Part 8 (1/2)

She gathered herself again. Would she ask about the blood? Then she closed her eyes and shook her head, half laughing under her breath. ”It's none of my business whom you like to kiss. How silly and rude all these questions are.”

He relaxed. ”We are always curious about that which is strange to us.”

”You will never believe what I... well, never mind. You're right of course. I didn't understand about your disease. I was imagining all sorts of things.” She looked stricken. ”Oh, dear! I've been blurting out whatever comes into my head. How many times have people pointed at me and asked astounding questions? I of anyone should be sensitive to another's differences.” She bit her lips. They were really quite lovely lips, pink without rouge, full. Made in fact for kissing. ”I'm sorry if I gave you pain,” she said.

She, who pretended to be so cynical, had a generous spirit underneath. An achievement, surely, with the life she had led. ”I'm glad you asked.” As long as the asking had resulted in her thinking she was imagining things, all had turned out for the best. He returned to his meal, and she to hers. A wall came up between them. He could feel her turning over his answers. It was in her nature not to believe what she had guessed. That would be his protection.

Yet a certain sadness came over him. She had just shown how appalled she would be if what she imagined were true. And it was true. Oh, she had the details wrong. But in her eyes he would be a monster. The word alone for his kind struck fear and loathing into human hearts. And that meant he could never share with her what he was. Or with any human. Paolo knew his healing, his long life. But not about the blood. Not about the strength or his more-than-human senses, or his ability to translocate from one place to another.

He could share what he truly was only with his kind.

But could he? They were allowed to live only one to a city to conceal their presence among the human population. The only one of his kind he knew well was his mother, a remarkable woman who made others pale by comparison. But even his mother wouldn't understand what North Africa had made him. Even the ones who had fought by his side there weren't as sickened by the experience as he was. Then there was the spontaneous combustion he could apparently cause. It had begun in North Africa.

Not even he understood that.

He was alone.

So he would see his mother tomorrow. He would provide for the little charlatan. Then he would take the stone to Mirso Monastery. And his duty would be done.

He had always wondered why his kind retreated to Mirso and took the Vow, never to leave the confines of its walls again. They said it was because they had grown heartsick with age, ennui gouging out globules of sanity with its teeth. The rigor of the chants, the ascetic rituals that starved the Companion in their veins of its need for blood, gave a life one could understand, control.

Perhaps not much of a life, but better than the alternative: drugging yourself into a stupor or going insane. Too bad vampires could not commit suicide. The Companion's urge to life was what incited it to rebuild its host forever, and its power over its host was absolute. It did not allow suicide. The mere thought of trying to put himself in a position to be decapitated generated a shuddering revulsion in his veins even now. That was why no vampire lived in France, what with Madame Guillotine on the rampage there these last years.

For the first time he could see that Mirso Monastery might be all that was left to him. When the duty of returning the stone was gone, when all he had were the memories of women he did not love, and of the vampires he had killed in the desert, some innocent, some not, when all he could remember were endless rounds of human venality and cruelty-what then?

Maybe if he lived an ascetic life at Mirso, his pyrotechnic abilities would disappear. If you had no strong emotions, then you couldn't bring forth flame. That sounded appealing.

He looked up and found the girl staring at him. She flushed and looked away.

Did she flush because she was thinking carnal thoughts about him and he caught her out? That was usually the case with women.

Did she flush with embarra.s.sment that she had thought him a vampire? Or did she flush because she was self-conscious about her scar? When she turned, she instinctively turned her marked cheek away.

She had not eaten, but pushed her plate away. ”Let us go,” he said, rising. He left his own steak half finished.

He was sleeping in his corner of the coach. She could hear his even breathing. That was a good thing. The man had been sleeping far too little in the last days. And even if his condition gave him healing properties, surely healing the burns she had seen would have taken his strength. She wondered if the healing properties shortened his life span. She couldn't ask him about that.

She flushed again just to think what she had already asked him.

How could she have believed he was a vampire? And asked him to touch a crucifix as proof that he was not. She cringed just to think about it. As though he was a risen corpse. She knew from experience just how warm his touch was. At that inn the first night she had seen him eat a pigeon pie liberally laced with garlic. There was nary a glimpse of fangs on his even white teeth. The poor man had a disease and she had vilified him for it. How different was she than all those ignorant creatures who blamed her for being scarred? And that she could even consider there were such things as vampires meant she was losing her grip on reality.

Dear Lord! What would the nuns think? What would Matthew have thought?

And why should she care? Because she might be a creature of her upbringing, and for better or worse the nuns and Matthew had formed her character: they and the streets of London.

That depressed her.

She sighed. Thinking him a vampire was as stupid as believing she saw the future. Best get her mind on what counted. Would he pay her for a stone he could just take? And if he did, was there something else he wanted of her? She still didn't see what he got out of the bargain.

More carriages were pa.s.sing outside. They might be coming to a town. Florence? She peeked out behind the shade. The Tuscan hills rolled away into the distance. Some were covered in neat rows of vines, like a chenille bed coverlet. Some were crowned with square houses sporting tiled roofs, their plastered walls painted curious shades of brown and brick red and dusty gold. They looked st.u.r.dy, confident. The trees were cypress, standing upright in lines along the roads or cl.u.s.tered about the houses.

”Beautiful, isn't it?”

The deep rumble startled her. She let the flap down. ”In a cultivated sort of way.”

He chuckled. ”You prefer the sublime of Turner, all wild chaos? Less comfortable, I a.s.sure you.”

She had to smile. ”I'm sure you're right.”

”I am. I've been to Turner's Alps. But I grew up around here.”

”In the countryside?”

”My mother's estates. When my father was alive we liked it better than Firenze.”

”I think we are coming into the city.”

He sat up, pulled the shade open a crack and squinted into the brightness. ”Would you care to tell me your real name?” He let the shade slip back into place. ”I hate to lie to my mother.”

Kate sat up straighter, incensed. But after she had asked him all those impertinent questions about his disease, it might not seem unreasonable to him to ask her name.She grimaced. ”Kate. I always keep some version of Kate.”

He raised his brows. ”And the last name? Not Mulroney, surely. It hardly suits you.”

”Why not?”

”Inelegant.”

”One doesn't choose one's name.”

”One always chooses who one is to some extent, in spite of one's background.”

He was right about that too. The thought made her uncomfortable. She spent a fair amount of time around this man feeling uncomfortable.

”Names included,” he continued. ”I chose mine because I liked the Eternal City, and wanted to be called after it. Urbano means 'from the city.' ”

”I know what it means,” she snapped. ”Were you rebelling against your family?”

He gave a small, rueful smile. ”Hardly. My mother encouraged me to change it. What woman wants to acknowledge a grown son?”

Kate was appalled. What kind of a mother was that? ”Your other names as well?”

”No. I always keep my given name. I think of myself as Gian. Currently Gian Vincenzo.”

”I'm not sure of my real surname,” she admitted, ”since Matthew was not my father.”

He nodded, silent, not pressing. So she went on. ”Come to think on it, I'm not sure his real name was Sheridan, though that was what he claimed.”