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"Mother."
She said it in a tiny voice, so soft he might have imagined it, but Lestat still glanced around every inch of the room, half-expecting Louis to have heard and dreading the martyred expression that Louis would surely be wearing. The expression that said she should be with her mother. Oh, yes, Louis, rotting with her mother right where you found her, right where you made a meal of her. Lovely. But Louis wasn't even in the room to overhear, so Lestat would waste no more time worrying about it.
"What was that, ma chérie?"
She fixed him with huge eyes glimmering faintly pink and said it again. "Mother."
"Claudia," he said. He was preparing to explain to her yet again that she no longer had a mother, that she should be grateful for her two loving fathers, who would always care for her. He lost track of what he was going to say, however, when she climbed into his lap and buried her face against his chest.
She never did this with him. Never. Cuddling the child was strictly Louis's domain. A common scene involved Louis reading aloud, Claudia curled up in his lap playing with a button on his waistcoat or pointing at a word on the next page to ask what it said. Lestat never held the child in his own lap like this, and moreover, she never seemed to want him to do so. Oh, he might pick her up or bestow a kiss to her plump little cheek, but this particular sort of affection was alien to them both. Still, here she was. He hoped the blood tears welling up in her eyes would not spill over onto his waistcoat. It was such a beautiful shade of blue that even Louis, stoic, practical Louis, so concerned with the cost of every yard of fabric, had commented that it looked nice with his eyes. Anyway, getting blood out of silk was a Sisyphean task, as any fashionable vampire was surely well aware.
Claudia was not crying when she pulled her face away from his chest. She simply stared at his blond hair with fascination for a moment, and she reached up to touch it. A long curl had come loose from the ribbon at the nape of his neck to hang in front of his face, and it was this lock of hair that she seized in her tiny fist. A less baffled Lestat might have said something, or possibly disentangled her hand from his hair. No, he definitely would have disentangled her hand from his hair. How much time did he spend combing his thick, beautiful hair, only for this little creature to tie it in knots? She ran the bit of hair through her fingers, still with that expression of utter fascination. Oh, he couldn't really deny her anything, could he? If she wanted to play with his hair, she would play with his hair, vanity be damned. He untied the ribbon and let it fall to his shoulders. She petted it, and then whispered again,
"Mother."
"Why do you keep saying that?" he asked. It was a question that, under different circumstances, might have been asked rather harshly. But he kept his tone gentle.
"Mother," she said yet again. This time she pointed at him, at his hair, so identical in shade and texture to her own. She thought he was her mother? Well.
"I… Claudia, you know perfectly well I am not your mother."
Her lip quivered. The tears had returned to threaten his waistcoat. Perhaps he would take it off. It wasn't as if anyone would see him, aside from a little girl and an entirely fashion-blind man.
"Oh, chérie," he said, stroking her hair. "Don't cry. But I can't be your mother, you see? I'm a man."
"Please?"
"Please what, Claudia?" Well, his patience had lasted longer than anyone might have thought possible, but it was waning now.
"Be my mother? Please?"
What did being a mother entail, exactly? He knew Gabrielle's style, but this was surely not what Claudia wanted. Did she want a lullaby sung to her? Her hair brushed? Well, he could provide both of these things. He began to sing softly to her, and saw immediately that this was the correct course of action. She melted against his arm where she was propped up, eyes closing. He sang to her until her fingers went limp and released his hair, and her breathing became soft and rhythmic. After that, he simply held her in the crook of his arm, rocking her ever so slightly. She was still warm from feeding, every bit the rosy-cheeked little cherub painters insisted upon depicting. He bent and kissed her smooth forehead, her tiny nose, her round little cheeks. It was at this precise moment that he was aware of soft footfalls. He looked up, and there was Louis, holding a book absently in his hand, with the hint of a smile.
"Shut up, Louis," Lestat whispered, without much venom, and more out of habit than anything.
"I said nothing, Lestat," Louis replied gently.
"She fell asleep like this," Lestat said.
Louis sat down next to him, uncharacteristically. Even more uncharacteristically, Louis's hand came to rest on Lestat's, not quite holding it, but there was a certain intimacy to the gesture nevertheless. "She is beautiful asleep, isn't she?"
"She is always beautiful, Louis. She takes after her father in that way."
Lestat had meant this as a reference to Louis's beauty, but of course it sounded more like his usual brand of preening. He could tell Louis heard it that way. But then, Louis was only dimly aware of his own spectacular beauty, if he acknowledged it at all. Louis sat up straight and moved his hand away, as if uncertain of what had come over him. Lestat wanted to grab Louis and embrace him with full force, and perhaps cover every inch of his face in kisses, but of course he did no such thing.
In what he supposed was an attempt to mend things, Lestat said, "She misses her mother."
"Of course she does," Louis said, with the very same martyred expression Lestat had been so concerned about earlier. "A child should be with her mother."
So much for mending anything. Why did he bother? Might as well launch the expected barb. "I suppose you think she should be in her grave, then. Rotting."
Louis flinched, but from the tortured look in his green eyes, it was clear he agreed. "Yes, as should I," he said, as means of confirming what his face had already announced.
Lestat felt the familiar urge to yell, throw something. But he simply deposited Claudia's sleeping form in Louis's lap. "Well, don't let me keep you, Louis," he hissed. "Go and rot."
Then, before Louis could say anything in reply, he had stood, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the room. Even in his anger and hurt, he was proud of just how dramatic an exit it had been. Rather subtle, considering his usual style, but still dripping with drama. The audience, had there been one, would have been abuzz at his performance. Well, he'd really give them something to whisper about. He collapsed to the floor in his bedroom, after first making sure the door was securely shut, and sobbed until there wasn't a single tear left to cry.
Miraculously, he didn't get a drop on his waistcoat.