There had been no tutors for Maria, of course, just the widow of one of the stockmen to look after her, while Ezekiel mourned the loss of a wife who could milk a dozen cows before breakfast and grab a frying pan to smash the snake that had wandered into the kitchen. Such a waste, his Mary’s life in exchange for a scrawny girl child who would become a hideous monster by the time she turned four years old.

If Maria had grown normally, Ezekiel would eventually have hired a governess, had her taught the pianoforte, dancing and whatever other fripperies a girl needed for a marriage as equally socially useful as her brother’s.

But it had been obvious there’d be no marriage for Maria. The most they could hope for was to keep her out of sight at Overflow. Nor was it worth making the homestead into a squatter’s mansion, like Drinkwater, not when it contained a monster. The Clancy family’s grand home must be in Sydney, with Maria produced, disguised as far as possible, only on the most necessary occasions, to keep gossip about her at the minimum.

Clancy’s smile faded at the thought of his sister. Ezekiel hadn’t mentioned Maria in his negotiations with the McPhersons, except as the younger sister who kept house at Overflow, and who would continue to do so while Flora and Clancy lived their fashionable life in the new house in Sydney. Clancy’s letters too had only described how Maria loved collecting flowers and painting them.

Clancy’s hands clenched in his gloves. They should have prepared Flora, he realised. What if she fled as soon as she saw her new sister? Or worse — felt herself bound to the family of a monster?

The captain bowed to the Honourable Flora McPherson as she stepped onto the gangplank. Sailors held the other passengers back so she could walk down without being jostled.

The crowd about him muttered at the delay. Clancy ignored them. He moved forwards as Flora stepped onto the wharf, Sarah behind. Now she was closer, he could see that Flora’s skin actually had a blush like that of an early peach. No woman in the colony had skin like that. How could anyone be so fresh after a five-month voyage?

And he still couldn’t think of a word to say.

‘Horatio?’ she asked tentatively, the words spoken with the sharp clarity he recognised as truly English upper class.

‘They call me Clancy,’ he managed, taking care to articulate his vowels as Gentleman Once had taught him.

Flora laughed. This bright bird among the crowd’s drab actually laughed. ‘Too many jokes about the heroic Horatio holding the bridge against the Etruscans?’ she teased. ‘Or were you named for Admiral Lord Nelson?’

‘You’ve got the right of it there. I was named for both of them.’ And suddenly it was easy. He took her gloved hand, glad that his own were the hands of a gentleman, calloused only where he held the reins — there had been few days spent ringbarking, grubbing roots or shearing for Ezekiel’s son. He hesitated, then slowly, leaving her time to retreat, leaned forwards to kiss her.