Forever Young The Beginning (40 page)

“
Ian.”

“
Yes?”

“
I’m no child and I am one
who knows what I want.” She stopped and gently pulled him so that
he faced her. “I’ve grown to love you, Ian McCloud.” she said, her
head a bit to one side and her clear blue eyes fastened on
his.

‘
Ah, lass. I’m a broken man.
I am…. hollow inside. I don’t know what kind of… commitment I can
offer to anyone, especially as fine a woman as you are.”

“
Ian, my age…”

“
Hush now. As I live and
breathe Anna you’re a lovely woman and I care not a whit about your
age. I… look… I fear that I can’t fulfill… can’t commit to anyone.
I would hate myself if I had a part in failing to live up to what
you deserve. Even worse would be seeing your disappointment in
me.”

“
Let me be the judge of that
Ian.”

“
Anna, no one can replace
Cosette, and there are things about me, things that I…”

“
I only know that I love you
and I can make you happy.”

“
Anna, I’m not what I seem
to be.”

She reached up and took his face in
her hands and stepping close; she drew him down and kissed him
softly on his lips. It was a lingering but soft kiss. They parted
and gazed at each other. Ian spoke again saying “Anna there are
things about me that…” and he was stopped there as she drew his
face to hers and kissed him passionately. Ian drew her to him again
gently and kissed her again a bit more aggressively, but still very
gently. She responded by pressing in closely to him and twining her
arms about his neck. Her lips parted and their tongues met, each
caressing the other. He pulled her tightly against himself and
gently at first began to place small kisses along her cheek and
down to her throat. She tipped her head back and he moved his lips
down to the hollow of her throat where he could sense her hammering
pulse. He traced her jaw line with his lips and again kissed her,
this time hungrily. She matched his fervor and moaned softly as he
again kissed her and began to caress her. They sank to the grass
beneath the tree and made love passionately. Ian was surprised by
her fervor.

They lay together afterwards,
listening to the wind sing through the old trees and the sounds of
larks singing. It was an enchanting time, a time that one would
want to preserve forever if it was possible. Her head was pillowed
on his chest and her hair with its clean delicate scent lay all
about his face.

“
Ah Anna. You’ve surprised
me lass. I never saw this coming.”

“
I’ve thought of nothing
else for nearly three months, my love”

He chuckled and said “Three months?
What? I’ve been ambushed? What shall I do with such a wanton woman
as you?”

She raised herself and letting her
hair drape down on his face, she rolled herself astride him and
bent to kiss him. “I’ll show you, my love.”

Proceeding more slowly this time when
she reached a climax she cried out in ecstasy before slumping down
to lie atop him, breathing deeply and shuddering once. She cried as
she pillowed her head on his chest once more, and he could feel her
shoulders shaking slightly.

“
Anna, what is
it?”

“
I’m crying for joy, Ian.
I’d thought that this part of life was past me. These tears are
those of thanksgiving, not of sorrow. I’m so very happy Ian, and I
want only to make you feel the same. I’m so happy that you happened
by that day on the road. Oh, I do love you, no doubt!”

Later they led their mounts and walked
hand in hand. Sometimes she would reach up and take his upper arm
in her hand and lean her head on his shoulder as they walked. They
mounted up a while later and walked their mounts to the chateau.
Anna’s hair was a bit tousled and framed her lovely face. Marie
noted a touch of extra color in her cheeks and nudged Henri who was
oblivious to it. “What, Marie?”

“
Look at her cheeks, Henri.
And look at how she just shook her hair back. Are you blind? This
is a good thing.”

The next several days were magical to
Anna. She now never missed a morning to go with Ian. They moved
into his home at the old Tremblay place and spent their days at the
Chateau. Ian practiced his violin playing at his own home. They had
no staff there, but Anna did the cooking for them and Ian helped.
She was happy beyond her ability to say it.

For his part Ian gradually thought
less and less of returning to Scotland.

