Blood to Blood Read Online Free Page B

you are. I've been asked to come as well, so we can go there together."
    "Did he really own so much?" Mina asked.
    Arthur laughed. "Not that little. And he has a flair for the dramatic… had a flair, I suppose I should say, though it's hard to believe the rake is gone."
    The comment seemed to sober him, and he said very little on the ride to Kensington. The butler carried Mina's bag inside and up to the guest room. Dinner was nearly ready, and the two of them dined at a table that could have easily seated ten. They shared a bottle of wine and brief, light conversation. But Mina had a feeling that her host was biding his time, and that as soon as the servants were safely out of listening distance, their conversation would become darker and far more intense.
    She wasn't wrong. After they finished their chocolate mousse, he suggested they retreat to the rose garden and catch up on the past. They sat in a gazebo in its center, close enough to each other that he could hold her hand. "You went east with Gance. Please tell me the details," he requested.
    She told the story to him, leaving out only the more intimate aspects of her relationship with Gance. An hour passed as she spoke softly and gently of their journey, and what followed. By the time she was through, she felt light-headed and free, as if by finally telling it all to someone, she had broken the hold the events had on her soul.
    "Now all that is left is the countess's memoir, written after her death, so to speak. What did you think of it?" she asked.
    "I have it, but I haven't read it. I confess that I'm afraid to… because if I see even one of them as human, does that mean that she was still human as well?"
    "Karina did not choose her life, any more than Lucy did. They were victims. As were we."
    There! She said Lucy's name, the name they had tried so hard not to mention in all the hours they'd been together.
    "And we're still victims," Arthur added, his voice pitched a bit too high, as if he were on the edge of tears. "Van Helsing asked if I still dream. I said only of Lucy, but I didn't say the rest. Too often I wake hearing her last terrible scream echoing in my mind. Van Helsing said she looked at peace when we were done. I tried to see it that way, but when I think back on it, she merely looked dead."
    Mina knew no words to comfort him. In truth, she could not comprehend how she could have killed someone she loved so brutally and remained sane afterward. So she squeezed his hand and said, "I would give you any help I can. As would the others, I am sure. We are bonded by what we alone witnessed."
    He moved closer to her. "It's a comfort just having you here," he said.
    They sat together without speaking until the silence grew too awkward. Then Arthur took her inside and rang for a servant to show her to her room.
     
    Mina woke early the next morning and dressed in her best summer gown, in that pale shade of green Jonathan always said made her look her best. She and Arthur arrived early. As he went to greet friends, she waited near the door, glancing nervously at it each time it opened.
    Even though Arthur had warned that there would be a crowd, she still had not expected so many people, including two of Jonathan's other clients, her close friend Winnie Beason, and Winnie's husband, Emory.
    Winnie seemed a bit out of breath from emotion. "The hospital is a beneficiary," she said to Mina, then looked past her to the door. "And look, there's Jonathan."
    He looked at her from across the room, and from his expression Mina guessed that he was not certain how she would receive him. He'd suffered enough; they all had, she thought, and held out her hands.
    He smiled as he took them, then kissed her cheek and explained about some problem on the rails. She was about to suggest that they step outside for a moment, when Robert Quarles took his place in front of the crowd.
    Jonathan sat to the left of Mina on one of the half dozen long wooden benches, his hand resting atop