A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2)

Chapter 9

9

They ate lunch in the dining saloon. Maud chewed over the morning along with her cold pie and tried to convince herself that she had anything approaching a narrower list of suspects. The crew could move as they wished—so could Alan Ross. So could magicians, as Violet had pointed out.

Could she rule out the Americans on board? Even magician-Americans surely had little reason to be involved in a conspiracy of English magic.

Although… Edwin had pointed out that they had no proof of what the bloodlines of the Three Families would mean, when it came to the impact of the contract on the magicians of Britain today. What of those magicians who’d emigrated, like Mrs. Navenby, or whose parents or grandparents had done so? Distance governed the strength of magic; what of distance when measured in terms of oceans? Or time and generations?

That was usually the point in the proceedings at which Edwin would slam his research book shut and then immediately lay his palm on the cover in silent apology. After which Robin would go to haul his beloved forcibly out of his seat and insist on a brisk walk in the fresh air.

No. All told, it was far likelier that—as Maud’s bubbling pool of guilt suggested—an English magician had been secretly watching Maud as well as Robin and Edwin, had followed her to New York, and found Mrs. Navenby that way. Maud was supposed to warn her, and instead Mrs. Navenby might have died because of her. It was unbearable to think about. All she could do was work harder to solve this.

Her excitement at having Violet on her side had carried her through the morning. The sobering reality—this vast ship carrying hundreds of people, none of whom were conveniently presenting themselves as magicians or murderers—had now taken hold of Maud’s lungs and was gently, thoughtfully kneading them into a loaf of dread.

Asking Violet to magically unlock one door at a time wasn’t going to work. A new approach would be needed. Several new approaches.

“Maud?”

Maud looked up at Violet’s prompting. A steward inquired if she wanted a spoonful of the lemon pudding being offered as the dessert course.

“No, thank you.” Her appetite had vanished.

Still, she couldn’t help but watch as Violet’s lips closed with relish over a spoonful of pudding. Part of Maud had been lighting up whenever that mouth curved into a full, pleased smile. Or quirked at the side with a smaller and more sarcastic one.

You want to reach out and touch him, Violet had said. Or have him touch you.

Maud drained her water glass with glum resignation. The problem was that Violet assumed Maud had had such thoughts about men.

Maud had been waiting for most of her nineteen years for these thoughts to appear. She’d met friends of Robin’s, and Liza’s brother Paul, and spent time with several young men whose parents her parents had approved. Many of them had been perfectly nice. Some of them she might have enjoyed talking to, if she hadn’t been so determined to feel the exact opposite of what her mother wanted her to feel.

Robin had expressed his concern that one day she’d run off with a chimney sweep, just for the pleasure of writing the letter informing Sir Robert and Lady Blyth what their daughter had done—that this particular scrap of their manipulated existence had insisted on acting as though she were a full and separate human being.

“It wouldn’t work,” Maud had said, sighing. “I’d end up sneaking back to look through the window at their faces as they read it, or there’d be no point. And I’d be using the poor chimney sweep just as much as they use people.”

And Robin had kissed her hair and made himself particularly agreeable, particularly obliging, so that Maud could slip out to a Women’s Society meeting while their parents were arranging their only son’s life for him.

Maud held on to the image. That was why she was here: for Mrs. Navenby, yes, but also for Robin. To make up for her failure and set things right. Not to sit mooning after a sophisticated scandal-trap of a girl, no matter how attractive her mouth.

She parted ways with Violet at the end of lunch and went to meet Helen Bernard. Violet had volunteered to question Lord Albert, and Maud herself was unlikely to get another good excuse to visit the cargo hold.

And… there was something she hadn’t shared with Violet yet. One of Robin’s possibly-ship-based visions had included wild animals. She’d be silly to pass up the opportunity to learn more about this menagerie.

“Miss Cutler!”

Maud smiled, shoved the enormity of her worry aside, and relaxed into Helen’s chatter. Helen Bernard had lived all her life in upstate New York, and wanted more than anything to travel to Africa and see giraffes and lions and zebras and elephants and all the other things that her father’s explorer friends told stories about or brought home remnants of: tusks and tails and skins.

“And photographs,” said Helen, as they took the staircase to D Deck. “Papa’s promised me a camera for Christmas, and I plan to become a lady photographer of great renown, so that publishers and magazines and collectors will ask me to go to Africa to take pictures of all the animals.”

