Silver in the Blood
Read Silver in the Blood Online
Authors: Jessica Day George
Once again for my husband
The Gardens at Strada Silvestru
FROM THE DESK OF MISS DACIA VREEHOLT
26 April 1897
Dearest Lou,
Whoever said that travel was exotic and full of adventure clearly has not sailed on the
White Lady
. Before you worry yourself sick that I am sitting in some squalid cabin, suffering from seasickness, fear not! Of course it is all that is respectable and luxurious, and I would never do something so horribly undignified as become seasick. Fear, rather, that I, your dearest cousin and bosom companion since infancy, shall die of boredom before the trip is even halfway through! I do not know why Papa would not allow me to take the train from London. I could have stopped in Paris and waited for you, and we could have made our way to Bucharest together. The Orient Express is all that is fashionable.
But my mother was adamant that I avoid Paris at all costs. I am to be punished until the end of time for one moment of frivolity! Or do you think it was some fancy brought on by her delicate condition? She couldn't possibly know that William Carver is spending the summer in Paris, could she? I certainly didn't tell her! I have been dying to see Paris, and I could have gone shopping with you besides!
Aunt Kate reminds me endlessly that Bucharest is the Little Paris, and that should be good enough for me, but I disagree! Why limit myself to the “Little Paris” when I could have seen the larger one? And thus far there is nothing to see but ocean, and no shopping, and no Will Carver or any reasonable substitute. I am becoming most disagreeable. Aunt Kate is threatening to lock me in my cabin if I do not shake off my “mood,” as she calls it. She has yet to see me in a true “mood,” dare I say. Much more of this and I shall descend into a despair so black that no amount of elegant dinners in the dining room or walks along the ship's promenade to take the air will bring me out of it.
Unless, of course, we are attacked by pirates. Young, dashing pirates. Will Carver would look very handsome in pirate costume, don't you think, Lou? Oh, you are too far away to ask!
Dear Lou, the other thing that is missing is you! If you were here this would be far more bearable. I shall console myself that one of us shall see Parisâthe real Parisâand that soon we will be reunited! Even if it is in a strange place! And I shan't even be able to send this letter until we reach land, which I pray is soon.
Much, much love,
D
Dacia picked up her book and put it down again. It was good, but rather lurid, with a ghost haunting some young woman trapped in a castle in Yorkshire. She'd bought it on her last day in England, and just couldn't summon the energy to finish it. Aunt Kate kept accusing her of pouting, but pouting was the furthest thing from her mind. She hated to admit it, even to Lou, but Dacia was worried.
Worrying was not something that she did a great deal. Dacia was who she was, and she made no apologies for it. One didn't get to be the most widely admired young lady in fashionable New York by apologizing or worrying. She knew the boundaries of good taste, and she never crossed them.
Or at least, she had never crossed them before she went to London, met Lord Johnny, and nearly ruined everything. And now she was restless and worried. Restlessness was something she knew well. She had felt this same restlessness all her life.
But worried was a different matter.
She knew that her mother would scream and shout and confine her to her room when she got home, but she didn't know when that would be. What Dacia feared more was that her mother would make Dacia stay in Romania for years, cut off from real society as punishment. Romania was hardly a backwater, nor would Dacia be living alone in some hut. Bucharest was indeed fashionable, and her mother's family was extremely wealthy. Dacia had scores of aunts, uncles, and cousins there, so she would hardly pine for company. But to be trapped there for years? It could not be contemplated.
And how much trouble was she in, really? Would her parents see temporary exile as punishment enough, or would they take stronger measures when she returned to New York? They knew everything, of course. Aunt Kate had sent a telegram immediately, and her mother's answering telegram had resulted in Dacia being hustled onto that dreadful ship. It was only by the sheerest luck that she had managed to break away from Aunt Kate to duck into a bookstore and buy the first two novels that she laid eyes on. Aunt Kate had decided not to add this to Dacia's list of crimes, however, when she came to the realization that a bored Dacia with nothing to do or read on a long journey would make life hell for her aunt.
