Medley of Souls

by Renee Peters

  His expression gentled and she felt the twist of frustration and regret in his music.

  “I am doing the best I can, Joanna. I do not know how to be what you need, and can see as well as you can that — this — is not sustainable. If you can think upon another means to end this misery I am happy to hear it.”

  “Trampling me is not your best,” she said almost too sharply. He was not the only one frustrated by their misery. “You are trying to steal my choice for what you believe is best. What you believe I need. If you wish me gone, I will leave. If you wish me to stay, I will stay. I already told you I will make no demands upon you, Dorian, but I cannot abide you tearing into yourself for how you feel you must treat me. I am not a child, cher.”

  His gaze settled upon her with such an intensity that she felt as if he must be looking into her very soul.

  “It is not my desire that you leave. Nor is it my desire that we live in the same house as strangers. But it will take more than desires to find the place where we can walk with a common understanding again.” His eyes lifted to touch over her features. “It will mean learning each other anew, Joanna. I have the patience for it, if you do.”

  Her fingers lifted, swiping beneath an eye. She had long cried away all the tears she had left inside of her with the formation of the Arch Elders’ Eternal Bond. Stepping forward she closed the distance between them if only to nest into a lean against his front and the treacherous scent of perfume. Her head turned to rest her ear against his shoulder, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

  “I am patient,” she murmured.

  She could be patient for his sake and for her own. Did Penelope, after all, not spend three years weaving and undoing the burial shroud to buy her time for her husband’s return?

  At her sides, Joanna felt his arms lift in an embrace he did not complete before they dropped to his sides again and she gave him back his space.

  “Are you to bed, Dorian?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I am afraid I have a more pressing need.” Silence fell between them for a few beats. “I have not fed. I must hunt,” he clarified. “My intent was to the street.”

  The perfume cloyed in her throat.

  She had promised.

  “Then I shall not keep you, mon Seigneur,” she said quietly and offered a shallow curtsy with her smile.

  “I shall see you before your day rest.” His bow was as shallow in turn, though he took her fingers to salute with a chaste kiss before straightening to move around her to climb the stairs.

  For a moment, Joanna watched his back. The scent of lilies clung to her, and closing her eyes, the queen abandoned her shawl on the table in the foyer before climbing the stairs to the retreat of her own bedroom.

  Chapter 30

  Night after night,

  He drapes her in his sable darkness

  And fashions for her

  A crown of a thousand stars.

  Joanna brushed her fingers across her lips before abandoning the verses. Easing into a stand, the woman closed her eyes. She leaned over her writing desk, breathing in to steady herself.

  She had promised.

  And so, she did not write of the scent of lilies that had followed Dorian home on occasion.

  Her fingers slipped into the journal and almost without a thought, she dragged it down to toss it onto the floor. She regretted it almost as soon as it hit the wood, and wiping her brow, Joanna lowered to draw the journal to her chest.

  A knock sounded at the door and she was of a mind to tell William to leave her be, thinking he had come to check on her.

  “My lady,” the butler offered through the door. “Miss Flowers has come to call. Will you see her?”

  Delilah.

  The queen pulled her book against her lips, breathing in the scent of ink and parchment. It was the first day of December today, and she had not seen Delilah in nearly three weeks since Angelica had come with her poison. It did not feel like it had been so short a time.

  “Oui. I will see her. You can let her in.”

  Better Delilah than the visitors who had come to wish the Condesa well and whisper of the Conde’s attention to a widow.

  She heard William’s retreating steps and straightened to return her journal to her writing desk, her fingers brushing over the embossed cover.

  It only took a few minutes for the knock to sound again, and Joanna had barely opened it before she had her arms full of Delilah in an embrace. Foolish. She’d not realized how starved she was for a touch until the warmth of her companion was wrapped around her.

  “Hello, Lilette,” she breathed a laugh, closing her arms around the woman.

  “Joanna, my dear friend,” Delilah murmured as she released her. “Will you ever forgive me? I was so unkind.” Her lavender gaze was sparkling with the sheen of unshed tears. “And I have taken too long to come. Only m’lord has been so particular about my leaving the manor.” Her fingers came to her cheeks. “Surely you know… about my blood?” A shadow danced across her expression. “The danger?”

  “Oui,” she said softly. “I have known.” Joanna lifted a hand to brush her fingers across Delilah’s curls where they rested on her brow. “I thought Dorian was trying to tell a story when he said you were Fae. You are my first — I thought they all had wings.” Her expression softened faintly. “He said you sing to our blood. We know our bonds in such a way.”

  Her heart twisted.

  She had promised.

  Joanna’s fingers lowered. “I am sorry Angelica frightened you so. She did the same to me when I was first brought to Anowen. I do not think the girl likes the singing. Your singing has enlivened us.”

  And Angelica had always found a living heart harder to bear for loving her sire. Obsessive love that was like a poison.

  I love you

  As the moon must love the night sky.

  She was not the same as the girl, but Joanna thought perhaps, she could understand the want for a return to the peace of the silence that had existed before Delilah Flowers.

  The darkness of the thought made her flutes skitter until she willed it back into her shadows.

