RemissionChapter Ten
Paris...*
Alain paced angrily, forward and back, forward and back, across the dark brown rug in his quarters. The torn envelope and crumpled note strewn across his small writing-table glared evilly at his chagrin as the steward stalked about the length of the room.
“*Will be home later. Have stopped with Madame at Beauchamps to rest and visit. Continue packing. –A des L. *”
Angelus’s brief instructions had terminated Alain’s hopeful victory over the vampire. Obviously, Angelus had managed to recapture Ramadevi and meant to take her home with him.
Everything had been going so well. Alain had scarcely had to do anything to interfere with Angelus’s torment of the Eastern girl. He had only done his best to pay attention and record any details he could find to send home and he went out of his way to make it clear to the girl that she was unwelcome to him. One thing Alain had discovered in his time was that a servant’s dislike could be a potent tool in manipulating one’s master or mistress. Regardless of where the authority actually landed, very few individuals could bear the scorn of their own servants. Between his subtle conveyance of frigid contempt and Angelus’s cruelty, Ramadevi was more than willing to leave given opportunity.
For a while, however, things had been pretty grim. Angelus was changing, softening towards his beautiful ward. And her attraction grew, as it must, the more he drank and toyed with her. It seemed very likely that he would seal and bond with her completely. Old familiar rage boiled Alain’s blood.
The very idea of this creature, this monster, being entitled to any sort of satisfaction or peace! *Much less the additional power that coupling with a Deva was certain to bring him in time...*
He reflected pityingly upon Ramadevi. Alain personally had nothing against the girl. If circumstances were different he would have been honoured and delighted to know her. The race of Devi were rare–some of the top authorities even speculated that they were a dying breed, their precious abilities being absorbed into human bloodlines until they no longer existed. Alain found the Hindi girl fascinating. Some of her powers did indeed manifest themselves, although it was difficult to know for certain if Ramadevi herself was in control of them.
Angelus had been gone for the better part of two weeks seeking his escaped prize and each day had been cautious triumph to Alain. In his heart the steward had rooted for Ramadevi finding her freedom and fleeing the decadence and perversion of the vampire world. Now that triumph was a bitter mouthful of ashes and water. Alain shook his head at his own frailty and stupidity. He was allowing his humanity to blind him. He had not sought to actually harm the girl because she was an innocent, it was not her fault her precious body and her blood were choice prizes to a demon. It had thrilled him when she found the courage to flee–*how many had ever gotten away from Angelus when he chose to keep or kill them?*
The time for moral inhibition was over. Angelus would never willingly part with her and it was unlikely any new opportunities would arise to wrest Ramadevi out of his clutches. The vampire would be desperate, would possibly keep her under lock and key.
Was it already too late? Once bound to Angelus, Ramadevi could not die unless he died. And Angelus was not allowed to die, no matter how many he tormented, tortured, murdered and debauched. He had a destiny and, according the Council Elder’s pipe-dream prophecy interpretations, one day Angelus would be a hero.
*Impossible!*
There was only one way to take the Hindi demigoddess away from Angelus now, and Alain knew it. Treachery. Murder.
The steward dragged the chair out from under his desk and sat down. He pulled fresh paper and writing materials from the shallow drawer beneath the desk and began to write his weekly report to the Watcher’s Council.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Beauchamps* in the French Countryside...
Angelus rushed through the thickly fleshed forests beyond Charles’s handsome manor. It was blue twilight, but the dense foliage of the trees offered him shelter from the last touch of the setting sun. The vampire had left his borrowed gelding and gun tethered near a sweet patch of clover in the very entry of the woods. He could have hunted his dinner on horseback but it would have probably taken much longer.
He did better on foot, alone.
His chosen meal, a healthy middle-aged buck, streaked some distance ahead of him, as desperately as it fled any other predator. He was fat and firm, would provide a nice supper to the household once Angelus had enjoyed his share.
