by Juliana Gray
By God, this was an emergency.
“Stay down,” he ordered Penelope, over his shoulder, and he climbed the stairs and ducked under the rail.
The awning deck wasn’t lighted. He could only make out the shadows of the objects around him, cast by the ambient glow of the electric lights from the decks below and from the small deckhouse at the forward edge of the platform, nestled against the first of the two massive funnels that erupted from the bowels of the ship. Around them, the vast ocean heaved and swirled, a drop of at least thirty feet.
She’s mad, he thought. She can’t possibly think to launch a boat by herself, to navigate herself safely to shore in a sea like this.
A shout floated out from the darkness ahead. “Olympia! Look out!”
Out whipped his pistol. He squinted at the shadows, and as his pupils constricted, he made out a shape, separating itself from the lifeboats, heading down the deck toward him.
“Dingleby!” he roared, and the shadow stopped.
“Make another move,” she said, “and I’ll kill him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why not?” She laughed, actually laughed. “You’ve seen me do it. You know I can hit a target at any distance. You’re the one who taught me, Olympia.”
“Not for this, Mary.” He used her first name, as he hadn’t done for many years. Mary Dingleby, once his protégé, then his colleague; occasionally his lover. He had formed her himself, had taught her how to ply this exacting and reckless trade, had thought he knew her perfectly. Then she had betrayed him, and now she betrayed him again, except that this time he was expecting her. This time he felt no pain as he timed the rhythm of the ship, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.
Crack.
The shadow jerked and released a shot of its own, which went whistling past his left ear, so close he felt the draft of its passing.
“You shot me!” she said, outraged.
He started forward. “You missed me. I expect, in your haste, you forgot to take into account the motion of the ship.”
“I’ll shoot again.”
“No, you won’t. I’ve hit your shoulder, and I’m afraid your aim will suffer for it, especially in this Stygian darkness. My God, what a night. What were you thinking?” He kept talking, walking steadily, watching the shadow for movement.
“I have planned every last aspect of this mission, down to the last detail.”
“Except for me.”
She hesitated. “You were a surprise.”
He had almost reached her. She was waiting for him, he knew; all this talk was only to distract him. He felt her warmth. He smelt the copper of her blood. Along the perimeter of the deck, he sensed movement. Penelope, he thought. What the devil was she up to? He didn’t dare call out. His heart cracked in fear against his ribs. Penelope. He had to finish this, and fast.
“What have you done, Mary?” he asked softly. “Tell me, before a thousand innocents are killed.”
“They will have died for a good cause, which is more than one can say of their living.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple. Millions exist in poverty, while you and your ilk dance the night away in your opulent saloons, eating your turtle soup and your filet de—”
“I don’t mean the cause, Mary. God knows I have spent enough hours reading the lunatic ravings of your philosophers. What I don’t understand is how a sensible woman like the Mary Dingleby I trained could possibly bring herself to believe in it. To believe in it so forcefully, she would destroy a monument, or a ship filled with women and children.”
Where was Langley, by God? Why wasn’t Langley creeping up from behind? Was he going to have to fix the whole damned business by himself? A flash of movement appeared around the corner of the deckhouse. Penelope?
“What’s a thousand tourists, when millions suffer?”
“This is not the way to relieve their suffering. Tell me what you’ve done.”
“With pleasure. I have set a device of considerable explosive power—Mr. Langley, I’m sure, can tell you what an expert I’ve become in such matters—in a part of the ship that, upon the bomb’s detonation, will cause her to founder immediately, and to sink within minutes. I had hoped to release all the lifeboats before the ignition of this device, preventing any escape, but I expect this will now prove impossible. No matter, however. These poor idiots are unlikely to reach the boats in time, let alone contrive to launch any.”
“Ah! Now I understand. You intend to go down with the ship?”
“Of course. I thought I might as well, since my dear Mr. Langley has arranged to have such an extensive party waiting on the docks to welcome me back to England.”
“How disappointing when one’s colleagues betray one.”
“Isn’t it, though?” But her voice held an edge of pain. He had taught her how to resist torture, but you never knew, did you? You never knew until the pain actually began, and you had to endure it. Maybe she would crack.
“Tell me where you’ve hidden the bomb, Mary.” He crouched on the deck a few yards away, keeping his pistol trained on her heart; it was easier to balance that way, while the waves tossed them about. “This is useless. It will cause great suffering, and do nothing for your cause.”
“Do you know something, Olympia? I really don’t think I give a damn.”
She launched herself so suddenly, his shot went wild. He caught her by the shoulders, making her cry out, but the force of her attack sent them both sprawling on the deck while the ship rocked wildly beneath them. His head struck something hard. He saw a flash of silver, and then a sharp point nestled into the hollow of his throat, and he went still.
Hell. Hell and damnation.
“That’s right,” Dingleby whispered. “Don’t move, there’s a good chap.”
His head swam. What the devil had he hit? One of the rings on the deck, probably, securing the rigging from the funnel. There were two Dinglebys in front of him. He focused hard, and they resolved into one. He hoped he hadn’t concussed himself. Nuisances, concussions. And the pistol had fallen out of his hand, damn it all.
