A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (22 page)

But I would not think about Silverton. There was no point. What could I do to help him, after all? My duty lay to the dowager duchess and to Mr. Haywood.

The ship and crew had made nearly ready to depart, the captain informed me. I had only to give the order. The tide was on the point of turning, which would assist our passage out of the harbor in Heraklion.

“We are traveling to Naxos, and a cabin must be made ready for our guest,” I said, with all the authority in my power.

“Will Lord Silverton be accompanying us?”

“I hope so. He has been detained at the ruins. If he has not returned in an hour, we shall have to leave without him, I'm afraid.” As I said the words, their full import struck me in the chest.
Leave without him
. Leave without Silverton: did I really mean to do that? I added quickly, to cover that instant of panic, “Is his lordship's valet about? I have a message for him.”

The captain's mouth registered a flicker of distaste for Mr. Brown, but he informed me readily that the valet was to be found in Silverton's own cabin, supervising the arrangement of the trunks.

Down I went to the main deck, where Silverton's stateroom existed in solitary luxury amidships, but before I reached it, Mr. Brown himself came barreling around the corner of the grand staircase, looking as if someone had spat on his dinner.

“Mr. Brown—” I began bravely.

“Where is he? Why has you left him behind, you nasty b—h?” (I shall not attempt to render his singular accent in any sort of phonetic accuracy.)

“
I
haven't left him behind. He left himself behind.” I held out Silverton's note, still folded. “This is for you.”

Mr. Brown snatched the note with his right hand—the one that still existed—and opened it.

I inspected the backs of my fingers. “I feel compelled to add, for the sake of clarification, that there is a woman concerned.”

Mr. Brown looked up bleakly. “Ain't there always?”

“This sort of emergency is a regular occurrence, then, in his lordship's service?”

As soon as I said the words, I knew I should not have asked. To ask was to imply that Silverton's habits mattered to me.

But Mr. Brown took my curiosity in a matter-of-fact sigh. “There's no woman born can resist him, miss, nor no woman he can resist her wanting of him.”

“Ah. He does it all out of the goodness of his heart, does he? So the poor little things won't be disappointed. Dear me, what a cross he bears.”

Mr. Brown's eyes rolled heavenward, as if expecting to discover his lordship strumming a harp among the angels, somewhere
above the low, flat ceiling of the ship's corridor. “That's it exactly, miss.”

“I don't mean to shock either of you, then, but I beg leave to observe that
I
have resisted him without difficulty.”

Mr. Brown turned his gaze back down to humble earth and squinted one eye at me. “So far.”

I pointed to the note, still in his hands. “Are there any special instructions? How long are we to wait for him, before we depart?”

“That's between me and his lordship, miss. You carry on. He'll be back before we're off, though, or my name ain't Aristophanes Brown.”

I took a second or two to absorb this information. Mr. Brown regarded me cryptically, one eye still squeezed shut, while a current of dry wind down the corridor set his left sleeve shivering around the hook.

“I beg your pardon. Did you say your name was
Aristophanes
?”

“Maybe it is and maybe it ain't. We'll find out soon, won't we? Now stand aside.”

I was too startled by his bluntness to do anything except step obediently back against the wall, and the valet brushed past me to stomp up the main staircase like a man much put-upon.

Within the hour, Captain Merriwether informed me that the
Isolde
's steam was fully up, and she lay poised to sail upon my command. I stood on the promenade deck, near the entrance to the deckhouse, and watched the sun drop behind the jagged spine of the mountain range to the west. The quayside was quiet, except for the irregular slap of water against the vessels and the harbor walls; the fishing fleet was secured to the pilings in preparation
for the coming dawn, and the fishermen had disappeared into the whitewashed houses and tavernas of the town.

By my side, Mr. Higganbotham leaned his arms against the railing and inhaled the briny air. “I suppose he'll have to catch us up in Naxos.”

“So it seems.”

The captain waited patiently, a few feet away, but I couldn't quite bring myself to give the order. My eyes strained against the flattening light, trying to detect some sort of movement in the streets below that might belong to a madcap marquess with the devil at his heels. He had left on horseback, looking quite at home and having paid a small fortune for the privilege; would he return the same way? Mr. Brown stood near the bow, pacing and peering. In a moment, I thought, he would jump overboard with the force of his distress.

“Miss Truelove,” the captain said, in a voice rich with respect. “Shall I give the order?”

The streets were quiet, the dying sun orange against the western ridge. A last surge of anger filled my throat: Why did he risk himself for her? Surely our need was greater. Surely our claim on his talents was stronger.

Why
her
?

I thought how the gathering sunset would look on his hair, and I turned to the captain and said, “Very well. There's not a moment to be lost, after all. I'm sure he will catch us up soon enough.”

Captain Merriwether returned a brisk nod and strode off to the deckhouse. A moment later, a short blast of steam issued from the funnel, and then another. Mr. Higganbotham frowned and covered his ears. The grind of the engines vibrated the wooden boards below our feet, and then came the shouts as the
ropes were cast off, and the sense of disorienting motion as we slid away from the dock.

“There is something triumphal, isn't there, about having an entire steamship at one's command,” said Mr. Higganbotham.

