Lucy wakes by herself in the closet and ponders Annie and Edmund

Lucy woke in the darkness in the cold little storage closet where they had made up a cot for her. The drone of the airship engines, which had been steady through the evening and night, growled with a different pitch. Perhaps that had awakened her.

She reached out a hand. The spot where Annie had lain was marked by a damp patch, cool under Lucy's fingers. Annie had had a wet spend and left her essence upon the covers. Her mind went to laundry, to chores, to...no. Those were Lucy the housemaid's duties. She was Lucy, Lady Downs now. These things need not concern her.

Lucy sat up in the cot. "Lady," she whispered to the darkness. "Lucy, Lady Downs."

There was a faint line of electric illumination under the seam of the door.

Perhaps this would be a good time to wash and think on how to proceed. The thought of Annie pulled at her, she and Sabrina going off to that Swiss finishing school. Could Annie endure the mockery of girls who thought they were her betters? Would Sabrina stand by her, or would her head turn toward some enchanting foreign girl, as had her mother?

Now that Lucy was her own woman, with her own fortune, perhaps she should follow Annie.

Annie, wicked girl, thrusting her tongue into her mother's mouth. Lucy shifted uneasily. Annie had roused her. If she followed Annie and Sabrina, would this be a thing? Could this even be a thing in the world?

Not for Lucy the housemaid and her bastard girl Annie. But perhaps for Lucy, Lady Downs and her daughter, Lady Anne, heiress to Jeremy's estate.

Lucy felt her face grow hot. First raising her skirts for Edmund, making her desires known. Then accepting her daughter's tongue, and kissing her back the same way. Lucy wished for a mirror. What person could think these things?

She took a bag of necessaries and proceeded to the women's lavatory, passing through the door that divided crew from passengers, that divided Spartan utility from Corinthian luxury and Athenian pride.

In the mirror, she searched her face. She saw nothing of the queen of lust and wickedness she imagined. Perhaps a little more pink in the cheeks, a little brighter of eye, but nothing worth remarking on.

Taking advantage of her privacy in this early hour, she proceeded to answer Nature's call and those ablutions that Society demands for the sake of a decent cleanliness.

From the observation gallery, she watched the dawn break from the skies over Paris. Would she follow Edmund? Or must she follow Annie?

The moment did not demand a decision, so she took in the view privy to angels, birds, aeronauts, and the rich. And tonight, they had promised a cabin, once passengers had alighted in Paris. Perhaps better rest would bring wisdom.