Part 27 (1/2)

”Great,” he called after me. ”Walk away. That's mature, Merit. I appreciate that.”

”I'm sure you can find your way out.”

”Yeah, sorry to have interrupted your party. You and your boss have a great evening,Sentinel .”

He spit it out like a curse. Maybe it was, but what right did he have to criticize? Ethan was my obligation.

My duty. My burden. MyLiege .

I knew it was immature. I knew it was childish and wrong, but I was p.i.s.sed, and I couldn't help myself. I knew it was the one thing that as a Navarre vamp Morgan couldn't do. But it was the perfect line, the perfect exit, and I couldn't resist.

I glanced back at him, silk swirling around my legs, and, single eyebrow raised, gave him the haughtiest look I could muster.

”Bite me,” I said, and walked away.

Ethan was outside, waiting beside the car in the gravel drive. His face was tilted up, eyes on the full moon that cast shadows against the house. He lowered his gaze as I began to cross the gravel.

”Ready?” he asked.

I nodded and followed him to the car.

The mood during the ride back to Hyde Park was even more somber than it had been on the ride to my parents'. I stared silently out the car window, replaying events. That was three times tonight that I'd managed to alienate people. Mallory. Catcher. Morgan. And for what? Or better yet, for whom? Was I pus.h.i.+ng everyone else away in order to get closer to Ethan?

I glanced over at him, his gaze on the road, hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. His hair was tucked behind his ears, brow furrowed in concentration as he drove. I'd given up my life as a human for this man; not willingly, of course, but still. Was I giving up everything else? The things I'd brought with me across the transition-my home in Wicker Park? My best friend?

I sighed and turned back toward the window. Those questions, I guessed, weren't going to be answered tonight. I was hardly two months into my life as a vampire-and I still had an eternity of Ethan to go.

When we reached the House, Ethan parked the car, and we walked up from the bas.e.m.e.nt together.

”What can I do?” I asked when we reached the first floor, not that I hadn't done enough already on behalf of Cadogan and its Master.

He frowned, then shook his head. ”Keep me up to date about Jeff's progress with the e-mail. The Masters are investigating on their ends; I'm going to make some calls on my own until they arrive. In the meantime-” He paused, as if he was debating my skills, then finished, ”Try the library. See what you can find.”

I arched my eyebrows. ”The library? What am I looking for?”

”You're the researcher, Sentinel. Figure that out.”

Experienced enough to know that a ball gown wasn't appropriate research attire, I returned to my room to change, trading the silk for jeans and a short-sleeved black top. (A fusty suit wasn't, to my mind, research attire, either.) I was relieved, physically relieved, to hang the dress back in the closet, don jeans and pick up my katana. It felt right in my hand-comforting, as if I'd stepped out of a costume and back into my own skin. I stood in my room for a moment, left hand on the scabbard, right hand on the handle, justbreathing .

When I was calmer and ready to face the world again, I grabbed a pen and a couple of notebooks, ready to begin my own brand of investigation.

The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Ethan that Celina had a role in this. We didn't have much in the way of evidence, but this was totally her style-to sow discord, put the players in motion,and let the battle proceed on its own. I wasn't sure where Kelley fit in, or if she fit in at all, and I didn't exactly have the skills of a private investigator.

But I could research, study, peruse the library for information that might give us a clue-about Celina's plans, her connections, her history. Whether it would help us in the long run remained to be seen, but it was something proactive, something I had the skills to do.

And more importantly, it was something I could sink into, something that would keep my mind off other things. Off Morgan, and what seemed the inevitable end of that relations.h.i.+p. Off Ethan, and the attraction that, however ill-advised, lingered between us. Off Mallory.

I found the library quiet and empty-and this time, I double-checked-dropped my pens and notebooks on the table, and headed for the shelves.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

IN THE STACKS.

” ate, isn't it?” I blinked away black text and looked up, found Ethan walking toward my table. My immersion solution had worked-I hadn't even heard the library door open.

”Is it?” I flipped my wrist to check the time on my watch, but before I read the dial, he announced, ”It's nearly three o'clock. You look to be engrossed.”

Over an hour had pa.s.sed, then, since we'd gone our separate ways. I'd been sitting in the chair with my sword poised beside me, Pumas discarded beneath the table, legs crossed, for most of that time.

I scratched my temple and glanced down at the book before me. ”French Revolution,” I told him.

Ethan looked confused and crossed his arms over his chest. ”French Revolution? To what end are you researching the French Revolution?”

”Because we,I , will better understand who she is, what she's after, if we know where she came from.”

”You mean Celina.”

