William (11 page)

"I beg your pardon," I said, "I said I would
be patient.” Damned if I wasn’t trying, but for God’s sake, I’d
just turned into a vampire and I had a few bloody questions. I gave
a helpless shrug.

"Nonsense," Merrick said with a small shake
of his head. "As I said, I’ve not spoken of these things in a long
time. I can see you're afraid I’ll leave you in the dark again. But
you mustn't worry." Reaching over to take my hand again, he looked
into my eyes. "I can't stand to see you look anything less than
happy tonight. I'll do my best to satisfy every last curiosity you
can think of before dawn."

Why did I feel that in my teeth? But I did,
so distinctly that it tingled when I smiled. "All right."

"That's better," Merrick murmured with a
smile of his own. "Now, if you've had your fill of wine, let us
walk through the city and speak of whatever you like."

I was beginning to feel rather restless,
though not unpleasantly so. It was only my zeal for the evening. As
we started off down the boulevard, I was glad to move my limbs and
ready for the next novelty. It came in the sound of my boot steps
striking the street, which sounded queer to me, for I felt as
though I weighed almost nothing, and that my movements should be as
quiet as a cat's.

"How do I feel so light?" I asked, more to
express my wonder than in expectation of a reply. "What is the
science of this?"

"I must warn you I don't know
everything."

"Well, I must warn you I'm just as interested
in what you don’t know."

Merrick laughed softly. We had headed away
from the main square, venturing down a more tranquil street lined
with fine townhouses that were two and three times larger than the
one where he had welcomed me. The traffic here was mostly confined
to the odd coach or cart, and when I felt we were quite alone, I
boldly tested his promise to speak openly with me.

"What you said before," I started, "about
being in the company of other people. You mean to say that it is
always so easy, as long as you're not thirsty?"

"It is not overly difficult. But that is not
to say that you should ever become too comfortable among them."
Merrick paused thoughtfully. "If you get too close, interest will
give way to thirst."

"How close do you mean? How interested?"

Again, Merrick took a moment to shape his
reply. "It's not easy to parse. Your thirst is bound to your own
feelings."

"Then, say, what if one of those men at the
tavern had joined us for a drink? Do you mean that a few moments of
conversation could seal the deal? If I found him clever, for
instance."

"It could. It might not. I'm afraid I cannot
speak for you, William."

"For yourself, then," I ventured. "What does
it take for you?"

"I have more restraint than most." Merrick
sounded even less satisfied with his own answers than I was—it was
charmingly clear how earnestly he was trying to satisfy me. "And
I've never been swift to connect with others."

"Sometimes when you speak of yourself I feel
you must be describing someone else."

"You have a distorted view of me."

I scoffed loudly, startling myself. It seemed
harder than ever, now, not to wear all my emotions on my sleeve;
the reaction was out before I even realized I’d taken offense. For
a moment I was so taken aback by my own harrumph that I was
speechless, but I tried to recover enough to explain my objection
more politely.

"I do not think my view of you is distorted,"
I said, "but if you are certain of it, I can only hope to correct
it."

"Oh, no." Merrick stopped me with a hand on
my shoulder and turned me to face him. "That was not what I meant.
Far from it! I only meant to explain why it might sound strange to
you when I speak of myself. I’ve lived for a long time, but you
have a fresh view of me. Your view. I couldn't ask for more." He
smoothed my hair as he studied my face, his brow furrowed and his
amber eyes soft with concern. " You can't imagine what it’s meant
to me to learn who I am through your eyes."

I could only nod, taken aback by the fervor
of his reassurances, and was doubly caught off guard by his soft
sigh of relief.

It was always disarming when he put the full
force of his gentle charm toward soothing my worries. But it was
even more disarming to realize that Merrick, to my utter surprise
and fascination, was just as nervous this evening as I was. There
were fissures, however slight, in his composure. And having
realized it, I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at him, for I
couldn’t un-see the vague look of concentration on his face, as
though I’d called upon him to answer a series of riddles, and he
was trying to puzzle them out.

