The Scotsman looked her up and down. Even in the saddle he sat straight and tall, his broad shoulders straining beneath a heavy woollen jacket. Brown hair curled beneath his wide-brimmed felt hat. He leaned on the pommel of his saddle and said, ‘And you, madam, shouldn’t have been standing in the middle of the road.’

‘Now then, Mr McLeod,’ the coachman said, ‘be fair—you were riding like the devil.’

‘And with good cause.’ McLeod swept his hand toward a dray making its ponderous way down the treacherous road that wound into Maiden’s Creek. A massive iron boiler, no doubt bound for one of the mines, had been strapped to it but now appeared to have slipped, threatening to take the entire dray over the side of the descent.

At the end of the long, tiring coach journey that had begun in Melbourne two days ago, the Shady Creek to Maiden’s Creek coach had passed the dray on the narrow track some miles back. Eliza had leaned out of the window, fascinated by the sight of the ten huge bullocks straining at their collars as the bullocky’s whip circled their heads. It had taken all the coachman’s skill to steer a safe course between the dray and a plunge down the steep slope.

‘I am looking for someone. Besides, where am I supposed to stand?’ Eliza demanded, indicating the narrow boardwalk outside the Empress Hotel, which was stacked with luggage.

‘Melbourne?’ McLeod’s lips curled in a wry smile. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I must see to my boiler.’ He touched his fingers to his hat and put his heels to the horse, leaving Eliza standing on the boardwalk in her ruined travelling clothes, seething with impotent fury.

‘Who was that oaf?’ she asked Burrell.

He smiled. ‘McLeod. ’e’s the mine superintendent up at the Maiden’s Creek Mine.’

Eliza’s heart lurched and she turned to watch the rider. He had reached the stricken dray and dismounted, lending his shoulder to right the heavy boiler. Mine superintendent at Maiden’s Creek had been the position her brother William had held until the opportunity to invest and manage a new mine, the Shenandoah, had come his way more than twelve months earlier.

She huffed out a breath. Regardless of the situation, there had been no call for the man to be so rude. She looked forward to sharing her thoughts on the manners of the citizenry of Maiden’s Creek when her brother turned up.