Free Beyond the Sunset by Anna Jacobs Page B

any way of getting at Zachary through her.
    He smiled. He didn’t like anyone getting the better of him and in the street where he lived no one would even try. Even the better-off people who shopped at Blake’s had their weaknesses just as the poorer ones did. If you could find someone’s weak spot, you could make them do as you wanted.
    By getting up early each day, Cassandra managed to alter some clothes to suit her expanding waistline, and to tack the lace collar Pandora had lent her on to the blue dress, which she sponged down and ironed as best she could on the table which was their only working surface.
    On board ship she’d been given the trunk of the maid whom she’d replaced and told to keep its contents. Susan Sutton had fled to her family in Yorkshire at the last minute rather than go to Australia with her employers. It still seemed wrong to Cassandra that they’d simply given away their former maid’s personal possessions, but Mr Barrett said if the new maid didn’t want the trunk, he’d simply throw it and its contents away, because he wasn’t spending good money to send it back to someone so ungrateful.
    Cassandra had been able to bring so little with her when she escaped from the men her aunt had paid to kidnap her that she’d been forced to use the other woman’s things. But she’d kept Susan’s photos and other mementoes and intended to return them one day, and to pay for taking the poor woman’s clothes.
    She looked up, thinking she heard voices, but there was no sign of her employers getting up yet. Francis Southerham never appeared until quite late, nine or ten o’clock, which was midmorning as far as Cassandra was concerned. He did little work apart from tending his beloved horses, going for rides and shooting kangaroos for meat. Was he lazy or wasn’t he well? She saw Livia look at him sometimes, with her brow furrowed, as if she was worried about something. And he had a persistent cough that he tried to hide from his wife.
    She’d mentioned it to Reece, who thought it was something serious. Well, they’d all seen people they knew succumb to the coughing sickness. But Cassandra hoped Reece was wrong. What would Livia do without the husband she loved so much?
    She looked back at her needlework. She’d just finish this seam then start her chores. She’d tried sewing after she’d finished her day’s work, but it made your eyes tired to sew by lamplight and insects battered themselves against the lamp, fluttering in your face if you got too close to it. They had to sit outdoors; there was nowhere else. It amused her that she and her sister had to sit at the cooking table while the Southerhams occupied their tiny veranda, as if to emphasise the differences in their stations. Put those two out here alone, though, and they’d be lost. So who was superior to whom?
    What would Pandora do when she was on her own here? It’d be very lonely. And when the rainy season started she’d not be able to sit outside. Would she have to lie in bed on her own in the tent? That worried Cassandra.
    She held the blue dress against herself. ‘What do you think?’ she asked her sister. ‘How does it look by daylight?’
    ‘The colour suits you and you’ll make a lovely bride. We’ll trim up your bonnet, too. I’ve got some blue ribbon that’s a good match.’
    ‘You’re a love. I’ll still be a very badly dressed bride, though. I wish I could have a brand new outfit. But we have to watch every penny.’
    ‘Reece isn’t marrying you for your clothes. He’d still love you if you were dressed in rags.’
    Cassandra smiled. She knew that now. ‘The days to our wedding seem to be crawling past.’
    ‘The first Sunday in February will be here before you know it.’ Pandora lowered her voice to add, ‘Once you’re married, you’ll be free.’
    ‘I’ll still be working here for a while.’
    ‘It won’t be the same. Your time won’t belong to them after work. They’re always asking us to do