Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Genevieve blessed the quiet of the London streets as she left Sally Blevins’s home.
She had had a full complement of children tonight, and their mothers had come home later than usual, and all the children had been fractious, and one of the babies had been teething.
August and June had not appeared, though, and Genevieve had been too busy trying to keep the peace to go knock on their door.
She had also been too busy to pick apart the previous night’s interaction with Kendrick—in theory. It had intruded, unasked for, in between the squabbles and the crying babies and letter quizzing.
“I find myself wanting you, Miss Dryden.”
“I have never been truly civilized.”
“It’s been decades since I’ve found myself wanting anything.”
And then he had called her “Jenny.” No one had called her “Jenny” since…
She shook her head. But it was all foolishness.
He, who looked like he stepped from a heroic lay or poem of yore, wanting her?
A spinster who flinched at unexpected touch?
Ridiculous. The only sensible thing to do was to dismiss it as a passing fancy.
An unwary thought. And she should certainly feel nothing at all one way or the other over the fact that he had not appeared out of the shadows this night.
Genevieve sighed as thunder rumbled ominously far off.
She’d welcome the rain to wash away some of the street grime if the rain wouldn’t drizzle for days on end, turning the whole world dreary and gray.
On her way home, she kept an eye out for Fletcher.
He had sounded like he had the sniffles the last time she had seen him.
It wasn’t like him to stay away so long. He liked having a routine.
Genevieve stopped at a street corner and bit her lip. Things happened to street children and dossers and the London poor all the time.
She recalled one of her father’s turns of phrase from his spotty translation of Beowulf:
“All were endangered, both elder and younger,
pursued by a killer, a shadow of death.
He trod every night then the mist-covered moor-fens;
men know not the wanderings of reavers from hell.”
Sometimes the things that happened to people were bloodsuckers like her.
Please be safe, Fletcher, she thought, wrapping her talent around her like a shroud as she approached the Ossuary entrance.
Passing through the doors behind another vampire, Genevieve descended into the dark and walked unseen through the corridors, half-listening to the snatches of conversation around her, half lost in her thoughts.
Too many things pressed in on her mind. Fletcher’s wellbeing as well as that of the other children, her friends’ safety and comfort, and Kendrick.
Her body flinched away from the idea of someone wanting her—but her mind kept turning over and over. A man who had seen so many things—so many places and people lost to time.
He said that he meant it, her traitorous mind reminded her.
Her father had teased her when she’d been in her early twenties and finding no man who had caught her eye, saying that she would not be satisfied with a modern man when she had cut her teeth on knights and heroes.
She had huffed and declared it poppycock; she had been perfectly content keeping house and assisting with his work and had not been mooning after some fictional romantic hero.
But I lied, Genevieve confessed. I just didn’t know it until the object of all my secret longings stepped off a page and into reality.
She heard a voice say, “But what if Kendrick gets wind of—”
“Keep quiet and he won’t,” another hissed. “Laurent wants it done. Tomorrow.”
Genevieve froze at the turn of the passage and listened hard.
“You are late tonight,” Sparrow commented, bent over her piecework.
“And I shall be later still,” Genevieve said, setting down her reticule in their bolt hole. “I must find Kendrick. I went by the furnished rooms, but he was not there. Where is Elspeth?”
“Robbie wanted her opinion on the state of some linens and curtains,” Sparrow said, knotting her thread. “Kendrick asked him to lead the cleanout of the late master’s townhouse—perhaps he is there as well.”
“Oh, thank you.” Genevieve breathed in relief.
“What do you want Kendrick for?” Sparrow asked curiously.
Good question, Genevieve thought. Aloud, she said, “I’ve heard more mutterings. I think he ought to know about them right away.” Especially because they’re from Laurent.
“All this in just one night?” Kendrick marveled at the marked improvement. Two men cleaned the main chandelier, while several other people scrubbed and waxed every other surface, carting away rugs to beat them in the small garden behind the house. Already, fixtures and floors gleamed.
“Amazing what folk will do when motivated properly.” Robbie leaned on his crutch and grinned proudly at the industry in the house’s main foyer.
“We found more curtains,” Miss Gibbins said triumphantly, descending the stairs with another woman carrying huge trunks.
Kendrick moved to the stairs and took the trunk from her. “Where do they go?”
