But Frankie was suddenly silent.
He looked down at his wine again. "It has occurred to me that there is one way that you could look so young and yet display that ... world-weary experience I"ve seen. Yet I can hardly credit it ..." Again he raised his face to hers. "How do you know about the Companion? How did you know to give me blood and what it could do for me?"
She couldn"t tell him that! She managed a laugh. "What vampire doesn"t need blood?"
He clenched his lips, his eyes challenging her.
Tell him.
He"ll think I"m mad. Francoise chewed her lip, frowning.
Trust me. Tell him.
"If I was vampire you"d feel my electric energy and I"d smell of cinnamon and ambergris as you do," she said to buy time. Of course she had also just demonstrated once again that she knew more than any human should about vampires.
If you want to continue any kind of a relationship with him, he needs to know the truth about you. About us. Show him the machine, if it"s still there. That will make him believe you.
Still, he looked his question. Frankie was right. She took a breath. "Are you up to a walk? I"ll show you the truth."
He examined her face, then put away his questions. He nodded and rose. She took his hand as they went down the stairs. It might be the last time she touched him. No words pa.s.sed between them. She lit the lamp sitting on the table in the grand foyer.
Through the front doors and down the steps into the gravel drive, she drew him across the gardens and the vast lawns toward the Grotto of Apollo. It was up a little rise, surrounded by trees. The two statues of Apollo"s horses were placed strategically on the hillside. The central piece of Apollo himself and his six nymphs sat in the mouth of the man-made cave above them. They struggled up the rise and Francoise realized how weak Henri still was. Frankie trembled in excitement within her. She paused in front of the gleaming marble and looked back at Henri. "Suspend some disbelief here."
He stood beside her, peering into the cave behind the statue. "I"ll try."
She squeezed around behind the statues and started into the cave. The lantern flickered and steadied. She held it high.
A gleam of bronze answered her light.
It"s still here.
Francoise walked forward as she heard Henri gasp. Leonardo"s wonderful machine loomed over her. Francoise stood in awe, no matter that she had seen it in her vision of Frankie"s experience. Huge jewels winked in the light from the lantern.
"My G.o.d," Henri said "What is it?"
Francoise turned. "It is a time machine built by Leonardo da Vinci, for a friend of his named Donna di Poliziano. Do you know of him?"
"Of course." He paused. "But I know Donnatella well. She never mentioned ..."
"She doesn"t find it until 1821. She used it to go back and make Jergan vampire."
"But she and Jergan have been together since the death of Caligula in Rome."
"In one possible version of events they were not. She regretted it." She took a breath. "And in one possible version of events you made me vampire at the moment you broke that gla.s.s in the library. I was infected through a sc.r.a.pe. " She raised her hand where a scab still graced the pad of her palm under her thumb. He paled. "You abandoned me after three days, or so I thought, and I lived the best I could, thinking I was a monster-"
Knowing I was a monster, Frankie interrupted.
"I didn"t know ... anything about what I was. When the craving for blood got so bad I thought I"d go insane, I killed for what I needed. At least at first. And I hated myself for it. I was almost killed by a vampire just because I was made, not born to it, so I shunned other vampires. Always I dreamed of coming back to change what happened to me. I called myself Frankie and was working in a ... tavern when I met Donna. She gave me directions to Leonardo"s machine." She gathered her courage. She had to tell him all; how small she was, how selfish. "I came back in time to kill you, Henri, thinking that was the only sure way to prevent you infecting me." She was not proud of that. Even Frankie seemed subdued. "I"d been in an auto accident once and the emergency room gave me morphine before I could heal, so I knew what it could do to a vampire "s powers. I brought bottles of morphine and ... and a sword." Her voice shook slightly. "And the reason I seem both young and old is probably because Frankie now lives inside this body with me. I guess we couldn"t both exist physically in the same time. She merged into me. I control the body. But she"s in here with me." She tapped her head.
He looked doubtful. But then he stared at the machine. His doubt changed character. Now he was wondering what this machine could be, and how she could know about vampires, if not the way she claimed.
"I know what Frankie knows, about vampires and what will happen in the future. That "s how I know that Napoleon will make France great again at great cost. His legacy will be the Napoleonic Code of law though. It will protect the people, yet save the mob from itself."
She let him consider that for a moment. He tore his questing eyes from hers and took the lantern to walk around the machine.
The jewels winked white and red and green and blue, their facets sending scintillating lights around the cavern. "How does it work?" he asked.
"I"ve no idea. I only know that it takes a vampire to power it."
