A Shop Girl at Sea

by Rachel Brimble

  When he’d been rowing away from the Titanic, he’d sent up a prayer that he’d be able to get Amelia to safety and see her running towards a new life with abandon. Yet now, all his wants and dreams for this beautiful woman had been replaced with anger and revulsion towards the monster who had attacked and violated her.

  He gripped his glass, his shoulders tense. ‘Amelia…’

  ‘Don’t say a word about what happened to me. I only told you to make you understand who I really am. Who the woman is you’ve been spending time with.’

  Sadness squeezed hard around his heart. ‘You say that as though that woman is someone to be avoided.’

  ‘Would you really have treated me so wonderfully all this time if you’d known I’d been raped? Well?’

  ‘Of course I would.’ He reached out to touch her, but she moved sharply back. ‘I am so angry for you. Furious, in fact. I want to go back home and hunt down the scum who attacked you. This isn’t me about me not wanting to be with you now I know—’

  ‘Well, whether that’s true or not, I cannot understand why you would listen to your mother, or change your plans for your sister, when you have already looked after them for so many years. Our lives are own, as are theirs. We are young and without children. Why should we answer to anyone after what we’ve been through? We don’t owe our families our lives, Samuel. We owe them respect and love, but that’s it. You have a job here now. You have to try. We both have to try.’

  He looked across the bar. ‘If I don’t go back, I have no idea what will happen to them.’ He turned, sorrow knotting his gut. ‘I promised my father I’d look after Ma and the girls. How can I just forget that?’

  She stared at him before inhaling a shaky breath and slowly releasing it. ‘Fine. Then go.’

  ‘Amelia—’

  But she was already off her stool and marching towards the bar’s doors. Samuel clenched his jaw, every muscle in his body tense. Now what? Did he follow her? Leave her? He couldn’t stay in New York. Yet, deep inside, he knew he couldn’t leave Amelia here on her own either. Especially now he’d seen the deep, deep hurt in her eyes; knew the burden and suffering she’d most likely carried in silence for months, maybe even years. They were set on this path together and his gut told him that they were supposed to end their journeys that way, too.

  She’d been raped.

  Red-hot anger rose bitter in his throat and he lifted his gaze to the barman. ‘Another.’

  Forty-One

  Ruby left Pennington’s through its gilded front doors exited onto the busy street. It was a bright but chilly day and she lifted her hand to shield the sun from her eyes as she looked up and down the length of Milsom Street.

  She looked at the faces of the people as they passed, noting the hunch of their shoulders and the strangely slow pace at which they wandered. No one needed any more proof of how the Titanic’s sinking had shaken people’s happiness and hope.

  She breathed deep. Her job was to ensure that whoever passed Pennington’s main window felt at least a modicum of joy, even if only for a moment or two. She was determined to create a wedding window so spectacular that people would once again stop in front of Pennington’s and stare in awe. People needed something new and beautiful after such a tragedy.

  Her heart filled with determination, Ruby walked along the front of the store to the main window. It had been hard opening the curtains to reveal such an unusually empty space, but she needed to consider what she had to work with from outside. Needed to stand in front of the window and envision what the public would see once she’d completed her display.

  Lifting her pencil to her lips, she narrowed her eyes.

  Instead of having the bride and groom centre stage, she would position them to the side and have the bride wearing as long a train as possible, two young bridesmaids and a family looking on proudly. The backdrop would be a country chapel, fields, blue sky and soft clouds.

  She needed to bring a sense of summer; of long days giving way to warm evenings.

  Romance. Hope. Possibility.

  Feverishly scribbling in her notepad, Ruby poured everything from her imagination onto the page. She stopped and stared again at the window, mentally picturing all she could include from each department. Esther had set the bar high with her effortless ability to advertise as much of Pennington’s merchandise as possible within a single display.

  Homewares. The toy department. Men and ladieswear. Jewellery. Accessories…

  Ruby paused. Would Victoria have specific ideas for the Accessories department? Most probably.

