Part 111 (2/2)
”Seven,” Jack said, folding his arms. ”My parents couldn't afford to feed me; they indentured me at five. There would have been three years left to run on my bill of service by now.”
And that, finally, brought a look of dawning uncertainty to the captain's face. ”Would have been?”
”Yes,” Jack said. ”Sebastien emanc.i.p.ated me when I turned fourteen. And settled a considerable trust on me, as well. I'm quite independent, and no more in need of rescuing than Miss Meadows, here.” And then he smiled at the captain and tilted his head, more like the dove he played at than the falcon as which he stood revealed. ”And I also know precisely where Sebastien was the night before last, and I a.s.sure you, it wasn't with Madame Pontchartrain. Now, may I see to my patron's injuries, Captain, or are you going to make me force your hand?”
Chapter IX.
The last time Sebastien had been so eager to absent himself from the public eye, it had involved an angry Parisian mob with pitchforks and torches, and that was leaving aside all hyperbole. This, at least, was less physically hazardous. But just as humiliating, as Jack guided him up the stairswhile Sebastien's eyes had recovered enough that he had been able to see fairly well in the bright salon, the dimness here defeated him, and his fingers were numb under the throbbing pain of the burnsand brought him to their chamber. Once Sebastien was settled, Jack went for water and bandages himself rather than trusting an attendant.
Sebastien sat in the dark with his eyes closed, healing. The flash had been brief, intended to injure and mortify rather than maim or kill. And it had been effective, indeed. He was quite thoroughly humiliatedand quite thoroughly defanged, at the risk of a terrible pun. In one dramatic gesture, Korvin had rendered it impossible for Sebastien to continue investigating any crime aboard the Hans Glucker. And, Sebastien thought, listening to the footsteps of the crewman who was now wearing a path in the decking outside the cabin, he'd also neatly distracted attention from himself and Mlle. LeClere as suspects.
Sebastien sat forward and opened his eyes. The dazzle was fading, and even in the dim room, he saw plainly now. In particular, he saw the upholstery cabin-bag that he had left beside the door when he and Jack went downstairs to conduct the search. The cabin-bag which had held the bottle of laudanum he'd fished from behind the carts beside the trash chute.
The bottle would not have fallen there, he thought, unless someone was stretching over the carts to dispose of something in the chute. Straining, struggling with something heavy. Sebastien was now reasonably certain that chute had been Mme. Pontchartrain's route to a final resting place at sea.
The bag was not where Sebastien had left it.
He crossed the cabin in one and a half quick steps, crouched beside the bag, and pulled it open. The contents were in no disarray. But the bottle, which should have been slipped between his s.h.i.+rt-collars and underthings, was nowhere to be found.
And there was no scent of anyone on the air, other than Jack and himself, the crewman in the hall, and the chambermaid.
Sebastien was abruptly reminded of his burned face as his eyebrows crept up his forehead. Standing dizzied him. He needed to feed, to recoup the strength he was expending regenerating his face and hands. And Jack Jack's voice in the hallway, cheerily greeting their watcher in German. The watcher's embarra.s.sed mumble. Jack's footsteps, and the scent of clear water. ”Sebastien?” Jack said, from beyond the curtain. ”My hands are full.”
Sebastien kicked his bag back against the wall and pulled the curtain aside, frowning at Jack's wince when Jack saw his face. ”That bad?”
”Get the light, would you? And you mean you don't know?”
Having raised the lampshade with his aching hands, Sebastien silently tilted his head at the tiny mirror.
Jack choked out a laugh. ”Stupid question. Yes. It looks bad.” Jack set the basin on the stool and crouched beside it, unfolding a clean muslin towel over his knee. He glanced at the half-open curtain and switched from Spanish to Greek. ”I thought these would do for bandages. The s.h.i.+p's medic was significantly absent from the surgery. If you still need bandages, afterhow much do you need?”
”No, Jack.”
”It's not open for discussion. I'll be fine”
”Jack,” Sebastien said, softly, ”you were beautiful down there. You were fierce and wonderful and I in no wise deserve you” Jack snorted, in that inelegant manner he reserved for Sebastien alone ”and I will not risk you that way. Two days is too soon.”
