He removes his cap and smooths his hair, a gesture I’ve seen a thousand times. It is Jamie, though he’s broader in the back than I remember. My heart squeezes, and all the nerves kinked up inside me seem to shake loose. At last.

Olly blows out a thin whistle from where he, Wink, and Bo have joined me at the rail. “That’s a poodle, the kind of dog you have to pay for.”

“Jamie’s always been good with dogs,” I say, remembering how the neighborhood mutts would follow him around.

“I do not think it is the dog that interests him,” Bo says cheekily.

“What do you mean by that?”

“See for yourself.”

A young lady leans over and attaches a leash to the dog, spilling her minky hair into her face. Guess I’m not the only first-class lady slumming it with the poor. She’s not dressed as flashy as the other nobs—a cheerful suit in butter yellow and pearl earbobs—but she has the kind of pretty face, with soft brown eyes and strawberry-pink lips, that causes men to drop their jaws and women to drop their stitches. Jamie says something, and her patrician nose crinkles becomingly. They’re . . . conversing?

Olly stretches far over the rail. “Who’s she?”

Bo pulls Olly back by his collar. “White ghost means trouble. Jamie should avoid her.”

The Chinese can be suspicious of foreigners, who rarely do them any favors.

“She’s a fetcher,” says Wink, who then steals another glance at me. “I bet she smells like marmalade.”

Olly breaks free from Bo. “And butter.”

“Why would you think that?” I ask.

“Jamie said those are the best smells.”

Clearly, they know him well. Mum made us biscuits with marmalade and butter whenever we had money to spare, which wasn’t often.

Jamie climbs the stairs, not as spryly as I remember, but rather as if each step requires a separate thought. I marvel at how he has filled out his wrapper. New muscles mean better acts, faster moves. Acrobatics came naturally to him, unlike me. I always had to work twice as hard, especially after I started rounding out. Though he isn’t tall by English standards, five eight at most, there is a brightness around Jamie that commands attention, even from first-class girls with poodles.

He bounds over to us, a high flush on his golden cheeks. He nods at me. “Ma’am.”

I almost laugh out loud, but suck it back in. The first class does not waste their breath responding to commoners.

“Make a new friend?” Bo asks him.

Jamie gives his coat lapels a sharp tug. “Miss Charlotte Fine of New York City.”

Miss Fine? I snort hard enough for my veil to ripple. Jamie glances at me, but Charlotte waves a pretty gloved hand at him, then makes her poodle wave its black paw. Jamie returns the wave.