The car pulled up into the ostentatious driveway and peering out of the dark window, I could almost believe that I was the heroine in a Jane Austen movie about to arrive at a grand mansion with my hero by my side. The reality of the situation was jolted back into my mind as the passenger door was opened from the outside. Joe's face, bored and easily readable, stared down at me. The shock struck his features like a lightning bolt.
"Lizzy?" He hissed. "What are you doing here with him?"
He jerked his head towards Ashley who was ignoring our interaction politely. I stepped out of the car and avoided Joe's touch and his gaze. The door slammed loudly behind me and I turned to see Joe marching around to the driver's side angrily. He yanked the door open and thrust a black umbrella into Ashley's expectant hands.
"Thank you," Ashley responded lightly.
With the umbrella shielding him from the sun, Ashley escorted me up the driveway. I wanted to smile at the look of shock on Joe's face.
"Joe," I scolded as I brushed past him. "Don't be rude!"
"You know," Ashley remarked. "I'm not sure your friend the mechanic likes me."
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into yet another room that I'd never encountered. Blood red armchairs littered this room and a fire burned fiercely in a grate. Ashley bolted the door and I noticed that despite being the smallest room I'd seen in the house, it was also the most romantic. This thought, however, was unimportant because there were so many questions that I longed to ask Ashley. Romance would have to wait.
"How old is Dane?" I asked.
I could tell by Ashley's face that this question had come as a surprise. He traced the fabric on his armchair before answering.
"Ninety two."
"So he only has one year left." I murmured.
"How do you know that?" Ashley asked, a look of curiousness crossing his face.
"Well, all vampires live until ninety three. I noticed on the portraits in the entrance hall that they all died on their ninety-third year."
"I'm impressed," Ashley complimented. "But before you ask, I don't know why we die at ninety three. I don't know if I'll die at ninety three either because of my mother."
"That confused me at first. When I found out that your mother died at thirty one I wondered why that was. Then, of course, I saw that she was obviously human."
I'd avoided mentioning his mother but I felt that the time was now right to lose these boundaries. His reaction, however, made me wish I hadn't.
"How do you know that she was thirty one? How did you see that she was human?"
He grasped my arm tightly and his eyes searched my face frantically. I mouthed wordlessly until I could finally form a sentence.
"Well, I saw her portrait. That's how I knew who she was."
"Her portrait?"
Ashley's voice was hollow and empty. Seeming lost in his own memories, a forlorn expression crossed his face. When he spoke again his voice was returned to its normal tone.
"I didn't know there was one."
I wanted to ask him what he meant but the words didn't seem to rise in my throat. I didn't want to push him too far as I had last time his mother had been mentioned. Ashley answered my silent question without looking up and I marvelled at how well he was starting to recognise the little signs I gave off when I wanted information.
"The portraits that you've no doubt seen in the entrance hall are my ancestors. When each one died a portrait's painted and added to the wall. But not when my mother died; as far as I know there never was a painting."
"Well there is. Someone must have painted one."
We sat in silence as Ashley seemed to turn something over in his head. Then, without warning, he stood up abruptly and almost ran towards the door, tearing the bolt away and continuing out of the room.
"Where is it?" His voice floated through the open door.
"In the cellar. Behind the old antique wardrobe." I told him in a quiet voice, wondering what my words had caused.
After a few seconds thought, I followed him from the room. A familiar figure, however, was blocking my path. His sleeves were rolled up and his collar was hanging loose around his neck.
"What are you doing here Joe?" I asked, unfairly exasperated.
"What's vampire boy doing here?" He asked in an amused voice. "How could you be stupid enough to leave the house with him?"
I rolled my eyes and attempted to push past Joe. His weathered arm shot out in front of me and I felt the force of it hit my chest. I gritted my teeth and glared up into his twinkling eyes. Amazingly he was still smiling.
"After all, wouldn't you rather stay here with me?" He asked in a husky voice.
He stepped closer to me until his body was pressing against mine in a position that I knew all too well. I pushed him hard in the chest but after working manually for most of his life, his figure was well built and unmovable.
"Go away Joe," I groaned.
The early morning was beginning to take its toll on me and Joe's persistent questioning and flirtation was doing nothing to improve my mood. Without the calming influence of Ashley an irritation was flaring up inside me. Why did Joe insist on flirting with me?
"I'll go away when you give me what I want. The quicker you do the quicker you can chase after lover boy Ashley. You do the maths, Einstein." Joe smirked.
I didn't know why I was getting so angry. All I knew was that Joe was interrupting time that I could be spending with Ashley. His grin was beginning to grate on my nerves and although I knew it was unfair, I found myself snapping at him.
"Leave me alone!"
Joe held his hands up in mock surrender and then stepped aside for me to pass. I could feel his eyes on my back as I walked away and the smirk he was giving me was easily imaginable.
My angry footsteps marched down into the cellar and paused in the doorway of Joe's work room. I didn't dare to move any further because standing there, leaning heavily against his mother's portrait, was Ashley. The look in his eyes was tender and I'd only seen that look once before. When he'd first kissed me. Only then did I realise that it was love in his eyes.
"It's her." He whispered, his hand moving across Elizabeth Sancruor's beautiful face.
With Ashley standing beside the portrait I could see less obvious similarities between him and his mother. Both had the same high cheekbones and those long lashes that curled away from their jade eyes.
"I need to tell you why she died at thirty one."
I waited, listening to the boiler puffing out gentle clouds of damp steam. The room was peaceful but tense in a way that I couldn't describe. Unspoken words hovered in the air and finally Ashley spoke again through the irregular noises.
"My mother was murdered."
My breath caught thickly in my throat but Ashley didn't seem to realise I'd reacted; he was so absorbed in his story. And yet at the same time it seemed as though he was barely thinking about what he was saying at all. It sounded too rehearsed and controlled and I knew that he was trying not to show his weakness again.
"My father was the one who gave the order for her to be killed. And Dane was the one who followed the order." Ashley said with a very tight jaw.
This time I couldn't help myself and my gasp of horror resounded around the room. Pieces were beginning to click together. The way that Ashley treated Dane and Goliath now made sense. How dreadful, how terribly dreadful, that he had to reside in the same house as his mother's murderers. For every answer he was providing me with, hundreds of other questions were entering my head.
"Dane killed her?" I mouthed. "What? Why?"
"My mother was a human. A liability." At this word he snarled with a look of fury on his face. "Apparently she couldn't be trusted. So my father, with all of his reputation to keep held high, told Dane to kill her. And he did. I was only young but sometimes...sometimes at night I can still hear the voices. I can here Dane telling my mother that she had to go. And she did go. I can't imagine how painful her death must have been."
Silence fell once again on the room. I was speechless. The look on Ashley's face told me that he too had exhausted his emotions and could think of nothing more to say. The questions I'd once had all seemed very selfish now and I couldn't bring myself to utter them. Instead I closed the distance between us and buried my head in his shoulder, his scent casting away the smell of wood shavings and the outside world. I squeezed him tightly to me because, at that moment, I could offer him no more comfort.
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