”You haven't another option,” Jack said. He tore a strip of toweling and folded it in a pad. Leptodactylous fingers broke the surface of the water in the basin as he wet it. ”Come here into the light, so I can see what I'm doing.”
Sebastien came forward and dropped a knee beside the stool. Jack tilted his face up left-handed and dabbed with the cloth held in the right. The cool water was soothing, though Sebastien winced as ruined flesh rubbed free of raw new skin. ”I do have.”
”Have what?”
”An option,” Sebastien said. He paused, too long. Jack was already tensing in protest when he finished, ”Will you take a message to Miss Meadows for me, Jack my love?”
Silence.
”Jack?”
”d.a.m.n you,” Jack said, and wet the cloth again.
Perhaps Sebastien had been foolish in expecting Miss Meadows to meet him alone. Instead, she came to his rooms attended not just by Jack-as-guide, but also in the company of Virgil Allen.
Sebastien was warned of their arrival by brief, firm words exchanged with the ludicrous corridor guard. He didn't catch what was said, but the tone in Miss Meadows' voice was enough to coerce her way through, Jack and Mr. Allen beside her.
Allen entered the cabin without knocking and took a post in the corner by the foot of the bunks, stern and glowering under his moustaches. Sebastien was cognizant of the bulky weight in the South Carolinian's coat pocket. A revolver, no doubt, suitable for a well-armed American gentleman.
The advisability of carrying firearms on a hydrogen-filled airs.h.i.+p aside, Sebastien could muster no more than an inward shrug for the weapon. If Allen felt the need to shoot him, it would sting less than Korvin's sun-charged lens.
”Senor de Ulloa,” Miss Meadows said. She paused with the curtain in one hand, Jack behind her in the hall, and framed herself in the doorway with an actress's trained unconscious grace. ”I am sorry for your injury.” She eyed his face. ”Although it seems much improved.”
”Not without cost,” he said. He swayed when he stood, and steadied himself against the bedframe. He was lightheaded, his stomach cramping. Behind Miss Meadows, Jack s.h.i.+fted from foot to foot, barely restraining himself. ”Miss Meadows,” Sebastien continued, ”I am uncomfortable in bringing this up again, especially in the wake of my earlier refusal....”
She stepped into the cabin, holding the curtain until Jack relieved her of it, while appearing not to notice him at all. Sebastien swallowed on a growl, but made a point of meeting Jack's eyes over her shoulder. Jack bit his lip and turned away.
As for Miss Meadows, she stripped her gloves off with a negligent gesture and shrugged under her jacket. Gracious in victory, she smiled. ”I understand,” she said. ”Our needs may change unexpectedly.”
She turned to the left and Allen was there, waiting to take her gloves from her hand. She laid them across his palm, and began unb.u.t.toning her collar as Jack stepped into the cabin and let the curtain fall.
It was crowded and close, four people in the tiny room, and Sebastien considered himself fortunate that he did not require breath except for speech, or to detect scents.
”Would you prefer privacy?” Sebastien asked.
Again, Miss Meadows deployed that studied shrug. ”Senor, as long as the cameras are not rolling, this is privacy.”
She slid her jacket off and gave that to Allen as well. His face might have been a plaster mask; his expression was frozen in lines stretching from the corners of his nose to the corners of his mouth. Even Jack's irritated frown was more mobile.
”And you are not new to this?”
Jack made a small noise of protest and folded his arms, turning to face the door like a eunuch guarding a harem. The set of his shoulders said everything he bit his tongue on.
”Quite accomplished.” Miss Meadows pushed her hair aside, disarraying carefully coiled lovelocks, and turned her head.
The scars were small, delicate dimples in her skim-milk skin, only visible where the light hit them at an angle. ”Yes,” Sebastien said, ”I see.”
He reached out as she closed her eyes, Allen's glower searing his neck, and took her by the shoulders. With one hand, he steadied her head as she drew her hair further aside. He was enough taller that he had to stoop to kiss her throat, despite the advantage of her heeled boots.
She s.h.i.+vered in antic.i.p.ation, her right hand flexing rhythmically where it curved around his wrist. He wondered whose courtesan she had been, and how she had come to leave that relations.h.i.+p.
Her scars were old.
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