  Her and Tommy’s first night in Victoria’s home had been wonderful, and she had no doubt that tonight would be the same. Tommy seemed equally infatuated with Victoria as Ruby, which only reaffirmed Victoria’s kindness and amiability. Despite the loss of her husband and her treatment during her childhood, Victoria sparkled with generosity and love, two things that Tommy desperately needed right now.

  As anger towards her mother rose like a smouldering ember behind her chest, Ruby strode back towards Pennington’s doors, determined her energy in her new project would not be diminished by her concentration drifting in an entirely unwanted direction.

  It was near closing time and Pennington’s atrium was less busy, so she quickly headed for the door at the back of the main window. Hurrying inside, she pulled the curtains closed, happily humming to herself in the knowledge that the next time she opened them, it would be to reveal the wedding display.

  She had just a few short weeks to get everything in place.

  The sound of the back door being clicked closed behind her echoed in the small space and Ruby turned.

  ‘How are things coming along?’ Victoria smiled. ‘I saw you come in from the street and guessed you were thinking about what the display will look like from outside.’

  ‘I was.’ Ruby’s body tingled with desire as her mind filled with the closeness of Victoria, clad in a white nightdress, as they’d sipped tea in front of the fire last night, the light softly romantic from the two lit lamps on small tables either end of the settee. The yearning to touch her had been torturous.

  She tucked some hair behind her ear. ‘I know exactly what I want to do, but I worry just how sincere Mr Carter was about allowing me some of his workroom staff to help me. I’m going to need more than one pair of extra hands if I’m to ensure the window is ready by the 1st of June.’

  Victoria wandered around the space, the semi-darkness further softening her pretty features and the hue of her red hair. She looked over the floor, towards the curtains and then the ceiling.

  Her face was relaxed and happy as she met Ruby’s gaze. ‘Weddings are so special, aren’t they?’

  The wistfulness in Victoria’s voice aroused a longing in Ruby for a day she would never have. Even if Victoria were to ever return her feelings, two women would never be allowed to marry. Homosexuality was so abhorrent to most of society that men had lost their lives for acting on their passions. She had no doubt there were thousands of men and women all over the world who wished they could feel differently, just as she did almost every day.

  ‘Ruby?’

  She blinked and forced a smile. ‘Yes, they are very special.’

  Victoria frowned and came closer, gently touching Ruby’s elbow. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

  ‘You had a troubled look on your face a moment ago. You are happy that you and Tommy have come to live with me, aren’t you?’

  ‘More than you could possibly know,’ Ruby said, trembling under the heat of Victoria’s touch, the caress of her beautiful green eyes. ‘I’ve never felt so free. I’m sure Tommy will come to feel the same in time. Right now, he’s still thinking about Ma but that won’t last long once he understands what living with you means.’

  ‘Which is what? You must tell me if anything is worrying you.’

  Ruby dropped her gaze to Victoria’s mouth for a hazardous second before meeting her eyes. ‘No. Everything is wonderful.
’

  Victoria’s hand continued to linger on Ruby’s elbow, her eyes fixed on hers. The atmosphere between them seemed to shift to something… more intimate. Ruby watched in fascination as Victoria’s gaze darkened with what looked to be longing, her cheeks flushing a light pink, before she abruptly released her.

  She smiled brightly and stepped towards the door. ‘Are you leaving soon? Only I was going to get away now so I have time to pick up something for dinner. I’ll wait for you if you’re not going to be too long.’

  ‘Um, no, you go ahead,’ Ruby said, feigning interest in her notebook, her heart racing. ‘I want to see if I can catch Mr Carter before he leaves.’ Her hands turned clammy. Had it really been longing she’d seen in Victoria’s gaze? Desire? ‘Tell Tommy I’ll be home in time for dinner. Is seven o’clock too late?’

