Chapter Four #8
“There are also ointments and hot stones. Ask, and it will be given to you.”
“She is not here for a spa treatment, and this is not a resort,” Silvio nudged him and tried to stand up but Emerick’s hand shot out and yanked him back in the water.
“Yes, yes,” the Comte clicked his tongue. “She is here to study.”
“Do all the vampires come to the pool?” Mihaela asked drowsily.
“Not when we are here,” Silvio said and finally managed to free himself from the Comte.
He walked to one of the benches, leaving a wet trail after him, sat down, and began drying his hair with a towel.
Mihaela did not know if she should be blushing or scoffing at the comment but it did remind her of something.
“Do you know all the French vampires?” She purposefully addressed her question to both of them. This was as good an opportunity as any to try sealing her thoughts. If she concentrated her gaze on the mosaic on the walls, she could keep her mind locked.
“Not if I can help it,” Silvio answered curtly.
Mihaela was not infatuated with French culture or people but the dismissiveness of his tone made her wonder.
Why would someone who disliked the French reside and rule in Béziers?
She had never wondered how the Regents ended up scattered across the continent; whether it was by their own design, or whether they were stations to castles and fortresses they disliked, guarding people they liked even less.
Ingenuar and Scarlett had never thought to teach her this. Their lessons had been few and were shaded by a parent’s overprotectiveness. The knowledge they bestowed carried the weight of the unspoken, the unnamable. Were there things one did not question about the dead and their rulers?
“What about a count?” Mihaela decided to press on and glanced over her shoulder at her host.
“You will have to be more specific,” Silvio offered her a weak smile.
“Count du Flavi—?”
The question hung in the air, the final syllable remained unfinished. Belatedly she realized she did not remember Jean-étienne’s full name. It sounded something like ‘flavour’, and it was at odds with his first name.
“Di Flaviari? Yes, I know of him,” the Marquis raised his eyebrows, the smile still plastered on his moist face. “But how do you know him?”
“I met him at the Coven,” Mihaela turned to fully face him.
With the corner of her eye she saw that Emerick had also turned and was following their conversation with a stillness she did not know he possessed. For a second she almost mistook him for one of the statues.
Silvio was silent for a moment with a peculiar smile playing on his mouth, amusement dancing in his eyes. He gave out a low hum.
“He must have told you, hasn’t he? He is the bragging sort.
How my mother,” —and here Mihaela swore she felt how the room suddenly chilled, and something at the back of her mind squealed a warning— “has chosen him. And for that alone I should call him brother. But we have yet to discover anything of him worth preserving, let alone throughout eternity.”
“Is that why you deny him entry to your court?” The question left her lips before Mihaela could stop herself.
“I thought you came here to learn, not to pry or—even worse—petition on behalf of that parasite. Ingenuar’s letter certainly never made mention of the latter. He knows where I stand on the matter.”
Come, a voice whispered in her head and when she blinked, Mihaela saw Emerick had already risen from the pool and was offering her his hand.
“Come,” Emerick repeated aloud. “Let us get you dry and upstairs. I have a book you might like.”
Mihaela looked from him to Silvio before she accepted his hand. The Marquis was staring at her; she allowed him to peer into the memory of her conversation with Jean-étienne. His expression hardened at the sight of the Frenchman in her mind, followed by the mention of a Countess.
“Mihaela,” the Comte commanded her in a low voice, his fingers squeezed her wrist as he pulled her along. She could feel him rifling through her mind, also studying the memories. “Be a good guest, and we will be good to you.”
Before she could answer, recognising the unspoken threat, a maid rushed out of the shadows and hurried to her side.
“Apologies, Mademoiselle. I came down as fast as I could,” the woman panted, her whole face flushed from running down the stairs.
The maid ushered Mihaela away from the men and enveloped her in a robe. A smaller towel was placed over her head, obscuring her vision.
“When she is ready, show her to my room,” Emerick ordered and waved his hand dismissing her.
“Are you planning on gardening? What are you wearing?” Emerick asked when he saw her.
“I panicked, okay? I grabbed the first thing I saw from my bag.” Mihaela gestured, exasperated, to the worn-out overalls she had on.