“I hope you do!”

“I had thought of becoming a naturalist, but I suppose you need to study at a university to be taken seriously by the Royal Society. Do you suppose there are any unmarried dukes or viscounts in England who might be interested in also becoming intrepid explorers?” she asked hopefully. “Good day, Mr. Hewitt! How’s the porcupine?”

The Bernards’ menagerie keeper was waiting for them at the head of the stairs leading down into the hold. He was in the same category as Ross, Maud thought—someone whose occupation meant he could move wherever he needed to be.

“Stopped bringing up her guts, at least. Can’t say she looks her best, miss, but if she’ll take some water and keep it down, she should see out the voyage.”

Hewitt wore a leather apron over his clothes and had a wide reddish nose, thick grey brows, and a flavour of American to his accent that was unfamiliar to Maud. He was clearly fond of Helen, and just as clearly resigned to a further five days full of seasick porcupines.

Maud and Helen followed him down the stairs, through a large open hatch and into dimness. The cargo hold was a huge space, with bare electrical lights set at intervals casting a greyish-gold glow. It was more low-ceilinged than Maud had expected. Piles of crates, large trunks, bandboxes: all were huddled beneath canvas and tied securely down to metal bolt-loops in the floor. There were even several motorcars, their headlamps reflecting a gleam like sleepy eyes.

You could hide anything down here, Maud thought with a renewed squeeze of despair.

The ground purred beneath her feet with the proximity of the ship’s great engines. The air smelled damper, warmer, tinged with leather and straw and petrol and a densely animal odour that grew stronger as Hewitt led the way to one corner of the hold. As they approached, the general rumble of noise split and became several distinct noises all chattering, growling, complaining at once. The menagerie.

It was a small, grubby zoo: an assembly of thick wooden crates with gaps in the slats, through which the moving shapes of animals could be glimpsed. There were several metal cages, including an aviary Maud’s height and nearly as wide as it was tall, within which several birds of various sizes hopped from perch to ring to seed-scattered ground. Could you magically train an animal to seek magical items, like pigs with truffles?

“Were you wanting to help with the feeding, miss?”

“Thank you,” said Maud, giving the answer she was fairly sure he wanted, “but I haven’t so many outfits that I can afford to get this one covered in…”

“Fish.” Hewitt hoisted a bucket. “For the otters. And the bear.”

Helen launched into an enthusiastic monologue about bears. Maud stood respectfully back as Hewitt opened cages or prised up the lids of crates in order to feed the inhabitants. Fish for the bear. Raw meat, coolly dripping, for the cheetahs, who blinked their cat’s eyes at Maud and stretched their graceful, spindly limbs. Parrots, finches; monkeys, porcupine. A kangaroo. An enormous snake, coiled like bulging rope in the corner of its crate, that had apparently eaten before being loaded up and would live off it until they reached England.

“He looks terrifying,” said Helen, “but he’s not really dangerous to people unless he’s starving or scared. We could open the crate and he’d probably do nothing at all. Perhaps he’d go poking around in search of a better corner to curl up in, where he could feel the warmth of the engines.”

“You’re already halfway to being a naturalist,” said Maud. “You know, you could go to university in England, if your parents were willing. There are colleges just for girls at Oxford and Cambridge. I plan to study there,” she added.

“Do you really? How thrilling . What will you study?”

“I don’t know.” Maud watched the snake. Which, if released, might do nothing at all with the freedom thus offered except exchange one dark corner for another. “I don’t know if I’m even clever enough for it.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Maud smiled. She wasn’t used to feeling like the most grown-up person in a conversation. And she also hadn’t expected to say what she’d said: the secret fear she’d so far kept even from Robin. The quiet, niggling worry that her dream of university, for all that it had proven solid and persistent, had nothing to do with Maud herself being made in an academic mould, but was in fact the career equivalent of a chimney sweep.

“If I am, or if I’m not, I’d still like to find out for myself. When the— I mean, if we can afford it.” She’d bitten back the word estate . Miss Maud Cutler’s brother did not administer an estate. Was not grimly engaged in dragging said estate back into being a profitable holding, when he wasn’t working at the Home Office as the civil service liaison to the Magical Assembly, or reporting to the Assembly about his visions of the future. Or furtively investigating a magical conspiracy.

The feeding over, Maud and Helen went back up to the sun deck and settled on a pair of chairs. Maud watched the wandering passengers for anyone who might be watching her —though she supposed any glances were just as likely to be due to Miss Cutler’s scandalous ways.

