by Juliana Gray
And then the duke said something else, and a brief silence floated in the air, and Penelope realized that his words had been directed at her.
She turned her surprised gaze from the curve of Ruby’s cheek to the man standing before her.
“Oh!” said Ruby, before her mother could open her mouth. “This is our dear cousin Mrs. Schuyler, who was kind enough to agree to take the voyage with us. Though I do wonder if she’ll repent her generosity by the time we sail past Nova Scotia.”
“Mrs. Schuyler.” The duke fixed his eyes on her, and a rather queer sensation overcame the sensible Mrs. Penelope Schuyler, who had borne so much misfortune with so much fortitude, who had carried on regardless beneath a thick layer of aplomb.
She felt as if someone had just painted the world a most extraordinary shade of summertime blue.
She was too far away to offer her hand, tucked as she was in the shadow of Ruby. She inclined her head politely instead. She was an American, by God, and she didn’t curtsey to dukes. “Your Grace.”
The Duke of Olympia’s eyebrows lifted, as if he were expecting more. But what was she supposed to say? That she was honored to meet him? She couldn’t quite remember.
She must be a little unstrung, she realized, a little thrown off by the intensity of color in the ducal irises. She’d never seen a shade quite like that; certainly not in the center of a magnificent face like that. Ruby had been wrong: The duke wasn’t eight feet tall, or even seven, but he did stand a good three or four inches above six, towering physically and metaphorically above them all. Up close, his hair was more silver than white. He was remarkably lean-waisted and broad-shouldered, a man who evidently didn’t choose to lounge with the other aging dukes in the leather-scented quiet of the club library, snoozing away his remaining afternoons over crisp sheets of newspaper. No, he radiated vigor. He was made of energy. His stomach lay quite flat beneath his white silk waistcoat. His evening clothes fit him elegantly. In short, he wore his seven and a half decades with remarkable ease, and Penelope was trying to work out why and how he effected this almost-youthfulness, and was just concluding that it had something to do with an absence of the customary whiskers, when she heard Ruby laugh.
“She’s not usually so tongue-tied, Your Grace. You must stop glowering at her like that.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the duke, making a little bow. “I fear I was lost in thought. A consequence of my ancient years, I suppose.”
“Oh, no, Your Lordship,” said Mrs. Morrison. “Not ancient at all. Isn’t that right, Ruby?”
Ruby laughed again. “Mama, Your Grace. Not your lordship. Because dukes are another species entirely, you see, and much nearer to God than we. Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”
“In truth,” said Olympia, with a single pat to the watch pocket of his waistcoat, “a simple sir will do. Or Duke, if you must.”
“What do your friends call you?” asked Ruby.
The look he cast her was not the slightest bit amused. “I have no friends, Miss Morrison. But my family, when they deign to address me by something other than a vulgar epithet, call me Olympia.”
“How very intimate,” Penelope said, under her breath.
“We are English, after all.”
The gong sounded over the end of his sentence. Penelope wondered at its temerity.
“Dinner at last,” said Mrs. Morrison. “I believe we have the honor of sitting with you, your . . . your . . . that is . . . Duke?”
The Duke of Olympia turned to the elegantly set table before them, snowy of linen and gleaming of silver—the captain’s table, toward which the captain himself was now advancing, resplendent in uniform and whiskers.
“I fear I shall perish from the pleasure,” he said.
***
The Duke of Olympia’s fine gold Breguet pocket watch read nearly eleven o’clock by the time he shook off the last eager American heiress and her mama and climbed in relieved solitude toward his luxurious stateroom on the topmost deck of the Majestic, one of only four to occupy that privileged space.
