by S J Williams
“A card game?” Effie asked, feeling her face go numb. The others stared at her.
“What’s the matter?” Henry gave her a puzzled look. “It wasn’t unheard of at the time.”
“Oscar Mansfeld. When we were in the gallery, you said he was one of the portraits. Friedrich Helmar.” She breathed, suddenly putting the pieces together. “I recognise the story from when I was researching Helmar’s history. He was Oscar.”
The others looked at each other.
“I don’t suppose you kept those details quiet?” Lucien asked, the resigned air of his question telling her he didn’t have much hope for her answer.
She shook her head anyway, swallowing hard. “If this is the same story I researched, there was a great scandal because those lands were entailed. They shouldn’t have been gambled away.”
“That’s the one” Catarina muttered. “Honestly.” She burst out. “He made such a fuss about having his ‘rightful ownership’ questioned that it worked its way into the national press. Now, there’s going to be a court case over it and the international media is getting interested. It’s a complete clusterfuck.”
“So why don’t you make him give up the lands?” Effie asked, trying to quell her panic. “Make him quietly disappear or something.”
“Or something.” Sebastian murmured, raising one eyebrow. “You mean do away with him?”
Effie frowned at him, only to be arrested by the spark of humour in his eyes. It transformed his whole face. Feeling her cheeks heat, she glanced away.
“Not kill him but, you know, make the problem go away. It must be possible.”
Henry grimaced again. “You might have forgotten that Oscar is a member of the immortal council. He’s got enough friends in high places and stooges in uncomfortable positions to make sure he gets his way.”
“So, there’s going to be a court case—”
“With an international following.” Catarina growled.
“A high profile court case,” Effie conceded, “involving an immortal. I wish I’d heard about this when I was doing my research. Not that it would have done me much good.” She added as an afterthought. “I would have just chalked it up to a strong coincidence.” The thought made her pause. “Is it possible the portrait won’t stand up in court? It’s hardly orthodox as far as evidence goes.”
“Not on their own, no. But they do raise questions,” Lucien said. “Questions that Mansfeld can’t afford to have asked. All it would take is for someone to check his DNA alongside that of the bodies of his parents and brothers for them to find a highly suspicious match.”
“But he’s immortal now. Won’t his DNA be different?” Effie protested.
“No. While we have always counted ourselves fortunate that our peculiarities are not detectable in our blood, it does not work in our favour in this case.”
“Do you think they will definitely ask for his DNA?”
“They will once they see the portrait. If it’s anything like a good likeness, they’re going to want explanations for why a man who claims to have no relation to their family can end up looking quite so much like their ancestors.” Catarina raised her eyes to the ceiling in search of patience. “As I said, a clusterfuck.”
“Even if they are ultimately unsuccessful in alerting the whole of humanity to the existence of immortals, the threat alone that these portraits pose will have many of our kind baying for the blood of those who brought them to light. Your name will be connected to the gallery, Effie. It may be that Bartholomew will abandon the scheme now he knows we’re on to him, but I doubt it. He’s been planning this for too long to give up that easily.” Henry added, his face uncharacteristically solemn.
Effie stared at him, her heart plummeting to her toes and leaving a sickening empty feeling in her stomach. She looked around at the others. They all looked grim.
So much for choosing if she wanted to be a part of their world, she thought. All too soon, the world of immortals was going to be crashing into her life whether she liked it or not.
“What do we do?” She asked, feeling more lost than ever.
“Well, first we catch up with Bartholomew’s trail.” Catarina said practically. “Which is what Lucien and I came here to do.”
“But what if you can’t find him?” That seemed to be a very important “if” to Effie.
“We’ll worry about that if it happens.” Lucien said soothingly.
Strangely enough, Effie didn’t feel very soothed.
Sebastian felt the edges of the medallion cut into his palm. Carefully, he eased his grip. It had been a long time since he’d felt so powerless to help someone he loved. A little over five hundred years to be exact. He felt like roaring at fate for having placed Effie in his life once more only to put her immediately into danger.
And Bartholomew had yet again slipped out of reach. It had been a long wait for vengeance and now, when it seemed so close, he was once more shackled by circumstances.
And yet, he would give it all up, all hope of ever getting his revenge on Bartholomew, just to see Effie safe. He wouldn’t even care if her memories never returned, though it felt like a little piece of his heart was chipped away every time she looked at him with no recognition in her eyes.
“May I look at it again?” Effie asked, her shy voice breaking into his thoughts. She nodded at his fist.
Opening his hand, he held the medallion out flat on his palm. She leant forward, her hair sweeping down from her shoulder to brush his fingers.
So soft, and yet that touch burned with a thousand memories. His fingers playing with the ends of her hair on those lazy moments when she’d let it down or he’d destroyed whatever arrangement she’d created. Long, soothing strokes of a brush when she consented to let him care for her. Hot, heavy nights when sweat dampened the roots and she panted words of love in his ear.
Effie’s concerned eyes cut through the storm of images and sensations.
“Sebastian? Is everything all right?”
