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  Should she go ahead and tell him? And watch him recoil in shock? Or laugh it off in disbelief? Either would cut her to the quick. What if he was that one human in a million who didn’t ridicule or recoil at her nature? Who might even, wonder of wonders, accept what she was? Even then, could she make a life-changing decision on the basis of knowing him three days?

  A nagging voice reminded her that she’d made the decision to evacuate with her pupils in a matter of hours.

  That was different. Well, sort of.

  “Come on, love. Since I can’t take you to the Savoy or the Ritz, a British restaurant will have to do.”

  Much more suited to their pockets too. She took his hand and together they crossed the road and headed up toward the church hall.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Schmidt declined supper and retired to his meager quarters, climbing up onto the roof to survey his future domain and ponder the nagging disquiet about the man who’d accompanied Sir Gregory into the greenhouse that morning. Something about him tweaked his memory. Schmidt hadn’t recognized him. He’d had a good look at him through the branches of one of the orange trees, but there was something about him, his voice perhaps, that was so familiar. But if so, why did he not recognize the human? Vampires didn’t forget. Not much at least. But he’d take an oath, he hadn’t seen that man’s face this time in England.

  His previous visit had been back in 1640. He’d crossed the Channel to avoid the turmoil of the Thirty Years War, being too young a Vampire then to truly appreciate the conveniences of battles. He’d learned that fast, though, when England descended into civil war two years later.

  This was no time for nostalgia. The here and now needed his attention. Or rather the human he’d recognized. Could it have been around three centuries earlier? Was he some sort of immortal? And if so, had he destroyed Eiche and Bloch?

  Schmidt sat immobile for several minutes, pondering that. What now? Share the news with Weiss? Without proof, Weiss’s ridicule was more likely than his praise. Better find out more.

  What did he know already? The man was tall, broad shouldered and appeared strong. From the overheard conversation, it was apparent he was part of the local Home Guard, and about to propose marriage to some fellow human. Not much to go on. He presumably lived nearby. Trouble was, Schmidt didn’t dare venture into the village to ask. Their trusted party member, Miss Waite, was no longer there to shelter him. And there was the risk of being recognized. He’d been so weak and failing when that doctor woman rescued him, that he didn’t know who had, and had not, seen him.

  He should have stayed in the kitchen for supper, in hopes of picking up something from the servants’ gossip, but the trouble with ingesting mortal food was the bother of regurgitating it, since his body no longer assimilated nourishment from solid food. It might be worth the inconvenience, if he learned what he needed.

  Finding, and eliminating, the thing that had destroyed his fellow Vampires would be a delightful coup.

  Howell Pendragon dismounted his bicycle and paused to catch his breath. The years were gaining on him. His heart never used to race like this going up the hill out of the village, but he’d never before ridden up it planning to propose matrimony.

  He propped his cycle against the hedge that bordered the kitchen garden, and waited another few seconds to let his heartbeat settle.

  It didn’t. If anything, his pulse sped up as he took the bunch of camellias from his basket and eyed the kitchen door.

  He hoped he’d timed it right. Alice should be busy with patients in her surgery now. Peter would still be at work, and Helen Burrows should be pausing for a cup of tea before starting to cook dinner.

  He’d better get a move on.

  He was scared witless.

  Only one way to go. He crossed the gravel to the brick path that led up to the back door and gave it a firm knock.

  Too firm. He heard it resounding over the sounds of Music While You Work on the wireless from the other side of the door. Then the wireless went off, he heard footsteps on the flagstone floor, and the doorknob turned.

  Helen’s face lit with recognition. “Why, Howell. How nice to see you, come on in.” With a smile that bolstered his confidence, she opened the door and stepped back for him to cross the threshold, then closed the door behind him. “Getting a bit brisk out there, isn’t it? Did you want to see Alice? She should be finished in half an hour or so.”

  “I don’t need to see the doctor. I came to see you, Helen.”

