Hardly aware of what she was doing, Maggie ate her breakfast as she watched the preparations for the first race. Reeve was there, holding the bridle of an enormous coal-black stallion while a slight figure scrambled up into the English saddle.

Tansy had apparently followed Maggie’s gaze. “Bloke I was cuddlin’ with last night says ’e ’as a place ’ereabouts, your Reeve McKenna.”

Maggie whirled, nearly upsetting her plate and what remained of its contents. “A place?”

“Sure.” Tansy shrugged. “A man with ’is money probably ’as more ’ouses than you and I got ’airpins. A body does wonder why Mr. McKenna’d bed you in a wagon, though, when ’e could ’ave taken you to a nice, warm ’ouse!”

It was all Maggie could do not to clout her friend over the head with her breakfast plate. She wouldn’t have admitted for anything in the world that she was wondering the same thing Tansy was. “Will you keep your voice down?” she hissed, all too aware that some of the people around them were watching her with amusement, curiosity, or reproof.

Maggie’s head was aching and her food was beginning to roil in her stomach. “What time does the ’bus go back to Sydney?” she asked miserably.

“There’ll be one at two and another at four,” Tansy answered distractedly, her attention on the riders and the horses that were getting ready to race.

Maggie’s mind was made up in that moment. Taking Tansy’s plate and stacking it on top of her own, she stepped awkwardly over the log. “I’ll take these back,” she said coolly.

Tansy had turned, shielding her eyes from the bright sun with one hand. “But you’ll miss the start of the race!” she cried.

Maggie only shrugged and walked purposefully away. She intended to miss far more than the race.

After disposing of the plates, Maggie went back to the wagon where Reeve McKenna had so pleasured her, and she snatched up her reticule. It was an easy matter to repack yesterday’s dress and the nightgown and her hairbrush, and soon she was walking along the muddy, rutted road to Parramatta, leaving the camp meeting and all its questionable splendors behind her.

Along the way Maggie saw a grand house that she hadn’t noticed on arriving the day before and wondered if it was Reeve’s. She decided it was and felt her cheeks burn a bright pink. She walked faster now, paying no heed to the puddles that glistened on the road. A cot in a covered wagon was the place he’d considered fitting for the deflowering of Miss Maggie Chamberlin; no sense mussing a real bed with the likes of one gullible little “Yank.”