Chapter Sixteen #2
“Well,” he said. “Choice, I suppose.” He reached up to touch her.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But it doesn’t feel much like either of us chose this, does it?
Just that we have been inexorably drawn to each other by forces beyond our control, that we have been fighting against them because these forces want you to kill me, and the same forces seem to wish for me to surrender to being your victim. ”
He let out a breath. “Yes, it’s all rather horrendous in some ways, isn’t it?”
“And if you turn me, it’s the ultimate test. Then, these forces that brought us together will be broken, and we must see if we even like each other.”
“We like each other, my Lizzy.”
“Ty, do we? Do we know each other? Or are we simply… entwined by blood and physical pleasure, by attraction and temptation, and… is it real between us?”
“It’s real,” he said, quite certain. “Listen to me, Lizzy, I am much older than you and I know these things.”
She laughed softly. “Yes, but here I am, so much less mature than you, trying to rile you up, make you jealous, get you to react, and you must think me so idiotic, even childish.”
“Not at all. I like that you rouse me. You make me feel alive again, like life is worth living again.”
“And when I am a vampire? Will you feel that way then?”
“I see,” he said. “You do not trust me. I have abandoned you already, once before. If I turn you, you are worried that I shall abandon you again, and you will be all alone and vulnerable and with no one else to turn to, cut off from everyone else you have ever loved, now a creature of darkness.”
Her fingers stilled in his hair. He was correct, she supposed, but she wished to argue with him and tell him he wasn’t. She wished to say he had gotten it wrong. She probed his words, looking for a vulnerable spot, someplace to attack.
But then, too much time had passed, and it had been quiet too long, and it seemed like acquiescence.
“Time, my love,” he said quietly, reaching up to run his fingers over her arm. “We must have time together, that is all. These things between us, they will either get better or worse with time, and this will tell us what we need to know about our future.”
“Just wait?” she said. “That is all? There is nothing else?”
“I think not,” he said. “Do you wish to have the colonel in your bed in the meantime?”
“No.”
He chuckled.
“I truly do not,” she said. “And I don’t know that he really likes me either.
I think he has some concern about you, some idea that you are unjust towards me, and he has it all tied up in seeing himself as my savior or some such.
I have been paying too much attention to it, but I shall stop, and I think it will all fade rather quickly. ”
“If you change your mind, I shouldn’t deny you anything.”
She gasped.
“I…” He got up from his chair to look at her. “You don’t like that answer, for you would wish to deny me things, I suppose. You would not be so sanguine if I wished another in my bed.”
She bit down on her lip, thinking it through. “I don’t know. If it were a man, I suppose it might be different.”
He laughed.
“That seems nonsensical, doesn’t it?”
“No, quite normal, I think, for you don’t feel it as a threat, that I should prefer him to you?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But are you not worried that I should prefer the colonel? You say you are jealous, but you would still allow it?”
“You are not here for my pleasure, Lizzy,” he said. “You are here for yourself. I have been in a number of arrangements over the years, and vampires grow tired and bored with each other. Fidelity becomes a cage. It’s common for them to unlock it and let themselves frolic where they wish.”
“But if a person you love is hurt by your actions, and you keep doing it to them, that’s cruelty.”
“By the same argument, if a person you love craves something, and you deny it because of your own selfishness, that is cruelty.”
She thought about that, but she wasn’t sure she believed it. It wasn’t exactly the same. “After you took me to bed, it changed us. We are closer now. Did it not… in those arrangements, did it not foster closeness with the people they were being unfaithful with?”
He shrugged, looking away.
“Like Caroline,” she said in a sour voice. “Caroline who belonged to Bingley and now cannot shake whatever closeness she has to you.”
“And you are jealous of her,” he said quietly. “Whilst she is jealous of you, and—”
“This is why infidelity is a cage one should perhaps abide by,” she said pointedly.
He shrugged. “Yes, yes. There is no right and wrong in the end, but there are always consequences for every action. One may think, ‘Well, I shall sit down and line up all the bad consequences and never do any actions that lead to bad consequences, and then I shall be happy all the time,’ and then lightning strikes and burns down one’s house, and one realizes being happy all the time is neither possible nor desirable. ”
She blinked, unsure if she had followed all of that.
He chuckled again. “Time, Lizzy. Let us have a bit of time.”
Her shoulders sagged. “All right.”
“All right.” He took her hand and kissed her in the middle of her palm.
She bit down on her lip, feeling his love for her in the bond, feeling flooded with it, and it was too much and too good, overwhelming.
She gasped and burrowed into his chest. His arms came around her.
They stayed that way for some time, wordless, his lips meeting the crown of her head from time to time, her hand grasping and letting go of his cravat, but otherwise just standing there, together, still.
“If you want your sister to come, you should write to her and tell her so,” he said softly.
She looked up at him. “You don’t wish her to stay, though.”
“I think she needs to be charmed out of her disappointment in Bingley,” he said. “I might as well do that. And I think you need her to help with your decision. If you become a vampire, losing your ties to your family will be painful, but the worst pain will be your sister Jane, will it not?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think you are right.”
“So, let us have her here with us, my love. Write to her.”