“It would have to be the right name,” she said.
“That’s right. You’ll have to think about it.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Me?”
“You’re good at that sort of thing,” he said. “Thinking of the future and what direction to head from here. Far better than I.”
“I don’t know about that,” she hedged.
Kendrick roared with laughter. “Genevieve, how quickly we forget how you harangued me on the poor job I was doing at the start of the month. It was a needful harangue, and a helpful one. I would be lost if you beganyes, dear-ing me now. Promise you’ll never stop chiding me when I go wrong.”
She smiled, pleased, and dropped a brief kiss on his lips. “Most men would hate that, you know. Master of their household and all that.”
“Even masters have counselors. What good are yea-sayers when the lord is wrong, and the wolves are at the door?” Kendrick sobered. “The truth is, Jenny…when thinking of the future—or just thinking of humanity in general, it feels like the world is a warmly lit room full of light and life, and I and all the rest of us vampires are outside, consigned to the dark.”
Genevieve put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “But you said that the madness had to do with the proximity to humanity. Could that be it? You interact with humans, you allow humanity’s stories to change you.”
His hand came up to cover hers, rubbing the gold ring on her finger. “Yes, that tether to humanity may decide which vampires turn their backs and walk into the outer darkness. But there’s a difference between staving off madness at the window and stepping into the room to join in concert with life.”
“I don’t know what makes the second possible, but, Jenny—you’re in the room. One of the few vampires I’ve met who’ve accomplished that task.”
Genevieve stared down at him in wordless surprise.
He smiled up at her. “I told you. I enjoy mysteries. Come to bed.”
ChapterThirty-Three
“We should have a ball,” she told Kendrick the next night.
“A ball?”
“Or at the very least, a party,” she said. “There’s nothing people like more than a party. It could be a New Year’s ball!”
Kendrick watched her carefully. “Not a Christmas ball?”
Genevieve swallowed, and a brief flash of pain crossed her face.
So, he had not been imagining things. Although she had been forging ahead with her plans and changes, his wife had grown quieter and more pensive as the month had progressed, averting her eyes from carolers on street corners and holiday shop window decorations.
Kendrick added, “Though you’re right, a New Year’s ball would signal a new start for all of us.”
She nodded. “It would be a fine thing to do—we could invite everyone, not just people of a certain set. And it would continue the Ossuary improvements—give custom to the seamstresses and tailors. I’m sure there are people with musical talents—we could find them instruments, pay them to perform.”
“That sounds grand.”
“We don’t need refreshments—of any kind,” she said darkly. “I heard about some of Rupert’s entertainments. We can make it clear that this will be different. We could even invite people who are farther away, who might not have heard your proclamations, like your friends in Ireland. We could include it in the invitations!”
Kendrick doubted Salem would come, but he acknowledged that it was possible.
After some further discussion about the ball, he asked gently, “What would you like for Christmas?”
Genevieve’s eyes flicked away from his. “This is enough. This is more than I ever hoped for.”
“This is all things you wanted for the Ossuary. What doyou, my wife, want for Christmas? It can be anything.”
“What I want I can’t have,” she finally said.
“Tell me, anyway,” he prompted.
