10

“Eugenie LeClere is a quite reprehensible person,” Miss Meadows said, when she returned to herself. She was paler and more lovely than ever, a testament to the reasoning behind certain wampyrs’ legendary preference for blondes. Sebastien, seated on the bottom bunk beside a stiff-shouldered Jack while Allen hovered over her like an anxious mother, reserved his sarcasm.

What had a wampyr to say about morality?

He didn’t blame Jack his anger. But either Jack would allow Sebastien to make it up to him, or Jack would leave him–as Jack eventually must, because Sebastien was old enough to understand that there was no such creature as eternal loyalty, nor was it fair to ask–and in either case, Sebastien had done no more than he needed to.

“If you’re going to attempt to direct my investigation to Mademoiselle LeClere, Miss Meadows, rest assured, it needs no further guidance.”

“Call me Lillian, if I may call you Sebastien,” she said, adjusting a pin-curl in its diamond barrette without benefit of the mirror. “And I don’t think Eugenie killed her. I think she was trying to get away from her. There’s very little I would put past Eugenie. But not murder.”

“Miss–Lillian, forgive me.” Sebastien stood, moving fluidly again, his strength restored as hers was lessened. “But I think the information you’re hinting around would be better plainly expressed.”

“Ah.” Lillian glanced at Allen, who shrugged. He handed her a silver flask–taken from the pocket which did not hold the revolver–and she sipped, winced, and recapped it before shaking her head–very slightly, so as not to disturb her bandages. “Eugenie loves Oczkar.”

“So Mrs. Smith said. I am drawn to the inescapable conclusion that you all were acquainted before this flight commenced. Am I incorrect in that?”

She could, of course, be drawing him out, playing the game of misleading and misdirection that tended to permeate any murder investigation. But he had something to bargain. Something she wanted.

If only the captain were here to make his ever-so-delicately phrased charge of whoredom now. “We met in Moscow,” she said. “I had lost someone, and was grateful for the company. You know how strangers can make you bear yourself up as you could not manage, in the company only of friends?”

He didn’t answer. She pressed her fingertips to her bandage.

“Sebastien?”

“Yes, I know it well. And the Leatherbys?”

“I had not met them before. Although they appeared to know Madame, and did not seem to care for her. Or perhaps it was simply a matter of her reputation preceding her. If you take my meaning?”

He did not, and beckoned her to continue.

“Eugenie and Madame Pontchartrain–Leonelle–well,” Lillian said. “They were not what they pretended. Either of them. Their grand tour of England and Europe was a… fishing expedition. You see, Madame Pontchartrain never married. And Eugenie was not merely her travelling companion; she was her bastard daughter. They had no family, and no estates. And their means of making their way in the world….” she permitted her voice to trail off suggestively, and gave the flask a regretful glance before handing it to Allen.

“Entrapment,” Sebastien said, understanding, on the same breath that Jack said, “Blackmail.”

“Eugenie wanted free of her.”

“And yet you insist she did not kill her?”

“How Shakespearean,” Lillian said. “And how unnatural, don’t you think? For a child to murder her mother, no matter how opportunistic or unloving?”

“And she refused to turn Korvin úr over to her mother?”

“She was not supposed to approach Oczkar at all. He is unmarried, a sorcerer–what more could an affair do to his reputation? No, she was meant to accuse my darling Virgil of rape.” She turned her head and smiled at Allen, experiencing no such difficulty with the word as the captain had. Allen’s lip quirked under his moustache, and he tipped an imaginary hat. “Virgil is not well-off, of course, but Madame Pontchartrain believed I would pay to silence them.”

“But Mademoiselle LeClere came to you with her story instead.”

“Is it so hard to believe I pitied her?”

Jack, from the recesses of the bottom bunk, said, “I wouldn’t have thought you had pity in your makeup.” He stood, shouldering past Sebastien in the strained silence that followed, and edged around Virgil Allen. He paused by the curtained door and turned back, as if wavering on the edge of another unpleasantness. Gratitude–or manners–won over jealousy, and he swallowed hard and continued, “Miss Meadows, Mr. Allen, would you join us for lunch? It’s nearly the hour, and Miss Meadows should certainly eat.”

She stared him down for a moment, but gave the ground, obviously aware that this was a competition she could not win. “But surely,” she said, as Allen helped her wavering to her feet, “Sebastien–”

“Oh,” he said, straightening his collar, “I wouldn’t keep my public waiting. Besides, I think I need a word or two with Mademoiselle LeClere and Korvin úr. Don’t you?”

#

The crewman pacing in the hallway didn’t try to stop them from descending, but he did follow at a discreet distance. Sebastien made a little ceremony of seating Lillian, and he was sure every eye in the place was trained on the four of them, side by side at a round table meant for six. Already seated elsewhere were the Chinese couple–most skilled at looking without seeming to be looking–and the Dutch brothers, who dined with their heads bent together conspiratorially and stared with perfect frankness when Sebastien’s party entered. Steven actually essayed a small smile, however, and Michiel spared Jack a nod, which was more than Sebastien would have predicted. Meanwhile, Lillian smiled with bright falseness across the dining room, her bandages a small bulge under her high-collared blouse that everyone avoided staring at, their gazes veering away as precipitously as if she had strolled in naked.

Sebastien, at least, was spared the annoyance of pretending to dine. The maitre d’ himself came and cleared Sebastien’s place setting, providing a goblet of clear ice water, then brought the bread and butter for the other diners with his own hands. Sebastien thanked him, and offered that–if the burly crewman now lingering inside the door, at attention like a footman, should require a meal and a rest–Sebastien had no plans to leave the dining room for at least an hour.

