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Chapter One

May 7, 1915

Happily unaware he'd be dead in twenty-three minutes, Henry W.
Wyley imagined pinching the nicely rounded rump of the young blonde
who was directly in his line of sight. It was a perfectly harmless
fantasy that did nothing to distress the blonde, or Henry's wife,
and put Henry himself in the best of moods.

With a lap robe tucked around his pudgy knees and a plump belly
well satisfied by a late and luxurious lunch, he sat in the bracing
sea air with his wife, Edith-whose bum, bless her, was flat as a
pancake-enjoying the blonde's derriere along with a fine cup of
Earl Grey.

Henry, a portly man with a robust laugh and an eye for the ladies,
didn't bother to stir himself to join other passengers at the rail
for a glimpse of Ireland's shimmering coast. He'd seen it before
and assumed he'd have plenty of opportunities to see it again if he
cared to.

Though what fascinated people about cliffs and grass eluded him.
Henry was an avowed urbanite who preferred the solidity of steel
and concrete. And at this particular moment, he was much more
interested in the dainty chocolate cookies served with the tea than
with the vista.

Particularly when the blonde moved on.

Though Edith fussed at him not to make a pig of himself, he gobbled
up three cookies with cheerful relish. Edith, being Edith,
refrained. It was a pity she denied herself that small pleasure in
the last moments of her life, but she would die as she'd lived,
worrying about her husband's extra tonnage and brushing at the
crumbs that scattered carelessly on his shirtfront.

Henry, however, was a man who believed in indulgence. What, after
all, was the point of being rich if you didn't treat yourself to
the finer things? He'd been poor, and he'd been hungry. Rich and
well fed was better.

He'd never been handsome, but when a man had money he was called
substantial rather than fat, interesting rather than homely. Henry
appreciated the absurdity of the distinction.

At just before three in the afternoon on that sparkling May day,
the wind blew at his odd little coal-colored toupee, whipped high,
happy color into his pudgy cheeks. He had a gold watch in his
pocket, a ruby pin in his tie. His Edith, scrawny as a chicken, was
decked out in the best of Parisian couture. He was worth nearly
three million. Not as much as Alfred Vanderbilt, who was crossing
the Atlantic as well, but enough to content Henry. Enough, he
thought with pride as he considered a fourth cookie, to pay for
first-class accommodations on this floating palace. Enough to see
that his children had received first-class educations and that his
grandchildren would as well.

He imagined first class was more important to him than it was to
Vanderbilt. After all, Alfred had never had to make do with
second.

He listened with half an ear as his wife chattered on about plans
once they reached England. Yes, they would pay calls and receive
them. He would not spend all of his time with associates or hunting
up stock for his business.

He assured her of all this with his usual amiability, and because
after nearly forty years of marriage he was deeply fond of his
wife, he would see that she was well entertained during their stay
abroad.

But he had plans of his own, and that driving force had been the
single purpose of this spring crossing.

If his information was correct, he would soon acquire the second
Fate. The small silver statue was a personal quest, one he'd
pursued since he'd chanced to purchase the first of the reputed
three.

He had a line on the third as well and would tug on it as soon as
the second statue was in his possession. When he had the complete
set, well, that would be first class indeed.

Wyley Antiques would be second to none.

Personal and professional satisfaction, he mused. All because of
three small silver ladies, worth a pretty penny separately. Worth
beyond imagining together. Perhaps he'd loan them to the Met for a
time. Yes, he liked the idea.

THE THREE
FATES

ON LOAN FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION

OF HENRY W. WYLEY

Edith would have her new hats, he thought, her dinner parties
and her afternoon promenades. And he would have the prize of a
lifetime.

Sighing with satisfaction, Henry sat back to enjoy his last cup of
Earl Grey.

Felix Greenfield was a thief. He was neither ashamed nor prideful
of it. It was simply what he was and had always been. And as Henry
Wyley assumed he'd have other opportunities to gaze upon the Irish
coast, Felix assumed he'd remain a thief for many years to
come.

He was good at his work-not brilliant at it, he'd be the first to
admit, but good enough to make ends meet. Good enough, he thought
as he moved quickly down the corridors of first class in his stolen
steward's uniform, to have gathered the means for third-class
passage back to England.

