History of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Castle Series Book 4) (28 page)

Chapter 38

Jessie

“So you’re not fiddling with the maid,” Daniel said with a scoff as he sauntered into the library where I sat in a club chair, reading some of Sir Walter Scott’s poetry. “I can’t believe I was fool enough to have believed you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, glancing up at him from over my book and doing my best not to be baited by my brother. I had been courting Colette for several weeks and I was always careful to ensure that my family knew as little as possible about my activities. Everyone but Emily, of course. She was my secret go-between and she thoroughly approved of where I had given my heart.

“I followed you the other night,” he told me, perching himself on the arm of a chair. “I knew you’d been sneaking out of the house, so I followed you. And guess where you went?”

I gave him a cool look, closing my book in the process. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“You know damn well where you went.” he said. “You flew directly over to that little tramp’s house. I saw you with your arms around each other.”

My temper ignited immediately when my brother referred to Colette as a tramp. She was nothing of the sort and I instantly felt compelled to defend her honor. But I knew that was what Daniel was expecting. “What’s it to you?” I asked, keeping my voice in check.

“If you’re feeling the urge to dip your wick, then find some foolish young thing who doesn’t know where you live,” he told me. “Not one that works under the very roof of our home.”

I wanted to strike him. I could feel the urge down to my fingertips. But what purpose would that serve? That would only convince Daniel that he was justified in his outrage. “You’re right,” I said, coolly. “She was a foolish choice.”

Daniel was about to argue with me, but then he processed my words. “So you’ll end things with her?”

I nodded a few times. “I shall give it some thought. It’s a matter that would have to be handled with some delicacy.”

My brother gave me a flat look. “Just make sure that it’s handled,” he said. “Or I’ll be forced to discuss this with…” and there he paused. I knew he had meant to say Grandfather, but that was no longer an option.

“Mother,” I supplied for him. “You’ll be forced to discuss this with our mother.”

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled,” he said, his voice at its most droll.

I somehow doubted Mother would have the same reaction as her eldest son, but I said nothing. It was better for Daniel to think he had won. “If you feel the need to share this information with her, then let’s do it now,” I said, making a show of rising from my chair. “We might as well get this all out in the open.”

“Forget it,” he said, getting to his feet and preparing to stalk out of the room. “I don’t want to worry her with such pointless trivia. Just make sure you end things with that foolish, little mortal. You should go to New York and find yourself a proper vampiress to love, if you’re feeling the need for a romantic liaison.”

“That’s good advice,” I told him. “It’s something I’ll keep in mind.”

Daniel left, feeling satisfied that he had the upper hand. But nothing he could do or say would ever change the way I felt about Colette. Our very souls were drawn to each other. There was nothing that could drive us apart, even with our apparently insurmountable differences. Some things were meant to be.”

But Daniel’s actions did cause me concern. I didn’t want Colette to be exposed to the dangers of the vampire world. She didn’t want to hear about my family’s curse, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t arm her in some other way. I immediately flew to Main Street in Tiburon and gazed through the window of Houghton’s, the local jewelry shop. One side of the window displayed gold jewelry and the other half showed the silver items for sale. I spied a sterling silver locket in the shape of a heart. It was perfect for my plans.

Pulling a pen, paper and an envelope from my pocket, I penned a quick note to the store owner, asking him to please have the locket delivered to the Vanderlind Castle the following day. With the letter, I included several bills. I knew it was probably more than the small silver trinket cost, but I preferred to pay too much rather than too little.

After that I headed for home. My purchase was just a small gesture, but hopefully something that would go a few steps toward keeping my darling girl safe. Colette Gibson meant the world to me. My brother was probably right, as far as what was the reasonable thing to do, but he didn’t understand how I felt in my heart. And I doubted explaining it to him would make much of a difference.

By the time I got up the next afternoon, the package had already arrived. I opened it to view the pendant up close, being careful not to actually touch the silver as I flipped open the clamshell box. It was a pretty puffed heart with the silver polished to a shine, yet also understated enough not to draw too much attention. I thought it would be perfect as a present for Colette. I would have gladly given her a diamond the size of a robin’s egg, but we were being clandestine with our love and a showy piece of jewelry might give things away.

