Night's Honor

TWELVE

Of their own volition, her fingers went out to stroke the gauzy skirt of the dress.

She could try on the outfit, just to see if it fit. If it did, they could try a dance or two. If she tucked in the price tags but didn’t remove them, they could return everything to the store.

And really, in the end, what did it matter if she went through one more dance lesson in her training outfit, or in the dress?

Not giving herself a chance to dither any longer, she toed off her running shoes and stripped, then shimmied into the gown, strapped on the sandals and stepped in front of a tall oval mirror set in a stand in one corner of the room.

If the dress was really hers and she would actually consider keeping it, she would make some changes. While it was the right size across the shoulders and hips, the waist was a bit loose and the length of the arms was a touch too long, but a good tailor could easily fix those issues. The color was simply lovely. It brought out a sheen in her dark hair and highlighted her healthy tan, and the whole outfit emphasized all the right curves in her body.

And she adored the sandals. It felt strange to be out of running shoes, and she’d gotten out of the habit of wearing heels, but the sandals were light, comfortable and made her feet look feminine and slender.

One part of her mind said severely, What on earth are you doing, Tess?

She stuffed a gag in it, left the room and went downstairs.

She heard music before she actually reached the ballroom, a single-note melody that sounded somehow pensive. Whatever it was, it wasn’t waltz music. When she reached the doorway, she found Xavier sitting at the baby grand, his head bent as he watched the keys, and she realized the music wasn’t a recording. He was playing, although not seriously, as he fingered out the notes with one hand.

“I have no classical education,” she said as she walked toward him. “But whatever you’re playing sounds lovely.”

He stopped, and his dark head lifted as he turned to the doorway. When he caught sight of her, he rose to his feet quickly.

The intensity of his scrutiny made her self-conscious. The severe part of her mind spat out its gag and snarled, The dress is only a prop, fool, and it’s not even yours. And why on earth would you care about his opinion anyway. . . .

That was all it got a chance to say before she gagged it again. As she walked toward him, she asked aloud, “Will this do?”

“It will do splendidly,” he said. His voice was warm, the expression in his gaze lit with something that looked like pleasure. “Now you can know what it feels like to really waltz.” When she came close, he held out a hand and she offered him hers. Instead of leading her out onto the floor, he bent to press his lips lightly to her fingers. “And you look beautiful.”

The severe part of her mind broke free of its restraint and took control of her vocal chords. In a quiet voice, she said, “Which is completely irrelevant, of course, but thank you.”

He looked up, over her hand, and gave her a slow smile that was remarkably sweet and sexy, and completely devastating. “I’m afraid I must disagree. A beautiful woman is never irrelevant. She can be the most compelling, most gloriously dangerous creature in all the world.”

Sexy. With the last of her fear banished, for the first time she could see it, sense it, almost reach out and scoop it up in her hands.

He was sexy.

Shaken, she withdrew her fingers and gave a little laugh. In an attempt to deflect that devastating, intent scrutiny of his, she reminded him, “You didn’t say what you were playing just now.”

“It is a Chopin piece, one of the Nocturnes,” he said. “I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music he wrote. But I wasn’t really playing it, just picking out the melody. Would you like to hear the real thing?”

Pleasure was a deadly thing. It weakened the resolve and skewed one’s motives. But she couldn’t resist. She found herself saying, “Yes, please.”

He inclined his head and sat, sliding to one side on the bench in a clear invitation for her to join him.

Oh, hell. How had this evening turned into such a slippery slope?

Gingerly, she eased onto the seat beside him. There was no sheet music. Whatever he played here, he knew by heart. He gave her a sidelong smile, positioned his long-fingered hands over the ivory keys and began.

The acoustics in the ballroom were wonderful. Haunting, exquisite music swelled to fill the space.

Her emotions careened all over the map. The long, unwinding strings of sound reached into her heart and plucked out its own melody. Somehow, by one of the strangest set of circumstances she’d ever heard of or experienced, she had come to this place and time.

The details lay scattered in her mind like a strange necklace of pearls strewn over an unknown woman’s vanity. She wore a beautiful dress on a serene moonlit night, sitting in the jewel of a gracious house, and a Vampyre who was both dangerous and kind played Chopin for her ears alone.

Once she left the estate’s cloistered protection, she would probably be dead within the week. For now she set it aside, threw all her barriers down and opened herself wide to surrender to this singular experience.

