“Not you.”
She was about to protest when he arched one very dubious and challenging eyebrow.
“Fine,” she said. “You two have fun.”
“And be careful,” Simon added. “Stay amongst other people as much as possible.”
Both Edmund and Bohr agreed, and it was arranged that they would all meet back in the rooms at six o’clock before dinner.
Elizabeth watched them go, a little envious.
“I’m not suddenly going to break, you know,” she said.
He sighed. “Yes, I know, but …” He looked at her helplessly. “Humor me? At least while we’re here.”
Poor Simon. He was always on high alert. Knowing they were on the Titanic and that she was pregnant pushed him to the edge. If there was a DEFCON higher than one, he’d be at it.
“All right.”
He looked skeptical, but smiled anyway and took her hand. “My heart thanks you.”
They walked down the deck, but it was too windy out and soon ducked back inside.
“What would you like to do?” he asked. “We could go back to the lounge or—”
“Harold!”
The young officer turned and smiled. He took off his cap and came over to join them. Elizabeth introduced him to Simon.
“He’s the one I was telling you about. The radio officer.”
“Deputy,” he corrected kindly.
“Right. You look well. Headache’s all gone?”
He nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
She noticed some papers in his hand and had an idea.
“Still sending those weather reports?”
If the German was the one sending them, then they would have stopped when he did. If it was his partner …
The young man laughed. “Yes. Twice already this morning.”
She cast a quick glance over at Simon.
“Really?” she said, hoping to sound interested, but not too interested. “Isn’t that odd? By the way, Simon’s a bit of a wireless enthusiast.”
Simon’s surprise registered for only a split second before he played his part. “Yes. You’re using a Marconi, aren’t you? Magnificent machine.”
Harold smiled, pleased. It was probably not very often anyone took an interest in his work.
“What’s the range on that?” Simon asked.
“Nominal range of 250 nautical miles, but close to 2000 at night when it’s clear.”
“Two thousand miles? Isn’t that remarkable?”
Elizabeth smiled and leaned in a little closer. “It wouldn’t be possible for us to take a quick peek at it? He’s never seen one like it and ….”
Harold hesitated. Passengers were undoubtedly not allowed in the radio room for good reason.
“Just a quick look?” she said.
Thankfully his young man’s pride overwhelmed his good sense, as it often did, and he nodded. “All right. I’m just about to go on shift. Wait ten minutes and then come.” He nodded toward a door on right side of the staircase. “Just through there.”
Harold hurried off and Simon leaned down. “What are you up to?”
“If the German wasn’t the one sending those weird messages, maybe his partner was.”
Simon nodded, seeing the method to her madness now. “And there’ll be a record of them.”
“Right. When we get in there, go full-on nerd.”
He frowned.
“Keep him distracted,” she continued. “Ask him questions about the transmitters and oscillators and flanges and things.”
“Flanges?” he said with another frown and shook his head. “Really, Elizabeth.”
“You do your technobabble thing and I’ll let my fingers do the walking through his logbook.”
They found seats in the reception room to wait out their ten minutes.
Simon sat back and crossed his legs. “I don’t babble.”
She patted his knee. “Of course not.”
He smiled behind his pout.
After waiting ten minutes they went through the doorway Harold had indicated and walked quickly down the hall until they came to a door marked, “Marconi Room.”
Simon gave it a quick knock. A few seconds later, Harold opened the door and ushered them inside.
“We have to hurry. Phillips won’t be gone long.”
Simon immediately got into his role as novice wireless radio aficionado.
“And that’s not your standard 1.5kW marine set either,” Harold said. “That’s a 5kW.”
“Five?” Simon exclaimed as though he were shocked and impressed by this thing he knew next to nothing about.
“And rotary spark.”
The way he said it made that sound significant.
“Rotary?”
Simon cast a quick glance at Elizabeth and nodded toward the logbook on the desk.
“Synchronous,” Harold explained. “Better than spark gap, I think.”
Simon hmm’d deeply and pulled Harold’s attention away while trying to block his view of the desk.
“And the aerial?”
Harold turned away and pointed toward the wall. “Twin T; it’s affixed on deck over the silent room next door. Massive.”
As soon as Harold was distracted, Elizabeth scanned the logbook. There were dozens of entries just from the last hour. Carefully she turned back a page.
Just as she did, Harold turned back. He nearly saw her and would have if the pneumatic tube hadn’t whooshed and shunked, signaling the arrival of a message.
Harold turned toward the sound and lifted up the sliding door to retrieve the canister from inside.
Elizabeth quickly skimmed the page and found the outgoing messages. One hour apart, duplicate messages. Both sent by—
“I’m afraid I’ll have to send this,” Harold said.
Simon nudged Elizabeth’s arm in warning and she turned around to face him, blocking the logbook.
The canister in Harold’s hand was marked “Most Urgent.”
