‘Please, take a look, my Laura,’ Luc said as his hand swept the room.
I strolled over and took a closer look at his personal gallery. Then I heard him softly call Alec.
I did a double-take. The photos were all of me. There I was as a baby, maybe less than a year old, my little, chubby arms outstretched to a laughing fair-haired man as I took my first steps. I had a similar photo in my album at home, but only Aunt Judy was in it.
Another one showed me, around two years old, being thrown high in the air by the same man. I had golden Shirley Temple curls and my baby-self laughed down at him. The fair-haired man was Lucien Lebrettan and he looked the same then as now.
Still another photo showed me on my first birthday with Aunt Judy and Luc on either side of me helping me blow out my candle. My gaze travelled from frame to frame until I was dizzy. There was my first day at school, my high school sporting achievements and—in pride of place—my university graduation.
Luc appeared less often as I grew older. In photos of my teenage years, he was in the background and I had to peer closely to see him. It was either Mum and Dad or Aunt Judy who appeared next to me.
I looked around and found more framed photos perched on shelves and on piles of stacked books. Every available space was taken up with various stages of my life.
A strange, hollow feeling opened up in my stomach as I tried to understand what I was seeing.
Luc had called me, ma petite, ma fille, which I knew from my high school French meant, my little girl, my daughter. He’d also called me, my Laura. I’d wondered at the familiarity I felt toward him, and why my Aunt Judy appeared at all my birthdays. And finally, it explained the gift I received every birthday. My parents never revealed from whom it came.
My throat went dry.
Alec had entered as well, but seemed reluctant to remain as he stood in the doorway, his hand still on the door handle.
‘Please stay, this concerns you as well,’ Luc said to him.
‘This is a private family matter. I shouldn’t be here,’ he replied and looked directly at me, his face unreadable.
‘I’d appreciate it if you stayed.’
Dad walked into the room. His face was pale as his eyes connected with mine and what I saw there was deep sadness.
‘Dad, what’s going on?’
‘There’s no way to say it, Baby Girl, but it’s time you knew the truth.’ He pulled up a footstool near one of the bookshelves, sat down on it and lowered his head. My dad only assumed such a posture when he was reluctant to involve himself in some task.
‘You have your mother’s colouring,’ Luc said and he looked at my aunt.
‘But your father’s looks and temperament,’ Aunt Judy said, and she looked at Luc before turning back to me. ‘We’re your parents, dear.’
Chapter 16
Family Matters
LAURA
‘This is a joke, right?’
‘No, ma petite, it is not. We would never joke about such a thing.’
I felt the blood drain from my face as I stood there staring at the two of them. Nobody moved. The tick-tock of the clock on the wall behind the desk was the only sound that broke the heavy silence. I looked at my dad. He raised his head and gave me a slow nod.
At that, my mind went utterly blank. Then slowly their words sunk in and it was like pieces of a puzzle coming together. I’d heard that, at the moment of death, your whole life supposedly flashes before your eyes. Well, I wasn’t dying but it was happening to me just the same.
I struggled to find my voice and when I did, it came out in a hoarse whisper.
‘If that’s so, why did you give me away?’ It was the first thing that came to me.
‘Laura,’ my mother said, ‘we loved you so very much. You were our baby and we wanted to keep you with us forever. But we knew you were special and in possible danger. We had no choice,’ she said and her lip started to quiver.
Luc squeezed her hand and he took over. ‘Because you’re part vampire from my side, and part Ingenii from your mother, you’re unique, ma petite, neither completely human, nor completely vampire. For all we know your blood could be even more potent than all previous Bloodgifted. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you haven’t aged since your mid-twenties. That can only mean your aging process is closer to that of a vampire than a human—one year in every five hundred.’
