Today's Reading

CHAPTER ONE

1880, The SS Aquitania, not far off the coast of New York

'You did what?'

The fine china cup with the SS Aquitania's emblem embossed in gold slipped from Max Cavendish's hand, bounced off the carpet, and rolled back towards his shoe like a well-behaved puppy come to heel.

Across the table, his Uncle Septimus Cavendish lowered the edge of his newspaper and smiled, pressing his gold-rimmed reading glasses back up his hawkish nose.

'I said—I hired Mina Davenport to act as Eliza Serena's companion on the way back to England. Polish her a little, help her through all the hullabaloo.'

'Mina Davenport. As in Lady Wilhelmina Davenport,' Max clarified, hoping he'd misheard.

'I don't know of any other. Peter's Mina.'

Peter's Mina.

'You're mad.'

'Nonsense. Makes perfect sense. My La Serena could be the greatest success on stage since Madame Vestris and Adelina Patti. It's not only her vocal skills, a dozen singers have that, it's the emotion. Makes you believe in heartbreak.' The pages rustled as Septimus folded the newspaper and leaned forward, his face alight. 'I'm planning to put on that poor fellow Bizet's Carmen. London is yearning for something different, something on a grand scale. And Eliza has the voice for that—she can make you believe a twenty-year-old slip is a hardened streetwalker.'
 
He heaved a sigh and went across the state room to the upright piano in the corner, running his fingers over the keys in a bright arpeggio. 'Problem is, off the boards she's still wet behind the ears. The damned wolves in London will strip her bones and use them for toothpicks. Carmen is a woman on a grand scale. Can't have Eliza blushing and stuttering every time a countess deigns to address her. She needs poise. Aplomb. Needs to look down her nose at people when they cross a line. Mina could do all that in her sleep.'

Max ignored nine parts out of ten of his uncle's speech. Partly out of long practice and partly because only one aspect of it struck him as utterly, outrageously wrong.

'That is the worst idea you have yet concocted, and you have had quite a few, Sep.'

Septimus frowned and closed the piano lid.

'Not that many. I would say no more than four out of ten, and as you well know those are fair odds. Not every business deal you've brokered has been a success.'

'No, but believe me, I never knowingly walked into a lion's den with raw chops hanging around my neck.'

'Not a very pleasing image,' Septimus considered judiciously.

'Slightly more pleasing than the image of Peter coming face-to-face with the woman who broke his heart ten years ago. We're talking about your nephew whose wife died barely a year ago, Sep. Bringing Mina Davenport back to London, and now of all times...' He broke off, jerkily rising to his feet. 'This is a hell of a way to treat your favourite nephew.'

Septimus smiled a little as he poured himself the remains of the coffee. 'I don't choose favourites, Max, my boy. I love you all.'

'You have a damned strange way of showing it, then.'

'Peter is a grown man, with two lovely children. He can fend for himself. Besides, I hired Mina to act as a companion to Eliza in London, and Peter is with the children at Fairweather. There is no reason for them to even meet.'

'Do you mean to say it is done? She is actually aboard the Aquitania now?'

'Why, of course. She has a berth in Eliza's state rooms. There would hardly be a point to hire her and not bring her with my new investment to... er, pump some bravado into her.'
 
'Well, Mina Davenport certainly has that in spades,' Max retorted as he continued pacing the confines of his private parlour. He loved ships, but sometimes they felt too much like a cage, dredging up unwanted memories. He slowed his pacing, his breathing, and concentrated on the pattern of the carpet, following lines, isolating shapes. It had taken years of practice, but it usually worked quite well. Not so well today. He went to retrieve his cup from the floor and pressed the steward's bell. He needed more coffee.

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