Lydia how astonished he'd been that she hadn't married such a dazzling suitor. She'd been deeply insulted and demanded indignantly why he thought she'd have been taken in by a strutting oaf in a Life Guards uniform.
He grinned to himself and pushed the memories away. However it had transpired, Dennis and his other friends—Frank Ellis, the mournful Nigel Taverstock, the Honorable Bertie's Equally Honorable brother Evelyn—had had a close escape. Lotta had known them all. They were all the type of young men she liked—rich, good-looking, and susceptible. How long would it have been before she had chosen another of them as her next victim, when enough years had passed for them to forget poor Bertie's death?
What old score was Lotta paying off, he wondered, folding up his jotted lists, in the persons of those wealthy young men? He donned his scarf and bowler and slowly descended the narrow stairway past the purposeful riot of the day rooms, stopping briefly to thank his reporter friend with a discreet reference to “King and Country.”
Had it been some ancient rape or heartbreak, he wondered as he descended the long hill of Fleet Street, its crush of cabs and trams and horse-drawn buses dwarfed by the looming shadow of St. Paul's dome against the chilly sky. Or merely the furious resentment of a cocky and strong-willed girl who hated the poverty in which she had grown up and hated still more the satin-coated young men whose servants had pushed her from the flagways and whose carriage wheels had thrown mud on her as they passed?
Judging by Mile. La Tour's books, Celestine—or Chloe—seemed to be far more apt to pay for her own dresses than Lotta was, and the men who did buy her things were not the men of Lotta's circle. Their names were always different; evidently few men lived long enough to supply her with two hats. She was either more businesslike about her kills than Lotta, or simply less patient,
Was she, he wondered, also a “good vampire”? Like Lotta, did she savor those kisses flavored with blood and innocence? Did she make love to her victims?
Were vampires capable of the physical act of love?
The women would be, of course, he guessed—capable of faking it, anyway. As he descended to the Underground at the Temple a woman spoke to him in the shadows where the stair gave onto the platform, her red dress like dry blood in the gloom and her glottal vowels scrawling Whitechapel almost visibly across her painted mouth. Asher tipped his hat, shook his head politely, and continued down the steps, thinking: They would have to feed somewhere else before undressing, to warm the death-chill from their flesh.
Back at Prince of Wales Colonnade he returned to the now-neat catalogue of Lotta's finances. Seated tailor-fashion on the bed in his shirt sleeves, he sorted through the bills, letters, and cards, arranged by probable date. Mile. La Tour had only served her vampire clientele for a few years, of course—the earliest entry for Mrs. Anthea Wren was in 1899. Lotta's pile of yellowing bills dated back through the nineteenth century and into the eighteenth, paid by men long dead to modistes whose shops were closed, sold, or incorporated with others'—a woman cannot keep the same dressmaker for seventy-five years if she herself doesn't age.
There were only four names on the recent invitations not accounted for either in the obituaries or last week's Society pages.
There was a Ludwig von Essel who had bought Lotta things between April and December of 1905 and was then heard of no more. There was Valentin Calvaire, who had first bought Lotta a yoked waist ofpeau de soie, embroidered and finished with silk nailheads, whatever those were, in March of this year; and a Chretien Sanglot, who had sent her a card of invitation to meet him at the ballet and who not only picked up his mail at the same pub as Calvaire did but, to Asher's semitrained eye, at least, wrote in the same execrable French hand. And lastly, there was
He grinned to himself and pushed the memories away. However it had transpired, Dennis and his other friends—Frank Ellis, the mournful Nigel Taverstock, the Honorable Bertie's Equally Honorable brother Evelyn—had had a close escape. Lotta had known them all. They were all the type of young men she liked—rich, good-looking, and susceptible. How long would it have been before she had chosen another of them as her next victim, when enough years had passed for them to forget poor Bertie's death?
What old score was Lotta paying off, he wondered, folding up his jotted lists, in the persons of those wealthy young men? He donned his scarf and bowler and slowly descended the narrow stairway past the purposeful riot of the day rooms, stopping briefly to thank his reporter friend with a discreet reference to “King and Country.”
Had it been some ancient rape or heartbreak, he wondered as he descended the long hill of Fleet Street, its crush of cabs and trams and horse-drawn buses dwarfed by the looming shadow of St. Paul's dome against the chilly sky. Or merely the furious resentment of a cocky and strong-willed girl who hated the poverty in which she had grown up and hated still more the satin-coated young men whose servants had pushed her from the flagways and whose carriage wheels had thrown mud on her as they passed?
Judging by Mile. La Tour's books, Celestine—or Chloe—seemed to be far more apt to pay for her own dresses than Lotta was, and the men who did buy her things were not the men of Lotta's circle. Their names were always different; evidently few men lived long enough to supply her with two hats. She was either more businesslike about her kills than Lotta, or simply less patient,
Was she, he wondered, also a “good vampire”? Like Lotta, did she savor those kisses flavored with blood and innocence? Did she make love to her victims?
Were vampires capable of the physical act of love?
The women would be, of course, he guessed—capable of faking it, anyway. As he descended to the Underground at the Temple a woman spoke to him in the shadows where the stair gave onto the platform, her red dress like dry blood in the gloom and her glottal vowels scrawling Whitechapel almost visibly across her painted mouth. Asher tipped his hat, shook his head politely, and continued down the steps, thinking: They would have to feed somewhere else before undressing, to warm the death-chill from their flesh.
Back at Prince of Wales Colonnade he returned to the now-neat catalogue of Lotta's finances. Seated tailor-fashion on the bed in his shirt sleeves, he sorted through the bills, letters, and cards, arranged by probable date. Mile. La Tour had only served her vampire clientele for a few years, of course—the earliest entry for Mrs. Anthea Wren was in 1899. Lotta's pile of yellowing bills dated back through the nineteenth century and into the eighteenth, paid by men long dead to modistes whose shops were closed, sold, or incorporated with others'—a woman cannot keep the same dressmaker for seventy-five years if she herself doesn't age.
There were only four names on the recent invitations not accounted for either in the obituaries or last week's Society pages.
There was a Ludwig von Essel who had bought Lotta things between April and December of 1905 and was then heard of no more. There was Valentin Calvaire, who had first bought Lotta a yoked waist ofpeau de soie, embroidered and finished with silk nailheads, whatever those were, in March of this year; and a Chretien Sanglot, who had sent her a card of invitation to meet him at the ballet and who not only picked up his mail at the same pub as Calvaire did but, to Asher's semitrained eye, at least, wrote in the same execrable French hand. And lastly, there was
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