A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (23 page)

“I'm not jealous! I only—only—” I made a noise of frustration and turned away, so he might not see how my eyes stung with fury.

“Ah. I see. You were
worried
about me, weren't you?” His voice was soft.

“Not worried. It was a great strain, that's all. Having to take charge of everything, and not knowing what had happened to you. I am not accustomed to enterprises of this sort, you know. I have no experience in physical adventure.”

I did not hear his approach until the last instant, when his hands folded around my upper arms, and the weedy smell of tobacco enveloped us both.

“You valiant thing, holding everything up. Aren't you supposed to be seasick, or something?”

“I
am
seasick. As soon as I've finished scolding you, I shall go straight to my berth and never get up.”

“I'm flattered to the core, Truelove. Here you are, alone with me in my cabin, battling sickness, battling your own notions of propriety, just to deliver me a richly deserved scolding from the goodness of your heart, while I stand here guilty as sin in my dressing gown, and naked as an ape underneath—”

I lurched forward, but his hands would not give way. “Let me go.”

“Admit it, my dear. You
like
me.”

“I'm glad you're still alive, if that's what you mean.” I saw his pipe from the corner of my eye, clasped between the first two fingers of his right hand and not quite touching my shoulder.

“Is that what I saw on your face, when I got to the top of that rope you so kindly threw over the side for me?”

“
I
didn't throw the rope. It was much too heavy. Mr. Higganbotham assisted me.”

“The good Higganbotham.” His breath was damp on the top of my head. “Well, I'm grateful. To be perfectly honest, I was
just as happy to see you. You're a good face to find at the end of an escapade, did you know that? You've a certain look of safe harbor about you.”

“If that's meant to be a compliment—”

“It's meant to make you want to kiss me.”

This time, I did succeed in breaking away. I spun around to face him, at a safe distance of several feet, my back almost to the wall. The room, I thought, was altogether too warm. “To kiss you!”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Because it's improper!”

He replaced the pipe in his mouth and smiled around it. “But not because you don't
want
to, eh, Truelove?”

“I can't imagine what's come over you.”

“What comes over every man after a spot of derring-do. Are you not aware?”

“Then it's a shame Mrs. Poulakis isn't aboard.”

Silverton stepped forward and touched my chin with his thumb. “Mrs. P again. Why this preoccupation, Truelove?”

“
I'm
not preoccupied with her.
You're
preoccupied with her.”

He shook his head slowly. “My dear, I invite you to think long and hard about how—and most especially
why
—I came to admit the good Thalia to my bed the other night.”

“
Last
night.”

“Odd. It seems like an age. But the critical point is this, Truelove: When we speak of sexual congress, it is not simply that the act itself gives one pleasure. It is the afterward that matters. It is the sense of relief that arrives with connection to another human being. The illusion, however fleeting, that one is actually and truly loved.”

I cannot say why, at that point, I had not already left the room. Certainly it was not proper to remain, and certainly I had no wish to initiate any sort of connection (as he called it) with his lordship, beyond that which was necessary for the success of our joint mission.

Certainly, by then, I knew better than to stake my all on so dubious a wager as a restless English aristocrat.

I can only ascribe my lethargy to shock, or to the extremity of emotion to which I had recently been subject. My nerves were stretched so thin by the anxiety of life and death, they would not now respond to the more ordinary alarm of Lord Silverton attempting to work his expert sexual hypnosis upon me, almost as if I were the sort of woman he preferred to seduce.

When I did not reply, his lordship continued in his soft voice: “There
is
a cure, my dear Truelove, for what ails us.”

“For what ails
you
, you mean. I am only seasick.”

“And I am sick of life.” He brought his hand up to his forehead. “No, that's not true. I'm sick of something else, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but when I look at
you
, Truelove, I can almost—almost glimpse—”

I stepped forward and reached for his spectacles on the dresser, next to his brandy glass. “Here you are, sir. I expect these will help you glimpse whatever you like. And now, if you will excuse me—”

He caught my arm. “Wait.”

