Borne in Blood (24 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Occult & Supernatural, #Guardian and Ward, #Vampires, #Nobility, #blood, #Paramours, #Switzerland
“He will provide for them.”
“Money and lands, yes they are all very well, but that will not be what they seek most: context will be gone.” He held Hero’s gaze with his own. “It may be tempting to trust to the next world rather than this one, but—”
“How can you say that to me?” she demanded. “I have wanted to have my children with me, but my father-in-law has prevented it.”
“Your father-in-law has laid down conditions he thinks are reasonable. You have to fulfill his conditions and he will have no cause to keep your children from you.”
“The probate court awarded Fridhold’s children to his father’s care in lieu of Fridhold having made a Will, as they always do. He didn’t know he would die so young, and the court upheld his father’s claim without a hearing. How can I hope to gain the approval of the magistrates? The probate marshall makes that impossible.” The way she asked made it clear that she had mulled over this question many times.
“You must have an acceptable residence, proper servants, and an income high enough to keep your children in a manner appropriate to their rank, or so the document you showed me stipulated. Have I erred in my summation?”
Hero shook her head. “Which my father-in-law knows is impossible. Were I in a position to live with my father, although he has some means, the court would not approve, nor would my father.”
Ragoczy offered a one-sided smile. “That will change as soon as the castle above Zemmer is ready for its occupants. You said you liked it when we visited it on the Amsterdam trip. The Graf will not be able to object to your receiving your sons for a part of every year so long as you have land, a staff, and the income from the land to provide for your sons and yourself.” He saw her take this in, astonishment mixed with dubiety as she grasped what he was telling her.
“You said I could live there, and my children, too,” she said, picking her words with care. “I thought you intended to reside there, as well. That I would be your guest.”
“No doubt I will visit, from time to time,” he said. “But the castle should suit you and your sons most satisfactorily.”
She blinked twice, not only in surprise but to keep from crying again. “You said nothing about making it mine.”
“You will be my resident guardian of the estate, and as such you may live in it as your home for as long as it suits you.”
“But it will be yours,” she said, looking uncertain again.
“Yes. I will pay the staff and the maintenance, and I will deal with any taxes that may be imposed. You do not want to undertake such costs yourself, do you?” He saw understanding dawn in her eyes. “A widow owning an estate has little to protect her, but a widow managing an estate is not so vulnerable.”
“I never thought about that,” she said in a measured tone as she assessed what he had told her. “You’re right, of course. No one should know that better than I.”
“I will have Kreuzbach draw up a binding agreement that will satisfy any court that you have the security they demand for you to have at least partial domestic custody of your own children.” He gave her time to sort this out. “They cannot expect you to have more than that to justify restoring your family to you.”
“How do you propose to present this to the court?” She was becoming interested now, aware that he had the position and fortune to do exactly what he described.
“I thought I would present it to your father-in-law first,” he said. “When we visit him.”
“And he will deny you,” she said with heavy conviction.
“Perhaps. But I can be persuasive. He will have to listen to me because we are of equal rank, if for no other reason.”
Hero laughed harshly. “One nobleman to another, you mean.”
Unfazed by her contempt, he said, “I can require his attention as you cannot.” He moved closer to her, leaning forward in the chair.
She shook her head, then started to cry again. “I hate feeling so helpless,” she exclaimed as she sobbed.
“That is why you may depend upon me. I know you are not helpless, just stymied.” He would have liked to take her hand, but realized she would see the gesture as weakening her, so he only said, “You have not had an ally to turn to for many years.”
“Are you trying to make up for that? Or are you trying to prove something to Madelaine de Montalia, and this is your opportunity to do so?” As soon as she said the name, she was sure she should not have, but she could not stop speaking. Letting go of her arms, she gathered her hands together. “I … Comte …”
“I have nothing to prove to Madelaine,” he said softly. “Nor to you. You know what I am and how I live, and what I know because of it. Scratch and claw as you will, I know what you are because I know your blood, the truest part of your self. It will take more than harsh accusations to drive me away once we have touched.”
She glowered at him. “Perhaps I have changed.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps some part of your character is newly come to light, but none of that can alter what I know of you.” He made himself more comfortable. “You cannot reprove me with Madelaine’s name, or that of anyone I have loved, not even your own.” This, he knew, was not entirely accurate, for there was always Csimenae, who might still be hidden away in the fastness of the Pyrenees.
“Did you intend from the first that we should be lovers?” Her voice hardened.
“No, I did not,” said Ragoczy. “Madelaine wrote to tell me that you had been treated badly by your family and needed an ally, something she could not do herself from the Ottoman Empire.”
“So keeping me is a favor to her?” she asked, ending with a harsh laugh. “You indulge her through me.”
“No; she sympathized with your predicament, as I know she told you before she proposed that she put me in contact with you.” He set his concern aside and continued. “She provided our introduction. If she had not wanted us to meet, she chose a strange way to accomplish that goal.”
“So she threw me to you?” Hero asked, aghast at herself for so callous a suggestion.
“No—and well you know it.”
She wept more determinedly now, disgusted at all she had done and said since she summoned him to her chamber that evening. “Why am I behaving so … so shabbily?” she asked of the bolster.
“It is the way in which you come to terms with your grief,” said Ragoczy. “You lash out.”
“But at you? At Madelaine de Montalia?”
“You would lash out at Annamaria, if you could, for leaving you, as Fridhold left you,” said Ragoczy, so kindly and with such empathy that she stopped weeping to stare at him. “I felt the same consuming anger for nearly five centuries, and I made myself the thing I most despised. Gradually Egypt changed that, but it was not easily done.”