  ‘No, that’s fine. It will give me time to prepare everything.’ Victoria’s gaze wandered over Ruby’s hair before she turned to the door. ‘See you in a while.’

  Ruby’s feet remained frozen to the floor as the door closed behind Victoria. Every part of her treacherous body told Ruby that something had just happened between her and Victoria. Could she dare to hope that she was beginning to look at Ruby as she never had before? Or was the way Victoria studied her just now nothing more than Ruby imagining things – hoping things – now that they would be spending time in such close proximity?

  Ruby crossed her arms and tried to return her focus to her work rather than the nonsensical possibility that Victoria, a woman once married to a man, might come to see her as anything more than a friend.

  Closing her eyes, she envisioned the finished wedding display, revelling in the excitement that immediately tumbled in her stomach. Only this time, it wasn’t a bride and groom who filled her imagination as they stood resplendent at the side of the window, it was her and Victoria…

  Forty-Two

  Amelia hadn’t spoken to Samuel for two days and the lingering sadness that weighed heavy on her heart refused to abate.

  But at least she had seen him… even if she had then walked as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.

  She couldn’t believe she’d shared her shame and humiliation – her rape – with him, and now had no idea how to convince him he couldn’t turn his back on a new life at the very first obstacle – his mother and sister. She had been wrong to verbalise her desperation for him to not surrender his dreams by trying to shock him into submission.

  Her tactic had been callous. How on earth was he supposed to react to such a vile revelation? Her cheeks burned. How she’d ever face him again, she had no idea.

  And now, as she walked through the hotel lobby in search of a somewhere for dinner, she was in exactly the same predicament as Samuel. Her obstacle had presented itself this afternoon when she’d received a telegram from Elizabeth voicing her excitement for Amelia to return and infuse her new knowledge about New York’s stores into Ruby Taylor’s plans for a new wedding display.

  The telegram continued to plague Amelia three hours later. Elizabeth was a hard woman to refuse and she had made it clear she was set on Amelia’s imminent return. How was she to stay here when she owed all she had to Pennington’s? Her selfish excitement now felt like blatant infidelity.

  She had been wrong to push Samuel as she had – if she couldn’t refuse Elizabeth, her employer, why on earth should Samuel refuse his family? Yet, apology and acquiescence continued to battle on her tongue. Amelia wanted him to remain, wanted him to live the life of his dreams, even if she must return to Bath.

  Elizabeth’s telegram and Samuel’s family had doused the flames that ignited in Amelia at RH Macy’s and left behind a mass of ashes; her dreams and Samuel’s left grey and dying. They both had commitments neither had the heart or courage to break from. No matter how much they both might wish or dream of a different life, a different future, they were duty bound by promises out of their control.

  Amelia couldn’t deny their anguish and disappointment, but at least their feelings illustrated them to be loyal and steadfast. Even if their predetermined destinies meant they could not be those things to one another.

  The bright lights of Broadway flickered and sparkled in her peripheral vision as she walked, the smells of fried food and spices filling her nostrils, the beeping of motorcar horns and jazz music mixing into an alien city melody. A drumbeat of a life so different than she would ever find in Bath; an excitement she longed to explore now that she’d found it, but it was not to be.

  How could she have allowed herself such fantasy? She was nothing more than a girl abandoned by her parents and raised in an orphanage. A servant girl, someone used, violated and discarded. Why would she think herself anything more when all the signs were there that she belonged in servitude and obedience? Every time she tried to better herself, step a little closer towards a brighter future, she was cut down and reminded of her place in this unforgiving world.

  She stopped outside a restaurant and stared through the window at the diners enjoying each other’s company inside. The restaurant’s lighting was low, the wooden tables decorated with pale blue cloth and centrepieces of matching flowers and candles. A musician swept his fingers across the keys of a piano at the back of the room, the bar at one side beautifully lit and stocked with an array of spirits and wines Amelia could not even begin to name.

