Part 110 (1/2)
”Is it so obvious?”
”To me,” Jack said. He took the evening coat out of Sebastien's hands, set it aside, and began untying Sebastien's necktie and unb.u.t.toning his collar. ”You'll want a fresh s.h.i.+rt.”
”Yes, dear,” Sebastien said, and suffered himself to be dressed like a girl's paper doll. ”Miss Meadows knows, Jack.”
Jack paused in his work and looked up. He would never be a tall man, but he was a man, and Sebastien was never more disinclined to forget it than when Jack primped into his fey, adolescent persona. ”Isn't that the point of all this?” A fluid, dismissive wave. ”I'm of age, if anyone asks. And don't I remember you making me wait until I was. How many times did I offer before I turned sixteen?”
”One hundred and thirty-one,” Sebastien said. ”And no. I mean she's in the club.”
”What about the matinees?” Jack stepped back, Sebastien's collar draped limp as a dead snake over his hand.
”Not of the blood.” He let it hang until Jack's frown deepened from a pin scratch to a furrow. ”An admirer.”
”Oh, no you don't,” Jack muttered. He tossed the collar aside and reached out, knotting his hands in Sebastien's hair. ”Just because I've got to give you back to whatever court you a.s.semble in New Amsterdam, Sebastien, doesn't mean this trip isn't mine. You promised.”
And what would his blood brothers think, Sebastien wondered, if they could see him now, pinned down and soundly kissed by a courtesan two-thirds his size?
They would think he was eccentric, of course, and too lenient with his pets.
But Sebastien was old enough to be excused a certain measure of eccentricity. And he'd long ago realized he preferred the mayfly society of humans to that of the blood. The blood took everything so seriously, as if they pa.s.sed into that stage of human aging when mortals realized that the world turned like a wheel, and then through it, to a place where the natural cycles of success and catastrophe must be arrested. Before they could inconvenienceor worse, annoyanyone.
Jack stopped kissing him before he'd rumpled his evening clothes, but after Sebastien's teethsharpening in reactionhad furthered their earlier damage to his own lips and gums. Fortunately, he healed fast.
Jack wouldn't have. And it was mad of him to tempt Sebastien so soon after a feeding; Sebastien could control himself, andbarring disasterhe wouldn't need more until they were well grounded in New Amsterdam. But Sebastien also needed far more than Jack had to give. Which was why those of the blood who did not care to hunt for their suppers had courts and courtesans, and not simply a favorite or two. A pint a month, any healthy adult could spare. The same twice a week was slow deatheven though the blood, in Sebastien's considered opinion, was merely a metaphor for something more... exalted.
It warmed Sebastien as thoroughly as that mouthful of blood would have, though, to see Jack's jealousy.
Chapter VI.
Dinner pa.s.sed uneventfully. Jack demonstrated a certain hesitancy in circ.u.mventing the pork roast, butgiven two lunch.e.s.h.e extemporized around the fish and salad courses and, with the addition of Sebastien's dessert to his own, made a satisfactory supper. Sebastien disarrayed his food artfully to produce the illusion of dining, a sleight of hand that had served him well over the years.
After dining, the ladies excused themselves before the men adjourned to the smoking room. Sebastien took advantage of the exodus to plead a headache and an aversion to cigars and make his own escape. If Sebastien ventured into the smoking room, he'd be smelling stale tobacco for days. Jack, who numbered cigars among his bad habits as well as brandyquite the young rakeh.e.l.l, he was growing into, and Sebastien had no-one to blame but himselfwould report if anything interesting transpired.
Sebastien had fairer prey.
The pa.s.senger room at the head of the stairs was the least desirable, and on an airs.h.i.+p as unpeopled as the Hans Glucker, it was understandably deserted. Sebastien slipped inside, leaving the light fixture shrouded, and settled on the lower bunk to wait.
A humanor even a younger bloodmight have brought reading material, something with which to while away the hours. Sebastien simply closed his eyes in the dark, leaned his shoulder on the bedpost, and listened to the Hans Glucker drift.
An airs.h.i.+p was no more silent in her pa.s.sage than a sailing vessel. Through the deck, Sebastien could feel the thrum of engines, the almost-subliminal vibration of the cables containing the gas bags within the lifting body, the way the giant aircraft moved in response to the wind plucking at its control cabin and fabric skin. He listened to the s.h.i.+p in the night, and let his mind wander. It was a kind of meditation, and sometimes it helped him uncover surprising truths.