Ingenuar had told her the Marquis liked horses and Mihaela wanted to have something she would not mind getting dirty if they invited her to go riding.
“Coralie, your maid, practically dragged me up the stairs and then proceeded to dry me in such a fury, I’m grateful she let me dress at all. ”
Her host snorted, pressing his lips together.
Compared to him she did look ridiculous.
While she was getting her hair pulled and combed into submission, Emerick had put on a pair of dark trousers that hugged his hips, and he had tucked in them a long sleeved merino shirt.
Under the light of the chandelier she saw that it was dark blue, almost black.
He had not bothered to button it, his effort at modesty stopping with the buttons a little above the navel.
Emerick looked as if he were dressed to go out on a date, and Mihaela could smell his musky perfume even from across the room.
Moisture still clung to his hair but it did not seem to bother him.
If anything, it made him look even more ethereal.
She would never mistake him for a human if they met on the street.
He would probably be the last thing I’ll ever see, she thought grimly, remembering how they had first met: she on the ground and he kneeling over her, her clothes soggy from where she had fallen in the snow.
He moved across the room, inviting her to step closer.
Mihaela’s attention was instantly caught by the massive bed, its pillows and blankets thrown every which way.
A book peeked from under one of the pillows; a cigarette case forgotten on the nightstand, rings, keys and coins were scattered haphazardly.
When she raised her eyes, the size of the mirror looming from the wall over the bed caught her breath.
Its gilded frame and the velvet drapes around it created the illusion of an altar, the bed a sacrificial slab for the flesh.
What she saw in the reflection surprised and confused her further. A set of massive swords hung on the opposite wall, each of them in their own sheath, handles wrapped in leather and polished from wear and age.
“A memento,” Emerick explained when he caught her staring. “Though I am not certain if they are still good for anything. What if they have turned to dust in the sheaths? I haven’t handled a blade since the day we hung them on the wall.”
“When was that?” Mihaela asked and turned around so she could look at the actual weapons and not their glass double.
“In the 1790s.”
There were other items crowding the mantelpiece at the fireplace and around the swords. Shelves with a good number of books and framed pictures. She glimpsed a small oil painting, a portrait, the frame so petite it would easily fit in her pocket.
“Here—why not start your studies with this one?” Emerick pulled a volume from a shelf.
The book was worn, some of the pages were dog-eared, it had annotations both in the margins and between the paragraphs.
“Is this…a love letter?” Mihaela frowned at a piece of parchment stuck between the pages, the handwriting was different from the scribbles in the book. She crinkled her nose at the sight.
“Don’t be such a purist. Books are meant to be used. To be enjoyed.”
“You’ve enjoyed this one too much.”
Emerick scoffed and snatched the stray paper before she could read it. He gave it a one over and crumpled it in his fist.
“Come, let us go to the reading room downstairs. You are welcome to ask a servant to go to the public library or a bookshop in town if your eyes are too good for my dusty tomes.”
Mihaela rolled her eyes but followed him, clutching the book to her chest. He did not lock the room after them, did not even bother to close the door.
“That was Latin, wasn’t it?” She asked, recalling the letter.
“Do you know Latin?” He sounded genuinely intrigued.
“No, I tried but it didn’t stick.” Mihaela shook her head. “Can you teach me?”
As they descended the stairs a man was making his way up.
He wore a long coat, specks of road dirt clung to it and his trousers, his hair was dishevelled from the wind.
He was in the middle of unfastening the belt of his coat and undoing the buttons, a hall boy trailing behind.
It was the ruby glow of his lips that gave him away.
The way his eyes took in everything, his pupils were so blown up it made his eyes appear black but she could glimpse a shade of blue or grey.
His dark chestnut hair was cropped in the current fashion.
The newcomer appeared older than her and Emerick, there were lines around the hollows of his eyes that suggested he had seen combat.
Maybe had even been close to finding his death on the battlefield before a vampire claimed him for itself.
“Comte…” The man stopped in his tracks and first made to come towards Emerick but then thought better of it and stepped aside, lifting a hand to his chest in greeting. The abrupt halt almost made the servant behind him collide into his back.
Emerick passed the pair, offering them only the barest of acknowledgement, and continued his conversation with Mihaela as if they had not been interrupted.