He reached out and touched a ma.s.sive gear, looking up at the rococo intricacies of the many interlocking gears above. "I would not have abandoned you. Not in any version of events." He turned to look at her. "And if you were vampire and lived, I did not. It takes about three days of infusions of a vampire"s blood to give you immunity to the Companion. If you don"t get it, you"d die. I stayed with you for three days at the least. You might not remember those days. One is delirious until the Companion makes peace with its new body. And making vampires is forbidden, so I must have cared about you ... very much ... to have tried to save you at all."
She managed a shrug. "I didn"t know that. Frankie avoided vampires. She knows only what her own experience taught her. She doesn"t do that thing you do to disappear, and she doesn"t control minds." But inside she was fixated on the words "I did not abandon you."
He ignored what she just said. "Do you believe me?" His eyes were burning in their intensity. "I didn"t abandon you."
She rolled her lips together under her teeth, as if that would give her more control over the situation. "Donna said you were guillotined." "Not this time."
"I don"t know. Maybe you still will make me vampire, and maybe you"ll still be guillotined. Because it seems awfully difficult to change things. Robespierre died on exactly the day the history books two hundred years hence said he did, though there was no mention of the prison break." That was only one of the things that had been torturing her over the long hours at Henri"s bedside.
Henri"s eyes fixed on her. She couldn"t move. "If I"m guillotined, you"d only have accomplished what you came back to do.
Operation successful." He paused. "You must have hated me very much."
Francoise closed her eyes. "I didn"t know you. Not really. I never looked hard enough to see that you were more than just the handsome, wicked duc." She opened them. "But of course, I was just a naive girl of twenty-one. Maybe I didn"t know how to really ... see a person."
He raised his chin. "And now you aren"t just that girl. And I am caught."
"Caught?"
Caught. Listen to him.
Francoise had almost forgotten about Frankie, what with all this talking about her in the third person as though she weren"t a part of Francoise now.
"Do you still hate me?"
She shook her head, convulsively.
Henri broke the look that stretched taut between them. "Do you want to go back to your own century?" He glanced to the machine. "I"ll power it for you as soon as I"m able."
"Frankie is comfortable in that time, but would I be at home there? Because maybe if I "m not made vampire, then ... then Frankie will never have existed. Will I go forward only to have all Frankie"s experience ripped from me? I"d be alone and lost in a world I don"t understand." She stared at the machine.
Even as it faded. The whole thing just slowly disappeared, making a sound that seemed to suck the air from the grotto. Francoise put her hands over her ears. Henri stepped back a pace and drew Francoise into his arms. Then the machine popped back to clarity.
"Merde. What was that?" he asked.
"Uh ... uh ... well, Leonardo wrote that the machine wouldn"t stay back in time forever. It would revert to the time it came from."
He set the lantern on the sand and took her by the shoulders. "Then there isn"t much time. Do you want me to try to draw my power and pull that lever to send you forward?"
She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. But it was to Frankie that she thought, Should we go? I don"t know what will happen to you if we go, or if we don"t.
Frankie sounded wistful. I don"t know either. But you can"t leave this time. Not now.
Francoise couldn"t speak. She shook her head to answer Henri. Her eyes filled. Sound filled the cave again. She and Henri turned to see the machine fading. It blinked back to clarity briefly and then it faded inexorably until it was ... gone.
Francoise sucked in a breath. Frankie?
Still here. Frankie sounded relieved, but a film of tristesse covered the relief.
Henri turned Francoise into him. Her mind was spinning. Now she was here. With Henri.
But not for long. Her heart felt full to bursting. He could never love her. He "d lived for centuries, having liaisons with the like of Madame Vercheroux just so he"d never have to really love a woman, leaving broken hearts in his wake. For who could not love a man like Henri?
Stop thinking and listen. Give him a chance to muster the courage.
Henri took her in his arms, pulling her against his chest. He kissed the top of her head. Lord, could he believe what he "d just seen? The irony of it ... A vampire who didn"t believe that the cleverest man in history could make a machine that came through time. And Francoise, his marvelous Francoise, was stranded between two times, between two lives, between two versions of events, and struggling to make sense of it all alone. "I"m sorry. This must be hard for you." Reluctantly, he held her away from him and mustered a smile. "Your life will be very different this time. I shall set you up in England with a sizable fortune. You will have your pick of reverent beaux and live to be society"s grande dame. The wisdom you have acquired from ... from Frankie will ensure that you are beloved by all your family for generations to come."
She blinked. But she said nothing.
