Blood and Thyme

Camille Bacon-Smith

“Have you fed tonight?”

Martin Harris looked up from the computer screen with forks and spoons dancing in his head – Rachmaninoff played softly on his iPod, so it was a strange dance – and blinked a minute to backburner the flatware counts. It was dark in the tiny office tucked next to the pantry, with nothing but the glow of the laptop screen for light, but he could see well enough. The dim light from the kitchen picked up the silver in Frank’s hair, carved shadows at the corners of his mouth as he waited patiently in the doorway, his sleeve already rolled past his wrist. A quick sip wouldn’t hurt, but Martin had fed before the party. He didn’t need it right now, and Frank was looking a little pale anyway – Helene had kept him busy tonight.

“No, I’m good.”

“Do you need anything else before I go?”

Over Frank’s shoulder, the dimmed kitchen overheads cast a pale glow on the gleaming stainless steel refrigerators, reminding Martin of his singular failure. “Can you cook?”

Frank laughed softly. “No better than the last time you asked. Unless you need something else, I’m going to send everybody home.”

Martin thought a minute. Clean-up was done for the night. They could inventory plates in the morning. “No, that’s fine. Let the staff know they did an excellent job. They should be pleased with their envelopes.” Helene DeCourcy’s tip had been outrageous even by Red Heart standards. Worth it though. The staff kept their mouths shut and his clients fed, and they showed up for the next gig every time he called. Sometimes, they were a little too loyal.

“You’re sitting out the next one. And grab a roast beef sandwich before you go. It’s bad for my reputation when my headwaiter faints in the hors d’oeuvres.”

“Yeah, I know.” Frank laughed, stripped off his jacket, a black tuxedo with a discreet red heart embroidered on the lapel. “But it was Helene and I need a new transmission.” Frank never let the puncture marks show, but it would take a serious inspection to find where Helene DeCourcy had fed. Best customer, best headwaiter the company ever had, and Martin thought there was more than snacking going on there, maybe had been for thirty years. But he was no good to Martin if he showed up a quart low.

“One more thing. Second Street’s off-limits tonight.” Second Street had a couple of after-hours clubs where the restaurant crowd gathered for a drink when the customers had all gone home. But not his staff. Not tonight.

“Hunting?” Frank paused in the doorway, a silver brow raised speculatively.

Martin didn’t deny it. Helene had used Red Heart Catering for over a hundred years, and he was still the only game in town for a party like they had tonight, where the guests fed on canapés and the well-turned wrist. But Helene had already warned him about the next one. The mayor was invited.

Martin needed a chef.

“Have you heard of Rita DeLeone?” He waited while Frank went through his own mental filing system.

“Didn’t she run Prescot’s catering side for a while? Last I heard, she’d left him for a little ten-table place of her own in a strip mall in Cherry Hill. Good food, by all accounts. Don’t know what happened to it.”

“Snow.” Martin had done his homework. “The roof fell in. She’s doing pick-up work this side of Broad.”

Restaurant Row had a demanding clientele. Frank broke into a wide grin. “My God, we could finally get you out of the kitchen! For that I’d give up drinking entirely!” He left with a backwards wave of his hand. “Nobody will get in your way tonight.”

Then Martin was alone with the hum of the refrigerators. He had to do this, for the good of the company. So he ran his fingers through his hair to bring the short blond spikes back to some sort of attention, left his tailored overcoat in the closet and slipped into the bomber jacket instead. Out there somewhere was the answer to all his problems. He just had to find her.

“Card?” Let-out, when the bars all tipped their customers onto the sidewalk to fend for themselves, had come and gone but Stan’s place stayed open late for members only. At Stan’s, that meant five bucks and a job in the business. Rita flashed her card and slipped in past the guard at the door. The club wasn’t much wider than a railroad car but it went back for half a block under a narrow tin ceiling that hadn’t dumped a ton of snow onto the kitchen in all its 150 years. The crowd was comfortable, winding down after a long night serving other people. Rita said a few “hellos” on her way to the bar and grabbed the last empty stool, caught some guy with spiky blond hair and a leather bomber jacket staring. He looked away quickly, fussed with the bottle of Sly Fox IPA in front of him, but she knew the look.

Her lucky night, except she doubted his interest involved her legs, her curves, or the long dark hair she let down in unruly waves after work. He probably just hadn’t gotten the word yet. Her restaurant was still sitting under the rubble. She gave Doug behind the bar a halfhearted smile. “Yingling,” she said, ordering a decent, reasonable local lager instead of her usual, and mentally put another five dollars in the piggy bank. Doug had already gone for the wine bottle, or she might have gotten away with it.

Behind her, something caught his eye. “Courtesy of the gentleman.” He set a wine glass on the bar, filled it and left the bottle.