Charles forbade his feeding on humans and Angelus did not want to feed on Ramadevi until she was completely healed from the hard spanking he’d given her at Launaye. Her bottom was nearly healed of the bruises, but she was still tender from it. So stag’s-blood was his supper tonight
Ligeia was outraged at what he’d done. Angelus cursed that damn Sight she’d been born with. She’d taken one look at Rama walking daintily besides Angelus as Charles helped her out of the hired carriage and had barely managed to hold her peace long enough to greet them civilly and have the exhausted young woman put in a comfortable bedroom before she’d told Angelus just what she thought.
*”Angelus,” Ligeia had said in her usual pleasant tone. The vampire had flashed her a polite smile. “If you hurt her again, I will kill you.”
The shift of Angelus’s features had been incredibly complex, as were all creatures with even a drop of human blood in them. Shocked outrage, defensive anger, and the demonic features gliding beneath his mortal skin, undecided whether or not to manifest.
“I’ll thank you to mind your business, Madame,” he’d replied stiffly.
“Don’t thank me. Listen to me and believe. If you hurt her again, I will do everything in my power to help her get away from you and I will kill you the moment you interfere.” Her words had been loaded and they’d both known it. After all, Angelus would never willingly surrender his claim to Ramadevi.
Brief laughter sputtered on his lips and Angelus had retorted haughtily. “Charles is far too lenient with you or he deliberately keeps you stupid. You ought to know perfectly well the old clan laws forbid any vampire from injuring Red Gold.” His lips had twisted into that hateful little smirk.
She’d snorted calmly and her eyes narrowed only slightly. “I’m perfectly aware of it. Clan laws do not interest me.” Her warm grey eyes met his. “I am my own law, Angelus, I was never born into your clan. Anyhow, there is no law forbidding Red Gold to destroy vampires who offend them.” She’d spoken coldly. Triumph had followed with the distinct unease in Angelus’s hard eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, woman!” he had hissed. “An’ just what is it, you think you can do?”
Ligeia had smiled patiently, as though Angelus was a confused person asking for directions to reach a well-known location, and gestured him towards the door that led out to the kitchen...*
It had been a long time since Angelus had hunted an animal and he was surprised by his own excitement at the prospect. He had preyed upon humans for years and they were shockingly easy to subdue. He’d hunted animals if he was truly desperate and truly hungry but it’d been a long time since he’d been desperate. They made vastly superior prey. They had a natural instinct to sense death coming for them and usually they had better fleeing methods. They were much harder to entice or seduce into a vampire’s embrace. Humans were appallingly easy in comparison.
Angelus wondered, not for the first time, about the basic human death wish. Oh, the physical body fought impending death and struggled to survive, but all in all Angelus had rarely had to force his human victims into his arms. They struggled at the end, of course, because they did not want to die. But before that moment when he pinned and embraced them, they tolerated him, even welcomed him in their midst. Gentlemen shook hands with him, women smiled at him and brought their daughters forward to be introduced.
Ramadevi hadn’t, though. The young beauty had always shrunk away from his gaze when he had sought her out backstage. She hadn’t wanted his attention or his gifts. Angelus smirked, recalling her stubborn little fits of temper, tearing the slaves’ bracelets off as soon as her show was over on stage, never caring that Angelus watched her and wasn’t pleased.
Once, he’d loved the bracelets on her hands because they showed his dominance, his possession of her, showed the proud young girl that she could be brought to heel and made to obey if not by brute force then some other form of subtle persuasion. The scent of her when he’d first slaked his thirst for her! Fear, grief, delicious crystal tears on her baby’s-skin complexion. Muscular slender little body pushing and thrusting up almost in a parody of sex to move him.
But that first draught was nothing compared to now when she wrapped her silken arms around his neck and lifted her head back, baring her throat willingly, her fingers ruffling his hair.
