By sunset, Anne was full of remorse.
She’d gained a toehold, only to squander it with a childish outburst.
So when Gabriel returned with supper, she apologized and asked if he would stay to eat with her. He looked surprised at the invitation — and not exactly eager.
“Just for a few minutes,” she coaxed.
He looked out the window and she had the distinct impression he was gauging the light outside. Rain swept the tower in grey curtains.
A dark and stormy night….
“For a little while,” Gabriel agreed.
They sat down across from each other. Anne ladled turtle soup into a bowl. He looked even more like a scholar in the candlelight, more like the gentle Father Gavra she remembered, even though she knew he was no such thing.
An awkward silence descended. It was one thing to be escorted on a walk outside, another to have an intimate dinner as friends might. Gabriel seemed all too conscious of this, sitting stiffly, his hands folded in his lap as he watched her eat.
“It’s very good, thank you,” she said.
“De rien.”
He met her eyes briefly, then looked away.
She spooned the rich broth into her mouth, trying not to slurp although it was very hot.
“Oh.” Relief flashed across his face as remembered something, reaching into a coat pocket. “I have something for you.”
Anne accepted the slim volume, peering at the cover. “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.”
Gabriel smiled like a satisfied cat. “Open it and read the inscription.”
She did so. “To Lord Byron, from the author.” Anne raised an eyebrow. “You stole this, didn’t you?”
He waved the accusation away. “I don’t steal. I bought it. A very special edition. You know that Byron proposed the storytelling contest that inspired the story?”
“No, I didn’t.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “Tell me.”
He poured a glass of wine but didn’t touch it, just twirled the stem in his fingers. “Mary was seventeen when she began having an affair with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. He married her two years later, after his first wife killed herself.”
“It sounds just like—” One of your novels, she’d been about to say, but that would mean admitting she’d read them. “Go on.”
“Later, they spent a summer at Lake Geneva with Byron. The weather was miserable so they passed the time inventing ghost stories. Mary had a dream about a poor monster, disowned by its creator and doomed to wander in search of a mate, not realizing it was the only one of its kind.” The candlelight burnished his irises to a rich gold. “Tragic, no?”
“Terribly.”
Another silence descended.
“I have a game,” Anne said.
He leaned back, waiting.
“Not stories. This game is about answering questions truly. One each.”
Gabriel considered this. “Maybe. But don’t ask what I intend to do with you.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
That sudden heat returned. “Because you won’t like the answer.”
Anne felt a jolt of dread. “Just tell me what I’ve done. What crime I’ve committed.”
“Your brother stole something from me, something priceless. So I’m taking something from him.”
“This is about Alec?” Her fists balled. “Then why don’t you damn well lock him up? Women aren’t chattel, you know. You can’t just use us to pay debts.”
He rose and stalked to the window, throwing his hands up. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t understand anything.”
She studied the taut line of his shoulders. “What did he steal from you?”
Gabriel turned, his face blazing.
“Never mind, don’t speak of it.” She gave him a level look. “No need to have a tantrum. I’ll ask something else.”
“Like what?” he snapped.
“Were you born with the ability to change into an animal?”
He blinked in surprise. “The answer is no.” He drew a deep breath. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Fair enough.”
“Why do you hunt the old stories? You weren’t honest before.”
Anne met his gaze. “Because sometimes they’re true.”
“Which ones?”
“Not the bugbears, I’ll admit. But the stories about nosferatu, risen dead that drain the life from their victims. Wights and ghouls.”
“Are they all so ugly?”
“No. I’ve seen other things, too, enchanting things. Once I saw a mermaid in the Zambezi River with hair of black kelp and a smile like the sunrise.”
His gaze narrowed. “But that’s not what you’re really looking for, is it?”
“You’ve asked four questions now.”
“You never answered the first one,” he shot back.
“I did.”
Gabriel scowled.
“It’s just not all of the answer. But you won’t get the rest until you tell me things I want to know.”
He turned back to the window, his voice sulky now. “I’m not playing if you cheat.”
“Very well.” She ran her fingers down the spine of the book he’d given her, tracing the letters stamped in gold leaf. “Here’s one for free. I don’t believe in the Devil, nor some almighty God either. I suppose you think I’ll burn in Hell for that.”
He snorted. “You’re hardly the first atheist I’ve met.”
“Well, good for you, Gabriel,” Anne said dryly. “But I think I have more experience than you do in these matters, and what mortals call the supernatural is in fact part of the natural world. It simply exists in a dimension that’s rarely seen because they cannot open their minds to it.” She thought of Mara Vardac. “Until it comes and steals their children from their beds at night. So I follow the stories where they lead me and I kill the monsters.” She touched the corner of her eye. “Because I know how to see them for what they are.”
Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. “It is evil men who make this evil world,” he said in a low voice.
“You’ve read Saint Augustine.”
“Every word. He was a true sage.”
“He had some interesting ideas, I’ll grant you. But I don’t believe evil is the result of man’s original sin. It’s a matter of choice.”
“And you think I’m evil?”
Anne said nothing.
“Yet you’re not afraid.”
“If you wanted me dead, I would be. That much is clear. But I’m of more value to you alive. It’s the only reason I’m sitting here.”
