Corben's Thirst: The Thirst Within Part 1.5

  Corben’s Thirst

  Another Story For Another Day

  The Thirst Within Part 1.5

  A Novella

  Johi Jenkins

  CORBEN’S THIRST

  The Thirst Within Series #1.5

  By Johi Jenkins

  Copyright © 2014 Johi Jenkins

  www.johijenkins.blogspot.com

  All rights reserved: no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  For my son

  whose arrival inspired this book

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1. Spellbound

  2. Madeleine

  3. Bound

  4. Toxicity

  5. The Vampire Charlotte

  6. Magistrate

  7. Replacement

  8. The Beginning of the End

  9. Sentence

  Epilogue

  About the author

  A note from the author

  Prologue

  It has been more than two centuries since I lost my wife. Despite the flickers of her presence that I have felt since, I never truly believed that I would see her again. Yet I seem to have been proven wrong.

  It would not be the first time.

  I had also believed that I would never again love another.

  The girl shifting uncomfortably in front of me, hating the feelings that course through her body, looks nothing like my dearly departed wife. This one is taller by a head, has long brown hair that smells like fruit, and is, by all accounts, an entirely different person than the woman I still love, even after all these years.

  I turn my head away from her, giving her some space. I stare at the bright fire burning between us, although I continue to watch her out of the corner of my eye. I’m about to tell her something that she may find difficult to comprehend, and I’m afraid—afraid of her reaction, of what she’ll think. I close my eyes and bring a hand to my face, hoping she sees my pain and somehow forgives me when I tell her.

  “First you must know, Charlotte was a vampire,” I begin.

  Charlotte.

  My wife’s form appears before my eyelids, and I can’t bear it. I open my eyes and look straight at the girl in front of me. My sensitive hearing detects the spike in her heartbeat, and I become even more apprehensive. But I have to tell her. So I add, “And she was the one who turned me.”

  She cringes, and it affects me more than I let on. “What? Why?” she asks.

  Of course she wants to know. Her curiosity is almost endearing, if it weren’t always getting her into trouble. I want to tell her everything, but I cannot keep getting sidetracked. I shake my head. “That’s another story for another day.”

  Her face falls, and I want to rush over to her and give her what she wants, comfort her, hold her hand—all these things that I’ve wanted to do, but have never done. Or I have done many times, in my mind, while watching her grow into the young woman that is now before me, her green eyes piercing my old soul.

  But I don’t move. I have to continue telling her the truth. A truth I can hardly believe myself.

  This girl cannot be the reincarnation of my beloved Charlotte. Yet she is. Or rather, I want to believe that she is. Because otherwise I cannot explain why I love her.

  1. Spellbound

  It began, like many romances did during that time, with a ball.

  My family and I were visiting a friend of my father’s. Our small company of five had been invited to spend two weeks at Garfield Park, the large estate of my father’s friend, in a neighborhood not too far away from ours. This friend and master of Garfield Park, the extremely wealthy French baron Jean-Luc de Mayes, had offered a ball in my parents’ honor the first night after we arrived, much to my irritation.

  Dancing I didn’t care for. My older brother Thierry was a far better dancer than I was, and I disliked everything about the custom. Worst of all the expectation of dancing with girls I had never met, and of the grief I would receive from my brother’s wife the following morning, claiming I had not danced with Miss So and So who had been very much alone.

  For a sister-in-law, Madeleine was easy to get along with most of the time, except when it came to my love life. One could presume that my status as a bachelor irked her.

  “You will never marry this way, Corben,” she often complained to me. “Being an Ashby does not simply do the job for you. You have to try.”

  “Being an Ashby sometimes makes the job harder for me,” I would reply. My father’s name was like a badge pinned to my shoulder that I carried with me everywhere I went. It was liberating in some ways, but also a heavy burden; especially when it came to society and my duties as the son of a gentleman.

  But Madeleine worried too much. Like any other eighteen-year-old boy, meeting beautiful girls I did look forward to. I would have also danced with them all night, had it been in a more private setting. But a ballroom, choreographed dances, scores of people watching? Not for me. I was born in the wrong time, or perhaps the wrong place.

  It was the year 1801 in England. Despite my unwillingness to dance, I was open to the possibility of finding a pretty girl to spend some time with. As the second son of a wealthy gentleman, I had no aspiration to any greatness; I was pretty content to live a life of leisure spending my father’s money. Girls wanted me for my name and title, but I never wanted them as much as they wanted me. I got bored quickly. Until that day.

  The day I saw her.

  It felt like love at first sight, but I wouldn’t have known back then what that meant. I can’t explain what I felt as I watched her dance, because my memories of that night are all centered on her and the way she looked, and not anyone else, not even me or my feelings. She danced happily, making mistakes and laughing when she did. Her eyes were brown and bright, her figure slight, and her smile striking. She was so young, and so full of spirit. I could not take my eyes off her, as I stood there lurking in a corner, unseen by my friends.

