Part 112 (1/2)
He kissed soft flesh, breathed her scent and her perfume, felt his teeth sharp in response. His stomach knotted. ”Yes?” he asked, requiring consent, and she moaned her answer.
”Yes.”
Sebastien could barely remember the name he had been born to. He had forgotten the name of the village he had been born init had changed sinceor the year in which that birth had occurred. He no longer recalled his own age, except in the vaguest of terms.
But he remembered how it had been, when he became a wampyr's courtesan, and he remembered her name very well.
EudelineEviehad been young, new to the blood, lonesome as only the newly turned can be. Sebastien had loved her with a pa.s.sion he had sworn was eternal, and she had been inexperienced enough to believe him.
He had been wrong, so it happened. Mortal love was never meant to last forever. Fifty years. Perhaps even a century was possible, though Sebastien could not attest it. But not forever.
Their romance had not outlasted the Christian millennium. But he still recalled her kiss.
First there had been the cool touch of a wet mouth on warm skin, the press of tongue seeking the pulse. The expert courtesan knew how vital it was to remain motionless for the kiss, as Miss Meadows now remained motionless for him, though her outward appearance of calm was belied by trembling hands and a racing heart.
Sebastien found the pulse and unsheathed his fangs, letting the tips indent her skin. She whimpered through closed lips, and Sebastien heard the rustle of cloth as Allen halted himself half a step into intervening.
Sebastien's memory was perfect, in this. First the p.r.i.c.kle of the fangs, and then the pain, tremendous, scathing, all out of proportion to the injury, the two swift stabs that merely nudged the skin aside. The vein must only be punctured, never severed or torn. And the punctures must be tidy and straight, to heal properly.
Sebastien's fangs were triangular in cross-section, designed to pierce flesh and leave no lasting injury. It was of no more benefit to the blood to kill their prey than it was to a milkmaid to slaughter her dairy cows.
And after the painso impatiently enduredthe pleasure. Transporting, incomparable. He knew when she felt it, because the measured breaths she had used to ride the pain faltered, replaced by a great, rattling intake of air. Her body melted against his, her hips rocking against his thigh, the grasp of her clutching hands both desperate and fragile, her head lolling against his supporting hand. The blood was rich and warm, a salty-metallic froth that pulsed over his tongue, surged down his tightened gullet, and flushed his skin with heat. Her heartbeat rang in his ears, world-filling, and he forced himself to sip delicately, gently... and then to pull against her clutching, surrendered hands, unsheathe his fangs from her flesh long before either of them was sated, and seal the wound with his closed lips while she trembled against him, silently pleading for more.
He almost liked her, a little, for that moment.
Virgil Allen had leaned away from the bedpost, his hand in his pocket, his impa.s.sivity cracked into a scowl. The set of Jack's shoulders hadn't changed.
Sebastien lifted his lips from Miss Meadows' neck, kissed her slack mouth quickly, a formal thank you, and set her back at arm's length. Jack, his motions impersonal and brisk, stepped between them and pressed to her throat a clean pad folded from the same torn muslin that he'd used to doctor Sebastien.
”Thank you, Miss Meadows,” Sebastien said, and bowed over the hand she hadn't pressed against Jack's.
”Thank you,” she answered, and let Jack catch her as she wobbled against his shoulder.
”Mr. Allen,” Sebastien said, ”the stool, if you will.”
Chapter X.
”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 himas Jack eventually must, because Sebastien was old enough to understand that there was no such creature as eternal loyalty, nor was it fair to askand 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 a.s.sured, 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.”
”MissLillian, 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 flasktaken from the pocket which did not hold the revolverand she sipped, winced, and recapped it before shaking her headvery 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 wh.o.r.edom 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 PontchartrainLeonellewell,” Lillian said. ”They were not what they pretended. Either of them. Their grand tour of England and Europe was a... fis.h.i.+ng expedition. You see, Madame Pontchartrain never married. And Eugenie was not merely her travelling companion; she was her b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 ur over to her mother?”
”She was not supposed to approach Oczkar at all. He is unmarried, a sorcererwhat 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. Grat.i.tudeor mannerswon 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 compet.i.tion 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 ur. 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 couplemost skilled at looking without seeming to be lookingand 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 b.u.t.ter for the other diners with his own hands. Sebastien thanked him, and offered thatif the burly crewman now lingering inside the door, at attention like a footman, should require a meal and a restSebastien had no plans to leave the dining room for at least an hour.