Chapter Five #7
“Let a footman do it. Or a maid,” Emerick shrugged, dismissing René’s quiet protests that it was not right. There were rules, and his predecessor, Alexandre, would have demanded that they be observed.
At that, Emerick had asked who the master was—him or dear old, dead Alexandre.
René had scoffed and continued to oversee every dinner, every delivery brought to the house.
He made sure all the properties were well maintained; fresh horses ready at a moment’s notice; the guest chambers left undisturbed in the daytime.
Perhaps Emerick had been too indulgent when René was young, confiding in him, even taking him to bed.
There had been evenings when the three of them would wake together, Silvio making a careless remark how a hall boy’s place was in the hall, not his master’s bed.
Yet both of them fed on René, lavished gifts upon him, revealed their true nature and their abnormality. René aged year by year, ascending the household hierarchy, while Emerick remained unchanged, young and beautiful.
René had served in the tower of wonders for over three decades, eloping with one of the cooks.
The girl had left the Marquis’ employment when she fell pregnant with their first child.
She wanted to live in the city, with her parents.
The tower was no place to raise a child, she had told her husband, who remained in service, coming to work day in and day out.
A carriage would pick up René from his home at dusk and deliver him back at dawn.
René’s brother had fallen at the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean[12], leaving his wife a widow. They had kept a small house in Montpellier, which René sold as his sister-in-law had followed her husband to the grave not a month later.
“Have you eaten?” Emerick looked down at the parchment spread on the table, and left his pen in a glass full of murky water.
It was a champagne flute, he observed, smiling at his own carelessness, unable to find the inkwell.
On waking tonight, he had been eager to begin work on a map.
Word had reached him that the Imperial Russian Navy had discovered a peninsula of ice in the Southern Ocean—the Antarctic—and Emerick was desperate to learn more of this expedition.
He imagined the ships’ routes across the globe, their struggle against the ice, the strange creatures they might have encountered.
Ah, to have been born in this age of man, and explore the world. To seize with both hands the riches of the earth and scatter them across the continents. To be immortalised in books and atlases; statues of men erected in city squares and pillars dragged from deserts.
Looking away from the map and his amateur attempt at preparing a sea-chart, Emerick turned to his butler. René had clearly made the tower his first stop on the way back home. He appeared dishevelled, his boots were dusty, his gloves still on his hands.
“Sit down. I will ring for the kitchen to bring something up.” The Comte nodded towards a chair and pulled the bell.
The butler muttered in protest, “It is not proper, my lord,” but Emerick ignored him.
He found a clean glass and poured the man some wine.
There was always wine in the house, they could fill the pool in the thermae with wine and still have enough left to sell at a profit.
The vineyard had flourished and expanded over the years.
Humans went to wars and perished, and the wine kept flowing.
The door opened and Michel entered with a tray.
He was a man a little over thirty, with dark curly hair and bright, clever eyes.
A quick learner, with a sense of humour so dry, Emerick often wondered how they tolerated the man in the kitchens.
As first footman and René favourite, Michel would one day take on the role of butler.
And that day might come sooner than expected, Emerick observed, narrowing his eyes at the older man.
“Bouillon and bread, as you have asked, my lord.” Michel left the tray on the table. As he said the words, he frowned, wondering how he knew what food his lord desired without having spoken with him. He bowed and withdrew, leaving them alone.
Emerick’s smile twitched. He was doing it again, getting inside his servants’ minds and ordering them, impatient to have them go up the stairs for orders and return.
It had worked fine with René, but it might not have the same result with Michel.
After all, Michel was not in love with him, nor would he overlook his master being a vampire.
“I am not hungry.” René pushed the plate away and made to stand from the chair.
“Nonsense.” Emerick appeared next to him, laid a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down. “Shall I feed you?”
René’s face turned red and he spluttered in shock. His master picked up the spoon and turned it in the light before dipping it in the broth. How hard could it be, he had once been mortal and had eaten. Emerick blew on the spoon—a rather ridiculous attempt to cool it—and offered it to his butler.
