Drama, romance and deception! It’s all happening in part two of our exciting serial Lady oftheSea. Don’t miss it!

PART TWO: Sarah’s temporary life of privilege makes her feel undeserving of it… how will she move on from here?

The stars of the Milky Way floated like a vast cloud of glitter above an ocean like black glass. As the American liner Lady of the Sea ploughed across the Atlantic, its hull and upper decks were lit up like a party by the electric lights glowing through its hundreds of windows and portholes.

Sarah had never dreamed that she would ever set foot on such a ship, let alone find herself travelling First Class and being escorted through its gilded corridors on the arm of a handsome and wealthy American businessman like Chester, resplendent in his evening suit and white silk bow tie.

The passage had been booked for her employer, Lady Veronica, but her Ladyship’s riding accident days before departure meant that Sarah, her trusted housekeeper, had to take her place on the mission to deliver an important deed to New York. A mix-up on the gangway meant that Chester had come to believe that Sarah was Lady Veronica.

Youmeanyou’veallowedhimto believeit! Her conscience chided her. Andyou’restillmisleadinghim!

She had meant to confess earlier, but the rapt attention Chester had paid to her over a ten course feast in the First Class dining room had been so intoxicating that she couldn’t bring herself to ruin the evening.

I’lltellhimthetruthtomorrow, she promised herself. Definitelytomorrow.

Ahead of them, a pair of liveried attendants bowed as they opened the double doors to the ballroom. A blast of Scott Joplin’s MapleLeafRag danced out to greet them.

Chester patted her hand and joked, “This may be more disreputable than a lady of your class is accustomed to.”

“You may be surprised,” Sarah returned his grin.

The mixed class ballroom couldn’t have contrasted more strongly with the refined elegance of the dining room, where a string quartet played refrains of Beethoven beneath crystal chandeliers. The harsh bite of pipe smoke filled Sarah’s nose as her eyes adjusted to the shadowy gloom. Mirrored walls made the packed room appear to extend endlessly in every direction; a kaleidoscope of noisy, tipsy humanity.

On a stage framed by claret curtains, the bandleader rose from the piano in his long-tailed evening suit. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our chanteuse with the muse, Miss Candy!”

An incredibly pretty young woman with her blonde hair worn in a halo of tight curls, sashayed into the spotlight in a figure-hugging, floor-length, pink satin dress.

“I’m going to sing a song that I know you’ll all want to shake a leg to,” Candy announced in a cheeky Cockney accent. “Irving Berlin’s song that they tried to ban: TheDanceoftheGrizzlyBear!”

“Oh, the Grizzly Bear!” Sarah grabbed Chester’s hand as everyone rushed onto the dance floor. “Shall we?”

“I will if you will!” The American grinned in surprise.

The Grizzly Bear was simply the most fun that anyone could have on a dance floor. It started with Sarah and Chester holding each other’s upper arms, with their elbows thrust out to the side, as they cavorted around the floor in wild bow-legged sideways lopes. Laughing, they parted and waddled around each other, gnashing their teeth and pawing the air in the manner of two dancing bears standing on their hind legs. The music suddenly stopped and they both shouted along with everyone else in the ballroom: “It’s a bear!”

The ragtime music resumed and they grabbed each other’s hands to start dancing wildly once more.

After the happiest hour of Sarah’s life, she and Chester crashed through a door from the heat of the ballroom to the fresh breeze of the moonlit upper deck.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see an English aristocrat doing the Grizzly Bear!” Chester laughed.

The silver-haired Lady Veronica would have never countenanced such a display of wanton vulgarity at Wilton Hall, but the Grizzly Bear, the Turkey Trot and the Bunny Hug were all the rage at the Riviera, the tin dance hall in the village where Sarah and the rest of the staff let off steam each month, after weeks of solemn service.

Chester encircled her with his arms and pulled her gently against him.

“For a lady, you’re some dame,” he breathed, his eyes full of admiration that melted her heart like hot chocolate.

Tellhimnow, her inner voice implored her. He’llforgiveyou. But what if he didn’t? Before she could speak, Chester cupped her head and brought his lips to hers. She closed her eyes and melted into his passionate embrace, her head full of nothing but fireworks.

The morning sun sat high in an azure sky above a sea that sparkled like a tray of sapphires. Sightseers crammed into the stern to point and coo at a pod of dolphins that were leaping like circus performers in the long snowy wake churned up by the liner’s propellers.

The pale orange boards of the promenade deck gleamed beneath her boots as Sarah took the morning air in an ankle-length royal blue skirt, frilly white blouse and a wide hat decorated with silk flowers. A crocheted shawl protected her shoulders from the fresh breeze, held in place by an antique brooch.

