eye for business. He also had a good eye for women, hence Irene, Edward’s widowed daughter-in-law. She, of the sharp tongue and even sharper wit, lived in Edward’s town house.

      “You wasted a good man,” Sam said in an accusatory tone. “Not only did he learn to be the best shearer you would ever meet, he can manage the men better’n you ever did. And do the books, too. You deserve to stew in your own juice, and I don’t know why I’m helping you even now.”

      “Because you’re a nosey-parker. You don’t want to miss your chance of saying ‘told you so.’ You won’t be getting it, I can tell you. I was right not to extend him money, and I’m right to leave him to fall to his knees. And so you shall see. Within another month, he’ll be begging to return.”

      Sam shook his head, sadly. “You don’t know him. You never did.”

      Chapter 3

      That night, Ella dreamed of a bubbling, boiling cauldron. She dreamed of hauling herself out of deep pools of suds, surrounded by sheep droppings. She dreamed of sheep circling her and laughing...baaing...

      With a bump, she awoke. She sat up, noting the moonlight reflected on her silver hairbrush and the close bleating of a sheep...more than one, directly under her window. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she peered through the muslin and saw a few white, newly shorn wraiths wandering between the henhouse and the laundry. Somehow the creatures must have escaped from their enclosure behind the woolshed. She immediately slid out of bed and into her dress shoes and raced through the kitchen to the yard. The moon lit her way. Trees rustled urgently, and the wind whispered low.

      The track from the main road came straight between the orchard in front of the house and a wooded area, running parallel to the river and leading to the loading bay of the woolshed. Ella headed toward this track. “Shoo, shoo,” she said in a tight murmur to an old ewe she passed near the back corner of the house.

      She reached the track and peered toward the main road. Four sheep trotted through the trees in the orchard, glancing at their green haven. More sheep plodded through the wooded area, grazing at will. She turned around the front of the house, taking the long way to her vegetable garden and ending almost where she started, on the kitchen side of the house, hoping to find her vegetables as yet undisturbed.

      She groaned as she watched five sheep pick their way through her turnips and the last of her carrots, and she ran forward, freezing when she spotted Cal and his dog.

      He put up his hand in a gesture of recognition while his dog kept the sheep in a huddled group. “There may be more out on the road,” he said in a deep undertone, “but I’ll go after them later.” With effortless ease, he lifted the rear end of a sheep to set its course in the direction of the path between the rose garden and the front part of the veranda. “I think it’s more important to return this lot and secure the fence. You go back to bed. Girl and I can handle this.” He tucked his shirt into his trousers. Apparently, he’d left his bed in a hurry, too, but he hadn’t been as careless as she.

      Caught in her nightwear, she almost did as he asked but, however justly served by embarrassment, she couldn’t let a virtual stranger assume her responsibilities. Awkwardly clutching the embroidered linen to her neck, she said, “Thank you for your kind offer, but these are my sheep and my problem.” She spotted the herb garden. “Oh, no! They’ve munched their way through the last of the plantings.”

      With waving arms, she herded the scattered sheep into Cal’s group. His dog kept them moving along. She and Cal barely spoke. The mob had to be rounded up before they did any further damage. Aside from that, she didn’t want to wake anyone else to see her acting like a demented windmill.

      When the last visible sheep had been put behind the broken fence, Cal retrieved a rope from the stables. He tied the length from post to post and leaned back. “I’ll rebuild this part tomorrow. The rope is only good enough short term.”

      “You can’t. You have to shear. Jed will do it.”

      He shook his head with reproof. “Jed will need to take this mob out to pasture. Before he can bring in the next flock, the fence needs to be able to hold them.” He tapped his leg and his dog came to heel.

      “Was this my fault? Should I have told him to take the last СКАЧАТЬ