EPUB Ebooks: Free ebook sample of "A Perfect Stranger" by Alice Duncan

“Spank you,” said Loretta patiently.

Marjorie said, “I’ve been trained to be tidy. I canna help myself.”

Loretta aimed a quelling glance at her. “You may have earned your living as a stewardess with the White Star Line for a few years, Marjorie MacTavish, and you might have had to clean up after other people as part of your employment, but your ship sank. It has become painfully obvious that you won’t be able to go back to that kind of work any time soon, and that you’re probably going to remain in the United States for a good long while. I want you to get it through your head that you’re not my servant. You’re my friend.”

Marjorie blushed, probably at the mention of her inability to perform her duties as a stewardess. She said, “Thank you,” in a stifled voice.

Isabel felt a pang of sympathy for Marjorie, who had developed an absolute terror of the ocean. She hadn’t been able even to look at it when the three of them and Eunice had taken a cab to the harbor. Poor Marjorie had turned white and begun trembling and crying as soon as the ocean hove into view. Then she’d remained in the cab with Isabel, who couldn’t walk because of her ankle injury, while Loretta had taken Eunice to visit the famous Statue of Liberty.

Marjorie was ashamed of this newly developed problem and considered it both an embarrassment and a grievous flaw, although Isabel didn’t blame her for it. Loretta called Marjorie’s problem a phobia, but Isabel wouldn’t know about that. She herself wouldn’t mind if she never saw an ocean again, but Marjorie wouldn’t take any comfort from Isabel’s weakness. Isabel was pretty certain that Marjorie, although she attempted to disguise her opinion, considered Isabel below her on the evolutionary scale—if such a thing existed—and wouldn’t care to claim any similarities if they existed. Class distinctions, and all that.

“So please,” Loretta said once more, “call me Loretta.”

Marjorie said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” Loretta made a moue with her rosebud mouth. “I’m going to have to have you two practice saying my name, I guess.”

“I don’t think Mama is used to calling people from your station in life by their Christian names, Miss Linden.”

Again, all three women turned toward Eunice, whose huge, chocolate-brown eyes observed them soberly. “In Great Britain, class distinctions are quite pronounced. Calling you Loretta would be considered impervious.” Her brow furrowed and she glanced at her mother. “Is that what I mean?”

“I believe you mean impertinent, dear,” Isabel said softly, amused but not wanting to show it.

Loretta and Marjorie exchanged a glance then looked at Isabel. Loretta asked—and Isabel wasn’t sure she was joking—”Are you sure your daughter is only six years old?”

Isabel was sure, although she understood Loretta’s doubt. A knock and a brisk, “Room service!” came from the hallway. Isabel started for the door at once but, because she couldn’t move very fast, Marjorie beat her to it. A uniformed boy pushed a cart laden with covered dishes—they looked as if they were made of silver, but Isabel wasn’t sure—cutlery, plates, and glasses into the room. Uncertain and a trifle overwhelmed, Isabel limped over to assist in any way she could. Eunice, too, gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the groaning board.

Not Loretta, who was used to such opulence. Rubbing her hands together, she said brightly, “Oh, good! I’m simply famished.” Glancing at her companions, she added, “I hope you don’t mind that I ordered for all of us.”

Marjorie made a noise signifying approval. As for Isabel, she’d never experienced the glories of room service before in her life—indeed, she hadn’t even known such a service existed on earth. She and Eunice were so delighted by the prospect of eating food neither of them had prepared, they wouldn’t have caviled if Loretta had ordered snails, which Isabel understood some French people considered a delicacy. They would.

“The doctor is coming to call on you after supper, Isabel.”

Distressed, Isabel said, “Oh, dear, I wish you hadn’t gone to the bother of calling him in again, Miss Linden.” She’d sprained her ankle when she’d tripped over that coil of rope during her mad dash to the too-few lifeboats.

“Loretta, if you please,” said Loretta. “And fiddlesticks. You injured your ankle, and it needs to be tended. How’s it doing, by the way?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Isabel lied. Her ankle hurt like the devil, but she didn’t feel comfortable saying so.

She knew she’d never be able to pay Loretta back for her many kindnesses. Not only had Loretta, with the help of that angelic and unknown male benefactor, saved Isabel and Eunice from the terrors of the deep, but Loretta had established them in a suite in this fantastic, top-of-the-trees New York hotel, and she’d also paid for a doctor to tend to her ankle. Here. At the hotel. She wouldn’t even allow Isabel to go to the doctor’s office, but had him call on her, as if she was as rich as Loretta herself and was accustomed to having doctors call on her every day. Isabel had never heard of such a thing.

