Dead After Dark by Sherrilyn Kenyon
She looked conscious, as though she didn't realize she had never revealed even this much of herself to him. "Freya. My name is Freya."
After the Norse goddess of fertility and plenty. That was appropriate. "Freya." He savored it. "Well, Freya, why do you live here alone, without even removing the Holland covers from the furniture and make the villagers think you are a ghost?"
She stiffened and he thought she would push away from him. Then he felt her soften. Maybe it was resignation. Her voice was small, and she did not look at him. "I am a bad person, Drew. I have done bad things. My father required them of me and of my sisters but we did not protest. One sister went mad from doing them. And I never even thought to refuse. I had never been away from my father's . . . house until he sent my remaining sister and me to England. We were doing this thing, and it was dangerous, and it had perhaps eaten at her mind, as well. I told her she must quit. But she wouldn't. And . . . and then I couldn't do it any more. So I stopped. And that meant I didn't support her. She . . . died." She took a shuddering breath.
Her sister had died. Perhaps she had as many scars as he did. He waited for her to go on, just holding her.
"But my job, evil as it was, it was all I knew," she said at last. "If I was not that, who was I? But I knew if I went home I wouldn't have the strength to stand against my father when he wanted me to pick up where I left off. So I did not go home. I came here."
He wouldn't ask her what she did. She was not ready yet to tell him. Not that he thought whatever it was would be evil. He knew she wasn't evil on some deep level he couldn't explain. "And the ghost act was to keep people away."
She nodded. "I needed time to think. And these English, they are so strict with all their rules for what a woman must not do, and how she must be attended always by servants, and receive callers and live just so and I could not stand this. So I lived outside their censure."
"What were you thinking about?" he asked softly, moving a strand of her midnight hair away from her forehead.
"Who I was."
He could understand that. He'd defined himself as a bastard, a servant in Melaphont's stable, a lover of Emily, a prisoner, a pirate, and now a gentleman. He wasn't sure he was any of those, not really. He nodded, and waited.
"I look back on all those months." Her voice was pensive. "I was half-alive. Not thinking, though that was what I came here to do. Not feeling." The silence stretched.
"Does that mean you know who you are now?"
She chuckled. "No. I am more confused than ever. I know only that I was not living."
"Well, that's something."
"Yes." She looked up at him and smiled.
He could not help but swell a bit with pride. He might not be alone in the sensation of joining tonight. But if there was any way forward together there were other things he must know.
"So tell me about the red eyes and the disappearing." He didn't dare mention the wounds at his neck.
"Must you ruin all with your questions?" she snapped, pushing away from him and sitting up. "Can you not just live in the moment?" She looked around, as though she realized where she was for the first time. She got out of bed, gloriously naked, and pulled the heavy draperies closed. "It will be light soon. I must move my things from the other room."
"I'll help," he said. But he felt bleak inside. The bond he'd felt to her had snapped.
He got hold of himself. He couldn't dally with a woman anyway. The revenge he'd desired for fifteen years had to be planned all over again. Melaphont must be his focus, not this tiny woman who had ravished his soul as well as his body tonight. She had secrets she would not share. He had no time to pry them from her. Where was his determination now? He forced himself to think about revenge. Money. Money was what Melaphont cared about. That and his house. Then those things were what he would lose.
By the time she had finished moving her things, it was daylight. She was getting sleepy. The room was over warm, but she couldn't open the draperies to catch a breeze. Drew was sweating and pale. She could not make him suffer here. "Go to your room and get some sleep." She managed a smile.
He examined her face, nodded once. And he left.
She felt bereft. She had trusted him last night with her fragile psyche as well as her body. And she had felt almost . . . reborn. Until he had ruined everything with questions that reminded her what a gulf there really was between them. They were not even the same species, no matter how close they had felt. She lived forever and he but a blink of time. The feeling of being joined spiritually was only the effect of the Tantric exercise she had always made the Aspirants practice. It wasn't real closeness, and certainly not anything else she might name. She had just been surprised by his tenderness.
