Fateful (15 page)

Although the Lisles have cut down on their household in the past few years, there are still about thirty-five of us at Moorcliffe, and Lady Regina often complains that this is inadequate. She doesn’t so much as lift a foot if she can help it; that’s how society defines gentility, or so I’ve always been told. But the Marlowes have a fortune that eclipses the Lisles’, and yet they manage most of their affairs themselves. I don’t know if that’s the way their family is, or the way Americans are. Whatever it is, I like it. Half the reason the Lisles have servants is so they can show they’re better than someone. Alec and his father don’t need to prove that.

Then I realize there’s someone he hasn’t mentioned. “What about your mother?”

Alec pauses before he answers. “She passed away six years ago. Influenza.”

“I’m sorry.”

He motions for us to sit in two deck chairs. So I settle myself in one, wishing I’d brought a shawl just for myself; the sunlight was bright and warming today, but it’s only a few hours from setting now, low enough in the horizon to look as though it’s drawing the ship westward after it. Alec takes his place next to me, then fishes in his pocket and pulls out a knotted lace handkerchief. “Open it.”

I can’t see any reason not to. When the knot finally comes untied, I see a small, ornately carved locket on a delicate chain. I glance up at Alec, and when he nods, I press the latch to reveal two photographs. One is of a lovely woman in her middle years, perhaps the final portrait of her, and the other is of a baby with wildly curly hair—the infant Alec, of course.

“This was hers,” I say.

“She pressed it into my hand only a few hours before she died. Mom said—she said every time she looked at it, she remembered how much I loved her. So I should look at it after she was gone to remember how much she loved me.”

“That’s beautiful. What she said, I mean—but her too.” And his baby self, though I know it would embarrass him were I to say so. “And the locket.”

“It would be if I could still touch it.” I frown, and Alec explains, “It’s silver. Pure silver.” Of course. It would burn him. “This is the first time I’ve seen Mom’s picture in two years. It was the only one we brought with us to Europe and—I could have asked my father to open it for me, but every time he sees her photograph, he gets so upset. So I’ve just carried it with me. That’s all I can do.”

I had thought only of the greater tragedies of Alec’s change, never the little ones. But looking at his face now, I know that the small ones carry their own weight.

I want to comfort him, but I don’t know how. He lifts his eyes from the locket, and almost unconsciously, we begin to lean closer—

“Ah, young Mr. Marlowe! There you are!” crows Lady Regina. Of all the bloody luck. I look up in horror to see her sweeping forward, Mr. Marlowe and Miss Irene by her side. At first she seems oblivious to my presence—of course, she doesn’t recognize me.

But Irene does, and she gasps, in true surprise, “My heavens, Tess! How pretty you look!”

“Tess?” Lady Regina draws herself up, surprise changing to fury, and all at once I feel like an imposter. This is not my dress, only a costume. I’ve been nothing but a servant girl in a masquerade, and now the play is over.

Chapter 13

WE’RE CAUGHT.

Lady Regina draws herself up rather regally. “Mr. Marlowe, I take it you failed to recognize my daughter’s maidservant after she so cunningly disguised herself. What lies has she told you? Did she invent a new name?”

“I know who Miss Davies is,” Alec says, completely calm.

I’m not calm. I feel like a fool, and though part of me protests that I’ve done nothing wrong, another part of me is sure that I have. My cheeks flush warm with shame as I hastily retie the handkerchief around Alec’s locket and hand it back to him.

“Alec,” says his father, “come and talk with me a moment.” He doesn’t sound angry, but he doesn’t sound pleased, either. Probably it looks to him like Alec’s womanizing with servant girls—during the daytime, which would be his only opportunity. Alec doesn’t say anything to me, but he gives me a glance as he rises. Am I supposed to know what he means by it? I don’t. I can’t think, can’t sense anything outside the hammering of my own pulse.

As soon as Mr. Marlowe has drawn Alec aside, Lady Regina leans over me. “Get out of that chair. Take yourself down to third class where you belong. And where did you get that dress?”

“You gave it to me, milady.” I shouldn’t say a word to her now, but I’ll be damned if I let her accuse me of stealing. “As one of Miss Irene’s castoffs.”

