Alchemy and Rose

by Sarah Maine

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Romance

Synopsis

1866. Will Stewart is one of many who have left their old lives behind to seek their fortunes in New Zealand's last great gold rush. The conditions are hostile and the outlook bleak, but he must push on in his uncertain search for the elusive buried treasure.

Rose is about to arrive on the shores of South Island when a storm hits and her ship is wrecked. Just when all seems lost she is snatched from the jaws of death by Will, who risks his life to save her. Drawn together by circumstance, they stay together by choice and for a while it seems that their stars have finally aligned.

But after a terrible misunderstanding they are cruelly separated, and their new-found happiness is shattered. As Will chases Rose across oceans and continents, he must come to terms with the possibility that he might never see her again. And if he does, he will have to face the man who took her . . .

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Release date: January 7, 2021

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

For a week he slept in an old sheep shelter, bedding down in straw lately used for lambing, whiling away the days watching – and waiting. On the seventh day he woke early, rose and stretched, then consumed the last of his bread and cheese, taking a moment to steady his nerve. This was it. He picked up the bottle of kerosene he had brought with him and set off, keeping low, and worked his way back to where he could see the little huddle of turf-roofed croft houses set around a small loch. He crouched in the heather to watch for Armstrong starting his rounds.

The wind was getting up and it stroked the silken grasses on the pasture below, shaking the gorse bushes by the walls. He smiled a little: it was on his side, blowing gustily from the east, so there was no chance the fire would endanger the houses. The heather was dry and it would burn quickly and well. And this was the best place to set it alight, not too close but not too far to run from, and where the blaze could not be missed. He had already timed how long it would take him to get into the factor’s house and out again, devising places to hide in case he was seen leaving. It was a desperate undertaking, he knew that, but the anger was still strong in him and his head was clear so it must be now while his courage held.

Then he saw the factor emerge from his house to start his rounds, going from tenant to tenant, hammering on each door; a pattern he knew all too well. He cursed both Kinnloss and his factor as he watched, crouched down in the heather, until he saw the man emerge from the last house and make his way back to his own larger dwelling, which stood a little apart.

The moment had come. He rose, glanced down at the houses one last time, and then doused the heather with the kerosene, lit a match and ran.

He sprinted for the trees, reached them and took cover in the little valley, panting hard, listening as the sound of crackling grew. The smoke wafted down to him and he heard a shout, and then another, and he looked back, seeing the hillside well ablaze. Stealthily he made his way through the trees in the valley bottom, having known which way they would come, the factor surely with them, and then he circled back and hid behind a field wall and watched as the houses emptied.

Everyone would turn out to beat the flames, they were that sort of folk.

The rest was easy. He had expected to need to force entry but the factor had left the door unlocked in his haste and so it was straight into the room where he had lately been spurned. He prised the desk drawer open, lifted the lid of the box and tipped the money into his leather bag. That was it! His pulse was thumping and his legs felt weak but he had done it. He turned to leave—

—and his heart stopped. A figure was standing in the doorway, watching him. The factor’s son, his father’s stamp on his features. ‘Put that money back.’

Damn the lad! ‘Stand aside, Jamie.’

The youth stood his ground. ‘You’ll have to kill me first.’ His eyes were fierce and angry.

‘Stand aside, I tell you, and I’ll be away.’ He saw then that the boy was gripping a bar of iron by his side, his knuckles white, and the man’s heart sank. The last thing he wanted was a fight with a stripling but it was urgent now that he was gone.

The lad lifted the bar and held it across his body in readiness and the man allowed his shoulders to droop. He lifted the bag as if to place it on the table in defeat but then swung it towards young Armstrong instead. He grabbed the iron bar as he ducked, and twisted it from his grip, shoving him out of the doorway. The boy staggered but recovered fast, snatching at the bag and leaving the man with no option but to punch him low and hard as he made for the door.

He was almost through it when he turned, just too late to dodge the iron bar as it came hurtling towards him. It caught him a glancing blow, splitting the skin above his eyebrow, and he stumbled, dazed and blinded by the blood, and the lad was straight onto him, kicking and biting, untried muscle against a full-grown man. All pluck and folly. He thrust him aside and the boy fell hard, hitting his head against the wall, and lay still.

Oh God. He dashed the blood from his eyes and went to him, sick now with dread, and bent to feel for a pulse. It was there, good and strong, and the boy moved a little, and then groaned. The man turned him onto his back and propped him up against the wall, then stood looking down at him, desperate to leave but now unable to go.

