“I believe Lucian is concerned that you might try to turn Paul despite having used your one turn,” Julius said quietly. “After all, he has a life mate and knows how valuable they are, and that losing them, even to time, is not something easily accepted.”
Jeanne Louise stared at him silently and then sat back in her seat. “So what? You guys are going to live with us for the next forty years or so to make sure I don’t turn him?”
“Jeanie won’t do that,” Paul said solemnly. “I made her promise she wouldn’t.”
Silence reigned around the table briefly, and then Marguerite cleared her throat and stood up. “If everyone is done, I guess I should show you to your rooms. Julius, if you’ll show Anders and Bricker to their room, I’ll show Jeanie and Paul where they’re to stay.”
“Of course.” Julius stood to lead the two men away.
Once they were gone, Marguerite smiled at Jeanne Louise. “Shall we?”
Jeanne Louise forced a smile and stood as well. The expression became more natural, though, when Paul stood up beside her and took her hand in his. He glanced to Livy then and held out his hand, and the girl hopped off her chair, scooped up Boomer from where he’d been sleeping by her feet, caught him under one arm and slipped her free hand into her father’s. They followed Marguerite out of the room as a family.
“Jeanie, Mirabeau is bringing clothes from your apartment, and Paul, Lucian arranged for your and Livy’s things to be gathered and brought as well. They should be here sometime this afternoon,” Marguerite announced as she led them upstairs. “If there’s anything else you need, we can make a trip to your places tomorrow.”
“So we aren’t prisoners?” Jeanne Louise asked dryly.
“What?” Marguerite glanced around with true surprise. “No, of course not. You’re our guests. We’re going to help with Livy while the two of you decide what you want to do. You have a lot of things to work out . . . whether you want to live together or marry. Where you’ll live if you do marry. Where it’s best for Livy to live. If you should move to where she can attend school, or if you want to stay here in Toronto and have her tutored and so on.”
“There’s a place Livy could actually go to school like a normal kid?” Paul asked with surprise.
“Port Henry,” Marguerite said nodding. “It’s relatively immortal-friendly and Lucian’s been working on making it more so, so that our children can have a more normal childhood. Most immortal children have been raised alone over the years with no brothers or sisters in their age range to socialize with. He’s been trying to convince immortals in teaching and other useful fields to move to Port Henry so that our children can attend school with others like themselves and have friends, attend dances, and so on.”
“That would be nice. Where’s Port Henry?” Paul asked with interest.
“On Lake Erie, a little less than an hour the other side of London from where we were staying,” Jeanne Louise answered, wondering if Paul would want to move there for Livy. It would mean giving up her position at Argeneau. Giving up on trying to resolve the problem of her uncle and cousin feeding on bagged blood she’d been working on for so long.
Or not, she thought suddenly. After all, Uncle Victor, her uncle who had the genetic anomaly, was in Port Henry. It might be useful to have him handy to test things on. Paul might even be able to continue his work there if they set up a lab for both of them.
“Here we are.” Marguerite stopped halfway up the hall and opened a door, then gestured them in. As she followed them into the pretty blue room with a king-sized bed and sitting area, she said, “And this door leads into the en suite bath.”
They followed her to peer into the room as she crossed the white and blue bathroom to another door.
“And this leads to Livy’s room,” she announced, thrusting the door open and leading them into a pretty rose-colored room with two double beds. Turning as they followed her in, she smiled at Livy and asked, “What do you think?”
“I got two beds,” Livy said with awe as she entered the room, and then she set Boomer on the floor and whirled to run to her father. Grabbing his hands, she squeezed eagerly and begged, “Can I have Shelly sleep over? We can each have our own bed and everything.”
“Sweetie, I think you’re squeezing your daddy’s hand too tight,” Jeanne Louise said, catching Paul’s pained expression.
“Livy, why don’t we go take Boomer outside?” Marguerite suggested. “He would probably like a run around the yard about now, don’t you think?”
Livy glanced toward her and then released Paul’s hand and ran over to the woman, stopping to scoop up Boomer again on the way.
“Thank you,” Jeanne Louise murmured as her aunt caught Livy’s hand in hers and led her from the room. She then turned to look at Paul’s hand, frowning as she saw the way it was swelling. The girl didn’t know her own strength yet. “We’d better put some ice on that.”
“It’s fine,” Paul said, tugging his hand from hers. “She wants to have a sleepover.”
“Paul, we should really ice your hand,” Jeanne Louise said with a frown.
“She can’t have a sleepover, Jeanie. Shelly is mortal. Livy might get hungry in the night and gnaw on the poor kid.”
Jeanne Louise left his hand for now and glanced at his face. “Paul, she won’t do that. She wasn’t herself when she went after Kirsten. She isn’t going to run around attacking people. She’ll have access to bagged blood when she’s hungry. She won’t go after other children.”
“How can you be sure?” he asked with a frown.
“Because she knows it’s wrong,” she said quietly.
Sighing, Paul nodded and ran his uninjured hand through his hair. “Good. Thank you.”