Her Immortal Love (21 page)

He released a heavy breath
. “
Despite my vow never to love, I fell in love anyway. With a woman named Belladonna. An appropriate name. Her dark beauty was a kind of poison. All the men at court desired her, but I ached for her. I swore that I would have her. I didn’t care that she was already married to an Italian count, and I didn’t care that he was a cruel, jealous and, ultimately, dangerous man. I had to have her. And I did. Afterwards she fancied herself in love with me and she foolishly told her husband she wanted to leave him to be with me.”

Tristan laughed. A hard, bitter laugh. “You can well imagine how that went over with the count. He promptly packed her off to Italy. After she was gone, I waited for him to call me out or have me killed. But he didn’t want me to die. He wanted me to suffer. He could have gone to the queen and demanded justice. But he did not want it known that he’d been cuckolded.”

“What happened?” Lydia found herself fascinated by Tristan’s story despite the fact she refused to allow herself to believe it.

“There was a physician in the count’s household who was also an esteemed alchemist. He was actually more of a dark sorcerer. Dabbled in things that even today would raise an eyebrow. The count decided to have me poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

Tristan nodded. “I was kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon in the house the count was residing in while he stayed in London. I was chained to a wall in my cell and I saw no one except a young maid who would bring me water, gruel and a chamber pot to relieve myself in. One day, after weeks of imprisonment, the count and his alchemist visited me in the dungeon.

“Apparently, the alchemist had spent the time preparing a poison. A very special poison. With the count’s eager urging, the alchemist described in specific detail the torment I would suffer. It was going to take me days to die and every minute of each of those days I would be in pain. Horrible, hideous agony. The count then had two of his men take hold me and the alchemist poured the poison down my throat.”

Lydia gasped. “What happened?”

Tristan shrugged. “Nothing. The count and the alchemist waited for me to start screaming. When I didn’t, the count began shouting at the alchemist in Italian. As for him, he could only stare at me with this rather comical, dumbfounded look on his face. Then, suddenly, he ran out of the room, the count hot on his tail, still screaming at him, his men following him.”

“It wasn’t poison?”

Tristan smiled. “No, it wasn’t. The maid came in after they left and released me from my chains. She told me she had seduced the alchemist and, while he was sleeping, exchanged the contents of the bottle that contained the poison with the contents of another. But what my pretty little maid did not know and what I was to learn years later was that the content of that other bottle was something called the Golden Elixir.”

“What’s that?”

“A fabled potion rumored to grant immortality to whoever drank it.”

“And that’s what you drank?”

“Apparently.”

“But if the alchemist had this Golden Elixir why hadn’t he drunk it himself?”

Tristan shrugged. “Perhaps he hoped to sell it. Perhaps he didn’t know what it was. I never found out. After I escaped, the count had him killed. I left England with the maid. I never saw my father again. The maid was in love with me. I was grateful to her for she had saved my life, but she soon realized she would never have my heart. But we remained together for some time. As the years passed, however, and she grew older it became apparent that although she was aging, I was not. It frightened her. Witchcraft she thought. Or some such devilry. I awoke one morning and she was gone. And thus began the first of many, many, many mornings to come.” He stared at her. “You still don’t believe me.

“How can I, Tristan? It’s impossible. No one lives for hundreds of years. No one.”

He rose from the couch and went over to a large packing crate. He took out an elaborately decorated box and walked back over to her.

Lydia stared at the box. “What is that?”

He opened it. Inside the box lay a dagger. The black handle was circled with silver bands and the broad, single-edged blade shone against the dark velvet interior.

“It’s a
piha kaetta
,” he said. “From what used to be known as Ceylon but is now Sri Lanka.” He looked down at the dagger, a faraway look in his eyes. “It belonged to a high-ranking Ceylonese official by the name of Villavarayar. He gave it to a man named Thomas Kelly, who worked for the East India Trading Company. It was a reward to Kelly for having saved Villavarayar’s life.”