“Fine.” He said, a little harsher than he’d intended. He tried again. “Everything is fine. What is it that you wanted to see?”
She looked down at the medallion again. He held perfectly still as she leaned in closer. It was like tempting a wild bird to take grain from his palm.
“The bird.” She said, dragging him out of his fantasies and into the present. “Do you know what it is?”
He frowned down at it. “I’d say a lark or some kind of small songbird.”
She turned to look at Lucien who, along with Catarina, was getting ready to start looking for a trace of Bartholomew.
“Do you know if a lark means anything? If the flowers have a symbolic significance, surely the lark does too?”
Lucien paused in the act of putting on his boots.
“I’m afraid I don’t, my dear. Perhaps, as the resident researcher, you should be the one to find out?”
She smiled at him as he and Catarina left, but her eyes were distracted.
“You know, I wish I had Roberto— I mean, Bartholomew’s book. I gave him one about herb lore this past Christmas. He’d been muttering about the meanings of plants and things for a while.”
“I know it. I’ve got it here.”
“What?” She stared at him when he raised the book from the bag he’d slung on the dining room table. She scowled.
“That’s stealing, you know.”
Sebastian didn’t feel the slightest embarrassment. Theft was justified, if it meant Effie would ultimately be free.
“Right. Well, we can look at that today. Unless… Are you going to chase after Bartholomew too? He won’t be out during the day, will he?” She asked though she continued speaking without waiting for his nod of confirmation. “I never would have thought I’d be pleased he only came out during the night. I know I said I didn’t notice it much, but I remember now how frustrating it was that he would never come into his office until the evening. I’d find something I’d want to talk to him about and I’d have to wait
…”
Sebastian listened to her babble on about Bartholomew, his mind stretched out to touch hers. It should have annoyed him to hear about her life with the vampire, but he found he didn’t care. He was in danger of losing himself just in feeling her bubbling emotions as she talked about her work, learning the inner workings of that incredible mind.
“Do vampires have to sleep during the day?” She asked.
“The younger ones do.’ Henry informed her. “The older ones just have to avoid sunlight.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. “That explains how he could still travel around. He’d give me lifts from time to time.”
“Bartholomew drove you around?” Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “He’s changed a lot if he was that generous.”
“Well, no.” Effie wrinkled her nose. “He’d only give me a lift if we were going to the same place. Besides, he wasn’t driving himself. He mostly relied on taxis.” Effie smiled crookedly. “He’d split the fare, too. So it wasn’t even a free ride.”
“Ah.” Sebastian nodded. “That sounds more like Bartholomew.”
They shared a conspiratorial grin. Then Effie blinked and looked away, a faint blush on her cheeks. Sebastian stared at that blush in amazement. Did Effie find him attractive? He had been so preoccupied with looking for signs of recognition in her eyes, he hadn’t even thought about whether she liked him physically. If she did, well, that could only be a good sign.
Hope ballooned within his chest. He had to damp it down with some cold reason. They were very far from being out of the woods yet.
Still. Effie liked him.
“Right.” Effie stood up, hiding her awkwardness behind activity. “I’ll just have a look at that book, then…”
“Hey! Don’t you want breakfast?”
Sebastian and Effie froze at Henry’s words. As one, they turned to look at him. He snorted with wry amusement.
“You look like twins when you do that, you know.”
Effie and Sebastian looked at each other. They were wearing identical expressions. Effie blushed again. Sebastian grinned like the schoolboy he had never been. His grin only made Effie’s blush deepen. Then she twisted her lips in a wry little smile.
“I guess I’m not the only one to forget about meals when I get carried away with something.” She said ruefully. “Do we have to stop?” She asked Henry, a wheedling note in her voice. “I don’t think I could eat anything with all these ideas going round in my head.”
“Most important meal in the day.” Henry reminded her, the twinkle in his eye belying the stern expression he’d put on.
“We’re in Italy.” Effie grumbled as she sat back down. “Their idea of breakfast is an espresso and a cigarette.”
“We might be in Italy but you and I were both born in England and that is where breakfast is taken seriously.” He walked into the larder as he spoke. “Now, we have toast or… more toast I’m afraid. Ah, and some fruit. We probably have some yoghurt in the fridge if you’d like.” He called out.
“Sounds like a feast.” Effie said with a smile.
“We could go really Italian and dip our bread in olive oil or there’s some honey. Ooh, and some walnuts.” Henry snagged a bag up as he walked out of the larder, a pile of foodstuffs heaped in his arms. Sebastian stood and got the yoghurt out of the fridge, along with milk for tea.
“Oh.” He paused. “You don’t take milk.”
Effie, who was wrinkling her nose at Henry’s suggestion of olive oil for breakfast, paused and looked at him curiously.
“No.” She said slowly. “I don’t.”
“But I do.” Henry reminded him as he dumped the breakfast items on the table. “So don’t put it away.” He disappeared again in search of a bread knife and chopping board.
Effie picked up a piece of walnut and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly as she looked at him, still with that curious look in her eye.
She’d completely relaxed, Sebastian thought. She wasn’t guarding her thoughts and expressions around them. One more positive sign.
