Authors: Kathryn Smith
“But she would look it.”
What the hell? “Yes, but—”
“She would live.” Spoken like a man focusing on one thing, and one thing alone.
“Forever, possibly, but she would have to take the blood of others to do so.”
Ryland’s jaw came up defiantly. It was a posture he had seen Pru take herself. “I would offer mine willingly.”
“And when you are gone?” He wanted Thomas Ryland to see the whole of the situation, not just what he wanted to see. “Would you condone her taking the blood of innocents?”
“Pru is not mindless.” Ryland looked offended that Chapel might suggest otherwise. “She would not kill.”
“No, I don’t think she would.” Not on purpose, but the bloodlust could be very powerful when someone was first turned. It was so very difficult to resist. Of course, Pru would have him to help her if she wanted him…. No, he would not think of that. He would not use turning her merely to keep her with him.
“I don’t want to bury my daughter, Chapel.”
Oh, God. Were those tears in Ryland’s eyes? “You shouldn’t have to, sir. You shouldn’t have to watch her become something that under any other circumstances would terrify you either.”
“I do not know what you believe we are, Chapel, but ignorant peasants we are not. I would not chase a person with a pitchfork just because that person was something outside of my normal understanding. In fact, in this case I believe you are the one who is being ignorant.”
“I beg your pardon?” He was becoming more than a little annoyed with Ryland and this conversation. Did no one in this bloody family understand that there was more to making Pru a
vampire than simply ending her battle with cancer? Did they not realize what it meant?
“You have within you the power to save a life, and yet you refuse because you think you know better. You believe Pru will become some kind of monster. My daughter could never become a monster, it’s not in her.”
“I didn’t think it was in me either, but it is.” For the first century of his new life he had been a careless killer at times. He took who he wanted, when he wanted—in more ways than he wanted to admit. Oh, he never forced anyone to his will. He never had to.
“Yes, what a monster you are, risking yourself to save a family you barely know, a girl you barely know. That is the kind of monster I could condone my daughter being.”
“Sir…” This was so useless.
Ryland held up his hand. “You disappoint me, Chapel. I thought you a great man, a hero. I was wrong. You are willing to risk yourself only when you believe you have nothing to lose. You are not willing to help my daughter because you are afraid.”
Now it was he who was defiant. “I’m not afraid.”
“I think you are. You care for my daughter, do you not?”
“I do.” He kept his hands tucked between his arms and his body lest he use them to pummel some sense into Pru’s father. She would not be impressed with him if he did. “That is why I
cannot turn her into something she will regret becoming.”
“Then why would you not do everything in your power to hold on to her?”
There was nothing he could say that he hadn’t already said. Many reasons came to mind, but at the forefront was a little voice asking him that same question. Why wouldn’t he do everything in his power to hold on to Pru? Because Marie hadn’t wanted him? Marie had been dead six hundred years.
As he turned to the door, Thomas Ryland’s shoulders sagged. The gaze that met Chapel’s from over his shoulder was sad and resigned—the gaze of a man realizing he was about to lose a child and was powerless against it.
“You being here makes Prudence very happy. Regardless of my opinion, I hope you will at least remain here a while longer. For her.”
Chapel nodded. “I will.”
“Thank you.” Ryland let himself inside the house. Chapel stayed where he was.
He made Pru happy. The statement filled him with such giddiness he wanted to scoff at it. When had he ever made someone happy? It had been too long. Even more astounding was that she made him happy. Happiness was something he never thought to experience for more than seconds at a time since Dreux’s suicide—since realizing what he had become.
And yet, since meeting Pru, he had known the emotion many times. He felt it whenever he was with her, whenever he thought of the things they’d
shared. The thought of her leaving him was the exact opposite of that happiness. The thought of there being no more Pru in this world filled him with an emptiness that made meeting the dawn seem a good idea.
