by Juliana Gray
“Good morning, Your Grace!” (She had evidently spent the night in the company of a conduct book detailing the modes of polite address.) “What a very great pleasure to have you join us for breakfast. I do love a good breakfast, especially when I’m near the sea. And you can’t get much nearer than an ocean liner, can you? I remember when we sailed to Paris last year—we like to sail to Paris for our clothes, you know, because these French dressmakers are so much more à la mode, don’t you think? So much more in advance of the ones back home, not that I would ever criticize our own kind, it’s just a matter of taste, you know—as I said, I remember when we . . . when . . .” Here she was forced to stop and blink, because she had in fact already forgotten what she had just remembered.
“When you sailed to Paris last year?” said the Duke of Olympia, who had endured with fortitude her entire speech, wincing only slightly at the flat, long-voweled delivery of the words à la mode.
“Yes, but . . . what?” She tapped her coffee cup.
“Ah. Well. I await eagerly the return of your recollection, Mrs. Morrison.” Olympia turned to the opposite side of the table and fixed Penelope with the kind of amicable blue gaze that might have pulverized a lesser woman and blown her remains away to fertilize the four corners of the earth. “Miss Morrison? Mrs. Schuyler? I trust you passed a peaceful night.”
Ruby set down her cup. “How extremely kind of you to inquire, Your Grace. We are both amazingly well, aren’t we, Mrs. Schuyler? Just absolutely grand this morning.”
“Indeed,” said Penelope. Her skin prickled. She knew that voice of Ruby’s, the silken drawl of those consonants, and it meant only one thing: Miss Morrison was up to something. And if Penelope had to guess, she imagined that something involved a change in matrimonial tactics.
The question was: changed to what?
“I think it must be the ocean air, don’t you, sir? It’s so bracing. It makes one think anything’s possible.”
To the duke’s credit, he turned his gaze toward Ruby with only a mild expression of suspicion. “I quite agree. An hour on deck makes an ancient fellow like oneself feel positively middle-aged.”
On Penelope’s other side, Miss Crawley poked her ribs and said loudly, in the manner of the nearly deaf, “WHO’S THE GIANT?”
Poor Miss Crawley. They had met her yesterday afternoon, over tea in the ladies’ saloon. She was elderly and lumpen and wheeled about in a magnificent invalid’s chair by a grave female attendant, who regarded the world through a pair of bottle-thick spectacles, down a nose the approximate shape and size of Florida. Miss Crawley came from one of those very old and tightfisted New York families, much like the Schuylers, though it seemed she’d actually managed to wrangle an inheritance from them and liked—as she said, in a voice that banged recklessly about the furniture—to TRAVEL THE FAR REACHES OF THE GLOBE. She was also, she announced proudly, A SOCIALIST, and she DIDN’T CARE WHO KNEW IT. At one promising lull in the conversation, Penelope had been tempted to ask why Miss Crawley didn’t just give away her money and travel in steerage, according to her avowed principles.
But that would have been rude.
She leaned toward Miss Crawley and said, into the round brass bell of her ear trumpet, “He’s the Duke of Olympia.”
“OLYMPIA? THE MORRISON GIRL’S FLIRTING WITH A GREEK?”
“No, he’s not Greek. He’s English.”
“THEN WHAT—”
But the attendant saved their embarrassment with a timely spoonful of porridge, into which Miss Crawley’s question promptly drowned and was forgotten.
The Morrison girl, in the meantime, was not deterred. She leaned forward over her waiting porridge and said ardently, “And it becomes you so well, Your Grace! How I do love the ocean air. I hope to take a turn on deck right after breakfast and just drink it in.”
She had his attention now. He regarded her with a kind of gleam, one silver eyebrow expressing his interest. “The weather, happily, has turned favorable for the exercise.”
“Perhaps you’ll join us, then?”
“Perhaps I will.”
Ruby motioned to the empty chair before him. “But surely you’ll stay for breakfast first, won’t you? It’s just so dull making talk with all the people we already know.”