Things were just a bit hot professionally back in New York, with
cops breathing down his neck due to that bungled burglary. Not that
it had been his fault, not entirely. His only failing had been to
break his own first rule and take on an associate for the
job.

Bad choice, as his temporary partner had broken another primary
rule. Never steal what isn't easily, discreetly fenced. Greed had
blinded old Two-Pint Monk, Felix thought with a sigh as he let
himself into the Wyley stateroom. What had the man been thinking,
laying sticky fingers on a diamond-and-sapphire necklace? Then
behaving like a bloody amateur by getting drunk as a sailor-on his
usual two pints of lager-and bragging over it.

Well, Two-Pint would do his bragging in jail now, though there'd be
no lager to loosen his idiot tongue. But the bastard had chirped
like the stool pigeon he was and given Felix's name to the
coppers.

It had seemed best to take a nice ocean voyage, and what better
place to get lost than on a ship as big as a damn city?

He'd been a bit concerned about the war in Europe, and the murmurs
about the Germans stalking the seas had given him some pause. But
they were such vague, distant threats. The New York police and the
idea of a long stretch behind bars were much more personal and
immediate problems.

In any case, he couldn't believe a grand ship like the Lusitania
would cross if there was any real danger. Not with all those
wealthy people on board. It was a civilian vessel after all, and he
was sure the Germans had better things to do than threaten a luxury
liner, especially when there was a large complement of American
citizens on board.

He'd been lucky indeed to have snagged a ticket, to have lost
himself among all the passengers with the cops two steps behind him
and closing.

But he'd had to leave quickly, and had spent nearly all his
wherewithal for the ticket.

Certainly there were opportunities galore to pluck a bit of this, a
bit of that on such a fine, luxurious vessel filled with such fine,
luxurious people.

Cash would be best, of course, for cash was never the wrong size or
the wrong color.

Inside the stateroom, he let out a low whistle. Imagine it, he
thought, taking a moment to dream. Just imagine traveling in such
style.

He knew less about the architecture and design of where he was
standing than a flea knew about the breed of dog it bit. But he
knew it was choice.

The sitting room was larger than the whole of his third-class
accommodations, and the bedroom beyond a wonder.

Those who slept here knew nothing about the cramped space, the dark
corners and the smells of third class. He didn't begrudge them
their advantages. After all, if there weren't people who lived
high, he'd have no one to steal from, would he?

Still, he couldn't waste time gawking and dreaming. It was already
a few minutes before three, and if the Wyleys were true to form,
the woman would wander back before four for her afternoon
nap.

He had delicate hands and was careful to disturb little as he
searched for spare cash. Big bucks, he figured, they'd leave in the
purser's keeping. But fine ladies and gentlemen enjoyed having a
roll of bills close at hand for flashing.

He found an envelope already marked STEWARD and, grinning, ripped
it open to find crisp dollar bills in a generous tip. He tucked it
in the trouser pocket of his borrowed uniform.

Within ten minutes, he'd found and claimed nearly a hundred fifty
dollars and a pair of nice garnet earbobs left carelessly in a silk
evening purse.

He didn't touch the jewelry cases-the man's or the woman's. That
was asking for trouble. But as he sifted neatly through socks and
drawers, his fingers brushed over a solid lump wrapped in velvet
cloth.

Lips pursed, Felix gave in to curiosity and spread open the
cloth.

He didn't know anything about art, but he recognized pure silver
when he had his hands on it. The lady-for it was a woman-was small
enough to fit in his palm. She held some sort of spindle, he
supposed it was, and was garbed in a kind of robe.

She had a lovely face and form. Fetching, he would have said,
though she looked a bit too cool and calculating for his personal
taste in females.

He preferred them a bit slow of wit and cheerful of
disposition.

Tucked in with her was a paper with a name and address, and the
scrawled notation: Contact for second Fate.

Felix pondered over it, committed the note to memory out of habit.
It could be another chicken for plucking once he was in
London.

He started to wrap her again, replace her where he'd found her, but
he just stood there turning her over and over in his hands.
Throughout his long career as a thief, he'd never once allowed
himself to envy, to crave, to want an object for himself.

