Free Blood to Blood by Elaine Bergstrom Page A

water for him—and they settled into the slatted wooden chairs in the garden. "How is your friend Rose Lewis?" Mina asked, recalling the showgirl Arthur had been seeing.
    "Off touring the Continent, this time with the London Opera. The last note I received from her was condolences when she heard of Gance's death. She asked me to come to see her perform in Berlin, but I have no interest. I'm afraid I've become a bit of a recluse as of late."
    "I'm sorry to hear it. Are you still in mourning?"
    "If you mean are my doors draped in black, not anymore. Now I merely want to tell everyone I care about exactly what happened to all of us. I suppose it's no secret anymore, but I doubt anyone would believe it. Most would think me mad. So it's better to avoid polite company altogether."
    "I've told some people. They believed me."
    "But you're so sensible, how could they not?" He smiled as he said the last, sheepishly, as if realizing that some women might take his words as an insult. "I did take your advice, though, and finally read the journal." He paused for another large gulp of his drink before going on. "Then I read it all twice, then some sections again. I admit that I did not like it at all.
    "I can see no point in asking Van Helsing his opinion on the story since he's convinced of the justice of what we have done. As for Seward, he's far too rigid to think beyond black and white. And Jonathan's response would be colored by what happened to you.
    "That leaves only you, and your opinion is the one I value above all others. Tell me, did we do the right thing in killing Lucy?"
    She had to force herself to look at him while she considered how to say the truth as gently as possible. "I can only say what I believe, and that is that given everything we knew and everything that happened, we did what we thought best."
    He stood and came to her, towering over her. "You didn't answer me," he said.
    "It was all we could do," she went on.
    "I could have followed my instincts. I could have loved her, as she asked. Then she would have come to me—"
    "And killed you in the end, or changed you into what she had become. Could you have resisted that constant desire to do the same to strangers, especially if you hunted with the one you loved beside you?"
    She diffused his anger with that, but with it gone, there was little else. He sat beside her and, as he had at the reading of Gance's will, took her hand. "I know it's insane, but I would give my fortune to spend an hour or two with one of those creatures and see for myself what they are like."
    Evil, she thought, but knew it wasn't true—not of Karina, probably not Joanna, either, though from everything she knew about that one no one could be sure.
    He looked down the hill at the river, now a dark ribbon in the dim light of the stars. "My friend Beardsley says that Death is an entity, hovering close and watching us all. That's how I feel about Lucy sometimes, like she is on the edge of sight, watching and reproaching me for what I thought I must do."
    Dracula had been an entity at the end, Mina thought. Incorporeal. Waiting. And Lucy? No, she decided, Lucy could never have done the same. She never had the power. And Gance?
    The shadows suddenly seemed too close, too alive. "It's getting chilly out here. We should go inside," she suggested.
    He sat in one of the wicker chairs in the solarium, watching her intently as she moved through the room, lighting lamps and candles, filling the space with soft, dancing light. She was a beautiful woman, with that mane of bright chestnut hair and those arresting dark eyes. Was she the real reason he came here?
    "I don't want to pry, but I am curious. What's happened with you and Jonathan?" he asked.
    The candle she was holding to light another lamp flickered for a moment as her hand trembled. "He won't find the time to discuss anything. I think that even the thought that there might be a scandal unnerves him."
    "Brave women invite scandal."
    Mina turned to