Then the boy’s eyes opened to a slit.

‘You’ll hang for this, McAuley,’ he said.

Will thought at first it was the storm.

He heard a shout, and then another, and a roar that grew in strength and passion. He went to the window and saw people running down the street, shouting and pointing, pelting towards the shore. ‘Something’s up,’ he said.

‘What?’ Robbie mumbled from the narrow bed they had shared that night.

‘God knows.’ More figures ran past, heads down against the wind, and Will leant from the window to shout, ‘What is it?’

‘A ship,’ came back the answer.

A ship. His heart went cold.

Pinned to a leeward shore no ship would have a chance. ‘I’m going down there,’ he said, pulling on his boots. He wrenched open the door and took the stairs in leaps, then stumbled into the street.

A crowd was gathering above the beach. Will recognised diggers, store men, cooks, whores, and ragged souls who knew only too well the fury of the western winds. Surf boomed relentlessly, throwing spray high into the air to drift in a grey veil over the roofs of the town, enshrouding the gold diggers’ shacks along the shoreline.

Dawn streaked the sky and the silent watchers stood in the cold light, some reliving their own arrival across the unforgiving Tasman Sea. Tossed like a plaything the ship struggled, lurching and powerless, sails shredded, engine swamped, and Will imagined the poor devils hunkered below deck, helpless, praying for a salvation they must know would be denied them. Listing now, the doomed ship lay broadside to waves, water pouring off in sheets as she attempted to right herself. Not a soul was in sight.

‘She’ll hit at any moment,’ a voice said beside him, ‘and then break.’

‘May sweet Christ deliver them,’ said another, crossing himself.

The first man laughed. ‘Aye! He’ll deliver all right, it’s kegs I’m waiting for.’

Will turned and saw avarice in the man’s eyes. He wanted to punch the light from them, but then a groan went through the crowd and he swung back to see the ship had struck the deadly bar of sand that ceaselessly formed and shifted at the river mouth. The vessel came to a shuddering halt and its main mast snapped, falling amidst a tangle of spars and rigging.

Just two hundred yards from the shore.

Boiling surf hid the stricken vessel for a moment, and when the waves sucked back, Will saw that she had already split in two and goods were spilling from the hold. Anticipation rippled along the shore. And then a figure appeared on the angled bow, a hand raised in entreaty, only to be swept away by the next wave.

Moments later the first pieces of cargo appeared, borne on wave crests like appeasement from a careless god. The crowd shifted, necks craned forward. Crates, boxes and barrels multiplied and Will sensed the growing tension; no one in authority had arrived and the goods would vanish the instant they hit shore, a precious bounty. His eye was caught then by a figure further down the beach, stooped over a tripod, wrestling with a dark cloth that writhed around his shoulders. The photographer. Will had seen him in the streets, but for pity’s sake, this was no peep show! He turned back to the unfolding drama and his gaze sharpened, fixing on a shape that was riding the waves. It was a pallet of some sort, surfing in, raft-like, and there, clinging to it, was a figure.

‘Look!’ he shouted.

But no one heard, or no one cared.

Blinded by spray he lost sight of the crude craft, then it reappeared, riding the next wave, the figure hanging on, arms stretched across it. ‘There!’ he shouted again, but still no one heeded him. He pushed his way to the front, deaf to the curses, and stood on the shingled beach.

The raft had vanished.

Miraculously, it resurfaced a moment later but even as he watched, the purple curl of a huge wave formed behind it, its crest blown back in a mane of spray. ‘Hang on!’ he yelled into the wind.

The wave broke over the pallet, and the figure was gone.

A murmur behind him signalled that other eyes were watching and Will was filled with a great fury. Would they do nothing? He began pulling off his boots in sudden desperation. The pallet was only fifty yards from the shore now, surfing towards the shallow waves, and behind it Will could see a dark bundle. One soul, still quick with life. Casting the boots aside, he plunged into the spume, the shingle sharp on his soles. Someone shouted out but he pressed on, gasping at the killing cold.

The beach abruptly shelved and he lost his footing, pulled under to be rolled like flotsam in the pitiless sea. He was sucked deeper, his ears roared and he swallowed salt water, then he surfaced spluttering and gagging, cursing and helpless, and had just taken a breath when something arrived beside him, relinquished by the wave, and he reached for it. The bundle. Long hair streaming behind. He grasped icy flesh as the next wave hit and they were tumbled forward together. His feet touched the shelf of the beach and he had braced himself for the pull-back when he felt hands grabbing him, holding him there, and he tightened his grip on his prize. Voices shouted above the surf as he was dragged out of it and unceremoniously dumped onto the beach. ‘Stupid bugger,’ someone said.