When the last notes faded from the air, she wanted to grab them and demand they stay, but even if she heard the song again, it could never be quite the same as that first time, filled as it was with the unique newness of discovery and the surprise of pleasure that had been previously unknown. Those strings in the heart could be plucked only once.

The moment fled into memory. She thought, when I die—if he dies—no one will ever know what just happened. Beside her, he sat still, waiting patiently.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, and it didn’t matter that her gaze was damp with tears and he was the one who had done that to her. Instead, she wanted to thank him for it.

Those old eyes of his, set in that noble, young face. She shook her head and gave him a small, twisted smile. “I don’t know how to reconcile in my mind everything I know about you.”

Instead of asking what she meant, he looked down at the piano and touched one ivory key but didn’t press it. “You asked me once if I had done everything that had been attributed to me, and I said yes. May I tell you a story?”

She nodded as she looked away and wiped one cheek. Of course he knew to go there. He was a very clever man.

He pressed the key, and a single note sounded. It seemed forlorn and incomplete without its companions. “My mother died having me,” he said. “It was a tragedy, of course, as such things always are. My older brother and sister had come some years before me, but still, she was too young to die in such a way. She had been the light of my father’s life, and he was heartbroken.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. It seemed inadequate, or out of place somehow.

He gave her a sidelong look and a smile that made it all right. “Thank you, Tess. My sister, Aeliana, was thirteen, and for all practical purposes, she became my mother. My father withdrew emotionally and preoccupied himself with managing his estates, and my brother was absent more often than not, but Aeliana raised me and let me know in a thousand ways that I was safe, wanted and loved. Unfortunately, she looked quite a bit like me.” This was accompanied by another sidelong, self-deprecating smile. “But all the same, she was lovely. She had a strength and sweetness that shone out of her like a beacon, and people were drawn to her because of it.”

His sister wasn’t the only one who had that quality.

His sister, the one who had been murdered by the Inquisition. She knotted her hands together in her lap. Despite a somewhat innocuous beginning, he was not telling an easy story.

His quiet voice continued. “I was the third child and a second son, and I would never inherit. It was always understood that I was destined for the Church. My father believed I would make a fine statesman, perhaps bishop one day, or if God allowed, even cardinal. With the right piety and championship from senior officials within the Church, along with generous contributions from the family, God could afford to allow quite a bit of good fortune to fall on the del Torro name.” He shrugged and smiled at her. “It was how we thought at the time.”

“Did you mind?” she asked.

“No, not at all. So many modern stories focus on the angst of this kind of thing and glorify one’s right to choose one’s own path, but truly, I was fine with it. I liked to learn, and at that time the Church was at the center of human education. So, I was raised as a typical young nobleman and taught to hunt, and fight and fence. I was good at all of it, and I enjoyed it, until it came time for me to join the Church, where I found the discipline and study suited me. I came to realize I loved God, and I committed to the life and said the vows. And I meant them.”

Now that she had caught glimpses into his personal life, she could picture him as a young, earnest ascetic. Fingering one of the keys herself, she asked, “You didn’t miss any of those other pursuits?”

His mouth took on an ironic twist. “The reality of it was, I didn’t have to give very much of it up. I was not a poor country priest. God really could afford to allow good fortune to fall upon a rich nobleman’s son. I was housed in a comfortable, monied monastery near our main home in Valencia, and I became secretary to the bishop at that time, and I saw my family, especially Aeliana, regularly. It was a good life. I . . . believed in it. I believed in dedicating myself to a life that was filled with the holy scripture and mixed with politics. I was not rebellious or insincere. In many ways, I really was very much a product of my time.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she murmured. If he had been so typical, he wouldn’t be so feared now, nor would he be sitting here, telling her the story of what happened centuries ago.

He quirked an eyebrow at her but didn’t pursue that. Instead, he said, “Then there was the Inquisition. At the time, the Inquisition had turned its focus onto matters of Power, and magical creatures were declared an anathema. Those of the Elder Races were to be pitied, because they were godless, soulless creatures, but Vampyres were a different matter. Vampyres chose to become what they were, and thus they fell from God’s grace and were damned.”

She shook her head. Hadn’t she done something very similar, when she had called all Vampyres “monsters” in her mind? “What about those who might have been turned against their will?”

“That didn’t matter. They must have done something to have deserved it.”

