Fateful Page 2

  But I mustn’t smile. I imagine the old oil paintings that hang on the walls of Moorcliffe, those moldy ancestors in the fashions of another century, imprisoned by frames dripping with gilt. My face needs to be as serene as theirs. As unreadable. The Lisle family and Mrs. Horne must not suspect.

  Ned and I do what Mrs. Horne says and hurry along in the family’s wake, as much a part of their display of wealth and power as the clothes that they wear. He’s Layton’s valet, a job I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, much less dear friendly Ned. He has a long, thin face, ginger hair, and ears like the handles on a milk jug, and yet he’s charming despite his plain face. Thanks to the isolation of life at Moorcliffe, Ned’s one of the few young men I know—one of the only ones I’ve ever known. But we’ve never had eyes for each other. Honestly, after so many years in service together, he feels more like a brother.

  I’ve known Mrs. Horne as long as I’ve known Ned, so perhaps I ought to say that she feels more like a mother to me. She doesn’t feel like anybody’s mother, though. It’s impossible to imagine anyone as dry and joyless as Mrs. Horne having given birth to anything, or doing what you have to do to get with child in the first place. (We call her Mrs., but it’s an honorary title; you don’t have to have a husband to be a Mrs., just really old, so Mrs. Horne counts.) She’s the ladies’ maid for Lady Regina, and essentially has the role of housekeeper at Moorcliffe. Nobody among the servants outranks her except the butler, who’s too senile to matter much.

  Most of the time, Mrs. Horne terrifies me. She has total power over my life—how much food I get to eat, how many hours I get to sleep, whether I stay in the house to work or get cast out to starve.

  But not anymore, I think, and it’s all I can do not to smile into her shriveled, smug face. One week from now, everything will be different.

  As we get closer, walking becomes easier. We’ve made it through the passersby, the curiosity seekers; now, everyone is moving in the same direction, flowing onboard. The ship looms over us, taller than the church steeple, taller than anything I’ve ever seen. It seems larger and more majestic than the mud-colored ocean.

  Lady Regina waves at one of her society friends, then says, too casually, “Horne, you ought to know that we’ve put the three of you in third class. I understand that the stewards will show you how best to reach us.”

  Ned and I can’t resist looking at each other in dismay, and even Mrs. Horne’s thin lips twist in a poor effort to hide her disappointment. When the Lisle family last took a sea voyage a decade ago, the servants stayed in first class with them—feather beds soft as clouds, they said, and more food than you’d ever seen on your own table in your life. We’d hoped for the same. Some people make their servants travel second class; third class is unheard of.

  “We’ll be penned down below with a lot of damned foreigners,” Ned mutters. It does sound dreadful, but I remind myself how little it matters.

  Layton waves at their friends—approaching now, no doubt fellow passengers. They will have several days on the ocean to talk to one another, but of course they must pay each other every compliment immediately. My arms ache, and I want nothing more than to lay the hatboxes on the ground while we wait. Irene wouldn’t mind, but Mrs. Horne wouldn’t have it. I call on the muscles I have from years of scrubbing floors to see me through.

  Then Lady Regina says, “Tess, set those hatboxes down. Mrs. Horne can see to them.”

  Mrs. Horne looks put out, probably because she’s now got to handle a small child and four hatboxes. I do what Lady Regina says straightaway and present myself for whatever task she has in mind—because it’s not even worth asking if she saw I was tired. She wouldn’t care. The only reason I get to lay one piece of work aside is to take up another.

  Lady Regina snaps her fingers at one of the porters she hired to help, and he hands me a carved wooden box—heavier than all the hatboxes put together. What can they have in there? I manage to grip the small iron handles, though the twists of the metal press into my palms so sharply that they burn. “Yes, milady?” I say. The words come out breathy, as if I’d been running uphill; last night I was too unnerved by the strange incident with the wolf to sleep well, and my exhaustion is showing earlier than usual.

  “This needs to be placed in our suite immediately,” Lady Regina says. “I’m uncomfortable leaving it on the dock so long—there are rough characters about. The stewards onboard will show you the way. We’ve arranged for a safe in our cabin; that’s where you’re to put the box. Don’t go leaving it on a table. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, milady.” I’m never meant to say anything else to her besides “yes” and “no.”

