“Did you ever ask him why he had such interest in you?”
“Never, but I believed that perhaps he was lonely,” he said. “I fell ill after I celebrated my thirty-first birthday. The sickness began with night sweats and then progressed into constant fever. I began to rapidly lose weight. Leopold would occasionally comment on my appearance, and I would downplay his concerns. Although we were friendly, I feared he would terminate my employment if he suspected I was in poor health. I knew that I had tuberculosis the instant I coughed up blood. I had most likely contracted it back when I worked at the factory. The disease can lay dormant for several years, you see.”
“That’s awful,” I whispered.
“Yes, it was. I wouldn’t wish the disease on my worst enemy.”
“Did you eventually quit your job?”
“No, I kept working. I attempted to hide the illness, but my suffering was evident. The staff shunned me, fearing that I was contagious. Leopold was the only individual on the entire estate who dared go near me, mercifully suggesting fewer physical activities as my condition weakened. He never once questioned me outright if I was sick, but he knew. I believed his silence was his way of preserving the dignity of a dying man.
“I was in the stables tending to the horses one afternoon when I was struck by a fit of bloody, suffocating coughs that brought me to my knees. ‘This is it,’ I thought. I crawled into Cobalt’s enclosure, who I’d grown to love as much as I would my own child. She whinnied sadly and nudged her head against mine, as if she also knew that I was dying. I curled up next to her, closed my eyes, and waited for death to take me.”
I sniffed, my breath hitching.
Robert dabbed away a tear from my cheek. “You’re crying?”
“Maybe.” I dabbed a knuckle under my eye. “I’m a sap, I know. I’ve managed to hold it together for as long as I could, but the part about Cobalt did me in.”
“You’re a very sweet woman, Olivia.” He tilted his wrist, frowning. “I’m afraid our time together is nearly up.”
“That can’t be. Have we really been talking that long?” I asked, parting the curtain behind the sofa to see outside. Indeed, it would start getting light soon.
“I’m afraid so, but I don’t need to go just yet.”
“Good. I’m dying to hear the rest.”
“I’ll talk faster,” he said. “What happened next is difficult for me to articulate. My memory of that night is hazy, and I’m unable to distinguish hallucination from reality. It was Leopold who found me, though, after the sky had turned dark. He was frantic, slapping me hard across the face and shrieking for me to not be dead. I opened my eyes only to make him stop, and he demanded to know if I wanted to live.”
“What did you answer?”
“Nothing. I was too weak to speak. But I remember thinking it was a futile question, since I was so close to death.”
“So, he answered for you.”
“Yes,” Robert said. “It was the bite that brought me back to consciousness. The sensation was indescribable, both revolting and erotic. I realized, then, that Leopold was drinking from me. When he pulled away from my neck, he bit his own wrist and made me drink from the wound. I resisted, but the strength of a human is no match for that of a vampire.
“I awakened two nights later as a vampire. My tuberculosis was cured.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Though I’d developed a sudden aversion to the sun.”
“Does that mean you can’t get sick as a vampire—like with cancer and heart attacks, that sort of thing?”
“I’m technically dead, so I’m impervious to all human illnesses, though, of course, I could still lose my mind. Some vampires simply can’t cope with being alive for centuries and they go mad. I also can’t make children.”
Wow. Robert came with zero chance of STDs and built-in birth control. I liked the sound of that. “Where was Leopold when you woke up?” I asked, getting back to his story.
“He was sitting next to my bed. It took him hours to convince me that I was now immortal.”
“Where is he now?”
“England. I see him every so often.”
“When did you stop working for him?”
“I remained with Leopold for over forty years. He expanded my job duties beyond the estate, first giving me a factory in London and then my own division of his company. Since we spent so much time together and shared the same pale complexion, we began telling humans that we were related. For simplicity, and because the Sorin name opened many doors, I went by his surname for some time. Leopold and I claimed that we suffered from a rare genetic skin disorder that left us vulnerable to sunburn.
“Still, humans grew suspicious of our everlasting youth. Ultimately, Leopold and I decided that it would be safest if we separated. In 1912, I came to America.”
“And then you became Robert Bramson?”
