Susan Squires - [Companion Vampires 0]

by The Companion

  “I . . . I failed you. Tell me how.”

  He opened the eye she could see, and it was fierce with hatred. “I failed.”

  “But I don’t think so,” Beth persisted. “I am definitely not a virgin anymore.”

  At that, he chewed his lip and sat up, his wavy hair cascading to his shoulders once again. “Are . . . are you all right?”

  “Yes.” Beth did not quite know what to say. She was fairly sure he had not experienced the pleasure that she had known tonight. Unless she had missed it altogether. But then he would not be so miserable, would he?

  “Did, did it hurt?” he asked.

  “A little. But the rest of it was nice,” she said earnestly. “Very nice. Did you . . . ?”

  He shook his head.

  “We could try again.” She hated sounding tentative, but she knew so little.

  “The result would be the same,” he growled. “I’m afraid you have married a eunuch, my dear.” His face was so closed and hard she hardly recognized it. “My apologies.”

  He did not give her time to reply but pushed out of bed, grabbed his clothing from the floor, and disappeared into the dressing room. He did not come out again.

  Nineteen

  Beth endured a long and sleepless night, wondering what was best to do about what had happened and wishing she had someone to advise her. He had called himself a eunuch. But she had met many eunuchs in Africa, usually black slaves of Muslim owners, and she knew that eunuchs had all or parts of their male equipment removed by a blade. They did not get erections, even if they were lucky enough to retain the part that got erections, which most of them weren’t. White slaves had only their testicles cut off. But she had felt his sac last night and it seemed full to bursting. So he was not a eunuch, and he must know that, too.

  Was it a figure of speech? He meant he could not do it anymore, but not necessarily due to a physical condition. It wasn’t that he found her so unattractive that he could not bear to consummate their marriage. He had wanted to lie with her at first. She was sure of it.

  In the deep of the night with the house quiet, she remembered what he had implied about his experience with Asharti. Even then, Beth had guessed that the vampire woman forced him somehow to sexual acts he found distasteful. Were the scars of that experience preventing him from taking his pleasure now? Beth grew more certain as the sky promised dawn. It was Asharti and what she had done to Ian that stood between them. The Countess said that Asharti had damaged Ian. She thought Beth could help. But how? The mere fact that she had seen his failure might prevent him caring for her. She would give up that part of married life wholly, even though it had been wonderful to lie in his arms, if only it would not poison all their friendship.

  A servant roused her quite early in the morning with a cup of chocolate and a scone and the news that the carriage was waiting and that the maids had packed her trunks for the journey to Portsmouth. She must have slept in the hour before dawn.

  Beth gulped her chocolate, washed herself from the basin, and dressed hastily in the Pomona green sarcenet traveling costume left out for her. It was decorated with darker green braid, with hunter half boots and a matching pelisse. He had even provided a matching knit reticule, as well as a fetching military-style beaver hat with a dashing pheasant’s feather.

  She hurried down, regretting she was late, though it was so early. Why hadn’t the servants woken her earlier? She might have had a breakfast with him. She might have been able to say . . . what? What was there to say?

  There was no time to have a word with the Countess, either, for her hostess was not yet risen, though what Beth would have dared reveal she did not know. She dashed into the breakfast room for tea and toast, to find Major Ware pacing there.

  “Major!” she exclaimed, startled.

  The Major bowed. “Mrs. Rufford, a word if you please.”

  “Of course,” Beth murmured, and forced herself to quiet. What could the Major want?

  The man’s pale blue eyes blinked repeatedly. His shoulders were stiff with disapproval. “Rufford has engaged his brother Stanbridge and me to . . . to ensure that the settlements he drew up are executed in your favor in case . . . in case his task does not go . . . well.”

  “He contacted you? Last night?”

  “Send us word and one of us will hasten to your side and provide you escort home. He has provided handsomely for you.”

  “You don’t think he’s coming back, do you?”

