Her Dear and Loving Husband (25 page)

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“What about your ex-husband?”

“Who?” 

Sarah smiled the most beautiful smile James had ever seen.

They had kissed before. He had kissed the top of her head many times, her forehead once as she drifted off to sleep. They had even kissed on the lips before, the night Sarah decided she needed to do the past-life regression after all. Then he had kissed her to soothe her, and it worked. She melted into him and seemed to forget whatever it was that worried her in the moment before their lips touched.   

But they had never kissed like this before. Certainly not since 1692. Again, he felt the seconds stop while the time warp settled around them, keeping them close. Now it was the twenty-first century, not the seventeenth, and they were in the home they had shared when they were married then. But now their home had electric lights and cable television. Now she was not only Elizabeth but she was Sarah too, sweet Sarah, beautiful Sarah, the woman he loved Sarah. In that moment Elizabeth and Sarah melded into one woman in his mind and there was no longer any difference between them. He was kissing the woman he loved just as he had all those years before, shyly at first, and then he remembered how it was the first time he made love to Elizabeth on their wedding night. He tilted Sarah’s chin with his hand and caressed her cheek until she smiled with the memory. He was slow with her, savoring this time with her, kissing her, sliding her sweater off her arms, pulling her tank top over her head. Then he stopped tugging on her clothing and laughed. 

“What is it?” she asked.

“I was just thinking how much easier it is to undress you now.”  

Sarah leaned back, her head against the sofa cushion, her eyes closed as she remembered.

“You were very clumsy as you struggled with the complicated clothing. But you tried very hard to seem nonchalant about the whole thing.”

“You were rather amused by my awkwardness.”

“You were so very adorable.”

Sarah opened her eyes and looked at him. He recognized the heat-filled passion, and he couldn’t wait any longer. She wasn’t waiting for him as Elizabeth had. She undressed him quickly, impatiently, as if she had wanted him for over three hundred years, as long as he had waited for her. James was overcome knowing they would finally be together again. When he saw the longing in Sarah’s eyes he kissed her the way he remembered kissing Elizabeth, first on her temple, then her cheek, then her lips. But Sarah wasn’t content waiting for him to replay a love scene from ages past. 

“Make love to me, James,” she said.

He kissed her, and she kissed him back with so much feverishness he felt warm-blooded for the first time in over three hundred years. With a sweeping gesture he lifted her from the sofa and carried her to the bed they had shared all those years ago. Just the way they had melded together before, the first time Sarah and James made love had none of the awkwardness of two people being intimate for the first time. Instinctively, they understood each other and remembered how to be together. 

CHAPTER 20

When Sarah opened her eyes the next morning the day had already started its early consciousness, the sun sending shivers of color in a long, thin arc along the bottom of the night. As she looked around the bedroom she felt disoriented, not quite sure of her surroundings until she remembered where she was and why she was there. James was in the bed next to her, sleeping on his back, his head turned to the side, his arm covering his face, looking exactly the way he had looked over three hundred years before when he slept, and she smiled at the memory. Already by that morning, the day after the past-life regression, she couldn’t find the metaphysical line separating her from Elizabeth. It wasn’t a frightening sensation. Instead, it felt right to have this other knowledge from this past life whispering memories in her ear. Looking at James, flushed by a lightheaded swell of love, she felt like she was the one who had been married to him in another time, and in a way she guessed she was. She smiled more when she realized she slept well the night before. No haunted dreams had scared her, and she was no longer afraid of the slithering chains. She knew what they were now—the chains the constable wrapped around Elizabeth before he dragged her away to jail—and now that she knew what they were they no longer held any power over her. She let them go.

She stretched her arms to the gabled ceiling, sending shivers down her sides. She wanted to wake James with kisses. She wanted to shake him until he felt her passion rising and he made love to her again, and again, the way he had the night before. All that frustration, over all those months when she didn’t know if they would ever be together, was all worth it. They were still right for each other. They still fit. It was their destiny.

