12
April 1913
Somewhere in the Atlantic
Marguerite shuther eyes and leaned on the railing in front of her, smiling at the sensation of the warm sun and the sea air as the steamship rumbled through the waves. They had been on the ocean for a few days but had only just started the voyage across the Atlantic, having stopped in a few ports to pick up more passengers.
It wasn’t a huge ship—it wasn’t like the monoliths of human engineering that she saw in the ports beside them that could apparently hold not hundreds, but thousands of passengers. Dr. Raithe said he preferred smaller, more nimble ships, even if it meant their crossing time would be slower.
After the incident in the Atlantic almost a year to the date previously…she was fine with that. As likely were most of the other passengers on their perfectly elegant, perfectly lavish, and hopefully less doomed vessel.
They were going to the Americas! She smiled again, this time in excitement. New York City. She had seen so many photos of it, read about it in the papers, but to really see it was something she thought she would never have the chance to do.
London was a wonderful place to live. But New York City was exactly that—new. Full of opportunity. Full of people making new futures for themselves, striking out into the wild and forging something different from the raw materials of the world and themselves.
Or at least, that was how the papers had sold it. She was certain it was far more complicated than that, and far less idyllic. A figure moved to stand beside her, and she glanced up to see Johnny leaning heavily on the railing, his muscular build always seeming to struggle against the simple white shirts he preferred to wear.
They were on the lower deck, so at least he wouldn’t be forced to wear a jacket or a hat down here.
She nudged his elbow. “Find anything fun below decks?”
“Naturally.” He grinned. “That’s where all the interesting people hang out. Got into a brawl with an old drunk, and then traded stories once I’d finished knocking him around a bit. Nice guy. Terrible right hook.”
She laughed. “Why are you always seeking trouble?”
“Because trouble is interesting, and if I don’t keep myself interested, I fall asleep. At least that’s what that bastard says.”
“‘That bastard’ is only trying to help you, Johnny. You know that.” She leaned on his arm, enjoying the strength in his frame. She knew it was socially unacceptable for two people to be as close as they were without being married. But she was a certified lunatic, as was he. What did it matter? Society couldn’t judge them any harsher.
Even if she were to commit murder, she would somehow be elevated above the status of a simple lunatic. In some ways, she would be revered. But as she was now? With a shattered mind and a broken psyche? She was anathema. She was unwelcome in society as anything more than Dr. Raithe’s pet curiosity. Not that he treated her with anything other than the utmost respect. But she still saw how the others glanced and whispered at her. She heard the tone in their questions.
She very much preferred the lower deck with Johnny.
“Still makes him a bastard.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t know what it is between you two. Or why he keeps you on if you hate each other so much.”
“It’s my winning personality.” He rubbed his nose. “And the fact I’ll carry his goddamn luggage.”
That made her laugh. “Well, I for one am glad you’re here.”
“America sounds like a good change. Maybe it’ll help you.”
“Us. You mean help us.” She hooked her arm around his and held his hand. “Perhaps you and I will be mended, and you can whisk me off into the great Wild West, where we can start a little farm together. You and me and some goats. Oh! Perhaps some ducks. Ducks are adorable.”
He smiled sadly. “You know I can’t give you that future. Not really. You know I love you, but not…not like I’m supposed to.”
And there it was. That dark cloud that always hung over them. Her illness might be more spectacular in its manifestation—her blackouts, missing memories, and flashbacks to impossible moments of death and torment—but his was far more insidious.
The inability to feel physical interest in another. Or romantic adoration at all, he said. Familial love was as close as he could have with another. “It does not matter to me, Johnny. That we care for each other at all is more than what most marriages share. Certainly more than anything that fate has in store for me.”
He scoffed. “Please. You? You’re gorgeous and intelligent. And perfectly agreeable when you aren’t trying to con the chips off whatever poor sod you’ve tricked into playing cards with you.”
“Oh, come, now, you can’t still be bitter about that. I needed you to lose so I could get that damnable monger to overreach his bets. I split the take with you, didn’t I?”
“Cardsharp.”
“I am not! I do not cheat.” She slapped his arm. “Poker is merely about playing the players, not the cards. And nobody expects a woman to have a mind for it. You can hardly blame me for taking advantage of my opponent’s poor view of their foe because of my gender. Lord knows it’s one of the few times being a woman comes in handy. And you are changing the subject.”