Unbitten (6 page)

“
Bonjour?
” she said, tentatively.

The man turned to her and said, "Good morning,
Mademoiselle
. Did you have a good sleep? Jet lag
not too much of a bother?

“Not at all,” said Jo, not for the first time
sending a thought of gratitude to her harshest, most
demanding French teacher, and feeling so pleased that she
could understand and speak well enough to manage. But she
was also wondering…had he been watching her in the
bath last night? Or had she just imagined it?

“What I’d really like,” she said,
“is a cup of coffee.”

“Just through there,” he said. “Keep
going through the salons, you will pass through four of
them, and then a corridor to the right. It ends at the
breakfast room.”

“Wow,” said Jo. “How many housekeepers
are there to keep this place clean?”

“Quite a few,” said the man with a smile.
“At Château Gagnon, there is much work to be
done, and much of it needs repeating each day.”

Jo walked into the first salon. It looked like something
out of a museum, or a movie set. The walls were covered
with paintings–huge full-length portraits, small
landscapes, all sizes and subjects in between. The room was
so jammed up with furniture that it was not easy to pass
through. Little gilt chairs with velvet cushions. Settees
with more velvet cushions.

The entire ceiling was a painting, with groups of cherubs
flying about, and there in the corner, a wolf was looming
in the background. His face was just beginning to snarl,
his teeth glinting. Jo knew that artwork from whatever age
this had been painted in was usually religious–did
that wolf represent the Devil or something like that? She
didn’t remember in her art history classes ever
seeing wolves and cherubs together.

Which made her curious, but not so curious that she was
willing to wait any longer for her coffee. She would have
to come back and look more closely another time.

The breakfast room was full of guests. An English couple at
one table, the woman looking like a perfect example of an
English rose, all blonde-streaked chestnut hair and
rosy-cheeked and healthy. At another table, an older woman
alone who drank her coffee from a bowl and nibbled on dry
toast while reading a paperback. Two young men–very
outdoorsy, looking like they were about to go on a
hike– that Jo could instantly tell were American, by
their clothes and accents. Sitting at the long table in the
middle of the room was a family of six, the children
laughing and poking each other, the mother looking tired,
and the father with an expression that said he would prefer
to be shot in the head than continue with one more minute
of family vacation.

Jo sat at an empty table for two and looked around to see
what the protocol was. Were there servers? Was there
anything to eat besides toast? How soon could she get to
the stable? And, somewhat pressingly, where was David?

David had not yet gone to bed, and was making final
arrangements for the day with Angélique before
disappearing to his chambers.

She had not gotten enough sleep but had compensated by
putting on some makeup and wearing nicer clothes than
usual. Her skirt hugged her ass, and her eyes, rimmed with
eyeliner, were more intense, their green color more
arresting than ever.

“It’s going to be difficult,”
Angélique was saying. “I think she’s
going to want you to guide her, to tell her what you want
done with the horses, your expectations and everything. She
may even expect you to ride with her.”

“Well,” David said, his hands on his hips,
“you know very well I cannot do that. I cannot even
go to the barn. You know what happens when I have
tried.” He spoke with a flash of anger, but his
expression was sad and a little mopey, like that of a
disappointed child.

“I know, David. I still have nightmares of the sounds
the horses made. You absolutely terrified them.”

“It breaks my heart,” said David. “They
are just so sensitive. I want…” He put his
hand over his eyes. “Anyway,” he continued
briskly, “The American is here to do what I wish I
could do but cannot. Please get her started this morning as
soon as you can–the show trials are coming up and I
very much do not want the Château humiliated. All you
must do is give instructions to Thierry and he will take
care of her and the stable.”

“Yes sir,” said Angélique.

“No need for
sir
,” said David,
smiling. He reached his hand up to her neck and smoothed
the dark brown hair away from it. “We’re better
friends than that, aren’t we?”

She smiled at him but took a step back. “Friends?
Certainly,” she said. But there were layers of tone
in her voice that indicated that whatever she thought about
him, “friends” did not sum it up all that
neatly.

Henri had not yet gone to bed either. He had spent the
night tearing his lab apart looking for the file on the
bandages, with no luck. It was gone.

It seemed that other papers were disturbed as well, as
though someone had been looking through them and not put
things away very neatly, but he wasn’t sure whether
that was just paranoia. He wasn’t always Mr. Clean
himself.

He sat at his desk and put his hands flat on the wood,
pressing them down hard, all his frustration pushing
through his fingers. He was exhausted, and could tell by
the gentle light coming through the screens he had designed
to filter the sunlight to an acceptable intensity, that it
was long past time to be in bed.

