I'm so sorry it's been ridiculously long since I've updated. I really didn't mean to keep you waiting so long after that cliffhanger, but I've been having a big of a tough time this last month, and I just haven't been able to summon the energy or mindset to get this chapter right. Thankfully, I think things are improving, and so, here's the next chapter at last. It all got a bit heavy here, which I was pretty impressed that I managed to do. So anyway, here it is.

Enjoy :) x

Rose breathed deep and hard as she ran through the corridors of the ship, her heart thumping hard in her chest. On she ran, unwilling, or unable to stop until she had torn her way through the First Class decks (ignoring the many shocked and surprised stares of the people she passed) and back into her stateroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She leaned against the door for support as she attempted to regain control of her breathing. She felt dizzy, her head swimming with the exhaustion of so much running in the damned corset. But her physical exhaustion was nothing compared to the unbearable weight of her mind as the shock of what she had seen subsided, and her emotions took over.

She had seen a werewolf. A living, breathing member of a species that were supposedly extinct. And not only that, but she had spent almost two days with a werewolf, without even knowing it! Rose didn't know what to feel. What should she feel? Shocked, that there was still at least one wolf left in the world? Scared, that the last of a species that the vast majority of her own considered savage and dangerous was on this very ship? Angry, that the man she had been saved by, had won her friendship, (and had feelings for?) had kept such an enormous secret? It was just all too much.

The emotion that eventually won the battle for supremacy was sadness. Sadness that the man she'd fallen so fast in love with was someone she could now surely never bring herself see again. He would be killed the minute he was discovered, and she would be ruined for the crime of association. Rose felt her torment building inside her, and all too suddenly, out it came, in choked sobs that cascaded from her like an unstoppable flood. Rose clutched her middle as she felt her legs begin to give way under her, and she slid down against the door to sit curled up with her knees to her chest, her head rested in her arms as she sobbed.

"My my, you do seem unwell"

The sharp, sarcastic tone of her mother's voice stung Rose's ears like an unwelcome morning alarm. She lifted her head to see Ruth stood in the doorway to the sitting room, her arms folded across her chest, her face pinched in the disapproving manner that Rose was so accustomed to. Only after several moments of steely silence did Rose remember that she was supposed to have been unwell, barely an hour earlier, but which suddenly felt like a lifetime ago.

Her limbs shaking, Rose forced herself to stand up, furiously wiping away the tears from her face with the edge of her sleeve.

"Mother" Rose greeted, steadying her voice with all her strength. "I was just, ah... I-"

"Oh I know exactly what you were doing" Ruth's icy voice cut off Rose's attempt at an explanation, her lips pursed in a line so thin they all but disappeared. "You were with him, weren't you?"

In her current state, Rose couldn't even attempt to come up with an excuse. She just stared, open-mouthed, as her mother's accusing gaze bore into her.

"I knew it" Ruth's voice had deteriorated to a furious whisper. "I completely forbade it, and still you disobeyed me!"

Rose sighed, raising a hand to massage her temple. Never mind pretending to be ill, she could feel a genuine headache beginning to pound her head now.

"Mother, please, I-"

"No! I don't want any more of your excuses!" Ruth's voice, though still low (Heaven forbid they should be overheard), shook with rage. "For goodness' sake, Rose, you must want us to end up in the gutter! Gallivanting around the ship at all hours, associating with those people. And running off in the middle of the day to see a man, alone! You're not a child anymore, you stupid girl! I'm only thankful your future husband is so understanding-"

"Understanding?!" Rose snapped, her voice raising with the anger inside her. "You think Cal is understanding?!"

Ruth's eyes darted to the doors anxiously, as though imagining the people outside pressing their ears to the walls to listen.

"I don't suppose he told you what happened at breakfast this morning then, did you? He flipped the table across the room, china and all, and then threatened me! That's how understanding he is, Mother. And this is the man you want me to marry?!"

Ruth's face fell slightly at her daughter's words, and anger. Such anger she'd never seen from her before. Nevertheless, of course, this was but a difficult patch, which Rose would have to calm down and get through. Or so she would make her.

"Rose" said Ruth after a deep breath, forcing herself to keep her composure. "I know this isn't easy. Marriage rarely is. But you have got to get your head out of the clouds and stop assuming that marriage is some sort of happy-ever-after fairy tale. I'm sorry, but it's not. I know you don't love Mr Hockley, and I don't expect you to. But what I do expect you to do is to make this match work. As I did, as your grandmother did, as all women do. I'm sure if you simply made yourself more agreeable to Mr Hockley, and less... aggravating, you will get on perfectly well"

Rose could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had just told her mother that the man she was being ordered to marry had violently threatened her, and she was being told to just get on with it.

"I don't believe you" Rose shook her head, staring in disgust at her mother. "Good God, Mother, I knew you were cold but I didn't think you were this heartless! That monster would probably quite happily threaten and hit me every day of our lives together and still you tell me to marry him!"

"Oh do stop being so over dramatic!" Ruth shouted back, her worries of people hearing thrown to the wind. "Marriage is not based on love, Rose. It never is for our sort. It is an alliance. A trade deal. You will marry Mr Hockley, and save this family from ruin, and that is the end of it"

"So my only use in this life is to be sold to the highest bidder" Rose shot back.