What was taken was always a means to an end, and nothing more. But
Felix Greenfield, lately of Hell's Kitchen and bound for the
alleyways and tenements of London, stood in the plush cabin on the
grand ship with the Irish coast even now in view out the windows,
and wanted the small silver woman for his own.

She was so . . . pretty. And fit so well in his hand with the metal
already warming against his palm. Such a little thing. Who would
miss her?

"Don't be stupid," he muttered, wrapped her in velvet again. "Take
the money, mate, and move along."

Before he could replace her, he heard what he thought was a peal of
thunder. The floor beneath his feet seemed to shudder. Nearly
losing his balance as the ship shook side to side, he stumbled
toward the door, the velvet-cloaked statue still in his hand.

Without thinking, he jammed it into his trouser pocket, spilled out
into the corridor as the floor rose under him.

There was a sound now, not like thunder, but like a great hammer
flung down from heaven to strike the ship.

Felix ran for his life.

And running, he raced into madness.

The forward part of the ship dipped sharply and had him tumbling
down the corridor like dice in a cup. He could hear shouting and
the pounding of feet. And he tasted blood in his mouth, seconds
before it went dark.

His first wild thought was, Iceberg! as he remembered what had
befallen the great Titanic. But surely in the broad light of a
spring afternoon, so close to the Irish coast, such a thing wasn't
possible.

He never thought of the Germans. He never thought of war.

He scrambled up, slamming into walls in the pitch black of the
corridor, stumbling over his own feet and the stairs, and spilled
out on deck with a flood of others. Already lifeboats were being
launched and there were cries of terror along with shouted orders
for women and children to board them.

How bad was it? he wondered frantically. How bad could it be when
he could see the shimmering green of the coastline? Even as he
tried to calm himself, the ship pitched again, and one of the
lowering lifeboats upended. Its screaming passengers were hurled
into the sea.

He saw a mass of faces-some torn, some scalded, all horrified.
There were piles of debris on deck, and passengers-bleeding,
screaming-trapped under it. Some, he saw with dull shock, were
already beyond screams.

And there on the listing desk of the great ship, Felix smelled what
he'd often smelled in Hell's Kitchen.

He smelled death.

Women clutched children, babies, and wept or prayed. Men ran in
panic, or fought madly to drag the injured clear of debris.

Through the chaos stewards and stewardesses hurried, passing out
life jackets with a kind of steady calm. They might have been
handing out teacups, he thought, until one rushed by him.

"Go on, man! Do your job! See to the passengers."

It took Felix one blank moment before he remembered he was still
wearing the stolen steward's uniform. And another before he
understood, truly understood, they were sinking.

Fuck me, he thought, standing in the middle of the screams and
prayers. We're dying.

There were shouts from the water, desperate cries for help. Felix
fought his way to the rail and, looking down, saw bodies floating,
people floundering in debris-strewn water. People drowning in
it.

He saw another lifeboat being launched, wondered if he could
somehow make the leap into it and save himself. He struggled to
pull himself to a higher point, to gain ground was all he could
think. To stay on his feet until he could hurl himself into a
lifeboat and survive.

He saw a well-dressed man take off his own life jacket and put it
around a weeping woman.

So the rich could be heroes, he thought. They could afford to be.
He'd sooner be alive.

The deck tilted again, sent him sliding along with countless others
toward the mouth of the sea. He shot out a hand, managed to grab
the rail with his clever thief's fingers and cling. And his free
hand closed, as if by magic, over a life jacket as it went tumbling
by.

Muttering wild prayers of thanks, he started to strap it on. It was
a sign, he thought with his heart and eyes wheeling wild, a sign
from God that he was meant to survive this.

As his shaking fingers fumbled with the jacket, he saw the woman
wedged between upturned deck chairs. And the child, the small,
angelic face of the child she clutched against her. She wasn't
weeping. She wasn't screaming. She simply held and rocked the
little boy as if lulling him into his afternoon nap.

"Mary, mother of God." And cursing himself for a fool, Felix
crawled across the pitched deck. He dragged and heaved at the
chairs that pinned her down.

