A Subtle Murder by Blythe Baker

Author:Blythe Baker [Baker, Blythe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

11

I rose before the sun, moving around my cabin as quietly as possible so as not to wake Mr. or Mrs. Worthing. Though our individual rooms were separated by a sitting room, the couple were the lightest sleepers I’d ever met. If I so much as sneezed in the night, Mrs. Worthing would be knocking on my door, inquiring whether the onboard doctor should be notified.

The corridor lights were still dim—they wouldn’t be switched to full brightness for another hour—and I kept a careful eye on Achilles Prideaux’s cabin door as I passed, expecting him to leap out at me any moment. He didn’t, of course, and I made it to the deck without seeing another soul.

The cold morning air sliced through my clothes with ease. I’d been expecting a chill, as the Captain had told Mr. Worthing the day before that a Northern wind would move in any day now, but my knitted wool cape did little to protect me. There had been almost no need for a heavy coat in India, and the few I did have were left behind, too large to fit into a steamer trunk. I grabbed the edges of my cape and pulled it tighter around my shoulders. I had on stockings, a navy pleated skirt, white gloves, and a sheer white blouse, but suddenly I was thinking fondly of the ‘W’ sweater Mrs. Worthing had allowed me to borrow the day before.

I began to question whether Lady Dixon and Jane really would have braved the cold to maintain their routine of a pre-breakfast stroll. Lady Dixon liked to keep a rather tight schedule, but the tip of my nose felt as though it would freeze and break off, so certainly they would have stuck to the interior of the ship. However, no sooner had the thought crossed my mind, than I saw the two women rounding the front corner of the ship and heading towards me. They were still so far away that I wouldn’t have normally been able to recognize them from such a distance, but Lady Dixon’s birdlike silhouette, along with Jane’s small frame hunched against the cold, gave them away.

Lady Dixon wore a deep pile black coat with fur wrapped around the collar and cuffs. She paired this with a matching headwrap. Jane had a green wool coat. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets, and her bare head was bent down in search of solace from the wind.

I couldn’t understand Jane’s devotion to Lady Dixon. She was under Lady Dixon’s care, I knew, but that didn’t explain the fierce loyalty. Especially since the old woman treated the girl scarcely better than a servant. I’d tried to offer Jane several opportunities to, if not rebel, then at least vent about the old woman, but she’d refused me at each turn. For myself, my loyalty would wane the moment I was forced to take a pre-dawn walk during a wind storm.

I could tell by the squishing of her forehead that

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