Deep Within A Woman's Heart

Joanna Joslin

Description

A voyage aboard the RMS ‘Lusitania’ will change their lives forever…

Emily Taylor, a young headmistress from Yorkshire, first sails aboard the RMS ‘Lusitania’ in 1910 whilst travelling to attend a family wedding on Long Island in America. During that first voyage, she makes a number of acquaintances, all with secrets in their pasts: Amelia Davenport, a flamboyant elderly widow with a salacious history, who is emigrating to America with her son and his family; Sam Jackson, a tough New York Police Inspector, driven by a personal vendetta; Christian Verholt, the heir to a wealthy banking dynasty whose double life includes a mysterious partner; and Niall Branigan, the charming Irish doctor whose twinkling emerald eyes mask hidden family secrets. But as the threat of the First World War looms, it is not only Emily’s life that changes dramatically as a consequence of these encounters, but also the lives of those close to her back in England.

Sujets

• Suspenso
• Historical romance
• General officer
• General
• Romance
• Suspense
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783081936
• Langue: English

Extrait

DEEP WITHIN A WOMAN’S HEART
DEEP WITHIN A WOMAN’S HEART
JOANNA JOSLIN
Deep Within A Woman’s Heart
THAMES RIVER PRESS An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company Limited (WPC) Another imprint of WPC is Anthem Press ( www.anthempress.com ) First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by THAMES RIVER PRESS 75–76 Blackfriars Road London SE1 8HA
www.thamesriverpress.com
© Joanna Joslin 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78308-205-6
This title is also available as an eBook
This book is dedicated to the memory of my great aunt.
Annie Elizabeth Taylor, (1879–1931), was a dedicated headmistress who travelled a great deal, including sailing aboard the RMS Lusitania. Although engaged to an Irish doctor, sadly she never married.
Acknowledgements
M y appreciation goes to Angela Glister for her diligence in proof-reading this manuscript and to Wendy Binns for her enthusiastic support.
Grateful thanks must also go to my husband Brian, and to my agent, Darin Jewell, for their encouragement and guidance.
‘Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.’
Anton Chekov, Lady with Lapdog
Chapter One
F riday, May 7th 1915 2.10pm Everything happened within those eighteen minutes. It began as the torpedo smashed into the ship’s hull displacing water and debris into the air; to Captain Turner its explosive impact appeared little more than the heavy slamming of a large door in windswept conditions. Some of the passengers were even oblivious to it. However, the same could not be said for the second explosion. The Lusitania shuddered violently before conceding to her downfall. She began to pitch to starboard, defiantly ploughing her way through the water; her three powerful turbines propelling her at eighteen knots as her bow increasingly subsided, now on course to the bottom of the sea.
The Lusitania had left Pier 54 from New York on May 1st, making this her 202nd transatlantic journey. Any rumoured concerns of dangers from German submarines had been quickly quashed by the knowledge and assurance that the Lusitania’s speed would outstrip these threats. The passengers, however, had not been informed that the ship’s company had instructed Captain Turner to close down six of the ship’s boilers, for reasons of economy. A sense of unease must therefore have pervaded the thoughts of those who worked down in the boiler room, as the stoker’s mascot, a black cat named Dowie, had suddenly gone missing. The omens were evident: there for those who believed. Seafaring superstition could never be taken lightly by a true seaman.
The Irish coastline was within view as the panic intensified. Scrambling for survival, passengers searched with desperation for available lifeboats. The tilting of the deck beneath their feet hastened the frenzy of departure. The ship was now sinking quickly and the inability to safely launch the lifeboats only served to fuel the anxiety. As the little boats bashed against the portside, their escapees were littered into the cold sea.
Captain Turner stood there in shock. The Irish shore, although visible in the wake of such tragedy, could not save his passengers and his ship. Rising out into the air, the stern was now most visible. As the funnels collapsed, the boilers exploded and the Lusitania travelled to her resting place, 295 feet below the surface. The time now was 2.28pm: only eighteen minutes following the attack.
The survivors thrashed around looking for anything to hold onto. The ship had disappeared, but there was wreckage and carnage in its wake. Pieces of furniture, deckchairs and bodies appeared on the surface, as though being spewed from the guts of the liner. There was now no segregation for first, second or third class passengers. The living made no distinctions as they struggled to claim anything that floated, wrenching their bodies from the freezing water onto wooden crates, upturned lifeboats and other buoyant remains. Many gripped onto the sides of critically full lifeboats, some by nothing more than an outstretched finger. The only thing that mattered was to remain conscious and to cling to life. One second class passenger, Emily Taylor, in an effort to remain conscious, gripped onto a floating piece of wood and tried to remember her first voyage.
