“The thing is… I have slept as well. I am no longer tired, nor does my shoulder so vex my movement—I am indebted for your…ministrations.”
The Contessa's tongue caught a last crumb of pie crust from the corner of her dark mouth.
“Not to worry,” croaked Miss Temple.
“I am not in the slightest worried. Though I do wonder… I wonder what you intend.”
“Me?” whispered Miss Temple. “Nothing at all.”
“O tush. Our journey together is a parenthesis, and upon disembarkation we must once more become active enemies. In truth, you are lucky that you have been isolated with me, for alone among my companions I am… whimsical. I helped the Doctor rescue his Prince once, just to confound the Comte. I lied to Francis—O goodness how he was angry—and of course all of us betrayed Lord Vandaariff quite utterly. So it is not for squeamishness regarding a promise that I have not killed you in your sleep. But that, as I say… I am curious.”
“About what?”
“About you, of course.”
The Contessa nudged her face closer, dipping her nose toward Miss Temple's curls, and inhaled. Miss Temple could not meet the woman's eye, but found her own caught by the other's pale throat, the two jet buttons still undone at the top of her bodice. She could feel the strange memories within her mind, pushing forward, shining their insidious light through each crack in her resolve.
“You must be full of flames,” whispered the Contessa. “The book in which you nearly drowned… I know it haunts you, Celeste. It was my book—I know everything that was in it, everything that must be preying on your heart… it was my own calculated entrapment. I expect you struggle against it even now. Look at you trembling… Do you fear I will bite you?”
At this the Contessa did just that, snapping her teeth gently onto Miss Temple's cheek. Miss Temple cried out and the Contessa let go, laughing, and then swept her tongue across the blushing, bitten spot.
“All of this can be over for you, Celeste. Roger is dead—you've had your revenge. As you said yourself on the roof of the airship, my plots are finished. Macklenburg is unreachable—with the Prince and Lydia dead there is no marriage, and all the money and land remain in Lord Vandaariff's name, beyond my control… no doubt he has been placed in a madhouse…”
She nipped again at Miss Temple's face and then pushed her mouth onto Miss Temple's. The Contessa's lips were even softer than Miss Temple had feared, and the woman's tongue darted past her teeth so very deliciously Miss Temple groaned. The Contessa pulled back, breathing just a touch deeper herself, and went on as if there had been no interruption.
“You can go back to your hotel, back to your husband-hunting, back to your little island… there is no need for the two of us… to come… to blows…”
The Contessa feinted another kiss and smiled at Miss Temple's indecision, whether to turn her head or open her mouth.
“You must stop,” Miss Temple whispered.
“Stop what?” asked the Contessa, stabbing her mouth forward again. This time Miss Temple's tongue responded, pushing into the Contessa's mouth. Miss Temple's hands were balled into fists against the desire to seize the Contessa's body. Her mind was spinning, so many flickering memories leaping to feed her senses. She did not know how much of what she felt came from the book and how much from the Contessa—did it matter? Was she any less subject either way? The Contessa broke contact and kissed her a third time, pushing forward. Miss Temple's left hand groped to keep her balance, while her right shot out to push the woman away, but felt the stiff corset beneath the cheap silken dress and then slid farther along, smoothing past the corset's edge to the sweet soft rounded sweep of the Contessa's hip, where she could not help but squeeze. The Contessa broke away to bite Miss Temple's little chin.
“You must stop…”
“I do not believe you,” breathed the Contessa against Miss Temple's throat.
“Your plots,” gasped Miss Temple, turning her head away despite herself, so the Contessa's tongue might trace itself more freely. “Your intrigues—you must be content with survival…”
“What did you say?”
“You have corrupted my heart—”
“O… nothing of the kind… you were always so…”
“They will kill you if you do not disappear.”
“Who will kill me?”
“Cardinal Chang—the Doctor—”
“Those heroes… but what, Celeste, of you?”
“I would kill you myself—”
“And how very brave, and how principled.”
This did not seem like a compliment. Miss Temple's breath was still rapid—when had the Contessa's knee lodged itself between her legs?
“Such principles just show how much you understand…” The Contessa planted small speculative kisses along Miss Temple's jaw. “And how little… a gratifying thing to have displayed by an enemy.”
“I am your enemy.” Miss Temple writhed against the Contessa's grinding knee.
“You always have been, dear.”
“Then why have you kept me alive?”
“Because even I cannot be everywhere at once.”
To Miss Temple's surprise, even as once more her tongue was darting within the warm and silken confines of the Contessa's mouth, the Contessa's fingers pinched Miss Temple's nose tightly closed. Merging oddly with the tingle of her loins and the flush she was sure had spread all down her front… was the realization that she could not breathe. She tried to gently shift the Contessa's arm but found her own sharply pinned by the woman's elbow. She tried to turn away, but the Contessa did not loosen her grip. Miss Temple arched her back. She tried to bite the Contessa's tongue but the woman merely brought up her other hand to clamp shut Miss Temple's jaw. Miss Temple thrashed her legs. She slapped at the Contessa's face, groped for her hair. The Contessa did not budge, the seal of her soft lips fast as an oyster to stone. Miss Temple became dizzy and afraid. She could not think. She heaved with all her strength but could not dislodge her succubus. With a last, desperate thought that such an end was exactly what she had come to deserve, Miss Temple's mind went black.
SHE OPENED her eyes to an unmoving car and the Contessa gone. Attempting to sit up, she found herself pinned to the wooden floor, the tip of her own knife driven through her dress at the very juncture of her legs. Miss Temple wrenched it free with both hands, snorting that to the Contessa such a gesture would pass for wit, and returned the blade to her boot. She crawled to the doorway of the car and, heaving with both arms, pulled it three inches wide, enough to peer through.
The land before her was a blend of fen and forest, perfectly suited for the construction of canals. She remembered Elöise's description of her uncle's cottage, annoyed that she had listened with such disinterest, for she was certain his home lay in this very part of the country. It had been in a park of some sort—what had it been called? Parchfeldt! Yet the idea of leaping off the train in the deluded hope that anyone— if there was anyone—might direct her to Parchfeldt Park was ridiculous. Miss Temple slumped back against the wall. Her actions in the freight car—from the first decision to sleep next to the Contessa to this last humiliating struggle—flayed her conscience like a whip.
If she ever found Chang and Svenson, what would she say to them—about her own failures of character, or about her loss of Elöise? Where would she possibly find the two men? She did not know where Parchfeldt was. She did not know what Chang's message possibly meant—“the Lord's Time”—no doubt it was the secret name for some gambling club or brothel!