A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood #1)(35)

Maybe that’s why I tried in vain to protect him, when the fights began.

Alexi got under your skin faster than I or Magdalena ever did, and the spats started shortly after the honeymoon. First it was just irritation, tight in your voice, then the arguments volleyed between the two of you over the tiniest disagreement. Alexi didn’t have my knack for making himself invisible when you were in one of your moods, or Magdalena’s fawning skill for soothing your temper. He challenged you outright, talking back from the moment he was bitten. Alexi was democratically minded, and he wanted a say in everything, from where we moved to how we spent our days. It reminded me of Magdalena’s keen appetite for planning trips in our early days together, or the way I had opened my arms wide to new places and new people when I was young and still flush with life. I didn’t realize how resigned Magdalena and I had become to our roles as dutiful wives until Alexi came onto the scene, and his argumentative spirit frightened me. For his sake, mostly.

I did my best to get him out of the house when you were at your most irritable, a reprieve you welcomed. Alexi’s energy and appetites were inexhaustible, the enthusiasm of youth captured forever in an undying body, and he demanded more of your attention than you were willing to give.

“He can be so boorish,” Alexi said as we walked arm in arm through one of Paris’ bustling alleyways. Even at night, the city buzzed with life. Cafés spilled light and laughing patrons out onto the street, and the air smelled like coffee and buttered pastries and roasting vegetables. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to put up with him for hundreds of years.”

“By trying to stay off his bad side, I suppose,” I said, allowing Alexi to lead me around a large puddle in the middle of the street. We must have seemed like an odd pair: Alexi young and handsome in his flashy silk waistcoat and cap cocked at a rakish angle, me in a black dress with a high neck and no adornment to speak of. I had always preferred plain clothes, although your wealth opened up worlds of fine fabrics and expert tailoring to me. They reminded me of the simple dresses I wore as a girl and kept any eyes from lingering on me too long. I liked the invisibility plainness afforded me, unlike Magdalena, who thrived when she was the center of attention.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Alexi asked, his laughter bright as a trumpet. He waved at a pretty couple taking wine and cigarettes al fresco in front of a cramped café, and they shouted his name across the street in an attempt to get him to come and sit with them. Another one of his radical friends, I supposed, Nin or Miller or any of their set. Alexi had so many friends their names tended to fall out of my head as soon as he introduced us. I was built for long walks with a single conversation partner, not for Alexi’s raucous roundtable discussions. I hoped he wouldn’t introduce me.

To my relief, Alexi kept walking, leading me down the street to an antique oddities store that fascinated him. Alexi loved you in part because of your connection with the past. He was always asking for old war stories or tales of your tenure in the palaces of duchesses and kings. He was of the opinion that the past was far more romantic than the present, no matter how voraciously he ate up every bit of sweetness the modern world had to offer. Maybe it was because he had also tasted the cruelties of modernity and lived through so much of its upheaval.

The antique store was dusty and dim, but Alexi’s face brightened as soon as we stepped inside as though he had found a doorway to Camelot. He ran his fingers over the pendants and parasols, the cigar boxes and hat boxes, losing himself in the reverie of days gone by. Soon, your morning spat had been entirely forgotten, and he was prattling on about all the historical events he wished he could have lived to see.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was sure to live through plenty of history. I doubted he would find it as rarefied an experience as his imagination hoped.

The shopkeeper appeared at the back of the store, a thin man with a nose like a hawk.

“Can I help you find something, young man?”

“We’re just taking it all in,” Alexi said pleasantly.

“Good. If you or your mother need any help, just ring the bell and I’ll be right with you.”

He disappeared into the back room, leaving Alexi snickering. I scowled, crossing my arms tight across my chest. Coming out with Alexi suddenly seemed foolish. That was all anyone ever saw when they looked at us together, a mother and son, or a governess and her overgrown ward. I had a face built for a chaperone, not for making beautiful young men fall in love with me.

“Come now Constance,” Alexi purred soothingly as he sidled up to me. It was his special nickname for me, and it always warmed my heart to hear him say it. “Don’t be mad. It’s an honest mistake.”

“Honest in that I look like a spinster?” I muttered.

Alexi snatched up a nearby silk scarf, fluttering it through the air before looping it around my shoulders. His touch was heavy and warm on my skin, and desire pooled in my stomach. Paris and a steady diet had banished the gaunt look from his features, and I hadn’t noticed until that moment how healthy and handsome he had become.

“Honest in that you’re motherly,” he conceded. “Why, you’re a regular Wendy Darling to us lost children.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the comparison. Alexi had taken me to see the play, and even though I hadn’t been a child for a long time, I had a fondness for its charming tale of eternal childhood. Sometimes rousing Magdalena and Alexi from bed so we could face the night as a family felt like dealing with children.