The Duke of Olympia spread his enormous hands in sorrow. “I’m afraid I’ve already broken fast, Miss Morrison, and in the excellent company of your own father, who seems to have adopted the habits of an early riser. I can’t imagine why. But I’m certain the day will afford me any number of opportunities to prove myself quite as dull as anyone with whom you are already acquainted.” He took in Penelope from the corner of his eye. “Perhaps even duller. Good morning, Miss Morrison. Mrs. Morrison.” A faint pause. “Mrs. Schuyler.”
He turned and strolled magnificently away, drawing all the electricity in the room in his wake, far too elastic for a man of seven decades who had slept no more than four hours the night before. Penelope could have sworn the lights darkened a shade or two when his silver head ducked under the lintel. She suppressed the thought, however, and turned to the exquisite young creature sitting beside her.
“Ruby, my dear. What in heaven’s name are you plotting?”
Ruby lifted her cup to hide a sly expression. “Do eat your breakfast, Mrs. Schuyler. The porridge is very nice.”
Mrs. Morrison snapped her fingers.
“Breakfast!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was breakfast on the liner to Paris. What a breakfast they served! Everything you could imagine, and the eggs so fresh. Oh, I do wish the dear duke hadn’t already left. He wanted so much to hear about it.”
***
“Thank God,” said the Duke of Olympia, sucking gently on a fresh cigar, “I was able to make my exit before that woman could tell me all about the damned liner to Paris.”
Mr. Simmons braced his earnest hands on the railing. “I am very sorry, sir, that you should find yourself so inconvenienced on board the Majestic.”
“No matter, no matter.” Olympia waved the cigar. “I have been more painfully detained before, and I suppose I shall be again, whenever duty returns me to American shores. Though, between the two of us, I should almost wish myself returned to a certain dungeon on the Continent, hanging in chains from the wall, subjecting my solar plexus to regular assault from a pair of unwashed sausage-eating jailers, than to stand in conversation with Mrs. Morrison more than once in a single day.”
“I am grieved, sir, grieved—”
“Tut, tut.” Olympia leaned his elbows next to the pristine white gloves of the first officer, bringing their heads to the same level. “Have you anything interesting for me?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. Mr. Langley purchased a second-class berth on the larboard bow two days ago, coming aboard shortly before departure with very little luggage. He has kept to himself, according to the stewards, and maintains a somewhat untidy cabin. A jar of hair pomade was left open on the drawer chest during breakfast.” Mr. Simmons suppressed a shudder.
“The young are in too much haste to be tidy, Mr. Simmons. I once failed to set my boots outside the door, one rather unsteady night when I was seventeen, and in consequence my valet forced me to wear them out in public the next day, in their unpolished state. A salutary lesson. I never made the mistake again.”
“Sir,” Mr. Simmons said painfully.
“Indeed.” There was a respectful pause. The engines ground softly, the air streamed along his cheeks. Before them, the ocean spread out in a perfect plumb line against the paler blue of a cloudless sky. A cold March sun ascended slowly to the right. Olympia examined his cigar. “Do you know, I hardly ever smoke except when shipboard. Isn’t that curious? The ocean air, I suppose, mingles agreeably with the scent of tobacco. It becomes almost a craving.”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
�
��No, of course not. You are quite free of vice altogether, aren’t you, Mr. Simmons? Not a covetous thought in your brain, not an impure instinct.”
“Sir?”
Olympia sighed and lifted himself up. “Never mind. I find I am a trifle melancholy this morning, for no conceivable reason. You’ll keep an eye on this Langley chap for me, won’t you, Mr. Simmons? One can never be too vigilant.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Good man.”
“If I may ask, sir—” Mr. Simmons hesitated.
“Yes, Mr. Simmons?”
“Your business in America. It’s none of my concern, of course, and I am reluctant to inquire—”
The duke sighed. “But you will, nonetheless.”
“Only as it relates to the matter at hand, sir. Whether they are connected.”