He had chosen his moment well; our faces were only inches apart. For a brief time, my sluggish nerves paused at the brink. I may even have glanced down at his lips, which until then I had hardly ever dared to do, for I remember thinking how unexpectedly full they were, parted and damp with brandy.

Then the ship began to tilt, and I staggered queasily sideways a step or two, before recovering both my balance and my good sense in the same instant.

“Your lordship,” I said, “I believe I am going to be sick,” and it was a very good thing that Silverton's private lavatory lay close by, for sick—thoroughly and at length—is exactly what I
became.

The Lady closed her eyes and prayed to the gods for their intercession, and at that instant a new roar came to her ears, which she recognized as that of her brother the Beast, for the Hero had kept his promise to her and obeyed those instructions she had given him, and gone first to the chamber in which the Beast was kept to free him from his confinement.

The Prince fled at once at the sight of the Beast, and together the Hero and the Beast contrived to loosen the chains from the walls. When he and the Lady were both freed, the Hero wished to pursue the Prince and sink his own dagger into the Prince's cruel heart, but the Lady said, ‘No, remember our plan, and leave my husband to the vengeance of the gods.'

So the Beast concealed himself in a storeroom, while the Lady and the Hero followed the thread until the Lady knew her surroundings, and found the King in his chamber, imbibing the juice of the poppy as the Prince had made his habit. Said the Lady, ‘This Hero has killed the Beast your son in the heart of the labyrinth, and therefore the annual tribute from Athens is forfeit . . .'

T
HE
B
OOK
OF
T
IME
, A. M. H
AYWOOD
(1921)

I
naturally declined dinner in the dining saloon, and instead crept into my familiar brass-railed bed on the starboard side. I know not at what hour I fell asleep, but I woke sometime shortly after dawn, to the sound of a knock on the door of my stateroom. The ship, I realized, was pitching and rolling with unusual vigor.

In retrospect, I should not have presumed that my visitor was Lord Silverton. After all, his last sight of me had not been a salubrious one, though he had behaved like a gentleman, given the circumstances. He had found a washcloth and dampened it at the faucet; he had poured me a little brandy (which I did not dare to drink) and helped me to my own cabin by his own arm, in order to spare me the embarrassment of ringing for a steward.
Shall I come inside and tuck you in?
he had asked, all wicked smiles, and I replied that he had better not, if he had any regard for the beauty of his dressing gown.

But I knew this gallant offer was intended only to prop up my flagging self-regard, for when I hazarded a glance in the mirror before retiring, I hardly recognized myself. I sank into bed in a misery of humiliation, and if I had given myself a moment to gather my logic, I should have known straightaway that the hand behind that eager knock the next morning could not possibly have belonged to Lord Silverton.

I am afraid my surprise—I will not call it disappointment—showed on my face.

“Only me,” said Mr. Higganbotham, flushed with high color. “I beg your pardon for the early hour. Are you well enough to speak?”

“Of course. Please come in.”

I was not feeling very well, in fact, and it occurred to me that this was the second time in twelve hours that I had entertained a gentleman in the privacy of a steamship cabin, while one of us wore only a dressing gown. Once loosened, my principles apparently meant to remain flaccid.

Or perhaps it was only the effect of sea air, and our distance from England.

Mr. Higganbotham walked in briskly, in the manner of a man who had already breakfasted well and enjoyed no ill effects from the raucous motion of the ship. I rather wanted to smack him. Instead, I said, “I hope you are well, Mr. Higganbotham, and have no bad tidings for me.”

“Bad tidings? Why, no. Not at all.” He gathered his hands behind his back and looked grave. “I understand you have been subject to
le mal de mer.
”

The
Isolde
, as if to emphasize his words, lurched drunkenly to port. I flung out my hand to catch myself against the wall, while Mr. Higganbotham merely braced his legs and rode out the movement.

