Chapter Nine

This time, there were more than enough children for Julia and Liam to play tag with, so Ruby and Penelope sat off to the side to watch.

Even though Penelope’s hands were occupied with her work, they kept itching to touch Ruby, whether to take her hand or caress her face or stroke her hair. Penelope only ever did a stitch every few minutes.

As she pulled her needle through, she said, “It’s lovely to see you so involved with your niece and brother.”

Ruby turned towards her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, here you are, looking after them. I’d say that it also speaks to your closeness with your sister that you’re minding her daughter whilst she’s around and able to do it herself.”

“She can’t.”

“Beg pardon?”

“She can’t look after Julia herself. Well, she can, but she gets tired a lot. And it doesn’t help that she’s also pregnant again.” Penelope’s shocked expression caused her to laugh. “You honestly didn’t notice?”

Penelope turned her gaze back to the children and watched them run around. She shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t really go around looking at people’s bellies all the time.” She shot a grin at Ruby. “But no, I did not notice that at all.”

“I often think it is so obvious. Though I suppose that’s because I know.”

Penelope pressed her fingertips into her stomach, feeling the edge of her corset. She lost herself to the sensation, tracing out the contours of the thick fabric. She took a deep breath in. “When is she due?”

“Not for another couple of months. They hope to make it back over before she gives birth. I don’t think either of them would be pleased with him being born in America.” Ruby’s lips quirked up at the corner, and she laughed gently. “And Daddy wouldn’t like that at all. He’d probably yell at Victoria to keep him in, should she go into labour.”

Penelope giggled, and for a brief moment, she wondered how her father would react to becoming a grandparent. Or her mother, for that matter. She almost felt as though they wouldn’t care. She knew that they hadn’t exactly wanted Penelope herself, so it seemed only natural that a grandchild would face the same indifference. It was just another thing that would take time away from them being husband and wife.

Not that they would ever have to worry about such a thing from her. Penelope loved children, but the act required to produce one was not something she wished to experience.

She turned her attention back to the matter at hand as she continued to work on her grandmother’s present. “So you help your sister out a lot, then? With Julia?”

Ruby nodded. “Yes. There’s not much else for me to do. And it seems like the decent thing to do, since they give me a home.”

Penelope cocked an eyebrow. “You live with them? Not with your father?”

“Daddy used to rent a little cottage by the estate where he serves. However, after Mother died from tuberculosis… Well, the last thing he wanted to do was be around such familiar trappings. He asked Victoria and Frank to take me and Liam in, and he moved back into a room at the house where His Grace stays.” Ruby fiddled with her fingers, nervously twisting them together, interlocking them only to release them a moment later. All Penelope wanted to do was entwine her hands with Ruby’s, just to settle her a little. But she knew it was too risky.

“That must be difficult,” Penelope whispered. She wondered how different her life would be if she didn’t always have to see her parents; if they weren’t there, constantly nagging at her, trying to get her to become someone she was not—to carry herself better, stop being so interested in education and politics, to be a good little woman to attract a rich little husband.

Don’t eat so much, sit up straight, a woman should never speak out of term. They tried to chip away everything that made her who she was, and mould her into something they thought acceptable.

“It is. I miss him so much.” Ruby drew a deep breath. “But I love being with my sister and my niece all the time. As does Liam. I think he’s the one who suffers most. He lost his mother at such a young age, and then his father just withdrew from his life. It’s like he’s an orphan.” Ruby’s eyes were locked on her younger brother, watching as he dove around the deck, giggling and screaming whenever another child got too close to him.

He was adept at moving out of the way, and in the hour or so that Penelope had been watching him, she didn’t think she had ever seen him get caught.

“He has you and Victoria. That’s something.”

Ruby only hmmed, so Penelope said no more, not wanting to pull her away from her thoughts. Whatever she was thinking and feeling didn’t last long, however, for a smile appeared on her face. “Enough about me, casting a gloom on the day.” She waved her hand. “Have you heard about First Class? How utterly over-the-top it is?”

Penelope shook her head. “No… What do you mean?”

“Well, the plan with Titanic has always been luxury. And they’ve gone overboard for First Class. There’s everything you could imagine—a gymnasium, fancy restaurants, a swimming pool! Turkish baths!”

“What on earth is a Turkish bath? And how do you even know all of this?”

Ruby laughed. “Well, a Turkish bath is a public area where people sit in a really hot room which makes them sweat, then they bathe in cold water, receive a massage, and sit in a cool room to relax.” Her smile turned wry as she noticed Penelope’s nose wrinkle. “As for how I know, Daddy told me. His Grace likes to boast a little, and so he was telling Daddy all of the things he was looking forwards to aboard the ship.”

“It must be really useful to be close to someone who knows a duke. I don’t think I would have ever learned about such a scandalous thing.” Penelope let out a laugh, feeling her heart soar when Ruby joined in.

“The best thing about the ship, however, is supposed to be the Grand Staircase,” Ruby said.

Penelope raised an eyebrow. “Wait. All of those amazing amenities, and yet the best thing is…a staircase?”

Ruby shuffled so close that the hems of their skirts brushed. Penelope was pretty sure she felt Ruby’s foot stroke her ankle. Her heart stammered, and her hold on her hoop loosened just a little. She cleared her throat as she set it in her lap so that it wouldn’t happen again and give her away.

