“No; it doesn’t mean either of those things,” he told her as he smoothed one strand of her wayward hair back into place; his touch was as kind as his voice.
“So,” she said, the word catching a bit in her throat.
He held her close, his dark eyes on her golden ones. “We’ve parted before.”
“And it took us a quarter century to reunite, in case you had forgot,” she said brusquely, going on less peremptorily. “And a war kept us apart for much longer than either of us had anticipated. That could happen again.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I doubt I have another twenty-five years to spare.”
“That needn’t concern you if you decide to come to my life; you’ll have an opportunity for many, many things, if you want it,” he said as he stroked her back through the soft crepe jacket of burnt sienna that draped her shoulders.
“I may do that, and I may decide against it. Or I may try it and discover it doesn’t suit me.” She pressed her lips together, then asked, “Would it bother you very much if I decided against your life?”
“Yes,” he said. “But it would bother me even more if you felt you had to remain a vampire for my sake when you would rather not be undead. Not everyone who comes to this life is willing to embrace it, and if you cannot embrace it, you will come to abhor it, and with it, me. I’d prefer that not happen.” He recalled Nicoris and Demetrice, Avasa Dani and Tulsi Kil, Heugenet and Gynethe Mehaut, and experienced a pang of grief for all of them. “If vampiric existence is what you want, then make the most of it; it will delight me to have you among those of my blood. If it turns out not to be a life you can abide, then deal with it as you must. I will not fault you for any choice you make: believe this.”
“Would you miss me then?” The question perplexed her as she heard herself ask. “If I chose to die the True Death?”
Out in the bay the first foghorn moaned, its forlorn notes sounding a mournful clarion to the bank of thickening mist that was beginning to roll over the city.
“I will miss you when I am driving to Canada. I will miss you when I return to Europe. I will miss you every day we are not together.” His embrace tightened a little, reassuring her.
“Then why must you go? Doesn’t it make more sense to remain here? I can’t go with you, not now, but you could remain here; not in the city, but somewhere—at the winery, or Ponderosa Lodge, or someplace not too far away. That’s possible, isn’t it?” Abruptly she stepped back out of his arms. “No, of course it isn’t,” she said, answering her own question before he could speak. “I’m being unreasonable. I know it.”
“I wish it were otherwise,” he said. “I must go because my being here puts you into danger. I must go because I cannot be sure who next will come after me, or what he might do to you to get to me, and that is unbearable. I must go because I’ve garnered too much attention, which will soon lead to the kinds of investigations that I cannot easily endure. And there is trouble brewing, and not the trouble of the White Legion: no, it is their aims carried out on a grand scale.”
“You can’t mean that you think war will start again, so soon?” She was appalled.
“In a year, or two at the most, yes, the war will resume.” He reached out and took her hands in his. “It will not be contained in Spain. War is in the air as surely as rain. The Germans are too eager for it, smarting under their defeat in the Great War, and the French are daring them to attempt it, certain they will easily prevail. The Italians are already harrying Ethiopia, and they will not be content with that. Mussolini may be a popinjay, but his generals are determined men, resolved to re-establish Italy as a power in the world. Germany is worse, with their supposed alliances. Hitler is being cordial with Mussolini so that he need not fear that the South will come against him, and he will have unchallenged access to the Balkans and Greece.”
“Are you certain of this?” Rowena paled.
“Not as certain as I would be if it were writ in stone, but given what has been happening, I believe that everything points that way,” he responded.
For a long moment, both were silent. “This isn’t a good subject for parting,” Rowena said at last, and shivered. “Wasn’t that all settled before? Didn’t enough men die?”
“Enough men died to stop the fighting, but there are more now, and the same issues still rankle.” He looked at her somberly. “That was the trouble. The war never reached resolution. Everyone ran out of men to fight, and materiel to fight with, and so the war halted. But it didn’t end.”
“You say that there is more of the Great War to be fought?” Even as she asked, she could feel the answer within her, and she had a terrible vision of her nephews going over the top onto no-man’s-land.
“It seems so,” said Saint-Germain gravely. “Everything points to it.”
“You’re not very comforting,” she charged him.
“If that’s what you want, I’ll say it will be avoided, that the national leaders learned their lessons back in 1918, and it truly was the war to end all wars.” He held her gaze with his own, and spoke to her in a low, steady voice. “But such condescension would insult your intelligence, and it would peeve you.”
She pulled free of him again, turning on her heel to put more distance between them. “Oh, why are we talking about this? It’s horrid.” She rounded on him once more. “Can’t we talk about something pleasant?”
“Certainly; whatever you wish,” he said, remaining still as she began to pace from the dining room, through the entry-hall, then into the studio and back again. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Do you think that you can put all that behind you?” she exclaimed. “If the situation is as bad as you say, can you ignore it?”
“No, I can’t, not for long.” He held his hand out to her, which she ignored.
“You’re vexing, Saint-Germain.” She clicked her tongue in exasperation, then gave a brittle little titter, her golden eyes sharp with misery. “There are times I wish you weren’t quite so understanding, Comte.”
