They peeked at the port side of the ship, a wild, happy festival both on board and ashore, jam-packed with people, confetti, and streamers thickly showering the air and the excited crowds. And then, deciding that even in that carnival Jim’s appearance might provoke one too many questions, they retreated to the starboard side.
In contrast, here it was nearly deserted. They chose a spot on the lowest promenade, near the stern, so they could look out at the water as the rest of the passengers contemplated the land.
Jim leaned on his elbows on the mahogany rail, his face unreadable as he stared out at the river.
“The beginning of another journey,” she said. “You must feel right at home.”
He took so long to answer she’d begun to think he wouldn’t. “Yes.”
One syllable, that did nothing but whet her curiosity. “Do you have a plan for the next trip? After this is over?”
“No.”
Clearly the man was not in a mood to be forthcoming. But when had that ever stopped her? “You must have some idea, though? Someplace that you’d like to return to, or somewhere you’ve never been?” It would be helpful to fix it in her mind. Jim would be leaving when this venture was over, heading off to someplace that the mere mention of would give her shudders. It would keep her from letting her imagination run away with her again.
There was one final blast and a cheer went up from the other side of the ship. Powerful engines rumbled deep within the hull, and the ship inched from her berth.
“You should go back.” Jim pointed over his shoulder with his chin. “No reason to miss all the fun.”
Kate turned away from the water, and him, choosing instead to survey the ship. “She really is magnificent, isn’t she? The next clue could be anywhere.”
Jim made a noncommittal sound.
“I believe I’ll begin the search,” she said. There was clearly no point in talking to him right now. “Why wait?”
“Good.”
“Are you coming?” Kate asked.
“You take half the ship, I’ll take the rest,” Jim said. “You pick.”
Kate huffed and flounced down the deck. Jim tried not to watch but couldn’t help sneaking a peek or two. Damn, but the woman flounced well. A jiggle here, a wiggle there. If the aim of a woman’s flouncing was to get a man to come after her, he had to admit hers was world-class.
But he was sticking with staring at the water. She hadn’t earned his rudeness and he knew it, but he just…he just had nothing to say about what happened when this contest ended. Why couldn’t women comprehend that sometimes a man just had nothing to say? Best that she understood it right now. Of course he was going back out. That’s what he did. And if heading out in search of the unknown now had a few terrible memories attached, well, he’d just have to get over it, wouldn’t he?
It’s what he was. Moving out, moving on. He knew nothing else, knew how to do nothing else. And if the truth was that he’d never quite found what he was looking for out there, that didn’t mean a man should quit trying.
Boats clustered around the ship, carrying city officials, reporters, curiosity seekers, barely giving the ship enough clearance. The Emperor eased through the water; she’d be slow and careful until they cleared the river and the bay beyond.
Hands flat on the smooth railing, he leaned over to watch the water slip beneath, the movement barely perceptible. His chest smacked against the railing as someone hit him hard from behind, nearly sending him over the rail. He clutched at it, dipping his knees as he bent to bring the bulk of his weight safely below the rail’s danger point. But then hands slammed beneath his back, pushing him up. Reflexively Jim dropped one shoulder into solid mass, and then heaved upward. His attacker, who’d thrown all of his weight behind his own upward thrust, had too much momentum and was catapulted over the railing.
“Aahh!”
The shout brought Kate running, dashing back with her skirts lifted, with more speed than he’d given her credit for. She leaned over the railing, then whirled on Jim. “You threw him overboard?”
“No. He was throwing me overboard. I just went with it.” Lifesaving rings hung along the promenade wall. Jim grabbed the nearest, took firm hold of the rope, judged his target, and gave the ring a toss.
“But—but—” She bent over the side again, far enough to give him a sweet view of the curve of her rump, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d seen the first time. “That’s the major…oh, hell, Major What’s-his-name.”
“Major Huddleston-Snell.” The major bobbed in the water, arms flailing. His lips were flapping, too, and Jim had a perverse wish to know just exactly what the major was calling him. The lifesaving ring was just out of his reach and Jim took three quick steps down the promenade, trailing the ring into position. When the Major grabbed it, Jim let go of the rope. “Good thing the ship’s not moving too fast yet, isn’t it?”
“But—you—he could drown.”
“Naw. One of those boats’ll pick him up in no time. Good story some reporter’ll get out of it, too.” True to his word the nearest boat, a spiffy mahogany pleasure launch, spurted through the waves toward the major.
She gaped at him and Jim couldn’t help but smile. She was so shocked. Imperturbable I-know-men-better-than-they-know-themselves Kate was completely stunned by what he’d done.
“But—”
“Somehow I think we’ll have no more trouble with broken stairways and missing maps and stolen boats.”
“Hmm. Really?”
“I’d bet on it. A bit of convenient sabotage now and then is the major’s stock in trade. I’ve got more than one scar to prove it.” Oh, just give me a chance, he thought. I’d love to make you just that shocked again. In a much, much better way.
But she wasn’t going to give him a chance. Why should she? She could marry someone like…well, someone like Emile Marcil. Why would she stoop to a fling with a broken-down adventurer with nothing to show for it but some good stories and a couple of trunks of dusty artifacts, a man who would disappear from her life as suddenly as he’d shown up in it?
