“And… and Childeric’s friends offered this to your grandfather?”
“Yes. And grandpêre’s wife, and four children. But as my father and Flosine had not reached maturity, the offer was to be given in phases. My grandparents would go first, joining Childeric in Eastern Europe, to what is now, in your time, Slovakia, to take the blood at the Master’s Tree from two of his tribe, and return home dhampir. As their children reached the age of their own desire—for, it was important to remember they would remain that age always—they would, in turn, take the same voyage, until all were dhampir, creating the new tribe of Childeric.
“My aunt Victorine was the youngest to take the blood, at nineteen, wishing to remain a debutante for all of time. Nanette and Flosine were slightly older. My father waited until his late twenties. One of the unusual gifts of the dhampir is they can still bear children, but their children are born without the gift, as only new dhampir can be created with the loss of an old one.”
“So…” Amelia searched for the words, her heart a racing mess. “Sorry, continue.”
“There is not much more to tell,” Victor said softly. “Ahh, I could tell you many, many stories, of course. But this revelation is a shock, I know. And I can only expect so much of you for one afternoon.”
“So, then… are you…”
“A dhampir?” Victor smiled. “Yes. Childeric continues to follow our family even today, assessing us, nominating one from his tribe to give their life for us. We are his new tribe, beholden to him but powerful in our own right, which is why he chose us.”
“Childeric still lives, though?”
“We have replaced, one by one, members of his tribe, but he has shown no sign of being ready to give his own gift away. He seems intent to lead us into the future.”
“How long have you been like this?”
“I took the blood five years past, at the age of twenty-eight. A choice, knowing as I know now, I have come to regret.”
“If you truly were offered such a choice, why regret it?” Her blanket dropped as she leaned forward. “I mean, you either want to be immortal or you don’t, but you obviously spent a lot of years thinking about it first.” Listen to yourself. You’re actually entertaining this ridiculous idea.
“I didn’t know then what I know now,” he said sadly. “that the price would be the love of my life.”
“I’m confused. You’re married already.”
“You reference a relationship born of duty,” he said. “Something I chose myself, willingly, for the reasons you might guess. I did not know at the time that my destiny was not to become a dhampir, but something far different.”
“And that is?”
“The part of this story I cannot tell you.” He seemed almost ashamed.
“Okay.” Amelia averted her eyes. She ran through her list of questions. “So, why take the blood? Other than immortality, what are the advantages?”
Victor laughed. “Is that not enough?”
“You had to know you couldn’t continue your life here after so many years. People would talk.”
“As they do now about my father. And my grandpêre, who is now a hundred and three years old.”
“You’re lying.”
“I promised honesty. I’ve given you honesty. You see my father and disbelieve he is seventy-eight years old for good reason. But his birth is a matter of record. His contemporaries, those who grew up alongside him, can speak to it even if they cannot explain it.”
“But…” But what? No, she wasn’t a foolish girl who looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, expecting everything to fall into place. Every explanation to be neat and tidy. She had trusted him this far, and while she was not fully ready to accept the truth of his words, she would be wasting precious time if she spent what they had left refuting him. “Tell me more about what it’s like to be a dhampir.”
“It is a lot like being human, except mortal wounds cannot kill me,” he answered. He seemed pleased at her question. “And, of course, I ceased to age five years ago. No, I do not require blood to live. It is more akin to a treat, or, in the case of those of us with special abilities, a burst of power. If we take from another who has power, we absorb theirs, temporarily. Some dhampir take gifted humans as slaves, so they can draw from their powers indefinitely. Others do so in order to assume the wealth of their slave.”
Amelia considered this. “Can you show me your fangs?”
“When I take blood, no fancy fangs descend. I have to retrieve it the old fashioned way. Sorry to disappoint.”
“What, a knife?”
“Or anything with an especially sharp edge.”
“Okay. What else? Clearly, you aren’t afraid of sunlight.”
“I’m not bothered by it in the slightest.”
“Garlic?”
“Wonderful with boar.”
“Silver?”
“Slightly less valuable than gold but still an asset.”
“And the cross?”
He tilted his head, eyeing her. “I must say, you’re taking this rather well.”
“I’m only waiting for the full moon so you can also reveal you’re a werewolf. Maybe the legend of the rougarou starts with you,” she quipped. “Cross? Yay? Nay?”
Victor pulled a necklace from under his shirt. The object was of thick construction, and solid gold. “Always with me, like any good Catholic.”
“A Catholic vampire?” Amelia shook her head. “When you take communion, do you bring the literal blood of Christ with you?”
“Would that I could!” He laughed with her. “I eat the same food as you. I sleep as you do. I drink as you do. I enjoy the same carnal pleasures.”
She rolled her eyes. “Glad we cleared that last one up.”
“You asked how my life was different,” Victor said with a shrug. “There are few differences, except in how we present ourselves to the world. My grandpêre has retired from public life for he is past the point of a reasonable suspension of disbelief. We held a funeral for him fifteen years ago, and my grandmère not long after. They were mourned by many.”
“How do you do that, though? Do you hide them in a cellar?”
