The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper

Author:Tea Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2020-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Hawkesbury, NSW

1853

The last time Della had traveled this road she could think of nothing and no one other than poor Ma and Pa. The furtiveness of the journey had weighed heavily, as though they’d been running. They had been, in a way, running from the memories. When Cordelia had insisted she and Charity should leave Sydney, she hadn’t had the strength to argue. She’d believed Cordelia was acting in her best interests, as Pa would have wished. She was his sister, for heaven’s sake.

The thought of Cordelia and Pa’s shop, his life’s work, being somehow involved in the ghastly attacks had firmed her resolve. She had to help Jarro and his family. They may have moved on, but they would return because the pathways along Mogo Creek led to their special places.

She’d locked up the house and the workshop as best she could, and Charity couldn’t leave the place fast enough. She’d insisted she was quite capable of getting herself to St. Albans in the cart.

Della led the way, showing the captain the Darkinjung pathway along the ridge to the Simpson Pass. It made her feel a little less of a nuisance and saved hours of backtracking.

The road spread out before her, the ground a blaze of color after the rain, sheer pleasure under the brilliant blue sky. For the first time since Ma and Pa’s death she had a sense of freedom and the ability to breathe. The captain insisted she ride Bert’s horse and he had quite happily taken the pack animal. Their mounts managed the terrain with the greatest of ease. Strong and wide-boned, gentlemen’s horses, nothing like the rattle-boned heaps of misery they kept at Mogo.

Clustered everywhere were low-growing bushes covered in dazzling pink flowers and above them the yellow of the wattle.

“Boronia ledifolia.”

How personable and attentive he was, with his ruffled hair and a half smile of amusement hovering on his lips. “I’m sorry?”

“The pink bushes, and above us Acacia, and those big red flowers over there.”

She turned and gazed at the densely packed red flowers bright as Indian rubies against the bush.

“Waratah Telopea.”

Was there anything this man didn’t know? “You know so much.”

“Not really. I can read.” He leaned across in the saddle, his scent clean, woodsy, and masculine. Soap with a hint of perspiration and musk. He produced a well-worn, leather-bound notebook, then reined in the horses and thumbed through the pages. “This is what I was looking for.” He held the page open and showed her a rough-drawn map. “We have to make a turn west before long.”

“I’ve only been this way once before.” Her tears had mingled with the rain back then as she’d clutched a blanket tight around her shoulders, unable to see anything but the piles of dirt they’d shoveled over Ma and Pa in the cemetery. “I’m sure we stay on the road.”

“It says here that the road runs along the ridge and opens up at Simpson Pass.”

“So you have been this way before?”

“It’s the baron, ’e has.

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