She could never even tell him she was vampire. It was strictly against the Rules established by her father and the Council of Elders. Even if it wasn't, she couldn't trust him enough for that. He would be appalled, as humans always were.
She slept fitfully until nightfall. No light leaked from his doorway as she went to the kitchen. She heated water for a bath. A roast chicken he must have prepared sat, untouched, on the cutting board with some greens she did not recognize. The English always overcooked their vegetables. She ate standing. The night was hot again. Thunder sounded in the distance. Lightning threw the kitchen into periodic bright relief. She bathed, sorry the soap washed his scent from her body, then dressed and wandered to the front of the house. But there were no lights on in that wing. Where was he? Perhaps the stables.
His horse had his nose stuffed in the manger, and the barn was filled with contented grinding. The creature didn't seem to mind the storm outside as long as he had his oats and hay. There were several bales piled neatly at the end of the barn aisle, and his stall was clean and filled with fresh straw. The place smelled of hay, and saddle soap and oil from the freshly cleaned tack. But there was no sign of Drew. At least she knew he wasn't far. He wouldn't go anywhere without his horse. She realized she'd been worried he might have left.
She wouldn't want that.
She headed back to the house. The skies let loose in pelting rain. Drops bounced off the gravel and flapped in sheets across the stable yard. She was soaked to the skin instantly. Breaking into a run, she made it to the kitchen.
His room. It was the only place left. Had he been sitting there in the dark? She, who had wanted nothing more than to be alone for the last year, without thinking or feeling, was now atwitter to know what he was doing and what he felt. She changed into a wrapper and laid her gown out to dry. Then she stalked purposefully to his room.
"Drew Carlowe," she called, rapping softly.
A hoarse voice said, "Go away."
Was he that angry with her? "I . . . I want to talk to you." He didn't know how much it cost her to say that.
"You c-can't come in." He sounded strange--not like himself at all. "I'm . . . b-busy."
She tried the door. It was locked. "Are you . . . well?" She didn't have the faintest idea what sick people sounded like. She had grown up among vampires and they were never sick.
"I . . . I might have a t-touch of the influenza." He was trying to sound casual. But she could hear the lie in that. Pursing her lips, she twisted the knob until the lock creaked and broke. She pushed her way in.
He was huddled in the dark in a chair in front of the empty fireplace with a blanket round his shoulders. He sounded strange because he was shivering uncontrollably.
"Go away. You m-might catch it."
Not possible of course. Her Companion killed all disease. She was immortal, for God's sake, to all intents and purposes. She hurried over to him, frowning. "I won't catch it. You must have a doctor." One got a doctor for a human who was sick.
"No n-need," he managed.
She ignored him and put a palm on his forehead. He was incredibly hot. "How long have you been like this?" Had she weakened him with a night of sex?
"It got bad t-this afternoon. I'll be all right."
"Let's ge
"I'm all right." But he had to turn away, as a dry, hacking cough took him. She could have carried him bodily, but she didn't want to frighten him with her strength.
"Don't be childish." She practically dragged him to the bed and pushed him up into it.
He was already in his stocking feet. She began to undress him.
"I'm perfectly c-capable," he protested. But he made no move to help her. That frightened her more than anything else. His flesh, wherever she touched it, was burning hot. When she had him naked and tucked under the sheets, she drew up the comforter to quiet his shaking. It didn't help.
"I'm going to get a doctor."
He gave a breathless chuckle. "No one will c-come up here at night."
He was right. Her stupid ghost impersonation had insured that.
"I don't need a doctor. Besides, I expect he's b-busy. I think Barton h-had it yesterday at the tavern. A good p-place to spread it." He dissolved into the cough again.
She came up and stood over him, frowning. "Can you die from this?"
"Only the frail die. I'll just be a little unc-comfortable for a few days. You'd b-better keep your distance, though."
"I told you. I can't get it from you. So," she said briskly, "I'm the perfect sickroom attendant." She drew up a chair. Actually, she felt rather helpless. What could she do but watch him shake with fever?
