by Juliana Gray
“How curious. I have just been reflecting—last night at dinner, as I watched you across the table, and afterward during the music—how similar a course our lives have taken. An early marriage, followed by early widowhood, followed by an existence devoted almost exclusively to duty.”
“Well, I’m flattered. And here I thought Miss Morrison had claimed all your attention last night.”
“Did you love your husband, Mrs. Schuyler?”
The question was so unexpected and so familiar, she nearly spilled her coffee. “Of course I did.”
“But he left you destitute.”
“That wasn’t his fault, and I forgave him for it long ago.” She contemplated her cup and recalled the duke’s face last night, turned attentively to Ruby, dancing a single waltz with her after dinner, while the ship’s orchestra played from the corner of the main saloon. Ruby had looked so lithe and graceful in her pale pink dress, her face so eager and young as it tilted upward to meet Olympia’s enchanted gaze. “And you, Mr. Penhallow? Did you marry for love?”
“Of course not. Matrimonial love is a luxury a young man in my position neither needed nor wanted. I was only eighteen, my bride seventeen. My father was ill, you see, and he wanted to see the succession assured before he died. My wife bore a son before the year was out, followed by three daughters. By good fortune, the old man found his grave before my boy.”
“I’m terribly sorry.”
Olympia turned his gaze east, into the new-risen sun. The horizon was still a little pink and breathless from the effort. “He was seven years old. A mischievous lad, forever absconding to lark about the estate. Rode his pony like a steeplechaser and got into the most appalling scrapes. He had a tender heart, however. In the summer, he would find baby starlings that had fallen out of their nests and bring them to the groundskeeper.” Olympia paused. “A blister on his foot turned septic. By the time we noticed, there was nothing to be done.”
“Oh, my dear sir.”
“These things happen. That’s the trouble with children, you see. They open your soul to the most catastrophic rupture. My poor wife was never the same. She died a few years later; of a broken heart, I have always thought.”
“What a pity you could not have offered each other more comfort.”
“That was never a possibility, was it? We weren’t suited, and I’m afraid I was a bad sort of husband, far too young and full of my own consequence, and I didn’t try to love her. It never occurred to me that we should have that sort of marriage, or that love might be an act of will, of effort and repetition and self-denial. I was happy to do these things for England, but not for the human being to whom I was married.”
“I suppose that’s what you were bred for. Nobody expected you to be a good husband.”
“My wife least of all, I suppose.” He sighed. “I respected her, of course. I was discreet, but not faithful. I’m afraid I have shocked you.”
“No, I knew about that already. Your reputation is no secret. Did you love any of them? The other women, I mean.”
“One,” he said. “An Irishwoman, the most beautiful woman I have ever met. Also a genius. I never could beat her at chess. We have a son together, an extraordinary boy, who has my height and his mother’s brains.”
“But you never married her.”
“No. In the end, she was neither a faithful lover nor a loving mother. She loved herself chiefly. There wasn’t room for another.”
Penelope hid her smile in her cup. “But haven’t we just said the same of you?”
“No. I love my country first, and then my family. I have a great regard for myself, but not much love. I have reached an age, you see, when I care very little what happens to me. I have been fortunate. I’ve led a tremendous life, I have seen and done and known things that only a minute fraction of humanity ever does. I have children and grandchildren, and even a growing menagerie of rapscallion great-grandchildren, God help me. I have the immense satisfaction of knowing that I have done some good in the world. What occurs next is simply—as I believe you Americans say—the icing on the cake. Practically speaking, there is very little point in going on at all, except that I have no particular wish to die.”
The ship found a rough patch of sea, and the deck pitched one way and then the other: not too hard, but enough that the duke put out a single instinctive hand to steady her. The wind whined in her ears. The coffee was finished; her stomach burned with it. On her plain-covered knee, the duke’s hand remained, large and gentle.
She said gently, “Then what do you wish?”