Was he wrong? Everyone seemed to think so. Maybe he was, but he couldn’t see it. Every reason he could think of for turning Pru into a vampire was for his own benefit. Every reason he had for
not
turning her was for her own. How, then, could he be wrong?
As if in answer to his question, the terrace door opened once more, but instead of Thomas Ryland, Pru stepped out into the night.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He would have laughed were he capable. Dear Pru, he was immortal and she was worried about him. “I am fine.”
“What were you and Papa talking about?”
He wasn’t about to lie. “You.”
“Oh.”
He wasn’t going to give her the details. The last thing she needed was to know that he and her father were at odds. He didn’t want to have to explain to her why he refused to “save” her as her father wanted.
Instead, he offered her his hand. “Walk with me?”
She wrapped her fingers within his, offering him a smile as she did so. Her hand was bare in his. Had she eschewed gloves on purpose hoping to touch him? It seemed too much to hope, and yet he knew it to be true. It was there in her face.
All he had to do was look at her—his Pru was like an open book.
His
Pru.
They left the light and openness of the terrace and walked toward the garden, down the lantern-lit path that was more shadow than light. He led the way, seeing every potential hazard there might be on the grassy walk. He steered Pru around a small divot that might have sprained her ankle and a bit of the hedge that could have snagged her gown.
In the center, he stopped. There was a circle of stone benches around a fountain. Two lanterns stood on opposite sides of the circle, making the water from the fountain dance like droplets of cut crystal in a riot of translucent color.
The lanterns were little more than lamps. Lifting their shades, Chapel extinguished first one, then the other, so that the only light around them was the glow of lanterns farther away and the slight glimmer from a moon on its way to becoming full once more.
“What are you doing?” There was nothing but curiosity in her low voice. He could snap her like a twig and she had no fear of him whatsoever.
Marie had been terrified.
Marie, as Pru so eloquently put it, had been a cow.
“Giving us some privacy,” he replied.
A coy smile curved her lips. “Do we need privacy?”
He pulled her close. “I want you.”
Her smile faltered at the intensity in his tone.
“Something happened. What happened?”
He silenced her with a kiss. His mouth ravaged hers until he felt the tension ease out of her. She melted against him, her body soft and supple.
“I need you,” he whispered against her mouth. “Now. Here.”
Her lashes fluttered, opened. Eyes, big and dark, stared at him from beneath heavy lids. “Yes.”
He lowered them onto the grass, her on top of him so her gown wouldn’t be soiled. He freed her breasts from her gown and suckled each until she ground her pelvis against him. Too many layers of clothing prevented the kind of contact he craved. He pulled her skirts up to her waist, cupping the warm curve of her bottom through the fine silk of her drawers.
She sat up, helping him arrange her gown so that it pooled around them. She straddled his hips, moving herself against him in a maddeningly seductive rhythm.
Beneath the tent of her skirts, Chapel unfastened his trousers, freeing the demanding length of his cock from its prison.
“I’m yours,” he told her, his voice like gravel in his ears. “Take me.”
He watched, his gaze fastened on her beautiful face as she reached down beneath her gown, her fingers closing around him in a velvet vise. Slowly, she guided him to the slit in her drawers, to the place where she was warm, wet and so inviting. She rose up, placing him at the entrance of her body, and then down, engulfing him within her slickness.
Chapel sighed. He raised his hands to her breasts, pulling and stroking her nipples as she rode him, but he didn’t try to control their movements. He wanted her to do it. Wanted her to take from him, to bring herself to climax so he could watch.
She untied his cravat and pulled open the neck of his shirt as she eased herself up and down upon him. Then, as her movements quickened, bringing them both surprisingly close to climax, she lowered her head to his chest.
She bit him just below the collarbone, where the muscle of his chest was firm and heavy. Her teeth were sharp, the pressure blunt. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough that there would be a mark. A mark that, of course, would be gone by morning. He couldn’t even enjoy her claim for long.