  Lady Regina stares down at me as though I have deviated from the rules in some way. She is a handsome woman, with vibrant beauty that didn’t come down to her daughter—lustrous brown hair and an aquiline nose. Her wide-brimmed hat is thick with plumes and silk flowers, a striking contrast to my shabby black maid’s dress and white linen cap.

  “I don’t like sending you to do this alone,” she says sharply. “But I don’t suppose you can manage as many boxes as Ned, and besides—you won’t run off, will you?”

  “No, milady.”

  Her full lips curl into a contemptuous smile. “I trust you’re a better sort than your sister.”

  It feels like scalding water being poured over me, or perhaps like being thrown outside into a snowdrift on an especially cruel winter’s day—something so shocking the body hardly knows how to take it in. My skin burns with rage, as though it’s too tight for me, and my mouth goes dry. I’d like to rip that hat off Lady Regina’s head. I’d like to rip her hair out with it.

  I say, “Yes, milady.”

  As I go, I feel a strange wave of dread—as though I were back in that alleyway last night. Hardly likely to find a wolf stalking here, amid the ship’s crowd. And yet I feel something prickling along my neck and back, the way I imagine a rabbit knows the cat is watching.

  The weight of the box pulls at the joints of my arms, but it’s worth it for a few moments of escape. Or so I tell myself. In truth, it’s a little frightening to be on my own in a crowd like this—more people than I’ve ever seen in one place, all of them pushing and shoving. Also, I can’t tell precisely where I’m supposed to go. There is an entry for first-class passengers, another for third class—going to different decks of the ship altogether. I look down at my burden. Which of us counts more: me or my employers’ possession?

  Then I feel it again, that prickle at the back of my neck. The hunter’s eyes on its prey. I glance behind me, expecting to see—what? The wolf from the night before? The young man who rescued me, then told me to flee for the sake of my life? I see neither. In the crush, perhaps I can’t see them, but then they wouldn’t be able to see me either. But someone’s watching. I know he’s there, down deep within me, in the place that doesn’t respond to thought or logic, just pure animal instinct.

  Someone in this crowd of strangers is watching me.

  Someone is hunting me.

  “Lost your way, miss?” says a bluff sort of man, with red cheeks and sky-blue eyes. His voice makes me jump, but the interruption is welcome. He wears what I believe is an officer’s uniform, so why he’s speaking to the likes of me, I can’t imagine. But his voice and face are kind, and I feel safer having somebody to talk to, no matter who it might be.

  “I’m to deliver this to my employers’ cabin,” I say. “I’m in the service of the Viscount Lisle’s family.”

  “Then it’s first class for you.”

  “But I’m traveling in third class.”

  He frowns. “A bit cheap, aren’t they?”

  I ought to be prim and offended that he’s slighted the family I work for. Instead, I have to stifle a giggle. “I know it must be . . . unusual. But now I don’t know how to board the ship.”

  “First class, I think. I remember the head steward talking about this now—they’ve arranged for you to have keys to help you get about. Unusual, ye
s, but nothing is too good for the family of a viscount.” The touch of sarcasm in his voice is light enough to allow me to ignore the joke or enjoy it, as I prefer. I enjoy it. “The stewards will show you the way once you get aboard. Sure you don’t want to get one of them to handle it? That looks heavy for you.”

  It’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me in days, and I’m surprised to feel a small lump in my throat. But I know my duty; I know the potential repercussions. “Milady wants me to handle this personally. Thank you just the same, sir.”

  He touches his cap before striding away to whatever duty he put aside to help me. I hurry to the first-class gangplank, hoping that whoever was staring at me before is third class. Some foreigner, no doubt.

  And maybe it was no more than my imagination playing tricks on me, bringing out the fear beneath my skin. I have reasons enough to be nervous. This voyage—these next few days—are going to change my life forever.

