An Ever Fixéd Mark (47 page)

Lizzie stepped back and quickly checked the
mirror for smudged lipstick. She faced Meg as she landed on the
bottom step. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Meg’s eyes moved beyond Lizzie to
Oliver. “You must be the brother.”

He offered the charming smile that must have
endeared so many young students to Professor Ol. Lizzie wondered if
Meg was in any way susceptible. “I’m Oliver.”

“Meg,” she accepted his hand. “Where are you
taking Lizzie?”

“A fundraiser for an environmental
coalition.”

“Lizzie knows all about fundraisers.”

“There’s a baseball star hosting.”

“Lizzie doesn’t like sports.”

“I like the environment,” Lizzie was
surprised by Meg’s bitterness. Apparently she determined to channel
Nora that evening. “I need shoes.”

When she returned down the stairs, Meg still
looked at Oliver without saying a word. “It’s supposed to snow, you
know,” Meg muttered as Lizzie put on her coat. “You shouldn’t stay
out too late.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Oliver was
undeterred by Meg’s smarminess. Lizzie didn’t say goodbye as they
went down the stairs.

“
You do want to go to this
thing?” Oliver broke the silence as he opened the door of his Jeep
for her.

“Yeah,” Lizzie sat in the car as he walked
to his door.

“We could just skip it and go to the hotel
room.”

“Hotel room?” she felt his eyes looking over
her.

“No, that’s a bit presumptive,” he turned on
the ignition.

“I like dancing,” Lizzie shrugged. “No one
has ever taken me out to dance before.”

“Excellent,” Oliver smiled as they pulled
away. Lizzie watched the blur of Christmas tree lights they passed.
Ben didn’t take her out to dance. But they danced at the reunion
and there was… there was another time she couldn’t remember…

*****

“Your honest opinion?” Oliver shut the
closet door where he hung their coats.

“I told you,” Lizzie gazed down onto the
lights of Boylston Street. The blanket of snow made the Christmas
decorations of downtown Boston look more festive. “I thought it was
a good event. Better than anything we could do at the
hospital.”

“I doubt that,” he rested his chin on the
top of her head.

Lizzie thought about turning from the window
into him. She wasn’t ready to kiss him. Not yet. There wasn’t much
conversation over the loud band or polite talk with Oliver’s
colleagues. “Where do you stay when you come east?”

“
A friend’s
apartment.”

“Another vampire?”

“A source.” Oliver removed his sports coat
and loosened his tie. She didn’t realize she was so blatantly
watching until he smiled after unclasping the third button of his
shirt. She still wasn’t ready and found a chair and finally removed
her heels.

“I thought the band was excellent,” Oliver
stopped at the third button and settled into the chair opposite. “I
had fun dancing.”

“That was the best part.”

“It was,” Oliver didn’t attempt to shield
the lust in his eyes. She already noted there was no burn there and
felt comfortable he fed recently. Except that Oliver wasn’t… he
wasn’t Ben. Did that mean he did something else recently?

Lizzie looked at Oliver. He was so handsome.
So very, very handsome. And charming. Like Will. Like Meg. How long
before his attention would be diverted from her? “Why did you fall
in love with Charlotte?”

Oliver expressed a knowing smile and exhaled
a deep breath.

“Why,” Lizzie continued, “if you loved Lily
so much, would you fall in love with the monster who interfered in
your happiness?”

“I asked myself that question many times,”
he avoided her eyes. “Especially when it ended. In the beginning,
she was the only vampire I knew. Benjamin went back to France.
Charlotte brought me with her to New York. It was a volatile
friendship. There was physical attraction. There was a lot of hate
that made that attraction even more… strangely enough…
exciting.”

“
Is that why you let
Charlotte change you?”

“Charlotte was waiting for me. I thought
Lily would be there. I knew someone in that house was using her,
the way Horace did. I knew it made her unhappy. I didn’t know it
was a … I didn’t believe that she loved him. She wanted to leave.
She was going to marry me.”

“
Charlotte convinced you
that wasn’t true.”