  “That’s nice. Come in and have a seat and I’ll pop the kettle on.”

  He was too damn anxious to move from where he stood. As she filled the kettle, he looked at the flowers clutched in his right hand. He’d wrapped them in newspaper; it had protected the blooms but wasn’t anywhere like the shiny paper florists used before the war. Still, it was the best he could do, and she’d know that.

  “Don’t stand there, Howell, take off your coat and have a seat.” She put the kettle on the stove. “I made an apple tart. Would you like a slice with your tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” His throat was closing up on him. He had to get this said.

  She took cups off the dresser and looked at him, rooted to the same spot. “Something wrong, Howell?”

  “No! No, nothing wrong. It’s just. These are for you.” He held out the newspaper package.

  “Thank you.” She laid them on the table while she cut the string, close to the knot so as to be able to reuse it, and opened the newspaper.

  And stared, open mouthed. “Camellias. Howell, where did you get them?” She picked up the stems, holding her other hand under the flower heads. “They are absolutely beautiful. Thank you, Howell, but where on earth did you get them these days?”

  “Sir Gregory’s greenhouse. He kept three bushes, said he couldn’t bear to part with all of them.”

  “He gave them to you?”

  Did sound incredible, didn’t it? No wonder she gave him a searching look. “I asked him for them.” She almost dropped them at that.

  He stepped forward and put his hand under the blooms. “Said I had something special I needed them for and could he spare just one. He gave me a whole bunch of them.” He’d gone this far, better finish the job. He took a deep breath while she stared in total bewilderment. “I wanted to bring you something beautiful, like you, Helen. I wanted to show you what I think of you and ask you, if you might, possibly…I mean, I want to ask you if you’d consider marrying me.”

  She landed in the nearby chair with a thump. “Howell?”

  “I mean it, Helen. From the bottom of my heart.” He was in full flow now. Determined to leave nothing undone, he went down on his knee by her seat, and looked up at her face. She was smiling so he went right on. “Marry me. I love you. Have loved you ever since you first came to Brytewood. Please, would you? Could you marry me? You are the most wonderful woman in the world. I’d give anything to win you. Get you anything. Do whatever you ask. Just please, say yes.”

  “Howell.” She appeared composed, although he was still shaking. “You’re asking me to marry you?”

  “Yes!” Hadn’t he been clear enough? He wasn’t too sure what he’d said as his mind was whirling so fast. “Please, would you? I know you could have your pick of the men in all of England, but I love you.”

  In the pause as he caught his breath, she smiled. “Yes, Howell.”

  The room spun around him as he grabbed her hands. “You mean it?”

  “I’d hardly be saying yes if I meant no, now would I?” Neither would she be smiling at him as if he’d just offered her the entire universe. “Here, get up.”

  He managed that with her help. It was no joke getting up off a stone floor at his age, and he stood looking at her. Grinning like an old fool in love, no doubt, but that’s exactly what he was. “I love you, Helen.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it,” she replied.

  “Dear heaven, Helen, you don’t know how happy you’ve made me.”

  “I thi
nk I do,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. Hard.

  He kissed back. Almost drowning in the wonder of it. Lost in her glorious woman’s warmth and the wild passion of her kiss. His head swam, his heart raced. He could die from the beauty of her touch and could think of no better way to go. Only he wanted to live, for her.

  They broke the kiss together; her face was flushed and her eyes bright with desire. He knew exactly how she felt.

  “I think,” she said, smiling up at him, “this merits something more than a cup of tea.”

  “I’d have brought Champagne if I thought I could have found any at the Pig.”

  “How about a glass of sherry? There’s a bottle in the dining room sideboard. You go and get it while I put these beautiful camellias in water.”

  By the time he got back with the sherry and a couple of glasses, she was slitting the last stem and arranging them in a vase. “There,” she said. “How kind of him to give them to you. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “Not a patch on you, Helen.”

  God! She was so wonderful and when she laughed like that, she was downright fantastic. “Here’s the sherry. Want me to pour it?”