“You know we cannot have cellars in Louisiana.”
Amelia sighed. “You know what I mean.”
“We own many properties along the river. Only two are open to our peers for events. The others are a sanctuary for those of us who are forced out of the sunlight and into the darkness until such time when anyone alive to remember us has passed.”
“That sounds very sad,” Amelia said softly.
“To be eternally surrounded by those you love? Mostly, it’s a gift. Occasionally torture.”
Amelia thought of perpetuity with all the Deschanels and an internal shiver passed through her. “Does your wife know? And your children?”
“No and no,” Victor replied, rising. “The day has already faded away from us. You must be starving.”
“I hadn’t even thought about food, to be honest,” she said. She leaned back over the chair and gazed out the window, where hail beat down on the surface of the river. “But we can’t go back to the house when it’s like this.”
“We may have provisions in the storeroom,” he said and disappeared through a small door behind the bar.
Amelia took the opportunity to stand and stretch. She’d been so absorbed with his story and hadn’t realized how much time had passed, but her body felt the lack of movement.
No matter what Victor said, she was worried for Jacob, too. She didn’t doubt his resilience, but she was afraid of what Jean might do, and what his intentions were in asking him to come to begin with. And he hadn’t returned yet, though he said he would be back by dinner. They would have heard the approaching carriage.
“I’m afraid this is all I could find,” Victor apologized. In one hand, he had a hunk of stale bread. In the other, half a wheel of cheese. “But there is more wine, and that, if nothing, will dull the pain.”
“I
t’s fine,” she said and joined him at the bar. “I haven’t eaten much since we arrived anyway.”
“Is the food too different for your palate?”
She shook her head. “Stress.”
Victor tore the bread in half and handed her a piece. “I am aware this advice comes without provocation,” he started, hesitant. “But I believe your restoration will begin when you learn to heal with him.”
“Jacob?”
“Who else?”
Amelia worked the hard bread around in her mouth, wincing as she swallowed down a near whole piece. “You say that, but you don’t understand.”
“I do, and we will leave it at that before I get myself in trouble.”
“And yet you keep talking about it!”
“Jacob,” he said, ignoring her, “is the only one who shares your pain through experience.”
“He saw what that monster did to me.” Amelia put the bread down. She stared at the cheese but made no move for it. “And when I look at him, I see it in his eyes.”
“What that monster did to both of you,” Victor corrected. “You can measure the degree of offense, or put it on a scale if it helps you to understand it, but you both suffered. For Jacob, there was nothing worse in all the world than feeling as if he was a party to your sorrow. He will live with that for all the rest of his days, as will you.”
“So he looks at me and sees pain and failure. Is that somehow better?”
“He needs you, too,” Victor said. “You are not the only one who cannot move on from what happened that night.”
Amelia pushed back from the bar, dizzy with her own exhaustion. Mental, physical, emotional… there was no limit to any of the three. “You seem to know everything about me, but refuse to tell me why you even care, or why it should matter to you.” She threw her hands up before he could rebut. “I know, you think you can’t, and maybe that’s true, but I can’t talk about this anymore tonight. Not with you. Every moment since I’ve been here has been a frustrating mystery I can’t explain, and if I can’t solve this, I can’t move on… and no, don’t tell me I’m wrong. You don’t know everything about me!”
“You’re right,” he said, his face a mask of pacifism. “I cannot know everything about you. And it is unfair of me to expect you to take my words without the proper evidence.”
Victor went to the chaise and picked up her blanket. “Come, Amelia. I’ll take you to a private cabin where you can get some rest until the rain dies off.”
“Thank you.” Her chest heaved with emotion, sending blood rushing to her face. He had unburdened himself of a great secret, one she would contemplate the rest of her days, but he’d kept from her the one she needed most. Her very reason for coming here.
He led her down a narrow set of iron stairs, and through a short hallway. The room they entered was as large as her chambers in Ophélie. “It is my suite,” he explained. “I want you to be comfortable.”
“This is more than fine.”
“Rest well, Amelia. And should you have dreams tonight… pay them mind.”
“I’ll just lie down for a few. Maybe by then, the storm will pass,” she said with a stifled yawn.
XIV
Tonight was the first in a great long while that Jean had not come to her bed. Yet what should have granted her relief only worried her further.
If only Ophélie had known Jean would request Lord Donnelly’s presence on the journey! She could have warned him that her brother’s intentions could not possibly be wholesome. Jean didn’t require Lord Donnelly to help him fetch their parcels at the post. He didn’t need their guest for anything. So why bring him?
Jean, never one to make waste of his time, often whispered his displeasure of the guests in her ear as he lay atop her, further illustrating she was no better than a chore. They’re here to steal Papa’s fortune. They’re not who they proclaim to be. They threaten us and our entire way of life. If Lord Donnelly or his tart wife so much as look at me wrong…
Despite all Jean had done to harm her during the past year, Ophélie knew he was prone to threats he had no intentions of living up to… or the means to carry them out. Overtaking a young woman was easy; she posed no return threat. But Ophélie had seen Lord Donnelly’s knuckles. The fire in his eyes. The lord was clearly not a man who let others fight his battles.