“It isn't mine, however. It belongs to Mr. Haywood.”

Mr. Higganbotham turned to me, astonished. “To Mr.
Haywood
?”

“He is now the eighth Duke of Olympia.”

“I
say
! I had no idea.” A shocked pause, and then: “He never said a thing.” Still another pause, while the wedge of dirty water widened between ship and quayside. “Are you quite sure?”

“Quite sure.” I tore my gaze away from the untroubled line of buildings on the western edge of the quay, from which a man hurrying down to the harbor from the southern hills might be expected to emerge, and faced my awestruck companion. “Presuming, of course, we can find him.”

The awfulness of this pronouncement struck me anew, and before Mr. Higganbotham could part his lips to reply, I turned away and walked down the larboard railing as the ship began its turn, swinging about to head out of the harbor mouth. The air, which had warmed so considerably during the sunlit day, was now turning to chill, and a sharp breeze had picked up from the northeast. I had changed clothes in my own cabin, into a sensible skirt and neat striped shirtfront, belting a thick woolen cardigan over all, and as the cool majesty of the Venetian fortress edged into view from the other side of the deckhouse, I slid my fingers deep into the pockets.

I thought,
Perhaps if he is killed, he will come to visit me
.

The sea wall crawled past on my left, angling out toward the
fortress. Already I was beginning to feel the telltale slosh in my head, the vertigo of seasickness. I fought back, fixing my gaze on the fortress walls ahead, thinking that I could not go to my cabin until Crete went out of sight behind us. The cold draft swept along my temples. I gripped the rail with my two hands. A few yards away at the bow, Mr. Brown seemed to sense my approach and half turned, eyes wide, shouting some alarmed question to me.

“Quite all right,” I called back, just before I leaned past the rail and emptied my stomach over the side.

Mr. Brown came by my side directly, no doubt to tender me the usual handkerchief in my distress, but I am not the sort of person to enjoy company in misery and motioned him away. As I lifted my head, however, he did not step back. His attention was fixed not on me, in fact, but at some point in the distance, directly opposite.

I blinked my watery eyes. Mr. Brown let out a thundering halloo.

The few last orange bars of sunlight glared back at me. I lifted one hand to shade my eyes, and an object came into view, moving along the sea wall: a galloping horse, bearing an overlong man whose hair burned like a fireball in the setting sun.

The nausea fell away from my belly, or perhaps I only ceased to notice it. I ran shouting to the deckhouse:
Stop! Stop! It's Silverton! On the sea wall!

A commotion erupted at once. Captain Merriwether barked out a few terse commands, and the officers flew about the deckhouse. From the bowels of the ship came a massive grinding noise, causing the deck to shudder and the crew, hurrying along the sides, to stagger and grab the rails. They were going to send
a boat out; someone was already climbing up to tear off the canvas cover and swing out the davits.

I returned to strain over the rail. Our forward momentum had carried us almost to the fortress, and Silverton and his horse disappeared from view behind the walls. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted his name, over and over, as if that could conjure him back.

A faint echo sounded across the water, like a horseshoe striking stone.

Or like a gunshot.

And then there came movement along the fortress walls, along the battlements like little teeth. A golden head popped up, and an arm that waved vigorously in reply to my shouts.

Another crack, and the figure paused, ducked, raised. What the devil was he doing?

He climbed to the edge of the stone battlement, fully visible, outlined by the last burst of sunset, and lifted his arms away from his body to form a cross.

I thought,
My God, he is going to dive
.

And he did.

“You are a bloody fool,” I told Silverton, an hour later, as we steamed northward through the inky night.

“What appalling language, Truelove. Someone has corrupted you utterly. I can't guess whom, but I imagine he must be a thorough rascal.”

He stood next to the wall in his stateroom, having bathed and changed into a heavy dressing gown of dark green brocade, and
had just lit his pipe. A glass of brandy sat familiarly on the dresser nearby, half-empty. He was smiling. His blue eyes shone with unnatural brightness, unencumbered by the spectacles. The shimmer of exhilaration still rippled from his body.

“You might have been killed. If I'm not mistaken, somebody was shooting at you, not that I blame him.”

“Oh, there's no doubt about that. I was luring him away from Knossos, you see, with fiendish cleverness.” He tapped the mouthpiece of his pipe against his temple. “I only regret I hadn't the means to kill him outright, but the wretch wouldn't give up his gun, and I hadn't the time to quarrel over it.”

“And now he knows we've left, and he'll find a way to follow us. So you've accomplished absolutely nothing, except to distract him from troubling your paramour. And if he thinks to double back and question her about our destination, you haven't even done that.”

“I could not do less than I did, Truelove, in all honor. In any case, I've alerted her brother to her predicament, and we already know he is her ardent defender.” He touched the ugly bruise on his jaw. “What a price one pays for one's pleasures. Even my shoes now lie at the bottom of the harbor, though I daresay I've got a spare pair packed away somewhere in these trunks.”

“My God, how can you be so cavalier? You nearly lost your own life, and jeopardized our own investigation into the bargain. And all for a woman!”

“Not jealousy again, is it, Truelove? You'll have me dreaming impossible dreams.”