“Where will you keep all the animals, in England?” she asked Helen.

“The house Papa’s bought has enormous grounds. And he’s already got men there building a proper set of enclosures and sheds. The weather will be different to what the animals are used to. I’m sure they’ll all get used to it soon enough.”

The slight shake in the girl’s voice was easy enough to diagnose. Maud thought of Violet saying brightly, I missed the weather.

“Are you sad to leave America?”

“Not for the most part.” Helen’s smile resurrected itself. “It’s not quite exploring the wilderness or the jungle, but it’s still an adventure. I’m mostly sad to leave my friends. My bos- om friend Anne and I have known each other practically since we were born. We’ve promised to write every week, but I know I’m going to miss her horribly.”

“Writing does help,” said Maud. “I have a friend who—well, she didn’t move across the ocean.” She laughed. “Though sometimes it feels that way. She was married last November. She doesn’t have as much time to spend with me. It’s only natural.”

She kept her voice brisk. That was another set of feelings she hadn’t wanted to trouble Robin with; she barely allowed them to trouble herself, these days. They were stupid feelings anyway. Maud’s heart had no right to feel so bruised and raw, seeing Liza glowing and spending her time with her husband instead of dragging Maud to book clubs and parties and Suffragette meetings.

Girls grew up and were married; friends grew up and grew distant. Maud had never expected that it would be herself and Liza Sinclair, each being the other’s favourite person, forever.

Except that a dumb animal part of her clearly had.

“Oh,” said Maud blankly.

“Oh?” Helen looked at her.

Maud felt like she’d been handed a jigsaw puzzle: one made for children, with large, obvious pieces. One of the pieces was the way her body had turned to a slow bonfire of curiosity beneath Violet Debenham’s hand, and her inability to stop thinking of Violet’s lips. The other was the last time she’d felt anything even close to that, when she and Liza lay giggling on Liza’s bed with their arms linked, breathlessly reliving the jokes of the pantomime performance they’d just seen. Maud buoyant with unquestioned joy at her friend’s attention; Maud feeling as though she’d been punctured by a knife when Liza drew away and promised her laughter to someone else.

The pieces slotted together and formed a picture. Maud felt even more of a fool than usual. Clever enough for university? She was barely clever enough to know herself.

I wonder, she thought, if it runs in the family. Like magic.

“Maud?”

“Oh. Nothing,” she said to Helen. “Nothing important.”

It both was, and wasn’t, a lie.

Lord Albert, son of the Marquess of Welmotte, was not in his cabin. Violet interrupted his valet in the midst of some very important shoe-polishing and trouser-brushing, from the look of the apron tied around the man’s waist. They’d been at sea only a day; how much damage could one aristocrat do to his clothing in that time?

The valet gave Violet a look of deep ambivalence when she introduced herself. All domestic staff that Violet knew were expert gossips, so no doubt her strumpet status had reached him as well. He offered with lukewarm professionalism to take a message for his lordship, but something about his tone suggested that the message would be forgotten as soon as Violet was out of sight.

Lord Albert himself had the misfortune to settle the matter by appearing. His gingery hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, and he was clad in what looked like tennis flannels. He stopped a few feet away.

“Sir,” said the valet.

“Lord Albert!” said Violet.

“Miss Debenham,” said his lordship. His shoulder twitched.

“I was hoping to beg a moment of your time, my lord.” Violet looked meaningfully past the valet’s shoulder into the parlour suite. “In private.”

Lord Albert coughed. “Er. I’m not sure that would be…”

“Proper?” suggested Violet happily, when the man proved unequal to the task. “Or I suppose you could buy me a cup of tea in one of the public dining rooms.”

Lord Albert caved to the inevitable. Violet liked that in a man.

The valet retired to the adjoining room and closed the door with a snobbish snick . Lord Albert showed every sign of in tending to seat Violet on the settee and then hover as far away from her as possible, so she gave her best smile and crowded herself into the man’s space. He was a good few inches shorter than Violet, who had long ago decided to favour heeled shoes despite her height, out of what Jerry had called her innate damned contrariness.

Violet performed the fire-cradle she’d used with Ross, this time with her magic held barely in check. She was investigating a possible killer, after all. At the slightest hint of guilt or even recognition, she would set the man’s white flannels aflame and make her escape.