In removing them from the plantation, Jean had effectively eliminated any witnesses to a potential crime. People disappeared in the bayou all the time. The riverlands were not for the faint of heart.
“Your needlework is slovenly,” her mother accused, snapping her from her thoughts. Ophélie had been so wrapped up in her worries she hadn’t realized her straight line had become a zigzag. “Begin again.”
“Sorry, Maman.”
“For?”
“For… my poor work.”
Brigitte set her cloth aside. “You are due for providing more apologies than that, child. Go on.”
Ophélie looked up. “But… what else…”
“I know you’ve been telling tales to our guests,” Brigitte snapped back with sharp impatience. Her mother’s moods had grown progressively harsher since the arrival of the Lord and Lady Donnelly, though Ophélie could think of no clear reason for the shift, save her mother’s strange dislike of the pair. “When I told you to stay far from them both!”
“I’ve only tried to be a good hostess,” Ophélie defended meekly. “Showing Lady Donnelly the grounds and acquainting her with those items needed to make her comfortable.”
“You suggest I am not a good hostess?”
“I only meant—”
“You are fortunate your father has found you a fine match. With that mouth, you would have no luck on your own.” Brigitte regarded her with unveiled hatred. “And what have you said about us? Have you told them how your brother Jean sneaks in your room every night to perform his most sacred duty as a Deschanel?” She studied her daughter. “Yes, I am sure you have. I am positive you have painted me as no better than a demon, forcing you beyond your will, when I would give you everything for your obedience!”
“I have not,” Ophélie insisted, growing bolder. “I would not. I have only tried to help.”
Brigitte snorted. “Help. Your brother may be doing just that with the lord. If fortune smiles upon us, they will be gone on the morrow.”
“Tomorrow! They only just arrived.”
“Naïve child. From where?” Brigitte stood and began to circle the room. “Say England, and I might bring my hand down upon you.”
Ophélie flashed her best frown. One she prayed was convincing. “Why would they be from anywhere else than where they said?”
“You ask that, but do not question them showing up here without a note ahead to warn of their arrival?” Brigitte stopped behind Ophélie’s chair. Her hands fell at the nape of her neck. “I know things, child. I may not be the force I was in France, but I am not completely bereft of my previous gifts. These people are not who they say they are, and it will not be long before I know the precise nature of their deception.”
“Why would you think they are deceiving us?”
“I don’t think, I know,” her mother corrected. “I know, child. I also know they will bring our family into the mud if we allow it.”
“Lord and Lady Donnelly are very proper, very nice people,” Ophélie said with caution.
“Who are more than likely working with that harlot who showed up and tried to take your Papa’s fortune,” Brigitte hissed.
And there it was. Finally.
Her mother thought the lord and lady were a threat to her position as lady of her own house.
“If you care about their health and well-being, I recommend you take your brother’s lead and convince them to leave before they engage a plan with no return,” Brigitte added.
“I will inquire upon their intended return,” Ophélie said, her words coming out as a wail as her mother ran her hands over her face, and up into her hair. Pins fell from her coils, falling t
o the floor below. “Maman, please stop.”
“And where is Lady Donnelly?” Brigitte asked sweetly as she yanked more and more of the pins from her daughter’s hair and hurled them to the floor. Her rage flourished with each one. “And, pray, have you seen Monsieur de Blanchefort? His father has been searching for him to no avail.”
“I know not,” Ophélie whispered. She slid her hands under her legs to hide their trembling.
“You know,” Brigitte charged. “And I know. And when Lord Donnelly returns, he will know.”
“That is their affair, not ours,” Ophélie began and was quickly smacked for the effort.
“They have made our affairs theirs every night since they came to us, and I will demonstrate to them that turnabout is fair play.”
“The baby’s wails woke them. They woke all of us,” Ophélie tried to say, but her words melted into tears of her own at the horrors, her horrors, that had happened in the attic.
“The cries are no more,” Brigitte said evenly. “As will our guests be, if I find them out of their room once more.”
“They won’t, Maman,” Ophélie assured, frozen to her seat with fear of the woman standing over her, the woman she could not see. “They won’t.”
“And you?” Brigitte said. Her breath burned at Ophélie’s ear, hot and cruel. “Are we seeing signs of new life?”
“Not yet.” Brigitte’s shame was so acute, so strong that even Ophélie, who wanted nothing more than to be free of her burden, felt as if she had failed.
“You cannot marry Lestan until you have borne us an heir.”
“I know, Maman.”
“Our line will die out. Our gifts…”
“I know, Maman.”
“I know, Maman,” Brigitte mocked. “I wonder if you do. I sincerely doubt you know what is at stake for us.”
Nothing for me. Nothing anymore. My future was written in the stars many moons past.
When Ophélie said nothing, Brigitte pulled her loose hair into a fist and yanked her head back. Her eyes burned. “You are nothing to me but a vessel. One I will destroy when it has outworn its usefulness, should you cross me.”
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress Page 18