“I’m sorry, Freyja,” Phoebe began, sounding truly penitent. “I’m sorry that I’m being held prisoner in your house, against my will. I’m sorry Marcus didn’t tell the de Clermonts to bugger off so that we could do this our way.”

Miriam growled.

Freyja looked down at Phoebe with a mixture of astonishment and admiration.

“I’m sorry I don’t want to drink this disgusting mess of cold blood you’ve so carefully laid out for me so that we can determine whether I prefer cat to dog, rat to mouse, Caucasian females to Asian men. And I’m deeply sorry to reflect badly on my esteemed maker, to whom I owe everything,” Phoebe continued. “I am not worthy to share her blood, and yet I do.”

“That’s quite enough.” Miriam said.

But Phoebe was not finished making a mockery of her forced apology. She bolted for the table and began downing the remaining samples of blood with great speed.

“Revolting,” she proclaimed, crushing a wafer-thin glass tumbler to dust in her hands. She took up the next. “Gamey.” A silver-stemmed goblet snapped in two, the bowl separating from the base. “Putrid, like death.” She spat the liquid back into the shot glass, which was inscribed with the warning BAD DECISIONS MAKE GOOD STORIES. “Not bad, but I’d rather drink cat.” Phoebe flipped the empty wineglass over so that the bloody residue slid down the sides and made a sticky ring on the table.

On Phoebe went around the table, slurping blood and tossing glassware aside until she had consumed every last drop. In the end, only a single silver julep cup was left standing. Phoebe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. It was trembling, and dotted with splashes of blood.

“I’d drink that.” Phoebe pointed to the small, straight-sided cup with beaded decoration around the rim (made by a Kentucky silversmith around 1850, if she was not mistaken). “But only if there was no cat around.”

“Progress, I think,” Freyja said cheerfully, surveying the carnage on her dining room table.

A gasp announced the arrival of Françoise—who would, of course, be expected to clear away the mess.

But it was Miriam’s dark expression that held Phoebe’s attention. Miriam’s face promised punishment—and not within any predictable human timeframe.

Miriam banished Phoebe, Cinderella-like, to the kitchens to assist Françoise. It took several trips up and down the stairs just to clear the debris. Phoebe was grateful for her newly enhanced cardiovascular system, not to mention her vampire speed.

Once the table was cleared, the surface wiped, the floor scrubbed by hand with a brush, and the bits of glass plucked out of Phoebe’s knees and shins, Phoebe and Françoise busied themselves at the sink. Françoise took charge of all the breakable glasses, just in case, and handed Phoebe the ones made of metal.

“Why do you stay with Freyja?” Phoebe wondered aloud.

“This is my job. All creatures need jobs. Without one, you have no self-respect.” Françoise’s reply was succinct, as usual, but it didn’t really answer Phoebe’s question.

Phoebe tried a different tack.

“Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else?” Housekeeping seemed very limited to Phoebe. She liked going to the office and keeping up with the latest developments in the art market, testing her knowledge by attributing and authenticating pieces whose value was either unknown or long forgotten.

“No.” Françoise snapped her dish towel and folded it in thirds before hanging it on the waiting rail. She turned her attention to a heaping basket of laundry and switched on the iron.

“Wouldn’t you rather work for yourself?” Phoebe was willing to entertain the possibility that there were hidden rewards to cleaning and cooking, but she couldn’t fathom a life in service to others.

“This is the life I chose. It’s a good life. I am well paid, respected, protected,” replied Françoise.

Phoebe frowned. Françoise was a vampire, and her arms were the size of small hams. She didn’t seem in need of protection.

“But you could study. Go to university. Master a subject. Do anything you liked, really.” Phoebe tried folding her own damp towel. It ended up badly, one side uneven, pulled out of shape by her efforts. She hung it on the rod next to Françoise’s.

Françoise removed it and snapped the linen open. She folded it properly and rehung it on the rod. It was perfectly matched to the other, and both towels now gave off an air of perfect domesticity, like the pictures in the women’s magazines her mother subscribed to: soothing and mildly reproachful at the same time.

“I know enough,” Françoise replied. I know how to fold a piece of cloth properly, which is more than can be said for you, her expression said.

“Didn’t you ever want . . . more?” Phoebe asked with a bit of hesitancy. She wasn’t eager to anger another vampire who was older, faster, and stronger than she was.

“I wanted more than a life toiling in the fields of Burgundy, the soil in my hair and between my toes, until I dropped dead at the age of forty like my mother did,” Françoise replied. “I got it.”

Phoebe sat on a nearby stool, her fingers threaded together. She shifted, nervous, on her seat. Françoise had never uttered so many words at once—at least not where Phoebe could overhear her. She hoped she hadn’t offended the woman with her questions.

“I wanted warm clothes in winter, and an extra blanket at night,” Françoise continued, to Phoebe’s astonishment. “I wanted more wood for the fire. I wanted to go to sleep without hunger, and never again wonder if there would be enough food to feed the people I loved. I wanted less sickness—sickness that came each February and August to take people away.”

Phoebe recognized the cadence of her own display of temper before Freyja and Miriam. Of course Françoise had heard everything. She was subtly mimicking Phoebe—to make a point. Or to issue a warning. With vampires it was so very difficult to tell.

“So you see, I already possess all that I have ever wanted,” Françoise said in closing. “I would not be you, with your useless learning and seeming independence, for all the world.”

It was a startling announcement, for Phoebe felt her life was nearly perfect already and only going to get better with an eternity to do as she pleased and Marcus at her side.

“Why not?” Phoebe demanded.

“Because I have something you will never again possess,” Françoise said, her voice dropping to a confiding hiss, “a treasure that no amount of money can buy nor time secure.”

Phoebe leaned forward, eager to know what this treasure was. It couldn’t be long life—Phoebe had that now.

Françoise, like most taciturn individuals, enjoyed having an attentive audience. She had also mastered the art of the dramatic pause. She picked up her bottle of lavender water and spritzed a pillowcase with it. Then she wielded the hot iron with the same quick expertise with which she did everything else in the house.

Phoebe waited, as unusually patient as Françoise was unusually forthcoming.

“Freedom,” Françoise said at last. She took up another pillowcase and let her words sink in.

“No one pays any attention to me,” Françoise continued. “I can do as I please. Live, die, work, rest, fall in love—and out of it, too. Everybody is watching you, waiting for you to fail. Wondering if you will succeed. Come August, you’ll have Milord Marcus back in your bed, but you’ll have the eyes of the Congregation on you, too. After word spreads of your engagement, every vampire on earth will be curious about you. You’ll never have a moment’s peace or freedom in your life—which, God willing, will be long.”

Phoebe stopped her nervous shifting, and the room was so quiet that even a warmblood could have heard a pin drop.

“But you need not worry.” Françoise folded the smooth pillowcase into a sharp-edged rectangle before taking another damp one from the basket. “You will not have liberty, but you will succeed at your job—because I will be doing my job, protecting you from those who would do you harm.”

“Excuse me?” This was news to Phoebe.