Blood Memories

Serving dinner turned out far differently than Eleisha expected. The house and its inhabitants had never seemed so alive. Lord William, dressed in a handsome black suit, laughed amidst gold-rimmed champagne glasses, and toasted his son's return. All the guests, dressed in exquisite splendor, grew intoxicated by his mood, and cheerful voices emanated from the great dining hall.

In her short life, Eleisha had known several girls who dreamed of being noble and wealthy, of drinking champagne and wearing silk gowns. Although she herself had no such aspirations, the silver trays and crystal chandeliers gave the evening a magical, almost unreal glow. Only one thing dampened her impression of the glorious dinner: Master Julian himself.

Sitting near his father, Julian neither smiled nor raised his glass. Taking in the sight of them together, Eleisha thought it nearly impossible that two men with such similar features could still appear so strikingly different. She wouldn't have placed them as father and son. Despite its fine tailoring, Julian's suit brought him no elegance. His dark hair had outgrown its cut and hung at uneven angles around a solid chin. Nearly black eyes glittered coldly in his pale face. Over six feet in height, he actually seemed taller but expressed arrogance rather than pride. While he did not partake in his father's exuberance, he did not appear bored either, and talked at length with several of the guests.

"You're right about the young master," she whispered to Marion while they refilled soup tureens. "He's odd."

"Look at the few people he'll actually chat with," Marion whispered back. "Only blue bloods. He won't even look at Lady Eleanor Endor. She married into her title, and he don't consider her to be one of them."

Julian's obsession with noble bloodlines meant nothing to Eleisha on that first night. She only sensed that he was a creature of few or deeply hidden feelings-someone to be avoided.

His dim shadow passed when he left a week later, and Eleisha was offered a real position with a moderate wage as Marion's assistant. She and her mother were assigned a small, whitewashed room in the east wing. For the first time in Eleisha's memory, they had a space of their own.

Time passed. Eleisha began taking a strange satisfaction in her work, quite different from before. The prospect of setting out lovely breakfast trays for Lord William (especially when somebody else had to do the washing up) evoked a nurturing instinct. If he had been anyone else, her feelings might have been different. But on her second morning of service, she forgot her place briefly and smiled at him when he walked in for tea. Instead of having her chastised or dismissed, he smiled back.

Their surface relationship never developed beyond small things-her extra care in setting his place, the occasional newspaper next to his plate, preparing his tea with the right amount of milk-but he made it clear she was to stay in the dining room until he had finished, and two weeks later her wages doubled. She grew to like his hunting jackets, his quiet manner, and the thin structure of his aging face. Something sad drifted behind his gray eyes, distant and lonely.

Lady Katherine never came down to breakfast or luncheon.

As with that first animated dinner party, dark spots in Eleisha's life occurred only with Julian's infrequent visits. One night in 1836, he burst unannounced through the great front doors, two guests in tow.

"Father! Come look," he called as though drunk. "You'll never guess whom I've brought."

Both Lord William and his wife were in the study, sipping brandy after supper. Eleisha followed them out to see Julian and the guests.

Julian stood laughing in the entryway, his cape covered in mud, his mouth smeared with streaks of blood. On one side of him stood a handsome, similarly mud-covered man. But all eyes turned to his other side. Even the eerie laughter, even the red smears on his lips, could not hold attention in light of his second guest.

Rather than pale, her skin glowed a soft ivory. Perfect features, framed by a mass of chocolate-black hair, almost detracted from the low-cut, red velvet gown she wore.

Eleisha decided later that it was not mere beauty, but something more, something exotic that drew such stunned and wordless stares.

"You all remember Miss Margaritte Latour? Maggie?" Julian bowed low in mock chivalry. "Philip's whore fiancee? You must ask her to tea sometime, Mother."

Lady Katherine's eyes clouded in anger. Perhaps she was the source of her son's belief in dominant nobility. Perhaps she was simply jealous of Maggie's overwhelming attraction. Perhaps both.

"Philip, my boy," Lord William said, walking over to clasp Julian's other guest in a quick embrace. "Good to see you. How are the vineyards?"

"Julian, wash your face," Lady Katherine hissed while the others fell into speaking French. "Eleisha, go fetch a washbasin and pitcher."