“Do you want to argue?” He was acutely aware that she did not, that she was dejected and hoped to relieve her despondency with anger. “If this would make parting easier for you, then I am willing to wrangle for as long as you like.”
“I want something, but not your indulgence,” she challenged. She began another circuit of the three rooms.
“I wasn’t indulging you,” he said without heat.
“How can you—” She stopped her outburst. “I don’t want to think about war, or loss, or loneliness, or anything unpleasant. It’s hard enough to think about losing you.”
“You needn’t,” he said mildly. “Shall we talk about painting? Or art? Or books? Or music? You have only to tell me.”
Her eyes snapped. “Don’t be so reasonable!” Then she stood still. “I’m sorry. I’m being beastly.”
“No, not beastly: you’re distressed,” he said. “I don’t mean to presume, Rowena; I know you, and that brings comprehension.”
“You think you know me,” she countered, appalled at her lack of manners. “How many men know women? Most of you don’t even listen to us, or take us seriously!”
“Ah, but I am not quite a man, and I learned more than three thousand years ago to listen,” he said without a hint of apology.
“Vampire makes a difference? Is that it?” Her outburst upset her even as it filled her with a kind of excitement. Recklessly she went on, “Is it because of my blood?” Her straight stance warned him that she would not accept any half-answer.
“Yes, because of that, and because I have seen your work, and you have done me the honor of admitting me to your confidence.” His dark, enigmatic eyes rested on her for the greater part of a minute while the foghorn uttered its two-note warning to ships. “I do love you, Rowena. Time and distance will not change that.”
“And you will love others,” she said, so suddenly that she astonished herself. “With the same passion and the same—the same totality?”
“Yes, I will love others, but not quite as I love you, for no one else is you. Love is our life, and we are bound to pursue it. As will you.” He gave her a little time to consider this. “That won’t diminish my love for you, nor yours for me.”
“You keep saying that, but are you so sure?” She had dared to approach him and now stood a little more than an arm’s length away from him. Astonished, she said, “I’m jealous. Of no one I know.”
“You have no need to be. You cannot be supplanted in my heart: not now, not anytime.” He spoke equably.
“Are you making light of me?” she demanded, wishing she could stop this confrontation and not knowing how to do it.
He refused to rise to her bait. With his dark, enigmatic eyes on hers, he closed the distance between them. “You haven’t experienced my nature in yourself. When you do, you’ll realize that we are drawn to life, and the totality of those to whom we’re drawn.”
“What a nice way to think of prey,” she said, deliberately caustic.
“Hardly prey; we’re not tigers, or sharks, and what we require is more complex than a meal,” he eluded her with such gentleness that she felt tears well in her eyes. “Oh, you can hunt for living men, and their terror will suffice to feed you in the most basic way. I’ve had such … an actuality before now, and I’m still aghast at what I did then, millennia ago. It is a dreadful experience.” He tried to shut out the recollections of the oubliette in Nineveh, and the abased feeding of his captivity; he pushed the memory away. “If you want to continue to know the joys and grief of living, if you want nourishment rather than subsistence, you must search for those who can knowingly accept you, and take on the risks that intimacy brings. Blood is the most essential, most truly personal manifestation of life, and to use it as nothing more than liquid is ultimately disrespectful to both you and those whose blood you take. Even those we visit in sleep give up their dreams to us; those who receive us as what we are do us great honor, for it is through that knowing, that love, that we live rather than simply survive.”
She glared at him. “How can you tell me this? Are you trying to convince me that you give all those you love everything you have given me?”
“No, and yes.” He went into the studio and sat down on one of the covered chairs, leaning back on the overstuffed cushion under the muslin drape. “Each of you is different, and all of you have courage and passion, or none of you would countenance what I am. Few women are willing to know my love for what it is. You did, and others have as well, but there are not many of them, and I treasure each of them as I treasure you. The rest, those for whom I am a pleasant dream, to them I am grateful, but it is the gratitude of loneliness.” The memory of Csimenae made him flinch. “Still, I treasure all but one of them.”
“All but one,” she mused, approaching him reluctantly, as though compelled to do so. “Why should you want me to be one of those women?”
“Because you are a capable, remarkable woman.” Aware that he had her attention, he went on, “You are capable of making your way in the world as not many women are, and you want to make your way—you don’t resent your freedom as many others are apt to do. You have defined yourself, which is what I most admire about you: that you are utterly Rowena, that you have remained true to your soul is what I love.” He spoke directly, no tinge of seduction in his words. “The vampire life has many benefits to offer those strong enough to endure it, but it demands understanding and compassion—of one’s self as well as those loved. You have that capacity, if you are willing to accept it.”
She stared down at him. “Thank you. I think.”
“You asked me: that is my answer,” he said to her softly.
“Damn you,” she muttered.
He was neither angry nor hurt. “Why?”
