Read Chapter 15: Rumors and Reversals

The kitchen was a storm of white aprons and shouted orders. Plates clattered, steam hissed from silver tureens, and somewhere a chef was bellowing about a ruined béarnaise. Jack pressed his back against the swinging door that led to the second-class dining saloon, Margaret close at his side, her hand gripping his sleeve.

“You heard what that steward said?” she whispered. “About the mail room?”

Jack nodded. “Water in the forward compartments. They’re saying it’s bad.”

“They’re saying the band is playing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ on the boat deck, and it’s not even midnight.”

That one stung. Jack had heard that tune whistled by deckhands in Southampton, always as a joke. Nobody was joking now.

Before he could answer, the door burst open and a pastry chef stumbled through, white-faced, clutching a tray of uneaten éclairs as if they might save him. “She’s listing,” he said to no one. “I felt her list.”

The kitchen erupted. Orders dissolved into panic. A line cook dropped a stockpot, and hot liquid splashed across the floor. Jack grabbed Margaret’s wrist and yanked her through the swinging door into the dining saloon.

The room was half-empty, but the diners still seated had abandoned all pretense of dinner. A woman in sapphire silk was weeping into her champagne glass. A bald man with a walrus mustache was arguing with a steward, jabbing a finger toward the door. And at the center table, flanked by two beefy attendants, sat Vance.

He rose the moment Jack entered.

“There he is.” Vance’s voice cut through the murmur like a blade. “The thief.”

Every head turned. Jack felt the weight of thirty pairs of eyes land on him, felt Margaret’s hand tighten on his arm.

“I beg your pardon?” Jack kept his voice light, but his throat had gone dry. He could feel the shape of the notebook against his ribs, the key-locket cold against his chest.

Vance gestured to his attendants, who began moving toward Jack with the lazy confidence of men who had done this before. “Don’t play the innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about. The Meissen figurine. The one from my stateroom.” He turned to the room, addressing the crowd like a barrister before a jury. “A priceless eighteenth-century piece. A family heirloom. And this man—this *passenger*—was seen near my quarters not an hour ago.”

“I was never near your quarters,” Jack said. It was true. He hadn’t needed to go near them—not yet.

“Then you won’t mind if my men search you.”

The attendants reached for him. Jack sidestepped, but the room was tight, and a chair leg caught the back of his knee. He stumbled. One of the attendants grabbed his collar and hauled him upright, patting down his coat with practiced hands.

They found the notebook.

The attendant held it up, the cheap cardboard cover and dog-eared pages a contrast to the room’s linen and crystal. “What’s this, then?”

Vance’s eyes glittered. He crossed the room, took the notebook, and flipped it open. His face performed surprise poorly. “A ledger. Passenger names.” He looked up at Jack. “My stolen list. The one I was bringing to Mr. Morgan’s auction house.”

The room gasped. A woman in the corner fanned herself.

Jack’s mind raced. The list was decoded—he’d memorized the key names. But the notebook he’d taken from Anna’s cabin, the one with the names matching his decoded list—Vance was claiming it as his own stolen property. The accusation was absurd, a lie so bold Jack almost laughed. But the crowd didn’t know it was a lie. And Vance had planted the seed perfectly: a known pickpocket caught with a stolen ledger at a sinking ship. It didn’t need to hold up in court. It only needed to hold up long enough for Vance to get the ledger back and for Jack to be carted off to the brig—or worse, thrown out of first class entirely, left to drown in steerage with the rats.

“That notebook came from Anna Jackson’s cabin,” Jack said, keeping his voice steady. “The lady who disappeared two days ago. Your courier.”

Vance’s smile didn’t waver. “Anna Jackson was my assistant’s niece. She wasn’t a courier. She was a seamstress.” He looked around the room. “The man is desperate. He’ll say anything to weasel out of justice.”

Jack saw the trap now. Vance wasn’t just trying to frame him. He was trying to *erase* Anna—to turn her into a nobody, a loose thread he could snip. If Jack was discredited, every claim about Anna, the key, the list became the ravings of a caught thief. The real list vanished into Vance’s pocket. The diamonds stayed in the forward hold. And Margaret’s friend became nothing more than a rumor.

Margaret stepped forward. Her voice was steel. “Mr. Vance. I am Margaret Hayes, of the Boston Hayes family. I was with Mr. O’Leary in your presence this evening, before the collision. We were together in the second-class lounge when you approached him.”

Vance’s smile tightened. “My dear, I’m sure you believe that. But the accusation stands. The man was seen near my stateroom by my valet.”

“Your valet is a liar,” Margaret said flatly.

The room went quiet. Vance’s attendants exchanged a glance.

“In fact,” Margaret continued, “I believe the only reason you’re making this spectacle is to distract from the cargo you’ve hidden in the forward hold. Unmanifested crates, loaded at Southampton. I’ve seen the paperwork.”

Jack’s blood went cold. She was improvising—they had no paperwork. But the bluster was effective. Vance’s composure cracked, just a fraction.

“You will watch your tongue, young lady,” Vance said, his voice dropping to a growl. “Your family’s name won’t protect you from a slander suit.”

“My family’s name will protect me from a great deal more than you, Mr. Vance.” Margaret turned to the room. “Does anyone here know where the lifeboats are being loaded? Because I was told the mail room is already flooded, and I’d rather not spend my last hour debating porcelain figurines with a man who’s about to lose his cargo to the Atlantic.”

That did it. The spell broke. Chairs scraped as people scrambled to their feet, surging toward the exits. A steward shouted about boat deck assignments. The woman in sapphire silk shrieked and knocked over a vase of roses.

In the chaos, Jack grabbed Margaret’s hand and pulled her toward the pantry door, away from the main exit where Moran’s stewards would surely be patrolling.

They burst into the corridor, nearly colliding with a steward carrying a lifebelt.

“Boat deck’s full, sir,” the steward said, breathless. “They’re loading number ten on the starboard side. Women and children first.”

Jack nodded and pushed past him, dragging Margaret down the service stairs.

“You just accused Vance of smuggling in front of forty witnesses,” Jack said, his voice low. “He’ll kill you for that.”

“He’ll have to find me first,” Margaret said. “And he won’t. Because we’re going to his stateroom.”

Jack stopped. “You want to go to his stateroom? Now?”

“He’s in the dining saloon, making a scene about a figurine to cover the fact that he’s panicking about the list.” Margaret’s eyes were bright, fierce. “His stateroom is empty. His valet is probably on the boat deck, saving his own skin. If there’s a letter, a map, a plan—it’s there. And we have maybe twenty minutes before Moran’s deadline, the water reaches the boiler room, or Vance comes back to collect his belongings.”

Jack stared at her. She was trembling, but it was determination, not fear.

“You’re mad,” he said.

“I’m a Hayes. We don’t run.” She grabbed his hand again. “His stateroom’s on C-Deck, port side. I memorized the passenger manifest.”

The ship groaned beneath them—a low, metallic sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once. The deck tilted, just slightly. Jack felt it in his knees.

“All right,” he said. “But if we’re doing this, we need to hurry.”

They ran. Behind them, somewhere above, Jack heard the distant crack of a lifeboat’s davits releasing—followed by a splash that was too hollow, too wrong. A boat had gone down empty, or overloaded, or both.

The ship was dying beneath their feet, and Jack had never felt more alive.