Nodding his head toward a particularly unhappy traveller, who leaned over the rail as though worshipping Neptune, Vincent said, ‘I rather think that they are past being shocked. I wonder if I could work one.’ He drew his hand away from her back. Even before she faced him, Jane knew the expression she would find on his countenance. He stared at the horizon, concentrating on some equation in the middle distance. ‘I have been taught that glamour will not work on a moving ship, but have not had the opportunity to test it for myself. In theory . . .’

‘Do you ever stop theorizing?’

He brought his attention back and curled the corners of his lips in the small smile that was the most she had seen him give in public. ‘There are times, yes. You have been present at all of them.’

As the ship swayed, it brought them closer together, and Jane found she did not care what anyone on board thought. She could not recall the last time she had been with Vincent and had no obligations. Here, nothing could make claim upon their time. They had no social acquaintances aboard, nor work to prepare for.

Vincent tilted his head. ‘What are you smiling about?’

‘Well.’ Jane took his hands. ‘You did say this was our honeymoon, and since we cannot work glamour, I thought perhaps there were other ways in which we might pass the time.’

‘Indeed there are. I brought my watercolours. Or, if you prefer, I have Herr Scholes’s treatise on the reciprocation of light and shadow.’ His face kept a mien of utter seriousness except around the eyes, which wrinkled with amusement.

‘A reciprocation, I think.’

‘As do I.’ Vincent took her hand and looked around the deck, his grip tightening for an instant before he released her. ‘May I help you?’

He addressed two young ladies – girls, really – who stood not far from them, staring quite openly. The one behind, younger and with a head of dark curls, nudged her sister forward. They were clearly sisters, with the same upturned nose and thick brows. ‘Pardon, but are you . . . that is to say . . . did you?’ Her words seemed unable to form into sentences. She suddenly thrust a slender pamphlet at Vincent. ‘We saw you? In London?’

Vincent took the paper gently, his hand nearly twice the size of the girl’s. ‘Ah. Yes. You did.’

‘I told you!’ The younger girl nudged her sister again.