Blood Marriage

by Regina Richards

  "Please move, Lucre...Lucy," Bergen's voice was gently imploring. "We need to get into that room."

  Lucy reached out one perfectly formed arm. The long hard nail of a single finger traced the doctor's cheek from temple to chin, leaving an angry red welt in its wake. Bergen didn't flinch.

  "Please, mea adorat," the doctor said.

  Lucy dropped her arm to her side. Her other hand reached behind her, resting on the doorknob. For the space of several agonizing heartbeats she remained there. Then a low laugh gurgled up from deep in her throat.

  "You want to go in? Allow me." The doorknob clicked, turned. Lucy let go of the knob, allowing the door to glide open as she stepped aside. Cold air streamed into the hall.

  The window near her mother's bed was open, the pink curtains blowing in the night breeze. Amelia Smith lay pale against white sheets. Elizabeth gasped. Nicholas stood beside the bed, his hands at her mother's throat, her blood oozing red between his fingers.

  Elizabeth was the first to reach her mother's side, but she was immediately relegated to the foot of the bed by Dr. Bergen. Nicholas released his grip on her mother's neck and Amelia's eyelids fluttered. The doctor bent low over his patient.

  Elizabeth wanted to scream, to sob. Instead she reached beneath the blanket and wrapped her hands around the ice-cold flesh of her mother's feet, trying to warm them, willing her to live. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it was a selfish wish. Amelia Smith had suffered enough.

  Through the deaths of so many loved ones over the years and through her own torturous battle with the cancer eating her from within, her mother had held on with unfailing courage. Elizabeth knew that unyielding endurance had been for her benefit. Her mother had been afraid to die and leave her daughter alone in the world. But now Elizabeth was married and, in her mother's eyes, her life settled.

  Her mother had no idea Elizabeth would soon follow her to the grave. And she would never know. Elizabeth had been able to do that much for her, allow her that small sliver of happiness in the end. Amelia Smith would die believing one of her children had survived, married well, and lived happily ever after. Elizabeth had believed it was the last gift she could give her mother.

  Now, looking at her mother's pale face, hearing her weary moan as Doctor Bergen tried to stop the loss of blood, Elizabeth knew there was one more gift she could give. She could let her mother go.

  Across the bed Amanda handed Nicholas a towel. He cleaned his hands as best he could, his gaze traveling between his wife and his mother-in-law. Amanda shut the window, locking out the cold, then found a blanket to add to the many already covering the dying woman. Leo returned, keys in hand, and took a place beside Amanda, Lucy and Randall in a silent semicircle well back from the bed. Dressed in funeral black, their expressions grim, they looked like specters of death.

  Elizabeth shivered. She released her mother's feet and went to kneel at the head of the bed. She lifted her mother's hand and rubbed it lightly between her own. Life-weary eyes fluttered open to focus on Elizabeth. A smile curved bloodless lips.

  "There's no pain where I'm going, Lizzie." Her mother took several labored breaths as if those few words had drained her.

  Doctor Bergen's eyes met Elizabeth's across the bed and he shook his head. Her mother wasn't young and strong like Margaret. Elizabeth felt Nicholas's hand squeeze her shoulder. She waved him off; afraid even such a small gesture of compassion might send her into hysterical sobbing. That wasn't how she wanted these last moments to be. All her life her mother had been strong for her. Now she would be strong for her mother. Nicholas moved away to stand with the others. Bergen stepped back as well.

  "Go, Mama," Elizabeth whispered. "Go where there is no pain. It's all right to go. I'll be fine."

  "Yes, my girl, fine. Your brothers are so happy for you, Lizzie."

  Her mother whimpered softly and her legs thrashed beneath the heavy quilts.

  "Sshh, Mama," Elizabeth smoothed the hair at her mother's forehead, not allowing her eyes to do more than skim past the twin puncture wounds still oozing blood. As she stroked her hair, her mother calmed, closed her eyes, and lay so still that for an instant Elizabeth thought she was gone. She leaned over and kissed her soft white cheek.

  Her mother's eyes flew open wide and she was suddenly more alert than Elizabeth had seen her in weeks.