Bomber Jacket Guy angled in next to her, an elbow covered in old, worn leather propped on the dinged-up mahogany. She really was not in the mood. “Tell the gentleman I can buy my own drinks, thank you.” But Doug was already pulling beers for a crew at the end of the bar and pointedly not listening.

“Looking for a job?” Bomber Jacket Guy was about thirty-five, she guessed, with blue eyes pale as ice. She’d already noticed the hair – a little too metro for her tastes, if she’d been looking. Which she wasn’t.

She considered possible answers – Not in that line of work. It’ll cost you more than a bottle of wine – but Bleu’s chef was back on Monday and her restaurant, Sophie’s, was in shambles. Rita was pretty desperate for a job, so she lifted the glass and said, “What’ve you got?” instead.

He leaned in, set his beer on the bar. “Martin Harris. And it’s what I don’t have that’s the problem.” He held out his hand, realized the bottle had dewed it up and grabbed a napkin from a stack next to the beer taps with a self-conscious smile on lips that really weren’t bad. But that line? Awful.

He seemed to know it and was laughing at himself, so she had to laugh with him.

“Weak. I’d give it a six.”

“True, though.”

OK, she’d grant him the killer smile. Average height, average build. A little athletic, maybe, but he didn’t look like he worked out, which was a plus. It might not cost him more than a bottle of wine after all.

The woman next to her slapped a ten on the bar and got up to leave. Martin Harris slid onto the abandoned stool like he’d been waiting for it all his life. Another Sly Fox appeared in front of him and Rita realized that she’d lost track of the conversation . . .

“High profile . . . Four hundred . . . Wednesday.”

“I’m a chef. If you’re looking for waiters, there’re three of them down the bar.”

“You’re what I need. Really. My chef moved back to Paris. She taught me everything I know before she left but –”

“Right.” Then she fed him the punchline just to see what he’d do. “Not everything she knew.”

“She’s my mother and even she said I was hopeless. I pay really well when I’m desperate.” He slid a card across the bar – address printed on the right and a rounded red heart on the left. Red Heart Catering. They’d been around a long time. Very discreet, so she didn’t know much about them, but very high end.

“You don’t even know that I can cook!”

“Prescot’s liked you well enough,” he pointed out. And yeah, she could cook for a crowd. But then he said, “Sophie’s, on Route 73. It needed a serious upgrade on the décor, but the veal medallions with sweetbreads were perfect.”

If he thought the décor wasn’t much then, he should see the place now. But he’d liked the food, which started a warm, blanket-by-the-fire feeling under her ribs that Rita knew meant trouble. She was not going to fall for a guy who was not her type just because he liked her sweetbreads. She drank the wine anyway, and it felt soft rolling down her throat. Hadn’t expected the way his eyes warmed up when she tilted her head back. It threw her enough that she answered him with “Wednesday?” before she knew what she was saying, or offering.

Watching the play of muscles against the stretch of her throat as she swallowed, his mouth went dry. A good beer was fine, and he’d told Frank the truth, he didn’t need to feed this soon. But his fingers itched for the nape of her neck and only force of will kept his points retracted. Her pulse filled his senses, throbbing on her skin and beating in his ears, and he matched her, heartbeat for heartbeat, without thinking. Oh, gods, the scent rising off her skin – warm living blood on the inside and the smells of a kitchen still clinging on the outside. Butternut squash and striped bass and truffles rising like the hope of heaven through the aloe and lilac of her soap. He’d pay anything she asked for just the occasional sip, but knew better than to make the proposition. He needed her too badly as his chef to risk a red-heart offer. Maybe after Helene’s party for the mayor . . .

Her chin came down and she set the glass aside. The moment passed and he hadn’t done anything to scare her away.

“Wednesday?” she said again, reminding him he had business to conduct here.

“At eight, with Helene DeCourcy, to finalize the menu.” He poured her another glass of wine. She was pretty – especially her wide, dark eyes and, well, her throat – which complicated things. He’d already figured her for smart, which helped on the business end, and that also complicated things. But Helene had been adamant about the food.

“We’ve got the Great Stair Hall and balcony at the Art Museum. If you’re free on Monday, around six, we can go over the plans. You can make any changes to the menu that seem appropriate, and we’ll meet with Helene on Wednesday. She just needs some reassurance that I won’t poison the mayor. When word gets around that we have a new chef, you’ll have plenty to do. In the meantime, you’ll want to revise menus, maybe make some changes in kitchen staff. I’ll leave that all up to you.”

Too much. He’d had her through the mayor’s party, but she pulled back when he started talking about a longer calendar. By the time he’d reached “up to you” she had pushed her glass away and Martin clamped his mouth shut. He wished he’d done it a few minutes earlier, before she felt the need to remind him, “This is strictly short term. I’m just waiting for repairs to my roof. Best veal medallions with sweetbreads in New Jersey, remember?”

