By the Light of the Silvery Moon by Tricia Goyer Read Free Book Online

accounting more closely.
    Damien left their room and strode toward the first-class deck.
    He found his way to the gentleman’s first-class smoking lounge, taking in the mahogany paneled walls and mother of pearl inlaid work. Painted glass windows displayed pastoral landscapes, ancient ships, and mythological figures. Potted plants offered the room color, life.
    A bartender wiped down an immaculately clean bar, and two young men dressed in new suits chatted about jobs waiting for them in New York as they smoked cigars. Damien sat in the tall-backed chair, and thankfulness flooded him. They were on the
Titanic.
They would be leaving London, and hopefully when they returned to Maryland, thoughts of his brother would stay far away.
    His knee bounced. He was eager for the ship to place an ocean between them. He tired of his father’s craning neck and wide-eyed pursuance of every tall, young, dark-haired man. What his father didn’t know was that Quentin wouldn’t be found in the restaurants and museums they visited. While his father had hired investigators to find his son over the years, Damien paid double to make sure their findings never met his father’s ears. The newspaper clippings after Quentin first moved to London had been bad enough. It pained his father to see how Quentin had wasted his fortune on wild living. It would kill him to know his son slept in the gutters and ate out of trash cans. What he hid was for his father’s protection. His peace.
    Damien scanned the crowd, and a bit of color caught his eye from the doorway to his right. The woman in the yellow dress—as soft and delicate as a rose in the queen’s garden—peeked into the room. Another woman walked by her side. Would it be too forward for him to make an introduction? He took a step and then paused.
    As they passed, he heard the woman speak to her friend. “Could you imagine crossing the ocean in first class? Maybe someday, Ethel, we’ll experience such a thing.”
    Her words caused his head to jerk back as if she’d slapped him across the face with her gloves. She wasn’t first class, thus she wasn’t suitable. The two ideas, in his mind—and in the minds of those of his peers—went hand in hand. Damien considered introducing himself to the woman despite her social standing. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. All those in first class knew who he was, knew who his father was. But what about someone in second class? He doubted it.
    Damien stroked a hand down his chin. What would it be like to spend time with someone who would look at him as just another man instead of an heir to a fortune? At thirty-one years of age, he’d never known such a thing.
    From the moment he’d boarded the ship, all eyes had been on him—on his father. He knew over the days to come their every need would be met. He’d be introduced to beautiful, eligible women and engage in talk of politics, science, and literature. It wouldn’t be necessary to introduce himself. All would know who he was as clearly as if he’d had his name pinned to his chest.
    Yet she hadn’t even glanced over to try to get his attention as she passed. If he introduced himself, she wouldn’t know who he was, and even if she did, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.
    And for the first time ever, he liked that.

C HAPTER 4
     
    T he excitement of their launch soon lifted Amelia’s mood. Tonight, as she snuggled in her bunk, she’d think of Mother and wonder,
Why couldn’t things have turned out differently?
But today—today she was going to let the joy of the occasion push those thoughts to the side. Today she would celebrate being part of a new era of history—being a passenger on a new league of ship.
    She’d decided something else, too. On this trip aboard the
Titanic,
Amelia would strive to live in the present. She wouldn’t let the anchor of her mother’s memory sink her spirits. She wouldn’t let the waves of worry over what waited on the other shore crash