“As you can imagine, I wouldn’t have been very welcome in the home of witches.”
“You knew your way around the kitchen and garden well. And upstairs.” She spoke as she massaged the suds into her scalp.
There was a thud and a squeak. When Lilac curiously peeked, he’d laid down on his back so that all she saw now was the top of his head.
He chuckled in sudden understanding. “You caught that, did you? I thought I might have moved about a bit too quickly, although I didn’t think any of you’d notice… Especially you, through your hunger.”
If only he knew, Lilac thought stubbornly while rinsing the ends of her hair, just how difficult she found it to concentrate on anything else since he’d come around.
“The truth is… regardless of what I felt for Adelaide, I never once entered the home to visit her. Societal rules were even stricter back then; I’d wanted to respect our boundaries, and her family. Also, being what I am, her parents would have thrown an utter fit.”
Lilac bit her lip. If he was hiding something before, now he was purposefully lying to her. She swiveled to face him, arm hanging over the side of the tub. “I hate that you think it is necessary to lie to me,” she said softly.
“I’m not lying, princess. Not in the slightest.”
Annoyance trickled into her voice as she persisted. “How else were you able to cross the house threshold like that? And how do you know the building so well?”
He ran a palm over his face and groaned exasperatedly at the wall. He hunched over, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “If you absolutely must know. I was able to enter because this was my parents’ original property, princess. My home.”
She sat up too quickly and swore under her breath—a few handfuls of water sloshed onto the floor in her surprise. “Your house?”
“I am well aware that it is no Chateau de Trécesson,” Garin snapped, his voice grating in an exaggerated French accent. “But indeed, it is my home. Well, it is, and it isn’t.” He shrugged. “I have no intention of displacing or getting rid of the elderly couple. At least any time soon .”
But it wasn’t what she had meant at all. The home was beautiful and old, crafted once upon a time according to family requirement and climate, instead of luxury. The thought of a younger Garin—and his mother and father—made her a little dizzy.
Lilac tried to remember how to breathe properly. “Was this before…”
She couldn’t speak the words, as obvious as they were.
“No vampire would comfortably live in a home with that many downstairs windows, I’m afraid.”
“Garin,” she said softly.
“Yes, princess?”
“Would you pass me the towel, please?” When he hesitantly stood, not quite glancing over his shoulder while shuffling backward, she laughed. “I’m decent, it’s all right.”
Still, Garin abruptly kept his gaze to the floor on his way to the table. When he extended his arm to hand
the towel to her, his fingers brushed hers.
Lilac found herself almost wishing he stole a glance, but even he was too courteous for that.
“I’m at least glad I won’t have to reveal my life story with my interrogator lounging in a tub.”
Garin moved out of her way, facing the bed while she emerged. She hastily wrung out her sopping hair in the cloth before wrapping it securely around her bosom. Sidestepping the vampire, she went to the table and reached into her sack. Her heart sank. While packing for her quest, there was a moment or two she’d considered adding a nightgown. It hadn’t been an issue before because she’d always had something clean to change into. The remainder of her clothes were filthy—all of them, and she was carrying one less dress, she realized sourly, kicking the ruined brocade on the floor.
“Something the matter?”
“I’ve run out of clean clothes,” she replied through her chattering teeth and inching near the fire.
“Here.” Almost hesitantly, as if in warning, Garin undid the strings at his neck and slowly pulled the black tunic over his head.
Words evaded her as she bashfully regarded his rippled back and wide shoulders that Enzo’s larger garment had hidden previously. He held his black tunic shirt over his shoulder, offering it. She grabbed it carefully, almost as if she were afraid to touch him. Completely aware that he could hear every beat and hiccup passing through her body, she slipped it on. The hem fell a few centimeters above her knees.
“Are you decent?”