Chapters (53)
- Cover
- About Alison Stuart
- Also by Alison Stuart
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgements
- Preview of The Goldminer's Sister
Richard flinched as if she hit him. ‘It was he who told me about the baby. Another secret he had kept all these years. It’s all I have been able to think about since that day. I couldn’t imagine how it has been for you, bearing our child and carrying that responsibility alone. How lonely and abandoned you must have felt.’
The background thump, thump of the stampers echoed the beating of her heart and seemed to overwhelm them both. They sat without speaking for a long, long time.
After all, what words did she have?
With shaking hands, she poured herself another cup of the cold, stewed tea with no intention of drinking it, but the action calmed her.
Richard cleared his throat, but his voice cracked again as he said, ‘I would like to meet my son.’
My son.
Adelaide’s steely resolve began to crumble. She took a deep, steadying breath but despite this, her eyes filled with tears and she found the words sticking in her throat. All she could do was shake her head and look down at her hands, twisting together in her lap as she struggled to control her emotions.
He screwed up his eyes against the betraying tears. ‘Ten years, Addy, ten years of wasted time when we could have been together. I hope your father is rotting in hell.’
‘No.’ Adelaide held up her hand. ‘Don’t say that. For all his faults, he was still my father.’
‘And you can forgive him for driving you away—for lying to me? For forcing you to live like this, working for a living as a postmistress?’
The derision in the last word cut her to the heart and she stiffened. She couldn’t let him dismiss everything she had done with one glib statement. She was proud of the life she had made for herself with no man by her side.
‘Despite what you may think, I have made a good life for myself and Danny. I am paid well for my work and I enjoy it.’
He held up a hand. ‘I’m sorry, Addy, I didn’t mean to offend you.’ The distress had gone from his eyes. They gleamed as he leaned towards her. ‘Please tell me about Danny? After everything you have been through, you called him Daniel after your father?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I thought of naming him for you, but it is enough that he looks like you.’
‘Does he? When can I meet him?’
At the yearning in his face, a wave of panic washed over Adelaide as the web of lies in which she had cocooned her son tightened around her throat.