But how was he going to sleep, thinking about who might
have stolen that file, and how the hell had he gotten into
the lab?

Wondering how he had failed to think of it before, he
snatched up his cell and tapped in the number for the Paris
office, the place that was handling the marketing and
distribution of Hemo-Yum. PolyLabs was a company entirely
staffed by vampires. Henri sometimes hated dealing with
them because they were oh-so-snobby about being
Parisian
vampires, looking down on him because he
lived in the provinces, deep in the countryside.

Well, for their information, the countryside suited him
just fine, thought Henri, arguing in his head as he waited
for someone to answer the phone. Who needs their swanky
parties? I don’t mind getting into full opera
gear–cape, tuxedo, and top hat!–once a year,
but night after night? No thank you! I don’t care how
many different cheeses you can buy at the place on the
corner.

Henri had a habit of conducting arguments in his head like
this, but when he actually talked to whomever it was he had
been arguing with, he was smooth as silk, all business,
polite and pleasant down to his toenails. Exquisitely
self-controlled, that was Henri.

Finally, a woman answered. “Yes, hello, this is
Polylabs, Claudine speaking.”

“Hello, Claudine, this is Henri de la Motte. How are
you this morning?”

“Ready for bed, Monsieur, it has been a long night,
as usual. How can I help you?”

“Please, Claudine, call me Henri.” He was not
displeased to be a Marquis, but he disliked the social
distance it sometimes provoked. He thought the title tended
to make people less forthcoming with him than he wanted
them to be.

Henri was reluctant to tell anyone about the break-in and
the lost file, but he had met Claudine several times and
liked her well enough, plus he wasn’t sure he had a
choice. It’s not like he could call up Durant at the
local
gendarmerie
and tell him what had happened,
at least not without inviting a lot of poking around he did
not at all want.

Claudine expressed her surprise and sorrow. “All I
can suggest,” she said, “is that perhaps word
has gotten out about Hemo-Yum, or any of the other things
you are working on, including the bandages. The American
vampires–they are heedless of the old codes, Henri.
They use spies, thugs, bribery, anything to get what they
want. When it comes to business, they are absolutely
vicious. It’s all about the money for them.”

“Hmm,” said Henri, not sure what he could do
with this information. “Do you have suggestions of
which American companies might be capable of something like
this? Where would I start?”

“I’m afraid I do not know. Right now, there is
not much importing or exporting of vampire products, so my
understanding of the Americans and their businesses is not
very deep. I’m giving you general impressions more
than anything solid you can take action on, I’m
sorry.”

“The market is very, very big, Claudine. I’m
sure you’re the last person I need to say that to. If
vampires around the world have access to good synthetic
blood, healthy and affordable synthetic blood–well,
in my dream, we could eventually even come out of the
shadows and begin to live openly, because there would be no
more threat to humans and they could put their bloody
stakes away and relax.

“But I realize the business side of this is not all
unicorn’s blood and sparkles. It will be a fight to
the death, with these Americans. I can tell you that I feel
the breaching of my lab to be as serious a challenge and an
insult as I can imagine. I admit that for a moment I wished
it were still the 17th century and I could insist on a
duel.

“I have my rapier still ready,” he said, with a
note of nostalgia.

“I do understand,” said Claudine. “And I
wish you luck. Stay safe, Monsieur.”

“Henri,” he said. “Good morning then,
Claudine. I will see you in Paris next week.”

Henri was just going to have to go to sleep and hope that
by the time evening fell, he would have some idea of what
to do next. He slowly stood up and walked to the back of
the room where a tapestry hung. Pulling the tapestry aside,
he slipped behind it, down a flight of stone steps and into
the darkness, to his beloved sleeping chamber, where no one
had ever slept but Henri himself.

Fully caffeinated and ready to ride, Jo left the breakfast
room and went outside, looking for the stables. She had
expected to see David first thing, all excited to show her
the horse he had been telling her about, maybe going out on
a ride with her, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Jo
was disappointed but so looking forward to meeting her new
horse that the disappointment registered for a moment and
then was gone.

The grounds of Château Gagnon were stunning. Gravel
paths curved around the land which faintly undulated, with
large islands of shrubbery punctuating expanses of green
lawn. As she walked along, she kept wondering what was
around the next bend. And when she got there, some sort of
surprise would unfold–an archway covered with roses,
sadly now not in bloom. A pond filled with koi. A flower
border laid out in geometric French style. A small barn
with miniature goats.

“Jo!” a man’s voice called. She turned
around and followed the path around a big mass of some kind
of shrub that had lost all its leaves to the frost, and in
the distance saw a young man waving to her.