here, no. But if I were to travel with my family, I would.”
She was already undoing the clasp of the diamond watch pin that Claire had given her back in Resolution as thanks for helping her. She had offered to give it back to Davina, but the latter had only laughed and asked if she would like the earrings to match. The latter were in her ears at this moment, as a kind of security deposit against the future. “Take this. If you can get as far as Edmonton, you can exchange it for gold. It ought to get you wherever you’re going.”
“I can’t take this from you. Was it a gift?”
“It was. It used to belong to Lady Dunsmuir, and now I’m giving it to you.”
“Alice, this is worth several hundred pounds at least—these three diamonds are a carat apiece, and all these brilliants set around them amount to one more. I can’t take the most valuable thing you own.”
“The Lass is the most valuable thing I own. This is just something to put in my hair.” She put the pin in his palm and folded his fingers around it. “If this means you can be with Malina and the girls and me all at once, then it’s money well spent.”
His other hand covered hers. “Just when I believe there is no hope for human nature, I meet the refutation of that belief in my own daughter.”
“That’s a lot of twenty-five-cent words, Pa.”
“I believe in getting my money’s worth.”
“Will I see you again, really?”
“Look for me by the caribou moon.”
“How? I could be in Victoria by then. Or S byp>
“You forget the pigeons. I will send one with you on the Lass. Just release it when you moor somewhere for more than a day, and I’ll come.”
She could say no. She could drum up some righteous rage, and turn a cold shoulder and march out of this narrow little room doing double duty as a confessional. But what would that get her?
More of the same, that’s what. More tears, and more empty skies, and a lifetime of feeling as rootless and vulnerable as she had coming in here.
A caribou moon meant the end of one season … and the beginning of another.
Maybe she should open her eyes … and her heart.
“Alice?” He bent to look into her face. “Please don’t cry, sweetheart.”
But it was too late. She threw herself into his arms and bawled like the little girl she had once been.
Chapter 20
“’Scuse me, c’n I ’ave this dance?”
To Claire’s utter astonishment—and that of the young officer partnering her—Jake cut in and manfully attempted to steer her away from the young man and across the floor.
“One two free, one two free … Lady, we gots to rescue Alice. She an’ some gent did ’alf a waltz and then disappeared down that corridor there, behind them frondy things.”
“Those are palms. And Jake, there are occasions when a lady may be allowed some privacy.”
He made a disgusted sound and tripped. His recovery was quick, though, and her skirts disguised most of it. “It weren’t that way. ’E weren’t one of us, nor one of the Margrethe’s crew neither.”
“Describe him.”
When he was finished, Claire patted him with the hand that rested on his shoulder. “The ocular device confirms it. That is Frederick Chalmers, her father. They had words in the Esquimaux village. Perhaps he has come to repair their relationship.”
“P’raps. And p’raps we should make sure she’s all right, him bein’ a saboteur and all.”
“I am convinced he has been unjustly accused, but to set your mind at ease, we will join them.”
In seconds Jake had located which of the paneled doors along the short service corridor was the correct one, and Claire opened it, preparing a smile.
She found Alice in tears in Frederick Chalmers’s arms.
“Captain!” Jake sprang into the room. “All right?”
Alice lifted her head and snuffled like a child, whereupon her father byp>>
“I thought—”
“Jake was concerned,” Claire said smoothly, when Jake came to an abrupt halt. “Mr. Frederick Chalmers, may I introduce Alice’s navigator, Jake Fletcher.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Lady, but it’s McTavish,” the boy said slowly. “Snouts bade me keep it quiet from the others and use a different ’andle. I’m ’is brother. ’alf brother.”
“Jake McTavish,” she corrected herself, inclining her head in thanks for the information while wondering why on earth Snouts would require such a thing. “Mr. Chalmers, will you be joining us this evening?”
“No,” Alice said. She balled up the napkin and stuffed it down the front