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I should be pleased to hear this, but I feel only compassion for him.

Not only did he suffer the death of his nephew and sister-in-law, but he lost his wife too.

When I met him he was an insouciant, carefree man in his twenties.

Now that nonchalance is gone, and I understand why.

He’s a man in his forties who has endured too much loss.

My gaze falls softly upon him. ‘How terribly sad.’

Mrs Brown’s frown deepens. ‘You’re really not yourself today, Connie. Perhaps you should rest a little. Read a book in the sunshine. The ocean isn’t agreeing with you.’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I protest. ‘But I shall take your advice and rest all the same.’

After breakfast, I return to my room. As I walk down the corridor, I see a man leaving Lester’s cabin.

It must be Glover, his valet. I’m surprised by how tall and handsome he is.

He must be about twenty-five with luscious blonde hair and a long, angular face.

His eyes are deep-set and pearl grey, his eyebrows thick and straight.

There’s something sly about the curve of his mouth, however, that belies his beauty.

Something menacing. Constance is right to be wary of him.

I can sense immediately that he’s not to be trusted.

He’s carrying a pair of Lester’s shoes in one hand and draped over his arm is a tailcoat and white shirt.

He recognises me and smirks. There’s something distasteful in the lofty way he looks down his nose at me.

‘Good morning, Miss Fleet.’ He over-emphasises my name as if mocking me, and those pale eyes stare at me with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable.

‘Good morning, Glover,’ I answer tartly.

He looks surprised that I’ve even acknowledged him and hesitates as if expecting me to say something more.

When I say nothing, he frowns. He looks at me with the same bewildered expression as Mrs Brown.

I’m obviously not doing a very good job at playing Constance Fleet.

I enter my room and close the door behind me.

I take a deep breath. I need to know what’s going on and the only way to do that is to read more of Constance’s diary.

I decide to take it out onto the deck and read it in the sun.

I find a coat in the wardrobe and pull out a fur stole.

The stole is horrendous. It’s made out of some sort of animal, and not just one.

I most certainly won’t be wearing that !

I throw it back in the wardrobe, I’d rather catch cold.

I head outside. The air is bitter. The sunshine gives little warmth, but it’s bright and cheerful, and bounces off the waves in golden stars.

I walk up the deck and notice at once the stunning view.

It’s deliberately free of lifeboats. My fury mounts.

I know the history of the Titanic , of course, but being here, on the real ship, walking the real decks, makes the folly of the design even more acute.

If Alexander Carlisle had thought more about the safety of the ship’s passengers rather than the aesthetic of the first-class promenade, so many more lives would have been saved.

I lean on the railing and gaze into the blue.

The sky is vast, melting into the sea in a hazy line so that you can barely see where the water ends, and the great space begins.

I drop my eyes into the foam churning at the base of the ship a hundred feet below me.

I’m lost. I don’t know what I’m doing here or for how long I’ll need to remain.

Will I slide back before the ship sinks?

Somehow, I doubt it. Lester is stuck in the mansion in New York.

I fear that that is where I must go. But why didn’t I slide there directly?

Why am I here, on the Titanic ? On the bloody Titanic that is shortly going to sink.

What is my purpose here?

I’ve been brought to this time and place, but have no idea what to search for.

Lester and I have barely spoken. His valet is obviously a menace.

How is it possible that a hotel in New York in 2014 harbours an earthbound spirit who just happens to be connected to Cavill Pengower? And I am called in to release him.

The coincidence is incredible.

Unless the common denominator is not Cavill Pengower, but me!

Could I have started something beyond my understanding when I first met Cavill, seventeen years ago?

My head swims as I consider this. Am I the reason that Lester and Cavill are together on this boat?

After all, it’s because of me unwittingly preventing Cavill from travelling to South America and dying on the journey that he’s alive today.

I did what I’m not supposed to do: change events that impact the future.

But instead of dying young, Cavill married Hermione and they had a daughter.

I realise then the enormity of what I’ve done.

I’ve impacted the future and brought his daughter into the world.

‘Isn’t it immense?’ I would know that voice anywhere.

I turn to see Cavill standing beside me. My heart throws itself against my ribs and I straighten with a jolt.