Angelus felt his running stride lengthening, adjusting instinctively to the soft variances in the ground, it’s texture and obstructions. The stag had grown desperate and was pulling all its reserves of speed to escape the implacable predator on its trail. Angelus himself was just warming up.
*“And the tugging at your chest, *enfant,* how is it feeling?” Ligeia calmly asked Edouard, as she gave him a bowl of creamy milk covered with nutmeg. The boy straightened the bowl carefully to keep from spilling it.
“I don’t hardly feel it much anymore,” he answered.
“And your cough?”
“Mostly better. *Maman* says to pay it no mind, that sometimes consumptives get better for a wild but then...” The boy’s voice trailed away. He was too young to have even really lived, the concept of death wasn’t frightening to him because he couldn’t conceive of its permanence yet.
“*Oui, Maman* is right. But, sometimes, doctors are mistaken about illness,” she explained casually. “Especially children’s illness. Sometimes they think a bad cold is consumption when it is not. Some children are very ill when they are young, but they grow up into strong healthy men and no one would imagine they had ever been sick.” She smiled charmingly into the boy’s blue eyes and took the crockery bowl away when he finished the milk. “The medicine we use is helping, yes?” Edouard smiled shyly and nodded. “Now, run along and get a good night’s rest, tell your mother I need your help in the gardens tomorrow. Ask Guilbeau to help light you.”
Angelus watched boredly as Ligeia kissed the top of Edouard’s head and the overgrown urchin hopped from his stool and sprinted away through the back entrance of the kitchen. Ligeia turned to place the bowl in a basin of dishes that needed washing.
“While I find your comforter of the dying role quite maudlin and boring, Ligeia, I still don’t understand your threats.” Angelus had recovered some of his cockiness.
“I’m not comforting the dying,” Ligeia declared calmly. “I’m curing the dying.” Her eyes remained locked to his face when Angelus giggled and made a few tsk-ing noises.
“I hate to spoil your illusions, but that brat will be dead in a year.” Angelus smirked with the usual pleasure he felt to say something hurtful to another human being. “He reeks of consumption.”
Ligeia sighed at Angelus’s narrow vision. “Two weeks ago, he was near dead from the disease. I have the power to make his body heal itself and expel the illness.” She said it quietly, without grandeur. “I expect him to fully recover and live a natural life.”
Angelus’s brows had risen though he kept his best poker expression. He did not doubt Ligeia, he could not doubt her when he had seen the evidence of Ramadevi’s power on the lands she’d crossed towards Spain. A frugal harvest had been saved only because of her interference with the weather. And her “poultice” had cured the old Baron’s lifelong injury. If Ramadevi could accomplish these impressive tasks, there was no telling what Ligeia herself was able to do after over a century beside her bonded mate.
Ligeia watched the knowledge sink into Angelus while she idly ran her fingertip over the edge of the dish basin. “Red Gold brings power, Angelus,” she said to reinforce his doubt. “Both to the keeper and the vessel.” Her body seemed to stiffen up, and Angelus could have sworn the woman was taller than she was a moment before. “I do not actually know the entire extent of what I can do,” she said softly, enunciating each word crisply, “But I do wonder–since I can heal illness and take away pain, is it too strange to think I might also cause them? Imagine, a vampire with consumption growing within him for eternity.” Her eyes had darkened, they were nearly blue, and her calm voice hardened with threat...*
Twigs snapped and crackled under his booted feet and branches brushed his sides and hair. Occasionally a branch scraped his swinging arms but he never slackened his pace. He was hungry, hungrier than he’d been in a long time. He wanted blood. He would drink his feel and bring the carcass home to Ligeia’s kitchen so they would have fresh venison for dinner and Ramadevi would have venison steak with her breakfast. Angelus would rise before her and cook it himself.The vampire felt a primitive rush of savage joy swell within him. A predator’s wish to prove himself, to provide for his mate. He bought only the very best for Ramadevi. Silks and fine linen for her clothes in warmer months, and lush velvets, Indian wool, and soft furs for the cooler part of the year. All the feathers and ribbons and frou-frou nonsense women seemed to be addicted to. The best kid gloves and shoes. The pick of the fisherman’s catch and the choicest cuts from the butcher for her meals, fresh milk and vegetables.
