Fateful. Claudia GrayЧитать онлайн книгу.
in some way. She is a handsome woman, with vibrant beauty that didn’t come down to her daughter—lustrous brown hair and an aquiline nose. Her wide-brimmed hat is thick with plumes and silk flowers, a striking contrast to my shabby black maid’s dress and white linen cap.
“I don’t like sending you to do this alone,” she says sharply. “But I don’t suppose you can manage as many boxes as Ned, and besides—you won’t run off, will you?”
“No, milady.”
Her full lips curl into a contemptuous smile. “I trust you’re a better sort than your sister.”
It feels like scalding water being poured over me, or perhaps like being thrown outside into a snowdrift on an especially cruel winter’s day—something so shocking the body hardly knows how to take it in. My skin burns with rage, as though it’s too tight for me, and my mouth goes dry. I’d like to rip that hat off Lady Regina’s head. I’d like to rip her hair out with it.
I say, “Yes, milady.”
As I go, I feel a strange wave of dread—as though I were back in that alleyway last night. Hardly likely to find a wolf stalking here, amid the ship’s crowd. And yet I feel something prickling along my neck and back, the way I imagine a rabbit knows the cat is watching.
The weight of the box pulls at the joints of my arms, but it’s worth it for a few moments of escape. Or so I tell myself. In truth, it’s a little frightening to be on my own in a crowd like this—more people than I’ve ever seen in one place, all of them pushing and shoving. Also, I can’t tell precisely where I’m supposed to go. There is an entry for first-class passengers, another for third class—going to different decks of the ship altogether. I look down at my burden. Which of us counts more: me or my employers’ possession?
Then I feel it again, that prickle at the back of my neck. The hunter’s eyes on its prey. I glance behind me, expecting to see—what? The wolf from the night before? The young man who rescued me, then told me to flee for the sake of my life? I see neither. In the crush, perhaps I can’t see them, but then they wouldn’t be able to see me either. But someone’s watching. I know he’s there, down deep within me, in the place that doesn’t respond to thought or logic, just pure animal instinct.
Someone in this crowd of strangers is watching me.
Someone is hunting me.
“Lost your way, miss?” says a bluff sort of man, with red cheeks and sky-blue eyes. His voice makes me jump, but the interruption is welcome. He wears what I believe is an officer’s uniform, so why he’s speaking to the likes of me, I can’t imagine. But his voice and face are kind, and I feel safer having somebody to talk to, no matter who it might be.
“I’m to deliver this to my employers’ cabin,” I say. “I’m in the service of the Viscount Lisle’s family.”
“Then it’s first class for you.”
“But I’m traveling in third class.”
He frowns. “A bit cheap, aren’t they?”
I ought to be prim and offended that he’s slighted the family I work for. Instead, I have to stifle a giggle. “I know it must be . . . unusual. But now I don’t know how to board the ship.”
“First class, I think. I remember the head steward talking about this now—they’ve arranged for you to have keys to help you get about. Unusual, yes, but nothing is too good for the family of a viscount.” The touch of sarcasm in his voice is light enough to allow me to ignore the joke or enjoy it, as I prefer. I enjoy it. “The stewards will show you the way once you get aboard. Sure you don’t want to get one of them to handle it? That looks heavy for you.”
It’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me in days, and I’m surprised to feel a small lump in my throat. But I know my duty; I know the potential repercussions. “Milady wants me to handle this personally. Thank you just the same, sir.”
He touches his cap before striding away to whatever duty he put aside to help me. I hurry to the first-class gangplank, hoping that whoever was staring at me before is third class. Some foreigner, no doubt.
And maybe it was no more than my imagination playing tricks on me, bringing out the fear beneath my skin. I have reasons enough to be nervous. This voyage—these next few days—are going to change my life forever.
The first-class gangplank is more like a promenade; people take their time, seeing and being seen in the sunshine. Ladies turn that way and this so that their wide-brimmed hats will be seen to their best advantage, and they hold parasols of finely worked lace that cast scrolling shadows below. Gentlemen’s canes and shoes shine. It might be a fashion parade, were it not for the few servants in the mix panting under our burdens. We move so slowly that I dare to put the box down for a few seconds.
As my tired muscles relax, I slip one hand into the pocket of my dress. There I clasp a small felt purse, one I sewed myself out of scraps. I had to do the work late at night, and they only allow us one candle in the attic, so it’s hardly my finest accomplishment as a seamstress. But nobody sees this purse besides me.
The felt is heavy in my hand. Through the fabric, I can feel the weight of coins, the slip of wadded notes. For the past year and a half, I’ve saved every bit of money I could. I even kept a pound note I found on the stair the morning after a dinner party—a real risk, one that could’ve got me sacked if anybody had found out. Nobody did.
I’ve saved enough to live on for a couple of months. That’s not very long, but it’s more than I’ve ever had together in my whole life, even though I’ve been in service since I left school at thirteen. It’s going to be enough.
Enough so that, when this ship reaches the United States, I can walk off it, slip away from Lady Regina and Mrs. Horne, and never, ever come back.
We shuffle forward on the gangplank, and I take the box up again. It feels even heavier than before, but I can bear it. Freedom is only a few days away.
All I have to do is make it through this one trip, I think, as I step off the gangplank and finally board the RMS Titanic.
MY LORD, THIS SHIP IS BEAUTIFUL.
The path for the first-class passengers to enter the ship begins near their dining hall, and the staircase leading down to it is more magnificent than anything found in Moorcliffe. Gleaming carved wood, stairs arching down in two graceful curves, a cast-iron clock finely molded: This is something I would expect to see in a great manor house, not a ship. Even the creamy beige carpet beneath my feet is thicker and softer than any Aubusson rug.
Or am I naive? As I begin this journey from the life I have always known, I am acutely aware of the limits of my experience. So who am I to judge this ship or its grandeur? Perhaps this is very ordinary, and I reveal myself as an ignorant country girl by marveling at it.
But no. I turn my attention to the wealthy people around me, and although they are too refined to voice their amazement, I can read it in their eyes. A good servant learns how to study faces, to glean hints of her employers’ moods from the slightest change in expression—but no such subtleties are necessary here. They laugh in delight, smile at one another in satisfaction, and allow their hands to trail sensually along the fine wood carving. The Titanic is as spectacular to them as it is to me. No one here is immune to its splendor—
Wait. Someone is. Two someones, in point of fact.
Just inside the doorway, unobserved by most of those walking past, are two gentlemen. Both are remarkably tall and broad-shouldered. One is a little older, perhaps nearing his thirtieth year. He wears a Vandyke beard as black as iron . . . rather like that of the man who briefly accosted me in the street, though my glimpse of him was too swift to be sure of any true likeness. The other—
Him, too, I only saw briefly, but I would never forget his face. The other is the young man from last night.
He