"I've hurt my leg." She continued to stroke her child's hair, and
the rings on her fingers sparkled in the strong spring sunlight.
Though her voice was calm, her eyes were huge, glazed with shock
and pain, and the terror Felix felt galloped inside his own
chest.

"I don't think I can walk. Will you take my baby? Please, take my
little boy to a lifeboat. See him safe."

He had one moment, one heartbeat to choose. And while the world
went to hell around them, the child smiled.

"Put this on yourself, missus, and hold tight to the boy."

"We'll put it on my son."

"It's too big for him. It won't help him."

"I've lost my husband." She spoke in those clear, cultured tones,
and though her eyes were glassy, they stayed level on his as Felix
pushed her arms through the life jacket. "He fell over the rail. I
fear he's dead."

"You're not, are you? Neither is the boy." He could smell the
child-powder, youth, innocence-through the stench of panic and
death. "What's his name?"

"Name? He's Steven. Steven Edward Cunningham, the Third."

"Let's get you and Steven Edward Cunningham, the Third, to a
lifeboat."

"We're sinking."

"That's the God's truth." He dragged her, trying once more to reach
the high side of the ship.

He crawled, clawed his way over the wet and rising deck.

"Hold on tight to Mama, Steven," he heard her say. Then she crawled
and clawed with him while terror raged around them.

"Don't be frightened." She crooned it, though her breath was coming
fast with the effort. Her heavy skirts sloshed in the water, and
blood smeared over the glinting stones on her fingers. "You have to
be brave. Don't let go of Mama, no matter what."

He could see the boy, no more than three, cling like a monkey to
his mother's neck. Watching her face, Felix thought as he strained
for another inch of height, as if all the answers in all the world
were printed on it.

Deck chairs, tables, God knew what, rained down from the deck
above. He dragged her another inch, another, a foot. "Just a little
farther." He gasped it out, without any idea if it were true.

Something struck him hard in the back. And his hold on her
slipped.

"Missus!" he shouted, grabbed blindly, but caught only the pretty
silk sleeve of her dress. As it ripped, he stared at her
helplessly.

"God bless you," she managed and, wrapping both arms tight around
her son, slid over the edge of the world into the water.

He barely had time to curse before the deck heaved and he pitched
in after her.

The cold, the sheer brutality of it, stole his breath. Blind,
already going numb with shock, he kicked wildly, clawing for the
surface as he'd clawed for the deck. When he broke through, gasped
in that first gulp of air, he found he'd plunged into a hell worse
than any he'd imagined.

Dead were all around him. He was jammed into an island of bobbing,
staring white faces, of screams from the drowning. The water was
strewn with planks and chairs, wrecked lifeboats and crates. His
limbs were already stiff with cold when he struggled to heave as
much of his body as possible onto a crate and out of the freezing
water.

And what he saw was worse. There were hundreds of bodies floating
in the still sparkling sunlight. While his stomach heaved out the
sea he'd swallowed, he floundered in the direction of a waterlogged
lifeboat.

The swell, somehow gentle, tore at the island and spread death over
the sea, and dragged him, with merciless hands, away from the
lifeboat.

The great ship, the floating palace, was sinking in front of his
eyes. Dangling from it were lifeboats, useless as toys. Somehow it
astonished him to see there were still people on the decks. Some
were kneeling, others still rushing in panic from a fate that was
hurtling toward them.

In shock, he watched more tumble like dolls into the sea. And the
huge black funnels tipped down toward the water, down to where he
clung to a broken crate.

When those funnels touched the sea, water gushed into them, sucking
in people with it.

Not like this, he thought as he kicked weakly. A man wasn't meant
to die like this. But the sea dragged him under, pulled him in.
Water seemed to boil around him as he struggled. He choked on it,
tasted salt and oil and smoke. And realized, as his body bashed
into a solid wall, that he was trapped in one of the funnels, would
die there like a rat in a blocked chimney.

As his lungs began to scream, he thought of the woman and the boy.
Since he deemed it useless to pray for himself, he offered what he
thought was his last plea to God that they'd survived.

Later, he would think it had been as if hands had taken hold of him
and yanked him free. As the funnels sank, he was expelled, flying
out on a filthy gush of soot.