  “Please.” He handed her a glass and they sat down, side by side. “To us,” she said, raising her glass and beaming at him.

  “To us,” he replied, clinking his glass against hers.

  “Think we should go talk to Reverend Roundhill about putting up the banns?” he asked, after a lovely companionable moment of silence.

  “Yes.” Certain about that she was. “How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow it is. After I take you shopping for a ring.”

  “Think we’ll be able to get one? Everything’s so scarce these days.”

  “I’m sure we can. Remember the jeweler in Leatherhead, the one up at the top of the High Street, by the Duke’s Head? He’s been buying up jewelry since the war started. Lots of people are selling. I bet he has an Aladdin’s Cave there. What do you fancy?”

  She pondered that a moment or two. “Something red. Red as dragon fire. Garnet, carnelian, ruby. Let’s see what he has.”

  “I’ll give him a ring in the morning, ask him to look some out for us. Whatever you want. It’s yours.”

  That kiss went on even longer, and by the time they broke the embrace, his body was very happy too. “We could go away for a weekend somewhere close and celebrate,” he suggested.

  “We could indeed. Dorking isn’t far.”

  “Might shock our families.”

  “They’ll get used to the idea.” They were going to have to. “Let’s have another sherry,” she said, handing him her empty glass. “I don’t know what else I’m keeping it for.”

  “Our wedding?” he suggested, giving her a gentle nudge with his elbow.

  “I’ll want Champagne at that!”

  She was grinning, so he might as well niggle her a bit. “I’ll have a word with Sam Whorleigh. Bet he can manage a case or two.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but it would taste sour. And, talking about Sam Whorleigh, let me tell you what happened this morning.”

  Howell listened. “Think he was serious?”

  “He couldn’t be drunk that early in the morning, could he? Besides, he was sober as a judge and scared out of his wits. No, he wasn’t making it up. But at least we now know what he is, and he’s joining us—for whatever good he’ll be.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him, Helen. Who knows, he might just have the skills we need.”

  “So far his only skills seem to be moving fast and running rackets.”

  “Don’t forget last month, he stepped in and saved Alice from what could have been an awkward predicament.”

  She conceded the point. “I can think of better things to do than talk about Sam Whorleigh.”

  So could he.

  They spent the next half hour exploring them. Until Howell, reluctantly, decided he’d better head home before it got dark. Not that he worried about Gryff. With a bit of luck, he’d be very late home, but there’d been a cyclist killed over in Headly a few days back, in the blackout. Getting run over was not in his plans for the near future.

  Howell took a very tender farewell of his fiancée, and, after promising to pick her up at nine the next morning, set off down the hill. Singing out loud.

  He had news for Gryff when he got back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Paul Schmidt looked up and frowned. How the hell did Weiss move like that? Appearing in an instant in the middle of the room.

  “What do you want?” Schmidt asked.

  “A report on your progress,” Weiss replied, walking noiselessly across the bare boards to stand over Schmidt.

  Well, he wasn’t getting up. Let Weiss loom over him, if he wanted to. Schmidt wasn’t that easily intimidated. “Have a seat. The chair by the door isn’t too rickety.”

  Weiss brought it to the middle of the room, turned it around and sat astride it. “Comfortable accommodation?”

  If Weiss wanted complaints, he was going to be disappointed. “It’s private and I have sustenance right below me, or just a short run across the grounds. I’ve had worse.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  Schmidt wasn’t disposed to discuss his accommodation. He wanted to run across the night fields to the Home Farm and feast off a nice milch cow. He planned on reserving the horse for emergencies and bad weather. “You wanted a report on my progress?” Now Weiss was at eye level, Schmidt noticed the shiny mark of healing skin. What had happened to his esteemed leader?

  Weiss nodded. “What have you learned?”

  In not quite twenty-four hours? If Weiss anticipated a negative response, he was doomed to disappointment. “First: very important guests expected this weekend. Who exactly, I do not know, but Cook has been complaining about the extra work, and a shortage of butter.”

