Penrose grabbed his shirt sleeve and pushed him hard enough for Caleb to stagger a couple of steps. ‘I think you should go to her. She needs you.’

The dark mass of the hills rose above him and the waxing moon and stars lit up the night sky over the slumbering town. A hot, dry wind had picked up, sending grass and leaves dancing around Caleb’s ankles as he ran towards the post office.

Adelaide’s light still burned and he almost fell against the door in his anxiety.

To his relief, she answered his knock. She was fully dressed, the lace collar gone, her sleeves rolled up and the top buttons of her bodice undone. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders in dark waves.

‘Caleb! Is something wrong?’

Yes, something is very wrong, he thought. ‘I—I had to see that you were safe. Barnwell—he’s in a dangerous mood, Adelaide. Has he been here?’

She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘Not since earlier this evening. I confronted him with that note. You were right, Caleb.’

‘Did he hurt you in any way?’

She turned her head to the light and touched the the dark, swollen cut on her lip.

Caleb’s knees turned to water. ‘Adelaide … I’m sorry.’

She stood aside. ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for but I could use a friend right now.’

He stepped over the threshold and she closed the door behind him. She did not ask him to sit so they stood facing each other. She had been crying, her eyes reddened and puffy and her face blotchy.

She touched her cut lip. ‘The memory of the man I thought I loved sustained me through the last ten years. I liked to dream of the life we could have had together if he had lived. I realised while I was sitting here tonight that it was always an illusion. He never loved me. It was always about the money. He knew Papa would never have approved the marriage. I suppose that when he seduced me he thought that if he got me pregnant or he could prove I was damaged goods, Papa would compel us to marry and his future as the son my father never had—Papa’s heir—would be assured.’ Her voice cracked and she looked away. ‘What a gullible fool he must have thought me.’

No more than a foot separated them, yet to Caleb it felt like a chasm. He clenched his fingers, wishing he had done more than break Barnwell’s nose. The man had used an innocent seventeen-year-old girl with cold-blooded calculation. He stretched out a hand and touched her fingers.

‘Adelaide …’