I think my brain shut down at that point. Everyone in the room was watching me, concern etched on each of their faces, perhaps wondering how I was going to take all this. But I just stood there, like a deer caught in headlights—unable to move, unable to say anything. First being told my parents weren’t who I thought they were, and now that I would age one year in every five hundred! I didn’t know which was the bigger shocker.
‘Come sit down, my Laura.’ Luc manoeuvred me to the Chesterfield and Judy sat down next to me, her gaze never leaving my face. He went over to his desk, poured out several glasses of brandy and handed one to me.
This was becoming a habit. I’d drunk more of the stuff in the last twelve hours than I had in my entire life.
‘Drink it down, ma petite.’ As I did so, and felt the fiery liquid slide down my throat, he said, ‘We feared if the Brethren community found out about you, they would attempt a kidnapping.’
Judy nodded and said, ‘You see, dear, Eilene and I were pregnant at the same time and we even gave birth on the same day. Sadly though, her baby girl died of SIDS when she was three months old. So your father and I made the heartbreaking decision to place you with them, hoping everyone would believe you to be hers.’
‘Your aunt and uncle agreed to help us and adopted you as their own. It also eased some of their pain,’ my father said. ‘And the Brethren community never found out what we had done. We allowed them to believe you were the one who had died. Only our closest friends were entrusted with the secret.’
‘By placing you with John and Eilene, we believed you would be safe and we could watch over your progress without endangering your life,’ Judy said.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. I had never seen her cry before and that alone moved me, although I was too much in shock to register any emotion.
I looked at my dad again, and his face was white. He didn’t contradict anything they said. He only nodded.
It was all so incredible, yet it was also a relief. Somehow I had always known. Whether it was some kind of sixth sense or perhaps a memory buried so deep it was like a dream, I’ll never know. John and Eilene were not my real parents. Not that they ever treated me indifferently—actually, if anything, they indulged me too much.
‘Laura,’ my dad said, ‘Eilene and I were overjoyed to have you. The doctors told her she couldn’t have any more children after,’ he paused, ‘we lost our own baby girl.’ His voice trailed to a whisper. ‘Judy bringing you to us was like a Godsend. We have loved you as our own child and I hoped this day would never come. You’re my baby girl and always will be.’
My dad’s words broke the dam and I began to cry. ‘Is that why you were so—reluctant for me to—leave home? You were afraid—I’d be taken?’
‘That’s exactly why.’
I closed my eyes and lowered my head into my hands; unable to move or say anything as the double shock of their words hit home. I only looked up when someone gripped my upper arms. It was Judy.
‘Oh, my dear Laura, I had to watch someone else raise you, take care of you, be there when it should have been me.’ She put her arms around me and hugged. I rested my head on her shoulder.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘We’ve been watching over you your whole life, ma petite.’ Luc came to my side as well and stroked the back of my head. ‘When you moved into your unit, I had it watched night and day to make sure you were safe.’
I looked at him incredulously. I was watched? My emotions were in turmoil. Yet how could I be angry when it was all done for my safety, my protection? Would I have done the same thing for my child? Per
haps. Love leads to desperate acts.
‘I wanted to tell you on Friday night… when you and Matthew were there,’ Judy said. ‘If not for your father, I would have cracked. It wasn’t the right time, my dear, dear Laura.’ Her eyes looked sympathetically into mine.
‘I felt there was something, but I just didn’t understand… I mean that’s why I wanted to leave. I sensed there was something between you, but …’
‘We couldn’t mention anything then, ma petite.’
Dad shifted around on his footstool and looked up at me. An anguished expression appeared on his lined face and he looked older. I felt so sorry for him, especially since he had to deal with this on his own. My mum, or rather my Aunt Eilene, was a wonderful mother and I truly loved her, but she had never been good with stressful or emotionally taxing situations. I understood why she stayed at home. This would have been too much for her.
Luc poured me another shot of brandy. I gulped it down. It helped. I would have to remember that in future.
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ I asked them.