  “Find out who it is. If it’s Churchill, no playing games. Kill him. As messy as you like.”

  “With pleasure.” So, Weiss wasn’t going to do the dirty work himself. He should have expected that. “Also, I may have identified the killer of Eiche and Bloch.”

  Not even a raised eyebrow. Damn Weiss. “You think so?”

  “He is Other, but what he is, I’ve no idea. He’s part of their pathetic Home Guard. An old man.”

  “An old man with the strength and power to annihilate two Vampires?”

  “I said he is Other. He must possess inhuman strength. He lives in the village. His voice was familiar, took me awhile to remember where I’d heard him. He helped that doctor carry me into her house.”

  “He’s a Vampire killer and let you live, in your weakened state?”

  “Maybe he failed to recognize what I am.”

  Weiss had a particularly nasty laugh. “I think not, my friend, because I encountered the killer last night.” That explained the healing flesh. “He’s something I’ve never encountered before; he breathes fire.”

  “What sort of creature breathes fire? A Chimera? The Khalkotauroi? A Dragon?”

  Weiss dismissed those suggestions with a flick of his hand. “We deal with reality here, my dear Schmidt. Not myths and legends.”

  Schmidt forbore mentioning that most humans considered Vampires myths. “What do you think he is?”

  “A young man. Strong.” Not the old codger then. “He’s some sort of Other. He breathes flame and carried no weapon. The fire came from him and in an instant.” Interesting, but Schmidt was not about to discount the old man he’d seen in the greenhouse. “This one is dangerous.” Obviously, if he’d killed two already. “We must target him. Find where he lives and dispose of him.”

  “Before Churchill?”

  “Most definitely. Once their Winnie is dead, we will have more important things to do than dispose of peasants.”

  Made sense, Schmidt supposed. Not that he’d argue with Weiss if it didn’t. But for his money he was going to keep his eyes and ears wide open for any trace of the old codger from the
Home Guard. Schmidt granted that the chance of two Others living in the same village was slight. Surely one would long ago have disposed of the competition. But there were other hamlets and villages around.

  “There is another matter,” Weiss went on, “that I will investigate since you are reluctant to go into the village.”

  Reluctant to expose himself to recognition was the gist of the matter. But he kept that to himself too. “What’s that?”

  “There is another Other there. I plan to identify him and, if we cannot suborn him, eliminate him.”

  This was beginning to sound like a comic opera or a farce. A deadly farce, but still ludicrous. “Yes?” Something seemed required in the silence.

  Weiss repeated the incident of the morning. “He disappeared. What sort of creature moves faster than one of us? A Fairy perhaps? There was a mention in one of Bloch’s reports of a village shopkeeper who had evaded him in a similar fashion.”

  “So you know where to find him. How many shops are there in that village?”

  “Five, six counting the defunct bakery. I will find this creature easily enough. Your job is to find somewhere that we can hold him captive while we use him.”

  “There’s plenty of space up here. It’s a bit close to the house, but no one ever comes up here. There’s the two horses below, but Sir James and his wife groom them and I get to muck out the stalls.” A task that infuriated him.

  Weiss looked around the barren, uncarpeted room. “Let me see the rest of the place.”

  He inspected every room. He tried doors and judged the height of the tiny windows. “Not perfect, but it will suffice. You can keep an eye on him, and I can approach from the woods at night. We could work on him unobserved.”

  “When do we take him?”

  “On Saturday. No one will miss him until Monday, and we can enjoy a most entertaining Sunday.”

  The poor bugger had no idea what was in store for him.

  Mary smiled at Gryffyth across the long trestle table. Irish stew and cabbage followed by prunes and custard wasn’t the sort of dinner to celebrate a marriage proposal. She’d once imagined linen tablecloths and nice glasses, but the gorgeous company was what really mattered, and his more than made up for the cracked oilcloth and the heavy, white china mugs of tea.