Read Chapter 7: The Steward's Lie

The third-class dining hall was a cavern of noise and steam. Tin plates clattered against scarred wooden tables, children shrieked between mouthfuls of stew, and somewhere near the galley door a man was arguing about the quality of the mutton in a thick Cork accent. Evelyn had never set foot below the waterline on any of her crossings. The air hung thick with cabbage and unwashed wool, and she found herself pressing her handkerchief to her nose before she caught herself and stopped. Julian moved beside her without hesitation, his shoulders squared as if he belonged here, as if the cramped benches and sawdust floor were as familiar as any first-class lounge.

"There," he said, nodding toward a corner table where two young women in shawls hunched over bowls of soup. "Those are the ones who sat with her at breakfast. The redhead and the one with the scarred hand."

Evelyn studied them. The redhead was laughing at something, her spoon waving in the air. The other woman—older, with a lined face and a thumb that bent at an odd angle—listened with quiet attention. "Margaret wasn't with them when they came in?"

"No. And she's not in the queue, either." Julian's eyes swept the room once more, settling on a door at the far end marked CREW ONLY. "I counted the women at the benches. Forty-one. There should be forty-two if she's here."

"Perhaps she's taken ill." Evelyn started toward the table. "Her friends will know."

But before she'd crossed three paces, a steward cut into her path. He was a thin man with a blotchy complexion and a steward's cap pulled low over his brow, and he moved with the exaggerated courtesy of someone who'd been told to be polite to first-class passengers and resented every word of it.

"Begging your pardon, miss," he said, his accent flattening the words to a nasal drone. "You're not meant to be down here. Ladies from First Class—there's a separate entrance for visiting the lower decks, if you've business with any of the steerage folk."

"I'm looking for a passenger," Evelyn said. "Margaret O'Leary. She was at breakfast this morning and I promised to bring her a book from the library. A small courtesy." She produced her most winning smile, the one that had charmed headwaiters and customs officials from Cherbourg to New York. "I won't be a moment."

The steward's expression flickered. "O'Leary. The old widow." He shook his head with what seemed like genuine sorrow. "She's taken ill, miss. Got a fever this morning, right after breakfast. The ship's surgeon's looked her over. She's resting and shouldn't be disturbed."

Evelyn's smile faltered. "A fever? So soon after she seemed perfectly well at breakfast?"

"These things come on quick, miss. Specially at her age." The steward's hands were clasped in front of him, and she noticed his fingers working against each other, twisting a ring that didn't fit. "Doctor's orders. No visitors. I'd tell you to come back tomorrow, but—" He stopped himself, as if he'd nearly said something he shouldn't.

"But tomorrow we'll be in New York," Evelyn finished for him. "And she'll be off to wherever she's going, and I'll have missed my chance to return her locket."

The steward's eyes sharpened. "Locket?"

Julian stepped forward, smoothly inserting himself into the conversation with the easy charm of a man who'd talked his way past a dozen such barriers. "Miss Ashworth is being modest. She found a piece of jewelry that belongs to the lady and simply wishes to return it. A matter of conscience, really. Surely an exception could be made—just a minute at the door to her berth, no further."

The steward's jaw tightened. His gaze flicked between them, and for a moment Evelyn saw something beneath the surface of his servile manner—a calculation, a weighing of risks. "I'm sorry, sir. The surgeon was most particular. Mrs. O'Leary is not to be disturbed until we reach New York. Those are my orders."

"Whose orders?" Julian asked. His tone was light, but Evelyn caught the edge beneath it. "The surgeon's? Or someone else's?"

The steward's face went red. "I don't know what you're implying, sir. I'm just doing my job. Now, if you'll excuse me—" He turned and walked away, his pace just short of a retreat.

Julian watched him go, his eyes narrowed. "He's lying."

"You're certain?"

"He didn't blink when he mentioned the fever. But when you brought up the locket, his hands went still. That's a tell. He's afraid of something, and it isn't a sick old woman in a berth."

Evelyn turned to watch the steward weave through the crowded tables. He was heading toward the crew door at the far end, his shoulders hunched. As he reached it, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope—cream-colored, unmistakably first-class stationery—and slipped it inside his coat with a furtive glance around the room.

"Did you see that?" she breathed.

"An envelope," Julian said slowly. "Addressed to whom?"

"I couldn't see. But he was careful with it. Too careful."

Evelyn's mind raced. Margaret fell ill after breakfast—the same morning they'd confronted Lord Ashworth in the smoking room. The same morning Julian's identity had been threatened. She thought of the blank passenger list Julian had pocketed from the purser's office, the careful construction of false names and borrowed tickets that kept his presence here a secret.

"Someone's moved her," she said. "Not because she's sick. Because they don't want us to find her."

Julian's jaw tightened. "Or because someone else has found her first."

The question hung between them, unspoken: who else would care about an old Irish widow in third class, a woman with nothing to her name but the clothes on her back and a locket with her dead son's picture inside? Unless it wasn't Margaret they were after. Unless it was whoever had paid for her ticket—the anonymous benefactor whose name appeared nowhere on the manifest.

"We need to see that envelope," Evelyn said.

"Agreed." Julian was already moving, weaving through the crowd toward the crew door. "But we do it carefully. If Fleet is working for someone, we need to know who—and what they've done with her."

Evelyn followed, her heart hammering against her ribs. The dining hall's noise faded behind them as they pushed through the crew door into a narrow, dimly lit corridor. The steward was nowhere in sight.

"He could be anywhere by now," she whispered.

"No." Julian's eyes were fixed on the floor. "Look."

Fresh boot prints in the sawdust led away from the door, heading left. Near them, a faint smudge of cream-colored paper—a corner torn from the envelope, snagged on a nail in the wall.

Julian bent and picked it up. The fragment was small, barely an inch across, but enough to show a single word in flowing script: *Ashworth*.

Evelyn's blood went cold.

"That's my name," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Julian straightened, the paper scrap pinched between his fingers. "Or your father's."

The corridor seemed to darken around them. Somewhere above, a bell rang for luncheon, its cheerful chime a world away from the cold dread pooling in Evelyn's stomach. She thought of Lord Ashworth's face in the smoking room, his threat to check with the purser. She thought of Margaret O'Leary's faded eyes and the locket warm in her pocket.

"Then we're not just racing the iceberg," she said. "We're racing my father."