Harker slouched and rested his chin in his hand, glancing down at his paper. His loose, windblown hair brushed the edges of his face. It was a charming, boyish posture.
“Without understanding the creature better,” he replied, “it’s hard to say. Maybe it’s simply easier. Or it could be the risk that’s involved. Maybe he fears discovery, and men are better at hiding their crimes. Mr. Roscoe’s body next to the road being a case in point.”
“So it may give him protection. Or it once did.”
He nodded, brow furrowing as he continued to gaze down at his notes. Then all the light in his face suddenly went out.
“What is it?” I asked.
One hand moved to his forehead, shielding his eyes from me. “A new host,” he muttered.
I waited for more. A turf brick settled in the fireplace, sparks crackling up the chimney.
I tried to fill in for myself the words he couldn’t seem to say. When understanding finally came, how itshookme.
Options
“He wants you to marry because he wants you to have a child,” I said faintly.
Harker got up from the table, chair digging at the floor. He walked to the hearth and I stared after him, heart beating almost to deafen me.
I recalled how Goosevar had changed. Going from attacking me on the heath to watching me behind the cottage. Enchanting me, and bringing me here.
Slowly I rose from the table. “Why me?”
Harker’s head half turned, not quite meeting my gaze. He looked as if he would speak, but instead he turned back to the fire.
After a few moments, he said, “You are only the second woman to have set foot in the chapel since I was a boy.”
I let out a laugh that sounded more pitiful than I intended. “In other words, the only option.”
More strained silence, followed by, “Something like that.”
It shouldn’t have hurt. I knew it wasn’t meant to. But it did.
Harker took off his fine coat and laid it over the back of one of the chairs. I couldn’t help admiring again the draping beauty of his shirt, with its ruffled cuffs and neck. Over it he wore a well-fitted waistcoat the color of wine. I had noticed his old-fashioned way of dressing the first time I came here, though his dress at the tearoom had been modern and very polished. It occurred to me now that this would probably havebeen the fashion around the time he became a young man.The same time he stopped aging.
Though the topic was awkward, the sudden quiet was uncomfortable, and I said, “We’ve found Roche’s killer. We know that he wants something from us. If we were to give him what he wants, would the killings stop?”
Harker looked at me at last, brows drawing down. “Hypothetically, I hope you mean.”
I stumbled on the unfamiliar word. “If you’re saying that you hope I’m not suggesting we actually marry, of course I know we’re not considering that.”
My tone carried the barest hint of wounded pride, and I was ashamed to see by the slight softening of his expression that he had caught it.
“If we did, hypothetically, marry,” he said, “and we were able to conceive a child”—his gaze flitted down to my belly, kindling a flame there—“it would presumably be eighteen or more years before his change. Would Goosevar go that long without feeding? Before my vital essence, the longest I ever managed to abstain was about a month.”
“And how long have you been using your vital essence?”
“Including the less effective formulations, about twenty-five years.”
“So it would seem thathehas also managed to survive on it, and only lately—”
“Reached his limit,” Harker said bitterly, glancing down. “I haven’t exactly thrived on it myself.”
This had been evident from the change wrought in him by my blood. Which brought to mind an obvious solution. I hadn’t known him long, but I knew how he was going to feel about what I said next.
“You could go back to what you were doing before your vital essence. Feeding by ... arrangement. Without killing.”
