“A condemned man is given the choice of two doors. Behind one lies a beautiful lady. Behind the other, a tiger. There are no markings on the doors, no signs. Pick the wrong one, and . . .”
There was a problem with this story. “What if the lady is the tiger?”
That was not the reaction he had been expecting. “In most parts of the world,” said Robert testily, “a tiger is generally a tiger. Sharp teeth, stripes, all that sort of thing.”
“What I mean is . . .” What did she mean? Tess took her tangled thoughts in hand. “All I’m saying is, sometimes trouble can come in all sorts of forms. Just because something looks charming doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you. And sometimes the rougher path might be safer in the end. The tiger might be safer than the lady.”
“Have you considered hiring yourself out for summer fetes? You can don a turban and tell people to cross your palm with silver,” said Robert crossly. “It would be just about as helpful.”
“If you don’t want advice,” said Tess bluntly, “don’t ask for it.”
Robert took a deep breath, and Tess could see him donning his mask again, the urbane gentleman with the rueful smile. “I’m sorry. I’m in a beastly mood. I’d best take myself back to my cabin and see if a bit of cold saltwater won’t improve my temper.”
Gosh darn it. Whatever chance she’d had of getting Robert to confide in her, she’d gone and put her foot in it.
Impulsively, Tess put her hand on his sleeve, holding him before he could get away. “If you’re in some sort of trouble, any sort at all—you do know you can talk to me, don’t you? Whatever it is. I won’t judge. And I won’t snitch.”
For a moment, she thought he might take her up on it.
But then a chain clanked somewhere and a sailor cursed. A rattle toppled to the deck and a baby wailed. And Robert Langford gently detached her hand from his arm.
Much to her surprise, he lifted her hand to his lips, in the Continental way. She could feel the press of his lips straight through the cotton of her gloves. “Whatever strange quirk of Fate threw you in my path . . . you’ve been a brick, Miss Fairweather. A bit rough on the ego, but a brick all the same.”
Caroline Hochstetter got to be a flower yearning to be free; she was masonry. “Any time you need a building block, you know where to find me.”
Robert squeezed her hand before releasing it. “When we get to Liverpool, I’ll stand you dinner at the finest hotel in town.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” said Tess. She could feel the touch of his lips like a brand. “Once we get to Liverpool.”
Robert looked out at the lifeboats bobbing ominously over the slate-gray sea and his expression turned as dark as the waters. “If we ever get to Liverpool.”
* * *
Two more days to Liverpool. If they ever got to Liverpool.
Tess returned to her cabin, splashed cold water on her face, ate breakfast with her bunkmates. But with every spoonful of porridge, her resolve only strengthened. They had two days left of the voyage. And she’d had enough of dancing to Ginny’s tune. Whatever her sister had gotten into this time—whatever her sister had dragged Robert Langford into—it was time to nip it in the bud.
Tess resolutely pushed aside images of flowers blooming under glass. For all that he claimed not to be a poet, Robert’s description of Caroline had stuck with her, haunted her. Of course, Tess told herself, just because he was being blackmailed didn’t mean that he didn’t also fancy himself in love. That might be the worst of it: to have to seduce the woman he thought he loved in order to betray her.
But what did Ginny have over him? What did he fear she might betray?
There was only one way to find out.
Tess set herself up at the end of a corridor, holding her sketchbook, pen, and a precariously balanced inkpot. It took half an hour for her prey to come into view. Old skills kicked in. Tess hurried down the corridor, head down, seemingly in a hurry, bumping into Ginny with just enough force to send her inkpot tumbling, sending red ink (she had deliberately chosen red) right down the front of Ginny’s black frock.
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. You must let me try to make it right.” Whipping out a handkerchief, Tess scrubbed vigorously at the front of Ginny’s dress, while Ginny tried futilely to waft her away. Under her breath, Tess said, “I need to talk to you.”
“Really.” Ginny yanked her dress out of Tess’s grasp. “There’s no need.”
