Carpathia

by Matt Forbeck

  "Is that right?" She stepped up into his face now, her eyes blazing at him. "Well then tell me all about it, dammit. And this time no lies! I want nothing from your lips but the honest truth!"

  "It wasn't chivalry. I did it because I love you!"

  Lucy gaped at him and his naked revelation. As the words left his lips, Quin wished he could snatch them back, but it was too late, and he knew it. Instead, he embraced them and the wild sense of freedom that came rushing at him now that he'd finally given them voice.

  "That's right," he said, "I love you. And not in that 'known you since childhood, we'll all be friends forever' way. More in the 'let's get married' way."

  Lucy brought her jaw back up and swallowed. "Oh, Quin." She stared at him with glittering eyes. "What about Abe?"

  Quin's heart tightened up at his friend's name. "I love him too, but in the 'brothers forever' way." He stepped toward her. "But that's not the real question is it? What about you, Luce? How do you feel?"

  "You can't make me do this." Lucy's jaw clenched as she fought back tears. "Not here. Not now. Just yesterday, I thought I'd lost you both."

  Quin reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but Lucy spun away from it. She followed her momentum and kept going then, leaving Quin standing there alone at the back of the ship.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The sun had set, and the last streams of light over the horizon painted the dusk sky vibrant reds, oranges, and purples. Lucy did not take the time to appreciate this as she strode into the first class dining room for dinner. She was already late.

  She had thought about missing dinner entirely, but the growling in her stomach had argued forcefully against her. By the time she had given in to its flawless reasoning, she'd hoped to at least skip as much of the small talk during the opening courses as possible. Maybe she'd be lucky and discover that the boys had already eaten and left for the lounge, but she discovered upon entering the room that she'd only been half as fortunate as she'd hoped.

  "Where's Quin?" Abe asked as Lucy sat down next to him at a table in the first class dining room. "I haven't seen either one of you all afternoon. I figured you might be enjoying each other's company."

  Lucy's hands formed into fists as she settled into one of the empty chairs beside Abe, and she had to struggle with herself to keep from punching him in the arm. If there hadn't been other people at the table with him – including Dushko and Elisabetta, who had joined them last night too – she might have given in to the urge. As it was, she steeled herself for the conversation she'd both wanted to have, and avoid, ever since she'd spoken with Quin.

  "He isn't with you?" She unfolded her napkin, refusing to look at him. "I thought you were in charge of his social schedule."

  Abe smiled. "Nothing could be further from the truth. Our Quin is an independent young man. He sets his own agenda. I just help him cross off the items on it."

  "Is that what you were doing when you sent me to talk to him earlier today?"

  Abe raised his eyebrows at her, catching the edge in her voice. "Can I take it that you've had the opportunity to speak with him?"

  "You may."

  "And might I ask what the results of that conversation were?"

  Lucy glared at him. "You may not."

  Abe nodded. "Ah."

  Elisabetta giggled at them from across the table. She nudged Dushko in the ribs with her elbow, and he squirmed away from her in his chair.

  "It is not polite to listen to other people's conversations, my dear," Dushko said to Elisabetta in a quiet voice.

  She dismissed him with a curt wave. "Then they shouldn't have them right in front of us." Having confessed to eavesdropping on Lucy and Abe's conversation, she gave up all pretense of doing otherwise and leaned across the table toward Lucy. "Are these two boys fighting over you, dear? How exciting! You must be flattered to have two such handsome suitors pursuing you."

  Lucy replied to Elisabetta but never took her eyes off Abe as she spoke. "I don't know if I'd agree with that," she said. "I think I'm seeing something ugly about them both right now."

  "Come now, Lucy," Abe said. "What would you have had me do? Poor Quin has been heartsick over you forever. It was time to get it out in the open."

  "And you had absolutely no concern over how this might affect our relationship?"

  Abe gave her a resigned shrug. "I thought the two of you would work it out and let me know what happened. I figured you'd either run off with him or break his heart."

  "And what do you think transpired?" Elisabetta said. Dushko put an arm on her shoulder to restrain her, but she removed it with a sharp shrug.

  "Well," said Abe, "she's here with me instead of him, isn't she?"

  "I wasn't talking about Quin and me." Lucy felt herself starting to seethe at Abe. "I meant you and me."

  "Oh." Abe sat up straighter in his chair. "I thought that an enlightened and modern young lady such as yourself would appreciate the opportunity to make any decisions about your love life with all of the information available."

  Lucy reached for the glass of wine that a steward had just filled for her. Abe put his hand on hers before she could throw it at him.

  "Wait," Abe said in a contrite tone. "That came out wrong. I just meant–" He glanced over at the others at the table. "I felt I owed it to you both."

  Most of them were pretending not to notice. From the way Dushko peered into his wine glass, he seemed to have found something intriguing floating in it. Only Elisabetta stared at them with unabashed glee. Lucy glared at the woman, but she responded to the hostility with a sly wink.

