Flora's Secret

by Anita Davison

  Flora’s Secret

  Anita Davison

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.ariafiction.com

  About Flora’s Secret

  Young governess Flora Maguire is on her way home from America on the maiden voyage of the S.S. Minneapolis with her young charge Eddy, Viscount Trent, when she discovers a dead body.

  Unconvinced when the death is pronounced an accident, Flora starts asking questions, but following threats, a near drowning and a second murder, the hunt is on for a killer. Time is running out as the Minneapolis approaches the English coast.

  Will Flora be able to protect Eddy, as well as herself, and uncover the identity of the murderer?

  Is her burgeoning relationship with the handsome Bunny Harrington only a shipboard dalliance, or something more?

  For Clive – Life is only temporary – Love is eternal

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  About Flora’s Secret

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Saturday

  Chapter 2

  Sunday

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Monday

  Chapter 9

  Tuesday

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Wednesday

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Thursday

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Friday

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Sunday

  Acknowledgements

  About Anita Davison

  About the Flora Maguire Mysteries

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Saturday

  Well-wishers stood four deep on Pier 39 in New York Harbour beneath a sea of colourful hats wide as sailboats, their owners waving handkerchiefs or sobbing into them. Horse-drawn carriages with crests on the doors lined up alongside hired hackneys to disgorge elegantly dressed couples and businessmen with their matronly wives, all of whom joined the clamour on the quayside taking farewell of friends and relatives. The clatter of hooves vied with shouts from newsboys and costermongers plying their wares to the waiting crowd, their voices combined in an inaudible concert.

  Boisterous children darted between them, miniature flags held aloft on sticks; Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes in equal numbers. Harassed nurses made vain attempts to round them up, while their parents looked on with bored disinterest. Porters strained behind loaded trolleys calling out their warnings to make way, while imperious matrons issued braying instructions for the disposition of their luggage.

  ‘It’s huge!’ Flora stood at the bottom of the gangplank, her foot tapping in time to the music from a brass band led by an enthusiastic conductor in a rendition of the ‘Washington Post’ march. She had seen ocean-going steamers before, even travelled on one, yet there was something awe-inspiring about the Minneapolis, with her gleaming black hull, bright red smoke stack and taut metal winch lines draped with multi-coloured bunting.’

  ‘This is her maiden voyage,’ Eddy shouted as he waved the shipping line brochure that had been his constant companion this past week under Flora’s nose: ‘Listen to this,’ he opened the booklet and read aloud. ‘She’s six hundred feet long, and 13,400 tonnes, which means she has the largest tonnage of any ship afloat, apart from the SS Oceanic.’

  ‘Which was the ship we came over on three months ago,’ Flora reminded him.

  ‘I know, but Minneapolis is a brand new ship.’ He looked up briefly from the brochure. ‘This is her maiden voyage, and she’s carrying only seventy-eight first-class passengers and a hundred and fifty five crew. That’s almost two crew members for each passenger. Just think, Flora we’ll be the first people to travel on her.’ He tucked the booklet back into his pocket, his gaze following a man who walked past with a boy of about his own age. The man pointed items of interest out to the boy, who laughed and chatted at his side, both intent on each other.

  ‘I’m sorry you have only me for company on the trip home.’ Flora caressed Eddy’s shoulder gently with one hand. ‘Your parents would have stayed to see you off, but they had a train to catch.’

  ‘I don’t mind being with you, Flora. For a governess, you’re a good egg.’ Eddy swiped a hand across eyes that looked suspiciously wet, then trained a morose glare on the emotional farewells taking place on the quayside. ‘Mama didn’t even bother to get out of the carriage.’

  Although tall for thirteen, with well-defined features that promised to mature into male handsomeness in years to come, Edward, Viscount Trent, was still very much a child.

  ‘You’re very important to your father.’ Flora bit her lip at the disappointment in his voice. ‘You’re Lord Vaughn’s heir, remember.’

  She tried to imagine how she would feel, if her parents had packed her off back to England while they toured the Eastern United States. The question was moot, for her mother had died when she was young and, as Lord Vaughn’s head butler, her father didn’t possess the resources to send her anywhere. Flora had resigned herself long ago to viewing the peripatetic lives of the English aristocracy from the shadows.

  ‘I would sooner be just his son.’ Eddy broke away from her and pounded up the gangplank.

  Sighing, Flora prepared to follow, but was prevented by a young man in a shabby brown suit who stepped in front of her, a bulky camera raised to his face. ‘Photograph, Miss?’

  ‘Er no, thank you.’ Flora stood on tiptoe to keep Eddy in sight, he had reached the saloon deck and was on his way to the outside companionway. ‘Maybe later.’

  Lowering the camera, the youth pressed a pasteboard card into her hand. ‘Printed in our own darkroom, and available throughout the voyage,’ his sales patter continued unabated. ‘Perfect to send to your loved ones as postcards.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Thanking him with a smile, Flora shoved the card into a pocket without looking at it, and joined a queue of passengers further up the gangplank.

