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their level of detective skill, it remains entirely possible that the locals have the right man. How
would Miss Bainbridge cope with the revelation that we have traveled all this way only to build a
better case against her old beau?”
Davy nodded, as if the same thought had troubled him, and Trevor and Tom both began to
talk at once. Leaving the men to their circular discussion, Emma slipped out of the card room and
made her way to the so-called observation deck. An earlier trip up had proven there was little to
observe – they were at the exact midpoint of their journey, with neither Arabia nor Africa in view -
but Gerry had been gone for some time. And this Emma found disturbing.
Once Emma emerged from the steps to the deck she immediately spied her, standing
alone in the smoky mist, braced against the railing and apparently deep in thought. Emma moved
slowly beside Gerry, glancing up at the sky as she spoke. “The stars should come out soon,” she said,
struggling to project her voice above the steady mechanical roar. “Although thanks to the marvels of
modern engineering, we shall have only two evenings to appreciate them, and not the forty days and
nights of your last voyage. Oh, wait. My mathematics have failed me. It was closer to sixty, was it
not?”
“Something like that,” said Geraldine, following her gaze. “The trip is much easier now,
but a certain charm is lost.”
“Charm?” Emma said skeptically, remembering Gerry’s tales of passengers sleeping in
hammocks as dirty bilge water sloshed across the floor beneath them and in particular her story of the
time an enterprising rat had gnawed through the strap of her hammock, thus depositing the slumbering
Geraldine in a veritable river of refuse. “It seems the modern era trumps the past in every way, for
we now have so little time aboard and so many amusements along the journey that I find myself
dashing from one activity to the next, rather like a child at the county fair. The men spent the whole
afternoon out on the sporting deck, you know, learning some grand new skill they call shuffleboard.
Apparently Davy is quite the natural.”
Geraldine gave an obligatory little chuckle, but there was clearly no heart in it. She was
staring out into the growing darkness, in the direction of Arabia.
“But no matter how different the ship,” Emma said gently, “you still find yourself headed
once again to India. Does it bring back memories?”
“Not a one,” Geraldine answered. She had always considered herself to be a good
liar. It was one of her private little brags.
“Do you regret ever having loved him?” Emma asked.
It may have been a rude question, but it was a pertinent one. She had not been fooled in
the least by Geraldine’s claim that she was not reminiscing, for the woman was clearly snared in the
web of memory.
“The events which followed certainly tainted the memory of our affair,” Geraldine
admitted, after a pause. “For once a woman begins to question one thing about a man, it seems
impossible to stop. It is like pulling a single thread from a tapestry and watching the entire picture
unravel.”
“And this…this betrayal…this knowledge that you were cruelly used…”
“Was I cruelly used? Yes, I suppose I was, although not nearly so cruelly as poor
Roland. Perhaps you can even say that Anthony, admittedly quite by accident, helped me to find my
true fate. Romantic disappointments often do just that, my dear, although you’re too young to know of
these things just yet. Whenever that object that we thought we wanted most is abruptly taken from us,
there is an awakening in that moment. It can be a harsh awakening, true, a bit like throwing cold