Besides all that, Loretta had bought clothes for Marjorie, Isabel and Eunice, all three. She also checked the casualty lists every single day, searching for names of people they knew. Since Isabel’s hero’s name remained unknown, there was no finding out about him. The knowledge made Isabel want to cry, so she tried not to think about it, which never worked.

“Let’s dig in,” said Loretta. “Eunice, dear, will you fetch that covered dish we kept over from luncheon and give it to the bellboy so he can return it to the kitchen?”

Eunice’s eyes opened wide, her mouth opened, and she stood up from her table, but she didn’t speak or rush to do Loretta’s bidding. Rather, she stood still, clasping her hands behind her back, and her glance slid from the bellboy to Loretta and back again.

Isabel gazed searchingly at her daughter. It was unlike Eunice not to do Loretta’s bidding instantly. She suspected perfidy of one sort or another, but hoped she was wrong. While Eunice was a very well-behaved child, her curiosity sometimes led her to do unusual things. “Eunice?” she said. “Go on and get the dish.”

The little girl licked her lips. “Um . . . may I give it back later? At our next meal?”

“Why?” Isabel’s voice was a trace sharp. Her suspicion grew stronger.

Eunice’s gaze wavered between her mother and Loretta. At last she sighed. “I’m afraid you won’t like it, Mama. I’m sorry, Miss Linden.”

“Good Lord, child, what did you do?” Isabel took a step toward her daughter, but she’d forgotten about her ankle and stepped out with her left foot. Her ankle shrieked, and she had to grab onto the back of the bloody chair to keep from falling over. The blooming chair, was what she meant.

“It’s nothing bad, Mama. It’s only that I found a . . .” Eunice looked to see where Marjorie existed in the room. Marjorie was more apt to disapprove of things than were her mother or Loretta.

“A what?” Isabel was becoming seriously annoyed. She and Eunice owed Loretta everything, and Isabel didn’t like this evasiveness on her daughter’s part.

“It’s only a little one,” Eunice said, her tone placating.

“It’s only a little what?”

Loretta began to laugh. “Oh, my, did you find a sweet little froggie or something in the park, dear?”

Isabel’s horrified gaze flew to Loretta’s face, then back to her daughter’s. “Eunice Golightly, if you dared to bring a frog—”

“Oh, no, Mama, it’s not a frog. It’s only a teensy little snake.”

Marjorie screamed. So did the uniformed bellboy. Loretta laughed harder. Isabel limped over to Eunice and gave her a gentle swat on the behind. “You go fetch that dish right this instant, young lady. I can’t believe you brought a snake into this hotel!”

With the assistance of her mother’s hand clamped to her arm and with her mother’s force behind her, Eunice headed to her bedroom, protesting as she went. “But we didn’t have any snakes in England, Mama! I didn’t think it would matter! The doorman said it wasn’t poisonous or anything. I thought maybe I could keep it. I wanted to look up its Latin name and study it!”

“Well, you were wrong.” Mortified, Isabel didn’t let go of Eunice’s arm until the deed was accomplished and the covered dish presented. Then, since the bellboy wouldn’t take custody of the dish as long as the snake remained inside, Loretta and Eunice carried it downstairs and let it loose in the park across the street.

They returned a few minutes later, Loretta grinning, Eunice chastened. “I’m sorry, Mama and Miss MacTavish,” she said.

Isabel figured Loretta had coached her in the apology. With more sternness than she generally used with her daughter, mainly because she seldom needed to, she said, “You’d better apologize to Miss Linden, too, Eunice. It’s only because of her kindness that we’re alive and here today.”

“Fiddlesticks,” said Loretta.

But Eunice, turning her big brown eyes gaze upon her mother’s mentor, murmured, “I’m very sorry, Miss Linden. Thank you for not killing my snake.”

Isabel rolled her eyes. Marjorie made a noise of disapproval—or perhaps it was disgust.

“It really was rather a nice little snake,” Loretta said. “For a snake.”

“I’m sure,” said Isabel, who thought Loretta Linden might possibly be some kind of saint.

