Chapter 56

His gaze, combined with his gorgeous voice, was hypnotic. All I could do was nod.
"It was my second Season - I hadn't accepted a proposal during my first - none of the men who were interested appealed to me, but that year I'd fallen in love with a dashing young viscount. I let him lure me into a garden during a ball, expecting kisses and maybe even a proposal. Instead, he raped me, and left me on the ground, bleeding to death."
"He wasn't an immortal, was he?" There was steel beneath the velvet in his tone this time.
"No, and he's quite dead - has been for nearly two hundred years. I had a friend, you see. Not a lover, just a friend. He was a quiet sort, an American, and he was desperately in love with me, though I didn't realize that at the time. He wasn't rich enough or handsome enough to capture my attention in a romantic way, but he was a reliable, steady confidante. I also didn't know that he was a vampire. He found me in the garden, dying, and he offered me his blood to save my life." She'd spent years regretting that she'd spurned Douglas' advances up to that point. He had been such a good, good man.
"Did you stay with him?"
"I had little choice." Even now, some things were hard to discuss. "We were seen in the garden, and my reputation was ruined. My family disowned me. I married Douglas and moved with him to his plantation in Georgia."
"So you never saw your family again?"
I shook my head. "My parents declared me dead. My youngest sister Cecily used to send me letters - until she married an abusive husband. After a year, the letters stopped coming. I found out later he'd beaten her to death, along with the baby she was carrying."
Dermott reached out and took my hand. His touch was soft and warm - yes, vampires have body heat, and he radiated a lot. "I'm so sorry, love. That's why your shelters for battered women and children are called Cecily's House."
I nodded. "She was lovely - dainty and petite, with white blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes. She never hurt a soul in her life."
"So your...husband. Where is he now?" His fingers squeezed mine but didn't let go.
I was so entranced by his touch, it took me a moment to realize he'd asked a question and another to unstick my tongue enough to answer. "Not long before the Civil War, there was a voodoo cult that learned about vampires. It didn't matter that our workers weren't slaves - Douglas was one of the first to free the men and women who worked his land - the cult came after us before the other plantation owners because they considered us a threat. They set fire to our house during daylight. Douglas got me into the root cellar, but he stayed behind to hold them off."
"So he was killed."
I nodded. "I hid in the cellar, feeding off rats for a week. When I ran out of rats, I snuck out and found our strongbox amid the ashes of the house. Eventually, I made my way to New York and there I met Dani. A few decades later, we found Ariana, wandering lost and alone. After that it was just the three of us - until last year."
"And now they're both in relationships, leaving you all alone again."
I forced a smile. "I'm happy for them. Really."
"But you're lonely, so you've buried yourself in your work. It doesn't take a genius to sort that out."
He was right, but now it was his turn to talk. "So how did a rebel soldier become a piano virtuoso?"
"Well, even I wasn't always a fighter. Eventually, Sean and I found another vampire who took us under her wing as it were. She'd been around since the Middle Ages and liked having a couple of strapping lads at her beck and call. She raised us in a way, although I was eighty years old when I met her. She taught us about literature, manners and music. I owe Esmé a great deal." There was such genuine affection in his tone I couldn't help a moment of jealousy. We'd only just met. Why did it bother me so to think about him with another woman?
"How old were you when you were turned?" Unlike me, he wasn't stuck at the physical age of nineteen, which sometimes is a pain. It's hard to be taken seriously in business when one looks like a sorority girl - permanently.
"Twenty-eight," he said. "But I felt much older. A lifetime of poverty and war can do that to a man."
"And your Esmé, is she still living?"
He nodded. "Hale and hearty and married to my friend Sean. They still come to concerts if I have one in Derry or close by." Dermott pressed a button on the side of his armrest and the steward, a tawny, strapping young man entered the cabin. There was a feral quality about him that made me shiver despite his not looking at all out of place in a shirt and tie, with his hair in a neat ponytail that touched his shoulders.
"Some blood and mulled wine please, Elek." Dermott smiled at the other man. I watched the leonine grace with which he moved and changed my guess. This was a feline shifter, I was sure of it. If I hadn't been so tuned into Dermott at the moment, I'd have been drooling over Elek.
"No problem." He flashed sharp, white teeth at Dermott. "Anything to eat?"
Dermott looked at me and I shook my head, finally remembering to pull my hand back from his.
"I was nibbling at the hotel spa all day. The blood and wine will be more than enough."
When Elek left the cabin, I turned to Dermott and asked the question that had been bothering me since the auction. "You knew my friends intended to do this, didn't you?"