The shawl and brooch had been loaned to her by Lady Veronica. “If you’re travelling first class, then you must look the part,” the dowager had insisted, leg in a splint. Sarah doubted looking the part extended to borrowing her employer’s name, though.

Her arm was linked through Chester’s as he strolled beside her in a cream linen three-piece suit and straw boater with a scarlet silk band.

“We’re making good time,” Chester noted. “They say the Lady of the Sea

“Me mother left me in a basket outside a stage door when I was a week old,” Candy told Sarah

could take the Blue Riband from the Mauretania for the fastest transatlantic crossing.”

Sarah wished the ship would go slower, giving her more time to luxuriate in the wonderful warmth of Chester’s company.

Still giddy from last night’s kiss, she’d decided that she couldn’t tell him her true identity. Their time together would be brief enough as it was. Surely there was no harm in enjoying such an innocent pretence for the few days until they reached New York?

“I’m so glad I met you, Veronica,” Chester said, as they reached the end of the deck. “I hope you don’t think me too forward, but I feel as though this could be the start of something special, long and lasting.”

He moved closer, lips poised to kiss her. She ached to relive the previous night’s bliss, but his mention of the future gave her a guilty reminder that they wouldn’t have a future beyond the end of this voyage.

She mustn’t let herself fall for him. Even if he excused her awful deception, he was a businessman who travelled the world. She was a housekeeper on a Norfolk country estate. What possible future could they have?

Turning away from his lips, Sarah pointed to a lower deck, behind them.

“Look, there’s Candy, the singer from last night. Shall we go down?”

“Why not?” Chester shrugged, good-naturedly.

Candy was sunning herself on a wooden deck chair beside the rail and chatting to a brown haired girl on the next seat.

The singer was wearing a fashionable blue-and-white-striped sundress with a sailor collar. Her friend was in a drab brown dress and knitted shawl.

“Pardon me interrupting,” Sarah smiled. “I just want to say how much I enjoyed your singing last night.”

“Ah, bless you, m’lady.”

The deferential “m’lady” took Sarah by surprise – until she realised Candy must have seen her descend from the First Class deck.

“Wait a minute, I remember you!” Candy’s eyes widened, excitedly. “You and your husband were the best dancers on the floor!”

“Oh, he’s not… I mean, we’re not…” Sarah blushed.

“Not yet, anyway – eh, Lady V?” Chester nudged her and winked.

Sarah met his eyes and wondered if he could possibly even be entertaining such a thought.

“Oops, sorry! Me and my big mouth,” Candy giggled.

“She fell for me on the gangplank,” Chester joked.

“Oh, stop it!” Embarrassed, Sarah remembered the trip that had sent her stumbling into the American’s arms.

To hide her fluster, she turned to Candy’s companion.

“Didn’t I see you at the dance, too? With a tall redheaded man?”

“Ah yes, that would be my husband, Sean,” the brunette answered in an Irish accent. “There’s nothing he likes more than to cut a rug. Except for a game of cards…”

Sarah followed her gaze to a quartet of men in caps and waistcoats enjoying a spirited game on the far side of the deck, beer bottles at their elbows.

“That’s why I’m keeping our savings right here.” The girl squeezed a battered snakeskin handbag to her side with her elbow. “If it were down to Sean, we’d arrive in New York penniless.”

“You should let the purser put that in the safe,” Chester said discreetly.

“I feel safer with it where I can see it.” “Mary-May and me are in the same cabin,” Candy introduced her companion.

Sarah noticed the shabbiness of MaryMay’s clothes and remembered that not all the passengers were enjoying the comforts of First Class travel. Hundreds in steerage would have staked everything they had on a one-way ticket to a new life in America.

“How’s the accommodation below decks?” Chester asked. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he added, catching Sarah’s reproachful look.

“Better than where we were living in London,” Mary-May admitted. “We were sharing a room with two other families. Hopefully things will be better in New York.”

“There’s plenty of work there,” Chester confirmed. “Skyscrapers going up everywhere you look.”

“Have you sung on the ship for long?” Sarah asked Candy.

“This is the first time and last time,” the singer grinned. “I’m working my passage. Broadway here I come!”

“I’m sure they’ll love you,” Chester said, encouragingly.

“Won’t you miss your family, though?” Sarah asked.

“I ain’t got any that I know of,” Candy said matter-of-factly. “Me mother left me in a basket outside a stage door when I was a week old. I guess she wanted me to grow up in the music halls and that’s exactly what I did.”

Before Sarah could respond, Chester tugged her arm. “Excuse me, Veronica, may I introduce you to someone?”

Several people were crossing the deck from the stern, jovially discussing the dolphins which had now swum away.

Among them was a tall middle-aged man in a stylishly casual yellow sweater. A pipe jutted from the corner of his mouth and a pair of binoculars hung around his neck.