  “As he said, there is a chance. There is always a chance.” Ware’s eyes did not agree. He gathered himself. “I cannot persuade him to leave you in England. How can he be so selfish? I ask you now to stay behind.”

  Beth was shaken, but she dared not show it. “He wants to take me no more than you want him to do so. But he cannot do it without me. You have too little faith in him. He will prevail.”

  “I have faith in his courage,” the Major said, going pale. “He knows what he faces and yet he goes. He will not run shy.”

  “No, he will not. Neither will I. I thank you for your kindness, Major. I must go now.” The carriage drew into the graveled drive just visible outside the breakfast parlor.

  The Major sighed and followed as she rose. Her boot heels clicked on the marble of the foyer. He handed her into the carriage laden with trunks. She had hoped Ian would unburden himself to her during the long journey to Portsmouth, but she found she was to go alone and he to follow after the sun had set. That meant they could have spent the day together inside a darkened room if he had wished it. He did not. Major Ware saluted and the carriage pulled away.

  The drivers and outriders took the greatest care of her. But the journey was most miserable. She was installed at an inn, knowing she would not see her husband until near dawn.

  He came. His face had not softened. They were whisked to the ship by a small launch in the hour before sunrise with hardly a word between them. This time the boat was a cutter in the service of His Majesty, arranged, apparently, by Major Ware’s friends at Whitehall.

  “Weather’s like to be foul this time of year, so it should give us some ripping good wind once we make it out of the Channel. I’ll wager we make more than two hundred miles a day.” The Captain, whose name was, regrettably, Stilton, was a lanky youth who had taken a cutter as command rather than be put ashore now that the Royal Navy was standing down with Bonaparte’s defeat. The ship was ever so much tidier than the merchantman they had last sailed in. The bright red coats of the marines and the navy blue of the officers’ uniforms made a pretty show. “You will find your cabins aft with mine,” the Captain added. “We have moved the bulkhead a bit. There ain’t much room in a cutter,” he apologized, “but room is what you sacrifice for speed.”

  “A welcome sacrifice,” Ian remarked.

  Beth for her part could not but focus on the plural of the word cabin. Sure enough, when a Lieutenant showed them to their berths, there were two, and it became clear that they were not to share a bed. She stole a glance to Ian’s face, but it was as closed as ever.

  “What?” she asked, realizing she had missed some question. “Oh, just the small one and the little valise. The others can be stowed in the hold.”

  She unpacked, used to the cramped quarters. Even she had to bend her head. She sat on her bed in the growing light, alone. When she finally went on deck, the sailors were very courteous. She made excuses for her husband’s sun sickness and promised she would not be a bother, even as the cutter rolled out into the open Channel and set to sea.

  She spent the blustery day in her cabin, working out just which scrolls would be useful and storing the rest, waiting for sunset. She heard him go on deck. He did not stop at her cabin.

  She came up behind him in the fading light on the leeward rail opposite the Captain’s private territory at the windward side and touched his arm. Ian straightened at her touch as though she had slapped him. Beth was hurt, but she said in a low voice, “The Captain promises ten days to Casablanca.”

 
; “I could wish for less.”

  “I will need your help to fix the likely location of Kivala.”

  He nodded again and turned away. “Let us hope we can find it.”

  “Surely we can go back in time,” she said, trying not to plead, “to when we were just friends. We might even find time for a game of chess.”

  He glanced back at her. The pain in his eyes was the equal of any she had ever seen there.

  “Is that so much to ask?” She knew her voice did not have the confidence she wanted.

  “No. It is little enough. That may be why it is so difficult.” He pushed himself off the rail. “Let us ask the Captain to use his dining table for our calculations until supper.”

  They pored over maps. Beth questioned Ian most particularly. After Kivala, Asharti had gone south and west to Marrakech. He had staggered east to El Golea. “The spine of the earth must be in the Atlas Mountains,” she said, sitting back. “It is the only range between the two.”

  Ian leaned over the chart. “So the sandstone washes are in this diagonal.” He sighed. “It must run for hundreds of miles.”