It was profoundly endearing. The more I
thought about it, the more touched I was. For, as Theo had told me
back in New York, this was a change for Merrick, too. For nearly
three hundred years on this earth he had resisted the prospect of
taking on a companion like me. Even during the natural phase in
which his instincts compelled him to do so, he had resisted it.
Even when he’d chosen me—or his thirst had chosen me, to use the
terms he’d laid out earlier—and the impulse became irresistible, he
had resisted. God only knew when I’d understand why, but he had
resisted. So much for his efforts.

“Were you always so solitary, Merrick?” I
asked suddenly.

“More or less.”

“What about Theo? You were friends at some
point, weren’t you?” When he failed to answer, I looked at him and
found his expression had darkened as profoundly as it always did
whenever I raised the issue of the French vampire, as I had
consequently learned not to do.

“Let’s not speak of Theo,” Merrick said at
length. “Not this evening.”

I raised my eyebrows. For whatever reason, I
had expected Merrick’s grudge against Theo to fade once the
business was done. “All right.”

“As for your question, I’ve lived differently
at times. But I’ve never been like you. Before I was turned, I
lived in a monastery.”

“Of course you did!” I exclaimed, snapping my
fingers.

“I was a layman,” Merrick laughed, shaking
his head. “Not a monk.”

“Good God!” My excitement turned to dismay.
“I have so much to learn about you—I feel like I’ll never get to
the bottom of it.”

"Well, you might give us more than..."
Merrick glanced up at the night sky. "...two hours, before you lose
heart."

Of course. I looked down sheepishly. Of
course I could not demand all the answers at once. If a mountain of
mystery remained, it would not be scaled in mere moments. "You're
right. We do have ample time."

Merrick reached over to tuck my hair behind
my ear. He had always been a master of those brief, intimate
gestures, which caught me unaware and drew me toward him like a
fish on a line. "Come," he said, putting a brotherly hand to my
shoulder. "Let's walk along the Common."

We went in silence for several minutes,
turning down the impressive tree-lined path along the edge of the
Common, and I was surprised by a memory that captured my attention
as I gazed into the dark shadows of the public green. It was one of
my earliest memories, from just after my father died. I was
corralled behind the bar at one of the inns where my mother worked,
listening to a group of men on the other side. They were debating
when the gallows went up in the Boston Common. One was sure he
knew, because he'd seen his father and his friend executed there in
the same year, one on the Great Elm and one on the new gallows. And
then the conversation became gruesome, and something scared
me—something one man said about hanging. I could not recall what it
was, but it sent my imagination running off into the dark. When my
mother took me home and we settled down to sleep, I started to cry
inconsolably over the horrible things that had come into my
head.

Funny enough, that was the only time I ever
recall being too soft for the rough talk of those grimy taverns.
After that, I was forever ducking out of my mother's sight as soon
as she was busy, searching out the best storytellers among the
drunks. No tale, no matter how nasty, ever scared me off again.

What a strange thing to remember. But how far
were we now from the gallows, from the Great Elm? I looked into the
darkness again, wondering.

Noticing my gaze, Merrick nodded toward the
deeper part of green. "Shall we see the pond?"

"Yes, let's." Setting aside old memories, I
found the shadows of the pasture rather welcoming. And I was
surprised to notice that I could see quite clearly into the
darkness, almost as if by some invisible lantern. Another vampire
blessing, I realized.

Even as we stepped onto the grass and into
the dark quiet, I had begun to taste what Merrick had meant by
"changes yet to come." My teeth, in particular, were becoming
distracting. Every so often they tingled faintly, and I had an
increasing urge to stretch my jaw like a cat. At last I had to lift
my hand to my face to cover the odd yawn. "Pardon me," I said,
puzzled. "I don't feel tired at all."

"It's your teeth. You're getting
thirsty."

I looked at him. His eyes were always
brightest in the dark. I wondered if mine were, as well. Anyway, he
was right. I was getting thirsty. But that I had expected. It was
part of the deal. What I had not anticipated was the truth of
Theo's words back in New York: Instinct will do the job.