  Delilah followed the French queen into the depths of the room and sank into the chair she had claimed for a perch on prior visits. “Perhaps it was for the best,” she offered comfortingly. “I have no way of knowing how long I would have been kept in the dark otherwise. Men are so very frustrating.”

  The woman’s lips curved into a mischievous smile. “I have been rather inclined to make Sam pay for his silence, but I do not have the strength for it. Besides, he is quite tormented enough by the thought that every Immortal we encounter might fancy me his bondmate.” She leaned forward to offer a conspiratorial whisper. “I have gone quite out of my way to let him know he is the only one I want.”

  “Delilah Flowers, you have been gardening.” Joanna laughed quietly and leaned back in her chair. Her fingers threaded through her loose curls and she tried to focus on the moment. “And he has offered, then, to give you his last name?”

  Delilah sighed the happy sigh of one whose dreams come true and sank back into the cushions. “Yes. I am to become Mrs. Delilah Graham this very Friday, in six days, and I can scarcely believe it! It feels as if we have been courting a veritable eternity.” She made scribing motions in the air. “I have been practicing my signature.”

  Joanna Vaughn.

  One signature of many that the Frenchwoman had practiced and discarded before her wedding day. The dress was still folded in her trunk, and her finger felt absent of the weight of her ring.

  “I am so happy for you, Delilah,” she said, and it was true. But she found that she was jealous too.

  Delilah’s gaze flickered to the Condesa’s writing desk. “What of you, dear Joanna? Are you still writing? How is the Conde?”

  “Oui. The new book is nearly done only this poem is giving me trouble,” Joanna offered, lifting her fingers to wave idly toward her table. “I shall have to make a fair copy an
d determine the best course with my publisher. I do not know what to do. I wish to publish under my own name but I was given a rather definitive non. So perhaps I shall keep it to myself another fifty years.”

  Delilah blinked in surprise at first, and then laughed. “How easily I forget that you shall still be as young then, as you are now.” Her brow furrowed slightly. “It is most unfair that you should have to wait. I should like to read a book written by a woman I know in my lifetime.”

  Her gaze searched over Joanna’s expression. “And the Conde?” She hesitated on the question, as if aware that it was not the comfortable subject it should be.

  “He has been occupied with the ton.” Joanna had grown skillful in keeping her smile. “He has the wife he wanted for in this lifetime and I have a measure of peace before I must return to Anowen. I shall be pleased to see your children if you should have them upon my visits until then.”

  Delilah seemed as if she would speak further on the matter, but the mention of children and family had the effect that the French queen intended. Her eyes sparkled.

  “Sam has promised to make short enough work getting started upon the effort — though part of the blame may be my own for it.” Her expression gentled. “Will you and the Conde attend our nuptials? It would please me dearly to have my friend stand as family” She hesitated. “I have no one else, you see.”

  Joanna’s music wrenched, and she was thankful the girl could not hear her. “I would love nothing more, Lilette. But I cannot see the sun as Dorian and Lian can.” Her gaze lowered to her lap before lifting again. “You will forget my absence entirely when you stand alongside Samuel. And then you will tell me everything when next we visit.”

  Delilah’s expression sank slightly for the revelation, but it was not in the girl’s nature to remain downcast for long. “Perhaps it will be a visit to Anowen,” she said shyly. “We must return there someday soon enough, Sam says. Though I am hoping not too soon.”

  Her brow stitched slightly. “I cannot be fond of the idea of having Angelica as a neighbor. I think the Earl intends on letting us remain at his Manor for a short while after the wedding. At least until he has determined I am safe for the… Fae trouble as well.”

  Joanna rubbed her fingers against her neck, far too aware of what was missing.

  “Angelica is over two hundred years old, but she has the whims of the age she was turned. She will forget you and find another to torment. Particularly if you are to be a Graham.” She quieted and lowered her hand back to her lap. “I think you would be safer at Anowen, Lilette.”

  The words caused a deeper shadow of concern to darken Delilah’s expression, as if she had not considered herself truly in danger before the queen’s words, and she caught her lower lip to nibble on.

  “It is enough, oui?” Joanna offered with a clap and stood. “I am tired of dreary conversation. You will show me how you sign your name and we will spend our hours drinking tea and coffee and graying William with our impropriety. The Conde shall not be home until the early morning hours, and I am of a mind for distractions.”

  The shadows fled from Delilah’s face and she rose in turn. Together the women made their way out of the Condesa’s suites and down the stairs to the sitting room. Before long, it was filled with the sound of feminine laughter and conversation, and at one point again, with the quiet music of the queen’s voice reading aloud.

  For an evening, at least, Joanna almost found peace again.

  Chapter 31

  The month of December had ushered in the dreariness of winter with a vengeance — including a storm that had all but washed away the wedding of Delilah Flowers to Samuel Graham, even though it had not dampened their joy.

  It was fitting, Dorian had thought, that he had been obliged to represent his household on his own. Despite Joanna’s closeness to her friend, the Conde was uncertain that his wife would have been able to celebrate as joyfully as she should have in the shadow that had settled with their new arrangement.