Well, it hadn’t been quite so bad, had it? The young ladies were comely, the mamas too intimidated by his height and overall augustness to say much. Miss Morrison—the front-runner, apparently, and well aware of her advantages—had proven more charming and less nasal than he might have expected from the twenty-year-old daughter of a manufacturer of American toilet fixtures. Probably it was the influence of that woman with her, that dependent, a cousin of some kind, the one with the breeding and the quiet and watchful face. She’d conversed mostly with the party sitting next to her, a cantankerous elderly woman in an invalid’s chair and her frigid attendant, but she had listened simultaneously to every word he uttered. He knew this because he’d made some oblique reference to Abraham and his young wives, and she’d tightened her shoulders as if suppressing a burst of laughter and turned her face toward him. For the briefest instant, her amused eyes had met his, as if they were sharing a secret beyond the reach of the human beings around them.
An odd sort of connection, that.
He reached the final landing and turned around the corner of the staircase to the private corridor leading to his stateroom, and then he paused with his hand on the newel post. It was a remarkably gentle evening for the end of March. Perhaps he might step outside for a final breath of air.
As a young man, the Duke of Olympia had relished travel: the farther from England—from its steady patter of sycophantic Your Graces, from its patches of damp earth containing his two dead sons—the better. He had visited very achievable corner of the globe. He had trekked among the Himalayan mountains, he had crossed the Siberian steppes, he had ridden a singularly game horse across the plains of the American west. In his dotage, he was grateful for the luxury of a modern twin-screw steamship of ten thousand gross tonnage, and for his suite of well-appointed rooms perched at its apex, but he still loved the motion of the deck outside, the strong salt draft lifting his hair and reminding him that he was moving, he was going somewhere.
He could use a little of that feeling just now.
He turned and went around the other corner, to the doorway just past the first-class library, leading to the deck outside. Just as he reached for the handle, the portal flew open in a swirling gust of Atlantic air.
“Oh! Your Grace!” said a woman’s voice.
Olympia blinked. “Ah! Mrs. Schuyler, I believe. I beg your pardon.”
They did an awkward dance around each other, he on his way out and she on her way in. When they had both gotten on the right sides of each other, they paused politely.
“You were taking a walk, I presume?” he asked.
“Yes. I can’t go to bed without a bit of fresh air, I’m afraid.”
“I am of exactly the same mind, Mrs. Schuyler,” he said, and again their gazes met, again there was that odd instant of connection. His hand remained on the door handle. He thought, How strange, I should like very much to touch her, and his chest seemed to grow snug. He realized he was holding his breath.
“Well, then. Enjoy your stroll, sir,” said Mrs. Schuyler, and she turned and walked toward the stairway, so quietly that he couldn’t hear her footfalls on the carpet, just the faint swish of her skirts around her legs. She reached perhaps medium height, and her dark hair shone under the electric lights. He glimpsed her profile as she rounded the corner of the staircase, and what caught his notice wasn’t the neat line of her forehead and nose, or the quiet and unshowy symmetry of her chin, but the remarkable smoothness and clarity of her skin, for a woman in perhaps her fifth decade of life. The serenity of her.
Then she was gone, disappeared below the deck, and instead of turning to the door he moved forward to follow her down the staircase.
“Your Grace!”
Olympia stopped and turned his head. “Mr. Simmons,” he said, endeavoring not to sigh. “Have you got something
for me?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The first officer held out his hand, which contained a slight, ratty scrap of paper. He glanced at the staircase and spoke in a soft, confidential voice. “One of the stewards just brought this to my attention. Perhaps you can make sense of it.”
***
A small white rectangle lay on the carpet, just inside the stateroom door. Penelope bent and picked it up.
Miss Ruby Morrison, the envelope proclaimed, in calm black handwriting.
She held it out to Ruby, who was just entering behind her. “For you.”
“For me?” Ruby’s eyebrows arched upward. She took the paper between her fingers and opened the flap of the envelope.
