But it was another delusion, to think that we had been happy, that I had been. I know that now. I have said as much.

The following day, I consulted his wardrobe book. He kept the details of his accounts well for me, purchases and deposits. In that year he had made purchases of several gifts for his paramours, amounting to the modern equivalent of some five thousand francs, and had received some fifty thousand in return. All these were leaked from the crown, coming through the fingers of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. This was not enough to cover the household finances, and in those years we had large shortfalls. 

I had begun investing in the 1680s, mostly in real estate and in the still healthy wool trade, with the little money and jewels that L had at that time. By the waning years of Louis XIV's reign, those investments had begun to mature such that we came into quite a bit of money. This, on top of the small fortune coming in from Laurent's paramours of that era, had kept  us comfortable to the extent that we owned several properties in Paris and the surrounding duchy. This townhouse, however, high on our hill and near to Pigalle and Montmartre, had always been Laurent's favorite, and mine. Even with the money we'd had, far too much had been spent on appointing the house, such that it dipped into our investment capitol. It had been a disaster when Louis XIV died, with the coming of the Regency Council, and the sweeping up of court. We were left with unmatured investments and no income. By the 1740s, our lot had not improved by much. 

Even so, in the very back of the book, I went through his fabric swatches, noting the some two thousand francs he had expended at the tailor for his pet, and drew out the white brocade of his favorite robe. Brocade of course, for its exoticism, and not silk damask. I wrote out a bequest to his tailor, a bosom friend and growing old, to replace the robe I had ruined with my tears. L had been wearing it in any case, but it wounded him always to have a hair out of place, and I felt that he only continued to wear it for my sake. 

It irritated me to be treated by him as if I were made of glass. 

I felt a strange numbness in all of my limbs. When I looked in the mirror I did not recognize myself. In my closet were all of my familiar clothes, so I pulled on my silk stockings, and low heels,shades of gray in damask, black frock coat with enamel buttons. As a young man, I could choose to wear a wig or not, according to etiquette, and I chose not to, pulling my hair back with a black satin ribbon and rolling it neatly in a thick barrel curl. In those days, a little bit of powder for the face was appropriate, and I brushed this on with a thick brush of sable fur. A thin grease pencil, heated briefly over a flame did for shaping the brows into a neat line and applying a small spot high on the left cheek. In Laurent's vanity, there was a small pot of rouge for the lips and cheeks. Gazing upon myself in full costume, this seemed more like somebody I knew, with hold over himself.

We fought often, more regularly than we ever had. I was frustrated with his fear that I would leave him, and did not understand why he insisted that I wanted to. Yes, in the past, I had conspired with Nicky to do so, but I had never done it, and could he not see that? I found myself shouting at him, and depending upon his mood, he would shout back, sob, collapse. I slept in the yellow room,and if he came to me at night, as he always had, he slept with his arms around me, occasionally after having a little cry. He was in obvious distress, over far more than his anxiety over my state of mind, and afraid. I told him that I did not recognize myself, and he said, "You are my good, smart child, and a man now. You are beautiful and kind. My darling, you are too kind for your own good."

I stroked the soft skin of his back, rubbed his muscles, which ached from the physical strain of love. He still strove to meet his obligations, to make it to his daylight appointments with paramours, but after a month or so without blood, he seemed sick to me, and his body far too weak to be roughly handled. He pursued sex because it thrilled him, pleased him to be Venus. He was not a whore. One must be clear about that. He did not pursue sex for the financial reward. These men patronized him for his regard, to sustain him. To even speak about it otherwise is not to be suffered. His paramours knew about one other, and competed for his favor, wanted him in the best clothes and to see him at the grand fetes. He had been seeing some of them for decades. They were aware that he was a man of complex taste, and that he, like them, saw talk of money as distasteful, but they were also aware that for all of his mystique, he would not reject a gift.

He always liked a gift. And so I brought him the white brocade robe, paid out of my own pocket, and he cried tears so thin of blood that they were petal pink. I put it on him and he collapsed against me, and confessed to me that he was afraid of this new weakness, and how much he needed the boy, and he knew how tortured I was by what he was doing. That was a week or so after I had begun to go to the fetes he had stopped attending.

