Cyn smiled. Elke had been a good sport, but she was in no danger of becoming a shopaholic. “Not tonight,” she agreed. “Mirabelle's staying on the estate, either here or the main house."

"Great,” Elke said, sighing in relief. “Mirabelle, we'll talk. Leighton...” She paused uncertainly, settling for, “Whatever.” She gave Alexandra's guard some sort of signal, and then she was gone, racing down the driveway and disappearing into the shadows beneath the trees faster than Cyn's human eye could follow.

Cyn gave her own sigh. That was a neat trick. She could think of more than a few times it would really have come in handy. She turned to Mirabelle with a grin. “Come on, Mirabelle, it's this way."

They went through the kitchen and down a long hallway to find Alexandra waiting for them, standing at the bottom of a wide staircase and obviously posed for dramatic effect. Cyn saw her and stuttered to a halt.

When Alexandra had been kidnapped last month, she'd been wearing the very highest fashion of pre-Revolutionary Paris—an elaborate satin gown with lace trim and a skirt that stuck out alarmingly to either side of her tiny waist. Her long hair had been carefully coifed and curled, hanging in thick ringlets down her back. Everything about her had screamed 18th century. She had even eschewed electric lights in the house in favor of candles, with every room decorated—or overdecorated, in Cyn's opinion—in the style of Louis XVI and his doomed court.

But things had changed. The Alexandra waiting to greet her this evening wore loose black trousers with a silk blouse tucked into that impossibly tiny waist and buttoned almost to her neck. The blouse was the deep red of a fine Cabernet and showed off the rich, lustrous black of her hair, which was still long, but hanging loose behind a black velvet headband. Alexandra was petite, a little over five feet tall in heels, and could easily have passed for a well-kept Beverly Hills wife ... extremely well-kept since her face was that of a sixteen-year-old girl. She smiled and held out both hands in greeting.

"Cynthia,” she said warmly. “I'm so happy you decided to visit. I've been asking Raphael when you would come."

For her part, Cyn was somewhat taken aback. She didn't know Alexandra that well, had exchanged no more than ten words with her in their single previous meeting. But having been tutored in courtesy at the finest prep schools California had to offer, Cyn rose to the occasion and took Alexandra's proffered hands, giving them the requisite polite squeeze, before stepping back to draw Mirabelle to her side.

"Alexandra, this is Mirabelle. Duncan probably told you something of her situation."

Alexandra's black eyes, so like her brother Raphael's, shifted to regard the younger vampire, taking in the neat khaki slacks and tailored blouse which had replaced the ill-fitting jeans and t-shirt. “Mirabelle,” she said graciously, if not with precisely the same warmth she had greeted Cyn. “Welcome to my home."

Mirabelle smiled shyly. “Thank you. I hope we're not intruding."

"Oh, no. I welcome the company. Now that I've rejoined the living, so to speak,” she added with a meaningful look in Cyn's direction. “I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. The clothes alone would have been worth the effort.” She stroked the soft fabric over her arm. “So much more comfortable ... and no corsets! I can actually breathe.” She drew a deep breath as if to prove the truth of her words.

"Come, let's go upstairs to the music room.” Alexandra placed a tiny foot on the stairs, pausing to tell Cyn, “It's still my favorite, though I have redecorated a bit."

She'd redecorated more than a bit and more than the music room, Cyn thought as she and Mirabelle followed her up the stairs. The most obvious difference was the brilliant light dancing off a huge crystal chandelier and casting shards of color against the pale walls. Gone was the pervasive scent and smoky tang of old candle wax. Ornate satin wall coverings had been stripped away, the walls resurfaced and painted in a delicate color that was little more than a blush of warm gold.

In the music room, the Steinway grand piano still stood in the place of honor, but the fragile antique tables and the satin and brocade upholstered settees and chairs that had so crowded even this spacious room were gone. In their place, a few well-chosen pieces accented a comfortable, overstuffed sofa and chairs. Fresh flowers graced the mantle and design magazines littered the low coffee table. Apparently Alexandra was still remodeling.

Mirabelle gave a little exclamation of delight at seeing the piano and hurried over, pausing just before her fingers touched the glossy black finish. “May I?"

Alexandra nodded in very much the way of a fine lady granting favors, and Cyn turned away to conceal her reaction. Some things, it seemed, had not changed. She wandered over to the piano, watching as Mirabelle ran her fingers somewhat stiffly along the keys. “My mother played,” Mirabelle said softly. “I took lessons as a child, before...” Her voice broke off, and then hardened. “Jabril refused to have a piano in the house; he said he couldn't abide the noise. Those are his words. He gave it away. My mother's piano."