“The main parlor for now. We’ll replace the curtains room by room for safety, but the ones now are so dingy and dusty…” She shuddered.
Etienne appeared at his elbow to take the other from her helper.
Kendrick, Dominic, and Etienne had been in Dominic’s townhome taking notes on all the old laws, dooms, and codices left behind from centuries of vampiric rule.
Godfrey had finally made an appearance, looking wasted and sickly.
But he’d spent the few minutes in Kendrick’s company lecturing them all that their society should be entirely separate from humans in order to stay safe.
“And how does he imagine that we will feed ourselves?” Etienne had murmured.
“Salem managed it,” Kendrick had pointed out.
Both Etienne’s eyebrows had flown up. “Can you picture Godfrey gnawing on a sheep, mon ami?”
Kendrick had had to hide laughter, but he had hoped that pulling Dominic from that atmosphere would restore some animation to his friend, who had become faded and distant with each word his maker issued.
So, he had pulled the three of them out to go see the progress Robbie and Joseph had wrought on the house.
“It’s a marked difference already,” Kendrick said, letting his voice carry. “Thank you all.”
The women ducked their heads and smiled. The men grinned and pulled their forelocks.
An insistent knocking began tapping out a rhythm on the front door.
With a furtive glance about, one of the men eased towards the door and opened it. “Yes?”
“I need to speak to Etienne,” the person on the other side of the door said. “Let me in.”
“Addie?” Etienne exclaimed, nearly dropping his pince-nez.
The impromptu footman swung the door open.
“Addie, darling, what are you doing here?” Etienne stretched his hands out to her.
Addie beamed, throwing her arms around him. “Silly, you know I can always find you when I want you.” That was her newly discovered talent.
“Dangerous, that,” Dominic said dryly.
“You should be at home; dawn is not far off!” Etienne set her down. “You took a risk, darling!”
“I know, but I was careful. I have to tell you something important!” Addie said earnestly, clutching at his coat.
“What is it, dearest?”
“Did you know French vampires can be killed with baguettes?”
Etienne stared at her.
Addie continued. “The only problem is, the effort of driving baguettes into a heart is very pain-staking!”
Kendrick burst into laughter. Miraculously, so did Dominic.
Addie beamed.
Etienne slowly closed his eyes, looking like a man desperately clinging to the fringes of his sanity.
This only made Kendrick laugh harder.
“Did you get my joke?” Addie asked sweetly.
“Very clever, Addie, my love,” Etienne said in a choked voice. “Did you come up with it yourself?”
“Well, you’ve been teaching me French, and I often like to sit outside the French bakery shop around the corner before dawn because they begin baking the bread and it smells so wonderful, even though I can’t eat it, and listening to them speak is like practicing, which you said I need to do, and so when they were talking about the bread—”
“I see.”
“It just came to me!” Addie said proudly.
Dominic had to brace his hands on his knees to stop chuckling.
Kendrick walked up and kissed Addie on the cheek. “What a marvelous end to a night, Addie. Masterful work.” You’ve made Dominic laugh. How long has it been since he’s done that?
Joseph emerged from the servants’ green door, wiping his hands on a cloth. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. “My liege, you have a caller at the tunnel entrance.”
“Practically inundated with visitors tonight.” Kendrick raised an eyebrow. “Who is it?”
Joseph half-smiled. “Miss Dryden.”
“Oh, you missed my joke,” Addie said.
Kendrick patted her shoulder. “I’m sure Joseph and Etienne would love for you to tell it again.
” He excused himself and hurried down the servants’ passages to the cellar door.
Down here, it smelled so much more salubrious already, though more work was necessary.
Inside, the tunnel entrance had been unbolted and stood open.
“Miss Dryden?” Kendrick said, stepping through.
For a moment, the tunnel was empty of occupants. The next, Genevieve appeared in the shadows.
The rush of delight at her presence had not dimmed. If anything, it had grown stronger. “An impressive talent, Miss Dryden,” Kendrick said. “I tip my hat to you. What brings you here?” You’ve sought me out, Genevieve. You’ve not done that before.
“I need to tell you something, but without anyone overhearing. There’s been too much of that already.” Her eyes looked shadowed, like she was pressed down under a weight of cares.
“Will you come up into the house? We are cleaning it presently, but I believe the library is unoccupied.” He gestured for her to move ahead of him into the house. Tell me what’s the matter, Jenny. Tell me how I can help.