Unspeakable (5 page)

At least, not until Jim.

Dr. Grant handed me a tube of ointment. “Apply this once it's clean.” He turned to Jim. “Check back in a few days to see how you're healing.”

Jim lowered his right arm and nodded, thanking the doctor as he left. I wrung the cloth once more and turned my attention to his face, discerning soot from bruise. After a few wipes, it was clean for the most part, but I kept dabbing at his bleeding brow, riveted by the blue fire in his red-rimmed eyes. It gave me an excuse to stare. Something, whatever it was, burned inside him with fierce intensity.

“What?” Jim met my eyes and held my gaze, though it seemed to cause him more discomfort than any wound.

I felt it too. Exposed. Seen. Known.

Could he read my shame as easily as I'd seen his? A heat spread across my cheeks and I looked away, busying myself with rinsing and wringing, pulling myself together before turning back to finish cleaning his brow. I cleared my throat. “Why do they call you Lucky?”

He said nothing.

“If you ask me, I'd say you're pretty lucky to be alive. Falling into a fire like—”

Jim grabbed my wrist and I stopped. My pulse increased in his grip and I glanced at our hands, unsure if he felt that, too.

“I am
not
lucky.” His intensity radiated from his stare like an open furnace, but I didn't shy from it. If anything, it drew me in.

He released my arm and moved to get up. “And I didn't ask you.”

“Oh no you don't.” I put my hand on his chest and pushed him down. Gentle, but firm. It surprised both of us, but I'd handled enough large animals on the farm that I suppose those ways came to me instinctively. I let my hand linger a moment longer, aware of the solid strength of his chest, the warmth of it, and the quickening of his heartbeat under my touch. Had he a mind to leave, I couldn't stop him. The man was solid muscle. But he lay back once more and breathed deeply.

I didn't know this stranger, but I knew something the men didn't. Jim's anger, the fight in him, was only escaping steam. In him I saw a driven, haunted soul, one fuelled by some great secret.

I knew because I was too.

I took my hand away and opened the tube Dr. Grant left on the counter. I squeezed the thick salve onto my fingertips. “I have to put on the ointment yet. It will help with the healing. You won't scar as badly.”

He snorted but let me do my duties. When I finished, he simply stood and left. He didn't want to be cleaned up, to be helped or healed. He just wanted to sit there and smoulder in all his unspoken pain.

It made me think he wished he'd burned more.

THREE WEEKS AFTER

June 1914

Strandview Manor, Liverpool

Chapter Six

“
SHALL I OPEN THE WINDOW, MISS ELLEN?
” Bates asked from the parlour doorway.

“No. I'm fine.” I poked the fire and sat in the wing chair, one of the few pieces of furniture not draped in dust covers. Though he'd uncovered the chair and parted the blue drapes, opening the view onto the front garden, the room still seemed like a morgue. The dining table and chairs, the china cabinet, the settee, all of it lay hidden under great white sheets. Even the piano in the centre of the room stood deathly silent. Hidden. This front room was never used. Most of them weren't. Over the years, Aunt Geraldine had shut down Strandview Manor, closing it off room by room, storey by storey as she retreated eventually to her study in the turret. To the stories in her mind.

“Are you sure you don't want Lily to clear away these dust covers?”

“No.” What was the point? For whom? It suited me to sit in dead rooms, shrouded in grief. I deserved no better.

“Mr. Cronin mentioned he'd need to discuss some legal matters … when you're ready,” Bates added.

Poor Bates had been run off his feet answering the door, especially that first week after I'd returned, what with doctors and priests visiting Aunt Geraldine during the final days of her coma. Days when her body remained, but the woman inside was long gone. A shell of herself. I felt like that now, numbed, hollowed by grief and regrets. I'd no idea she'd been that ill. She'd been closed, withdrawn in our few conversations when I'd been back between crossings. I'd assumed it was me. That I'd disappointed her yet again. I'd been so caught up in my own story, I'd given no thought to hers.

The bell rang again. Bates's voice mumbled in the hallway. “Just another reporter looking for Ellen Ryan,” he said as he returned. “I've told Lily to send them packing if they come around again.”

I sighed. Somehow these men had made the connection between the young
Empress of Ireland
stewardesses and Strandview Manor. Perhaps they'd gotten a peek at the job files at the Canadian Pacific Railway head office. Who knew—they were resourceful, those reporters, and relentless.

Thankfully, Aunt Geraldine had had the foresight to register me under Ryan, my mother's maiden name. Only Meg, Aunt Geraldine, and Bates knew the truth—and two of them were dead now. Even Lily, the current young maid, believed Ellie Ryan was just a maid who used to work here. She didn't connect that name to me. My secret was safe.

