Page 65 of Murder on the SS Leviathan
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The sun was setting as they approached the port of Rio de Janiero, the ocean glowing beneath a rose-gold streaked sky. The sea had brought them here. Whipped by the wind and pulled by the tides, crescents breaking and reforming, it had sent them to this moment.
A lifetime ago, Cecile had stood at this same rail with Lucrezia, looking down at the crowds gathered upon the Lisbon dock. She’d spied Lance by his golden curls, but she’d had no notion, then, of how events would bring them together.
From this same rail, she and he cast the box of mementoes, retrieved from the bowels of the ship. Some truths were better kept hidden, and pain let lie. Only the photograph did Cecile keep, for she’d no others of Lucrezia, and she would want, she knew, to look upon that face and remember.
As to the rest, she and Lance agreed: the man who’d committed the murders upon theSS Leviathanwas a poor soul led by a tormented nature, and the sea had put an end to his crimes. To Henry and Maud, she revealed that Serpico had blamed Lucrezia for the fire which claimed his master’s life. The rest of their party had merely become caught up in his madness.
Three days ago, she and Lance had promised to love one another always, and to give all that they were, to be patient, and to be kind, in sickness and in health.
Captain Rocha had presided, witnessed by Henry and Maud and the Misses Arbuthnot. Afterward, Cecile had cast her bouquet into the white spray of the waves, sending a portion of her love to one whose journey had ended there.
What the future held, Cecile couldn’t say but through the adventures to come, Lance would be her protector, her lover, her friend—and she would be his.
The part of herself which sought connection and love was found.
