THE HYBRID

By Atonia Walpole

(Picture creation also by Atonia)

Part 1 – William Cornith

Chapter 1

It was the smell of blood that had attracted him. He stood in the corner and watched without emotion as the woman in the bed screamed, her face contorted in pain. She let out one last scream as she drew her knees up and then it was over. She lay still on the bed, sheets drenched in blood. His chest heaved with the smell and sight of it, but instinct told him it was unclean.  He waited a moment and moved to the side of the bed. Now, now while she was still living, still breathing, now he would feed. Closing his eyes he sank his teeth into the vein on her neck.

He moved away from her, sated for the moment. Beneath the sheet something began to move and make little mewing sounds. He pulled it back and there lay the babe. It disgusted him and he backed away.

The tiny stone cottage was silent now. The woman would die. He watched the babe flail around for awhile before scooping it up in the bloodied sheet.

Across the moors he quickly fled with the bundle beneath his cloak.

The door to the brightly lit bungalow flung open causing her to gasp, bringing her hand to her throat.

“It’s you!”

He smiled and his pink lips curved over his teeth. “Who else were you expecting?”

“No one.” She was half frightened of him and half in love with him, though she knew what he was. Her copper curls lay about her white shoulders and her bright green eyes glowed in the candle light.

“I’ve brought you something.” From under his cloak he drew out the bundle and laid it on her table.

“Ack, Ahhhrrrggh!  What is it?"  She jumped from her chair and hid her face.

William Cornith pulled the bloody covering away and looked at her to see her reaction.

She looked through her fingers. “It’s a babe.” Almost afraid to ask, “Is it alive?”

“Yes…and hungry.”

Her breasts began to ache. Not two weeks since her own babe had passed with the fever. “He needs cleaning…oh.” She tilted her head and her hands went to the small infant curled with a fist in his mouth.

William moved around the table watching her as she took the babe to the basin and poured water over its head and began to clean it. Soon she had it wrapped in a shawl and to her breast. William had settled near the fire warming himself.

“Where is its mother?” she asked, running a finger over the baby’s cheek.

“Asleep,” he answered.

She looked up at him and understood his meaning. Unconsciously her fingers strayed to her neck. Beneath the wide velvet ribbon was evidence of his love. At least she thought it was.

He’d come to her a few months after her husband had been killed in the mine explosion. Arriving late at night, he said he’d been attracted by the light. She’d been up with her baby, rocking him by the fire. Aside from his pale countenance he was a strikingly handsome man. His eyes changed with the light. Sometimes blue and sometimes green. His dark chestnut hair fell in a straight curtain around his face and over the collar of his coat. He was powerfully built and carried himself like the aristocrat he once was.

Tonight his cheeks held a faint blush that added to his attractiveness.

“Do you need anything?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

“No, you keep me quite well.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yes,” she smiled down at the baby.

“Does he make you happy?”

“Yes, thank you.” It was unnatural and there were times she thought she’d never open her door to him again. But she needed him. Without him she would have starved or gone mad. He kept her in food and fabric. Anything she mentioned or he thought she might like he provided. She didn’t quite understand what it was that brought him back to her time and time again. He would feed on her, but only for a short time and never enough to cause her to swoon. It excited her in a way no man had ever done before. It also shamed her, but she kept that fact hidden from him.

At first she became feverish and ill. Soon after her baby also became ill and died. She didn’t connect her breast milk with the illness. If William did he never said so but he came to her less often.

He did not want to sicken her and was certain he didn’t want to make her like himself. He cared about her and as much as he could, he loved her. Strange as it may seem for one such as himself, he desired her warmth and her love above her life giving blood. But passion would take him and he would take her long enough to satisfy his desire, desire of the flesh as well as her blood.

He’d fed well tonight. The baby’s mother had not been his first kill and so he was warm and flush. When she’d finished with the babe he pulled her against him and kissed her, letting his hands run over her body until she let out a little moan and pressed herself to him. He undressed her slowly, letting his eyes feast before he took her to bed.

Later as he dressed looking down on her pink and soft body, he asked her, “What will you call him?”

“Can he not be your child? Shall I name him for you?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Not my name. Call him Jameson Cornith if you wish. That was my father’s name.”

“Jameson. It is a good name.”

He bent and kissed her. “I am away.”

Away he flew to the estate that belonged to his father and now belonged to him, a large rambling house, part castle and part country house.

