The best part of the city was gone, swept away by the flooded waters of the Brisbane River.

Maggie Chamberlin’s heart pounded beneath her dove-gray woolen traveling dress. The thought skittered through her mind that while entirely suitable for the dreary grayness of a London winter, the gown was too warm by half for the heat of February in Australia.

Like the forlorn and frightened rabbits ashore, Maggie trembled. She put her unsuitable frock out of her mind; proper clothing was the least of her problems. Philip Briggs, the man who had persuaded her to make this journey, who had promised to marry her, was nowhere in sight. Suppose he had not survived the disaster?

Maggie realized that she had been clutching the ship’s railing for support and relaxed her grip. Her heavy silver-flaxen hair sagged to the nape of her neck, and she raised one hand to secure the pins, a nervous, unconscious gesture that had become a habit.

“A fine bit of business this is,” complained Tansy Quinn, the one friend Maggie had made aboard the ship in the five weeks since they’d left London. A small, plump girl with plain brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a beguiling chip in one front tooth, Tansy was emigrating to Australia for the second time in her short but eventful life. She was almost as well-traveled as Maggie, despite her poor beginnings in Liverpool, and, until now, she had exhibited unflagging confidence in her ability to make her way in this strange land where the seasons were turned topsy-turvy and flamboyantly colored birds flew free rather than being confined inside gilded cages in the parlors of the gentry. “Looks as though the lot of it’s been washed out to sea.”

Maggie’s knees were suddenly weak; once again she gripped the railing. Her wide, heavily lashed gray eyes scanned the devastation on shore. Dark despair shimmied up and down her throat and settled over her soul in an ebony fog. There were people waving at the ship from rowboats and dinghies, but not one of them was Philip. She was once again a stranger in a strange land, and there was no one to meet her. She closed her eyes and swallowed, unable to respond to Tansy’s comment.

Tansy gave her an oddly reassuring nudge with one elbow. “Don’t be lookin’ so down-’earted, love. It’s a rotten show, but we’ll go on to Sydney. Or we could get ourselves jobs at Government ’ouse, down Melbourne way.”

Maggie opened her eyes and gave her friend a look that was at once wry and dispirited. Tansy had never believed in Philip Briggs, though she hadn’t come right out and said as much; she viewed him with the same kindly disdain older children reserved for St. Nicholas. “Philip specifically told me to meet him here,” Maggie said stiffly. “In Brisbane.”