Read Online Easton's Gold by Paul Butler - Free Book Online Page B

warms my face and plays with my hair, I sense I have broken open a great mystery. There are two types of energy in the universe: remorse and ambition. These are the forces fuelling the stars that burn above me; these are the powers that move the planets and cause the earth now to tip toward the sun.
    I feel like Galileo without a telescope—a blind version ofthat heretic prophet, feeling out truths through intuition rather than science. The darkness whispers its secrets to me, and the strengthening pulse of my body confirms them. Remorse and ambition recalled me to life. Those twin desires now drive me forward.

PART II
T HE J OURNEY

C HAPTER S EVEN
    H er cabin hardly sways. The only sign that the ship is in transit is the faint creak and yelp of timbers, like far-off minstrels tuning up for a performance. Gabrielle knows it will be quite different when they reach the open water of first the North Sea and then the English Channel. She hardly dares to wonder what it will feel like in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
    But this solitude is so unexpected. The joy of having her own room and the relative quiet feel like half-forgotten friends returning to her after a long absence. The bed upon which she now lies is comfortable too. The top blanket is even embroidered. It is as though this small, elegant room with a night table and chair were designed for a lady of standing. The sun, which is sinking to the horizon now, scatters its gold through the porthole, setting the mirror on the opposite wall blinking.
    But why have I been given my own cabin
? It seems almost absurd that she should be travelling like an aristocrat. At first she thought the bursar, Sykes, had got it wrong. But he knew the names of all of the servants and brought them all through the maze of stairs, sharp turns, and corridors, dropping first Jacques in a dark, single-hammock cabin the size of a larder, then Maria and Philippa in a tiny space with two bunks, one on top of the other. Maria jumped on the top bunk. Philippa turned, confused, as the bursar gestured for Gabrielle to follow him. She did so, and the two continued, turning right and then tramping up a long flight of stairs. They turned twice more in quick succession then went down a three-step ladder until they came upon this above-deck cabin.
    â€œYou must excuse me, lady,” he said as he opened the door and bade Gabrielle enter. “I was told by your master, the Marquis, to treat you no different from the other servants when you were with them. Please let me know if I can do anything to make your stay more comfortable.”
    With a courtly bow he was gone.
    Gabrielle still does not know what he meant. She doesn’t know what Maria and Philippa will think if they catch sight of her room. All that they once accused her of without cause will now seem so plausible she would suspect it herself if she were in their shoes. How could a woman like her—let’s say a “gypsy,” the name they used to call her, it’s near enough—possibly receive such preferential treatment? There is only one way of which Gabrielle is aware.
    She gets up and goes to the window. Beyond the sunringed waves stretches a dark and featureless land—the northern shoreline of the Thames. The great river is opening up to the North Sea. The swaying of the ship becomes more pronounced as she watches. In a day or two, they will be rounding the county of Kent and entering into the English Channel. Gabrielle finds herself smiling and thinks of the adventure ahead. She wonders if the breeze will carry scents from the Normandy vineyards to her cabin, whether she will glimpse porpoises again as she did on the journey north.
    But then a familiar worry returns, dampening her excitement.
Will the Marquis survive
?
    The apothecary’s late arrival gave her a shock from which she has not yet recovered. A few hours ago she was standing on a deck swarming with sailors, sailors’ wives, and playing