The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband

Edward stood in the center of the room, utterly frozen. What the bloody hell was that? What did she mean by—

He scrambled to find the part of the letter he was looking for. There it was. She did not think she would have the time to tell him in person.

The blood drained from his face.

The Rhiannon. It was in the harbor. It was leaving that eve.

Cecilia had booked passage on it. He was certain of it.

He checked the pocket watch he’d left out on the table to serve as their clock. He had time. Not a lot, but enough.

It would have to be enough. His whole world depended on it.

Chapter 21

I have not heard from you in so long, Thomas. I know I should not worry, that there are dozens of ways for your letters to be delayed, but I cannot help myself. Did you know that I mark a calendar to keep track of our correspondence? A week for my letter to be put on a ship, five weeks to cross the Atlantic, another week to reach you. Then a week for your letter to be put on a ship, three weeks to cross the Atlantic (see? I was listening when you told me it is faster to journey east), then a week for it to reach me. That is three months to receive an answer to a simple question!

But then again, maybe there are no simple questions. Or if there are, they lack simple answers.

—from Cecilia Harcourt to her brother Thomas (letter never received)

The Rhiannon was remarkably similar to the Lady Miranda, and Cecilia had no difficulty locating her cabin. When she’d purchased her ticket a few hours earlier, she’d been told that she would be sharing her cabin with a Miss Alethea Finch, who had been serving as a governess to a prominent New York family and was now returning home. It was not uncommon for total strangers to share accommodations on such journeys. Cecilia had done so on the way over; she’d got on quite well with her fellow traveler and had been sorry to say good-bye when they had docked in New York.

Cecilia wondered if Miss Finch was Irish, or like her, simply eager to get on the first ship back to the British Isles and did not mind having to make a stop before reaching England. Cecilia herself wasn’t sure how she was going to get home from Cork, but that hurdle seemed tiny compared with the greater challenge of getting herself across the Atlantic. There would probably be ships sailing from Cork to Liverpool, or if not that, she could travel up to Dublin and sail from there.

She’d got herself from Derbyshire to New York, for heaven’s sake. If she could do that, she could do anything. She was strong. She was powerful.

She was crying.

Damn it, she needed to stop crying.

She paused in the narrow corridor outside her cabin to take a breath. At least she wasn’t sobbing. She could still comport herself without attracting too much attention. But every time she thought she had hold of her emotions, her lungs seemed to lurch, and she drew in an unexpected breath, but it sounded like a choke, and then her eyes got all prickly, and then—

Stop. She needed to stop thinking about it.

Goal for today: Don’t cry in public.

She sighed. She wanted a new goal.

Time to move on. With a fortifying breath, she brushed her hand over her eyes and pushed down on the handle to the door of her cabin.

It was locked.

Cecilia blinked, momentarily nonplussed. Then she knocked, reckoning that her cabinmate had arrived before she had. It was prudent for a woman alone to lock her door. She would have done the same.

She waited a moment, then knocked again, and finally the door opened, but only partway. A thin woman of middling years peered out. She filled most of the narrow opening, so Cecilia could not see much of the cabin behind her. There appeared to be two bunks, one up and one down, and a trunk was open on the floor. On the lone table, a lantern had been lit. Clearly Miss Finch had been unpacking. “May I help you?” Miss Finch asked.

Cecilia affixed a friendly expression to her face and said, “I believe we are sharing this cabin.”

Miss Finch regarded her with a pinched mien, then said, “You are mistaken.”

Well. That was unexpected. Cecilia looked back at the door, which was propped open against Miss Finch’s hip. A dull brass “8” had been nailed into the wood.

“Cabin eight,” Cecilia said. “You must be Miss Finch. We are to be bunkmates.” It was difficult to muster the energy to be sociable, but she knew she must try, so she bobbed a polite curtsy and said, “I am Miss Cecilia Harcourt. How do you do?”

The older woman’s lips flattened. “I was led to believe I would not be sharing this stateroom.”

Cecilia glanced first at one bunk, then at the other. It was clearly a room for two. “Did you reserve a cabin for yourself?” she asked. She had heard that people sometimes did so, despite having to pay double.

“I was told that I had no cabinmate.”

Which was not the answer to the question Cecilia had asked. But even though her own mood was rattling between black and blue, she held her temper in check. She was going to have to share an extremely small cabin with this woman for at least three weeks. So she summoned her best approximation of a smile and said, “I only booked passage this afternoon.”

Miss Finch drew back with obvious disapproval. “What sort of woman books passage across the Atlantic on the day of departure?”

Cecilia’s jaw tightened. “My sort of woman, I suppose. My plans changed rather abruptly, and I was fortunate enough to find a ship departing immediately.”

Miss Finch sniffed. Cecilia wasn’t sure how to interpret this, aside from the obvious fact that it was not complimentary. But Miss Finch finally took a step back, allowing Cecilia entry into the tiny cabin.

“As you can see,” Miss Finch said, “I have unpacked my belongings on the bottom berth.”

“I am more than happy to sleep on top.”

Miss Finch sniffed again, a little louder. “If you get seasick, you will have to exit the room. I will not have the smell in here.”

Cecilia felt her resolve toward politeness slipping away. “Agreed. Just so long as you do the same.”

“I hope you do not snore.”

“If I do, no one has told me of it.”

Miss Finch opened her mouth, but Cecilia cut her off with “I’m sure you will tell me if I do.”

Miss Finch opened her mouth again, but Cecilia added, “And I will thank you for it. It does seem the sort of thing one ought to know about oneself, would you not agree?”

Miss Finch drew back. “You are most impertinent.”

“And you are standing in my way.” The room was very small, and Cecilia had not fully entered; it was nearly impossible to do so while the other woman had her trunk open on the floor.

“It is my room,” Miss Finch said.

“It is our room,” Cecilia nearly growled, “and I would appreciate it if you would move your trunk so that I might enter.”

“Well!” Miss Finch slammed her trunk shut and shoved it under her bed. “I don’t know where you will put your trunk, but don’t think you can take up the middle of the floor if I cannot.”

Cecilia didn’t have a trunk, just her large traveling bag, but there seemed little reason to make a point of that.

“Is that all you have?”

Especially since Miss Finch seemed eager to make the point for her.

Cecilia tried to draw a calming breath. “As I said, I had to leave most suddenly. There was no time to pack a proper trunk.”

Miss Finch stared down her bony nose and made another one of those sniffing sounds. Cecilia resolved to spend as much time as possible on deck.

There was a small table nailed to the foot of the bed, with enough space underneath for Cecilia’s bag. She removed the few things she thought she might wish to have in her bunk and then edged past Miss Finch so that she could climb up and see where she would be sleeping.

“Don’t step on my bed getting up to your bunk.”

Cecilia paused, counted in her head to three, then said, “I shall restrict my movements to the ladder.”

“I am going to complain to the captain about you.”

“By all means,” Cecilia said with a grandiose wave of her arm. She made her way up another rung and took a peek. Her bunk was neat and tidy, and even if she didn’t have much headroom, at least she wouldn’t have to look at Miss Finch.