The previous decade, I had often escorted him to and from the salons, on my way to other ventures, and knew his favorites by name. He was right that I had never been terribly curious about his comings and goings. It is not so much that I believe in private affairs as that in terms of his amours being a matter of blood, what interest could I have in it? These things are passingly diverting at best, so transient. But he talked to me of them nonetheless at times, unbidden, and so, being near, I crossed over a threshold I had avoided in the past.

Why did I go to these fetes, initially? There were many of them at that time of year, it being so close to Lent. I might wish to suppose that I wanted to hear news of L, for our finances. Certainly saying so would fit this story. He had been shunning the salons for too long, caring for his sweet boy, who had grown only sweeter to him after drawing greater ill over drinking the blood. But that would be fabrication, or not enough of the truth. Who is to say why?Perhaps I wandered so because of loneliness, because I wanted to intrude on his life, because it was delicious to me to be involved with him so intimately when he was ignoring me.

The house, that evening, was a small one to have any sort of grand ballroom, but I gave my scarf and hat to a steward in the high-ceilinged great room, before moving into the party proper. Young aristocrats and their prostitutes were playing whist and baccarat, ignoring me largely, which suited. In terms of the popular look of the time, my looks are exotic, and always have been, and it has never interested the French elite to bother with exoticism much as anything more than passing diversion. I did not mean to stay long, and wanted only to be surrounded by them an hour or longer, to be cosseted in voices and fine things, as I have always secretly liked finery and elegance, and especially in something of a disheveled state.

I had no way of knowing that Leis had told Valentin all about me, the complete idiot. Here is my issue with young vampires, that they are a danger to themselves in this way. For us, our greatest commodity are our secrets. A naïve vampire, so new to life in every way, and not least to pleasure, ought to have its tongue cut out. And certainly, I felt that way, at this fete, and seeing that I had caught the eye of a dark-eyed young man from across the room.

I knew him for old blood, old money, from the way he moved. These things I had learned from L over the years. "Look at the way he moves his hand. He has practiced his movements. The young darlings, they have been beaten by their matrons to maintain this elegance. What they wouldn't give for a gentle hand, and a soft mouth to tell them that they are beautiful. They will never let down their hair. The way they comport themselves is of great value at court and on their marriage market.They are ornament, flesh and blood. They are money," he had told me. The young man who stood from whist cast  his eyes downward, and flicked them up at me again, looking through his eyelashes. May I come over? I made no move towards the affirmative or no, and so he came to me, whispering.

He took my hand and I looked down at it in mine, delicate hand. He had black doe eyes and his hair curled around his ears. I studied his face while he studied mine. "I know who you are," he said.

"And who are you?" I asked him, softly.

"Valentin. This is my house."

"And who am I?"

"You are his man, are you not?" he asked, covering my hand with both of his, gently, not looking at my face. "Has something held him up? Has he sent you? The other one, that younger one, he said that you were a shadow, having a devilish look, and dark colors. I know you."

"So please we speak in private," I said, under my breath, piqued to be identified so in mixed company.

Valentin took me by the wrist, thumbing his nose at his friends and laughing as we passed. A woman in pink wagged her finger at him, "They'll throw you out of court for it, Valentin," and smiling. He touched her finger briefly and hustled me around the many tables, slipping past the main stairs and up a servants' staircase instead. At the top, he opened a door to a room obviously used as a secret den, appointed far beyond a servant's needs. Canopied bed in silk and crisp cotton, vanity, long couches.

"What's that?" I asked, quietly, as he negotiated a set of tall ornate drawers.

"She'll think you are wanting snuff. They've tried to ban it at court, Louis the Puritan, but it comes in nonetheless. The English make it very dry and fine. Will you have some?" he asked, producing a small glass vial.

I shook my head and watched him dole a small amount of fine black powder onto the back of his hand, pinch it between his thumb and forefinger, and sniff it quickly.

"It's nothing really, but the smell is pleasant and I have to have it,"he said. He had a hesitant voice, somewhat nasal. "It's rose; very calming."

