Ironbark by Johanna Nicholls Read Free Book Online Page B

‘Trust you’ll be happy here, Keziah.’
    Keziah. No doubt this was the last time she would hear her name, in future the household would address her as Stanley.
    Although Mrs Wills was openly suspicious of her Romani origin, Keziah gave her no opportunity to fault her work or behaviour. She was scrupulously clean, polite, obedient and reliable. Even so, Wills always counted the silver cutlery after Keziah handled it.
    Keziah was resigned to that. No matter how honest she was gaujos always chose to remember the slander about her people. Bearing in mind her grandmother’s warning to avoid being caught in the gaujo web of comfort, Keziah promised herself she would not remain one day longer than necessary. Destiny in the form of Caleb Morgan had brought her to a safe harbour free to save every penny of her wages for her passage to New South Wales. She would turn this unexpected opportunity to her advantage.
    Keziah had Caleb Morgan pegged as a bored young man intent on playing every charming trick to gain his own way. It was common knowledge in the servants’ hall the master indulged his son and habitually paid Caleb’s gambling debts. When referring to his father Caleb assumed an amiable attitude, but he made no attempt to disguise hiscontempt for his stepmother, Sophie, a girl still in her teens. She was officially confined to bed with melancholia but Caleb dismissed that as a ploy for sympathy.
    Keziah suspected the servants’ gossip was accurate and that the young mistress had suffered a miscarriage.
    When Mrs Wills ordered Keziah upstairs to attend the mistress following the indisposition of her lady’s maid, Keziah was prepared to be sympathetic when she entered the dimly lit bedroom.
    Sophie Morgan petulantly gestured to a small table holding apothecaries’ bottles and jars. ‘Bring me that little blue bottle.’
    Pain and weakness were etched on the girl’s pretty features but Keziah hesitated. She recognised the letters L-D-N-M on the handwritten label. Laudanum! She knew what a dangerous habit it was and wanted to warn the mistress to have nothing to do with it.
    Sophie Morgan’s eyes dilated in anger. ‘What are you waiting for? Give me that bottle. Then leave me alone.’
    Keziah felt frustrated, knowing she could help heal her. She had befriended the estate’s elderly gardener and had all the right herbs to make a tea proven to cleanse the womb after the loss of a babe. But she handed the mistress the bottle, bobbed a curtsy and left the room.
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    Next morning Keziah overheard a housemaid complain to Mrs Wills about ‘that Gypsy’ who Master Caleb had ordered to be reassigned to the library to polish his sporting trophies – her job!
    Mrs Wills cornered Keziah. ‘If I find you’ve been granting your favours to Master Caleb you’ll be out on your behind without a penny, Stanley!’
    Keziah held her head high. ‘I’m a married woman, faithful to my husband.’
    â€˜A Gypsy marriage! That doesn’t count a fig.’
    Keziah’s tone was dangerously polite. ‘It does to me, Mrs Wills.’
    She hurried to the library where Caleb was stretched out on thelounging chair looking bored, a book discarded on the floor.
    â€˜Four walls filled with books to the ceiling!’ she gasped. ‘Have you read them all?’
    â€˜Gad, no. You like to read, do you?’ Caleb was amused by her reaction.
    â€˜I love stories.’ She faltered, then raised her chin. ‘We were always so busy travelling I wasn’t schooled in reading but I know all my letters.’
    Caleb watched her hard at work polishing but he soon grew restless.
    â€˜Tell me about your childhood,’ he demanded. ‘Spent most of mine trapped with a doddering old tutor. Deadly bore. What is it like being a Gypsy child in a travelling house?’
    â€˜ Romani children,’ she corrected politely,