“Thomas Whyte is in the next cabin to me,” Chester told Sarah. “He’s chairman of an insurance company in Norwich.”

At a moment when Sarah couldn’t have felt further from her old life, the word Norwich almost stopped her heart. The city was barely twenty miles from Wilton Hall. What if he knew the real Lady Veronica?

“Tommy, my pal, have you met Lady Veronica from Norfolk?”

“Lady Veronica of… Wilton Hall?” Sarah’s gloved hand trembled as Whyte took it and gazed into her eyes so searchingly that she couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Whyte. “But my chief of accounts, Harry Jenkins, has often spoken of you.”

“He has?” Sarah squeaked.

“Strange, though,” Whyte frowned. “I always got the impression that you’d be much older.”

Over the thumping of her heart, Sarah heard herself say, “Perhaps your colleague knows… my mother?”

Whatonearthareyouplayingat,girl? Her conscience had suddenly taken on the voice of Lady Veronica herself. How muchdeeperofaholedoyouwantto digforyourself?

“I expect that’s the case,” Whyte smiled. “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you. Hopefully we’ll speak again before we reach New York.”

“Small world, huh?” Chester grinned, as Whyte headed off for the steps up to First Class.

It was too small for Sarah’s liking.

Why hadn’t it crossed her mind that some of the well-heeled passengers of the Lady of the Sea might be part of her employer’s social set?

With a weight like a rock in her stomach, she knew more than ever that her impersonation of Lady Veronica was going to end badly. But now so many people knew her by that name, that confessing the truth felt even more impossible than ever.

It would make Chester look a complete fool, and she simply couldn’t do that to him.

To distract herself, she turned back to Candy and Mary-May.

“Chester and I were about to have lunch on the Parisian Terrace. Would you like to join us?”

“Really?” Candy’s eyes widened.

“Cor, yeah!”

Mary-May tugged Candy’s sleeve. “I don’t think we’re allowed in the First Class areas.”

“You are, as our guests,” Chester said brightly.

“All the same, Your Ladyship…” Mary-May demurred.

For a moment, Sarah thought the Irish girl was embarrassed by her clothes. Then she realised that she was uncomfortable with the prospect of dining with an aristocrat.

Being seen by her as someone so different made Sarah feel terrible when she was from a background just as humble, herself.

Candy looked disappointed by her pal’s reluctance, but said quickly, “Mary-May’s right, m’lady. I’m sure your gentleman friend wouldn’t want me playing gooseberry. I’ll stay here with Mary-May.”

“Perhaps some other time, then,” Sarah said weakly.

“It was kind of you to invite them,” Chester remarked, as they returned to the First Class deck. “I bet you treat your servants well.”

Sarah smiled thinly.

Lady Veronica had always treated her well. The dowager could be a hard task master, but she had nevertheless brought Sarah up through the ranks from the humblest maid to the most senior member of staff, while she was still in her mid-20s. She’d entrusted her with this luxurious mission, in fact. Or perhaps given it to her as a reward for her years of service.

Sarah felt awful for betraying her employer’s trust in this manner, with her shameful behaviour. She fully deserved to be sacked if she were ever found out.

The Parisian Terrace was a covered portion of deck with tables arranged like a street café. The entrance to the ship’s interior resembled a shop front, while a glass screen protected diners from the sea breeze.

“Is everything alright?” Chester murmured through the buzz of high society chatter.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking about Candy and Mary-May.”

Sarah glanced at the maids in their black dresses, white aprons and caps, scurrying between linen-covered tables that were laden with vases of flowers, silver tea sets and tiered cake stands. The pampered diners acted like the servers were invisible.

“Does it ever trouble you, having all this when so many others have so little?” she asked.

It wasn’t that she resented Chester having more than her. She had always been content with her lot. She was just curious as to how Chester and Lady Veronica could seem so comfortable in their life of privilege when she felt so undeserving of it.

Chester shifted uncomfortably.

“My company employs thousands of people,” he said at length. “We put roofs over a lot of heads and bread on a lot of tables. I’m sure your estate does the same. I’m not saying we don’t profit from the arrangement. But would Candy and Mary-May really have any more if we had any less?

“You play the hand life deals you.” Chester went on, shrugging philosophically. “And cheer up, because you can bet that Candy will play her hand better than any of us. Orphaned on a doorstep and she’ll probably end up a star!”

“You’re probably right about Candy,” Sarah smiled. She had no doubt that the talented and determined singer would make something of her life.

But what about herself? How was she going to play the unusual hand she’d been dealt on this trip?

NEXT WEEK: Will Sarah’s conscience get the better of her? Can she enjoy her first class voyage or will Chester have her swimming for the shores? Don’t miss the final part next week!

Why hadn’t she thought that some of the well-heeled passengers might know her employer?