“They blamed the victim?” Outrage stirred. Even though it had all happened so long ago, his words had given it an immediacy that made it seem current.

“Cause and effect. God blessed those who were good and punished those who had sinned. The Church could forgive most sins and bless the petitioner, but some sins were mortal offenses.”

“It’s barbaric,” she muttered.

“Of course it was. Meanwhile, things happened to the del Torro family. My father died of some kind of lung disease, perhaps pneumonia, and my brother, Felipe, inherited the title—it was just a minor lordship, mind you—and the estate. Still, Felipe was an explorer and was gone much of the time, while Aeliana remained home and managed the estate. Then Felipe died when his ship went down somewhere near the Canary Islands. There was only Aeliana and me, and Aeliana had fallen in love with a man who was a gentle soul, who also happened to be a Vampyre. That was the beginning of the end.”

She touched a black key and whispered, “It was bad.”

“I’m afraid so.” He touched her hand briefly. “But I don’t need to make it so, for you.”

Needing to see how much he felt of the old pain, she turned toward him and searched his gaze. He met her scrutiny with the same quiet dignity with which he told the story.

“Everything happened quickly after that, over a span of about four months. I may have been book bright, but I was a young, naive fool. I didn’t want to leave the Church, and while Aeliana couldn’t inherit the title, I thought she deserved the estates. I had met Inigo, the man she had fallen in love with. He was from a nearby community of twenty or so Vampyres. While I . . . liked him, I was troubled by the fact that he was a Vampyre. At that time the Inquisition had not made any moves against Vampyre communities and I didn’t see the danger until it was too late. I couldn’t see him as damned, but I didn’t have time to agonize over the morality of the Church’s opinion or how I felt about it. Worried, I talked to my bishop about it in the confessional.”

He fell silent. She whispered, “Oh, no.”

“He was supposed to be my spiritual leader,” he told her softly, and somehow his wry, knowledgeable gaze hurt more than anything. “I was hoping for some kind of guidance or advice. Of course, I didn’t see things the way I would now—how tempting such a rich estate would have been to some, or how certain Church officials would have seen it as vulnerable, with its only male heir committed to the Church and unable to inherit. Also, I had never been in love. I couldn’t conceive of how strong a force love might be, or how transformative. Aeliana asked Inigo to turn her, and he did just after they married. I found out afterward, about both.”

The story carried her forward, with the inevitability of a train wreck.

“Once the decision was made, the Church acted quickly, for that time. There weren’t any trials, not for Vampyres. It was extermination. Inquisition officers seized the estate in the name of the Church. I found out afterward, when a servant who had been with my family for years came to tell me the news. There were no bodies to bury, of course. All the Vampyres had turned to ash.” He paused and took a deep breath. “He said the women had been brutalized by the soldiers before they’d been killed, and everything in that young, naive boy broke that day.”

She didn’t think before she acted. She put a hand over his as it rested against his lean thigh, and his fingers closed around hers in a strong grip. “They killed her and took everything? You didn’t have anything?”

“Nothing. I had no legal recourse either, as I had renounced all worldly possessions with my vows. Even my horse was technically the Church’s.”

“What a colossal betrayal,” she whispered.

He gave her a small, ironic smile. “I stole my horse, and a sword. I stole other things too, to sell, so I could make passage to Italy to where Julian resided at that time. He had been a famous commander of a Roman army, and I needed to know how to go to war. We made a bargain. I swore I would come back to serve him once I had done what I needed to do. He turned me, and taught me. Then he set me loose in the world and said, ‘Come back when you’re finished.’ It took me ten years, but I came back to him.”

She asked from the back of her throat, “Did you kill everyone responsible?”

His gaze turned fierce and hot, as it had the first time she had asked him if the stories were true, although his soft, even voice never altered. “Oh, yes.”

“And you’ve been serving Julian ever since.”

He inclined his head. “He’s my sire.”

She nodded. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. How had he put the pieces of himself back together?

Somehow the core of him had survived.

He wasn’t a monster. He was courteous and thoughtful. Self-disciplined and well-mannered. How had he coped with such a shattered faith?

She became aware of her hand, wrapped in his. Growing self-conscious, she tried to let go, but he tightened his grip and said, “I told you all this, because you have the right to know who your patron is. You should be able to reconcile in your mind all of those things you know about me, and you should know that no one who is under my care will ever come to harm like that again. Not ever. I swear it.”

