As Minerva held a rag full of small shavings of ice against her red, horridly splotchy face she let out a long sigh. There was nothing quite like a good, solid cry to make one feel slightly less like complete and utter horse shite. Better still if one locked themselves in their first class suite and refused to join the other passengers for a single meal and ate all the tea cakes that could possibly be had from the kitchens. To top it all off, to maximize one's indulgence in their self-pity, one simply must start crying at the smallest reminders of one's husband.

He always liked this color on me.

Cue the waterfall.

This coffee is almost exactly the color of his eyes.

Her buttered toast found a splash of snot on it.

I wonder if he has gotten to Ophelia yet.

There she went sniffling into her handkerchief.

The servers likely thought she was mad, the other passengers likely thought she was too uppity to join them. She could not bring herself to join them knowing there were two newly married couples on board and she would have to witness their love and eagerness while she was so heartbroken. Not to mention that she looked half dead with her sunken eyes and reddened nose.

She felt like complete and utter shite. Likely looked it too. What a sad state of affairs indeed.

Stop it. You are not the first woman to have loved the wrong man, nor shall you be the last, her mind argued but her heart remained unmoved.

But he felt like the right man, it replied petulantly, deflating in anguish.

Oh, enough! She stood up out of her chair and fumed. She pressed the ice-cloth closer to her face in a silly bid to bring down the bloating caused by all the excessive weeping. She would join the other passengers for dinner today, to the devil with all this moping! She would put on one of her favorite evening gowns, have her hair done in an elaborate style, and paint her lips. She would sit with the other ladies and enjoy herself. Perhaps she would join them for some card games. She was among Americans for the first time in years, she might as well enjoy the release from the stuffiness of English Society.

There is no one looking forward to seeing me at dinner. There is no one to join me in the library afterward.

Oh, she had to stop it! She had made a decision because she had respected herself too much to stay with someone who could not offer her trust. She had thought he loved her.

Sniffle.

She had thought he loved her. He had made it feel so real. But he did not and she would not lay herself at his feet in the hopes that someday he would.

And still, she had looked out onto the harbor, hoping to see a familiar head of curling black hair that had been styled to perfection. A regal, perfect posture. Eyes that were normally impassive, but had looked at her with so much affection and passion.

Her eyes watered once more.

What had she wanted? Had she wanted him to run to her side and beg her to stay? Lay his heart down and apologize? Ease this hurt that he had caused?

He had tried. And she hadn't let him. She had run away

He had made her feel so loved and cherished. More so than anyone else in her life.

How could he just throw it away like that?

Except he did not.

She was the one who had left. Like a coward, she had turned her back and fled. She had held him accountable for not giving her the opportunity to speak, but hadn't she just done the same? She had left days before he was due home. She had not given him the opportunity to speak his piece while she was in a clear mind. She had looked at him through the haze of her hurt, through what she had felt was a betrayal. She had felt so unmoored by his treachery that she had clung to her hurt, used it to pull herself to safer ground. She had used it to erect a fortress around her heart so that he would not see her vulnerability again.

She was so sure that he would push her away that she had made up her mind at the first sight of trouble. But that hadn't been fair, had it?

He had tried to make it right. He had wanted to apologize. She could not expect him to change habits built up over the course of his entire life, but she could have appreciated that he was trying to be better. She had fled the very first time he had faltered, never giving him the space to make mistakes. And it had been a mistake. He had begged her to understand time and again. Instead of listening, she had let her fears and insecurities make a bad situation worse.

'You are my wife. You are more important to me than anything. I made a mistake, I am sorry for it. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that you matter more than anything else.'

She would not cry, she would not.

Oh, devil take it!

She snatched a handkerchief from her dressing and began to dab at her eyes as her lower lip quivered. She felt her throat constrict on a sob.

Of course, he had been afraid. That man loved his sister with his entire being. He knew that pain of losing a sibling acutely and Needham had preyed upon it. Ben had regretted his actions immediately. He had acted in anger, in fear, but he had seen sense even in the throes of it. 

'Tell me how to make things right. I am begging you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, you are the most precious thing in my life. Let me make it right.'

But she hadn't, had she? She had spurned him and turned her back on him when he had been humbling himself before her. He had hurt her, yes, but she had been cruel right back.

And then the damn burst once more. Her shoulders shook as she took gasping breaths through her tears.

Instead of listening, instead of letting reason win over her hurt, she had used the weakness that he had trusted her with against him. She had made it into a weapon that she could plunge into his back. Was her betrayal any better than his? Perhaps it was worse because hers had been intentional. She had put an ocean between them knowing he could not follow. She had written him a letter lashing out with all her hurt in an attempt to save herself, not caring how she would devastate him. She had not meant those words either. She had said them in a moment of heartache and anger and confusion.

So why must she hold the words he had spoken in heartache and anger to be true instead of the thousand other ways that he had expressed his affection, his care, his loyalty? The thousands of times he had held her as she slept, the times when they had laughed and teased and made love? Why did 'what a mistake' matter more than 'I think you are my best friend'?

It didn't.

It never should have.

Dear lord, she had made a colossal mistake!