# # #

A maid had made up the fire in their suite’s sitting room, and Loretta, Isabel, and Marjorie were reading peacefully. Isabel had been thrilled to discover that Loretta enjoyed Jacques Futrelle’s Thinking Machine stories—Futrelle was another who had perished when Titanic sank—and had bought several of them. “To keep us amused on the journey to San Francisco,” Loretta had said. Isabel couldn’t help but think how nice it must be to be able to buy books any old time you wanted to.

Be that as it may, she was engrossed in one of Futrelle’s stories when she heard Eunice’s muffled sobs. She put her book down and stood abruptly.

Loretta said, “Oh, dear, do you think she’s having another nightmare?”

Marjorie clucked and said, “Poor wee bairn.” Her sympathy rather surprised Isabel, who had suspected heretofore that Marjorie didn’t care for children or the disturbances they caused.

“I’m afraid so.”

Eunice’s nightmares worried Isabel almost as much as they worried Eunice, because the little girl had never been troubled by bad dreams before. Like Marjorie, however, the Titanic disaster had affected Eunice adversely. That made sense to Isabel, but her heart ached for her daughter. She rushed into the bedroom as fast as her limp allowed, sat on the bed, and took her daughter in her arms.

“There, there, dearie, it’s all right. Everything is all right. You’re safe now.”

“B-but the man isn’t,” sobbed Eunice, wetting her mother’s shoulder with her tears.

Kissing Eunice’s head, her heart aching, Isabel said, “What man is that, dearie?”

“That man. The nice one.”

Isabel thought she understood. “You mean the man who carried you to the lifeboat?”

Miserably nodding her head, Eunice sniffled. Her tears seemed to be drying up, although her unhappiness remained. “I saw him in the water. He was all frozen. Like all those other people.”

Closing her eyes and trying not to bring the images to mind, Isabel hugged Eunice more tightly. “He wasn’t there, dearie. It was only a dream.” She hoped she was right.

“I know. I know it now,” the little girl explained. “But I didn’t know it in my dream.”

Isabel sighed. “Dreams can be very frightening, sweetie. I hope that man is safe, just as we are.”

Eunice knuckled her eyes and nodded. “Me, too.”

“Perhaps we should pray for him, dearie.”

“If he’s dead, it won’t matter what we pray,” the ever-practical Eunice pointed out.

Isabel’s heart hitched. “Let’s pray that he’s safe—wherever he is.”

“But we don’t know his name.”

A shaft of pain shot through Isabel. “I know, sweetheart, but God will know who we mean.”

“Oh. That’s so.” After a moment, Eunice said, “I guess we can do that.”

So Isabel knelt next to her daughter beside the bed, and they both folded their hands and prayed. Sharing her daughter’s confusion on the subject—if the man was already dead, they couldn’t very well pray him back to life—she nevertheless asked God to bless the fellow. Wherever he was.

Chapter Two

The train whistle sounded mournfully through the thick evening air. It had rained all day, and it looked as if it aimed to rain all night, providing the droplets could find their way through the fog. Isabel and Eunice stared out the train window as New York slipped away from them. They couldn’t even see it anymore.

Actually, they hadn’t seen much of it during their brief stay. The dock, the hotel, a few shops, the hotel’s restaurant—where they’d eaten better than either one of them had ever eaten in their lives until that point—and Grand Central Station. Loretta had taken them on a whirlwind tour of a few interesting spots, but Isabel’s ankle had hurt and they’d all been upset because of the recent tragedy. No one had been in much of a mood for sightseeing.

The final death tally was staggering. Over fifteen hundred people had been confirmed dead. The dead who had been fortunate enough to be incoffined had been taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and authorities were attempting to identify the bodies. Isabel’s heart hurt as she thought of loved ones anxiously waiting to hear what had happened to their kin.

When the rescue ships had run out of coffins, or when the corpses were too damaged to be recognizable—a notion that made her shiver—the dead had been buried at sea. Before the crew had let them slide into the deep, they’d searched pockets for any kind of identifying evidence. Every night Isabel prayed that those people had been identified so their loved ones could know their fates. Not knowing would be awful.

She prayed every night for the man who had reunited her with Eunice, too. Why hadn’t she asked him his name? But it had been a terrible night; she guessed it wasn’t surprising that, in her panic, she’d neglected the courtesy. She regretted it now, for she’d never know if he was alive or dead. As she and Eunice watched New York slip away into the distance, her heart and throat both ached, and she silently prayed that her hero had survived the tragedy.

