Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,48

glared at his reflection in the antique mirror over the telephone table, "you tell me why I trusted her. Circumstance?" He shook his head. "No. Circumstance said I should have disposed of her. A much neater solution with much less risk. Try again. She reminded you of someone? If you live long enough, and you will, everyone will remind you of someone."

Turning away from the mirror, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He could deny it all he wanted but she did remind him of someone, not in form perhaps but in manner.

Ginevra Treschi had been the first mortal he had trusted after the change. There had been others with whom he had played at trust but in her arms he was himself, not needing to be anything more. Or less.

When he found he could not live in Elizabeth's England-it was both too like and too unlike the England he had known-he had moved south, to Italy and finally to Venice. Venice had much to offer one of his kind for the ancient city came alive at night and in its shadows he could feed as he chose.

It had been carnival, he remembered, and Ginevra had been standing by San Marco, at the edge of the square, watching the crowd surging back and forth before her like a living kaleidoscope. She'd seemed so very real amidst all the posturing that he'd moved closer. When she left, he followed her back to her father's house then spent the rest of the night discovering her name and situation.

"Ginevra Treschi." Even three hundred years and many mortals later it still sounded in his mouth like a benediction.

The next night, while the servants slept and the house was quiet and dark, he'd slipped into her room. Her heartbeat had drawn him to the bed and he'd gently pulled the covers back. Almost thirty and three years a widow, she wasn't beautiful, but she was so alive-even asleep- that he'd found himself staring. Only to find, a few moments later, that she was staring back at him.

"I don't wish to hurry your decision," she'd said dryly. "But I'm getting chilled and I'd like to know if I should scream."

He'd intended to convince her he was only a dream but he found he couldn't.

They had almost a year of nights together.

"A convent?" Henry raised himself up on one elbow, disentangling a long strand of ebony hair from around the back of his neck. "If you'll forgive me saying so, bella, I don't think you'd enjoy convent life."

"I'm not making a joke, Enrico. I go with the Benedictine Sisters tomorrow after early Mass."

For a moment, Henry couldn't speak. The thought of his Ginevra locked away from the world struck him as close to a physical blow. "Why?" he managed at last.

She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I had a choice, the Sisters or Giuseppe Lemmo." Her lips pursed as though she tasted something sour. "The convent seemed the better course."

"But why choose at all?"

She smiled and shook her head. "In your years out of the world you have forgotten a few things, my love. My father wishes me for Signore Lemmo, but he will graciously allow me to go to God if only to get his overly educated daughter out of his house." Her voice grew serious and she stroked a finger down the length of Henry's bare chest. "He fears the Inquisition, Enrico. Fears that I will bring the Papal Hounds down upon the family." Her lips twisted. "Or that he will be forced to denounce me."

Henry stared at her in astonishment. "The Inquisition? But you've done nothing... "

Both her eyebrows rose. "I am lying with you and for some, even not knowing what you are, that would be enough. If they knew that I willingly give myself to an Angel of Darkness ..." She turned her wrist so that the small puncture wound became visible. "... burning would be too good for me." A finger laid against his lips stopped him when he tried to speak. "Yes, yes, no one knows but I am also a woman who dares to use her mind and that is enough for these times. If my husband had died and left me rich or if I had borne a son to carry on his name... " Her shoulder's lifted and fell. "Unfortunately ..."

He caught up her hand. "You have another choice."

"No." She sighed. The breath quavered as she released it. "I have thought