  After her dance, an even younger girl grabbed her arm and guided her away. They slipped through a door on the opposite end of the room from where I stood, away from the dance floor and out of sight. Intolerable. As if under a spell, I followed after them, delayed by the crowd that filled the room. When I finally made it to the next room, I saw her before a group of people that included my parents, brother, and sister-in-law. I stopped in my tracks as all eyes turned to me.

  “Ah, there he is,” my father called. “Come here, son; I was just talking about you. This is my youngest son, Corben.” As I approached the small gathering, not twenty feet away from me, my eyes locked with the witch that had cast the spell on me. She looked at me with a knowing smile.

  “Son, you remember the Misses de Mayes. Miss Charlotte”—my witch bowed, keeping her smile and eyes on me—“Miss Marie, and Miss Louise.”

  “Of course,” I lied smoothly while bowing as was proper; grateful for the custom that allowed me to hide my bewilderment as I processed what was happening. De Mayes. Pleasure erupted in me. I had met these young ladies about two years before, although I did not exactly recognize them now. “Ladies,” I addressed them.

  “Monsieur,” they all replied with a curtsy. My witch’s smile widened, and my heart raced.

  Charlotte de Mayes—I remembered her then. She was the eldest daughter of Baron de Mayes. My parents, my brother, his wife, and I would be staying for a few weeks there, in her father’s house. I was to stay in a house with her.

  “And the lovely Mrs. de
Mayes….”

  My father kept going around the circle, reintroducing everyone, and I kept bowing in greeting, glad I wasn’t forced into conversation other than a polite, “How do you do?”

  The baron’s wife, Mrs. Pauline de Mayes, whom I did recognize from some years before, was the liveliest talker and promptly took over the conversation along with my mother. I remembered interacting with Mrs. de Mayes and meeting her daughters; how the oldest had been but fourteen when I had first met her. I kept stealing glances at Charlotte, to confirm that I wasn’t imagining her beauty.

  The conversation turned to dancing. My mother declared that both of her sons were wonderful dancers. Under normal circumstances I would have been affronted by her lie, but that night I was glad for the excuse. Compelled by civility, someone asked me to show my alleged dancing prowess. I replied that I would be glad to. Then I turned to my witch.

  “May I have the next dance, Mademoiselle?” I asked Charlotte, hoping to impress her by letting her know I remembered her preference of Mademoiselle over Miss, even though she had spent most of her life in England. She had only been fourteen when we were first acquainted, so we had talked very little back then. But when we had been first introduced and I had addressed her as Miss de Mayes, she had corrected me with a smile, declaring she would rather be referred to as Mademoiselle.

  “Oui, Monsieur Ashby,” Charlotte said with a rewarding smile, as if letting me know she approved of my memory; then she took my offered hand. Madeleine gave me a brief look as if to question my sudden interest in dancing. Thierry winked at me when he caught my eye. My mother beamed, probably hearing wedding bells in her mind.

  As I led Charlotte away from the group, once back in the dance room she leaned in close to me and added, “I must warn you, though; I am a terrible dancer.” Her voice was melodious, and her slight French accent was like a purring in my ears.

  “Ah! We are doomed, then, because Mrs. Ashby lied; I do not dance well. In fact I do not even know this dance.”

  She laughed. “Well, then. Would you like to sit with me instead? I am a little tired from the previous four dances.”

  “As you wish,” I said. Her invitation rattled me; it was not the custom for a lady to ask a gentleman to sit with her. But her eyes were sparkling with charm; she did not seem forward. “Where would you like to sit?” I asked. It was, after all, her house.

  “Follow me,” she said with that arch smile of hers that made me feel sweet things I had never felt for a girl before.

  She led me outside and we walked side-by-side in the warm summer night. I glanced at her when she wasn’t looking, smiling at my luck.

  I had of course known that Baron de Mayes had three daughters; and I had more recently learned through my brother and his wife that the eldest, Charlotte, had grown to be a pretty girl. I had not seen much of her when I had first met her, so the fact that she was pretty now had been of no special interest to me when my brother and his wife told me. I had a few rules, and one of them was Do not consort with the ladies of the house. I had not come to this party to start a fling with any of the Misses de Mayes.

  That was, until I laid eyes on this one.

  I further knew that Charlotte was the daughter of the baron’s first wife, a woman whose name I could not remember, and who had died during childbirth. And that the baron’s second wife, Charlotte’s adoptive mother Pauline, loved her like a real daughter, because Charlotte was so pretty and sweet-tempered.

  The baron had been a widower for a short time only. He had remarried Pauline and had had two more daughters: Marie and Louise, Charlotte’s half-sisters. He had moved his family from France to England when the girls were young, escaping the French Revolution. Raised in England most of her lives, in a society where the beauty of a girl was given such importance, Charlotte was considered a favorite over Marie and Louise. The younger sisters just weren’t as beautiful as the eldest Mademoiselle de Mayes. Rumor was that even Pauline preferred sweet, pretty Charlotte over her own daughters.

