But the shenanigans hadn’t stopped there, for the Reverend Baker’s twin boys had untied the horses from the hitching post outside the pub and scattered them into the bush. This piece of mischief had earned them a heavy clip round the ear from one of the furious drovers and, Gwyneth suspected, a beating from their stern-faced father who’d marched them home. Algernon Baker was a strict disciplinarian who bullied his ineffectual little wife and preached hellfire and damnation to his parishioners every Sunday. Peter and Mark were fourteen, under threat of expulsion from their school in Sydney and rebelling against their upbringing.

One of these days their mischief risked taking a more serious turn, and Gwyneth decided to have a word with Ben’s father out at Wilga Cattle Station to ask if there were any jobs going. A good dose of hard work never killed anyone, but it might turn those twins from the destructive path they seemed determined to follow.

She rocked back and forth as the lightning flashed above the hills and the thunder rumbled ever closer. The electricity in the air made her scalp tingle and lifted the hairs on her arms, but it also sharpened her anticipation. She loved a good storm, and this one was threatening to be a monster.

She settled back into the cushion and watched the lights go out one by one in the houses. People had always fascinated her, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about the residents of Morgan’s Reach, for she’d become almost invisible as she aged – part of the scenery, and of little interest to the younger ones. She gave a wry smile. None of them suspected she had sharp hearing and a keen eye and, as they went about their daily lives unaware of her presence, she gleaned their secrets, and sometimes even managed to quietly solve their problems without them even realising it.

She rocked back and forth, fanning her hot face with an old magazine as she thought about Sal’s short visit before she’d left this afternoon for her hideaway in the bush. Gwyneth was probably the only person in Morgan’s Reach who knew where she went, for Sal had always confided in her.

Poor Sal, she didn’t have much joy in her life, but Gwyneth thought she understood the younger woman’s reluctance to leave Bert – for over the years her sense of worth had been beaten out of her, and Sal had almost certainly come to the conclusion that it was better to stay with the devil she knew, rather than risk one she didn’t. And Max had enough demons to deal with without the added responsibility of knowing how Sal felt about him.