Fateful

I stumble backward until the cabin door presses against my shoulders. I want to shout for help, but I see no one else, and—I am a servant girl. This is a gentleman. In any dispute between us, he will be believed, and I will not. But why would a gentleman be attempting to commit robbery?

His grin widens. “It would be just like a nasty, thieving maid to try to rob her employers at such a time. Give them an inch—isn’t that the expression in English? Service in the great house takes you out of your humble home and your settled ways. Your proper position in society. So you turn into a conniving little thief.”

“Sir, you are mistaken.” It’s such a foolish thing to say, but I cannot think of anything else. Even now, I must not offend him. “I’ve stolen nothing. This is my employers’ box, and I must put it away, sir. Please excuse me.”

“What would they think if they opened their safe and the box were not there?”

I must assert myself, but how? I’d like to kick him in the shins, but there are no words for the trouble I would be in if I assaulted a gentleman. “Sir, that will not occur. I believe I must now fetch a steward.”

“I do not think he will arrive in time to rescue the little servant girl,” he croons. The bastard is having fun. “Give me the box, girl. Or I shall deeply enjoy taking it from you.”

He lifts his black-gloved hand and strokes one finger down the side of my face. When his eyes bore into mine, fear slices into me—not mere nervousness, but real terror.

These were the eyes that followed me on the dock. Even before I saw him with the young man from last night, he had seen me.

This is the hunter. And he is still hunting me. He has caught me.

Give him the box, I think. Give him the box, and tell them it was stolen, and even if they don’t believe you, they won’t put you in jail. Or will they? Is that all I’ll ever see of America—a jail cell?

But scared as I am, I can’t give up so easily. Lord, but I hate a bully. “No, sir,” I say, and I lift my chin, daring him to do his worst.

He takes the dare.

His hands grab my shoulders and yank me forward so that I’m off balance and his face is close to mine. His breath smells like he recently ate undercooked meat. Then he shoves me back against the door, hard enough that it slams painfully against my head. For one moment, I smell blood.

He hisses, “What scares you the most?”

“Get off me!” I try to shove him back, but the heavy box in my hands makes that difficult.

“Being sacked and turned out to starve?” Although he’s still gripping my shoulders tightly, his thumbs make circles as they press into my flesh—a caress meant to bruise. “Being hurt? Someone you love being hurt? Whatever it is, I can make it happen.”

I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know what to do. I just know that I hate him. So I spit in his face.

The saliva dribbles onto his beard, and the ice-blue eyes suddenly blaze like fire. My fear deepens as I realize that this really wasn’t the worst he could do—he’s about to do that now—

Then a voice calls, “Stop this.”

We turn to see him—the other, the younger man, the one who saved me last night and is saving me now. I sag against the door in relief, and the bearded man’s face distorts, as though his displeasure were melting him like wax. “Leave us, Alec.”

Alec does nothing of the sort. “This is neither the time nor the place for your games, Mikhail. Leave the poor girl alone.”

The hunter—Mikhail—responds, “Someday you’ll learn that it is never a bad time to enjoy our birthright.” But he lets go of my shoulders. Something passes between them then: some kind of shared knowledge I cannot guess at.

Are they friends, then? How can that be possible? Mikhail terrifies me, but Alec—his effect on me is something altogether different. Should I be as afraid of Alec as I am of Mikhail? Beauty is no guarantee of goodness; Lady Regina is proof enough of that. I don’t know, and want nothing so much as for this to be over.

Mikhail gives me another look that makes my stomach clench, then tips his hat to me—a mockery of manners, or of me. Then he walks away.

And yet I know this is anything but over.

Alec’s eyes study me in turn, but his look is different. At least my reaction is different. When Mikhail stared at me, I went cold; Alec’s attention warms my blood, flushes my cheeks. Yet I can’t tell if he is looking at me with desire or contempt or—I can’t guess. I can’t fathom the depth of his intense gaze.

He says to me, roughly, “You should watch yourself.”

I cannot tell if it is a warning, or a threat. And yet I know—beyond any doubt—I have been rescued.

Before I can speak, Alec walks away, very quickly, as though he were a criminal escaping from the scene. At first I stare after him in shock, unable to understand what happened here—and what might have happened, had Alec not arrived.

Then I feel the key pressing against my sweaty palm, hard against the box, and curse myself for a fool. I hurry inside the cabin and lock the door behind me, safe—for now.

Chapter 4 (#u8c0857c3-555f-5905-b0d4-05fecd7554af)

AS MY HEARTBEAT SLOWS AND MY BREATHING returns to normal, I try to understand what happened in the hallway, but I can’t.