  In our short walk around the garden outside, Charlotte and I talked about whatever I could remember from when we had first met, when her family visited my father’s summer home in the town of Bath. As we talked, I was painfully aware of the profound attraction I had developed towards her, which kept increasing with each minute I spent at her side. The more she talked, the more she pulled me in. In less than ten minutes alone with her I was ready to declare my hand. I didn’t though, but only out of fear that my hurried declaration would frighten her.

  But she was so responsive, encouraging my words with her laughs and the coquettish look of those beautiful dark eyes. I even forgot what I was saying, just staring at her lips as she giggled heartily at whatever I had just said.

  “You tease me so, Monsieur.”

  What had I just said? Ah, that I had barely seen her two years before because she had spent the entire fortnight inside her chamber, reading books.

  “I shall always find books fastidious for keeping you within,” I said, not caring that I sounded juvenile. “They are forever my enemy.”

  She laughed again, briefly, and her eyes darkened. She bit her lip, and the simple act made me think things that would have embarrassed even my brother. “Do not blame the books, Monsieur. It was someone who kept me within my chambers.”

  “Someone? Who?” I immediately went through the list of people at the house wondering who was to blame. My first suspect was my brother Thierry.

  Her face dropped and she looked up at me through long lashes. In a small voice she said, “You, Monsieur.”

  My smile faded in the strength of her spell. “I hope I did not offend you then, Mademoiselle.”

  And then she said it.

  “Not at all…. I only meant it was difficult to act composed around you….” She blushed and looked away.

  It took me a second to realize what she meant, then my heart began pounding loudly in my chest. “Charlotte,” I said, her name escaping my lips in surprise.

  “I am sorry,” she said, blushing. “I should not have said—such candor….” She was flustered, and looked down at the flower bed, away from me.

  “No, no no,” I said quickly, not sure what I was denying. I took her hands in mine, which was a pretty forward thing for me to do back then. “I am… overjoyed to hear your words. And you do not know how happy I am that we are together again—glad to be given a second chance to get to know you better, Mademoiselle.”

  As I said this, I leaned towards her, and had her so close to me. She could have moved away; I inched forward slowly to give her the chance. But she didn’t. I brought my hands to the base of her jaw, holding her gently. Then I blew tradition and custom aside and I kissed her.

  A rush of sweetness flooded through me. I had kissed plenty of girls before and never felt anything like this. I kissed her deeply, a little desperately, because I was going insane and I forgot how to act properly around a lady.

  She made a tiny noise that could have been a moan, and I let her go and stepped back, giving her some room.

  “Forgive me,” I said, but I was not sorry I did it.

  “Monsieur,” she said breathlessly. But as she looked at me, she smiled. “I have nothing to forgive you for. I am only… a little overwhelmed.” She put a hand over her heart as if to calm it.

  I returned her smile. Overwhelmed. That was exactly how I felt.

  ***

  We had to return to the party shortly after, because it wasn’t proper of us to be alone like that. In fact, nothing that we did was proper. If they all knew what had passed since we left them, some people would collapse in horror. Except my brother; he would give me an approving nod.

  But there was nothing to fear in returning to them. Even if she returned to her friends and I returned to mine, after the ball was over I would have her close to me, for all of the next two weeks. I gave her hand a small squeeze and then we entered the house again, letting her walk a few feet ahead of me. I stared at her intently, trying to bu
rn the image of her figure in my mind.

  The young girl with the French accent was no longer a little girl. Even though she was only sixteen years old, she was a young woman now. The neckline of her dress exposed the tops of her breasts; she did not show a lot of skin, but still enough to draw my eyes to it and think of her as a woman. To make me forget her age, and disintegrate that feeling of wrongdoing. I would follow this womanly version of the girl I once knew wherever she went.

  Our courtship was easy. We spent every possible moment of that first night together. We did dance together, and she danced with no one else. The following days, while the entire house gathered together during social hours, Charlotte and I always sat off to the side and talked to each other, lost in our little world.

  Only when the ladies were separated from the men would we be parted. In those occasions I would be left alone with Thierry while our fathers discussed old gentlemen affairs.

  “So the fair Miss de Mayes, eh, brother?” he asked the first chance he got, elbowing me. “Please tell me you will not get us banned out of Garfield Park.”

  “Why would I get us banned out of this house?” I asked innocently.

  “Corben, everyone can see how you two go on about. You display all the symptoms of favoritism for each other. When we leave, they will expect a formal attachment. A marriage proposal.” He looked at me seriously. “And those are not easy to break,” he added, with the faintest trace of regret in his voice.

  I ignored his abrupt dejection and had to smile, imagining the bliss of Charlotte and I engaged, the fact that my brother was about to get a surprising insight into my feelings, and also that he had alluded to his unwanted marriage to Madeleine. First son problems. I would never have to marry someone against my better judgment.

  “Dear brother,” I told him, “my feelings toward Charlotte are true. I have completely changed my views on marriage since I laid eyes on her.”