  “Do you remember how long you traveled northeast?”

  He chewed those lovely lips. “Weeks.” He shook his head, despairing. “I wasn’t in great shape at that point.”

  Beth thought for a moment. “You said there was an oasis two days out from Kivala.”

  He nodded. “It was the only one for many miles, according to Fedeyah.”

  She pulled the chart close and got out the Captain’s magnifier. “Did you hear the name?”

  He hung his head and rubbed his temples. “Maybe . . . I don’t know.”

  She bent over the chart, muttering. “The two peaks would have to be the tallest. That means the Middle Atlas Range. Atlas el Kebir. Stop me if these sound familiar . . . Haasi Zegdou . . . Haasi Chafaia . . . Haasi Ghemiles . . .” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  He shook his head. “It’s no use. There were so many. . . .” He looked guilty and ashamed.

  “And you were weak and in pain,” she said with some aspersion, “so you might just want to forgive yourself a little. Now just a few more. You never know. Haasi Fokra . . . Haasi—”

  “Wait. Haasi Fokra!”

  “Is that it?” She watched him stare into space.

  A grin grew on those lips. “Yes. Yes! I remember. She and Fedeyah . . .” He trailed off.

  “Very well then.” She smiled, cutting off his other memories. “Haasi Fokra. Our first destination.” They exchanged their first open look since the Countess’s blue bedroom. Beth found it electrifying.

  “We are on our way,” he said. Suddenly he bent over the chart. “Show me.”

  She pointed. He marked El Golea and then Algiers with a finger and studied the distance. “It seemed so much farther. We wandered in the desert looking for it for almost two years.”

  “You must have tried here, in the desert under these mountains. See how far south?”

  “ ‘Mouydir,’ ” he read. “Perhaps. I do remember an oasis called In Salah.” He pointed to other mountains in the middle of the great desert. “And here—Bir al-Kasib.”

  “It looks like she was exploring washes at the base of mountains. She must have known to look for terrain similar to that around Petra. The sandstone washes lie between mountains and the desert, cut by spring runoff.”

  He sat back, staring at the map. “It makes it all seem so real, seeing it on a map like this.”

  “It must have seemed too real at the time, I should think.” She was in dangerous territory.

  “Perhaps it is better to think it a nightmare than to believe such things can really happen, that such evil lives in the world unchecked.”

  “Not unchecked . . .” she whispered.

  They disembarked at Casablanca, only a week out of Portsmouth. They planned to press straight through the mountains into the desert by camel caravan as soon as they were provisioned, traveling by night. Ian knew they would have to be discreet in Casablanca. It was now controlled by Berbers in Asharti’s service. The first night there, Ian saw two of her made vampires. Actually, he smelled them first—that distinctive, almost cinnamon smell, made more pronounced by the fact that these particular two did not see the value of frequent baths. Ian melted into the darkness of the streets and began bathing twice a day if he could manage it. The servants at their lodgings thought him mad. But better their attention than Asharti’s followers.

  The days in Casablanca were frantic ones. Ian spent nights practicing his new skills of mind control and relocation. He worked for hours on end with the heavy cutlass given him by Captain Stilton, very different from the foils he had practiced with some lifetime ago. He fed frequently in little sips, lest his hunger draw him into indiscretions. He kept himself as remote as Beth would let him. His failure on his wedding night should have made all sexual activity repellent, but it did not. He found Beth’s presence continually disturbing. Several times he had had to turn away from her lest she see his erection. That was the torment of it all. He wanted her more than ever. Her soft voice was torture. Seeing the swell of her breasts brought almost physical pain, and any touch had an instant and disastrous effect. It was only the consummation of his carnal need that was impossible. His failure did not quench the fire at all.

