Amelia tilted her head. It was the first non-treason-related thing she’d heard about his family. “She ran away?”
Benedict made an equivocal noise. “Technically, she took the Dowager Marchioness with her, so it was more like leaving England in the middle of the night without permission while still accompanied by a chaperone? But, yes. I’ve been sent to hunt them out and bring them back.”
Amelia had no idea what he was talking about, but she perked up at this. “That sounds like fun. I don’t know that I could help, but how is your Mandarin? If you need assistance with the Chinese language portions—”
“Stop!” He held out his hands. “No!”
She looked up at him. He colored, the pink blotches seeming so much fainter this time.
“I’m sorry for assuming. Your Mandarin must be quite good.”
“It’s horrid. Please and thank you. That’s about it. Hopefully I’ll learn more here.” He shut his eyes. “I wish to do it myself. I’m the youngest of five, and everyone always thinks of me as a child. I want to do this by myself. I want it very much.”
The sentiment wasn’t nonsensical. It was the delivery that made her think there was something else to it.
“Mr.…” She paused. “Your name again?”
“Worth,” he supplied. “Benedict Worth.”
“Mr. Worth, you’re not a very good liar, are you?”
He pointed at her. “You promised nonjudgment.”
“I’m not judging. I’m just wondering why you’re lying to me if I have already promised nonjudgment.”
He mulled this over, looking away. “Did that sound very much like a lie then?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” His nose wrinkled. “Drat.”
“If I help you lie better, maybe you could do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“What is his name?”
“Huh?” He looked around the room, as if searching for someone. “What is whose name?”
“Captain Hunter,” Amelia said, feeling her forehead flush. “What is his Christian name?”
“Grayson.” Mr. Worth looked—just a little bit—as if he might be judging her.
But it didn’t matter. She took out a stub of pencil and wrote on a stray sheet of paper: His name is Grayson Hunter.
Next time she saw him—next time he touched her, next time he kissed her, if there ended up being a next time… Next time, she wanted to remember what to call him.
That afternoon, fresh out of Shanghai on the South China Sea, Grayson found himself at the Daily Disoccupation playing quoits. The Celerity held the materials for the game in a chest. They’d been improvised for play at sea over the years. Iron rings or horseshoes tended to slide off a tilting deck, striking people in the feet and occasionally falling into the sea. Instead, they threw loops of heavy rope.
They were on the first leg of the most important voyage of Grayson’s life, and the crew was in good spirits, talking about what they would do after they’d finished that first line.
“I’m going to go home,” said Abel, one of the seamen. “I’m going home and I’m eating Mama’s cooking for three weeks straight. She’ll have to roll me out of her kitchen.”
“I’ve got a lady in San Francisco,” said Wang.
“You’ve got a lady everywhere.”
“Not true.” Wang smiled. “I’ve a gentleman in London.”
This was met with hoots.
On another ship, they might not have talked of such things. But Lord Traders had been founded by Grayson’s great-great-great-uncles Henry and John almost a century past, and there had been no hiding what they were to one another. Crew who had problems with such things didn’t get past the harbor, not on their ships.
“And what of you, Captain Hunter?” Lightfoot was less of an expert at quoits; only one of his rope loops had landed around the peg. “What are you doing?”
Bell shook his head. “He’s on the Victory. Those poor sods. All the way back to San Francisco for the next load of cable; no time off, not for months.”
“But after?”
After. Grayson stroked his chin pensively. “I’m going home for a week around Christmas, travel time depending.”
This brought smiles, which told him it had been the right answer.
Lightfoot nodded. “Ah. I bet you’re looking forward to that.”
His answering smile was easy, reflexive, and all too false. It wasn’t that he wasn’t looking forward to it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go home. It was just that doing so was a stark reminder of everyone who was no longer there. He would have to go home and see the photograph his mother had had made of all her boys, crowded together and trying to hold their expressions long enough so the image would be captured properly. He already felt as if his life had been upended on this side of the Pacific. He didn’t need upheaval on the other side.
But it was inevitable. He would have to talk to his mother. He couldn’t do that anymore, not without remembering the look in her eyes when he’d told her about Noah.
That feeling of emptiness went both ways. If the absence of his brothers was palpable, at home he was always aware that he was not them.
The entire thing was a bramble of emotions, one he didn’t know how to cut through. It had to be fixed; Zed had it right. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life avoiding his family. He had to come home—truly come home at some point.
But before one could fix a thing, one had to have the right tools.
Once I finish the line across the Pacific, he told himself. Once I make up for…
He realized Lightfoot was still looking at him. That he’d asked a question, and that Grayson had smiled in answer without saying anything.
In the end, he didn’t even have to lie.
“Yes,” Grayson said. “I’m looking forward to it. I am very much looking forward to coming home.”
He just wished it were possible.
Benedict Worth was a man on a mission.
Technically, at seventeen years of age, he was not yet what most people would call a “man.” Also technically, given his actual intent, it wasn’t what one should call a “mission.” Nonetheless, when he entered the inn in the British Concession in Shanghai, he knew exactly what he was searching for. After years of pretending to look for it, he knew exactly how not to find it.
For instance, another person might have gone literally anywhere except this exclusive hotel.
Benedict, however, took a long look around the lobby. This was one of the hotels that was doing its best to be English with a capital E—so lushly, lavishly English that they hoped a British expatriate away from home would take one step inside and feel that fond nostalgia for their homeland. The furniture was adorned with ornate wooden curlicues, gilded and painted and upholstered in fabrics festooned with sheep and clouds and golden-haired shepherdesses. A large oil painting over the entrance was suggestive of Rembrandt without having his eye for color or light. Even the staff, dressed in crisp white uniforms and drowning in the humidity, did their best to evoke footmen.
“Sir,” a bellman said, coming forward and taking in Benedict’s English coat with his English lapels and his English trousers. “How can we be of assistance?”