Read Far From Home for Free Online Page B

recognition dawned in the man’s eyes as he saw Georgiana.
    She took a few more steps down and stood in front of the two men. She knew him all right. Only it wasn’t Edward Newmarch.

CHAPTER FOUR
    In September 1850, when Edward Newmarch stumbled up the gangboard onto the ship, all he wanted to do was close the cabin door behind him and sink into oblivion. He didn’t look back at the crowds who were gathered at the Humber dock basin to watch the ship depart, for if he had he would have seen Ruby walking away. Ruby his mistress, his love, who had refused to travel with him and had told him that she loved someone else. He had barely given thought to his abandoned wife May, he was simply wrapped in his own misery and humiliation.
    ‘Damn and blast all women,’ he muttered as he lay face down on his bunk. ‘I gave that girl everything she wanted. Money, clothes, trinkets!’ Well, all right, he admitted. I couldn’t marry her. But it would have been as good as a marriage if she’d agreed to come! She’d have had to change her manners of course, put on a bit of style so that people wouldn’t have guessed that she’d come up from the gutter. But Ruby could have done that if she’d had a mind to, she had it in her.
    There was a faint tap on the door. ‘Yes! What is it?’
    ‘Can I get you anything, sir?’ It was his valet’s voice. Allen. Robert Allen, who had agreed to come with him. Hmm, Edward brooded. He hadn’t needed to ask twice. Allen had jumped at the chance of a new life.
    ‘No, I don’t need anything. Wait, on second thoughts – come in.’ He raised himself on one elbow. ‘Get me a drink,’ he said as Allen came in, bending his head so that he didn’t bang it on the door frame. Not a tall man, he was stocky in build, unlike his employer, who was tall and slim, but the cabin ceilings and doors were low.
    Allen crouched to open the cupboard door. ‘Brandy, sir? Whisky? Port?’
    Edward exhaled. ‘Port, and leave the bottle here by me. Then don’t disturb me until supper.’
    ‘We’re about to sail, sir. Don’t you want to see us leave?’ Allen poured the port into a glass and put the bottle by the bed as instructed.
    ‘No, I damn well don’t! I’ll be glad to be gone.’ Edward raised his glass and took a drink. ‘Have you left anyone behind, Allen?’
    ‘No, sir.’ Allen’s expression was impassive. ‘Nobody.’
    ‘Good for you. Nobody to mourn you or blacken your name, then?’ Edward took another drink.
    ‘No, sir. Will that be all, sir?’
    ‘Yes. Make sure there’s plenty of meat for supper. I feel the need for some red meat.’
    ‘Very good, sir.’ Allen backed out of the cabin, closed the door firmly and returned to watching the shores of East Yorkshire slide away into the darkness. It was cold and wet in spite of being early autumn and there were few people on deck.
    He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when Edward Newmarch had approached him and told him, in confidence, that he was thinking of going to America. ‘But not a word to Mrs Newmarch,’ he had said. ‘I don’t want to tell her yet. Not until I’ve thought it through,’ and then he had asked if Allen would consider going with him.
    Wouldn’t I just! Allen had thought, and needed no time to contemplate. He was bored with his job of running around after Newmarch, helping him dress, shave, cleaning his shoes, making sure his shirts and collars were freshly starched and ironed, and when his employer was out, as he frequently was, he had to help clean the household silver, which, he considered, was not the work of a valet.
    But then, he had deliberated, the Newmarch family were not top-drawer aristocracy with a mass of servants who knew who did what and when, but wealthy folk who had made their money out of industry and commerce, and employed people to do for them what they didn’t want to do for themselves.
    I’ll be rid of him as soon as I can, he determined as he watched the light of Spurn Point flash