She had never seen a house as lovely, never imagined one could be so. And it was hers.

Flora shut her eyes for a moment, imagining what its setting might become. Something stunning, but simple, to match the elegant clean lines of the house. ‘Roses,’ she whispered. ‘It needs a million roses under every terrace, each line of them a single colour that almost but not quite matches the one above, moving from dark reds by the stonework through pinks to white to match the cobbles of the drive.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Can one buy rose bushes here?’

Clancy smiled. His skin was just a little too brown, but in every other aspect such a gentleman. ‘Yes, of course. There are flower nurseries that breed them too, but rose bushes survive the journey from England. I believe the Macarthurs have even established a Rose Growing Society.’

‘I must join it. Oh, Clancy, can you imagine the fragrance? Does the house have a name?’ She peered out the window at it as the carriage entered the driveway.

His smile was such a sweet one, for a man. ‘Not yet.’

‘We will call it “Rosemere”.’ She turned to him with joy as the groom reined in the horses exactly opposite the front door, where the staff were lined up by the front steps. The butler had obviously sent an underling to spy out the carriage’s return. ‘There is so much here. So much beauty. So much good to be done among the poor.’

A wizened man, almost monkey-like but strong with it, stepped forwards as the groom opened the front door. Not grand or erect enough to be Grange, the butler, she thought. He must be her new father-in-law, his face pink from an unaccustomed shave, his coat expensive but ill fitting, his trousers slightly wrinkled. He looked to be the kind of man whose clothes seemed to change size and shape as soon as they were worn, no matter how carefully a tailor measured him.

Ezekiel Clancy held out his hand to help Flora from the carriage, awkwardly as she was a head taller. ‘Welcome to Sydney, your ladyship,’ said Ezekiel, not quite achieving a gentleman’s accent. The last of Flora’s uncertainty vanished. Ezekiel Clancy was nowhere near as uncouth as she had expected.

Flora smiled at him. ‘I’m not a ladyship. Only an honourable, I’m afraid.’

Ezekiel’s expression seemed to say that England and its aristocratic conventions were far away and if he wanted to turn an honourable into a ladyship to add to his family’s grandeur, there was no one in the colony who’d stop him. She felt him inspect her, this new daughter-in-law for whom he’d paid so much, as Clancy led her between the two lines of servants.

‘Mrs Hanger, the housekeeper, madam,’ said Mrs Hanger, rising from a deep curtsey that made her corsets creak.

‘Grange,’ said Grange, bowing. Clancy had already told her that her new butler had been an under-footman in a viscount’s establishment for more than ten years in England before joining his uncle in the unsuccessful counterfeiting venture that led to his joining the colony. But the man seemed presentable. And wasn’t this colony meant to be a place of new beginnings?