A Perfect Romance

By Alice Duncan

SIDE BY SIDE

On the fateful night of the Titanic disaster, heiress Loretta Linden made sure her friends and fellow passengers got to the lifeboats before she even thought of herself. Her soft heart is legendary–and her desire to help others is her great passion. She will not rest until her little band is safely reunited in her native San Francisco–where she meets the dashing Captain Quarles.

HAND IN HAND

Malachai Quarles has sailed the seven seas and he’s had many a sweetheart, but he’s never met a woman like Loretta. She’s beautiful, funny, and generous to a fault, a collector of assorted lost causes, underdogs, and stray cats–and his heart. The freewheeling captain is madly in love with her–but he won't be tamed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice Duncan
• Release date: Mar 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452443874

Alice Duncan

In an effort to avoid what she knew she should be doing, Alice folk-danced professionally until her writing muse finally had its way. Now a resident of Roswell, New Mexico, Alice enjoys saying "no" to smog, "no" to crowds, and "yes" to loving her herd of wild dachshunds. Visit Alice at www.aliceduncan.net.

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A PERFECT ROMANCE

By

Alice Duncan (writing as Anne Robins)

Book 2 in the Titanic series

A Perfect Romance

Copyright © 2005 by Alice Duncan

All rights reserved.

Published 2005 by Kensington Corp.

Zebra Books

Smashwords edition March 15, 2010

Visit aliceduncan.net

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Chapter One

April 14, 1912

Even after the ship left Southampton, Loretta Linden firmly believed she’d been put on this earth to save it from itself.

Once the enormous liner, the largest ship the world had ever seen, had been sailing through Atlantic waters for a couple of days, her beliefs suffered a dramatic change. It became depressingly clear to her that she wouldn’t be able to save even herself, much less the rest of the world.

When the unsinkable Titanic scraped against the legendary iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14, gashing a 300-foot hole in its side, Loretta’s only reaction was gratitude that the ship’s rolling and rocking had ceased. She actually prayed the cursed ship would sink; at least she’d be out of her misery. Later, this reaction would shock her, as she’d been in the habit of considering herself an optimistic, unselfish sort of person, and not one to wish disaster on anyone.

Miss Linden!

Loretta turned over in her berth and attempted to focus on the door, an action that made her head hurt and her stomach lurch. Miss Marjorie MacTavish, the stewardess who had been seeing to all of Loretta’s wants and needs, in spite of Loretta’s best efforts to resist her, stuck her head in the room, looking considerably less serene than usual. Loretta recalled the crunching noise, lurch, and overall ship-shudderings of a few minutes previous, and deduced that Miss MacTavish had come to reassure her that things were peachy with the vessel.

She intended to say something like, Yes? or What is it?, but could only manage a groan that lifted slightly at the end.

To Loretta’s surprise, Miss MacTavish rushed up to the berth and commenced shaking her shoulder. The sensation was most unpleasant and Loretta frowned at the intruder. If she’d been stronger, she might have struck her.

Ye mun rise, Miss Linden! The ship has duffed agang an iceberg. She’s foundering and ye mun get to a lifeboat.

Loretta’s eyelids hurt when she blinked at the woman. The ship had duffed agang an iceberg? She’d never heard Miss MacTavish in so Scottish a mode. You mean we bumped into something? She croaked the words, but the stewardess understood.

Aye! That’s what I’m tellin’ ye! Get up and gang aboon!

Aha. So that’s why her stomach had quit heaving. How gratifying—although Loretta wasn’t sure what ganging aboon entailed.

With a great effort of will, she said, Don’t mind me. I’ll just rest here for a little while. Rather she die now and get it over with than attempt to make it to a lifeboat and resume her dreadful seasickness. Anyhow, Titanic was unsinkable. All the advertisements had said so.

Miss MacTavish’s lips pressed together. Loretta was amazed to note that the stewardess could express anger—and to a first-class passenger, at that. She might have been pleased with this demonstration of humanity on Miss MacTavish’s part had she not then grabbed her by the arm and begun tugging.