And honey...The housekeeper never forgot to order fresh pots of it. Angelus imagined the Eastern beauty smearing a generous spoonful of sticky sweetness on her bread in the morning, her pearly teeth sinking into the tenderness and her eyes closing in delight.
Yes, he gave her the very best. But there was a primal thrill in chasing down a live creature and killing it, to bring her food he’d kill and prepared himself.
Angelus snarled. He’d been too absorbed with his thoughts and lost track as the stag changed direction and rushed through a shallow brook. He turned eastward, and made a flying leap to clear an ancient rotten tree and raced in an alternate path. This was a gamble, to try and circle the stag’s path and catch up with it, but Angelus loved a good risk.
*Angelus snorted scornfully. “You know diseases don’t affect us,” he replied.
Ligeia nodded. “You’re right. Naturally occurring ailments do not afflict your kind.” She dipped her head sideways, glancing towards the far doors. Angelus could hear Charles chatting with a groom as they brought the horses round. “But what if I chose to afflict you? Who knows what might happen?”
The demon exploded out of Angelus and he snarled through his fangs at his elegant hostess. In his brain he felt the pulses of very real fear. The mythology of Red Gold was shrouded in obscurity. No one seemed to know, for certain, where and how the human carriers had come into being–some scholars even theorised that they were another demonic throwback, related to the same demons who sired the human vampire race. Their blood enhanced a vampire’s personal power and strength and they, in turn, grew stronger through the bonding as well. Angelus already knew from experience that the taste for Ramadevi’s blood calmed his hunger. He rarely chose to feed on another besides her and when he did the flavor of the host was chaff.
“And what’ll Charles think of you then?” he sneered. “His darling, his saviour–a wanton killer.”
“Maybe I’m willing to take that risk, Angelus, because I love and trust Charles.” The steel in her manner was honed to a sharpened blade. “Charles loves and trusts me in turn. Do you know, the old sage records say that a bonded pair eventually lose the ability to remain truly separate from each other? They become extensions of each other, like two halves of one being.” She smiled grimly at Angelus’s sharp look of inquiry and gave a little shake of her head. “Charles and I are not yet to that point if it exists. But he believes in me absolutely and I am positive I could convince him your death was absolutely necessary.”
“What is it you want?” Angelus asked impatiently.
“I want you to take Ramadevi as your true consort or I want you to release her so she can bond with another.” She completely ignored the outraged plum flush creeping into Angelus’s skin.
Angelus roared and his full demonic visage emerged. “Anyone who comes between us will die a *very ugly death!*” he swore through his fangs.
“You disgust me, Angelus,” Ligeia declared as she strode out of the kitchen back towards the house without a backward glance. “Your indifference to humanity at large. You were once human yourself before you were changed! Is it your own connection to humanity that drives such hatred in you you can only treat mortals with contempt and cruelty?” She never even looked back to see if he followed her.
Angelus stared at her stiff back and proud upright head. His friend’s consort didn’t fear him enough to even keep her eyes on him when she had offended him.
“If you were any other woman I’d–” he began angrily.
“Horsefeathers!” Now she stopped so abruptly Angelus nearly plowed right into her and had to step backwards to keep from knocking her down. Her skirts swished, standing away from her tall slender form as she snapped around to face him. “Don’t talk that way to me! I’m not any other woman and I don’t care what you’d do! I’m a power in my right and my blood is invaluable to your precious clan. I’m quite above you, Angelus, in ways you are probably too backward and beastly to ever understand!” Her steely eyes narrowed dangerously. “If I take it into my mind to kill you, no one will object even if they know I’m your killer!” She stomped her dainty slippered foot on the worn dirt path. “Ramadevi is too valuable to be despoiled and hurt until she no longer wants to live! I can’t believe you, a near- century old, cannot see that! Bloodsmates are eternal, Angelus, once the bond is made it is unbreakable.”
