Replenish the Earth by Anna Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page A

and a high-coloured complexion strode inside.
    Petey shrieked and dived back behind the settle. Mary whimpered and edged closer to Sarah.
    ‘Who’s this, then?’ the newcomer demanded, striking out with his riding crop and sweeping some things from the kitchen table.
    Sarah was so stunned by this that she could only gape at him for a minute.
    ‘Got us another idiot here, looks like,’ he called to someone outside and another man stuck his head inside the door. He was thinner than his friend, with sparse, straggly hair and a front tooth missing, but he had the same cruel, gloating expression on his face.
    Sarah recovered her voice. ‘How dare you burst in here like that!’
    ‘Oh, she has got a tongue, then!’ the man mocked, using his riding crop to send another wooden platter crashing to the floor.
    Before she had thought what she was doing, anger drove Sarah to forward to grab his riding crop. She took him by surprise and wrenched it away from him before he realised what she was doing. ‘Get out of my house at once, you!’
    He had stretched out his hand as if to grab his crop back, or maybe to seize hold of her, but as her words sank in, he stopped and stared. ‘You r house? And just who are you to claim ownership?’
    ‘The granddaughter of Squire Bedham, that’s who. And I demand that you leave my house immediately.’
    He let out a slow whistle of surprise. However, within a minute he was scowling at her. ‘You’re lying. There aren’t any Bedhams left.’
    ‘Who are you to know that?’ She could feel Mary trembling beside her and Petey was still curled up in a moaning heap of rags.
    ‘I’m the man who’s going to stop cheats like you trying to lay false claim to this place.’ He held up one hand to protect his face and came a step closer. When she lashed out at him with the crop, he fended off the blow with his arm and wrenched the crop back from her, laughing scornfully. ‘Looks to me like you need a lesson about lying, mistress, and I think we’ll send you on your way with a warning not to come back.’
    Until now, anger had sustained her, but suddenly she began to feel afraid. Tall as she was, she would be no match for two of them, and neither Mary nor Petey was making any attempt to help her. This man was very muscular, for all his bulk. Although she fought back instinctively, shoving at him with all her might, she could not push him away or stop him fondling her body.
    ‘Come and help me, Izzy’ he called, laughing. ‘She’s a comfy armful, if a mite scrawny. Ouch! You’ll pay for that, wench!’
    There was a cry from outside and then a voice roared from the doorway, ‘Let the lady go at once!’
    With a curse, the man shoved Sarah aside and turned to face Will Pursley, who was standing with clenched fists half-raised as if ready for a fight. Beyond him, the other intruder lay sprawled in the mud of the yard.
    Sarah seized the moment to give the man next to her a shove that sent him flying towards the door. By the time he turned round with a snarl and an upraised hand, she had grabbed a stool and was holding it between herself and him. She jabbed its legs at him and he retreated a step. Her mother didn’t know half the tricks she’d had to learn to defend herself in Furness Road. The main thing was to show no fear and to take the initiative. And at the moment anger was burning so hotly through her veins that she wanted to hurt him in return for what he’d done to her.
    As she glanced towards the doorway, she saw the man in the yard scramble to his feet and dive towards Will Pursley, so called out a warning. There was a short scuffle, then Will knocked the man down again and he lay there groaning. When the fellow near her would have gone to his companion’s aid, she jabbed the stool at him again to distract him.
    As soon as he had disposed of his opponent, Will Pursley came running back into the kitchen and grabbed the burly man from behind.
    When another fight began between the two