A Quick Bite (19 page)

“Bed?” Greg echoed absently, his mind consumed with horror at how precisely she’d read what he was feeling. The woman was every guy’s nightmare—a mother who knew exactly what the fellow wanted and couldn’t be fooled by good manners and polite lies.

“We do not sleep in coffins anymore, Greg. There was a time when coffins and crypts were the safest place for us to sleep, protecting us from both the sunlight and anyone who might hunt us, but that time is past. We sleep in beds, in bedrooms with windows treated to keep out the
sun’s harmful rays, and dark curtains over them as added protection.” Marguerite tilted her head, and asked, “Did you not realize you were in Lissianna’s room?”

“Er…yes,” he said, feeling a bit of an idiot. “And I didn’t really believe you slept in coffins, but—”

“But you were not sure.”

Greg nodded apologetically.

“Well, rest easy, there is no coffin,” Marguerite assured him, and moved toward the door. “Lissianna has been standing out in the hall for several moments, not wishing to interrupt. She will be relieved to find you still untied. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. I hope it is productive.”

Chapter 12

“Is this Marguerite?”

Lissianna paused and glanced back up the hall to see that Greg had stopped by a portrait on the wall. Moving back, she peered at her mother in medieval dress. “Yes. My father had it commissioned as a wedding gift.”

“She looks young.” Greg ran a finger lightly over the ancient frame.

“Mother was fifteen when they married.”

“Fifteen?” He shook his head. “Just a child.”

“They married quite young back then,” she pointed out.

“Are there any paintings of you when you were young?”

Lissianna nodded. “In the portrait room.”

His eyes lit up with interest. “There’s a portrait room?”

It didn’t take the ability to read his mind to know that he’d like to see it, just as it hadn’t taken the ability to read his mind for Lissianna to know that Greg’s conversation with her mother had left him a little flabbergasted. When she’d entered the room, the man had been shaking his head and muttering to himself about something being a nightmare. Lissianna had no idea what had caused such a reaction, but had been so pleased her mother had decided
to leave him free to roam the house, she’d merely asked if everything was all right. When he’d said yes, she’d suggested they join the others in the entertainment room for a movie.

They’d rented the movie from a rental shop next to the grocery store. It had been Thomas’s idea, a way to keep the twins entertained. While they were unpacking groceries downstairs, he’d suggested they watch it once Marguerite had finished with Greg. Lissianna had thought it a good idea at the time; now, however, she decided they could give the movie a miss and detour to the portrait room instead. She was sure, though, that he’d regret asking it when he realized how many portraits there were. It was the equivalent of a family photo album, and since it started with the portrait of her mother before their marriage in 1280, and continued on until cameras came into existence in the 1800s, the number of portraits was staggering.

“Come on.” Lissianna headed for the stairs. “I’ll give you a quick tour before we join the others.”

The portrait room had originally been the ballroom. When balls had gone out of fashion, they’d moved the portraits there rather than leave them in storage. There were a lot of them, and Greg seemed determined to examine every single one. He was openly fascinated by the bits of history revealed in the clothing and surroundings.

“You have a handsome family,” he commented, as they moved amongst the pictures of her brothers. Her mother had arranged the portraits in a time line, starting with one of herself and Jean Claude, painted the year they were married. It was followed by several more paintings of them; some of the couple together, some of each alone, then her brother Luc was born and joined the paintings,
first as a baby, then as a boy, then as a man alone. His appearance was followed by Bastien’s, then Etienne’s, then herself.

“What was life like back then?” Greg asked, staring at the portrait of Lissianna that her father had commissioned for her twentieth birthday. She was seated under a tree wearing a long pale blue gown of the era.

“What was it like?” Lissianna repeated thoughtfully as memories assailed her. After a moment, she shook her head and said, “It was a time of gentility, gala balls, rides in the park—purely to be seen mind you,” she added wryly, then said, “But there were no televisions, computers, or microwaves and women were as good as slaves.”

“How do you mean?” Greg asked with a frown.

