Beneath a Waning Moon: A Duo of Gothic Romances

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Josie blinked. “Tom, I was joking, but you act as if he is a villain.”

  “He’s powerful. And not to be crossed lightly.”

  “Is Neville safe?” A chill crept over her, despite the warm room. “Why was he in our house?”

  “He wanted to meet my new wife. Murphy thought it would be a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “We must do business with the man. We… condescend when we must. For now.”

  “He said he ‘approved’ of us.” She couldn’t stop the shiver. Mrs. Porter would say someone had walked over her grave. “What an odd thing to say. Who is he to approve of us?”

  “He’s…” Tom’s eyes burned. “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t approve enough.”

  “What—”

  “Forget William Beecham.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Josie, if there were a way to… cure you. If there were a way to get better—even if you had to leave Dublin—would you want it?”

  She could feel the color drain from her face. “What?”

  “If there were a treatment—”

  “Stop.” Her voice grew hoarse. “There’s nothing, Tom.”

  “But if there were—”

  “Don’t you think Father looked? Do you know how many years I spent being poked and prodded? I’ve inhaled the most horrendous concoctions you could imagine. We tried sanatoriums and hospitals. I went to Switzerland, for God’s sake. Don’t be cruel.”

  “I never want to hurt you.” His eyes were red again. “But if there was a way—”

  “Stop!” She stood, knocking over her inkwell in her haste. She must have stood too fast, because it seemed Tom was there before she could blink, righting the bottle and blotting the ink so it didn’t spill over her manuscript.

  “Careful,” he murmured. “I’m only asking. Didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Of course I’d want it,” she said. “Don’t you think I’d do anything to stay with you? I… I love you, Tom. So much. But there’s nothing.” She cleared her throat and felt the beginning press of tightness in her chest. “So please don’t give me some kind of false hope. It’s not fair.”

  He said nothing more. Tom straightened her desk, laid aside her work for the evening, then took her to bed. He spent hours making silent love to her. He didn’t return her words, because he didn’t have to. Josie knew her husband wasn’t a talkative man. His touch. His kiss. Every caress was its own declaration.

  But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together.

  What foolish words she’d once found romantic. Her lover could not die! Tom had to live so he could remember. Because if he remembered she had lived and loved him, then Josie could find the courage to say good-bye.

  Chapter Seven

  TOM TAPPED A PEN on the table as Declan finished up the monthly financial report for Murphy.

  “I’d say the boat works will be profitable within two years with this expansion. While merging our existing works with Shaw’s will cost in the short term, it’ll be worth the investment.”

  “And Beecham?” Murphy asked.

  “We’ll be bigger, not just in holdings but in name. He won’t like it.”

  Tom gritted his teeth. Murphy’s refusal to confront William Beecham had become a bone of contention between them. Once Beecham had flat out stated the Shaw heiress was not to be turned—even before Tom had brought it up with his sire—any interest in concession had flown out the window. He wanted Beecham gone. Wanted Murphy to take over. And he wasn’t quite rational about it.

  Murphy tapped a long finger on the papers in front of him. “Beecham is… problematic.”

  “Beecham’s a monster,” Tom muttered. “And you’d have the support of more than half the immortals in Dublin. You don’t hear what I do among the workers.”

  “And you don’t hear what Anne and I do among the gentry,” Murphy said. “It’s not a simple thing, Tom. If I’m to avoid bloodshed, we must tread carefully.”

  “There’ll be no avoiding bloodshed,” Tom said. “That’s not how these things work.”

  “I have no interest in ruling a city where half the immortal population has been slaughtered and the other half only follows me out of fear.”

  “Why not?” Tom asked. “It works. Vampires respect power.”

  “They also respect intelligence. A bloody coup is not what Dublin needs right now. Not with all the unrest in human politics and not when the city is finally beginning to prosper. It’s simply not wise. Neither is turning humans who are notable in society.”

  It was the closest they’d ever come to speaking of it, though Tom knew his anger at his wife’s failing health had not gone unnoticed by his sire.

  Declan was completely silent, and Tom felt an irrational spike of anger toward his brother. If Declan had been the one to marry Josephine Shaw, Tom would barely have known her. He’d not feel this tearing pain at the thought of her loss. He’d not have tasted the joy of her devotion only to have human disease snatch it away.

  “Tom,” Murphy said softly, “you knew it would end this way. It was why I forbade you from revealing yourself. It has nothing to do with my trust, respect, or affection for Josephine.”

  Tom slammed his hand down and stood. He tried to keep his voice level, but he knew he failed.

  “If it were Anne—”

  “But it’s not Anne. There is a reason I’ve never allowed myself to become emotionally attached to humans. Added to that, Beecham has flatly denied—”

  “Fuck Beecham!” he yelled. “We dance politely around the monster as he runs this city into the ground. He doesn’t care about the people, vampire or human. He’ll drain it like a docklands whore, and don’t think he hasn’t been doing more of that too. Is that the kind of men we are? To give allegiance to a monster like him? He isn’t as smart as you, isn’t as cunning as you, and he doesn’t have the loyalty you’ve built. So why aren’t you challenging him, boss? Why?”

