Midnight Rose (30 page)

Gideon, who’d never moved from the fireplace, seemed impassive to the fact that someone—something—had picked her up and slammed her down as if following his direction.

Kate could think of nothing else to do but burst into tears. Burying her face in her hands, overwrought with misery and fear and confusion, she sobbed, huge, gulping, wretched sobs, until she was nearly too weary to draw a breath.

While she cried, Gideon crossed to a nearby coffee table to retrieve a box of tissues and returned to linger beside her, his words husky, pleading. “Please, Kate. Please don’t cry. Don’t be scared.” “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said weakly, accepting the tissues with a trembling hand.

He watched her dry her tears, his throat moving with unspoken words, until she sighed and eased back on the chair. Then he paced before her a few steps, dark head bowed. “Will you listen to me now?” She gave a tearful, hiccupping laugh. “Do I have a choice?” The look he gave her would have broken her heart if he hadn’t already made neat, efficient work of the deed.

Kate glanced toward the high, arched windows.Shards of light crept in around the curtains, like the wisps of realization sneaking through her wounded perception. “This house is haunted.” “Yes,” he said. “We all are. All of us, haunted.”

She couldn’t think. Fear and uncertainty constricted her chest, made it hard to breathe. “Delilah…she brought Jude home?”

“Yes.”

“And…and he’s okay?”

Gideon didn’t answer right away. He dropped to the footstool by her chair and finally said, “He looks well enough.”

She blew her nose, her features crumpling under a fresh wave of tears. “Did she leave, now that she’s spread her special brand of joy?”

“She will when the sun goes down.”

Why wait?she wanted to ask. The damage was done. The end of Kate’s relationship with Gideon was all tied up in a neat little bow, and wasn’t that what Delilah wanted in the first place?

“Tell me…” She paused, tried again, determined to get through this without sobbing. “I don’t want to know details. Just…do you love her, Gideon?”

“Love her?” His features softened. “No, Kate. No. She’s dangerous. She takes pleasure in other people’s pain.”

“That’s why she laughed.”

He gazed at her, black eyes troubled. “What?”

“She laughed. After I left the pool house, I heard her.”

Gideon shook his head and rubbed his hands against his thighs, the firelight dancing across his bare shoulders, touching them with gold. “I don’t remember. I only knew I had to stop you from running. You have to listen to me, Kate.” “I won’t listen if you say you haven’t been screwing around with Delilah. I know what I saw.”

“Ah, but you don’t.” A sad smile curved his lips. Those beautiful, chiseled lips. They’d brought her such pleasure…and apparently Delilah, too. Kate reached for another tissue to hide the fresh tears welling in her eyes, and Gideon waited, watching her with pain furrowing his brow.

“You can’t leave here without knowing the truth, Kate. My truth. Jude’s.” He motioned to the portrait of father and son that hung above the fireplace. “Look at the boy in that painting.” When she shifted her bleary attention in that direction, he continued. “He was born in 1850 into a wealthy New England family, an only child. The jewel of his parents’ life. They were older, and had waited a long time to have him, and he didn’t disappoint them.” He got to his feet as though too restless to sit, rubbed the back of his neck, his bare torso limned in firelight. “He went to the finest schools, graduated with a law degree from Harvard. Never missed a beat.

When he turned thirty-three, he developed a blood disease. They tried bleeding him, then went the opposite direction and administered transfusions, but nothing worked.” Kate clutched her tissue, recovered enough to stiffen under a fresh surge of anger. “That’s a sad story, but it’s not helping any.” “Please.” He gave her a pleading look that silenced her. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, listening in lingering misery and growing confusion as he went on.

“His father was desperate. He finally sought the help of alternative doctors. Witch doctors, he called them. It became his mission to save his son, his obsession, even though it was obvious that the illness was incurable. In 1884, as a last-ditch attempt, the father booked passage for his now-dying son to a small, Slavic country near the Czech border. When they got there, he left his son in the hands of a tribe of nomads with renowned abilities to heal even the gravest illness.

“The father waited in a nearby village without any word, forbidden to observe the treatment. After a few days, the son miraculously returned, healthy and strong. They sailed back to the states and resumed their lives as if uninterrupted. The man never asked his son what the nomads did to heal him; they had a silent understanding that neither would discuss the rituals that took place, and so the father lived a few more years and died believing that his son’s health had been magically restored.” Gideon paused and turned to regard the portrait. Only the crackle of the flames rent the hushed silence.

