“They blamed the victim?” Outrage stirred. Even though it had all happened so long ago, his words had given it an immediacy that made it seem current.

“Cause and effect. God blessed those who were good and punished those who had sinned. The Church could forgive most sins and bless the petitioner, but some sins were mortal offenses.”

“It’s barbaric,” she muttered.

“Of course it was. Meanwhile, things happened to the del Torro family. My father died of some kind of lung disease, perhaps pneumonia, and my brother, Felipe, inherited the title—it was just a minor lordship, mind you—and the estate. Still, Felipe was an explorer and was gone much of the time, while Aeliana remained home and managed the estate. Then Felipe died when his ship went down somewhere near the Canary Islands. There was only Aeliana and me, and Aeliana had fallen in love with a man who was a gentle soul, who also happened to be a Vampyre. That was the beginning of the end.”

She touched a black key and whispered, “It was bad.”

“I’m afraid so.” He touched her hand briefly. “But I don’t need to make it so, for you.”

Needing to see how much he felt of the old pain, she turned toward him and searched his gaze. He met her scrutiny with the same quiet dignity with which he told the story.

“Everything happened quickly after that, over a span of about four months. I may have been book bright, but I was a young, naive fool. I didn’t want to leave the Church, and while Aeliana couldn’t inherit the title, I thought she deserved the estates. I had met Inigo, the man she had fallen in love with. He was from a nearby community of twenty or so Vampyres. While I . . . liked him, I was troubled by the fact that he was a Vampyre. At that time the Inquisition had not made any moves against Vampyre communities and I didn’t see the danger until it was too late. I couldn’t see him as damned, but I didn’t have time to agonize over the morality of the Church’s opinion or how I felt about it. Worried, I talked to my bishop about it in the confessional.”

He fell silent. She whispered, “Oh, no.”

“He was supposed to be my spiritual leader,” he told her softly, and somehow his wry, knowledgeable gaze hurt more than anything. “I was hoping for some kind of guidance or advice. Of course, I didn’t see things the way I would now—how tempting such a rich estate would have been to some, or how certain Church officials would have seen it as vulnerable, with its only male heir committed to the Church and unable to inherit. Also, I had never been in love. I couldn’t conceive of how strong a force love might be, or how transformative. Aeliana asked Inigo to turn her, and he did just after they married. I found out afterward, about both.”

The story carried her forward, with the inevitability of a train wreck.

“Once the decision was made, the Church acted quickly, for that time. There weren’t any trials, not for Vampyres. It was extermination. Inquisition officers seized the estate in the name of the Church. I found out afterward, when a servant who had been with my family for years came to tell me the news. There were no bodies to bury, of course. All the Vampyres had turned to ash.” He paused and took a deep breath. “He said the women had been brutalized by the soldiers before they’d been killed, and everything in that young, naive boy broke that day.”

She didn’t think before she acted. She put a hand over his as it rested against his lean thigh, and his fingers closed around hers in a strong grip. “They killed her and took everything? You didn’t have anything?”

“Nothing. I had no legal recourse either, as I had renounced all worldly possessions with my vows. Even my horse was technically the Church’s.”

“What a colossal betrayal,” she whispered.

He gave her a small, ironic smile. “I stole my horse, and a sword. I stole other things too, to sell, so I could make passage to Italy to where Julian resided at that time. He had been a famous commander of a Roman army, and I needed to know how to go to war. We made a bargain. I swore I would come back to serve him once I had done what I needed to do. He turned me, and taught me. Then he set me loose in the world and said, ‘Come back when you’re finished.’ It took me ten years, but I came back to him.”

She asked from the back of her throat, “Did you kill everyone responsible?”

His gaze turned fierce and hot, as it had the first time she had asked him if the stories were true, although his soft, even voice never altered. “Oh, yes.”

“And you’ve been serving Julian ever since.”

He inclined his head. “He’s my sire.”

She nodded. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. How had he put the pieces of himself back together?

Somehow the core of him had survived.

He wasn’t a monster. He was courteous and thoughtful. Self-disciplined and well-mannered. How had he coped with such a shattered faith?

She became aware of her hand, wrapped in his. Growing self-conscious, she tried to let go, but he tightened his grip and said, “I told you all this, because you have the right to know who your patron is. You should be able to reconcile in your mind all of those things you know about me, and you should know that no one who is under my care will ever come to harm like that again. Not ever. I swear it.”

Realization crushed down. He had taken so much time and effort, all to reassure her, when she had every intention of leaving anyway.

They weren’t going to make the dance lesson after all. She couldn’t go on without saying anything. Now it was her turn to grip his fingers. She met his gaze and said, “I have to leave in the morning.”

Surprise flared in his expression then settled into coldness, and he pulled away from her touch. “I see. My apologies, if I’ve offended you in any way.”

What? No!

She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket before he could stand. “Your story didn’t offend me. I was incredibly moved and saddened, and I wished I could do something to protect that boy from all the horrible things that happened to him.”

The coldness eased somewhat, but while he didn’t pull away, his body remained stiff. “Thank you,” he said. “But then why leave? I thought we had made progress. You’re no longer afraid, and you seemed pleased enough last night. When did you decide this?”

She put her face in her hands and rubbed eyes that had gone dry and gritty with tiredness. “This morning. I was going to tell you. I should never have put on the dress and shoes, but they were so pretty, and I wanted to see if we might be able to waltz again before I told you. Just ninety seconds more.”