No, please, Loretta whimpered, fearing for her stomach.

Stop your fittering and get out of bed this instant, Miss Linden! Quit daidling! You mun come immediately! The ship is foundering!

"Nonsense. The newspapers all call the R.M.S. Titanic unsinkable." While Loretta knew better than to believe everything she read in the newspapers, she’d yet become accustomed to regarding the ship as perfectly sound.

Another yank, this one so hard Loretta’s upper body slid off the berth. In order to prevent herself from crashing to the floor, Loretta swung her legs around and braced herself with her feet. What are you doing? The question was more or a whine than she’d intended it to be.

"Saving your bluidy life! Rise up and get ye to a lifeboat now!"

Loretta blinked at Miss MacTavish, whom she had never heard use bad language before. She noticed that the other woman’s cheeks were flushed, her hazel-green eyes blazed with some passionate emotion, and her hair, usually impeccably dressed, was falling out of its bun and making her look younger than she generally did.

Where’s your cap? Loretta had become well acquainted with Miss MacTavish in the four days the ship had been on the water. She knew full well that the stewardess never went anywhere unless she was scrupulously groomed, complete with starched white apron and chaste white cap.

Miss MacTavish’s hand flew to her head and she patted wildly at her fiery red hair for a moment before she shouted, "Och, what does my bluidy cap matter? Scutter up now or ye’ll croak in your berth, and then who’ll carry Mrs. Pankhurst’s torch?"

When she and the stewardess had first met, Loretta had come away with the impression that she had rather annoyed Miss MacTavish by endeavoring to enlist her in the cause of women’s suffrage. Miss MacTavish, although irked, had not overtly demonstrated the least indication of her feelings. Until this minute, Loretta had not understood that Miss MacTavish could succumb to sarcasm. Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst was one of Loretta’s heroines.

The stewardess’s words stung, but they also served to jar Loretta into an understanding of the present crisis. If Miss MacTavish could lose her temper, something was definitely amiss. Loretta couldn’t make herself care.

Here! Miss MacTavish snapped, sounding much less Scots now that Loretta had obeyed her at last. Don your spectacles. Ye’ll be of no use to anyone if you canna see.

Be of use. The words sank into Loretta’s fuzzy head and ignited the process of waking up. Be of use. Yes. That’s what was important now; not her seasickness. She might be of use to someone else. Loretta’s primary aim in life, and not merely because it annoyed her parents and her other stuffy relations, was to be of use to her fellow human beings on this earth . . . at least the female half thereof. The males could cursed well take care of themselves.

Hooking the gold eyepieces over her ears, she bucked up minimally. Thank you. Her cabin came into such clear focus that she had to close her eyes for a moment and allow her stomach to settle and her head to stop swirling. To her amazement, both cooperated for the first time in two days.

Here. Don your shoon. It’s frightfu’ bluthrie up there. Miss MacTavish hurled Loretta’s shoes at her.

Where are Mrs. Golightly and Eunice?

Before she had become so very ill, Loretta had decided to make a special project of the poor Yorkshire woman, Isabel Golightly, and her six-year-old daughter Eunice, whom she’d met on the dock at Southampton when Eunice had stumbled and scraped her knee in Loretta’s vicinity. Eunice was a charming girl and an intelligent one, and Loretta judged Isabel to be among the more downtrodden women of the world. She had figuratively rubbed her hands in delight at having such a worthy cause to occupy her thoughts and actions during the voyage to America.

That was before she’d succumbed to mal de mer, a malady Loretta had assumed she’d be above, since it hadn’t plagued her on the crossing from New York to Southampton several months earlier. Showed how much she knew about ocean travel.

I dinna know. They’re probably doon aboot in third class. Miss MacTavish’s voice was hard and she added a sniff to the end of her sentence. She didn’t approve of Loretta’s having deliberately descended into steerage and consorting with the poor immigrant families crammed in down there. She more particularly didn’t approve of Loretta’s interest in Mrs. Golightly and her daughter.

