Perfect Stranger Read online

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  A PERFECT STRANGER

  By

  Alice Duncan (writing as Anne Robins)

  Book #1 in the “Titanic” series.

  A Perfect Stranger

  Copyright © 2005 by Alice Duncan

  All rights reserved.

  Published 2005 by Kensington Corp.

  Zebra Books

  Smashwords edition March 15, 2010

  Visit aliceduncan.net

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Prologue

  April 14, 1912

  “Eunice! Mrs. Golightly!”

  Isabel Golightly recognized that voice, although she could scarcely credit her ears. “What the bloody hell . . .?” Holding on tightly to her daughter Eunice, she tried to see over the throng of pushing, shoving passengers. It was no use. She was too bloody short, and everyone was in a tearing panic.

  “I believe that’s Miss Linden, Mama,” Eunice said. Eunice, of all the people aboard the ship’s steerage-class deck, seemed calm. She would. A most unnatural child, Isabel’s daughter Eunice. And thank God for it, at least for now.

  “I know, sweets.” What’s more, Isabel couldn’t imagine what the rich and privileged young lady, Loretta Linden, was doing down below with the riff-raff at a time like this—or any other time, for that matter. Miss Linden belonged with her set, abovestairs among the other first-class passengers. Steerage-class and first-class passengers weren’t supposed to have anything to do with each other. The White Star Line’s rule booklet said so.

  That hadn’t mattered to Miss Loretta Linden, who had made Isabel and Eunice Golightly her business since the ship left Southampton. Isabel bitterly imagined that most of the first-class passengers were already in lifeboats. Not Miss Linden, who had been kind enough to come looking for Isabel and Eunice.

  This wretched ship was supposed to have taken Isabel and Eunice to a new life in America. It wasn’t supposed to end their old lives by sinking.

  “I think Miss Linden wants us to follow her,” Eunice pointed out.

  Isabel was having a fight of it to keep upright. The notion of her six-year-old daughter dying before she’d had a chance to live made Isabel’s entire body throb with grief, fear, and outrage. She wouldn’t let Eunice witness her despair. “Yes, dearie, but I don’t know where she is. I can’t see anything but backs and shoulders.”

  “I believe she’s over there, Mama.” Eunice pointed.

  Incredulous, Isabel realized Eunice was right. Loretta Linden, clinging with one hand to the service stairway railing, her wire-rimmed spectacles sliding down her nose and the lenses winking in the electrical lights that would probably go out any minute, was frantically waving a white handkerchief in their direction. Isabel ought to have trusted her daughter, who was smarter than any other five people Isabel knew, including herself and Eunice’s father, although, admittedly, that didn’t take much.

  “Yes, I see. But I don’t know how to get to her.” She was being squished at the moment, and finding it difficult to keep her footing. And if she fell, they’d both be trampled to death in the melee. It was impossible to aim herself in any particular direction. The water was up to her ankles now, too. Damned unsinkable ship. Like hell. She tried to look around and get her bearings, but encountered only a sea of shoulders and chests.

  Something bumped her hard from behind and in spite of everything, Isabel found herself shoved forward and to her left, toward the service stairwell.

  “Eunice!” Loretta screeched again. “Mrs. Golightly! Come here! We must get to a lifeboat!”

  Another shove, and Isabel landed on her bottom on the third step of the service stairs, Eunice plopping onto her lap with a grunt. Loretta reached down, grabbed Isabel by the arm, and yanked, nearly wrenching her shoulder from its socket.

  “Ow! Be careful!”

  “I think Miss Linden is trying to rescue us, Mama,” said Eunice, panting slightly.

  Isabel almost laughed as she stumbled up the stairs, realizing for the first time that Miss Loretta Linden, wealthy spinster, first-class passenger, and an American to boot, might just be saving the lives of Isabel and her daughter. She also didn’t understand why the rest of the steerage-class passengers hadn’t already stormed the service stairs but were, like sheep, trying to exit through the regular passenger corridor. She cast one last look back at the frantic mob and wondered, with a sharp pang, how many of her fellow passengers would drown that night.

