Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Or maybe I’m simply reading too much into this again. Nate doesn’t go to college. He works nights as a bartender when he isn’t playing gigs. So it’s possible he has a lot of daylight time on his hands and not nearly enough ways to spend it. In that case, I’m a brief distraction between obligations.
Then again, Jack and Jamie aren’t offering to drive me an hour into the country for homework.
“Take a look at this,” Nate calls from another room.
I search for him until I find a hidden corridor tucked behind a bookcase. In the small room, a projector shows black-and-white newsreel footage of ships arriving at a port. Weary, huddled people in blankets disembark at the pier. On the adjacent wall are framed news articles, photographs, and two small oil portraits of a familiar figure.
“The Victoria,” I breathe. “William, the middle brother, was lost at sea when the ship sank.”
I’ve seen photographs of William Tulley before. In this context, however, surrounded by the footage of the disaster’s aftermath and headlines from around the world that announced the tragedy, he feels more alive than a grainy image in a book.
He was a handsome young man in his midtwenties with soft, narrow features and a rebellious mustache, his gaze perpetually fixed toward the horizon. A wanderer’s spirit.
“He was cute,” I remark.
Nate’s amused voice tickles the back of my head. “Was he now?”
“Sure. I mean, I totally would’ve tapped that,” I say before remembering I’m not with Eliza but rather with a gorgeous Englishman.
That gets me a strangled laugh. “I reckon poor old Will would’ve been riddled with confusion if you hit on him using that phrase.”
I start laughing too and affect a (not good) posh British accent. “Hullo, sir, I would like to tap you. Please, remove your britches.” I turn to beam at Nate. “Hot, right?”
“So hot,” he says solemnly.
I continue to study the Victoria materials, wondering why William Tulley ended up on this doomed ship. “You know what’s wild? William wasn’t even on the official passenger manifest. Wasn’t scheduled to take the voyage. He was a last-minute addition to the crossing.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
I smile smugly. “I’m a possessor of infinite knowledge, Nate. That’s how you roll when you spend your entire life in the library.”
“Should we brag about that? Truly?”
A laugh sputters out. “Fair critique. But it came up in my research. I tracked down the manifest, and his name wasn’t on it. Instead there was a handwritten notation from someone at the shipping company saying Lord William Tulley would be joining them. They even cleared out a first-class cabin for him. Probably had to kick out some poor soul to make room for his lordship. Annoyingly, it doesn’t say if he was traveling alone or not.”
“But the fact that he boarded the ship at the last minute must mean something, right? Running away to America to nurse his broken heart.”
“Or,” I counter, “running away to America with the woman he stole from his brother.”
“Also a possibility,” Nate says unhelpfully before moving toward the next display.
A few moments later, he calls me over again.
“Over here.”
He gestures for me to join him in front of a glass case. Inside, two pieces of paper lie side by side. The handwritten letter is addressed to William’s mother, the duchess. Dated mere days before the Victoria embarked from England, the letter is written in black ink that has become faded over the decades. I lean in and squint to make out some of the text.
Rest assured, dear mother, we shall reconcile when we’re both good and ready. Brothers cannot hate each other forever. This shall pass.
“He’s talking about his relationship with Robert,” I tell Nate, excitement surging through my blood. “That’s the eldest brother who disappeared.”
Some parts of the letter are difficult to read, so I pull out my phone and snap several pictures of the display case. I’ll upload them to a photo editor later and play around with the exposure settings, see if I can make the words more palatable to the eyes. But the important thing is I was right.
William and Robert were estranged before William boarded that ship.
And while there’s no mention of Josephine, this is the strongest indication yet of the rift between the sons that could explain Josephine’s place in the story.
“What do you think it means?” Nate asks.
“I don’t know. Nothing I’ve found so far suggests Josephine was on the ship. Did William leave England because she chose Robert? Or did she follow William to America and leave Robert behind?”
I’ve still found no clue as to how or why Robert disappeared. There are plenty of theories but none with any evidence I could hope to follow. As with everything in this mystery, each clue is another unanswered question.
Continuing our search, we come across a diary entry from the duchess. She describes her son Robert as the steadfast sort, a young man with an intense conviction and will but well-liked and admired by his peers.