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“Watch yourself,” Lady E. warns when he looks like he might topple.
“His Lordship says not to go in there. You’re to stay together, wait in the salon,” he stammers and looks back at the open doorway.
Ignoring him, Lady E. strides to the cabin, with me close on her heels.
The place is a shambles. Berths tangled and hanging, bed linens tumbled to the floor. Her trunks are upended, clothes strewn and papers everywhere. Ankle-deep in the mess, Lady E. makes her way to her box of tools and potions, the only item intact in the wreckage.
“Good Lord.” I can’t fathom it, “what were they looking for?”
“Whoever…” She turns to the cabin boy, snapping, “I know you didn’t do this so stop quaking. You have enough access to be subtle. Just tell me everything you witnessed since we left after breakfast. Did you see anyone near here?”
“No, m’lady, no one! I brought fresh linens and found it like this. The Lord was in the passageway. He’s gone to find you, sent Steves and the guard for help.”
“I see,” I acknowledge. Clean linens, still folded, lay at our feet where he’d dropped them just inside the doorway. “Surely someone witnessed something. This didn’t happen quietly, and one doesn’t tear a cabin apart with the flick of a hand. They had to have been at it long enough to gain attention.”
“You,” Lady E. tells the poor boy, “go and fetch my assistant.”
He balks. She raises an eyebrow.
“I daren’t leave you alone.”
His voice quavers.
One does not ignore Lady Eleanor.
“Whoever did this is not intent on murder, or kidnap. This was a search, clear and simple. Now go.” He charges up that ladder in a blur. I turn back to Lady Eleanor, who is murmuring, “What did they expect to find?” as she picks through the debris.
“Where is Jenny?” I ask.
“She’s tending to the clothes.”
Back to studying the mess, Lady E. stares into the heart of the chaos. “We should look at your cabin.”
I blush, still thinking of it as Bentwood’s, but lead the way. This cabin is not much larger than my last one, with two immaculately made berths. Bentwood tucked me into the lower one last night, with a kiss on my forehead. As disappointing as that is, on opening the door I realise that our scents have mingled: citrus, exotic wood, and a floral bouquet that blend quite nicely.
Tidy shelves with little railings line the wall, and there is an armoire. A tiny ‘private’ room is blocked off, the door to it is closed. Nothing amiss.
A book I’d failed to notice lies on the cabinet beside his berth. A treatise on touring Egypt. I pick it up and hand it to Lady E.
“Interesting,” she ponders aloud. “Enough of this, let’s find your husband.”
He is alone on the poop deck. Isolated. Swamping me with memories of CeCe and I running about, laughing and playing in the gardens below the rooms where he studied. Whenever we noticed him, watching from the classroom, we’d wave and make faces and laugh until his tutor pulled him away. Or his father, if he was standing in the Earl’s study. No other children, just him and a tutor or his father.
He did have fun, I’m sure of it, but rarely with us. Not like the early days when we all clambered about. Even when he went fishing, he’d go alone. If he went to the castle ruins where CeCe and I explored, his father or his tutor would be there full of the history of the place. We’d go for a walk and listen to the birds. He’d go for a walk and learn about tenants, crops, and the dangers of poachers. Alone. No one to share it with.
That’s how he looks now. Rudely, as I should allow my elders to precede me, I take the ladder first and do what I haven’t done in years. I slip my arm through Bentwood’s and squeeze, catching him so off guard, he places a hand over mine.
“You’ve seen?”
“Yes.”
He studies me as thoroughly as any book. I should be flattered, but it unsettles me. I release his arm to lean on the railing.
Lady Eleanor joins us, grumbling about the steep steps.
“Don’t make that climb a waste, Bentwood. It’s time you tell us what we are dealing with.”
Bentwood likes Lady E., the way she orders him about without lowering his status.
