Lady Killer

by Michele Jaffe

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge fumed.

  At four in the afternoon, the dog keeper completed his examination of the last of Miles’s dead guard dogs. He had discovered that each of the dead animals did, indeed, have a set of twin pricks in the sides of their necks, which had been concealed by their coats. He also remembered that when he found them, they had smelled strange.

  Clio puzzled over this report for two hours, and over the fact that increasingly, something felt wrong.

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge packed.

  A delegation from Which House arrived at Dearbourn Hall to see Clio, and present her with a picture drawn by Inigo.

  “The lad was very insistent that you have it right away,” Mr. Hakesly explained to her as he handed it across the table. “Like he thought it would help you with your investigation.”

  Clio looked hard at the picture. It was a drawing of a young man. A good drawing, Clio saw with some surprise. Inigo was definitely talented. Even still, the face was vaguely familiar, but not in any way she could place. Certainly not in any way that inspired her about the investigation. She thanked Mr. Hakesly and Mr. Pearl for coming.

  As they were leaving, Mr. Hakesly paused. “Almost forgot,” he said, scratching his head. “Told Princess Erika that you were alive and she was so happy she wept for joy. Then, just as sudden, she started to cry in real earnest. I asked her why and she said it was because she had seen a portent in the water jug that morning and it looked like you, only you were hanging by your neck. Either that or Elton Michaels is going to slaughter one of his cows soon and give us the steaks. Said she couldn’t be sure. Anyway, thought I would pass that along.”

  Clio felt her hand go to her neck inadvertently to rub it, and dragged it back. Princess Erika’s predictions never came true, she reminded herself, and went back to the document she had been studying before they arrived. It was a copy of the betrothal contract between Miles and Mariana that had been found in a strange cubby beneath the top of LaForge’s desk. She was fairly certain that it had nothing to do with the investigation—it seemed more than likely that he had it because he had to explain its provisions to Mariana, a surmise born out by the fact that the portions relating directly to her birthday had been underlined, probably the only way to get her to pay attention—but Clio found it fascinating on its own merits.

  She had been hearing about the betrothal for her entire life, but she had never seen its exact terms before. They chilled her.

  “On this, the first day of July in the year fifteen hundred and sixty-five, in gratitude for Sir Edwin’s saving my life, I do hereby betroth my son to the first-born daughter of my dear friend Sir Edwin Nonesuch,” she read. “Twenty-five years from today, her hand shall be joined with his in marriage, and her fortunes likewise. From the day of her twenty-fifth birthday forward. Sir Edwin’s daughter will be sole heir to my son’s estate. Only if the Deity sees fit to take one of them to himself before that day, will this betrothal be voided. Otherwise, it is my firmest wish that it proceed. To that end, I pledge my son’s complete obedience. If my son should prove to be craven or unworthy of his blood and my title, if he should behave with dishonor and break this contract, then I disown him, and order that he shall forfeit his entire fortune to Sir Edwin Nonesuch.”

  It was the last sentence that really held her attention, not the provision—she knew that Miles forfeited his fortune if he broke the betrothal—but the language. She immediately recognized the incandescent power of the words, of “craven” and “unworthy,” knowing without question that it was these which bound Miles. By using such words, Miles’s father had staked not only his son’s fortune, but his honor, on the marriage to Mariana. Clio decided she would not have liked any man who could speak about Miles that way.

  She studied the paper a bit longer, wondering at how six sentences could wield so much power over so many lives. Then she folded it up and shoved it under the picture by Inigo. She was annoyed to realize she had been rubbing her neck.

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge grew pensive.

  The clock had only finished chiming eight when Miles burst through the door, waving a book in front of him. He and Clio had not seen each other all day, and the first glimpse of him took her breath away. Then she noticed the object in his hand.

  “Another souvenir,” he announced, slapping the cheaply bound volume onto the table before her.

  “Did we miss a body?” Clio asked reaching for it. “Did he kill someone we do not know about?”

  Miles shook his head and opened the cover. On the left side someone had pasted a bookplate with a coat of arms on it. And on the right there was an inscription.

  “For my brother, Samuel, to help preserve him in London. His ever-loving, Theolinda,” Clio read aloud. Then she studied the bookplate. “Theolinda Rightson,” she breathed as Miles nodded. “The last woman killed by the vampire three years ago. The woman at whose bedside you caught him. He took this book from her.” Involuntarily Clio pushed the object away from her as if she recoiled from touching it.

  “Yes. My men missed it in the search the first time because it was piled with the rest of the books. But this one isn’t like the rest. Nor is it just a memento of his murder of Theolinda Rightson. It is also probably what saved his life last time.”

  Miles pointed and Clio realized that one of the corners of the book was missing. “As if it had been shot off by a pistol,” she said, understanding. “Your shot must have gone through the book before hitting him in the heart. Now we know for certain he is the same man you caught three years ago.”

  “Yes. We seem to know everything. Except where he is.”

  “There have been no sightings of him at all?” Clio asked hopefully.