He sat musing one day when he was
alone. Although sailing was a thing he greatly loved and he missed
those people, he realized that his life as a vampire was truly a
good one with the exception of losing Cosette. The boys, Marie, and
Henri needed him in their lives and loved him greatly. He felt that
he owed them to stay and make the best of things. And what of his
good friend Li? He had willingly left a good life because of his
love of Ian as a friend. His low tolerance to sunlight would make
it next to impossible to again take to the seas with Ian. He would
be torn between staying here with everyone including Sophia or
leaving to follow Ian. It wasn’t fair to all of these people he now
loved for him to leave because his heart was broken. He would
grieve for Cosette no matter where he was. Truth to tell, his
affection for Anna was growing daily. With a deep sigh, he
concluded that he’d stay where he was, and Anna was no small part
of that decision.

One evening they were gathered at the
chateau as was their custom. Ian had gotten out his violin and
played some lively old Gaelic/Scottish songs and had surprised
everyone with one he had written that he called ‘Dance with Anna’.
After instructing the boys how to keep the rhythm using a copper
kettle as a bass drum and two spoons to make up a ‘Boom-ticky’
sound, he played it and sang the words as Marie and Henri danced to
it. After a bit Marie played it on her harpsichord and Ian taught
Anna how to dance to it. It was a rollicking good tune and Anna had
never had so much fun dancing. The words told a story of a man who
danced with a girl named Anna and after numerous verses he and she
were grandparents of twelve grandchildren.

They played and danced to other lively
Gaelic, Scottish and Irish tunes late into the night.

***

The idyllic days passed too quickly.
Anna told Ian that she must soon go to Switzerland or else the
passes might fill with snow and there would be no way in or out. He
conferred with Henri and Marie, hating that he wouldn’t get to see
Celeste until late springtime.

Henri spoke privately to Ian
saying “You know that if you get stuck over there, you’ll have to
be lucky
and
careful when you feed. Game can be scarce there in winter
time. Snowfall can be twenty feet deep in places. A series of long
absences would be suspicious. Domestic animals are plentiful as
they are here. But scars on their necks will arouse suspicions if
enough animals are discovered that way.”

They collaborated and settled on a
plan that involved Ian taking blood samples from a small herd of
goats, ostensibly to study the blood. Henri gave Ian the two
Pascal’s syringes and a microscope he had bought in Italy. He also
counseled Ian on how to place blood samples on the two glass
slides.

“
Speaking of glass, you must
take your sun glasses with you. Sunlight on snow is a painful thing
for a vampire. You should take some samples of both men’s and
women’s sun glasses. That way we can test the market over there.”
They went over the proposed bank partnership and Henri said that he
had a document package that had to be taken with Anna. He said “I
suggest that if you’re going, you leave as soon as possible due to
the weather in the Alps.”

***

Moreau stood and looked over the ruins
of the Francoise chateau. He had inquired diligently around Lyon
and had numerous contacts in the general area. It seemed that the
place burned one night after the servants had been not only
dismissed, but told to stay out of the chateau until the following
morning. Francoise wasn’t the only one missing. There were six
prominent businessmen and officials unaccounted for. No one seemed
to be able to say if their remains had been consumed in the
holocaust or not. Chandeliers, candelabras, doorknobs dinnerware
and other things had actually melted.

There wasn’t one thing to
link this to any vampire activity. In fact, Moreau knew that
Francoise employed vampires. Were it not so lucrative associating
with him, he might have reported it to the
Supreme Council
. No amount of money
could save anyone from their wrath. He shuddered to think what they
would do to him if he were discovered as a confederate of a pervert
like Francoise. Perhaps it was for the best that he was dead and
any link from him to Moreau was dead with him. He had repaid his
gambling debt and had resolved not to fall into that trap again.
Had the debt been owed to a human, he might have just killed him.
But the debt was owed to a gambling establishment which was partly
owned by a member of the
Supreme
Council
. He had repaid it without Henri
Lafayette ever learning of it. Live and learn. He’d been
lucky.