Realization crushed down. He had taken so much time and effort, all to reassure her, when she had every intention of leaving anyway.

They weren’t going to make the dance lesson after all. She couldn’t go on without saying anything. Now it was her turn to grip his fingers. She met his gaze and said, “I have to leave in the morning.”

Surprise flared in his expression then settled into coldness, and he pulled away from her touch. “I see. My apologies, if I’ve offended you in any way.”

What? No!

She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket before he could stand. “Your story didn’t offend me. I was incredibly moved and saddened, and I wished I could do something to protect that boy from all the horrible things that happened to him.”

The coldness eased somewhat, but while he didn’t pull away, his body remained stiff. “Thank you,” he said. “But then why leave? I thought we had made progress. You’re no longer afraid, and you seemed pleased enough last night. When did you decide this?”

She put her face in her hands and rubbed eyes that had gone dry and gritty with tiredness. “This morning. I was going to tell you. I should never have put on the dress and shoes, but they were so pretty, and I wanted to see if we might be able to waltz again before I told you. Just ninety seconds more.”

He took both of her hands and pulled them down, and she saw that he had moved to straddle the bench to face her fully. Searching her expression, he asked, “What happened?”

She hesitated, her mind racing. She didn’t want to tell him, in case that provided some kind of buffer. But what if it didn’t? He had a right to know what kind of danger she had brought to his estate, so that he could guard against it. She couldn’t betray him, or the others, by leaving them in ignorance.

“I’ve made a powerful enemy,” she said. “And he’s vindictive. I thought I might be able to disappear, or if he found me, just being in your household would be enough to back him off, but this morning I realized I was being stupid. Just me being here has put you and everybody else in danger.”

He looked calm, but his gaze had turned deadly. If he had looked anything like that at the Vampyre’s Ball, she would have been terrified. As it was, her breath shortened.

“Who is it?”

She realized he still held both her wrists in a gentle, entirely unbreakable grip. “I think I’ve told you enough.”

“It’s Malphas, isn’t it?”

Hearing Xavier speak his name aloud shocked her, and her heart began a slow, hard clanging in her chest. Tightening her hands into fists, she pulled at his grip. Somewhat to her own surprise, he let her go. “How do you know that name?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “We ran a background check on you. You worked at a casino in Las Vegas. It was not difficult to find out who owned the casino.”

“Oh, God.” Black spots danced in front of her eyes. She bent forward, putting her forehead to her knees. “Can he trace that? I know that Djinn can get into computer systems somehow, and spy on Internet usage. He can trace that, can’t he?”

Xavier put a hand at the back of her neck, his touch steady and bracing. “Slow, deep breaths. No, don’t come up so fast. Give it a moment. Some Djinn have the ability to get into electronic systems, but only a few are tech savvy enough to understand how to read the bytes of information. Since he hasn’t shown up here, I think we can assume Malphas hasn’t tracked the interaction.”

“Okay,” she said, breathing slow and deep like he said. The black spots disappeared. “You can let me up now.”

The pressure on the back of her neck eased, and she sat upright. He rubbed her back, still watching her closely. “Better?”

She gave him a quick, stiff nod. “Yes.”

He gave her a smile that she could tell was meant to be reassuring, but his gaze was still deadly. Over the centuries, that broken naive boy had turned into something entirely honed and dangerous. Somehow, though, she could tell that the expression wasn’t meant for her. It didn’t frighten her, but a shiver ran down her back anyway.

He said, “This is where you tell me everything.”

“I don’t know,” she replied. She rubbed her arms. “I have to think.”

His smile widened. “Tess, you can’t possibly believe I’m going to let you walk out those front gates now, can you?”

Lifting her chin, she said, “Yes, I do. Any time during this trial year, either one of us can call it quits.”

He laughed, a quiet sound that shivered along her skin. “That was then. This is now.”

“What do you mean?” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “You can’t change our agreement like that.”

“I can do anything I want,” he told her. “And I will, including changing the terms of your stay. You’ve already said you intend to leave, which means we have no agreement.”

“What are you saying?” The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “You can’t keep me prisoner here.”

“Can’t I?” He looked entirely ruthless.

Her voice rose. “What happened to those fancy promises you made about not making me do something against my will?”

He shook his head. “But you don’t really want to go, do you?”