  "Careful, my love." Her mother's gaze flashed about the semi-circle of people surrounding the bed. Elizabeth wished they would go away and leave them alone. Her mother had lived a private, dignified life. Her passing should be the same.

  As if he'd read her thoughts, Nicholas said, "There's nothing more to be done. It's time to leave Elizabeth and her mother in peace."

  "No!" Her mother's voice rang out from the bed. "The evil one will escape. Blood! Blood! You'll not have my girl! You will not!" Her eyes were wild, feverishly flying from one face to another.

  Elizabeth tried to follow her mother's gaze, but couldn't tell who it was that was upsetting her. When Elizabeth looked back at her mother her eyes were closed again. Her agitation gone as swiftly as it had come. One frail hand squeezed Elizabeth's.

  "Yes, of course, I'm coming," the dying woman mumbled. Her legs thrashed beneath the quilts again and then she lay quiet.

  Nicholas ushered everyone from the room, before seting a chair next to the bed. Elizabeth rose from her knees and sank into it. Nicholas draped a blanket about her shoulders. He said nothing, nor did he try to touch her, and Elizabeth was grateful. Then he and Bergen sat in silence near the fireplace, waiting.

  Her mother didn't speak or open her eyes again. Elizabeth held her hand and wept and prayed. Over the next quarter-hour her mother's breathing slowed and became shallower. Finally it stopped. Elizabeth cried out and pressed her cheek against her mother's hand. Nicholas and Bergen came to stand at the foot of the bed like twin angels of death, their dark heads bowed.

  Amelia Smith had joined her husband and sons in the final peace of death.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Amelia Smith’s body had been laid out in a small parlor near the library. A woman from the village, a matron of some talent, had been hired to wash and dress it. Elizabeth had been grateful for both the woman's skill and her courage. She'd come to Heaven's Edge while so many others were fleeing. Many of the staff Vlad had managed to retain the morning Grubner's body was found, hadn't returned to the house following his wake. Still more had deserted following the stable master's funeral. The few remaining were overworked and skittish. Asking any of them to keep the traditional vigil and sit overnight with Amelia Smith’s body would have risked more defections.

  Elizabeth sucked in a breath as she entered the parlor. Twin candles burned on high-pillared stands at her mother's head and feet. Their soft light created a golden aura around her body, an island of radiance in the otherwise inky blackness of the room. Amelia looked like a sleeping princess. Her hands were folded in relaxed elegance at her waist. Her silver-streaked hair curled in loose ringlets down either side of her face and past her shoulders. It had been artfully arranged to hide the wounds. The paleness Elizabeth had become accustomed to was gone. Skillfully rouged lips, cheeks and hands gave her mother a healthier complexion in death than in life. It was almost as if she truly was sleeping, and if touched would awaken.

  Elizabeth reached out, but fearing the reality of cold flesh, she avoided touching her mother's skin. Instead she stroked the delicate lace of her wedding gown. Once ivory, the material had yellowed over the years. But tonight, in the warm glow of candlelight, it was a dress of golden lace.

  Her mother had insisted on being buried in this dress. Everything beautiful in her life, she'd claimed, had begun the moment she'd put it on: becoming the wife of the man she loved, bearing the children she'd treasured until their deaths and, past that, to her own. Elizabeth shook her head at her mother's foolishness. This dress had brought her a husband who'd died young, leaving her alone struggling to raise children born to die too soon as well. Only
Amelia could have found the blessing in that.

  One tear after another pooled on Elizabeth's lashes and spilled over to run down her cheeks. She brushed them away. Earlier that day, following Grubner's funeral, Lennie, Nicholas, and Dr. Bergen had carried her mother's body downstairs on a board. They'd placed it in this elaborate coffin, carved with tiny angels dancing among flowers. Elizabeth traced one of the happy figures with a damp finger. Would these same cherubs dance around her when the time came?

  "Oh, Mama," Elizabeth whispered. "I thought when you were finally safe I would be ready to go as well, but...Mama, I love him. I love him and I can't bear to lose him."

  "Then don't lose him," the man's voice, his words slightly slurred, drifted out of the darkness behind her.