Lord Albert didn’t do anything but continue to eye Violet as though she were a bull and he was regretting his lack of red rags.

“Miss Debenham. I r-really think that—”

“My dear man.” Violet let her hands fall. “You seem very pleasant, I’m sure. But do you really think I would waltz out of Lord Hawthorn’s bed and immediately try to find my way into yours ?”

A pause. “That was an awfully r-rude thing to say.” The stammer, unlike the twitch, had been less obvious at dinner last night. Only a hesitation before certain words, and a forceful way of attacking them.

Violet gazed into the uncertain face with its trim red moustache. So he wasn’t a magician; he just had a secret. She could sweep her way out of the cabin and pretend all of this had never happened.

But she’d joined Maud’s endeavour because she liked secrets. At least, when they belonged to other people.

“Yes, it was,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“If you’re not here to seek out a lower grade of product,” he said, with a sudden dash of ironic spirit, “then what the dickens do you want?”

Violet couldn’t help herself. “Perhaps I’m looking for someone who’s prepared to offer me a more formal arrangement than Lord Hawthorn will.”

Lord Albert laughed. It transformed his face; his eyes creased and true good humour shone out of him. “Miss Debenham, I r-regret to inform you that my affections are engaged elsewhere.”

Violet retreated to the truth. “I saw you down on the lower-class deck, in the sort of hat you might have borrowed from your stableboy. I know you’re hiding something, Lord Albert. I want to know what it is.”

This time his jaw twitched along with his shoulder. He was at least unselfconscious about a weakness that had probably seen him teased mercilessly at school, unless it had developed in adulthood. But the way he covered for the stutter spoke of careful speech lessons.

He said stiffly, “Were you hoping that blackmail might turn a tidier profit than marriage?”

“It would certainly be ruder, wouldn’t it?” said Violet. “No. I have more than enough money, my lord, or at least I will shortly. I’m just insatiably curious.”

He sighed. “Suppose it’ll be easiest if… Come with me.” He offered her his arm.

A small stab of conscience hit Violet. She was surprised that she recognised it.

“You know I’m being talked about. My asking after you can be explained as promiscuity or shameless fortune-hunting, but if you now escort me halfway across the ship, it’ll look like you decided to take me up on one of those two options.”

A bemused look stole onto Lord Albert’s face. “That’s all r-right. Might even be helpful.”

And that was a hook so intriguing that Violet took his arm without another thought.

In the elevator down to C Deck, Violet exerted herself to make some small talk about the Pipes and Drums, and discovered that Lord Albert had both an older brother in one of the royal regiments and a keen interest in classical music. Violet, in possession of one sister who’d married a soldier and a comprehensive knowledge of music-hall songs from the childish to the outright filthy, carried them through the next few minutes in amiable conversation.

His lordship was extolling the wonders of Bizet when they reached a hatch that led into a small, irregularly shaped space off which branched several boxy rooms. Violet couldn’t recall what this had been on Maud’s map.

For a moment Violet thought that Lord Albert’s description of opera had caused her to imagine the sound of incoherently harmonic strings. Then she realised that these were music practice rooms, or at least had been claimed as such. Through the circular glass pane in one thick door Violet could see the cramped-looking ship’s orchestra, each man trying not to elbow his neighbour in the viola. Another held a quartet, who appeared to be having an argument.

Lord Albert opened the only other closed door and led Violet through it. The sound of a melody painstakingly picked out on a piano stopped at once. Miss Broadley stood up as Violet and Lord Albert entered.

The mezzo-soprano was dressed for practice rather than performance, in a plain green dress with white piping and a severe line of lace at the waist, but no other trim. She was smaller than she’d seemed when she was singing. Her dark eyes moved between the two of them and she gave a small curtsy that had something of the stage to it. One expected roses to come flying and gather at her feet.

“My lord,” she said cautiously.

Lord Albert pulled the door shut. “It’s all r-right. Elle, this is Miss Violet Debenham. Met her at the captain’s table last night.”

Affections otherwise engaged. So the man had a Black opera singer for a mistress, and was following her to England. Or vice versa.

“Miss Debenham,” he said, warm with pride, “meet Lady Albert Barton. My wife.”

Oh.

Lady Albert Barton rolled her eyes and sat down heavily on the piano stool.

“Bertie,” she said, “do we have different definitions of a secret marriage?”

“ Oh, ” said Violet, weak with delight.