‘The woman!’ Will cried. ‘Get the woman.’

‘We’ve got her. She’s dead, man, and thanks to Big Sven, you ain’t.’

Scrambling to his feet, he saw the sodden bundle on the shingle a few yards away. He went and stood over the woman’s still form, seeing limbs askew and wanton, her small feet bare and bloodless. A slight figure, a girl, torn clothes exposing milky flesh, her face masked by streaks of hair.

A moment ago she had clung to the pallet as if to life itself, and now she lay there, a broken thing.

Denial exploded in his head and he grabbed her body, turning her onto her side, forcing her mouth open with his fingers. Water dribbled from her lips and he rolled her onto her back, straddling her, and began pressing on her chest.

‘She’s gone, you fool.’

‘Leave the poor lass.’

Will ignored them, feeling for a pulse, making himself believe that he felt a flutter. One soul, quick not dead. It was the closest he had been to prayer since boyhood. Hair falling forward, he went on pressing on her chest as he had seen a fisherman do once when a survivor had been brought ashore at Srath an loin from a storm-tossed wreck.

‘For God’s sake, man, leave her be!’

Quick not dead. The words repeated in his head, desperate now. He stopped, feeling again for a pulse. That man, of course, had died. He shut out the thought, but if there was a pulse it was faint, and he bent to the girl, closing his mouth over hers. Ignoring reproaches from the onlookers he breathed once, twice and stopped. Again. Had her chest risen? He pulled back and watched … and … yes!

Twice more he mingled his breath with hers and felt a slow reawakening in the form beneath him, and then the girl convulsed, drew a shuddering breath, spluttered, and her eyelids flickered. Will straightened, and looked down into eyes that were the colour of the grey sea from which he had plucked her.

As grey, and as cold. Perhaps the waves had, after all, entered the soul of her. She stared back up at him, her eyes filled with anguish, and gave a great keening cry, curled onto her side like a hurt creature, and retched.

Then Robbie was there, standing over him, and smirking. ‘Some got kegs, some got crates,’ he said, ‘and Will Stewart got himself a girl.’

The crowd parted and Moll O’Shea appeared, elbowing her way through the spectators – Irish Moll, Black Moll, Big Moll, with her dark hair and ample figure. She bent to cover the girl with a blanket. ‘Will you just stand then, and gawp?’ she asked, turning on the onlookers. ‘One of you lift the lass and bring her to my place.’ Then, addressing Will: ‘And you, you fool, get yourself dry.’

Robbie stripped off his jacket and draped it over Will’s shoulders before bending down to scoop up the girl. ‘I’ll take her, Will. Stand aside, my friends, and let me through.’

Back in their bare lodgings, Will felt the aftershock of cold as he peeled off his wet clothes, casting about for something dry. He grabbed Robbie’s spare shirt and pulled it over his head before climbing into the bed, shuddering uncontrollably. He was still there when Robbie returned a while later, a bottle in his hand, and the glint in his eye suggested he had supped from it.

‘How’s the girl?’ Will asked.

‘Well now, I’d say she’s quite lovely! Young and slender and fair. A real prize.’

Will snorted. ‘Will she live?’

‘Oh aye. Doing fine, she was, then she started moaning and groaning and clutching her stomach. Moll threw me out, but sent this for you.’ He raised the bottle. ‘Said you’d done well.’

A commendation from Black Moll! But he took it anyway and drank, feeling the raw spirit set his guts aflame. ‘Did she say anything?’ He passed it back to Robbie. ‘The girl …’

‘Just that her name was Rose. No ring, so she’s maybe a Miss Rose.’ He paused. ‘Miss Flotsam Rose, now there’s a grand name for a lovely girl. You’re in luck, me friend.’

Will took the bottle again and his mind went back to the ship, laying broken on the shifting bar, and to the bodies that must now be coming ashore. ‘Were there other survivors?’

‘A couple of dozen, perhaps, and over a hundred on board, one of them said, packed like pilchards in a rotting ship. Came across from Melbourne. Pickings were good, so folk say.’

Will ignored the last. ‘Was she travelling alone? Rose …’

Robbie’s eyes gleamed as he took back the bottle. ‘Now that, me boy, you must ask her yourself.’



