Roaring Dawn: Macey Book 3 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 10)(42)

Macey sighed. The only way to get the answers to these questions was to ask them—and Savina seemed willing to answer.

“Let me check those bandages,” Savina said as Macey came back into the bedroom—the bedroom where she’d made love with Grady. She tried not to think about that day, but it was impossible not to. Just being in the room, seeing his things, remembering how he’d laid her on the bed and knelt in front of her…

She’d miscalculated, that day. Or maybe she hadn’t.

Macey had asked herself many times since: had she known, in the back of her mind, that the moment Grady saw her without her clothes, all of his suspicions about her being a vampire hunter—and the existence of the undead—would be confirmed?

That she would irrevocably change things between them—allowing him to know her most precious secret?

She decided that, yes, she had known. And she’d consciously allowed it to happen.

His reaction when he discovered she was wearing a vis bulla pierced through her navel: so beautiful. So…right. He’d been awed, and yet not the least bit intimidated—even when he asked her how strong the amulet made her, and she replied: I could throw you across the room.

Instead of being shocked, he’d smiled, long and slow and sweet. Grinned with absolutely delicious delight…and then knelt and went down on her, kissing her, making love to her…delighting in her—to show her how much he loved her. All of her.

Oh, dammit. What a fool she was!

“Am I hurting you?” Savina stopped what she was doing, looking at Macey in alarm.

“No—oh no. I’m only a little sore, which is quite miraculous, considering. Thank you for doing that,” she added, blinking quickly to rid herself of the tears.

“Max told me what happened. He was horrified. He knows how close he came to— Well, thankfully, you’re going to be fine. But wouldn’t that have been terrible: the day after he finds you—after thirteen years—and he stakes his own daughter?”

Macey couldn’t help it: despite her maudlin emotions, she laughed. “That would have been one for the Venator history books, wouldn’t it? Poor Max…he would have gone down in history in quite a different way than his namesake Max Pesaro.”

Savina smiled too, then became dreamy-eyed. “Ah…Max Pesaro. All you have to do is mention his name in the presence of any female who knows of the Venators, and she tends to swoon and get all fluttery.”

Macey laughed again. “Really?”

“Oh, he was quite something. Arrogant as hell, always had to be right about everything—though I understand Victoria was good at demonstrating otherwise—rigidly black and white, and as true and loyal and fierce as they came. And he was a brilliant Venator. He could even glide through the air!”

“No…that must be an exaggeration.” But Macey was intrigued.

“Not at all. It’s an old Chinese fighting technique called qingongg, and he mastered it.” Savina looked bashful for a moment. “I grew up listening to stories about him—and Victoria and Sebastian Vioget, and Lady Cat and Andreas, too—but I was always simply enthralled by anything related to Max Pesaro. He was like my…my Noel Chavasse, I guess. A perfect hero.”

“Yet he was harsh and arrogant.” Macey had heard Sebastian complain about her great-great-grandfather often enough to know of his faults and foibles, but it certainly was enlightening hearing about him from a different perspective. “And who were Lady Cat and Andreas?”

“Oh, yes, Max Pesaro had his faults—no one denied that. But inside, he had a heart as soft as cotton candy—especially when it came to his wife and girls. He never had a son, you know. Only daughters. I once heard Bellitano—he’s the acting summas at the Consilium, because your father…well, he’s been…doing his own thing. Anyway, I once heard Bellitano telling someone that according to Victoria Gardella, it served him—Max Pesaro—right to have only daughters, since he needed lots of practice in dealing with strong women.”

Macey could only blink and stare at Savina, and wish desperately that she wasn’t as exhausted as she was. This was fascinating—and a side of her family and the world of the Venators she’d never heard about. Savina certainly brought a different—and more interesting—perspective than the cynical Sebastian and sarcastic Chas.

Temple—God rest her soul—had mostly been interested in teaching Macey how to fight and defend herself, and everything she knew about the undead and their strengths and vulnerabilities. Not gossipy stories about her family.

