Chapter 49
The swaying darkness was disconcerting for the minute it took for Saffron to remember where exactly she was. She reached out, hoping her hand would find a lamp and not knock it over.
When the warm glow of the lamp flicked on, Saffron recalled the lamp was bolted in place, the same as most of the rest of the furniture. She was on a ship, after all.
The past day churned in her mind. It had been such a blur, a terrifying, heartbreaking, yet somehow wonderful blur.
Saffron glanced next to her, hardly daring to expect to see Alexander stretched out next to her, still fast asleep.
They were both still fully dressed, having barely the energy to kick off their shoes before falling onto the bed.
The itinerary they’d pieced together would take them through three different countries in a little less than five days, and the first leg had taken them from Smyrna to Athens just two hours after Alexander had opened the telegram from John.
They were aboard the ship that would take them from Athens to Gibraltar, where in two days they would part ways.
Dr. Henry had been near apoplectic to learn about their subterfuge with the graffitied stone, even after Alexander explained it was necessary to catch the smugglers and reclaim the missing artifacts.
They’d nearly come to blows when he learned Alexander planned to “abandon his men in the field.” Apparently, the loss of another member of the expedition was too much for Dr. Henry.
With Martin’s death, Clark’s arrest, Saffron’s impending departure, and the plans of Mr. Demirel—who’d proven innocent of collusion with Clark or his wife—to wait out Mrs. Demirel’s trial in Istanbul, Alexander leaving, too, was a bridge too far.
Alexander had managed to restore calm only when he agreed to return to Turkey for the last few weeks of the expedition.
Saffron had been unaware of this, of course, and only heard about it when Mrs. Henry had alluded to it when they departed the hotel.
“Cool as a cucumber, your new husband,” Mrs. Henry had murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek just before they dashed into the motorcar. “But he’s got an explosive side, doesn’t he? Enjoy it, my dear.”
Saffron shook her head with a rueful smile as she recalled the cheeky comment and rose from the bed.
She padded across the room, a lavish suite courtesy of Nick and the grateful British government, he’d said.
He’d somehow been there at the dock when they boarded their first ship, offering nothing more than a murmur of condolences—how infuriating he already knew of her grandfather’s death!
—and a brief thanks in the form of first-class accommodations all the way back to England.
The suite’s gold gilding and lush fabrics were dull in the dim light. Saffron opened the window and was immediately caught in a cold rush of salted night air. It served to push the lingering cobwebs of sleep from her head.
She sighed and leaned on the windowsill.
The ship glided through the darkness with a gentle roll.
There’d been moments of calm and quiet since she’d learned her grandfather had died, but she’d been numb to it, sheltered behind a barrier that prevented feeling from crowding in too close around her.
Now that sturdy wall of logistics and practicality had thinned to a mere veil, she was left feeling rather like a little boat, pressing forward into darkness in choppy, uncharted waters.
Which rock of emotion would she crash into first?
The grief of losing one of her few family members, for whom she’d had hopes to repair their relationship?
The anger for what Mrs. Demirel had done to Martin and tried to do to her, that Clark had targeted her, that the crew would no doubt spread more rumors about all that had occurred the moment they set foot on English soil, if not before?
Or worst, lingering fear that even now threatened to drown her.
She could still see Kadriye’s panic, feel Mrs. Demirel’s nails gouging her face.
So many moments, had they gone just slightly different …
“You’re either awake very late, or very early,” Alexander’s voice said from behind her.
He’d sat up on the bed and swung his legs over the side. With a sleepy smile, he crossed the room and took her in his arms.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured into her ear.
“As if I need to sleep for a decade to settle all the jumbles of emotions I’m experiencing.” She put her face into his chest, her throat suddenly burning. “I can’t believe all that’s happened. Martin was murdered, I could have been convicted for killing him … My grandfather … It’s been too fast.”
He looked down at her, his eyes earnestly looking into her own as he eased her a few inches back. “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?”
“When you were arrested, I contacted John and explained the situation. I don’t think the message reached him since he was likely already in England when it reached France. I wrote to Elizabeth and my brother, too.”
She frowned. “So, they know what happened. The murder, the arrest. Our marriage.”
He nodded, and his silence stretched until she realized what he hadn’t said.
“But not my mother. Or your parents.” Her lips pursed as she thought.
“So, it will be a surprise to them. A shock, really. My mother …” Her mother had been so excited to plan their nuptials.
And with Lord Easting’s unexpected passing, there would likely be a period of mourning before they could be married in England. “Do we tell them, Alexander?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about your parents? Will they be very disappointed?”
“My mother certainly will be.”
The last of her veil of numbness fell away. “This is going to be a disaster. A death in the family, a secret marriage, and rumors of murder and poison and guilt flying across the sea. And you have to go back to Smyrna for three more weeks.”
“By the time I return with the crew, I’ll have it all cleared up. And besides,” he said, mischief creeping into his voice, “they know what happens to those who spread rumors about you.”
“You are dreadful,” Saffron said, poking his ribs even as she snuggled closer.
“I could be, if you wanted me to be.”
His words were not playful, but so serious that she leaned back to search his shadowed face. “I do.” Her throat grew tight. “I will.”
Perhaps Alexander’s recollection of their rushed vows was as vague as her own. He slid his hands down her back to her waist, then, with painful gentleness, took her hands in his. “I will. I will take you as my wife, for better, worse, richer, poorer, in jail or out.”
She burst into a tearful laugh. “I love you.”
“Wait a moment,” he murmured, and strode to his trunk on the far side of the room.
“I have waited,” she muttered under her breath.
He was back in a moment, a small box in hand.
Her jaw dropped when she saw it was a ring box. “Don’t tell me you somehow thought to plan for the infinitesimal chance that we would get married—”
Then he opened the box.
The sapphire gleamed in the golden light, a dark drop the size of her fingernail and set in a swirl of silver filigree. But it wasn’t the gem itself that conjured the sob Saffron choked back. “How—how do you have this?”
Alexander looked uncertain. “Your grandfather gave it to me before we left Ellington in February. I thought you would want to have it now …”
He broke off when she covered her mouth with her hands.
“What?” he asked, clearly sure he’d done something wrong.
“This was the ring my mother wore,” she managed to say.
“It’s a family piece, a gift for after the next heir is born.
My father gave it to my mother, anyway, when I was born.
He used to say he didn’t care—” She couldn’t continue, couldn’t say aloud the words that, even as a little girl, had made her tear up in gratitude that her father didn’t care if she was a girl or a boy, just that she was herself.
“Oh.” Alexander blinked, looking down at the ring in the ring box with apprehension. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
Saffron shook her head, reaching out for him.
She fisted his shirt in her hand, anchoring herself to him in the midst of yet another wave of emotion.
“If he gave this to you … If my grandfather gave this to you, Alexander, it means he approved. He approved of you, and that—” She tried in take in a whole breath.
“That means the world to me. Especially now.”
They only stared at each other for a long moment, their breathing too fast for a silent room on a quiet ship in the sea.
Then Alexander took the ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger, next to the simple ring she already wore.
As Saffron examined how they sat together on her finger, unevenly, perfectly, she decided that no matter the path that had led them there, whether through crime and dusty streets or a beautiful ceremony surrounded by their family and friends, it was the right one.