He sighed and turned his attention to the one thing they had in common. “Did you say something about searching this boat?”
Chapter 17
“Have you seen this?”
“Have I seen what?” Kate set aside her hairbrush and took a couple of breaths—easy, calm—before she turned to face Jim. Last she’d seen him, he was headed for the gymnasium to search, while she’d elected to start in the Moorish smoking lounge, which was empty this early into the journey. She’d found nothing of interest before one of the lounge’s waiters, dressed in flowing trousers and a gold-tasseled fez, reported for work and told her in no uncertain terms that women weren’t allowed in the smoking lounge.
She’d returned to her cabin to freshen up for dinner, all the while eyeing Jim’s pack, a stained and fraying interloper slumped against one of the gilded chairs, and the still-damp clothes he’d draped over the back.
It made her…uneasy. She’d grown so accustomed to traveling with him, just the two of them, outside the normal bounds of society. This ship was so much more her usual world, and he was so far outside of it. It was almost unsettling to run into so many people when she stepped out of her cabin—curious, judging people. She didn’t know where she fit anymore, how they fit.
As unsettled as she felt, however, he seemed perfectly comfortable. “This,” he answered her and tossed a folded paper onto the table.
“Hmm?”
“It’s a recent edition of the Sentinel. They’ve got quite a collection in the library. Read it.”
She pinched the edge of the paper between her thumb and forefinger. It was folded carefully to reveal one article.
SECRETS
An Anonymous Reporter
The Great Centennial Race has spawned a hundred stories, tales of triumph and disappointment, determination and what man is willing to risk in the pursuit of glory and riches.
But what are even more
fascinating are the stories of its participants. Here we have collected many of the world’s most interesting people, men and women who have experienced and seen things few of us would dare to dream of. How many stories have they left in those jungles, on top of those mountains? We know of their experiences only what they wish to tell us, for there is no one to witness their triumphs and defeats so far from civilized lands.
But here is just one of those stories, about one of the Race’s most famous and respected participants. It is, at its heart, a love story. But it is a forbidden love, and therein lay the secrets.
Mrs. Anne Latimore has long been a shining example of her kind, a brave and independent woman, a widow since she tragically lost her husband in an Amazonian jungle fifteen years ago. That story is well known. She has admirably forged on, continuing his work, consistently supported only by her bosom friend, Miss Camelia Dooley, and a stalwart Chinese servant, Ming Ho.
But if Ming Ho began as her servant, he did not remain so for long. For this reporter has learned that, twelve years ago, in a tiny chapel in a mission not all that far from that same, dangerous jungle, Mrs. Latimore secretly married her servant and embarked on a life of lies…
“Oh, no.” Kate raised worried eyes to meet Jim’s serious ones.
“I know. Damn reporters. It’s probably been splashed up and down half the eastern seaboard by now, laid out bald for the curious, and it’s nobody’s business but theirs if they don’t choose it to be.”
“But I was interested,” Kate said guiltily. “I couldn’t wait to tell you, I—”
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked, troubled.
“No. You didn’t go looking for it, you ran smack into it, and you didn’t tell anyone else.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her brow creased. “Was that a question?”
“No.” When her frown deepened, he repeated, “No, Kate, no. I never thought it was you.”
She nodded, accepting. “But she’s going to think it was me.” She headed for the door and had the handle in her hand before she stopped and glanced back at him. “Jim?”
“Two decks down. Room 43.”
Mrs. Latimore was exactly where he had promised, in a tiny but comfortable second-class cabin, although the only response to her initial knock was a firm “Go away” from Miss Dooley.
“It’s us. Katie Riley and Lord Bennett.”
“Go away.”
“No, please.” She exchanged a worried glance with Jim. “Please, I really need to speak to Mrs. Latimore.”
Miss Dooley pulled open the door and waved them inside. “Hurry up. Quickly.”
Mrs. Latimore, wearing her usual khaki garb, sat perfectly upright on the narrow bunk. But this time, Ming Ho was beside her, his arm looped comfortably around her waist. Wearing a deep, flowing blue tunic and loose pants, he was at least three inches shorter than his wife. But there was something in his posture, in the way his body leaned toward hers and shielded her, that had turned him from servant to husband. They looked so at ease together that Kate wondered why she hadn’t pegged it right off.
“So you’ve read the article,” Mrs. Latimore said flatly.
“Yes.”
“Everyone has.” She nodded. “It goes against my grain to hide in here. But when we first tried to get on the ship—the reporters, they—”
“They were like vultures,” Ming Ho said. His hand moved up from her waist, making soothing circles on her back. “We had to hide Anne and Miss Dooley in a crate and have them loaded as cargo.”
“And you? How did you slip onboard?”
“Ming Ho is quite…creative when necessary,” Mrs. Latimore said with warm pride. “Are they all still out there?”
“Most of the reporters were just let on board to report on the launch and are long gone. I saw Hobson, of course. Maybe two or three others. That’s it,” Jim said.
“Then they won’t be a problem,” Ming Ho said, and Kate didn’t doubt him for a moment.
