Tooth And Nailed Part 13

"Oh dear." Eloise frowned, staring at Rowan's ear lobes, bare of jewelry. "Did you lose them both?"

"Yes! Yes I did." Rowan sighed. "It's awful, they were my favorite pair."

"Yes dear, that's horrible," Eloise murmured her sympathy. "But your hair is so dustyais that a cobweb?"

Edgar, who was losing patience fast and obviously didn't want to miss the football match on the telly later, grabbed his wife by the elbow and began towing her away. "Eloise, we're going to be late."

"But Edgar, her hair!" Eloise protested, looking back over her shoulder as she found herself dragged down the hall. "All that dust, just from looking for a pair of lost earrings! If that's the way they clean house around here, I don't know if I want to have Portia's wedding herea"

Her voice faded away as they turned the corner. Jack and Rowan looked at each other and grinned.

"Lost an earring?" he asked.

"Well, you were no help!" She punched him lightly on the arm. "What was I supposed to say, *Oh tell your daughter if she wants to consummate her marriage on the premises, there's a really lovely utility closet just down the hall'?"

Jack laughed and took her by the hand. "Come on, we're missing the concert," he said, and towed her out the door.

Several hours later, Rowan sighed and wriggled deeper into the softest bed in the world. "I can't believe you did this," she said, turning her head to watch Jack emerge from the connecting bath.

"Well now, I couldn't very well bring you to Slane Castle and not treat you to a night in the King's Suite," he said, striding naked and damp from his bath to the giant four-poster canopy bed that dominated the room. He leaned over and kissed her, his lips clinging to hers in a sweet caress.

"Mmm." She licked her lips. "You taste salty."

"Salt water bath," he said, climbing into bed with her. He sat up against the headboard and she turned to her side to see him better.

"Why salt water?" she asked, idly reaching up to wipe a droplet of water from his chest.

"For some reason it helps me heal faster," he said.

"Heal?" She frowned then sat up and looked at him. "Your sunburn! It's completely gone," she marveled, stroking her hands over his skin. Even though it'd been overcast and he'd taken a melanin tablet, he'd still burned. But where before there'd been red, angry skin, there was now only smooth, supple flesh. "That's amazing."

"Just one of the benefits," he said, propping his hands behind his head.

Rowan propped her chin on his abdomen. "Do you like being a vampire?" she asked, looking up at him.

He grinned down at her. "Beats being dead."

She smacked his belly lightly. "Smart-a.s.s. C'mon, I'm serious. Tell me what it's like for you."

"Okay." He slid down farther in the bed so they were face to face. "What do you want to know?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Tell me how it feels to be immortal."

"I'm not actually immortal, you know. It's more like I age very, very slowly."

"Practically immortal then. Tell me what it's like."

"It's lonely," he said.

"Lonely?"

"Yeah." He gave her a rueful smile. "Think about it. You outlive all your family, all your friends. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to not have to worry about disease or doctor bills. But it can be tough watching the people you love disappear."

"Oh." Rowan chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I guess I've never thought about it before," she said. "How do you get through it?"

He shrugged. "I do what everyone does when facing mortality, I guess. I try to make the most of every day, appreciate my friends for the treasures they are. What makes it different is instead of facing my own mortality, I'm facing theirs."

Rowan nodded then frowned. "How old are you, anyway?"

He grinned. "You probably don't want me to tell you that, darling."

"Ew. You're really old, aren't you?"

"I was born in 1891."

She grimaced. "You know whata"I really don't want to know."

He chuckled. "You look like you just tasted something particularly foul."

"Well yeah!" She made a vague gesture with her hands. "You're over a hundred years old."

"Just think of me as antique," he chuckled.

She just shot him a look. "Bureaus are antiques. Not people."

He grinned. "Is this really bothering you?"

"It's icky!" she protested, smacking him in the chest when he laughed. "It doesn't bother you that I'm young enough to be your granddaughter?"

"Darling, everyone I f.u.c.k is young enough to be my granddaughter." He laughed when she smacked him again.

Rowan felt a reluctant smile curve her lips. "Okay, change of subject. Tell me how you got to be a vampire."

He shrugged. "I was ill, was likely going to die and someone saved me."

Rowan waited a beat. "That's it? That's how you tell a story?"

He spread his hands. "It's the truth."

She sighed. "No, no, no," she said, sitting up in bed. She folded her legs under her and tugged the comforter up around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "You told me the facts but not the story. Tell me the story."

He quirked a brow. "You really want to hear this?"

"Yes."

He shrugged. "Okay. Well, it was nineteen eighteen."

"Which would make you, whata"twenty-seven, right?"

"Actually, it was the spring, so I was only twenty-six. My birthday's the first of November."

She rolled her eyes. "Scorpio. It figures."

He grinned. "Anyway, I'd joined the army to fight in the Great Wara""

"World War I, right?"

He shot her a look. "At the time there wasn't a World War II so we just called it the Great War."

"Right, that is what the old timers call it." She ducked the flying pillow, giggling. "Sorry, sorry."

"Anyway," he went on, "I was part of the Thirty-Sixth Ulster division, fighting in Germany."

"Oh my gosh," she breathed, putting her hand on her chest. "Did you get shot?"

"No, I got the flu."

Rowan blinked. "I'm sorry, what? You got the flu?"

He grinned at her. "Not very dramatic, is it? But yes, the flu. The American soldiers were kind enough to bring it *cross the pond with them."

"Oh that's right, it was a whole epidemic." She grimaced. "Must've been awful."

