Page 41 of Murder on the SS Leviathan
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Cecile closed the door quietly and stood for a moment, listening. If Lucrezia was asleep, she didn’t wish to disturb her.
‘Cecile? Is it you?’ The mattress squeaked.
Unpinning her hat, Cecile hurried through.
Rubbing her eyes, Lucrezia pushed ineffectually at the pillows. Whatever the doctor had prescribed, she must be still feeling the effects.
Cecile helped her sit up and handed her a glass of water.
‘Grazie.’ Lucrezia drank thirstily, then yawned and patted the bed. ‘Here,cara. Tell me what I have missed.’
Cecile’s mind flew immediately to the kiss between herself and Lance but Lucrezia didn’t need to know that while she’d been recovering from a terrible shock, Cecile had been ‘cavorting’—as her aunt in Oxfordshire would call it.
Instead, Cecile related her interrogation, and the hateful attitude shown by the captain.
‘Pffft!’ Lucrezia’s lip curled in disgust. ‘Always, the women are to blame for their misfortune. Even when they are murdered in their own chambers, it must be because they flaunt themselves. Whatever cruel end comes, it is their just punishment.’
Cecile squeezed Lucrezia’s hand. ‘My brother and Mr. Robinson don’t see it like that.’
Lucrezia sighed. ‘It is something, and I’m glad of it—but I fear most prefer to make of women the tantalizing Eve, who brings all destruction on herself. The man has no part, only being led astray.’
She rested her head on the plumped pillows. ‘I do not understand all that is happening on this ship. Most especially, I do not know why Senhora Fonseca was killed, but I suspect I know something that even you have not guessed,piccola.’
‘You do?’
Lucrezia fixed her with a steady eye. ‘The girl was audacious, yes—wearing my jewels and my robe? And for this, she paid a heavy price, for I think the man who entered my room thought to find me there.’
The same thought had occurred to Cecile—and it was a terrifying thought, if it meant the killer had been watching Lucrezia with single-minded intent.
‘Perhaps the murderer also mistook the senhora for you?’ Cecile wracked her mind for connections. ‘The resemblance was only passing, though you did share the same taste in clothes.’
‘The senhora’s suite was directly below the one I was to have taken: number 18 I believe, rather than 118.’
‘And the attack on Mr. Robinson…?’
Lucrezia nodded. ‘In the room that was to have been mine.’
‘But who would do this?’
Lucrezia closed her eyes for a moment, and Cecile saw again how pale she was. Even her lips seemed drained of blood. The fear hanging over her had sapped the very beauty from her face.
When she opened her eyes again, they were dark with dread. ‘The veil—it was as much a message as what was written on the mirror.’ She bunched the quilt beneath her fingers. ‘Someone from Scogliera is here.’
‘From Scogliera?’ The back of Cecile’s neck prickled. ‘None of the servants, surely? We ensured they received other employment if they wished it, and Henry gave each a sum in recompense for belongings lost in the fire.’
Lucrezia’s trembling voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Remember,cara,no bodies were recovered.’
‘You mean—’ Cecile fought a wave of nausea. ‘Lorenzo? He may be here?’ The idea was too macabre.
’Not Lorenzo. If he lived, his vengeance would be swift. I would not be here now.’
‘Then who?’
‘Perhaps…my other brother.’ Lucrezia’s words hung in the air between them.
In all the time they’d known one another, Lucrezia had never mentioned other male siblings. Only dire circumstance had caused her to reveal the history of Livia—the unfortunate sister locked away at the castello.
