The Woman in Cabin 10

by

Ruth Ware

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Woman in Cabin 10 makes teaching easy.

Lord Richard Bullmer Character Analysis

Bullmer, a British Lord and wealthy owner of the Aurora cruise liner, is just a few years older than Lo. He is married to Anne Lyngstad Bullmer. After a privileged childhood, Bullmer was orphaned and broke by the time he entered Oxford University, then formed a successful start-up. The Aurora is his latest business venture. Bullmer tries to project an approachable, everyman persona despite his immense wealth, playing poker with guests and personally meeting with Lo to listen to her suspicions about the missing woman/Carrie. However, he also gives off a disarming, likely sociopathic stoicism. It turns out that Bullmer killed Anne on the first night of the cruise, having convinced Carrie—his secret lover—to impersonate her, in hopes of avoiding prosecution and securing Anne’s fortune for himself. Bullmer has amassed a wide network of friends in high places, but Lo escapes and outruns him, and he’s ultimately shot and killed by Carrie.

Lord Richard Bullmer Quotes in The Woman in Cabin 10

The The Woman in Cabin 10 quotes below are all either spoken by Lord Richard Bullmer or refer to Lord Richard Bullmer . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Entrapment and Isolation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

It seemed impossible that everything mentioned in the brochure—library, sunroom, spa, sauna, cocktail lounge, and all the other things apparently indispensable to the Aurora’s pampered passengers—could fit into this miniature vessel. Its size, along with the perfection of its paintwork, gave it a curiously toylike quality, and as I stepped onto the narrow steel gangway I had a sudden disorienting image of the Aurora as a ship imprisoned in a bottle—tiny, perfect, isolated, and unreal—and of myself, shrinking down to match it with every step I took towards the boat. It was a strange feeling, as if I were looking down the wrong end of a telescope, and it gave me a dizzying sensation almost like vertigo.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

If someone had been walking along the deck outside and had glanced in the window, they would never have known that I had just told him something that could deal a sucker punch to his business, and revealed the presence of a possible psychopath on board a small ship. As my story unfolded I was expecting echoes of Nilsson’s distress, or the clannish denial of the stewardesses, but although I watched Bullmer’s face carefully, I saw neither of those, no hint of accusation or censure […] With Bullmer, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. Was he furious, or panicked, and simply hiding it well? Or was he really as cool and calm as he seemed?

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Johann Nilsson
Page Number: 194-195
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

While Richard was back in Lars’s cabin, establishing his alibi with an uninterrupted poker game, the woman in Cabin 10 had bundled the real Anne overboard and hoped that the body would never be found.

And they would have got away with it, if I—frightened and traumatized from the burglary—hadn’t heard the splash and jumped to a conclusion that was so wrong, it was almost completely right.

So who was she? […] I had no idea. But I knew one thing—she was my best hope of getting out of here alive.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer, Lars Jenssen
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“Shut up!” She put her hands over her ears, shaking her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither of us wanted to be in this situation!”

“Really? You think it’s coincidence he fell in love with someone who bears a startling resemblance to Anne? He planned this from the beginning. You’re just a means to an end […] All the money, without the controlling wife—I think he had that carrot waved in front of his nose by Anne’s illness […] And when the doctors gave her the all clear, he didn’t want to let go of it—is that right?”

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 263-264
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

I thought about it after she left—the stupidity of thanking a woman who was keeping you captive, buying your compliance by withholding food and drugs. Was I developing Stockholm syndrome?

Maybe. Although if I was, she had a considerably more advanced case than I did. Maybe that was closer to the truth—we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

Somehow I would get off this boat, if not for me, then for Anne, and Carrie. No—Fuck it.

For me.

I was getting off this boat for me—because I had done nothing to deserve this apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was damned if Bullmer was going to add me to the list of women he had screwed over.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 306
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

The lights were not to the east but to the north. What I could see was not dawn but the eerie green and gold streaks of the northern lights.

The realization made me laugh—a bitter, mirthless choke that sounded shockingly loud in the still night air. What was it Richard had said? Everyone should see the northern lights before they died. Well, now I had. But it just didn’t seem that important anymore.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer
Related Symbols: Light
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:

With each step, I remembered Carrie’s frantic exhortations to get running and get out—her hysterical assertions about the reach of Richard’s influence.

It didn’t seem so hysterical now.

If only I had believed her—I should never have shown Anne’s ID at the hotel, or trusted Erik with even the few details I’d given him. But I just hadn’t quite believed that anyone, however wealthy, could have the kind of reach Carrie believed. Now I realized I was wrong. […]

What was I going to do? […] My best hope was finding a police station, but how? Where? And did I dare tell them the truth when I got there?