“Oh, there’s every need.” Tess could be as stubborn as her sister when she wanted to be. She shooed Ginny in front of her, giving her a hard push on the small of the back. “I can’t think how I came to be so clumsy! I couldn’t possibly just leave you like that. There’s a washroom just here. Let me at least see if I can’t lighten the stain a bit. Before it sets. You know how impossible it is to get a stain out once it sets.”
Tight-lipped, Ginny allowed herself to be herded. In the washroom, neither said a word as they checked for other occupants. It felt strange working together like this. Or maybe it was that it didn’t feel strange working together like this. They’d done this a hundred times before. Only this time, they weren’t on the same side.
Tess waited until they had finished their check before leaning her back against the door and saying, “What’s going on, Ginny?”
Ginny plucked at the front of her frock. “What’s going on is that I’m going to have to make an extra trip to the laundry.”
Tess decided to start sideways. Twisting her hands in her skirt, she looked appealingly at her sister. “They were putting out the lifeboats this morning, Ginny. Everyone’s talking about a German attack.”
“You should know better than to listen to rumors.” Taking in Tess’s alarmed face, Ginny softened, just as Tess had hoped she would. Gruffly, she said, “You shouldn’t fret yourself. No one is sinking this ship.”
Tess made a helpless gesture. “How do you know that?”
“I just do,” said Ginny shortly. If Tess knew how to manipulate Ginny, then Ginny also knew far too much about Tess. She’d already smelled a rat. Or possibly an Englishman. “Was that all? I don’t know about you, but I have work to do.”
Tess put out a hand to stop her. “What about that advertisement in the Times? All the warnings? Are you telling me that was just so much . . . hot air?”
Ginny made an annoyed noise, resigned to another night of soothing Tess’s nightmares. “Call it a smokescreen. Let’s just say that there’s something on this ship that’s worth far more than the value of sinking it—as long as they can be sure of getting it. And I’m going to make sure they get it.”
“This thing—what is it?”
“A formula. Something to do with a weapon,” said Ginny vaguely. “Does it matter? What matters is that the Germans want it—and they’re willing to pay handsomely for it.”
The tenth page of the manuscript, the bit that didn’t look like the rest of the music. Not messages to the Germans, then. A formula.
“It’s a win-win,” Ginny was saying. “We get the money. And we don’t drown. If you’re still with me on this.”
It took a moment for her to make sense of Ginny’s words. “But . . . I thought you said they wouldn’t sink the ship. If they want this formula that badly . . .”
Ginny scowled at her. “Are you that naïve, Ten? Sure, the Germans want it—but they’ll do what they have to do to keep the English from getting it. If they can’t have it, no one can have it. So I plan to make darn sure that they have it.”
Tess scrambled desperately for a solution. “There has to be another way. . . . We could copy out the manuscript, but do it wrong, switch up the details. Just think! It could be the best heist we ever pulled. You get the money for the manuscript, and then we go to the powers that be in London and tell them we diddled the other side. Why, we’ll be set for life! They might even give you a medal.”
“Sure, they will,” scoffed Ginny, but Tess could see she’d caught her attention, that she was tempted.
; “Why not?” said Tess recklessly. “I’ve already got British papers. You could, too. Wouldn’t it be nice to be working with the authorities instead of against them for a change? Robert tells me his father’s some sort of government mucky-muck . . .”
She realized her mistake in an instant, but it was too late.
Ginny’s face closed as tight as the shutters on an abandoned saloon. “Oh, Robert, is it? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”
“You did, but . . . How is he involved in this, Ginny? What do you have on him?”
Ginny stiffened as though Tess had slapped her. “Oh, now I’m the enemy, am I? Protecting your precious Robert from your cruel sister?”
“No! Of course not.” Even if it was true, just a little bit. Weakly, Tess said, “I just wanted to know, is he with us? Or against us?”
“Us?” Ginny folded her arms across her chest. She was broader than Tess had ever seen her, but it wasn’t a pleasing plumpness. Her face looked sallow, unhealthy, not that of the girl who had slept under the stars, who could swim better and run faster than anyone Tess knew. “From the woman who told me she wanted out? You made it very clear that there is no ‘us,’ not as far as you’re concerned.”
