The Black Rose Chronicles

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Obviously my first priority is to make sure Eliette and Bree are as safe as possible. We’re going to have to take this situation one step at a time and move slowly. But I care about you, Kristina, and I’m not willing to just walk away—it’s too late for that.”

  Kristina’s eyes were beginning to smart, but she didn’t cry. “Where do we go from here?” she asked, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

  He chuckled ruefully. “I guess I don’t need to tell you where I’d like to go from here,” he replied, “but I don’t want to scare you off.”

  She laughed at the amazing irony of that statement, but her heart felt tremulous and very, very fragile, like a bubble of newly blown glass, still shivering and insubstantial. “There is so much I need to explain,” she said. “To begin with, there’s my age. Then my marriage. And my family.”

  “I think my brain circuits are overloaded,” he said with a grin. “Let’s have some dinner in some quiet place and talk about ordinary things, just for a little while. I’m still getting over my first experience with personal levitation.” She watched him, marveling, wondering at her good fortune in encountering such a man.

  “I hope you weren’t frightened,” she said.

  “More like baffled,” Max admitted. “That was a really weird feeling.” He stood and offered his hand to Kristina, helping her up.

  They had an early supper in a small, secluded restaurant down the street from Kristina’s shop—Bree and Eliette were spending the evening with their aunt Gweneth—and after coffee they drove in separate cars back to Kristina’s house.

  After starting a cheery fire in the family room fireplace and offering Max a seat at the table, she went upstairs for the stack of letters she’d written to her governess, Miss Phillips, over a span of some fifty years. Reading them would explain more to Max about who—and what—Kristina was than anything she might say.

  Noting the date on the initial page of the first letter, and probably the worn, fragile state of the paper, Max looked at Kristina and grinned. “There’s a slight age difference between us,” he remarked.

  “Almost a century,” Kristina confirmed. She wasn’t smiling.

  “This is incredible,” Max muttered, and turned his attention back to the letters before him. He read through her meeting with Michael, her marriage, the account of her wedding night, all without flinching. Kristina, for her part, was painfully aware of one particular passage.

  …He was uncommonly gentle as he removed my wedding gown and all the many troublesome garments beneath, each in its tum and its own good time. He caressed me and whispered pretty words, and though there was some hurt when, at last, he took me as a husband takes a wife, pleasure soon followed. Am I wanton, Phillie? I enjoyed the things Michael did to me in his bed that night—I thrashed upon the mattress. I moaned when he promised that strange, sweet satisfaction I craved without understanding, cried out when at long last he gave it.

  Finally Max reached the incident of the shooting, and Kristina, seated across the table from him, saw those neatly penned words as clearly as if she were reading over Max’s shoulder….

  …with the blast of a pistol still thundering in my head, I dressed hastily in a simple chemise, slippers, and a loose gown—I could not trouble myself with corsets and the like—and raced out into the passageway and down the main staircase.

  The great house was abuzz with consternation, for it seemed that all within those thick, august walls had heard the report of gunfire, though it was still so early that the sun had not yet risen. At that hour even the servants would not have arisen, but for that dreadful, singularly ominous noise.

  I encountered Gilbert in the entry hall—Lord and Lady Cheltingham, my mother- and father-in-law, were nowhere to be seen. Gilbert wore rough huntsman’s clothes, and his brown hair had not been tied back but instead fell loose around his face. I glimpsed pity in his eyes when he spared me a glance, and despair.

  “There has been a duel,” I said, grasping one of his arms as though I thought he could somehow undo the morning’s tragedy. I knew that was impossible, of course, and I had seen the incident by means of my magic, even before leaving the bedchamber. “Michael is hurt—”

  For a moment Gilbert’s strong jaw tightened, but his mind was veiled from me, and I could not discern his thoughts. “You must stay here, Kristina,” he told me. “It is unseasonably cold this morning and raining. Besides, there may be more trouble.”