  The first-class gangplank is more like a promenade; people take their time, seeing and being seen in the sunshine. Ladies turn that way and this so that their wide-brimmed hats will be seen to their best advantage, and they hold parasols of finely worked lace that cast scrolling shadows below. Gentlemen’s canes and shoes shine. It might be a fashion parade, were it not for the few servants in the mix panting under our burdens. We move so slowly that I dare to put the box down for a few seconds.

  As my tired muscles relax, I slip one hand into the pocket of my dress. There I clasp a small felt purse, one I sewed myself out of scraps. I had to do the work late at night, and they only allow us one candle in the attic, so it’s hardly my finest accomplishment as a seamstress. But nobody sees this purse besides me.

  The felt is heavy in my hand. Through the fabric, I can feel the weight of coins, the slip of wadded notes. For the past year and a half, I’ve saved every bit of money I could. I even kept a pound note I found on the stair the morning after a dinner party—a real risk, one that could’ve got me sacked if anybody had found out. Nobody did.

  I’ve saved enough to live on for a couple of months. That’s not very long, but it’s more than I’ve ever had together in my whole life, even though I’ve been in service since I left school at thirteen. It’s going to be enough.

  Enough so that, when this ship reaches the United States, I can walk off it, slip away from Lady Regina and Mrs. Horne, and never, ever come back.

  We shuffle forward on the gangplank, and I take the box up again. It feels even heavier than before, but I can bear it. Freedom is only a few days away.

  All I have to do is make it through this one trip, I think, as I step off the gangplank and finally board the RMS Titanic.

  Chapter 3

  MY LORD, THIS SHIP IS BEAUTIFUL.

  The path for the first-class passengers to enter the ship begins near their dining hall, and the staircase leading down to it is more magnificent than anything found in Moorcliffe. Gleaming carved wood, stairs arching down in two graceful curves, a cast-iron clock finely molded: This is something I would expect to see in a great manor house, not a ship. Even the creamy beige carpet beneath my feet is thicker and softer than any Aubusson rug.

  Or am I naive? As I begin this journey from the life I have always known, I am acutely aware of the limits of my experience. So who am I to judge this ship or its grandeur? Perhaps this is very ordinary, and I reveal myself as an ignorant country girl by marveling at it.

  But no. I turn my attention to the wealthy people around me, and although they are too refined to voice their amazement, I can read it in their eyes. A good servant learns how to study faces, to glean hints of her employers’ moods from the slightest change in expression—but no such subtleties are necessary here. They laugh in delight, smile at one another in satisfaction, and allow their hands to trail sensually along the fine wood carving. The Titanic is as spectacular to them as it is to me. No one here is immune to its splendor—

  Wait. Someone is. Two someones, in point of fact.

  Just inside the doorway, unobserved by most of those walking past, are two gentlemen. Both are remarkably tall and broad-shouldered. One is a little older, perhaps nearing his thirtieth year. He wears a Vandyke beard as black as iron . . . rather like that of the man who briefly accosted me in the street, though my glimpse of him was too swift to be sure of any true likeness. The other—

  Him, too, I only saw briefly, but I would never forget his face. The other is the young man from last night.

  He is younger than I’d realized. My elder perhaps by only four or five years—twenty-two, then? And now that we are in light—both the brilliant sunshine and the glow from the Titanic’s elegant frosted-glass lamps—I am free to really look at him. To drink him in.

  His jaw is strong and sharply angled, throwing his high cheekbones into relief. His mouth is well-shaped, with full lips any girl would desire. Shoulders broad, waist narrow, a hint of real muscle beneath. I remember how firm his body was when he pressed me against the wall. His wildly curly hair—in that deep chestnut color, with fine glints of red that bring out the dark brown of his eyes—I cannot decide if it is his one flaw or his best feature. Untamable, I would guess. He doesn’t clip it short as most gentlemen would in a similar situation. Instead he lets the curls flow freely, as I’ve heard artists and bohemians do. This is no bohemian, though, nor any sailor, as I briefly suspected; the well-cut suit he wears speaks of his wealth and privilege.