She’d told Loretta—politely, of course—that a woman of her high social standing, even if she was an American, had no business mingling with the hoi-polloi. Loretta had set her straight, or tried to, in no uncertain terms.

Miss MacTavish, being a tough nut and firmly attached to her native British class distinctions, had remained unconvinced by Loretta’s impassioned lectures and her forward-thinking egalitarian principles.

Feeling minutely stronger, Loretta stood. She did so cautiously and braced herself with her fingers on her night table. Her stomach didn’t rebel, which she considered a positive sign. After taking two deep breaths, she ventured another question. Did the ship really hit something?

An iceberg. Miss MacTavish had gone to Loretta’s small closet. She reached in and grabbed a woolen coat. Turning, she tossed it to Loretta, along with a life preserver. Put those on and come wi’ me. Get ye some gloves, too. Everything’s tapsalteerie up there, and it fleeful caud.

Yes. Of course. Loretta stuck her arms in the coat and wished ladies were permitted to wear trousers, which must be more serviceable in an emergency than the skirts fashionable in 1912 that bloomed around the hips and narrowed toward the ankles. She had long believed that Mrs. Bloomer had the right idea. She only wished now that she’d acted on her beliefs regarding rational dress and brought some split skirts with her aboard the ship.

If Miss MacTavish was correct, and Loretta saw no reason to doubt her . . . yet . . . the passengers on the unsinkable Titanic were in deep trouble. And, while Loretta sincerely doubted that anything truly bad could happen to Titanic, which was brand new and built according to the latest views on safety and sound construction techniques and was equipped with some sort of special hull that could resist anything, she saw it as her duty to assist others, even if that only meant soothing rattled nerves or helping youngsters and the elderly to lifeboats.

Are ye able to walk? Miss MacTavish eyed Loretta doubtfully.

Loretta was a trifle doubtful herself, and not merely because of her narrow skirt that made her feel more like a duck waddling than a woman striding purposefully toward her future. Yes. I believe so.

Good. Then come abeen a’ me.

Miss MacTavish hurried out the door. Picking up her skirt, Loretta followed her and was appalled to see a small trickle of water slithering down the hallway. Good heavens! We really are in trouble.

We’re sinking.

The words had been uttered as a flat statement that struck Loretta as horrifying. She stared at Miss MacTavish’s back for only a second. Sinking. Titanic? Sinking? Impossible.

She glanced again at the trickle of water. Perhaps it wasn’t impossible. Are you sure you don’t know where Mrs. Golightly and Eunice are?

Miss MacTavish had already knocked on the door of the cabin next to Loretta’s. I have’na idea. She didn’t wait for anyone to answer her knock, but jerked the door open and leaned inside. Everyone out! The ship is in trouble. Grab your life preservers and get aboon—er, above, on-deck!

A rustle and a couple of squeaks greeted this peremptory message. Loretta had met her next-cabin neighbors, two elderly sisters, a couple of times before confining herself to her own cabin.

Is anyone helping those below in third class? she called to Miss MacTavish, who had hurried along the hallway to the next cabin door.

Before knocking at that cabin, she turned and cast an exasperated glance at Loretta. I dinna know. Probably the stewardess and steward. For mercy’s sake, just get yoursel’ aboon and into a life boat!

But Loretta knew she couldn’t do that. Not until she had determined that dear Eunice and her mother were safe.

I’ll find Mrs. Golightly first! she called back to Miss MacTavish.

"No!" the stewardess shrieked, staring at Loretta in alarm.

Loretta paid her no heed. She waved a wool-clad arm in Miss MacTavish’s direction. Go back to warning the passengers.

Then, because she’d made it her business to discover how a first-class passenger could descend into steerage, in spite of the White Star Line’s prohibition against intermingling of passengers, she dashed to the service door at the other end of the hall.

