She felt some of the anxious tension flow away as she sat down beside Jack; she had no work to do here, and no strangers to worry about. While the waiters served a first course of clear soup, Bram and Baltus entertained everyone with their usual irreverent observations, amusing chatter, awful puns, and worse doggerel. Most of their observations had to do with Cap, and all of them ended in the same place, with the conclusion that he had done very well for himself by marrying Sophie before anyone else could get to her. There was no talk of illness or the coming farewells.
Cap was trying, but to Anna he looked to be in pain. She watched him stifle a cough, which meant that the laudanum he took to see him through the ceremony was wearing off. Through one course and two more Anna talked to Jack and the trio of little girls—Martha had joined forces with Lia and Rosa—who came to her with one scheme after the other, and she watched Cap, comforting herself with the knowledge that in just a few hours he would be away to the docks and what she hoped would be a peaceful Atlantic crossing.
The knowledge that time was so short also made her terribly sad, and so she left Jack to his conversations with curious relatives and little girls and went to the head of the table to crouch down beside Sophie. Her cousin leaned over and pressed her cheek to Anna’s but said nothing, though her throat worked.
“So, Mrs. Verhoeven.” Anna put a hand on Sophie’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
Sophie’s smile was a little weary but there was also a deep content in her expression. She said, “I will miss you so.”
“Well, of course.” Then Anna pressed her mouth together to keep silent, because anything she might have been able to say would have made all three of them lose what was left of their composure. Instead she went around Sophie to Cap. He held up a hand in warning and she laughed at him, violating the perimeter he had set around himself to hug him, this bonier, slighter version of the boy and man she thought of as a brother.
“Provocative as ever,” he said, grumpily.
Anna made a face. “You can’t begrudge me a single hug on the day you marry. And I need another one, as you’ll be gone tomorrow on my birthday.”
But he turned away to cough into his handkerchief. When he began breathing again, he said, “I hope you have something better to do on your birthday than sit in a sickroom looking at me. Even if I were here to look at.”
Sophie shook her head at Anna. He was at the very end of his energy and irritated with himself.
“Look,” Sophie said. “Adam is about to start the toasts. It won’t be long now.”
The double doors at the far end of the room opened a crack, enough to let Mrs. Harrison slip in. She stood there, one fist pressed to her diaphragm in a way that spoke of distress. With her free hand she crooked a finger at Jack, who looked puzzled but not particularly concerned.
He shrugged at Anna and slipped away just as Adam began his toast with a story about Sophie and Cap. As the door opened wider to let him out, Anna saw that Oscar Maroney was waiting in the hall, and that another man, a stranger, stood beside him.
“This is about a prank that turned into a love story,” Adam was saying. Later Anna couldn’t recall a single sentence of what followed.
? ? ?
“OSCAR. CAPTAIN BAKER.”
The captain had appeared at Sophie Savard’s wedding luncheon for no reason Jack could imagine until the older man held up a distinctive roll of paper. Jack shot an alarmed look at Oscar, who closed his eyes briefly and then held up one palm. Wait, that palm said. But Jack could not.
“What is that?”
“Damn coroner,” Baker huffed. “Useless bugger. It’s a summons, as you know damn well.”
He looked apologetic and even embarrassed. The captain embarrassed was something new to Jack, and far more unsettling than one of his rages.
“What’s this about?”
Oscar cleared his throat. “A Mrs. Campbell, deceased yesterday,” he said. “Postmortem came back this morning suggesting malpractice. Coroner Hawthorn wants to see both the lady doctors today,” he added. “Seems they both treated her.”
If he hadn’t been so distracted, Jack told himself, he might have anticipated that the emergency surgery of the previous afternoon was likely to have quick repercussions.
“Does the coroner realize that Sophie Savard—I should say, Mr. and Mrs. Verhoeven—that they are supposed to board a ship for Europe this afternoon?”
Captain Baker cleared his throat. “He does know, yes.”
Oscar gave a brief jerk of the head, a silent warning to Jack to hold back his commentary. Right now they had the captain on their side, and it was important to keep it that way.
Jack said, “Give me five minutes,” and slipped back into the dining room without waiting for permission.
? ? ?
ADAM WAS COMING to the end of his toast with the attention of every person in the room firmly in hand. Every person except Anna, who was looking right at Jack. He gave her a grim smile—he would put off disrupting things as long as possible—and, turning, gestured to one of the servants who stood at the rear of the room. A man of forty or more, blank faced, not likely to make a fuss.
“I need to get a message to Conrad Belmont.”