Lissianna shrugged. “We were allowed to possess no property or wealth and lived under the rule of our fathers until married. Females from the upper class were expected to marry well and have babies, then everything we inherited or possessed—including our very bodies and any children we produced—would became a possession of our husbands to do with as they wished.”

“Hmm.” Greg looked unimpressed with this news.

Lissianna smiled at his expression, then went on, “Females of every other class began working between the ages of eight and twelve. They, too, then married and everything they possessed—including their bodies and any children they produced—became their husbands’, too. It’s better today.”

She noted his disappointment and smiled wryly. “You have the romantic view they show in movies and books. I’m afraid my view is colored by my memories and the fact that I’m a woman. It’s easier to be a woman now. We needn’t marry if we don’t wish, and can’t be forced to
have children. We can get an education, have a career, own property, and possess wealth. When I was born, all we were expected or even allowed to do was be dutiful daughters, marry, and become dutiful wives and mothers.”

“You didn’t marry and have children,” he pointed out, then tilted his head, frowned, and asked, “Did you?”

“No.”

“Why? You’re over two hundred.”

Lissianna smiled faintly. “You make it sound like I’m an old maid. Everything is relative. When there is every likelihood you’ll live a couple thousand years or longer, there’s no need to rush into marriage.”

“Yes, but—Two hundred years? In that time you’ve never fallen in love?”

Lissianna shrugged. “It’s difficult to fall in love when everyone you meet is nothing more than a pretty puppet.”

Greg blinked. “I don’t understand. Why a pretty puppet?”

Lissianna hesitated, then asked, “Could you love my mother?”

His expression was answer enough, but Greg said, “I’m not a control freak, but I like to at least be in control of myself in most situations. She makes me feel…”

“Inferior, like a child, nothing more than a walking, talking puppet,” she suggested and Greg nodded with sudden understanding.

“I see. The relationship couldn’t be balanced. Like with Meredith and me, you would always be in control.”

Lissianna nodded. “And—like you—I need an equal.”

They shared a smile, then Greg peered back along the pictures to the ones that included Jean Claude Argeneau. “Thomas said something about your father and control. Did it have something to do with—”

“My mother was a maid in a castle, just fifteen years
old,” Lissianna interrupted, peering up at a painting of her parents. “Father could read her. He rode in on his steed; strong, handsome, and shiny as a new penny, and she was infatuated. He was like a god in her eyes and she was easily swept off her feet. Mother adored him and thought him perfect. All of which was no doubt flattering,” Lissianna pointed out dryly. “He turned her and married her relatively quickly, and things were good for a short while.”

“But—?”

“But, once the infatuation fell away, she saw that he wasn’t perfect, and her thoughts weren’t as flattering anymore.” Lissianna glanced at him. “He, of course, could read the small critical thoughts as easily as he’d read the awe before it and became hurt and frustrated. He started drinking and philandering—no doubt in an attempt to bolster his flagging self-esteem.”

“Could he control her like your mother does me?” Greg asked.

Lissianna nodded. “It was easier before he turned her, but afterward he could still control her. Only then she was aware when he did it. She also could then read
his
thoughts. At least she could when he wasn’t guarding them. Father couldn’t or didn’t guard them when inebriated.”

“She knew about his drinking and womanizing,” Greg realized with horror. “And she’d know and resent it every time he controlled her.”

Lissianna nodded. “Worse yet, Mother learned he’d married her because she looked like his dead wife from Atlantis, but that he was disappointed because, of course, she wasn’t his dead wife and so wasn’t the same. He’d made a mistake he bitterly regretted and, I think, punished her for it by deliberately not guarding his thoughts.”

“It sounds like a nightmare,” he said grimly. “Why didn’t your mother leave?”

“It was a difficult situation. He had sired her.”

“Sired?”

“They say the turning is as painful as birth, and someone who is turned is born into a new existence, so the one who did the turning is his or her sire,” she explained.

“Oh, I see.” Greg considered that for a moment, then asked, “Painful, huh?”

Lissianna nodded solemnly. “I have never witnessed one myself, but it is said to be
very
painful.”

He pursed his lips, then said, “So, she stayed because he sired her?”