“She showed me a book he bought her. There
were things scribbled inside, but I couldn’t read them. I was never
educated enough to impress Lily. I knew she was intelligent,
something those Fultons refused to appreciate. The fact another man
bought her books and appealed to her mind… Charlotte knew my
weakness. She convinced me Lily was lost. I let her seduce me and
take my blood. I don’t remember that night clearly. It’s a
horrible, thrilling dream.”

Lizzie saw sadness creep across his face, as
if Charlotte’s revelations were a recent conversation. She tried to
think of the book under the water and the kiss in the marshy grass.
No detail surfaced. She couldn’t think of anything to prove or
disprove what Charlotte told him.

“She manipulated the truth,” Oliver’s
expression changed from sad to something both uninterested and
intensely angry. It was as though he could distance himself from
the reality of Charlotte, but not her trickery. “Lily was telling
Benjamin that she was leaving him.”

“What?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Oliver had no sense of
alarm.

“No.”

“He told me after Charlotte died,” Oliver
looked at her briefly. “I didn’t know that when I saw Lily. I…
didn’t know.”

Lizzie knew the next part of the story, but
didn’t want the detail. “What did the Fultons do when Lily
died?”

“The Fultons never knew. Charlotte had her
buried in a common grave. She told Margaret and John she ran off
with me to Kentucky. It was one of Charlotte’s cruel jokes. The
world thought we were together, when I was the one who…”

“She had the last laugh.”

“
No, she
didn’t.”

“Because you killed her?” Lizzie asked
lightly, even though the thought terrified her.

“Because you are here with me,” he lifted
her from her chair. “Let’s stop talking about the past, Lizzie. Let
us focus on the here and now.”

Lizzie took in a deep breath as he lifted
her chin gently and pulled her towards his mouth. She moved her
lips against his and forced the questions from her mind. He didn’t
want to talk any longer. She knew the answers to her questions
still hurt him. His hurt more than anything tugged at her heart.
She didn’t want to hurt him again. She chose Ben and broke his
heart. She chose him again without even giving Oliver a chance to
tell her the truth, the truth of his sadness. Ben denied Oliver the
opportunity to tell her. Ben hurt him. Ben hurt her. So she didn’t
let herself think about how she was hurting Ben as Oliver’s hands
reached around for the back of her dress.

*****

Lizzie loosened herself from Oliver’s arms
and slipped into the bathroom. She let the steam of the luxurious
shower fill the room. She knew she dreamt something in those few
hours, but nothing remained after she opened her eyes. Nothing
except a feeling of loss. She hoped the sound of water would
refresh her memory – just to let her know if it was something of
Lizzie or of Lily.

She knew there was a reason she didn’t
remember. Maybe it was a bad dream. If she woke with such a
depressed feeling, how could it have been happy? She was happy…
wasn’t she? She was with a man who was in love with her. He didn’t
say it – but Lizzie was quite certain he was - and had been for
centuries. It was different from Ben’s emotion. There was something
more human about Oliver’s love for Lily. It was almost as if his
attraction to Lizzie was an attempt to be his old self again.

Was it Lizzie? Or was it Lily that made
Oliver enclose his arms around her in a contented, sleeping
embrace? Lizzie convinced herself that Ben only wanted Lily… but
was Oliver any different? Was he at all aware of Elizabeth Watson?
Were they separate? Or were they really the same? Whose thoughts
were floating through her mind? Who agreed to go out with Oliver
and follow him back to a hotel room? If she was Lily, did she have
the right to hurt Ben for what he did to her? Isn’t that why she
was upset with him? Why she no longer felt she could be with him?
Did Lily just realize what he did to Oliver? Was it Lily telling
her to stay away from Ben and go back to… go back… she wasn’t going
back to Oliver. Elizabeth was never with Oliver. Elizabeth didn’t
love Oliver. Did Lily?

She was attracted to him. It wasn’t
difficult to leave her mind when he kissed her. Was that Lily
taking over… or just a baser instinct reacting to his good looks
and seduction? Lizzie was attracted to his vampire. Her heart bled
for the broken soul within him, but her desire to be close to him
made her forget her conscious and go to some other place in her
thoughts. Where her shame and fear couldn’t stop her. She didn’t
fear him, in spite of Ben’s repetitive warnings. How legitimate
could they be? He just wanted to keep him from her, to keep her
from knowing the truth. To keep her from knowing the monster Ben
really was.

