Chapter 1
Waiting for the 157,000-ton cruise ship, Luxury at Sea, to berth and the discharging of its almost 3800 passengers to begin, Hudson Lamont was also preparing to say goodbye to his fiancée, Sylvia King.
The previous night, after gentle sex in the spa bath in their stateroom, Hudson told Sylvia he'd sold his partnership in the Sydney law firm of Andrews, Gill, Lamont Partners three weeks before sailing.
"Omigod, why hadn't you told me you'd planned to do that before proceeding with that decision?"
"Because you'd been so looking forward to this cruise, Sylvia. I didn't want to spoil your expectations of fully enjoying what you'd been saying for months, that you were looking forward to our dream trip together."
The red-hair former beauty flared.
"How dare you offer that weak excuse. Other people would had known what you were doing, but you left me completely in the dark. You've let me down badly."
Hudson decided not to contest what she was saying.
Sylvia was winding her engagement ring around her finger angrily.
"You're hopeless, Hudson Bloody Lamont. What decided you to sell your money-making share in that prospering firm?"
"Ah, that's the other thing that I temporarily withheld from telling you the truth about at the time."
"Omigod, you tone sounds ominous, you bastard. Come on, out with it, are you to be criminally charged for legal malpractice?"
"What? Of course not. The reason why I decided to withdrew from the hectic life I've been living as Criminal Court defence lawyer was directly linked to me being rushed by ambulance recently to hospital where I stayed for a couple of nights."
"The medical team initially thought I'd had heart problems, but checked me out extensively without finding anything untoward apart from unusually high blood pressure. After I was questioned, the consensus was that my intense life-style and particularly the pressure of sustained overwork, had placed me on the verge of a breakdown."
"Omigod, then that means you are done, and will be a partial invalid."
"Rubbish, it means I've been advised to back off a bit, pursue an easier vocation and cut back on the booze a bit and to avoid wild parties or excessive exercising for at least six months."
"Ah, and that explains why we've only had sedate bouts of fucking during this voyage. Well, I'll spend this final night on this cruise in the spare room of our stateroom."
"Hudson you bastard, here was I suspicious that you must have found some chick to fuck while I was relaxing reading, swimming in the pool or going to lectures by experts on various topics."
"Yes, well sometimes the mind makes you believe what you brain wants you to believe. I may have kissed a babe or two in all our time of dating, but never have I cheated on you by having sex with anyone else since you and I began having sex."
"I'm really pissed off with you Hudson, and I'm too angry to decide what to do just now."
* * *
As Sylvia and Hudson continued to wait tensely for the announcement when passengers would be called for their turn to disembark, the butler they had for the entire cruise entered and informed them he'd be back in five minutes to lead them to the gangway.
When Paul left, Hudson asked, "Have you decided how to punish me?"
Sylvia looked triumphant.
"I'm leaving you. Here's the engagement ring you gave me."
Hudson immediately thought he'd talk her out of that extreme action but before he could open his mouth, she handed the ring and said, "I have no wish to taking the risk of being a nursemaid to you for the rest of my life."
"You wouldn't have to. I'm retiring from law, approaching 40, a wealthy man, with more assets than what we could cash up and reasonably spend in our life together."
"That's providing you manage to cash-up at face value and successive governments don't hit you with increased taxes. No, I'm not talking the risk, I'm grabbing my freedom back and my goal will be to find a bullet-proof man to marry, so to speak."
"You lack compassion."
"And you, Hudson, lack stamina currently. I'd call that a draw."
He decided not to argue than one. Instead he said, "When you get off the ship go directly to your parents' place. I'll get someone in tomorrow and we'll pack your stuff and have it delivered to you."
"Well, please yourself," she hissed. "Don't walk out of here with me."
That really convinced him not to offer her the ring to sell or keep in case she could only find a pauper to befriend, not that he would have said that last bit.
They sat in silence and when Paul the butler entered, Sylvia left with him, not even hissing goodbye when Hudson had said "Farewell, Sylvia and good luck."
Hudson relaxed, and wondered what hot food delivery should he order for dinner that night ashore.
On the cab ride home, he thought it was a great cruise apart from the unhappy ending. He then thought about calling some of his former girlfriends to find one interested in coming for dinner but told himself to forget it for the time being. He then decided to take a month off and go to recuperate on the farm where he was born to spend some time with his grandparents.
Two days later, he called his grandparents but the phone was answered by the farm manager they'd hire 18 months earlier before they retired to a nearby small town. Well, Hudson thought, he could still visit them and got their address.
