Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The rain continued, foiling their efforts.
Kendrick turned up his collar and pulled his hat low as he left Fernside to coordinate with the searchers still on the hunt in other areas.
Most of the search teams had relocated to Fernside as a base of operations, but a few had gone to ground during daylight elsewhere.
They were still hunting for Laurent, though much hope that they would find him soon, or at all, had passed.
He had gone several blocks and had just turned north on Regent Street when a figure stepped out of the shadows.
He checked the motion to reach for his sword when the figure fell to their knees, trembling.
“F-Forgive me, sire. I have k-killed a human. I submit myself to the king’s justice,” Elspeth forced out through chattering teeth.
“Elspeth,” Kendrick said. She flinched but steeled herself when he advanced on her.
“I h-have left Laurent,” she continued. “He made me inform him of what Genevieve was doing, but I tried—I tried not to tell him anything important! I can tell you where he bides—there is a house in Chelsea—”
She swallowed the rest of her sentence when Kendrick went to one knee in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Are you well?” he asked. She looked wet to the skin.
She blinked at him uncomprehendingly. Kendrick could still see the brown trails where the rain had not managed to mop away old tears. “I have come t-to confess and place myself under the king’s justice. I have c-conspired with your enemy. Killing a human m-means death.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather submit yourself to the king’s mercy?”
She gaped at him.
Kendrick gentled his voice. “You were commanded and manipulated against your well, Elspeth. While it is true that you did unlawfully kill and turn a human, you enabled Evangeline to come back to her family, unfettered by evil. I pardon you.”
“I-It worked?” she whispered. “She’s woken up?”
“Yes.”
She hiccupped. “I just didn’t want what happened to me to happen to her… and then this evening… I don’t understand what happened. Laurent ordered me to do something, and there was no force behind it. No pain. I didn’t have to do it. So I ran.”
“What you did freed you both,” Kendrick assured her. “And I believe you will be far more cognizant of the responsibility you hold. Here is my sentence—you will come back with me to Fernside to teach, guide, and help Evangeline navigate this new world. Will you do it?”
Elspeth nodded, pressing a fist to her mouth. “Yes, of course, my liege.”
Kendrick stood and extended his hand. Trembling, Elspeth took it, and Kendrick lifted her to her feet. Then he kissed her on both cheeks. “You are a brave and honorable woman, Elspeth Gibbins.” He handed his handkerchief, and she wiped her tears away.
Elspeth walked back to Fernside beside Kendrick in silence, still reeling. A reprieve. Acquitted of the sin she had committed. And free—gloriously free!—of Laurent. The persistent drizzle was like a cleansing rain straight from heaven for her soul.
The whole world felt changed, turned upside down. She did not know when it would turn aright. Did she even want it to?
As she and Kendrick approached Fernside, Elspeth looked up apprehensively at the door. But she did not have long to fret.
The front door flew open, a figure in a kilt backlit in the doorway.
Elspeth shrank back, shame and guilt strangling her.
What must Robbie think of her? They all had to have heard what she had done.
She reached up to pat her hair reflexively and realized her bonnet was gone.
She had lost it somewhere between Chelsea and Mayfair.
And her sodden hair was half tumbled down her back.
Kendrick whispered, “Courage.”
In the next moment, Robbie MacPherson leapt down all eight steps and landed agilely on his one leg. Elspeth gasped.
His crutch clattered to the pavement as he seized her by the shoulders, his eyes scanning her wildly. Then he crushed her into his embrace. Elspeth stared over his shoulder in shock as he clutched her to him. “Robbie…?”
“Elspeth, please forgive me for not seeing your suffering,” Robbie whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
The tension in her frame drained away. “You don’t hate me?” she said in a small voice.
“Hate you?” Robbie repeated, incredulous. He pulled back to face her. “I love you, silly lass.”
Elspeth trembled. “But I lied to you, and I—”
“None of that, now,” Robbie commanded. “I know very well what it’s like for a master to forge your chains of obedience.” He lifted his hands to cup her face, spearing his fingers through her wet hair.
“Oh, don’t—” Elspeth blurted out, raising her hands instinctively.
Robbie gave her an all-too-knowing look. “You don’t have to hide your scars from me. Isn’t that what you told me about my leg?” He cradled the sides of her head, purposefully cupping her mutilated ears. “That scars are just part of who we are and what we survived?”
Tears blurred Elspeth’s eyes. She pressed her face into his steady hands.
“I said that?” she managed to say. “Are you sure?”
“I recall it so clearly because it was the moment I lost my head over the wisest and loveliest woman I’ve ever known,” Robbie said. “Come inside, Elspeth.”
Elspeth came on trembling legs, clutching the arm Robbie did not use for his crutch. She had only just stepped inside the door when Genevieve flew through the green servants’ door at the end of the hall and came running towards her, her skirts hoisted nearly to her knees. “Elspeth!” she called.
Oh, but I’m not ready, Elspeth thought. She hadn’t rehearsed her apology yet! “Genevieve—”
Genevieve hit her at nearly full speed, wrapping her arms around her. “Are you all right?” she demanded. “You’re not hurt?”
“I’m sorry, Genevieve,” Elspeth said, sniffing hard. “He wanted me to tell him secrets, things about you and Kendrick—but I tried so hard not to betray you. Please believe me.”
“Of course I do,” Genevieve said, sniffing herself. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have seen the signs. I should have known Laurent would have—” Genevieve’s voice cracked. “I’ve been a poor friend.”
Elspeth shook her head. “That’s never been true yet in the twenty years I’ve known you.
” Genevieve had been the one who had held them all together by the skin of her teeth down in the dark.
She had survived torture and grief and the howling madness of solitude because of Genevieve.