  An officer saluted her with a smile, and flattered, she stood a little straighter before proceeding to the packed deck where a group of sailors held out baskets of tightly coiled paper streamers in pastel colours. Flora grabbed a handful, pausing to allow an elderly matron to totter past with a tiny white dog on a leash. With a sharp eye open for Eddy, she eased through the press of bodies, where a barrage of feathers and silk flowers batted her face, their owners with world-weary expressions oblivious to her repeated and increasingly urgent “excuse me’s”.

  She spotted Eddy again on the promenade deck, where he strolled the row of doors of the suites where she guessed he was trying to find theirs. Flora started up the companionway to join him, forced to a halt at the top when a noisy family shoved past her. She stepped back to let them pass, where her attention was caught by an arrestingly pretty woman beneath the deck canopy. In a claret wool travelling coat with mutton leg sleeves and fox fur trim, she looked to be about Flora’s own age. Her features were set hard, eyes narrowed and her fists clenched at her sides in barely restrained anger.

  The object of her fury was older, with slightly receding hair, olive skin and thick eyebrows that met in the middle. He accepted h
er tirade in silence, while he repeatedly eased his collar away from his throat with a finger.

  Her message delivered, the lady shot him a final hard glare, swivelled on her heel and stalked away.

  The man inhaled deeply from a lit cheroot, shot the smoke in a straight upward stream, turned and leaned both forearms on the rail, hunched forward as if the encounter had drained him.

  Flora took in his yellow-stained fingers and badly cut hair as she passed, intrigued as to what someone like him could have to say to the immaculate girl in her expensive clothes.

  The clang of a bell interrupted her thoughts, and as the echo of its resonant peals died away, a booming male voice shouted, ‘All ashore that’s going ashore!’

  A middle-aged lady who stood with a young couple to Flora’s left burst into noisy tears and threw her chubby arms round the young man’s neck. He disentangled her firmly and walked her to the companionway, while the girl remained behind, a hand raised in a weak wave, a wistful smile on her pretty face. At the gangplank, a steward took charge of the weeping older woman, while the young man returned to the girl’s side, their combined expressions now of undisguised glee.

  ‘Come on, Flora,’ Eddy’s shout commanded her attention. ‘I’ve found our suite, now I want to go and watch for the pilot boat.’

  A long, plaintive note of the ship’s horn was greeted by a renewed burst of cheers and catcalls from the quayside, while the passengers on deck made a surge for the rail to wave their goodbyes. The brass band began a rousing chorus of the, ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ followed by a cacophony of horns, hooters and whistles from the river that sent a shiver of excitement along Flora’s spine.

  ‘I can’t see much with all these people,’ Eddy said when she reached him.

  ‘Let’s see what we can do about that.’ Flora grabbed his hand and dragged him through the press of bodies toward the ship’s rail, responding to the scowls and outraged rumblings thrown their way with an apologetic smile.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, do forgive me,’ she gushed. ‘Please let us through. My little brother and I might never see our darling Grandpapa again.’

  The disapproving looks faded, replaced by sympathy as both the aloof and the obliging shuffled aside to make room for them at the rail.

  ‘Flora!’ Eddy dragged out her name, his eyes widening. ‘My Grandpapa lives in Knightsbridge and yours died years ago.’

  ‘Hush!’ Flora selected a paper streamer from the pile handed to her by a steward on the companionway. ‘I had to think of something, or we would be stranded at the back, and you wouldn’t get to see your pilot boat.’ She tossed a strip of paper into the air. The streamer twirled in a graceful arc, then slowly unfurled and fell slowly into the sea of waving arms and blurred faces far below on the quayside.

  ‘What are we doing this for?’ Eddy asked, surly again. ‘My parents left ten minutes after we arrived.’ His penetrating dark eyes peered out from behind hanks of curly, nut-brown hair that resisted all attempts to tame it.

  ‘Then pretend.’ Flora raised herself on tiptoes and threw another streamer. ‘Imagine there’s someone running along the quayside as the ship pulls away, tears in their eyes and waving a damp handkerchief.’ She clasped her hands against her breast and gave a mock sigh.

  ‘You are funny, Flora.’ His mouth twitched and he shook his head, then with a resigned shrug, snatched the rolled streamer from her open palm, pulled his arm back and tossed it into the air.

  The boards beneath their feet vibrated and the twin screw steam engines thrummed into pulsing, whirring life far below, while the long plaintive boom of the ship’s horn came again.

  They were leaving.

  ‘There’s the pilot boat!’ Eddy’s mood had evidently lifted as he scooted along the rail, his chin propped on his folded hands on the polished wood as the tiny vessel ran fast and straight towards the bow. In seconds it had disappeared beneath the hull as the vast ship eased away from the pier and swung into mid-river. A flotilla of small vessels jostled and bobbed on the froth-topped waves like minnows round a whale.

  ‘Goodbye New York!’ Flora untangled the streamers that had snagged onto her straw hat as tiny scraps of paper fell around them like coloured snow and floated to the deck in a pastel layer round their feet, while the city receded into the distance like a cluster of toy houses heaped on a green blanket.

  ‘Goodbye, Meely,’ Eddy whispered his childish nickname for his eldest sister.

