Mud and Gold by Shayne Parkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

what meals to cook the next day, what she
might ask Charlie to buy at the general store that week, how she
could make time to weed the neglected vegetable patch. As the days
wore on into weeks Amy often found herself left to lie in peace for
two or even three nights in a row, but she never knew just when a
hand would reach out in the darkness and pull up her nightdress.
She soon learned always to sleep on her back.
    Loneliness made things even harder. Lizzie
was too far away and too busy with wedding preparations to pop
over, and there was no one else to visit her. It was a week before
Amy managed to pluck up her courage and ask permission to visit her
old home so she could return her borrowings, but she was not
allowed to stay long enough to have a cup of tea with her
father.
    On Sundays she saw her family on the drive
to and from church, and it gradually became less of a trial to be
inspected by the other churchgoers as her hasty marriage became
less of a novelty. But even after the service she had little
opportunity to talk to Lizzie. There always seemed to be someone
talking to Lizzie and Frank about their approaching wedding, and
Amy was reluctant to butt in on such conversations. If she did,
some well-meaning woman would make a remark about Amy’s being a
happy young bride, and Amy would feel like a liar. If her father
was nearby she would have to make a special effort to smile.
    On the third Sunday after her wedding, Amy
stood outside the church waiting for her father to take her home.
The previous week Jack had invited them for Sunday lunch that day,
and after some thought Charlie had agreed. As she watched Charlie
walking towards his horse, she heard a voice at her shoulder.
    ‘Hello, Amy, you keeping well?’
    Amy turned and saw Matt Aitken, with his two
older children at his heels.
    ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she replied
automatically. ‘Hello, Bessie.’ She smiled at the little girl.
‘You’re getting so big! You must be eight now.’
    ‘I’ll be nine soon,’ Bessie said proudly.
‘I’m in the fourth row at school.’
    ‘Are you? You must be working hard.’ Her
brief spell of teaching seemed so long ago that it was almost as if
it had happened to someone else. Someone who still believed in
dreams.
    Amy turned back to Matt. ‘How’s Rachel?’ She
knew Rachel was only a month or two away from having her fifth
child.
    Matt grimaced. ‘Fed up with being stuck at
home, poor old girl, specially in this heat. She’s well enough,
though. You should come and see her some time, she’d like
that.’
    ‘Maybe I will, if I’m allow… I mean, if I
have time. Tell her I was asking after her.’
    ‘I hope you can come around, Amy. It’d cheer
her up.’
    Amy opened her mouth to say she would try,
but instead she gave a startled cry as her arm was grasped. She
turned and saw Charlie there.
    ‘Charlie, I was just telling your wife she
should—’ Matt began, but Charlie ignored him. He tugged at Amy,
giving her no choice but to walk with him away from the church and
towards the horse paddock.
    His fingers dug into the flesh of her arm.
‘You’re hurting me, Charlie.’
    ‘I’ll hurt you worse if you don’t behave
yourself,’ he said, gripping her arm more tightly. Amy bit her lip
to keep back a cry of pain. ‘Don’t you talk to that Matt Aitken,’
Charlie growled.
    ‘Why? Don’t you like him?’
    ‘I don’t like seeing my wife talking to him.
Understand?’
    ‘We were talking about Rachel, that’s all.
He asked me—’
    Charlie gave her arm a shake, and this time
Amy could not hold back a yelp. ‘Are you arguing with me,
woman?’
    ‘No! I’m sorry, I won’t talk to him again. I
didn’t know—’
    ‘You’ll know another time.’ He led Amy over
to her father’s buggy. ‘You just wait there and stay out of trouble
until your pa comes.’ Charlie went over to Smokey, but made no move
to leave. Instead he stood rubbing the horse’s nose and fiddling
with the bridle,