by Juliana Gray
“Oh, yes. Couldn’t you tell?”
“I didn’t get a proper look.” His jaw hurt from tension. He wiped away the blood from her arm and pressed his handkerchief against the wound. “It’s not deep, but you should go to the infirmary anyway.”
“Nonsense. I’ll clean and bind it, that’s all.”
“You don’t sound concerned,” he growled.
“I’m not. I don’t think she meant to kill me. I think I surprised her, that’s all.”
“She was already inside the cabin?”
“Yes.”
He swore. “This cannot continue. You must return to my stateroom for the duration of the voyage.”
“It’s impossible. What about Ruby?”
“Damn Ruby!”
“Damn me? For what?”
The voice came from the doorway, lilting upward in mild surprise. The two of them startled and turned together, like a pair of guilty lovers, connected at the point of Penelope’s slender elbow.
Miss Ruby Morrison stood in the doorway, resplendent in her rose-colored evening dress. The electric light caught the decorous little spray of brilliants in her hair like a starburst. She took one look at the pair of them, faces turned toward her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Penelope tore her arm from Olympia’s grasp and darted around Ruby to close the door.
“Your Grace!” The damned girl began to giggle, like little bubbles escaping between her fingers. “You’re—you’re—”
Penelope said sternly: “This is Mr. Penhallow, from Buffalo.”
“You’re wearing a beard!” Ruby burst out, and she fell on the bed, helpless with laughter, while the brilliants shivered and sparkled against the embroidered White Star Line counterpane. “I never saw anything so—so—silly!”
Olympia stuffed the handkerchief in his jacket pocket and made a small, stiff bow.
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have a burglar to catch.”
Day Seven
SS Majestic
At sea
At exactly twelve minutes past six o’clock in the morning, Penelope pounded on the door of Stateroom A with the kind of fury usually reserved for accusations of adultery.
“My dear,” said the duke, opening the door, “do cease this ungodly rumpus. I haven’t yet swallowed a drop of coffee, fortified or otherwise.”
“You put a guard on my door!”
“Yes, of course. Now come inside, before somebody sees you.”
“I don’t care if—”
But he was already pulling her into the room, and by the time she realized he was still in his dressing gown, that a towel lay around his neck and his cheeks were still pink and damp from the razor, it was too late. He had closed the door behind them and turned to her with a kind of triumphant look, like a spider that has caught a particularly choice fly in his web. He dabbed his cheeks with the towel and walked to the tray that rested on the sitting room table. “Coffee?” he said.
“No, thank you. Back to the guard, please.”
“I had no choice, my love. I couldn’t be in two places at once, and as you so rightfully pointed out, I was already delinquent in giving chase to your persecutor.” He poured her a cup anyway, added a splash of amber liquid from a suspicious decanter, and handed it to her.
“I said I didn’t want coffee.”
“It’s not for the coffee.”
She glared and drank, and the most extraordinary flavor warmed her mouth, spreading a glow through her chest and down her limbs. “What is this?” she said.
“Amaretto.”
“It’s lovely.”
“I’m glad you like it. The last of my personal stock, I’m afraid. I’ll have my dealer secure us a dozen new bottles when we reach London. Shall we go on deck and discuss the matter further? I feel myself in great need of a bit of fresh air.”
Ten minutes later, he was opening the door to the cold air of the promenade deck and a wondrous red sunrise. Penelope caught her breath. “Isn’t it beautiful!” she said.
Olympia took her arm. “Storm on the way.”
“How do you know that?”
“Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.”
“Oh, an old mariner’s rhyme,” she said.
“Trust me, my dear. The old mariners have an interest in the weather. About this guard.”
“I ordered him away, and he wouldn’t move.”
“Of course not. He’s there under my express orders.”
“He followed me upstairs. I saw him on the landing.”
“Good man. I’m afraid I was unable to trace last night’s intruder—”
“I’m not surprised.”
“—but I’ve instructed Mr. Simmons to post every available crewman at all the key points in the ship.”
“We reach Liverpool tomorrow morning, according to last night’s bulletin.”
“So tonight is her last chance to act. We’ll be ready.”
A steward approached them. “Deck chairs this morning, sir?”
Olympia turned his face to Penelope, and so did the steward. Waiting. Respectful. Attentive.
The duke lifted his other hand and pressed it against her arm. “Well, my dear?”
“No, thank you,” Penelope said. “I’d rather walk this morning.”
So they walked, and the remains of Penelope’s annoyance settled back into contemplation. This wasn’t such a setback, after all. Not such a hindrance to her plans. And it was rather nice, for once in her life, to have someone so deeply concerned for her well-being.
Or at least the well-being of the papers in her possession.
“In the first place,” the duke was saying, “we may eliminate Mr. Langley, who already knows that the papers now rest in the ship’s safe.”
“Why on earth are you speaking as if we’re partners in this matter?”
He looked surprised. “Aren’t we?”
“Of course not. You’re not getting your hands on those papers. They are not intended for the attention of the British government.”
“The British government means no harm whatsoever to the concerns of either the Americans or the French,” he said with dignity.