Penelope, he thought.
“If you must kill me,” he said pleasantly, “do it swiftly, I beg you. And for God’s sake, defuse that bomb. You can’t refuse the last request of a dying man.”
“I can do whatever I damned well please, Olympia. I’m the one with the knife. No, no. I wouldn’t move, if I were you. One more flicker of those giant muscles, and I will slit your throat from ear to ear.”
He couldn’t see her eyes, not in this gloom. But he heard the sincerity in her voice. No, not sincerity. Worse than that: a kind of fanaticism, the sound of someone with nothing left to lose.
Very well, Lord, thought the Duke of Olympia, who never prayed, take the life of this old sinner, since it appears you have me at your mercy, but preserve your servant Penelope. Preserve Simmons and Langley and every damned fool on board, even the Americans. A bad bargain—one old soul in exchange for a shipful of lives—but I’m afraid it’s all I have to offer.
He parted his lips. “My throat, Mary? Tsk, tsk. How could you? Remember all the times you kissed this throat.”
The point dug deeper.
“Dear me, Olympia,” drawled Miss Dingleby. “Poor chap. Did you really think I cared?”
Crack.
Her body made a stunned jerk and slumped against him.
For an instant, he thought he’d shot her himself, though his pistol was several feet away. A miracle. God had actually answered that prayer.
“Caught beneath a woman,” said Penelope. “I suppose it’s not the first time. Nor, I expect, the last.”
The Duke of Olympia closed his eyes and thanked his Maker.
***
“Now then,” the duke said, when he h
ad extricated himself from the clutches of Miss Dingleby, “where the devil’s Langley gone?”
“To find the bomb, I believe.” She stared down at the body before her, unable to believe that she had done this. Taken Robert Langley’s pistol and shot a woman between the shoulder blades. Her father had taken her hunting when she was young—there were no sons, and he was a notable eccentric, as old money usually was—but she hadn’t fired a weapon in decades. Funny how it came back to you, when you had gone past conscious thought and had only the thrill of fear coursing through your limbs and your brain. When someone laid a knife against the throat of someone you loved.
Loved. Was that the word for this? This relief so powerful, it made her dizzy. Made the shock of having killed someone somehow bearable, if no less horrible.
“Damn it all,” Olympia said.
“I’m sorry. I know you cared for her. But I had no choice—”
“No. I mean she can’t tell us where the bomb’s hidden.” He picked up his own pistol and replaced it in his waistcoat pocket, which was speckled with dark blood. “Did Langley say where he was going?”
“No. But it doesn’t matter. I know where she’s hidden the bomb.”
“What? How the—”
“The devil do I know? Think a moment, Your Grace. I’m sure your nimble brain will come up with the answer. In the meantime, I’m off to save the damned ship. With or without your help.”
She tossed Langley’s pistol into Olympia’s surprised hands and raced down the deck to the stairway.
“It’s the papers, isn’t it?” he called after her. “The damned papers!”
“Clever chap. I knew you could do it.”
But she didn’t stop. Oh no. Her blood was high, her mind sharp. Everything had come clear, and now she had only to play her part, exactly as Madame de Sauveterre had intended.
Dear old Margot.
She picked up her skirts and hurried down the stairs and around the corner, then up the promenade deck to the deckhouse entrance, holding the rail as she went. The air was full of salt spray, the wood slippery beneath her ruined slippers. Olympia reached around her to force open the door, which had fixed stubbornly in the wind and wet.
A steward came out of the library and looked at them as if they were lunatics. “You shouldn’t be out!” he said, but Penelope was already running down the staircase, one deck after another, until she arrived at the saloon deck and turned down the corridor that led to Stateroom 22.
“What are we doing here?” called Olympia.
“She’s got the papers. She took them last night, when she burgled my cabin.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me, you fool?”
But she didn’t answer. She had no time for his withering ducal indignation. She flung open the cabin door—unlocked, thank God—and flipped on the electric lights.
“But I’ve already searched the cabin! We’re wasting our time!”
She cast her gaze around the sitting room—nothing—and proceeded into the open door to the bedroom.
A male voice called out behind her, and Robert Langley bounded into the room, red-faced, having discarded his wig but not his dress.
“The papers! They’re not in your room!” he said.
“I wish,” said Penelope, marching across Miss Crawley’s bedroom to the invalid’s chair in the corner, “the two of you would simply be quiet and allow me to work in peace.”
She turned the chair around, reached under the seat, and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
“Good God.” Olympia snatched them from her hand. “Deck plans.”
“So it seems. Dear me. Of course, I can’t make heads or tails of it, but no doubt you gentlemen, with your superior strategic brains, can understand the meaning of that notation in red ink on the main deck, just beneath the first-class saloon.”
***
By the time the main saloon had been discreetly evacuated by a remarkably calm Mr. Simmons, and by the time device was located and defused—Mr. Langley had just completed a course in explosives, and was eager to demonstrate his newfound knowledge in practical application—and the tea poured out in the library, it was nearly midnight.