“Who were Lady Cat and Andreas?” she asked again, quite willing to be distracted from reality for the moment. She’d had enough reality for the day.

Having finished her work with Macey’s bandages, Savina settled back onto the bed near the foot, drawing her feet up next to her and reclining on a pile of pillows. “Lady Catherine Gardella. She’s where the red hair in your family comes from—Isabella Pesaro had red hair too, you know. Max’s youngest daughter? Anyway, Cat lived in the Tudor court of Queen Elizabeth. I have no idea how she managed to fight vampires while wearing ruffs, stomachers, and panniers—let alone walk in them, or get through a doorway, for that matter—but she was just as fierce and fiery as her hair would suggest. And Andreas…” She sighed. “He’s my second favorite Venator to swoon over. Very mysterious. In fact, Lady Cat didn’t even know his true identity at first.”

Macey leaned up against the headboard, more pillows propped beneath her, desperately trying to stay awake to hear all of Savina’s stories. “Andreas. Was he a Venator too?”

“After a fashion,” Savina replied with a crafty smile. “Apparently, their story—Cat’s and Andreas’s—is quite dramatic, taking place mostly in the Elizabethan court. I’ll have to get Paolo to tell you—” She stopped abruptly. “You’re getting tired. I should let you sleep.”

Macey didn’t argue. Her eyelids were drooping. Her body was sore and exhausted.

But just as she was about to lie down and allow herself to drift off, her eyes popped open. “That photograph. At the exhibit. That’s my father, isn’t it?”

Savina didn’t hesitate. “You must have realized it somehow, don’t you think? That was why you found it so compelling.”

Macey nodded. Then she looked up. “Was it…well, it’s titled A Letter Long Due. Why?”

“I think you know why.”

She nodded again, her head scrubbing against the pillow. Yes, she’d discerned enough of what was written to know that it could have been—it was—her name.

Dear Macey…

“I never received a letter from him, you know.” Macey felt a prickling of the old anger again. “He never sent it.”

“He sent it. Several of them. But…they weren’t delivered. I should let him explain. I really should— But since we’re talking about it…it was Al Capone. He never gave them to you.”

“What did Capone have to do with any of this?” Macey was suddenly wide awake and outraged. “Why would my father trust him with anything?”

“Alphonse is—was—a Venator. Max is the summas. Why shouldn’t he have trusted him?”

Macey sagged back against the pillows. She certainly knew Capone well enough to understand where things had gone wrong. And now she understood why her father might have paid a visit to the man. If Capone had, for some foolish reason, decided not to do something the summas had requested—like deliver a letter to his daughter—that could be a reason for a severe talking-to. Or worse.

“I’m not trying to defend your father, Macey. I’ve told him numerous times what a terrible parent he is. How cowardly he is”— Macey huffed an appreciative laugh at that— “and what an arse he can be. But he’s the bravest, most dangerous and brilliant vampire hunter in the world. He’s given his life—and more—to protect mortals and to keep the undead at bay. Without him…well, the world would be a much more dangerous place. But he’s not perfect. None of us are.” Savina seemed to be speaking to herself as much as to Macey.

“Are you married to my father?”

Savina gave a pained laugh. “No.” She rose from her place at the foot of the bed and brought her pillows up to the other end, clearly ready to go to sleep herself—or perhaps simply to avoid answering. “I don’t think a second marriage is in his future. And I don’t mind. He has enough to attend to in his life.”

But Macey didn’t think that was true. There was something in her voice, something in her eyes, that bespoke some great pain.

“At the photo exhibit when you asked me whether I’d ever loved someone it was safer not to love…you were talking about him, I suppose.”

Savina sighed and paused, then flung back the bedcovers on her side and climbed abed. “Yes, of course.” Then she looked at Macey keenly. “And you answered yes.”

Macey suddenly found the French knot design on the coverlet extremely fascinating. “Right.”

“Chas Woodmore?” Savina asked.