“She saw me poking around the lower deck this morning, after I’d visited you.” Lord Albert crossed to his wife’s side and took her hand to pat it apologetically.

“And you couldn’t think of a single good lie?”

“You know I’m no good at it.”

“I, however, am excellent at secrets,” said Violet. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Lady Albert.”

“You should call me Miss Broadley. In case you slip in public. And…” A low chuckle, hinting at the richness of her voice. “I still don’t know how I feel about wearing Bertie’s Christian name as well as the other.”

“Tradition,” Lord Albert said. “Sorry, m’dear.”

“Why is it secret at all?” Violet asked. “Do you have another engagement to break off first, in England?”

“Frank, aren’t you?” said Lady Albert, amused.

Violet shrugged. “He’s not the first lord to marry someone plucked off the stage.”

“Didn’t pluck her. She’s staying on the stage. She’s too good to waste off it. And it shan’t stay secret,” said Lord Albert. “It’s my father. Don’t want anyone else telling him. If it’s sprung on him as gossip, he’ll fly into a r-rage and not speak to me for a year. Need time, is all. I’ll be able to bring the old boy around to the idea. Especially when he’s met her.”

He sent his wife a besotted look. Hers, in return, was more muted, and contained clear doubt as to whether Lord Welmotte would be as swayed by her charms as his son had been.

Did it contain love? Did it matter? People used one another. People made partnerships, romantic and otherwise, for every reason under the sun. Did it make a difference if he was being played, as long as they were both getting what they wanted out of it? At least she’d have to stay with him, to take advantage of what he could offer.

Violet flexed her wood-ringed thumbs, swallowed the tired rage that was trying to make itself known in her throat, and smiled at the couple. “Should we leave, my lord? Any of the orchestra could look in here and see us.”

“Not to worry. If anyone asks what we were talking about, Miss Debenham wants to give you some money, Elle.”

“ Do I,” said Violet.

“Veteran of the stage. Recently inherited a fortune. You’re interested in becoming a patron of Elle’s new company.”

“ Is she?” said Lady Albert, with much more scepticism.

So this was why Lord Albert had gone to the trouble of bringing Violet down here, when he could have explained the situation and begged for her discretion in less than a minute.

“I warn you, I’m officially ruined and very disreputable; I’ll be rubbish for clout. You’ll want a few patrons with good names too.”

“I intend to start a coloured opera company, Miss Debenham. I’ll take anyone’s dollars to begin with,” said Lady Albert dryly. “Which stages are you a veteran of?”

“The Penumbra,” said Violet. “Bowery establishment.”

Lady Albert blinked. Her look took in Violet’s entire outfit, shoes to hat.

“My feathers and fishnets are in my trunk,” said Violet.

That got her another chuckle. Violet agreed that Lord Albert could tell anyone he wanted that he was paying serious attention to a shameless newly monied girl fresh from the Baron Hawthorn’s sheets; if that rumour reached the Marquess of Welmotte’s ears, Lord Albert pointed out, brightening, then being presented with a fully respectable wife might seem a positive boon.

They left Lady Albert to her rehearsing, and Lord Albert handed Violet personally back to her own corridor, where he left her with a grateful smile. Violet planned to freshen up; it had been warm and stuffy in that practice room. Then perhaps she’d have a nap before she started room-breaking. Maud was off feeding tigers and monkeys. They would reconvene for drinks before dinner.

She stepped on the folded piece of paper that lay just inside the door. On the White Star stationery found in every desk in the ship was a message in an unfamiliar hand, informing her that Lord Hawthorn wished to entertain Miss Violet Debenham (and Miss Maud Cutler) to tea in his suite. He would receive them at their earliest convenience.

The word earliest was underlined with a bold, irritable dash.

Violet, because of her innate damned contrariness, took her time and refreshed herself anyway. She splashed her face in the bathroom and reapplied some scent. Then she took herself back up to A Deck and rapped on Lord Hawthorn’s parlour-suite door.

Hawthorn himself opened it at once, pulled Violet in with a grip on her forearm—she bit down on a squawk of protest—and closed it behind her again.

Maud was in the room already. She was on her knees on the rug, next to the credenza, and she was bent anxiously over the motionless body of a man.

“What on earth…?” said Violet.

“As I told Miss Blyth,” said Hawthorn, “this appears to be part of your mess, ladies. So you may have the pleasure of dealing with it.”