“And to repay you this way, after everything…”
“Let there be no talk of payment between you and me.” Genevieve squeezed her again and then turned to Kendrick. “You won’t hold what happened against her, will you?”
“Did I not promise you equal parts justice and mercy?” Kendrick murmured, brushing some of her hair behind her ear.
Genevieve smiled up at him. “Yes. And I know you for a man who keeps his word.”
“Be wary of Laurent, Genevieve,” Elspeth urged. “He’s unreasonable about you.”
“With any luck, he does not have many days left on the earth,” Kendrick rumbled. “Searchers, to me! We have a location.”
Elspeth clung hard to Genevieve’s hand as they ventured down to the cellar.
She was hard-pressed to say whether or not approaching Kendrick expecting death had been worse than this.
Entering the small, lantern-lit room, Elspeth met the gaze of the woman sitting with unnatural stillness on the bed as Dominic Penrose hovered protectively.
Evangeline Hartshorne’s once-green eyes had faded to the typical vampire colorless gaze, and no sound emerged from her chest. She had awakened, true enough, but had firmly passed the boundary from life to death.
Even though she had been given mercy for her crime, Elspeth knew she still had to acknowledge the wrong.
“I have to say I’m sorry.” Elspeth spoke up, before anyone else said anything.
“No matter the outcome, I still—I still killed you. I have to—beg your forgiveness. I turned you. I can’t express how I wish—how I wish I could have made a different choice.
I know what it’s like to have your life—stolen.
To be ripped away from the human world, sundered—”
“But all that would have happened to me, anyway,” Evangeline Hartshorne said with a strange preternatural calm, holding her gaze.
Elspeth pulled up sharply as her ears rang. “What?”
Evangeline Hartshorne smiled a little. “Don’t you remember?
That man—Laurent. He had given me his blood.
I believe he always intended to kill me.
Based on what Mr. Penrose has told me,” she said, her eyes flicking to Dominic, “by giving me your blood, you snatched me out of his clutches, Miss Gibbins.”
Elspeth worked her mouth, trying to speak. But it felt full of cotton. Genevieve’s hands steadied her as she swayed.
She had forgotten.
That was how the bond had broken tonight. That was how she had escaped.
She had broken her own chains.
But I have forged another set, she realized with cold dread.
Evangeline continued. “He told you to kill me, but he meant for the act to wound you. Please believe me—you don’t have to carry the guilt of an act that was meant to hurt you.”
“You ought to hate me,” Elspeth burst out. “I—I’m your maker now.” The realization filled her with a newfound horror and revulsion. “I c-could make you do h-horrible things.”
Turn against friends. Stop her mouth. Turn her into a living puppet. Reduce her down to a frantic wild thing, trapped in her own body, not able to even scream. Elspeth pressed her clenched fist to her mouth.
“No, you won’t,” Genevieve said, putting her arms about Elspeth. “Because we won’t allow what was done to us to happen to anyone else. The blood bond can be so easily abused, as we know. Newly created vampires ought to have protections and resources that we never did.”
“And makers must be taught how to help their children,” Dominic said firmly.
“Children?” Elspeth said faintly. She had never seen a vampire blood bond in even vaguely familial terms.
“Children,” Dominic repeated. “We will never have natural progeny. The vampires we make are our only legacy, our only bloodline. I have never understood how those we make can be abandoned—or abused and manipulated—so shamefully. I will help you both as you navigate this new world,” he promised, looking down at Evangeline and then back to Elspeth.
“We can write a new way forward,” Genevieve said. “Mentors. Teachers. Social workers, for those who may be in precarious or dangerous blood bond relationships. You both are not alone.”
Elspeth stared hopefully at her friend, blinking her blurry vision clear. Her enthusiasm was nearly a tangible thing. That was Genevieve’s best trait—she enabled those around her to hope.
“Speaking of children,” Evangeline said, lacing her fingers together in her lap.
A spark of yearning lit in her eyes, belying her collected poise.
“Can I see August and June?” Deep longing and fear reverberated in her voice.
“I won’t hurt them, will I? I—I drank earlier, but I can’t help but worry—”
Dominic set his hand on her shoulder. “I will be right there with you. I will not let you hurt them. I promise.”
Evangeline looked up at him and slowly nodded.
Genevieve followed the small procession up the stairs, Evangeline wobbling like a newborn foal as she grew used to the new rhythms of her body, Dominic steadying her when she paused.
Genevieve watched with quiet fascination.
Dominic had shown intense interest in the family, so much so that earlier, Kendrick and Genevieve had exchanged speculative looks.
“Shall I bring the children down to the parlor?” Genevieve asked once they’d passed the green door.
Dominic nodded. “I think that will be best. But she’ll be just fine.”
Genevieve hurried upstairs to the nursery where Kate held June and showed her a rattle as a nursery maid held a little boy with very curly hair.
August sat on the rug surrounded by toy soldiers, but he hugged his knees, his eyes on the door.
“August, would you and June like to come down to the parlor?” Genevieve asked, smiling brilliantly.
“I think someone would like to see you.”
August’s eyes flew wide, and he jumped to his feet.
“Want to go see who it is, lovey?” Kate asked, standing with June. “Nancy, you’ll look after Ben a moment?”
They all hurried downstairs, August’s hand clasped tightly on Genevieve’s until they reached the open parlor door. Then August caught sight of Evangeline sitting on the sofa, and he ran into her arms. June strained towards her mother in Kate’s hold, shrieking.
Dominic and Elspeth hovered close by, watching carefully.
Genevieve bit her lip as her heart swelled with emotion from the exclaiming, wildly excited but also sobbing children and their mother.
Still—something was missing. She frowned and glanced around her.
Kendrick, in the hallway dispatching the last team of searchers, caught her eye and came towards her. “What is it?”
“Where is Fletcher?”