In the end, I couldn't shut out the pain, but I certainly wasn't going to tell Sylvie about it. Especially not with William latching on to every word. Sylvie could have the bare bones of my time with Lucinda. And why we parted, more or less.
Less, if I could get away with it.
"You want to know about another female with courage like yours? Well, OK, Isolde, you win. I'll tell you her story, warts and all. It doesn't matter any more, in any case, since everyone involved is safely dead. It was a long time ago, you see. In the Belle Époque before the First World War.
"We met in Paris. And the lady's name was Lucinda…"
Chapter Six
Theo's story
Theo heard about Lucinda long before he met her. She was the toast of Paris. She wasn't pretty. Some women admitted, grudgingly, that she was handsome. One sour-voiced lady, talking about Lucinda Grayson and men, was heard to refer disparagingly to "bees" and "honeypots".
But Theo knew the only cliché that fitted a woman like Lucinda was "moths to a flame". Men didn't stop to think of words to describe her. They simply flocked round her, eager for a look, a word, a smile. And any man who came too near was likely to get burned. Even a vampire.
The first time Theo saw her was at the Paris Opéra. He had been living in Paris since 1906 and he'd taken a box at the Opéra every year. He told people it was because he enjoyed the performances. But, like so many vampires, Theo was handsome enough to draw the eye. And vain enough to enjoy being seen and admired.
Lucinda seemed to be alone in her own box. But he could see that gentlemen were parading in and out all the time, bowing and kissing her hand. Not just in the intervals, either. It was a fascinating procession. Theo couldn't stop staring.
His companion, Comte Edmond d'Evreuil, commented on Theo's odd behaviour. "Ah, you have spied the Lovely Lucinda. Madame Grayson, I should say."
"Madame? She is married?"
Edmond smiled knowingly. "Widowed. And very rich. She has, I would guess, no intention of entering into the married state again. She enjoys her freedom too much."
"What does she do with this freedom, Edmond? Take lovers, perhaps?" Theo glanced back at the lady's box. A uniformed officer was bowing to her at that very moment. "It would seem that she has plenty of choice if she wishes to—er—experiment a little."
"More than that, Theo. When she is not here in Paris, she is an intrepid traveller. Her model, I gather, is her countrywoman, Isabella Bird. Travelling the world is easier now than it was in Miss Bird's heyday, but it's still a challenge for a woman alone. I believe Madame Grayson's most recent destination was Japan. And China before that. I doubt she is daunted by much."
"You know her?"
"We have been introduced. I would not say that I know her."
"But you could introduce me to her?"
Edmond smiled, pityingly. After a pause, he said, "It will do you no good, you know, Theo. Lots of men have fallen at her feet over the years. And been discarded. Or stepped on. You, of all men, would not want that."
Theo brushed the warning aside. "Will you introduce me, Edmond? Soon?"
Edmond tried to dissuade him, but Theo was adamant. And eager. Eventually, Edmond shrugged and gave in. He agreed to introduce Theo to the bewitching Lucinda the very next afternoon.
In an artist's studio.
In Montmartre.
Theo did not ask whether she would be modelling in the nude. But he did wonder. The lady sounded capable of anything.
It was well into autumn by then and Paris was blanketed by a heavy mist that obscured the sunlight. The locals were surprised that it lasted all day. But the locals didn't understand the powers a vampire could wield. Especially when he was determined to risk going outside during the hours of daylight.
The building Edmond sought was a little way down the hill from the Sacré Coeur. The street door was not locked. Edmond went in without ceremony and led the way through a maze of dark and dirty corridors to the studio. He threw open the door without bothering to knock. "No point," he explained. "When Modigliani's painting, he ignores everything else."
And there she was. Sitting for a young artist Theo didn't recognise—Modigliani.
Lucinda was not modelling naked. She was fully dressed. She hadn't even taken off her hat.
"Sit over there and keep quiet," Modigliani ordered, waving a brush towards a rickety sofa with a grubby, paint-spattered rug on it. Theo reckoned it was the cleanest thing in the place. "I must get on while the light lasts."
