“My father was a great philanderer who gave innumerable bouquets in his lifetime. I view flowers as false gifts. I would not give you flowers.”

“But you did. You sent a huge vase of them to my suite at the New Netherlands Hotel.”

His confusion did not last long. “I see what must have happened. I did order some flowers sent, to a woman whose acquaintance I did not wish to further. But I gave that task and the map you dropped to the same hotel attendant—so your map went to her and her flowers came to you.”

The baroness did not reply.

“Have I offended you by not sending the flowers?”

She laughed, a dry, rueful sound. “Quite the contrary. You offended me deeply when I thought you had sent the flowers. I did not like such a bald expression of interest.”

“A huge vase of flowers, you said?”

“Enormous. Pushy. And rather ghastly.”

“I am doubly amazed now that you changed your mind.”

She was silent for a while. “This wind is quite defeating me. Shall we go into one of the lounges?”


The flowers had tipped her from rage into action.

Had they not been delivered when she’d returned to her suite two nights ago, she’d have continued to stew in her fury, imagining his head on a platter, but she would not have set them on a collision course.

And now to find out that the flowers hadn’t been for her. At all.

Did that still make him a hypocrite, condemning her and wanting her at the same time? Or had he only been stupid, sharing in public opinions that were better kept private?

The heated lounge was a shock of warmth after the damp cold of the promenade deck. She untied her veil—the air was becoming too still inside. He led her to a table at the corner, between two potted fronds.

“You are very quiet,” he observed.

“I’m a little distracted.”

“A terrible thing to say to your lover, who is letting nothing distract him from you.”

Her heart thumped at the word lover. “What would you have done had I bought a ticket on a different steamer?”

“I would have had a much less enjoyable crossing.”

“There are many other ladies aboard.”

“They don’t interest me as you do.”

“How can you say that? You know nothing about them.”

He turned and looked around the room. “Other than you, there are eleven women in this lounge, two are old enough to be my grandmother, three more old enough to be my mother, and one is barely fifteen, if that. Of the other five, one is recently engaged—she keeps looking at her ring while she writes her letter. The one in the pink frock is thinking only of chocolate—I can see her trying to sneak a piece from the secret stash in her pocket. The one in the redingote is rude to waiters—she sat not too far from me at dinner last night. The one in yellow, Redingote’s sister, dissects every lady’s dress down to the last detail—see, she is whispering to Redingote now, probably about your dress. And the woman in brown is a lady’s companion who does not want to be a lady’s companion anymore. But she is very practical. She does not take note of me because I have you by my side; she is looking for a lonely, unattached gentleman who might overlook her humble origins and make her his wife.”

He turned back toward her. “See, they don’t interest me as you do.”

The veil obscured the color of his eyes, but there was no mistaking the pleasure in his countenance as he looked upon her. Her pulse turned erratic—more erratic, that was. She had yet to know a steady heartbeat in his presence.

Belatedly it occurred to her that he was a great deal more observant than she’d given him credit for. And with that realization came a frisson of alarm. “What do you know about me?”

“You probably married quite young. Your husband exerted tremendous influence over you—because you loved him very much, because he was a good few years older than you, possibly both. Even to this day you still haven’t quite escaped the shadow he cast. But you do not think of your solitude as a sign that you remain bound to him. If anything, you have been glad to be alone—and safe.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. He ought not to know this much about her. “I probably should have remained alone. I’m not sure I am safe with you.”

“Tell me what you think of the men in this room.”

She glanced at him, not sure what he wanted.

“Humor me,” he said.

Other than him, there were only three other men. “One of them is glancing toward the girl who loves chocolate with exasperation. He is most likely her brother. Perhaps their mother is suffering from seasickness and he is forced to play chaperone. The young man who is actually talking to our chocolate lover reminds me a little of my brother: He has that aura of dutifulness to him—someone who takes his responsibilities seriously. I’d say Our Girl of the Hidden Chocolate and her brother have been ordered here by their mother to make a good impression on Responsible Young Man. Except Responsible Young Man is distracted. He keeps looking toward one of the women old enough to be your mother—and who might in fact be his mother.