With pain radiating through him, he snagged a floating plank and
pulled his upper body onto it. He laid his cheek on the wood,
breathed deeply, wept quietly.

And saw the Lusitania was gone.

The plate of water where she'd been was raging, thrashing and
belching smoke. Belching bodies, he saw with a dull horror. He'd
been one of them, only moments before. But fate had spared
him.

While he watched, while he struggled to block out the screams and
stay sane, the water went calm as glass. With the last of his
strength, he pulled himself onto the plank. He heard the shrill
song of sea gulls, the weeping prayers or weeping cries of those
who floundered or floated in the water with him.

Probably freeze to death, he thought as he drifted in and out of
consciousness. But it was better than drowning.

It was the cold that brought him out of the faint. His body was
racked with it, and every trickling breeze was a new agony. Hardly
daring to move, he tugged at his sopping and ruined steward's
jacket. Bright pain had nausea rolling greasily in his belly. He
ran an unsteady hand over his face and saw the wet wasn't water,
but blood.

His laugh was wild and shaky. So what would it be, freezing or
bleeding to death? Drowning might have been better, after all. It
would be over that way. He slowly shed the jacket-something wrong
with his shoulder, he thought absently-and used the ruined jacket
to wipe the blood from his face.

He didn't hear so much shouting now. There were still some thin
screams, some moans and prayers, but most of the passengers who'd
made it as far as he had were dead. And silent.

He watched a body float by. It took him a moment to recognize the
face, as it was bone-white and covered with bloodless gashes.

Wyley. Good Christ.

For the first time since the nightmare had begun, he felt for the
weight in his pocket. He felt the lump of what he'd stolen from the
man currently staring up at the sky with blank blue eyes.

"You won't need it," Felix said between chattering teeth, "but I
swear before God if I had it to do over, I wouldn't have stolen
from you in the last moments of your life. Seems like robbing a
grave."

His long-lapsed religious training had him folding his hands in
prayer. "If I end up dying here today, I'll apologize in person if
we end up on the same side of the gate. And if I live I take a vow
to try to reform. No point in saying I'll do it, but I'll give
doing an honest day's work a try."

He passed out again, and woke to the sound of an engine. Dazed,
numb, he managed to lift his head. Through his wavering vision, he
saw a boat, and through the roaring in his ears, heard the shouts
and voices of men.

He tried to call out, but managed only a hacking cough.

"I'm alive." His voice was only a croak, whisked away by the
breeze. "I'm still alive."

He didn't feel the hands pull him onto the fishing trawler called
Dan O'Connell. Was delirious with chills and pain when he was
wrapped in a blanket, when hot tea was poured down his throat. He
would remember nothing about his actual rescue, nor learn the names
of the men whose arms had hauled him to safety. Nothing came clear
to him until he woke, nearly twenty-four hours after the torpedo
had struck the liner, in a narrow bed in a small room with sunlight
streaming through a window.

He would never forget the first sight that greeted him when his
vision cleared.

She was young and pretty, with eyes of misty blue and a scatter of
gold freckles over her small nose and round cheeks. Her hair was
fair and piled on top of her head in some sort of knot that seemed
to be slipping. Her mouth bowed up when she glanced over at him,
and she rose quickly from the chair where she'd been darning
socks.

"There you are. I wonder if you'll stay with us this time
around."

He heard Ireland in her voice, felt the strong hand lift his head.
And he smelled a drift of lavender.

"What . . ." The old, croaking sound of his voice appalled him. His
throat felt scorched, his head stuffed with rags of dirty
cotton.

"Just take this first. It's medicine the doctor left for you.
You've pneumonia, he says, and a fair gash on your head that's been
stitched. Seems you tore something in your shoulder as well. But
you've come through the worst, sir, and you rest easy for we'll see
you through."

"What . . . happened? The ship . . ."

The pretty mouth went flat and hard. "The bloody Germans. 'Twas a
U-boat torpedoed you. And they'll writhe in hell for it, for the
people they murdered. The babies they slaughtered."

Though a tear trickled down her cheek, she managed to slide the
medicine into him competently. "You have to rest. Your life's a
miracle, for there are more than a thousand dead."