“Nom de dieu!” Gabriel pushed off the windowsill and spun around. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty.” He stabbed a finger at her. “I’m the wronged party here.”
“No,” Anne said patiently. “You already feel guilty. That’s why you cook these elaborate meals and bring me priceless books and violins. All of it is unnecessary. You could simply give me a crust of bread and a cup of water and be done with it. But it assuages your conscience to think you’re treating me like royalty.”
He stared at her, then laughed and shook his head.
“And since you’re atoning for your sins, you can give me a tour of the house now.”
“What?”
“I’m not tired and I don’t want to go up there yet.” She glanced at the inner door to the tower. “So you’ll have to drag me, screaming and wailing, up the staircase. I’ll likely end up with bruises. Or you can just show me around. One more hour.”
He blew out a breath. “Thirty minutes.”
“Done.”
Anne smiled.
Full dark had fallen outside. Gabriel lifted the candle and followed her to the stairs. This time, when they reached the bottom of the tower, he unlocked another door. It led to a large, gloomy gallery festooned with cobwebs.
“You see?” he said with a curt gesture. “Nothing of interest.”
Anne strode past him and examined the row of portraits on the walls, all of unsmiling aristocrats with stiff collars and bad wigs. “Is this your family?”
He laughed. “I don’t come from money.”
“But you own this place now.”
He shrugged.
“What happened to the people who lived here?”
He drew a slow finger across his throat.
“You murdered them?”
He shot her an affronted look. “No! Don’t you know your history?”
“Ah. Executed in the Revolution?” she guessed.
“They deserved it.”
“That’s rather callous, don’t you think?”
His face darkened. “If you’d seen the way the peasants lived back then, you wouldn’t feel sorry for them.”
“It was a hundred years ago.” She cast him a shrewd look. “A bit before your time, wasn’t it, Gabriel?”
He cleared his throat. “The name of the house is the Chateau de Saint-Évreux. It sat empty for a long time. I bought it cheap, but I never came here much.”
“Until now.”
“Yes. Can we go back now?”
“No.”
Gabriel sighed but followed as she walked to the end of the gallery and up a wide staircase. They drifted through the keep like ghosts, passing through rooms with furniture covered in sheets and more cobwebs dangling from the chandeliers. There were creaky suits of armor and all sorts of nasty medieval weapons hanging in brackets on the walls, which she pointedly ignored.
She knew he was watching her closely.
“It’s getting late,” he said.
“Just one more.” She darted ahead before he could seize her arm and pushed open a door on the uppermost floor. Anne made a sound of delight.
“The music room!”
She whisked the sheets off, admiring the pianoforte and harp, which stood a full foot taller than her. The western wall facing the sea had beautiful stained glass windows, though most were broken. Gabriel set the candle atop the piano and danced his fingers across the keys, wincing slightly at the off-kilter notes.
“Do you play?” she asked.
In answer, he launched into the first chords of Schumann’s Toccata in C Major, a notoriously difficult piece.
“Show-off,” Anne muttered, shards of glass crunching beneath her feet as she crossed to the windows.
“They must have been broken by one of the storms that blow in from the Channel,” Gabriel said, his feet working the pedals, fingers flying as the octaves gained speed.
“Lucky thing you have shutters.” She grinned at him. “You’re a good cook, but a poor housekeeper…. Damn!” She pressed her hand to her mouth. The music cut off and Gabriel was suddenly at her side.
“Let me see it,” he demanded.
She held out her palm. Blood flowed freely from a long gash.
“Make a fist,” he ordered. “I’ll bind it up.”
“You could use that.” She pointed to one of the dust coverings. “I’ll wash it out when we get back.”
Gabriel hurried over to the sheet puddled at the base of the harp. The moment his back was turned, Anne slipped the catch to the shutters, taking care to keep them closed. She spun back just as he was rising. He tore a strip from the sheet and bent over her hand with an intent, focused expression.
He was always like that, she realized. Whatever Gabriel did, whether it was laying the table or buckling his boot or listening to her talk, he gave the task his full attention. It was a quality very few people had.
“There. I have a clean dish towel in the kitchen. You might need stitches—”
“It’s fine. I’ll heal.”
He nodded. Anne prayed he wouldn’t look over at the hook to the shutters, now dangling loose.
“I suppose we’d better get back,” he said.
They returned to the tower and Gabriel hovered in the doorway, asking if she needed anything else. He obviously had little use for first aid, and seemed to feel bad that he didn’t have any iodine or bandages. Anne gave him a cheerful smile.
“I’m fine, really. Thank you for the tour, Gabriel. Goodnight.”
She derived great satisfaction from closing the door in his face.
She went up to her room and played the violin for a spell. Then she waited.
When the moon was setting and she estimated the hour to be after three, she pulled her boots back on. The music room was no accidental discovery. It was the very room in the adjacent tower that had thwarted her once before.
But not tonight.
Gabriel had never come to check on her after dinner, not once. In fact, after seeing the rest of Chateau de Saint-Évreux, she felt sure he went someplace else. Who could live in that dismal, drafty old castle? He always arrived on horseback.
Yes, she thought, he must go elsewhere to do … whatever it is he does.
She didn’t like to dwell on what that might be.
Anne went into the privy, opened the window, and hoisted a leg over the sill.