Now, it led him back to Mme. Pontchartrain's cabin, and the disarrayed papers, and the amended logbook. But those items refused to resolve into a pattern, no matter how many angles he turned them to or stared at them from. He found himself instead musing on Mrs. Leatherby, and her blatant attempt to feed him information. Probably accurate information, as it happened. But he was not blind to the manipulation.
A step on the stair and the swish of a woman's skirt brought him from his reverie. A small woman, by the weight of her footfall, and so either Mrs. Smith or Mlle. LeClere. And while he would have been happier to see Mrs. Smithhe was beginning to give some serious thought to wooing her; he would need friends and courtesans in Americahe hoped it was, at last, Mlle. LeClere.
Alone.
He smoothed his hair with both hands, the mirror no use to him, and stepped into the corridor. And almost into the young Frenchwoman's arms.
She gave a startled squeak and might have toppled down the stairs if he hadn't caught her wrist and landed her. Instead she tottered and collapsed forward into his arms; he took two quick steps back to set her at arm's length. ”Mademoiselle,” he said. ”Forgive me. Are you all right?”
”Fine,” she said, and shrugged his hands off. ”I'll just”
”Not at all.” He stepped aside, and then fell in beside her when she advanced. ”I've been meaning to speak to you alone.”
”That's hardly seemly, monsieur.” She stepped faster, but he kept up with ease.
”I did not think you the sort of young lady who concerned herself with appearances,” he countered. The reached the cabin she had until recently shared with Mme. Pontchartrain, and Mlle. LeClere moved as if to push Sebastien aside. He caught her elbow and turned her.
”Monsieur,” she said. ”I will shout.”
”And I will tell the Captain that you lied about where you were last night.”
She held herself stiff for a moment, her chin lifted, her lips pressed suddenly thin. And then, abruptly, she deflated, sagging inside the confines of her corset. ”d.a.m.n you,” she whispered. ”What do you want?”
”Mademoiselle,” Sebastien answered, ”we all have secrets. I wish only to discover what became of your chaperone. Will you tell me where you were last night?”
”With Oczkar,” she said, hopelessly. ”I knew Mme. Pontchartrain had a taste for laudanum, you see, and sometimes she did not even remove her clothes of an evening, when she had indulged”
”And your absence would not wake her from her dreams.”
”Indeed,” she said, hopelessly. ”But I did not kill her. I did not even provide the drug”
”Hush,” Sebastien said. He brushed her cheek with cool fingers. ”You do not need to justify yourself to me.”
”Was she lying?” Jack asked, in the darkness.
”I don't believe so.” Sebastien did not sleep. But he occupied his pajamas nonetheless, and lay on Jack's bunk beside him, listening to Jack breathe, inches away in the quiet darkness. ”So what do we know, then?”
”That we can cross Korvin and LeClere off our list of suspects.” Jack spoke very softly, just for Sebastien's ears, both of them aware of Mrs. Smith sleeping peacefully on the other side of the doped fabric wall. Faintly, distantly, Sebastien could hear Hollis Leatherby snoring.
”Unless they did it together.”
”Then no-one has an alibi.”
”Not even you.”
”Alas,” Jack said. He s.h.i.+fted under the covers, leaning his head on Sebastien's shoulder. ”We know Mrs. Smith is an inveterate eavesdropper. We know Captain Hoakor somebody feigning his handwritingmade an inconsistent entry in the logbook. We know Mme. Pontchartrain disappeared between drinks and breakfast. We can speculate that Korvin and Meadows had some sort of prior arrangement to travel together, or that Corvin and LeClere didaside from the tour group, I mean. Five colonials and one European, that's a bit odd, isn't it? Is that something you can inquire after with Mrs. Smith?”
”I thought you didn't approve of Mrs. Smith.”
”She's just your type,” Jack said, feigning placidity. ”And I know very well that we can't get along in America, just the two of us, without friends.”
”You are a practical soul, dear boy,” Sebastien said, and turned to kiss Jack's forehead. ”We also know that Beatrice Leatherby has some agenda that involves incriminating Korvin.”