“They are not, Mr. Simmons.” He brought the cigar to his mouth and considered the first officer’s immaculate cap. “But I believe I will tell you anyway, in confidence, because it occurs to me that you are an observant and diligent man, and might be of use in the matter. I had traveled to America—a thing I deplore, to be perfectly honest—in order to track down a certain person whose whereabouts had gone abruptly unknown.”
“A dangerous man, sir?” Mr. Simmons rolled onto his toes.
“Even worse. A dangerous woman, Mr. Simmons. A committed anarchist, who once nearly succeeded in revolution. She fled to the United States, where she has been under constant surveillance by that country’s operatives, until recently. Her disappearance is of grave concern to our American friends, to the British Empire, and to me personally.”
“Can you describe her, sir?”
“No point in that, I’m afraid. She’s a master of disguise. But her name, should you hear it whispered in any quarter, is Dingleby. And now I believe”—grinding out the cigar, replacing the remaining half carefully in the case—“our hour of ease has come to an end.”
“Sir—?”
But the delicate debutante laugh of Miss Ruby Morrison was already floating among the lifeboats on their divots, impossible to ignore. Olympia straightened his cuffs and strode forth, in the manner of an officer girding himself to lead an especially perilous charge. Except that he had no regiment behind him. Only himself, the Duke of Olympia, who was really too old to be engaging in battle with beautiful young American heiresses.
But that was the trouble with Americans, wasn’t it? That unscalable ambition, that relentless optimistic striving for the very best of everything: frocks from Paris, grand hotels, bathrooms en suite. When it came to English aristocrats, only a duke would do.
“Miss Morrison,” he said, bowing at just the right angle. “Mrs. Morrison. Mrs. Schuyler. I owe you my most grateful thanks.”
“Why so, sir?” asked Miss Morrison, lowering her eyelashes and looking up at him in the simultaneous maneuver of a born flirt. If she had a fan, he thought, she would flutter it.
He flung out a gallant hand to the motionless blue sky. “Why, because you have called up that rarest of jewels, a mild March morning on the North Atlantic. Not a ripple to be seen on that vast and fickle ocean, and such favors are certainly not granted by God for the sake of an ancient mariner like myself.”
“Oh, what nonsense,” said Miss Morrison. “Doesn’t he talk nonsense?”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Schuyler, who hadn’t lowered her eyelashes a millimeter. She watched him instead as a sleek black pussycat, without blinking, without even moving. Altogether too patient.
“I think the duke speaks with great eloquence,” said Mrs. Morrison, “and it reminds me that I haven’t yet told you the rest of my story, about the liner to Paris, oh, what was the name of that—”
The Duke of Olympia turned to Ruby. “Miss Morrison, perhaps you will favor me with your company for a moment or two. I should like to point out to you the numbering of the lifeboats, in case you missed a detail or two during the drill. I find one’s attention wanders rather dangerously during these formal exercises, and yet, when you consider the matter, one’s life—or the lives of one’s less-nimble companions—might very well hang in the balance.”
“Sir,” Ruby said prettily, taking his arm, “I should like nothing more in the world.”
He swept her away, but not before experiencing the keen satisfaction of Mrs. Schuyler’s disapproving gaze striking him neatly between the eyebrows.
***
“They do make a handsome couple, don’t they?” said Mrs. Morrison, gazing at the two figures against the opposite rail.
Like grandfather and granddaughter, Penelope thought.
“Yes, very handsome.” She drummed her fingers on the rail, calculating how many minutes of Mrs. Morrison’s preening she would be forced to endure.
“It would be a shame, don’t you think, if the duke were to find himself distracted, after such a promising start.”
Penelope’s fingers stilled on the rail. “Distracted?”
“Oh, by some other woman, I mean. There are so many older women on board, you know. Designing women. Horrid things. The kind that might see a chance for a bit of excitement. Or profit. You know how these women can be, don’t you, Mrs. Schuyler? Never minding that they might ruin an innocent girl’s chances of being settled in life. And of course, men being men . . .” Mrs. Morrison shrugged her comfortable shoulders. “They sometimes prefer the easier course, even if it isn’t the most picturesque. If you know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Penelope said icily. “I have no experience in such matters.”