She had to fix it! She had to get back to her husband! Oh, why couldn't she have had this epiphany before she had boarded? Or perhaps before the ship had sailed? Or perhaps even after it had sailed and the shore was in sight? She was a reasonably strong swimmer, she could have managed to get to shore. Granted she would have had to shuck off all her clothes except for her chemise if she didn't want to drown and that certainly would have caused a scene, but desperate times and all that.

What could she possibly do now? Row a damned lifeboat back to England? Jump off board and hope another ship going in the opposite direction would spot her and rescue her? She couldn't wait three and a half weeks to reach Boston and another four weeks on the return journey! And who was to say she would find passage on the same day?! Passage usually had to be booked weeks in advance.

Desperate and a little mad, she marched out of her room and bounded down the hall. Her eyes scanning the hallway, she called out to the first crewman she saw.

'You there! You must take me to the captain immediately.' She demanded without much ceremony. She could apologize for it later. And compensate the crewman heavily.

'Ah, Your Grace.' The man bowed a quick, clumsy bow. 'Yes, immediately. I was just sent to fetch you, but perhaps someone has already spoken to you? I believe the captain has sent for you because the situation is rather....delicate.'

'....What?' Vera's brow crinkled in confusion. He had been expecting her? Did he mean to express his dissatisfaction with her for not interacting with the other first-class passengers? Her behavior had been rather poor these past three days, granted, for she had refused several invitations from other ladies for tea and luncheon. But for the captain to speak to her was rather audacious. Perhaps she had forgotten some unspoken English rule once again and her indiscretion was very severe.

Vera felt her irritation spark. She just wanted to reach Boston so she could shuck off this inadequacy.

They found the captain on the deck, observing as passengers milled about with a smile on his face, even as his body thrummed with tension.

'Your Grace.' He drawled, inclining his head respectfully instead of bowing as an Englishman would. A shot of delight streaked through her.

An American! She was talking to an American after 3 entire years!

'Captain, I must speak with you urgently.'

The captain's eyebrows rose up his forehead. 'You must speak to me? I was actually hoping to speak to you, Your Grace.'

Vera took in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of ducal authority she could.

'Yes. I-I order you to turn this vessel around.'

Dash it. She had hesitated. She didn't sound nearly as entitled and pompous as she ought! And oh, she felt so very terrible for bossing around a fellow countryman.

'You what?' The captain turned from simply tense to disbelieving and finally to disapproving.

'I, the Duchess of Rothbury, command you to turn this boat around.' She lifted her chin at a haughty angle, holding her pose stiff and forbidding. She likely looked like her mother-in-law. God, that woman probably could manage to turn this ship around. The captain would simply give her keys to the flight deck and tell her to have her way, only to get her off his back.

'Boat? Did you just call my ship that has a capacity for fifteen hundred a boat?'

'That is hardly the point, is it? Did you hear me? We must go back to England!' Vera snapped at him. Men!

'No, Your Grace. I will do no such thing, we are already three days into our voyage and we have a schedule that must be adhered to.'

'Name your price. Whatever it is, I will pay it. I have accidentally left something very important in England.'

'Madam, no amount of money is worth my integrity as the head of this vessel, as my career! I will be sacked the moment we hit American soil. If we turned our ship around every time a first-class passage left a valise or a pet behind, we'd never get anywhere!'

Oh, now she finally understood Benedict's frustration at her American lack of reverence for his title! An Englishman would have been bowing and simpering at this point!

'Are you in your senses?!' She cried out, though her outrage was only halfhearted. She steeled herself for the next sentence she would speak, even as she felt embarrassment heat her cheeks. 'Do you know who I am? Do you know who my husband is?'

'Ma'am.' The captain pinched the bridge of his nose, praying to God for patience. 'I do not care if you were the Queen of England. I have a job to do. Your dresses or jewels or whatever it is can be sent by another ship, madam. Now, the reason I wished to speak to you-'

'How presumptuous of you, sir!' She snapped at his dismissive attitude. 'The thing I have forgotten just happens to be my husband!'

The man turned pale. '...Your husband, you say?'

'Indeed. The Duke.' She informed him smugly.

'Perchance, does your husband have a....cat?'

Minerva rocked back on her heels. 'How could you possibly know that?'

'The reason I was looking for you is that sometime last night a third-class passenger got into a tussle with some of the crew. He was trying to force his way into the first-class wing. He has been taken into our custody, but he's..... a fussy prisoner.'

'Oh, heaven! Are the crewmen alright?' Minerva frowned in concern. 'And I do not see what that has to do with me.'

'That man claims to be the Duke of Rothbury.'

Minerva's jaw slacked in shock before she collected herself. 'No. It is impossible. My husband does not travel. And he certainly does not travel third class.'

Foolish, stupid girl. Why had her heart bloomed with hope at such an impossible scenario? She had made it clear to him that she wanted nothing to do with him. She had even gone as far as to tell him she wanted their old arrangement.

'I know. It is almost ludicrous, but he knows specific enough details about your passage that we have cause to be cautious. He also came with a rather expensive-looking cat. While he could have stolen the creature, it seems rather attached to him.'

'...A brown cat? With a lot of fur....and blue eyes?'

'Yes.' The captain nodded gravely.

It's not possible. He-he can't travel across the ocean! He was not comfortable in a row boat on a lake, much less a ship of this size on the Atlantic!

'Take me to him. Dear god, take me to him right now!'