“There you go.” After a moment, Elspeth said, “Marriage is a contract, you know. Don’t be afraid to lay down your own terms for him as well.”
“What will he think about that?” she muttered. Think she was more of a scold than previously believed?
“Ask him and you’ll find out,” Elspeth said placidly. “He did not strike me as a man who was unreasonable.”
As the pull of the day sent lethargy through their bones, Elspeth blew out the candle and they curled up in their cloaks to sleep the day away.
The allure of sleep’s oblivion did not take Genevieve right away, however. She stared sightlessly up into the dark, fighting the pull.
Whyher? There were others better suited for the consort of the Ossuary. Like—well, not Gisela, who had tried to kill him and liked power for its own sake. Definitely not someone like Winnie, who was too young and had too many selfish impulses. Elspeth would have been an ideal candidate, with her calm and rational listening ear, but she wanted Robbie. Which was good, because the thought of Kendrick and Elspeth was enough to make Genevieve’s throat tighten with…something like envy.
Of every woman with whom he could have suggested an alliance, he had seenher.
He watches me when I don’t notice.
She pulled her cloak over her head, recalling his quip:“Not handsome enough to tempt you, am I?”
That was not the issue. Not at all.
But that’s all it is, she told herself firmly. Interest. Liking. An…attraction.He doesn’t love me. And I don’t love him! But would a marriage with common goals be enough?
A real marriage.
When contemplating a theoretical union, she had never imagined anything otherwise when she had been human. It was only after becoming a vampire, and after her body had begun to flinch without input from her conscious mind, that she had written off any such future.
If she agreed, she would have to tell him. No, untrue. Regardless of what she decided, in order to explain her reasoning, she would have to tell him. All that she remembered, at least.
But if she saidyes, she could do all that she longed to do, without asking for permission or relaying her wishes through him and depending on Kendrick to implement her ideas. She could give others hope—what she had been denied.
And she’d be married to a man who sent shivers up her arms.
Genevieve wrapped the cloak tighter around herself, her head pillowed on her father’s book about a heroine who ventured out into the wide world and gained a knight champion.
She had always wanted a hero. But heroes only lived between the pages of books, men larger than life who did what was right. Was she looking for something that did not exist?
As the inexorable pull of the sun drew her into slumber, it struck her at last what she had found so strange about their meeting in the library.
She had not flinched as he had held her and comforted her. Not once.
What terms would she ask for?
ChapterSeventeen
Kendrick, after an interruption that had required him to change his coat, had reached the imposing bank edifice just before closing and now left with a vast number of bank notes secreted about his person.
The gas streetlights illuminated the gold lettering above the door as he stepped out and merged with the foot traffic on the still-bustling street. He made his way down to Regent Street, where many goldsmiths and smelters plied their trade. He found the shop he wanted and knocked on the door.
“Is your forge banked?” he asked when the door opened.
“We’re closed.”
“Is it banked?” he repeated, narrowing his eyes.
“No,” the man said, recoiling from whatever it was he saw in Kendrick’s face.
Kendrick put bank notes in the man’s hand. “Good. I would like to buy a portion of gold from you, and I’m renting your forge for the night.”
That, plus the persuasion, was enough for the man to leave Kendrick alone with the fire and the anvil and the tools once more bank notes had changed hands for the gold and other necessary metals.
