Shrouded Passions Read online

  Shrouded Passions

  by

  Faye Hall

  Shrouded Passions

  Copyright © 2016, Faye Hall

  ISBN: 9781944270186

  Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.

  Electronic Publication: April 2016

  Editor: Leigh Lamb

  Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs

  eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Back Cover Copy

  Murder, lies, deception, and love set in the outback under the Australian sun.

  A past of stolen gold, lies, and murder joined their families together. It was a past that Devon Munroy and Lotte Higgins knew nothing about. All they knew was the passion they felt for each other. When Lotte is shot and dies in Devon’s arms, his world is destroyed.

  Four years later Devon has married the person his father handpicked for him, but he’s still grieving for the woman he lost. He’s a mere shell of the man he once was, his life having become a drunken haze without meaning. Then he meets a woman who reminds him so much of his lost love it makes his heart ache.

  Lotte has been in hiding for years, but when more bodies began turning up around town, all brutally murdered, she knows it’s time to bring down the person who tried to kill her. And Lotte knows who is was—the woman Devon is now married to. Changing her looks in order to keep her true identity hidden, Lotte takes a job in their home, hoping to find some proof of the woman’s crimes. But can she resist Devon when she’s so close to him? And when the truth comes out will Devon be able to forgive her deception?

  Content Warning: contains sex, strong language, and some violence

  Dedication

  To my wonderful husband for always believing in me.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Pamela and Leigh from Beachwalk press for having faith in me and helping me every step of the way through Shrouded Passions.

  Thank you to my parents for always telling me the stories of our glorious township in which my stories are set.

  And heartfelt appreciation and love to my husband and children for always being there for me and sharing in all the tears and laughter.

  Prologue

  Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, 1858

  “You stupid bastard!” George Fanti yelled at his older half-brother, David Higgins. “You shouldn’t have brought them here!” he said, pointing to a young aboriginal woman and her small child.

  “Grace is carrying my child! I won’t leave her behind!”

  “We don’t have time for this, David. It’s almost dawn, the stagecoach is going to be here any minute.”

  David tried not to waver, his solid build attempting to stand strong. “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t do this. I won’t do this! I’m taking Grace and our daughter and we’re moving north.”

  “North?” George asked. “Are you perhaps going to see your wife and introduce her to your pregnant little black whore?”

  “You bastard!” David swore as he took a swing at the thinner, slightly shorter figure that was his brother. “I filed for divorce ages ago, before I met Grace. I love her and I will marry her.”

  “You can’t marry a native!” George yelled at him, his eyes growing nearly as black as his hair. “Had you not gotten her pregnant, she would have joined the pile of your other whores.”

  “The child with her is my daughter too, George!” David exclaimed. “And I shan’t risk their lives, nor my own, all for your greed.”

  Grabbing his brother by the shirt, George shoved David’s tall mass hard in the direction of the road. “You get your cowardly arse out there with Jack…now!”

  “No!” David stood strong, pushing his brother back. “Jack and I agreed that you’ve gone too far this time. We won’t risk our lives for you. Not again. Isn’t that right, Jack?”

  Pushing David to the dusty ground, George bent down to pick up his loaded rifle, aiming it at his brother threateningly. “Jack Munroy will do as I tell him, as he always has. As for you, dear brother, it’s your fault we’re all here in this godforsaken town! Because of you, we had to send our wives and children away up north, and still we have no wealth to speak of.”

  “I didn’t force you and Jack to follow me here to Victoria. Jack, tell him!” David yelled to the third man gathered with them.

  “You promised us gold!” George roared at him. “But just like every other time, brother, you couldn’t produce what you promised. And again, it’s left up to me to make things right.”

  “Make things right?” David shouted, scuttling to his feet. “There is nothing ‘right’ about robbing a stagecoach full of gold. You’ll get us all killed, you stupid bastard!”

  George cocked his rifle. “I’ll kill you myself if you don’t get out there, David. You and your native.”

  Walking out toward the road, David stopped a few steps away from the small, beaten, and bloodied frame of Jack Munroy.

  “H-he threatened to kill my wife, David. He threatened to kill my son. You must understand—”

  “I understand that you’re more afraid of my brother than even I am. And because of you both, we all will be lucky to ever see our children again.”

  David walked away from Jack and took his position hiding behind the tall gum tree, signaling for his young aboriginal lover and their daughter to stay well hidden.

  * * * *

  Hearing the stagecoach drawing almost level with them, the three men rushed out onto the dirt road, each of their rifles raised.

  “Stop the coach!” George roared.

  The startled horses reared up, knocking the driver to the ground. He struggled for the gun in his belt but was knocked unconscious by the butt of Jack’s rifle.

  “Get out here with your hands up!” George yelled, taking a strong stance beside Jack.