“Many things, large and small. The health of my family and especially its smallest members. The continued prosperity and security of Great Britain. At this instant, however, what I most passionately wish is to know more about you, Mrs. Schuyler.”
“Me?” She laughed. Her throat was dry, her eyes watering with the wind.
“Yes. I have now told you things I have not said to a living human being. I expect some return on my generosity.”
“But why? There’s nothing interesting about me. I’m not a duchess; I haven’t any family to speak of.”
“Do you want one?”
“A family? I’m afraid, at my age, such a thing is physically impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, madam.” He gave her knee the lightest possible squeeze and returned his hand to his own lap. “You must have friends.”
“Yes, a few. But a woman in my position doesn’t collect many. I don’t have anything to offer except my company, and most of that is taken up already by the Morrisons.”
“You seem to get along well with Miss Morrison.”
“Oh, she’s very dear. I like her very much.”
“Are you intimate?”
The question was easy and curious, so much so that she nearly replied—just as easily— As much as two women can be intimate, separated by twenty years and utterly opposite circumstances, before she caught herself.
My God, how cunning he was. The cognac in her coffee, the disarming candor, the intimate revelations about himself. She had almost begun to think that he actually cared. That he actually wanted to know about her.
She folded her woolen arms across her chest and laughed into the wind. “So many questions! Why don’t you ask Ruby yourself, Mr. Penhallow? You’re taking an awful lot of trouble, going behind her back like this.”
“My dear, you can’t possibly think I harbor any hopes in that direction. The young lady’s affections are already engaged, are they not?”
“They are, but I doubt a small obstacle like Mr. Langley would pose any challenge for a man like you.”
“Perhaps not,” he murmured, “but one can never be quite sure.”
“So you’ve gone to all this trouble—disguise, deck chair, blistering wind—in order to gather intimate intelligence about Ruby and Mr. Langley?”
Olympia shook his head, almost as if he were disappointed. “Mrs. Schuyler. With all your keen perception, you can’t guess why I should trouble myself to appear here this morning?”
“For amusement, I suppose.” She lifted one hand to snap her fingers, but the mitten prevented her. “Oh, of course. I nearly forgot. All that nonsense the other night. You think I’m an agent for the French, don’t you? Carrying—what was it? Money or papers or gunpowder?”
“Papers,” he said placidly.
“Oh, that’s right. Those sensitive diplomatic papers. Don’t tell me you haven’t found them yet, a cunning gentleman like you.”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
“Dear me. I wish there was something I could do to help. Have you asked Ruby yet? She seems to know everything about everybody.”
“My dear Mrs. Schuyler,” he said. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Naturally not. No one would dare to laugh at you, Mr. Penhallow.”
Olympia didn�
�t reply. A pair of hardy walkers stomped past, holding the rail for balance, paying no attention to Penelope and the bewhiskered Mr. Penhallow, bundled in their deck chairs. He held himself perfectly still, except for the rise and fall of his mighty chest, so much larger than hers.
“I have led a very small life, compared to yours,” Penelope went on. “I’m not the most beautiful woman you’ve ever met, nor am I a genius. But I am not stupid.”
“Of course you’re not.”
She lifted away the blanket and swung her feet to the deck. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Don’t go, Mrs. Schuyler.”
“Why not? You’ve had your fun.” She folded up the blanket and set it on the seat. Olympia was already rising from his chair, discarding his own blanket.
“I apologize,” he said. “If I gave you the slightest offense, I had no—”
“I’m not the least offended. You’re only doing your job.”
He reached out his long arm and cupped her elbow. “That’s not true.”
Penelope smiled. “Oh, you’re very good, aren’t you? You nearly had me, for a moment.”
The hand fell away. The blue eyes facing her seemed, inside their frame of whiskers and cap, to fill with remorse. All puckered up at the brows, all crinkling at the corners. Or maybe that was part of the game.