They ate in silence, Sebastian and Effie stealing glances at one another while Henry focused on his food. Every now and then, Sebastian would catch Effie’s eye and they’d share a look or a smile. The nuances of her expressions were subtle but he could still read them. She was amused by Henry and his complete absorption with his breakfast, a rare time of silence for the gregarious immortal. She was amused by him too, though why he wasn’t quite sure. He had never pretended to understand everything that went on in Effie’s head, even when they had spent decades together sharing thoughts and emotions.
“How are Catarina and Lucien going to find Rober— Bartholomew?” Effie asked finally.
“Catarina is a psychometric so she’ll be going round looking for personal items to touch, trying to get a sense of what he was thinking and feeling. She’ll probably also want proof that he really is Bartholomew,” Henry said, rolling his eyes. “She’s thorough like that.” The emphasis he put on “thorough” spoke volumes. Effie ducked her head to hide her smile.
“Will that be it, then? She’ll find a trace and just hunt him down?”
“She’ll have to find something first.” Sebastian said, his mood darkening. “Emotional traces only really imprint themselves on objects that hold an emotional value to the owner. Bartholomew is notoriously hard to trace because he only cares about himself.”
Effie ducked her head again, this time to hide a look of pain. Sebastian bit off what he was going to say next. It would be hard for her to accept the man she trusted and even cared for had nothing but a mercenary interest in her. But she had to accept it. Holding out for love from Bartholomew was a fool’s game. Worse, a dead fool’s game.
“If she can’t find anything, they’ll have to use more mundane methods, looking to see if his movements were captured on any security equipment or if he was spotted by anyone.” Henry continued, moving smoothly on from the awkward moment.
Effie frowned. “And they’ll find anything that way?”
Henry and Sebastian looked at each other.
“Knowing Bartholomew,” Sebastian said at last, “no.”
Effie stared down into her tea. Sebastian’s words didn’t surprise her. It was getting easier to imagine her boss as capable of being part of a plot. He’d always been secretive and, the more that she thought about it, the more she realised that the little she’d known about him had really come from her own observation rather than from anything he’d told her outright. For instance, she couldn’t have said where he came from, except that he went to university in Florence. She knew nothing about his family or his personal circumstances beyond that. Looking back, she realised that she’d let him get away with keeping a lot about himself hidden. He’d not hesitated to ask her questions, after all. Why hadn’t she asked any back? Had it all been due to him nudging her away from the topic, playing with her mind? That wasn’t a pleasant thought.
“We brought something else from the flat last night that might be useful.” Henry said, getting up from the breakfast table. Disappearing for a moment, he came back with a thick slab of a book.
Effie squinted at it. “You found that at the flat? It looks ancient. It should be in an archive somewhere.”
“Have you seen it before?” Sebastian asked, leaning over her shoulder when she got up to get a closer look. It made all her tiny hairs stand up on end to have him so close.
Effie scanned the book. It was a handwritten manuscript that must have been centuries old. Skimming over the writing, she recognised it as Early Modern Italian. Fascinating but not anything she’d seen before. Bartholomew had been keeping this in his room? Yet another secret he’d been hiding from her. Her lip curled. Creep.
Sitting back, she shook her head. “No. He’s never shown it to me.”
“Then I guess this is where things get interesting.” Sebastian said standing back. Only then did Effie feel like she could breathe again. God, but he was intense when he got close like that.
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He’s way out of your league. The nasty little voice that piped up in the back of her mind was depressingly familiar. It had always been a snide backseat driver in her love life. Always there to remind her that she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t desirable enough.
He doesn’t seem to think so, another part of her thought. And it was a strange thought. She’d never come across someone who obviously desired her before.
But does he desire you? Or the woman you remind him of? The mean voice countered. She had no answer for that one and it haunted her more than she’d like to admit.
She glanced at him from under her eyelashes as he studied the book. As if he could feel her gaze, he looked up and met her eyes. His expression softened slightly. God, he was handsome. And he could be all hers. All she had to do was pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
Feeling like a fraud, Effie looked down again. The words she couldn’t say out loud went round and around in her head.
I’m not the woman you think I am. I’m not the woman you want.
8
Sebastian frowned down at the top of Effie’s head. Where had that sudden spike of shame come from? Hoping to draw her out of the dark emotion, he said, “Well. We have Barty’s medallion. We have his book. Now all we have to do is work out what he wanted to do with them.”
“Barty?” Effie asked on a laugh, her unease dissipating.
Sebastian shrugged. “He doesn’t like it when we call him that.”
“I don’t suppose this book has anything to do with the portraits?” Henry asked.
Effie twisted her lips. “I’ll have to read it first. Do you know anything about Florence during the period? You were alive then, weren’t you?”
Icy walls slammed down around Sebastian’s mind. Yes, he had been in Florence during the period, but the memories were not ones he wanted to revisit.
“Not as well as we would like.” Henry said with a wary glance at Sebastian. Effie looked his way too and blanched.
Tone it down, Henry sent to him. You’re scaring her.