“Ha.”
“Ha? This is your considered response to a matter of complex and delicate international diplomacy?”
“The British government serves no interest except that of Britain. I’m here to ensure the interests of the United States.”
“But how do you know you’re doing that? How do you know that your dear friend de Sauveterre is a faithful American, and not simply using you in a transaction of which you have absolutely no knowledge whatever?”
She smiled and turned away to lean her elbows on the railing. “I think you’re wrong about a storm,” she said. “The ocean looks perfectly easy. We could almost swim to Liverpool in a sea like this, don’t you think?”
***
The gentlemen’s smoking room of the SS Majestic was a thing of extraordinary invention, but the Duke of Olympia spared not the slightest regard for its elaborate plasterwork and embossed leather walls, nor even the naval paintings set at intervals in the wall panels. He sucked instead on his cigar, from the comfort of an overstuffed chair, and said sternly to the man sitting opposite, “No, I am not satisfied, Mr. Simmons. Not at all. There is a burglar on the loose in the first-class cabin, a female burglar of limitless ingenuity and elusiveness, and I must say, for a man whose business is to secure the safety of the White Star Line passengers, you’re acting remarkably unconcerned, Mr. Simmons. Remarkably unconcerned.”
“But sir! I assure you, we’re doing all we can!” said poor Mr. Simmons, nearly bursting at the seams with pained earnestness. His concern, in fact, stained his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and threatened to run out the corners of his mouth. “We’ve posted men at e
very possible corner, every man who can be spared from the running of the ship, and they have seen nothing untoward.”
Olympia jabbed his cigar in the direction of Mr. Simmons’s navy chest. “It is all because you refused to vouchsafe Miss Morrison’s papers to me, Mr. Simmons. That is all. Had those papers been entrusted to my care, the ladies might never have been in danger.”
This was possibly not quite true, for the mysterious thief would have had to have known that Simmons had transferred the portfolio into Olympia’s possession, and this particular thief evidently hadn’t even known that the papers had gone into the ship’s safe to begin with.
But the duke liked to strike thunder into the hearts of the innocent, particularly in situations such as this, when a little extra thunder might mean the difference between a thief captured and a thief triumphant.
“Possibly, sir,” said poor Simmons, “but I must stand by my decision in that case.”
Good man, thought Olympia.
“A very reckless decision, Mr. Simmons, and now we see the results. A lady—a saloon passenger, Mr. Simmons—is attacked in her own stateroom, and the perpetrator continues to elude you.” Olympia rose slowly, not because his joints were stiff, but because the spectacle of six and a half ducal feet unfurling themselves in the manner of a giant bean stalk never failed to impress in his audience the proper spirit of submission. He put the cigar in his mouth and inhaled the fragrant weed to the limit of his lungs. “It is now half past six o’clock, and the dinner service is about to begin. Every first-class passenger will be seated in the grand saloon for your inspection. By the time the dessert is laid, I expect your men to have apprehended the person responsible for the invasion of Mrs. Schuyler’s cabin. In the meantime, I will be enjoying my dinner.” He stubbed out the cigar in a fine enameled ashtray. “Good evening, Mr. Simmons.”
The first officer rose. “One more moment, sir!”
“What is it? The gong is about to sound.”
“It’s about Mr. Langley, sir. You asked me this morning if the crew has noticed any particular behavior on his part. I gathered together the second-class stewards directly and queried them on the subject. He has been, it seems, a model passenger, keeping mostly to himself. But there is one curious detail, which I thought you ought to know. You may, of course, decide for yourself whether it is at all significant . . .”
“Out with it, Simmons.”
The first officer drew in a massive breath. “It seems Mr. Langley has not sat down to a single meal in the second-class saloon.”
***
The dinner gong had sounded some time ago, and still the Duke of Olympia had not arrived in the main saloon: an event so unprecedented that all three tables rocked with the news.
Or maybe that was the ocean, Penelope thought. She hated to admit that Olympia was right, but the waves had taken on a certain amplitude in the hours since luncheon, steep and slow and covered with messy foam. Even the decks of the mighty Majestic had begun to tilt, ever so slightly, in rhythm with the sea. She picked up her menu card and pretended to study the contents. FAREWELL DINNER, proclaimed the elegant script at the top, followed by a list of dishes so rich and extensive it might have supplied a royal banquet for a week, let alone the dining saloon of a ship that was now developing an unmistakable lurch, which everybody pretended not to notice.
“I hope he has not fallen overboard,” said Mrs. Morrison, sotto voce.
“Heaven forbid,” said Penelope. “Imagine the trouble of finding another duke.”
“WHAT’S THIS?” said Miss Crawley, on her other side. “THE GREEK HAS JUMPED OVERBOARD?”
“So it would seem, I’m afraid. I can’t imagine any other reason why the Duke of Olympia would commit so irredeemable an act as arriving late for dinner.”
“PROBABLY COULDN’T SEE ANY OTHER WAY OUT OF MARRYING THE MORRISON GIRL!”
Ruby dabbed her eyes. “I shall weep forever.”