Or, more of a hell than her aunt was already suffering. And that was the other thing that worried Dacia.
She had looked forward to visiting Romania all her life. The journey had been dangled before her like a treat for “when she was old enough” as long as she could remember. It had never
been clear when that would beâuntil gossip indicated that Will Carver had asked his grandmother for her sapphire engagement ring. There was no other young lady in New York he might offer it to but Dacia. But before he even had the chance, Aunt Kate whisked her away to England to “acquire some polish” before meeting Lou and Lou's parents in Bucharest. To travel the world with Aunt Kate had been even more appealing to Dacia than receiving Will Carver's proposal. But now that Dacia was in disgrace, Aunt Kate was talking of their journey as though it were a punishment instead of a reward. Three months had become six, so that they could stay for Christmas, and Aunt Kate had begun to hint that even six months might not be long enough to mend Dacia's wild ways.
Not knowing how long that alleged treat would last was a bit alarming, but not half as alarming as Aunt Kate's behavior. Her aunt, a fixture in Dacia's life since the day she was born, was quite simply not herself, and Dacia had decided that she couldn't take the blame for all of Aunt Kate's behavior. Her chilliness on the ship was certainly because of her disappointment in Dacia, but once they boarded the train? No. That was something else. The closer they got to Bucharest, the more tension radiated from her aunt.
Romania was Kate's homeâher childhood home, anyway. Her mother was here, her brothers, cousins, her dozens of nephews. Yet to Dacia's knowledge her aunt had not been back since moving to New York at age twenty with her two sisters.
And even now, as their train lurched through the countryside, her aunt was smoothing the lapels of her traveling suit with her gloved hands. Smoothing them over and over. Adjusting the belt of her skirt. Repinning her hat. Adjusting her gloves. Dacia had never seen her aunt fidget before. The book Aunt Kate was supposedly reading had long ago slid down her skirts and onto the floor of their compartment, and Kate appeared not to have noticed.
What was waiting for them in Bucharest that could make
Aunt Kate
nervous?
The train lurched to a stop, and now Dacia's book slithered down her skirts to the floor. When she picked it up, she picked up Aunt Kate's as well and gave it to her. Her aunt made no comment, but opened the book to the middle and made the appearance of reading. Dacia watched her aunt over the top of her own novel and saw that Kate didn't turn the page or move her eyes at all, just stared blindly at the words until the train started up again. When several men strode down the corridor outside their compartment, Aunt Kate put the book aside and didn't even pretend not to listen.
“Quite repulsive. And they've no idea how it got there.” The man spoke Romanian, with aristocratic accents, and the scent of cigar smoke wafted into the compartment.
“Some animal dragged it onto the tracks and had to run off without its kill when the train came, most likely,” another man said.
“What sort of animal can kill something that large?” The first man sounded almost admiring. “That's a whole cow out there!”
“Wolves, perhaps,” his companion supplied. “They hunt in packs, you know . . .”
Dacia wrinkled her nose, but quickly unwrinkled it when she saw Aunt Kate's face. Rather than being mildly disgusted, her aunt had gone quite white.
The train had just reached its normal speed when it slowed again. The only good news was that this time it didn't stop, but continued crawling along as though it might have to call a halt at any moment. Dacia sighed. This was the longest journey of her life, and the combination of boredom and tension was about to send her screaming down the corridor for air or excitement or
something
. How did one write a travel journal that would be even remotely interesting to readers? The only thing of note that Dacia had to look at was Aunt Kate's taut mouth, and it was only notable to her, not to mention extremely worrisome.
The shade was down over the window to the corridor, but it didn't quite meet the window frame. Through that crack Dacia saw the red-and-gold livery of a train conductor, and made an abrupt decision. Without asking permission, she tossed aside her book, leaped up, and opened the door into the corridor.
