care Hugh would have shown up to fight with nothing but a volume of poetry, a dull sword, and one gauntlet. And it was Fernando who told Philippe that ordering Matthew back to Jerusalem would be a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, neither Philippe nor Matthew had listened to him.
“I had to force myself to leave her side tonight.” Matthew’s eyes darted around the chapel. “I can’t sit still, I want to kill something—badly—and even so it was almost impossible for me to venture beyond the sound of her breathing.”
Fernando listened in silent sympathy, though he wondered why Matthew sounded surprised.
Fernando had to remind himself that newly mated vampires often underestimated how strongly the bond could affect them.
“Right now Diana wants to stay close to Sarah and me. But when the grief over Emily’s death has subsided, she’s going to want to resume her own life,” Matthew said, clearly worried.
“Well, she can’t. Not with you standing by her elbow.” Fernando never minced words with Matthew. Idealists like him needed plain speech or they lost their way. “If Diana loves you, she’ll adapt.”
“She won’t have to adapt,” Matthew said through gritted teeth. “I won’t take her freedom—no matter what it costs me. I wasn’t with Diana at every moment in the sixteenth century. There’s no reason for that to change in the twenty-first.”
“You managed your feelings in the past because whenever you weren’t at her side, Gallowglass was. Oh, he told me all about your life in London and Prague,” Fernando said when Matthew turned a startled face his way. “And if not Gallowglass, Diana was with someone else: Philippe, Davy, another witch, Mary, Henry. Do you honestly think that mobile phones are going to give you a comparable sense of connection and control?”
Matthew still looked angry, the blood rage just beneath the surface, but he looked miserable, too.
Fernando thought it was a step in the right direction. “Ysabeau should have stopped you from getting involved with Diana Bishop as soon as it was clear you were feeling a mating bond,” Fernando said sternly. Had Matthew been his child, Fernando would have locked him in a steel tower to prevent it.
“She did stop me.” Matthew’s expression grew even more miserable. “I wasn’t fully mated to Diana until we came to Sept-Tours in 1590. Philippe gave us his blessing.”
Fernando’s mouth filled with bitterness. “That man’s arrogance knew no bounds. No doubt he planned to fix everything when you returned to the present.”
“Philippe knew he wouldn’t be here,” Matthew confessed. Fernando’s eyes widened. “I didn’t tell him about his death. Philippe figured it out for himself.”
Fernando swore a blistering oath. He was sure that Matthew’s god would forgive the blasphemy, since it was so richly deserved in this case.
“And did your mating with Diana take place before or after Philippe marked her with his blood vow?” Even after the timewalking, Philippe’s blood vow was audible and, according to Verin de Clermont and Gallowglass, still deafening. Happily, Fernando was not a full-blooded de Clermont, so Philippe’s bloodsong registered as nothing more than a persistent hum.
“After.”
“Of course. Philippe’s blood vow ensured her safety. ‘Noli me tangere,’” Fernando said with a shake of his head. “Gallowglass was wasting his time watching Diana so closely.”
“‘Touch me not, for Caesar’s I am,’” Matthew echoed softly. “It’s true. No vampire meddled with her after that. Except Louisa.”
“Louisa was as mad as a March hare to ignore your father’s wishes on this,” Fernando commented.
“I take it that’s why Philippe sent Louisa packing to the outer reaches of the known world in 1591.” The decision had always seemed abrupt, and Philippe hadn’t stirred a finger to avenge her later death.
Fernando filed away the information for future consideration.
The door swung open. Sarah’s cat, Tabitha, shot into the chapel in a streak of gray fur and feline indignation. Gallowglass followed her, bearing a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a silver flask in the other. Tabitha wound her way around Matthew’s legs, begging for his attention.
“Sarah’s moggy is nearly as troublesome as Auntie’s firedrake.” Gallowglass thrust the flask in Matthew’s direction. “Have some. It’s not blood, but it’s none of Granny’s French stuff either. What she serves makes fine cologne, but it’s no good for anything else.”
Matthew refused the offering with a shake of the head. Baldwin’s wine was already souring his stomach.
“And you call yourself a vampire,” Fernando scolded Gallowglass. “Driven to drink by um
pequeno dragão.”
“You try taming Corra if you think it’s so bloody easy.” Gallowglass removed a cigarette from his pack