“There’s always an ‘us,’” said Tess softly. No matter what Ginny had done, they were still sisters. They could see their way out of this together. She put her arms around her sister, felt her sister’s shoulders stiffen beneath her touch. Tess pressed her cheek against her sister’s, the sister who’d been the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother. “We’re a team, that’s what you always told me. You and me, Ginny. The two of us against the world. But you need to fill me in. I need to know who I can trust.”
Ginny pulled away from her. “Me,” she said fiercely, hurt and love and wounded pride all mixed together. “You can trust me.”
“But you’re not telling me anything! How can I trust you if you won’t let me know what we’re in for?”
“I’m trying to keep you safe!” Ginny’s hands flexed over Tess’s shoulders, stopped just short of shaking her. Her hands dropped to her sides as she said, in a low voice, “Believe me, Tennie, the less you know, the better.”
As if she were still five, being bowled along in her big sister’s wake. Trust me, Tennie; listen to me, Tennie; follow my lead, Tennie. No questions, no back talk.
“I’m not a child anymore, Ginny. You don’t have to button my pinafores for me anymore. Trust me, Ginny. Let me help you. Help us.”
Their shared past was there between them, a tangible thing, the sun shining hard on dirt roads, the smell of coffee over a charcoal burner, crushed wildflowers on the seat of a wagon, the hoot of a train whistle, Ginny’s work-hardened hand holding Tess’s soft little one.
There, in the washroom, Tess saw not the woman in the black dress, dark hair scraped back, but Ginny, with her light brown hair touched with summer sun, barefoot in calico, sweeping Tess up from the dirt and carrying her home, feeding her, caring for her. And she knew Ginny was seeing, not a woman in Gimbels’ take on current fashion, but a little girl in a torn frock.
They would do this, they would get out of this scrape, make a new future together. And then . . .
“No,” said Ginny, and the past crumpled around them, scattered like so much dust. “No. You wanted out? You’re out.” She took a step back and looked Tess up and down with the dispassionate chill of the collector assessing an inferior article. “I can’t afford any mistakes, not this time.”
Tess’s throat felt like she’d been swallowing knives. “If it’s that Holbein—”
“It’s not just the Holbein,” said Ginny crisply. “You want to be Tessa Fairweather? Be Tessa Fairweather. Don’t look for me, don’t talk to me. Go enjoy your respectable life as an honest citizen.”
She made it sound like a slur.
Tess stared at her sister in alarm. “Ginny, I never meant—I never wanted you to think—I wanted us both out. I wasn’t trying to turn my back—”
“Oh, no?”
She was hurt, that was all. People lashed out when they were hurt. “It’s true, I took you for granted. I know you’ve always looked out for us both. Isn’t it time for me to look out for us a bit?”
“And get us both killed?” Ginny stalked around Tess, grabbed the door handle. “Forget about it. You don’t have to sully your lily-white hands. I’ll find another way.”
“Blackmail?” Tess grabbed Ginny by the arm. “Is that your backup plan? Blackmailing Robert Langford?”
Slowly, deliberately, Ginny extracted her arm from Tess’s grip. “Don’t try to contact me again. It’s safer for both of us.”
The door slammed shut behind her, right in Tess’s face.
Chapter 19
Sarah
Devon, England
May 2013
I woke to the sound of a slamming door, sometime in the middle of the night.
According to R2-D2, it was eight minutes after two o’clock in the morning, but who really trusts a droid? I lay motionless on the pillow, not quite certain whether the sound came from outside of my head or inside. Like when you’re drifting off to sleep and start to fall down what feels like a solid, genuine flight of stairs, and you jolt back awake and realize it was just your imagination.
But I hadn’t been drifting. I’d been deeply unconscious, dreaming about—what was it?—something to do with John and whippets and a cold, shingled beach—
Was that a voice?
Just a word or two, quickly hushed. A faint thump, felt rather than heard.