That's what she did over the next hours. He didn't complain but the racking cough and the shaking seemed to exhaust him. Finally he subsided into a restless sleep. She lit a single candle and pulled over a book he must have been reading. It was a story about a man named Faustus. She could barely concentrate on the words. Was this what it was like to be human, prey to every sickness, every wound? Her only consolation was that it was only uncomfortable. He wasn't in any real danger.
He broke out in a sweat halfway through the night. That was a good sign, wasn't it? She peeled off the comforter and found the bedclothes soaked. So she went down to the kitchen and brought up several pitchers of water and cloths.
When she returned he appeared to be awake. His eyes were slitted, but they were open. Still, he was nearly insensible. She pulled back the sheet and poured her water in the room's washbasin. The thunderstorm appeared to have broken the unseasonable hot spell. She opened the windows to the night air, which now held the hint of autumn September should bring. Then she wetted a cloth and wiped him down.
"Better?" she asked when she was done.
He roused himself. "Thank you," he murmured. "You are kind."
She touched his forehead to push back his soaked hair and he flinched. "What's wrong?" This man had undergone torture. What could make him flinch?
He tried to smile. "Headache." He squinted against the dim candlelight. "I feel like I've been put on the rack. Hell, my hair hurts."
"What does this mean?" she asked, alarmed.
"It means I have influenza." His eyes closed. "It will pass soon."
It didn't. She added blankets when he was shaking, and left him naked to the air as he broke into a sweat. She tried to cool him by wiping him down with a damp cloth periodically, but always he was hot to the touch. Morning came and she closed the draperies against the sun. But the fever wouldn't let him go. He had periods of insensibility. You couldn't call it sleep. He refused all food though she made him drink water. He must replace the sweat he was losing. He roused himself to use the chamber pot, though infrequently.
In the late afternoon he opened his eyes.
"How are you?"
He seemed to consider. Then his eyes opened wide. "Damn!" he whispered. "Darley." He struggled up on one elbow and pulled at the covers. She pushed him back down.
"I'll feed him. Only tell me what to give him."
He sighed. "Two flakes of hay and two scoops of oats."
She turned to the door.
"And water."
"Of course." She smiled. "I'll be back shortly."
By the second night, she had begun to worry. He had said a few days. Surely a few days included time on the mend, as well. So shouldn't he be getting better? He seemed to be getting worse. She had to steady him to use the chamber pot at all. His lips were cracked and dry, his eyes glazed and overbright. He still flinched at her touch. And always he was hot.
She laid him back in the bed near morning.
"You're good to me," he murmured. There was a softness in his eyes behind the fever.
"Anyone would help you."
He shook his head ever so slightly. "You're a generous person."
"No one has ever called me that."
"Then they didn't know you . . ." He closed his eyes.
That startled her. Perhaps no one did know her. She had been an anonymous extension of her father at Mirso Monastery. She had the benefit of his position. He was the Eldest, after all. No one dared give her offense. But no one thought of her as anything but his daughter, either. She had always depended on him. He knew everything, having lived so long. And he always told her what to do.
But here she was on her own. And she didn't know what to do for Drew.
A doctor would know. She'd get a doctor up here today, no matter that Drew said he didn't need one, if it were the last thing she did.
The village street was deserted, though it was still an hour to sunset. Freya had bundled up in her hooded cape, with gloves and half-boots to protect her from the sun. Still its stinging needles reached her, even through the lined wool. She lifted the hood and squinted around. Where was she going to find the doctor? Actually, where was everybody?
A sign creaked back and forth in the wind rising on the threat of sunset. GOOSE AND GANDER it said. A tavern. Drew thought he had caught this influenza there.
She pushed in through the doors, grateful for the refuge from the sun, and slipped back her hood. The tavern was deserted except for one old man in the corner. Well, that was more people than she had seen anywhere else.
He studied her over an empty glass.
"Excuse me, sir," she said. "Can you tell me where I might find a doctor?"