As she leaned over him, ready to kiss his lips, she stopped when she realized that his dawn was her dusk. When he was first falling asleep she would first be waking up. That would take some getting used to, she thought. She saw a streak of iridescent sun brushing his arm and she jumped out of bed to the window, dropping the blinds and pulling the blackout curtains closed. The spots of sunlight didn’t seem to harm him, but she wasn’t taking any chances. With the curtains drawn the room was cave dark, not even a glimpse of light, but she knew he needed it that way. 

She sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to wake him. She wasn’t sure how soundly he slept, but one of the few things she could recall hearing about his kind was that they slept like corpses, or they were corpses, dead, until the sun dropped in the west and they were reanimated with life again. She sat there, listening, since she couldn’t see him in the lightless room, but all she heard was the sound of her own breath. She touched his chest and felt his still body, and she guessed that must be where the legend that they were corpses came from—they didn’t pretend to breathe while they slept. She already knew that James made a pretense of breathing when he was around people. He said it was like blowing air through a straw. You can blow air through a straw as much as you want, he said, though the straw doesn’t need the air and doesn’t care if you blow through it or not. She realized she had a lot to learn. 

She stood up and stepped toward the door. It was so dark she couldn’t see, but she knew where the door was. In her way, she had lived there before. As she walked away James grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him.

“Are you leaving?” he asked. 

“I’m hungry. I’m going home to get something to eat.” 

“This is your home. This has always been your home.”

“Olivia told me I would find my way home again, and I have.”

“Yes, you’re home again.” 

She kissed his forehead, tucked the covers around him, and brushed the stray gold hair from his face. “Go back to sleep,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight.” He was already sleeping again. 

From the moment James saw Sarah standing in front of their house he knew he loved her. The past-life regression only proved that his suspicions were correct: his Elizabeth had come home to him in the form of his Sarah. He couldn’t describe the simple contentment of holding her, kissing her, knowing her again. Together James and Sarah learned what it meant to be a reincarnation. Together they learned how to straddle the line between then and now. Together became the most beautiful word to him.

One night, a week after the past-life regression, James woke up and heard Sarah park the Explorer in front of their house. He walked out to the great room, looked through the window, and saw her dragging her suitcases, a few grocery bags, and her cat, meowing from her carrier, from the back of the car. He went out, grabbed the suitcases and the bags, and set them down inside. After Sarah unlatched the pet carrier, the cat spit and hissed as she raced out and hid under the sofa. After he helped Sarah fill the refrigerator with the groceries, he took her into his arms and kissed her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

Sarah looked around like a contractor surveying a job. “We need to make this place more human friendly,” she said. “A new kitchen would be nice.”

“What’s wrong with the kitchen? It’s a perfectly fine seventeenth century kitchen.”

Sarah laughed. “For one thing, I need something to cook in besides a microwave. I have a lot of good memories of that cauldron, but I could use an oven with a stovetop, a larger sink, and a garbage disposal. And a dishwasher.”

James stroked her cheek. He lifted her chin with his hand. “Whatever you want, Sarah. If I can give it to you, it’s yours.”

“I’ll do the same for you.”

“I already have everything I want. Everything.”

And he kissed her.

Later, after Sarah had gone to bed, James was sitting at his desk writing lecture notes when he heard a faint rustling. He looked toward the bedroom where Sarah slept, then at the diamond-paned casement window. He didn’t hear anything more, so he turned back to his work. When he heard the noise again, this time near the front of the house, he opened the door and saw the shadowy figure standing there, smiling that smile he remembered from all those years before. Seeing that long face again brought back too many emotions at once: surprise, concern, even a seething anger that had been repressed for over three centuries.     

“You,” James said.  

“Yes. Me.” 

“You’re the one who turned me.”

“Yes. Or should I say aye.”

