Chapter 2
Look for me by moonlight.
ALFRED NOYES, The Highwayman
In the next instant, the sinister face resolved itself into the cheerful features painted on the end of a holiday log.
“Oh, Pedro!” I scolded, pressing a hand to my pounding heart. “You scared me half to death!”
Predictably, the caga tió said nothing, but continued to smile happily from the nightstand. I took off my hat and tossed it over Pedro’s painted face to prevent a similar scare when I awakened, then kicked off my shoes and collapsed onto the nearer of the two beds.
A light yet persistent tapping on the door eventually awoke me from a deep and dreamless sleep. “Robin, honey, are you awake?” my aunt called. “It’s almost time for the lifeboat drill, and then we’ll need to get dressed for the Captain’s Bon Voyage Reception.”
“I’m awake,” I called back, and tried hard to believe it. I rolled off the bed, noting how the lighting in my stateroom had changed since I’d been so startled by Pedro; apparently I had been asleep for some time. I staggered to the door and opened it as proof of my wakefulness.
At that moment the ship’s horn began emitting short, loud blasts, and if I hadn’t been awake already, that would have been more than sufficient to do the job. A requirement for sea-going vessels for almost fifty years—ever since the sinking of the Titanic—the lifeboat drill was mandatory for all passengers and crew. It was impossible not to know where we were supposed to go; the nearest muster station was clearly marked on a diagram just inside my cabin door, and similar diagrams were posted at intervals up and down the length of the passageway.
We arrived to find quite a crowd already gathered, and once the last stragglers had reported in to the crew member who checked off their names on a list of passengers, the exercise began. Two elderly ladies listened intently to the instructions as if quite certain their lives depended on their committing the procedure to memory, while one man with an anchor tattooed on his forearm was obviously annoyed at having to take time out of his vacation to listen to information he’d no doubt been required to memorize during his days in the navy. Most passengers fell somewhere between the two extremes, my aunt and I among them.
After learning how to put on the bulky life jackets (not a flattering look by any means, but I suspected in a real emergency we would put them on eagerly enough with no thought for appearances), we were given instructions as to how to board a lifeboat (“One at a time, and with each person taking a seat quickly so as not to block the way for passengers behind”) and how to abandon ship, in the unlikely event that it should become necessary (“Put one hand over your mouth and pinch your nostrils shut with thumb and forefinger, then step—don’t jump—off the deck”). I couldn’t help wondering if anyone would actually remember any of this information in case of an actual emergency.
At last the drill was done, and we were dismissed to prepare for the reception.
“I’ll be ready in half an hour,” I promised Aunt Maggie when we parted company at the door of my stateroom. Once inside, I turned my attention to the task of transforming myself. A quick shower (there was really no point in lingering beneath the halfhearted trickle of hot water, since I could barely turn around in the tiny space allotted to it) made me feel human again, a feeling enhanced once I’d put on a long, full-skirted dress of periwinkle blue with a sheer overskirt of embroidered silver net and a wide, shallow scoop neck. By the time I’d slipped my feet into silver spangled pumps, the bathroom mirror had de-fogged sufficiently for me to put on makeup. I didn’t pile my hair up, but teased it into a pouf at the crown and fastened a silver bow in the front. Twenty-four minutes later—well within the half-hour I’d promised—I grabbed my small silver clutch bag, locked the door to my stateroom behind me, and tapped at Aunt Maggie’s door.
My aunt had cautioned me in advance that evenings aboard ship tended to be formal affairs, and I had packed accordingly; still, I was taken aback by the vision that stood in the corridor. Although Aunt Maggie was well into her fifties, her figure was still good, and she clearly intended to make the most of it. She wore a strapless number in shades of blue and green whose full skirt had been split from waist to hemline, revealing close-fitting slacks made of the same fabric. Her red hair had been piled up on her head, the better to draw attention to the emeralds that dangled from her ears.
“Oh, Maggie!” I breathed. “You look amazing!”
“Well, I did my best—although it’s difficult, when one is shown up by a beautiful young niece.”
I smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, but made no comment. I would have looked ridiculous in anything even half so sophisticated—like a twelve-year-old playing dress-up—and she knew it as well as I did. Still, I was grateful for the first time that the fact I still lived with my parents meant I had few expenses, and therefore sufficient funds to buy plenty of new clothes for the trip. I hadn’t worn a formal gown since the senior prom, and it would have been too humiliating to accompany my stylish aunt to dinner dressed like a teenager.
“Don’t you look lovely!” she exclaimed, waving one hand in a circular motion that gave me to understand I was to turn around so she could inspect me from all angles. “Perfect,” she pronounced at the completion of this exercise. “That shade of blue just matches your eyes. Gene is an idiot.”
I rolled my eyes, but made no attempt to defend him. I hadn’t thought of Gene since I’d woken up, and realized to my surprise that I didn’t want to think of him now.
“But enough about him,” Maggie said quickly, apparently sensing my mood. “Let’s go dazzle our shipmates, shall we?”