  Elizabeth whirled and squinted into the shadows. He sat just beyond the reach of the candlelight, the tips of his boots visible, but little else. Elizabeth lifted the candle from its place near her mother's feet and held it out. He brought his brandy glass up to shield his eyes.

  "Put that back. It's past midnight. No decent time to be shining light on a man." The Duke of Marlbourne was drunk. He wore the same black clothes he'd worn to Grubner's funeral that morning. His blond hair was wild and his cravat untied. He looked older tonight, more like Nicholas's father, less like his brother.

  "Put it down," he insisted. Elizabeth returned the candle to its place at the end of the coffin. "Good girl. Now, since that fool son of mine has allowed you to wander off from his bed, come sit by me, child. Keep me company while I fin...finish this drink."

  Elizabeth hesitated. The duke rose and leaned into the circle of candlelight. His head seemed to float, disembodied by the darkness behind him. He smiled a tipsy smile. His mouth and teeth seemed overlarge. Elizabeth glanced at the door.

  "I'm 'armless, my dear." He put a hand on the back of a chair and tugged it into the darkness. Brandy sloshed from the glass in his other hand, leaving a glistening trail, dark and wet, on the wood floor. The trail followed him into the shadows. Elizabeth heard the sound of furniture colliding and a thick wooden stick, sharp at one end, rolled out of the darkness. It clattered across the floor and came to rest at the base of one of the candle pillars.

  "Truly, I'm harmless," the duke repeated. "Not like them. Bloodsuckers! Murder'rs!" Air whooshed from beneath a leather cushion. Marlbourne had fallen back into his chair. "Where'd my damn brandy go? Lizbeth, be an angel and bring me the decanner...the tecander...more damn brandy."

  A hand shot out of the darkness, one finger pointing to a table Elizabeth remembered was near the door. She took the candle from the head of her mother's coffin, found the table and picked up the brandy decanter. She paused, tempted to dash out the door and return to her room. Would her father-in-law even remember such rudeness in the morning?

  "Leave the light. Bring the brandy," he said.

  Elizabeth returned the candle to the head of the coffin and stepped to the edge of the light. She held the decanter out into the darkness that shrouded everything past the duke's boot tips. She expected him to take it. His hand wrapped her wrist instead and he jerked her down into the darkness beside him. Her thigh bumped hard against the chair arm as she slid into the empty seat.

  "Good girl." The duke patted Elizabeth's thigh, then took the decanter from her hand. She shivered despite the heavy black mourning gown she wore. She wished she'd taken the time to don a shawl before leaving her room to search for her husband.

  It was becoming a pattern with them. They went to bed together, but when Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night, Nicholas was gone. Last night she'd found him asleep in a chair in the library with piles of books surrounding him. Most, like the one Lennie had given her, were about vampires. A few were about even more frightening things: demons and demonic possession. Reluctant to wake him and unwilling to leave him alone, she'd curled up on a leather couch nearby. She'd fallen asleep there beside him, only to wake the next morning in their bed, a white rose on the pillow where Nicholas should have been.

  "Hard to believe he's gone." The decanter clicked against glass. The glug of brandy being poured followed. Elizabeth's eyes were adjusting to the dark. The duke's shadow, denser than the surrounding gloom, leaned sideways to set the decanter on the floor.

  "Good man, Karl," the duke said. "Past seventy, though he didn't look it. My father said Grubner was the best man with a horse ever born in this county. Thought well of him. Left him a fine little farm and that house in the village when he died."

  Marlbourne slammed his palm hard on the arm of his chair, causing Elizabeth to jump in her seat. Perhaps she'd take her chances on what the man would remember in the morning. She started to stand. He pressed a hand on her shoulder. She sank back into her chair. The strong smell of brandy told her his face was close to hers. He slapped the armrest again and a shower of droplets wet Elizabeth's arm.

  "But Heaven's Edge was Grubner's real home. After he los' his only boy in the war with that damned Napoleon, his brother's boy took over the farm for him. Grubner and his wife came back to Heaven's Edge. Never left again." The duke's voice turned softer, sadder. "Our wives died just days apart. Influenza."

  "I'm sorry," Elizabeth said.

  "Sad days. Then and now. For all of us."

