William (17 page)

"Of course not!” I exclaimed, outraged at the
thought. “I would have told you at once!"

“I’m glad to hear it.” Not that he sounded
glad in the slightest. Slowly turning from the window, he fixed his
darkened eyes on me. "I want you to forget him."

"I don't understand why you’re so disturbed.
You never forbade me to speak to him."

Merrick shook his head. "I forbid you
nothing."

"But I respect your wishes." Well, except for
the one time, but that was neither here nor there. "And I'd have
told you if I thought it mattered. I'm sorry.”

"It's not your fault. I was a fool to believe
him when he said he would let you be." Merrick's hand had curled
into a fist at his side, but now he slowly relaxed and shifted his
glass from one hand to the other. "It doesn't matter now,” he said
with a shake of his head. “Please forget him."

"How can I forget him?” After this
conversation? Preposterous! “He's the only other vampire I know of,
and I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him."

"Are you certain he never bit you again?"

"How could I be uncertain?" I raised my voice
without meaning to. "For God's sake, you’re talking in circles
around me!"

Merrick studied me for a moment, his
expression still tense. But then he came to me slowly and laid a
hand on my shoulder. "You can’t understand," he said quietly. "And
it would confound you further if I tried to explain. I wouldn’t
know where to begin."

This again? I mussed my own hair, scraping up
what patience I had left. "I'll help you, then. Why must I forget
him? Tell me one reason. You don't have to give me all three
centuries' worth. Just one reason, Merrick. Or do you really hope
to leave me in the dark forever?"

Merrick made a soft sound of pain that caught
me by surprise. As I spoke, the fury in his eyes had given way to
anguish. His hand tightened on my shoulder for a moment, then fell
away as he turned from me. I watched him set his glass on the side
table and sink down into the sofa like a broken man. Leaning
forward, his head hanging, he clasped his hands clasped loosely
before his brow, almost as if in prayer.

“I did hope to leave it in the dark,” he
murmured, not lifting his head. “But that isn’t fair, is it? I ask
for your trust, and you oblige. I demand your life, and you give
it.”

I grimaced faintly. “We may see things
somewhat differently.”

“You ask so little of me.” Merrick seemed not
to hear me. “But of course you want the truth. And I will have to
give it up, won’t I? Even if it’s ten years from now.”

I blanched. Ten years? God help me. Should I
have known he’d want to keep his inner fortress barred, even now?
Was I a fool to think he’d share his life with me now, that he’d
understand my desire to know him as well as he knew me?

Maybe I would have to adjust my aim. Didn’t I
have his full attention, his affection and his company night after
night? Maybe that was all he’d ever been prepared to give. If
Merrick wanted to leave his past behind, that was his right. What
was I supposed to do about it? Beg, cajole and command him to
unravel himself for me? I was already weary of that game. I looked
down with a private sigh, deflated, but perked up slightly when he
spoke again at last.

“I can’t give you one reason,” Merrick said
quietly. “There isn’t any single reason that isn’t tied to
another.”

“That is often the case,” I offered, hopeful
that he’d continue.

“But isn’t the most recent offense
enough?”

I frowned again. “No. I’m afraid I’d rather
you forgave him for it.”

Merrick looked sharply at me, horrified. “Why
in God’s name would I forgive him for it?”

I bristled further. “For making sure you’d
turn me?”

“For drinking your blood!”

I stood gaping at Merrick, trying to wrap my
mind around what he had just said. That was why Merrick’s eyes went
cold at the sound of Theo’s name? Because he had once drunk my
blood? I tried to remember the last time I’d even thought of that
incident. My God, that was not at all the reason I’d expected.

"Do you not recall the incident?" Merrick
spoke softly now, rising from the sofa and slowly approaching the
window where I stood.

"Yes," I managed. "I refused to get on the
horse with him, so he drained my blood to weaken me, or in the hope
that you would finish the job. I woke up in your bed."

"On the brink of death," Merrick said, and
something dark flashed in his gaze. "And under his spell."