"A . . ." He managed to grip her wrist as the horror stabbed
through him. "A thousand?"

"More than. You're in Queenstown now, and as well as you can be."
She tilted her head. "An American, are you?"

Close enough, he decided, as he hadn't seen the shores of his
native England in more than twelve years. "Yes. I need-"

"Tea," she interrupted. "And broth." She moved to the door to
shout: "Ma! He's waked and seems to want to stay that way." She
glanced back. "I'll be back with something warm in a minute."

"Please. Who are you?"

"Me?" She smiled again, wonderfully sunny. "I'd be Meg. Meg
O'Reiley, and you're in the home of my parents, Pat and Mary
O'Reiley, where you're welcome until you're mended. And your name,
sir?"

"Greenfield. Felix Greenfield."

"God bless you, Mr. Greenfield."

"Wait . . . there was a woman, and a little boy. Cunningham."

Pity moved over her face. "They're listing names. I'll check on
them for you when I'm able. Now you rest, and we'll get you some
tea."

When she went out, he turned his face toward the window, toward the
sun. And saw, sitting on the table under it, the money that had
been in his pocket, the garnet earbobs. And the bright silver glint
of the little statue.

Felix laughed until he cried.

He learned the O'Reileys made their living from the sea. Pat and
his two sons had been part of the rescue effort. He met them all,
and her younger sister as well. For the first day he was unable to
keep any of them straight in his mind. But for Meg herself.

He clung to her company as he'd clung to the plank, to keep from
sliding into the dark again.

"Tell me what you know," he begged her.

"It'll be hard for you to hear it. It's hard to speak it." She
moved to his window, looked out at the village where she'd lived
all of her eighteen years. Survivors such as Felix were being
tended to in hotel rooms, in the homes of neighbors. And the dead,
God rest them, were laid in temporary morgues. Some would be
buried, some would be sent home. Others would forever be in the
grave of the sea.

"When I heard of it," she began, "I almost didn't believe it. How
could such a thing be? There were trawlers out, and they went
directly to try to rescue survivors. More boats set out from here.
Most were too late to do more than bring back the dead. Oh sweet
God, I saw myself some of the people as they made land. Women and
babies, men barely able to walk and half naked. Some cried, and
others just stared. Like you do when you're lost. They say the
liner went down in less than twenty minutes. Can that be?"

"I don't know," Felix murmured, and shut his eyes.

She glanced back at him and hoped he was strong enough for the
rest. "More have died since coming here. Exposure and injuries too
grievous to heal. Some spent hours in the water. The lists change
so quick. I can't think what terror of heart families are living
with, waiting to know. Or what grief those who know their loved
ones are lost in this horrible way are feeling. You said there was
no one waiting for word of you."

"No. No one."

She went to him. She'd tended his hurts, suffered with him during
the horrors of his delirium. It had been only three days since he'd
been brought into her care, but for both of them, it was a
lifetime.

"There's no shame in staying here," she said quietly. "No shame in
not going to the funeral today. You're far from well yet."

"I need to go." He looked down at his borrowed clothes. In them he
felt scrawny and fragile. And alive.

The quiet was almost unearthly. Every shop and store in Queenstown
was closed for the day. No children raced along the streets, no
neighbors stopped to chat or gossip. Over the silence came the
hollow sound of church bells from St. Colman's on the hill, and the
mournful notes of the funeral dirge.

Felix knew if he lived another hundred years he'd never forget the
sounds of that grieving music, the soft and steady beat of drums.
He watched the sun strike the brass of the instruments, and
remembered how that same sun had struck the brass of the propellers
as the stern of the Lusitania had reared up in her final plunge
into the sea.

He was alive, he thought again. Instead of relief and gratitude, he
felt only guilt and despair.

He kept his head down as he trudged along behind the priests, the
mourners, the dead, through the reverently silent streets. It took
more than an hour to reach the graveyard, and left him
light-headed. By the time he saw the three mass graves beneath tall
elms where choirboys stood with incense burners, he was forced to
lean heavily on Meg.

Tears stung the backs of his eyes as he looked at the tiny coffins
that held dead children.

