Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Elizabeth

London, 1841

"You're quiet today," Elizabeth remarked.

Edmond Dantès looked down at her as she walked through St. James's Park beside him, her face shielded from the sun by a parasol.

"Summer's almost here," he said. "Will your family return to your country estate?"

Summers in the city were hot and smelly and uncomfortable, and if people had the money to flee to the countryside for those months, they invariably did so. Elizabeth had spoken often of the properties owned by her family, but Edmond had never seen them.

"I suppose so. What will you do?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'll remain in the city," Edmond said.

"All summer?"

"I have no country home to retire to."

Elizabeth frowned, in that way she did when Edmond said something she didn't quite understand. While he had never returned to the luxury he'd lived in back in Paris, he still presented himself as a member of the upper classes. He told himself it was because it was easier to make good investments, without anyone probing too much into his past, but maybe Ysanne and François's tastes for the finer things in life had rubbed off on him. Of course, Elizabeth didn't know any of that. All she knew was that Edmond was wealthy, and yet so often didn't quite fit in with the upper echelons of Victorian society.

They walked in silence for a while, the only sound being the shushing of Elizabeth's skirts.

"Will you come to the estate to call on me?" she asked.

"Would you like me to?"

Again, that little frown. Edmond wanted to kiss her furrowed brow.

Elizabeth glanced subtly behind her to where her aunt, their chaperone, followed at a close distance, her eyes narrowed as she watched them. Elizabeth lowered her voice.

"I believe I have made my feelings quite clear by now," Elizabeth said.

Edmond couldn't deny that. Since Queen Victoria had taken the throne several years ago, respectability had become the standard that people were expected to adhere to. In the months that they had known each other, Edmond and Elizabeth had been alone only a handful of times, and then only because Elizabeth had managed to give her chaperone the slip.

It was her beauty that had initially caught Edmond's eye, but that streak of rebelliousness had held it.

Elizabeth had been born the bastard daughter of a kitchen maid – the descendant of a slave brought over from Sierra Leone – and a navy officer, but after her mother had died of cholera, her father had publicly claimed her as his daughter and brought her to live with him. She could play the part of the demure Victorian maid when she wanted to, but there was a current of fire running through her. Anyone who disparaged her mother's lowly station or the colour of Elizabeth's skin would feel the sharp edge of her tongue, and when social expectations become too heavy, she found ways to slip around them. Like hiking up her skirts and running from her chaperone so she could meet Edmond in secret, and kiss him the way they'd never be allowed to in public.

Beautiful and passionate and kind and defiant, she was the brightest part of Edmond's life.

But . . .

Elizabeth didn't know what he was, and Edmond was too afraid to tell her. what would be the point anyway? They had no future. Years had passed since he and Caoimhe had parted ways, but Edmond's convictions hadn't changed since then – happy endings weren't for vampires. He could not love someone again.