  After what seemed like millions of stairs and many hours later, Miss Linden shoved a door open and stumbled out onto the tilted upper deck of Titanic. “Hurry, Mrs. Golightly. There’s a lifeboat being filled only feet away from us. I see it, and they look as if they’re going to lower it to the sea before it’s even filled!” She raced toward the lifeboat, flourishing a fist in the air. “Stop! Stop!”

  Isabel tried to hurry after her. She was exhausted, though, after carrying her daughter all the way up from steerage class, and her tiredness made her clumsy. Catching her foot in a coil of rope, she felt her ankle give way, and she screamed, “Eunice!” as she went sprawling. Terror claimed her when her daughter slipped from her grasp. “Eunice! Where are you!” Her daughter had disappeared into the milling throng. Isabel’s terror soared.

  “Here,” a deep masculine voice said. “Let me help you.”

  “No!” she shrieked, scrambling forward on her hands and knees. “I have to get my daughter!”

  “Go to the lifeboat, ma’am. I’ll carry your child.”

  “Where is she? Oh! Where is she?”

  “I have her, ma’am.”

  Feverishly peering into the multitude, trying to spot her daughter, Isabel beheld a large man standing before her. Miracle of miracles, he held Eunice in his arms.

  “I’m here, Mama,” Eunice said calmly.

  “Thank God.” Her whisper was ragged.

  “Hurry, ma’am. You need to get into the lifeboat.”

  Grabbing the man’s arm for fear of becoming separated from Eunice again, Isabel stumbled madly in the direction of the lifeboat. The man shoved others out of the way as he steered a straight path ahead. Thinking of Loretta, Isabel called out, “Miss Linden?”

  But Loretta had vanished. Isabel could only pray that she’d made her way into the lifeboat. Then she heard her voice, loud and commanding. “Don’t you dare lower this lifeboat until it’s filled! If you do, you’ll be guilty of murder!”

  A sailor grumbled, but Isabel imagined he would obey that imperious voice. Loretta Linden was only about five feet tall, but she possessed a positively massive presence. Isabel was grateful for it when they reached the lifeboat, which had been prevented from being lowered until filled by the tiny Miss Loretta Linden.

  The man holding Eunice said, “You get in first, ma’am. I’ll hand you your daughter.”

  She didn’t want to do it, afraid of being separated from Eunice forever. But she understood the sense of the stranger’s directive, so Isabel obediently climbed into the swaying craft. Instantly, she reached for Eunice. Only then did she see the face of the man who had saved their lives. She wasn’t surprised to observe that it was a good face, and a handsome one. “Thank you,” she said. “God bless you.”

  His smile was kind and full of perfect white teeth. “You’re very welcome, ma’am.” And he turned and shoved his
way back through the people fighting for seats on lifeboats.

  “Why doesn’t he get into our boat, Mama?” Eunice asked. She clung with a grip of iron to her mother’s hand.

  “He’s probably going to try to save others, Eunice. They load the women and children first.” A sob caught in her throat.

  “Mrs. Golightly! Eunice!”

  It was Loretta Linden’s voice, and Isabel actually managed to smile. She called out, “We’re here, Miss Linden!”

  “Thank God!” Loretta’s voice wavered, as if she were fighting tears.

  And then the sailors on deck swung a divot attached to the chain carrying their lifeboat over the side of the ship, and the boat began its swaying trip into the icy Atlantic.

  “Where’s that man?” Eunice cried. “He needs to get into the boat, too, Mama!”

  “I don’t know where he is, sweetheart.” She hadn’t even asked his name so that she could pray for him. The thought of that noble, brave man going down with the unsinkable Titanic was the last straw. In spite of her strength and her determination, Isabel Golightly burst into tears.

