Free Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley Freeman

corridor have him backing out quickly, with no word of farewell.
    Isabella ventures into the saloon and stops to look at the map spread out on the Captain’s desk. Captain Francis Whiteaway has traversed the globe, from north to south and east to west, for twenty years. So far as she knows, he has always drunk heavily, he has negotiated much bad weather, and he has always returned to England safe and whole. If he says it is too late in the year for a hurricane, then perhaps he is right. Mr. Harrow is, after all, a scant few years older than Isabella herself. She eyes the half-emptywhiskey decanter. How many times has she seen it filled, then emptied again? Her fingers trace the east coast of Australia, pale pink against a turquoise sea. They are here, somewhere. But there are no storm clouds on this map, and the sea is as flat and still as the lid of a tomb.
    I sabella thinks herself alone. It is after breakfast, and the weather is making her sick. The sea lifts them and dumps them, over and over. She is confined below deck but can’t bear another long day in her cabin, and needs to avoid Meggy and Arthur, so she takes the walk down to the dark end of the ship. She carries her fountain pen and her list. She hopes to find somewhere quiet and away from the eyes of others to add up the worth of her jewelry, and budget how much she will need for her voyage to New York, food, coaches . . . There seems so much to organize and at night the swirl of thoughts keeps her awake. Pinning them to the page will help. It will also give her something to take her mind off the weather.
    All the crew are on deck, managing the sails. She goes down to the cargo hold and sits on a stack of tiles covered with a rope net. The light is dim, but she smooths out her list on her lap and starts to jot down notes.
    The ship shudders and shakes. She takes a deep breath and keeps going.
    Her senses prickle. She is suddenly aware that she’s not alone. She looks up, her hand instinctively covering the page on which she writes.
    “Writing a love letter, Mrs. Winterbourne?” says Captain Whiteaway.
    Isabella quickly folds the list. “No, I’m not. I’m making a list.”
    “Of what?”
    “Private thoughts,” she replies. “Nothing to concern yourself with.” She peers at him in the gloom. He is drunk already. “Why are you not on deck with the others?”
    “I came to see if the cargo had moved. We hit quite a bump back there.”
    “I felt it.” She wants to ask why he came himself, rather than sending a crewman, but the answer would be that he was drunk, or lazy, or afraid of the bad weather and pretending it wasn’t happening. He is here because he is incompetent, and no man will ever admit that about himself.
    His eyes haven’t left the piece of paper in her hand. “What secrets are you hiding in there, Isabella?” he says.
    “No secrets.”
    He holds out his hand and makes a “give it to me” gesture.
    “It’s private.”
    He looms over her, a six-foot slab of meaty man with hot brandied breath, and now the horrible memories are awakening again in her mind. Her mouth moves to protest, but only a little popping noise comes out.
    The flash of remembrance: the conservatory at her mother-in-law’s house. Early in the morning before anyone was awake. Her heart still shredded with grief, her breasts still swollen with milk. And Percy Winterbourne, Arthur’s younger brother, forcing himself on her.
    Frost on the grass outside, the sour smell of ashes in the fireplace. His hand clamped over her mouth, the taste of his skin, her frantic breath searing her nostrils. “A little of this?” he had said, roughly squeezing her tender nipples through her gown. Pain and shame in equal measure. Her struggles had made him angry, rougher. Then the maid had come in and he’d leaped awayfrom her, smoothed over his waistcoat and pretended nothing had happened.
    And when she told Arthur later, he had called her a liar.
    “Leave me be!” Isabella