“My lord.” His butler bowed slightly, taking his cloak and hat. “It is a damp night out.” Morvan was a slightly stooped man in his fifties. His hair was streaked with gray over his temples. His dark eyes revealed the love he had for his charge.

“That it is, Morvan.”

William retired to his rooms on the second floor. He stood by the fire for awhile warming himself then settled down with a book. It was nearly dawn when he blew out the candles and disappeared into a hidden door in the paneling. Down the spiraling steps he went, light on his feet, until he reached the lowest level of the building. There he found his haven inside the stone tomb where he would rest until dusk.

He was 28 years old when made a vampire. Caught out on the moors at night, his horse had gone lame and he was forced to walk it home. He never saw the attack coming. His horse had shied away and somehow made it home without him. The groom from the stables alerted Morvan and he with a footman had gone out on the moors and found him.  He was brought home and put to bed where he fought fever for days before dying.

Morvan had seen the marks on his neck and knew what had befallen his master.  After his death and proper burial, he’d dismissed the entire staff at Cornagaugh. He’d hired a drunken gravedigger to bring up his body from the churchyard and he’d transported it back home to the tomb down in the depths of the castle.

It had been Morvan who’d guided William into his new form of existence. He had become his first victim, sacrificing himself so that he may care for William and thus fulfilling a vow he’d made to William’s father on his deathbed when William was 15.

When William first woke into his new life he’d been distraught to the point he’d tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. Morvan told him he could not kill himself for he was already past that threshold. He’d brought him blood from a lamb. In spite of his instant revulsion William found he craved it and could not resist. Still he would not take a life until one snowy night when he was starved to the point he was beginning to shrivel. He could smell Morvan, who moved about him trying to make him comfortable. Morvan offered him his life for eternal service.

William still hesitated but he knew he could not die. Morvan would die eventually and leave him in such state that he would become an animal on the moors like the one that had attacked him and brought him to this end.

One hundred years had passed. The natural vegetation had been allowed to grow on the estate grounds and now the house was invisible to those that might pass on the great road to London. Only a narrow path led through the trees to the stables. William still kept horses and a groom. No one was alive now who remembered the handsome young man of Cornagaugh before his transformation.

He traveled frequently to London for he enjoyed the theater and concerts.  He was often seen in the company of beautiful young women who knew nothing of his affliction. He’d learned the ways of vampires, and if he kept himself well fed he could pass for human at least until dawn. He had acquired a townhouse where poets and musicians were frequently found among the bon tons of London.

He’d been on his way home one dark and rainy night when he’d noticed the isolated cottage tucked up on a hillside. Light spilled from the windows, suggesting warmth within. He’d halted his carriage and, taking his mount that had been brought along tied to the boot, he struck out alone for the cottage, leaving Morvan to continue on to Cornagaugh. He needed to feed but he found more than his life’s elixir behind the door.

Elena Cooperton opened the door to him with her babe at her breast. He was struck by her unstudied beauty and simple ways.  She was a recent widow, trying to keep her home and her child alive. He’d offered her money, which she refused. He took her before he left. Soon he began sending her foodstuffs, silken fabrics, woolen yarns, and silver candlesticks.

He was very careful with her and when she showed signs of fever he would hold himself away from her, however her fever passed to her infant, who sickened and died. Now he’d found her a replacement for the child she’d lost. She was not the first, no, there had been many young women in his life but she was the first with a child.

The babe was a sturdy infant and a brief bout of fever had worried him for awhile, but it seemed to pass. He was fascinated by the child and brought it trinkets from London. When Jameson began to talk, he called William 'Dada'. It was a fantasy world in which he indulged himself, a glimpse of how his life might have been with a wife and child had he lived.

He fed at Elena’s breast until he was nearly two years old. She’d tried to wean him when his little teeth came in fine and sharp but he would find her and nuzzle her until she would give in to him. William brought him a silver cup but he wouldn’t have the cow’s milk she offered him.  Finally she bound up her breasts and refused to feed him except from his cup and bowl. He learned to eat.

One day as she was cutting up his meat in his plate she sliced her finger. Jameson grabbed her hand and suckled the blood from her cut. He cried when she pulled away from him.

He’d had a taste of blood and knew its source. He began biting his mother and for that she would punish him. But there were nights after William had left her when Jameson would wait until she was asleep and crawl into her bed, drawn to her neck where his Dada had recently fed. If she woke she would put him back in his bed, but often she was near swoon and was unaware.