Bloody Hell. He was right. I'd gone
cold-blooded, and it seemed as though—if I wanted to—I could make
the transition quite peacefully, indeed.

Merrick took my hand, lacing his fingers
through mine, and raised it to his lips for a kiss. We were far
enough from the street not to be seen through any windowpane;
indeed, in the dark groves of the Common, we seemed to be
completely alone. It was almost as though we were back in the woods
outside his cottage upstate. We had walked them after nightfall
once, through the thick, winding trees in the inky darkness of the
Hudson Valley wilds, the night he finally put his mouth on my body,
the night before he fled his desires and sent me away.

Now we came to a stop at the crest of a
little knoll crowned by several grown elm trees. The pond was a
circle of black in the dale below, shimmering with tiny obsidian
ripples wherever the breeze swept the surface. After a quiet
moment, Merrick gently pulled me back into the darkest space
between the trees and wound an arm about my waist, drawing a
fingertip along the edge of my jaw as if he needed to prompt me to
look at his unforgettably handsome face. And, ah, here was the
Merrick I remembered, gazing into my eyes with that inscrutable
look, searching for something only he understood.

"Shall we not discuss it?" I whispered, for
my teeth, my teeth, my lips and my tongue, they felt more urgent by
the moment.

"What was all that talk of being my
apprentice again?" Merrick smoothed my hair, his tone gentle.
"Where is the confidence you once had in my guidance?"

At that, I looked down with a flicker of...I
didn't know what, but it wasn't pleasure, and I schooled my brow so
as not to betray it.

"Of course," Merrick said softly, "I was a
more confident teacher."

Damn it, I loved him. Sometimes the things he
said made something in my chest twist in the most delicious way,
and I did not even know why, except that I loved him, and
apparently that was one of the symptoms. I closed my eyes and
turned my cheek into his hand. "Botany was a subject I found
somewhat less intimidating," I murmured.

"Yet I've no doubt you'll take to this just
as gracefully."

I was breathing in the dark fragrance of his
silky wrist as he spoke, and now I exhaled with a soft laugh.
"Gracefully? You keep using that word. Are you sure you know what
it means in this century?"

"I gather you've not heard it from anyone
else. It's my honest pleasure to be the first."

I smiled and lowered my head to his shoulder,
wrapping my arms around him for a long and blissful embrace.
Christ, I loved him. "Make no mistake," I said. "I'm hanging onto
your every remark. Your faith in my character is profoundly
comforting."

"Faith would imply a lack of evidence,"
Merrick murmured, echoing my own words from earlier. When I lifted
my head to respond, he kissed me; softly, at first, as though he
meant to be brief, and then with a slower, deeper intent. Soon we
were molded together, hands gripping, mouths slanting, and I could
feel the promise of his body beneath his fine suit—the hard angles
of his hips, the ridged muscles of his torso, his steely thighs. It
was so thrilling I could hardly stand it. Not that I wanted it to
stop, but I was afraid I could not hold onto my dignity if I
allowed him to stoke my needfulness any further. Quite a
conundrum.

Luckily, and unluckily, Merrick finally
pulled his lips away from mine. "So help me, William," he said
huskily, holding me tightly by the waist, "I want to be done with
this at once so I can have you to myself.

"Is that so?" I asked, a bit breathlessly,
and a bit hopefully. It wasn't only his kiss that had aroused my
lips and tongue. My entire mouth was singing with the craven desire
to bite something, and I knew exactly what that something was. I
found my eyes drawn to certain lovely features in particular—the
high angle of his cheekbone, smooth and healthy, the delectable
curve of his chin—and frustrated by his high collar, which
prevented me from looking at his throat. The scent of his blood was
fueling these new and impatient persuasions, but even that was not
precisely what I craved. Instead I thought of the students on the
balcony; if only they were here now!

The thought was startling, but even more
startling was the extent to which it aroused my desire for the man
who held me against him now. My thirst and my lust chased each
other round and round, and I was not sure where the line was
between them. It felt rather like a snake going after its own
tail.