“I know that,” he growled.
“Will you make her your thing, your underling, your creature for eternity? Is that how you want to live?” She turned her head to one side and gazed searchingly at him. “You’ve kept her since she was little more than a child, does that mean nothing to you?” Her tone grew more gentle and she sounded truly curious to know. “Have you watched her grow up, have you tasted her all this time and still feel nothing?”
Instantly the hellish glow in his eyes melted away into dark coffee brown. The ridged bonier definition of the demon wavered and smoothed itself away into Angelus’s handsome human face. He didn’t speak, only stared at her without malice or anger. Ligeia’s eyes widened at the surge of vulnerability she saw, fear of humanity and human weakness even as the demon craved it, craved acceptance and the warmth of a woman’s willing arms.
“Do you love her?” she asked quietly.
“Angelus! Ligeia!” Charles was heading towards them. Probably wondering why they dawdled.
“Yes.” It felt wonderful to finally admit the truth to another person. Angelus was shocked by the delicious relief of confessing it aloud.
Albeit he confessed in such a soft whisper Ligeia did not hear him as she turned away to smile and reassure her husband that all was well...*
Perhaps it was just as well Ligeia had been distracted, Angelus mused. Her casual discussion of her abilities left him feeling cautious. Ligeia had always been charmingly polite towards him, Angelus, although he had sensed she didn’t like him much. But her threats, spoken as pleasantly and civilly as anything she had ever said to him, were disquieting to say the least. Angelus had thought that he and Ramadevi might remain a while at Beauchamps. Ramadevi had always liked Charles and Ligeia and Angelus had thought it might be best to let her have the comfort of spending a peaceful fortnight with friends before returning to the home she’d tried to abandon.
Before they were alone together again.
Now, though, Angelus decided it would better for them to move on quickly. He would have to court and seduce Egypt on his own terms. He could do it, he could seduce any woman, make any woman want him.
But he wanted this woman to want him and love him.
The stag approach the brook tiredly, its flanks heaving and forelegs quivering a bit. His lustrous dark eyes rolled and showed the whites. The sun had truly set and only the barest traces of moonlight reflecting the deep purplish-blue velvet of the evening sky into the gurgling brook. The animal was tired, even near exhaustion, and frightened out of its wits. It had never seen a predator like Angelus in its time. Men hunted, yes, but on horseback, with guns and dogs. They did not run wild through brush and branches at incredible speed–every forest child knew man was generally slow and clumsy! The creature knew not what to make of it.
Instinct warned him the threat was not over, though the stag no longer saw or heard his pursuer’s swift footsteps. He had no choice but to drink, froth formed on his slender muzzle and his tongue lolled drily out of one side of his mouth. The stag approached the rushing water hesitantly, hooves dancing skittishly on the grassy bank, then sinking slightly into the softer mud.
The stag glanced about nervously, truly miserable in its desperation. It was painfully thirsty yet too afraid to lower his head and drink. His large ears prickled and flicked and he shook his antlered head impatiently. His breath came in swift little pants and wheezes.
He’d turned his head almost completely round to the right and Angelus dropped easily, almost carelessly, out of the stout evergreen where he’d been waiting, to the large animal’s left side and seized his thick throat covered in short satiny fur. The stag reared back with a huffing sound, and tried to kick as Angelus dug his taloned fingers in to secure a better hold on his violently thrashing prey. His talons cut the stag and the aroma of warm fresh living blood screamed to Angelus’s hunger.
He hadn’t fed since finding Rama and then he’d only allowed himself a taste for the pleasure of it, not really to feed. He’d had no appetite without his woman, his bloodsmate.