“The other passengers will, though,” Miss Dooley said softly. “It’s exactly what you’ve been trying to avoid all these years. People staring, judging, commenting, interfering in something that’s none of their business.” Her expression turned fierce.
Kate flinched. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Latimore. It might have been my fault. I don’t think so, but…I’ve been racking my brain on the way over here, wondering if I might have dropped a hint, if something in my expression might have given it away, but—”
Mrs. Latimore’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowing on Kate. “You knew?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted. “The night you took us in. The next morning…I saw you two”—her cheeks heated—“well, it was obvious there was more to the two of you than you were allowing the world to know. I didn’t know you were married, of course, but…” She stopped. “This is getting worse, the longer I try to explain it.”
“Yes, but you blush so prettily while you do so,” Jim supplied helpfully.
“Yes, and thank you so much for jumping in to help me explain. In any case, Mrs. Latimore, if in any way I revealed your secret, truly it was not my intent.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t you,” Mrs. Latimore said. “And I’m not sure it matters who, either.”
“It matters to me,” Miss Dooley said with more heat than Kate would have thought her capable of.
“And to me as well,” Ming Ho said. “As for the one who wrote that piece of…”
“Darling.” Mrs. Latimore put a calming hand on Ming Ho’s knee. “It doesn’t matter now. And perhaps it was time it came out.”
“It should have been your choice,” he said. “It was taken from you. From us.”
“I’d put it off too long,” she said. “It was unfair of me to ask you to pretend for so long just so that I could continue my career unfettered.”
“I didn’t mind,” he said softly, and Kate thought, Oh, there it is. What she’d never had, never would, had sacrificed so many years ago without even truly understanding what she was surrendering: a love so pure and solid and shining that just the witnessing of it pierced her heart. She dared a glance at Jim to find him watching her, his eyes intense, dark, impossible to decipher, and the pain in her chest went deeper.
Oh, no, not him. She couldn’t be that unwise. Quickly, she turned away.
“But I did,” Mrs. Latimore replied.
“So what are your plans now?” Kate asked.
“We’ve land on a little island near Borneo. Nobody there cares much about our marriage; we’re both outsiders anyway, and no threat to them. So we’ll grow cinnamon and nutmeg and enjoy each other. It’s time.”
“You’re retiring?” Kate asked in surprise. She’d always doubted that people with adventure in their system had it in them to quit; certainly it had run so deeply in her husband’s blood that he’d never been able to live settled and civilized again without longing to return to the wild.
“Yes.” Mrs. Latimore smiled broadly. “After we win this competition, of course.”
Jim managed quite successfully to avoid Kate for the next two days. Oh, it had been tempting not to. Her clear consternation when he’d mentioned sharing the cabin had been both amusing and pride-deflating, and he was powerfully inclined to make it as uncomfortable for her as possible.
But the simple truth was he no longer trusted himself around her. He couldn’t think with her around, couldn’t plan or resist or decide. Or do anything else that required his brain, for that matter. It simply ceased to function when she was near—or, if it functioned, any commands it sent were quickly overcome by the demands the rest of him made. And then he’d forget that he could promise her nothing and give her even less.
So for two days, he’d worked. He’d dove to the bottom of the Pompeian-style swimming pool. He’d tugged on every piece of equipment in the gymnasium. He’d spent six sweaty, sooty hours crawling around behind every one of the twenty-five boilers. He’d talked his way into the cardroom and spent a goo
d portion of the evening and a fair chunk of the night there, watching his competitors carefully to see if any of them looked too pleased with themselves or gave any other sign of having dug up a clue. He’d even swallowed his distaste and bought Charlie Hobson a whiskey, hoping to pry a hint from the weasel.
And when he returned to the cabin each night, bone-tired, frustrated, he allowed himself one carefully measured minute to admire Kate curled up in her bunk, her hair streaming over her pillow, her mouth relaxed in sleep, before he plopped himself down on a makeshift pallet on the carpet—which wasn’t nearly as plush as it looked—and tried to sleep.
They mumbled a few words at each other each morning, rushed and awkward, carefully circumspect. Kate had been busy as well. She’d poked in flower and vegetable pots in the greenhouse on the afterdeck. Prodded carved cherubs on the columns in the three-story, glass-topped grand dining room. Shook out gold, tasseled drapes in the ladies’ salon.
Tonight Jim was taking a break, competition be damned. Nobody else had found anything, either; that much he was sure of.
The topmost deck of the ship had become his refuge. Nobody bothered to come up here much. The lower decks were warmer, sheltered from the wind, and stocked with deck chairs and blankets. Only the sturdiest souls braved the tennis court between the two foremost funnels for a chilly half hour of exercise. The lifeboats lashed to the railings spoiled the view of the water.
And so now, approaching seven o’clock, he had the place to himself. Or so he’d thought.
He’d propped his back against a ventilation pipe and watched the slate gray clouds shift and slide across a sky that was as restless as he felt. He wasn’t fond of being confined on a boat, even a floating palace like this one. He sailed when he had to because he was on his way to the jumping-off point of an expedition, his time and head always fully occupied with the challenge ahead.
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