Voyage of Innocence
From the author of THE FROZEN LAKE comes an enthralling novel of love, betrayal and idealism, as three very different young women go up to Oxford in the years immediately before World War Two.Vee – the clergyman’s daughter. Boyish, alluring, she plans to use her time at Oxford to put right everything that went wrong in her loveless childhood. Her friendship with Alfred introduces her to politics and the subversive attractions of secret societies; it will lead to her career as a secret agent, but at what cost to old loyalties and her true feelings?Claudia, radiant, intense, aristocratic, is equally drawn to the secret society and one member in particular; his dazzling influence will see her travel to Berlin and come under the spell of Fascism as war looms.And Lally, glamorous daughter of an Irish-American senator, is sceptical of the society and the arguments from both sides. Her own choices will bring her into Vee’s new life, with all its dangers and betrayals. As the world becomes embroiled in the events of war, what price personal values, losses and loves?
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ELIZABETH EDMONDSON
Voyage of Innocence
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk
A Paperback Original 2006
Copyright © A.E. Books Ltd 2006
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014.
Cover illustration © John Harris. Cover images © Shutterstock.com (border).
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Physical Edition: 9780007184880
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 9780007438280 Version: 2018-05-08
CONTENTS
For Jean Buchanan
a friend indeed
OCTOBER 1938
‘Sir, it’s an emergency.’
The officer of the watch tried again, speaking more loudly and urgently. ‘Sir, Captain, sir, please wake up. It’s an emergency.’
Reginald Sherston, Captain of the SS Gloriana, passenger vessel bound for India, lifted his grizzled head from his starched white pillow.
His eyes opened, the faded blue eyes of a man who had been at sea since he was a boy of fourteen. They looked at the first officer, a capable man, not given to fuss, and across to where his steward was hovering, his uniform in his hand.
‘Tell me about it, Mr Longbourne.’
Minutes later, Captain Sherston was on the bridge.
The officers in their white uniforms went quietly about their duties, the man at the wheel, locked on its course, was alert. They were all intent on what the first officer and captain were saying.
The ship sailed on through the waters of the Red Sea. Above them the sky blazed with the brilliant stars that were the gift of ocean travel, and were reflected in the inky, gentle swell. The throb of the engines was steady, reassuring.
‘This Mrs Hotspur, a passenger to Bombay, she went ashore at Port Said?’
‘Yes, sir. For the day.’
‘Did she go on one of the tours? To the pyramids?’
‘No, sir. She went ashore with friends.’
‘But came back on board.’
‘As far as we know, sir. Her re-embarkation card was handed in.’
‘And her stewardess says her bed wasn’t slept in last night? Who is the stewardess?’
‘Pigeon, sir.’
‘She didn’t report it?’
‘It happens, sir, that a woman might …’ the first officer looked at Captain Sherston’s Presbyterian face, and he swallowed, ‘… spend the night elsewhere, sir.’
‘The dining room stewards say she didn’t take breakfast, lunch or dinner today?’
‘That’s correct sir.’
‘And this ten-year-old boy, Peter Messenger, says he saw her standing by the rail on C-deck at about nine o’clock, one hour and ten minutes after we sailed from Port Said?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me about Mrs Hotspur.’
The first officer consulted his notes. ‘Mrs Verity Hotspur. A widow, I understand. A very charming lady, and a cousin of Lady Claudia Vere, who is also aboard – she joined at Lisbon. It was Lady Claudia who raised the alarm.’
‘Lady Claudia Vere. So this missing passenger, Lady Claudia’s cousin, will turn out to be connected to all kinds of important people?’
‘Bound to be, sir.’
Captain Sherston let out a long sigh. ‘Emergency procedures for man overboard, Mr Longbourne.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Then when the orders had been given, the first officer asked, ‘Not much chance for her, is there?’
‘None whatever. If she missed the propellers, the sharks will have got her. If not, she’ll have drowned.’
Verity came out on deck into one of those pale autumn days that hovers between rain and sunshine; a breath of wind rippling the still waters of the harbour warned that summer was yielding to autumn.
Despite the light wool jacket she wore, she shivered, both from the chill in the air which heralded the approach of winter, and from an inner cold of fear. Fear for the times, with the shadow of war looming over the country she was leaving; fear for herself. She was no longer afraid of war itself, since there was nothing she could do to prevent or prepare for that. What made her afraid? Her nightmares? Klaus, and his successor, that flat-faced man with no discernible personality? Her future, her brother’s fate?
