Prologue
It has been more than two centuries since I lost my wife. Despite the flickers of her presence that I have felt since, I never truly believed that I would see her again. Yet I seem to have been proven wrong.
It would not be the first time.
I had also believed that I would never again love another.
The girl shifting uncomfortably in front of me, hating the feelings that course through her body, looks nothing like my dearly departed wife. This one is taller by a head, has long brown hair that smells like fruit, and is, by all accounts, an entirely different person than the woman I still love, even after all these years.
I turn my head away from her, giving her some space. I stare at the bright fire burning between us, although I continue to watch her out of the corner of my eye. I’m about to tell her something that she may find difficult to comprehend, and I’m afraid—afraid of her reaction, of what she’ll think. I close my eyes and bring a hand to my face, hoping she sees my pain and somehow forgives me when I tell her.
“First you must know, Charlotte was a vampire,” I begin.
Charlotte .
My wife’s form appears before my eyelids, and I can’t bear it. I open my eyes and look straight at the girl in front of me. My sensitive hearing detects the spike in her heartbeat, and I become even more apprehensive. But I have to tell her. So I add, “And she was the one who turned me.”
She cringes, and it affects me more than I let on. “What? Why?” she asks.
Of course she wants to know. Her curiosity is almost endearing, if it weren’t always getting her into trouble. I want to tell her everything, but I cannot keep getting sidetracked. I shake my head. “That’s another story for another day.”
Her face falls, and I want to rush over to her and give her what she wants, comfort her, hold her hand—all these things that I’ve wanted to do, but have never done. Or I have done many times, in my mind, while watching her grow into the young woman that is now before me, her green eyes piercing my old soul.
But I don’t move. I have to continue telling her the truth. A truth I can hardly believe myself.
This girl cannot be the reincarnation of my beloved Charlotte. Yet she is. Or rather, I want to believe that she is. Because otherwise I cannot explain why I love her.
1. Spellbound
It began, like many romances did during that time, with a ball.
My family and I were visiting a friend of my father’s. Our small company of five had been invited to spend two weeks at Garfield Park, the large estate of my father’s friend, in a neighborhood not too far away from ours. This friend and master of Garfield Park, the extremely wealthy French baron Jean-Luc de Mayes, had offered a ball in my parents’ honor the first night after we arrived, much to my irritation.
Dancing I didn’t care for. My older brother Thierry was a far better dancer than I was, and I disliked everything about the custom. Worst of all the expectation of dancing with girls I had never met, and of the grief I would receive from my brother’s wife the following morning, claiming I had not danced with Miss So and So who had been very much alone.
For a sister-in-law, Madeleine was easy to get along with most of the time, except when it came to my love life. One could presume that my status as a bachelor irked her.
“You will never marry this way, Corben,” she often complained to me. “Being an Ashby does not simply do the job for you. You have to try .”
“Being an Ashby sometimes makes the job harder for me,” I would reply. My father’s name was like a badge pinned to my shoulder that I carried with me everywhere I went. It was liberating in some ways, but also a heavy burden; especially when it came to society and my duties as the son of a gentleman.
But Madeleine worried too much. Like any other eighteen-year-old boy, meeting beautiful girls I did look forward to. I would have
It has been more than two centuries since I lost my wife. Despite the flickers of her presence that I have felt since, I never truly believed that I would see her again. Yet I seem to have been proven wrong.
It would not be the first time.
I had also believed that I would never again love another.
The girl shifting uncomfortably in front of me, hating the feelings that course through her body, looks nothing like my dearly departed wife. This one is taller by a head, has long brown hair that smells like fruit, and is, by all accounts, an entirely different person than the woman I still love, even after all these years.
I turn my head away from her, giving her some space. I stare at the bright fire burning between us, although I continue to watch her out of the corner of my eye. I’m about to tell her something that she may find difficult to comprehend, and I’m afraid—afraid of her reaction, of what she’ll think. I close my eyes and bring a hand to my face, hoping she sees my pain and somehow forgives me when I tell her.
“First you must know, Charlotte was a vampire,” I begin.
Charlotte .
My wife’s form appears before my eyelids, and I can’t bear it. I open my eyes and look straight at the girl in front of me. My sensitive hearing detects the spike in her heartbeat, and I become even more apprehensive. But I have to tell her. So I add, “And she was the one who turned me.”
She cringes, and it affects me more than I let on. “What? Why?” she asks.
Of course she wants to know. Her curiosity is almost endearing, if it weren’t always getting her into trouble. I want to tell her everything, but I cannot keep getting sidetracked. I shake my head. “That’s another story for another day.”
Her face falls, and I want to rush over to her and give her what she wants, comfort her, hold her hand—all these things that I’ve wanted to do, but have never done. Or I have done many times, in my mind, while watching her grow into the young woman that is now before me, her green eyes piercing my old soul.
But I don’t move. I have to continue telling her the truth. A truth I can hardly believe myself.
This girl cannot be the reincarnation of my beloved Charlotte. Yet she is. Or rather, I want to believe that she is. Because otherwise I cannot explain why I love her.
1. Spellbound
It began, like many romances did during that time, with a ball.
My family and I were visiting a friend of my father’s. Our small company of five had been invited to spend two weeks at Garfield Park, the large estate of my father’s friend, in a neighborhood not too far away from ours. This friend and master of Garfield Park, the extremely wealthy French baron Jean-Luc de Mayes, had offered a ball in my parents’ honor the first night after we arrived, much to my irritation.
Dancing I didn’t care for. My older brother Thierry was a far better dancer than I was, and I disliked everything about the custom. Worst of all the expectation of dancing with girls I had never met, and of the grief I would receive from my brother’s wife the following morning, claiming I had not danced with Miss So and So who had been very much alone.
For a sister-in-law, Madeleine was easy to get along with most of the time, except when it came to my love life. One could presume that my status as a bachelor irked her.
“You will never marry this way, Corben,” she often complained to me. “Being an Ashby does not simply do the job for you. You have to try .”
“Being an Ashby sometimes makes the job harder for me,” I would reply. My father’s name was like a badge pinned to my shoulder that I carried with me everywhere I went. It was liberating in some ways, but also a heavy burden; especially when it came to society and my duties as the son of a gentleman.
But Madeleine worried too much. Like any other eighteen-year-old boy, meeting beautiful girls I did look forward to. I would have
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