I blinked at him, and then looked down for a
moment. Yes, now I recalled the surge of pleasure that came with
Theo's bite, the way I had found myself clinging to him as he
worked his lips against my throat. That was the effect of a
vampire's venom, as I now knew firsthand from both sides of the
equation. How embarrassing to think of myself in Theo's embrace,
flushed and pliant, begging to be consumed. "Of course," I
mumbled.

"You were distraught when I pulled you from
his arms. Your fingers were tangled in his hair."

Grimacing, I looked away again and shifted on
my feet. "I don't remember that."

"Just as well." Merrick reached up to cup my
jaw, stroking my cheek with his thumb. His eyes were burning,
though now the flames were fueled as much by despair as anger. "But
at the time, I was afraid you would never forget it. I was afraid
some part of you might belong to him for good."

"But I didn't," I said, surprised to find
that I sounded a bit hoarse. "And that was never his intent. All
Theo cares about is you. He only did it to try and force you turn
me. And he only wanted you to turn me so you could live. That's
all."

Merrick let out a breath, looking more
despondent with every word that passed my lips. "That's not all,
William. He’s greedy and possessive, and he thinks of others as his
toys. To see that he laid hands on you, and drank your blood—do you
know what it's like to drink without finishing? Can you imagine
it?"

I shook my head, more troubled by the
moment.

"The thought of him near you after that, I
can't bear it. I can't bear to see him sneak into your good
graces."

"But..." I shook my head again and then ran
my hands through my hair, needing a moment to sort through my
thoughts. I understood now that the bite had upset Merrick in ways
I couldn't have imagined before I was a vampire myself. Indeed! Now
that I'd been on both the giving and receiving ends of that act, I
couldn’t pretend it wasn’t an outrage.

But even so, it wasn’t easy to discard my own
impressions. The fact remained that Theo had only done it out of
fear for Merrick, who, after all, had been preparing to kill
himself just to avoid turning me. By draining me to the brink of
death, Theo had hoped to force Merrick into finishing the job.

And though Merrick clearly scorned Theo’s
intentions, I couldn’t do the same. I clearly recalled the day
when, after Theo and I had struck the deal to force Merrick's hand,
Merrick had turned from him, coldly, without a word. No, I couldn’t
forget the look on Theo’s face: the Frenchman uncharacteristically
rumpled from sleeping in his travel clothes, his sapphire eyes
hollow with unmistakable anguish, guilt, and the fear that he might
never be forgiven.

Theo's love for Merrick had its selfish
dimensions, perhaps, but it was true all the same. I was sure of
it. That was the only thing I had in common with the French
vampire, and in that respect, there was nothing he'd done that I
might not have done under the same circumstances. Yes, he had taken
extreme measures to stop Merrick's slow march toward death. But so
had I. Theo was a bastard, but in this case, I didn't blame him. I
never had. How could Merrick?

Shaking my head, I reached up to rub my eyes
and made a soft sound of frustration. "If I were in his place, and
I thought—"

"You respect him more than he deserves."

"If not for him you'd be dead!” I spread my
hands, at a loss. “Isn't that right? And that day, I don’t know.
Who’s to say that if he hadn't done what he did, you wouldn’t have
fled the moment you sensed me coming up the path?"

"I would not have fled," Merrick said
fiercely. "I would never have left you at his mercy, and he should
have known that. He could have brought you in untouched. He had no
right to assault you."

"But he did have reason to think it
necessary. Are you claiming we could have discussed things calmly,
instead?" My face twisted as I remembered the affair. "Jesus,
Merrick, you were going to set yourself on fire."

That got me a look of contrition. "William."
But evidently finding nothing more to say, he asked, "Why are you
so set upon defending him?"

"I’m not," I burst out, finally driven beyond
irritation. "But did he not save your life? I can't stand you
holding that against him, when I was complicit. Don’t you realize I
must share the blame?"

“You don’t share any blame,” Merrick said,
his face taut with frustration. “This goes back a hundred
years.”

I stared at him helplessly for a moment
before looked down again. Why wouldn’t he give me the chance to
understand? I felt a well of hurt being dug within my chest, each
word between us another stab of the shovel. "Very well,” I said.
“Keep your reasons to yourself, if you must. But I can’t shun a man
without knowing why. I’m sorry." Turning away from him with a sigh,
I paced back to the sofa and sat down again.