“And now you’re after Irene’s castoff lovers, I see.” Lady Regina glares at her daughter with as much venom as she had for me. “As my daughter can’t be bothered to associate with proper young men, you have to dress up and play the role for her.”

Irene’s pale oval face crumples in humiliation. She honestly hadn’t thought a thing of it when she saw me, except that I looked nice. Leave it to Lady Regina to turn even that into a way to insult her.

“Leave,” Lady Regina repeats. “You will return that dress when you return to your duties tomorrow. Not that my daughter will wear anything so garish, but I won’t have you using her hand-me-downs to help you impersonate a member of the nobility.”

It’s mine
, I want to say.
You can’t take it back.
But where will I ever wear it again? If I get a job in a factory in New York City, my wardrobe won’t require any pink satin.

I realize I only kept it in the first place for the same reason I’m reluctant to give it back now: I wanted to pretend my life could be something that it can’t. All day, I’ve been sipping tea and sunning myself and—and looking at Alec as though he could ever belong to me. Don’t I know better?

What an idiot I’ve been, letting myself care about him. Even if he weren’t a monster, he would still be beyond my reach.

“If we were not at sea, I would dismiss you on the spot, Tess.” Lady Regina is enjoying herself now. Does she recognize how much pleasure she takes in lecturing people who can’t speak back? “As it is, I suppose we must make do. But you can expect your wages to be docked. Severely.”

One afternoon’s dreaming has cost me some of the precious money I need to start over in America. I would be furious at Lady Regina if I weren’t angrier with myself.

All this time I’ve been sitting in my deck chair as though I were frozen in place by Lady Regina’s stare. Now I rise, curtsy, and start backing away, so upset that I’m clumsy and stupid. “I beg your pardon, milady. Excuse me, milady.”

Blindly I hurry from the deck toward the lift that will take me down to third class, where I belong. My hands reach to the beautiful pearl earrings, to yank them off, but then I remember how hopeful I felt when they were first put on—the sweet smiles of the old ladies who lent them to me—and I just can’t do it. In my cabin, I’ll pretend I had the time of my life, change back into clothes that say who I really am, and find some private space to have a good cry.

Just as the lift door opens and I step in, though, someone pushes in beside me—Alec.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I’m headed straight to third class.”

“I’m going wherever you’re going,” Alec says. He nods at the lift operator, who clearly isn’t quite sure how to handle this. But we start moving down.

“Won’t your father object? I saw how quickly he snatched you back.”

“He wanted to make sure I wasn’t toying with you. I told him I wasn’t.”

“I’m not interested in serving as a way for you to slap your father in the face.”

Alec breathes out, frustrated. “Tess, have you forgotten why we agreed to spend the day together? You need someone with you today. I’m not leaving you alone, not if I can help it.”

I had forgotten. Mikhail seems a thousand miles away. Has Alec’s rapt attention today been nothing more than a way to pass the time while he serves as my bodyguard?

“You’ve risked a lot for me,” he says quietly, and he can’t meet my gaze. “I knew you were in danger from Mikhail—but until this, I didn’t realize what a chance you took even with your job. With your pride.”

I’d like to say that Lady Regina can’t wound my pride, but it’s not true. It’s impossible to spend years of your life in a house with a woman who thinks you’re lower than dirt and not let her get to you from time to time. And she got to me today.

Alec slowly looks at me again, more intently than ever before. “I’ve spent the last few years worried mostly about myself. Then here you are—so much more vulnerable, and so much braver—” He swallows hard. “You’ve reminded me what it means to care for someone else, Tess. Let me do this for you.”

He’s too hard on himself: I’ve seen his concern for his father. But perhaps it’s true that something deeper has awakened in him. Isn’t it true for me?

“Yes,” I say. No other words come to me. This moment is too intense—too intimate—for me to speak easily.

But then his green eyes sparkle with humor. “Besides, I hear the third-class accommodations are top-notch.”

“As such things go.” I’m too overwhelmed to joke with him just yet, though I appreciate the effort. “You’re hardly interested in seeing the third-class dining hall.”

“I’m interested in anything you have to show me,” he says as the door opens on lowly F deck, just down the hallway from the door to third class. Once again, he offers me his arm, just as he had before when I was playing the part of a fine lady.