“That’s very interesting, Tristan, but I don’t understand what that has to do with—”

He drew his eyes away from the dagger and looked over at her. “Take it.”

Lydia blinked, a growing sense of dread closing about her throat. “What?”

“Take it. Please.”

She reached over and took the dagger out of the box.

“Point it towards me,” Tristan said.

“What?”

He reached over and arranged her hands so that the tip of the dagger was pointed at him.

“Tristan, what are you—”

He moved as if he meant to embrace her. The dagger sank into his chest. She screamed and released it. He fell to the floor, the dagger still in his chest.

“Omigod!” She fell to her knees next to him. “Tristan! Oh, God! Lie still. I’ll call for help.”

She was about to leap up and run for her phone when he grabbed her arm.

“No, don’t,” he groaned.

“But you’re hurt!”

He fiercely shook his head. “Wait. Please.” His grip on her arm was strong. Slowly, he reached over with his other hand and took hold of the dagger’s hilt.

“No!” she cried. “You’ll only make the wound worse.”

He shook his head again. She watched, horrified, as he pulled the dagger out of his chest. It fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

“Open my shirt.” His voice was low and strained.

She was in a panic. She needed to call for help but his hold on her arm was firm.

He looked pleadingly up into her eyes. “Do it, Lydia. Please.”

She quickly unbuttoned his shirt and gasped. There was some bleeding, but nowhere near the amount it should have been. She watched, mesmerized, as the wound from the dagger slowly closed up, the flesh knitting, the skin smoothing. Soon there was no evidence he had been stabbed at all.

“No, it can’t…it…can’t….be.” Then she remembered that night at her house. When he had been cutting that cheese and had sliced his hand. She had thought she’d seen blood but there had been nothing on his finger. Not even a cut.

He reached up and cupped her face. She gazed down at him, tears welling in her eyes, blurring him from her sight. She grasped his hand and pressed it against her cheek. His skin was warm and full of life.

“Oh, Tristan. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

He frowned and stroked her cheek. “Forgive you, sweet? For what?”

“For not believing you.”

He rose from the floor. She helped him to stand, her arm about his waist. He looked down at her and smiled. “I’m the one who should be asking you for forgiveness. That was a cruel trick but I could think of no other way to convince you.”

“You really have been alive all this time. For over 400 years?”

He nodded.

She blinked, her mind whirling as she recalled all the events she had learned about in history. “The French Revolution?”

“I helped save some French aristocrats from the guillotine and smuggled them into England.”

“World War I?”

He nodded. “I served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.”

“Disco?”

He laughed. “I owned over two dozen leisure suits, a lot of gold chunky chains and some really funky platform shoes.”

“Were you lonely?”

His smile faded. “Yes. Most of the time.”

“But there were some? Like Rosemary?”

Pain again in his eyes. “Yes. Like Rosemary. But she never knew what I was. We parted before...” He released a breath. “At the end, she thought she was a young woman again. And I the young man she had fallen in love with.” A haunted look fell across his face. “There was never enough....time.” His throat worked. “There was always enough for me. An eternity. But never for them.”

Lydia took his hands in hers. “I’m sorry, Tristan. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

He smiled down at her. “Of course you didn’t. How could you?”

“What about…children?”

He shook his head. “A side effect of the elixir.” He gave her a small, sad smile. “As I told you, I’m sterile, sweet. And it’s probably for the best.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been unbearable watching friends, companions and lovers wither away and die. I don’t think I could have borne watching the same thing happen to my children. No parent should outlive their child.”

“How did you live all those centuries without someone finding out? Did anyone ever guess your secret?”

“Some came close.”

Suddenly, it dawned on her. “The carriage ride. The Earl.” She glanced at the Sri Lankan dagger where it lay on the floor. “The man named Kelly who owned that dagger. They were…you were them.”

“I’ve had many names down through the centuries, been many men, done many things.”

“And the founder of
Genome
? The man the detective thought was your great grandfather? That was you.”

“I’ve had to fake my births and deaths. Pretended to be my own grandfather and father. Although, it’s becoming much harder to do in this interconnected world we live in.”