Chapter 2

William was returning from London where he’d spent a week enjoying the entertainment it offered. As was his habit he stopped the carriage and mounted his horse.  He rode to the cottage but pulled up when it came into view. There were no lights in the windows.

When he arrived and opened the door the cottage was dark and without a fire. He heard Jameson whimpering from the bedroom and dashed into the room. Elena was in bed with Jameson sitting beside her. William went down on his knees beside the bed. Even in the darkness he could see her pale face and dark hollowed eyes. She was barely alive.

“Elena…what has befallen you?”  He lit a candle by the bed and then he saw the raw wound on her neck. His eyes went immediately to the child, who was crying and trying to get to him.

“You…you little demon!” he lashed out at the child.

“Take him,” Elena whispered. Already her body was growing cold and with a flutter of her eyes she was gone from this world.

He wept tears of blood.

Before he left the cottage he buried her in the garden. He had a mind to leave the child to starve for what he’d done but the constant cries of Dada stopped him. He had to remind himself that Jameson did not know what he’d done, did not understand what had driven him to take his mother’s blood. He cleaned the child up and wrapped him in a blanket. Holding him in front of him on the saddle he rode for Cornagaugh.

Morvan’s eyes widened when he arrived with the child. Never had William brought a human to the house. “My lord?”

William set him down in the floor and whipped off his cloak, tossing it towards a chair. “He is mine.”

Morvan misunderstood and formed a tight smile. “Where will you have him?”

William flashed his eyes. “I would not have him at all but he has killed his mother. He is my son.”

“That is not possible!” Morvan took a step backwards.

“My adopted son, you idiot!” His anger had risen over the top. “He has fed from his mother and is infected.” He regarded the small boy standing very still beside him. “I did not know such a thing was possible.  What sort of devil spawn he will be only time will tell. Perhaps I should have left him to die but he would call me…Dada.”

Morvan’s nose twitched. “He is human.”

“Nay,” William took the child’s face in his hand and forced his mouth open. “What human child has teeth such as this? He eats, he runs about in the sun and yet he has sucked his mother’s blood until she died. He has taken from me the only thing…I....” He turned away from Morvan and walked to the fire, resting his head on his arm along the mantle.

Morvan looked at the boy, who was strangely quiet and still. “We must find someone to care for him.”

“You will not find one to take him on. He is young but deadly.”

“Some ignorant girl, perhaps,” Morvan went on.

For a long time William would have little to do with Jameson. He left him to Morvan and whatever girl had been hired to care for him. Morvan searched far and wide for the ignorant girls. There would be many over the years to come.

Jameson was a beautiful child with long dark curls. His eyes were a strange shade of green that changed with the light, sometimes emerald or turquoise and sometimes jade when he was calm. Morvan contrived a drink for him that was part milk and part blood. He thrived on it.  The child kept strange hours for one so young. He was up half the night and slept half the day. The girls who cared for him did the same, although at night they were kept in Jameson’s rooms.

Despite himself, William was drawn to the child. He knew he had created the monster and felt responsible for him. He also felt a growing affection for him. Jameson’s antics often brought him to laughter and sometimes near tears when he wanted to be cuddled. He was an affectionate child and loved his Dada. He was also highly intelligent and by the age of five he could read and play the piano as well as William could. He mimicked his Dada and therefore learned how to conduct himself.

One evening at dusk when William had risen and was preparing to go out, Morvan found him in his rooms.

“My lord, you must come. Something has to be done…something must be done about Jameson.”

Jameson was now fifteen and nearly as tall as William. Sounds of the piano reached him when he came out into the hallway. Morvan led him to Jameson’s rooms. There on the bed, ravaged and quite dead lay the latest girl not two weeks in their employ.

William looked the girl over and went down to the great hall where Jameson was contentedly playing Mozart. Morvan was close on his heels.

Jameson’s long curls were now tied haphazardly back with a ribbon. He sat straight on the seat as he played, moving his head slightly with the music. William waited until he’d finished his piece. The boy played very well.

His face lit up when he saw William. “Dada, do you not think it the most wonderful sound?”

William moved to the piano and placed his hands on the top. “You play very well, Jameson.” He glanced over at Morvan for a minute. “I think the time has come to further your education.” He looked up at Jameson. “The first order…the first step…you…do…not…leave…your…victims for Morvan to clean away. Now, this instant you will go up for the girl and take her out to the graveyard and bury her yourself.” His tone was low and insistent and would brook no argument. “When you have done so you will come to me.”