Martin had done a thorough job of the research. The owners of that strip mall had taken the insurance money and walked away, leaving the place without a roof and Sophie’s without a home. “Just get me through dinner with the mayor.” He nudged the card a little closer. “After that, we’ll take it one party at a time.”

She had the right address, had checked it out in daylight and remembered the three white candles in the window. Red Heart Catering stood at the corner of 20th and Delancey in a perfectly maintained Victorian brownstone mansion. Imposing. A little terrifying for a Jersey girl, but she needed the job. Rita took a deep breath, climbed the half-flight to the elegant red front door, and rang the bell below a brass plate with the company name and the little rounded heart on it.

Something was different. She looked more closely at the card and saw a perfectly formed bead, like a jewel or a drop of blood, falling from the heart. It had to be a flaw in the printing, but it glistened in the light from the gas lamps that bracketed the door. Heart’s blood. The door opened and she took a startled step back, would have cracked her head on the pavement below if not for Martin Harris’ hand under her elbow.

“Miss DeLeone. I’m glad you came.” He was looking considerably more rumpled than he had on Saturday night, the spikes of his hair flattened on one side of his head and skewed oddly on the other. He saw her looking and rubbed self-consciously at the wrong side. “Not quite awake yet,” he said. “Working nights.” He turned to lead her into the house, and maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought he wouldn’t look her in the eye when he said it.

“If I’ve interrupted something, I can come back.” She half expected a girl to wander out dressed in a sheet. Or a boy. Whatever. She didn’t want to be there when it happened, not if he was going to be her boss. Not if he was going to look that . . . rumpled.

But he waved his free hand, dismissing the offer. “No, I should have been up anyway. Don’t want to start with a bad impression.” The apology came with a wry twitch of his lips, as if a nap had used up all his currency for cool. She couldn’t help but shake her head. She hadn’t known him long enough to call him an idiot, but she was thinking it.

She’d expected elegance when she saw the address and the foyer didn’t disappoint her – not the parquetry rosette under her feet or the pale blue silk on the walls. “This is my office,” he said, and opened a side door onto a Victorian parlour with a very modern laptop on the correspondence desk. He closed the door again, led her to the centre pocket-doors, and nudged them open silently. “This is the ballroom.”

She’d known that some of the Gilded-Age mansions in this part of town had them, but this perfectly preserved jewel of a ballroom still took her breath away—from the gleaming floors to the cream-coloured taffeta on the walls and the mirrors that reflected the light from the Austrian-crystal chandeliers hanging from a ceiling painted with woodland scenes of corseted ladies and frolicking nymphs. Draperies the same fabric as the wall-covering filled one end of the room. Martin Harris flipped a switch and the drapes parted to reveal a small stage behind them.

“Oh, my!”

“I know. Sometimes I don’t believe it myself.” He didn’t turn off the lights, but led her across the polished-oak dance floor. “My great grandfather built the house in the 1870s. He lost most of the family fortune in the crash of 1893. My great-grandmother started as his cook then kept the house afloat cooking for other people. When it came to losing the house or making an honest woman of her, he married her. We’ve been in the business ever since.”

It wasn’t just a business to Martin Harris. She could hear the warmth in his voice, the pride and love for the house and the family that built it. Something clicked in Rita when he told his story. She felt a kinship with that long-ago grandmother who supported her family with her cooking. His mother too, he’d said. She’d been his chef until she left for Paris. Rita fought the feeling that she was a part of that line of women because she needed to be sensible about this job, needed to be wary. Waiters and under-cooks liked to tell stories, but nobody had stories about Red Heart Catering. They paid well and their clients liked privacy. That was it. Not even “Martin Harris is a really nice guy,” or “Martin Harris is an asshole, but he pays well.” Just the same zombified answer until she’d given up asking.

He had her – saw it in her eyes – and he started to relax, adding up the bill at Godshalls Poultry and Iovines and a half-dozen more of his suppliers. Metropolitan Bakery, too. Unless . . . did she want them to make the bread in-house? His mother had, but most places bought it in these days.

Then he was losing her again and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t quite believe anyone with the stardust he’d just seen in Rita DeLeone’s eyes could walk away from this house.

“Imagine what it was like in 1870,” he tried, with a glance to fill the ballroom with long-ago dancers. “Ladies in their ruffled silk dresses, and gentlemen in their evening coats and dancing shoes. A little orchestra on the stage, playing Strauss.”

He slid his left hand down her arm, lifted her wrist lightly while he settled his right hand at her back. “May I have this dance?” he whispered in her ear. The warmth of her filled his senses as he swept her into a waltz.

With each turn, more memories crowded the floor: the orchestra played Strauss under gas lights that glittered off the crystals of the chandeliers while the mirrors threw back the images of the dancers going round and round – his mother and father, Helene and her lover, scandalous even among their own kind, and a hundred more couples dancing until dawn. It made him dizzy, delirious with the heat and the music and the dance, whirling, whirling. The needle points of his teeth itched, but he suppressed every instinct to feed.

