The King's Vampire
Read The King's Vampire Online
Authors: Brenda Stinnett
Table of Contents
THE KING’S VAMPIRE
BRENDA STINNETT
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
THE KING’S VAMPIRE
Copyright©2013
BRENDA STINNETT
Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Published in the United States of America by Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN-13: 978-1-61935—192-9
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
To all those people who love history
and the paranormal and like to imagine
what would happen if only . . .
Acknowledgements
First of all, I want to thank Debby Gilbert, wonderful Senior Editor of Soul Mate Publishing, for giving me the great news that she wanted to publish The King’s Vampire . Thank you for the guidance and support along the way.
Thanks to Tiff, my daughter and my heroine, who always stays strong and calm under pressure and keeps me calm.
Thanks to my Yorkshire friends, June and Mike, who were always there to help me find resources on Charles II and who took me to the oak tree where Charles hid from Cromwell’s men, which planted the seed for this book.
But most of all, thanks to my husband, my rock, whose love and support always keeps me grounded and whose inspiration gives me the direction that I need.
Thank you all for helping make this dream come true.
Prologue
February, 1685
Charles II lay on his royal canopied bed, patiently allowing the doctors to purge, bleed, and blister him. He prayed he had enough stamina left to endure dying. A fire blazing in the fireplace made the air hot and heavy, and the stench from all the nobles crowding the room pressed down upon him. Unfortunately, even their finest French perfumes couldn’t drown out the smell. Royalty never died in peace.
Poor Queen Catherine, timid as ever, remained crouched in a corner on a chair, rocking backward and forward, seeming fearful she might bother someone, most of all, her dying husband. Knowing her to be stricken with grief, Charles wished he could reach out to her, but he was weakening rapidly and needed to conserve strength enough to finish the sorry business that could be left undone only at the peril of his own soul.
Now so weak he could barely raise his head, he wasn’t able to see the gold-leafed lions’ heads that hung on the wall just above his bed. If only, once in his lifetime, he’d demonstrated such lion-like courage perhaps he would have grasped immortality in his hands.
If he could have captured the love of the one who might have made his dreams of immortality come true. Elizabeth. He breathed her name like a prayer, picturing her burning lavender eyes and flaming auburn hair. If only he’d won her love, maybe this evil spell of death wouldn’t be hanging over his head. If . . . if . . . if . . . the saddest word in the world to a dying man. Of course she’d told him there was something else—something more important—but having such difficulty breathing, he couldn’t remember what that other thing might be.
His mind wandered once more. The faintest smile touched his lips when he turned his gaze to the left, recalling the nude portrait of his beloved Nelly hidden behind the secret wall chamber now well concealed by the massive tapestry covering it. It pleased him to know she was secretly with him in his desperate time of need.
Candles in candelabras flickered in the corners, while the blazing fireplace made the walls of his royal bedchamber sweat. Ignoring the background noise of people whispering in hushed voices or sobbing quietly, Charles knew little time on this earth remained to him. He’d have to focus all his strength if he planned to keep his promises. Not famous for keeping his promises in life, now, so near to death, it seemed more important.
He gestured his brother to his bedside, waving off the doctors. “Forgive me for taking such an unconscionable time a-dying, but I must speak with my brother.”
Looking distracted, the way any man might with thoughts of soon becoming the next king of England whirling in his head, James leaned over his bed. “What is it, dear brother?”
Charles squeezed James’s hand and pulled him closer. The coarse black hairs on Charles’s arms looked startling against the whiteness of his normally swarthy skin. He spoke to his brother in hushed tones. “I beg you, let not poor Nelly starve.” He withdrew his hand.
James whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his own forehead, lips, and eyes. “I’ll take care of her, I swear I will.”
“One more thing,” Charles said. He paused until James knelt down at his bedside, and then cupped his brother’s hands in his own. “Swear you won’t let Buckingham into this room until I’m dead.”
“Whatever you desire, Your Majesty, but please don’t die yet. The kingdom still has desperate need of you.”
“Jamie, I speak no longer as your king, but only as a brother who loves you.”
A sob escaped from James’s lips as the French ambassador came up to him. “Do you wish to save your brother’s soul?”
Silence fell over the room, and the crowd strained to hear the exchange between James and the ambassador.
