1890, Bruny Island, Tasmania
The sea roared against the cliffs below her, the salty spray stinging her eyes and coating her lips. She shifted her feet, making sure that her balance was evenly distributed because it was not quite as it used to be. There had been a storm through a few days ago, but thankfully there had been no wrecks to worry about, nothing like that fateful night in 1882.
It had been five years since her father and Miriam had moved to Devonport, where Leo had bought himself a small fishing boat and Miriam had opened a little shop. They were happy, Laura was sure, despite the way Leo sometimes looked longingly out to sea. Noah had a sister now, and Laura missed seeing the children.
She missed Benevolence, too, and often thought about that time, and the people they had saved from the sea. She liked to keep track of them in the newspapers that were delivered via the supply steamers every three months.
Despite widespread consternation over Mr Jones’s papers, and the rebuilding of forts and batteries up and down the coast, the invasion had yet to come.
Tom Burrows had recovered against all expectations, although he would never be the same again. He did not remember the Munros or the Alvarez, those memories wiped from his injured brain, so their fear had been misplaced. It did not matter that he forgot things; his eight children loved him and wept with joy when he was returned to them. Isaac was still sailing, although in a letter she had had from him recently, Miriam said he was talking of retiring and spending his days as a land lubber.
And Rorie had not been missing, after all. He’d hidden himself away for fear of what might happen to him after Albert had got him alone and warned him he was going to put an end to him. Rorie had only revealed himself after Laura sailed off in the whaleboat. Of course, Leo had been furious with him and locked him up until the steamer came. They had never seen or heard from him again, and weren’t sorry. As for what happened to Rochelle Munro’s brooch, Rorie would not say. Leo wondered if he might have hidden it with one of the dead seaman they had buried, but it was unlikely anyone was going to dig up the poor souls again just to be sure.
Of Albert and Elsie there had been no word. They had vanished into the Victorian interior, and no one had seen them since. Laura often found herself wondering about them. Were they still together? A man like Albert … she was not sure she would ever completely trust him. Did he love his Elsie enough to stay with her as the years went by? He had killed once, hadn’t he? Did that mean he would never kill again? She could not imagine them being very comfortable with each other. A glance here, a festering suspicion there.
The very thought made her shiver.
Laura had come to Bruny Island after leaving Benevolence, and a short stay in Hobart. The lighthouse station here was on the southern coast of Tasmania, and closer to civilisation, but still wild and windy. She had no regrets about not living a ‘normal’ life, as Miriam called it. She was happy with the solitude and her own thoughts. Perhaps the years on Benevolence had spoiled her for normality. All the same, she might be lonely if it was not for …
Warm arms slipped about her waist, hands resting over the bulge at her waist, and she leaned back with a smile. Her husband, her friend, the man she loved and trusted above all others, bent to kiss her cheek.
‘Is the storm gone?’ he said.
‘I think so.’
‘But there will be more?’
‘No doubt.’
‘Well, we shall weather them,’ he said confidently. ‘Together. Just as we always have.’
She settled against him, their child moving under his hands. It had been just Edmund and Laura since they had married seven years ago, a simple ceremony in front of the people she loved the most. She had almost given up on them having a child, but soon there would be another member of their family.
She would be going to Hobart for her confinement, something Edmund would not be moved on, and Miriam was coming down to keep her safe. Laura did not expect to be in Hobart long. She would miss the island, and her husband. This was her life and always would be. One day, perhaps her child would stand here; she hoped so.
A new generation to carry on the tradition of tending the lights, of protecting the ships that dared to sail in these dangerous waters. Another Bailey to love the solitude of the islands.