Greaves looked little drier than I did. His black hair was plastered to his face, and what looked like streaks of hair dye running down his neck onto his collar, while he doled out further minuscule glasses of sherry.
Lady Marishka waved hers away, puffing irritably on another cigarette which she held in the upright V of her red-nailed fingers. Ash sprinkled around her like grey rain until one of the servant girls brought down a silver hip flask from her room. Not bothering with a glass, she swigged from it with the abandon of a hardened drinker.
She must have caught the look of envy in my eye as I held onto the dusty sherry glass passed to me by Greaves with thumb and forefinger. She gave me an approving nod and offered the flask to me.
“My darling Vladimir had no patience with servant