Angelus hissed as the stag landed a lucky kick against his leg, the sharp-edged hoof cutting a deep scratch into his boot. The vampire dug his nails even harder into the stag, and sank his fangs into the thickness of the beast’s neck. Angelus smelled fur and evergreens, crisp cool water, rich soil. The stag quivered and made rasping noises of fright and pain as his life’s blood was drained away by the dangerous man-creature he’d never seen before. Finally, the blood-warm body jerked a few times and went limp in Angelus’s arms.
Angelus licked his lips, savoring the pleasure of this killing for a moment, then he raised the carcass easily over his shoulder, and headed back the way he’d come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ramadevi closed her eyes and smiled softly. A silky thrill of pleasure welled in her heart as her fingers sailed over the black and white keys of Ligeia’s pianoforte. She’d missed playing the elegant instrument, missed the harmonious river of music her skilled fingers produced. Ramadevi could not bring herself to sing, she silently luxuriated in the music alone until her heart was full and her mind spun.
In the past, Angelus had sometimes casually commented that music fed the soul. He had lain peacefully beneath the pianoforte, his strong powerful body relaxed on the floor, dark eyes shut in ecstasy as though he somehow absorbed the music directly from its source as Ramadevi created it with her hands and imagination.
*Can he truly have no soul? No real love of anything when he enjoys such a heavenly sound?* Her throat prickled and tears burned her eyes. *Can he not love me?* It felt strange and lonely to play without him near her, watching her and listening.
Unbidden, her memories flew back to an earlier day in autumn.
*”Rama, my pet, take off your corset.” He stood behind her stool, his large hands positioned on her abdomen, fingers splayed along her ribs, his squared chin brushing the top of her head. “Let me feel you breathe while you play...”*
Ramadevi sat very still, her curved fingers resting upon the polished wooden edge of the pianoforte. She gazed fixedly at the ornately carved edges of the instrument as it grew liquidly blurred through a fine film of tears. *I want to love him, I don’t care if it’s forbidden. And I want him to love me.* She drew a small lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket and blotted her eyes with it.
“Your playing only grows more beautiful, Ramey, you have a true gift for it.” Charles spoke quietly from his easy chair.
She glanced back to the kindly smiling Scotsman. “Monsieur de Moncrieff. Thank you.”
“It was Mozart, was it not?” He rose from his seat in a movement too smooth and graceful for a human of his size and bone structure.
Ramadevi nodded. “One of Angelus’s favourites.” She watched Charles stroll across the room, his boots tapping the floor in a neat rhythm. He opened up a small tea caddy elegantly trimmed with enamel and brass fittings in a far corner of the large music room and helped himself to a crisp red apple while he held another out to her in silent offering.
“You sure?” he asked when she shook her head. He sat back down at his chair and began paring the glossy red fruit into slivers. “These are first-rate and pretty fresh. From Angelus’s own orchards at Brynn Kaighan.”
“No, thank you.” She smiled at the vampire’s endorsement of the fresh fruit. Charles shrugged at her polite reply and popped two wedges of the crisp fruit into his mouth at the same time. A small sound of satisfaction breathed out of him as he began to chew. There was something very peculiar about watching a vampire eat apples with such gusto, Ramadevi thought. Angelus seemed to prefer meat more than anything if he chose to eat at all, and a few vegetables. Turning her attention back to the pianoforte, she began toying the keys into a simple melody.
“Apples. And Mozart,” Charles chuckled. “She loved ‘em both.” He gestured with a tilt of his head towards a water tinted portrait of an eighteenth-century young lady. “Was quite an accomplished musician herself. Played the harp like an angel.” He popped another slice of apple into his mouth.
Ramadevi glanced curiously at the portrait. Not exactly a classical beauty, but a striking, interesting face with a high, intelligent forehead, a slender aquiline nose, and a prominently full lower lip. Her hair–it was probably very fair naturally despite the thick powder covering it–was worked up into an excessively high upsweep decorated with small bows and flowers, a tail of perfectly curled ringlets draped over one shoulder.