This was about the mayor’s party. It had nothing to do with the soft curves in his arms or the moist heat rising from behind her ear with the promise of blood and thyme. He needed her desperately – in his kitchen. But golden memories fizzed like champagne in his blood, confusing now and then, need and desire. He looked into her eyes, saw the joy and the music shining back at him, and couldn’t look away. His whole world shifted on its axis and settled in a new plane, fixed on the smell of her blood and the feel of her touch and the hunger in her eyes. He’d never be free of it, not until the day he died. And if he told her, and she walked away, he’d lose everything. He was lost. Knew it and couldn’t do a thing about it.

He’d fixed on Rita DeLeone. Shit. Damn. Hell. I am so screwed, he thought. And he dropped her hand as if it burned.

Magical. The room or the dance, or his glance that kept shifting between the past glory of the house and the present with her in his arms, was magical. She didn’t know what dazzled her more, the light from the crystal chandeliers or the hungry gleam in his eyes, but she could have fallen forever into that long-ago world he evoked with whispers in her ear. Unconsciously she arched her back, the better to look into his eyes, where the darkness at their centres had pushed back the blue, offering pools of mystery where ice had lain. She wanted those mysteries, every one of them, starting with his mouth and working down from there. Buttons. So many buttons.

Then he took a step back, wiped his hands self-consciously on his rumpled Dockers, and said, “Upstairs we have three smaller party rooms and a staging kitchen.”

It was over. Whatever it was. Rita wanted to scream, wanted to run, but he kept on talking. “On the third floor we have a few guest bedrooms. I have the basement apartment, so I’m on-site most of the time if you need me.” He was walking a pace ahead of her, taking them away from the magic, past a room with a couple of chairs next to the stage, to the very back of the house. “Guest bathrooms are on the other side of the stage, and this is the kitchen. Pantry here, staff bath, and your office.”

The kitchen was adequate: clean, which mattered a lot; pantry well stocked. The refrigerators were new, the stove not as good as the one waiting in her garage, but it would do for somebody. Not Rita. She was out of here, just as soon as he finished his tour and she found a door.

The office was small, and he’d been using it between chefs. He riffled through a stack of menus and pulled one out with a triumphant “Aha!” before he handed it to her. “For Mrs DeCourcy’s party. Starred items are her preferences. We want to make sure we cover them. The rest you can change if you like. Mom took her personal recipes with her, but we’ve got a good library of the basics.

“And now, if you don’t mind, we have a late job in Baltimore and I have to get ready. If you need anything else, just make a list and give it to Frank. Frank McCaffey’s our headwaiter and he should be here any minute. He’ll take care of everything.”

He was wandering away while he talked, then opened a door she hadn’t seen before to a staircase leading down. His basement apartment, she figured. He was leaving her behind with the invoices and the menus.

“I can’t take the job,” she muttered. He couldn’t hear her, was already gone, so she added, “Because you’re making me crazy,” under her breath, and tripped over a dignified man with silver hair and a tuxedo who had come in behind her.

“Sorry. I’m Frank McCaffey, by the way,” he said, and took a step back. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”

“I’m Rita DeLeone,” she answered tartly. “And I’m not staying.”

“Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” Frank’s eyes didn’t pull her in like a vortex, but they crinkled in the corners with warm understanding that made her almost as nervous as his boss did. “He makes us all crazy sometimes, but is that any reason to let him poison the mayor?”

The mayor. The Great Stair Hall. She had to do it, just to prove to herself that she could still pull off an affair like that. “Just the one party,” she told him and figured he’d get the message to his boss. “For the mayor, not for Mr Martin Harris. That’s it.”

“It’s enough,” he answered. She didn’t believe he meant it, but she wasn’t giving Mr Harris a choice. The menu would do for now. She could manage it and his next chef would want to change things to suit anyway. But it sure wasn’t going to be her.

Helene welcomed them into her office, which was a sleek, modern contrast to the parts of the house the public got to see. Helene was a sleek contrast to the house as well, with silver hair cut short and angled to highlight her sharp, high cheekbones. She offered coffee waiting in a pot on the desk. Martin poured three cups. He didn’t know how Rita DeLeone liked her coffee, or if she liked it at all, but she handed over the menu in its leather cover then took the cup, added a little cream, and smiled politely when Martin made the introduction.

Martin sat back and watched as Rita went quickly over the menu, answering Helene’s questions and offering her own suggestions to balance simple but elegant options with the more challenging fare. When they were done, Helene handed back the leather folder and passed a measuring frown from Rita to Martin. “Does she know what she’s getting into with Red Heart?”