He knew what she was doing and it killed him. The pain/pleasure of her teeth brought tears to his eyes—not because she hurt him, but because she was trying to be with him as he had been with her and she couldn’t.
Because he wouldn’t let her.
“H
ow long?”
Dr. Higgins fastened the buckle on his leather satchel, paused for a moment, as if collecting himself, and then raised his faded gaze to Pru’s.
She sat on the edge of her bed, her wrapper pulled around her. Dr. Higgins hadn’t liked being asked to examine her without her father’s knowledge, but Pru didn’t want her father to know. Not yet.
“All I can give you is an estimate, Miss Ryland. The cancer has progressed quite rapidly.”
“You’ve known me all my life, sir. Surely you can give me more than that.”
He sighed. “Prudence…”
“I am not a child, nor am I some weak woman
who will go into hysterics at your prognosis.” She clenched her jaw against her frustration. “How long?”
Higgins’s expression softened. “A month, perhaps.”
Perhaps. “Or less, you mean.” Odd how she felt nothing at his words.
He nodded, his gaze leaving hers. “Or less, yes.”
There it was, then. Apparently she had thirty days at the most before she died.
This was one of those times when she wished she was truly, truly certain of what happened to a person after death. She really hoped there was a heaven, but she didn’t want to be able to watch over her family—at least not until they’d stopped mourning.
Lord, how vain was that? She wasn’t even dead yet and already she was planning out how long it would take people to recover from her death!
“I’m so sorry, Prudence.”
He had to be, for him to use her first name. “Thank you, Dr. Higgins.”
He looked so old, so sad. “I brought you into this world. It pains me to no end to have to watch you leave it as well.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Thank you.”
He handed her a bottle. “For pain, if you need it.”
Pru took it. It was laudanum or something similar. She’d only take it if she absolutely had to. She didn’t want to spend the last days of her life in a stupor.
She wanted to spend them with Chapel. Not
her family, not what few friends she had—if she had any left; it had been so long since she saw them—but Chapel.
She had her maid see Dr. Higgins out. She didn’t bother to wait for the girl’s return before leaving her room. It was afternoon and she had no business walking around in her gown and wrapper, but there was no one about but the servants, the rest of the family having gone into town for a brief outing. The idea of putting on a regular corset made her feel sick—the pressure on her abdomen would be too much.
She just wanted time to stop. Her future was too short and too frightening. Death: the Great Unknown. It wasn’t dying that scared her, it was what came after. She’d always thought of herself as a good Christian, but she was so uncertain now. What if there wasn’t a heaven? What if there was and she didn’t go there? What if there was nothing?
And what good was heaven when she had to leave Chapel behind? Heaven was what she felt when she was in his arms, in his very presence.
She went to Chapel’s room and walked in without knocking. He barely woke as she snuggled against him. He was used to her now, so he didn’t startle awake when she joined him. He was no more wild or feral than a kitten. Even in the deepest of slumbers, in the darkest of darks, he would know her by scent and by sound.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye as she wrapped her arms around his comforting warmth. His
enduring
warmth. Long after she was gone he
would continue. She would be cold and gone and he would still be warm and here in the world.
She wanted to be angry with him—angry that he didn’t love her enough to want to spend forever with her—but she couldn’t muster the emotion. She understood that it had nothing to do with how much he cared for her. He hadn’t confessed to any deeper regard, but she suspected that he might be falling in love with her. Her death would be very painful for him. It wasn’t lack of feeling that made him not change her. It was rather the opposite. He cared too much about her to turn her into what he thought was an abomination.
The realization warmed her, even though she believed him a fool for thinking it. Still, he’d thought himself a monster for so long now, she held little hope of changing his mind. And she didn’t have the time.
He had done so much for her, she wished she could do something for him in return. If she could just make him see how wonderful he was. If just once he could see himself the way she saw him.
“Is something wrong?” His voice was groggy and low in her ear. Just the sound of it was enough to take the chill from her blood.
