Mina (17 page)

another like Salome's veils. She tried to touch him, to kiss him,
but he would not allow it. With this act, he claimed his ownership of her. He
would not excuse it, or apologize for it. It had to be done. I alone see you
like this, he thought. I alone. No one else.

When he'd
finished, he stepped back and undressed quickly, watching her all the while. So
beautiful. His Mina. His wife.

He pulled
the covers back, drew her to him and onto the bed.

He had been
so careful with her until now. In the beginning, when he had been recovering,
he had so little strength. Then ... well,

he would not think of that,
or the child. There would be children enough in the life that stretched ahead
of them.

As for now,
though they had slept together for weeks, this seemed like his wedding night.
The passion that flowed through him

was more than sexual, more
than love. He had been touched by evil and survived, and she was another of his
kind.

His lovemaking-if this could be called by so civilized a term-was
intense, over soon after it began, leaving him with no strength to continue.
Jonathan rolled up on his elbow and kissed Mina's forehead. As he did, he
noticed how bright her eyes were in the soft candlelight, and how quickly she
turned her head away when he noticed the tears.

He didn't
ask what was wrong, for he was certain he already knew. He had approached her
too soon, too roughly.

Indeed, he
had acted as if she were his mistress, not his wife, a creature to be used
solely for his own pleasure, as Gance

undoubtedly used the dancer Jonathan had seen tonight. He gathered
Mina into his arms, murmured that he loved her and closed his eyes.

Sleep eluded
Mina. She lay thinking about what she had almost done, frustrated by what she
had almost felt.

Had almost
done what? Lost that terrible control that had been pounded into her soul from
the time she was a child? Submit, do

not enjoy. Love, do not
desire.

Passionless.
Shame-filled. It wasn't right. The vampire's blood still strong in her screamed
that it wasn't right. If she had been

alone, she would have
satisfied herself. Instead she lay and let silent tears flow as she mourned the
freedom she wished she had.

... Then the room in the castle where the women lay took shape
around her. Mina had just torched the tapestries, but when she tried to move
toward the staircase, she saw that the floor was covered with newborn kittens,
pawing at one another, their helpless mewing terrible to hear. She looked at
the flames and tried to brush their tiny, almost hairless bodies out of her way
so she could run. The attempt was useless. So many, so many. She ran anyway,
and as she stepped on them, they mewed and crumbled into dust ...

Saturday morning, as always,
Jonathan rose early, dressed quietly and went to work. Mina woke later. The
room was cold, and she hastily lit the wood Laura had arranged on the hearth
and ran back to bed. Her daily diary was in the drawer of her bedside table.
She took it out and began recording last night's events in shorthand. Near the
end, she added a personal comment.

As I whirled with Lord
Gance though his ballroom, I found myself strangely attracted to the man.
Perhaps this is

because of all I have
heard about him. It is a heady feeling to be with a man in public who would be
dangerous in private.

A plea for mercy would fall on deaf ears, a plea for
restraint-well, if half of what Winnie tells me is true, he would only laugh.
It is a potent fantasy, and nothing more. Still . . .

She paused
in her writing. This was the diary she kept where Jonathan could read it at any
time. With perverse pleasure, she

realized that she wished he would. She was no angel, no carefully
clothed porcelain doll, but a woman. If he read this, he would not mention it
any more than she could voice aloud the following words.

But if he
read them, he might understand. With excitement, she went on.

...
it was a pleasure to see the jealousy so clear in Jonathan's
expression, to stand in the center of our bedroom later and watch him claim me
as his, to be wanton and demanding in his arms. I need this passion. I need it
desperately. Too often I fear that I will only feel it a few times in our
marriage and that, tragically, I will never know the moment when it ends.

There was much to be done before Christmas. She put the book away,
put on a simple gown and went downstairs, where Laura had been cleaning the
dining cupboard. The silver service was large enough to serve the firm's clerks
and their wives, but the linens were yellowed, many in need of mending.

"Not
one to entertain, was he?" Laura commented.

"My husband used to say that Mr. Hawkins was like all good
solicitors. All he needed was a box of hand-rolled cigars, twenty-year port and
a client, or better yet, two." Thinking Laura might misinterpret her
remark, Mina added, "Still, though he may have been something of a
recluse, he made Mr. Harker and I feel at home. Would that he were here to
share the house with us as he

planned."

Laura had
begun dusting the china when the front bell rang. The girl ran for the door and
returned a short time later with a

wrapped parcel for Mina.
Inside she found a mound of shredded green velvet and a note which read,

Dear Mrs. Marker. I am
sending you my coat as it now is. I do this so that you will never hesitate to
wear the gown

which so enhances you
own beauty. Yours truly, G.

She put the note in her pocket, and
handed the box to Laura. "Go downstairs and burn this in the stove,"
she said. That night, when she wrote in her diary, Mina devoted only a single
sentence to the parcel, adding no thoughts of her own save one-
What he did seems so
terribly strange that I do not know what to make of it.

Gance's offices were located on the
east side of Exeter, in the second floor of a private house. The businesses he
had inherited from his father were far-flung, his interest in them purely financial.
He could have easily managed the accounts through Harker's firm, but he wanted
a place he could keep the records and conduct business that was separate from
his home, and the office his father had established here years ago was
perfect. He was fond of the owner too. An old woman with no children of her
own, she doted over him with more maternal warmth than his mother had ever
displayed. Always ready with tea and sweets and critical comments about his
guests, she reminded him most of the housekeeper in those droll detective
stories by Doyle.

