In the bay, lights were already shining from the yacht, the skipper making final preparations to leave with the tide. They would be gone within the hour. She could see dark figures moving up and down the Street to the quay, carrying bags and some bundles of tweed that the earl had ordered. Was Sholto one of them?

In spite of his pleas earlier, she hadn’t been able to leave the house before now. Her father, far from picking up their earlier argument and scolding and railing at her, had come home – and wept. The shock had almost floored her. The only other time she had ever seen him shed tears had been when John had died and he, her father, had been left on the clifftop holding half a rope. This was almost as bad and it had knocked her own confusions out of her mind as she sat with him, trying to find comfort in the news – but his two wives were buried here, six of his children lay in the ground. How could he leave them behind?

Like her, like others, she suspected, he hadn’t believed the petition would be granted. Everything else was always refused – a telegraph tower, a dedicated mail boat . . . Why would the politicos in London grant this? He had signed his name only because he had felt obligated to move with the pack. His arthritis meant he couldn’t crag like the other men, he couldn’t provide for the widows or her, his own only remaining child. She supported him. She worked like a man and took the risks they took because he could not. Who was he to say they all must stay, when he could not do anything to contribute to the islanders’ survival effort? In a village of thirty-six people, they had only twenty-three adults – thirteen men and ten women – and once he, Old Fin, Ma Peg and Mad Annie were discounted, that number of able-bodied providers dropped to a critical level. He could not stand in the way of easier, better lives for those he burdened with supporting his own.

And she could not leave him. Not right now, not ever. Though he resented her for not being John, he was her father and he needed her. Her spirit twisted inside her body, agitating her to go outside and meet Sholto, but she had instead sat with him as he wept, then cooked for him as he sat in the chair staring into an unlit fire. They had eaten together quietly, not saying much. And when she’d left him just now, saying she would feed the bull and come straight back, he was puffing on his pipe, looking older than he had yesterday.