Page 48 of Murder on the SS Leviathan
Claiming her pair with a trump, Cecile attempted to sound offhand. ‘I know almost nothing myself. It seems everyone is in the dark but, perhaps you can shed light on this yourself? Do you know of any reason why someone might have wished Claudette harm?’
‘None at all.’ Maud’s brows knitted. ‘But I do worry. It’s silly of me, no doubt, and I’ve not wanted to bother Henry, who is excessively custodial, but I’m not altogether sure that my fall was an accident. I can’t help but wonder if the incidents are related.’
Cecile bit back her reply—that she and Lucrezia had speculated as much.
Keeping her composure, she laid her next highest card. ‘What makes you think so?’
‘Only a feeling. There was someone, in the past, who had reason to wish me ill, but he is beyond harming me, or anyone, now.’ Folding up her cards, Maud set them to one side. ‘I’m afraid my concentration is lacking. Things do play on one’s mind, don’t they? Claudette was so very young, and with so much ahead of her…’
Looking up, Maud sighed wistfully. ‘And what of your man? Have you made progress?’
Cecile’s heated cheeks answered for her.
‘I see you have.’ Maud smiled. ‘I’m the last person who would dream of judging you. I see no shame in expressing passion. No matter the names others may give—and there are cruel names aplenty for women who behave in the way for which men are applauded—you are answerable only to yourself. Be discreet, if you wish to avoid censure, but I advise you to take your bliss as you see fit.’
‘I ought to get back.’ Though Cecile was inclined to agree with everything Maud said, she found herself uncomfortable. Whatever she allowed to happen between herself and Lance, it was a private matter. She didn’t feel inclined to discuss it with others; not Maud, nor even Lucrezia.
‘Don’t wait too long, Cecile. Life is precious.’ Maud’s hand went to the slight curve of her belly. ‘We only realize how important some things are when we almost lose them.’
* * *
Alone again, Maud went to the mirror. Unpinning her hair, she let it fall, rich and heavy, to her waist.
A looking glass showed not just the current hour but a hint of what was to come. All pleasures were fleeting and youth most fleet-footed of them all. The body was finite and frail, its soft beauty its downfall, and the voracious earth consumed all at last, the cold fingers of death counting each creature’s bones.
The creeping tremors had remained too long in her blood, her grief eating the raw centre of her heart, as surely as the burrowing things inhabiting her parents’ graves. The relentless fist of mortality had driven her to recklessness, to prove she was alive, and that the world was of her own choosing.
What did Henry see when he looked at her?
No two people ever saw the same thing.
The reflection, after all, depended on the light—and she had lived these past years more in darkness, letting the velvet night enwrap her. Midnight had been her realm, but she’d become locked in its rooms, as surely as if she’d been sent to rot in an asylum. What freedom was there when she was destined ever to repeat her sins? The walls of that dark life had pushed ever closer until…
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to dwell on what had happened in the hills above Scogliera, of her captors and the pain they’d inflicted. She’d learnt what it was to be frightened that night.
She was determined now that she would endure, and live. Henry would love her, no matter what she was or would become. It had taken her far too long to realize.
A true match was a meeting of souls—of two people in agreement as to how they wished to live. Laughter was a bonus, of course, and a shared physical passion, but the heart and mind, foremost, needed to connect.
She’d wanted to be free but wasn’t loving Henry part of that freedom? The freedom to risk her heart. And, a new life was growing. For the sake of the child still clinging to life—and for her own sake—she would learn.
It wasn’t enough to believe herself loved; she needed to love in return.