Her hand ached, too, because Eunice held it so tightly. Isabel sighed. Until the Titanic disaster, Eunice had been a self-possessed, virtually fearless little girl, and almost more independent than Isabel liked, mainly because Isabel herself craved human companionship and didn’t understand her daughter’s pleasure at being by herself.

Since the catastrophe, Eunice had been clinging to her mother like a limpet. She continued to be plagued by nightmares, as well. Isabel couldn’t criticize her for her newly developed night terrors any more than she could criticize Marjorie for her fear of water. She was surprised her own dreams weren’t filled with scenes from that dreadful experience. She knew she’d never forget them.

She remembered watching through that hideous night and feeling the waves created by the sinking ship rock the lifeboat she, Loretta, Marjorie, and Eunice had occupied. She’d scarcely believed it when the ship split and its two halves sank under the black, black surface of the water. Such a gasp had gone up from those watching, and so many tears had been shed as they’d shivered there in the dark. Isabel had kept thinking she must be dreaming. But it hadn’t been a dream, more’s the pity.

And the bodies. There had been so many bodies floating or struggling on that dark sea, their life preservers holding them up. People from her lifeboat had tried to drag others into the boat with them, but it was too small to hold many people. She recalled with horror the terrified shrieks and cries. With even greater horror she recalled the cries fading into moans and then dying out altogether. The water had been too cold for anyone to survive in it for very long. Being in that frigid water would have been akin to being buried in a snowdrift. In fact, she wished her mind would stop dwelling on it. Then she decided that was too much to expect. Perhaps, in time, the images would fade.

“Maybe we can come back to New York City someday, Mama, and visit the museums.” Eunice sounded wistful.

“I’m sure we shall,” Isabel said in order to cheer her daughter up. It would be a cold day in hell—August—before Isabel Golightly would be able to pay the fare back to New York City in order to visit museums, although she’d love to give her daughter the opportunity. It had become painfully clear before Eunice’s first birthday that the girl was smarter than her mother and father and all the rest of her relatives combined. It grieved Isabel that she couldn’t provide more enriching opportunities for her child.

“Miss Linden said that San Francisco is an interesting city with quite a few museums and nice parks. I’d like to visit them.

“We’ll do that, sweetheart,” Isabel promised. Now that was a promise she could probably keep, since museums and parks didn’t generally cost anything to visit. She still didn’t know how she was going to earn a living.

She and Loretta had talked about it, and Loretta didn’t seem concerned—but Loretta didn’t have a six-year-old daughter to provide for. Even if she’d had a dozen children, Loretta had the money to support them.

Isabel felt glum and wasn’t sure why. She supposed it was natural for a woman who had left her home on one continent, headed to another, encountered an iceberg along the way, been one of a very few people rescued from the catastrophic sinking of an unsinkable ship, and now faced an uncertain future, to be slightly melancholy, but Isabel wasn’t accustomed to giving in to adversity. She was accustomed to facing adversity head-on, fighting it tooth and nail, and then, bloodied or untouched, rising above it.

Now she felt stupid for having been such an optimist all her life. Here she was in America without a penny to her name, with a daughter, without skills, and with a tremendous need to earn money, and she didn’t know what to do.

“I think Miss Linden will help you get a job, Mama,” Eunice said. “I’m sorry I’m not old enough to help.”

Isabel hugged her daughter to her side. She knew she should be the one offering comfort to the little girl and not the other way around, but she appreciated Eunice right then more than she could say. “I’m sure she will, sweets.” Again, Isabel’s mind boggled at the prospect of paying Loretta Linden back for all her kind offices.

“She must have a lot of money,” Eunice mused. “She hired a whole train carriage for the four of us.”

“I guess she does.”

Eunice sighed. “It must be nice.”

“Must be.” Isabel sighed too, deeply.

# # #

Somerset FitzRoy frowned at the stalk of panax quinquefolius L. It was an interesting specimen, and one he’d not encountered anywhere but in the eastern United States. He’d have liked to compare it to the specimen he’d found in Ireland. That option was forever lost to him, however, since all of his specimens, as well as all of his notes, drawings, and books had gone down with the Titanic.

This specimen of panax quinquefolius L looked a good deal like the Asian variety. Somerset wondered how it had come to this continent.

He’d read that there might once have been a land bridge connecting Asia with the continent of America. He conjured a mental image of hide-clad Asians marching along with sacks full of the stuff. He might make mention of the alleged land bridge in his book.