That was the question he didn’t want to hear. Because, no, he hadn’t told her and didn’t plan to, at least not until after the party. “I stole her from Prescot’s.” It answered the surface question Rita would understand – could she cook as well for 400 as she did for 40? – but ignored the trouble he was in, because she wouldn’t understand that at all.

“Very well.” Helene didn’t approve, but conceded the point for the moment. She rose to show them the door. Martin followed her and stumbled – damn, he hadn’t expected to slip up like that.

“Are you all right?” Rita DeLeone’s hand fell on his arm and it felt like fire burning right through his jacket.

Control. Control. He kept the needle points of his teeth retracted. “I’m fine.”

Helene had known him since the day he was born, had known his mother when she’d built Red Heart. She didn’t miss much, and she hadn’t missed this. “Would you mind waiting in the hall for just a moment, Miss DeLeone?”

Rita left, reluctantly, and with a promise: “I’ll be right outside this door if you need me.” Then Helene pressed him back into his chair, which he didn’t need because he was fine now, really.

“When was the last time you fed?” She held his face in her hands, watching for a lie.

He had to think about the answer. “Saturday.” He stared at the three white candles on her mantel – sanctuary, hearth and home – counting up the days. He hadn’t realized it had been so long. “I think it was Saturday.”

“Why? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I’m not. I didn’t realize—” Dani had stopped by and he’d turned her down, paid her anyway because it was her day and she depended on the money, but: “I just wasn’t hungry. Nobody smells right any more.”

Helene went very still. “You didn’t.” She sighed, because it could only mean one thing. “Oh God, child, you haven’t fixed on the chef, have you? You haven’t even told her what you are!”

“I don’t know how it happened.”

“I know, my dear, it happens that way sometimes.” But he could tell from the sound of her voice that she didn’t know, that she thought he was a fool. “You have to eat.” Rasp of a pearl button on silk as she undid the cuff of her blouse, and her wrist was under his nose, not smelling like food and warmth and blood and home, but something sure and familiar nonetheless. He let his points come down this time. They ached because he hadn’t fed in too long, and he’d been holding them back around Rita.

“I’ll give Marcus a call; he’ll come over tomorrow,” she said, and stroked his hair while he fed. It wasn’t quite the same from his own kind, wasn’t human enough, but it would keep him alive until he figured out what to do.

He retracted the needle points into his teeth and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll be fine.” He shook his head and it didn’t make him dizzy this time. “I can handle it.”

“By not eating? Mind over matter won’t help. Beef carpaccio in truffle oil won’t help. Marcus and I won’t help for long. If you don’t have living human blood, you’ll die.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I think you will, my darling boy,” she said, which was ridiculous. He was almost as old as his house. But she sighed again, and said, “Accept Marcus tomorrow. Promise me. It’s not enough, but it will do for now. And I want a Red Heart party for next Saturday. Fifty guests, costumes for all, Gilded-Age theme. We’ll take two rooms upstairs, card tables and refreshments in one, buffet supper in the other, and the bedrooms for privacy. Set up the ballroom for dancing. Hire the usual for music. A party like the old days. It will be a test of your new chef.”

“There’s not enough time.” A party like that could take months to pull together. She’d given him three days. Rita was going to kill him.

“I know you’ll manage. Red Heart never lets its clients down.”

“She can’t know,” he said. Feeding was always a private matter, but a Red Heart party was supposed to be safe space. “I need her in the kitchen. If she walks, the business will die.”

“More than the business will die, sweet boy. Give me my party. We’ll see what we can do. Oh, and one other thing – send Frank over tomorrow? I’ll discuss details of service with him and free you up for more pressing matters.”

“Frank can’t wear the red heart yet.”

“Don’t worry about Frank. I have other interests in him. Like my party.”

And it was true that Helene had never fixed on Frank. She liked him, had preferred him at her parties from the moment he joined the company, but she had other favourites as well, and occasionally liked something new for variety. Unlike Helene, his mother had fixed on a human husband, and Martin had been the result of that.

Humans died, and his mother had mourned his father’s loss through two world wars. He didn’t want that in his life. Didn’t want to watch Rita DeLeone grow old and die. Didn’t want to mourn her into the next millennium. His mother might know what to do, but Martin wasn’t ready to tell her how badly he’d screwed up until he solved the problem himself.

“Saturday,” he agreed, and wiped his mouth again because he didn’t want Rita to know. He couldn’t believe that such a minor inconvenience could suddenly become this huge thing in his life. It was just blood. He only needed a sip, it was nothing. But he couldn’t tell her. And he couldn’t drink from anyone else.

“We’d better tell Rita. About the party.”

Saturday. She could not believe Martin had agreed to do this, and she told Frank McCaffey so. “If he didn’t own the property, and if he hadn’t turned away his other clients with his cooking, we’d be having this party in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s!”

Helene DeCourcy’s house could easily handle a less ambitious party for fifty, but she didn’t want a mill and swill with finger food. “Costumes!”

