Women and Children First: Bravery, love and fate: the untold story of the doomed Titanic. Gill Paul

      Reg poured his heart out in the letter to John’s…

      Chapter Thirty-Nine

      The apartment that Seamus had found for Annie and his…

      Chapter Forty

      When Juliette told her mother that Robert wanted to take…

      Chapter Forty-One

      On Sundays, when Reg wasn’t working, he explored the city…

      Chapter Forty-Two

      ‘My goodness! What brings you here?’ Mr Grayling looked startled…

      Chapter Forty-Three

      A date was set for Juliette and her mother to…

      Chapter Forty-Four

      Annie found life in Kingsbridge a struggle. The practicalities were…

      Chapter Forty-Five

      The night following Mr Grayling’s offer of employment, Reg lay…

      Chapter Forty-Six

      ‘It appears to be about two carats.’ Lady Mason-Parker eyed…

      Chapter Forty-Seven

      Reg was astonished but pleased when he saw a story…

      Chapter Forty-Eight

      The morning of her departure for Saratoga Springs, Juliette woke…

      Chapter Forty-Nine

      A couple of days after starting work for Mr Grayling,…

      Chapter Fifty

      Reg liked to keep busy and there wasn’t much to…

      Chapter Fifty-One

      Mr Frank came into the kitchen holding a newspaper. ‘Your…

      Chapter Fifty-Two

      A sign announced ‘Welcome to Saratoga Springs, district of Saratoga…

      Chapter Fifty-Three

      Reg had very mixed feelings about his flirtation with Molly.

      Chapter Fifty-Four

      Annie hadn’t realised how hot it would be in New…

      Chapter Fifty-Five

      Reg let everyone think the cut on his hand was…

      Chapter Fifty-Six

      ‘This is John,’ Molly said, to fill the stunned silence…

      Chapter Fifty-Seven

      Mr Grayling was in his office. Mr Frank tapped on…

      Chapter Fifty-Eight

      In Saratoga Springs, the temperature shot up into the nineties…

      Chapter Fifty-Nine

      Mr Frank insisted that Mr Grayling’s chauffeur drove Reg downtown…

      Chapter Sixty

      Annie couldn’t stop thinking about the séance and analysing everything…

      Chapter Sixty-One

      Reg completed the letter to his mother – a simple…

      Chapter Sixty-Two

      Mr Grayling hadn’t been to the house since the previous…

      Chapter Sixty-Three

      The days when Juliette could wear a corset were long…

      Chapter Sixty-Four

      From the first day at the summer house, Molly started…

      Chapter Sixty-Five

      Father Kelly knocked on the door one morning and asked…

      Chapter Sixty-Six

      In early August, a storm blew up the Atlantic coast…

      Chapter Sixty-Seven

      Somewhere in the depths of his brain, Reg became aware…

      Chapter Sixty-Eight

      Juliette couldn’t stop torturing herself with visions of Robert escorting…

      Chapter Sixty-Nine

      When Reg awoke, it was daylight outside and the storm…

      Chapter Seventy

      Juliette scribbled a very simple note: ‘Am in New York…

      Chapter Seventy-One

      It was getting dark as Reg walked over Brooklyn Bridge.

      Chapter Seventy-Two

      As soon as Juliette woke the next day, she rang…

      Chapter Seventy-Three

      Juliette didn’t have time to be nervous as Robert dashed…

      Chapter Seventy-Four

      Reg didn’t know where to find a police station. In…

      Chapter Seventy-Five

      Reg had a lot of time to worry while the…

      Chapter Seventy-Six

      Later that night, George Grayling sat at his desk with…

      Chapter Seventy-Seven

      As arranged, Robert came to the hotel at six and…

      Chapter Seventy-Eight

      After the newspaper story about her appeared, Annie was alarmed…

      Chapter Seventy-Nine

      When Reg turned up at the Cunard Line office to…

      Epilogue

      Reg and Florence got married a week before Christmas 1912…

      TITANIC

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

       Enjoyed this book? Read on for the start of Gill Paul’s new novel, Another Woman’s Husband.

      Other Books by Gill Paul

      About the Publisher

      Prologue

      Reg’s hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t hold the newspaper still enough to read. He sat on a bunk and smoothed the pages open on the shabby grey blanket, ironing the creases with his hand. Lists of names in tiny type covered the surface, organised into uneven columns of surnames, forenames, the class in which each person had travelled, and finally their country of origin.

      Straight away he saw an error: Luigi Gatti was listed as Spanish rather than Italian. How could he trust this list if they could make such a simple mistake? Was anything in it reliable? Abbing, Abbott, Abelson … Ernest Abbott. That must be Ernie who worked in the mess, but they had him down as a third-class passenger. Poor old Ernie.

      His finger scrolled down the page. There was Colonel Astor, with the same number of words by his name as anyone else. All that money couldn’t buy him a place on the other, shorter list, the list of survivors. There was Bill, who had slept in the next bunk, and Ethel from the pantry, the one they called Fat Ethel. If only they’d been kinder …

      A couple of columns across, at the ‘J’s, his stomach turned over and his heart began pounding hard. It was a most peculiar feeling to see yourself listed as dead. He looked away and refocused his eyes just outside the window where he could see unfurling buds on the topmost branches of a linden tree. Someone was moving around in a greystone office building opposite. He couldn’t make out if it was a man or a woman, but they were holding