Convict Heart by Lena Dowling

Author:Lena Dowling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises, Australia Pty Ltd

Chapter 17

The next morning Harry found an axe in the stables and took to the pile of pallets, breaking them down for firewood for the laundry. He’d watched Pike do it often enough and he needed a distraction and something physical to do.

Anything to get Nellie out of his thoughts.

He was so aware of her presence.

The way she seemed to know what everyone wanted, gliding through the kitchen bringing breakfast to the customers, the way she threw her head back when she laughed, a laugh as sweet and melodic as her singing. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her when she was around, and when she wasn’t, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

‘Smithing is one thing, but a timber man?’

Harry dropped the axe to greet his friend. ‘Tristan.’

‘I thought I should look in. The word at the club was you had trouble here after I left last night.’

‘There was a minor kerfuffle.’

‘I heard Nellie’s dress was ripped clean off her, or at least that’s what they were saying at the club.’

‘Wildly exaggerated. A few men, soldiers mostly, got overexcited and one of her sleeves parted company with its stitching, that’s all.’

‘Soldiers? That does surprise me. Anthony Tompkins usually has his men on a pretty short leash. Still, if you dangle temptation in front of men starved of female attention, it’s not surprising really.’

‘There’s none of that going on,’ Harry said defensively, even though Tristan had only been articulating his own fears. He had been there, but it almost hadn’t been enough. He was seriously considering calling a halt to this tavern business, even though it put his rent in jeopardy.

‘Is everything alright?’

‘It will be, as soon as Hunter has found a tenant.’

If he did ever become romantically involved again, the woman would have to show herself to be pure of spirit, loyal, steadfast and true. But if someone like Selina had proved to be so false, he doubted any such woman existed. Far better he concentrated on his business affairs and getting set up in the colony.

‘You want me to have a word—ask him to treat it with urgency?’

‘Yes, that would be for the best.’ The sooner he could get his own place built and move out of the guesthouse, the better.

‘You know, I had no idea the area out the back was so large. It could easily have been on two separate titles.’

‘You never arrived here by horse?’

Harry picked up a piece of timber with another still attached that he had dislodged from a crate.

‘I always walked up from the club.’

‘So Emily wouldn’t know?’

‘It was easier if she believed I was at the club. There was no harm in it. It’s not as if I was adding to the well-trodden path upstairs.’

Harry clamped one piece of timber to the ground under his boot and pulled, separating the pieces of timber.

‘Why did Nellie stay, do you think?’ Harry said, giving in to his curiosity.

It simply didn’t make sense. Nellie was a woman who grasped a chance. Even being set up as one man’s mistress would have been preferable.

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