  “None. I have got hundreds of people out on the street and along the wall of the city. He cannot have gotten out, so he must be hiding somewhere.” Miles turned to look out the window and Clio did not have to ask what he was looking at. The thin sliver of moon hung midway in the sky, its dim light doing more than helping conceal their quarry.

  “Where is Toast?” Clio inquired conversationally of his back.

  “Dining with the cook. Corin decided it was easier to take the monkey to the kitchen, than to bring the entire contents of the kitchen to the monkey.”

  Poor Toast. What would he do when he no longer had an entire kitchen staff to wait on him? When they were back at Which House? What would she do? “Don’t you have a ball or a concert or animal viewing to attend?” Clio asked, trying to keep her tone light.

  Miles faced her. “Unfortunately, they were all canceled. Mariana informed me that while she is certain the vampire would never interfere with her celebrations, her maid is so upset by the idea of having shared a roof with a fiend that she cannot stop shaking long enough to tie a corset, let alone pin up hair. When I left, I had the curious feeling that Corin was loitering around to comfort her.”

  “Mariana?” Clio asked with enormous surprise.

  “No, her maid, Jocelyn. And now that I think about it, he’s been more jovial than usual for the past few days.”

  “How perfect for him,” Clio said, and there was only a hint of deeper emotion in her voice. She paused for a moment. “Does this mean that we have all night together? For going over the evidence,” she put in hastily, hoping that he had not noticed the catch in her voice, that he would not pull away from her because she seemed too needy. “All night together to go over the information we have gathered today. Or to go out and join the search for the vampire.”

  Miles shook his head. “No. I am afraid not. We will be too busy this evening to work on the investigation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are over two hundred men looking for the vampire. I thought we could do something more useful.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dine. On the roof. Just the two of us.”

  He wanted to be with her. Alone. “When?”

  �
��As soon as you put on your purple gown,” he replied.

  Clio was changed in less than ten minutes.

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge began to plan.

  The sky was velvety blue-black and the stars seemed to twinkle, not above them, but all around them. The terrace had been transformed from the unruly Eden of days earlier to an unearthly, enchanted paradise. Where before they had tread on rose petals, Clio now saw that the entire area was paved. Most of its surface was covered with gleaming white marble, crisscrossed by mosaics of tiny glass mirrors, but where they stood was a path that shimmered opalescently beneath their feet, as if lit from below. A short table covered with a finely embroidered cloth had been set in the middle of the terrace, on a plush gold and deep purple carpet with unicorns and other mythic animals woven into it. Atop the table glasses with filaments of gold swirled into them glittered alongside a dozen lidded silver platters. There were no candelabrum, but small lanterns twinkled from the hedges that lined the patio, suffusing the entire place with a magical golden light.

  The old Clio would have looked at this and whispered “impossible,” under her breath, but she knew now that nothing was impossible. She held Miles’s hand very tightly as she stood, overawed, and admired the terrace. This was a place out of a book, not real, a place of illusion. For illusion. Their entire relationship was an illusion, a moment stolen from time, a moment that should not exist, and would cease to exist in less than three days when Miles married Mariana. Clio could hardly have known that she would cease to exist before that.

  She did not move from the threshold of the terrace, as if not going forward herself could stop the night from starting, and then from ending. There were no clocks up there but somewhere in the distance a bell rang out the hour, underscoring the futility of her gesture. And reminding her that she had known all along it would have to end.

  “I want to give you something,” Miles said abruptly, leading her toward the table. She saw that in addition to the plates and glasses and fine silver spoons and knives, there was a large, tarnished box. “This is for you,” Miles said, pushing it toward her.

  “I do not want anything from you,” Clio told him, almost desperately. It was a lie.

  “Open it,” Miles half commanded, releasing her hand.

  Clio kneeled next to the low table, and flipped up the clasp. The box itself might have been silver under the tarnish, and she had assumed the clasp was brass because it was so dirty. The underside, however, gleamed in a way that made it clear that it, and the rest of the fastenings, were gold. Clio looked up at Miles but he just nodded at her to continue.

  The lid of the box opened smoothly under her fingers, and then crashed back down as she released it suddenly.

  “What is wrong,” Miles asked, kneeling next to her. “Clio, why are you crying?”

  “These are the Loredan amethysts,” she said. “They are not mine. They cannot be mine. You have to give them to your wife.”

  “No,” Miles shook his head. “My father was able to dispose of me, my fortune, and my name as he wanted, but not of these. These were my mother’s.”

  “I cannot accept them.”

  “You must.” He gave her a smile. “You see, on her death bed, she made me promise to give them to you.”

  Clio smudged the tears over her face and scowled at him. “That is impossible. I never met your mother, Miles.”

  “No. But she knew about you. She knew you existed. And she said ‘One day, amore, you will meet someone who makes you better than you are. When you do, give these to her. But only to her. Only to the woman you love.’ ”

  Clio’s eyes were riveted on Miles’s face. “You made that up,” she whispered.

  “No, she really said that. In Italian, of course. It sounds better that way.”

  “Impossible,” Clio breathed.

  Miles sat back on his heels. “I have never had a harder time giving jewels to a woman in my life. Very well. Do not take them. I will shove them back into my old trunk to rot and tarnish in the cellar.”