In the brief respite, Kate stirred and swallowed against the lingering urge to cry. “Why are you telling me this? What could this possibly have to do with what I saw you and Delilah doing in the pool house?” He knelt in front of her. When his hand cupped her cheek, cool and loving, she didn’t jerk away.

Something had happened to her anger. Maybe weariness had drained it; Kate didn’t know. Tears squeezed between her lashes as she breathed in the scent of his skin, hating him…loving him.

“Let me finish this story before you leave me, Kate. Please.” His fingers slipped from her cheek and he groped for the footstool behind him, situated himself, and drew a breath. “How can I say this without sounding like a madman? Presenting it outright has never worked before. I always get the same reaction.

Hysteria.”

“Try me,” she said with a hollow smile. “I’ve seen some things today that really test my grasp on reality.

Why should this be any different?”

He leaned his forearms on his knees and dark concentration overtook his features. Kate found herself staring at him, enthralled by the dance of emotion she saw there. Why would he have so much passion about a story that happened over a century ago? Why choose now, when their affair had splintered into a million pieces, to talk about it?

“The son was cured forever,” Gideon went on in a low voice, “and presumably had been restored to his old, hale self. But in truth, what the nomads had done to him was something only spoken of in paperbacks, ghost stories and movies. Fiction. Fantasy. No one would believe the truth.” Kate sighed. “What, then? What did they do to him?” “These ’healers,’ as they were reputed, stripped him, tied him down, and brought him the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen.” Rueful humor touched his lips. “Any man in his sexual prime wouldn’t have needed the bindings, nor much convincing; and even in his weakened state, the dying son found himself stirred by this creature. She seduced him, did things to him he hadn’t even dreamed about in his wildest fantasies.” His gaze caught hers, held it. “And when she was done with his seduction, she pierced his neck with her teeth and drained him of his humanity.” Kate stared back without blinking. “Are you saying she drank his blood?” He glanced down at his hands, dark hair falling in a wave across his brow. “That’s right.” “We’re talking about vampires?” A fresh swell of indignation lifted her chin. She’d been cheated on before, and boyfriends had always offered their excuses. But this…this was spectacular. “Son of a bitch,” she said softly. “I can’t believe this.” His crushed expression instantly told her how much her response disappointed him. Oddly enough, she regretted saying it. But for heaven’s sake…did he honestly think she was that gullible?

Jaws clenched, he closed his eyes. “How about telekinesis? Do you believe in that?”

“No! This is ridiculous—”

He extended his hand toward a vase sitting atop a column beyond Kate’s chair. At the beckoning of his fingers, the vase trembled, wobbled, and flew in their direction.

Kate screamed and dove into the cushion as it whizzed past her head. When she looked up, the vase was in Gideon’s hand. Or rather, hovering over his palm. Moving in a lazy circle, like a trick at a circus sideshow, while he watched her with an impassive expression. “How about telepathy, Kate? Do you believe in that?” She closed her eyes. Jesus H.Christ. I’ve got to get out of here.

“You can call on all the gods,” he said with a tired sigh, “but I have a feeling they wouldn’t step near this place. And you’re going nowhere until I’m done with my story.” The vase settled onto his palm and he gently placed it on a nearby table.

If Kate’s ability to run hadn’t been crippled by fear and disbelief, she would’ve chosen that moment to bolt out of the library, out of the house, and as far away from Gideon Renaud as she could possibly get.

But she felt powerless to move.

“Are you ready to let me finish?” He resumed his seat on the footstool near her.

Wide-eyed, she nodded.

“I only know how to explain it this one way,” he said, bracing his head in his hands. “Vampires, ghouls, all those fairy tales…they’re variations on the truth. But for the man dying of anemia in 1884, he only had one choice, and that was to believe in the impossible if he wanted to live. The beautiful creature in the hut stole his soul and gave him in return a life with no end. I can’t tell you how this phenomenon occurs, or whether God is behind it, or a purely evil force. All I can tell you is from that moment, the man was eternally thirty-four years old. From then on he lived as a nightwalker, dwelling in a subculture that has secretly existed for hundreds of years all over the world.” “You’re saying there are others?” Kate whispered. “That this is a typical thing?” Gideon’s mouth twitched. “Typical, no. But not impossible. Eventually he found others like him. And like the others, he killed for sustenance, and spent much of his time perfecting the appearance of normalcy.

