Bliss sighed. It wasn’t going to be all that easy to forget Jamie, she had to confess. He kept coming to mind, summoned up by the smallest thing, and even when she was making a deliberate effort not to think of him, she was aware of the sweet elation he had stirred in her body. Much of that still lingered.

After many hours—Bliss was not only tired and cold, but excruciatingly hungry—the traffic became thicker on the road and she could see the first vague glow of the city lights. Excitement lifted her flagging spirits, and she was even able to smile. She’d find a place to spend the night, using money she’d borrowed from the top drawer of Jamie’s desk to pay for her lodging. In the morning, she would buy two good dresses, in order to be decently turned out while seeking a position, and following that, she meant to present herself at her aunt’s door.

The farmer and his wife let her off on the outskirts of the city, near a tram stop, and Bliss smoothed her hair and her rumpled coat and hoped that no one unsavory would notice her. Between the men who had kidnapped her the night she’d run away from the inn and the ordeal on the road with Jamie, Bliss had had enough such problems to last her for a lifetime.

A lamplighter came around before the tram, moving up and down the quiet streets, and Bliss watched him with interest. His task reminded her a little of the life she’d led at the lighthouse, though she’d had to keep the glass polished and clean as well as light the great lamp when darkness fell.

The lamplighter paused. “Lost, miss?” he asked kindly, peering at Bliss through spectacles as thick as the bottom of a teapot.

Bliss swallowed. The man was old, and he looked harmless. “I’m waiting for the tram,” she admitted. “Do you know a good place to board for the night?”

The bespectacled eyes moved over Bliss’s worn and somewhat dirty coat with polite dispatch. “You from the country?” he countered.

Bliss thought it must be perfectly obvious that she was, but she nodded all the same, and answered, “Yes. I’ve come to see my Aunt Calandra, and then I’m going to America.”

“Isn’t everybody?” complained the old man. “Going to America, I mean.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Bliss remarked. Plenty of people seemed to be perfectly happy living in New Zealand—Jamie McKenna, for instance.

“No more trams tonight,” her companion boomed out, abruptly and belatedly. “As to passing the night, Miss Tilly’s is as good a place as any, and it’s right around that corner there.” He paused and pointed. “And down a bit, across from the First Presbyterian Church.”

Grateful not to be left waiting in the cold for transportation that wasn’t going to arrive anytime soon, Bliss thanked the lamplighter for his help and set off determinedly for Miss Tilly’s. Supper, a good hot bath, and a night of sound sleep would make everything look brighter, for sure and for certain.