‘It would have been too dangerous, ma petite. The Brethren community closely watches the Princeps,’ Luc said. ‘We had to keep you hidden till you came-of-age. We couldn’t take the risk—you’re too precious. And it has proved to be the right decision.’
‘Can you see why we had to part with you even though we tried to remain as close as possible?’ Judy gently brushed the hair from my forehead.
I nodded but it was probably more of an automatic response than agreement with what I’d just heard.
‘Perhaps if I hadn’t fallen so much in love with your mother…’
My parents exchanged a loving glance and Judy placed her hand over his.
‘Luc was my father’s guardian,’ she said. ‘We met, quite accidentally, when I had to drive your grandfather here for a meeting—as he called it. I had to wait to drive him home again. I thought I’d take a walk in the garden and that’s where we met and fell in love. But I was a married woman. Until I got divorced from my first husband, William, Luc and I had to meet in secret.’
‘For several years, actually,’ he said. ‘Then as it came closer to the time for your mother’s coming-of-age, I began to worry in case the Brethren detected we were lovers.’
‘Will and I divorced a year before that, so in essence I was single,’ she said.
I knew she’d been married before and then divorced, but it had all happened long before I was born. Dad mentioned it once or twice. I got the impression he hadn’t liked his brother-in-law.
‘So you see, ma petite, if Judy had a child, which was inevitable after her fiftieth, guess who they’d think was the father? And they’d be right,’ Luc said.
‘When I did fall pregnant with you dear, it was the happiest day of my life,’ she beamed and ran the back of her hand softly down the side of my face.
‘Scariest of mine.’ Luc gave me a broad smile that belied his words. I somehow doubted much would scare him at all.
‘Luc worried if he became my guardian, he’d endanger both me and you,’ Judy said.
‘I turned to the one person I believed would make a perfect guardian and perhaps, an even better Princeps then me. Alec.’
I looked up to where he stood. He hadn’t moved or spoken the entire time, but now he took a sharp breath.
‘He needed a lot of persuasion. Alec didn’t like the idea of being my lover’s guardian. Blood feeding is very intimate.’
His gaze darted between Alec and myself. He must have noticed the interchange between us in the kitchen this morning. How much of what I was beginning to feel for Alec stemmed from the blood feeding and how much from a natural attraction, I had no idea. But this was not the time to be thinking of that.
‘Eventually he gave in.’ Luc glanced up at Alec, whose face remained impassive.
‘After my coming-of-age ceremony,’ Judy said, ‘your father and I met at Alec’s home. Alec barely fed from me before leaving Luc and myself to our privacy. I didn’t fall pregnant again, though.’
‘We married secretly when you were a week old,’ Luc said.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, all of them were watching me. Judy was biting her lower lip. Maybe hoping—what?—that I wouldn’t go into catatonic shock, or start yelling at them or something? Actually, I tried to imagine myself in their place. Who was I to judge? Luc and Judy were my parents and they clearly loved me, and their decision to hide me as a baby had been heart wrenching for them both. I could still see it on Judy’s face. And not knowing my true background probably saved my life as well. I now understood what Alec had meant at our first meeting, and why it was decided I should be kept in blissful ignorance.
I looked at Judy, the woman whom I had known as my aunt and saw another side to her. All these years she’d had to keep silent and stand in the background as another woman held me and let me call her “mum”. How it must have torn her heart. That explained why she kept so close and never missed my birthday or any other important event in my life.
How often must she have cried on Luc’s shoulder as only a mother could, having to stand in the background and watch her sister-in-law sooth my hurts, kiss away childish tears and later not be able to share those special mother and daughter secrets, those sacred moments in life that, once gone, can never be retrieved? It must have been terrible for her—for them both. They’d sacrificed their own joy for my safety.
I took another deep breath, scanned all the faces in the room and lit on Alec. According to my father, he’d never wanted to be Princeps, and according to my mother, he had barely touched her; never taken advantage of her even though as Princeps he had every right. Even more incredibly, he lent them his apartment as a trysting place. This knowledge, coupled with what I had learned of him from Terens last night, made him grow in my estimation. I couldn’t help but admire and respect him.