  "Quincey is my best friend," Abe said. "He deserves to be able to tell you how he feels about you."

  "And what about me?" Lucy said. She didn't understand Abe's motivations at all. He'd pursued her for months before she'd given in to him. The way he'd treated her after that, though, made her think that perhaps he'd enjoyed the chase far more than the prize.

  "I thought you deserved it too."

  Abe took his hand off Lucy's. She looked at her wine glass and considered tossing it at him and storming out of the room. But she wanted to hear what he had to say, and her stomach growled at her to stay.

  Abe turned to her then and spoke in low, private tones. Elisabetta cupped her ears to make sure she got every word. Lucy ignored her and focused on Abe instead.

  "I'm not staying in the States, Lucy," Abe said. "Once I drop you off at college, I'm on my way back to Old Blighty. And once that's done, I'm sure you're going to find yourself a handsome young Yank who adores the ground you traverse."

  "That's not the plan at all." Lucy frowned at Abe. "You know that."

  Abe shrugged. "The plan is to have a wonderful summer wandering about the US with you and then let you go. And I mean that in every way."

  Lucy parted her lips to protest, but Abe held up a hand and continued on. "I thought that if you wound up with some Yank, wonderful as he might be, I would never see you again. Sure, we might still write letters to each other, but I doubt I would be moved to cross this blasted ocean again to see you with another man."

  "So what does any of this have to do with Quin?"

  "Ah." Abe's eyes lost their touch of melancholy and lit up. "That's all part of my wicked Plan B, of course. I figured that if I couldn't be with you, then I'd want someone else I know and trust to be there to treat you right. Who better than our man Quincey?"

  "You can't be serious." Lucy raised an eyebrow at Abe. "You're hardly so selfless."

  Abe put a hand over his heart. "You wound me, Lucy. I have always… Very well. Sure. There was a part of me that figured that if you wound up with Quin, you and he might eventually move back to England at some juncture."

  "And then you would be able to see me again?"

  Abe grinned. "And then I'd have my chance to steal you back."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  "I don't think this is a good idea," Dennis Cherryman said as he and his compatriot stole their way toward the upper de
cks of the Carpathia. They'd come to a railing gate across one of the outer stairwells, and the sign across it read FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS ONLY. It was a simple matter of reaching over the railing to the other side to unlatch the gate, but Dennis came up short against it.

  "Come on now," David Ritter said. "Is it our fault we don't have a penny on us to be able to pay for a snifter or two?"

  Dennis looked both himself and David over. The staff on the Carpathia had provided some clothes for him once he'd made it aboard, but they hadn't been anything fancier than the clobber he'd left England in. David had started his journey in New York, though, and his clothes were even more tattered than Dennis's.

  "Everything I had – which wasn't much, I'll grant you – went down with the Titanic," Dennis said. "What's your excuse?"

  David ran his thumbs through his frayed suspenders. "Lost every bit of it to a card shark. Can you believe they let those sorts of people bother us down in steerage? You'd think he'd have been after bigger game than me."

  Dennis nodded slowly. He wasn't convinced that his new friend, with whom he shared a cabin on the Main Deck, all the way in the lowest part of the ship, was truly broke rather than simply larcenous. Desperate times might call for desperate measures – the sinking of the Titanic had taught him that – but Dennis wasn't all that sure about how desperate they were.

  "Come on now," David said. "They aren't going to give us any drink on credit, and without it we'll have a long, dry voyage home."

  "So we have to steal it?"

  Dennis winked at David. "Did you see the way that lass with the blonde curls was looking at you, lad? A little drink to loosen her up, and you're in, there."

  David blushed. He had seen the girl, and there was nothing he'd have liked more than to share a drink or three with her. The stewards on board the Carpathia had been awful kind to him, providing him with everything he needed. They'd been a bit more reluctant with their response to his requests for booze though, and they'd refused to sell him anything on credit.

  "I suppose you're right," he said to Dennis as he reached over and undid the latch. "If we're going to do it, though, let's be fast. I'd hate to survive the Titanic only to get into trouble over a wee bit of drink." He pulled the gate open and slipped past it, Dennis right on his heels.

  The sun had just gone down, and the artificial lights scattered about the Carpathia allowed many long shadows along its decks. The two men stuck to them as much as they could and managed to slip all the way up to the Bridge Deck, which put them on the same level as the first class dining room. The lights inside blazed bright, which David knew would make it hard for anyone in the room to see them as they walked past. Still, they kept their heads down and their noses pointed forward as they strolled along the deck.

  "The Smoke Room's at the aft end of the deck," Dennis said. "They have a bar there, and there's a small storeroom that backs on to it. The doorway's straight up there on our right."

  "And just how are we supposed to get into this place?" David said. "You don't think they'd keep something like that locked up tight?"

  "Of course they do," said Dennis, "but I happen to have a key that will get us right in." He held it up before him, golden and shiny, even in the scattered lights.

  "Now where in hell did you get that?" David asked.