  Slowly, the door of the stagecoach opened and a young, brown-haired man who looked to be no more than eighteen stepped out.

  “P-Please…don’t s-shoot,” he stuttered, obviously frightened.

  “He’s a child!” David exclaimed, his rifle lowering as he studied the short, thin boy standing before them.

  George looked over his shoulder at his brother. “He’s the man who’s going to make us rich.”

  “I’m not going to shoot a child!” David fought back.

  George turned to face his brother, his rifle still raised. “You will do as I tell you. Now get your cowardly arse up here.”

  Waiting until David took his spot beside him, George turned back to the young man. “We want your gold. Now be a good lad and move over there into the scrub and no one will get hurt.”

  “Y-you bastards!” the young man cursed, slowly moving in the direction George had nudged his rifle. “My father will hear of this!”

  “Your father?” David asked. “Who’s your father, boy?”

  Stopping beside a huge melaleuca tree, the young man addressed his assailants. “I’m the youngest son of Henry Davern, and he will have your sorry arses hung for this!”

  “Henry Davern is your father?” Jack asked. “The same Henry Davern who made his fortunes in New South Wales and now owns half of Victoria?”

  “It doesn’t matter who his father is!” George yelled. “I want that gold, not his life story. Jack, you go tie him to that tree while we go check the coach.”

  Nodding obediently as the other two men turned away and walked toward the coach, Jack handed them his rifle as they passed him and
began approaching the young man.

  “D-don’t come any further, you bastard, or I’ll shoot!”

  George and David immediately turned, rifles aimed, to see the young man shakily aiming a handgun at Jack.

  “You don’t want to do this,” David warned him.

  The young man cocked the gun. Two rifles fired from behind Jack, and the young man fell to the ground before him. Screams from the young aboriginal woman and her daughter echoed around them.

  Jack spun around, clearly shaking from his near-death experience. “You saved my life.”

  George ran over to the coach, throwing his rifle inside. “We need to get out of here.”

  David ran toward the young man now lying in the dirt, searching his green eyes for any sign of life. Almost immediately, he was joined by the aboriginal woman who began checking the boy’s wounds.

  “The boy’s dying,” David said as he tried in vain to stop the bleeding. “Damn it! No one was supposed to get killed!”

  “I can save him,” Grace said, reaching instantly into her bag of herbs.

  David glanced over his shoulder at the other two men busily readying the stagecoach then back to his lover. “I need you to stay here, Grace. I need you to save this boy.”

  She gripped at him desperately, her fingers lacing tightly in his hair, her gaze looking into his pleadingly. “But you said you would take me with you. I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you, David.”

  He kissed her firmly. “I’m not deserting you, Grace, or our family. I will send for you once it’s safe. I promise. For now, I need you to do your magic and save this boy if you can.”

  “But your brother—”

  “I’ll tell him you were scared off by the gunshots. You go now and hide in the scrub, honey. Please do this for me.”

  Grace nodded fearfully, and they both watched for the safest moment before she fled with their child and disappeared into the surrounding scrub.

  “Where’s your little whore gone?” George suddenly yelled out.

  “She ran off when the guns went off,” David replied. “She took my daughter with her.”

  Seeming uninterested, George continued getting the horses ready to leave.

  “That boy is dead, George. He has a bullet hole in his chest!” David went to the driver and quickly knelt down to check if he showed any signs of life. He found nothing. “The driver is dead too,” David commented. “The rifle hit him direct across the temple. Jack must have cracked his skull.”

  “For once, he did as I told him to,” George replied before finally turning to look at him. “If anyone finds us out here, we will join them in death if we don’t get out of here right now.”

  * * * *

  It was late afternoon when the three men stopped the coach to make camp that night.

  “We need to keep moving,” George insisted.

  David ignored him as he went about unharnessing the horses.

  “Did you hear me?” George grabbed David’s shoulder, forcing his brother to look at him. “We might have ditched the old coach, but the police will still be out in full force looking for this gold and for us. If they catch us, they’ll hang us.”

  “You should have thought of that before you shot that boy back there!” David spat at him.

  George let go of his brother. “We both fired our rifles. How can you be so sure it wasn’t your shot that killed him?”

  “Because we both know I can barely see my own hand in front of my face. I certainly can’t see a man well enough to shoot him dead with a single shot at that distance.”

  George nodded, an evil smile filling his face. “Very true, brother, but Jack doesn’t know that. As far as he knows, you could have shot that man instead of me. That’s what I’ll tell him unless you do as you’re told and we keep moving.”

  Staring at his brother, studying his black hair and black eyes, David’s disgust for this man grew. In all his thirty years, never had David met a man as cold-hearted as his brother. George was only twenty-seven years old, and already he had killed nearly as many men. Still, David wouldn’t cower before him.