Merrick said nothing, and a long silence
stretched between us, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock.
But then at last he sat beside me and drew my hand to his
breast.

"No," he said quietly. "You can’t, can
you?"

"It doesn’t feel right."

“Indeed.” His thumb stroked the back of my
hand, and then he raised it to his lips. “Indeed,” he murmured
again. “And I should know that better than anyone. It was wrong to
impose my own judgment upon you without explaining the cause. I’m
sorry.”

I acknowledged his words with a nod, but who
wanted an apology? All I wanted was not to feel shut out at every
other turn by the man I intended to spend the rest of my
unnaturally long life with.

“There are things I’ve never wanted to speak
of,” Merrick said. “Entire decades I wish I could forget. And when
it comes to Theo, and the reason why we’ve been at odds for so
long, I would be content if you never knew.”

“Would you?” I asked bleakly. “Would you be
content with so many secrets?”

Merrick looked down, frowning as he pondered
the question. “No,” he said at length, his thumb still tracing
soothing shapes on the back of my hand. “Not if it troubles you
so.”

“Are you afraid I’ll be shocked,
Merrick?”

“I suppose we’re beyond that.”

A bit of hope flickered in my chest and the
faint trace of humor in his voice, and I turned my face toward his.
“You suppose?” I asked. “Jesus, I’m a vampire and a sodomite. Who
can you trust to hear your sins if not me?”

A startled laugh escaped his lips, and he
looked at me with a pained expression that fell far short of
disapproval.

Feeling encouraged, I rose from the sofa to
fetch both glasses and bring them back full again. I set his on the
table at his end of the sofa and then sat down to pull off my
boots. Setting them aside, I took up my own glass and sank down in
the other corner of the sofa. I leaned back against the arm,
settling in comfortably, and just to put a finer point on it I
propped my feet up on his lap. Then I looked at him and took a sip
of wine, letting him know I was ready to hear a story or two.

The wry look in his eye told me he got the
message, but it didn’t mean he was suddenly ready to give.

“Why not start at the beginning?” I
suggested. “That’s where you started with me. Asking about my
family.”

“If I tell you everything,” Merrick
cautioned, laying his hand on my leg just below my knee, “you may
be more disturbed than you expect.”

“I may.” Try me, I thought. I’d heard the
tales of Sade. How shocking could Merrick’s be?

“Perhaps you’ll want to take some time to
yourself, to consider what you’ve heard.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps.”

Merrick was quiet for a long while, gently
rubbing my legs where they crossed his lap. And then, to my vast
and undying relief, he began to speak.

"My life was always austere,” Merrick began,
but then he fell silent again for a long while, gazing into the
distance. His hesitation conjured the image of the very first
sparks of a fire, crackling amid the kindling, looking for
purchase. When he spoke again, it was as if the flame had caught,
and he did not pause again for a long while.

“I never knew my mother or father. For most
of my life I was an urchin, begging and scrabbling to survive. I
was used to going days without food or sleep, and in fact I seemed
to have an unusual talent for enduring the most extreme
deprivations. When I was still a small child, I lived for a time
with a beggar woman who tried to groom me as a mystic.

“In those days, under Henry the Eighth and
the shadow of Protestantism, the parishes on the fringes of London
were in dire straits. The old woman hoped to sell me to one of
those parishes as an attraction, to boost their status or their
coffers. Or that was what she told me—that I was already chosen by
God, and that the priests would teach me deliver his messages. She
did leave me with the first pastor who put coins in her hand. But I
could not endure his kind of teaching for long, and so I fled and
went back to begging. I never saw either of them again.

“That was a great tragedy, for I always
admired the clergy as a child. Especially the monks. Perhaps it was
that old woman’s talent for spinning tales, but I’d come to imagine
them as beacons of goodness in a world of violence and cruelty. And
I envied their connection to the divine, which I had honestly hoped
I shared. When I was a little older, perhaps eleven or twelve, I
finally talked my way into one of the monasteries at the very edge
of the city. It was a hard life of labor, but it was more secure
than anything I'd known. There were many abuses of the lay brothers
by the priests and monks, but there were kindnesses, as well.