He listened to the quiet weeping, to the words of both the Catholic
and the Church of Ireland services. None of it reached him. He
could still hear, thought he would forever hear, the way people had
called to God as they'd drowned. But God hadn't listened, and had
let them die horribly.

Then he lifted his head and, across those obscene holes, saw the
face of the woman and young boy from the ship.

The tears came now, fell down his cheeks like rain as he lurched
through the crowd. He reached her as the first notes of "Abide With
Me" lifted into the air. Then he fell to his knees in front of her
wheelchair.

"I feared you were dead." She reached up, touched his face with one
hand. The other peeked out of a cast. "I never got your name, so
couldn't check the lists."

"You're alive." Her face had been cut, he could see that now, and
her color was too bright, as if she were feverish. Her leg had been
cast as well as her arm. "And the boy."

The child slept in the arms of another woman. Like an angel, Felix
thought again. Peaceful and unmarked.

The fist of despair that gripped him loosened. One prayer, at least
one prayer, had been answered.

"He never let go." She began to weep then, soundlessly. "He's such
a good boy. He never let go. I broke my arm in the fall. If you
hadn't given me your life jacket, we would have drowned. My husband
. . ." Her voice frayed as she looked over at the graves. "They
never found him."

"I'm sorry."

"He would have thanked you." She reached up to touch a hand to her
boy's leg. "He loved his son, very much." She took a deep breath.
"In his stead, I thank you, for my son's life and my own. Please
tell me your name."

"Felix Greenfield, ma'am."

"Mr. Greenfield." She leaned over, brushed a kiss on Felix's cheek.
"I'll never forget you. Nor will my son."

When they wheeled her chair away, she kept her shoulders straight
with a quiet dignity that brought a wash of shame over Felix's
face.

"You're a hero," Meg told him.

Shaking his head, he moved as quickly as he could away from the
crowds, away from the graves. "No. She is. I'm nothing."

"How can you say that? I heard what she said. You saved her life,
and the little boy's." Concerned, she hurried up to him, took his
arm to steady him.

He'd have shaken her off if he'd had the strength. Instead, he
simply sat in the high, wild grass of the graveyard and buried his
face in his hands.

"Ah, there now." Pity for him had her sitting beside him, taking
him into her arms. "There now, Felix."

He could think of nothing but the strength in the young widow's
face, in the innocence of her son's. "She was hurt, so she asked me
to take the boy. To save the boy."

"You saved them both."

"I don't know why I did it. I was only thinking about saving
myself. I'm a thief. Those things you took out of my pocket? I
stole them. I was stealing them when the ship was hit. All I could
think about when it was happening was getting out alive."

Meg shifted beside him, folded her hands. "Did you give her your
life jacket?"

"It wasn't mine. I found it. I don't know why I gave it to her. She
was trapped between deck chairs, holding on to the boy. Holding on
to her sanity in the middle of all that hell."

"You could've turned away from her, saved yourself."

He mopped at his eyes. "I wanted to."

"But you didn't."

"I'll never know why." He only knew that seeing them alive had
changed something inside him. "But the point is, I'm a second-rate
thief who was on that ship because I was running from the cops. I
stole a man's things minutes before he died. A thousand people are
dead. I saw some of them die. I'm alive. What kind of world is it
that saves a thief and takes children?"

"Who can answer? But there's a child who's alive today because you
were there. Would you have been, do you think, just where you were,
when you were, if you hadn't been stealing?"

He let out a derisive sound. "The likes of me wouldn't have been
anywhere near the first-class deck unless I'd been stealing."

"There you are." She took a handkerchief from her pocket and dried
his tears as she would a child's. "Stealing's wrong. It's a sin and
there's no question about it. But if you'd been minding your own,
that woman and her son would be dead. If a sin saves innocent
lives, I'm thinking it's not so great a sin. And I have to say, you
didn't steal so very much if all you had for it were a pair of
earbobs, a little statue and some American dollars."

For some reason that made him smile. "Well, I was just getting
started."

The smile she sent him was lovely and sure. "Yes, I'd say you're
just getting started."

Excerpted from THREE FATES © Copyright 2002 by Nora
Roberts. Reprinted with permission by G.P. Putnam's Sons, a member
of Penguin Putnam Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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