Penelope proceeded to the small washstand, where she unscrewed her garnet earrings (a gift from her late husband, deemed too insignificant for the lawyers to bother with) and began to remove the pins from her heavy, dark hair. John had always loved her hair. Her skin might be taking on lines, and her bosom no longer resided at quite the same height as in happier days, but her hair remained thick. And her eyes were bright, she thought, staring intently into the mirror. Not so luminous as Ruby’s wide hazel mantraps, perhaps, but then she wasn’t trying to trap a man, was she?
No, of course she wasn’t. At her age, in her lowly condition. The idea.
She glanced to the side, where Ruby’s reflection hovered over her shoulder. The Cupid lips had formed into a pink-rimmed O, slightly parted in the center.
“Something interesting?” Penelope asked.
Ruby’s mouth closed. She looked up, smiling, and folded up the paper and stuffed it back into the envelope. “Not really. That awful Miss Crawley we met at tea wants to go walking with me tomorrow morning.”
“Walking where?”
“The promenade deck, I suppose. If the weather holds.” Ruby stifled a yawn. Her cheeks were flushed. “My goodness, I’m exhausted! What a great effort it is, talking to a duke all evening. Watching every word.”
“You? Watching your words?” The last pin came free, and Penelope picked up her brush.
Ruby laughed her tinkling young laugh. “Well, comparatively speaking, of course. He wasn’t so awful, I’ll admit. But I’m not going to let Mama marry me off to him.”
Penelope set down the brush and turned around to unbutton Ruby’s dress. “Don’t leap ahead of yourself, my dear. After all, before you can claim the glory of refusing the Duke of Olympia’s hand in marriage, he first has to offer it.”
Ruby was dead right about exhaustion, however. Whether because of the duke at dinner, or the cold salt air on deck, or the previous week of frantic preparation, Penelope couldn’t even remember drawing up the covers and falling asleep in her berth.
She only found herself startling awake into the night, some unknown time later, under the distinct impression that something––or someone––was moving about the cabin.
The air was perfectly black. Not a single particle of light contaminated the darkness, though Penelope opened her eyes wide to find one. Whoever had invaded the cabin was moving about by touch, not by sight.
She lay still, except for the thump of her heart, which jumped from her chest like an acrobat on a trampoline.
There it was again: the noise that had awakened her. A gentle bump, something soft encountering something hard. Coming from the direction of Ruby’s narrow bed.
Penelope rolled her head toward the sound, and perhaps her eyes had attuned to the darkness now, because she could just make out a shadow hovering in the space before her, a shape only slightly blacker than the blackness around it.
She had locked the cabin door and slid the latch into place. (One could never be too vigilant, after all, even in a first-class berth.) There was no possible way an intruder could have entered without breaking down the door entirely, which meant—
The shadow moved.
More whispery sounds, footsteps on rug. A clink of chain, a rattle of knob. Then a sliver of light appeared on the opposite wall, where the door should be, and the shadow slid through.
The light evaporated in a quiet click.
Penelope swung her feet to the floor and into the waiting slippers. She picked up her dressing gown from the end of the bed, belted it swiftly around her waist, and slipped through the door just as the edge of Ruby’s skirt flew around the end of the corridor.
Penelope allowed herself a single exasperated sigh, and started off after her.
***
In his salad days, the Duke of Olympia had relished a good midnight caper. A young chap bred on tradition and privilege only really came alive when he was knocking about dark alleyways in the dead of night for Queen and country, sifting through shadows, his very blood on the alert.
Now it only meant a good sleep spoiled.
When had it crept up on him, this sense of dissatisfaction? This ennui—he hated the word, but what else could he call it?—this ennui that dogged him. He had first noticed it last year, when his family had gathered together for the birth of his grandniece, every last loving couple billing and cooing, every last great-grandchild running about unchecked. A man should have felt satisfaction at a moment like that. A job well done; a life well spent protecting those he loved, defending the country he worshipped.
Instead, he had never felt more alone. He had never felt so empty of purpose, as if he had sailed unexpectedly into a calm sea, without a breath of wind to urge him onward, without even the sight of land to yearn for.