My heart thudded against my ribs. I stared into R2-D2’s Cyclops eye, illuminated luridly by the reddish glow of the LED clock on his blue-and-white chest, and felt the blast of adrenaline shoot through my veins. John had texted me yesterday to say that he and Callie had arrived safely—Where? I thought—and he’d be back before I knew it. (Walnut misses you, he tacked on at the end, and I’d spent the rest of the evening wondering if by Walnut, he really meant John. Or whether a whippet was just a whippet.)
So if John wasn’t messing around downstairs, looking for a middle-of-the-nightcap, who was?
Stay where you are, I told myself. Don’t be that dumb chick in the movies. If it’s burglars, they’re not going to come hunting upstairs, to this room, unless they got a hot tip on a hoard of vintage Star Wars memorabilia to sell on eBay. They want the silver and the artwork, the priceless contents of a venerable English country house, unguarded and unoccupied (as far as anyone knew) except for a single, ancient housekeeper with the eyesight of a baby mole.
This is not your business, Sarah. Not your house. Not your family silver.
Anyway, John wouldn’t want you to rush downstairs and get your head bashed in just to save his great-grandfather’s Asprey christening cup.
Or would he?
Call 911, I thought. Just call 911. Or wait . . . it’s something else here, right? Not 911. Nine-nine-nine. That’s it. Call 999.
But what if the cops come and nobody’s there? Or it’s just Mrs. Finch fixing herself a cuppa in the kitchen because she can’t sleep?
I lifted my head from the pillow and listened. The air was mute, but I felt a presence inside it, somewhere. A movement, the vibration of life, whatever you want to call it, like the strumming of a silent guitar. A disturbance in the Force, a voice intoned in my brain, and that was the last straw. I threw off the covers, grabbed my phone, crossed the floor on tiptoe, and cracked the door open.
“Mrs. Finch? Is that you?” I called down threadily.
A toilet flushed. Somebody called out a few words in a clipped, annoyed voice.
A male voice.
Damn, I thought. Damn. Damn. Damn.
I lifted the phone. As I tapped the first 9, a furious clatter broke out from the staircase, claws on wood, startling my frayed nerves. I dropped the phone, swore, bent down to grab it back, and as I half-rose and ducked back inside the room, a beast flew out of the darkness and commenced to lick my face from mouth to forehead
with a long, wet tongue.
“Walnut!” I sputtered.
* * *
John met me halfway down the stairs. “I’m so sorry for waking you,” he said, reaching for Walnut’s collar. “Damn it, old boy, you were supposed to stay in the kitchen.”
“It’s okay. As long as you’re not here to steal the silver and decapitate Mrs. Finch.”
He laughed and straightened. He stood two stairs below me, so our faces lay on the same plane, hovering only a foot apart, and his exhilaration startled me. “Mrs. Finch could sleep through a ship sinking. Come on. Since you’re already up, I’ve got someone for you to meet.”
“Another whippet? I don’t know if my face can take it.”
“Not a whippet. Not a dog of any kind, actually. More like—”
A muffled, enormous voice boomed up from the hallway, sounding as if it belonged to Ian McKellen sending off a rival wizard. “John, my good man! I’m afraid you’re out of loo roll down here!”
“—an uncle,” John finished, with a rueful smile. “Uncle Rupert. Hold on just a tick.”
“But who’s—”
John turned and leapt nimbly back down the stairs and around the corner, Walnut at his heels. I blinked after them. The smell of outdoors hung strangely in the air. Outdoors and coffee and John and dog. Down the hall, a round golden glow spread across the air from the direction of the kitchen, matching the glow spreading across the interior of my chest, and I released my death grip on the banister and started down the stairs.
Whoever Uncle Rupert was, I had the feeling he’d want some tea.
The kitchen was now familiar to me, and I found the china and the tea and the spoons without thinking. Smelled the old-kitchen smell, whatever it was, spice and linoleum. Filled the kettle from the tap, lifted the lid on the hottest plate of the Aga, placed the kettle right in the middle. The warmth of the stove, I thought, was surely the reason my cheeks felt so hot.
When John swung back into the kitchen a moment later, he was bristling with energy, almost whistling with it.
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