Ghost Gum Valley by Johanna Nicholls

saving the world, mate? Today you’re my guest. Here to take lunch with me and, God willing, get drunk with me. Legal work is taboo!’
    â€˜Ah, yes. Good idea in theory. But I was just combing through documents that concern you. They bear Godfrey de Rolland’s signature. Your esteemed father finally released copies of the documents from his London lawyers to enable me to study your dilemma. I must say it’s a most intriguingly explicit marriage contract.’
    â€˜Not to me , mate. It feels more like a bloody noose around my neck.’
    Over their first bottle of a new label claret Marmaduke gave full attention to the legal scenario and waited for Edwin’s verdict.
    â€˜There you have it. You appear outraged by what you consider your father’s manipulation, my friend, but I must confess myself a little surprised by your naiveté. There are three points you need to consider.
    â€˜One: it has long been common practice in England for marriages between upper-class families to be arranged to their mutual advantage. Two: your father’s an Englishman and despite the grudge he bears the British System for his unplanned departure—’
    â€˜Transported. Fourteen years for theft,’ Marmaduke correctedmildly. ‘We’re both adults, mate. No need to hide behind euphemisms like half the Colony does.’
    â€˜Quite. But despite Garnet Gamble’s status as an Emancipist, or indeed because of it, he is hungry to embrace all things granted to the English Quality – I suspect, to prove he is not only their equal, but a better man than many who Came Free.’
    Edwin paused. ‘And Three. There is the problem of you !’
    Marmaduke agreed. ‘Ah, there’s the rub!’
    â€˜Leave Shakespeare out of it for once,’ Edwin said crisply. ‘Your father has spent a quarter of a century building his empire and made every attempt to educate his son to be a gentleman who is more English than the English.’
    â€˜Fat chance of that!’ Marmaduke said as he signalled their waitress to replace their empty bottle of wine. He raised a toast to Young Werther, the colt he’d entered in the next Hawkesbury race meeting but Edwin was like a dog with a bone.
    â€˜Marmaduke, are you blind? Garnet’s conditional pardon means he can never return to England. Yet the upper echelons of Colonial Society are too rigid, too insular for him to be able to live down his youthful crime. His fortune has failed to buy him the two things he craves. Respectability and acceptance. You alone can achieve that for him if you, forgive my choice of words, agree to marry up.’
    Feeling betrayed Marmaduke raised his voice. ‘I thought you were my friend! Why are you pushing me to tie the knot with some boring English virgin whose sole redeeming feature is her long pedigree? You want me to cave in to my social-climbing father so that I can inherit my mother’s land which is rightfully mine !’
    â€˜Morally, yes. Legally, no. You forget her Will wasn’t signed,’ Edwin said calmly. ‘I strongly advise you to meet Isabel de Rolland before you decide categorically to jilt her. This marriage contract is so watertight the Devil himself could have drawn it up. It boils down to this. If your fiancée sues you for breach of promise your father stands to forfeit a huge sum in addition to the fortune he’s already paid out. This would wipe out your father’s Bloodwood Hall estate—’
    â€˜No tragedy to me. I hate the bloody place.’
    â€˜But also swallow up your Mingaletta estate. Is that what you want?’
    Marmaduke sat back in his chair, stunned by the full import of the contract.
    â€˜Shit! It sounds like those bloody aristocrats are just as determined to see this marriage proceed as Garnet is. What’s wrong with her? Has she got two heads?’
    â€˜Family honour is at stake, Marmaduke. Their honour, not