  Murphy stood and Tom tried not to shrink from the censure on his sire’s face. It was instinctual, this need to please him. But other loyalties now tore at him, and Tom didn’t shrink away.

  “Your wife is human, and she is ill. There are reasons we do not turn the sick, Tom Dargin. And prematurely confronting a rival can lead to disaster. I’ll not upend my plans for sentiment.”

  Declan slammed into Tom’s chest and pushed him back before he could reach Murphy with bared fangs.

  “Tom, stop!” his brother yelled. “Dammit, man. Leave it!”

  He punched Declan in the face, tossing the man halfway across the room before Murphy was on him. He gripped Tom by the neck and shoved him into the wall.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Dargin?” Murphy said, his fangs bloody from piercing his own lips. “Stop acting the fool.”

  “You’ll kill ’er,” he choked out.

  “She was dead before you met her.”

  Tom shook his head and shoved Murphy away. He had to leave. If he stayed, he’d do something unforgivable.

  He couldn’t change her himself. He knew that much. Any love they had would be twisted by the bond between sire and child. Stories of lovers who’d been changed inevitably led to nothing but tragedy and usually the death of one or both vampires.

  But Murphy could change her. Anne could. Even Declan. Vampires he thought of as family. And yet they watched her every night as she withered away. She was failing along with her father. Her breathing was shallower, the smell of sickness around her more pronounced. More, her spirit—the playful, passionate spirit he’d fallen in love with—was withering. The haunted love in her eyes was enough to drive him to madness.

  The water in the air drew to his skin as he walked, attracted by the rush of his anger and pain.

  She couldn’t die. If his sire refused to change her, then they would leave Dublin. Once her father was gone, he could convince her. He could go to Mary Hamilton in the north. He knew Anne wasn’t unsympathetic. She loved Josie too. Tom thought H
amilton might turn her if Tom pledged himself to her service. She’d love to steal one of Murphy’s top men.

  Loyalty between his sire and the woman he loved tore him in two, but he could finally admit the truth.

  Tom no longer wanted to live an eternity without Josie at his side.

  “MR. MURPHY?”

  Tom tried not to cringe at the name. Much of his household didn’t know his real name. His own wife didn’t even know it. And the way he was feeling toward his sire at the moment, the last thing he needed was a reminder his life was not his own.

  He turned and met Josie’s companion in the hall. “Yes, Mrs. Porter?”

  “She’s not been feeling well today. Are you home for the evening, sir?”

  “I am.”

  “She might enjoy the company. She can’t seem to focus on her writing. I think she may be running a slight fever.”

  “I’ll find a book to read to her then. Is she in bed?”

  Mrs. Porter shook her head. “She didn’t want the bed. I’ve settled her on the chaise in her room. Make sure she stays propped up. It’s easing her breathing.”

  “Any news on Mr. Shaw?”

  Mrs. Porter smiled sadly. “Mr. Carver did send word this morning that he thought it would be a matter of days, if that. Mrs. Murphy was planning on spending the night there, but I held her off until tomorrow. I thought she could use another night of rest.”

  “I’ll try to get her to sleep.”

  “Thank you, sir. She’s had a poultice tonight, so her breathing is easier.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Porter.”

  Mrs. Porter started down the hallway, then paused. Turning to him, she said, “No, sir, thank you. She’s had more joy and life in the past six months than the whole of the past six years, I think. I know your family is… different, sir. I wouldn’t say anything more. But thank you. Thank you for caring for her as you do.”

  She swept down the hall before he could respond. And Tom turned to his wife’s bedroom with a heavier heart and a renewed sense of purpose.

  Six months of living was not enough. Not for Josie. Not for him.

  He stopped by the library to grab a copy of Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, which they’d been reading on nights she couldn’t seem to focus on her writing. Not even the new adventure story she’d started seemed to be able to hold her attention for long. And if she was feverish, her mind would wander.

  “Josie?” he said, peeking into the room to see if she’d fallen asleep.

  Her eyes blinked open. “Hello, darling. How are Patrick and Declan tonight? Everything all right with work? You’re home early. Anne was by earlier. Did you know she has a sister in Belfast? Isn’t that interesting?”

  Tom wondered if Anne’s thoughts were running parallel to his. “I did. She and Murphy don’t get along well.”

  “So I heard. What a drama.” Josie smiled wanly. “Perhaps I should write it into a story.”

  Tom saw the unhealthy flush on her cheeks. “I brought a book to read. I thought we’d get back to old Phileas, if you like.”

  She held up her old copy of In a Glass Darkly. “I’ve been getting lost in this old favorite again. Read for me?”

  “Vampires again?”

  Did she know on some level? She’d never questioned his odd schedule, though Tom continued to use a nudge of amnis sometimes when she started to question why they spent every night together and yet he was always gone in the daylight. He hated it. Hated the deception. But if she discovered it on her own…

  “I keep coming back to it,” she murmured. “Something… I don’t know. Familiar stories are like old friends, aren’t they? They’re comforting.” She held out the book. “Please? We’ll come back to Phileas another night.”

