Though Mr. Malachi had ordered her to sleep eight hours, she knew how it was with vampires. They weren’t that different from human employers. If one did a semblance of the more irrational things they wanted, they were fine. As long as they weren’t paying too close attention.
When Lady Constance had been her Mistress, Elisa had been able to convince her that Ian was giving her no trouble, because she didn’t want to worry the already troubled mistress of the house. Technically it was true, though it took the combined efforts of most of the staff to keep it that way, thwarting his clever and strategic attempts to get her off by herself. Of course, once he’d gotten involved with the poor housemaid Mary, she’d provided a distraction. She was living in Perth now, working as a seamstress in a dress shop.
Lady Danny had been much harder to pacify. It had been a new experience for Elisa, an employer who shouldered responsibility for everything that happened under her roof, considering the well-being of even her youngest maid to be of great importance. What she didn’t catch, Dev did. Elisa didn’t mind their care. Even admired it in some ways, but she hated to be a burden. Being a burden meant she wasn’t doing her job properly, which was to be unnoticed and yet a great help, all at the same time.
Though she was more than a little homesick, she knew it was why she’d been glad to chaperone the fledglings, leave the station behind for a little while. Everyone had been spending far too much time noticing her.
Fortunately, from how gruff and impatient Mr. Malachi was, Elisa didn’t doubt he’d be more along the lines of Lady Constance, happy to ignore her as long as she gave the appearance of obeying him and not getting in his way. He might even forget she was here and stop entertaining notions of sending her home until the children’s fate was resolved.
All she had to do was get through this meeting. Stay quiet; answer his questions. If you feel you must tell him something, do it in a calm, obedient manner that doesn’t suggest you’re challenging him in any way. Every male did better when his ego was cosseted, like a cat having his fur stroked the right way. She wasn’t a manipulative female, one who thought her wiles or other such nonsense would distract a man to stupidity, but these were simple facts about men that all women knew. Even if the man was a vampire.
She froze abruptly. You daft thing. He marked you twice. He can read your mind.
For several seconds she didn’t breathe, but then slowly she let it out. Surely if he was listening, he’d have spoken by now, right? Even so, she needed to be more circumspect. Taking the lesson to heart, she drew a deep breath to balance the abrupt lack of oxygen, cleared her mind as much as possible, and turned down a short hallway off that main room. She could hear the rustle of paper, and her second-mark senses told her a vampire was waiting.
As she approached, she saw it was a library as well as his office, the walls full of books. Rapping on the panel before she stepped in, her eyes slid to the desk in the corner.
It was a heavy, impressive thing like a pirate’s sea chest, only much larger. There were carvings of ships on the front panels, and hinges to the lid so things might be stored inside. Paperwork was scattered across the top, and several file cabinets provided drawers behind him. Among the papers was a bright red ball of string, currently trapped under the paw of one of the cats she’d seen last night. The enormous gray tabby was sprawled in limp repose over a crumpled portion of the paperwork.
Her gaze rose to the male sitting in a roomy but rickety metal-and-vinyl office chair, not quite a compatible match for the antique desk. Except for a slight variation in the T-shirt, not much had changed in his attire. His hair was carelessly yanked back and tied. He was reading a letter, one hiking boot braced on the worn edge of the desk to help him rock back and forth, explaining the rhythmic squeak she’d heard as she approached. The boot was crusted with red mud, telling her he was not responsible for the pristine cleanliness of the house. Only the person not responsible for the hard work of cleaning would be so careless of it. Which was why Mrs. Pritchett regularly chased the hands back on the porch until they wiped their feet.
At her appearance, he glanced up. “Who is William protecting?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” Whereas before he’d been harsh or deliberately gentle and calm—as if she were mentally impaired—now his tone was that of an employer asking a question of an employee. Good. That was what she wanted. Though in that brief second while he waited for her answer, his gaze covered her, from the nervous clasp of her hands, to the rise and fall of her bosom, up to her throat. He lingered there for a bare second before coming to her face. She ignored the reactive warming of her skin.
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand the question.”
Putting the paperwork aside, he laced his fingers across his flat abdomen, pushing the chair back farther on its complaining stem. “You named them, didn’t you?”
“Their ability to communicate is limited, sir. So far. We didn’t have records of their names. With all they’ve been through, we think most don’t remember them. Or they don’t want to tell us, as if they’re giving something precious away. We had to call them something.”