  Experiencing a surge of sympathy, Flora slid an arm round his shoulders. ‘Maybe Lady Amelia and her husband will come to England one day. Once you’ve finished school, you could even visit them.’

  ‘That won’t be for ages.’ Eddy snorted.

  Aware that another platitude would simply worsen his mood, she summoned a bright, if slightly contrived smile. ‘Well, I’ve had a wonderful time on this trip. I’m so thrilled your parents invited me. I would never have had the opportunity to see America otherwise.’

  Invited was a somewhat generous term, for Lady Vaughn had included Flora among the party as a temporary lady’s maid for her bride-to-be daughter. Her more usual role as Eddy’s governess was what qualified her as the most suitable candidate to escort Eddy home. ‘Why do I have to go back to rainy old England, and school anyway?’ Eddy mumbled into his folded arms on top of the rail.

  ‘School is a fact of everyone’s life.’ For boys anyway, she reminded herself, for her own education had been conducted in the schoolroom at Lord Vaughn’s Gloucestershire home along with his three daughters. Not that their syllabus included Latin or Philosophy which would be expected of Eddy at Marlborough, but Flora considered herself well versed in most subjects which fitted her for her post as Eddy’s governess.

  One by one, the passengers peeled away from the rail to settle in their accommodations or converge in the public rooms, leaving the young girl and the schoolboy virtually alone on the deck. The Statue of Liberty glowed green in the evening light as it slid by on Bedloe Island, an arm raised in perpetual salute, while lights blinked on in the receding city as dusk approached.

  ‘Papa said the French gave the statue to America, but he didn’t say why.’

  ‘They gave it as a gift to commemorate the War of Independence.’

  ‘You mean because we lost, and they wanted to rub our noses in it?’ He slanted a sideways look up at her which conveyed his scorn.

  ‘I doubt that was quite their intention.’ Flora smiled, tightening her arm round Eddy’s shoulders in a one-armed hug; the only sort he allowed these days. ‘Did you know the statue is about the same age as you are?’

  He shook his head, frowning. ‘Is it made of real gold, because it’s not very shiny?’’

  ‘It’s copper, but I’ve been told it will turn green eventually, which is what happens to copper in the air.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oxidisation, but for a more comprehensive explanation you’ll have to ask your new chemistry master. Now Eddy,’ she asked in an attempt to distract him. ‘Which suite is ours?’

  ‘That one.’ He cocked his chin at the closest of the white doors, where a hand-written label in a brass frame had been attached to a door that stood ajar, the words, Edward, Viscount Trent and Miss Flora Maguire, in cursive script, set above a brass doorbell.

  ‘Well then, what are we waiting for?’ She tugged him forward. ‘Let’s go and explore.’

  The cream and white panelled sitting room was no bigger than ten by eight but, with its ornate gilt fireplace at one end, exuded an air of opulence and style, combined with a tang of beeswax polish, fresh flowers and linseed oil.

  A writing bureau with a hinged lid stood near the door, together with three wicker armchairs upholstered in dark red plush fabric. Two square windows framed by dimity curtains of white with a tiny red rosebud pattern overlooked the covered promenade deck. A door at either side led to two compact bedrooms, each with a tiny bathroom complete with white ceramic fittings, polished brass taps and gleaming mirrors.

 
Flora strolled to the mock fireplace, on which were propped a trio of cards against the gilt mirror above. One was the passengers list, though she didn’t recognize any of the names but for one Member of Parliament. Beside it sat the menu card for the day and a programme listing the week’s activities.

  She made a mental note of the treasure hunt and horse races, which might interest Eddy, before replacing the card.

  Their luggage had already been delivered and a stewardess bustled between the open steamer trunks and the bedrooms, tutting good-naturedly when Eddy got in her way in his bid to try out the beds, open drawers and peer into cupboards.

  Inhaling the smell of fresh paint and clean linen, Flora released a satisfied sigh at the thought this luxurious new suite would be her home for the next week or so at no one’s beck and call but Eddy’s.

  Removing her straw hat, she tossed it onto the bed where the stewardess had arranged her things, simultaneously running a hand across the soft white coverlet that matched the dimity curtains in the lounge. Her room also had the luxury of a large square window, not the tiny porthole in the cupboard euphemistically referred to as a cabin on the outward trip.

  ‘Did you know there’s a wireless telegraphy room on board, Flora?’ Eddy braced both hands on either side of the door frame to her room, making no attempt to enter. ‘The “Minne” class ships are among the first to have one.’

  ‘I’ll have to borrow that brochure of yours, Eddy, because I have no idea what a “Minne” class ship is.’

  ‘That’s easy.’ His enthusiasm for anything connected to engineering had returned. ‘The shipping line gave some of their new ships native names like Minnehaha, Minnetonka, Minnewaska. They all begin with ‘Minne’ see?’

  ‘Of course, why didn’t I think of that? And this one has a wireless telegraph room?

  He nodded. ‘Do you think the crew will let me see how it works?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. We could ask the purser.’ Flora guided him back into the sitting room, at the same time, she impulsively dropped a swift kiss onto his cheek in response to his renewed enthusiasm.