Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
She pursed her lips and turned from the huddle of well-wishers. She must board the vessel before Marlow and hide in her quarters, lest he recognize her before they left. She tugged the veil closer about her face and approached the steward, giving her name, carefully rehearsed, in a quiet voice. “I’m Mrs. Rosa Lintel. I have booked a berth in first class.”
Her heart pounded so hard and fast she was sure the man must have heard it, but he only checked the manifest and put a tick beside her name. “Have you a maid or anyone else traveling with you?” he asked.
“No, just myself.” She tried to sound brisk and sad at once. “When I arrive in India—”
She began a rehearsed tale about the maid that awaited her service in her family’s household, but the man only stepped aside and gestured her forward. “That boy there’ll show you to your room, ma’am. If you need a maid for the journey, there be some young women in steerage might be willing to help you. Just ask the first mate.”
“I will, thank you.”
He was already looking past her, arranging his features into servile respect. Marlow must be coming behind her. She had to move, to board this craft before he reached her, but her feet could barely function as the enormity of her actions crashed upon her. Some part of her had expected to be caught, to be stopped at some point in her deception, but now she was walking along this gently rocking gangplank to a future where Rosalind Lionel was no longer the perfect, mild lady. She was a runaway, a rulebreaker. A scandal.
There was no going back now. She followed the deckhand down a narrow set of stairs and through a well-appointed hallway to her room. “That’s the cap’n’s quarters there, and the first mate’s,” he told her, pointing to a pair of doors across from hers. “If you need anything just give a knock.”
“Thank you, young man,” she said, trying to sound widowly.
“Do you need me to help move your trunk somewheres?” he asked, indicating the sole piece of luggage deposited just inside her berth.
“Oh, oh no.” Goodness, Marlow was approaching too quickly behind her. “I shall be fine,” she said, practically shutting the door in the young man’s face. She heard the door to the quarters beside hers creak open moments later.
“Will this do, my lord?”
It was a deep, formal voice, perhaps the first mate’s or even the captain’s. She heard Marlow’s murmured response. A series of trunks were delivered, wood sliding against wood. His room must have been larger than hers, she thought, staring around at her accommodations. Of course, space was at a premium on a ship. There was a bed and a table so small it could hardly count as a table, and over the table a small porthole set into the wall to allow her some light and a narrow view. She realized her dim, cramped room was probably meant as a servant’s quarters to Marlow’s larger chamber, since there was a narrow door set into the wall separating the space.
She flew to the door, relieved to see the sliding lock was engaged. He was so close. She hadn’t expected him to be so near her own cabin. He could not know she was here, not yet. She couldn’t leave these walls, nor could she bring herself to look through the small porthole to see the Thames’ rippling water leading out to sea. The boat swayed gently, up and down. It reminded her of rowboats in the summers, crossing country lakes in Oxfordshire, but this was hardly the same thing.
She sat on her narrow bed and hugged herself, the heat of fear and worry numbing her limbs. She wished to rise and splash some water on her flushed cheeks to calm and refresh herself, but she found she couldn’t move. Even now, she was frightened of being discovered. A knock at the door, her father’s glowering visage. Oh, her father would be so livid. Her mother would be beside herself at her daughter’s shocking behavior.
She could still abandon this caper and return home. That was the biggest terror of all, that she could run from the room, run back the way she’d been led, down the corridor, up the stairs, across the gangplank, and just go home. She might even be able to manage it without being discovered. She could hire a hack with some of the coins left in her purse and have it deliver her a short distance from her home, without clattering into the courtyard and alerting everyone that she’d been gone.
She hugged herself harder, forcing herself to stay still as stone. That was all she needed to do, stay still until the ship exited the harbor. She must focus on Marlow in the room next door. They loved one another. They belonged together. What she was doing was not really bad, merely necessary. That was what she told herself, over and over, until the deckhands overhead began to shout orders and the boat’s gentle rocking transformed to palpable motion.