“It’s almost Mardi Gras,” Frank pointed out and kept on counting napkins – serviettes, he called them. She hadn’t heard that term since cooking school.

“Parking lot. Trader Joe’s,” she answered back, satisfied that he really had to work to hide his smile. She had a prep cook on the buffet and two cooks working on the light refreshments for the card room. Martin had rejected her own suggestion for prep cook, but he’d had some kitchen staff already, so that turned out all right. She’d pulled in Doug to handle the drinks because he worked hard and didn’t hit on the guests.

The waiters would arrive in about two hours. Frank had that well in hand. “The usuals,” he assured her. “They know Helene, they know her parties. We’ll be fine.” Hard not to believe him when he called the client by her first name like he’d been doing it for a hundred years, so she took his word for it and went on to the next worry on her list, this one not as easy to let go of.

“Where’s Martin?”

Frank checked his watch. “He should be up by now, probably in the shower. I’d give him another fifteen minutes before I started to worry.” But the reminder cut a frown between his brows. It was after six. Helene’s invitations said eleven thirty. The food was under control – a standing rib roast in one oven, a ham in the other for the card room, and the quail stuffed with fois gras was prepped and waiting in the fridge. But they needed to do a last walk-through upstairs, and Martin hadn’t shown his face in the kitchen yet.

“So, what’s his problem?” She pretended it was a casual question while she inspected the list on her clipboard. They were far enough from the prep area that they wouldn’t be overheard. It turned out she liked working here. Liked Frank and the rest of the staff, and she liked Martin Harris. Hell, she felt like she’d drunk too much champagne whenever Martin Harris was in the room, which wasn’t a good idea but wouldn’t have been a disaster. She thought he felt the same way about her, and once she got her restaurant open again he wouldn’t be her boss. Except that she started to notice things. Like, he was never up before six.

“Does he have a drinking problem? Drugs? I need to know if it’s going to blow up all over Helene DeCourcy’s party.” All over Rita DeLeone too, but Frank didn’t need to know that.

“I don’t think Martin has ever taken anything stronger than an aspirin. For that matter, I don’t think he’s ever taken an aspirin. He isn’t drinking either.”

It was the truth. She figured that out about Frank already. He always told her the truth and generally relied on her not to get it anyway. Like now. She was clearly missing the subtext, and tried again. Set down her clipboard and leaned on the butler’s table, a hand on each stack of napkins so that he couldn’t pretend they weren’t having this conversation.

“But he did?”

“Never to excess. The Harrises have always been excellent employers.”

Time to back off and let Frank at the napkins. “So we can assume he will not dance naked on Mrs DeCourcy’s card tables.”

“We can so assume.” Frank paused, thought a moment. “But Helene would pay extra if he did.”

“She probably would.”

“Would what?” Martin – shaved, showered, and in a dinner jacket with tails – wandered into the kitchen and threw an arm across Rita’s shoulders. She would have slipped away but thought he might fall if she did.

“Pay extra to see you dance naked on her card tables.”

“Ah.” For a moment he stared off into the distance, as if considering it. “If we lose any more clients I may have to take her up on the offer. But you’re here to save me from a fate worse than death, aren’t you, Rita, Rita, Rita?”

“You are drunk, Mr Harris.” She pushed him upright, balancing him against the butler’s table, with a glare at Frank McCaffey. “We have to get him sober before the guests arrive.”

But Frank was ignoring her, and her cooks had all stopped to watch. “Did you see Marcus Balfour today, Martin?” Frank took Martin’s weight, looked into his eyes like he was trying to gauge a truth that Martin might not give him.

“Didn’t want him. Sent him home.”

“Have you fed at all?”

Martin smiled beatifically. “Does the carpaccio count?”

“No, Martin, it doesn’t.”

“That’s what Helene said.”

The back door opened then and three new arrivals pushed their way into the kitchen. Frank looked relieved, though they were at least an hour early and the owner was drunk. Or stoned. Or possibly starving himself to death on beef carpaccio, which didn’t make sense at all.

“Dani,” Frank said, and the woman with the blonde bun looked up, shot a questioning eyebrow just as Martin Harris fell to the floor, taking Rita with him.

“Jesus Christ!” Rita said, and Frank followed them to his knees, got an arm under Martin’s head, and said to the room in general, “Does anybody know when he fed last?”

“He paid me last week, and again on Monday, but he didn’t want to feed,” Dani answered. “I thought . . . He acted like he’d fixed on somebody else. I thought he was just being nice, paying out my contract.”

Frank looked really scared. Angry too. And that scared the hell out of Rita. “What? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s an idiot.” Frank caught his breath, started again. “He has a rare . . . chemical imbalance, you could call it. And right now it’s killing him.”

Rita stared at him, trying to process what he’d said, but it didn’t make sense. Martin was not dying. She wouldn’t allow it. “I don’t have my cell on me. Somebody call nine-one-one!”