“Marie Antoinette?” Ramadevi guessed.
“Not yet.” Charles smiled at the young woman’s confused frown. “When Geia sketched this likeness she was only the Archduchess Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna la-la-la of Austria. Negotiations for her marriage to the French Dauphin were not resolved.”
Ramadevi met Charles’s twinkling blue eyes eagerly. She loved hearing about the bits of history the vampire had witnessed. “What were you and Ligeia doing in Austria?” she asked.“Seeking music and culture. Seeking change.” Charles shrugged and made a vague hand gesture. Ramadevi nodded her understanding.
“It must be boring to stay in the same place for decades at a time,” she guessed.
Charles nodded. That was part of it, anyhow. It could get boring and dangerous, but it was also extremely depressing to linger too long at one home while the surrounding human elements changed, sometimes not for the better.
“We accompanied her on her way to France,” Charles recalled. “We were with her until the *remise.* The remission,” he clarified when Ramadevi’s prettily curving eyebrows swooped into a frown. “The official ceremony handing the girl over to the French Crown.
“We travelled with her, usually in our own coach, though she sometimes invited us to share hers–quite a pretty trap, gift from Louis XV. The horse probably had to pull an extra thirty pounds of weight just from the gold scroll work and designs on it.” Charles laughed at the memory. “We had to change horses often.”
“What was *she* like?” Ramadevi persisted. “Marie Antoinette?” Her quick mind burned with curiosity. The controversy and legend surrounding the last Queen of France had painted her in exaggerated extremes no sensible would ever have accepted.
“She was just a young girl, only fourteen years old, sweet-tempered, not awfully bright but gentle and kind. At times she was overjoyed and exuberant, very hopeful about her future–she was destined to be Queen of France after all! Other times she was quiet and despondent. She missed her mother and some of her sisters, her older brother who’d become something of a father figure to her when their own father had died. She dreaded the formality of the *remise* when we finally reached French soil. According to custom, the ceremony was necessary to declare that the Archduchess was no longer Austrian, but a French subject, the property of her husband’s family.” Charles’s mouth lengthened into a smile as Ramadevi’s frown deepened. Better a curious frown than tears in those pretty eyes!
“As the new Dauphine and daughter-in-law of Louis XV, it was completely against policy and protocol for Marie Antoinette to own any property belonging to a foreign court,” Charles continued. “Her mother, the Holy Roman Empress, had sent her with a huge retinue of attendants and courtiers as well as her personal guards. She’d spent a king’s ransom on an extravagant trousseau for the bride as well as sending a variety of gifts for the Dauphine’s new life and station.” Charles paused for just a moment and his clear eyes darkened a bit. “Every last bit of it was taken away.”
The Hindi girl’s eyes widened impossibly and she gasped unbelievingly. A royal bride was always sent with a large dowry and suitable gifts for her new position as well as her personal property, separate from her dowry. Slaves, jewelry, money, fabric, furniture, possessions that the bride specifically owned and her husband was not entitled to.
“Her servants were permitted to attend her up until the very day of the *remise.* Then they were all dismissed and sent back to Austria along with her companions and attendants. Not one single person was permitted to accompany her further into her new life. Not even her puppy, Mops. That broke her heart! The Austrian ambassador had been negotiating for permission for Mops to accompany her but an agreement was never reached.”
“Not even her pet? Awful!” Ramadevi exclaimed.
“All her property was confiscated as well. Her gowns, jewelry, all personal possessions–anything she owned. All of it was either given away or sent back to Austria. Her fantastic trousseau was given to her new French attendants.” Charles raised his eyebrows at Ramadevi’s outraged intake of breath. “At last, Marie herself was to be stripped. Completely undressed.” Now Ramadevi had no breath left to gasp, she only stared at Charles as he continued to explain. “The chore was divided so that neither country was slighted, although I don’t think the young girl’s modesty was taken into account. Her Austrian ladies took off all her clothes, even her lingerie and stockings, and her new French ladies–perfect strangers she’d never met before–dressed her in new clothes from France.”