He arched a brow. “Do you have difficulty answering a question with a yes or no, Elisa?”
She firmed her lips. “Yes, sir. I named them.”
“I thought so. William means protector. Matthew, gift of God. Leonidas, lionlike.” He paused. “For the eyes, I assume. You couldn’t bring yourself to give him a name as gentle as the others.”
“It didn’t seem to suit.”
“Yet you think the others do.” Did his tone reflect a hint of scorn? She told herself she was going to hold her tongue this time even if she had to bite through it. He studied her for another uncomfortably long moment. “The girls are half-caste. Aboriginal and white.”
She nodded. “We expect Lord Ruskin took them from their families through the government program.”
“Nerida is flower. Miah is the moon.”
Because a moon shone light through darkness, and Nerida looked at Miah like she was the moon. “Since it’s likely they were taken from Aboriginal mothers, I wanted to give them names from the people they knew.” She’d explained to each child why she was giving him or her the name she’d chosen. It was only until they felt like telling her their real names, of course. To her way of thinking, giving them a name told them they mattered, that they were unique and important.
“And Jeremiah.” He glanced back down at the paperwork. “You imagine yourself closest to him.”
“He reacts the best to me. To us.”
Mal rocked forward, back. To entertain herself, trying to break the building tension, Elisa imagined what would happen if he overbalanced. Would he be so agile and quick he’d be up and clear of it before it fell, or would he sprawl on his arse like any other man too full of himself and in need of being taken down a peg or two?
“‘God will raise him up,’ or ‘God will set him free.’ That’s what Jeremiah means,” Malachi continued. “Which interpretation did you tell him?”
“Both. Mr. Malachi—”
He made an impatient gesture. “My name is Mal. Not Mr. Malachi. You’ll use Mal.”
She blinked. “But, sir, it doesn’t seem proper or respectful to call—”
“Elisa, do you think I’ll have any less difficulty commanding your obedience and respect if you call me Mal instead of Mr. Malachi?”
“No, sir. I—” She paused as his sardonic undertone hit her. She tightened her lips. “I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, I would respect you either way, but it doesn’t seem—”
“Let me say it another way.” He pinned her with those dark eyes. “You will obey me, regardless of what you call me, won’t you, Elisa?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “Sir is an acceptable compromise, but if you address me by name, you will call me Mal.”
“Yes, sir. I’m not sure why you want to know the background of their names.”
“Because I need to know everything about them. There are things you’ve picked up about their behavior that will help me, things you may not recognize as useful. Which is why I need you to answer the questions I ask.” When he brought his boots down with a decided thump, Elisa jumped. He scowled.
“Girl, put your ass in that chair and stop acting like I’m going to attack you. You’re in no danger here. If you annoy me excessively—more than you’re already doing—I’ll simply send you home. Do you really think Lady Danny would send you anywhere she wasn’t certain of your safety? She’s very protective of you.”
“Yes, sir. I apologize. It’s . . .” Sitting down in a stiff perch on the edge of the guest chair, she tried to stop the nerves constantly jittering in her stomach like tiny electrified wires. Unfortunately, any arc could jolt her like this. “I’m ready for your questions.”
“It says that, according to Ruskin’s records, he took quite a few fullblooded Aboriginal children, but they had a higher death rate than the white children.”
She nodded. “Dev says he expects it’s because the Aboriginal children understood better, at a spiritual level, that what had been done to them was . . . wrong, not the way Nature is supposed to be. They let themselves die to escape.”
When he paused again, she wondered if he thought that was nonsense. Something in the way his fingers tightened on the edge of the desk made her think he wished it was nonsense, but knew better. Then the curious moment passed. “Hmm. Your notes mention seizures.”
“Danny calls them bloodlust episodes, but for Leonidas and Jeremiah, it’s like nothing she’s seen before. Victor was like that as well. The girls and William and Matthew have episodes, but they’re less severe.”
Mal grunted. “Tell me how often you’ve noted it in each one.”
As she recalled those details, Mal scribbled on the pad in front of him, glancing at the open file as if comparing data. This was yet another version of the male she’d met last night. She marked the faint frown on his forehead, the way the earth brown eyes shifted back and forth between the two sets of paperwork. Delving into the behavior of a creature and ferreting out what was needed, that was his gift. Danny had said so. Only her vampires weren’t cats, big or small, like the ones she’d yet to meet or those on his desk.
