show you how best to reach us.”
Ned and I can’t resist looking at each other in dismay, and even Mrs. Horne’s thin lips twist in a poor effort to hide her disappointment. When the Lisle family last took a sea voyage a decade ago, the servants stayed in first class with them—feather beds soft as clouds, they said, and more food than you’d ever seen on your own table in your life. We’d hoped for the same. Some people make their servants travel second class; third class is unheard of.
“We’ll be penned down below with a lot of damned foreigners,” Ned mutters. It does sound dreadful, but I remind myself how little it matters.
Layton waves at their friends—approaching now, no doubt fellow passengers. They will have several days on the ocean to talk to one another, but of course they must pay each other every compliment immediately. My arms ache, and I want nothing more than to lay the hatboxes on the ground while we wait. Irene wouldn’t mind, but Mrs. Horne wouldn’t have it. I call on the muscles I have from years of scrubbing floors to see me through.
Then Lady Regina says, “Tess, set those hatboxes down. Mrs. Horne can see to them.”
Mrs. Horne looks put out, probably because she’s now got to handle a small child and four hatboxes. I do what Lady Regina says straightaway and present myself for whatever task she has in mind—because it’s not even worth asking if she saw I was tired. She wouldn’t care. The only reason I get to lay one piece of work aside is to take up another.
Lady Regina snaps her fingers at one of the porters she hired to help, and he hands me a carved wooden box—heavier than all the hatboxes put together. What can they have in there? I manage to grip the small iron handles, though the twists of the metal press into my palms so sharply that they burn. “Yes, milady?” I say. The words come out breathy, as if I’d been running uphill; last night I was too unnerved by the strange incident with the wolf to sleep well, and my exhaustion is showing earlier than usual.
“This needs to be placed in our suite immediately,” Lady Regina says. “I’m uncomfortable leaving it on the dock so long—there are rough characters about. The stewards onboard will show you the way. We’ve arranged for a safe in our cabin; that’s where you’re to put the box. Don’t go leaving it on a table. Am I understood?”
“Yes, milady.” I’m never meant to say anything else to her besides “yes” and “no.”
Lady Regina stares down at me as though I have deviated from the rules 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