The maitre d’, Sebastien noticed, blushed most appetizingly.

Sebastien hated this, the mingled obsequiousness and fear. And Jack’s sly sideways smile told him that Jack was enjoying a small, Schadenfreude-soaked revenge in Sebastien’s discomfiture.

Sebastien sighed, and fiddled with his water glass. The service of the soup was notably slow. Lillian chattered gaily with Virgil and Jack, who was putting forth even more of an effort than usual to be his best, most charming self. Sebastien found Jack’s knee under the table and gave it a grateful pat, and Jack’s answering smile was a touch less sly. Had Sebastien had a heart to beat, it would have accelerated in relief.

He would be forgiven after all.

Virgil was pouring a second round of wine–the waiter having exhibited a curious hesitancy to approach their table except when forced to deliver dishes–when Mrs. Smith entered unaccompanied. She cast her eye over the room, tucked an errant strand of hair behind the earpiece of her spectacles, and beelined for their table, barely acknowledging the other diners. “May I join you?”

Without glancing at her tablemates for approval, Lillian gestured Mrs. Smith to a chair. “My dear Phoebe, if you can stand the stench of scandal.”

“Is that scandal?” Mrs. Smith set her notebook beside her plate. “I was afraid it was the soup.” She snapped her napkin open and spread it across her lap. “Don’t worry, Don Sebastien. My good opinion of you is unchanged. Although you may find yourself the victim of a barrage of correspondence should I come to write a novel featuring one of–is the polite term the blood?”

“The polite term is whatever you say with a smile,” he answered, gratified. “I am pleased not to be pre-judged. I had thought you might avoid my company after this morning’s unpleasantness.”

Mrs. Smith accepted a wine glass from Virgil, who remained thoughtfully silent. “Am I supposed to sprain myself avoiding being seen dining with the wampyr, or with the adventuress?”

“What about the sorcerer?” Jack said, gesturing to the door as Oczkar Korvin entered. “That should liven up the place.”

“Jack,” Sebastien said. Korvin úr, he noticed, left a stout-thewed crewman by the entry, too. Sebastien wasn’t the only one under close observation. “We needn’t be unpleasant.”

One could see Jack assembling the persona, if one caught him at it, like a knight girding on his armor. Sebastien had never asked Jack about his childhood–he rather, in fact, hoped Jack didn’t recollect overmuch of it–but it had taken three or four years of taming before the fey speechless child Jack had been was willing to relax that armor at all.

Without looking at her, Sebastien heard Lillian’s taken breath. An actress recognized the signs of a character falling into place. “Oh, very well,” Jack said, then, casually. “If you insist.” He raised his voice. “Korvin úr, aren’t you going to join us?”

The parade of expressions across Oczkar Korvin’s face would have been humorous under other circumstances. But to his credit, he mastered them, and came to take the chair remaining between Virgil and Mrs. Smith. He seated himself, collected and precise, with his posture folded in onto itself. “Señor de Ulloa,” he said, “I owe you a rather abject apology.”

“You made your point,” Sebastien said. Now he rather wished he had a plate; utensils to manage would make a welcome distraction. “Won’t Mademoiselle LeClere be dining with you?”

“She is unlikely to be down to lunch,” Korvin said. “Judging by the hysterics that consummated our recent conversation.”

“Your remorse does not extend to her?”

Korvin turned his water goblet with his fingertips. “A man doesn’t like to be manipulated into doing a woman’s dirty work for her,” he said. “I made an unfortunate choice in listening to Eugenie–to Mademoiselle LeClere.”

“She suggested your trick with the burning glass?” Sebastien asked, leaning forward.

“She said that you were going to accuse her–and me–of murder. That Madame Pontchartrain had disappeared while she and I were together, and–” an eloquent shrug. “Even sorcerers who are under a crown’s control are viewed with a certain amount of suspicion.”

“I’m acquainted with prejudice,” Sebastien said. “What’s changed to bring you to me now?”

“I had a word with Mr. Leatherby,” Korvin said. “Mademoiselle LeClere and he had some unhappy history, it appears, and he was kind enough to warn me–”

“She was blackmailing him.” Lillian set down her spoon and picked up her wine glass, slouching against the chair-back in a manner which she never could have managed in a corset. Mrs. Smith gave her an envious glance.

“Or her guardian was, with her assistance.” Korvin said. He lowered his voice as the waiter came to take the soup away.

“Miss Meadows seemed to think Mademoiselle LeClere might attempt reform for your sake,” Sebastien said.

“Who could ever trust her? Fortunately, I was not overfond of the girl.”

Just willing to use her affection for you. Sebastien bit his tongue. Korvin wasn’t the first or last of his kind. Not that Sebastien was any better, he thought, with a sidelong glance at Jack, who fiddled his cuffs, seemingly oblivious.

But, that piece in place, Sebastien abruptly remembered Mrs. Leatherby hurrying into the salon behind the others, her blouse still unbuttoned at the collar. He remembered her pulling the comb from her hair, and the scent of her perfume filling the room as her hair tumbled over her neck.

He put his water goblet down sharply enough to slop fluid on his hand. “Mrs. Smith,” he said. “Or Lillian… I don’t suppose either of you recalls when Beatrice Leatherby arrived in the lady’s washroom to be inspected for a tattoo?”

“Late,” Lillian said. “Out of breath.”

And Sebastien nodded, the completed understanding filling him with lazy satisfaction. Jack was looking at him, smiling, and Sebastien wondered if the triumph were so transparent on his face. “Summon the Captain,” he said. “She and her husband are the murderers.”

***

To Be Continued…

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