them. She picked up the ring, slipped it on her finger. Jacob Wetherly offered the sort of escape she’d only dreamt about; a younger man with an English estate.
Claire angrily swiped the letter, inkwell and ring to the floor. Her father once advised that all problems were containable if superior advice could be sought. Well he’d failed to explain that some problems could not be rectified, they could only be endured. Claire clutched at the writing desk. There was a terrible pining within her; it bashed at her insides like a mad woman and wept like a willow dying for love of water. Despite what she knew, despite everything that had occurred, events were beyond her.
Closing the lid on the trunk, Claire secured the leather strapping and sat on it, exhausted. Through her bedroom window the garden was illuminated by moonlight; it silhouetted trees and shrubs, an ageing trellis with trailing beans and two rabbits frolicking under a clear summer night. Claire knelt by the window, resting her arms along the polished cedar of the ledge. A moth was bashing itself repeatedly against the gauze in an effort to reach the kerosene lamp sitting on her desk. She admired the insect’s persistence while pitying the fruitlessness of its mission. It was a familiar theme.
Claire thought of her years on the property, of the great wool shipments that had departed the Wangallon woolshed, first by camel train and then by bullock teams. How many baby lambs were born for the clothing of mankind? How many cattle driven south to market? Notwithstanding the hard seasons and loneliness and distance, Wangallon had been her home for a great many years. The property had given her shelter, provided food, clothes and comfort. It was hard to leave her.
Outside the moon shone down the length of the gravel driveway. It was a splendid sight, as if a ribbon of light was waiting to spirit her away to a new life, one without hurt or loneliness. Yet despite what could await her, despite the glorious uncertainty of adventure, Claire couldn’t do it. She knew she couldn’t walk away and she refused to be tossed aside. She was a Gordon and she loved this land as if it were her own. She loved it for one reason only: Wangallon had been founded by her husband and despite her girlish fancies, despite the ruthless heart of this man who controlled her life, Claire would not leave him, could not leave him. She adored him and the love she felt for him was beyond right or wrong, it was beyond her control.
Sarah sat in one of three chocolate-brown armchairs in Frank Michaels’ waiting room. Arriving twenty minutes early for the meeting with Jim Macken had done little to quell her nerves and she fought the urge to bite an already ragged thumbnail. Through the wide glass window a glimmer of colour began to spread itself across the city, slowly diffusing the monotone office building street scene from white to a musty grey. It was a rather washed-out morning sky, similar to the exhaustion edging through Sarah after a sleepless night in a strange bed. Every time sleep chanced to claim her, Anthony’s face appeared, disintegrating any thought of rest. Sarah replayed yesterday morning repeatedly until she had calculated the length of their brief embrace and Anthony’s forceful breaking of it. She felt queasy and her head ached from what Shelley termed a relationship event post-mortem. She rubbed at the fine skin around her eyes and looked again at her watch. It was one thing to be fighting to retain Wangallon, quite another to have to physically leave it to save her.
When Jim Macken and his solicitor finally arrived they all sat quietly at the conference table as Frank offered coffee and his secretary placed a jug of water and four glasses in the centre of the table. There were lined notepads and brand new pencils before each person while Frank had a thick manila folder at his place. Sarah noted with dismay Jim’s swollen jaw with its yellow slash of a bruise and a thin line of purple beneath his left eye. The injury appeared recent, as was Anthony’s. Tony Woodbridge caught Sarah’s eye and smiled.
Within minutes an argument over Jim’s overt demand for a share of the contents of Wangallon Homestead caused Sarah to slam her fist on the table in annoyance.
‘I thought if we all met in neutral surroundings we may well be able to come to