He bid me come sit on the couch beside him, a deep red velvet on scrolling gold, and I sat in a chair across from him, legs crossed. Very softly, the sound of voices filtered up from the party downstairs. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke, and I waited for him to broach conversation.

"It is hard to court you if you are very stiff," he said, gently.

"I am not here to be courted, Valentin."

"You are more handsome than that boy described you. I assume he has some sort of vendetta, to do you such injustice."

He reached out to touch my knee and I took him roughly by the wrist, flipped it, and pushed his sleeve up. He gasped but did not pull back from my touch. There hadn't been any marks on his neck that I could see, and on his wrist I saw a cruel and slowly healing bite, ringed with red.He let me look at it, seemed to read sympathy in my lack of expression.

"I would not see that boy again, if that's what you're thinking," Valentin said, investigating the fingernails of his free hand. "He is completely indelicate, untouchable. But I don't count it against La Perle. Clearly he was shocked by it. A very handsome boy, but nothing appropriate for society, and may I say, too tall. Very low stock."

He waited for me to respond, but I didn't, seeing how the red halo traveled, pushing his sleeve higher. The room smelled of the damp.

"Will he come to me? Your master? Tell him I am waiting but I am impatient. If he would put others over me, he can expect me to be very cross. Allow me some discretion to say that it has been some ten years now and I have been keeping him very well. He has embarrassed me quite deeply."

I did not know much about medicine then, but I knew that the wound was festering, and that he was neglecting it. "This is not good, this arm," I said, softly.

"La Perle will heal it."

"He won't come," I said, the words slipping out of me easily.

"Why?"he demanded, and I expected him to snatch his hand back, to be angry, from his tone.

But when I looked at him, he was not angry. His mouth had opened to ask the question, and had not closed.

"Sir," he whispered. "Tell me."

I did not know then what I later learned from Evan Wright. A little blood for Valentin, for deep wounds and to conceal visible ones, what harm? A little obsession, what harm, if love is there already? A little addiction, a rough desire, what harm? But Valentin was not yet in the condition of my doctor. He had been given very little and had never drunk. Perhaps I am judging it too quickly. Perhaps it was only a lover's despair.

He watched me turn his wrist over, breathing shallowly, as if I were strangling him. After a fashion, he choked, "Why do you never come? Maybe you are kinder than he is. I am sorry for being brusque. Please give me news of him."

"Why do you think that I am kind?" I asked.

"Because you hold me very gently, because you are very careful of what you say. I think you want to spare my feelings. Don't spare them. Tell me what he has asked you to say."

"I've come on my own."

"Why does he stay away?" he asked, pulling his wrist back so gently that it caused me to uncross my legs, and follow it. After I had settled beside him on the couch, and he had kissed my temple, he added, so quietly I barely heard it, "Does he also shun the others? Is it money?"

"The boy wants him for himself."

Oh it had been too long since a stranger had touched me gently, and I let him stroke my neck. "Why do you tell it to me, then?" he asked. His lips, his breath smelled of his rose snuff, pleasant. "Maybe he will come and tell me himself."

"He won't come, Valentin. If he did, you would not recognize him."

"My God but you are beautiful," he whispered, and I felt heat in his lips, kissing behind my ear. "Will you kiss me?"

I said no, and suddenly the wound opened by the loss of his lover bled, and not knowing what to do with his grief and his tears, I stayed with him until he fell asleep, with no intention of ever returning. I had no intention to ever look again on that sort of life, breath catching in my throat at how hotly I had loved to be desired. Now I wonder if Valentin felt he could convince me to persuade Laurent of returning to him, but I think that he was only devastated, and that I was lonely then in a way I understand only more deeply now. To see Valentin grieve over his lover, it stirred me to realize what I was losing as well.

That morning, arriving back home, I found that I had not been missed for a single moment. Looking in on my bedroom, I smelled blood before seeing anything at all, and spat on the boy's name for drinking of Laurent when he was sick already from starving himself. Weak to grief, I wept utterly, as if the man I knew, and who I loved, had died.