Chapter Two
J uly 1910 Gripping the handrail with quiet determination, she peered down to the minuscule ant-like figures scurrying alongside the quayside; mixed emotions surged and swelled within her. Emily had never experienced such a powerful concurrence of excitement and trepidation. She glanced around at the fervent gestures of parting and only then did she decide to heartily join in and wave to the crowd below, even though they were all strangers. Far better, she thought, to behave like a seasoned traveller, rather than like a novice on her first voyage.
The Lusitania, at 785 feet, was one of the largest liners in the world and to those ant-like characters on the quayside, appeared truly gigantic and magnificent. Returning the frenzied gestures of waving, the onlookers appreciated that the passengers towering above them occupied an echelon dedicated to high living and luxury. However, the reality was that this floating building segregated passengers according to their ability to pay. First-class travel was secured by millionaires and successful business capitalists; second class by business travellers, teachers and middle-class emigrants; whilst third class hosted the better class of emigrant. Edwardian society existed on such maxims; a place for everything and everyone in their place.
The paper bill posted on the side of Emily’s travelling trunk held the wording ‘SECOND CABIN BAGGAGE,’ ascribing her luggage to the hold and her to the opportunities which second class status afforded. First, Second or Third class, the status of travel was inconsequential to Emily. The qualities that mattered to her were human kindness and integrity: the reasons why she became a teacher.
Emily Taylor was a philanthropic headmistress who genuinely cared for the children in her school. Throughout her career, she had opened their minds to imagination, hope and to the possibility of escaping from the insanitary and dispiriting surroundings which many had been born into. She was the one who planted the seeds of success into their minds, whilst nurturing respect and love in their hearts. She was the one who used her own money to purchase shoes for those who came to school barefoot and she was the one who personally financed the outings that took these children away from their industrial slums.
At thirty years of age, Emily Taylor was a middle class spinster with a heart of gold. As a dutiful and hardworking daughter, her parents were eminently proud of her achievements and had regularly reminded her and those around them of her selfless devotion.
‘Never was there such a natural-born teacher.’
‘She is one who has responded to a professional calling.’
‘Teaching is her life.’
With such accolades Emily was the perfect daughter: accomplished, respected and trustworthy. She was exactly the type of person to represent the family.
As the shoreline of Liverpool increasingly became a distant vision, Emily decided to locate her cabin and acclimatise herself to life on-board.
A Blue Riband winner, the Lusitania was elegance personified, exuding charm and sophistication. The finest oak and cedar woods, felled from some of the most ancient forests in England and France, had been transformed by skilled carpenters to adorn the liner’s interior. English country style and French Renaissance styles blended together, furnishing the traveller with a mixture of European splendour, more in keeping with a grand hotel than on a transatlantic liner. The underlying result was that passengers enjoyed a type of ambience normally associated with terra firma architecture and conveniently forgot that they were at sea.
Life on-board also echoed life on land in terms of routine, as a steady flow of passengers made their way to the dining room. Emily was amongst them and, like the others around her, marvelled at the grandeur of the Second Class dining room. She was beginning to wonder what life could possibly be like in the First Class dining room when a waiter motioned to her to follow him to a table with seven diners already seated. A mixture of ages, the adults obligingly nodded and smiled as she took her seat.
A rather stocky, matronly-looking woman was the first to speak.
‘Hello my dear. I’m Amelia Davenport. This is my son Jonathan, his wife Beatrice and my twin grandsons, Daniel and David.’
The boys stared goggle-eyed for some time at their new dining companion before blinking in unison. The act rather unnerved Emily, even though she was completely used to being stared at by children.
The woman continued. ‘Obviously, identical in looks but would you believe also in nature? We sometimes have a devil of a job to tell them apart. Oh, and let me introduce you to Mr and Mrs Robinson. Recently married, they are on their honeymoon.’
The couple smiled coyly and appeared ill at ease, as if preferring to have