The woman
paid little attention to gossip and therefore did not know anything about his
third house in Exeter-the small and

private
retreat by the river that had once housed his father's mistress and now held
his. His mistress was a quiet creature, exotic in the manner that Hindu women
usually were. In the beginning, there had been fire in her blood. They had
often fought, and he had found it difficult to win the battles, though win he
had. Now she appeared utterly devoted to him, but sometimes, when she was not aware
he was looking at her, he saw a terrible hatred in her eyes. Getting her to
converse had become impossible, though in every other respect she did her best
to please him.

Any other
man would have found her irresistible, but she bored Gance in every way except
in bed.

Weeks ago he had vowed to break it
off with her, go out and find someone that would challenge him, and amuse him,
and fear him just enough to make their relationship interesting. Someone
married and of his own class would be ideal, he decided. He loved the game of
seeing his lover on her husband's arm, dressed for the opera or a play or just
a day in the park, watching him slyly and with just a hint of fear at how
easily a wrong word or gesture could reveal their sins.

He had once
thought that Winnie Beason would be perfect, but one evening at a social when
he had whispered that suggestion to

her, she had smiled and told
him, "I am passionately in love with my husband," turned and walked
away.

He would
never have guessed it, for she threw herself passionately into causes-the
hospital, the school, the woman's crusade.

Philanthropy
was usually a sign of trouble at home. Then she said she passionately loved
Emory Beason, that portly round-eyed bookworm! Perhaps, he thought, she was
passionate about everything. She certainly showed signs of it in how
passionately cruel she had been to him since he had made his discreet pass.

A pity that
she had become so close to Mina Harker. More the pity that Mina Harker's note
had made it clear they were coming

here together this afternoon.
Still, after waiting nearly a week for her to contact him, he was encouraged by
her note.

"Mina, dear Mina," he whispered aloud. "You with
the sad eyes, so filled with secrets." While he waited for the women to
arrive, he pulled Lord Godalming's last letters to him-the first written the
day before he left for Hungary in the company of the Harkers, the second just
a quick scrawled note saying he was going to America and would be back before
the new year.

Arthur had
mentioned that there'd been a doctor in their party, he recalled. Or had he
said two? Hardly an auspicious beginning

for a marriage.

The women
arrived with Winnie's usual punctuality. Mrs. Harker wore a hat with a veil,
Gance noted, as if she were not

comfortable with coming here. And though she looked him in the
face as they talked, at first she had trouble doing so. Both these signs
pleased him. He wanted her off balance. Women off balance often did the most
inexplicably wicked things.

He offered them seats on the divan and sat opposite them in the
black leather Chesterfield chair that always made him look paler than he
actually was. He noticed that Mina Harker watched him intently. "Your note
said you wanted to discuss a business matter," he commented.

He expected
her to approach the problem obliquely, as nervous women usually did. But she
pulled an old leatherbound book

from her handbag. "I
need someone to translate this," she said and handed it to him.

He opened
it, glanced at the writing and frowned. "Why did you bring this to
me?" he asked.

"You told me that you spoke Hungarian." "Some. But
this is not Hungarian." She seemed genuinely surprised. "Then what is
it?"

He studied
the script more closely. "A dialect, I think. I recognize some
words." He pointed as he went on. "Child ... home ...

journey ... It seems to be a
diary."

"Exactly.
Do you know someone who could do the work?"

"I have an acquaintance in London. If he doesn't know the
language, he will know someone who does." "Could you give me his
name, please?" "He will see to the request more quickly if the
journal comes directly from me."

Mina hesitated, then, with her back
even stiffer than before, she went on. "This is a private matter. Even my
husband does not know that I have this book. I would not have brought the
request to you if Mrs. Beason had not assured me that I could trust your discretion."

"You
ask me to give you a reference. Why should I?" Though the question was
natural, its bluntness astonished her. Yes, she was

attracted to him, intrigued
as well, he believed.

"I
suppose because I requested it," she replied. "Would you like me to
pay for the information? I can if you wish."

"Not at
all." He laughed, took out paper and a pen, and wrote a name and address.
"He will ask for payment, you can be sure of

that. Now, would you care for
some tea?"

Mina
hesitated. Winnie Beason did not. "I must get to the hospital this
afternoon," she said.

"Would you stay?" he asked Mina. "No. That is, I'm
going with Winnie."

"I see.
You'd rather risk the microbes than me, eh?" He laughed. "You're
right to be so wary, after everything that Mrs. Beason

has told you about me."

Mina Harker didn't deny any of this,
did not even blush as so many silly women would have. When they said good-bye, he
noted that her handshake was as firm as any man's. As he looked down from his
front window at them walking toward the hospital in the black skirts, tightly
fitting coats and silly plumed hats that all liberal women of means seemed to
find so socially acceptable, he felt quite certain that he would see Mrs.
Harker again and under far less correct circumstances.

In the
meantime, he might as well learn more of the mystery of her marriage and her
strange visit to the Continent. He knew

exactly where to begin.

Arthur Holmwood, Lord Godalming, was despondent over his recent
losses-first of his fiancée, then of his friend-and even more by the manner of
their deaths. He felt as if his entire world-beautiful and lighthearted-had a
volcano at its core, ready to erupt and destroy everything he valued.

On his voyage to America, he had made no shipboard friendships,
shared no journeys from his past. He often took his meals in his cabin. People
knew he accompanied a body back to Texas, assumed he was in mourning and left
him to himself. The journey from Boston to Texas troubled him as well, for the
sights along the way reminded him of how when Lucy had been so ill, he had promised
to bring her here and show her the sights of this savage, new land.

When he had done his sad duty, he could not bear to return to
Boston. Instead, he traveled to New Orleans and stayed through Christmas.
Though he did not admit it to himself, he hoped that this city-so civilized, so
cosmopolitan, so beautiful-would lessen his despair. Instead, the city only
increased his sorrow for he sensed too strongly in those chilly rain-washed
streets that dark