The stifling heat in the cottage closed around him and he pushed back his chair, found the bottle with the last of Bowen’s whiskey and sat on the verandah while he smoked his pipe. The paper recording Barnwell’s duplicity lay on the bench beside him and as the whiskey went down, he remembered Sissy’s bruises and the fact she had found the letter in Barnwell’s pocket, opened. Barnwell had not given Adelaide the letter. Every instinct told him that Barnwell had misled Adelaide as to the nature of his intentions.

He glanced at his pocket watch. Ten o’clock. Late to be calling, but Adelaide had to know what he knew. If she threw him out into the street, all the better. At least his conscience would be clear.

He snatched up the paper, hurrying down the steep path to the main street. A single light still burned in the parlour window of the post office and he hesitated at the gate to the residence, his hand on the latch, wondering again if he was misinterpreting the situation. He hadn’t imagined Sissy’s bruises and her assertion that Barnwell was one of those who liked it ‘rough’. This was the man who would be taking Adelaide to bed … a man who spent the evening courting Adelaide and the night at Lil’s Place.

He knocked on the door and Adelaide herself answered it, still fully dressed, the black of her gown relieved now by a fine lace collar.

‘Caleb? Is that you?’

‘Can I come in, Adelaide?’

‘It’s very late—’

‘It’s important.’

She stood aside and opened the door, admitting him into the familiar, comfortable parlour. Her ledgers lay open on the table, illuminated by a paraffin lamp.

‘I was working,’ she said, following his gaze. ‘I have to get the post office affairs in order—’

‘Before you leave?’

She flinched at his harsh tone and looked up at him with wide brown eyes. ‘You’ve heard?’

‘Yes. You’re going to marry Barnwell and leave Maiden’s Creek for a life in London.’

‘There are no secrets in this town,’ she said.

‘Not when your betrothed chooses to tell his landlady,’ Caleb said. ‘When were you going to tell me?’

‘I—I—’

‘I see. You had no intention of telling me. I would wake one morning and you would be gone. I was nothing more to you than a passing fancy.’

She shook her head. ‘No, you’re wrong. You have been much more to me, but there are reasons—good reasons for marrying Richard.’ She straightened her shoulders, a spark of the old Adelaide in her eyes as she said, ‘Anyway, I don’t see that it is any business of yours. You made that perfectly clear the other night.’