a flood, or in a barrel of rusty nails. It’s better than so many things.”
“If you’re pleasant to me this evening, I may let you sleep on the divan in my sitting room,” she said.
“Or we could trade rooms,” Sebastian suggested.
“I don’t believe that will happen. Shall we watch the launch?”
“Won’t it be crowded out on the deck?” Sebastian asked. He knew how being in a crowd terrified her.
“Not on the top deck,” Juliana said. “Most passengers don’t have access.”
“Aren’t we traveling in high style?”
They watched from the railing of the upper deck as the steamship chugged away from the terminal. Most of the passengers were crowded on the level below them, leaning over the railing and waving good-bye to a matching crowd on the dock, friends and family seeing them off. There was a festive mood, like the beginning of a party.
She spotted Jonathan Barrett among the crowd on the land. Apparently, he hadn’t driven off at all. He stood with his arms crossed, smoking a cigar, standing apart from the rest of the crowd. Even from this distance, she could feel his dark eyes picking out her form on the upper deck, watching the stiff, salty wind tousle her white dress and dark hair. She looked back at him, and her heart beat at a faster tempo. He was dangerous to her, even at a distance.
Sebastian circled an arm around her waist and drew her close.
“You have a look in your eyes,” he said. “What are you looking at?”
She turned to face him, hoping he wouldn’t notice Barrett watching from the dock.
“It’s such a long way,” Juliana said. “Aren’t you scared?”
“I’m scared of sleeping in that little closet for nine nights.”
“Then you’d better enjoy your days, hadn’t you?”
“This one’s already looking much brighter.” He drew her close and gave her a long kiss, long enough to wipe out any thought of Jonathan Barrett until he was just a tiny shadow, lost over the horizon.
I feel nothing for Mr. Barrett, Juliana told herself. Nothing at all.
She and Sebastian explored the ship, which was filled with entertainments for the passengers. There was a tennis court, a restaurant, a lounge with a piano player and a singer. They amused themselves sitting on deck chairs and reading each other stories from the pulp magazines Sebastian had bought from a newsstand in Charleston. The magazines had lurid covers and names like Amazing Stories and Weird Tales, and they were filled with stories about aliens, ghosts, and detectives.
They ate steak with smoked mussels, accompanied by summer salad and a great deal of Spanish wine. In the lounge, they found themselves playing cards with a minor French diplomat on his way from New Orleans to France, accompanied by his strikingly attractive young mistress, a stage actress. Juliana tried to get them to talk about life in Paris, but he stubbornly returned to his favorite subject, horse breeding, which he discussed in long, graphic, and highly specific detail. When the music slowed, Juliana coaxed Sebastian into a dance, which continued for the next two songs.
Later, they walked the promenade deck, her arm tucked into his, with a billion stars glowing in the cloudless sky above. Their walk slowed considerably after they turned a corner and found themselves alone on a stretch of the deck. Jenny looked up at the stars. Rain was starting to fall, but it was warm, and neither of them ran for shelter.
“Do you think there’s life out there, like in Amazing Stories?” she asked him.
“You mean three-eyed monsters with blue tentacles who fly around in metal bubbles and shoot rayguns?” Sebastian asked, referring to a story they’d read earlier.
“Just any life at all. It looks so dark and cold. And lonely.”
“My mother told me that the stars were all alive. She said they were angels watching over us.”
Juliana smiled. “Imagine something that’s alive, but made entirely of light. Or darkness.” She looked down at her hands, imagining the demon plague inside her, which she always pictured as a swarm of tiny, poisonous black flies.
“Beats the three-eyed tentacle alien,” Sebastian said.
She looked up at him and traced her fingertip along his cheekbone. “Maybe there really are angels. How else could I have been fortunate enough to find you?”
“You make a good point,” Sebastian told her. “I’m a pretty good find.”
Juliana looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Walk me to my room.”
They walked quietly down the passenger corridor. He opened the door to his narrow closet.
“Have a good night,” he told