Jane and the Damned (22 page)

William shook him. “Wake, damn you!” He bent and breathed into Luke‧s mouth, then straightened, shaking his head. They all watched, waiting for Luke to move.

“Drip some blood into his mouth,” James said. “Yours, William?”

“Certainly, if you wish to kill him. William‧s blood is too potent.” Margaret stood in the doorway, misery and rage flowing from her. “One weaker but close to him may be able to do it.”

William stepped aside and gestured to her.

She stepped forward and slid an arm beneath Luke‧s head, murmuring to him in a language Jane did not recognize, as intimately as though they were two lovers alone. She caressed his face and pressed her lips to his.

When she raised her head, his rolled aside, his body still. Tears ran down her face. “I cannot.”

“Then who else?” William‧s voice cracked. “If neither Creator nor Consort can rouse him, what then?”

“So I am no longer his Consort, and you created him too long ago. There is but one hope. His fledgling.” She bit the words out as though they were poison to her.

“Jane?” William took her hand and drew her forward, the first time he had touched her since he created her.

She laid her hand on Luke‧s, cold, inert. Dead. “What must I do?”

“Try to reach him with your mind,” William said. “Breathe into his mouth.”

Jane stood at Luke‧s side, and touched the fine bones of his face and the silky spring of his hair.
Luke, come back to me.

She bent and lowered her face to his. His scent, the taste of his blood, lingered like a faint memory around him.
You created me, Luke, as sure as if you breathed me into being. Now I create you. Come back, friend, teacher, lover.

Luke‧s lips did not move beneath hers. His skin was icy cold, far removed from the normal chill of the Damned.

She straightened. “I have failed.”

The others were silent, their attention shifted away from her. Something slight nudged in her mind, like a small ripple in still water.

William moved, grabbing a candle from the mantelpiece and plunging it into the fire. He brought the candle to the table and raised it high, spilling golden light over Luke‧s inert body.

Jane saw now the livid circle on Luke‧s neck pale and disappear into his normal ivory skin tone.

Speak to us, Luke. Come back.

The cotton of his shirt shifted as he took a breath, and his fingers uncurled and slid on the dark polished mahogany of the table. His eyelashes fluttered and a small sound emerged from his throat, a sigh.

She saw now other bruises and scratches change, dissolve, heal. He raised one hand and scratched his chest, a small, everyday gesture.

Hurts.

What hurts?
She was fairly sure Luke spoke to her alone, aware of a babble of voices from the others that bounced around as if in a room full of echoes.

Everything. Every time I do this.

Every time you‧re hanged?

When I‧m close to dying. This is the last time.

“Luke—” William stepped forward.

Jane snarled at William, her fangs extended, and with a small, amused smile, he retreated.

Luke‧s eyes were still closed, but she could see movement beneath the eyelids as though he dreamed. She raised her wrist to her mouth and bit.

As soon as her blood touched Luke‧s lips he came to life, snarling, fangs extended, and ripped at her neckcloth with one hand, the other digging into her hair, securing her. His fangs broke the skin of her neck, searing her with shock and relief, pain and pleasure mixed. She screamed as he bit into her.

“Don‧t let him harm her!” George cried, and the others held him back as he struggled to reach her.

Luke‧s head fell back and he sagged onto the table, but now he appeared to be sleeping.

“Allow me.” William stepped forward and breathed onto Jane‧s neck, swiping one thumb over the spill of blood at her collarbone. “He lacks manners when he is brought back from the brink of hell.”

He smiled and bowed his head to Jane, a small gesture of acknowledgment that warmed and thrilled her, the fledgling receiving praise from her Creator. Yet he picked up a napkin from the sideboard and wiped his thumb clean, a refusal of her blood, and she felt like weeping.

The others gathered around the table as though keeping watch over Luke, and Jane found herself standing next to George, disconsolate and unwanted.