Elizabeth smiled and nodded as she reached one hand behind her to carefully move the book back to its proper spot.
“Thank you for this, it was most interesting,” Simon said.
“You’re welcome.” He held up the canister. “I really should …”
“Of course.”
Simon opened the door and they left Harold to his job.
As they walked down the hall, Simon leaned in close. “Anything?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Le temps means weather, right?”
Simon frowned. “Yes. The messages were in French?”
“Il fait beau temps. And sent by our favorite French couple—the Rivets.”
~~~
“Hmm,” Simon said.
Elizabeth frowned. “That’s it? Hmm? I was expecting a little more than that.”
As much as Simon would love to believe that the Rivets were indeed the people they were looking for, the evidence was still thin. “We don’t know they were the ones helping the German.”
“But we suspect. Or at least, I do. I’m suspecting all over the place.”
Simon chuckled.
She ticked off their damning evidence on her fingers as they stopped by the landing and moved to a secluded corner.
“Cigarette? French. Suspicious messages? French. Snotty couple? French.”
“It is still all circumstantial.”
She wrinkled her nose and looked away. “Maybe when they try to kill Niels again, you’ll believe it.”
“Elizabeth.”
He took hold of her arm and eased her back around to look at him.
She sighed. “I’m sorry. Hormones.”
For a fleeting moment, somehow he’d forgotten. Or maybe part of him simply hadn’t come to completely accept it was real. Elizabeth was pregnant. They were going to have a baby. His chest felt tight, warm.
“What?” she wiped at her chin. “Have I got something on my face?”
He shook his head.
“You’re looking at me funny.”
<
br /> “You’d better get used to it,” he said. “At least for the next …” He frowned. “How far along are you?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I thought maybe six weeks.”
He did some quick math. When they’d been struggling to conceive, he’d been quite diligent about keeping track of her schedule. If it was six weeks that meant they’d conceived sometime in the middle of May.
“That means February,” he said, thinking aloud.
She smiled. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
He chuckled. “Perhaps.”
That would be appropriate, he thought. He could think of no better gift.
“But first things first,” she said. “The Rivets.”
With a force of effort, he refocused on the matter at hand. “Speculation.”
She shrugged. “More than we had before. And it is weird that they’d send that message. And so many times.”
She was right about that. It was odd.
“We’ll consider them our primary suspects,” he said, “but not our only ones. We mustn’t focus so sharply on them that we let ourselves miss something else important.”
She started to sulk but nodded. “True.”
“As pleasant as Dr. Hass is, he is German. Then there’s Katarov. The Russians, the French, the Germans, they all have reason to want to know what Niels is up to.”
Elizabeth agreed.
“Even your friend the countess’ escort—”
“He’s not my friend.”
Simon grunted but allowed her that. “Regardless, he’s a possible suspect. She’s aristocracy from Austria-Hungary. They’re already at odds with Russia and will eventually ally with Germany. That empire has a great deal at stake in the coming war. Perhaps we should pay closer attention to Carrillo. He plays the fool, but …”
Elizabeth nodded.
“And we shouldn’t count out Sheridan. He’s practically warmongering at every opportunity. Although, being so overt is hardly a good cover. Or perhaps it is. Could be clever. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were involved somehow.”
Elizabeth frowned and he realized she wasn’t listening to him anymore. Her focus was on something behind him. He turned to see what had pulled her attention away.
“What is it?”
“Isn’t that Emily Sheridan?”
A small girl slipped past a couple as they came into the reception room from the deck.
“I think so.”
Elizabeth looked around. “Alone?”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” she said, but she was already following after her.
Simon caught up with her and they went out onto the promenade. There were small groups strolling on the deck in either direction blocking their view. They maneuvered around them and looked both ways, but he couldn’t see the girl.
He turned back to look in the other direction when he saw her.
“There.”
The little girl walked over to the railing, and although it was a completely normal thing for anyone to do, Simon’s heart began to race. He scanned the crowd for Miss McBride or the Sheridans but didn’t see either. She pushed herself up onto tiptoes to see over the railing.
“Okay, good,” Elizabeth said and they started down the deck toward her.
The top railing was directly at eye-level for the small girl. She put her hands on it and lifted one foot onto the lowest rung, and started to climb.
Elizabeth gasped next to him and they both ran forward. Simon reached her first. Her foot hadn’t even found purchase on the second rung when Simon snatched her off the railing.
“Emily!” Louise called out from behind them.
Simon’s heart thrummed in his chest as he held the girl. Her mother ran toward them followed closely by the nanny and Robert Sheridan.
Simon set Emily down on the deck. Louise knelt down and pulled her into her arms. “Are you all right? You shouldn’t run off.”
She pushed her daughter away to look at her, to reassure herself that she was there and all right before pulling her into another big hug.
“I was just looking,” the girl said, confused about the fuss, but catching her mother’s agitation. She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Louise said to Simon as she stood.