“You fed me so many nights, René. You can do this for me, non?”
“My lord… this…”
“Emerick,” The Comte corrected in a tender whisper. “Say my name and be a good boy for me, René.”
Let’s have you warmed up and fed, and I will reward you, he breathed into René’s mind, watching the redness in his face turn to a beautiful blush, the arousal blooming.
At odds with etiquette, René opened his mouth and allowed himself to be spoon-fed.
When the bowl was emptied, Emerick arranged their chairs closer together and leaned in, eyes narrowing.
He was gentle and slow. First taking René’s gloves off, then loosening the cravat, he placed it on the table and undid all the buttons until there was nothing between him and the throbbing vein on the mortal’s throat.
He wanted to get as close as possible, suddenly overwhelmed with the thirst for blood.
How sweet it had tasted when Emerick was reborn, that first drop of human blood.
How long he had waited until he could drink from a living man.
Like sinking his teeth into a honeycomb: the thick syrup filling his mouth, sticking to his teeth and trickling down his chin—the overflowing sweetness.
Human blood was sweet, but Silvio’s blood was like mulled wine, warm and heavy with flavour, rich. He would have a taste of Silvio later, in bed.
“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Emerick trailed his lips down René’s neck and kissed it before his mouth went up the curve and under the man’s chin. “I often think about that night, at the thermae—of you as a young man with me in the water. How quick you were to serve me.”
“Yes—” René tried to nod, his hands reached for Emerick, urging him closer.
“How fast your heart beat when I fed off you… when I touched you…”
Emerick pressed down, his fangs pierced the skin, and the blood instantly filled his mouth, making him moan. Against him, René stiffened instinctively from the pain before he slowly relaxed and yielded, letting him have it all. Emerick swallowed and a shock ran down his whole body.
Before he could stop himself, he spat the blood onto the ground, kicking back his chair. Wiping at his mouth, he spat again, desperate to rid himself of the taste.
Something is wrong.
The taste… that vile, wretched tang reminded him of the animals he was forced to feed off as a fledgling vampire.
Even when Dulior had finally deemed him worthy, she led him to the sickest, filthiest of humans, made him crawl in the gutter after them.
Death was a blessing for these poor souls, but Emerick had to force himself to keep the blood down.
Either drink from the dead or die with them.
René’s blood was alive, but barely. Something was poisoning his body, leaving the bloodstream rancid, rotten and retching.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. René was sent to his room; instructions were given to the staff that he was not to be disturbed.
Michel took charge of the household and oversaw the arrangements; no guests were permitted to enter the tower.
A physician was called, a carriage dispatched for him, and for a moment Emerick thought of calling René’s wife but decided against it.
What if it was nothing? René had grown old, people aged—why should not their blood also change, lose its savour and delight? Perhaps it was the stress, the deaths that had beset the family and held René awake at night. Or it was the late hours he kept, so he could serve his immortal masters.
“There is a growth in his stomach,” the physician announced while washing and drying his hands at the basin.
He examined the butler once and was made to do it again; Emerick would have sent him a third time if it would make any difference.
“What he needs is rest. Bloodletting can help mitigate some of it,” the physician explained, scribbling down on a slip of paper. He talked about diets, salt baths and herbal compresses.
A footman saw him out with a promise to call in the morning. Or better yet, if the patient regained his strength, to have him driven into town and treated there.
Silvio pulled Michel aside and gave instructions for René’s things to be packed and sent home to his wife and children. He wrote a hasty letter and sealed it with wax, before giving it to a footman to deliver to his solicitor.
When Silvio returned to the tiny room in the attic, Emerick was standing by the door. His shirt splattered with blood.
“He is dying, my love.” The Marquis brushed a stray hair from Emerick’s face. He could smell the disease from here. “He has been dying for some time now, we simply did not see it.”
“He does not want to leave.”
The Comte looked up, and the hurt and confusion in his eyes was threatening to overflow.