He rose and went to pull another pint for himself. "I expect he's up to The Maples."
Freya was fascinated with very old humans. After all, her kind stopped aging at maturity. She had never seen an old person until she left Mirso last year. The wrinkles, the rheumy eyes, the joints she could actually hear creaking and cracking, all held a dreadful attraction. What would it be like to feel death approach as your body failed? This was the fate that waited for Drew.
"Which way is this Maples? I need the doctor quickly."
"Yer foreign, ain't ye?" he asked, without answering her question.
Freya went wary. These English were quite provincial. They did not take easily to anything strange. "I am from Transylvania." He would never know where that was, or what it might mean.
"That would be where th' Carpathian Mountains are, I'd 'azard. Would ye like a pint? It's on th' 'ouse at th' moment, since Barton's dead."
She shook her head. Wait! Drew said he caught this influenza from Barton. She sucked in a breath. "Was this Barton old like you?"
The old man shook his head, sighing. " 'Earty as a 'orse one day, stiff as a board th' next. Fever took 'im."
Freya felt her heart contract. Drew was wrong. He could die from this sickness. "Please, I must have a doctor."
"Someone got th' influenza? This is a bad bout, certain." He sat back down. " 'Alf the county's down with it."
How could he be so calm? "Yes, yes," she said, sitting across from him, leaning forward. She must make him understand the urgency. "Mr. Drew Carlowe has this influenza."
"I thought so. Yer th' ghost, ain't ye?"
She went still. Then she mustered a laugh. "Do not be nonsensical." She touched his hand. The skin was paper-thin. "Quite corporeal, I assure you."
His pale blue eyes were quizzical. "Then ye've been playing ghost. Naughty girl."
She sighed. Maybe the truth would make him tell her
"Th' bites?"
Oh, dear. "Some were more stubborn than others. I pricked them with a knife point."
He pressed his mouth together and nodded. "Th' disappearing?"
"People see what they want to see. And I wore a white dress that seemed to float."
"Red eyes?"
She shrugged and tried to look confused. "Did they say I had red eyes?"
He sipped his ale. "Must 'ave been a shock when Carlowe bought th' place."
"Yes, especially since I own it."
"Ahhh, th' absent landlord. Or 'is daughter. Guess Melaphont got a little overanxious."
"He is a greedy man, this Melaphont." She frowned. "And he has been very bad to Mr. Carlowe." She was going to take care of Melaphont for Drew, after Drew was well again. She'd start by making him give Drew's money back for the house. After that . . .
"He's about to get his due, I expect."
She couldn't spend any more time here. "Please, please tell me how to get to this Maples."
"I doubt th' quack'll come. Melaphont's an important man around 'ere." She glared at him. He sighed. "Th' road turns up into the 'ills three miles past Ashland. It's marked."
"Thank you, thank you, sir." She rose. "What is your name, if I may ask?"
" 'Enley."
"Mr. Enley, I hope you do not catch this influenza. I would not wish you to die."
He looked surprised. "Thankee, young lady. I would not wish it, either."
She curtsied in the English fashion and rushed from the room, pulling up her hood, then hurried behind the tavern, drew her power. She must get to The Maples.
The dusk was settling in as she materialized in the wood at the edge of the road to The Maples. She threw back her hood, freed of the itching pain of the sun at last. The doctor had to come, though it was growing dark, even though he thought Ashland was haunted. She could not compel him because she needed his medical judgment and under compulsion there could be no judgment or creativity. She would just tell him it was she who haunted it, as she had told Henley. He had to come. She stepped out onto the road.
The Maples turned out to be even larger than Ashland, with twenty chimneys poking up from a late-sixteenth-century facade of stark gray stone. It stood across a man-made lake, lights blazing from every window, a solid vision of wealth and power. On one side, a new wing rose, half complete. Its style did not match the rest of the house. Melaphont had no taste. She hurried over a bridge that crossed a stream that fed the lake and crunched up a wide gravel drive to the portico. Up shallow steps, she took the great knocker and banged on the door.