Oh, hell. How had this evening turned into such a slippery slope?

Gingerly, she eased onto the seat beside him. There was no sheet music. Whatever he played here, he knew by heart. He gave her a sidelong smile, positioned his long-fingered hands over the ivory keys and began.

The acoustics in the ballroom were wonderful. Haunting, exquisite music swelled to fill the space.

Her emotions careened all over the map. The long, unwinding strings of sound reached into her heart and plucked out its own melody. Somehow, by one of the strangest set of circumstances she’d ever heard of or experienced, she had come to this place and time.

The details lay scattered in her mind like a strange necklace of pearls strewn over an unknown woman’s vanity. She wore a beautiful dress on a serene moonlit night, sitting in the jewel of a gracious house, and a Vampyre who was both dangerous and kind played Chopin for her ears alone.

Once she left the estate’s cloistered protection, she would probably be dead within the week. For now she set it aside, threw all her barriers down and opened herself wide to surrender to this singular experience.

When the last notes faded from the air, she wanted to grab them and demand they stay, but even if she heard the song again, it could never be quite the same as that first time, filled as it was with the unique newness of discovery and the surprise of pleasure that had been previously unknown. Those strings in the heart could be plucked only once.

The moment fled into memory. She thought, when I die—if he dies—no one will ever know what just happened. Beside her, he sat still, waiting patiently.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, and it didn’t matter that her gaze was damp with tears and he was the one who had done that to her. Instead, she wanted to thank him for it.

Those old eyes of his, set in that noble, young face. She shook her head and gave him a small, twisted smile. “I don’t know how to reconcile in my mind everything I know about you.”

Instead of asking what she meant, he looked down at the piano and touched one ivory key but didn’t press it. “You asked me once if I had done everything that had been attributed to me, and I said yes. May I tell you a story?”

She nodded as she looked away and wiped one cheek. Of course he knew to go there. He was a very clever man.

He pressed the key, and a single note sounded. It seemed forlorn and incomplete without its companions. “My mother died having me,” he said. “It was a tragedy, of course, as such things always are. My older brother and sister had come some years before me, but still, she was too young to die in such a way. She had been the light of my father’s life, and he was heartbroken.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. It seemed inadequate, or out of place somehow.

He gave her a sidelong look and a smile that made it all right. “Thank you, Tess. My sister, Aeliana, was thirteen, and for all practical purposes, she became my mother. My father withdrew emotionally and preoccupied himself with managing his estates, and my brother was absent more often than not, but Aeliana raised me and let me know in a thousand ways that I was safe, wanted and loved. Unfortunately, she looked quite a bit like me.” This was accompanied by another sidelong, self-deprecating smile. “But all the same, she was lovely. She had a strength and sweetness that shone out of her like a beacon, and people were drawn to her because of it.”

His sister wasn’t the only one who had that quality.

His sister, the one who had been murdered by the Inquisition. She knotted her hands together in her lap. Despite a somewhat innocuous beginning, he was not telling an easy story.

His quiet voice continued. “I was the third child and a second son, and I would never inherit. It was always understood that I was destined for the Church. My father believed I would make a fine statesman, perhaps bishop one day, or if God allowed, even cardinal. With the right piety and championship from senior officials within the Church, along with generous contributions from the family, God could afford to allow quite a bit of good fortune to fall on the del Torro name.” He shrugged and smiled at her. “It was how we thought at the time.”

“Did you mind?” she asked.

“No, not at all. So many modern stories focus on the angst of this kind of thing and glorify one’s right to choose one’s own path, but truly, I was fine with it. I liked to learn, and at that time the Church was at the center of human education. So, I was raised as a typical young nobleman and taught to hunt, and fight and fence. I was good at all of it, and I enjoyed it, until it came time for me to join the Church, where I found the discipline and study suited me. I came to realize I loved God, and I committed to the life and said the vows. And I meant them.”

Now that she had caught glimpses into his personal life, she could picture him as a young, earnest ascetic. Fingering one of the keys herself, she asked, “You didn’t miss any of those other pursuits?”

His mouth took on an ironic twist. “The reality of it was, I didn’t have to give very much of it up. I was not a poor country priest. God really could afford to allow good fortune to fall upon a rich nobleman’s son. I was housed in a comfortable, monied monastery near our main home in Valencia, and I became secretary to the bishop at that time, and I saw my family, especially Aeliana, regularly. It was a good life. I . . . believed in it. I believed in dedicating myself to a life that was filled with the holy scripture and mixed with politics. I was not rebellious or insincere. In many ways, I really was very much a product of my time.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she murmured. If he had been so typical, he wouldn’t be so feared now, nor would he be sitting here, telling her the story of what happened centuries ago.

He quirked an eyebrow at her but didn’t pursue that. Instead, he said, “Then there was the Inquisition. At the time, the Inquisition had turned its focus onto matters of Power, and magical creatures were declared an anathema. Those of the Elder Races were to be pitied, because they were godless, soulless creatures, but Vampyres were a different matter. Vampyres chose to become what they were, and thus they fell from God’s grace and were damned.”

She shook her head. Hadn’t she done something very similar, when she had called all Vampyres “monsters” in her mind? “What about those who might have been turned against their will?”

“That didn’t matter. They must have done something to have deserved it.”