Chapter 28 Options
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“He wants you to marry because he wants you to have a child,” I said faintly.
Harker got up from the table, chair digging at the floor. He walked to the hearth and I stared after him, heart beating almost to deafen me.
I recalled how Goosevar had changed. Going from attacking me on the heath to watching me behind the cottage. Enchanting me, and bringing me here.
Slowly I rose from the table. “Why me?”
Harker’s head half turned, not quite meeting my gaze. He looked as if he would speak, but instead he turned back to the fire.
After a few moments, he said, “You are only the second woman to have set foot in the chapel since I was a boy.”
I let out a laugh that sounded more pitiful than I intended. “In other words, the only option.”
More strained silence, followed by, “Something like that.”
It shouldn’t have hurt. I knew it wasn’t meant to. But it did.
Harker took off his fine coat and laid it over the back of one of the chairs.
I couldn’t help admiring again the draping beauty of his shirt, with its ruffled cuffs and neck.
Over it he wore a well-fitted waistcoat the color of wine.
I had noticed his old-fashioned way of dressing the first time I came here, though his dress at the tearoom had been modern and very polished.
It occurred to me now that this would probably have been the fashion around the time he became a young man. The same time he stopped aging.
Though the topic was awkward, the sudden quiet was uncomfortable, and I said, “We’ve found Roche’s killer. We know that he wants something from us. If we were to give him what he wants, would the killings stop?”
Harker looked at me at last, brows drawing down. “Hypothetically, I hope you mean.”
I stumbled on the unfamiliar word. “If you’re saying that you hope I’m not suggesting we actually marry, of course I know we’re not considering that.”
My tone carried the barest hint of wounded pride, and I was ashamed to see by the slight softening of his expression that he had caught it.
“If we did, hypothetically, marry,” he said, “and we were able to conceive a child”—his gaze flitted down to my belly, kindling a flame there—“it would presumably be eighteen or more years before his change. Would Goosevar go that long without feeding? Before my vital essence, the longest I ever managed to abstain was about a month.”
“And how long have you been using your vital essence?”
“Including the less effective formulations, about twenty-five years.”
“So it would seem that he has also managed to survive on it, and only lately—”
“Reached his limit,” Harker said bitterly, glancing down. “I haven’t exactly thrived on it myself.”
This had been evident from the change wrought in him by my blood. Which brought to mind an obvious solution. I hadn’t known him long, but I knew how he was going to feel about what I said next.
“You could go back to what you were doing before your vital essence. Feeding by . . . arrangement. Without killing.”
His skin went ashen, and the furrows in his brow deepened. There was gravel in his voice as he said, “It would break me, Mina.”
His pain wrung my heart, and I nodded.
He took a breath as he raked a hand through his hair. “If it would stop the killings, I would do it. But only as a last resort.”
“It might give us time to think of something better.” I walked to my chair by the hearth and sat down. Harker bent and tossed another brick on the fire, and I said, “Do you think it would be possible to destroy Goosevar?”
He sat in the other chair. “I should think it’s possible to destroy any living creature. Though after seeing Goosevar, I don’t feel optimistic.”
“St. Gomonda killed Goosevar,” I noted. “Though since he’s very much alive, I suppose that’s just a story.”
“Well, as Goosevar is clearly not ‘just a story,’ I don’t think we should be too quick to dismiss anything.”
“Maybe there have been others like him?”
Harker nodded. “Though if our Goosevar is only one of a species, the fact they’ve remained undiscovered for centuries is rather remarkable.”
I reached up and gathered my hair over one shoulder, braiding it while I thought over all we’d discussed. Harker’s eyes followed the movements of my fingers, causing sparks to dance over my skin. When I finished, I had nothing to bind the plait, so I sighed and let it drop.
“Tell me again about the building of the chapel,” I said.
“You mentioned that it was meant as a gift for the church. During the construction there were devilish pranks, and the church decided a demon was here—you thought maybe because of the St. Gomonda story—and they wouldn’t accept the gift. Then the manor burned down.”
“That’s it, essentially. After the fire, father and son moved into the chapel instead of rebuilding.”
“And the son was the first Tregarrick vampire.”
“Thomas, yes.”
I looked at him. “What’s interesting to me is how all of that happened at once.”
His eyes met mine. “Elaborate, please.”
Trying not to be distracted by his keen attention, I said, “Father Kelly seems to think the creature in the story might have been some kind of nature spirit or fairy, and my mother believed fairies could live forever. There are banshees in Ireland who follow the same families for generations. What if St. Gomonda only believed he had killed him? Maybe instead it was . . . I don’t know, a kind of sleep that he woke from?