“Because you disarm me,” she said, and sat down on the arm of the chair. “If I could convince myself that you were unreasonable or unkind or self-centered, or that you would become indifferent to me, I wouldn’t have to listen to you, and you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself. I could dismiss it all as your self-indulgence, as the kind of male arrogance that is all around us. But I can’t; you saved me, all those years ago, and when the family regarded me with shock and dismay, you sent me your encouragement, although you suffered the terrible loss of your ward, and you have never shown me anything but generous concern. How can I pretend to have no tie to you now, when you’ve been my staunch support for so long? Had there been no Blood Bond, I would esteem you, and love you. I admit that at present I feel some ambivalence about my emotions, but I have no doubt about my love for you.” For more than a minute she was silent; she seemed almost defeated as she stared out the window at the advancing fog. “I thought we’d have rain before now.”
“Is it unusual for the autumn to be dry?” Saint-Germain asked, following her conversational lead.
“There have been dry autumns,” she said slowly, and fell silent again.
Saint-Germain laid his hand on her leg, the silk of her hose a slick beneath his fingers. “How much longer do you want to stay here?”
Rowena sighed. “I don’t know. Until it’s dark.” She leaned toward him, her eyes pensive. “I have lived here a long time, and I feel as if an old friend had betrayed me. I’m sad that it ended this way.”
“The house can’t change what happened. A man did that, not the home,” Saint-Germain reminded her.
“It’s not sensible, I know,” said Rowena. “But that’s how it seems to me.” She moved so that she could put her arm along his shoulder.
“Then that’s how it must be,” said Saint-Germain, almost apologetically.
She kissed his brow. “I wish I could keep you here, but I know that I can’t. You’re right, and that’s obvious. But…”
His eyes held warmth and grief in their dark depths. “You understand. Understanding isn’t always an easy burden to bear.”
“To have so much end at once—living here, in this house, your company, the conviction that I could not be hurt…” Again her voice trailed off.
“Such matters are never easy,” he said, turning to kiss her fingers that lay on his shoulder.
“Still…” She sighed. “I don’t know. I feel as if I’m losing my sense of direction, or my orientation. I don’t know where I am, or where I’m going—not all the time, but enough to fash me.” She looked toward the window. “Fog’s getting thicker. It must have been warm inland today.”
“That would make a difference, wouldn’t it?” Saint-Germain said, and felt her nod.
“Um-hum.” Rowena said nothing more until the dining-room clock chimed four. “Teatime,” she said remotely, then a bit more directly, “Or it would be, back in England. Here, for the women who go to the Saint Francis, it is. But the rest of us…” Her words drifted off again. “My mother used to chide me for not being more accommodating, for not acquiescing to the men I knew. She warned me that I would end my life alone. She’d probably think I had proven her right, and she would expect me to be chagrined.”
Saint-Germain looked up at her. “And are you chagrined?”
“Occasionally,” she admitted slowly. “Not the way my mother intended, but chagrined, nonetheless.”
“Why?” he asked with genuine interest.
“For not doing enough; isn’t it obvious?” she said at once. “For being too frightened to take more chances on myself. I told you that I’m disappointed with myself, didn’t I? Well, that hasn’t changed just because you’ve been here. I know what I could have done, and won’t do, and it shames me.” Moving suddenly so that she could face him fully, she said, “If you could persuade me that becoming a vampire would end that for me, I’d be glad of it.”
“I can’t promise you that,” he said. “All I can promise is more time—how much is never certain, but the chances are that you will have a century or two at least, if you want.”
She laughed, for the first time without nervousness or hidden anger. “All right. I won’t press you again.” Rising from the
arm of the chair, she took his hand and urged him to rise. “Come with me.”
He followed her to the stairs and up to the guest room at the front of the house over the dining room. “This isn’t your room,” he said as she opened the door.
“That man tried to kill me in my bedroom,” she answered, and went through.
On the threshold, he paused. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes. It is,” she said as she kicked off her shoes and began to unbutton her jacket. “I want to say good-bye to this place with something better than an attack.”
Saint-Germain came into the room and drew the curtains closed, then came to her side, taking the jacket from her. “Let me do this.”
She shivered and handed the jacket to him, which he laid over the back of the grandmother’s chair next to the dresser. “Go ahead,” she murmured, and stood to allow him to unbutton her blouse, which he put atop the jacket before he tugged her silk-and-lace slip out of her skirt’s waistband and over her head, then dropped it on the chair.
“You are a very beautiful woman, Rowena,” he said as he reached around her to unfasten her white brassiere; he put it on the seat of the chair, and turned back to her, and touched her arms, and then her breasts, taking his time in rousing her.
“I’m getting old,” she said, looking down at her exposed flesh.
“That doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful,” he said, and kissed her nipples as he knelt before her and unfastened her skirt.
“How do you suppose I’ll feel, if I live to seventy or more? My grandfather lived a long, long time, so I might, too.” She put her hand on his head, pulling her fingers through the loose, dark waves. “I wish I could come to your life as I was twenty years ago, or thirty, like a butterfly emerging from a wizened cocoon. But if I have to wander the world an old, old woman—”
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