A Most Extraordinary Pursuit by Juliana Gray

placed upside down in your skull, which has incidentally been filled, in the manner of a rubber balloon, with a mixture of pebbles and bicarbonate of soda. Owing to the severed connection between brain and stem, you are likely unable to move, and if you can, by immense concentration, manage to part your eyelids, the image you see before you will demonstrate an unfortunate tendency to roll about in exact opposition to the churn in your stomach.
    Indeed, you are better off not opening your eyes at all.
    But I did, eventually. Open my eyes, I mean, to the darkened cabin around me, sometime the next day, because I could no longer bear the sole company of my own overturned brain. The curtains had been drawn over the two portholes, and the lights were off, but when I trained my gaze on the benign gilt-framed painting across the room, ignoring the drunken swing of the room around me, the details of my surroundings began to take vague shape.
    The cabin was not large, but it was beautifully furnished. The bed was made of brass and railed on each side, to prevent the sleeping occupant from being turned out of his berth. There was a door on the opposite wall, leading presumably to a private bathroom—all the
Isolde
’s staterooms now boasted individual facilities for the convenience of the duke’s guests—and a chest of drawers, secured to the floor. As I lay observing, the ship lurched into another wave, and the room and its furniture held me in firm grasp, coasting effortlessly over the top of the disturbance. The painting, I now saw, was of Arundel Castle on a golden autumn afternoon.
    On the table to my left, some unknown steward had deposited a cup of water, made of metal and weighted at the bottom.I reached out a shaky arm and forced myself to sip. The tempest in my head, I knew, was the result of a drought of vital fluids, not the seasickness itself. The back of my throat welcomed the water’s coolness. I sipped again and sat up.
    What time was it? I was not wholly certain, but I thought we had left Southampton no more than a day ago. The glow around the edges of the curtains was dim and gray and shifting, but certainly daylight. We must be in the Bay of Biscay, I decided, and the bay was notoriously violent against those ships that dared to cross her. My misery, therefore, would last some time. I might as well find a way to endure it.
    Come on, Truelove. Get out of bed.
    I lifted my legs free from the covers and discovered I was wearing a nightdress and dressing gown. My slippers had overturned and lay against the wall, near the door to the bathroom. I staggered toward them, clutching the furniture for support, and continued through the door to retch unsuccessfully into the bowl of the convenience.
    When I was finished—that is to say, when my stomach gave up attempting to rid itself of nonexistent bile—I wiped my damp forehead with a towel and made my way back into the bedroom, where I settled myself into the armchair next to the porthole and stared at the ceiling.
    Mr. Haywood. Mr. Arthur Maximilian Haywood—Max, it seemed, to those with whom he was familiar, like the amiable idiot Lord Silverton—was wholly unknown to me: a ghost who had, until now, occupied a vital yet theoretical role in my life. His letters and parcels I had forwarded unread to my employer’s attention, as I did with almost all of the duke’s personal correspondence. I knew him only by the handwritten direction on those letters, quick andprecise, and by the portrait that hung above the mantel in the duke’s Hampshire study. It depicted a serious-eyed young man with dark hair and a thick mouth, and features that resembled the duke’s own, except for the coloring. He was not handsome, but his expression commanded attention. I had often felt that he was observing me as I worked at my small desk near the window, though of course the idea was absurd. A painting is only oil and pigment, after all.
    In fact, I