So Modigliani was obsessive about the quality of the light. Theo wasn't surprised. He'd known many artists and they were all the same. On that day, though, because of the persistent fog, there was very little light at all and it was fading rapidly. It clearly annoyed Modigliani, but he refused to stop painting. And there was something manic about the way he kept working, which struck Theo as unnatural in one so young. He was to learn, decades later, that Modigliani was already suffering from the TB that would kill him and hiding his infectious state behind a flagrant addiction to alcohol and drugs. But that afternoon, in Modigliani's decrepit studio, Theo saw only the drink and the demonic glint in the painter's eye. The man wouldn't stop even to entertain two wealthy gentlemen who might be prepared to buy some of his work.
Theo took one look at the way the man was painting Lucinda—with a nightmarishly elongated face and neck that somehow nullified every facet of her striking looks—and decided on the spot that Modigliani's paintings were not for him.
Theo and Edmond waited nearly half an hour. From their vantage point, it wasn't possible to see what Modigliani was doing to his portrait. There was a lot of huffing and puffing, and regular swigs of spirits in between brush strokes. Lucinda, though, was patience itself. She didn't move, she didn't speak, she didn't complain. She sat. And sat. Until Modigliani told her he had finished with her for the day and she should leave.
And that was it. He didn't thank her or say goodbye. He didn't arrange a time for a future sitting. He was paying all his attention to his canvas and completely ignoring his stunning model. Theo thought the man must be possessed. He had to be that—or mad—to be ignoring Lucinda Grayson.
Modigliani ignored his visitors, too. Theo concluded he'd forgotten them completely.
Edmond and Theo rose when Lucinda did. Edmond bowed politely. "Madame Grayson, we are delighted to find you here. Might we escort you home perhaps? Or offer you dinner?"
Oh. Problems. The undead do not eat. Theo knew that he would have to make his excuses—an unbreakable appointment elsewhere—and take his leave before the first course was laid out on the table. But he would remain in her company until the last possible moment.
Lucinda bowed her head a fraction in acknowledgement of Edmond's polite greeting. "Monsieur le comte. How delightful to see you again. Will you not introduce your friend?"
"Graf Theo Heinrich," Edmond said, waving Theo forward to bow over her hand.
When Theo raised his head again, she said, smiling, "A German title, monsieur?"
"No, madame, my title was bestowed by the Austrian Emperor, as King of Hungary." That was not the whole truth, but Theo was not using all his titles in Paris.
"Graf Theo." She seemed to savour the words. "Would you prefer it if we conversed in German, perhaps?"
They'd been talking in French, which she spoke beautifully, with no foreign accent. Now it appeared that she spoke German, as well. Clearly a woman of many talents. A very unusual Englishwoman.
"It is not necessary, madame, unless it is what you would prefer. Or we could speak English instead?"
Her grey eyes flashed. "Touché, Herr Graf. Thank you, but no. I prefer to speak the language of the country where I reside. In France, I speak French."
Theo couldn't resist the temptation to tease. "And in Japan…?"
She gave him a searing look. Then she breathed deeply and allowed herself to smile. "In Japan, Graf Theo, I speak Japanese to the best of my ability. Which is to say, not very well at all." Sh
e glanced across at Modigliani who was paying absolutely no attention to any of them. So she settled her jaunty little hat more securely on her fair hair and tucked her hand through Edmond's arm. "Well, gentlemen, you offered me dinner? Shall we go?"
They strolled up the hill to one of the restaurants in the Place du Tertre, chatting amiably. On the threshold, Lucinda paused to stare in fascination at the day's uncanny view of the Sacré Coeur. Its great dome seemed to be floating above the blanket of mist, unsupported, indistinct and ghastly white.
Theo was not admiring the view of the basilica. He was admiring the view of Lucinda. He was beginning to realise he'd never seen a woman so alive. And that he wanted her. But he was one of the undead. His kind should not care about any living human being, except as a potential source of sustenance.