The storm had blown itself out later that day when Will crunched along the shingle on the shore. The big ocean swells were still rolling in, remorseless, and boxes were now piled high above the tide line. Official-looking folk were down there now, issuing instructions as remnants of the cargo came in on the surf. Too late for that, he thought.

Above the high tide line of dry seaweed and driftwood the dead had been laid in grim rows. God, what an unforgiving place this was. Someone had fashioned a stretcher of sorts and men were lifting the cadavers onto a mule cart just ahead of him. Was there one amongst them for whom Rose would weep? The churches, Free and Roman, were being used as makeshift morgues, so it was the luck of the draw whose heaven or hell their poor souls reached.

And then Will saw him again, the photographer, further down the shore, his camera pointed towards the wreck. But even as he watched, the man began shifting his gear and setting up where he could photograph the cart and its macabre load. Will changed course and went towards him. ‘For God’s sake, man! Leave them with a little dignity.’

The man swung round and waited for Will to join him. He was a tall, angular sort of a man. ‘I take nothing from them,’ he said, but quietly.

Will dragged a sodden blanket over the bodies and scowled at him. ‘And if it was your kin, would you want them gawped at?’

The man regarded him, evenly. ‘No, I wouldn’t. Nor would I wish them to be here, drowned and dead.’

Will grunted. ‘Then take your pictures somewhere else. Shift yourself!’

The man stood his ground. ‘I record only what we see, you and I. I neither add nor remove from the situation, I simply preserve the moment. Wherein the disrespect, sir?’

Fancy words, on an educated tongue. A fellow Scot, but one who spoke like a minister, a class of men for whom Will had little time. He glanced at the cart where limbs protruded from sodden clothing, seeing the pale flesh of a naked foot, a hand stiffened in unanswered appeal, and looked away again. This, at least, he had spared that poor girl.

‘You can’t bear to look,’ the man remarked. ‘Out here, in the wind and cold, with death hanging in the air, it’s too dreadful, is it not, too hard to confront and accept, and so we look away. A photograph permits a little distance, a safer context, and allows us to dwell on the scene at a later time, to linger there, revisit the moment and consider, and maybe measure the human cost.’

‘And you make a living from the gawping.’

The man shrugged. ‘You wish to shame me, sir, but you fail. What is the difference, after all, between printed words or the grey tones of a photograph. Both are simply marks on paper, both record and report. But while words engage the intellect, photographs use another language; they have a more visceral appeal, that punch in the gut.’ The man was watching Will’s face, as if gauging his reaction, and added, unapologetically: ‘I’m neither voyeur nor predator, sir, and I can withstand any amount of your derision if I can awaken in others an understanding of this raw place and the true price of gold. It’s little enough, perhaps, but some small contribution, to set in the balance.’ Will turned away, unconvinced, but the photographer was not done. ‘Yesterday a man swam out into that killing sea, and rescued a woman – a mad act but one of selfless courage, something I could not have done. But I can do this. So now, sir, if you will shift yourself, I’ll …’ he paused, his eye caught by something over Will’s shoulder, and his tone changed. ‘Oh God, now cometh the custodian of souls.’

Will turned to see the Free Church minister striding towards them, flanked by others, their outrage radiating before them. ‘What, in heaven’s name, d’ye think you’re doing?’ The man’s anger swept over Will, including him in condemnation. ‘Have you no respect?’

Will looked across at the photographer, an eyebrow raised, ready to enjoy the encounter, but then saw that one of the men was staring at him, plucking at the minister’s sleeve, and he heard the word ‘rescue’ and drew back, having no wish for attention. ‘You’ll be served hell and damnation now, so best sharpen your defence,’ Will said, in sudden sympathy with the accused, and continued into town.

Hokitika. Grog shops, hotels and dance halls, low weatherboard buildings with flaking paint, or sun-bleached to a silver-grey, aligned along a grid of rutted streets beside general stores, smithies, bakeries, bootmakers and, of course, the banks, recently rebuilt in brick: solid, square and confident. The town, barely a decade old, was still raw but vibrant, its fortunes locked on to a balance beam that measured the price of gold.