  With that, he turned and hurried out, joined by several rumpled male wedding guests summoned from their beds by the clarion of calamity.

  I obeyed my brother-in-law’s edict, not because I was daunted by his authority, but because I knew I could be of no real help on that dismal knoll behind the parish church, where two men lay bleeding on the dew-dampened grass. One was dead, having taken a bullet through the heart; the other, my Michael, had been shot in the right knee.

  I hurried back upstairs, breathless in my urgency, went straight to the main linen cupboard, and began pulling out Lady Cheltingham’s finely stitched sheets with their borders of Irish and Italian lace. When I had tom a sufficient supply of bandages, I carried these back into our bedroom and sent a mewling maid to fetch hot water, a large basin, and a selection of whiskey from the cabinet in Gilbert’s study belowstairs.

  While she was gone, I stripped the linens from our marriage bed and replaced them. Then I ran back downstairs again and waited fitfully by the stables, heedless of the drizzling rain, for the men to return.

  Michael was astride his own horse when they arrived, drenched with blood and rain, plainly only half-conscious. After reining in the great stallion, my husband promptly collapsed and would have landed in the mud of the stableyard if Gilbert and another man hadn’t been there to catch him. A litter was brought from one of the sheds, and Michael was placed upon it, out of his head now and raving.

  Concern for my badly injured husband was, of course, my paramount emotion, but I did not fail to notice the other man, draped over the back of a horse led by one of the other guests. I recognized him with a pang of sorrow—he was the eighteen-year-old cousin, come all the way from London to celebrate the marriage, with whom Michael had argued so vociferously on the lawn. His sister, even younger at fifteen, ran sobbing through the rain in bare feet and a wrapper, her hair unbound, trailing and sodden, her pretty face twisted into a mask of unfathomable anguish. She flung herself at the lad’s narrow, lifeless back and clung to him, wailing.

  Gently one of the men drew her away, lifted her into his arms, and carried her back toward the house.

  I returned my attention to Michael, prostrate on his litter, but I knew I would never forget what I had just seen. I believe my feelings toward my husband began to change in that very moment, Phillie, for I had seen the confrontation between the two men, remember; I was well aware that Michael had been the instigator of these sorrows.

  They carried Michael to our room, where Gilbert and I stripped away his coat and boots, his muddy shirt, and bloodstained breeches. My new husband was groaning, and though he could not have left our bed more than an hour before, and the sun was just then topping the eastern horizon, he reeked of ardent spirits.

  “Damn you,” Gilbert said to his brother, soaking one of the cloths I’d tom earlier in the basin the maid had brought, as requested. He sat on the edge of the plump feather mattress and began gingerly to clean the terrible wound to Michael’s knee. “You’ve killed poor young Justin, and for what cause? In the process, it appears that you’ve made a cripple of yourself!”

  I could not feel anger toward Gilbert, righteous or otherwise. “Has the doctor been sent for?” I asked stupidly—for of course the village physician would have been summoned immediately—and moved to the opposite side of the bed, where I knelt and held Michael’s pale, long-fingered hand in both my own. I desperately wished for my father in those moments, for there was no finer surgeon in all of creation, but daylight had come, and I knew that Papa would have gone undergroun
d to sleep, as all but the oldest vampires do….

  Max stopped reading to rub his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Kristina had made a fresh pot of coffee, and she carried two cups to the family room table, once again sitting down across from him. There must have been a thousand questions he wanted to ask; Kristina watched his expressive eyes as he sifted through his thoughts, sorting, trying to assign reasonable priorities.

  “What kind of man was your husband?” he asked at last. It would have been unnecessary to ask if she had loved Michael, for it was obvious that she had—just as Max himself had cherished his lost wife, Sandy.

  “He was rich and handsome and very spoiled.” Privately Kristina compared the two men—Max was attractive, but in a rugged, straightforward and intensely masculine way. Michael had been the boyish type, charming and superficial and selfish.

