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real risk, one that could’ve got me sacked if anybody had found out. Nobody did.
    I’ve saved enough to live on for a couple of months. That’s not very long, but it’s more than I’ve ever had together in my whole life, even though I’ve been in service since I left school at thirteen. It’s going to be enough.
    Enough so that, when this ship reaches the United States, I can walk off it, slip away from Lady Regina and Mrs. Horne, and never, ever come back.
    We shuffle forward on the gangplank, and I take the box up again. It feels even heavier than before, but I can bear it. Freedom is only a few days away.
    All I have to do is make it through this one trip , I think, as I step off the gangplank and finally board the RMS Titanic .

Chapter 3
     
    MY LORD, THIS SHIP IS BEAUTIFUL.
    The path for the first-class passengers to enter the ship begins near their dining hall, and the staircase leading down to it is more magnificent than anything found in Moorcliffe. Gleaming carved wood, stairs arching down in two graceful curves, a cast-iron clock finely molded: This is something I would expect to see in a great manor house, not a ship. Even the creamy beige carpet beneath my feet is thicker and softer than any Aubusson rug.
    Or am I naive? As I begin this journey from the life I have always known, I am acutely aware of the limits of my experience. So who am I to judge this ship or its grandeur? Perhaps this is very ordinary, and I reveal myself as an ignorant country girl by marveling at it.
    But no. I turn my attention to the wealthy people around me, and although they are too refined to voice their amazement, I can read it in their eyes. A good servant learns how to study faces, to glean hints of her employers’ moods from the slightest change in expression—but no such subtleties are necessary here. They laugh in delight, smile at one another in satisfaction, and allow their hands to trail sensually along the fine wood carving. The Titanic is as spectacular to them as it is to me. No one here is immune to its splendor—
    Wait. Someone is. Two someones, in point of fact.
    Just inside the doorway, unobserved by most of those walking past, are two gentlemen. Both are remarkably tall and broad-shouldered. One is a little older, perhaps nearing his thirtieth year. He wears a Vandyke beard as black as iron . . . rather like that of the man who briefly accosted me in the street, though my glimpse of him was too swift to be sure of any true likeness. The other—
    Him, too, I only saw briefly, but I would never forget his face. The other is the young man from last night.
    He is younger than I’d realized. My elder perhaps by only four or five years—twenty-two, then? And now that we are in light—both the brilliant sunshine and the glow from the Titanic ’s elegant frosted-glass lamps—I am free to really look at him. To drink him in.
    His jaw is strong and sharply angled, throwing his high cheekbones into relief. His mouth is well-shaped, with full lips any girl would desire. Shoulders broad, waist narrow, a hint of real muscle beneath. I remember how firm his body was when he pressed me against the wall. His wildly curly hair—in that deep chestnut color, with fine glints of red that bring out the dark brown of his eyes—I cannot decide if it is his one flaw or his best feature. Untamable, I would guess. He doesn’t clip it short as most gentlemen would in a similar situation. Instead he lets the curls flow freely, as I’ve heard artists and bohemians do. This is no bohemian, though, nor any sailor, as I briefly suspected; the well-cut suit he wears speaks of his wealth and privilege.
    My steps slow. The box is suddenly no longer heavy in my hands, or at least I don’t feel the ache of it. I can’t get over the shock of seeing him again, seeing him here , or of the powerful effect he has on me.
    It feels as though he must notice me—as though whatever strange force brought us together last night would call to