  His worst regret was that he failed Beth. A woman who wanted so much from life should not be denied this most elemental aspect of it. It tortured him that he caused her to suffer. Not only was she shackled to a monster, but one who could not fill her womanly needs. She could never love a man like that. He saw that clearly, now that he knew how much she reveled in relations between men and women. The fact that she tried to bridge his distance with her friendship only made him regret the more. He had, somewhere down deep, wanted her to love him. She had accepted what he was. He had thought that perhaps . . . but all that was gone. She offered friendship. He would try to provide it.

  He had been thinking about his failure incessantly, of course. He was amazed and touched by her giving nature, how much she enjoyed the lovemaking on their wedding night. It occurred to him that Beth’s dawning sensuality had been part of his problem. Asharti defined herself through sexuality and power over others. When Beth grew even a little more confident in her sexuality, Asharti had come washing over him and ruined all. Didn’t every man dream of a wife who enjoyed the act of love? If he could only share that with her, might she not love him?

  Damn Asharti! It was his slavery to her that had unmanned him! The fear he had always felt of her turned to anger and boiled in his belly. It was a larger version of the flame that had blossomed in his heart when he decided he must face her. Her casual evil had done this thing to him, to Beth, to the world. The insouciance was what angered him most. Everyone in the world was there to be used by her. She had no conscience.

  The anger continued to burn in him even through his growing doubt that he would be able to best her. She had probably taken blood of the Old One many times by now. And how would he convince the Old One to share blood, even once, with him? Ian’s only hope was that what the Old One had gotten of Asharti was not what he had counted on—a thin hope at best.

  Beth seemed to have unlimited faith in him. He could not share his doubts. What he could tell her was how amazed he was at her competence. In Casablanca, Ian could only marvel at his new wife. He had given her carte blanche with his bankers and she used it. Each evening she would account for her daylight hours with casual references to contacts made with her father’s old suppliers, contracts sealed, list items completed. And what lists! She had thought of everything. She spoke Arabic and the Berber dialects. She drove a daunting bargain. And she hardly counted these skills at any worth. Beth controlled their success now. Ian wished that control did not make him feel uneasy. She was an odd combination of innocence and practical confidence. He was comfortable with neither. He watched her sometimes as she slept. He wanted so to protect her from all ugliness in the world, including his own. She was
his responsibility, no matter that she led their expedition.

  “I have news, Ian,” she said, coming into their simple rooms as dusk fell ten days after their arrival in Casablanca. She was swathed in russet-colored fabric with a tiny gold geometric border. Across her forehead lay the gold chain hung with tiny moons and stars he had bought her last night at the bazaar after they finished an exotic dinner of a dozen courses one ate with one’s hands. Ian had been grateful for the napkin over his lap as she fed him succulent bits of an aubergine paste with her fingers. Her skin had fairly glowed in the candlelight. “The caravan awaits us on the outskirts of the city. We can be off.”

  “Tonight?” he asked, surprised. He was oiling the mechanisms on his two pistols.

  “As you like.” She opened the door and motioned to a servant who carried a large soft package and a long wrapped tube and dragged a crate across the doorsill. “I’m afraid I may not be quite as good at sizes as you were.” She dismissed the servant.

  He ripped the soft package and found several striped burnooses, some soft leather boots, and a hip-length leather jacket lined with fleece. “For the mountain passes,” she murmured.

  He grinned. “Excellent!” Then he laid back the paper of the long package to reveal a metal scabbard from which a finely wrought hilt protruded. He looked up at her.

  “I hope this one is better than the cutlass Captain Stilton gave you,” she deprecated.

  The slither of metal on metal filled the room as he took the sword from its sheath. The blade gleamed silver in the light of the lamps. The hilt balanced in his hand. It was a wonder of craftsmanship. “Thank you,” he said simply. “You are a marvel.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, dismissing his praise. “Pistols carry only two shots. You need something substantial to defend yourself when they are empty. Open the crate.”

  Ian pulled open the crate with his bare hands almost without effort. That always surprised him, even still. He glanced to Beth expecting dismay, but she only said, “Thank goodness. I forgot to tell the boy we needed a crowbar.”