"Elrod, P.N. - Jonathan Barrett 02 - Death and the Maiden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

"I've no wish for Oliver to regard me as a potential inmate, so be assured that the details of my recent experience will find no place here."
"Then what—"
"Nora."
Her name temporarily halted Elizabeth's inquiries, and I took the opportunity to dip my pen into the inkpot. After reading again my few lines assuring Oliver of my continued good health and a wish for the same for him, I had to pause yet again and think how to proceed. Before leaving England for home some months ago, I'd asked him to keep an eye on Nora for me and in such a way as to leave no doubt that my relationship with her had quite ended. My lightness of attitude quite puzzled my poor cousin, considering his awareness that Nora and I had been passionate lovers for nearly three years.
But, of course, Nora had caused me to forget all that.
I wasn't sure if I should curse her or bless her for what she'd done to me. Some nights I did both. This was one of those nights, and they happened more and more frequently as my memories of her returned. Though she had committed a great wrong against me, I yet loved her and missed her terribly.
"Ow!"
Elizabeth had had a mishap with the razor-sharp penknife and nicked a finger. She ruefully held it close to the candle to inspect the damage, started to put her finger to her mouth, then stopped, her eyes suddenly shifting up to meet mine.
"Be more careful," I said, trying not to stare at the drop of blood welling from the tiny cut.
She lowered her hand slightly. "Does this trouble you?"
"Why should it?"
"Because you've an odd look on your face. Are you hungry?"
"No, I am not hungry." Not yet. Later, after everyone was asleep and the world was quiet, I'd slip out and . . .
"Then what?"
"I can smell it," I whispered, not without a feeling of awe.
She brought her finger close to her nose and sniffed, then shrugged at her failure to sense it. "A little speck like this?"
"Yes. It hangs in the air like perfume."
"That must be interesting for you," she observed. The bleeding had stopped, so she wiped away the blood on her handkerchief. Picking up the quill, she gingerly resumed her delicate work with the knife.
Disturbing, more like, I thought, unable to ignore the scent and the reactions it aroused within me. I raised one hand to cover my mouth and ran my tongue over my teeth. There, the two points on my upper jaw ... a slight swelling, not painful.. . quite the opposite, in fact.
"Jonathan?"
"It's nothing," I said, a bit too quickly, letting my hand drop away.
But she seemed to know what I was hiding. Sweet God, Jonathan, you've nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not," I said. "Really."
"Then why the glower?"
I made a fist and bumped it lightly against the desk, then opened it flat. "I'm not sure I... that I'm . . . comfortable with this part of what's happened to me."
"You do what you do because you have to."
"Yes, but I've... I worry about what people might unnk should they find out."
"But no one else knows but me, Father, and Jericho. We don't speak of it, and you're not likely to blurt it out in company."
"As if it's something shameful."
"Something private," she corrected. "Like your journal."
Unable to endure her steady, sensible gaze, I shoved my pen into a cup of lead shot and stood up to pace.
She continued to watch me. "Come now and listen to yourself. Worrying about what others may think is the sort of thing that bedevils Mother. There's no need for you to pay any mind to that same voice, or you could end up like her."
All too true. I had been haunted by a miserable chorus of dark voices muttering of nothing but doubt and doom. "It's
just that most of the time everything is as it was for me before my ... return. And yet"—I gestured vaguely—"everything is so different. I'm different."
She did not—thank God—gainsay me. The changes within that had literally brought me back from the grave were profound, and their full influence upon how I now lived were only just being realized. I slept, if one could call it that, the whole day through, unable to stir for as long as the sun was up. Since the household held to an exactly opposite habit, my enjoyment of its society was unhappily limited. The rest of the time I was alone. Very much alone.
And as for Elizabeth's little accident.. . well, it was yet another reminder of an appetite that the world would doubtless look upon as disgusting or at the very least react to with alarm and fear.
I paused by the bookcase and stared at the titles within without reading them. "Remember the night I... came back?"
She nodded. It was not likely that either of us would forget.
"After we'd captured the rebels, two of Nash's Hessians escorted me to Mrs. Montagu's. I thought I'd gotten rid of them, but they came back and saw me in her barn with her horses . . . feeding myself."
"Then what?"
"They ran like rabbits. They were terrified. One of them called me a name, 'blutsauger.' "
She stumbled over my no doubt questionable pronunciation. "Bluet-saw—"
I repeated the word for her. "It means 'bloodsucker.' Hardly flattering."
"Certainly not in the context that it was given."
"Not in any context."
"What of it? You're a 'bloodsucker,' I'm an eater of animal flesh."
"That's not the same."
"It would be if dining on a good hot joint was thought to be repugnant by most people. It's not like you to be feeling sorry for yourself, little brother. I hope you can get over it."
I idly poked at a crescent of dust gathered in a tight corner of the bookcase woodwork. One of the maids had been careless over her cleaning chores. Woe to her if Mother noticed. "Perhaps the Fonteyn blood is doing its work upon me after all, and I shall become mad."
"I think not, since you've been diluting it so regularly with that of our livestock."