"I only hope you will not despise me for being the monster you so hated in yourself, and let me come to visit you on occasion. "
d.a.m.nation, had his voice cracked? He cleared his throat. She mustn"t know what it took to say that. "I shall be Oncle Henri to all your children." He picked up the lantern and turned to the cave entrance. Was that conversational enough? It had nearly killed him to produce that insouciant tone, in spite of all the practice he"d had. He held out a hand. "Let"s go back to the palace." He wanted to be an uncle to her children? Francoise wanted to jerk her hand from his.
Why don"t you? You aren"t going to let him get away with that, are you?
Get away with what? Francoise thought.
Lying to you about loving you. He really loves you. Love for all time, loves you.
If he really loved me ...
If he really loved you he"d say he wants to make you vampire when you just told him you thought vampires were monsters and that being one ruined your life? Think again.
I ... I don"t want to be vampire, Francoise protested. No one wants that.
Like h.e.l.l. Now you"re the one lying. You"ve been toying with it for days. You don"t think he"s a monster.
Of course not. They were coming down on to the lawns along the grand ca.n.a.l.
Then you wouldn"t mind being like him. Tell him, for G.o.d"s sake, before it"s too late. Don"t live a second life of regret.
Don"t become me.
There"s no chance he loves me enough to spend a hundred lifetimes with me.
He never looked at me the way he looks at you. He cared for me enough to save me when I was infected. But he loves you. Enough to give you up to make you happy knowing it will destroy him. The noise of the fountain of Apollo cascaded around them.
I think what he loves is the you in me, Frankie.
Well, there"s one sure way to nail that down.
Francoise stopped, jerking her hand from Henri"s. The one way to ensure that Frankie stayed around was ...
Henri turned to her in surprise.
Now or never, girlfriend.
The girl was standing there, practically shaking. What was wrong? Was she afraid of him after all this time? He was afraid, afraid to say anything lest he push her over some edge he couldn"t quite see. But she just stood there, trembling. "Francoise," he finally said, louder than he wanted over the cascade of the fountain. "You"re safe. You"re just a normal woman now who can have a normal life. A good life."
"I don"t think you"re a monster," she blurted. She stopped to take two breaths and then said, "I don"t even think I was a monster. I lived a life of regret for nothing."
She didn"t despise him for being vampire? She knew his inmost secret and she ...
"I love you." She sounded as though she were drowning, or had just run a mile. Her beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaved beneath her fichu.
She loved him? In spite of what she knew? Impossible. And yet, she had something within her that knew everything, or almost everything. She had walked in his shoes. He forcibly tamped down hope. "There is no life for us together," he said, as gently as he could. "Human and vampire doesn"t work. One ages and dies and one does not. That makes both bitter."
"So you don"t love me?" She lifted her chin in that charming, pugnacious way he adored.
If he had an ounce of courage he would break her heart right here and now instead of breaking it over years a piece at a time.
He closed his eyes.
"Don"t!" she gasped. "Don"t even bother to deny it. It would only be your generous nature getting the better of you because you don"t want to hurt me. But Frankie says you never looked at her the way you look at me, and if I don"t push for what I want, the whole thing will just go sour again and I"ll be left with nothing. So I"m going to tell you, Henri Foucault, just once and then I"ll never say it again. I love you and I think you love me too, maybe not for what I was the first time round, but for what I am now, and if we don"t push for what we want, we have only ourselves to blame for getting less."
Henri wasn"t certain he could find his voice. "What do you want?" he asked. His words were so quiet they were lost in the roar of the cascade behind him, but he did not doubt she would know what he was saying.
"Make me vampire."
She didn"t know what that meant. She couldn"t.
But she did. She, of anyone, knew what she was asking for.
He had to warn her anyway. "You will tire of me. Eternity is a long time." And he always abandoned his relationships because he was afraid of being abandoned. As his mother had abandoned him. The irony of him creating the very situation he was most afraid of, just so he could be in control, washed over him. There was no question that he would gladly spend his centuries with her. But did he have the courage to risk that she would tire of him?
"This from a man who has left a string of broken hearts across France for centuries? I"m the one taking the chance here."
His next words would decide his fate. He knew that. It was one of those moments where you truly did not know what words would come out when you opened your mouth. "You are not taking a chance."
They stood, facing each other like combatants for a single moment more, before he took her in his arms thinking that perhaps he would burst, or burst out laughing, or maybe sob with fear and relief and joy.
He swung her into his arms. "We need somewhere quiet," he growled into her ear.
Twenty-Four.