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."