The Pearler’s Wife: A gripping historical novel of forbidden love, family secrets and a lost moment in history
A distant land. A dangerous husband. A forbidden love.The year is 1912. Nineteen-year-old Maisie Porter watches from the deck as England fades from view. Her destination is Buccaneer Bay in Australia’s far north-west. Her fate: marriage to distant cousin Maitland Sinclair, a man she has never met.When Maisie arrives in her new home, she finds a stifling small town bound by Victorian morals. Shocked at her new husband’s callous behaviour towards her, she is increasingly drawn to William Cooper, a British diver she met on board ship. It soon becomes clear that secrets surround her husband, as turbulent as the waters that crash against the bay. Secrets that somehow link to her own family – and secrets that put Cooper and his fellow British divers in great danger…From the drawing rooms of London to the latticed verandas and gambling dens of Buccaneer Bay, The Pearler’s Wife is a sweeping, epic read, inspired by a lost moment in history.
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HarperImpulse
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2018
Copyright © Roxane Dhand 2018
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018.
Cover photographs © Lee Avison/Trevillion Images (woman); © Shutterstock.com (additional images).
Roxane Dhand asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008283926
Ebook Edition © February 2018 ISBN: 9780008283919
Version: 2018-01-23
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About HarperImpulse
About the Publisher
For Harry
FROM THE DECK OF the SS Oceanic, Maisie Porter looked down on the wharf. The bugle sounded, signalling that all guests should curtail their farewells and go ashore. Her father had already averted his face and was walking away.
This is it, then, she thought. As she watched him vanish in the distance she could not say if he would miss her. She hoped so but in her heart she doubted it. Over the week before setting sail, Maisie had felt she was being edged towards a precipice, that her days with her family were counting down like the number of nights until Christmas Day. And now here she was, off to Australia. The bugle sounded again, and the ship slid into the stream.
Her mother hadn’t bothered to see her off. Up until the last moment she had wondered if her mother might have made the effort, if only for the pleasure of seeing her go, to give the final shove that propelled her over the cliff edge, permanently out of view.
A few weeks ago, Maisie hadn’t even known her cousin Maitland existed. Now she was on her way to marry him.
She hefted the leather bag at her feet and stood staring at the dot that was her father in the distance, traces of panic rising inside her again. Her heart began to pump hard against her ribcage, like a fist.
When she was a child, Maisie had thought her father was like one of the old leather reference books that lined his library shelves – something to touch only when allowed and to consult on rare and weighty matters – but like the books, he was solid and dependable. Although he was never a man to show his affection, she felt his loss like an engulfing wave.
A steward, tall and portly in his dark uniform, appeared at her elbow, startling her. He looked at her closely, in a way that made her feel exposed, like a curiosity at the circus. She became instantly conscious of her unfashionable travelling clothes, the heavy shoes that rubbed against her heels, the felt hat that couldn’t quite contain her disobedient hair.
Then he blinked and smiled: a tight smile that turned his eyes to slits. ‘May I be of assistance, Miss?’
His grim reproval washed over her. She knew that her face telegraphed her discomfort. She felt colour flood her cheeks, like the sting of the face slap her mother had given her when Maisie tried to protest the arrangement. She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Might you show me to my cabin? I am travelling without my family but am to share with a Mrs Wallace.’
He consulted his list and squinted in the gloom. ‘Miss Porter?’
Maisie nodded.
‘Mrs Wallace is already in the cabin. I’ll walk you there.’
He took her bag and pushed open the door, leading her down a flight of carpeted stairs towards the first-class staterooms. She held on to the handrail, thinking the ceiling was too low, that her feet hurt, that she wanted to run away. The steward steered her along a narrow corridor, until he stopped with a crisp click of polished heels at a sturdy door.