“Why did you start a pharmaceutical company?”

He shrugged. “An outgrowth, I suppose, of my studies of alchemy, chemistry, genetics. I needed money and many of the drugs my company has created have helped millions lead better lives.”

“You’ve been trying to find an antidote, haven’t you? A cure for your immortality?”

He stroked her cheek. “Clever as well as beautiful. Yes, sweet, I have.”

“But why? You can’t die. Why would you want to change that?”

“You see it as a blessing, don’t you? Immortality.”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”

He stared at her for a long time. Then she knew. The long years alone. Of watching the ones you love grow old and die while you remained young and alive. The struggle to keep your immortality a secret from those who, like the maid who had helped him escape from the count, would see you as something unholy. Unnatural. Evil.

He smiled, but his smile was sad. “You see now why it is I seek to be mortal again.”

“I do, but you haven’t found it yet? A cure?”

He shook his head and stroked his stubble-roughened jaw. “But I think I might be close to something that could work. After you told me you never wanted to see me again and, then, when Rosemary died, I realized I couldn’t stand it anymore. Being alone. Watching those I loved…” He stopped, his eyes blazing with pain.

She gripped his arms. “The things I said to you that night. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what was going on with—”

He pressed his fingers against her lips. “Of course you didn’t, sweet. Don’t trouble yourself about it any longer.”

“You said you were on to something. Have you tried it?”

“Not yet. I needed to move my things out of here.” He glanced around the apartment. “I rented it in order to be close to Rosemary. Her husband had died some years ago and she had no family except a sister and they’re estranged.” He looked back at Lydia. “When Rosemary began to age and I didn’t, I had to leave her. So, as I’ve done many times before, I faked my death. But I kept up with her. Knew that she grieved when she thought I had died but that, eventually, she healed. Met a man. Fell in love again and married him.”

“But in your heart, you were still married to her?”

“Yes. I usually don’t get involved with anyone while the person I love still lives. Even if we’re no longer together. Sometimes I go decades before I let myself be with someone again. But that night I saw you at the bar, I wanted you.” He smiled ruefully. “It was difficult. Wanting to be with you and yet wanting to stay faithful to Rosemary in my own way although we hadn’t seen each other in years.”

Lydia nodded. She could only imagine what it was like for him. Falling in love with people whom you knew you were going to outlive. Leaving them before they discovered your secret. Watching them fall in love with others. She looked up at him. At his handsome, youthful face but aware now that centuries lay behind it.

“Elaine told me you stopped by the bookstore.”

He nodded. “I was looking for a rather obscure alchemical book, but I was also hoping you’d be working that day. I wanted to respect your wishes. To stay away but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Wanting you. Needing you.” He cupped her face and gazed tenderly down at her. “I missed you, Lydia. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. I just didn’t know what to think. I’d been hurt before. Betrayed before.”

“And it’s not every day you meet a man who’s over 400 years old.”

She smiled. “No, it’s not. Wait, if you’re over 400 years old that makes you…”

“The older man,” he finished with a mischievous grin. “And you, my sweet, the much younger woman.”

Lydia stared at him. Then she burst out laughing, as did he. They laughed so hard that they wound up in each other’s arms, their bodies shaking.

She wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. “Can you imagine the look on my mother’s face if I were to tell her that it’s actually you who’s robbing the cradle? Not me.”

“She wouldn’t believe you.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” She gazed up at him. “The things you’ve seen over the years. The places you’ve been. It’s all so fantastic.”

“And I’ll be more than happy to tell you everything.” He raised an eyebrow. “Well, perhaps, not everything. That could take years. But not right now.”

“Why not now?”

“Because you’re here, finally, in my arms, where I’ve dreamed you would someday be again, and I want to make love to you, Lydia.” He pressed her hand against his groin. His cock was long and thick beneath his slacks. “Can’t you feel how much I want you?”

She smiled and rubbed her hands up and down him. “Yes, I most certainly can.”