“Yes,” I said. “Have you happened to take note of the weather this morning? I'm afraid I haven't dared to look outside the porthole.”

“It seems a trifle tempestuous.”

The ship pitched again. I clutched the corner of the dresser. “Mr. Higganbotham, I regret very much that I must ask you to be brief.”

An expression of alarm overtook his face. “Oh. Indeed. Brief I shall be. I only wished to ask whether I might have another look at those photographs of yours. The ones taken of Mr. Haywood's fresco.”

“I—well, I suppose so.” For some reason, I found myself hesitating.

“Of course, if you'd rather not—”

“No, of course you may see them.”

“Because I have no wish to cause any trouble between you and Lord Silverton.”

I was staggering toward the writing table on the opposite wall, where my traveling desk had been placed the previous evening. I glanced back, over my shoulder. “Trouble? Between me and Silverton? Why on earth?”

Mr. Higganbotham turned to gaze out the porthole, behind which a dim and monotonous steel-gray ocean met an equally monotonous steel-gray sky. “I had the impression that his lordship does not entirely trust my motives.”

“His lordship is naturally suspicious. Suspicion is essential to his work, after all.” I turned back to the desk and opened the bottom drawer. “I disagree with him on this matter, of course, and I told him so.”

“Thank you for that. I assure you, your trust is not misplaced.”
He took the photographs from my outstretched hand, and, in a noble show of restraint, managed to avoid examining them at once. Instead, he fingered the edges, turning them upside down before righting them again. “The reason I asked is because—Forgive me, but I don't wish to be indelicate—”

“Indelicate? In what way?”

Mr. Higganbotham discovered something interesting in the weave of the rug at his feet. “I had the impression that there is a kind of—of mutual—
understanding
, between you and his lordship.”

“An understanding? Between me and his lordship?”

“Am I wrong?”

Mr. Higganbotham looked up from the rug, and his eyes were so hopeful, his lip so uncertain beneath his moustache, I felt the warmth of kindness soften my bones.

“Quite wrong, Mr. Higganbotham. I assure you, Lord Silverton and I are merely colleagues, bent upon a similar goal. We share a certain degree of friendship, but nothing more, and I would go so far as to say that his lordship is hardly the sort of man to whom I could
imagine
myself offering anything more.”

The entire aspect of Mr. Higganbotham's face brightened, from hope to gratitude, and even in my discombobulated state, I could not help feeling the transformation as a compliment. Not that I had any designs on the gentleman, of course—goodness, no—but there was a certain small wound in my chest, a little open sore that was soothed by Mr. Higganbotham's relief at the news that my affections were not in any way engaged by Lord Silverton.

“Thank you, Miss Truelove, for your frankness.” He clutched the photographs to his chest. “And now I see that you would rather be left in peace, so I shall not detain you another instant. I hope to find you shortly recovered from your malady, thought I must
say”—here he wove his way carefully to the tilting door—“judging by what I have seen of the weather this morning, the prospects for a steadier sea are not altogether good.”

To say the least.

I spent the rest of the morning in misery, trying to fix my gaze on some object that might have the courtesy to remain still, but even when I shaded the lights and closed my eyes, the sense of vertigo continued, as if I were spinning in the center of God's palm while he carried me about, swinging his arms as he went.

At noon I forced myself to rise and dress. I could not face lunch, but I wanted to step outside for a short time to assess the weather, and then perhaps to find the captain and discuss our progress (or perhaps our lack of it) toward Naxos.

“What the devil are you doing out here?” demanded his lordship, as the door banged shut behind me.

“The same thing you are! Taking the air!”

I had to shout, because the wind snatched away my words at the very instant they left my mouth. I gazed out to the angry sea, and I could not believe this was the same world I had known yesterday. The deck slanted at an impossible angle, and a flume of water exploded into the air a few yards away, stinging my face with a hundred tiny pieces of cold salt shrapnel.

