The Cattle King's Bride. Margaret Way

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СКАЧАТЬ turned silence into an art form.

      Only silence wasn’t Mel’s thing. She liked everything and everyone up front. No secrets, no evasions. She had grown up with them hanging over her like a dark, ominous cloud. “So we’re supposed to owe Gregory love and gratitude forever and ever. Is that it, Mum? That’s ruthless old Cattle King Gregory Langdon getting in touch with his feminine side? He couldn’t control his dreadful Mireille. She must have made him a totally lousy wife.”

      “Whatever, he married her. He must have loved her at one time.”

      “Reality check here, Mum,” Mel said cynically. “She was the heiress to the Devereaux fortune.”

      “And she was the mother of his son and heir,” Sarina retorted with no change of tone. She showed none of the fire of her Italian heritage. “There was no chance of divorce in that family.”

      “More’s the pity!” Mel lamented. “Surely divorce has to be preferable to allowing lives to be damaged. Everyone suffered in that family.”

      “Divorce wasn’t an option, Amelia,” Sarina, reared a devout Catholic—or so she claimed—repeated. “And, while we’re on the subject, Gregory couldn’t control his wife when he wasn’t there. So I suggest you be fair. Gregory was an important man with huge responsibilities, many commitments. Mrs Langdon may have always wanted us out of the way, but she never got her wish, did she?”

      “Now that’s a tricky one, Mum,” Amelia answered grimly. “We both know plenty of people thought, even if they didn’t dare say it to his face, you meant more to him than his own wife.” Why not bring it out into the open? Mel thought defiantly. The gossip that had had to be endured had left its indelible mark on her. So much bad history! Shame had been part of her life on Kooraki. She had grown up doubting herself and her place in the world. Dev had once said during one of their famously heated exchanges that her emotional development had been impeded. Easy for him to talk. He had the Langdon-Devereaux name. What did she have?

      She had never been able to ask her mother questions. If someone gave every indication they didn’t want questions raised, you never did. Even a fatherless daughter left in the dark. Yet she loved her mother regardless and had been fiercely protective of her all her life. Sarina, not that far off fifty and looking nowhere near it, was a very beautiful woman. What must she have been like in her twenties?

      Pretty much like you.

      “We meant more to him, Amelia,” Sarina said. “Mr Langdon loved children. You were so full of life, so intelligent. He liked that. You were never afraid of him.”

      “Or of Mireille. I’m the definitive Leo, Mum. Surfeit of pride.”

      “I do know that, Amelia. You have to remember it was Langdon money that put you through school, then university.”

      “Maybe Gregory felt a tad guilty. Neither of us ever knew what exactly happened the day of the stampede. My father, from all accounts, was an exceptional horseman, an expert cattle handler. Yet he was thrown. For all we know, wicked old Mireille could have paid someone to spook the cattle and target Dad. Ever think of that? She was one ruthless woman. She even went so far as to imply it could have been a David and Bathsheba situation, casting guilt on her own unfaithful husband. She was just so hateful.”

      There was another moment of utter silence as if her controlled mother had been caught off guard. “Amelia, I can’t talk about it,” Sarina said in a sealed off voice. “It’s all in the past.”

      Mel inhaled a sharp breath. Her mother was in denial about so many things. She had long since faced the fact she only knew the parts of her mother Sarina was prepared to share. “The past is never dead, Mum. It follows us around. I hated taking Langdon charity.”

      “You’ve made that perfectly plain, Amelia. But you did take it. Please remember, beggars can’t be choosers. Michael left me with very little. He hadn’t been promoted to foreman long.”

      “Plenty of people told me what a great guy Dad was. I do remember him, Mum. I’ll mourn him until the day I die. My dad!” She spoke strongly as though her claim was being contested.

      “Do you think I don’t miss him, Amelia?” her mother retorted, curiously dispassionate. “After I lost him I had to face the fact I had few employment skills. More significantly, I had a small child to bring up. I had to take what was offered. I’m glad I did, for all I suffered.”

      “For all we suffered, Mum. Don’t leave me out. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been sent away to boarding school.”

      “Then please remember it was Mr Langdon who insisted you have a first-class education. You were very bright.”

      “I remember the way Dad used to read to me,” Mel said with intense nostalgia. “Thinking back, I realise he was a born scholar in the true sense of the word. He craved knowledge. He was an admirable man.”

      “Yes, he was, Amelia,” her mother agreed. “He had great plans for you, but I have to remind you, you wouldn’t be where you are today without Gregory Langdon. Why, you were given access to one of the finest private libraries in the country right here on Kooraki.”

      “And wasn’t dear Mireille savage about that?” Amelia did her own bit of reminding. Yet she had to consider the magnanimity of the gesture! A young girl, daughter of a servant, granted access to a magnificent library with wonderful books bound in gold-tooled leather with gilt-edged pages—the great books of the world, tomes on history, literature, poetry, architecture, the arts of the world. It was a library that had come together over generations of book-lovers and collectors. “What a cruel woman she was, poisoning every relationship. She even distanced her own son from his father. No wonder the grandson took off, but he never did say why.”

      “Dev, unlike his father, resisted control,” Sarina said. “Gregory was a mountain of a man.”

      “That’s not it, Mum,” Mel flatly contradicted. “It was something more. Another unsolved mystery. Dev had to have had some private issue with his grandfather he wasn’t prepared to talk about. Not surprising, really. They were one screwed up family.”

      “Too much goes on in your head, Amelia.”

      “Maybe, but I spent much of my life walking through a minefield. Right now I’m making a life for myself, Mum. I can’t come—I’m sorry. I have a good job. I want to hold on to it. Mr Langdon may say he wants me, but no way the clan will. Dev mightn’t turn up, either.”

      “I think otherwise,” Sarina replied, quite strongly for her. “Ava and her husband are already here. Ava’s marriage wouldn’t appear to be a happy one, though she would never confide in me. Luke Selwyn is charming, but perhaps Ava isn’t the woman he thought she was.”

      Mel reacted to the definite note of malice. “Please don’t criticise Ava, Mum. Ava is a gentle, sensitive soul. In her own way she’s had a tough time. Women have always been second-class citizens to Gregory Langdon. Sons matter, grandsons matter. Men are the natural born rulers of the world. If there’s blame to be placed for a marriage breakdown it’s on Luke. The charm—I certainly don’t see it—is superficial at best. He’s a shallow person, full of self-importance. He wasn’t near good enough for Ava. Dev didn’t like him and Dev is a good judge of his fellow man.”

      “But Ava would have him,” Sarina said, again without empathy.

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