“I suppose I should return home.” Jane took another glance at Luke on the table and the Damned watching over him. They had cut their thoughts off from her and when she sent a tentative appeal to Luke he gave a sleepy, unintelligible reply.

“Don‧t take any notice of it,” George said with awkward sympathy. “It‧s their way. Reminds me of the cliques at court. Made me damned hungry, though. I think I‧ll pay that pretty little ladies’ maid a visit, after you‧ve changed back into your women‧s clothes.”

He held open the dining-room door for her.

“What did Margaret mean, that she was no longer Luke‧s Consort?” Jane asked as they walked into the hall.

“Ah, yes.” George looked uncomfortable. “She could not revive him, and a true Consort should be able to. They‧ve fought like cats and dogs ever since she came back. She‧s angry, for even though twenty years is nothing to the Damned, she was pledged to Luke as his Consort for most of them—it‧s like a sort of engagement, you see—and she feels she made a great sacrifice in returning to him. And for all his protestations of love when she left him and his urging her to return, now he says it‧s too late. And her failure to revive him proved it.”

“So he is inconstant.” Jane felt a pang of disappointment.

George looked uncomfortable. “I regret it‧s not altogether proper, but what do you do when love dies? Love may not be immortal. Lord, Jane, listen to me wax poetic; sometimes I‧m quite a deep sort of fellow. William is very put out about it all, for it brings discord to the household. But you were the one who brought Luke back and they won‧t forget it.”

***

Usually when Jane returned home she was able to create an illusion that she had not been out at night. If she chose to enter the house by the front door, she could meet the gaze of the footman who answered, sometimes with his wig dragged on crooked in his haste or wearing an apron, and subdue him with a glance. This time her feet dragged and she stumbled once as she walked down the street toward her aunt and uncle‧s house. As usual, one of the footmen from Luke‧s house accompanied her, and he caught her arm to prevent her falling. The events of the night and the morning, plus Luke‧s voracious feeding, had weakened her.

She mounted the steps and pulled the doorbell.

“Miss Jane!” The footman who answered the door looked at her with horror—no wonder, she had changed back into her finery from the night before, her gown stained with Ben‧s blood. “I‧ll fetch Mrs. Austen.”

“No, please do not.” She sank onto a chair in the hall.

Her mother, in nightcap and wrapper, ran down the stairs. “My dear child—what is this? We heard Mr. Venning was hanged, a dreadful business, and terrible for Miss Venning to be alone at such a time. How does she bear up, poor thing? But your gown! To think of that poor young man bleeding to death—how very sad.”

“Yes, I have been with Miss Venning. I told you I would accompany her home last night.” Jane stood. “I must go to bed.”

Although by now she had adopted the sparse sleep of the Damned she longed for her bed and for solitude—and she was equally eager to escape the cynical gaze of Garonne, who had emerged from the doorway to the servants’ quarters and stood watching, a coffee cup in his hand.
He thinks I have been with a lover.

“Extraordinary, ma‧amselle. The two men who cut Venning
down this morning, one could have been your brother,” he murmured. “A remarkable resemblance.”

“Good morning to you, sir.” Jane acknowledged him with a dismissive bow of her head. What could he possibly suspect?

She trudged up the stairs, bone weary, feeling less like an immortal being than a tired woman who held herself responsible for the death of an innocent young man.

Later that day she and Mr. Austen sat in the kitchen of a small house on New King Street, in a less fashionable section of the town where artisans mostly lived. She had refused tea, knowing how short supplies were, and also declined to view Ben‧s body, which lay in the parlor of the house awaiting burial. She had found out where he lived from the inn at Sydney Gardens and, with her father accompanying, now paid a call on his grieving family.

“They told me and I said it must be a mistake,” Ben‧s father, Mr. Weaver, said. He had said it several times before, as his hands moved mechanically, assembling and gluing fans. This was the family business, it seemed. Three children also sat at the table working, eyes shocked and blank above skilled, busy hands.

“He did not suffer long,” Jane said.