  “Did you mean that?”

  “That I will put them back in my old trunk? Absolutely.”

  “No. I mean about giving them to the woman you love.”

  “Yes, she was very insistent on that point. Now if you would just take them we could put to rest a nice old woman’s ghost. You would have liked her, Clio. And she definitely would have liked you.”

  “Do you love me, Miles?” Clio stammered.

  Miles raised one eyebrow. “Have you been listening? I—”

  “Say it,” Clio implored. “Please.”

  Miles took both her hands in his and his eyes rested on hers. “Clio Thornton, I love you beyond all comprehension. I loved you before I even met you, loved you when I thought you were just the best figment of my imagination. I wasted my life chasing shadows, when all along it was you I was looking for.”

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge prepared.

  Later, when they had sampled the veal cutlets in sage and the juniper-berry fed capons stuffed with apples and raisins and the asparagus wrapped in puff pastry and the globe artichokes drizzled in butter and the tiny hens glazed with apricot marmalade and the beef stewed in rich red wine over caraway seed noodles, later, after they had eaten steamed pudding studded with gold currants and let lemon ices slip down their throats and of course had large pieces of hazelnut cake with honey-infused cream poured over it, only then did Miles lead Clio from the table into the little clearing behind it.

  They laughed and talked and whispered and kissed and held hands and smiled shyly at each other as they ate, but they were both strangely silent as they approached the large square building at the center of the clearing. Clio’s first thought was that it was an oversized jewel case, but then she saw it consisted entirely of fabric. It was a tent, made of silver silk embroidered so that when it was lit from within, it looked like the walls were covered with flowering vines, and as if the ceiling were a canopy of leaves. Yellow pennants lined with small disks of gold and bearing the Dearbourn arms flapped at the four corners of the tent, and the gossamer drapes of the entrance billowed toward them welcomingly.

  Inside was a bed, covered in purple satin painstakingly embroidered with sliver thread. From the bedposts hung two silver burners that scented the air with an exotic mixture of jasmine and cardamom. The floor was strewn with lavender rose petals, atop which, in front of the bed, lay an enormous silvery gray fur rug. Outside, a light breeze rustled though the gold disks hanging on the flags, filling the tent with their soft, tinkling music.

  Beneath the music of gold on gold, unspoken, lay another message. Clio understood what all this luxury meant. This would be their last real night together. Tomorrow the final, ceremonial betrothal ball would take place, the last one before the wedding, and the viscount Dearbourn would have to spend the entire event glued to his betrothed’s side. Tomorrow if Clio came here she would come alone, and she would be able to watch as the viscount and his soon to be viscountess greeted their guests in the garden, watch as the handsome couple circulated arm in arm. Tonight was their last chance to be Miles and Clio, together, just them, for hours. This was their wedding night, their wedding bower. Clio knew this was Miles’s real present to her, the gift of time, from the master clockmaker himself.

  Miles and Clio undressed one another silently, tenderly. Hands moved across shoulders and down arms, across chests, along stomachs and waists and hips and thighs and bottoms, memorizing them forever. These were not erotic touches, not really, but something far more powerful, something that left Clio and Miles feeling more naked than they ever had before.

  Wearing nothing but the Loredan amethysts, Clio lay down on the fur rug next to the bed and pulled Miles toward her. They did not speak. They did not make love. They just held each other tightly, exchanging a lifetime worth of hugs and caresses, making a few hours count for the years they could never have together. They breathed only one another, filling their lungs for a
life apart, looked at one another, storing away each wrinkle, each dimple, the way lips curved into smiles, the way cheeks shined through tears.

  Below them, as London slept, the search for the vampire went on. Below them, soldiers, guardsmen, and constables patrolled the streets, passing his description from mouth to mouth, from informant to tavern owner. Below them, hundreds of men searched for the closest thing to evil incarnate any of them would ever encounter. On the roof of Dearbourn Hall, Miles and Clio conducted their own search, a search for something to hold on to as the hours between this night and the rest of the nights of their lives added up, for a way to preserve the closest thing to pure happiness they would ever know.

  Much later, they moved to the bed, sliding under the cool satin cover. Then they did make love, the satin slipping around them, their bodies twining together entirely. Their joining was slow and gentle and perfect. When it was over, Miles felt a tear roll down Clio’s cheek. And into his chest he heard her whisper, “Nothing perfect can endure.”

  4 hours after midnight. Moon—three degrees less than a quarter full. Waning.

  In his room at the Painted Lady, Doctor LaForge smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Nothing perfect can endure,” Clio repeated, sitting up. “Miles, don’t you see?”

  “Yes,” Miles said through clenched teeth. He understood that lesson all too well.

  “No, I am not talking about us. I am talking about the vampire. I knew it. I knew there was something wrong. It is too perfect.”

  “Now I am afraid I do not see.”

  “Everything about the vampire conforms exactly to his description in the Compendium.”

  “Not the gardenias. Or the guard dogs.”

  “True, but everything beyond that. Down to the last detail. He kills women from only one region. He always takes souvenirs. And if his rate of killing is any indication, he is getting stronger.”