Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(129)

“Just trying to figure something out,” Matthew said, sliding the paper away.

“Something genetic?” The X’s and O’s reminded me of biology and Gregor Mendel’s peas. I drew the paper back. There weren’t just X’s and O’s on the page. I recognized initials belonging to members of Matthew’s family: YC, PC, MC, MW. Others belonged to my own: DB, RB, SB, SP. Matthew had drawn arrows between individuals, and lines crisscrossed from generation to generation.

“Not strictly speaking,” Matthew said, interrupting my examination. It was a classic Matthew nonanswer.

“I suppose you’d need equipment for that.” At the bottom of the page, a circle surrounded two letters: B and C—Bishop and Clairmont. Our child. This had something to do with the baby.

“In order to draw any conclusions, certainly.” Matthew picked up the wine and carried it toward his lips.

“What’s your hypothesis, then? You don’t need a laboratory to come up with a theory,” I observed. “If it involves the baby, I want to know what it is.”

Matthew froze, his nostrils flaring. He put the wine carefully on the table and took my hand, pressing his lips to my wrist in a seeming gesture of affection. His eyes went black.

“You saw Hubbard,” he said accusingly.

“Not because I sought him out.” I pulled away. That was a mistake.

“Don’t,” Matthew rasped, his fingers tightening. He drew another shuddering breath. “Hubbard touched you on the wrist. Only the wrist. Do you know why?”

“Because he was trying to get my attention,” I said.

“No. He was trying to capture mine. Your pulse is here,” Matthew said, his thumb sweeping over the vein. I shivered. “The blood is so close to the surface that I can see it as well as smell it. Its heat magnifies any foreign scent placed there.” His fingers circled my wrist like a bracelet. “Where was Fran?oise?”

“In Leadenhall Market. I had Jack and Annie with me. There was a beggar, and—” I felt a brief, sharp pain. When I looked down, my wrist was torn and blood welled from a set of shallow, curved nicks. Teeth marks.

“That’s how fast Hubbard could have taken your blood and known everything about you.” Matthew’s thumb pressed firmly into the wound.

“But I didn’t see you move,” I said numbly.

His black eyes gleamed. “Nor would you have seen Hubbard, if he’d wanted to strike.”

Perhaps Matthew wasn’t as overprotective as I thought.

“Don’t let him get close enough to touch you again. Are we clear?”

I nodded, and Matthew began the slow business of managing his anger. Only when he was in control of it did he answer my initial question.

“I’m trying to determine the likelihood of passing my blood rage to our child,” he said, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Benjamin has the affliction. Marcus doesn’t. I hate the fact that I could curse an innocent child with it.”

“Do you know why Marcus and your brother Louis were resistant, when you, Louisa, and Benjamin were not?” I carefully avoided assuming that this accounted for all his children. Matthew would tell me more when—if—he was able.

His shoulders lost their sharp edge. “Louis and Louisa died long before it was possible to run blood tests. I have only my blood, Marcus’s blood, and Ysabeau’s blood to work with—and that’s not enough to draw any reliable conclusions.”

“You have a theory, though,” I said, thinking of his diagrams.

“I’ve always thought of blood rage as a kind of infection and supposed Marcus and Louis had a natural resistance to it. But when Goody Alsop told us that only a weaver could bear a wearh child, it made me wonder if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps it’s not something in Marcus that’s resistant but something in me that’s receptive, just as a weaver is receptive to a wearh’s seed, unlike any other warmblooded woman.”

“A genetic predisposition?” I asked, trying to follow his reasoning.

“Perhaps. Possibly something recessive that seldom shows up in the population unless both parents carry the gene. I keep thinking of your friend Catherine Streeter and your description of her as ‘thrice-blessed,’ as though her genetic whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.”

Matthew was quickly lost in the intricacies of his intellectual puzzle. “Then I started wondering whether the fact that you are a weaver is sufficient to explain your ability to conceive. What if it’s a combination of recessive genetic traits—not only yours but mine as well?” When his hands drove through his hair in frustration, I took it as a sign that the last of the blood rage was gone and heaved a silent sigh of relief.

“When we get back to your lab, you’ll be able to test your theory.” I dropped my voice. “And once Sarah and Em hear they’re going to be aunts, you’ll have no problem getting them to give you a blood sample—or to baby-sit. They both have bad cases of granny lust and have been borrowing the neighbors’ children for years to satisfy it.”

That conjured a smile at last.

“Granny lust? What a rude expression.” Matthew approached me. “Ysabeau’s probably developed a dire case of it, too, over the centuries.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” I said with a mock shudder.