“Touché.” Their odd relationship always left her confounded. Living somewhere between flirtation and fear, she did not know if she wished to kiss him or run from him. It left her always feeling uneasy in his presence, as the two urges could not possibly be resolved or explained.
At least their flirtation was mutual. She had no doubt that if she wished it, he would throw caution, propriety, and reputation to the wind to bed her. Even, as Johnny had suggested, to wed her.
But the creeping, invisible hand of death that seemed to always be settled upon his shoulder kept her from following her desire for his warm touch and inviting voice.
Sitting back in her chair, she looked out the window into the night of the ocean. The stars were out and gave only the barest hint of where the water began and the sky ended. Death. There was so much of it in the world. “It is nearly a year to the date that disaster befell the Titanic.”
“Indeed. I’m sure that thought weighs heavily upon the captain, as well. This ship is far more nimble than that megalithic display of technological hubris. We will not suffer the same fate, I assure you.”
“How are you so sure?”
“I was passing through the markets a year and some change ago, when an old woman stopped me. She told me to ‘steer clear of the titan of the waves, for disaster lurks unseen.’ She told me that I should not travel in the year 1912, and lo, I am very glad we did not.”
“Are you often wont to listen to the warnings of old vagrants?”
“Always. I am a superstitious man, and it has always served my needs. There is nigh but an inch that separates a vagrant from a witch. Indeed, they are often one and the same, in my experience.”
“And you have met many witches?” She smiled at the fanciful conversation. He was toying with her, but she enjoyed the fantasy of it.
“Oh, yes. Very many. I call many of them friends. I paid that woman a few pounds for her prophecy. It is also very good practice to pay witches for their work, even if you did not ask for it.”
“I will keep that in mind.” She chuckled. “Should I ever meet a witch.”
“I hope that you do. On both fronts.”
“Well, I am glad she spared us from that doomed voyage.” With a shake of her head, she looked back out to the ocean and let out a breath. “What a terrible way to die…frozen in the waves like that. Abandoned by the boats. Surrounded by nothing but the cold, and the dark, and the dead.” She shuddered. Of all her memories of dying, at least she had never had to suffer one like that. “I do think I hate the cold.”
His hand brushed against hers. She started at the contact, and he pulled his hand away and muttered an apology.
She had not disliked his touch, however. It had just been, as he said, unexpected. Before she could stop herself, she reached for him, but never got the chance to finish the deed.
The moment shattered as the waiter came and took their orders. Naturally, the doctor ordered for them both. That always did make her bristle. But it was expected, and to place her own order would be seen as crass, so she excused it. But oh, how she loathed the existence of etiquette. More invisible chains. More illusions that kept her and her species shackled to the wheel of society. “Dr. Raithe?”
“Yes, my princess?”
“When we reach the Americas, and your business in New York City is concluded…what do you think of traveling west?”
Real happiness filled his smile. “Do you wish to see the wilds of the Americas? Be chased by roving bands of native tribes and seek your gold in the mountains?”
She laughed. “Hardly. I think I would last precisely two minutes before I died. I have read the tales of those chasing fortunes, and I think it is not for me. No, I think I would like to see someplace that big. To see the plains and see nothing around for miles and miles.”
“Why? Sounds frightfully boring.”
Shutting her eyes, she let herself picture it. The fields and the sun. The expanse of sky and earth. “I know freedom will never be mine to have, but I find I would like to stand in its presence.”
That time, his hand captured hers in his and she did not jolt. He kissed her fingers. “Forgive me, Marguerite.”
She furrowed her brow. “Whatever for?”
“I am the chain you wear.” The darkness in his voice dragged her down from her moment of levity and threatened to pull her into the pit that dwelled within his heart.
You shall never die alone.
Those words that haunted her. Those words she heard whispered in her mind each time a vision of her own death and torture played out before her eyes. She gripped his hand tightly, harder than perhaps she intended to, but he did not seem to mind. She struggled to keep hold of herself. She did not wish to descend into a fracture of her broken mind while seated at the dinner table.
No, no, no! Do not ruin this moment. Do not be that which they whisper you to be. I am not a worthless lunatic!
“You are not,” she forced out through a tight throat. She took a shuddering breath. A cold sweat had formed on her back, but it was fading. Her terror had been total, but brief. “You are not,” she repeated now that she had the air in her lungs to finish her sentence, “the chain that binds me.”