THE HEART NEVER LIES
Chapter Eight
Rose
My head hurt. My eyes hurt.
Nausea rose in my throat. I was lying wrapped in silk sheets. I could feel them
against my bare legs.
"Open your eyes," a
belligerent voice said. I opened my eyes and saw a stout, white-uniformed,
sour-faced nurse looking at me. I wondered if I was on the Carpathia. No. I had
been accosted by Cal, brought to his house, was locked in some sort of nursery,
and I could recall no more, other than frantically calling through the door and
this bruiser of a nurse forcing a needle into my arm.
"So, miss, you are awake.
Mr. Hockley will wanna see ye," she informed me. She went to the door and
said, "She’s awake. Ye can come in."
I struggled to a half-sitting
position, the effort to move making my breathing labored. I was wearing a
cotton nightgown, lying in an ornate bed in a palatial nursery. There was a
rocking horse and a dollhouse.
A shadow fell across my face--narrow,
cold, gleaming eyes, a sarcastic grin. Cal!
"Hello, my love," he
purred. "Back where you belong, with your family."
"You are not my
family!" I spat back.
His face changed. "Oh, but
we are, Rose. Don’t you remember? I told you that we are royalty." He
laughed. "Oh, and I have the necklace back in my safe. Thank you for
that."
"I want to leave when I am
well!" I shouted.
The nurse looked at me crossly.
"Enough of that, miss. Respect for Mr. Hockley, please," she scolded.
His eyes turned wintry and his mouth settled into a harsh line.
I bit my lip. I knew Cal was
capable of anything. He was a control freak.
Images of being in the dining
room on the Titanic, Cal treating me like a china doll, went through my head.
"We’ll have the lamb, please, and rare." Picking my food.
Sweeping the china off the
breakfast table when I dared to voice an opinion.
Telling me what to wear.
"No, Rose, you cannot wear black on sailing day."
Well, I could wear black forever
now, mourning my new future, dead in the cold waters of the Atlantic.
"Now, Rose," he
continued, enjoying himself, arrogance emanating from every pore. "About
our plans…when you are on your feet, we’ll have our engagement party, and then
we’ll marry."
"No!" I shrieked.
"I don’t want to be your wife. I would only ever be Jack’s wife!"
Jack’s face swam before my
eyes--his smile, the brilliant blue of his gaze, eyes you could dive into, his
warm tenderness, and now he was gone.
He stepped forward and slapped me
hard across the face, my head turning sharply.
"You will be my wife, you
will be a lady, you will do as you’re told, as will your mother, or there will
be consequences, and you will never mention that steerage swine by name again.
He’s gone, I’m here, and you’re mine!"
I started to sob. I was trapped.
Trapped. What could I do?
From the moment my mother had
pushed me towards Cal in the beginning, I had been a meal ticket, and I had
been a prisoner since that moment. Oh, he’d been utterly charming, swept me off
my feet, been lovely and attentive, but the cracks had started to show. By the
time we boarded the Titanic, I knew I would have a miserable, loveless, violent
future with him.
"You’ll learn. You’d better
learn. I’ll send your mother to you. Any messing around and Nurse Williams will
sedate you. It’s for your own good." His voice softened. He walked over to
me, ran his fingers through my hair, and touched my cheek. "Nurse,"
he said. "Give her a bath and wash her hair. She stinks." He abruptly
turned and left the room. I lay back in the bed, weakened and broken. Sleep
overtook me.
Jack
"Now, young man," the
white-coated man said, the doctor, I presumed. "You have made an excellent
recovery." He took my pulse as I lay there.
I looked blankly at the doctor
from my hospital bed. "Where are we?" I asked. "What happened?"
I was so confused.
"Can’t tell you too much,
son," he replied. "You were the last soul to be pulled into a
lifeboat from the sunken Titanic, but all I know was as they pulled you into
the boat, you caught your head badly. You stayed unconscious ‘til New York was
reached. Then they brought you to St. Jude’s Charity Mission, person unknown,
family unknown."
"Who am I?" I asked.
"Who am I?"
"We don’t know," he
said, puzzled. "You had no identification on you. However, by the cut of
your clothes, I would say you were steerage class!" He paused. "I
must tell you that I hope that you will recover your memory. All the better if
you do, but there’s a chance you might never do so." I lay back, my head
whirling. "Look, son," the doctor continued. "I’ll leave you to
sleep, and we’ll talk when you are more with us. You took a nasty crack to the
head."
He left the room quietly. My
thoughts hurt my brain.
What was I? Some sort of freak?
An invisible man? Did anyone care for me? Who was I? I just prayed my lost
memory would come back.