"Since you insist on putting it so crudely, and since your useless father couldn't keep us afloat, yes, that is correct"

"Don't bring my father into this!" Rose snapped at her mother, her eyes cold and threatening. She could handle a fight with her mother. She'd never been close to her anyway. But Rose's father, the parent she'd always felt truly loved by before his death, was the key to unravelling her emotions, a card that Ruth would often play in combat to weaken her daughter's argument.

"Why shouldn't I?" Ruth replied, her voice laced with cruel anger. "He's the reason we're in this mess! If he hadn't nearly ruined us we wouldn't even be in this predicament! You should just be damned grateful that Mr Hockley is a better man than he ever was"

"My father was twice the man Cal will ever be!"

"Then why did he ruin us by harbouring a hoard of damned werewolves?!"

Ruth's enraged outburst silenced Rose instantly. She stood there, face to face with her mother, who by now was practically trembling with rage.

"What?"

It was all she could manage to say.

"You heard what I said" Ruth spat back, forcing herself to lower her voice again, her whole body shaking with emotion that had clearly been trapped inside her for far too long.

"For years I've let you go on and on, moaning about losing your poor, beloved father. I should have just told you years ago and have done with it. Well, that oh-so-wonderful father of yours was hiding a family of werewolves in the basement of his office for three months. The damned fool. I'll never forget the day the police came to the house as long as I live. The shame of it. Well, that was that, of course. It was all over. His lawyer may have been able to get him off with a fine, but no self-respecting company would trade with us again, after that. And why would they? Who would want to do business with a man like that? Who hides filthy mutts from the police in his basement. We were ruined, Rose. Overnight. Just like that!"

Ruth forced herself to sit down on the edge of the bed, her back to her daughter, to gather her senses after such an outburst. Such raw emotion was not something she was accustomed to.

Her mother's words swam around Rose's pounding head like the icy water below them. All these years, and she'd had no idea about what her father had done. About why they had been so close to ruin.

"I... I didn't..." she tried to choke out, but found that her words failed her.

"Of course you didn't know" Ruth finished for her, her words calm and composed once more. She sat staring at the wall, unable, or unwilling, to face her daughter. "You didn't need to know. I thought it would be easier to put this family back together again if you weren't weighed down with the knowledge of our shame. And I was right, thankfully. Mr Hockley knew about our past crimes, of course, but you being none-the-wiser made it far easier to work past"

Rose sat down on the opposite edge of the bed, back to back with her mother, neither woman willing to face the other.

"I couldn't believe our luck when Hockley proposed your marriage to me, Rose" Ruth continued, wringing her hands in her lap. "It was truly a blessing to find someone willing to take you, in spite of everything. A match this good will not come around again. That is why I am telling you to make this work"

A heavy silence hung in the air like a muggy winter fog. Rose couldn't think of anything worth saying to her mother. Nothing that would properly convey the utter mess of feelings she felt, nor that would convince her to change her stance. From behind her, she heard the bed springs creak as Ruth got back to her feet, smoothing the creases of her dress as she did so.

"The Countess has invited us both for tea at four" Ruth's tone returned to her prim and proper self once more, as though the confrontation had never happened. "I suggest you clean your face before you come. You look a state"

Footsteps. A door opening. A firm slam shut. And Rose was alone.

Memories raced through her mind in an endless stream. Of evenings spent with her father in front of the fire, being read to from one of his many books. Of weekend outings to the theatre, when he would always spare a few coins for a beggar they passed. Of walks in the park, when he would tell her the importance of kindness in a cruel world. That was her father all over, Rose thought. A drop of kindness in a cruel world. And it had ruined him.

It was a mere month after Rose noticed that he had stopped putting on his suit and hat in the morning to go to the office, that he had first called the doctor to the house. Nothing to worry about, he had assured her. Just a cough. Rose had been both shocked and amazed at how fast "just a cough" had turned into her clutching his cold hand at his bedside as he smiled at her for the last time. As he closed his eyes in the most ordinary of ways. And just like that, he was gone.

Rose had always supposed that it was her father's death that had caused her to become little more than a bargaining chip in her mother's eyes. Of course, with no breadwinner, she would have to marry some money into the family coffers. But she had never in her wildest dreams imagined the truth that Ruth had screamed at her just moments earlier. Rose had always known that her father had been a kind and generous man. But it wasn't until finding out that he had risked the wrath of the law and the ruin of his family to help a family facing persecution that Rose realised just how brave he had been.

The thought rang in her mind as clearly as if he had been there beside her, whispering in her ear. He would want her to be brave, too. He would want her to follow her heart. He would tell her to be with Jack.

Anger fumed inside her once more. But this time, she had only herself to direct it at. She had been so stupid. So weak and stupid. Jack had revealed his secret to her because he trusted her. He said so himself. And she had thrown it back at him and run away. She had betrayed every feeling in her heart that she now knew for sure that she had for him. Rose wiped away a furious tear from her eye, taking a deep breath in.

Rose turned her head to the dressing table across the room, catching site of her tear-stained face in the mirror, her make up smudged across her cheeks. Her mother was right about one thing. She needed to clean up. But not for tea with the Countess. She needed to put things right. She had to find Jack.