  Chapter One

  April 25, 1912

  “There are too many bodies for the rescue boats to carry, and they didn’t bring sufficient coffins. I fear many are being buried at sea.”

  Isabel, her left foot propped on a stool, looked up from the New York Times she’d been scanning and saw that Loretta Linden had entered the hotel room—and without a single squeaking hinge to announce her entrance. Money could even buy silence; how amazing.

  “They don’t have enough coffins?” Her heart squeezed, and her mind instantly pictured the wonderful man who had handed Eunice to her in the lifeboat. Had he died in that awful, freezing, black water? He and Loretta had saved their lives. And he’d probably perished for his kindness.

  “They’ve found several hundreds of bodies. I presume there were more than they expected. It’s difficult to take in the enormity of the tragedy. The casualty list keeps growing.” Loretta looked at her sadly as she took off her scarf and threw it on the sofa.

  Isabel was unused to people treating fine clothing and fine furniture in so cavalier a manner, but she held her tongue. She’d known from the cradle that the rich and the poor were different in every way.

  Loretta went on, “So far, they’ve only ascertained for certain that a few more than seven hundred of us survived. That means over fifteen hundred are gone.” She shook her head. “What a catastrophe.”

  “But why weren’t more saved?” Isabel asked, refusing to allow the lump in her throat to turn into tears. Her mind’s eye kept picturing Eunice’s savior. She didn’t want to think of him as one of those who had died. She couldn’t bear it.

  Marjorie MacTavish, who had entered the room after Loretta, frowned briefly at Loretta’s back, then picked up Loretta’s scarf and hung it and her own in the closet beside the front door of the suite. “Because they didna bring enough lifeboats,” she said, her burr more pronounced than usual. “It’s wicked, is what it is. I understand that Mr. Ismay was one of the survivors, too.” She gave a meaningful sniff, as if to say she believed someone more deserving ought to have been saved and Mr. Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, allowed to drown.

  Miss MacTavish, a Scottish lass and one steeped in the traditional class distinctions of her homeland, had been a stewardess aboard the R.M.S. Titanic. While she never said so aloud, Isabel sensed that she didn’t approve of Loretta consorting with Isabel and Eunice. Isabel didn’t, either, if it came to that, but she wasn’t going to offer herself as a sacrifice for anyone—save, perhaps, her daughter.

  Eunice, who had been drawing quietly at a table in the corner, stuck an oar in. “Why aren’t there rules about how many lifeboats are carried on ships? I think there should be enough lifeboats to save everyone in case a ship hits an iceberg. If Mr. Ismay was responsible, I think he ought to be persecuted.” Eunice’s little brow wrinkled. “Or do I mean prosecuted?”

  Isabel, who tried always to encourage her brilliant daughter in the conquest of the English language, smiled wanly and said, “Prosecuted, dearie.”

  Eunice nodded, pleased to have added another word to her vocabulary.

  Miss Linden and Marjorie had swiveled to stare at the girl. Unlike Isabel, they weren’t used to Eunice.

  “I think he should be persecuted,” muttered Marjorie.

  “I think you’re right, sweetie,” Eunice’s mother said, still fighting her lump.

  “You’re absolutely correct, Eunice,” Miss Linden said firmly. She had taken quite a shine to Isabel’s daughter, and Isabel appreciated her for it. “And I intend to write to our elected leaders about the matter.”

  “Aren’t Titanic and her sister ships British, Miss Linden?” Eunice asked. “Will your leaders be able to do anything about British boat-builders?”

  “No, but after this miserable event, they’d better pay attention to our own shipyards and do their utmost to avert future disasters of a like nature. Since most of the passengers were Americans, the British had better pay attention, too.”

  “Most third-class passengers, like us,” Eunice said in her piping, albeit matter-of-fact voice, “were Europeans headed to America in search of a better life.”

