A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Author:Sherry Thomas [Thomas, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Sunlight rained down from an aquamarine sky. The breeze was brisk, yet left a tantalizing hint of warmth on the skin. Stewards and stewardesses circulated about, serving jam biscuits and potato fritters to passengers on deck chairs. The dining saloon, too, had remained open after breakfast, with lemonade and hot cocoa on hand, and games of chess, backgammon, and dominos made available for the amusement of those who preferred to remain inside.

It was an artificial peacefulness, made possible only by the ignorance of the majority. But Charlotte enjoyed it nevertheless, the whooshing of wind in her ear, the slight bumps underfoot as the Provence cleared larger waves, the musing of a pair of civil servants as to whether their current latitude echoed that of Biarritz’s, or whether the ship had traveled farther south and was now parallel with the top of the Iberian Peninsula.

She enjoyed even more the sight of Mrs. Watson as the world’s kindest, most considerate interrogator. Charlotte, as Mrs. Ramsay, had just introduced Miss Fenwick to Frau Schmidt. The two, both women of a certain age, both not exactly servants yet not exactly equals of their household employers, quickly found much in common.

Charlotte herself had been expressly forbidden from questioning anyone directly on how they had entered the Kleins’ sphere. Mrs. Watson hadn’t, and she would perform the rule-breaking for Charlotte.

There was no telling what Inspector Brighton would unearth. Charlotte intended to discover the culprit as soon as possible—that should stop the murder investigation. But she also couldn’t abandon her original task. Her future plans depended on it.

And she had very little time. ’Til Gibraltar, at most.

At the center of the aft deck, Rupert Pennington, hale and happy once again, was at another game of deck quoits with Georg Bittner.

“They play well together,” observed Mrs. Watson from the starboard bulwark, where all three women stood.

“Yes, thank goodness,” agreed Frau Schmidt. Her attire was as appropriate as ever, but she’d tied a scarf printed with pink peonies around her hat, and the ends of the scarf fluttered prettily in the crosscurrent.

“The one you are escorting only temporarily—you say his father is in Port Said? I hope the parting will not be too difficult for the boys,” said Mrs. Watson.

Frau Schmidt, looking in the direction of Mr. Gregory’s window on the upper deck, answered belatedly, “Oh, the parting will be all right. I do hope young Herr Bittner and his father will get along—they’ve hardly ever set eyes on each other.”

She went on to recount the short and rather unhappy life of poor Georg Bittner, who had lost his mother at birth and had grown up alternately with relations of his Scottish mother and those of his German father. But now his father had at last decided that the boy ought to join him.

“They wanted a German-speaking governess, so that he would remember his German before he met his father. When I went to Edinburgh to get him, I thought I would have to teach a wee Highlander how to speak German.

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