  "From the same gentleman who told me about the storeroom." Dennis said. "He set it all up, but he can't be caught stealing from the ship if he wants to keep his job. All he wants is a share of whatever we can bring home."

  "Seems fair enough," David said, "but they won't throw him in the brig if we get caught, will they?"

  "Do they still have brigs? I thought that was something you only read about in pirate tales, right up there with keelhauling."

  "You figure they'll toss us overboard instead?"

  Dennis rushed past David as they reached the storeroom door, the key glittering in his hand. "I figure they won't catch us if we move fast and act like we know what we're doing."

  He had the door open in a flash, and an instant later he and David slipped into the darkened storeroom. Worried that someone might see them, David shut the door behind them, plunging the room back into blackness.

  "Couldn't you have waited until I found the light?" Dennis said.

  David heard Dennis stumbling about in the dark, but he remained in one place, his feet rooted to the floor. He fumbled for a switch near the entrance, but didn't find it. Instead, he found the arm of someone leaning up against the wall next to the doorway, and he jerked his hand back right away.

  "Is that you, Dennis?"

  "Of course it's me, you idiot. Who else did you bring in here with you?"

  David's breath caught in his throat, and he could not respond. Dennis's voice hadn't come from next to him where the arm hung but from across the small room instead. David reached out to grab the arm, but it had disappeared.

  Someone fell to the floor with a thud then, and David heard a soft but urgent gurgle from Dennis's direction.

  "Are you all right?" Fear crept up from David's gut, threatening to close off his throat. He'd had a hard enough week already, and it was only Tuesday. He wasn't in the mood for this. "Quit playing around, Dennis. It's not funny."

  David heard someone swallowing, and that set him off. "You little bastard. You had to go for a goddamn drink already? Couldn't you wait until we got back below decks?"

  David found the light switch then and flicked it on. He stared in horror at the scene it revealed.

  A man with wild, unkempt hair knelt crouched over Dennis's slumped form, cradling him in his arms. The man looked up at David as he lowered Dennis to the ground. He wore a wild look in his eyes, and a trickle of blood ran down from his lips, staining his chin and shirt.

  "Sorry about that, lad," the man said with a drunken grin. "I couldn't help myself."

  David drew in a breath to scream, but the man stepped up and punched him in the throat before he could unleash it. David crumpled to his knees, clutching at his ruined airway as he gasped with all his might for one last breath. He never found it.

  The man stepped around David and reached for the light switch. Just before he put it out, he looked down at David with a satisfied grin and said, "When you get to Hell, my boy, tell the Devil that Brody Murtagh sent you."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  "Quin?" Lucy said. "Quin, where are you?"

  Quin could hear her from where he was hiding, but he didn't want to reveal that to her quite yet. After their conversation that afternoon – after he'd finally revealed how he felt about her – he'd wanted to crawl back into his bed to curl up and die. That way, he'd have at least saved Lucy any more agony, and he'd have put himself out of his own misery at the same time.

  Abe hadn't let him get away with that though. He'd insisted on Quin joining him at dinner, which was the last thing that Quin wanted to do. He wanted to talk with Lucy again but at the same time feared to hear what she might have to say, but either way he dreaded the idea of having that chat in the middle of the dining room, not only in front of Abe but anyone else who might be within earshot.

  When Abe had decided to relieve himself before they went up to dinner, Quin had slipped out of the room without a word. He'd taken the nearest stairs straight up to the Shelter Deck and made his way aft. He'd soon found himself near the back railing, right where Lucy had failed to renounce Abe and fall in love with him on his say-so.

  Worried that Abe or – worse yet – Lucy would find him lingering there, Quin decided he had to hide. He couldn't just go back to his cabin, as Abe would check there for sure, and he knew the same would be true if he tried to hole up in the smoking room or any of the ship's lounges. He had to actually conceal himself someplace if he wanted to be sure of avoiding them, or anyone else who might feel like striking up an unwanted conversation with him.

  He just wanted to be alone.

  As he strolled along the railing, Quin ran his hand along one of the lifeboats from the Titanic. The capta
in of the Carpathia had ordered many of them hauled up from the water on davits once the survivors of the disaster had been brought aboard the ship. Now they sat tilted on the Carpathia's decks, covered with canvases and lashed to the rails.

  Quin didn't know why they'd bothered to recover the lifeboats, but he was glad that they had. At the very least, he figured that the Carpathia would be sure to have more than enough lifeboats should disaster strike it too. He also felt a strong sense of affection for the collapsible to which Abe and he had clung, and the thought that it hadn't been abandoned in the North Atlantic along with the dead made him somehow feel more secure.

  Quin had found that lifeboat and knelt down next to it. There was a bit of space where it leaned up against the railing, and he found that if he got on his hands and knees he could wriggle through it. He sat there on the part of the deck the lifeboat sheltered, leaned back against the inside of the hull behind him, and stared out at the ocean as the sun fell into it and disappeared.