“Oh, of course not. Heavens, no. You’re not that kind of woman at all. If you were, we would never have taken you in the way we did, ha, ha.” Mrs. Morrison made a few more brittle, high-pitched chuckles, and then went on. “Now, of course, if Ruby were to marry well, we’d be so grateful to you. My goodness, you wouldn’t want for anything. In fact, I’m sure I could persuade Mr. Morrison to set aside a little something for you. A very nice present of some kind, something to make you quite comfortable, as you head into your declining years.” She put a kind little emphasis on the word declining.
“How thoughtful.”
“Or maybe Ruby would take you with her. She so adores you. I’m sure she would love to have your advice as she gets on in married life.” A giggle, so sharp. “And I can see the dear duke likes you already. He wouldn’t object, I’m sure, once he saw the advantages of the situation.”
“I think you’re mistaken about the duke, Mrs. Morrison.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” The woman put her hand on Penelope’s cheek and turned it gently toward her. “I think I know that look in a man’s eye.”
Mrs. Morrison’s own eyes had a look of their own, right there in the middle of her soft, round, pink-cheeked face. They were hard and flat enough to step on.
“There is no look, Mrs. Morrison,” Penelope said gently. “I think you must be imagining things.”
A smile formed at the ends of Mrs. Morrison’s plump mouth. “I’m so glad to hear that, Penelope dear. We do love you so much.”
“Laura! Laura, darling! There you are!”
Mrs. Morrison’s eyes softened instantly. She dropped her hand from Penelope’s cheek and turned, arms outstretched toward a pair of white-clad matrons of a certain stout age. The women greeted one another with the usual squeals and cackling and pecking. After a decent interval, Penelope made her way forward, where the draft was more brisk, and leaned her torso over the railing as far as it would go. If the wind thundered loudly enough in her ears, perhaps she wouldn’t hear the happy trill of Ruby’s laughter—so witty, the Duke of Olympia—or the incessant rattle of Mrs. Morrison’s chatter, delivering the promising news to her friends.
Not that she was in any way jealous. Goodness, no! Mrs. Morrison was quite right. Dukes were designed for heiresses, and dependents were designed for . . . well, for no one at
all, really. Themselves. For small adventures, like the one that had fallen her way two days before departure, when she had just finished arranging the packing of the trunks, and was looking forward to an hour’s unremarkable conversation with an old friend over tea at the Plaza Hotel.
Which had turned out to be not so unremarkable, after all.
Still, it was an indignity, to be spoken to like that by a woman like Mrs. Morrison. As if she hadn’t been avoiding such snares since she first found herself in the position of a penniless yet still attractive widow. As if she didn’t know exactly how much stock to put in the Duke of Olympia’s idle and fleeting regard, if it even existed.
She thought of the portfolio in her trunk, and the conversation with the duke in the deckhouse last night. “I warn you,” Madame de Sauveterre had said, “there may well be others on board this ship, seeking to know the contents of these papers, and I implore you above all not to draw any suspicion to yourself. Do not, I say, let a single person know of this matter.” And then, leaning forward, blinking her beautiful gray eyes with rapture: “Secrecy is of the gravest importance, ma vielle chère amie. You must trust no one, do you hear me? No one is to know that you have received these papers.” And finally, sitting back again, smiling with that peculiarly French satisfaction, sipping her tea: “You are such a dear little widowed mouse, of course, no one would suspect you in ten thousand million years. You have the perfect . . . what is the word?”
Cover, Penelope had said, a little sadly, but a little thrillingly, too, because—
“Miss Morrison, isn’t it?”
Penelope turned in aggravation. As a rule, she didn’t allow herself to be snuck up on, not since her husband’s death, which had made her feel as if life would never be secure again. She had developed all kinds of watchful habits, large and small, in an attempt to regain that firmness of ground beneath her feet, and none had succeeded. Still, to be snuck up on! She could only blame her deep desire to separate herself from the people on deck.