“The king’s mistress, Duchess of Portsmouth, wants to know if you need a priest for the king?” the ambassador said.
James looked at Charles.
“For God’s sake do and lose no time about it.” Charles clutched hold of his brother’s hand again. He remembered now that was what Elizabeth had been warning him about all along—his soul was in great jeopardy.
“I want to be alone with my brother,” James said curtly to the room full of people.
A sibilant buzz, as of angry insects disturbed in the heat of summer, came from the crowd. Reluctantly, they left. When some lingered by the doorway, James ushered them out, slamming the door once the last person was gone. A priest suddenly appeared. Charles realized he must have come by the secret staircase the way so many women had come to visit him throughout the years. Somehow, even in his great illness, this pleased Charles’s sardonic nature.
He looked deep into the priest’s pewter-colored eyes, familiar eyes that reached out to him in compassion and love. Charles blinked once, then twice. “I remember you.”
“And I, too, remember you, my son.”
“You saved me from Oliver Cromwell’s men by shoving me up that oak tree when I was but a young lad.”
“Now I’ve come to save your soul.”
“Father, I wish to make my last confession, but please open the doors so I might see one more dawn over the River Thames before I draw my last breath.”
“Whatever you wish, Sire.” The priest threw open the French doors before he propped Charles up with pillows, allowing him to gaze out onto the river.
A heavy mist swirled from the cold river, and the melancholy sound of the horns of ships and the mournful cry of gulls drifted into the room. A huge, black raven landed on the windowsill, a messenger who had come, but too late to be of use to Charles.
The priest pulled up a small Venetian table inlaid in gold, and covered it with a snowy white linen cloth before placing a silver candlestick on it. The crisp, cold sea breeze blew in from the Thames, causing the candle to flicker. He placed a jeweled rosary between Charles’s long fingers. Then put a bottle of holy water, a silver salver of oil, and a silver-plated bowl on the table next to a well-worn wooden crucifix.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," Charles said. "I loved many women and committed much adultery, but the one woman I truly loved was my darling Elizabeth. Never would I have taken another woman if she were mine. The story I beg you to share with others is not my story, but rather hers, for she was the king’s own vampire.”
The priest paled and stroked Charles’s cheek. “There, Your Majesty, you are feverish. Don’t speak of this thing right now.”
Charles drew in a painful breath. He had to make the priest understand before he grew any weaker. “My Nelly told me the parts of the story I didn’t already know, and as for the rest, well, I was there. It’s a story that may frighten you, but it’s a warning to all—because it could happen again.”
“Please rest, my son.”
Charles continued on, “I took the liberty of writing everything down that happened between Elizabeth and me. It’s difficult to believe only ten years have passed since I first met her. I die loving her, but she loves another. A better, stronger man than I. Forgive me for all my great weaknesses, Father, but, most of all, you must promise that you will let the story be known.”
“Save your strength, my son, for Extreme Unction.”
Charles fidgeted. The image of the priest blurred before his feverish eyes. “You must understand, Father, this story concerns the very heart of darkness.”
“Calm yourself, my son.”
“No. No. It’s a story that has to be told—for the sake of the world. How can we destroy the demons if we don’t first recognize them for what they truly are?”
The priest at last nodded in agreement.
“I thank you, Father,” Charles said. He shoved the crumpled manuscript toward the priest. “Please fetch me ink and quill so you can take down this letter for me.”
By the time the priest finished writing the letter and Charles managed to seal it with the royal seal, the priest’s wrinkled hands trembled as he washed them in the silver bowl.
In a soothing chant, the priest began the litany of the dying. “Let peace be with the house of Stuart.”
“Read the beginning to me before I die.” Charles spoke through parched lips.
The priest read the first few pages of the manuscript aloud. “Dear God, I remember this woman."
Charles nodded. “My darling Elizabeth,” he said, and he closed his eyes for the final time.
Chapter 1
November 1675
Darkness weighed down on Elizabeth. If she dared move, the roof might collapse. The confessional felt airless, barely giving her room enough to breathe. Even when the priest slid open the tiny grate that separated them and made the sign of the cross before the grilled window, she couldn’t quite catch her breath. His voice, whispering in Latin, sounded like the rustling of dead leaves, rasping to her ears. The mingled scent of incense, candle wax, and flowers suffocated her even further.