  And so Tom sat at the foot of the chaise lounge and put Josie’s slender legs on his lap, stroking her ankles as he read from the tale of the mysterious vampire girl and the proper young lady she seduced.

  “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”

  He watched her as she dozed and he read the familiar words. Abruptly, she sat up.

  “Josie?”

  “I’d love for it to be real,” she rasped. “Wouldn’t it be grand, Tom? Do you think it could be real?”

  “What’s real, love?”

  “The vampires, of course. Carmilla and Laura.”

  He choked on his desire to reveal himself to her, and she continued, the fever now burning in her eyes.

  “There is so much more to this life than we know, isn’t there? It could be real. It could be. Fairies and shape-shifters. Airships and demon lovers. Why couldn’t they be real, Tom? Why would we dream of them if they weren’t real?”

  She’d started to cry, and he put the book away, pulling her to his lap so that he could hold her. He put his cheek against her burning forehead.

  ‘“You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish…’ Oh, Tom! She was right. I’m sorry. It’s horrible, isn’t it? This love. To love someone and know they cannot be yours. We only borrow each other for a time, don’t we? I’m too cruel to you, darling. Please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me.”

  He rocked her back and forth. “Josie, please—”

  “He was Irish. Did you know he was Irish? Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. What a wonderful name. Not like Josephine. Who wants to read a story from a Josephine?”

  “I do. I love reading stories by Josephine.” Her skin was burning.

  “Why aren’t there more vampire stories? I wish there were. I wish I could have known him. My mother met him. They were… friends. Perhaps it wasn’t the footman after all. He only liked Poe. But who doesn’t like Poe, after all?”

  She was rambling, her fever overtaking her reason. Tom stood and walked to the bed, stripping her out of her robe and ringing for the maid to bring some ice. Murphy kept a basement of it for blood stores, and Tom was tempted to take her down and hold her in the frigid walls of the cool room. He knew it wouldn’t help.

  “Josie,” he said again. “Please, love. Take a deep breath. Try to calm down.”

  The breath she took rattled in her chest and made Tom want to rip the sheets and punch his fist through the wall. He put more pillows behind her and stripped the heavy, feather-filled blanket that only seemed to make her cough worse. The maid came, along with Mrs. Porter, and they began to see to his wife.

  His wife. The love of his life. Tom could smell it in the breath she coughed out.

  His Josie was dying.

  Tom turned away before the women could see the bloody tears that filled his eyes.

  TOM received word the next evening that John Shaw had passed away in his sleep, but Josie wouldn’t hear it. Her eyes were half-open, and her breathing labored. She hadn’t woken since her rambles the night before. Tom had been forced to his day rest, raging in fear that his wife would slip away while he was dead to the world.

  Her breathing seemed a little better when he woke, but her fever had not lessened. Mrs. Porter and Josie’s day maid had banished the doctor after it was clear there was nothing he could do.

  Tom sat in despair, knowing she would never be well enough to travel to Belfast. He would lose her. But then he could end things. After all, he’d lived over seventy-five years, mortal and immortal life combined. That was a good run, he thought.

  And Murphy?

  Murphy could go to hell.

  Tom lay next to Josie in bed, dabbing at her mouth with blood-stained cloths when she coughed. He paid no attention when he heard the door open or when Mr
s. Porter announced Murphy and Anne’s presence. He refused to look at his sire. These hours were not for him. He would hold his woman as long as he could. And when the end came, he would follow. Loyalty to his sire be damned. After all his years of service, what had Murphy done but let the woman Tom loved die a painful death?

  “Tom,” Anne called him. “Tom Dargin, look at me.”

  He didn’t.

  “Go away.” Tom didn’t want to leave her side, even to throw them both out. “Her father’s dead. She’s dying. Leave me alone. You won’t have to bother with me much longer.”

  Murphy’s voice was stiff. “Tom, stop this madness.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” He brushed her cheek. “Sorry, sweet girl. I know you don’t like rough language.”

  Anne was there, clutching his shoulder. “Tom, please.”

  “Won’t be the same. Nothing was the same from the night I met her. My butterfly girl. Only woman as ever saw the whole of me. Loved me, she did. It’ll be fine, Annie. No need to ask your sister for that favor. I’ll stay with my girl until she goes.”

  “Tom, you can’t be serious.” Murphy banged his cane on the ground. “I sent Mrs. Porter away so we could speak freely. Stop this. This isn’t you.”

  Anne was crying. “Tommy, please. We can’t do without you.”

  “And I can’t do without her!” He pushed Anne away, baring his teeth at Murphy as he roared, “Get the fuck away from us, both of you!”

  Josie started to cough, sitting up on her own, her eyes open and glassy with fever.

  “Tom?” she gasped. “Tom, who’s yelling? What’s wrong?”

  He turned, ignoring his irate sire. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Here, love.” He tried to get her to drink something, but the water only sprayed over the bed when she coughed again.

  Murphy said, “She’s mortal. You knew this when you married her.”