I tried to arrange to see Colette during the day while she was working, but luck was not on my side. Daniel was awake and skulking around the house. He didn’t bother saying anything to me, nor did he appear to be all that interested in keeping an eye on Miss Gibson, but his presence held me in check from speaking to her.

That night I took extra care as I was leaving the castle. At first I flew toward the woods, until I was certain Daniel wasn’t following me. I waited a good hour longer than I normally did before heading to Colette’s house. There was always a strong chance my brother was waiting for me there. But I knew Daniel to be an impatient man. I was convinced that after sitting in wait for thirty minutes, he would give up and look for something else to do. The only problem was that I had no way of contacting Colette to explain my delay. I hoped her feelings wouldn’t be too hurt.

I surveyed the area before alighting in the Gibson’s back yard. I was always reasonably cautious about such things, — it was never a good idea to be sighted by a mortal farmer with insomnia — but with Daniel’s suspicions aroused, I had to be even more cautious. I knew my brother meant to force my hand. Little did he realize in which direction I would pull. I had no intention of giving Colette up under any circumstances.

Reassured that there were no other vampires about, I strode over to our apple tree, only to have Colette appear out of the shadows. “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.

“I’m sorry, darling,” I told her, immediately taking her in my arms. “My brother suspects there is something between us and…”

“And you didn’t want to admit to caring for someone like me,” she said, attempting to finish my sentence for me.

“No, that’s not it at all,” I insisted, pulling her even closer. “I would rather give him up than you. But he can cause trouble for us,” I had to admit. “So I waited until I was sure he wasn’t following me.”

“How could he cause trouble for us?” she asked. “And why?”

I scrunched my face and tried to think of a good way to explain it. “Daniel’s… very traditional,” was all I could think to say. “He’s very inflexible about the Vanderlind name and all that rot. I’m sure he would cause a stink if he thought we had any serious intentions in mind. But my brother is also kind of an idiot, so I rarely pay any attention to him,” I assured her.

“So your family wouldn’t approve of me?” she asked, her eyes glistening with potential tears.

“My mother would,” I told her.

Colette sniffed. “How do you know?”

“Because, above everything else, my mother wants her children to be happy.” I placed a tender kiss on her lips. “And you make me happier than I ever imagined I could be.”

Colette leaned into me and sighed, contentedly. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“I have something for you,” I said, reaching into the breast pocket of my coat for the small, velvet box.

“What?” she asked, lifting her head, her eyes wide with surprise.

“I have a present for you,” I told her, placing the box in both of her hands. “Open it.”

“Oh, Jessie,” she exclaimed as she flipped open the lid. “Oh, it’s so beautiful. I love it.” Colette’s already beautiful face blossomed into a radiant smile. “How did you know?” she asked.

“Emily told me,” I said, for lack of a better answer. I had unwittingly done something that had made her very happy and I didn’t want that happiness to fade one ounce, so I concealed my ignorance.

“Emily,” she said, giving a small frown. “I don’t think I told her it was my birthday.”

It was Colette’s birthday! I took a moment to thank my lucky stars that I had a gift for her. “You’ll have to forgive me, darling, but how old are you today?”

“Seventeen,” she said, rather shyly.

“Seventeen,” I repeated. Colette and I were the same age. But she would one day turn eighteen and I would never see another birthday. “Does turning seventeen hold any particular significance here in the United States?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Colette wanted to know.

“I mean like how in countries where the predominant religion is Judaism, turning thirteen is held in high regard.”

“Not really,” she said. And then, putting her hand to her cheek, she added, “Except for maybe one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

And then Colette explained about a neighboring Justice of the Peace who was very accommodating about granting marriage licenses without a young lady’s parents giving consent, just as long as the girl was seventeen. This was very good news, indeed.