  Elizabeth nodded in the darkness, her eyes on the beautiful woman in the coffin. Sad days. As if signaling their agreement, the candles at either end of her mother's body flickered in a sudden draft and were almost extinguished. The draft died away and they sprang back to life.

  "What was Nicholas like as a child?" Elizabeth asked, hoping to distract her father-in-law from unhappy memories. Marlbourne chuckled.

  "Trouble. Same as now. But as a child he worried his mother to distraction. We'd already lost four sons."

  "Four? Nicholas had brothers?"

  "Didn't he tell you? My Sarah gave birth to six strong, healthy children. Five sons and a daughter. Lillian, our girl, lives in Egypt. She married a man old enough to be her grandfather. Spends his time digging in the dirt for broken pots." The duke snorted rudely and lifted the brandy to his lips.

  Elizabeth waited, hoping this talkative mood would last. When the duke spoke again the anguish of loss was heavy in his voice.

  "Lillian married the old fool to spite me. She blamed me for her mother's death. But I gave Sarah my word I wouldn't allow it. I gave her my word."

  There was the sound of soft snoring. The duke had fallen asleep. Elizabeth sighed. She could leave now, but she no longer wanted to. She wanted to know more about the man she'd married, the family she'd married into.

  "Four brothers?" Elizabeth poked a finger at a bit of dense shadow she believed to be the duke's stomach. He made a startled sound. The snoring stopped.

  "You had four other sons?" Elizabeth prompted.

  "Yes, five boys in all. Nickie was the youngest. Patrick, James, William, Michael. All dead before Nick was old enough to know or miss them. But I miss them. And Sarah. And Grubner." The shadow moved. Glass clicked on glass. Brandy poured.

  "What happened?" Elizabeth asked.

  "Sarah treated Nicholas and Lillian like china dolls. But Lillian was fine. Healthy. She could fall down stairs, tumble from trees, the sorts of things kids do, and be none the worse for it. But Nickie, he was like the others. Bump him, he'd be black and blue. Cut him, he wouldn't stop bleeding. Not normal. We knew he'd die like the others. That's why I did it. Sarah couldn't have borne the death of another child. And neither could I."

  Elizabeth felt as if she couldn’t get a breath. "How did the others die?"

  "Falls, cuts, and the like. The doctors called it bleeding disease. Said it was unusual, so many in the same family. That's why Nick's what he is. My fault. Was trying to save him."

  "What is he?" Elizabeth held her breath. She knew what her husband was, had known since that night at Maidenstone. Yet she feared her father-in-law's response. As if hearing someone else say it, would make it irrevocably real.

  "He's one of them. Bl
oodsuckers and murderers."

  Stunned, Elizabeth sat silent.

  "My fault. Was trying to save him." The duke's voice was thick with brandy and guilt. "I heard there was a Romanian physician who performed miracles with children like Nick. Took the whole family, Sarah and Lillian too. We went to Romania and found the doctor. He promised to help our boy, make him well again in just three treatments. But he insisted on secrecy. He refused to allow us to be present during the treatments."

  The dense shadow that was the duke raised his glass to his lips and drained the last of the brandy.

  "After the first treatment, Nickie was better. So much so that we decided to take a tour, see a bit of the country while we awaited the second treatment. We'd been told not to remove the bandage at his neck. But boys are boys. He took it off in a shop in a tiny village where we'd stopped for lunch. I'll never forget the horror on the shopkeeper's face. At first I passed off what they told us as ridiculous. Peasant superstition. I told myself that Nickie was getting well and that's all that mattered. But when it came time to leave him alone with the doctor for his second treatment..."

  The shadow-duke shrugged. "I told Sebastian I'd take a long walk. Instead, I hid in his surgery. I saw what he did to my boy and I killed him for his kindness. He'd only been married a few weeks. When his bride found out, she went mad. She took both the children...before she died, she made Nicholas what he is. My fault. I brought this on us all. Bloodsuckers. Murderers."

  "You can't believe that?" Elizabeth finally found her voice. "Not about your own son!"

  Soft snoring was followed by the rap of a glass hitting the floor.

  "Wake up!" Elizabeth poked her finger hard into the man several times. He murmured objections in his sleep, but resumed snoring. "Wake up!" she insisted, but there was no response.