Lissianna grimaced. “Well, partly. I guess you could say she felt beholden to him for it. He’d given her new life, as well as her children and all the comforts and wealth she enjoyed. Without him, Mother would have remained a maid in the castle where she was born, worked to death at a young age…which was something he reminded her of every time she seemed to be reaching the end of her patience with him.”

“Manipulative,” Greg said tightly. “What was the other part of why she stayed?”

Lissianna shrugged. “The same reason most women stayed in unhappy marriages back then…she had nothing. He was all-powerful, everything was his so long as he lived, and he could have punished her severely—and with the blessing of the law and society—had she left him.”

They began to walk again, and she said, “Fortunately, my father bored easily and would leave for decades at a time as he romanced some woman or other. Unfortunately, he always returned. We were happiest when he was away. I suspect it was like that for Mother through most of their marriage.”

“And having witnessed this for two hundred years, I
suppose you would be reluctant to subject yourself to marriage and the possibility of suffering the same way.”

Lissianna stared blindly up at the next painting, his words running through her mind. She’d never considered how her parents’ marriage had affected her, but in truth, she was terrified of making a mistake and being miserable for nearly seven hundred years like her mother.

“I understand her not divorcing in medieval or Victorian times, it simply wasn’t done, but nowadays it’s common,” Greg said, distracting her. “Do you think if he’d survived, either he or Marguerite would have—”

“No,” she interrupted with certainty.

“Why?”

“Divorce is not something we take lightly.”

“Why?” he repeated.

Lissianna hesitated, then said, “We’re allowed to sire only one individual in our lives. For most, it is their mate. That being the case, it’s better to take your time and be sure it’s the right one.”

“You’re allowed to turn only one person,
ever?
” Greg asked with amazement. “But what if you’ve chosen the wrong one?”

She shrugged. “Most stay together anyway. Those few who part are either alone, or find mates among our kind and need not turn anyone. Others part and are either alone, or spend their lives drifting from one mortal lover to the next, never able to remain more than ten years or so before the fact that they do not age begins to show.”

“What about if you sire your life mate and he dies? Can you sire another one?”

“Good God, no.” Lissianna laughed at the suggestion. “Mates would suddenly be suffering accidental beheadings all over the place if that were allowed.”

“I suppose.” Greg nodded. “But why can you only ‘sire’ one person anyway?”

“Population control,” she answered promptly, then pointed out, “It wouldn’t be good if the feeders outpopulated the hosts. It’s also for that reason we’re allowed to have only one child every hundred years.”

Greg blew a silent whistle through his teeth. “That would make a heck of an age difference between you and each of your siblings.” He paused and glanced back over the pictures they’d already looked at, then said, “So Etienne is three hundred and something.”

“Etienne is three hundred and eleven, Bastien four hundred and nine, I think,” she added, then said, “My oldest brother is six hundred and ten or there about.”

Greg’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Six hundred and ten? Why the large gap?”

Lissianna shrugged. “Just because you
can’t
have more than one every hundred years, doesn’t mean you
have
to have one every hundred years,” she pointed out.

“True, I suppose,” Greg agreed.

“Here you are!” They both glanced at the door as the twins rushed in.

“You’ve missed the first movie, and it was great!” Juli gushed.

“So we thought we’d better come see if you want to see the next one before we start it,” Vicki said.

“We’re going to make popcorn,” Juli added, trying to tempt them.

Relieved to be able to drop the unpleasant subject of her father, Lissianna smiled, and said, “That sounds good. We were pretty much done here anyway. Weren’t we?” She glanced questioningly at Greg.

He smiled with amusement, but nodded, and she let out a relieved breath.

“Popcorn sounds good,” he said. “What’s the movie? Does it have a vampire?”

“Oh please, like we’d watch vampire movies,” Vicki snorted.

“They always get it wrong,” Juli complained. “And they’re so stupid. I mean, look at Stoker’s
Dracula
, he wrote that Drac had a harem of female vamps in his castle and was still chasing after Lucy and Mina. Hello! You can turn only one.”