I mean, if you think about what was happening on the estate when the trouble all started . . .”
Harker’s face had gone ashen again. “Felling trees, digging up and hauling rocks, setting the granite blocks into the ridge.” Something flickered in his eyes. “Some of the rock for this chapel was taken from the ruins of an ancient village on the estate.”
My brows lifted. “What in heaven’s name could have possessed them to use stones from an old ruin? No farmer or miner or sheepherder would dream of doing such a thing.”
His smile was bitter. “But the Tregarricks were none of these. Much of the readily available stone on the estate would have been used in building the manor, and of course the chapel was built before the manor burned. Taking it from the ruins probably seemed like a sensible solution.”
“In the old stories,” I said, “people are tormented and cursed for disturbing fairy homes or sacred places. Your family affliction seems very like a curse, though Goosevar also seems to have had a particular use for the Tregarricks.”
Harker thought for a moment. Then he stood and walked back to the table, where he took up his quill again and began writing.
“We know—or at least believe with a fair degree of certainty—that he requires blood, and he requires the males of my family to consume it for him. We don’t know why, but we can probably assume this helps him avoid discovery. ”
“His hunting might well be what got him into trouble with St. Gomonda. Now the Tregarricks are the ones who take all the risk.”
“Or were.”
As he bent over his paper, the waves of his hair curtained his face. What would it feel like to reach out and push them back? I imagined his eyes lifting to mine as I did it. I imagined his lips curving in a fond smile.
Then his eyes did lift, and there was even the hint of a smile. “I couldn’t do this without you, Mina.”
His words raised a deep flush, and I let out a sheepish laugh. “It’s hard to see things sometimes when you’re so close to them.”
“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “It’s more than that. You’re bright, Mina. You are naturally very logical, and your mind is quick. Had you the advantages I’ve had—”
“I might be an alchemist too?” I smiled. “Somehow I don’t think it’s the same for a woman. My brother doesn’t even like me working in a tearoom.”
His lips pressed together, and he nodded. “You’re right, of course. But there are women in science and medicine, and one day there will be more.”
As much as I enjoyed hearing him sing my praises, the thought of Jack was enough to drag me back to the real world.
“I think I must go home, Harker. I’m worried about the way Jack has been behaving. He won’t know I was enchanted and brought here by an ancient blood-drinking forest spirit, and wouldn’t believe it if I told him. I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
Harker’s expression dimmed. “Of course. But how are we to keep you safe after what happened today?”
His anxiety for me lodged like a dart in my heart. “I suppose I must truly keep inside the cottage now. But I wish to continue helping you. Maybe you can send Mr. Carew to me, so we may exchange messages.”
Nodding, he said, “I’ll also ask him to keep an eye on your cottage.” He rose from the table and picked up my shawl from the chairback. “I’ll walk you home.”
Much as I wished to delay our leave-taking, I said, “I don’t think we should take the risk. Jack has been coming home at odd hours lately—remember, he believes you attacked me.”
The lines of his mouth tightened. “And so I did, Mina.”
Our gazes held, and I said softly, “But it wasn’t like he imagines.”
Harker came to me, and instead of handing me the shawl, he reached around and settled it over my shoulders. My heart pulsed as the herb-and-brandy scent of him washed over me. His fingers still held the shawl’s edges, and I fought my body’s wish to lean into him.
When at last he let go, one hand came slowly to the side of my face, stopping an inch away from my skin. “I’ll see you to the edge of the estate, at least.”
Unsteady from the sudden rush of my heart, I could only nod.
After the comfort of the chapel—and the unexpected moment of . . . tenderness?—stepping outside was like crossing from a meadow of spring wildflowers into the deep gloom of winter. The rain drummed steadily down, and I draped my shawl over my head.
“Let me go ahead,” he said. “The stairs will be slippery.”
We were nearly down safely when a loud voice startled us both. “I warned you, Tregarrick.”
Raindrops stung my eyes as my gaze swept quickly over the ground at the bottom of the stairs. A lone oak tree, separated from its brethren in the woods to the north, pressed up against the outcrop maybe twenty feet from where we stood, and I made out a figure beneath it.
His light face and hands stood out against the dark trunk, but I knew who it was without them.
He had a pistol aimed at us.
“Jack!” I cried. “For God’s sake—”
The pistol fired, and I let out a scream.
Harker tumbled down the last few steps, splaying on the ground. Even through the wine-colored waistcoat, I could see the bloom of dark blood.