#orient express

Day one

The Gare de l’Est swarms with travelers this October afternoon, the vaulted ceiling echoing with a cacophony of whistles, shouting porters, and hissing steam. Nesta stands on the platform with her single leather valise clutched in both gloved hands, watching the attendants of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits make their final preparations on the gleaming blue carriages of the Orient Express.

She’d paid an extortionate sum for a private first-class compartment, handing over nearly everything she had left after three days of hiding in a squalid Paris boarding house. The ticket agent had looked at her strangely when she’d appeared at his window yesterday evening, slightly breathless and disheveled, demanding immediate passage to Constantinople. But money smooths over questions, and Nesta has always understood the language of currency.

Her traveling costume—chosen hastily together with some additional dresses suitable for the journey from a shop on the Rue de Rivoli—consists of a black velvet skirt that falls in heavy folds to the platform, and a cream-colored bodice embroidered with black beadwork in an intricate pattern across the shoulders and chest. The sleeves are fashionably full at the shoulder, tapering to a close fit at the forearm, and the high collar fastens with a dozen tiny jet buttons. On top of it all, she wears a short black velvet jacket trimmed with more beadwork. Her hat—black with a single curled feather—sits pinned securely atop hair she’d arranged herself that morning, twisted into a low chignon that already feels precarious.

She looks, she hopes, like a respectable widow traveling abroad. Not like what she actually is: a ruined woman fleeing scandal with barely fifty pounds to her name.

“First class, madame?” A conductor appears at her elbow, eyeing her valise. “May I see your ticket?”

Nesta produces it from her reticule with fingers that tremble only slightly. The conductor examines it, nods, and gestures toward the forward carriages.

“Voiture number three, compartment D. This way, please.”

She follows him through the press of bodies, past weeping families bidding farewell, elegant couples embarking on grand tours, and businessmen scowling at their newspapers. The Orient Express represents the pinnacle of railway luxury, launched only a decade ago. Those who can afford its fares travel in unprecedented comfort from Paris to Constantinople. There are sleeping cars with private berths, dining cars serving French cuisine, and observation lounges with velvet upholstery and polished brass fittings.

Nesta has no interest in luxury. She simply needs distance between herself and London, between herself and the gossip that must be spreading through every drawing room like cholera by now. Did you hear about the Archeron girl? Tomas Mandray, of all people. In his study, they say, during Lady Pemberton’s ball. Absolutely ruined. Her sisters are beside themselves.

The conductor stops before a compartment door, sliding it open with a flourish. “Your accommodat—oh.”

He stops. Nesta, following close behind, nearly collides with his back.

“Oh?” she prompts, an edge creeping into her voice.

The conductor clears his throat. “It appears we have… un petit problème.”

But Nesta is already looking past him into the compartment, and she sees the problem immediately, and it’s not petit by any means.

A man occupies the space, sprawled across one of the two facing bench seats with his long legs stretched out, boot heels scuffing the burgundy carpet. He wears dark trousers that have seen better days, and a waistcoat over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. A brown tweed jacket hangs from a hook beside the window. His hair, dark and too long, falls along a face that looks carved from rough stone, all hard angles and a shadow of stubble along his jaw. As Nesta and the conductor appear in the doorway, he glances up from the small leather-bound book in his hands, and she finds herself looking into hazel eyes that gleam with unmistakable amusement.

“Well,” he says, voice low and rough around the edges, accented with something she can’t quite place. “This is unexpected.”

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