He set the specimen on the table before him, turned his sketchbook to a clean sheet, and picked up a charcoal pencil. Squinting harder—he was going to need spectacles before long, he feared—he began quickly drawing the leaves of the plant. It was the root that people were primarily interested in, but Somerset intended his book to contain the whole plant, no matter which part of it was used for medicinal purposes. At least he didn’t have to do much research on the usage of this one. People had been employing it in various concoctions for different ailments for hundreds of years.

A slight feeling of uneasiness at his back made him twitch his shoulders. He kept on sketching. He’d managed to pick some of the plant’s berries, too, and he’d draw those to the side of the picture of the whole plant, so that people who bought his book would know exactly what to look for if they ever attempted to find a specimen of their own.

Again, his shoulder blades twitched. Irritated, thinking he was being pestered by an insect, Somerset flapped his left hand in order to scare the critter away.

“Why are you drawing that weed?”

The chirping voice startled him so badly, he jumped in his chair and let out a cry. Perhaps he’d not been as unaffected by the recent catastrophe as he’d believed. His charcoal pencil slid across the page, making a line through the five-leaved stem he’d just drawn. Spinning around, he was astonished to behold a little girl standing behind him, eyeing his drawing quizzically. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t think of whom.

“Who are you?” he barked. Belatedly, he realized the child hadn’t meant to alarm him. Somerset knew he could become totally lost to outside influences when he was involved in his work. It wasn’t the child’s fault she’d startled him.

“I am Miss Eunice Marie Golightly,” the child said.

Again a faint memory tugged at Somerset’s mind, although it vanished instantly. She was the soberest little thing he had ever seen. He took a deep breath and endeavored to be polite, knowing how sensitive children could be. He even managed a smile. “How do you do, Miss Eunice Marie Golightly?”

“I am well, thank you. Chamomile tea might help your nerves, sir, although it tastes nasty. My mother puts a sprig of basil or mint in it, but it doesn’t help much.”

Chamomile tea? Nerves? Basil? Mint? Was she a figment of his imagination? Somerset stared at the small girl, trying to put the words that had just sprung from her lips together with the tiny frame, tidy blond braids, and big brown eyes staring at him so earnestly.

He, too, was serious by nature, but he enjoyed a lively sense of humor, and this little sobersides tickled it. “Thank you very much, Miss Golightly. I shall keep that in mind. However, in mitigation of my startled reaction to your question, I was deeply involved in my work when you spoke.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Think nothing of it.” Somerset waited, but Eunice didn’t say anything. She was certainly composed for such a young child. She made him a bit nervous, actually.

That being the case, he stuck out his hand. “My name is Mr. Somerset FitzRoy, Miss Golightly.” Recalling her own introduction, Somerset elaborated. “Mr. Somerset Anderson FitzRoy. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Eunice took his hand and shook it gravely. “How do you do, Mr. FitzRoy? I’m happy to meet you, too. You have three last names.”

Somerset uttered a short crack of laughter. “I suppose I do.”

They stared at each other for several more seconds, and then the little girl repeated, “Why are you drawing that weed?”

Somerset glanced at what had been a lovely drawing of panax quinquefolius L. before the advent of Miss Eunice Marie Golightly into his life. “It’s not a weed,” he said ruefully. “Its botanical name is panax quinquefolius. I’m drawing it for a book I’m writing.”

“On weeds?”

“On the medicinal and traditional uses of various common plants. They’re only weeds if you don’t know what they’re good for and how to use them.” He scowled at his picture. It looked great except for the black line running through it. Turning back to Eunice, he said, “Where did you come from?”

“The village of Upper Poppleton in the county of Yorkshire, in the north of England. We came over on the R.M.S. Titanic, which sank. We were rescued.”

“Good Lord.” Somerset stared at the girl with new respect. No wonder she was behaving a trifle oddly if she’d survived the Titanic disaster. What a terrible experience, especially for such a young one. It had been bad enough for him, an adult.

And then it struck him. This girl, Miss Eunice Marie Golightly, was the tyke he’d handed to her mother right before the crew lowered one of the too few available lifeboats into the ocean. Good God. This girl was the one with the ravishing mother, the woman Somerset hadn’t been able to get out of his mind since the damned ship sank. Thank the good Lord they’d survived the disaster.

