The Homecoming


 About Alison Stuart
 Australian author ALISON STUART began her writing journey halfway up a tree in the school playground with a notebook and a dream. Her father’s passion for history and her husband’s love of adventure and the Australian bush led to a desire to tell stories of Australia’s past.
 She has travelled extensively and lived in Africa and Singapore. Before turning to writing full time, she enjoyed a long and varied career as a lawyer, both in private practice and in a range of different organisations, including the military and the emergency services.
 Alison lives in a historic town in Victoria.
 Also by Alison Stuart
 The Postmistress
 The Goldminer’s Sister
 Available in ebook from Escape Publishing
 Lord Somerton’s Heir
 A Christmas Love Redeemed
 
 
 www.harpercollins.com.au/hq
 This book was written in 2020/21, through the depths of the Covid pandemic and, as the subject matter I chose for the theme for this story was the medical profession, there can only be one dedication and that is to our amazing doctors, nurses and frontline carers who continue to stand beside us and steer us through this frightening and uncertain time.
 Contents
 About the Author
 Also by Alison Stuart
 One
 Two
 Three
 Four
 Five
 Six
 Seven
 Eight
 Nine
 Ten
 Eleven
 Twelve
 Thirteen
 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-One
 Twenty-Two
 Twenty-Three
 Twenty-Four
 Twenty-Five
 Twenty-Six
 Twenty-Seven
 Twenty-Eight
 Twenty-Nine
 Thirty
 Thirty-One
 Thirty-Two
 Thirty-Three
 Thirty-Four
 Thirty-Five
 Thirty-Six
 Thirty-Seven
 Thirty-Eight
 Thirty-Nine
 Forty
 Forty-One
 Forty-Two
 Forty-Three
 Forty-Four
 Forty-Five
 Forty-Six
 Forty-Seven
 Forty-Eight
 Forty-Nine
 Fifty
 Fifty-One
 Fifty-Two
 Fifty-Three
 Fifty-Four
 Fifty-Five
 Fifty-Six
 Author Notes
 Acknowledgements
 One
 Saturday 5 May 1883
 Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, Victoria
 Charlie O’Reilly stood, ignored, by the door of the most talked-about event in Melbourne, overwhelmed by the knowledge that despite her beautiful dress and her kindly patrons, she did not belong. What would her mother say? Something about silk purses and sow’s ears?
 In her last term at the East Melbourne Academy for Young Ladies, Charlotte O’Reilly—Charlie to her closest friends and family—had no idea how her benefactress Eliza McLeod had secured her an invitation to the social event of the year, a party thrown by the prominent member of the Legislative Council, Caleb Hunt, and his wife Adelaide to celebrate both the safe return of their eldest son, Daniel, from his travels abroad, and his coming of age.
 When the invitation arrived, Charlie had cracked the seal on the heavy cream envelope and withdrawn the stiff, gilt-edged card with Miss C. O’Reilly inscribed in copperplate at the top. Her school friends oohed and ahhed and told her how lucky she was, but she knew that behind her back they probably laughed and sneered.
 Eliza McLeod had taken her to a dressmaker in Collins Street, as excited as any Mama would be about a daughter’s first proper ball. Madame tutted at Charlie’s height—‘Too tall!’—and lack of feminine proportions—‘Too thin!’—but the green silk evening dress she produced was the most beautiful thing Charlie had ever owned. Eliza smiled and said it brought out the green in Charlie’s eyes. Eliza’s nine-year-old daughter, Cecilia, who had accompanied her mother on the shopping expedition, clapped her hands and declared that Charlie looked like a princess.
 On the night of the party, those of her schoolmates not invited helped her dress. They twisted and curled her hair into fashionable ringlets and gushed over the lustrous emerald earrings and necklace that Eliza McLeod had loaned her. For all her physical failings Charlie thought, as she turned to admire herself in the mirror, she had scrubbed up quite well. Her mother would not recognise her.
 But nothing in her rough-and-tumble upbringing or even the years at the academy had really prepared her for such a high-society party. Several girls from the school were there, dancing attendance on the scion of the Hunt household, but even with Eliza and her husband Alec McLeod beside her, Charlie felt awkward, out of place and alone.
 She peeked over her fan at the centre of attention. Although the McLeods and the Hunts were close friends, she’d not met Daniel before tonight. On the very few occasions she had been in the company of the Hunts, Daniel had been at school and, in more recent years, at Oxford.
 He was not as tall as his father, Caleb, a handsome man with dark hair, greying at the temples, and a taste for colourful waistcoats. Daniel’s hair was a lighter brown. In fact, it struck her, he looked nothing like his father, more closely resembling his mother with her striking light grey eyes.
 Eliza and Alec McLeod were distracted by people they knew and, overwhelmed by the crowd, Charlie accepted a glass of champagne and retreated into an alcove, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor behind a large potted palm where she could watch unobserved as her school friends simpered and cooed around Daniel Hunt and several of his male friends.
 She had no way of knowing if he enjoyed the attention. He had been far too well brought up to give any sign of discomfort. In the room next door, the orchestra struck up, and Charlie strained to see if Eliza and Alec were taking to the floor.
 Too late she looked up to see Daniel Hunt looking down at her, a bemused smile on his face. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asked.
 A perfectly reasonable question in the circumstances but words failed her and the heat rose to her cheeks. ‘I … I …’ she stuttered.
 ‘Who are you?’ he said.
 ‘Char … Charlotte O’Reilly.’ She tried to smile but, conscious of how strange she must look sitting cross-legged behind a potted palm, clutching a glass of champagne, her smile faltered.
 Daniel Hunt considered her for a long moment. ‘Mind if I join you?’
 She moved over and he squeezed in beside her, drawing up his knees. They sat in silence for several long minutes, drinking their now warm glasses of champagne.
 ‘It’s your party,’ Charlie said.
 ‘I know but I