  In the weeks that had passed since they had committed to trying, some semblance of a new routine had been established between them. Afternoons of reading had been replaced with her quiet but companionable presence in whatever room he had chosen for his occupation. Of late, that had been his interest in researching the steam locomotive — the latest in a series of modern inventions in which he and Lian had invested. The new technology and their involvement with its expansion had proven a subject of mutual interest, and conversation at times flowed freely around it.

  On the nights he remained at home, he supervised her hunts and had found himself increasingly surprised by her intuition and skill — even if it had taken more discipline than he had known he possessed not to tear into the mortal beasts who considered her prey.

  On the nights he ventured into society, she no longer waited at the door for him upon his return.

  It had been the easier course for them both, though he was aware that the more malicious of the ton had beat a path to their door with sympathy.

  That the widow Wycliff had been seen alone in his company on the occasions they happened to grace the same entertainments had been enough to set the bitch hounds baying. And Dorian had not had the care or energy to fend them off.

  Diana, however, had made something of a game of it.

  The Conde’s lips twitched wryly at the thought of the woman who had become a friend. He knew she expected they would transcend that boundary — just as she knew the game well enough not to press.

  The whisper of Joanna’s flutes descending the stairs was enough to draw him from his reverie.

  “Hold, Joanna. I must close out the light.”

  He rose from the darkwood desk of his office where he had been scratching out a missive in the light of early morning. It was another of the changes that had come, permitting himself to open the manor to the light during the times he was alone. Beyond the window was evidence that the weather had finally broken. It was a day meant to be enjoyed, and there was a part of him that knew regret for having to shut it away from his Condesa. She would be free to the sun soon enough.

  Darkness bloomed in the office.

  “It is safe,” he called quietly, and turned up the lamp a notch to a soft glow. He turned toward the doorway to greet her. “You should be abed, my lady.” It was only the ghost of a reprimand.

  “I have already been abed and awake again,” she offered with a bow of her head. “Any more and I shall melt into my bed entirely.” Her hand lifted to scuff through her loose curls, and he saw the book she had brought in her other. “Should I leave you to work, Cher?”

  He smiled slightly for the image she presented. Even with bed mussed waves and in the simplicity of her day gown he found her as beautiful as the day beyond the window.

  “I suppose you must get weary of your wall hangings. No, come in. I have been avoiding the books — the numbers are always easier for your company.” His gaze gentled on her. “What are you reading today?” He returned to his desk, reaching into a drawer for the estate accounts that betrayed a recent lack of attention for their disorder.

  “It is called The Corinna of England.” Joanna’s smile grew by a tick before she settled down on the armchair in his office, one leg tucked beneath her as opened her book. “A Heroine in the Shade. But it is a romance. And Clarissa is a little….” She tilted her head and waved whatever she meant to say away. “Je ne se quoi… How are the numbers? We are to have another wing on the castle?”

  She was teasing him. There was a glitter to her eyes that betrayed her, despite the softness of her voice and smile.

  Dorian grunted. “Would that it become necessary.” Perhaps now that Lian had found his heart and life again their family would once again grow. “But these are the books for the estate. I have been meaning to —”

  His intended speech was interrupted by the sound of William briefly clearing his throat at the door.

  “My lord.”

  “What is it William?” His brow furrowed slig
htly. His butler would not interrupt them at their leisure unless it was a matter of some urgency or significance.

  “The Lady Ayla is here,” the servant began, and Dorian stilled for reading the man’s unease. “She would like a word.”

  The Elder rose to his feet, irritation warring with curiosity. “Then show her in William. We are not of a habit of keeping family waiting on the doorstep.”

  “Of course, m’lord,”

  “It is unnecessary,” Ayla’s voice was husky, and even before her appearance in the doorway, Dorian smelled the tell-tale scent of an Elder’s aged blood on the air. Immediately, he knew the rise of his beast's rage as he surged forward toward her.

  “You are bleeding.” He found the source on her Garrick coat — a deeper stain across the otherwise black fabric buttoned up her stomach. “And so, I shall assume the one who did it is dead.” His voice was as cold as the fire was hot that licked his blood.

  Behind him, Joanna’s music hit a high note that trembled with her concern.

  Ayla lifted a hand as if to fetter the beast she could not hear, before it lowered to her stomach, “The man is dead. It has healed already, Marido. It was a thrall. His bullet was meant for Delilah Graham. Lian has called Council.” Her dark gaze flicked beyond the High Lord’s shoulder. “The girl was unharmed.”

  Dorian heard Joanna’s flutes pitch in alarm before they petered out a release of some of her tension. But they skittered again through his blood as she took in the same implications he did.

  “It… was a thrall?” Joanna’s voice was soft. A thrall. A mortal addicted to their bite. “Whose… thrall?”

  “We do not know. Only that there will be Council for the implications,” Ayla offered, and her focus shifted back to Dorian. “Lian will arrive behind us. I believe he intends to see to Delilah’s security and determine the origin of the thrall if he is able. I was to collect you.”

  The Conde knew a momentary beat of concern for leaving Joanna alone, but whatever had occurred had been directed at the Fae-blooded woman, not any of their own kind — even if the presence of a thrall indicated Immortal action against the Sovereign's crown.