“He doesn’t need a hospital.” Nobody picked up the phone and Rita scrambled, tried to get to her office where she had two of them. Frank grabbed her arm. “Wait. I know what’s wrong. We’ll handle it.”

“People die of an overdose all the time, Frank. You can’t protect him from this—”

“It’s nothing a hospital will help.” They were all listening to him, even Doug, who was down on the floor with his sleeve rolled up and his arm out. But Frank gave him a nudge, said, “Get Helene. Tell her he won’t feed.”

Doug seemed to get more out of that than Rita did. He nodded, got up and ran.

“You have to be kidding me.” Dani peered over his shoulder, glaring. “He fixed on her. And she won’t even feed him?!”

“I’ve cooked for him all week. This isn’t about my cooking.”

“No, it isn’t.” Frank sank back on his heels, rubbed his head. “You can leave now and not see any of this.”

“I’m not leaving him!” Couldn’t. Wouldn’t, even though she knew Frank planned to turn her world on its head.

“You’ll wish you had.”

“I know that.” She figured they were going to give him more drugs, or an antagonist to the drugs he’d already taken, and she’d have to do something about it later. But right now they had to keep him alive. If Frank knew how to do that, she’d let him and say ‘thank you’.

“Somebody give me a knife!” A blade came into view and he said, “Clean knife!” Took it when it came and pricked his finger, waited until a drop of blood formed.

“Martin,” he said, softly, and smeared the welling blood on Martin’s lip.

“What are you doing?”

Martin stirred, tried to escape the blood, but it was movement, more than they’d had a moment ago.

“Is he alive?” Helene DeCourcy had arrived, quite at home in a ruffled Gilded Age ball gown, and with a terrible, terrible expression on her face.

“So far.” Frank stood up, deferred to her authority. “He needs to feed, but he won’t do it.”

“Get him off this floor and put him to bed. We’ll have to make his excuses at the party.”

The door to the basement apartment was still open and between them Frank and Doug got him down the stairs. Rita wanted to follow, but she had a kitchen to deal with first – and Helene DeCourcy. “We have to cancel,” Rita said, “he needs a hospital.”

“Trust me to know what he needs, my dear. For his reputation, no one must know what has happened here.”

Helene followed Martin to the stairs, with Rita right behind her. “This is not the nineteenth century. We don’t let people die to hide their problems.”

Helene stopped. She turned on the stair and, for a moment, Rita saw something in her eyes that froze her like a stalked rabbit.

“He’s a vampire, dear. It’s not like he’s snorting cocaine. And he nearly killed himself to keep you from finding out, so please do not lecture me on secrets and reputations.”

“That’s insane!” Really, really insane. If the situation wasn’t so dire, Rita would have laughed. But Martin was unconscious and nobody else looked surprised.

“I know, dear. If these were different times . . . ” Helene studied her for a full moment, waiting for something. Then her shoulders lifted. She grabbed Rita by the arm and tugged her down the stairs. “If these were different times, we’d lock you in a room together until you sorted it out between you.”

Rita had a bad feeling about this, but it was getting her where she needed to be. So she let Helene lead her, through a tidy little kitchen and a living room with a big brown couch, all of it clean except for the dirt – not dust, but a scattering of soil like a flower pot had overturned – in a fine line across the bedroom doorway. Helene stepped over it and pulled Rita in after her.

The room, like the rest of the apartment, was masculine and clean except for a bit of soil across the hearth of the fireplace. On the mantelpiece sat three fat white candles, like the candles in the window and the ones at Helene DeCourcy’s house. But it was the bed that held all of Rita’s attention. They’d undressed him and covered him to the waist. His skin looked like marble, pale and blue veined, as still as death. Oh God, she thought. Oh God. She remembered the champagne fizz of excitement when he entered the room, and the dark pools of his eyes pushing back the blue with mysteries. Rita fell to her knees by the side of the bed, took his hand in hers, still soft, but cold, so cold. She almost didn’t hear it when Helene said, “We are going to do this the old-fashioned way.” Didn’t care when Frank said, “We can’t do that. Martin—”

“Martin will die if we don’t. He is a foolish boy, but there we are. Do you want to tell his mother that you let him die?”

Frank said nothing, but he left and took Doug with him. Rita was glad they were gone. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry. To hear her scream. Martin was dead, was dead, was dead.

The door closed, leaving her alone with Helene DeCourcy and Martin’s body, but of the two, only Martin mattered. Until Helene crossed to the hearth and lit the three white candles. “Sanctuary, hearth and home,” she said. “Sanctuary stands highest to light the way for the lost. We have two choices here. If what I said upstairs is true, do you still love him?”

Upstairs. She’d said that Martin was a vampire. Down here, she’d said they still had choices.