Just as Simon was about to tell her he was glad he could help, Sheridan grabbed onto the girl’s arm and yanked her from her mother’s grasp.
“What did I tell you about running away?”
The girl’s near tears came now in the face of her father’s fury. He shook her, not hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough frighten her. “Your mother’s tears don’t work on me; don’t expect yours to either.”
“She’s just scared,” Elizabeth said.
Of you, Simon added silently.
Sheridan glared at her for the interruption and then looked back down at his daughter. With a look that could only be called disgust, he released her.
Louise pulled the girl to her, moving her away from Sheridan.
He turned his anger on Miss McBride. “Where the hell were you?”
“Robert—”
“I’m sorry, I turned my back for a minute and she just wandered off.”
“Just wandered off?” Sheridan said.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s all right,” Louise said. “Robert—”
“If you can’t do the job, I’ll find someone who can.”
“It won’t happen again.”
Sheridan’s face was hard. “It better not.” He looked down at his daughter who’d slid around to hide behind her mother’s skirt. She peeked around and up at her father. She hadn’t been afraid until he’d shown up. And the way he shook her.
Just the thought of that made Simon’s blood pressure rise.
Emily looked nervously at her father, waiting for some reassurance, but it didn’t come.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
He looked at her flatly and then turned back to Miss McBride. “See it doesn’t happen again.”
Emily sniffled back her tears.
Simon knelt down to be eye-level with the girl. “I’m sure your father’s just worried about you.”
It was a lie, but the child deserved some comfort.
Emily wiped her nose but nodded.
Simon took out his handkerchief and gave it to her.
“It’s not safe for a young lady like you to be out here alone,” he added.
Emily smiled shyly through her lessening tears, pleased at being called a young lady.
“Emily,” her father said as he held out his hand to her, not in entreaty, but in demand. “Emily,” he repeated, his voice hard.
Her eyes dipped down and she stepped toward her father, giving Simon one last smile over her shoulder. Simon stood and exchanged glances with Elizabeth.
Once he had her hand, Sheridan yanked her the rest of the way toward him. “When I call for you, you come. You understand?”
“Aren’t you being a little harsh?“ Simon asked, reaching the end of his rope with the man.
Sheridan glared at him. “If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
Simon started forward, ready to teach Sheridan some manners, but Elizabeth put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“He was just being kind. I don’t—” Louise started, but one sharp look from her husband shut her up.
She looked like the beaten wife Simon feared she was. She kept her eyes down, but she did pull the girl away from him.
“We’ll just go back to the rooms, all right? Play a game?”
Emily nodded. Louise gave Simon and Elizabeth a grateful and apologetic smile as she took her daughter’s hand and started down the deck, Miss McBride following close behind.
Sheridan lingered for a moment, ready for a fight if Simon wanted one. He did, very much, but he doubted knocking out a few teeth would do much to improve Sheridan’s disposition, no matter how satisfying it might be.
Finally, Sheridan seemed content tha
t he’d won. “Cross.”
He inclined his head toward Elizabeth before turning and walking away down the promenade.
“You should have let me hit him,” Simon said.
“It would just make things worse than they already are.”
It was beyond Simon’s comprehension that a man could behave that way toward his wife and daughter. His daughter. Just the word sent a wave of emotion coursing through him. He would have his own daughter soon.
He didn’t need an ultrasound to know it would be a girl. He just knew. And he knew he would never make her feel the way Emily did today—unloved.
“Some people shouldn’t have children,” he said.
Elizabeth wound her arm through his and smiled up at him. “And some should.”
Chapter Seventeen
“AND HE SAID, A woman’s name should appear in the newspaper only under three conditions.”
Margaret Brown had the attention of every person at the dinner table when she told one of her stories, and now was no exception.
“At her birth, upon her marriage, and at her death. I tend to disagree.”
“You ran for office, did you not?” Dr. Hass asked.
“For senate. I did. And I must say that if women had the right to vote nationally as they do in the great state of Colorado, you gentlemen wouldn’t have all the elections sewed up tight as a tick.”
“You are an amazing woman,” the doctor said.
She turned to smile at Hass. “We’re all amazing, Doctor.”
He raised his glass to that and everyone else followed suit. Elizabeth was only drinking water, but she lifted her glass along with the others.
“That’s bad luck, you know,” Kimball said. “Toasting with water.”
Elizabeth had heard that but it seemed silly.
“It has something to with mythology,” Niels added.
“Greek,” Simon said, “some believe.” He raised his eyebrows and then frowned. “The dead would drink from the River Lethe in Hades and forget their lives above. Supposedly, it consigns the subject of the toast to a watery grave.”
Elizabeth felt a chill and put her glass down. Not that she believed that stuff, but better to be safe than sorry.
“Don’t you worry about it, honey,” Margaret said. “Take a lot more than one little old glass of water to sink me.”
Voyage in Time: The Titanic (Out of Time #9) Page 16