As for human frailty, well…the nomads had taken his soul. It gave him a reason to reject his humanity, and for a long time, he didn’t feel, didn’t emote, didn’t grieve or rejoice or love or…” He searched her face, desperation carving deep furrows between his brows. “One day, though, he began to realize that life meant nothing without those things. He altered his lifestyle. He stopped feeding on humans, battled the innate urge to hunt and kill, fought every primitive rule, and fed from like creatures willing to share their blood in exchange for pleasure. Eventually he evolved to the point where he could go a day or two without ingesting blood. He could hold down small amounts of food, enough to fool others into believing he was dining along with them. He developed immunity to the daylight with the help of supplements. He melded into society and lived like any other man running from a horrific past.” Kate blinked, speechless.

“Fifteen years ago, he committed the gravest infraction. He fell in love with a mortal woman, and without telling her the truth, married her, and they conceived a child.” His words went husky with despair. “By the time she found out what he really was, she was already five months into the pregnancy and the baby was drawing the strength from her body, and doctors couldn’t figure out what was killing her.” He hung his head and his voice broke. “She hated me for it, Kate. She hated me for not telling her the truth about what I was, but I didn’t know there was life in me to conceive a child—I didn’t think—” “Gideon.” Throat dry with disbelief, Kate scooted forward, too fearful to touch him. He was her lover; she knew his body inside and out, knew his laughter, his anger; his tenderness. How could the creature he spoke of be one and the same man? How could such a creature exist outside of fanciful imagination?

Stampeding emotions blocked her ability to assimilate the surreal story he’d just presented. If this was a lie, it was the most finely crafted she’d ever been offered.

“Jude was born, and Caroline wouldn’t even look at him,” Gideon went on, wiping at the tears as quickly as they streaked his face. “She wouldn’t hold him. She rejected him until the end, when she lapsed into a coma a few days after his birth. Jude was seven weeks premature, but the largest, healthiest premature infant the obstetricians in Boston had ever seen. There was a stir; I took him and ran immediately after Caroline died. Shortly after, Jude was diagnosed with a blood disorder for which there’s no cure. And half a soul, inevitably, since his father has none.” His mouth twisted, a mixture of irony and self-abhorrence.

Kate shook her head, weak with astonishment. “Does Jude…I mean, have you run all this by him?”

“A few weeks ago I finally told him the truth, and just like Caroline, he hated me for it. Then he suffered those awful burns, and for a while after that I thought he’d accepted the truth, that everything would be all right.” He looked at her bleakly. “He more than accepted it. He embraced it, coveted it. When he ran to Delilah, she did to him what the creature in the hut did to me…offered him immortality, and he took it. He was tired of suffering from his illness. I knew his health was precarious, but I never thought I’d lose him to this darkness. He’s all I have in the world, and I’ve lost him.” Shaken from the release of truth and horror, Gideon swallowed and waited for her condemnation, her disbelief, some typical reaction.

For a long, long time, Kate only gazed at him in silence. Then she said, “It’s all falling into place now.

Everything. I’ve been living in a horror film.”

So steady, her voice. So rational. She drew a breath, looked away, then back at him. “The sight of blood makes me queasy. And I don’t like vampire movies.” Gideon laughed, though he was shaking inside, sick with anguish. “Me, neither. They’re full of lies, but the truth’s not much better.” He glanced at the doors leading to the conservatory and willed them to unlock. With a gentle click, they creaked open. Kate’s cue to leave, if she wished.

She stared over her shoulder at them, then returned her gaze to his face. “If what you say is true, you could have killed me so many times. I trusted you blindly.” “I would never hurt you, Kate. There are other means of getting what I need. Others who are willing.” Understanding dawned on her features. “That’s what you were doing with Delilah in the pool house.” “Yes.” He shuddered under a rush of shame. “I hadn’t had nourishment in days. I was too hungry to turn it away.”