  ‘It’s like an adult’s Christmas grotto.’

  Startled, she turned. ‘Samuel!’

  His wonderfully blue eyes settled on hers with an intensity she had started to like far too much. He softly smiled. ‘So, you are speaking to me then?’

  Heat seared her cheeks and she dragged her gaze from his to look along the street. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen you hurrying away from me in the hotel. I also saw you leave your breakfast half-finished when I walked into the hotel dining room yesterday. Not to mention how you now place the ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door whenever you’re in your room.’

  All true. She slumped. ‘Fine, I’ve been avoiding you.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  The irony in his voice was warranted and Amelia was grateful for it as she laughed and playfully nudged him with her elbow. ‘I’m sorry. I was wrong to avoid you after I… told you what I did. If you still wish to speak to me, would you like to join me for dinner? Are you hungry?’

  He offered her his arm. ‘Starving.’

  The aromas of basil and spice enveloped them as Samuel led Amelia into the restaurant. She became acutely aware that only couples were seated at the small and intimate tables. No families or single people, just lovers. Self-consciousness rolled through her and Amelia sneaked a glance at Samuel who seemed completely oblivious and unperturbed by their romantic surroundings as he spoke to a waiter.

  Once they were seated, their drinks and food ordered, Amelia fiddled with her cutlery as her nervousness returned. She must confess her change of plan about staying to Samuel which was mortifying after she’d behaved so unforgivably towards him. She’d been so brusque. So severely candid. And then just walked away from him, despite having seen his distress and anger after her revelation about her assault.

  ‘So…’ He placed his forearms on the table, his fingers close to hers. ‘How have the last couple of days been for you? Have you visited any other department stores? Considering my inexcusable reaction when you told me about RH Macy’s, I promise I will sit here and listen properly this time.’

  She relaxed her shoulders, liking him even more for not berating her behaviour and part in their disagreement. ‘I behaved so much worse than you. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So am I, but no apologies needed.’ He squeezed her fingers. ‘We were both in an agitated state. Although yours was born of optimism and excitement to begin with.’

  She sighed. ‘Well, considering how things have changed since we last spoke, my apology is very necessary.’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’


  ‘I mean—’

  ‘Your drinks, sir, madam.’ The waiter placed their glasses on the table with a flourish. ‘Your food will be here shortly.’

  The waiter retreated and Samuel picked up his glass. ‘A toast to us. To survival and friends.’

  ‘Survival and friends.’ Amelia clinked her glass to his before sipping the wine. ‘You really are a wonderful man, you know. Probably the most wonderful I’ve ever met.’

  Concern immediately shadowed his gaze and she regretted her gushing. No doubt she’d reminded him of the untrustworthy and vile men she’d had the misfortune to meet in the past.

  ‘Amelia—’

  ‘I received a telegram from Elizabeth Pennington today,’ she said, slowly placing her glass on the table, not wanting to allow his care for her to distract her from her confession. ‘Everything is now changed.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Please, Samuel, let me say this. I can’t think of anything else when I was so pushy with asking you to stay, to honour your friend’s memory. I had no right to do that. You see, Elizabeth is desperately looking forward to my return, to seeing me alive and well and listening to my ideas for the store. She begged me to come back to Pennington’s on the first available ship and said how excited she was to hear about all I’d seen and done. I just haven’t the heart to refuse her. I owe her everything and so…’ She took a fortifying sip of wine and forced a smile. ‘I, too, will be returning to England. Your adventure is over and so is mine which probably means it will turn out the best for both of us.’

  He shook his head, his brow furrowed. ‘How can you say that? I have never seen you so animated and happy as when you returned from RH Macy’s. You want to stay, Amelia, I know you do.’

  She looked at his hand where it still lay so close to hers, uncertainty whispering through her as her remembered joy of the department store, of her time with Samuel, of their kiss, formed an ache around her heart. All that had brought her such happiness was over. It was time to return to the real world.