Yes, everything was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to die this young. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with the man who helped her experience life and taught her about passion. Or if she was supposed to fall in love, they were supposed to live happily ever after. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
“Promise me, that when I’m gone you won’t go back into hiding.” Another tear dribbled from her eye as she held him. “Promise me that you will live—live for the both of us.”
He rose up on his elbow, now fully awake. His hair was tousled and his eyelids were heavy, but there was no denying the alert tension in his body.
“Pru, what is it?” There was a trace of fear in his voice.
“Promise me.” Right now that meant more to her than anything. If he could go out into the world and savor all it had to offer—for her—then she could die with a sense of peace.
He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Surely he felt the wetness there. “I promise.”
The tightness in her muscles eased. “Good.” She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The discomfort in her abdomen had eased a bit. Perhaps she could sleep now.
“Tell me what happened.”
Ahh, but now Chapel was wide awake and wondering what in the name of God was wrong with her.
She could lie to him, could tell him that everything was all right, that she was just feeling melancholy, but to what end? He deserved to know that their time together was running out.
“Dr. Higgins came by to see me today.”
“Did you father send for him?”
“No, I did.”
He stilled. Beneath her cheek there wasn’t even a heartbeat, not a rise of breath. Were it not for his
warmth, it would have frightened her.
“I haven’t been feeling well these last few days, as you know.” Of course he knew. She hadn’t felt like going out for days, and for the past two she couldn’t even let him make love to her. She couldn’t let him inside her without discomfort.
When the bleeding started, when the other symptoms came and wouldn’t go away, she knew it was time to send for the doctor.
“So you waited until I was asleep, until a day when you knew your family would be otherwise engaged, to send for the doctor?” He phrased it as a question, but there was a degree of understanding in his voice, as if he knew exactly why she had waited.
She didn’t want anyone to know. She wanted to tell them—
if
she told them—on her own.
“Yes.” There were no more tears now. “I sent for Dr. Higgins. He just left.”
Gentle hands rubbed her back. “What did he say?”
“The cancer…it’s worse.”
His hands paused for a split second—his only reaction to her news. “What else did Dr. Higgins say?”
Pru closed her eyes. “He said that I do not have much time left.”
Beneath her cheek, she felt his heart thump against his ribs. Her throat tightened.
“Did he…did he say how much?”
“A month at best.”
He didn’t speak. He simply tightened his arms
around her, holding her close, but not so tight that it hurt.
Reaching up, she touched his cheek with the full length of her fingers. She needed to feel his warmth, feel his flesh against hers.
“I want you to go.”
“What?” He was as surprised by her words as she was.
She stroked his cheek, feeling the rasp of stubble beneath her fingertips. “You should leave Rosecourt.”
“And leave you? No.” He sounded offended—and angry—that she could even suggest it.
“The order isn’t coming back, you know that. They have what they want.”
“Fuck the order.” She jumped at his harshness. “I don’t care about them. I’m not leaving you.”
“I don’t want you to be here when I…go.” She had an aunt who had died of cancer years before. She remembered what it did to her. “I don’t want you to see what it does to me.”
“I’ve already seen.”
“It may get worse.”
“I don’t care.” Damn him and his stubborn hide. “I’m not leaving you, Pru.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “But I don’t want that to be how you remember me.”
One of his hands left her back to come around and cup her cheek. “I will remember you as my beautiful, curious, wonderful Pru. Always.”
She cried in earnest then, his words, his sweet touch releasing the floodgate of tears that she tried
so hard to repress. They came out of her in great, wracking sobs that she was powerless to stop once they started. He didn’t try to shush her, he just let her go, let her soak him with her salt grief.
A drop of warm wetness fell near her ear, pulling her out of her own sorrow for a second. It was followed by another and then another. Chapel didn’t make a sound, but she knew without looking that he was crying as well.
Matilda—clothes.
Caroline—all books except those concerning Arthurian legend.
Georgiana—jewelry and figurines.