Cyn glanced over to see Alexandra watching.

"May I borrow Cynthia for a moment, Mirabelle?” Alexandra asked.

Mirabelle frowned, concentrating fiercely on her fingers as they picked out a series of notes.

Cyn touched her shoulder and met Mirabelle's questioning glance with a quick smile of reassurance. “We'll be right back,” she said.

Cyn followed Alexandra down the hall and into a room that was set up as a kind of home office.

"My dayroom,” Alexandra said with a wry quirk of her lips. “The sort of room a proper lady would have used for keeping her household books or handling her correspondence. Not that I'm burdened with such things, of course. Raphael's people take care of everything.” She kept walking, leading Cyn all the way through the room and out onto a generous balcony overlooking the front of the manor.

"You've changed a few things,” Cyn commented as they stepped outside.

"Yes.” Alexandra smiled slightly. “A few things. I felt it was time. Past time, really."

"You look good."

Alexandra looked down at herself and back at Cyn, her mouth curving slightly with pleasure. “I do, don't I? I wasn't jesting about the clothes. I don't know why I struggled with those horrible dresses for so long.” She paused, listening to Mirabelle's enthusiastic piano playing, and made a moue of distaste. “She is a child."

"She was fifteen when her parents died, when the courts turned her and her ten-year-old sister over to Jabril Karim. She was eighteen and a day when he raped her and made her Vampire."

"I see. And does she want to stay here?"

"I don't think she knows yet."

Alexandra turned to study Cyn. She was a lovely creature, but with a smile that was less than genuine and somehow calculated, as if it could be turned on and off at will. “I like you, Cynthia,” she said. “You've no pretense about you, and my life has been nothing but pretense for too long."

She strolled over to the balcony's edge and leaned delicately against the stone balustrade to gaze at the courtyard below. It was paved in black and white checked marble, surrounded by a tall privet hedge that prevented anyone from mistaking it for a usable entrance. Alexandra glanced back at Cyn. “Tell me,” she said, her gaze returning to the gaudy marble. “What do you think of this courtyard?"

Cyn rested a hip on the stone and stared at the marble, wondering what to say. But then, according to Alexandra, she was the “no pretense” girl, right? “I think it's truly awful,” she said.

Alexandra laughed, the first genuine emotion Cyn had heard from her. “So do I,” she confided. “Although, once it reminded me of a better time, but I think I only had it installed to see if Raphael would go along. I kept trying to find something he would refuse me."

"Why?” Cyn asked bluntly.

Alexandra thought about it. “Do you have siblings? A brother or a sister?"

"A half sister. We're not close."

"Raphael and I were. Close that is. We had two other brothers, twins who were much older and gone before I was old enough to miss them. It was always Raphael who took care of me, indulged me, protected me from our father's anger, and from the men on the surrounding farms who were bargaining with my father for a marriage before I'd even had my first blood.” She shrugged casually. “Our mother was beautiful; I resemble her, of course. So does Raphael, although he has our father's considerable stature."

She glanced again at Cyn, gauging her reaction. “That terrible night so long ago, the night our family was attacked and Raphael and I were made Vampire. I don't know now if I would change those events even if I could, but at the time I hated what had been done to me. Hated what I'd become. I blamed Raphael for not protecting me as he should have, for not saving me from those creatures. For everything. I knew he was still alive somewhere, my vampire master taunted me with the knowledge, saying Raphael had chosen to serve his new mistress rather than be saddled for centuries with a useless little sister. It was a lie, of course. I know now that Raphael thought me dead along with our parents. But I believed the lie. Or perhaps it was only that I wanted to believe it.

"Of course, Raphael did save me eventually, although it was quite by chance. He found me in a dungeon in Paris during the Revolution. There I was, little better than a whore, living on the streets, stealing, murdering, seducing men so my Sire and his other children could drain them, leaving me the dregs. And then Raphael appeared—powerful, elegant, a master in his own right. He had finally come to my rescue and I hated him for it, for never surrendering, for never falling as low as I had.

She turned, placing her back to the courtyard and giving an elegant, little shrug. “So I made him pay. It was as easy as if we'd never been apart. He was full of guilt that I'd been enslaved for so long, that I'd been living in the gutter while he'd dressed in fine clothes and slept on soft sheets. And he was desperate to make it up to me. There was nothing he wouldn't do; I had only to ask. Eventually, I began to test his devotion."