Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [120]
Before she had left Annie had dragged her, protesting, to the smart Paris House store in San Francisco. “You can’t travel halfway around the world without a decent cloth suit and half a dozen evening dresses,” she had warned. And tonight as she dressed for dinner in a simple dark-green panne-velvet dress, she was grateful. She piled her hair up in a loose chignon, added a pair of jeweled combs and a dab of jasmine scent at her throat and wrists.
She twisted the narrow gold band nervously on her wedding finger; she had decided for Ollie’s sake it would be better to be known as Mrs. Harrison, a widow, and after all, Annie had said encouragingly, it wasn’t exactly a lie, she and Josh would have been married had he lived.
But it wasn’t Josh she was thinking of as she made her way along the blue-carpeted corridors of the S.S. Orient to the dining saloon. The head waiter escorted her to the purser’s table and she smiled good evening to her fellow passengers as she took her seat. She looked for Edward Stratton and saw him at the captain’s table looking very handsome in a black velvet smoking jacket; she blushed as their eyes met and he smiled and nodded.
She made her way straight back to her cabin after dinner, clutching the brass rail along the companionways as the ship rolled in the Pacific swell. The scent of Ollie’s lilies filled her cabin as she lay in bed later, thinking of Edward Stratton and the long voyage ahead, and hardly thinking at all of Hong Kong and Lai Tsin, who would be waiting for her there, and the business she had to take care of.
The next morning after breakfast in bed she went for a brisk walk around the upper deck. The ship rolled in the long gray swell that stretched into infinity and the wind tugged at her hat and took her breath away.
Edward Stratton watched her, an amused little smile on his lips. She was laughing as she staggered against the wind and her pale hair streamed from under her hat in long silken ribbons.
“I’m afraid we’re in for some weather, Mrs. Harrison,” he called as she looked up at him.
“Worse than this, you mean?” she asked, wide-eyed at the prospect.
He glanced at the sky, full of lowering gray clouds. “The barometer’s dropping rapidly, we’ll have rain soon and gale-force winds. I’m afraid you won’t be seeing many of our fellow-passengers in the dining saloon tonight.”
Francie laughed, exhilarated by the storm. “It’s exciting, just the sea and the sky and the wind. It makes me feel alive again.”
The sky quickly grew dark as night, the wind was howling and the sea had turned a leaden gray as they hurried inside. “I don’t suppose you play poker, Mrs. Harrison?” he asked with a smile.
She shook her head and he said ruefully, “No, I suppose not. It’s not exactly the sort of thing well-brought-up young ladies learn at school.”
Francie thought soberly of how far his idea of her was from reality, but when she remembered the infinity outside, the stormy skies and the wind-tossed waves, she felt as though they were thousands of miles away from real life, and she felt lighthearted and gay. She felt young! Greatly daring, she said, “I could learn, though I don’t guarantee I’ll be any good.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, throwing her a challenging look as they walked together to the cardroom. “I have a feeling in my bones about you.” The green-baize tables were empty and he shook his head. “What did I tell you, we’re already losing our fellow passengers.”
“Not me,” she said confidently as he shuffled the cards and began to deal. His hands were strong and square with tapering fingers and she thought they expressed his personality perfectly: strong and confident, that was Edward Stratton.
They didn’t play much poker, but he did tell her all about himself; he told her he was Lord Stratton, that he’d inherited the title at the age of fifteen when he was still an Eton schoolboy. He was a widower, his wife, Mary, had