“Right, then,” Bates soldiered on. “Lily is here if you need anything.”

I nodded. At fourteen, Lily wasn't much help. I was only four years older, but it felt like a lifetime. Bates had hired her to replace Meg when we set sail last year but the girl was hopeless. Still, it wasn't Lily's fault. She'd never fill Meg's shoes as a maid. And no one could as a friend. Not after all Meg and I had gone through.

God, I missed her.

Bates nodded as if reading my thoughts. Meg was his granddaughter, his only family. How the old man must grieve. It was hard enough to say goodbye to Aunt Geraldine at her funeral yesterday, but she was elderly. And as I'd recently learned, she was ill. But the old should never have to bury the young—it isn't right. Bates cleared his throat and propped his driver's cap on his wispy white hair as he left. I wondered where he went, what he did with his free time now that Aunt Geraldine wasn't here to order him about. Without Aunt Geraldine here to tell us, none of us knew what to do, really. As much as we hated her controlling ways, she was both rudder and sail. Controlling my life, and now, even her death. She'd taken care of every detail, right down to her funeral reception's sandwiches. Who did she think was coming? I'd wondered when I saw the huge platters, for she'd outlived any friends and ignored acquaintances. She had no time for family—though she had only her nephew (my father) and me. Being the matriarch, living eighty long years, I suppose she could do what the hell she liked. And Great-Aunt Geraldine did exactly that.

The church had been full yesterday, true enough. Fans, I guessed. G.B. Hardy was a well-known novelist, though few, I suspect, knew the author was a spinster. Old women wrote
household tips or fashion critiques, not adventure. But then again, Aunt Geraldine wasn't a typical woman.

It surprised me that my father hadn't come. They weren't close, each one with strong opinions about the other; still, I'd thought he'd pay his respects. I didn't know if I felt anger or relief at his absence. Maybe losing my mother years ago was grief enough to last him a lifetime. Maybe he just didn't care.
Did he know about the
Empress
? About me?
I wondered. Either way, he wouldn't have come to my funeral, that I knew. I was disowned. Dead to him already. He'd made that painfully clear when we last spoke nearly two years ago. My father had buried me with my shame.

I stared into the fire, unsure of what to do next. With the house. With my grief. With my life. I'd lost everyone that ever mattered to me, and I'd only realized how much after they'd gone.

The doorbell rang. Moments later, Lily appeared, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a pinstriped suit. I assumed it was Mr. Cronin, but as the fire's glow lit his face and flickered in his dark eyes, I knew exactly who he was. And what he'd come for.

“Miss Ryan”—Wyatt Steele took off his hat and extended his hand—“good to see you again.”

I stood, rigid, and glared at Lily. “You were specifically told to turn away reporters asking for Ellie Ryan.”

“I'm sorry, miss.” Her huge blue eyes darted between us. “Only he asked to speak to you, Miss Hardy. He didn't look nothing like them other reporters, neither.” She blushed, clearly taken in by his handsome charm. His dark eyes and bright smile. Foolish girl.

“I mean—” she blustered on.

“Oh, go get me some tea.” I waved her away.

“Make mine a whiskey,” Steele added as she scurried out. He turned and smiled as though we were old friends. “I'm chilled to the bone. Does the sun never shine in Liverpool?” He sat on the wing chair on the other side of the fire and surveyed the room, his eyes observing every draped item, as if he knew in one glance what hid beneath. He stared at me with the same knowing appraisal. His confidence, his ease infuriated me. His very presence did. Who did he think he was, showing up here? Now?

“This is not a good time,” I said. “I just buried my great-aunt yesterday and—”

“Yes, my sympathies, Miss Ryan.” He paused. “Or do you prefer Miss Hardy?”

I stood there, wordless. Not only had he found me, he'd dug up my real name. What else did he know?

Lily appeared with our drinks. She handed Steele his whiskey and, hesitating at my clear annoyance, set my teacup on the end table. “Um … will there be anything else, Miss Ellen?”

I shook my head and she disappeared into the kitchen, seemingly grateful to get away. If only Steele picked up the hint.

Instead, he raised his glass. “To G.B. Hardy.” He took a swig. “Huge fan of her work. Brilliant writer. Loved her Garrett Dean novels. Climbing Kilimanjaro, sailing the Nile, hunting lions on safari—each great adventure was as real to me as if I'd lived it myself.” He stared into the fire, and for a moment he seemed like the boy he must have been.
A scallywag if I ever saw one. “He was every boy's hero. I wanted to be Garrett Dean.”