“I am so very sorry about your son,” she said. “If it’s any comfort, at least you had him at all. At least, for seven years, he lived and breathed and belonged to you, and you loved him. I would have given anything, even for that.”
“Wait,” he said, in a choked voice—real, or pretended?—but she didn’t stop to decide. She staggered up the deck, only to lurch sideways as she reached the door to the deckhouse, nearly colliding with a tall figure who clung to the railing.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, looking up, and then: “Oh! Miss Harris. Do excuse me.”
“Not all all,” said Miss Harris, moving aside. “In fact, I believe I’ll duck inside myself.”
***
Miss Ruby Morrison lowered her splendid eyelashes and said, in a debutante’s dulcet whisper, sweet and just slightly atremble, “I think we’ve got Mama good and skunked.”
“Skunked?” Olympia said delicately. They had finished breakfast an hour ago, and sat now in the library amid a cacophony of hushed female voices and febrile glances. Altogether the atmosphere was not to his liking, and the addition of skunks threatened to overpower his resolve entirely.
“Fooled, I mean. Just look at her.” She giggled. “She’s already arranging the flowers in her head.”
“The denouement will be a bitter one, poor dear.”
“She deserves it.” Ruby looked back up at him, and by God she was beautiful, there was no denying that. Her eyelashes looked absolutely wet against her peachy skin. Would she have stirred him, thirty or twenty or even ten years ago? But even then he hadn’t been interested in this sort of girl, even for play. Like his wife, he realized. Terribly pretty and a bit sly and knowing about her beauty, as if she didn’t need to cultivate anything else. As if beauty and breeding were enough. As if she had somehow earned all this good fortune, instead of having it heaped on her so wantonly, by accident of birth and someone else’s labor. She deserves it. Poor Mrs. Morrison, who only wanted the best for her daughter, as any mother—American or English—would.
He picked up Ruby’s hand and ran his thumb along her knuckles, for the benefit of anyone watching. “I have delivered your reply to Mr. Langley. He returns his heartfelt regards.”
“What did he say?” she asked eagerly.
“The usual rubbish. Everlasting adoration. I stopped listening when my teeth began to ache.”
Ruby put her other hand to her heart. “Oh, Robert.”
“Indeed. Oh, Robert. And now I have a question for you, Miss Morrison.”
“Anything. You’ve been so very selfless, helping us like this.”
He coughed. “Yes, quite.”
“I don’t know how we’re ever going to repay you. What’s your name?”
“My name?” As he might say, The state of my bowels?
“So we can name our first child after you.” She blinked at him adoringly, the kind of adoration a little girl might have for her grandfather, and he thought, My God, I’m ancient to her, aren’t I? I’m a living fossil.
“I assure you, I neither desire nor expect such a—ahem—such an honor.” He paused. “I was hoping, in fact, for a word of advice.”
“Advice? From me?”
“Indeed. I was wondering if you or your family have had occasion to use the ship’s safe this voyage. I’ve heard rumors of a cabin being burgled, and I should like to place a few valuables there. Nervous chap that I am, you see.”
Miss Morrison leaned forward. “Oh, but haven’t you heard? The burgled cabin was ours!”
“Yours! Never say it.”
“Yes! Nothing was taken, however—Mama keeps all our jewels with her—but it gave Penelope an awful fright. She made me take a few papers to the safe for her. They were very nice, the officers who helped me. And the safe certainly looked sturdy enough.”
“My dear.” He pressed her hand. “What a terrible shock.”
“Oh, I think it’s rather exciting. Fancy a burglar on board, traveling first class!” She looked furtively about the library, causing a number of heads to snap back virtuously to their books. “Just think, it might be any of them!”
“Do you think so? Not a rogue stewardess? Not someone sneaking in from second class or even”—he lowered his voice and shuddered—“steerage?”
“Oh, I hope not. It’s ever so much more delicious to find a burglar among us. Imagine a nobleman in disguise, plotting to steal our jewels to give to the poor.”
