She felt faint. She tried not to cry but it was no good. Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to shake with sobs of despair. She was ruined. She had no home, no money and no friends, and the man she trusted had betrayed her. She turned away from him to hide her face: she did not want him to see her shame and grief. "Please, stop," she whispered.
"I'll stop," he spat out. "I've got a cabin reserved on this ship and that's where I'm going."
"But when we get to Cordova ..."
"You're not going to Cordova. You can get off the ship at Lisbon and go back to England. I've no further use for you."
Every word was like a blow and she backed away from him, holding her hands up in front of her as if to ward off his curses. She bumped against the cabin door. Desperate to get away from him, she opened it and backed out.
The freezing night air cleared her head suddenly. She was behaving like a helpless girl, not a mature, capable woman. She had lost control of her life briefly, and it was time to seize it back again.
A man in evening dress walked past her, smoking a cigar. He stared at her nightclothes in astonishment but did not speak to her.
That gave her an idea.
She stepped back into the cabin and closed the door. Micky was straightening his tie in the mirror. "There's someone coming," she said urgently. "A policeman!"
Micky's demeanor changed in a flash. The sneer was wiped off his face and replaced by a look of panic. "Oh, my God," he said.
Augusta was thinking quickly. "We're still within British waters," she said. "You can be arrested and sent back on a coast guard cutter." She had no idea whether this was true.
"I'll have to hide." He climbed into the trunk. "Close the front, quickly," he said.
She shut him in the trunk.
Then she flipped the latch to lock it.
"That's better," she said.
She sat on the bed, staring at the trunk. In her mind she went over and over their conversation. She had made herself vulnerable and he had wounded her. She thought of how he had caressed her. Only two other men had touched her breasts: Strang and Joseph. She thought of how he had twisted her nipple then spurned her with obscene words. As the minutes went by her rage cooled and became a dark, vicious yearning for revenge.
Micky's voice, muffled, came from inside the trunk. "Augusta! What's happening?"
She made no reply.
He began to shout for help. She covered the trunk with blankets from the bed to deaden the sound.
After a while he stopped.
