Fateful by Claudia Gray Read Free Book Online

He would have held the lift for him.
    So it must have been my imagination. Mikhail wouldn’t have followed me down here.
    He wouldn’t still be hunting me.
    I try very hard to believe it.

Chapter 5
     
    THE MIDAFTERNOON SUN GILDS THE DECKS OF THE ship as if it were a golden ornament instead of anything real. I would swear that the Titanic glides above the surface of the ocean, because this is as smooth and idyllic as flying is in dreams. And the ocean now looks as I always imagined it: depthless, dark blue, crowned with foamy waves—
    “Tess!” barks Lady Regina. “Don’t fall behind.”
    So much for daydreams.
    I walk a few steps behind Lady Regina, Layton, and Irene, carrying the ladies’ shawls should they need them. Apparently travel at sea can sometimes be cold, though this afternoon is anything but. The ship is heading toward Cherbourg to pick up the final passengers. So if the ladies will stay on deck until then, I can actually glimpse a bit of the coastline of France.
    I try to think of such things: pretty metaphors about the ship, or the excitement of seeing another country for the first time in my life. If I think about those things, then I don’t have to think about Mikhail. I’m in first class now, his part of the ship. He could walk by at any instant, and then I will have to know, for certain, whether it’s just my imagination or whether—whether he’s truly hunting me.
    Then maybe I could tell someone, though I’m not sure who could help me. George Greene seems a kindly man, but he’d still believe a gentleman’s word above that of a servant, I’m sure. Ned, perhaps? But what could Ned do about it?
    No, I’m alone in this.
    Irene’s ivory-colored dress fits her well, thanks to my sewing, and the blue ribbons that gather the neck and sleeves flutter nicely in the breeze. I do wish Lady Regina had taken my advice about her daughter’s hat, though. It is wide-brimmed and high-crowned, the latest in fashion, but it overwhelms Irene’s slight frame. As fond as I am of her, I can’t help but think that she looks a bit like a mushroom. The enormous hat wobbles on her head while she animatedly talks about some excitement on deck as the Titanic left port, an incident I missed while Myriam and I were down below.
    “They say we came within four feet of colliding with the tugboat,” Irene insists. “A man on deck declared that was a bad omen. He says he will disembark at Cherbourg.”
    “Superstitious nonsense,” sniffs Lady Regina. “Ahhh, look there. The Countess of Rothes. Well worth the knowing.”
    Irene’s sigh is so soft that Lady Regina can pretend to ignore it. But Layton snaps, “She’s hardly any older than you, but she’s done a fair bit better for herself, wouldn’t you say? You might want to learn from her example.”
    “I hope the countess married for love, not for money,” Irene says.
    “She married well,” Layton says. “She kept an eye out. You might try doing the same, Irene, instead of hiding up in your library all the time.”
    Sometimes I hide in the library with her; more often I go on my own. Irene promised me at Christmastime that I might borrow what books I wished, Sherlock Holmes or anything else, and if anybody in her family ever noticed them missing, she’d swear she’d insisted that I read the volume in question. It was kind of her, though we both knew there was little chance of anybody else in her family noticing a missing book. Between the three of them, I doubt they’ve ever read anything more complex than Burke’s Peerage .
    “Humph. I believe those would be the Strauses.” Lady Regina’s nose crinkles as if she’s smelled something bad. “Enormously wealthy Americans. They own some store in New York City—Macy’s, they call it. I suppose that is so nobody will realize it is owned by Jews.”
    I sneak another peek at the Strauses; I’ve never seen any Jewish people before, and I’m curious. They don’t look any different from anyone else.