I’m absolutely certain that Mikhail was the one spying on me as I came aboard the ship. Also I know that, had Alec not arrived when he did, the situation would have become much worse. But I can guess no more.

Mikhail wants this box—the one now sitting on the floor of the cabin. No doubt it contains immense riches; I am sure that Lady Regina’s best jewelry, and the few baubles Irene owns, are enclosed within. More than that, too: It’s no secret, downstairs at Moorcliffe, that the Lisle family is not so wealthy as it once was. Rumor has it that this trip is largely about finding some rich industrial heiress for Layton to wed on the charms of his title—his personality obviously wouldn’t do the trick on its own. No doubt the Lisles would rather marry off Irene, leaving their son and heir to choose a wife from the nobility, but Irene’s charms are too modest for her to make an illustrious match. So Layton will take as his bride the daughter of some Philadelphia man who builds railway track, or perhaps a Boston girl inheriting the wealth earned by mail-order goods.

In short, the Lisle family wants to impress the kind of people they usually spit on. They can’t do that if they’re not traveling in style. So the box contains many of the priceless ancestral valuables the Viscount Lisle’s family has held for the past four hundred years—and now intends to sell.

Reason enough for theft. But Mikhail is traveling first class on the Titanic. Mrs. Horne says tickets cost thousands of pounds, a sum I can hardly imagine seeing in a lifetime, much less spending on a single trip to America. Why would anyone able to pay that sort of money for a voyage need to steal anything? He must be enormously wealthy, almost certainly more than the Lisles.

And the way he looked at me—the cold-blooded stare that chilled my bones—is that because he thinks I overheard something I shouldn’t have last night, or today? Already I realize that our encounter the evening before was more than coincidence; Mikhail was near because he was already tracking the Lisles. I wasn’t his original target.

But perhaps I am his target now.

I shake off that chill as I quickly put the box into the suite’s iron safe. Surely I’m only being silly. If Mikhail isn’t a thief, then he’s merely the kind of rich man who thinks servant girls are his to do with as he will—to threaten, to tease, to bed, and to discard. That’s hardly unusual among wealthy gentlemen. After years of dodging Layton’s randy friends from Cambridge, I shouldn’t find that attitude surprising. Once I vanish belowdecks, to my third-class accommodations, Mikhail will turn his attentions to some unhappy stewardess aboard ship, and I can continue about my business.

Although I do not entirely believe this sensible explanation, I force myself to accept it.

The safe’s door swings shut with a resounding clang, and I sit back heavily on the cabin’s sumptuous bed. As I do, my thoughts drift toward an altogether more pleasant subject.

My mind wants to dwell on Alec. Only on Alec. Even knowing his name makes me feel closer to him somehow. And now he’s saved me from danger twice. If only I had thought to thank him! I imagine my fingers winding into his thick chestnut curls, my mouth open as he leans close—

The daydream makes my cheeks flush and my heart thump too fast. I’m no doubt being foolish, like any other servant girl who has finally had the chance to be alone with an attractive man. The household doesn’t allow any of us girls much chance to be with men of our own class—we’re not meant to fall in love and get married, only to drudge on and on in service until we dry up and go gray and our teeth fall out. And here I am acting like an idiot over a man who’s shown no interest in me, save keeping me from harm like any decent human being would.

Especially given that he protected me today, but threatened me last night. He may not be as serious a danger to me as Mikhail, but that doesn’t mean Alec doesn’t present dangers of his own.

The feather mattress is soft—so much softer than the lumpy flock pallet I’ve slept on for the past four years. And this cream-colored coverlet: The fabric isn’t silk, but it’s so sleek to the touch it might as well be. This bedroom is as grand and elegant as any of the Lisle family rooms back at Moorcliffe. More even than that.

For a moment I imagine myself a fine lady, traveling in style aboard the Titanic. I imagine that I am wearing a beautiful negligee of Viennese lace instead of my drab black servant’s dress. I lie back on the soft, soft mattress and wish that I could close my eyes and give in to sleep.

Then I wish I could open my eyes and see Alec lying next to me.

Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. You don’t know his last name. You don’t know if he’s good or bad or in the fathomless distance between the two. You don’t know anything about him, except that he keeps bad company, is brusque and strange, and is rich enough to sail first class—which means he’d be after only one thing with a maidservant.

But as I lie on the soft bed, feeling the silky fabric next to my skin, giving in to that one thing seems tempting enough—

Abruptly I sit upright and push myself off the bed. There’s already some cool water in the china jug on the nightstand; I use a bit to splash my face and shock me back to my senses. Enough time for daydreams and romance and whatever else might follow after I reach New York City. For now, it’s best if I stick to the hard reality of the tasks ahead.