Missy slept like a log and woke before John Smith did, probably because sleep eluded him long after it had claimed her. He had more to think about.

A faint light filtered through the window, so she eased herself carefully out of the bed and stood shivering until she donned the dressing gown out of her bag. How lovely it had been! More of a realist than she had suspected, she dismissed the initial unpleasantness of pain and remembered instead those big strong work-roughened hands stroking and soothing and comforting. Feelings and sensations, touches and kisses, heat and light – oh yes, it was lovely!

She moved as quietly as she could about the cabin, hotting up the stove and moving the kettle to a place where it would boil. But of course her activity woke him, and he got out of bed too, quite unconcerned at his nakedness; Missy was given an unparalleled opportunity to study the anatomical differences between men and women.

Even more delightful than this was his reaction to her presence. He walked straight across to her, folded her in his arms and stood rocking gently, still half-asleep and thus heavy against her, his beard scraping her neck.

“Good morning,” she whispered, her smiling lips pressing little kisses on his shoulder.

“Morning,” he mumbled, evidently liking her response.

Of course she was ravenous, having had virtually nothing to eat in two days. “I’ll get breakfast,” she said.

“Want a bath?” He sounded more awake, but made no attempt to move away from her.

He could smell Buttercup! Oh, poor man! Hunger fled yet again. “Yes, please. But a lavatory too?”

“Get your shoes on.”

While she slid her feet into her boots, not bothering to lace them, he rummaged in a big chest and produced two towels, old and rough, but clean.

The clearing sparkled with frost and was still in heavy shade, but as Missy looked up, the great sandstone walls of the valley were already glowing red with the sunrise, and the sky was taking on the muted milky radiance of a pearl – or of Una’s skin. Birds called and sang everywhere, never more prone to give voice than at dawn.

“The lavatory’s a bit primitive,” he warned, showing her where he had dug a deep hole and placed some stone blocks around it for a seat, with newspaper tucked into a box to keep it dry; he had not enclosed it with roof or walls.

“It’s the best-ventilated lavatory I’ve ever seen,” she said cheerfully.

He chuckled. “Long job, or short?”

“Short, thank you.”

“Then I’ll wait for you. Over there.” He pointed to the far side of the clearing.

When Missy joined him a minute later she was already shivering in anticipation of an icy plunge into the river; he looked like the kind of man who would relish freezing ablutions. Maybe, she thought, I’ll be hoist with my own petard, and keel over stone dead from the shock.

But instead of steering her towards the river, John Smith drew her into the middle of a thicket of tree-ferns and wild clematis in feathery white flower. And there before her was the most beautiful bathroom in the entire world, a warm spring that trickled out of a cleft between two rocks at the top of a small stony incline, and fell, too thinly to be called a cascade, into a wide and mossy basin.

Missy had her robe off in a flash, and two seconds later was stepping down into a crystal-clear pool of blood-heat water, tendrils of steam rising languorously off it into the chilly air. It was about eighteen inches deep, and its bottom was clean smooth rock. No leeches, either!

“Go easy on the soap,” advised John Smith, pointing to where a fat cake of his expensive brand sat in a small niche alongside the pool. “The water obviously gets away, because the level of the pool never rises any more than the spring stops flowing, but don’t tempt fate.”

“Now I understand why you’re so clean,” she said, thinking of Missalonghi baths, two inches of water in the bottom of the rusting tub, hot from a kettle and cold from a bucket. And that one miserably inadequate ration of water was used by all three ladies, with Missy, the shortest straw, last in line.

Quite unaware how alluring she looked, she smiled up at him and lifted out her arms until the small buff nipples of her slight breasts just rode clear of the water. “Aren’t you coming in too?” she asked in the tones of a professional temptress. “There’s plenty of room.”

He needed no further encouragement, and appeared to forget his strictures about the production of suds, so assiduous was he in making sure every part of her was thoroughly explored with his hand and the bar of soap; nor did she think that his thoroughness had much to do with Buttercup. She submitted with purring pleasure, but then insisted upon returning the service. And so bath-time occupied the best part of an hour.

However, over breakfast he got down to business. “There must be a registry office in Katoomba, so we’ll go on in and get a marriage licence,” he said.

“If I go only as far as Missalonghi with you and then walk on into Byron and catch the train, I imagine I’ll get to Katoomba almost as quickly as you will in your cart,” said Missy. “I must see Mother, I want to shop for food, and I have to take a book back to the library.”

He looked suddenly alarmed. “You’re not by any chance planning a big wedding, are you?”

She laughed. “No! Just you and me will do very well. I left a note for Mother, though, so I want to make sure she’s not too upset. And my dearest friend works in the library – would you mind if she came to our wedding?”

“Not if you want her there. Though I warn you, if I can persuade the powers that be, I’d like to get it over and done with today.”

“In Katoomba?”

“Yes.”

Married in brown! Wouldn’t it? Missy sighed. “All right, if you’ll promise me something.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“When I die, will you bury me in a scarlet lace dress? Or if you can’t find that, any colour but brown!”

He looked surprised. “Don’t you like brown? I’ve never seen you wear anything else.”

“I wear brown because I’m poor but respectable. Brown doesn’t show the dirt, it never goes in or out of fashion, it never fades, and it’s never cheap or common or trollopy.”

That made him laugh, but then he went back to business. “Do you have a birth certificate?”

“Yes, in my bag.”

“What’s your real name?”

Her reaction was extraordinary; she went red, shifted around on her chair, clenched her teeth. “Can’t you just use Missy? It’s what I’ve always been called, honestly.”

“Sooner or later your real name is going to have to come out.” He grinned. “Come on, make a clean breast of it! It can’t be that bad, surely.”

“Missalonghi.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re pulling my leg!”

“I wish I were.”

“The same as your house?”

“Exactly the same. My father thought it was the most beautiful word in the world, and he loathed the Hurlingford habit of using Latin names. Mother wanted to call me Camilla, but he insisted on Missalonghi.”

“You poor little bitch!”

This time Missy’s feet experienced no trouble mounting the steps to the front verandah of Missalonghi; she banged on the door as if she was a stranger.

Drusilla answered, and looked at her daughter as if she really was a stranger. Definitely there was nothing the matter with her! In fact, she looked better than in all her life.

“I know what you’ve been doing, my girl,” she said as she led the way down the hall to the kitchen. “I wish you’d stuck to reading about it, but I daresay that’s crying over spilt milk now, eh? Are you back for good?”

“No.”

Octavia came hobbling, and received a kiss on either cheek from the sparkling Missy.

“Are you all right?” she quavered, clutching at Missy’s hands convulsively.

“Of course she’s all right!” said Drusilla bracingly. “Look at her, for heaven’s sake!”