“Sieur Matthew,” I repeated softly. Until now Matthew had been “Milord” to his family. But Philippe had been called “Sieur” in 1590. “Everyone here calls me either ‘sire’ or ‘Father,’” Philippe had told me when I asked how he should be addressed. At the time I’d thought the title was nothing more than an antiquated French honorific. Now I knew better. To call Matthew “Sieur”—the vampire sire—marked him head of a vampire clan.
As far was Ysabeau was concerned, Matthew’s new scion was a fait accompli.
“Madame what?” Leonard asked, confused.
“Just Madame,” Ysabeau replied serenely. “You may call me Madame Ysabeau. When Phoebe marries Milord Marcus, she will be Madame de Clermont. Until then you may call her Miss Phoebe.”
“Oh.” Leonard’s look of intense concentration indicated he was chewing on these morsels of vampire etiquette.
Silence fell again. Ysabeau stood.
“Marthe put you in the Forest Room, Diana. It is next to Matthew’s bedchamber,” she said. “If you are finished with the tea, I will take you upstairs. You should rest for a few hours before you tell us what you require.”
“Thank you, Ysabeau.” I put the cup and saucer on the small round table at my elbow. I wasn’t finished with my tea, but its heat had quickly dissipated through the fragile porcelain. As for what I required, where to start?
Together Ysabeau and I crossed the foyer, climbed the graceful staircase up to the first floor, and kept going.
“You will have your privacy on the second floor,” Ysabeau explained. “There are only two bedrooms on that level, as well as Matthew’s study and a small sitting room. Now that the house is yours, you may arrange things as you like, of course.”
“Where are the rest of you sleeping?” I asked as Ysabeau turned onto the second-floor landing.
“Phoebe and I have rooms on the floor above you. Marthe prefers to sleep on the lower ground floor, in the housekeeper’s rooms. If you feel crowded, Phoebe and I can move into Marcus’s house. It is near St. James’s Palace, and once belonged to Matthew.”
“I can’t imagine that will be necessary,” I said, thinking of the size of the house.
“We’ll see. Your bedchamber.” Ysabeau pushed open a wide, paneled door with a gleaming brass knob. I gasped.
Everything in the room was in shades of green, silver, pale gray, and white. The walls were papered with hand-painted depictions of branches and leaves against a pale gray background. Silver accents gave the effect of moonlight, the mirrored moon in the center of the ceiling’s plasterwork appearing to be the source of the light. A ghostly female face looked down from the mirror with a serene smile. Four depictions of Nyx, the personification of night, anchored the four quadrants of the room’s ceiling, her veil billowing out in a smoky black drapery that was painted so realistically it looked like actual fabric.
Silver stars were entangled in the veiling, catching the light from the windows and the mirror’s reflection.
“It is extraordinary, I agree,” Ysabeau said, pleased by my reaction. “Matthew wanted to create the effect of being outside in the forest, under a moonlit sky. Once this bedchamber was decorated, he said it was too beautiful to use and moved to the room next door.”
Ysabeau went to the windows and drew the curtains open. The bright light revealed an ancient four-poster, canopied bed set into a recess in the wall, which slightly minimized its considerable size.
The bed hangings were silk and bore the same design as the wallpaper. Another large-scale mirror topped the fireplace, trapping images of trees on the wallpaper and sending them back into the room.
The shining surface reflected the room’s furniture, too: the small dressing table between the large windows, the chaise by the fire, the gleaming flowers and leaves inlaid into the low walnut chest of drawers. The room’s decoration and furnishings must have cost Matthew a fortune.