He reached Big Moll’s place and stared up at it, wondering how Rose was faring there. It too had started life as a grog shop, but now its false façade proclaimed it to be a hotel, and a dance hall had recently been added. It was at the seedy end of town, a haunt of the less lucky diggers, and its real business, as everyone knew, went on in the rooms at the back. Moll herself, it was loudly claimed by an extended clan of Erin’s sons, had a heart of gold but, if so, it needed steam-driven stampers to release it from its stony cortex. Moll’s status, and her view of the world, was promoted by the ready fists of these Fenians, and the town’s purveyors of morality wisely left her alone. She was amassing a fortune, and Will knew to his cost how fast a week’s takings could vanish in the hard liquor and soft flesh offered by Black Moll’s establishment.

And Rose had been taken there.



It was ridiculous that he should worry, he had told himself as he washed dirt through the cradle and looked for colour in his pans through the following week. Just because he had pulled her from the sea and breathed life into her did not make the girl his responsibility, and yet he had seen desperation in her eyes when she had looked into his, and had read there an anguished appeal.

It was that look that brought him back to town at the end of the week, arriving as the light was fading and gulls were gathering on the low-tide sand bars, their beaks set seaward. He made his way down the back streets, avoiding a figure that lurched towards him swearing in a foreign tongue, feeling anxious about her. She was young and Robbie had said she was pretty. Will recalled fine features and milky flesh, and such women were a scarce commodity here.

And now Black Moll had her.

He pushed open the door to be confronted by Moll herself, seated at a round table playing cards with an old timer. She chuckled when she recognised him. ‘Come to claim your booty, Will Stewart? Well, she’s not fit.’ So Moll had learnt his name, had she? From Robbie, presumably. An Irishman himself, he regularly sank a week’s earnings here.

‘I came to see how she’s doing.’

‘She’ll mend, but she’s lost her baby.’

Will stared. ‘She was pregnant?’

‘Aye.’

‘So was her husband on board the ship?’

The woman smiled, considering him, and echoed Robbie’s words. ‘Ask her yourself, Will Stewart.’

‘I will,’ he replied, daunted, though, by the prospect of such grief.

Moll got to her feet, tossing a losing hand in her partner’s face, and led him down a rear passage, past cribs with which he was, shamefully, familiar. Drunk and lonely he had sometimes sought oblivion there, departing unsatisfied and broke, and with no clear recollection of which girl’s company he had paid for.

The room Moll led him to was the furthest from the bar, and had a proper door rather than a curtain. Greater privacy at a greater cost, and the loss of income from it would soon add up. His concern intensified. What was Moll up to? She glanced at him, as if reading his mind, and gave a wry smile as she tapped on the door.



It seemed to Rose that she had been lying there for an eternity, staring at a triangle of light reflected on the wall, floating still in wave-tossed limbo, leaving fate to determine her future. She turned her head as the door opened and saw Moll, and behind her, a man.

She frowned, recognising him as the one who had thwarted fate’s intentions, and looked away again. ‘Now, Rose.’ Moll’s tone was almost maternal. ‘Here’s Will Stewart come to see you, so you can thank him for saving you.’ The woman peered into the bowl beside the bed and frowned. ‘You’ve not touched a drop!’

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice came as barely a whisper.

‘I’ll warm it again and eat it you will, my girl. Five minutes, Will Stewart.’ Sweeping up the bowl, Moll left them, pulling the door closed behind her.

Rose regarded her saviour and could find no word of thanks.

He stood there, looking uncomfortable, but then he smiled. ‘You’ll mend, Moll said.’ She made no reply, and turned her head away, fixing again on the shaft of light from the window, resolved to play no part in fate’s next steps. ‘I heard about the baby. I’m sorry.’

‘Are you?’ She kept her face averted. On board the ship she had contemplated throwing herself overboard but later, when their peril was clear, some primitive force had awoken in her and she had been driven to save herself and the child. How strange it was. But now that drive was gone.

As was the child.

Impossible to grieve for, and yet …

She hoped her response would silence him, but no: ‘Is there someone … was there someone with you? There are survivors, I’m not sure how many … Is there anyone you want me to look for?’

‘No.’

He frowned. ‘You came alone? From Melbourne?’

‘I was sent. Alone. From Melbourne.’ And those who sent her would not have thanked him either, preferring her to have drowned.

‘Where were you heading? Can I send for someone to come to you?’

‘I was sent here.’ She turned and looked steadily back at him, her tone flat. How would Tommy have felt if she had died, she wondered. But then, he would never have known.

The man continued to look puzzled. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘To find work, and to vanish, and I would have. But for you.’ It would have been so much simpler. If it had not been for this man’s crazy action, the space she occupied in this bleak room would be a void now, a vacancy.

