Before she knew it, they had reentered the club, passed back down the corridor from the stranger’s coffee-room, then crept up a back stairs that she suspected only the servants were to use. Sinclair inched a door open, then put a finger to his lips as two men in white tie, holding brandy snifters, ambled by.
“Not even if the Admiralty ordered you to?” one asked, and the other said, “Particularly if the Admiralty ordered it,” and they both chuckled.
Once they’d gone, Sinclair opened the door wider and escorted Eleanor through. She was standing at one end of a narrow mezzanine, overlooking a vast entry hall with alternating white and black marble tiles. A dual staircase swept up on either side, and at its apex hung a huge antique tapestry, depicting a stag hunt. It was faded, but must have once been done in brilliant purples and blues; a ragged gold fringe lined its edges.
“It’s Belgian,” Sinclair whispered, “and quite old.”
Still clutching her hand—no one had ever held it so long, or so possessively, and she still did not know how she should have responded to such conduct—he drew her on, offering her a glimpse of a cardroom, where several men were so focused on their game that none so much as looked up at the opening of the door; a sumptuous library with satinwood bookcases standing twelve feet high, all lined with leather-bound books; a trophy room with various silver plates and cups and a veritable menagerie of stuffed animal heads staring off, glassy-eyed, into eternity. Three or four times they had to duck into alcoves or behind closed doors to avoid being seen by a passing servant or member of the club, and on one such occasion Sinclair whispered to her, “That buffoon with the belly is called Fitzroy. I’ve thrashed him once, but I fear I shall have to do it again.”
When Fitzroy had passed, stifling a belch with the back of his hand, Sinclair drew her out of hiding again. “This way,” he said. “Just one more.”
They were on the third story, and she could hear a hard but unfamiliar clacking sound, as Sinclair led her up a narrow, carpeted stair, and into a velvet-curtained recess. He held his finger to his lips again, then, finally releasing her hand, parted the curtains a few inches.
They were standing on a tiny balcony, with an elaborately scrolled black iron rail; below them there were half a dozen billiards tables, spread like a deep green lawn across the wainscoted gallery. Just two of the tables were in play, and the men at one were only in their shirtsleeves, their suspenders hanging down; Eleanor blushed at the sight. One of the players stroked a white ball and it rolled smoothly across the table, striking a red ball, before gently nestling against the bumper.
“Well played,” his opponent said.
“If only life were a billiards table,” the first one replied, pausing to rub something on the end of the stick.
“Ah, but it is. Weren’t you told?”
“Must have been on furlough that day.”
“Like most,” the first one said with a laugh.
Was this how men talked, Eleanor thought? Was this how they conducted themselves in private? She was both fascinated and embarrassed; she wasn’t supposed to be there, she wasn’t meant to see, or hear, any of this. Though she didn’t dare speak, for fear of being overheard, she looked at Sinclair. He turned toward her, and in the confines of the balcony, concealed behind the barely parted curtains, she could feel the intensity of his gaze. She lowered her own eyes—why had she allowed herself to drink that second glass of champagne; her head still felt light from it—but then she felt his finger touching her chin, raising it, and she allowed her face to rise. He was bending toward her; she was aware chiefly of his pale moustache. And then, though she was sure she had given him no improper encouragement, his lips were touching hers…and she did not resist. Her own eyes closed, she could not have said why, and for several seconds time seemed to stop altogether—everything seemed to stop—and it was only when a victorious whoop went up from one of the billiards players below—“That’s the game, Reynolds!”—that she took a half step back, her lips tingling, her face on fire, to look again at the young lieutenant.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
December 8. 10:00 a.m.
“NOT POSSIBLE, not possible, not possible,” Murphy was saying as he strode down the corridor and into his cluttered office in the administration module. Michael was close behind, with Darryl lending support.
“It’s not only possible,” Michael insisted yet again, “I saw it, with my own eyes. Right in front of me!”
Murphy turned around and said, in a tone meant to convey sympathetic concern, “Look, this was your first time diving in polar waters, right?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“It can be an overwhelming experience, and that goes for a lot of people, not just you. The water temperature, the ice cap above, the unfamiliar critters—you said yourself you had a close encounter with a Weddell seal.”
“Are you suggesting I mistook a seal for a woman frozen in the ice?”