so I knew without looking that the sheets would be blue silk. Jean-Claude did not do white sheets, no matter what they were made out of.
He was sitting in the room's only chair, slumped down, hands crossed over his stomach. I was sitting on the rug that he'd put beside the bed. The rug was actually fur, thick and soft, and somehow just by touch you knew it had once been alive. We'd both been strangely reluctant to go to bed. I think we were both afraid the ardeurwould rise, and we weren't ready for it.
"Let me test my understanding," I said.
Jean-Claude looked at me, moving only his eyes.
"Tomorrow night, if Asher is still nobody's, will they be within their rights to ask for him?"
"Not as they did tonight, no, you have made that impossible now, unless they can take him by force."
I shook my head. "I've been around enough vamp politics to know that if you stop them from doing one thing, they'll do something else, not because they want to, but because it will cause you pain."
He frowned at me.
I sighed. "Let me try that again. Here's the deal, what are they within their rights to ask from us, while they're here?"
"Hunting rights, or willing donors, lovers--the basic needs to be met."
"Sex is a basic need?"
He just looked at me.
"Sorry, sorry. So I understand the willing donor part, they've got to eat. But the lovers, what does that mean, exactly?"
"It would be declasse to demand lovers for the servants, so Musette's lady's maid and butler are not to be worried over. The two children are special cases. The girl is physically too young, she does not think of such things. The boy is a problem. Bartolome was precocious, which is why Belle sent Musette to take him."
I stared at him. "Please, tell me that Musette never had sex with the kid?"
He seemed suddenly tired, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. "Do you wish the truth, or a more pleasant lie?"
"The truth, I guess."
"Belle Morte can smell sexual appetite, it is one of her gifts. Bartolome may look like a child, but he does not think like one, nor did he when he was human and a true boy of eleven going on twelve. He was the heir to a great fortune. Belle wanted to control that fortune. He was also notorious in an age when noble sons were allowed almost any indiscretion with women who were not of noble blood."
"Explain that," I said.
"He looked like a child, Anita, and he would use that innocent face to maneuver women into compromising situations. By the time they realized that they were in danger of abuse, it was often too late. More than that, he threatened to accuse them of being the aggressor. There was no such phrase as child molestation in that century, but everyone knew it happened. Children were often married as young as ten or eleven, so the people who had such tastes could satisfy their needs within the marriage bed, until their spouses became too old for their tastes, then they would look outside their marriage, or by that time their own children might be old enough."
I stared at him. "I don't think I wanted to know that last part. That is beyond disgusting."
"Oui, ma petite,but it is still true. A fortune as large as Bartolome's would normally be Belle's task. She would never leave such monies, or lands, or titles, to anyone else. But she is not a lover of children, no matter how grown-up they may be, so she cast it to Musette. Who, as you now realize, will do anything our mistress bids her do."
"I got that impression."
"So, yes, she seduced, or allowed herself to be seduced by the boy. Belle gave her a touch of the ardeurand Bartolome was enraptured. Belle did not mean to bring him over to us as a boy. She meant to wait until he grew older, but Bartolome was thrown from his horse. He had crushed his skull, and was dying. His next brother was only five, and Belle would have no hold on him. She needed Bartolome, and so she bid Musette finish him."
"How did he feel when he woke up?"
"He was happy to be alive."
"How'd he feel when he finally realized he'd be a little boy forever, no matter how precocious?"
Jean-Claude sighed. "He was . . . unhappy. Bringing children over is forbidden for a reason. Musette did not make Valentina one of us. Belle found