was with her, although going by the regular deliveries from Chanel, Dior, and Hermès, the arrangement certainly suited her closet.
Her suite was the one next to Boone’s blood mahmen’s. And if she ever was called unto the Fade? Boone was willing to bet one of the two sets of rooms would be cleaned out, redecorated, and given to someone else of female persuasion. It was rather like throwing out dead batteries and replacing them with new ones, as if some part of this mansion, this life of his father’s, required the component of a shellan to be automated—and thank God you could get one quick on Amazon Prime when the old one ran out of juice.
As Boone thought of what was waiting for him downstairs, he decided he shouldn’t be too hasty to judge.
On that note, his sire’s suite was next in line.
Boone had never been allowed in there, so he couldn’t comment on the decor one way or the other. But he would bet two-thirds of his liver and one whole kidney that nothing was out of order, and most of it was navy blue.
Altamere had probably come out of the womb in a navy blue sport coat, gray flannels, and a club tie.
As Boone continued on and hit the curving staircase, the subtle creaking under the plush red runner was so familiar, he could not imagine what it would be like to live anywhere else. His home—his father’s home—had never been a place of joy, but as with an insidious expertise in all things considered to be “in good taste,” as well as his relentless need to do the right thing, such constrictors were all he knew and thus a dispositive part of who he was.
Unchosen, but undeniable.
Rather like this arranged mating he found himself in.
Bottoming out on the first floor, he went over to the sitting room on the right. Where the female awaited him behind closed doors.
“Is there something with which I may assist you.”
Boone halted. The words were, assuming one translated them properly, a question. The attitude and tone were an accusation.
He pivoted around. Marquist, the household’s butler, was not a doggen, but rather a civilian vampire. Other than that non-typical, the male fit the bill of head servant of a grand estate to a T: Formally dressed in a uniform right out of Buckingham Palace, he had lacquered-back gray hair, suspicious eyes, and an upper lip so stiff you could get a paper cut from it every time he opened his mouth.
The guy also had an uncanny ability to show up where you didn’t want him.
Boone checked the knot of his tie with his fingertips. “I am receiving a visitor.”
“Yes. I was the one who let her in and summoned you.”
Boone continued to meet the stare coming back at him. “And?”
“Your father is not here.”
“I am aware of that.”
“You will be alone with her, then.”
“We are in a receiving parlor with security cameras. I am very sure that you will be monitoring their feeds. We are hardly by ourselves.”
“I am going to call your father.”
“You always do.”
Boone turned his back on the male and meant to enter the parlor. But as his hands gripped the brass handles, he could not move. Meanwhile, there was a huffing sound behind him, and then Marquist snob’d off, the hard soles of those polished shoes clipping like curses as he retreated to his lair of polish cloths, table settings, and tight-assed glowering.
Boone’s hesitation hadn’t been about the butler, but the fact that it had gotten Marquist to leave was a bonus.
“Shit,” he whispered.
His body refused to move, and it was a toss-up as to why. There was a lot to choose from. In the end, he closed his eyes to take a deep breath, and that was what did it. As with knotting the tie, provided he couldn’t see, he was good to go.
As he opened the double doors, his lids flipped up.
The female was standing at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced out the front of the manse, her back to him, the fall of raspberry damask drapery setting off her blond hair and her pink-and-black Chanel suit. In the glass panes, her grave reflection was like the portrait of a beautiful female from the past, the profile a remote, though faithful, representation of something no longer among the living.
Rochelle, blooded daughter of Urdeme, looked over her shoulder as he shut them in together—and the instant their eyes met, he knew.