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Her mourning this past month had been very real, and she hadn’t seriously doubted whether the reports aboutAlacrity’sfate were true. She’d simply felt guilty for not having felt his demise. For having lived so fully during a time when her brother hadn’t.
But what if Elijahwasalive and well, making his way to London this very moment? If he’d been spotted off the south coast of England yesterday, he could be—
She rose in a rush. “We must go to the docks!”
Nicholas took her hand in both of his. “We shall go if you wish. With word out in the papers, though, it might be a crush at the docks. There won’t be privacy.”
She nodded slowly, realizing what that meant. She could end up mourning her dashed hopes in a public way. “I understand. But I must go.”
“To the carriage!” Vassilis said, raising his fist into the air.
They were approaching the front door when the bell jingled, and they all froze as one. Helen clutched Nicholas’s sleeve, her pulse thrumming in her throat.
“Elijah?” Pen asked, staring at the door.
She looked from Nicholas to each member of his family, her eyes desperate. When Vassilis gestured toward the handle, she nodded. For once, his movements were hesitant, as if he, too, was afraid of being disappointed. Turning the knob slowly, he opened the door.
Nathan Hughes stood on the doorstep,The Timestucked under his arm. His eyes widened as he took in the five of them in the foyer, but his gaze soon focused on Helen.
“Do you believe it?” she asked.
“I believe…it’s possible,” he said with circumspection, compassion in his expression. “We shall know soon enough, one way or another.”
The six of them crammed into the carriage, with Helen sitting between Pen and Sirena, and Nicholas on the opposite bench, squeezed in with his father and Mr. Hughes.
Halfway through the journey to the West India Docks, Helen gasped. “What is the date today?”
Mr. Hughes squinted, reading it from the newspaper. “The thirteenth of September.”
Vassilis clapped, the sound startling Helen from her thoughts. Wagging a finger at Sirena, he smiled. “You said I shouldn’t speak of it, but look at her! She’s thinking of the contracts herself. Aren’t you, my dear?”
“Patéras,” Nicholas growled.
Helen closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands. Sirena pulled her close, holding her against her smaller body. Breathing in the woman’s familiar jasmine perfume, she accepted the embrace, but all the while, her mind whirled.
Their Mincing Lane contract provided for a windfall bonus if the tea arrived by the fifteenth of September! She wondered how long it had taken Elijah to travel from London to Hong Kong—and then back. Oh, how excited he would be to achieve his goals! She looked forward to studying the ship’s log, and—
Groaning, she caught herself indulging too many speculations.
Eventually, her hands fell away from her ears, and after a time, she sat up straight, thanking Sirena for the support. As they approached the Isle of Dogs, the peninsula jutting into the Thames where the West India Docks were situated, their carriage slowed to a crawl.
Helen, the Siderises, and Mr. Hughes were not the only ones who had responded to the news inThe Timesby flocking to see ifAlacrityhad sunk in a storm, as earlier reported, or would be sailing up to the quay today.
Pen slid her hand into Helen’s and didn’t complain when Helen gripped it tightly. Sirena and Nicholas pulled the velvet curtains closed, but that blocked only the sight of the dense crowds and traffic through which the carriage navigated. It was impossible to ignore the market-like atmosphere around them, however, as vendors yelled over each other, vying for the masses’s shillings and pence.
“Oi! Jellied eel, `ere! Only an `alf penny!”
“New milk from a cow! New milk from a cow!”
“Whelks and cockles!”
“Boiled sheep’s trotters, still hot!”
The purveyor of sheep’s feet was hawking his product right outside the carriage door, and the mix of competing food odors roiled Helen’s stomach.
Vassilis shifted, inadvertently elbowing Mr. Hughes. “Anyone else hungry? We could—”
Five voices spoke as one. “No!”