  “I’m surprised you were interested in him,” Max said without rancor before taking a sip of his coffee.

  Kristina smiled; remorse might come later, but for now she was happy because Max had heard her terrible secret, and he was still around. “I was younger then,” she said.

  Max laughed. “I’ll say,” he replied, squinting at her. “But you’re very well preserved.” Some of his amusement faded. “Will you ever age, Kristina? I mean—and this is hypothetical, of course—if you and I were married, would you get old, as I will?”

  “I don’t know,” Kristina replied, and suddenly she felt like crying again. She sipped some coffee to steady herself. “Vampires, theoretically, that is, are immortal. I don’t—er—hunt, or sleep during the day, and I can’t travel through time the way my parents and Valerian do—”

  Max held up one hand. “One second, please. Valerian is a vampire? That guy who was doing magic tricks for the kids on Halloween night?”

  Kristina drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes,” she answered. She thought of Esteban, the urchin Valerian had rescued from the mean streets of Rio only the night before. She would never forget the sight of the illustrious vampire cradling that scared, wretched little boy against his shoulder. “But you needn’t worry—he would never harm a child.”

  “I had already figured that out,” Max said. “You’re obviously fond of him, and that is as good a character reference as I need. But knowing what Valerian is explains how he pulled off all those fantastic tricks at the party the other night.”

  “You’re in on a world-class secret now,” Kristina said, feeling a bit less weary, a bit less ancient. She leaned across the table a little way. “But you must swear not to tell, for your own sake—no one will believe you, and your sanity will be suspect—and because magicians fly in from all over the world to watch Valerian’s act in Las Vegas and try to figure out how he manages such fantastic feats. It’s all part of his mystique.”

  Max frowned, looking down at the letters scattered before him in peculiar neatness. * ‘This is all so personal—are you sure you want to share it?”

  Except for her feelings for Max, Kristina could not recall the last time she had been so certain of anything. “It’s important for you to understand,” she said.

  He began to read again, taking up where he had left off.

  …and while I knew a great many pretty tricks, levitation, altering the form of things, making objects and people disappear and then appear again, I was ignorant of the healing arts.

  Michael started to come round, once the doctor had arrived and set himself to sorting out that shattered knee. Gilbert, for all his fury with his younger brother, looked as though he would have changed places with him in a moment and borne the pain himself. I know I would gladly have done that, but I wonder if it was generosity that prompted me. Watching a loved one suffer is perhaps the greater agony, making the desire to usurp that pain an act of cowardice, rather than nobility. It was no comfort that Michael had brought this anguish upon himself, that he might even have deserved to bear it, after taking another man’s life.

  I do not know.

  The surgery was dreadful to witness, and yet I could not leave Michael’s side. I absorbed each scream, each moan and curse, in my spirit, every one like a violent shock, and when it was over, and he collapsed again, however mercifully, into a near comatose state, I also swooned.

  Gilbert, poor, beleaguered, stricken Gilbert, carried me to another room, where I was to be looked after by a maid. I was exhausted by Michael’s ordeal, and went immediately to sleep.

  But I must leave the tale here for a little while, dear Phillie, for I fear I have run on too long, and my story, while dramatic, is also grim. I do not wish to tire you overmuch, so I shall wait a week or so before I write another letter.

  Thank you, beloved friend, for your understanding heart and gentle comments. You cannot know what comfort your wise letters have brought me.

  Love always, Kristina

  Max folded the aged vellum pages carefully, almost reverently, and tucked them back into the appropriate envelope. Instead of reaching for another, he looked at Kristina, seeming to see into the farthest corner of her bruised heart, and she knew he saw her loneliness, her pain, her doubts. He pushed back his chair a little way.

  “Come here,” he said gently. “You look like somebody who needs to be held.”

  Kristina didn’t require a second invitation. She was around the table and seated on Max’s lap, with her arms encircling his neck and her head resting on his shoulder, almost before her next heartbeat.