  My steps slow. The box is suddenly no longer heavy in my hands, or at least I don’t feel the ache of it. I can’t get over the shock of seeing him again, seeing him here, or of the powerful effect he has on me.

  It feels as though he must notice me—as though whatever strange force brought us together last night would call to him as powerfully as it calls to me—and yet he doesn’t turn. He and his fellow traveler are distracted. They lean in closely to each other, as though they do not wish their conversation to be overheard. His body is twisted slightly away from that of the man with the Vandyke beard, as though he wished to walk in another direction. But they talk so intently. Are they arguing or conspiring? I can’t tell. And usually I am good at reading people—

  The tense moment between them snaps as his companion, the one with the beard, looks up at me—as though he were the one tied to me, not his friend. His icy blue eyes sweep over me, only for a split second, but it is enough to send a chill through the marrow of my bones.

  He looks as if he knows me. As if he hates me. And there is something eerily familiar in his gaze. Is that the man from last night after all?

  Quickly I turn away. Surely his animosity is no more than a rich man’s irritation. He has caught me eavesdropping on their conversation—intruding on my betters. If he complains to a purser or, worse, to Lady Regina, my life won’t be worth leading over the next five days.

  And yet I feel the stare on my back again. It is as real as the clothes on my back. It is cold, and it is evil, and it follows me even as I walk toward the nearest steward to make my escape.

  The Lisles’ suite is located on A deck, which I can tell from the steward’s expression is especially grand. The first-class passengers are all escorted to their cabins, but the steward expects me to find my own way. He doesn’t offer to take the box from me, or find anyone else to take it—why should he?—and so I set it at my feet as we conduct our business. I am given the key to their rooms and the safe’s combination without question; I cannot be a useful servant without having access to anything my employers could possibly desire.

  Then he takes out another key. “This lets you go from third class to first class.” His face is sour. “We’re not meant to be handing these things out to everyone. United States regulations say we have to keep those doors shut, and if we find you haven’t, we’ll confiscate that key posthaste, and the viscount’s lady will just have to do without her servants for a while.”

  This steward has clearly never met Lady Regina; she’d wither him on the spot with a mere glare. But I’m meant to be cowed
and serious, so I nod as I drop the key into my pocket and stoop to pick up the box. “Yes, sir. I’ll be careful, sir.”

  He nods and waves me off, already eager to turn his attention to people far more worth his time. The rest of the way, I’m on my own.

  I cast one glance behind me to make sure the bearded man with the cold blue eyes isn’t watching any longer. He’s nowhere to be seen. And yet I still feel the hunter’s gaze. With a shiver, I hurry toward the lift, eager to get farther from him.

  Even the hallways of the Titanic are luxurious. The carpet, now red with a floral pattern, is soft beneath my aching feet, and the white paint is gleaming and new. After the clamor of the dock, the silence is startling. Although others down the corridor are entering their first-class accommodations, nobody is especially close. It feels briefly as though I have the ship to myself.

  What would I do, if I were on this vessel all alone for five days? All alone except for the crew, of course; I’d scarcely get very far without them. I could slide down those majestic banisters on the grand staircase. I could sit by myself in the sumptuous dining hall and snap my fingers, demanding course after course of the sort of rich food I usually only get if Cook has burnt it too badly for the Lisles to eat. And what would I wear? With only the crew to look at me—no one to boss me, no one to judge—there would be no more need for this shabby uniform. I imagine taking off my white bonnet and letting it float down from the deck railings into the ocean below. The sharks can eat it, for all I care.

  So pleasant is it to daydream, unhampered, that I do not notice the man coming close to me until he is almost at my side.

  It’s him. Not my chestnut-haired man—the older one with the Vandyke beard. I know now that he is indeed the same one who accosted me the night before. Nor is this merely awkward coincidence—his gaze focuses on me, and his jaw is set.

  “So, you like to listen to other people’s conversations.” His voice is a deep bass rumble, and the words are accented in a way that is unfamiliar to me—Russian, perhaps? The Lisles entertain foreign nobility too rarely for me to be certain. “Last night, and again this morning! That is a good way to hear many interesting things, but very bad manners. Very bad manners indeed.”