The Captain’s Bon Voyage Reception—the brochure described it exactly like that, capital letters and all—was to be held on the Europa deck, which told me absolutely nothing about exactly where it was on the ship. All the decks had names calculated to evoke images of exotic ports of call. I’ll admit they were more glamorous than simple numbers, like hotel floors, but also considerably less informative. Thankfully, a framed diagram mounted next to the stairs indicated that Europa was down three decks from our present location on Capri Deck.
“By the time we dock in Venice, we’ll know this ship like the back of our hand,” my aunt predicted confidently, and started down the stairs.
We reached the Europa deck to find many of our fellow passengers there ahead of us, all talking with voices raised to make themselves heard over the splashing from a three-tiered fountain prominently located in the middle of a spacious atrium whose wide floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the sea. A waiter in a crisp white dinner jacket appeared at Aunt Maggie’s elbow, proffering a tray of goblets filled with champagne. Maggie took two and handed one to me.
“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we d—”
“Dock in Livorno,” put in a deep masculine voice.
We both turned and beheld our captain, resplendent in a starched white uniform bristling with gold braid. He smiled at Aunt Maggie, teeth white against a suntanned face.
“Surely you don’t mean to suggest that I would fail to deliver two such lovely ladies safely to their destination?” he continued, dismissing the waiter with a glance. The man all but genuflected—no small feat while balancing a tray of champagne glasses—then took himself discreetly off.
“You don’t mean to tell me you’re the one in charge of this tub!” Maggie exclaimed. “Why, you’re no more than a boy!”
“Hardly a boy, madam,” he objected in charmingly accented English. “I am forty-two.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she challenged with exaggerated dismay. “Why, I’m old enough to be—no, not your mother, but certainly old enough to have been your babysitter.”
He laughed at that, a deep rumble that shook his chest and made his gold braid sparkle under the lights. “I could only wish to have had so charming a babysitter in my youth. And this”—he turned to me—“this young lady must be your sister?” He meant “daughter,” o
f course, but I had to admire the man’s diplomacy.
“My niece,” Maggie put in with the indulgent smile of one who intends to enjoy such shameless flattery while she can, without for one moment taking it seriously. “She has never been abroad before, so I persuaded her to accompany me.”
“Excellent!” the captain declared, rubbing his hands together. “I look forward to the opportunity of sharing my beautiful country with you.”
“Oh, but I’ve been to Italy before,” Aunt Maggie corrected him. “My husband liberated Rome in ’45—not all by himself, of course, he had a little help from the rest of the Allied forces—and several years after the war he took me to Italy to show me some of the places he’d seen.”
“Of course,” the captain said, and after exchanging a few platitudes on the glories of the Coliseum and the Trevi Fountain, he turned away to speak to a couple of newcomers. For the first time it occurred to me that our captain might well have begun his maritime career with the Italian Navy, and I wondered if it was the mention of the war or Aunt Maggie’s having a husband that had caused him to beat a hasty retreat.
Deprived of the captain’s company, we took our places in the line at the buffet table, where a selection of savory finger foods was on offer. We filled our tiny plates, and as we looked about for somewhere to set our glasses down, I saw a couple of people I recognized: a distinguished-looking older man in a tuxedo, and a raven-haired woman in slinky red satin, cut low in both front and back.
“Oh, look!” I breathed in an undervoice. “It’s the Mistress and her Sugar Daddy!”
“Who?” Delightfully scandalized, Aunt Maggie turned to look in the direction I indicated, just in time to see The Mistress plunk a grape into her benefactor’s mouth.
“At least, I think that’s who they must be. He’s definitely not her father, and I don’t think she looks like the marrying kind, do you?”
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
Maggie headed purposefully in their direction, and I, burdened with a plate in one hand and a champagne glass in the other, could do nothing to stop her. I hurried after her, not quite sure whether I hoped to prevent her from doing anything embarrassing, or to prevent me from missing anything interesting the pair might say. To my surprise (and yes, relief), my aunt did not approach them directly, but turned at the last minute as if to pass them by. Just as she drew abreast of the man, her cocktail napkin slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor.
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed helplessly, shifting plate and glass back and forth as if trying to decide how to reclaim the napkin without littering the carpet with canapés and/or champagne.
“Allow me.” The Sugar Daddy interrupted his low-voiced conversation with the woman long enough to balance his plate atop his champagne glass while he stooped to retrieve the errant napkin.
“Oh, thank you!” Aunt Maggie gushed. The man (who was seventy years old if he was a day) brushed aside her protestations with a smug smile, while the Mistress regarded Maggie with a tightening of her scarlet lips.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “Anything for a fellow passenger. Allow me to introduce myself: Graham Grimes, at your service, and my traveling companion, Sylvia Duprée.”
“Margaret Watson—Maggie, to my friends.”
Miss Duprée’s lips grew thinner. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
“And who is this lovely young lady?” The smile he bestowed on me was so avuncular I half expected him to pat me on the head.
“My niece, Robin Fletcher.”
“Miss Fletcher.” He acknowledged me with a nod. “Tell me, is this your first trip to Europe?”
“It is, Mr. Grimes, but I can’t tell you how chagrined I am that it’s so obvious!”
“Not at all,” he assured me, laughing. “Every young person should visit the Old World at least once, if for no other reason that it gives them a deeper appreciation of the New. Do you plan to spend tomorrow in Livorno?”