Lucinda truly was full of life. She revelled in it, in every tiny scrap of it, from the fallen leaves crunching beneath her boots to the sparrows dodging round the table legs in search of crumbs. She was mesmerising. Edmond seemed to be at least halfway smitten, as well.
By the time the trio took their seats inside, Theo knew he had every intention of keeping this extraordinary woman in his life.
Whatever it took.
Theo knew how dangerous Lucinda was, but it didn't stop him. There was something about her willowy figure, her long-legged mannish stride and her penetrating grey eyes that drew him in. He tried to unravel his reactions to her, but he failed, totally. And for some unfathomable reason, he never for a moment considered making her one of his victims, even while she slept. She was unique. The life-force in her had to be sacrosanct. He accepted it as fact; but he didn't understand it at all.
Theo and Lucinda met many times after that first encounter, but never again in the daytime. If Lucinda noticed, she never mentioned it.
Theo had been surprised to discover that she lived in a large apartment near the Moulin Rouge. Even in those pre-tourist days, the Boulevard de Clichy was always busy and very noisy. When he asked her about it, she dismissed his concerns. She liked the bustle, she told him, and loved the vibrant life that surrounded her, to be seen and heard and felt through her very pores.
The apartment itself was an oasis of calm elegance. Lucinda didn't indulge in the fashion for covering every available inch of surface with knick-knacks and curiosities. There were a few beautiful pieces of furniture, including a lacquered chest that she must have imported from Asia, and a Chinese screen, cunningly painted with lapis blue birds on a golden ground. Every piece was a work of art; and placed so as to be appreciated on its own merits. There were paintings on the walls, mostly modern, including a Renoir and two Picassos. Nothing by Modigliani, Theo noted. The paintings should have clashed with the older-style furniture but, somehow, it all looked right. As did the starkly simple Japanese flower arrangement that always decorated the table. For Theo, Lucinda's apartment was unique and special. As she was.
His visits tended to follow a pattern. They would start by exchanging Paris gossip and chatting about her travels. Both of them enjoyed that. Over the weeks, they had become increasingly intimate. She'd even confided, once, that she had an aristocratic great-aunt whom she visited every other year at Primly Court in England. Theo was intrigued. It sounded like a very grand country house. But Lucinda merely joked that Primly's nearest town had an even more absurd name—Little Piddling.
On their last day, there was no chat and no jokes. Lucinda's little French maid came in to offer him refreshments. Theo declined; as he always did. And Lucinda did not betray, by even the quirk of an eyebrow, how strange it was for a regular visitor to refuse the hospitality of her house. But nonetheless, she was nervous. She lit a Gitane with shaky fingers and drew the smoke deep into her lungs. The mellow scent of the tobacco quickly filled the room.
As soon as the maid left them, Lucinda stubbed out her cigarette. She went to Theo, put her arms round him and pulled him close.
That was unexpected.
This meeting was different. Theo recognised it. With a sense of foreboding.
She took his hand and led him across to the satin-covered chaise longue. She sat down unusually close to him, so close that he could feel the length of her strong leg muscles against his thigh, in spite of her petticoats. Then she dropped her head onto his shoulder for a moment.
One of her fair curls tickled his cheek. He gulped audibly and began to reach for her. But she pulled back and turned to face him.
"Theo, I have something to tell you. I have been putting it off, I must admit."
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He simply studied her face.
"I should have told you before. I am going off on my travels again. Soon."
He dropped his gaze and studied his fingernails for several seconds. "How soon?"
"Tomorrow."
"But you can't—" He stopped in mid-sentence. "May I ask where?" he managed at last.
"Canada. And America. I plan to explore the Rockies. I've read so much about them over the years. And now is the time."
"In winter?"
She shrugged. "I'm not afraid of a little snow, Theo."
He laughed but there was no joy in it. "In Canada, I dare say you will meet more than a little of it. Several feet, I should have thought."
She shrugged again. "I can cope. But you, Theo?"