"No! Miss MacTavish screamed at her back once more. Save yoursel’! For the love of God, Miss Linden, ye canna—"

But Loretta, who had never believed she couldn’t do anything, ever, didn’t wait to hear what Miss MacTavish believed she couldn’t do. She knew she could. And she did.

Chapter Two

October 1914

Fog slithered under the door jamb, adding a dampness to the room and mingling with the odors of thin soup, stale sandwiches, unwashed male bodies, and the vague Ecclesiastical scent of incense that Loretta Linden would forever associate with the Ladies’ Benevolence League’s soup kitchen and the nuns who helped run it.

The subdued murmur of voices provided a counterpoint to the far-off, melancholy warning of the foghorn sounding from its island in the Bay. In short, the room fairly pulsed with charity and benevolence, and even though Loretta was far from popish herself, she loved it. She counted the hours she spent here as some of the most fulfilling in her life. She dipped her ladle into the big iron soup pot, and her heart brimmed with love.

It was the Moors done it.

The ladle in Loretta’s hand checked in its forward progress for only a second. She focused more closely on the man holding out his bowl to her. He was a scruffy object, and he looked as if he’d been in a brawl recently. Unfortunately, his appearance wasn’t unusual in the soup kitchen.

The Moors, the man insisted. They was the ones. They come in and took over. He shook his dirty gray head. Poor damned Spaniards didn’t have a chance.

Deducing that the man’s comments were not directed specifically at her and that she didn’t need to respond, Loretta finished filling his bowl and again dipped her ladle into the huge pot of bubbling soup.

The Moor man moved down the line toward another woman who was handing out sandwiches; and the man behind him, who had seemed to be listening intently, nodded as he held his bowl out for Loretta to fill.

Working in the soup kitchen was often dispiriting, sometimes discouraging, and always interesting. Loretta knew in her heart that it was also vital. These men would have no food at all, unless they stole it, if not for the good ladies of the San Francisco Ladies’ Benevolence League and the nuns from the Sisters of Charity. If the ladies and the nuns left it to the men of San Francisco to feed the poor, the poor would starve.

The Moors, repeated the first man. They was the ones.

Yeah, said the man behind the Moor man as Loretta filled his bowl. But they don’t serve soup as good as this.

It was the Moors. The Moor man nodded at the man behind him, as if pleased to find someone who shared his opinion.

This place has good sandwiches, too. Them ladies at the Salvation Army place don’t make good sandwiches. With filthy fingers, he lifted the piece of dark bread covering the insides of his sandwich. It’s got meat. His voice was filled with wonder.

Damn Moors.

Real meat. And cheese.

Loretta watched the two men shuffle off and sit together at one of the splintery tables against the far wall of the soup kitchen’s dining room. They continued talking around and past each other between bites.

As she filled more bowls held out to her by more dirty, ragged, impoverished men, she wondered what caused some people’s minds to wander so far from reality as the minds of those two men seemed to have done. Had they been touched in the head at birth? Had their brains been ravaged by accident or alcohol? Were the alienists correct, and could miserable childhoods and poverty and violence induce insanity?

Some of the men served by this soup kitchen, she knew, had been laid low by drink, but many more of them, especially those of color, only needed an opportunity. And an education. Loretta deplored San Francisco’s educational deficiencies, even for white children, which sent her mind reeling in another direction.

Her blood boiled when she considered her yellow sisters and their offspring. The Chinese Exclusion Acts were products of the devil, in Loretta’s humble opinion, and fostered terrible abuses and inhumanity, especially, as ever, to female Chinese. If women ever got to take their rightful places in the polling booths, the fat politicians who passed such monstrous legislative acts would be voted out of office in no time at all.

Her indignation caused her ladle to tremble, and she spilled soup on her next customer, who jumped backward. Jeez, lady, I didn’t do nothing.

Embarrassed, Loretta murmured, I beg your pardon, and refilled the man’s bowl, vowing to keep her mind on what she was doing. She almost succeeded. She only wished there were more people in her great city who recognized the need to rectify society’s wrongs—and who would do so according to Loretta’s school of thought.