The question was addressed to both of us, but since Maggie had planned the details of our trip, I let her answer. “Actually, we planned to spend the morning in Florence, with a side trip to Pisa in the afternoon—see if we can straighten up that tower for them, you know.”
Mr. Grimes laughed as if this quip were wonderfully funny; I supposed it must be the champagne making him particularly jovial. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to be having the same effect on Miss Duprée, who looked as if steam were about to start coming out her ears. I was a bit surprised that she considered Maggie a threat, since she must have been younger by a decade. I wondered if perhaps she wasn’t quite so certain of Mr. Grimes’s affections as she would have liked.
“Have you been to Livorno before?” Maggie was asking. “Can you tell me how to find the bus station?”
“Oh, surely there’s no need for that,” put in a new voice. All four of us turned en masse to regard the newcomer, a tall man of about sixty with silver hair and blue eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles. I glanced at my aunt, and noticed an appreciative gleam in Aunt Maggie’s eyes. Beyond her, Miss Duprée’s eyes narrowed appraisingly, as if she were comparing her present situation with the possibility of future prospects.
“I’ve hired a car for the very same route,” the man continued. “Why not come with me? I’m afraid I can’t show you the sights—I have a meeting with a colleague—but I can give you a lift there and back. My name is Paul Hurley, I live in Virginia, I’m a surgeon—semi-retired—and I have a clean driving record. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
“All right, Dr. Hurley, you’ve convinced me,” declared Aunt Maggie, laughing. “I can’t say I was looking forward to squeezing aboard a crowded bus, especially if we do much shopping.”
“I also happen to be a dab hand at carrying parcels,” the doctor assured her. “But won’t you call me Paul?”
“Only if you call me Maggie.”
“Smile!”
All five of us turned as one, just in time to be blinded by a flash of light. Most of the culprit’s face was hidden behind his camera, but the gleam of white teeth below the lens and the thick waves of black hair above were sufficient for me to identify the same photographer who’d snapped my photo as I’d boarded the ship travel-stained and jet-lagged. I glared at him, or at least in his general direction, as near as I could tell from the spots dancing in front of my eyes.
“Do you have to do that?” I grumbled under my breath, as the others returned to their interrupted conversation.
“Do what?” he asked with an innocent air that didn’t fool me for a minute.
“You know what,” I accused. “Sneaking up and taking pictures when people are least expecting it.”
“You will have a chance to pose for formal portraits later on the cruise,” he promised with just a hint of a foreign accent I couldn’t place. “In the meantime, I like to capture the ship’s passengers unawares, before they have a chance to put on the masks they show to the world.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Maggie talking animatedly to Paul, at Miss Duprée cooing at Mr. Grimes as she stroked his arm. Was it possible that he was right, and there was more to the pair than I’d thought? “Who do you think is wearing a mask?” I asked, intrigued by the idea in spite of myself.
He waved one hand in a gesture clearly meant to encompass everyone on the ship. “We all have masks we wear in public, concealing from the world the secrets we wish no one to see.”
“All of us? Tell me, what deep, dark secret do you think I’m hiding?”
He regarded me with a long, steady look that made me profoundly uncomfortable, although I could not have said why. “You,” he pronounced at last, “are trying to present to the world the picture of a young woman deeply in love, and yet you are not as happy as you would have everyone believe.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!” I scoffed, although my cheeks burned.
“Is it? You wear a diamond engagement ring, and yet you are not accompanied by your fiancé, but
your mother.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t think much of your theory. Maggie is not my mother, but my aunt, and while it’s true that I’m engaged to be married, I’ll have you know that Gene is—” I reminded myself that I owed no explanation to an impertinent photographer I’d never laid eyes on before today, and would never see again once the ship docked in Venice. “Well, never mind that. Suffice it to say that he and I are very happy together.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” he said, acknowledging this snub with a knowing grin that made my palm itch to slap him.
“But you said ‘we all,’ ” I reminded him, determined to abandon a topic that had become uncomfortably personal. “Yourself included. Don’t tell me, let me guess: the humble ship’s photographer who is really a keen student of human nature.”
His dazzling white smile deepened, and without the camera concealing his face, I could see the dimple in his left cheek. “You are closer than you realize. I wear the mask of a humble ship’s photographer in order to conceal my true identity of an international man of mystery.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Very well. If you insist, I am wearing the mask of the all-knowing sage while I work up my nerve to ask a beautiful lady to allow me to show her about Livorno in the morning. I have only a few hours’ leave, but it should be sufficient for a stroll along the seafront, and perhaps a quick bus ride to the Santuario di Montenero—the Sanctuary on the Hill. Even if you are not interested in the sanctuary itself, it is only five miles distant, and well worth the journey for the views of the city and the coast.”
“Oh, but I—that is—” I was a little disconcerted by how disappointed I was to turn him down; it occurred to me that he was easier to dislike when he was being impertinent. “I’m sorry, but I’ve already made plans. Dr. Hurley offered Aunt Maggie and me a lift to Florence in his hired car.”
Moon over the Mediterranean Page 2