Jameson’s eyes went wide.

William was becoming restless and needed to hunt. Still he waited for Jameson to finish the job he’d set him to. Morvan had already left the house to hunt. Finally the lad appeared, disheveled and dirty. William sent him to change his clothes and make himself presentable.

“Do you know what you are?” William asked as they mounted their horses.

“I do not understand what you mean, Dada.”

“You are a vampire!” William threw at him and danced his horse around the mounted boy. “Not wholly vampire, but enough. You are worse than that, you are a hybrid. Tonight you will find out what it means to be such a creature.”

He sped away and Jameson followed, soon catching him up. Jameson knew what a vampire was. He’d read most of the volumes in the library at Cornagaugh. He’d already suspected he was different. He’d been taught at an earlier age to smile without showing his fine sharp incisors. His confusion came with the sun which did not affect him, and with food. He had a healthy appetite at the table. He had a healthy sexual appetite, too. He was not usually so careless with the girls but his young passion had overcome his common sense earlier that day and he’d been caught out.

Tonight he felt excitement building inside of him. He was with his father and although he didn’t know what was to come, he felt something extraordinary was about to happen.

On the outskirts of the village William slowed his horse to a walk. His keen eyes were alert along with his sense of smell. A woman was leaving the privy in the back of a house. He moved so quickly Jameson didn’t catch it. He dismounted his horse and held the reins of his father’s while he peered into the back garden of the house.

“Come! Come quickly!” William called.

Jameson bounded over the low stone wall.

“Finish her.” William held the woman out to him.

He knew instinctively what to do. He drank from her vein and a feeling of ecstasy filled him.

“The next one is yours,” William said, gaining his horse again and looking back at Jameson.

Jameson made his kill and unlike his father, it did not disgust him at all. He found he relished it. Later, when William was satisfied, they found two harlots and took their pleasure. William taught him to bite but not kill and his ecstasy was increased with the physical act of lovemaking.

On the way home William took him aside by a stream. “We need to talk, Jameson.”

William told him how he’d become a vampire. “They are rogues and care not what they leave behind. I was left for dead but he came back and gave me his blood. I will never forget the maniacal laugh when he left me. For days my body fought fever brought on by the vampire. I finally succumbed. But I did not die in the sense that the ones we’ve had tonight died. I rose in this new form from a crypt where Morvan had placed me.” He turned and looked at Jameson. “That was over a hundred years ago.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“You’d better believe it. How else can you explain what happened tonight? Shall I tell you how you came to be?” He recounted the story of finding him a newborn infant and bringing him to Elena.

“I loved Elena…yes, it is possible to love. If it were not so I long ago would have rid myself of you. I do not know what will become of you. You have grown from a babe to a young man. Whether you will continue to mature into old age, I cannot see. I have never known one such as you.”

Jameson had never known anything else. He was as he was and he felt no apologies were necessary. “Are you sorry about me?”

“Aye, I am sorry. I regret the day I brought you to her. I did not know the infection would spread to you. And you…in your innocence killed her. Tonight was not your first kill; it was the first you will remember, aside from the girls you’ve used up.

“I do not know what you are, Jameson.”

“Does it matter? Does it have to have a name? I am me and no other. It is true I do not need blood as you do to live but I crave it all the same. I did not mind the kill tonight.”

“No, you did not mind it but you need to learn finesse. You are over eager and sloppy. Be the seducer; it is much better that way. There is no fight, only surrender.”

“For you, perhaps it is better. You only take women?”

“Yes, that is my preference. You may do as you like. Men may fight you…I have taken them when they are ready to surrender to me. I prefer a woman; the smell of a woman’s blood is like no other.”

“I read that animals may be taken.”

“That is true and some may live off of them. It seems a dirty way to me and somehow degrading.”

“Why have you never talked to me this way before?”

“You were not ready. You were too young but after what you have accomplished today on your own I could not leave it any longer. I thought to protect your innocence where there was no innocence.”

Jameson toed a few stones. “I have not been innocent for some time now.”

“Do you think I am not aware of the increasing graveyard beyond the stables? I will guide you as far as I can in our ways. The rest you will have to figure out on your own for you are not like me.”

“Make me like you.” Jameson turned to him, catching his arm.

“No, that I will not do. Let us return to Cornagaugh and you may play for me the piece you were practicing tonight.”