“Will I die?” That was one kind of movie. Helene said, “We all die, eventually. But Martin would never hurt you. He would die first. He is dying rather than upset you. He’s a fool in that, but no, it will not kill you.”

“Will I become like him?” Given his present state, that didn’t sound much better, but Helene said, “No, I’m sorry. That isn’t possible. It’s genetic.” Rita wasn’t sorry, but she thought Helene might see it differently.

Helene waited, but Rita didn’t have anything else to say except, “Choices?” like Martin was on the menu – pick one, pay for ever.

“He’s fixed on you. Loves you. Because he hasn’t fed yet, we can still stop it. I can wake him long enough for you to tell him ‘no’. But then you have to go, and never see him again. It won’t be comfortable, but he’ll survive. If you choose to stay, he will need to feed from you, a tablespoon or so of blood every few days. Like insulin, if you like, only it has to be drawn living from your body.”

When put that way, it sounded clinical. Simple. Not obscenely personal at all. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Tears simmered in Helene’s eyes, but they didn’t fall, and she managed to smile fondly in spite of them. “Because he is a foolish boy and he loves this house almost as much as he loves you. If he told you too soon, he risked losing you both. So he kept silent.”

Rita wondered how far she’d go to put Sophie’s back on its feet. The little restaurant meant a lot to her, but not this much. Not Martin’s life.

“For ever.”

“Until the day you die.”

The thought terrified her. But Rita had learned all she needed to know about for ever watching Martin die. “Show me how,” she said, and scarcely noticed when Helene undid the buttons on her jacket – the white one. Frank had told her the black jackets with the little red hearts on the pockets were for the special service staff, but she hadn’t realized until now what that special service was. She supposed she’d be wearing a red-heart jacket after tonight.

Rita’s jacket fell away, and then her shirt, her slacks, peeled down until she was naked in the warmth of the candles and reaching for Martin, sliding into the bed beside him as if in a dream, or a trance. She wondered if Helene had done something to her, but the thought didn’t shake her resolve.

“Here,” Helene said, and took a lancet from a small purse at her waist. Rita had watched as Frank pricked his finger, so she already knew that much of what she had to do. She reached out her finger for Helene to prick, winced at the cut, but she’d done worse in the kitchen. A bubble of blood formed at the tip of her finger.

“It’s always better when both people are conscious,” Helene remarked, “but this will have to do for now.”

If Helene could make a joke, Rita figured, the worst was over. Her own sense of humour was still on hold. This close, she wanted him, wanted his eyes open and looking at her like they had when they danced together in his empty ballroom. She wanted his skin warm against hers, and she wondered about that; it almost stopped her, but just being close to her seemed to have warmed him. She remembered what Frank had done and touched his lip gently, let him sense the presence of her blood. His head followed her movement, reaching for it rather than escaping it. Frank couldn’t save him, but she could. She felt powerful, and it gave her courage. She needed that when he opened his eyes and moaned her name.

“Your wrist will do for now. Let him hold your hand.”

For a moment she’d forgotten that Helene DeCourcy was still there, and she blushed to her toes, knew Helene could see every fiery inch of her and blushed even more. But Martin was reaching for her, tugging at her arm, his lips soft on the inside of her wrist. A delicate lick and every muscle grew liquid and languorous. He found what he was looking for – her vein pulsed against his mouth.

She cried out at the little pain, the fierce need, as the needles of his teeth pierced her flesh. She felt it down in her belly, to the ends of her toes, the tidal pull starting in her wrist and emptying her, her soul drawn out like a sigh. She closed her eyes, trying to absorb the sensation, focus on the pleasure of that deep motion, the awareness of heart and veins and arteries pulsing down to one point of existence in her wrist. When she opened her eyes again, Helene was gone, and Martin was blinking at her.

“You’re warm,” Rita said, and Martin said, “You’re here.”

Epilogue

Martin was nervous. The food was packed, the trucks were waiting to head over to the Art Museum, but Frank had insisted that they make it official. So he was standing in his kitchen – Rita’s now – in his dinner jacket, with his staff in an anxious circle. Rita looked nervous, but they’d made it through the worst.

“It’s time,” Frank said, and Martin took off Rita’s white coat, handed it to Dani, who folded it over her arm. Then Frank brought out a new black jacket and handed it to Martin. There were a dozen more in the closet now, but he made a ceremony of the first.

“Two souls, one heart.” Martin touched the small red heart embroidered on the pocket over her breast, let his fingers linger. Through the heart wove a thin gold ring. “For ever.”

Martin was giving her that killer smile, and the dark of his eyes had swallowed the blue in a way Rita had come to recognize. Might as well break in the new jacket. She pushed back the sleeve, offered her wrist and he nipped, just a promise for later. They’d found much more interesting places for sipping, and Martin Harris was completely alive, everywhere. But right now the mayor was waiting for dinner.