The shadowy figure looked unapologetic as he stood outside the door, as though turning unsuspecting men was something he did every night. And as far as James knew, perhaps it was. He was dressed in modern clothing, a black button-down shirt over a white t-shirt with blue jeans, but otherwise he looked the same: spikes of gray in his red-brown hair, black almond-shaped eyes that seemed to see through everything, dead-pale skin, long face. He leaned toward the doorway and sniffed.

“Well done,” he said. “You’ve made friends with a human.” He sniffed the air again. “A girl too. Even better. Their blood smells so much sweeter, doesn’t it? What is that, strawberries?”

James blocked the doorway. “What do you want with her? Leave her alone!”

“I’m not going to hurt her. I’m glad you’ve found a playmate. How long can one mourn his life? By God, James, I think you’ve set a record.”

“How do you know my name? How do you know anything about me? I haven’t seen you since that night.” 

“I’ve been keeping track. I like to know what becomes of my vamplings after they’re turned.”

“You left me alone!”

“Boo bloody hoo. I left you alone. As if that’s the worst one can do to our kind.” He smiled that amused smile as he looked around James to the great room. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

James stepped forward, closing the door behind him. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

“Come now, young fellow. I told you I wouldn't hurt your little strawberry friend. I just want to say hello, catch up on old times, ask a few questions.”

As he looked the shadowy figure up and down, James decided that he was the faster of the two. He could protect Sarah from this intruder if need be. And perhaps the sooner he heard what the visitor had to say, the sooner he would be gone. James stepped aside and he walked in, nodding, easy about it all. He flashed to the bookcases and looked at the titles, pulling out a few volumes, flipping through them, putting them back. James heard Sarah stir in the bedroom and hoped she wouldn’t come out. He didn’t want her to be afraid of this stranger in their home when he didn’t know himself why he was there. 

“Nice house you have. Wood. Interesting choice, I reckon, but still very nice. What is all that?” He gestured to the desk where James’s work was spread out.

“My notes,” James said.

“Notes? For what?”

“My job.”

“You have a job?” He guffawed at the thought. “I heard you had a job but I didn’t believe it. What do you need a job for? We don’t have jobs.” 

“I teach at the college.” James struggled to maintain his calm though the visitor irritated him to no end. “I have a job because I want to feel useful since I’m going to be alive every night forever thanks to you.”

“Useful. That’s a human word.” He smiled that smile again. “I told you you’d thank me later.” He looked smug. James wanted to run a stake through him. 

James heard Sarah’s footsteps and he braced himself. He didn’t know how he would explain this presence in a way that wouldn’t frighten her. Until that night, the only others she knew were Timothy and Jocelyn, who, like him, were harmless enough. She hadn’t yet met any of these more earthy creatures, and he didn’t want her first experience with one to be in their home after midnight under uncertain circumstances. She pulled her robe around her as she came out of the bedroom, and she stopped when she saw them.

“James?” she said.

“It’s all right. He’s just visiting.”

“Who is he?”

James saw the stranger studying Sarah, admiring her too eagerly for his comfort. James took her hand and pulled her toward him so he could protect her if he needed to. 

“I don’t even know your name,” James said.

“I am Geoffrey.” He bowed in a courtly manner in Sarah’s direction.

“This is Geoffrey, the one who turned me.”

“The one who left you alone?”

“Yes, the one who left me alone.”

Geoffrey threw his hands into the air, confounded. “Is that all you vamplings ever have to say when I come round to say hello? All the whinging I’ve had to listen to for hundreds of years, you left me, I was all alone, I didn’t know what to do, wah wah wah. How come no one ever speaks of my rugged good looks or my charming wit?” He looked at Sarah. “Has he ever mentioned my rugged good looks or my charming wit to you?”

Sarah laughed. “No,” she said.

“Just as I said. Very vexing, I assure you.” 

Suddenly, all the terror from those nights in 1692 revived in James’s mind, and he remembered when he had to learn how to live this unnatural way on his own. As he recalled those nights, he felt the high-beam flashes of fury leave hot spots on his cold skin. The smug visitor standing in his home, disturbing Sarah in the middle of the night, maddened him.