She glared at him and tried to force a denial out, but he had her with that one.

“You might as well start talking,” he told her. “If you don’t tell me what happened, I’ll go to Malphas and ask him.”

“Don’t!” Without thinking, she clutched at his lapel.

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her close, his hard, glittering eyes boring into hers. “Talk.”

“Who are you?” she said, staring. “Where has the soft-spoken, courteous man gone?”

“He’s right here in front of you, and he’s very angry. He just doesn’t know if he’s angry at you yet.” He gave her a thin-lipped smile. “Now, what is it going to be? Are you going to tell me what happened, or will Malphas?”

She knew who she was looking at. This was the man who chose to become a Vampyre in order to go to war for ten years. She said, calmly, “I can’t talk you into letting this go, can I?”

He shook his head slowly, his gaze never leaving her face.

“Fine. Fine.” She still held his lapel, and he still gripped her shoulders. They were much too close. She pushed against his chest, and this time he let her go. Swinging away, she rose to her feet and started to pace. “Remember how I said I was good with money? Malphas hired me to keep his books.”

While he still straddled the bench, he watched her with an unnerving attention. “Were you cooking them?”

“Oh no, there’s nothing on paper.” She waved a hand in the air, reached the edge of the ballroom and stalked back. “He looks like he’s completely in compliance with the gaming commission, and he pays taxes on all casino profits. That’s not the issue.”

He sat back and crossed his arms. “Then what is?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What I saw and heard happened around the edges of casino life. People showed up for private appointments with Malphas, people who had racked up really large debts. I saw their expressions afterward, and I overheard things I wasn’t meant to hear.”

“Dear God, you eavesdropped?” said Xavier. His expression turned ironic. “I don’t know why I find myself shocked. You are far more talented at gathering information than I ever gave you credit for.”

She swung around to the end of the baby grand that was opposite from where he sat, wanting the illusion of something between her and his too-still figure. “Oh, I didn’t mean to, and nothing happened quite like what happened the night you and Melisande were talking. I just . . . I caught snippets of conversations here and there. I really tried not to notice what was happening or put two and two together. That was my first job out of college, and it paid damn well.” She laughed bitterly. “But I was flattered and excited that I could pay off my student loans so quickly, and I wanted it to be okay.”

“Tess,” Xavier said. “What the fuck was he doing?”

That brought her up short. Normally he was so courteous, the expletive seemed doubly shocking.

“He lured people into placing bigger and bigger bets, and they got more and more into debt. Then he would meet with them, and when they left, they looked sick to death, yet their debt would be forgiven.” She looked down at her blurred image in the polished dark wood of the piano. “On the surface, you might think that was no big deal. Casinos write off tens of millions of bad debt every year. But none of the people I saw looked like they had been given a reprieve. I heard one of them say he was going to be sick, and another one told his wife it was never going to be over.”

He leaned his crossed arms on the piano. His gaze never left her. “Was he cheating?”

“Maybe?” She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. I’m not a gambler, and anyway, I didn’t watch the games. I just watched the money and the people.”

“All right,” he said. The soft-spoken man was back, only he had shotgun eyes that bore right at her, and he was the gun. “Do you have any idea what he was doing to them? Why was it never going to be over?”

Staring at him was too distracting. She looked down at her blurred self in the piano again. “I think he was extorting or coercing them somehow, only with their debts erased, I don’t know how.”

“Forget about trying to figure out how. I just want to hear what you think.”

“What I think . . . ?” Her voice died away. Nobody had asked her that before. She hadn’t had anybody to confide in, and the whole situation had come to feel so unstable and dangerous, she hadn’t dared verbalize her impressions, even to herself. She frowned as she considered, and he didn’t rush her. He simply watched and waited.

“I think . . . he liked the game too much. All of it. He was lit up and entirely focused when he was playing, like he needed it.”

“You’re talking about the gambling itself?” Xavier asked.

“Yes.” She ran the tip of one forefinger around the pale oval of her face in the reflection.

“So he acted like an addict might?”

She lifted her head up, and this time when she spoke, her voice was surer. “Yes. Maybe he’s a gambling addict, and the whole process matters to him. But it always ended in someone getting trapped.”

“Because the house always wins,” he said.

“Exactly.” She focused on him again and gave him an embarrassed, self-deprecating grimace. “Until the one time I got involved.”