“There, there.” Mrs. Morrison reached across the table and patted her daughter’s hand. “I’m sure there’s another explanation. Maybe he’s fallen on the stairs.”
“Or perhaps he’s cut his throat with the razor,” Penelope said cheerfully. “Old hands can be so shaky, can’t they, Miss Crawley?”
“I NEARLY SLIT MY WRIST WITH A LETTER OPENER ONCE!”
On her other side, Miss Harris muttered something unintelligible, which might have signaled regret.
“You see, my dear? Everybody’s hoping for the best. And there are advantages to a convalescence, I always say. More time to arrange your trousseau, for one thing. I had the distinct feeling that His Grace was eager to complete the formalities—and who could blame him, at his age, and Ruby so alluring—but a nice healing spell should allow us a little more time to—”
“Madam—” said Penelope.
“—to shop and make arrangements, and perhaps to see to the decoration of His Grace’s house in London, which I’m sure—”
“Mrs. Morrison, I think—”
“—is grand and lovely and all that, but maybe not all that modern in the way of plumbing and draperies,” Mrs. Morrison went on, heedless of the settling silence around her, the hushed expectation, except for the clatter of the serving dishes and the grind of the engines and another sound, a persistent rushing roar, which Penelope realized was the wash of water along the sides of the ship. “And I always say that a young bride shouldn’t be afraid to take the bit in her mouth and arrange things to suit herself, because—”
“Because her bridegroom might soon expire?” inquired the Duke of Olympia, standing politely behind his chair, the object of all that reverent silence.
Mrs. Morrison leapt in her seat, an action cut short by the proximity of her neighbors. “Your Grace! I—well, I—what a shock.”
“Evidently.” He took his chair. “I apologize for my late arrival. A matter came up at the last instant, which required my immediate attention.” His gaze turned to Penelope, thick with meaning.
“You have only missed the salted almonds,” she said, and returned her attention to the menu card, as if unable to decide among the five different preparations of potatoes.
In fact, not one of them appealed to her, nor the littleneck clams, nor the green turtle soup, nor the sweetbreads Macedoine, nor the braised capon or the golden plover or the filet of beef. Six days and nights of impossibly rich and plentiful food had rendered her insensible to French sauces and rare meats. Like they were geese being stuffed for foie gras (of which there was plenty on board already). As if a butcher awaited them on the Merseyside, sharpening his knife.
But she had to eat. If she didn’t turn her attention to her food, she would invariably fall under the glance of the Duke of Olympia, which was presently attempting to snare hers by the principles of magnetic attraction. She allowed her plate to be filled, again and again, and when she was not picking at the contents she did her best to converse with Miss Crawley, or rather to converse with Miss Harris across the bridge of Miss Crawley’s nose.
“Thank God,” twanged Miss Harris, when at last the dessert was laid, and she reached for a pear.
“It’s really too much, isn’t it? Especially when the ship is pitching like this.”
“FAR TOO MUCH FOOD!” said Miss Crawley.
Miss Harris picked up her knife and began to slice the pear in expert little strokes, and for some reason the action caught Penelope’s fascination. She handled the knife with such ease. Not for Miss Harris the elegant hands of a lady: she kept the nails cut short, almost to the quick, at the ends of her large, capable fingers. So large and capable, in fact, they were almost . . .
Mannish.
The blood began instantly to thud in Penelope’s neck. She glanced at Ruby and at the duke, who had given up trying to win her attention and was now sharing a remark with Miss Morrison, perfectly at ease except for a certain heaviness around his eyes.<
br />
The steward came around with coffee. “Yes, please,” she said, and she reached for the nearby fruit and took hold of the closest object: a bunch of grapes. As she lifted the vine from the bowl, she risked a glance at Miss Harris’s profile, and the firm jaw that was now slowly at work on a slice of pear.
My God, she thought. We are all fools.
And then: Poor Ruby.
She popped a grape in her mouth and ground away carefully until she could be quite sure of speaking in her usual voice.
“Miss Harris,” she said, “I was wondering if perhaps you might take a turn with me on deck, after dinner.”
Miss Harris shrugged. “As you like. Peach?”
***
Just like that, she was gone.
He’d been trying to fix Penelope’s attention throughout the interminable run of courses—farewell dinners, the bane of modern steamship travel—to almost no effect at all. Just a fleeting glance, near the end, as if posing a question, and then she was back to that damned odd-fish pair, Harris and Crawley. All he could do was admire the seashell curve of her pink left ear.
And it was a pretty ear altogether, and in any other circumstance he would have enjoyed the admiration of it, but he had something important to communicate! For God’s sake! Couldn’t she feel the urgency boiling beneath his starched white waistcoat while he traded inanities with the Morrisons?
When at last his fellow inmates began to rise, he nearly overturned his chair in his haste to reach her. “Mrs. Schuyler, a word,” he said, as loudly as he dared, but she was turned the other way, and he was on the other wretched side of the endless refectory-style dining table. He looked briefly at his companions—the angular Mr. Morrison, silent in submission; the doughy Mrs. Morrison; the gleaming Ruby—and said “Pardon me, but I really—”