I stared at her for a few seconds, torn between prudence and dropping to one knee and proposing right there, on the spot. If I had still been a mortal, then I would have done the latter. But the fact that Colette didn’t know that I was a member of the undead kept me from my matrimonial impulse.

“Help me put this on,” Colette said, pulling the pendant from its box. I think she was concealing a blush.

“Ah,” I said. I hadn’t anticipated she would ask for my assistance. “I’m afraid I’m a bit clumsy with delicate clasps.”

“Oh, please try,” she told me. “I want to wear it right away.”

Steeling myself against the pain, I took hold of the silver and attempted to fasten the pendant around her neck. The metal immediately began burning my skin instantly. It was like I was pinching a glowing hot poker between my fingers. I tried not to utter any acknowledgement of pain. I thought surely I could endure the agony long enough to secure a simple clasp. But I had never previously encountered silver as a member of the undead. The pain was excruciating. My hands started to tremble with the effort.

“I can’t do it, I’m afraid,” I told her, releasing the chain.

“Here, let me try,” she said, taking over. A moment later and the pendant was fastened around her slender neck. “There.” She turned toward me. “What do you think?”

“It looks lovely on you,” I told her. The happiness she exuded quickly made me forget about the pain coursing through my hands.

Colette reached up and caressed the heart. “I’ve never loved a gift more,” she told me.

“I’m so glad,” was my reply. “You must promise me to always wear it. Especially at night,” I added. “Promise that you’ll never take it off.”

“I’ll never take it off,” she assured me, pressing the pendant to her own heart. “But why especially at night?” she asked.

“Oh.” I hadn’t even realized I’d urged her to do so. “I...” I stammered, scrambling for any plausible excuse. “I just worry about you, sometimes. You and your sister riding your bicycles home after the sun has gone down. I just feel like if you wear this pendant, then it will be like a good-luck token.”

Colette bestowed me with another one of her lovely smiles. “I promise I’ll wear it always,” she said putting her arms around my neck to kiss me.

It was challenging to kiss her with the silver being so close to my skin. The memory of the pain that had shot through my hands was still at the forefront of my brain. But none of that mattered if the little trinket kept my darling girl safe from harm. I would have walked out into the noon day sun for her.

Something caught my attention and I quickly scanned the skies. It wasn’t so much a noise that had reached my ears, but more like a silence. It was the silence of a bird taking wing. Or a vampire rising into the sky.

Chapter 39

Colette

The next morning, I couldn’t have been happier as I gathered blossoms for Jessie’s sick brother. The vivid wildflowers of summer had been replaced by the hardy sunflowers and Queen Ann’s lace of fall. The pendant hanging around my neck sent little shivers of happiness up my spine every time it brushed against my skin. The chain was long enough that I could tuck the pendant under the bodice of my dress and it wasn’t too visible with the heart nestling between my breasts.

With the sun warming my face, I closed my eyes and thought of Jessie. His kisses filled me with an anticipation that I found challenging to suppress. I so desperately wanted to be with him in every way. I wanted to lie in bed with him, our bodies pressed together, smelling his warm-penny breath. I wanted to know what it was to be a woman and how it felt to be with him as my man. A little shiver of desire crept up my spine. Was seventeen too young to get married, if you knew you were truly in love?

“How many flowers does one sick boy need?” Lilly called out as she coasted her bicycle to a stop.

I opened my eyes and looked down, releasing a small laugh. I’d been enjoying the humming of the bees, and the grasses gently tugging at my skirt, so much that I hadn’t realized the enormous size of the bouquet I was holding.

“What’s that?” Lilly asked as I was putting the flowers in my bicycle’s basket. She reached forward, touching the silver heart dangling from my neck and making it sway.

“Oh.” I took half a step backward and covered the pendent with my hand. I guess it had slipped out of the top of my dress when I was bending over to pluck the flowers. “It’s…” I stammered.

“Where’d you get it?” Lilly wanted to know.

I had no explanation for her. All I could do was stare at her, wide-eyed.

My sister’s face grew hard. “Did
he
give it to you?”