”Come here,” I told him, flipping through a book to locate the pa.s.sage I'd found earlier. When he reached the opposite side of the table, I turned the book toward him and tapped a finger against the relevant paragraph.

Frowning, he braced his hands on the table, leaned forward, and read aloud. ”The Navarre family owned substantial holdings in the Burgundy region of France, including a chateaux near Auxerre. On December 31, 1785, the oldest daughter, Marie Co lette, was born.” He glanced up. ”That would be Celina.”

I nodded. Celina Desaulniers, nee Marie Collette Navarre. Vampires changed ident.i.ties with some frequency, one burden of immortality being the fact that you outlived your name, your family. That tended to make humans a little suspicious; thus, the name changes.

Of course, Ethan had been a vampire for nearly two centuries before Celina had been a twinkle in her parents' aristocratic eyes, and she was a GP member. He'd probably long since memorized her name, date of birth, and hometown. But I thought the next few sentences, hidden away in this pet.i.te biography of a long-dead vampire, might be more interesting.

”Marie,” he continued, ”although born in France, was smuggled to England in 1789 to avoid the harshest persecutions of the Revolution. She became fluent in English and was considered highly intelligent and a rare beauty. She was raised as a foreign-born cousin of the Grenville family, which held the Dukedom of Buckingham. It was a.s.sumed that Miss Navarre would marry George Herbert, Viscount Penbridge, but the couple was never formally betrothed. George's family later announced his engagement to Miss Anne Dupree, of London, but George disappeared hours before the marriage was to have taken place.”

Ethan made a sound of interest, looked up at me. ”Shall we place any bets as to the disposition of poor George?”

”Unfortunately, that's unnecessary on all accounts. And we know what happened to Celina-she was made a vampire. But what's important is what happened to Anne.” I waved a hand at him. ”Skip to the footnote.”He frowned, but without taking his gaze away from the book, pulled out the chair in front of him. He settled himself into it, crossing one leg over the other, then arranged the book in his right hand, his left across his lap.

”George's body was found four days later,” he continued. ”The next day, Anne Dupree eloped with George's cousin, Edward.” Ethan closed the book, placed it on the table, and frowned at me. ”I a.s.sume you've taken me on a stroll through English social history for a reason?”

”Now you're ready for the punch line,” I told him, and pulled from my stack a slim, leather-bound volume, this one providing biographical information about the current members of the Greenwich Presidium. I turned to the page I'd flagged and read aloud: ”Harold Monmonth, holding the Presidium's fourth position and serving as Council Prelect, was born Edward Fitzwil liam Dupree in London, England, 1774.” I lifted my gaze from the book, watched the connections form in his expression.

”So she and Edward, or Harold-what-plotted together? To have George killed?”

I closed the book, placed it on the table. ”Do you remember what she said in the park, right before she attempted to fillet you? Something about humans being callous, about a human breaking her heart? Well, let me lay this out for you from a woman's perspective. You're living in a foreign country with your English cousins because you've been smuggled out of France. You're considered a rare beauty, cousin to a duke, and at the age of nineteen, you nab the first son of a viscount. That's our George. You want him, maybe you love him. You certainly love that you've managed to entice him. But just when you think you've sealed the deal, n.o.ble George tells you that he's fallen for the daughter of a London merchant. A merchant, Ethan. Someone Celina would have considered far, far beneath her. You don't bear any particular grudge toward Anne. You may even pity her for being less than what you are.” I put my elbows on the table, leaned forward. ”But you don't pity George. George, who could have had you, your beauty, your prestige, by his side. He throws you away for London trash.” I lowered my voice. ”Celina would never let that stand. And what if, conveniently, George has an older cousin, a thirty-year-old cousin, who has an attachment to our dear Anne, who is all of sixteen? You and Edward have a conversation. Mutual goals are discussed. Plans are made, and George's body is found in a London slum.”

”Plans are made,” Ethan repeated, nodding, ”and two members of the Presidium have a murder between them. The Presidium that released Celina, despite what she'd done in Chicago.”

I nodded back. ”Why bother enthralling Presidium members with your glamour, or relying on your charms, as you put it, when you've got that kind of shared history? When you share a mutual belief in the disposability of humans?”

Ethan then looked down at the table, seemed to consider what he'd heard. A sigh, then he raised his gaze to mine again. ”We could never prove this.”

”I know. And I think this information shouldn't leave the House, not until we're more certain of who our friends are. But if we're trying to predict what she might do, where she might go, who her friends are, this is the best way to start. Well,” I added, ”this is the best way forme to start.” I gazed across the table of books, open notebooks, uncapped pens-a treasure trove of information, waiting to be connected. ”I know how to search an archive, Ethan. That's one skill I have no doubts about.”