Chapter 3

Over the next three years William made a concentrated effort to educate his adopted son, not only in the ways of the world and of his special place in it but also in mathematics, science and the written word. Morvan, drawing on his years in service, taught him to cook for himself. He also taught him to care for himself as a gentleman.

When he was ready, William took him to London at the age of eighteen. He was introduced to society as Lord Jameson Cornith and he soon had a circle of friends surrounding him. He was tall and handsome and even the society matrons were enamored with him. William continued his parties and ever widening Jameson’s circle of acquaintances. His musical talent always found him the center of attention when he sat down to play.

William took him to the theater and to concerts where he could hear the music he loved played by an entire orchestra.

Jameson had learned to be discreet when he hunted. He did not hunt daily as William must do, but only when he craved it. He chose his victims carefully and soon learned the art of seduction. Never did he feed amongst the circle of friends he had made. He sought the seedier parts of the city where deaths were more likely to go unnoticed.

When the season was over William brought him home to Cornagaugh. He did not go willingly as he’d left many invitations to country houses hanging.

“Not yet,” William told him. “You are not ready to live on your own. The time is coming, of that I am aware. The time when I will say good bye to you.”

“What do you mean good bye?”

“Just that. You’ve already been launched into society and I will make a substantial contribution to your living. However, you cannot inherit from me and therefore must make your own way in the world. In other words, find a suitable employment.”

That silenced Jameson. It had never occurred to him that he might actually work.

“You are but the son of a miner and if not for me you would have died before you reached one year of age, if you’d lived that long.”

“I am more your son than that of a miner.”

William smiled a little, revealing the tips of his incisors. “Unfortunately that is true. I’ve come to love you as a son.”

“And I you as a father. Does it not seem strange to you that we appear much of the same age? People have asked me about our relationship. I said that we were related but did not elaborate.”

“We are cousins. That is what I have spread in society. You would do well to keep that in mind and not blacken my name.”

“I think I should like to go on the stage, perhaps with an orchestra…no…alone.”

“You are mad!” William laughed a little.

“Really…people love me at the piano and I can play anything, anything I hear.” Jameson played by ear for he’d never learned to read music like William. If William played something he could turn around and play it back to him.

Two more years of intense instruction and studying awaited him. Jameson chaffed at the confinement of the country. He tired of the local girls and longed for the excitement of London.

William promised him a birthday party when he reached twenty-one. The last year he would spend at Cornagaugh was taken up with planning his party and joining in the hunt with Morvan and with William. Morvan determined the boy needed a servant.

“You cannot leave him in London alone, my lord. He must, as a gentleman, have his man to look after him.”

“What sort of man do you propose, Morvan?”

“A human. It would do no good to do otherwise.”

“I will leave that to you. When we are in London you may inquire about. We do not know what the future holds for Jameson. He must be someone trustworthy and totally devoted.”

“You may rely on me, my lord.”

Throughout all the years of Jameson’s growing up William had formed no close attachments. After Elena’s death he’d vowed to keep to himself and only take what was available to him in the villages. He’d loved many women and in time left them but he’d never had one taken from him. It had affected him deeply. Now, however, with the prospect of long nights alone he was again thinking of the companionship of a woman. He believed, and rightly so, that Jameson would only complicate things for him and so he would wait until he was gone and hope to find another Elena.

The townhouse was brilliantly lit with new gaslight fixtures. The crowds spilled out onto balconies and into the back garden. Although he’d fed well earlier in the evening, the smell of women was intoxicating to William. The feel of them in his arms as he waltzed around the ballroom reminded him of what he’d been missing in his life. Yes…soon.

Jameson was one of the most handsome men there. He commanded attention wherever he went and he fed on it. He loved being the center of attention. When he danced he made the woman feel like she was the only one in the room. Many hearts were broken that night when his attention wandered elsewhere. And wander it did. He didn’t want to miss anything.

When the pianist with the orchestra missed a note, Jameson was at his side and took over. He played with his eyes closed, feeling the music. The orchestra then played better than they had all night.

William halted his conversation with a well-known poet and turned to watch Jameson as he played.

“He should go professional,” the poet remarked.

“He may well do. The world is his oyster tonight.” There was a certain sense of pride in his words.

“Does he write music as well?”

“No, he doesn’t even read it. He has the ear.” William glanced over at his companion.

“Remarkable. Oh, may I introduce you to Mary Reynolds? She is a distant cousin of my wife.”

“How do you do.” William bowed over her hand. A lovely creature with dark shining hair caught up with pearls.

“I am pleased to meet you, our host, I believe.”