Chapel
—Pru paused, pen hovering just above the paper. Why was writing this entry to her list so much harder than the others? She already knew what she wanted to give him. Perhaps because she knew her sisters would cherish what she left them, but with Chapel it simply felt as though she had nothing else to give, so she had grasped for something she thought he might like.
It wasn’t as though she could actually leave him her heart.
Chapel—books on King Arthur.
Arthur was one of the first topics they’d discussed upon Chapel’s arrival at Rosecourt. At the time she had thought of it, her books seemed a fitting gift to leave him, but now she wasn’t so sure. Would books let him know just how much he had come to mean to her? When he looked at them, read them, would he know she had loved him?
He’d been by her side his every waking mo
ment these last few days. Three weeks had passed since Dr. Higgins’s visit. Some nights had been better than others and she actually managed to go out for a bit. They never went far—no farther than Chapel could fly in twenty or thirty minutes. Mostly they spent their time talking. He told her many stories of the places he had been and seen, of what life had been like when he was young.
She told him stories as well, recounting happy—and not so happy—moments of her life, such as her first kiss, and when her mother died. He listened to all of it with an attentiveness she found strangely heartbreaking, like he was trying to memorize every word.
He had shared his letters from Molyneux with her. She knew that the priest and Marcus would find the Silver Palm. She wondered if she would see the two men again before she died. Dear Marcus was apparently still looking for the Holy Grail for her. God bless him.
Her days—or rather, her afternoons—were spent with her family. A few friends from around the local district came to call when word got out that she was “failing.” How word got out, Pru didn’t know. The servants, perhaps, or one of her sisters. It hardly mattered. It didn’t matter that people knew she was dying. What she couldn’t stand was the pity in their eyes.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to visit with her sisters as well. Each one of them looked so down in the mouth every time she saw them that it inevitably brought her own spirits down as
well. Only Chapel managed to look at her without seeming too sad. He seemed to want to enjoy the remainder of their time together.
She enjoyed the time she spent with him. It meant so much to her. A strange sense of calm had settled over her just the day before. Suddenly the thought of death didn’t seem so very awful. Yes, the idea of leaving behind everyone she loved was sad, but she was no longer afraid to do it.
She still wasn’t ready, but at least she wasn’t afraid.
She looked down at the hand holding her pen. It was pale, the bones sharp through the skin. In fact, her entire body was looking gaunt. She’d lost a lot of weight recently. She didn’t feel like eating much more than tea and toast. Her belly was the only part of her that looked like it belonged on a larger person, and she knew that was only because of the cancer.
So tired. She was just so tired. She wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. That would happen soon enough. For now she had to put her affairs in order. Fortunately, her affairs were few.
It was growing dark outside. Soon the maid would be there to bring her supper. Her family would join her as she ate. Chapel might join her as well, if he was up. He often went off to feed upon waking. She didn’t ask where he went or off whom he fed, mostly because she didn’t want to know. He refused to take her blood anymore, he was so afraid of making her weaker. He didn’t seem to understand that him feeding off someone else
felt almost like infidelity to her. She knew it was a foolish way of thinking, but she couldn’t help it.
How useless she was. She couldn’t even give her lover what he needed to sustain himself.
A knock on her door interrupted her self-pitying thoughts. It was Chapel—looking fresh and handsome in his shirtsleeves. He carried a cravat in his hand and had a dinner jacket slung over his arm.
“What is this?” she asked.
He smiled as he closed the door behind him. “We thought you might like to dine downstairs this evening.”
She struggled to sit up against the pillows. “We?”
“Your family and I.”
“Well, ‘we’ is right.” She ran a hand over the tangled mess of her hair. “I’d love to go downstairs, but I look a fright.”
His smile grew. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to take care of your bath.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Does my father know that?”
“Of course not.” He looked horrified by the suggestion, as if her father posed any threat to him whatsoever. “He thinks I was going to fetch you later. I’ll run the water.”