“That woman is speaking to a man in his thirties. And I can see why Responsible Young Man might be wary. He taps his foot incessantly and blinks too much. His smiles don’t quite reach his eyes. And his accent shifts: He is trying to pass himself off as an English gentleman, but I can hear traces of American vowels, especially in the diphthongs.”

“Aha,” said Lexington, evidently satisfied.

“What does that mean?”

“You said last night that you mistrust your ability to judge a man. My dear, you can judge a man just fine.”

She fidgeted. She was not used to being complimented on her abilities.

“Being an astute judge of man, have you witnessed anything in my character or conduct that would lead you to conclude you won’t be safe with me?”

“No,” she had to admit.

“In that case, would you allow me to offer you a cup of hot cocoa in my rooms?”

“It would be very messy, drinking hot cocoa with this veil on.”

“I’ll blindfold myself. You can take off the veil.”

“That is a very kind offer, but going into your rooms, sir, would encourage you when I have no intention of doing so.”

“How can I change your mind?”

“I don’t plan to change my mind.”

“There must be something I can do. Or give.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Do you think my favors can be purchased?”

“The point is not to purchase your favors, but to prove my sincerity. The knights-errant of old went on their impossible quests to prove that they were worthy of serving their lady. I will do the same here. Name something—anything—and I will find it for you.”

“On the Rhodesia?”

“She is a great ocean liner carrying a thousand passengers, if not more. Chances are, whatever you want, someone has it, or a close enough approximation of it.”

But if the duke woos me with a monster of a fossil, who knows how I might reward him.

She ought not. He was right. No matter how rare or exceptional an object, there was a chance that someone on board might have it.

“You are a naturalist,” she heard herself say.

“How do you know?”

She swore inwardly: They’d never discussed why he’d been away from England. “I saw the books in your room; I inferred.”

“Mysterious and sharp.” He smiled at her.

Perhaps he’d smiled at her before, but never in the light, with her looking directly at him. The transformation was astonishing. Gone was the last vestige of the iceberg. In its place, the tropics, all warmth and graciousness.

Her heart stuttered, to her chagrin. Was it not enough that he had already turned her plan on its head?

“Now how is it significant that I am a naturalist?” he asked.

She was almost absolutely certain neither he nor anyone else aboard had access to what she had in mind, yet she felt a sting of nerves in her soles. “I want a dinosaur skeleton.”

He raised a brow. “You jest.”

“Not at all. Do you have one?”

“No, I don’t. My specialty is not Dinosauria.”

Her disappointment was disorientingly fierce. She did want to go to the duke’s rooms, she now realized. But she wanted her decision to be made for her, for the Fates to compel her action.

“I do, however, have something that might pass as a suitable equivalent.”

She shouldn’t let him do this to her—dashing her barely understood hopes one second and reviving them the next. Especially now that she knew she shouldn’t be entertaining such hopes in the first place. “I don’t want to see the remains of little amphibians or trilobites.”

“Nothing of the sort.” He rose. “Come by my suite in an hour, will you? I will have it ready for you.”

“If it is less than magnificent, I shall turn around and walk out of the door.”

He smiled down at her. “And if it is everything I promised, what will you do?”

That smile was going to be her undoing. “I might stay and admire it for a while. But you still should not expect anything else.”

“I don’t expect. But I always go after what I want.”

She wanted him to. Fate or him, as long as someone took the decision out of her hands. “I should like to see you do that blindfolded,” she said, as haughtily as she could.

“Then I will make you come to me. Now if you will excuse me—I must see to the removal of a heavy object from the cargo hold.”


Christian had anticipated difficulties, but the bribe had proved even more uncooperative than he’d thought. By the time it was set down in his room and uncrated, more than an hour had passed. However, thanks to the baroness’s practice of being fifteen minutes late, the stewards had just enough time to take away the crate and sweep up the clumps of straw that had scattered on the carpet.