I nodded my head. “For my birthday.”

“I thought that was over,” Lilly said in a tight voice as she remounted her bicycle.

“No,” I told her, also climbing on mine. “It’s definitely not over.”

“I hope he hasn’t taken advantage of you,” Lilly said. “That’s usually what happens when the rich boy starts sniffing around the maid.”

“It’s nothing like that,” I exclaimed. “You sound like Mama.”

Lilly shrugged. “She’s right about a lot of things.”

“She wasn’t right about Lev Wilson,” I pointed out as I pushed down on a pedal to get my bike rolling. “She still thinks he’s a nice boy.”

“Just be careful,” my sister said, following me.

“He’s always been a gentleman,” I insisted, not wanting to say his name out loud for some reason.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Lilly told me. “At least not completely.”

“What, then?” I asked over my shoulder.

“I don’t know.” She rode for a few moments in silence. “There’s just something so very peculiar about the Vanderlind family. I don’t like their eyes.”

“What about their eyes?” I asked. I loved gazing into Jessie’s eyes.

“Their eyes all are the same color,” Lilly said. “Gray. And they’re all so cold... Sometimes it makes me think they’re dead inside, the blank grayness of their eyes.”

Lilly was being ridiculous. Jessie was so loving and passionate and wonderful. He couldn’t have been more alive.

“Don’t pester me with those,” Mrs. Denkler said when she saw the enormous bouquet I had gathered. “Just take them upstairs. And don’t bother Arthur.” At that point I had taken the flowers up to Arthur’s room numerous times, but the housekeeper always felt the need to warn me that the Vanderlind invalid needed to be left alone.

Lilly was right, I thought as I arranged the blossoms in a vase. I had gone a little overboard with my flower gathering that morning. I needed a much larger vase than usual and I could barely see around it at I tottered up the stairs.

At the top of the steps, as I peered through the flowers as thick as shrubbery, I thought I saw a figure slipping out of Arthur’s room. Moving my head to one side of the arrangement, I had a clearer view, but I was only able to catch a glimpse of Daniel heading around a corner at the end of the hall. I thought maybe he glanced back at me, but then again, maybe he didn’t.

I made my way over to Arthur’s door and set the overfilled vase on the ground. As I pulled my arms away from the arrangement, the flowers expanded and pushed the door to the room open several inches.

I froze, not sure what to do. The door was always firmly shut and Mrs. Denkler had warned us in no uncertain terms that we were to never bother Arthur under any circumstances. Did I close the door or leave it open? It was hard to know which was best. After giving it some quick thought, I decided I would just ease the door closed as quietly as possible. The family wanted Arthur to have privacy, after all.

I meant to just gently tug the door shut and go back downstairs, but I couldn’t help glancing inside as I reached for the knob. And then I pulled up short. The room appeared to be empty.

I guess I had been expecting a large hospital bed and a young man propped up on a pile of pillows, with a nurse tending to him, and some tubes coming out of his arm. But there was no bed, no nurse, not even a young man. At least there wasn’t a young man that I could see. The portion of the room that I could view through the crack in the door was bereft of any furniture.

I felt something cold run through me. Glancing up, I double-checked that I was standing in front of the correct door, the one with the bird over it. What was going on? I felt the urge to open the door the entirely, but I also felt like I should just pretend that nothing happened and hurry back down the stairs. Indecision kept me glued to the floor, right at the threshold of the room, for several seconds. I thought about Jessie and how he had tried numerous times to confess his family’s sins to me, but I wouldn’t let him. Then, although my curiosity was killing me, I took hold of the doorknob and eased the door shut.

“Is it what you were expecting?” Mrs. Denkler asked. She was standing right behind me and I was barely able to suppress a shriek.

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” I told her, backing away from the door a few steps. “When I put the vase down, some of the flowers popped the door open, so I thought I should pull it shut.”

Mrs. Denkler frowned. “Don’t lie to me, young lady. I saw you leaving the room. You had yourself a right good snoop.”