He wasn't sure what she meant. Was she hinting that he should accompany her? Or wondering how he would cope without her? The truth was that he knew he'd be lost. But going with her was equally impossible. No vampire could travel across the snowy, sunlit wastes of North America. Not without a willing accomplice. And Lucinda could never be that.
"I will miss you," he said. The words sounded utterly lame and inadequate in his own ears.
He sensed that she was too shrewd to ask him outright to go with her—or too proud to risk a refusal. "I am sorry, Theo," she said finally. "But this trip has been arranged for months—since before I met you, in fact—and I can't change it now."
"I would not ask you to," he replied immediately, though it was a lie.
Perhaps he should confess to her, tell her what he was? He had a sudden, entrancing vision of the two of them together, sharing a future, as lovers, and as friends. For him, it would mean peace and an end to his solitary existence. The weeks with Lucinda had shown him that loving companionship might not be impossible, even for a vampire, and that his life did not have to be ruled by loneliness. For her, might it not mean the same? He had sensed from the start that she, too, was lonely, in spite of the social whirl that surrounded her.
His vision lasted for all of about three seconds. Lucinda was human. And mortal. She needed love—of course she did—but, for a human woman, real love could come only from another of her own kind, a lover to give her children and to cherish her as they grew old together. Lucinda deserved nothing less, but a vampire could provide neither of those things. And if she knew for certain he was a vampire, a monster, she was bound to recoil from him. With fear and even hate in her heart. Better for them to part altogether, than to risk such an ugly end to their affair.
He rose to take his leave, with as much good grace as he could muster. He kissed her formally on both cheeks. He wished her the best of travels. And he strode to the door.
"Theo—" She followed him and seized his hand before he could wrench the door open. "Theo, don't leave me like this."
"I must."
Her eyes were full. A single tear began to slide down her cheek. He wiped it away with infinite gentleness. Then he raised her right hand to his lips and kissed it. "Adieu, Lucinda."
He never saw or heard from her again.
He told himself it had been the right thing to do. There couldn't be a relationship between a human and a vampire. Not even where there was love. Because a human would age and die, while a vampire remained the same.
Lucinda was in the prime of life, the toast of Belle Époque Paris, but she couldn't stay that way. Eventually, she would age. One day, she would die and the vibrant
essence Theo had loved and treasured would be gone from his world.
It took him a long time to understand all that. Tormented, and miserable, he swore never to return to Paris. He resolved never to have feelings for another human being. And he kept those vows for more than a hundred years.
Until the day he gave in to his curiosity about Lucinda's Little Piddling.
And met Just William.
Chapter Seven
Sylvie walked home very slowly, thinking about everything she'd heard.
William, trailing along at her side, was obviously doing the same. "I don't get it. Why didn't Theo just turn her into a vampire? Then they could've—"
"He told you why," Sylvie snapped. "More or less. At least, it was there if you read between the lines. But I suppose you're too young to understand."
"No, I'm not. I—"
"Quiet! I need to think." Sylvie did need some breathing space. Besides, she wasn't going to admit to her geeky little brother that she had no idea how to turn a human into a vampire.
"But—"
"Zip it, William. Or Dad might find out about you and your tree." She wouldn't really shop her brother but, as a threat, it seemed to do the trick.
He clamped his lips together, looking mulish. And he finally stopped talking.
Sylvie let out a long breath and tried to sort her thoughts. Theo was a vampire. Definitely a vampire. Those fangs hadn't come from a joke shop. They were the real deal—he'd said it himself. Vampires really did exist.
So Sylvie needed to get genned up on them. And on how they could be created. She would start by reading Dracula. She'd probably be able to download it to her phone. Not till the morning, though, since horror stories gave her bad dreams. Right now, she didn't want anything to remind her of the sight of those fangs.
She shivered.
She tried to concentrate on Theo's friendlier side instead. And how hot he looked—right up there with Chris Hemsworth and Robert Pattinson. Perhaps all vampires were drop-dead gorgeous? Theo had charm, too, oozing out of every pore. Well, he would, wouldn't he? What could be better for getting close to his victims? Close enough to do what vampires do.
Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud Page 26