Eunice’s eyes thinned and her gaze sharpened. Somerset thought she was annoyed with him for not saying anything immediately, but she surprised him.

“Weren’t you aboard the ship, too, Mr. FitzRoy? Aren’t you the gentleman who rescued me after my mama dropped me?”

Somerset swallowed. It was still hard for him to remember that hideous night. He’d worked so hard to save lives, only to be sucked down into the fathomless depths of the freezing Atlantic Ocean when the ship finally slipped beneath the surface of the water. He’d thought for sure he was a dead man, but he didn’t give up. Kicking like mad, and fighting through a field of debris floating down, down, down, he’d aimed for oxygen. His lungs had almost burst before he broke the surface and gasped in huge breaths of air.

And cold? Lord, it had been like ice in that water. Somerset had managed to remain afloat, although his teeth were chattering, his fingers were numb, and he’d feared that he’d become a victim of hypothermia before help arrived. He’d been close to unconsciousness when a small boat—not one of the large lifeboats, but some kind of collapsible craft—pulled up beside him. He’d gazed hopelessly at the boat, and then received the shock of his life when four brawny arms lifted him from the water and heaved him aboard. He found himself grinning like an idiot at two muscular sailors. He tried to thank the men, but his mouth and tongue wouldn’t coordinate to form words. A lady in the boat threw a blanket over him.

Great God, what a night. Somerset supposed his conscience would trouble him for the rest of his life because he’d been of so little help.

After clearing his throat, he spoke to the child. “I believe I am, Miss Eunice. I’m very happy to see you again.” He attempted a genuinely friendly smile, but he was under the influence of severe emotion and feared his result was puny. “Under more pleasant circumstances.”

Again she nodded. “Yes. The train’s much nicer than that awful ship.”

Suddenly, the door to the sitting-room car was flung open and the woman herself erupted into the carriage. Somerset, who had been mooning about this woman for more than a month, stood, knowing he ought to have done so for the little girl, but having forgotten, undoubtedly owing to his nervous condition. Chamomile tea, indeed. His lips twitched as he suppressed a grin, then any hint of amusement faded altogether when Eunice’s mother hurried up to her daughter.

She was still lovely, although daylight, and probably a less-heated emotional climate, indubitably colored his impression. She appeared worried at the moment.

“Eunice!”

Both females were small and had thick blond hair and beautiful eyes, although the daughter’s were as dark as polished mahogany and the mother’s were . . . Somerset contemplated them. They weren’t quite the color of cichorium Intybus, and they weren’t as deep a purple as lavandula officinalis or Delphinium ajacis, but . . . Somerset shook his head to clear it of irrelevancies. In his daydreams, he’d not given the woman’s eyes any particular color. Now his dreams could be more complete.

Their complexions were fair, although the mother’s face was flushed. The daughter’s braids boasted blue ribbons and the mother’s head sported a small blue hat. Both were clad in white shirtwaists and blue calico skirts and matching jackets that looked new.

“Hello, Mama,” Eunice said, turning to face the newcomer. Somerset was glad to see her smile. He’d begun to wonder if he might encounter a key in her back if he were to tip her upside down and look. “This is the gentleman who rescued us aboard the Titanic. He’s drawing a weed.”

Mrs. Golightly—he assumed her name was Golightly—stopped short and stared at Somerset, her mouth slightly open and her eyes growing large and luminous under the influence of shock. She whispered, “Oh, my.” Then, with a gasp, she rushed over to him and grabbed both of his hands, which had been resting on the table.

“Oh, my!” she cried again. “I can’t believe it’s you. But it is!”

“Er . . . yes.” Somerset, delighted to see her again, was nevertheless a trifle uncomfortable with her raw emotions.

“I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that you survived that dreadful accident.” Tears stood in her eyes. “I’ve been praying for you every night, and was so sorry that I never asked your name.”

“This is Mr. Somerset Anderson FitzRoy, Mama,” Eunice supplied helpfully.

“Mr. FitzRoy.” Mr. Golightly swallowed hard. “I can never, ever thank you enough for saving us.” She bowed her head over his hands, and Somerset decided the Golightlys were an odd pair of females, although the mother appeared slightly more normal than the child. A tear splashed the back of his hand.

Ill at ease at having her gratitude showered upon him—he’d only done what was right, after all—he said, “Please, Mrs. Golightly—your name is Golightly?”