“I didn’t,” I insisted. “I promise. All I did was stand here for a moment and then try to close the door.”

The housekeeper looked like she was on the verge of believing me, when her eyes alighted on my neck. “What’s this?” she demanded, snatching at the pendant that Jessie had given me. “Didn’t I make myself perfectly clear on your first day that you are to wear no personal adornments whatsoever?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Denkler,” I blurted. “I do remember you telling us, but…”

“And silver, nonetheless,” she said, yanking at the chain and causing my head to jerk forward. “What in the world were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “It’s just…”

She pulled at the chain another time. “Why on God’s green earth would you wear this?” she demanded.

“I have to wear it,” I told her, trying to pry her hand open as she clutched at the locket. “I was told to wear it. Now let go or the clasp is going to break.”

“Told to wear it?” she all but shouted. “And who, pray tell, told you to wear it?”

“Jessie Vanderlind.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Mrs. Denkler stopped yanking on the pendant, but she did not let go. “Jessie Vanderlind?” she repeated, her eyes wide as if she was having trouble understanding the words. Then she focused on me and gave a sneer of a smile. “Well,” she said, slowly. “Haven’t you been up to all kinds of little tricks? And right under my nose. I should have known better than to hire the likes of you.” The old lady laughed. “And here I thought you were just some good little girl. Oh, so very nice, always gathering flowers for a sick boy.” She jerked on the chain again and I clutched at her hand to stop her from breaking it. “Little did I realize you were just doing it to suck-up. How dare you even think you had a chance of winning the heart of someone like Jessie Vanderlind?”

Angry tears filled my eyes. “Why shouldn’t I? He’s good and he’s kind. He loves me and I love him.”

“Love?” Mrs. Denkler exclaimed with a rueful laugh. “You are such a little fool.” She looked my face over, closely. “You have no idea what’s going on. Do you? He hasn’t told you a thing.”

No, Jessie hadn’t told me he loved me. Not in so many words. Or at least not in a language that I understood. But I knew it in my heart every time he looked at me. I felt it every time we kissed. “He does love me,” I insisted, practically clawing at her hand, but the old woman had a grip like a vice.

This elicited more laughter from Mrs. Denkler. “You are such a fool. Someone like Jessie doesn’t know how to love.” She gave me a shake. “That part of him died when he was made.”

“No,” I insisted, trying to push her off of me. Her words made no sense. “He loves me. I know he does. And I love him. I love Jessie Vanderlind.”

“You have no idea what it takes to love a member of this family,” Mrs. Denkler hissed. “You don’t even know who the Vanderlinds really are. If he loves you so much, then why hasn’t he told you the truth about his family?”

“He’s tried,” I insisted. “He’s tried dozens of times, but I wouldn’t let him.”

She froze for a moment, her eyes looking quite wild. “I believe you,” she said. “But that makes things worse. Just wait until I tell his grandfather.”

“His grandfather is dead,” I whimpered. “Mr. Vanderlind is dead.”

“He will never be dead!” Mrs. Denkler shouted. “Do you hear me?” she demanded, giving me another good shake. “A man like that can never die!”

“Stop it,” I cried, thrashing against her might, as well as her words. “Leave me alone,” I wailed, using all my strength to wrench myself free.

But she yanked me back in the other direction. The clasp of the pendant finally snapping under the strain. I ended up falling forward and crashing through the door to Arthur’s room.

I lay there, groaning for a moment. The castle’s floor was hard stone and the wind had been knocked out of me. My elbow throbbed and I let out a sharp whimper when I tried to push myself up. Through a blur of pain, I took in the room. It was, as I’d gleaned through the crack in the door, almost completely devoid of furniture. At the far end of the room there was some type of appliance. It looked like a large icebox, or some kind of new, fancy refrigerator. There was also a small sideboard laid out with rows of clean goblets on one side and dirty on the other. The dirty glasses were coated with the remnants of something that was red and looked sticky. A few flies circled lazily around the soiled crystal. The flowers I had gathered yesterday had been placed to the left of the sideboard, out of the way.