Curious.
Still, life went on, didn’t it? Duty called, and duty this particular night took the form of an unlit Cuban cigar and a nonchalant stroll along the larboard side of the promenade deck, exactly like an elderly duke worn down by the demands of public life, too preoccupied to sleep. In his pocket he carried the scrap of paper delivered to him by the faithful Mr. Simmons, which had been found on the floor of the first-class saloon when the tables were cleared, wedged by the leg of a dining chair, not far from the spot where he himself had been sitting.
The code was simple, the ink hasty. But it was enough to bring the duke out into the dank air of the promenade deck at half past midnight, wrapped in a thick overcoat against the March draft, caressing a small revolver against the silky lining of his inside pocket, just in case of need.
Olympia turned up his collar. By God, he’d thought these days behind him. What was the point of getting old if you couldn’t leave this sort of discomfort—to say nothing of inconvenience—to the young and foolish? But there was no one else in New York at the time, no one else who could reliably pop aboard an ocean liner for a spot of interception, neat and clean. And there existed this familiar old thread of excitement, dangling its way through the ennui in his veins. No, he couldn’t deny that. He didn’t try. If you couldn’t feel that thread, you might as well settle yourself in your grave, toes pointed toward the heavens, because you certainly weren’t alive.
But by God. If only it were June instead of March.
If only he gave more of a damn.
The ship surged steadily beneath him, destroying the calm pattern of the waves below. He paused to lean against the rails, exactly like an old duke contemplating the eternal heave of the ocean under a solemn half-moon. His gaze traveled down the deck and then, just as negligently, back up. In the dim glow of the lanterns, he could make out no telltale movement along the covered passage between the railing and the side of the ship. He slipped one gloved hand inside his pocket and consulted his watch. Thirty-two minutes past twelve. The French were always late.
Olympia returned his watch to his inside pocket, next to the revolver, and as he patted his lapel back into alignment, a flicker caught the corner of his eye, about halfway down the deck.
Without altering stance in the slightest, he took a small box of safety matches from his outer pocket and lit the cigar that dangled from his lips.
At the sound of
the striking match, the figure—perhaps seventeen yards away, Olympia judged, or maybe eighteen—made a startled movement and turned toward him.
Olympia coaxed the cigar to life in a series of languorous puffs. He turned his head, caught the man’s look of startled horror, and raised his hand in an affable wave. “Never could sleep the first night out,” he called. “You?”
“No, sir.” The man recovered himself and leaned an elbow against the railing, exactly like a fellow shipboard insomniac, except that he clearly wasn’t. He was a young chap, at least by his figure and carriage, which were a shade too eager to suggest anything older than thirty-five, and he wore a suit of dark wool beneath a thick scarf, but no overcoat. His hat sank low on his forehead.
Olympia patted his pockets. “Cigar?”
“No, thank you.” An American.
“Are you certain? It’s a damnably chill night for a man to be out alone without a bit of well-seasoned tobacco to lift his spirits.”
A little flash of white as the man smiled. “Don’t smoke, sir. But I appreciate the offer.”
Olympia pushed off the railing and stretched, affording the fellow a good survey of his massive wingspan. “I do believe this night air is settling the old head after all. Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
The duke strolled down the deck, offering a friendly smile as he passed the young man. He was a handsome chap, tall and fresh-faced: sturdy jaw, wide red American mouth. Large thick-lashed eyes, which he averted quickly, turning his head and placing two hands on the rail as if struck by something he glimpsed out to sea. A man, then, with something to hide.
But—and this caught the sticky end of Olympia’s rampant curiosity—the fellow was certainly not among that list of companions the duke had gathered to his dinner table that evening.
Olympia paused. “Perhaps, sir, if you’re unable to sleep, you would care to join me in a game of chess in the gentlemen’s smoking room.”
“Sir?”
“I find that chess turns one’s mind from one’s troubles in an admirable fashion.”