She nodded, almost too choked up to speak. “Isabel Golightly.”

“Please don’t thank me. I felt it was my duty to help. Under the—well, under the circumstances and all.” He attempted another smile. “And you did spill your daughter practically at my feet, you know.”

When she lifted her head, tears had made silvery trails down her perfect cheeks. Somerset had a mad impulse to kiss them away. Naturally, he did no such thing.

She gave him a tremulous smile that nearly broke his heart. “I know better than that, Mr. FitzRoy. You saved our lives.”

“Well now, I wouldn’t go that far.” This was becoming downright embarrassing.

“You did. I’d never have climbed into that lifeboat without Eunice, and I never could have found her again in that mob.”

Eunice nodded. Somerset felt the back of his neck get hot and wished Mrs. Golightly would let go of his hands so he could run his fingers under his collar and loosen it. “Well, it’s over now, thank God. I’m only sorry so many of our fellow passengers perished.”

“Yes. It was such an horrible night.” She cleared her throat and seemed to pull herself together. She also let go of his hands. They felt strangely cold after she withdrew her warm essence. “I’m sorry my daughter bothered you, Mr. FitzRoy. We’ll leave you in peace now.” Snatching a hankie from a pocket, she wiped her tears away and offered him a tremulous smile.

Somerset didn’t want her to go. He wasn’t sure how to say so without appearing to be the kind of man he wasn’t. “She didn’t bother me . . . not much, anyway. I was drawing this plant and she asked me why.” He waved at the drawing, then blurted out, “Thank you for praying for me.” Then he felt stupid.

“Oh, I’ll pray for you for the rest of my life, Mr. FitzRoy. You’re the reason we’re both alive today.”

Good God. He would have waved away her effusive thanks, but he couldn’t bear to do so. He discovered within himself a severe disinclination to do anything that might in any way upset Isabel Golightly. An extraneous and irrelevant notion entered his head, and he had to bite his tongue before he could ask her if her husband had survived the disaster. What was the matter with him?

“And thank you for putting up with Eunice. She likes to walk through the carriages, because it’s a long and tedious trip, but I’ve told her not to speak to strangers.” This time her smiled was spectacular. “I must say, though, that I’m glad she spoke to you. We’ll be going now.”

She turned to go, and Somerset experienced a mad impulse to grab her and make her stay. As ever, he resisted the impulse, which he knew to be irrational and totally unlike him. “Any time, Mrs. Golightly.” He feared he had a sappy smile on his face. “Any time at all.”

But Mrs. Golightly had already dragged Eunice almost as far as the end of the carriage. Somerset sighed deeply, wishing he’d paid more attention when his mother had tried to teach him how to woo women. He hadn’t been interested in women at the time. His interest and attention had always centered on the world’s flora. There was nothing he could do about it now, he guessed.

Turning to eye his drawing, he decided it was ruined. With an abrupt and irritated jerk, he tore out the page of his sketchbook and turned over a clean sheet. This time, he sat on the other side of the table, with his back against the carriage wall, so nobody could sneak up on him.

# # #

“I know I’ve told you never to speak to strangers, Eunice, but I’m glad you spoke to that one.” Isabel had almost suffered a spasm when she’d gone looking for Eunice and found her talking to the hero of her very life.

“I wasn’t sure at first, Mama, but I thought it was him.” Eunice frowned and corrected herself. “I think I mean he.”

“I’m so glad he didn’t go down with the ship,” Isabel whispered. “So, so glad.”

“I am, too, Mama. He seems to be a nice man.”

Isabel glanced sharply at her daughter. “Yes, he did. However, I don’t want you to bother him anymore, Eunice. Even though he saved our lives, he’s still a stranger, and he seems to have work to do.”

Eunice frowned, but Isabel knew what she was talking about. Mr. Somerset FitzRoy was a big, muscular, tanned, and very handsome man, with lovely dark hair and gorgeous brown eyes, and Isabel, while she’d worship him for the rest of her life, didn’t want anything to do with him. She knew too well that big handsome men were nothing but trouble.

“I think Mr. FitzRoy is a real gentleman, Mama.”

“Possibly,” Isabel said under her breath.

“And he did rescue us,” Eunice reminded her.

“Indeed, and I’ll be forever grateful to him, but we . . . we mustn’t bother him, Eunice.”

After pondering this possibility for a couple of seconds, Eunice said, “He didn’t seem to be awfully bothered.”

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