He looked bewildered, but had no time to respond before Moll swept in bearing the bowl, its contents steaming. ‘Make yourself useful, Will Stewart, and see that she eats this.’ She jabbed a thick finger in Rose’s face. ‘I saw you clinging to that pallet, young Rose, so don’t you be giving up now.’ She thrust the bowl into the man’s hand and left.

He looked down at it, then at her, and smiled a slow smile. ‘Moll has a lovely way with her,’ he said. ‘Can you sit up a bit more?’

All she wanted was to embrace the void and vanish, and she wanted this man to go now, and take his concern and his kindly eyes away with him, so she shuffled up, pulling a shawl around her shoulders, and reached for the bowl. ‘I’ll eat it. You don’t have to stay.’

He shook his head. ‘Too risky.’

She raised the spoon and looked across at him. ‘You’re not afraid of the Tasman Sea but you’re afraid of a woman.’

‘Of that woman, aye.’

She examined him more closely. He had a good face, regular features but for a scar that pulled at the skin above his left eye. Brown hair and very dark eyes. When he smiled the puckered eyebrow lowered to become a wink and she glimpsed a warmth there and, despite the emptiness inside her, she felt herself responding and dropped her eyes to the bowl, resisting him. ‘You’re a Scot,’ she said presently.

‘Yes.’

‘My mother was a Scot, or at least her mother was.’ Transported for thievery many years ago, she had given birth to Rose’s mother on the passage over. Did that make her a Scot? Or a nobody …

She contemplated him over the spoon where he stood like a dog on guard. ‘Why did you risk your life to get me?’ she asked.

‘Because you clung on so bravely, and got so close.’

She supped in silence, and felt the broth begin to warm her. ‘I clung from instinct. I’d no reason to live.’

‘That’s not true.’ She glanced at him, but said nothing. ‘The baby?’

‘The baby wasn’t wanted.’ If she shocked him, maybe he would leave, and she handed him the empty bowl to emphasise that he should go. But first she had a question: ‘Moll tells me this is a hotel, her hotel.’

‘Aye, it is,’ he replied, then added, ‘and a bar and dance hall.’

‘And a brothel?’

He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘I thought so. I heard noises next door.’ Rhythmical grunts and cries and drunken laughter. Blatant and raw. Not like Tommy’s inexpert love-making, which had been furtive and fumbling, but in all essentials no different. But here, at least, a more honest transaction.

The man looked concerned again. ‘Look, there are other places you could go, better hotels. They might give you work when you’re well again. I can tell you which ones. And if you need money—’

She gave a hard little laugh. ‘I don’t. I’ve five sovereigns stitched into the hem of my dress, and thanks to you, Will Stewart, I have them still. So I’m all set up, you see. Just like they said.’

He seemed about to say more but the door opened and Moll returned, her face brightening at the sight of the empty bowl. ‘Off you go now, Will. What Rose needs is rest and food, and then she’ll blossom for us all, eh? Away with you.’

Rose saw the man glance at her, uncertain again, and she looked steadily back at him. He left without another word and she returned to her contemplation of the sharp triangle of light reflected on the wall.

Will went out through the bar, raising a hand to those who greeted him, refusing gestured invitations, in no mood to be sociable. What a strange and bitter girl she was, he thought as he pushed open the door, with her sea-grey eyes and her sorrow. And how pale; her skin stretched tight, her eyes ringed by dark hollows, fair hair lank on the dirty pillow. And yet that mole, high on her cheekbone, gave her an oddly raffish air. He stood a moment, disturbed by the encounter.

Rose.

The name suited her and he imagined that, beneath the strain, she was lovely. But Moll’s was no place for the vulnerable and friendless. Half her clientele would soon be drunk, slipping dead-eyed under the tables or ejected, staggering, into the street, pockets emptied. The rest would soon be pounding the wooden floors to the tune of fiddle and accordion, swinging each other wildly around, the lucky ones clasping girls who even now would be stretching and yawning, fastening buttons on dresses whose button holes were wide and worn, preparing for the night’s work ahead; the less fortunate making do with their digging partners. Robbie too would be heading into town to join the endless round of drink, dance and noisy competition for female flesh.

But it would not do for Will, not tonight.

He lingered a moment on the boardwalk and looked to the end of the muddy street where the ocean’s swells still rode high into the estuary, lifting the vessels moored along Gibson’s Quay. These ships had made it across the sand bar before the storm, catching keels perhaps but piloted to safety by skippers who could better judge the tide