* * *
Ten days after being unceremoniously dumped by his fiancée, Hudson Lamont arrived feeling very fit and well and took a flight to Adelaide and hired a rental SUV for two weeks. He drove to the fairly isolated town of Billing's Crossing, that straddled the banks of a river.
He'd phoned ahead from the airport and his grandparents were expecting him. He found Gramps was in a wheel-chair, looking jaded, but Grandma Olive was bright and greeted him warmly, saying, "Live family connection at last."
"What haven't my parents hopped over from New Zealand to see you for a while?"
"No, not since they relocated in the south-west of England almost six months ago."
"Oh yeah, they had told me they were thinking of returning there where mum was brought up but my parents and I have gone our own ways and really only come together at Christmas time."
"Yes, well it's the first time we've seen you for more than a year. What do you want?"
Hudson laughed and said, "You're still as confrontational that you have always been for as long as I can remember, Grandma Olive."
"We'll, we've long-accepted that you regard your kin as unnecessary attachments."
"It's either that, granddad or I've been committed to building a career in law so I could retire at 30, find a good woman, and we could raise two adorable children."
His grandma said that was a stupid plan, proven by the fact that he was now only two years from entering middle age at 40.
"Has yet another woman dumped you and you're come here for a bed to lick your wounds?"
"They tend to dump me for reasons I don't understand."
"You dumb-ass Hudson. You get as far as becoming engaged to them and they wait in vain for you to talk about a wedding date."
His grandfather Robbie said, "Have you set a new record for broken engagements yet, what is it, ten?"
"You're way out with that calculation granddad, it's only five."
Olive jumped in.
"Omigod, all the eligible females in Sydney must by now be categorising you as a monster who plucks virgins and then ignore them until their only resort is to leave you."
Hudson amused himself thinking what century was she thinking she was in assuming that Sydney was over-run by virgins aged 20-plus.
He went to bed that evening feeling over-full. Olive had heaped his plate, country style, and he'd left just under half of that but she sat with him making him finish to the point of almost having him lick the plate of the last streaks of gravy.
"Your mother told me your problem has been since leaving university has been you work every weekday until well into the night," Olive said. "It's not only that. You just don't eat sufficient food to sustain yourself. You badly need a wife to take care of you."
Hudson later switched off the bedside light smiling, thinking the last thing he needed was a wife who'd be much like his mother and grandmother. The wife that he wanted who perfectly matched his requirements and expectations hadn't been born yet, err probably not.
After breakfast two mornings later, his grandfather told him to go out and run his eye over the farm, where both his eldest son, Hudson's father, and Hudson had been born.
"Yeah, great idea."
"Yes, it will give you the chance to fill your lungs with fresh country air and feel the effects of good health coursing through your body."
Grandma believed in that crap and considered herself to be some sort of health guru as her grandmother had been.
* * *
At the summit of Thompson's Hill, Hudson stopped the SUV, got out, stretched and went forward and leaned against the front of the vehicle, taking long intakes of fresh air while thinking sometimes the things grandma said weren't rubbish.
Once upon a time the Lamont's from Scotland, three families of them, had owned the entire huge valley and also farmed the hills on both sides stretching back some miles. But taxes, droughts and untold farming disasters including plunging prices for grain and livestock and sending generations of kids to distant boarding schools when it became the custom, had resulted in hundreds of acres at a time being sold off to repay bank loans and re-grass drought afflicted land.
The Lamont's at the height of ultimate prosperity around 1910 farmed some 894,000 acres. Granddad was the last to sell down land when his son eldest child and only son Lachlan, Hudson's father, left to find a wife in Melbourne and never returned.
Today, the family was the only branch of the Lamont's left in the valley and the size of the farm was down to 82,317 acres or almost 130 square miles, comprising approximately one-fifth of the valley and some of the hills on either side of the valley floor.
Hudson was thinking back to his youth living on the farm when a female called to him, "Hey fuck-face, get your vehicle off the middle of the road so I can pass."
He hadn't heard her vehicle approach, with his mind back in the days of his youth.
Hudson hurried around to his vehicle's driver's door and looked at the skinny, baby-faced driver with her hair in a mess.
"Ma'am, I do apologize for being a road-hog. I'm just not used to drinking in scenes of beauty," he said, waving a hand expansively in the direction of the valley.
"Sorry mister. Obviously, by your educated voice you are not from around here. Who are you?"
"I'm visiting. I'm Hudson from the city."