“Go back inside!” Silverton shouted back, but his words had the opposite effect, and determined me to stay. I staggered to the rail and gripped it with both fists, gloved in leather, while my small woolen hat strained against the draft. And yet, I did not feel any worse. The fresh air, the mighty pitch of the ship, seemed to breathe new life into me.

Silverton's hands appeared next to mine. “Aren't you sick?”

“I shall manage.”

“You're a damned stubborn thing, Truelove. Hold on.”

The ship found a particularly towering wave, and I lost my breath in the crash of water against steel, the groan of rivets, the tilting climb and weightless descent. I thought of the painting in the Duke of Olympia's morning room, the tiny frigate on the wide ocean, and though I would never have said the words aloud, I was glad for the solid weight of Silverton's woolen forearm nearby, and his large leather hand sharing the rail with mine.

“How much farther to Naxos?” I shouted.

“Another couple of hours, I should think. We should be there by now, if it weren't for this damned weather!”

“But how will we land?”

“Damned if I know. Watch out!”

We rode out another wave, and this time Silverton threw out an arm to steady me, or rather to steady us together, against the greedy tug of the sea. “I apologize,” he said, into my ear.

“Apologize for what?”

“For my—” Another sharp pitch. “For my conduct last night. There is a surge of elation after these adventures, which—”

“I can't hear you very well!”

Without warning, he took me by the arm and dragged me inside the deckhouse. He had to fight the door with both hands in order to close it. We stood in the corridor, panting a little, wet and reeking of salt and ozone. Silverton took off his hat and shook it, sending off a fine spray into the glossy white wall.

“You see, Truelove,” he said, examining the hat, “when a man fights his enemy and then escapes with his life—”

“You
fought
him?”

“A short struggle. But as I said, after he fights back the possibility of death, he naturally craves life.” He looked up, somber eyed and repentant. “An intense biological desire. Do you see what I mean?”

“I suppose so.”

He replaced the hat on his head. “I gave offense. It won't happen again, I promise you.”

“I quite understand. You were overwrought. I am not angry with you about that.”

“But you're angry with me for going back to Knossos in the first place, aren't you?”

I shrugged. “It was a matter of honor to you, having committed the act in the first place.”

“I see. But I would have gone back anyway, Truelove, whether or not I had gone to bed with her. She had given us the information, you see.
That
was the act of trust I was bound to return.”

“But she gave you the information because you
had
spent the night with her.”

There must have been something in my voice, because he peered at me, beneath a disturbed brow. “Did it really pain you so much?”

“Because it was thoughtless! Because it placed us both in danger!”

He was frowning, patting his pockets as if he meant to pull out his pipe, and I had the impression that he wanted to say something more. The ship pitched, and we crashed together against the wall, and when we had mutually untangled, muttering overlapping apologies, we found ourselves doing so under the stern gaze of the
Isolde
's captain.

(To be sure, Silverton was much the taller man, but such was
the natural schoolmaster's authority of Captain Merriwether that he seemed to tower over us both.)

“What ho! Any news, sir?” said Silverton cheerfully, straightening his jacket, as if he had not just been discovered in a stormy corridor, enjoying the close embrace of a female passenger.

“I regret to say that we are unable to make a perfect reckoning of our location at the present time, given the force of the storm,” said Captain Merriwether, in the dark tones of a man who has certain other regrets, which he is too discreet to mention, “but I expect we shall reach the proximity of Naxos within the hour. We shall, however, be unable to enter the harbor under the present conditions.”

“But the matter is urgent!” I said. “We have others in pursuit, and we cannot allow them to find Mr. Haywood first!”

“Not at the cost of the ship, madam, or your life.”

I turned to Silverton. “Can we get a boat in, do you think?”

“A boat?” He shrugged. “Why not? I did enjoy a spot of sculling in my university days.”

Captain Merriwether started in shock. “With respect, sir, I must urge you forcefully to wait until conditions are calmer. I cannot answer for your safety if you attempt the land in a boat.”

“And how long until conditions are calmer, do you think?”