Olympia regarded her keen and innocent face as he might regard an alien species of flora. “Imagine,” he said.
“But I suppose it will turn out to be someone quite dull and predictable, like that Miss Harris.”
“Miss Harris?”
“Yes,” she said. “Miss Crawley’s companion, the tall, thin one with the awful spectacles and the musty skirts. She’s right over there, at the center table, writing a letter. Don’t look.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Miss Morrison leaned over for another one of her confidential whispers. “Would you believe she went to school with Penelope in Switzerland, all those years ago? And now she’s reduced to wiping the crumbs from the folds of Miss Crawley’s neck. I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind getting her sticky fingers on a diamond or two, to get a new start in life.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Did you say she went to school in Switzerland with Mrs. Schuyler?”
“Yes. Isn’t it amazing? Of course, that was centuries ago.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to recall the name of this school, do you?”
She pressed a thoughtful finger against her chin. “Something Greek, I think.”
“The Hellenic?”
“Yes, that’s it! You’re so clever. Are you leaving?”
He gave her hand a squeeze and released it. “I’m afraid I have just recalled a very pressing engagement below. You will forgive me, Miss Morrison.” He turned and bowed to the assembled audience, who very industriously pretended to read. “Ladies. I believe you may now safely return to your studies.”
***
The second-class promenade deck perched at the bow of the ship, ahead of the first-class accommodation and taking a great deal more weather, especially on a day like today. Penelope had wound her thickest woolen scarf beneath her sturdy brown mackintosh, and still the wind and the spray seemed to lie against her skin as if she hadn’t bothered at all. As if she were stark naked.
Which she wasn’t, of course. Mrs. Penelope Schuyler would never do such a thing, even if the sun were hot and shin
ing, unless she were on the other side of the world and quite alone. She dreamed of that, from time to time. A few years ago, she had scraped together the necessary five dollars to subscribe to a new society devoted to geographical study, and its journal now arrived faithfully every month on the Morrisons’ doorstep, to be pored over at night, or during the placid afternoon when Mrs. Morrison and her daughter paid calls. She read the lush descriptions of Borneo and the Silk Road; she ran her fingers over the beautiful photographs and drawings. She imagined what it would be like, to leave the overstuffed baroque caverns of Fifth Avenue behind, the dirty New York streets, the country houses with their rigid etiquette and five daily changes of dress. To plunge one’s unclothed body off a rock and into a tranquil turquoise lagoon in the South Pacific. Oh, the liberty of it!
She braced her hands on the railing and stared at the steel-gray horizon to the south. Somewhere above all that heavy cloud, the sun burned. Somewhere on the other side of that horizon, a vast geography teemed, a whole and beautiful Earth she had never seen.
“There you are, Mrs. Schuyler,” said a soft male voice, near her right shoulder. “Thank you for meeting me here. I hope it wasn’t inconvenient?”
“It’s very inconvenient, as well as unwise, Mr. Langley.” She refused to turn. “In fact, I think you’ve been very foolish altogether, stowing aboard the ship like this. I can’t imagine what you hope to gain by it.”
“For one thing, I hope to prove to Ruby and to her parents that I’m just as game—that I’m just as worthy as any of her suitors.”
“A fine way to prove that, sneaking in and meeting her after dark. Sending messages back and forth.”
“You know about that?”
“I’m not stupid. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who’s helping you.”
“Helping us?”
“You must have an accomplice. I can guess who he is.”
“Well,” said Robert, toeing the bottom of the railing, “that’s really why I asked you to meet me here. I don’t know if—I’m not sure—the thing is, I don’t trust him!”
“The Duke of Olympia, you mean?”
Robert braced his hands next to hers. “Yes. There’s something shifty about him. I can’t put my finger on it, exactly, but—well, it’s just a feeling I get, talking to him.”