Ramadevi watched, her face a study of outraged incredulity, as Charles pursed his lips and glanced sideways into the wide Venetian mirror that covered almost the entire wall on the opposite of the room. His gaze was disgusted and regretful as he recalled the entire incident of the young princess subjected to such traumatic immodesty for the sake of preserving the ego of a country, bearing it with white-faced dignity until, at long last, she found a quiet corner to mourn her lost childhood and citizenship.
It was the most appalling story Ramadevi had ever heard. A princess stripped of all her possessions and property, herded away from all she held dear? *Monstrous!* she thought. No Indian woman was ever so debased, reduced to a friendless pauper, a slave, and given to a husband. Only slaves were stripped and not permitted to own anything when they were awarded as prizes or sold to a new owner.
*No wonder Angelus saw no wrong in taking me the way he did. If the very government in Europe allows legal enslavement of a royal bride...* Ramadevi looked down at the pianoforte so that Charles would not see her eyes flicker while her mind worked.
“She must have been terribly unhappy,” she finally said.
“At first she was,” Charles agreed. “It was hard for her to start all over in a new country. But she was a charming young person with a pleasing demeanor. She made new friends quickly, even with the King’s own sisters who’d been determined to hate her because she was Austrian.” Charles chose his words carefully. “Eventually, when she accepted her situation, she and her husband were truly happy for a time, until the political upheavals began.” Charles smiled and nodded at Ramadevi’s startled look. “The remission was cruel, the point of it was to take away Marie Antoinette’s nationality and remake her into the Dauphine of France. It wasn’t until she willingly accepted her new place that she became French.”
“But the common people hated her and blamed her for every problem the government had.”
“They never knew her,” Charles said flatly.
For a long time the two friends sat in companionable silence marred only by the occasional sound of chewing as Charles went to work on the second apple and Ramadevi toyed with odd keys on the pianoforte.
His message was not lost to Ramadevi. Her heart dipped into her stomach as she realised. *I don’t really want Angelus to be different. I like him–love him–as he is. I can’t go home. I don’t want to leave. We can stay at this constant stalemate for years to come. Or I can move on with him instead of away from him...*
“What happened to the dog?” She heard herself ask lightly. “Marie Antoinette’s puppy? Did someone take care of him?”
“Oh! Ligeia did, certainly!” The blonde vampire chuckled at the memory. “We weren’t permitted to travel on with Marie Antoinette’s retinue after the remission, but we continued onward to France and were reunited at Versailles. And I–ahem!–persuaded Count d’Argenteau, the Austrian Ambassador, to lobby and negotiate for Mops’s return to his rightful mistress. The Dauphine got him back.”
Ramadevi felt the smile strain at her full lips and laughter bubbled in her throat. Somehow it seemed very wrong to smile at the picture of the massive Viking-esque Scotsman “convincing” d’Argenteau that it was not beneath his dignity to make diplomatic overtures on behalf of the Dauphine’s puppy. Charles met her expression with frankly shameless amusement dancing in his eyes.
Hoofbeats cantered around the side of the house.
“That’d be Angelus. He’s filling my larder.” Charles smiled kindly as Ramadevi rose from the pianoforte with unseemly haste. Her sweet eyes widened and her dewy cheeks flushed in anticipation of seeing Angelus as she began to murmur a hasty excuse. “His bathwater’s drawn upstairs,” Charles advised her. “Hunting’s a messy business and cleaning the kill’s even messier.” *He might not like you seeing him clean a carcass.*
Ramadevi nodded at his unspoken warning, her blush deepening, but she answered steadily.
“Then I’ll wait for him upstairs.” With a quick nod, she gathered her skirts in one hand so they wouldn’t hamper her as she rushed shyly away.