“I know it sounds silly, but it’s an amazing piece of architecture, according to Daddy. It’s built from solid English oak, there’s a glass dome above it, and it has a chandelier in the centre. On the A Deck there’s supposed to be a stunning clock. It’s framed by angels…and they’re supposed to be…” Ruby trailed off again. Just when Penelope worried that she was never going to speak again, she snapped her fingers and exclaimed, “Glory and Honour! They’re supposed to be Glory and Honour placing a crown atop the clock, so they’re crowning Time! That’s what it’s supposed to be!”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this. Are you sure those are just things you’ve heard from your father?”

A pretty blush spread across Ruby’s cheeks, and she brought her chin down to her chest. “Well, perhaps I did a bit more reading in the library. I find it fascinating how something so utterly huge and heavy and so ornately lavish can float. How she is forty-six-thousand tons and cannot sink. That’s a wonder, is it not?”

“I can’t say I have ever thought about it much. However”—Penelope’s gaze shifted, and she watched the children run around—“That is…rather Father’s area of expertise. Mathematics and suchlike. I…tend to avoid such things when I can.”

Penelope rather loathed herself for that, because it was something that interested her.

How a ship like Titanic remained afloat. How they built the engines that powered her through the waves. But because she was a woman, she would never learn the answers. Any time she tried to ask her father, he would wave her off and tell her it didn’t concern her.

Once, when she’d tried to read one of his books, she’d been caught and had had to listen to a whole lecture about how mathematics and engineering weren’t suitable subjects for a woman.

She sighed, turning her gaze back to Ruby. “I would love to see that clock, however. Art is the one thing that my family don’t think out of place for a woman to know about. And the concept is rather interesting. ’Tis a shame that it’s always the upper class who receive such benefits, as if anyone lower than a baron doesn’t deserve the arts.” She cringed. “I can only imagine what Third Class facilities must be like.”

“I hear they’re adequate. White Star are trying to focus on luxury, so they’ve made Third Class rather comparable to Second Class on other liners.” Ruby leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Trust me. I fear you’ve been rather spoiled by your first trip. You won’t know what hit you if you set foot on a ship that isn’t part of the Olympic class.”

“Well, I’m certain this is the only ship I shall be on.” She took a deep breath to summon the courage to lift her gaze and meet Ruby’s head-on. “Thankfully, I’m sharing it with such wonderful company.”

Ruby’s eyelashes fluttered.

“Auntie Ruby!” Julia’s voice cut through the tension, and Penelope turned away as Ruby cleared her throat.

Julia blinked owlishly up at them. Her brown hair was in long ringlets, pulled out of her face with a pale-pink satin bow that was nearly the same size as her head. Her face was round and soft, and she wore an adorable dress of pink cotton trimmed with a great deal of frills and lace under her dark-green coat.

“What is it, dear?” Ruby asked as she straightened the lapels of Julia’s coat.

“Me and Liam are hungry,” she announced.

Penelope looked at the small watch that adorned her wrist and immediately darted to her feet. “Oh my, that can’t be right!” She turned her wrist so that Ruby could read the time, and watched as her pale, thick brows darted upwards.

“Well, my dear, you’re in luck because it’s luncheon,” Ruby said to Julia before she looked at Penelope.

Whilst Penelope had never been the best at understanding subtle social cues, she instinctively knew Ruby was asking her to dine with them. She nodded, watching as Ruby’s plump lips spread into a wide smile.

“Excellent! Then let’s go and find your mammy, and we’ll get you and your uncle fed.”

Just as they turned to walk away, a trio of young men came towards them.

The other two pushed one of them into Penelope and Ruby’s path. He had short, dark-blond hair that was slicked to the side, and a youthful face, making Penelope guess that he wasn’t much older than she. Judging from his clothes—plain, a little bit ill-fitting—and the callouses and scars on his hands, he was from Third Class.

Ruby immediately pushed Julia and Liam behind her back as her eyes warily danced over the man and then regarded his two friends off to the side. Penelope rather resented that her hands were occupied with her sewing box. Then again, if they tried anything, it was made of solid wood and would do some damage if knocked over their heads.

The man raised both his hands in a placating manner. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiled, his teeth crooked and yellow, but it lit up his face and made him look friendlier. “My friends and I just wanted to let you know there’s a little celebration in the Third Class common room tonight, on C Deck. A lot of us are heading to America for a new life, and anyway, we”—he glanced over his shoulder at his friends—“wanted to invite you both.”

One of his friends laughed. “Aye, you can’t have too many pretty ladies at a party.”

It was on the tip of Penelope’s tongue to immediately shut the idea down. She didn’t even want to think about the fallout with her parents if she went, but she noticed the way Ruby’s lips curved and stopped herself.

“That is sweet of you, gentlemen, thank you,” Ruby said. She then took hold of Julia’s and Liam’s hands and stepped around the first man. He frowned deeply, turning to watch her as she walked away.

Penelope swallowed as she followed Ruby.

“Are you going to marry that man?” Julia asked as soon as they were inside the lift and heading down to D Deck.

Her words startled a laugh from Ruby. “Why do you ask that?”

“He asked you to a ball! It’s like a fairy tale!” Her sweet, innocent words brought a smile to Penelope’s face.

“He hardly looked like a prince,” Liam announced, rolling his eyes at Julia, who in turn stuck her tongue out at him.

Ruby’s blue eyes met Penelope’s briefly before they flickered back down to her niece and brother. “Liam, be kinder, looks do not mean everything. And Julia, fairy tales are sweet and all, but that man was not my Prince Charming, for I won’t even be attending this ball. Now, come! Your mother is probably worried sick because we’re so late.”

Penelope tried her hardest to ignore the way her heart soared at hearing those words as they made their way to the dining room.