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
‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ Caleb asked, pouring the girl a glass from the last bottle of Bowen’s whiskey.
Sissy took the glass and sat nursing it. ‘Some of my gentlemen don’t need no prompting. They just like it rough.’ She shrugged a thin shoulder, hauling the shawl back over it with a slender hand.
‘And he is one of those?’
She nodded, a curtain of hair falling across her face as she lowered her head. Nell added her description of what she thought of Barnwell in terms that would make Caleb’s mother turn in her grave.
Sissy laid a slender hand on Caleb’s sleeve. ‘Don’t say anything to Will, promise?’
‘I’m a doctor, you’re my patient. Whatever you tell me stays confidential.’
Relief flooded her face. ‘Thank you. I’d hate for him to get into trouble over me.’
‘What makes you think he’d get into trouble?’
A small, humourless smile tugged at the girl’s mouth. ‘I think he’d kill to protect me. That’s not particularly helpful.’
‘He’s going to notice,’ Caleb warned. ‘Do you want me to talk to Lil?’
‘Oh, Lil’s already had words. Barnwell’s banned,’ Nell said, adding that Lil had threatened a certain part of Barnwell’s anatomy with a pair of scissors if he set foot in her place again.
Caleb suppressed a snort of laughter. The more he got to know her, the more he liked Lil. ‘That’s something. Is there anything else I can do for you, Sissy?’
Her mouth tightened and she glanced at Nell. ‘I didn’t know who else to go to. You’re a friend of Mrs Greaves and I think there’s something she ought to know before she hitches herself to him.’
Caleb’s breath missed a beat. ‘What makes you think she’s planning to marry him?’
‘Barnwell told me that he’d be leaving town in a few days with Adelaide as his wife.’
Caleb’s jaw clenched. ‘What should Adelaide know about Barnwell?’ Other than the fact he is a violent brute.
‘Show him, Nell,’ Sissy said.
Nell fumbled in her skirts and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, which she handed to Caleb.
Sissy straightened her shoulders with a noticeable wince. ‘I found that in the pocket in his jacket after he went to sleep.’
Caleb didn’t ask what she was doing going through the man’s pockets. The girl deserved whatever coins she found.
‘Mrs Greaves’s been teaching me to read and write so when I saw her name I thought this was something important. My reading’s not so good so I took it to Nell. She’s better with her letters than me so she copied it down.’