# # #

It gets dark earlier and earlier these days, Loretta muttered as she struggled to lock the door.

It is autumn, Marjorie MacTavish replied in her even, musical Scots burr. The days are always shorter in autumn.

Loretta slanted a glance at her secretary. She sometimes suspected Marjorie of veiled sarcasm. Of course. Help me here. Push against the door, if you will. The recent rains have made the wood swell.

A pause ensued. When Loretta turned to glance at her companion, she saw Marjorie eyeing her tan gloves in dismay. Take ‘em off if you’re afraid they’ll get dirty. Because Loretta truly esteemed her secretary and believed that the woman was not beyond redemption, she tried always to keep her temper, even when Marjorie tried her patience. What did gloves matter, when compared to human lives?

With a sigh, Marjorie sacrificed her gloves and pushed at the door, and Loretta finally managed to get it locked. Did you bring the Runabout? Loretta stuffed the door key into her handbag and pushed her spectacles, which had slid down her nose during her struggle with the door, back into place.

Yes.

Loretta heard the edge to her secretary’s voice and eyed her slantwise. I know you don’t care to drive the automobile, Marjorie, but it’s good to do things that frighten you occasionally. Otherwise, you’ll become a mass of nerves and neuroses and you’ll never get better.

I know. Marjorie compressed her lips as if she were holding back a sharp retort.

I think, Loretta mused, that it might be good if I were to make you an appointment with Dr. Hagendorf. He’s an excellent alienist.

I dinna need to see an alienist, Marjorie averred. I’m’na crazy.

Eyeing her secretary with reproach, Loretta said, Alienists aren’t just for crazy people. Dr. Hagendorf can help with your phobias.

"They aren’t phobias, Loretta. I dinna even believe in phobias!"

I can’t see that it matters whether you believe in them or not. You seem to have at least one.

Marjorie huffed.

With a sigh, Loretta wondered if the woman would ever overcome her inhibitions. Two years had passed since that awful, horrid night when Titanic had sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic, taking over fifteen hundred people with it. But Marjorie was as steeped in her terror of the ocean deeps as ever. Her anxiety about driving the Runabout was minor compared to her complete and absolute dread of the ocean.

Marjorie’s case was a sad one, and one that had entailed a complete life change for the poor woman. But Loretta wasn’t giving up on her. She honestly believed that Marjorie would benefit from seeing Dr. Hagendorf, a friend of Loretta’s, and an alienist devoted to the methods of Dr. Sigmund Freud.

Naturally, when Loretta had first brought up the subject, Marjorie had been shocked and had rebelled against doing anything so contrary to her conformist ways. Loretta trusted in her powers of persuasion, however, and she expected Marjorie to cave in to her stronger will one of these days.

The two women had reached Loretta’s Runabout. Hop in, she said cheerily, and thought wryly that it would be a cold day in hell before poor Marjorie MacTavish hopped anywhere.

Marjorie got into the machine, however, and Loretta cranked the engine to life. Then, since Marjorie couldn’t be made to hop, Loretta did so, leaping into her automobile as agilely as if she were a child instead of a twenty-eight-year-old spinster lady past her last hopes. Not, of course, that she considered herself thus. That was only society’s opinion. Loretta knew better.

She swerved into traffic, and Marjorie let out a yelp. There’s no need to scream, Marjorie. I know what I’m doing.

Marjorie’s only reply was a whimper. Glancing at her, Loretta wondered how a person could accumulate so many disabling terrors during a relatively short lifetime. Granted, poor Marjorie had lost many friends and co-workers, not to mention her career as a stewardess, when that ship had hit the iceberg and sunk, but she still seemed awfully poor-spirited to Loretta.

Another friend of theirs, Isabel FitzRoy, nee Golightly, claimed it was because Marjorie had grown up in Scotland, where class distinctions and strict rules of behavior had been instilled in her from birth, and that Loretta should stop hounding poor Marjorie. Loretta resented that. She didn’t consider her hints and lectures hounding. She was only trying to help.

