Shipwreck Sadie (Bride ship to Australia) by Maryanne Ross

Author:Maryanne Ross [Ross, Maryanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maryanne Ross
Published: 2024-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Sadie made a careful grooming before work, brushing her long hair until it glowed and sparked golden fire like Mrs Busby’s diamonds, then braided it into a crown.

She took a deep breath before heading down to breakfast. Sadie was no coward. She always ripped a plaster off fast, or plunged full-bodied and wholehearted into the freezing brook, rather than take feared pain inch by inch.

Mrs Jane Spenser-Busby ranted in full voice. Sadie bent her face over her toast with bacon and eggs, letting the tirade wash over her.

Mrs Busby paused for breath. Sadie halted mid-bite, and glanced up her benefactor, who creased her brow and shook her head back and forth. “Why did you do it, Sadie?”

Sadie put down her fork. At least the woman had asked. “I’m saving money. To pay you the board you deserve.”

“Don’t worry about th⁠—”

“And because I’m going to own my own business.”

Mrs Busby swelled. Her cheeks purpled, her chin flew back and forth, and once more the deluge of words fell over Sadie like grit in a tempest.

She drank her tea, thanked her hostess mid-tirade as prettily as she knew how—hmph! said Jane Busby—and scuttled from the mansion.

So perhaps she wasn’t as alert as she usually might have been. Or perhaps the thrilling thought of more accounting under the aegis of Connach MacLeod occupied all her attention. To listen to his careful tones, while she watched his long fingers trace numbers and columns lured her to work with a song in her heart.

Because all at once, Sadie was grabbed by three docks thugs and hauled into a narrow alley. Sadie immediately reverted to her moors and fens origins, fighting like a wild cat with elbows, fists, feet, and teeth, ducking and pulling away.

To no avail.

Slaps stung, male curses bounced from the alley walls, and her teeth rattled in her head when her back thudded hard against a brick wall.

Thank goodness Australian alleyways revealed a slice of golden sunlight above, because the lane was very narrow, narrow enough to make Sadie’s heart gallop with trepidation, with rocketing fear of shrinking space and no escape.

She could smell her attackers: grease, dirt, old beer, smoke, a pungent mix which made her guts heave. And then they opened a door and forced her into a small, dark, stinking space, crowding in after her.

The dim room was immediately extinguished when a grimy hand pulled a thick, smelly bag over her face. Unseen hands pushed her into a chair.

Old terrors rose up in her. A silent scream rang and ricocheted in her mind. Her arms flailed wildly, landing on a soft belly, a hard head, indeterminate body parts.

One wild thought kept pinging in her brain: she’d be late for work at Connach’s warehouse. On her first real day. Curse and blast all bully boys, she must do something.

“What do you want?” she screeched. Slithery fingers groped from her shoulder and headed to her chest; a hefty punch cracked, and the hand disappeared.

“I saw yez spyin on me at the pub,” a Lancaster voice hissed in her ear, laced with patent, sinister threat.

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