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

“I think I lost sight of what I wanted. I don’t want to end up like Tina and Alexander, traveling from country to country and only seeing five-star hotels and Michelin restaurants. Yes, Rowan’s been to half the luxury resorts in the Caribbean, but in return she spends her life reporting the stories that people like Bullmer want her to tell, and I don’t want that, not anymore. I want to write about the things people don’t want you to know. And if I’m going to start pulling my way up from the bottom again, well, I can freelance from anywhere.”

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Judah Lewis, Tina West, Rowan Lonsdale , Alexander Belhomme
Page Number: 335
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lord Richard Bullmer Quotes in The Woman in Cabin 10

The The Woman in Cabin 10 quotes below are all either spoken by Lord Richard Bullmer or refer to Lord Richard Bullmer . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Entrapment and Isolation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

It seemed impossible that everything mentioned in the brochure—library, sunroom, spa, sauna, cocktail lounge, and all the other things apparently indispensable to the Aurora’s pampered passengers—could fit into this miniature vessel. Its size, along with the perfection of its paintwork, gave it a curiously toylike quality, and as I stepped onto the narrow steel gangway I had a sudden disorienting image of the Aurora as a ship imprisoned in a bottle—tiny, perfect, isolated, and unreal—and of myself, shrinking down to match it with every step I took towards the boat. It was a strange feeling, as if I were looking down the wrong end of a telescope, and it gave me a dizzying sensation almost like vertigo.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

If someone had been walking along the deck outside and had glanced in the window, they would never have known that I had just told him something that could deal a sucker punch to his business, and revealed the presence of a possible psychopath on board a small ship. As my story unfolded I was expecting echoes of Nilsson’s distress, or the clannish denial of the stewardesses, but although I watched Bullmer’s face carefully, I saw neither of those, no hint of accusation or censure […] With Bullmer, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. Was he furious, or panicked, and simply hiding it well? Or was he really as cool and calm as he seemed?

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Johann Nilsson
Page Number: 194-195
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

While Richard was back in Lars’s cabin, establishing his alibi with an uninterrupted poker game, the woman in Cabin 10 had bundled the real Anne overboard and hoped that the body would never be found.

And they would have got away with it, if I—frightened and traumatized from the burglary—hadn’t heard the splash and jumped to a conclusion that was so wrong, it was almost completely right.

So who was she? […] I had no idea. But I knew one thing—she was my best hope of getting out of here alive.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer, Lars Jenssen
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“Shut up!” She put her hands over her ears, shaking her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither of us wanted to be in this situation!”

“Really? You think it’s coincidence he fell in love with someone who bears a startling resemblance to Anne? He planned this from the beginning. You’re just a means to an end […] All the money, without the controlling wife—I think he had that carrot waved in front of his nose by Anne’s illness […] And when the doctors gave her the all clear, he didn’t want to let go of it—is that right?”

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 263-264
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

I thought about it after she left—the stupidity of thanking a woman who was keeping you captive, buying your compliance by withholding food and drugs. Was I developing Stockholm syndrome?

Maybe. Although if I was, she had a considerably more advanced case than I did. Maybe that was closer to the truth—we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

Somehow I would get off this boat, if not for me, then for Anne, and Carrie. No—Fuck it.

For me.

I was getting off this boat for me—because I had done nothing to deserve this apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was damned if Bullmer was going to add me to the list of women he had screwed over.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 306
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

The lights were not to the east but to the north. What I could see was not dawn but the eerie green and gold streaks of the northern lights.

The realization made me laugh—a bitter, mirthless choke that sounded shockingly loud in the still night air. What was it Richard had said? Everyone should see the northern lights before they died. Well, now I had. But it just didn’t seem that important anymore.

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer
Related Symbols: Light
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:

With each step, I remembered Carrie’s frantic exhortations to get running and get out—her hysterical assertions about the reach of Richard’s influence.

It didn’t seem so hysterical now.

If only I had believed her—I should never have shown Anne’s ID at the hotel, or trusted Erik with even the few details I’d given him. But I just hadn’t quite believed that anyone, however wealthy, could have the kind of reach Carrie believed. Now I realized I was wrong. […]

What was I going to do? […] My best hope was finding a police station, but how? Where? And did I dare tell them the truth when I got there?

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), The Woman in Cabin 10/Carrie, Lord Richard Bullmer , Anne Bullmer
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

“I think I lost sight of what I wanted. I don’t want to end up like Tina and Alexander, traveling from country to country and only seeing five-star hotels and Michelin restaurants. Yes, Rowan’s been to half the luxury resorts in the Caribbean, but in return she spends her life reporting the stories that people like Bullmer want her to tell, and I don’t want that, not anymore. I want to write about the things people don’t want you to know. And if I’m going to start pulling my way up from the bottom again, well, I can freelance from anywhere.”

Related Characters: Laura “Lo” Blacklock (speaker), Lord Richard Bullmer , Judah Lewis, Tina West, Rowan Lonsdale , Alexander Belhomme
Page Number: 335
Explanation and Analysis: