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Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. About Alison Stuart
  3. Also by Alison Stuart
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-One
  48. Forty-Two
  49. Forty-Three
  50. Forty-Four
  51. Author’s Note
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. Preview of The Goldminer's Sister

He squeezed her fingers. ‘Of course, you have my promise. Allow me to court you openly as an old family friend then.’

She pulled her hand from his grasp. ‘Thank you for your company, Richard. I can make my own way home.’

With a flick of her skirt, she left him standing in the road and walked briskly the few hundred yards back to the post office. As she passed the Britannia she glanced at the open door of the new medical clinic but saw no sign of Caleb.

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Five

‘If you want to ’it someone, I’d thank you to do it outside,’ Lil remarked, setting Caleb’s bourbon down in front of him.

Caleb picked up the glass and turned it between his fingers, watching the light in the golden liquid.

‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hit someone but I intend to get drunk, roaring drunk.’

‘Fine by me, dearie, as long as you pay,’ Lil said and lined up a second bourbon.

He was only on the second whiskey when Will Penrose found him.

Penrose dropped his hat on the table and sat down with an audible groan.

‘Bad day?’ Caleb enquired.

‘My uncle is pushing too hard.’ Penrose ran a hand over his eyes. ‘The men are tired and that’s when accidents happen. He’s a hard man.’

‘Is he hard on you?’

Penrose shrugged. ‘I’m good at what I do and he values that. When I first came here, the main tunnel looked like it had been dug by a drunken mole. It took a year, but I straightened it. Once we can get the steam engines in and really start digging down that’s where the money is but until then, we are running mostly on fresh air and the goodwill of our investors. What about you? I expected to find you all respectable and looking forward to doctoring the sick and injured of Maiden’s Creek. Instead you look like a man who’s just been told his horse has died.’

‘Everything’s wonderful, just wonderful,’ Caleb replied with heavy irony. When his friend just looked at him with his eyebrow cocked, he conceded, ‘Some English cove has turned up claiming to be an old friend of Adelaide’s family.’

‘Oh, him. Barn—Barnwell. I met him today. He was trailing around after Adelaide like an overeager puppy.’

Caleb set his empty glass down with a thump.

‘Is that your third or fourth drink tonight?’

‘Only my second.’

‘You sent for me. Was it to moan about Adelaide or are you going to tell me why you wanted to see me?’ Penrose asked.