Clarissa goes

Clarissa grasped Lucy's hand in her own. Clarissa's grasp was tight, her flesh soft, warm and moist on Lucy's. Her green eyes fixed on Lucy's, open wide. Clarissa's head darted forward and fixed a kiss on Lucy's lips. Lucy neither resisted nor responded.

Clarissa fled in her nightshirt and silken wrapper through the dim service corridor, her red hair unbound. She pushed through the door to the passenger deck and was gone.

Lucy stared for a time at the invisible wake of Clarissa's passage. The airship engines droned. Finally she let out a breath and closed the door to her room. It was close in the jerry-rigged storeroom she was using as a cabin, and despite the chill, the scents of Clarissa's floral perfume, liquor, and especially her cunt lingered on the bedclothes.

"I reek of titled tart," Lucy muttered. She shook her head. "No, not tart. Wanton."

She'd have to wash before breakfast. Annie would know something was off. Sabrina would recognize the whiff of cunt on Lucy's hands and her mother's perfume and know very well what must have happened.

What had already happened for Annie and Sabrina, very likely, had rubbed off on their mothers.

Oh, Annie, Lucy thought. Be strong. Sabrina, be kind. She felt a pull toward Annie, wanting to see her face peacefully sleeping.

Lucy sighed. There'd be no rest.

Lucy fetched a bag of wash-up and a simple change of clothing and left her makeshift cabin, hoping that the Ladies' necessary room would be unoccupied. She passed quietly through the service gangway and through the door to the passenger deck. She paused at the door of the Ladies' with her hand upon the door handle and listened as best she could against the thrum of the engines.