There was a matter of the Mayor of
Lyon found dead of a broken neck, found at the bottom of a
staircase. The King’s Gendarmes had concluded it was an accident
due to drunkenness on his part. The timing of it bothered Moreau,
but there was no link to be found to Francoise. The mayor was
reported to have known him, but what influential person didn’t? He
had even made a cursory inspection himself under the guise of being
a Gendarme supervisor checking on the thoroughness of the Lyon
branch of the service. There was nothing to indicate vampire
activity. There was a broken windowpane in a dormer, but a dead
bird was supposedly found on that side of the house at some time
before the incident. He almost wished to be summoned to take care
of an offender. He was bored by the lack of rogue vampire activity
in France; or at least the lack of any such activity that was
outside of his own personal schemes. He departed in his coach,
instructing his driver to head for the Swiss border.

***

The trip to the Swiss Confederation
was uneventful, but Anna made sure that every night was eventful.
It was snowing when they went through the mountain passes. At an
inn in the city of Lyon they heard the news of how a few months ago
the mayor had died falling down his stairs while drunk, and also of
a great chateau east of Lyon that had burned to the ground killing
everyone inside including the wealthy owner. Anna had remarked to
Ian how awful that fire was to have killed so many. She noticed
that Ian said very little for the rest of that day. He had been
reading a book about the study of blood though. She just thought he
was absorbed by it and never gave it any more thought. The ruins of
the place were visible from the road to Geneva.

Within three more days they were at
Anna’s country home outside of Lausanne and had purchased a dozen
goats. Anna was surprised to see that Ian knew a lot about blood
and even had equipment which he had brought along for the purpose
of studying it. He shared Henri’s book with her and let her see
some samples through the microscope and pointed out basic things to
her. She was surprised to see what she took to be a scholarly side
to him. It was yet another previously unknown facet of his
personality that intrigued her so. She had become addicted to him
and to their wildly passionate lovemaking. Never had she felt the
way she did every time they made love and his stamina in that
regard was unbelievable.

One day while they were walking along
the shore of Lake Geneva, Ian spied some people skating. He
persuaded Anna to stop and as it turned out, she knew one skater
and prevailed upon him to loan his skates and pole to Ian. The
skates were merely reindeer leg bones, filed, drilled, and bound to
ones’ feet with rawhide laces.

Soon he was out on the slippery
surface of Lake Geneva learning to push himself about on the
borrowed skates using the metal-tipped pole. There was a light snow
falling and soon he came over and left the pole with Anna. He began
to try to skate without using the pole so he soon had a spectacular
fall and Anna’s hands flew up to her mouth as she laughed. He
turned to her and the sight of her sitting there, snow delicately
frosting the hair that framed her beautiful face was one he wanted
to lock away in his heart forever. He suddenly thought of Cosette
and all of their wonderful moments like that. Making his way over
to Anna and leaning toward her, he kissed her gently. She smiled
afterward and tilted her head questioningly. He said “Anna, the
sight of you sitting on this rock just took hold of my heart. I am
your captive.”

“
Are you happy,
Ian?”

“
Yes Anna, I am.”

“
Then you can make me even
happier if you warm me up when we get home.”

“
Ah, now that’s a wonderful
idea. Would you mind if we could stop at a blacksmith’s shop? I
have an idea for making a pair of these skates using
iron.”

“
There’s one not far from my
house in the city. We can go there now if you are through falling
on this ice.” she said with a saucy smile.

Within two weeks Ian had re-engineered
his tie-on iron skate design to where they were fastened to a new
pair of boots he had made at a shop in Lausanne. In spite of being
heavy, the degree of control and the fact that he no longer had to
stop and keep tightening them made skating an absolute pleasure,
and he persuaded Anna to take up skating too and had a pair made up
for her.