My gaze shifted to Luc, my vampire Father. He smiled and leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. ‘Laura, ma petite, so much has been asked of you in these last three days, and now, on top of everything, you learn the truth of your parentage. You have had to accept much and done it willingly and graciously. I’m proud of you!’
He opened his arms to me and I went into them. He was my father. If it were possible for vampires to cry, I believe he would have done so as he hugged me tightly and held on as if he’d never let go.
‘I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time,’ he said.
Judy leaned her head on my shoulder and placed her arms around the two of us. I looked down to my dad, sitting patiently despite his long legs on that silly little stool. He smiled up at us, not bothering to hide the tears which slid down his lined face.
I raised my head from Luc’s shoulder. ‘If you think I’m going to be calling you Uncle John from now on,’ I told him, ‘forget it!’
‘No way, Baby. I’m your dad and always will be!’
Then turning to Luc and Judy, I said, ‘I don’t think I can call you “Mum” and “Dad” and “Mother” and “Father” will take some getting used to.’
They laughed—I’m sure out of sheer relief. ‘”Luc” will do, ma petite, but if you can manage to call me “Papa”, I would be overjoyed.’ A broad smile lit his face.
‘I know it will be difficult for you to call me mother, so Judy will be fine,’ she said.
‘You’ve always been more than an aunt in so many ways. It makes sense to me now and explains why I came to you whenever Mum was stressing out.’
‘I could never tell you.’ Fresh tears ran down her cheeks.
‘You’re home now, finally home.’ Luc hugged me tighter.
I glanced over to where Alec stood—silent, unmoving. As our eyes met, he smiled and my heart leapt.
Chapter 17
Into the Garden
LAURA
There was an hour left before Matt was due to pick me up. His shift didn’t end till 8 p.m. I had time to kill—so to speak. Luc a
nd Judy were giving me some breathing space to digest the momentous revelations about my birth.
It had been a day full of surprises and even as shocked as I felt, somehow it made sense. I would never stop loving my adoptive parents, John and Eilene. I could not have been loved any more than if I had been their natural daughter. But now I knew, and any stranger could easily detect the physical resemblance between my birth father and myself—the same oval-shaped face, high cheekbones, slightly full lower lip. Why hadn’t I seen it? Perhaps I did, but my mind had been unwilling to accept it. Pity I didn’t inherit his sunny fair hair, though. My mother gave me her rich copper locks and creamy complexion. Ah well!
Initially they’d both been deeply concerned how I would deal with the double truths about my parentage and my heritage. It’s not everyday a person finds out their biology is the result of an ancient curse and, unlike other fathers, mine happens to be a vampire. Would I accept or reject them? Would I run and hide from it all? I think, overall, my acceptance was as much a surprise to me as it was to them.
I left Luc’s study and made my way down the stairs and through to the other end of the house. There was something I wanted to do, alone. Following Judy’s directions, I walked through the French doors in the downstairs dining room and went in search of the garden where my parents had met and fallen in love.
As I stepped outside, the heady scent of gardenias filled the air and the sky above had begun to change from a deep, azure blue to a dusky apricot. The cicadas were warming up to their nocturnal hum promising a warm night ahead and a hot day tomorrow. A slightly overgrown and untidy sandstone path, whose edges were softened by velvet-eyed pansies and peeping violas, led away from the house. It meandered for several yards before opening up to reveal a lush verdant lawn dotted with young beech trees at one end.
At the other end towered a majestic Morton Bay Fig tree, whose discarded and decaying fruit littered the ground around its massive trunk. At its base, on the browning grass, leaned an ivy-green, wrought-iron garden seat with scrolled arms and delicate leaf tracery. It blended comfortably with its surroundings.
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