Page 7 of Murder on the SS Leviathan
Whatever she was searching for, it was here that she came closest to finding it.
Afterwards, he divested himself of all clothing and they lay beneath the sheets, her leg tucked over his, her elegant fingers stroking his chest.
His palm rested on the curve of her belly—evidence of his seed, promising continuance of the line. A son to take the McCaulay name into the brave new world of the coming century, or a daughter, who would surely dazzle as brightly as her mother.
Was the child his?
That, he could only hope.
That the child was hers would be enough, and he would protect it as he did its mother.
* * *
In Lucrezia’s dreams, she was not alone—in the room, or in her bed.
His hand, so cold, encircled her neck.
No matter how she turned her head, he clasped her jaw, fingers bruising. Moustached lips whispered her name: a low hiss and the final vowel exhaled on a dying breath. A putrid aroma, stronger than his stale cigars, entered her throat, and with it the choking, terrible darkness.
The darkness of his presence, moving inside her like poison, pulsing black to the final beats of her heart.
It isn’t you!
With a juddering gasp, she woke, pushing away the bedcovers, kicking at them with her feet, sending the smothering horror back, beyond the veil.
She was alone, after all.
