she might possess quite private. Soon, she would feign tiredness, and escort them all to the door. Moments after, Sebastien would be re-admitted by the servants' entrance, and he and the lady would see to each other's needs. He would give her a ring tonight, for her safety, if she would wear it.
An amicable arrangement.
* * *
Sebastien's instincts had not deserted him. When he returned, replete, in the small hours of the morning, a light burned in the parlor window and two bay horses slumbered on three legs apiece before the coach stopped in the street. The coachman—no doubt—slept as well, bundled up inside.
The front door was locked. Sebastien understood it to mean that the household had gone to bed, and though he had a key, he thought perhaps his guest had waited enough.
Sebastien took himself through the garden gate and into the walled yard of the red brick rowhouse. In the one-room cottage a light burned as well. Though the windows were boarded, Sebastien could see it because the door stood ajar. He did not mind the winter cold, nor would Epaphras.
Sebastien pushed the panel open with his fingertips.
Epaphras Bull was not a tall man, as Sebastien had been once, before elapsing centuries had grown men taller. He was slight, finer-boned than Jack, with a priest's delicacy of touch. He lay on the never-used couch, his elegant knobby fingers steepled over his breast, a powdery cat's eye sapphire blinking in soft gold from his left hand. His mouse-blond hair was swept back from a brow pale as skimmed milk.
He smiled faintly when Sebastien closed the door.
When Sebastien paused, Epaphras swung his feet around and sat up, then rose with coltish grace. Opened, his eyes were arresting, the irises ice-blue and thinly ringed with indigo. An admission of superficiality: it was those eerie eyes that had first captured Sebastien's interest, two hundred and fifty years since. That, and the provocation of corrupting the innocent and hypocritical, which had amused him more in those days.
Epaphras had been a Puritan. Now he wore rich linen, a dove-colored silk brocade waistcoat crossed by a platinum chain, a silver and burgundy cravat pinned with another sapphire, and a woolen suit of meticulous cut and press. He watched Sebastien latch the door, and picked a speck of lint from his cuff. "Sebastien," he said.
"John Nast. Are you still Epaphras?" It seemed unlikely. Too memorable a name.
"David." He glanced aside behind veiling lashes. When his tongue flicked over his lips, it left a sheen of moisture. Like Sebastien, he'd fed not long before.
"Beloved." It was the translation of the name. And what Sebastien had called him, once upon a time.
"There were giants in the earth in those days," he quipped, and laughed.
Sebastien felt his teeth sharpen with desire, but managed, "You wished an audience with me."
Icy eyes fixed on him, and this time didn't slip away.
Epaphras—David—twined the first two fingers of his left hand in the hair at his nape and half-winced, half-smiled. "This is your city now. The forms must be observed."
A debatable point. Boston was large enough that in Europe it would never be considered Sebastien's exclusive domain. But then, in Europe,
there would be a half-dozen or more wampyr in a city this size, and courtiers might host a secret club, a gathering place and refuge for the convenience
of travelers.
With so very few of the blood in the New World—if there were any others—they might in conscience invent the forms all over again. So, David owed Sebastien filial piety—if Sebastien chose to believe so.
Sebastien had crossed the room. He was the taller, but only by inches. He smelled the blood on David's breath.
"I've missed you." Either of them might have said it, but it was David's mouth that shaped the words. He picked a tawny hair from Sebastien's lapel and flicked it away, while Sebastien put a cold hand on his cold cheek. And then David's palm cupped Sebastien's nape and pulled him down.
The wetness of David's mouth confirmed recent feasting, and the sharpness of his teeth confirmed his desire. "Who invited you in, David?"
"Your courtesan," David answered, the breath he took only for speaking tickling Sebastien's mouth. "The boy. He told me I could not enter the house, but I could wait in the cottage. You spoil them."
"I spoiled you in your time," Sebastien answered. "You did not complain then. I trust you did nothing. . .untoward?"
David smiled. It crinkled the corners of his eyes and thinned his lips, and Sebastien jerked away,