Hero used the corner of her sheet to wipe her eyes dry. “Madame de Montalia—I didn’t slight her, not truly.”
“Of course not,” said Ragoczy, and got up from the chair. “You will want to rest, to recover yourself.” He went to the side of the bed and bent to kiss her forehead. “Sleep well. We will talk more in a day or two—when you are ready.”
She took hold of the revers of his dressing-gown. “I apologize, Comte. From the bottom of my heart.”
“You need not,” he said, making no attempt to disengage her hands. “Think of all you have said tonight as lancing a boil. Once you let out the poison, you will be able to heal.”
“A boil!” She stiffened. “My grief is nothing like that.”
“It will not be any longer,” he assured her, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder. “But you might have let it become one. As it is, you are going to improve through the winter, and that will make your meeting with your father-in-law less arduous than it would have been otherwise.”
“And I am expected to be grateful for your actions?” Hero demanded, then grabbed his hand. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I’m behaving so dreadfully. I wish I knew what makes me—”
He lifted her hand, opened it, and kissed the palm. “You know why you struggle—you’ve told me. It is hard for you to take this on, and I know you will need time to come to terms with your emotions.” His dark eyes rested on her amber-brown ones. “You are a capable and intelligent woman, Hero, but at present you are locked in self-condemnation.”
She nodded, her face somber as she listened. “Comte—”
“I know you want to gather your sons around you and give yourself to them and to enshrining the memory of Annamaria, but that is unlikely to happen.” He waited while she considered this, then went on. “You are a most resourceful woman, and able to shoulder burdens many another would not. But that does not mean you must mourn for all of your family, or believe you have failed if their grief is not equal to your own.”
“That was never a question,” she protested.
“No?” He stroked her hair. “Dear Hero, you have taken on the unhappiness and sorrow of others since you were a child. Did you not deal with all the arrangements when your mother died, so that your father could heal himself through work?”
She looked perplexed. “That was what was needed.”
“You took it on,” he said, and let her pull him down beside her on the bed. “You never asked for so much as a single hour for yourself, did you?”
“I didn’t need an hour to myself,” she said, her voice brittle.
“No; you needed days and weeks to restore your frame of mind,” he said, continuing before she could argue the point. “Your father approved of what you did, and that, you decided, was all you required. But that was not true then any more than it is true now.”
“Someone had to help my father. He had work that had to be done, and he was filled with sadness for my mother. They had been married sixteen years.” Her sigh quivered.
“And you did well by her memory,” said Ragoczy, “little though you may think so.”
Hero leaned against his arm. “I could have done so much more,” she whispered. “I should have done more—then and now.”
“No one but you thinks the less of you for what you have done.” He could not see her face, but the tension in her body revealed much to him.
“I haven’t thanked you for putting the household into half-mourning. That was very kind of you.” She moved so she could look directly at him. “Don’t despise me for my weaknesses, Comte, I beg you.”
“How could I despise you.” He took her face in his hands. “I love you; you are willing to be loved, at least most of the time, and that banishes all contempt.”
She moved toward the kiss he offered, and this time she did not feel that the pleasure that sparked within her was perfidious, aspersing her child’s memory. There was solace in his hands and anodyne in his presence: why had she not noticed before? Why had she refused him when he could provide consolation? In spite of all she had said, he had remained steadfast. She wrapped her arms around him, and indulged herself in his kisses. As she felt her unexpected passion well, she broke away from him long enough to ask, “You will stay with me, won’t you?” She very nearly held her breath waiting for his answer.
His promise was like the low strings on the guitar which he played so well, and his ardor all she could wish for. “As long as you like,” he told her.
Text of a letter from Augustus Kleinerhoff in Sacre-Sang, to Egmond Talbot Lindenblatt, Magistrate, in Yvoire, Switzerland; dictated to the clerk of the court in Yvoire and carried by him from Sacre-Sang to Yvoire.
To the most excellent Magistrate, Egmond T. Lindenblatt, sitting in Yvoire, the greetings of head-man of Sacre-Sang, Augustus Kleinerhoff, on this, the 20
th
day of November, 1817,
th
day of November, 1817,
My dear Magistrate,
In regard to your inquiries concerning the various incursions experienced in and around this village, it is my duty to report to you that we here have established a patrol made up of local men and their guard-dogs, the better to deal with the highwaymen and thieves who have taken to preying upon travelers and villagers alike. We have sentries in the village square every hour of the day and night, in groups of three men and a dog, so that if any miscreants are discovered, the alarm may be given without exposing the sentries to danger. This is just a first step, but it does initiate our determination to end the reign of lawlessness that has marked our region for the last year.
With two hard winters behind us, we are beginning to hope for a bountiful spring and harvest this year, and therefore it is essential, in my opinion, that we prepare to defend our fields, our farms, our roads, and our markets from those who would plunder them. I have ordered that all farmers keep at least two guard-dogs on their properties, on long chains so that they will not run wild and damage crops and livestock themselves. Most of the farmers of Sacre-Sang are willing to try this in the hope that the worst depredations will be averted.
It is generally agreed that the culprits are a company of former soldiers who have turned to outlawry now that the army life is no longer possible for them. This is the most likely explanation for the problems we endure. Some believe that this company is in the pay of one or more of the major land-holders in the area, and they point from one noble to another. Baron d’Eaueternel is one who is mentioned in this regard because he supported Napoleon but escaped being punished for the support he provided, and Comte Franciscus because he is a foreigner. Neither man has been proven to have any association with these thieves, but the rumors continue.
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