  Max held her tightly. He smelled good, and felt good, too—hard and strong and yet incredibly tender. Although Kristina wanted him powerfully, she appreciated that he did nothing in those moments except to keep her within the warm circle of his embrace.

  “You’re too good to be true, Max Kilcarragh,” she said against his neck.

  He chuckled. “I wish I could keep you thinking that for the rest of your life,” he replied, his breath a soft caress at her temple as he spoke, one that set her tingling and roused the legion of needs that had been slumbering within her. “Unfortunately it won’t be long before you find out the truth. I have a temper. I’m opinionated, especially when it comes to politics. And somewhere deep inside, I have to admit, I wish women still wanted to stay home, cook, and raise kids. How’s that for a shocking confession?”

  Kristina sat back far enough to look into Max’s face, albeit reluctantly. No man had ever held her so lovingly without expecting, even demanding, something in return, and she loved the intimacy of it. “In comparison to my being one hundred and thirty years old and having vampires for parents, you mean?”

  Max sighed heavily, but his eyes were still warm, still smiling. “I don’t think I’ve absorbed that yet,” he confessed.

  “When you do,” Kristina predicted, suddenly sorrowful again, “you’ll never want to see me again. You’ll tell me to stay away from you and your beautiful children.”

  He brushed her mouth with his. “It’s more likely, lovely Kristina, that you will become bored with me one day.” The sound of clapping and the chiming of the mantel clock in the parlor were simultaneous. It was midnight—where had the evening gone?—and Dathan stood in the kitchen doorway, still applauding.

  “An accurate prediction, I’m sure,” the warlock said, ignoring Kristina’s murderous glare. “What, I pray you, is duller than a mortal?”

  69

  Max, always so unflappable, in Kristina’s experience at least, tensed at the sight of the warlock and moved without hesitation to confront him. Kristina put out an arm to prevent that. There were any number of ways an immortal could defend himself against a human being, no matter how brave that feckless mortal might be, and most of them were unthinkable. Especially in connection with Max.

  Dathan was at his most charming—but with an edge. “Oh, dear,” he said with a sly glint in his eyes and a soft exhalation of breath. “Here we have that most foolhardy of all creatures—a brave mortal. Perhaps I was too hasty, Mr. Kilcarragh, in declaring you to be dull. Though you would be oh-so-mu
ch better off as a dullard than a martyr, it’s true.”

  “Enough,” Kristina said firmly, her gaze never leaving Dathan’s face. She still had the back of one hand pressed against Max’s chest, as though that would stop him if he decided to pounce.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Max demanded.

  Dathan chuckled. “Who indeed?”

  Kristina sighed. “Max Kilcarragh,” she said, “meet Dathan—warlock among warlocks.”

  Max seemed to feel a grudging fascination, rather than fear. He narrowed his eyes, studying the splendid beast who stood before him; Dathan’s manner was almost as imperious as that of Valerian. “Is that your religious persuasion,” Max asked, “or were you born that way?”

  Dathan’s deceptively soft brown eyes gleamed with delighted amusement. “Religion has nothing to do with it,” he replied at some length. “And, yes, I suppose I was born a warlock, but I couldn’t say when that momentous event occurred. I’ve quite forgotten.”

  “Vampires are made,” Kristina explained, looking back at Max over one shoulder. A deep sorrow possessed her; the understanding he had displayed earlier would be short-lived, once he really comprehended the full spectrum of fiends he might encounter, just by association with Kristina. “Created by other vampires, I mean. Warlocks”—she tossed a malevolent glance toward Dathan“—probably hatch, like reptiles.”

  “I’m getting a headache,” Max said. He looked as though every muscle in his body was poised for a fight. “Just tell me, Kristina—is this guy welcome here?”

  “Welcome is hardly the word I would use,” Kristina answered, and Dathan pretended to be wounded by her remark. “He’s quite harmless, however. Where I’m concerned, at least.”