“And we’re off,” said Jack. He lifted his face against the wind flicking at his overcoat, testing the brim of his hat, then glanced back at her with silvered eyes. “Are you pleased to be going home?”
Madeleine answered as honestly as she could. “I am pleased to be with you, no matter where we go.”
“A diplomat’s response!” He curved an arm around her waist, softened his voice. “It won’t be as bad as all that. The press will have moved on to bigger stories by now. New scandals crop up every day, believe me. They might have forgotten all about us.”
She couldn’t even think of an answer to that, only raised her eyebrows at him.
The corners of his mouth quirked. “Well, maybe not. Tell you what, I’ve run into at least three acquaintances on board in the company of ladies who are definitely not their wives, including Ben Guggenheim. If any reporters attempt to accost us dockside in New York, we’ll just point our fingers in their direction and scurry the other way.”
“Golly,” she said faintly.
“Don’t worry, beloved. We’ll weather any storm. You and me and baby Muddington.”
She laughed in spite of herself, smacked him lightly on the chest. Kitty whined and pushed between them, her head low, her tail rapping against Madeleine’s knees.
“And our dog, too, obviously,” Jack said, reaching down to stroke a hand along the Airedale’s back. “Our own perfect family. We’ll be happy as clams. I guarantee it.”
“Yes,” Madeleine said, because beneath his tilted smile and easy tone, she knew it was what he wanted to hear. “Yes, Jack. I know we will.”
From somewhere on the ship behind them, distant but distinct, came the sound of bagpipes playing a low, mournful lament as they left Ireland behind them.
*
It seemed to Madeleine that their suite had rooms enough for nearly all of their party, but only Rosalie stayed with them. Carrie had a single cabin across the hall, and Robins had been booked in second class, decks below. Madeleine would have felt badly about it but, as Robins himself had cheerfully pointed out, Titanic’s second-class cabins were on par with any of the ones in first on other liners. And perhaps Jack’s valet appreciated the space between them, even if he did have to traverse the ship a number of times a day to do his job. Rosalie, in charge of Madeleine’s trunks and hatboxes and jewels （whatever wasn’t stored in the Purser’s Office for the day） had no choice but to remain nearby.
Madeleine made sure several of the vases of flowers ended up in Rosalie’s room.
She dressed for dinner slowly that second night, choosing a high-waisted tunic of smoky lilac chiffon over satin, one of her few from Worth that still fit. As Jack and Robins selected his evening coat in the next room, Rosalie stood behind Madeleine at the dressing table, brushing and parting and shaping her hair, creating perfect dark tendrils and curls, all held in place with diamond-encrusted clips.
Madeleine looked at the girl in the mirror and the girl in the mirror looked back at her, gradually transforming into someone Madeleine didn’t know, a glossy creature of alabaster skin and parted lips, no hint of her inner qualms revealed.
She slipped out of her silk kimono and into the gown, then sat again as Rosalie added her necklace, a fitted collar of more diamonds, platinum filigree that reached from her jaw to the base of her throat.
Her golden bangles.
The rings to go under her gloves.
“Powder, madame?” Rosalie asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I look so pale already.”
Her maid replaced the container upon the table, picked up the embossed compact of cream rouge instead.
Madeleine frowned. “All right.”
“Scent?”
“Yes. The French jasmine.”
“Very good.”
Madeleine lifted her wrists, tilted her head, as her maid stroked the glass stopper against her skin. When she rose from her chair, she was fully Mrs. John Jacob Astor, ready to ignore all that displeased her. Ready, on her husband’s arm, to glimmer.
*
She hadn’t been back to the Palm Room since boarding, but it seemed to her the same people stood in the very same clusters, drinking their same aperitifs against the same potted plants as they quietly sliced apart reputations.
Outside the ship, the stars were beginning to melt into their river of light. The ocean rippled silver and calm, and the ether became crystalline with ice. Inside, however . . . inside Titanic, the celebrated men and women surrounding them lived as if captured in amber. Nothing changed for them, nor would, not ever. The air was perfectly heated, the food was exquisite and fresh, and the gossip fresher still.