"It wasn't pleasant," he allowed. "I was lying on the ground in a ditch, still trying to fight alongside my friends, delirious with fever. I couldn't stand, I couldn't even crawl. The infection had turned to pneumonia so breathing was horribly difficult."

"Jeez," Rowan muttered. "What happened?"

"I pa.s.sed out," he said. "The last thing I remember is lying in a muddy trench, wishing I was back in my mother's kitchen."

He was silent for a moment, eyes clouded with memories. "Three days later I woke up in a warm bed, feeling ridiculously strong for what I'd been through and I had fangs." He chuckled. "It was unsettling to say the least and I'm afraid I wasn't very gracious to my hosts."

Rowan slid down to lie next to him, chin in her hands. "Who were they?"

"A man named Cedric Peabody. And his bride Penelope, who I'm very chagrined to say was the first person I saw when I awoke." He shook his head, still feeling the sting of shame nearly ninety years later. "Let's just say I was horribly ungrateful for her hospitality, a fact which Cedric lost no time in pointing out when he came in the room."

Rowan stared at him, fascinated. "What'd he do?"

Jack smiled at the memory. "Gave me what my Gran used to call a thorough tongue-lashing while sitting on my chest to hold me down. I was strong but Cedric was much stronger and he wasn't newly changed." At her blank look, he said, "Newly changed vampires are strong but they're fairly erratic. I wasn't used to the strength I had, hadn't had time to grow used to it or learn how to channel it. Cedric was much more controlled, ruthlessly so, and he had no trouble besting me physically."

"So once you calmed down, then what?"

"Then he explained to me what had happened. What I was." He shook his head. "At first I didn't believe him. After all, I was a good Irish Catholic boy. Vampires didn't exist in my world."

"Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. You hadn't heard of it?"

He smiled at her. "Not until Cedric gave me a copy. Good Irish Catholic boys didn't read about vampires either, at least not in my house." He chuckled. "My mother would've boxed my ears if she'd found it."

Rowan smiled at the obvious affection in his voice as he mentioned his mother. "So what happened after that?"

"Well, I wasn't very happy with my new lot in life and I gave Cedric and Penelope no small amount of grief over it. Never mind they'd saved my life. I didn't care. I was angry and confused and not inclined to be gracious."

"After a few weeks of my skulking around their home, Cedric had had enough. He told me I should use the brain G.o.d gave me, accept the truth staring me in the face and be grateful for my second chance at life. Or I could squander the gift and slice my own head off. Then he handed me a sword."

"Wow." Rowan's eyes were big, riveted on his face. "Well, you didn't slice your own head off, that much is obvious. What did you do?"

"I screamed at him for about five minutes. How it was so unfair, why me, blah, blah, blah. Then," he shrugged, "I ran out of words, and out of anger I burst into tears."

Jack settled farther into the pillows, stacking his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. "He sat there with me, on the floor of his elegant home, and held me while I cried. I don't know how long it took but when I was done, I just sat there feeling drained and exhausted. And he started to talk to me."

He shifted, rolling to his side and propping his head on one hand to look down at her. "He told me about his pre blood-sucking days. He used to be a duke, second cousin to the Prince of Wales. Life was all parties and weekends in the country and nights at White's gaming table. It was a good life, except one day a viscount took exception to Cedric's interest in his youngest daughter." He raised an eyebrow. "Apparently they were caught in a torrid embrace in the gazebo of the viscount's country house during a summer ball."

Rowan grinned. "I take it papa wasn't happy about it."

"To say the least. Tempers flared, and despite Cedric's declaration of intent to marry the girl, he ended up facing the business end of a rapier. Sliced him open and left him for dead."

"Ouch." She winced. "If you're worried at all, I don't think my father owns any rapiers."

Jack grinned at her. "I know he doesn'ta"I'm in charge of security, remember? I know all of his weapons. And no, I'm not worried."

She frowned briefly at that but she wanted to hear the rest of the story too much. "So they left him for deada"

"Right. So he's lying there on the back lawn of the estate and bleeding out from a dozen different wounds. He can hear the daughter screaming from inside the house and all he wants to do is get to her. But he's bleeding to death and pa.s.ses out trying to crawl to the house. When he awoke, he was in a loft in the stable already transformed."

"By who?"

Jack winced. "And you call yourself a teacher. It's whom, darling. By whom."

She rolled her eyes. "They're kindergarteners. I teach them how to tie their shoelaces and not to eat crayons. Grammar comes later."

"Still, it couldn't hurt to start them early. America's youth has fallen behind the rest of the world, you know."

She waved that away. "Whatever. Just tell me who transformed him."

"Well the *who' was one of the household servants. Apparently he'd worked for the viscount's family for years. In any case, he found Cedric bleeding to death on the lawn. So while the rest of the staff and guests at the house for the weekend were preoccupied with the distraught daughter and the rest of the family, he took Cedric out to the barn."

Jack paused, reaching across Rowan to snag the bottle of water resting on the nightstand. He took a long drink while she practically vibrated with impatience.

"Jack, I'm going to stab you with the very nice letter opener on the writing desk over there if you don't spit it out."

He licked his lips. "Well, the servant had to exchange blood with Cedric in order for the change to take place. Normally the easiest way is with a bitea""

Rowan interrupted. "Okay, why is that easiest?"

He tapped a finger on his teeth. "It's what they're designed for. Razor-sharp points, perfect for slicing into flesh."

She gulped, eyes wide. "Right."