Alec’s attention isn’t for the role I played. It’s for me.

I push aside my fears about what lies ahead. This is the time I have with him, and I intend to make it count.

“First things first,” I say. “You’re overdressed for third class.”

He looks down at his immaculate deep-gray suit, as though it might have changed on him while he wasn’t looking. “What should I wear, then?”

The lift operator keeps watching us, turning his head from one to the other until it looks like he’s watching a tennis match.

“Doff the jacket.”

Alec’s smile goes wolfish as he removes his jacket. I wonder how much of the rest of his clothes I could convince him to take off, then wonder where
that
thought came from.

Well. I guess I know.

He rolls his shirtsleeves up halfway, unknots his tie, and tucks it into a pocket. Nobody would ever mistake him for some Irish tough, but he looks friendlier somehow. More comfortable, too—I realize he likes this better than the pomp of first class. There is something wild about him even in his human form, something that wants always to be free.

Once he throws his jacket over one shoulder, he says, “Better?”

“Much.” I can’t help smiling. The lift operator is openly staring now.

Alec offers me his arm again, and this time I take it. Lady Regina’s nastiness is a world away. We’re somewhere else now, in a world we can share.

Alec waits in the corridor while I change into my simple day dress, then we go looking for what fun third class has to offer. If you ask me, it’s better than first class—and Alec seems to agree.

For a little while, we simply spend time on the third-class deck. The views may not be as spectacular as first class—we can see them above us, impossibly distant and fine—but the sea air is as fresh and the sunshine as bright. The little Irish girls I saw before have decided that one bench is their home: not the cute Wendy house I would have expected, but a fort, which is to keep out the Indians they expect to find the moment they step onto American soil. We are allowed to sit on it and chat if we agree to stand guard the soldiers say, introducing themselves between bouts of pulling each other’s pigtails.

“Whom are we guarding?” Alec asks, very seriously.

“The prisoner!” says Colleen. She points at the dolly lying beneath it.

“She looks dangerous.” Alec frowns. “What do we do if she makes a break for it?”

Colleen’s elder sister, Mary, draws herself up more majestically than Lady Regina ever has. With gravity, she says, “Then you must shoot to kill.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I salute, and Alec joins me in the gesture.

These aren’t the only children playing on deck. There are boys spinning tops, tiny babies being bounced in their mothers’ arms, and slightly older girls who look at Alec with undisguised longing, and at me with envy meant to strike fear in my heart. But I can’t stop laughing. The air grows cooler, and Alec drapes his jacket around my shoulders. The wool is so soft, so warm. I imagine this is what his embrace would feel like.

“Were you like this as a boy?” I point to one of the rowdier boys, who is on a bear hunt. His younger brother must be the bear.

“Not at all.” Alec leans back, as do I. Our shoulders brush, barely touching. “I was the quiet one who hid in the attic and read pulp magazines. That fateful hunting trip was only the third I’d ever been on in my life. Maybe I should’ve stuck to
All-Story Magazine
.”

“Now you’re living a pulp story of your own.”

Alec laughs so loudly that even more people stare at us. “Do you know, you’re the only person who’s ever joked about—ever joked about it?”

“It’s not that I don’t take it seriously. What you’re going through.”

“I know. But it helps to laugh, just the same.”

Before I can answer him, I hear Myriam’s voice. “I thought you were in first class today.”

“Change of scenery,” I say, looking over my shoulder. Myriam strolls toward us with her long black hair rippling in the breeze. She’s so beautiful in the late-afternoon light that I feel a momentary fear—it would be no great surprise if Alec couldn’t take his eyes from her after this.

But when Alec says, “Tess, will you introduce me to your friend?” he does so with only ordinary politeness.

“Myriam Nahas, this is Alexander Marlowe. Alec, this is Myriam. She’s one of the women sharing my cabin.”

Myriam recognizes the name and raises an eyebrow. She didn’t expect to see him here, that’s for sure. “What inspired you to abandon the pleasures of first class, Mr. Marlowe?”

“Please, call me Alec. And we like the company more down here.”

“More than John Jacob Astor?” She folds her arms, determined to test him, as I realize she must test everyone.