“He fought when they invaded, until the militia told everyone to stop and go home,” Mr. Weaver said. “I did not think he would be killed by an Englishman.”

“Would you care to say a prayer?” Mr. Austen asked.

“Won‧t do him any good now, will it? Thanking you kindly, sir,” Mr. Weaver replied.

“It might bring you comfort,” Jane‧s father said.

Mr. Weaver‧s hands stilled. “Nothing shall bring me comfort, sir. Nothing. My son is dead. I thank you for coming.” He reached for a handful of fan sticks, sorting, stacking.

Jane caught her father‧s eye and they both rose.

“I am so very sorry,” she said again to Mr. Weaver.

“It was kind of you to come, miss.” He didn‧t look at her. Maybe she should have accepted his offer to see Ben‧s body, but she remembered the boy‧s warmth and his hand on hers, the roughness of his cheek against her lips. She wanted to think of him like that, an ardent young man. She did not want to remember him in agony begging her to finish him.

She and her father left the house. They passed a group of people gathered around a brazier, who looked at them with open hostility as though guessing the prices of their clothes. This was not a poor area of the city, but these people looked wearied and worn down, despair and anger in their eyes. A pot of food steamed atop the coals, but with very little odor.

“They boil flour and greens in water,” Jane said to her father. “Things must be dire indeed, that they must share their coals and food.”

“We should help,” her father said. “We complain at the house, but so far we have coals and enough food. Maybe I should ask Garonne—”

“I beg of you, do not ask Garonne for any favors.”

They continued through the town, walking in silence along Westgate Street and Cheap Street and turning north through Bear Inn Yard to go onto Milsom Street, the fashionable shopping area of the town. There were no signs here of hardship; well-dressed people, many accompanied by French officers, strolled the street, gazing into well-stocked shop windows. Mr. Austen shook his head in disbelief. “You would never think … Jane, I do not ask you of your activities, but do you put yourself in danger? What happened last night?”

“I cannot tell you, sir.”

He nodded. A group of French officers with fashionably dressed women on their arms forced Jane and her father off the pavement and into the muck of the road.

At the top of the street they turned right onto George Street and onto Bladud Buildings. They passed Paragon Place, soldiers and crowds increasing as they neared the London Road, until they came to the crossroads at Walcot Church, where the French had set up a guard.

“I come here every day,” her father said. “A group of us wait to see if anyone who comes through has word of what goes on in the country. We are quite an exclusive club.” He raised his hat to some other men who stood waiting, and they returned his gesture. Some held letters in their hands, asking the drivers of the few vehicles allowed to leave if they would act as unofficial postmen. Jane saw a soldier dash a letter from a woman‧s hands into the dung on the road and laugh when she wept.

“There‧s no news, Mr. Austen,” one of the men said. “Rumors, as always, and precious little food or anything else coming into the city, but they say the French and their whores—begging your pardon, miss—have plenty. They send food in, but we don‧t know when.”

“Shame on them! People are hungry in this town,” Mr. Austen exclaimed. “And the use to which they put this church …” He gazed at the entrance of Walcot Church. Soldiers lounged at its elegant classical façade. He said to Jane, “Your mother and I married here. She wore a red wool riding coat and she was full of courage and gaiety. And now it is a barracks, defiled.”

An officer approached and the soldiers snapped to attention. “Garonne.” Mr. Austen gave a brief nod of acknowledgment.

“Go home, Mr. Austen,” Garonne said. “There is no point in staying here on such a cold day, particularly if Miss Jane is
in poor health. I would assist if I can, but, alas—” he gave an expressive shrug.

Mr. Austen escorted Jane to Paragon Place, where he left her, saying he must attempt once more to obtain a pass for the family, but Mrs. Austen and Cassandra insisted on accompanying him. The housekeeper and footmen were also out, standing in line for whatever fresh foodstuffs were available, leaving Jane and Betty, the housemaid, alone in the house.