‘I’m sorry. Did I startle you?’ He smiles down at me and I’m bewildered. He’s looking at me now with a completely different expression on his face, and I don’t know why.

‘I was miles away,’ I reply.

‘Finding your sea legs,’ he says.

‘Of course.’

‘Josephine has just told me how kind you were to take the trouble to talk to her yesterday. She said you were very reassuring. Thank you.’

I assume he’s talking about his daughter? I wonder what the hell did Constance do for her to warrant his thanks. ‘Please. No thanks are necessary.’

He rests his forearms on the railing and looks out to sea.

The sun warms his face, but it emphasises too the lines etched upon it.

The face I knew had no lines at all. He takes a breath.

‘She has never got over her mother’s death,’ he says.

He keeps his gaze trained on the horizon.

It’s easier to speak about feelings when one isn’t making eye contact.

‘I know,’ I reply. ‘I don’t think a young person ever gets over that kind of loss.

’ My mind flicks to my own mother, whom I haven’t seen since I was a child.

She’s not dead, but she just as well might be.

Something in the view, or in the fact that Cavill, whom I thought I would never see again, is standing right beside me, causes my throat to constrict with emotion.

After what my mother did to my father, she has no right to make me miss her.

‘I’m sorry about your mother. I believe you were very close to her.’

For a second I’m confused. But only a second.

I remember who I am. Constance Fleet. He’s referring to Constance’s mother.

She must be dead. I take a breath. It’s not difficult to convey Constance’s sorrow when my own heart is suddenly engulfed in sorrow of my own.

‘I was close to her,’ I say. ‘But I know that those we lose never leave us. That they’re still with us in spirit. ’

‘Wise words.’ He nods, but still his eyes don’t leave the horizon.

I decide to take a gamble. I know I shouldn’t. I take a breath, teetering on the brink of doing what’s right and satisfying my curiosity. ‘You know I met your wife, Mr Pengower.’

He turns to me now and frowns. ‘You did?’

‘Yes, I wasn’t going to mention it. When she was a governess. Long ago.’

He chuckles. He looks at his hands. ‘Yes, she was a governess. Not many people know that.’

‘She was lovely. You must miss her very much.’

‘I do,’ he says. ‘Our time together was short. But everything changed after my nephew disappeared.’

‘Little Felix. I remember hearing about that tragedy.’ I pull my coat tightly around me and shiver. It feels as if my discovery back in 1895 was only moments ago. But for Cavill, seventeen years have passed.

‘Yes, the house of Pengower has suffered too much loss.’ He looks out to sea again.

‘ You have suffered too much loss,’ I tell him, and I can hear the emotion causing my voice to rise.

‘Life is not always fair,’ he says with a shrug.

‘It’s not meant to be fair. It’s meant to challenge us. We have to accept what it throws at us, both good and bad. Without sadness, we cannot experience joy.’

He looks at me steadily and those blue eyes seem to penetrate the physical, piercing my very soul.

‘You know, Miss Fleet, my wife once talked like that. She was deep and wise, like you. But Felix’s disappearance changed her.

She lost her faith. After he vanished, she didn’t talk like that any more.

In fact, she didn’t recall that she ever had.

’ He frowns, trying to make sense of something that, from whichever angle he views it, cannot be understood.

I’m aghast. So, he did notice a difference from when I inhabited Hermione’s body to when I left it. For a moment I’m speechless. I want to confess, to tell him who I am, who I really am. But I can’t. He would never believe me. Worse, he would think me mad.

‘It must have been the shock,’ I manage to whisper.

‘Yes, I suppose it was,’ he agrees sadly.

We both throw our gazes onto that misty line and leave them there. Just me and Cavill. He doesn’t realise, as he searches for the woman he loves out there in the blue, that she is standing right beside him.

After a while, Cavill leaves me to go and find his daughter.

I watch him go and wonder why he came out to speak to me.

Was it just to thank me for being kind to Josephine?

Or was it for another reason. I realise I must get back to Constance’s diary if I’m to even begin to answer the many questions I have.

I find a quiet spot and recline on one of the deckchairs with a blanket thrown over my legs, and open the diary.

This time, I don’t dally with the distant past. I start with day one on the Titanic , Wednesday, 10th 1912.