  “The horses need to be rested, George. They need food and water, and so do we.”

  The two brothers stood, their eyes burning into each other, neither giving an inch.

  “I have every mind to just take all of the gold and leave you two bastards out here to rot!” George spat at him. “That stagecoach was my idea. If it wasn’t for me, you and that sniffling bastard, Jack, would still be panning gold out in the fields and finding nothing.”

  “We don’t owe you anything.” David sneered at his brother.

  “I made you both rich men! You owe me everything!” George raised his voice.

  “By shooting that boy, you’ve given us all a death sentence, you stupid bastard,” David reminded him.

  George stared at his brother, his rifle aimed true. “If you don’t do as I say, and continue to do so, I will take your share of the gold and hand you over to the police for the murder of those two boys. You and your little aboriginal whore.”

  David didn’t flinch. “If you take more than your third of that gold, I will tell the police the truth about who killed those men and all the others down in Victoria. Grace and her tribespeople will back me up too.”

  George cocked his rifle. “Sooner or later, brother, you will prove to be too smart for your own good. I will have all of this gold, even if I have to wait a lifetime to get it.”

  Still David didn’t flinch.

  Just then, Jack could be heard approaching through the scrub. “George, are you still out here?”

  Lowering his rifle, George gripped it tight in his hand. Turning away from his brother and the approaching Jack, George walked into the scrub.

  “Jack, take care of the coach. I’m going to go find us some food.”

  “What was that about?” Jack asked.

  David shook his head. “Nothing you need to be worried about, Jack.” He turned away from the other man.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  David glanced back over his shoulder. “We need a fire ready to cook whatever my brother manages to shoot.”

  * * * *

  Sitting around the fire, the bones of several rabbits scattered on the ground, the three men settled in for the night.

  “So what are you going to do with your share of the gold, George?” Jack asked.

  George shrugged, glancing at the smaller man. “There’s enough there to buy a decent cattle station. Hell, there’s enough to buy several.”

  The two men shared in their laughter.

  “We need to get out of Victoria before we think of buying anything,” David interrupted.

  “What?” George snapped back at him.

  David threw the stick he’d been holding into the fire. “You said yourself that every police station will be on the lookout for that gold. As well as every bank and property seller in the whole state. You may have gotten your gold, brother, but unless we can figure out a way to get out of Victoria alive, you will never be able to flaunt it for anyone to see.”

  “You stupid son of a bitch—”

  “He’s right,” Jack spoke up.

  “What did you say?” George turned to him, his voice harsh.

  “D-David’s right. If we don’t get out of Victoria, we are as good as dead men. I’m only twenty-seven years old, I’m too young to die!”

  George leaned back against the coach wheel. “Seems you two have figured this out already. So pray tell, where are we going?”

  “Queensland,” David said.

  “Are you mad?”

  David shook his head. “I’ve never been more serious. We send word to our wives to tell them we struck it rich on the gold fields. Tell them we’ll be joining them as soon as we can find transport there. No one’s going to look for Victorian gold in Queensland.”

  * * * *

  It took the three men several months to reach southern Queensland and their families, but finally
they made it, mostly unscathed and their gold still safely hidden away in the coach. The cousin, Walter Jeffers, who had been putting the three wives and children up, offered the men the option to stay on longer if such was their wish.

  “We really couldn’t impose any further on you,” David replied, holding his young daughter in his arms.

  “It’s a large cattle station and we have plenty of room. Besides, it’ll give you men a taste of what’s ahead when you finally decide to spend your riches,” Walter insisted.

  “Who said we were looking at buying cattle stations?” George asked, handing his young daughter back to his wife and issuing her back into the house.

  Walter shrugged. “I just assumed, my boy, considering you are all nearing thirty years old. I mean isn’t it time to settle down and make a home for your families? And if you’re planning on settling this far north, there is little else for you to safely invest your money in other than cattle stations.”

  Just then, Jack came running toward them. “We need to speak, George,” he blurted out in a desperate tone, coming to a stop near the men.

  “My dear boy, what’s wrong?” Walter asked.

  Jack struggled to appear calm. “It’s nothing you need to trouble yourself with, sir. Just a small technical issue that seems to have come up.”

  Walter nodded, as in understanding. “I best leave you men to it then.”

  Waiting until Walter and David’s wife had left to return to the house, George turned to Jack.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? We’re not supposed to be drawing any attention to ourselves and you’re running around—”

  “He saw me,” Jack interrupted.

  “Who saw you?” David asked, his words hesitant.

  “The delivery boy from town. He seen me. He looked right at me!”

  George was clearly confused. “And?”

  “And he was on the gold fields with us down in Victoria. He knows we’re here.”

  “What harm can a single delivery boy be?” David asked.