Lizzie’s thoughts halted as she rinsed the
shampoo from her hair. Was he a monster? She loved Ben. He never
hurt her. He promised to never hurt her… physically. He kept the
truth from her. But how much did she want this truth? Did she want
to know all this? Wasn’t it easier, wasn’t she happier when she
didn’t know Lily? She always knew Lily. Lily was always a part of
her. But not… not the part that chose Oliver.

The tears mingled with soapy water that ran
from her hair. She loved Ben. She missed him. She missed his arms.
She missed the freckles under his eyes. His gray green eyes that
were always full of … what did Meg say once? Something about love
and insatiable desire. If he was looking at her, he saw Elizabeth.
Not Lily. He didn’t tell her about Lily because he loved Elizabeth.
She didn’t let herself believe that. She let the doubt register in
her mind when he went to Chicago. She let it be her excuse to hurt
him.

But Oliver… he was still there. He wanted
her. He wanted Lily. He fell in love easily. He could fall out of
love just as easily. Could he with Lily? Or was Lily his soul mate?
If that was the case, why didn’t Lizzie feel that? Why didn’t she
ache for the embrace of his arms and leap out of the shower to seek
them for comfort? Why did Lily choose Oliver if it wasn’t for love?
Was it really just an escape? How could an escape to Kentucky be
preferable to Europe? Why did Lily hurt Ben so that he made sure
Charlotte took out her wrath on Oliver… on Thomas? Tom. Her Tom.
There was something else, something missing. A detail that was in
the corner of her memory, but hidden in the shadows of a lost
dream. What was it? To whom would it lead? Oliver? Ben? Or back to
herself? Maybe… maybe that was what Lily wanted all along. Lizzie
liked her solitude. She liked having time to herself. She liked her
room at Jefferson Park. She liked her runs in the quiet of the
morning. Maybe that was all Lily ever craved. Maybe Lily realized
the monsters that both men were and wanted no more of it. That was
why she chose to die.

Lizzie washed away the tears by the time
left she bathroom and was back in her clothes. Oliver waited in the
hotel robe looking out at the view of Boylston Street. “We got a
lot of snow last night,” he turned to her and smiled.

“Oh?” Lizzie noticed a room service cart in
the corner of the room.

“I ordered a couple options for breakfast. I
didn’t know what you…”

“That’s very sweet,” Lizzie poured a mug of
coffee and looked over the assortment of fruit and muffins.

“I think we’re trapped here,” Oliver looked
at her dress, not shielding the disappointment in his eyes. “They
haven’t cleared the roads very well yet. Do you have to be at the
Fulton House?”

“Not today,” Lizzie shook her head over the
mug and sat in the chair she found the night before. She knew why
he was asking. She couldn’t think of any real reason she had to go
anywhere. She was only half certain she wanted to stay.

“Do you like the snow? We could build a
snowman on the Common.”

Lizzie smiled without thinking. “That would
be… I dressed for dancing. Not for snow.”

“Right…” Oliver looked at his scattered
suit. “My students would laugh at this situation. Professor Ol too
dressed up for the outdoors.”

“You are fond of your students,” she mulled
over her coffee. “Would you really give them up to come back to
Boston?”

Oliver sat in the chair near her. “It would
be a pretty big choice, Lizzie. But if… I would consider it,
yes.”

“Why?”

“Because life is too short to listen to
doubt.”

“Life isn’t too short for you.”

“No. But my time with people is.”

“Is that why you’ve changed the women you
fell in love with? This sense of urgency?”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“Then when you have forever, you realize you
don’t want it.”

He looked away from her. “With some… but not
with all.”

“How many have there been, Oliver?” Lizzie
knew the answer would be different than Ben’s.

Oliver shook his head and laughed with
another mischievous glance at Lizzie. “I really couldn’t say.”

“How many did you love?”

“Most of them.”

“How many did you kill?”

Oliver straightened his spine and stood up
from the chair. “Did you ask Ben these questions?”

“Yes.”

He walked towards the giant mirror by the
closet. “Charlotte was a bad influence on me, Lizzie.”

“I don’t care about Charlotte. I want to
know about you.”