“I must say,” said the Duke of Olympia, accepting his tea from Penelope’s hands, “you have displayed a singular sangfroid throughout the evening’s events. I might even go so far as to call it a natural aptitude for this line of work.”
“Do you think so? How flattering.”
“I don’t suppose you would consider a more regular association? Nothing so dramatic as this, of course, but perhaps a spot of simple eavesdropping from time to time.”
She sipped her tea and studied the wall of books to her right. She looked as serene as ever, as if she hadn’t just saved a shipful of innocent souls from plunging to the bottom of the ocean. As if she hadn’t just witnessed a man disable a device of prodigious explosive power with a borrowed hairpin and a wad of tobacco. Her hair winged back softly from her temples, and her too-sharp chin caught the light so beautifully, he wanted to kiss it.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “After all, your previous protégé appears to have come to a very bad end indeed.”
“You are not Miss Dingleby.”
“But I might be.” She turned and smiled, the kind of smile that transformed a woman’s face from quite ordinarily attractive to irresistible. “How do you know I can be trusted, after all? You trusted her once.”
“My instincts are rarely mistaken, Mrs. Schuyler. And when they are, I do not repeat the error.”
“Very wise.”
He picked up her hand and examined it, tracing one vein softly with his thumb. “It’s a shame she’s gone, however. I do dislike those dangling threads that remain when one’s opponent isn’t around to answer questions.”
“Such as?”
“Why your friend de Sauveterre sent those deck plans with you instead of simply giving them to Dingleby before she sailed.”
Penelope gave the edge of her teacup a thoughtful tap. “Perhaps she didn’t trust Mr. Langley, and wanted to be sure he wouldn’t find the plans.”
“Then why not communicate her suspicions to Dingleby?”
“Who knows?” She stifled a yawn with her fingertips. “Maybe you should ask Mr. Langley in the morning. He’ll have more answers than I do. I’m just the mule, aren’t I?”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You are a great deal more than that, my dear.”
A faint blush stained the edges of her cheekbones, and he was just rising from his chair to make it worse when the library door burst open to rebound against the wall in a thunderous bang.
“I can’t find her!”
Olympia, already out of his chair, turned in a slow and exasperated half circle to where Robert Langley stood at the library entrance, dressed respectably at last in trousers and jacket, wearing an expression of shattered panic that had been wholly absent from his face during the entire episode with the hairpin and the tobacco plug.
“Find whom?” he asked.
“Ruby!” The anguish in his voice shook the books in their cases, or perhaps it was the storm, still raging fitfully outside. “She’s not with her parents, or in her room. My God, if she’s gone on deck and been swept away—”
Olympia stared at the man in rising horror. “Mr. Langley. Do you mean to say that you have actually fallen in love with your source?” As he might say, been boiled in broth and eaten with a pinch of sage?
“Yes! God help me. She is the dearest angel—”
“I am appalled, Mr. Langley, appalled. Is this not the acme of errors, in our line of work? I suppose one should always expect this sort of unprofessional emotionalism from Americans, but I, for one, would never—”
Penelope placed her cup in her saucer with just a faint chink of civilization. “Mr. Langley,” she said kindly,
“I believe you’ll find Miss Morrison in Stateroom A.”
“Stateroom A?” he said, bewildered.
“But that’s my stateroom!” said Olympia.
“Of course it is. They can’t possibly meet in mine.”
“Meet?” said Langley.
“Yes, meet.” She smiled. “I believe Miss Morrison plans to conceive a child tonight, and I sincerely hope you’ll be there when she does.”
Olympia felt his mouth drop open.
Langley sounded as if he were choking. “Sir—that is, madam—”
“Go on, now. You’ll find the door unlocked. You’d better hurry, or Miss Morrison may have drunk all the champagne herself, which would render her incapable of—well.”
Without another word, Langley bolted from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Penelope said brightly, “Well, that’s that! Everything tied off neatly, if I do say so myself.”
The Duke of Olympia closed his mouth and watched in wonder as she finished off her tea, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and straightened her skirt in preparation to leave.
“Not quite,” he said at last.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not quite everything tied off neatly. There is the small matter of my stateroom, which is presently—my thanks to you—occupied by a young couple in the throes of clandestine and possibly drunken concourse, and therefore uninhabitable by its rightful owner.”
Penelope rose from her chair and placed her fingers at the edge of the table. Her bosom was right at the level of his eyes, so transfixing that he forgot his own manners and remained seated, in his auspicious location.
“My dear duke,” she said, “you are quite right. May I offer you the use of my own stateroom, as restitution? I am, after all, without a bedmate.”
A curious sensation grew and spread within the Duke of Olympia’s enormous chest. As if the sun had risen from behind his heart, full and warm, to usher in a wondrous day.
He drew himself up to his regal height and looked down into the quiet symmetry of her face. Her wide-awake eyes, her otherworldly skin, now touched with more pink that perhaps she realized.
