“Alain.” Matthew’s face softened with relief.
“Welcome home.” The vampire spoke English. As he approached with a slight hitch in his gait, the details of his appearance came into focus: the salt-and-pepper hair, the lines around his kind eyes, his wiry build.
“Thank you, Alain. This is my wife, Diana.”
“Madame de Clermont.” Alain bowed, keeping a careful, respectful distance.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alain.” We had never met, but I already associated his name with steadfast loyalty and support. It had been Alain that Matthew called in the middle of the night when he wanted to be sure that there was food waiting for me at SeptTours in the twenty-first century.
“Your father is waiting,” Alain said, stepping aside to let us pass.
“Have them send food to my rooms—something simple. Diana is tired and hungry.” Matthew handed Alain his gloves. “I’ll see him momentarily.”
“He is expecting both of you now.” A carefully neutral expression settled over Alain’s face. “Do be careful on the stairs, madame. The treads are icy.” “Is he?” Matthew looked up at the square keep, mouth tightening. With Matthew’s hand firmly at my elbow, I had no trouble navigating the stairs. But my legs were shaking so badly after the climb that my feet caught the edge of an uneven flagstone in the entrance. That slip was enough to set Matthew’s temper ablaze.
“Philippe is being unreasonable,” Matthew snapped as he caught me around the waist. “She’s been traveling for days.”
“He was most explicit in his orders, sir.” Alain’s stiff formality was a warning.
“It’s all right, Matthew.” I pushed my hood from my face to survey the great hall beyond. Gone was the display of armor and pikes I’d seen in the twenty-first century. Instead a carved wooden screen helped deflect the drafts when the door was opened. Gone, too, were the faux-medieval decorations, the round table, the porcelain bowl. Instead tapestries blew gently against stone walls as the warm air from the fireplace mingled with the colder air from outside. Two long tables flanked by low benches filled the remaining space, and men and women shuttled between them laying out plates and cups for supper. There was room for dozens of creatures to gather there. The minstrels’ gallery high above wasn’t empty now but crowded with musicians readying their instruments.
“Amazing,” I breathed from between stiff lips.
Cold fingers grasped my chin and turned it. “You’re blue,” Matthew said.
“I will bring a brazier for her feet, and warm wine,” Alain promised. “And we will build up the fires.”
A warmblooded human appeared and took my wet cloak. Matthew turned sharply in the direction of what I knew as the breakfast room. I listened but heard nothing.
Alain shook his head apologetically. “He is not in a good temper.”
“Evidently not.” Matthew looked down. “Philippe is bellowing for us. Are you sure, Diana? If you don’t want to see him tonight, I’ll brave his wrath.”
But Matthew would not be alone for his first meeting with his father in more than six decades. He had stood by me while I’d faced my ghosts, and I would do the same for him. Then I was going to go to bed, where I planned to remain until Christmas.
“Let’s go,” I said resolutely, picking up my skirts.
SeptTours was too ancient to have modern conveniences like corridors, so we snaked through an arched door to the right of the fireplace and into the corner of a room that would one day be Ysabeau’s grand salon. It wasn’t overstuffed with fine furniture now but decorated with the same austerity as every other place I’d seen on our journey. The heavy oak furniture resisted casual theft and could sustain the occasional ill effects of battle, as evidenced by the deep slash that cut diagonally across the surface of a chest.
From there Alain led us into the room where Ysabeau and I would one day take our breakfast amid warm terra-cotta walls at a table set with pottery and weighty silver cutlery. It was a far cry from that place in its present state, with only a table and chair. The tabletop was covered with papers and other tools of the secretary. There was no time to see more before we were climbing a worn stone staircase to an unfamiliar part of the chateau.
The stairs came to an abrupt halt on a wide landing. A long gallery opened up to the left, housing an odd assortment of gadgets, clocks, weaponry, portraits, and furniture. A battered golden crown perched casually on the marble head of some ancient god. A lumpy pigeon’s-blood ruby the size of an egg winked malevolently at me from the crown’s center.