  “Yes. I suppose that’s true.” Miss Linden looked uncomfortable.

  Isabel knew why. It was because she was rich, and Isabel and Eunice, not to mention most of the people who had died, were poor. Isabel hadn’t known Loretta Linden long, but she’d already discovered that the young woman, who had been born into wealth, possessed a social conscience big enough to rival that of the fellow who had established the Salvation Army. There weren’t many people like her. Isabel wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not.

  After thinking over the matter for a few moments, Eunice nodded and turned her bright-eyed gaze upon her mother. “Why don’t you write to the Prime Minister, Mama? He ought to know about the Titanic, too.”

  “I’m sure he already knows about it, sweetie. They’re calling it the worst ocean-liner disaster in history.”

  “Well, I’m not going to write to anyone,” said Marjorie.

  “How come?”

  Although Eunice was only curious, Isabel winced inwardly. Marjorie MacTavish was extremely conventional, and not the sort to appreciate curiosity in children.

  The edges of Marjorie’s mouth turned down a little, but she only said, “I may go back to being a stewardess one day, and I don’t want any black marks against me.”

  “Would a letter be a black mark?” Eunice asked incredulously.

  Loretta sniffed. “The men who run things don’t like to hear women speak the truth, dear. It upsets their tidy little world.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly that way,” said Marjorie in a strained voice. Isabel felt rather sorry for the woman because she reminded her of an over-wound watch. Isabel feared she might blow up one day, and her mental gears fly off in all directions.

  Eunice, who had been following the conversation avidly, although Isabel wasn’t sure how much of it she understood, said, “Do men run things, Miss Linden?”

  “They do,” said Loretta firmly.

  “How come?”

  “Because they’re the oppressors of females, dear. It’s how they maintain their power.”

  Marjorie rolled her eyes.

  Eunice looked puzzled, but Isabel decided not to step in and explain. This was mainly because she wasn’t sure herself what Loretta was saying. Isabel’s life to date hadn’t had much room for political and social philosophy.

  “Did they run the Titanic?”

  “My goodness, yes!”

  “Well, then, they should get lots of letters telling them what happened. Especially about the lifeboats.” Eunice nodded, as if satisfied with her own opinion, and went back to her picture.

  Loretta offered Isabel a small, lopsided smile. “One can always trust the young to tell the truth. Before society’s rules get in their way and they learn to lie
.”

  Having had more experience with children than Loretta, Isabel might have contradicted her on that point, but she didn’t As strange as Isabel found Loretta Linden, still more did she like her, in spite of the differences between their nationalities and social positions. It was curious to her that she might consider a woman from the upper classes of society a friend, even if she was an American, but that’s exactly what Loretta seemed to be becoming. She was so bloody friendly. And she was so bloody honest.

  Blooming. She was blooming friendly and honest. For Eunice’s sake—and for Loretta’s—Isabel had vowed to clean up her language. She didn’t want Loretta ever to regret her generosity to the two of them. More, she didn’t want Eunice ever to be ashamed of her mother. Besides, if she managed to make a success of life here in America, she more than likely wouldn’t even want to swear anymore.

  At any rate, Loretta Linden was both friendly and honest, and Isabel liked her a lot, even if she did support approximately six thousand special causes. She was about to add another one, if her recent comments about letter-writing were anything by which to judge. And then there was her promotion of women’s rights and suffrage. Loretta was always talking about women’s suffrage.

  As if Isabel had the time or inclination to give a fig about women’s rights. She only wanted to figure out how to earn a living for herself and her daughter in this new country.

  She returned her attention to the New York Times she’d been looking through. The primary problem with securing employment now that she was in New York was that she didn’t understand the wording in the advertisements. Everything was so different here in America. She was accustomed to doing char work in England, which was abysmal labor, but respectable. She’d rather do something else, but she wasn’t sure what. It was inevitable, therefore, that she’d end up doing drudge work. What a depressing thought.