“Yes, indeed, I am.” Her eyes were deep blue and steady as she met his gaze.

“Your cousin plays beautifully.”

“It is his calling. I am sure of it.”

“And what is your calling, Lord Cornith?”

He smiled slightly. “Calling? I’m not sure I have one.”

“He is a gentleman, Mary,” the poet interjected.

She smiled, showing her pearly teeth. “I am well aware of that.”

He liked her immediately. He liked her way of speaking. “Do you live in London?”

“Oh, no, I’m visiting my cousin. I live in Italy.”

“She’s from the Italian side of my wife’s family. Lives in Florence, land of bankers and goldsmiths,” the poet smiled.

“Do you indeed? I’ve never been to Italy.”

“You must come.”

Yes…he must. “Do not be surprised if I take up your invitation.”

The applause was for Jameson, who took his bow with humor and returned the piano to its owner.

Someone had handed Jameson a glass of champagne. He made his way through the room with it in his hand but did not drink. He’d found out years ago he could not drink alcohol of any kind. It made him terribly ill. He looked for William and seeing his fine head, he wove through to his side.

“Well done, Jameson.” William complemented him.

“Thank you. I couldn’t let it pass.” His eyes lighted on Mary Reynolds. “How did I miss you?”

William made the introductions. Jameson surprised him by asking her to dance. He felt a little pang of anger or was it jealousy? His eyes followed them through the waltz.

“I am sorry. You were saying?” He leaned an ear to the poet.

“I was asking if you’d like to come to luncheon tomorrow. It’s Mary’s last day in London.”

“I would love to but, alas, I am engaged until evening. What a shame she leaves so soon. Will she return to Italy?”

“Paris, I believe, and then to Florence. Did I say? She’s unattached…and a widow.”

“Are you trying to set me up?” William asked with a smile.

“You are a dear friend, William.”

Jameson returned her to William’s side with a little bow. “She is delightful. I return her to you.” He met William’s eye and winked and then he was away again, searching out more entertainment.

At last the stragglers wandered back to their carriages. Morvan directed the staff hired for the event as they cleared away the remains of Jameson’s twenty-first.

William had retired to his room with a burning desire for Mary Reynolds. It would have to wait for already was he planning a trip to Florence.

“There you are.” Jameson entered his room.

“I thought you might have joined the merrymaking elsewhere.”

“No, I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for me. All of it. You plan to leave me now, don’t you?”

“Do you not think I have held your hand long enough?”

“I suppose so. I shall miss you. Will you go back to Cornagaugh tomorrow night?”

“I have not decided. I may travel. It’s been many years since I’ve left England. I’m sure it’s all different now…the world as I knew it.”

“How can you travel?”

“With great care.”

“Will you let me know where you are?”

“If you wish.” William removed his neck cloth and opened his shirt. “What is it, Jameson?”

“A little finger of fear. I’ve never been on my own.”

“I doubt very seriously if you will remain alone. You could hardly walk tonight without someone on your arm.”

“I have made friends, it is true, but none that I can talk to the way we talk. None that I could ever hope to confide in. Have you ever met any others like us?”

“One. He was here tonight for a brief time.”

“Why didn’t you introduce me?”

“You were otherwise engaged at the time.” William moved over and pulled Jameson’s clubbed hair from his collar. “I’m sure he will contact you in time. Do not be afraid of him. I found him to be quite friendly and lonely.”

Jameson, sitting on the arm of a loveseat, looked down at the carpet. “The woman, Mrs. Reynolds, she asked about you. Is she the reason you are thinking about traveling?”

“What if she is?”

“I’m not to be a part of your life anymore, am I?”

“I don’t expect you will, Jameson. You have your own life to live now. Live it well but with caution.”

“Caution…what an odd thing to say.”

“Not for you. Remember who you are and what you are. It is easy for you to lose yourself among humans for you are mostly human. Just be careful what you reveal and to whom.”

“I shan’t reveal a thing. My private life is private and will remain so.”

“What do you think of Cutler? Will he be suitable, do you think?”

“Yes, I think so. I would trust Morvan on his choice. He lays out my stockings.”

William smiled. “Make him love you and he will serve you well.”

He glanced toward the little clock on the side table. “I must leave and make ready for morning.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I’m sure you will someday.”

Jameson stood up and embraced William. “You’re the only one I have ever loved.”

William held him for a moment. “Good luck to you, Jameson. I’ve loved you, too.”

ON TO PART TWO

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