‘Adelaide, I know it has been less than a week, but I hope that in our short time together you have come to appreciate the sincerity of my intentions to you and, of course, Daniel. I have greatly appreciated my time with Daniel and, considering the exigencies of the situation in which you found yourself, I can only say you have done a fine job with him, but he’s of an age when he needs a man in his life.’

As soon as he said ‘a man in his life’, the memory of Danny’s fair head and Caleb’s dark one bent together over the gold pan on the Shenandoah Creek overwhelmed Adelaide.

This is for Danny.

‘Are you all right?’ Richard’s anxious tone brought her back to the present.

She couldn’t dwell on might-have-beens. ‘Just a little lightheaded,’ she said. ‘This heat …’ To illustrate her point, she fanned herself with her hand.

Richard grimaced. ‘Another reason to leave this wretched country. I was saying,’ he continued, ‘we can be a family, Adelaide. You’re still young. Danny could have brothers and sisters. I would see them all well provided for and properly educated.’

Just say it, Adelaide willed him.

Richard went down on one knee and fiddled in his coat pocket, producing a diamond ring.

‘Adelaide Lewis, would you do me the singular honour of becoming my wife?’

She knew the words—she’d rehearsed them—but now, looking into Richard’s earnest blue eyes, so different from the cold, grey steel of Caleb’s, they stuck in her throat.

Returning to England meant surrendering her hard-won independence. No more would she be the postmistress of Maiden’s Creek. She would be Mrs Richard Barnwell, whose only role in life would be ornamenting her husband’s dining table or entertaining the wives of influential men in an immaculate drawing room.

For Danny, she repeated to herself. A good school, university, a career … as what? Would he work in his father’s business, whatever that was? Law and medicine were no longer an option—far too middle-class.

For Danny.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I will marry you.’

Richard jumped to his feet, pulling her with him. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. His moustache scratched her cheek and when his tongue forced her lips apart, she pushed him away from her. She felt nothing.

Wrong, she did feel something: repugnance. This was not how it had been with Caleb—

Don’t think of Caleb. It was a dream, an interlude. It meant nothing. Richard is the father of your son.

Do this for Danny.

‘In good time, Richard,’ she said, hoping her revulsion did not show.

Richard threw his head back. ‘Thank God we can leave this place.’

‘Richard, I have obligations. I can’t just walk away from the post office.’

He frowned and waved his hand in a gesture of impatience. ‘How long?’