Isabel had said with a laugh that one person’s meat is another person’s poison, but Loretta couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. She vowed to keep trying with Marjorie. Perhaps one day the woman would emerge from her shell.

They managed to arrive at Loretta’s mammoth Russian Hill abode without hitting anything extraneous on the way. As usual when she traveled with Loretta, Marjorie muttered a brief, whispered prayer of thanks before exiting the automobile. Shaking her head, Loretta entertained a rare uncertainty about her ability to help Marjorie ever loosen up.

It wasn’t until her housekeeper, Mrs. Brandeis, opened the door to them that Loretta remembered the parcel she’d meant to bring home. Drat! she cried, stopping short so that Marjorie bumped into her. She turned. I beg your pardon, Marjorie. I left Eunice’s birthday present at the soup kitchen. I’ll have to run back and fetch it.

Marjorie said stiffly, I should fetch it for you, Loretta. I’m your secretary, after all.

Fiddlesticks! It was my mistake. I’ll get it. And that was another thing: She couldn’t seem to convince Marjorie that she was Loretta’s secretary, not her slave. She clattered down the front porch steps and turned to wave at her secretary and housekeeper. I’ll be back before dinnertime. If the FitzRoys arrive early, tell them I’m sorry and I’ll be home soon!

She wasn’t certain, but she thought she heard Marjorie mumble something. Fortunately, Loretta couldn’t hear what it was.

# # #

Blasted lock, Loretta’s eyeglasses slid down her nose as she set her shoulder against the door, pushed as hard as she could, and tried to turn the key. It didn’t turn. It was as stuck as stuck could be.

It came, therefore, as a shock to her when the door burst open, a hand like a ham grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, her spectacles flew across the room and clattered to the floor, and an arm as big around as a tree trunk pinioned her by means of her throat. She would have screamed, had she been able, but she was being quite effectively throttled by the arm, and she couldn’t. In lieu of other options, she kicked like a mule.

Damnation! Ow! Stop that!

She gurgled back, furious, and kicked again.

Will you stop that?

The arm withdrew from her throat, and Loretta managed to shriek "Help!" before she was spun around and hugged against a body like a giant redwood tree, this time by two arms like tree trunks. She presumed the second arm belonged to the same man who’d pinioned her against the wall. One of the hands attached to one of the arms covered her mouth. It was so big, it also covered her nose and chin. Scarcely able to maneuver her lips apart, but fighting for her life, she bit into a part of the hand. She didn’t know which part it was, but her action produced another bellow of rage and another spate of swear words.

"Damn it!"

The arms loosened and the hands grabbed her shoulders, uncovering her mouth, which she’d have used to scream some more, except that whoever belonged to the ham-like hands, the redwood-tree body, and the tree-trunk arms started shaking her. Her teeth clanked together and she feared her neck would snap. So she kicked out again, this time a little higher, and her captor might have lost something of value to him if he hadn’t jumped aside. Loretta was very disappointed.

You damned little cat! the beast shouted. Stop that!

All at once, the room flooded with light, the shaking ceased, and Loretta finally saw the man belonging to the arms, hands, and body. Out of breath and pulsating with terror and rage, she balled her right hand into a fist, and aimed a punch at the monster’s stomach. He caught her fist in the hand with which he’d pulled the light cord and held it. Hard. Loretta now feared for her fingers.

Who the devil are you?

Panting, she glared up into two of the fiercest brown eyes she’d ever encountered, including even her own, which could be extremely fierce when she was roused. She was roused now. She wanted to kill this person, whoever he was. "Who are you? she snarled back. I belong here! You don’t."

Huh.

Whoever he was, and even without her eyeglasses, Loretta could see that he was brown as the proverbial berry, as big as a house, strong as Hercules, and wore one gold earring that glinted in the light shining down upon them from the single bare bulb on the ceiling. Loretta saw that he also had on a black cape and a cap with gold braid