Nicholas urged Jo to her feet and out of the room. The hum of voices was coming from the kitchen as they made their way to the stairs, and Jo supposed the women were in there making their list. They were stepping off the stairs into the upper hall when Thomas and Greg came out of the room Jo had woken up in, one carrying a mattress all on his own, the other the box spring. Nicholas urged Jo nearer to the wall to let them pass and then urged her to continue on to the room.
Anders stepped inside and crossed the room to check and be sure the men were still out on the balcony. He opened the door and leaned out to have a word with them and then closed the door, nodded to Nicholas and Jo, and then slid back out of the room, pulling that door closed as well.
"Well," Nicholas murmured, glancing to the bare bed frame and headboard still remaining in the room. He then urged her toward the two overstuffed chairs arranged by a small round table at the opposite side of the room. He settled himself in one and drew her into his lap.
"I'm sorry about all of this, Jo," he said finally, running his hands soothingly up and down her back and thigh.
"You need to stop apologizing to me, Nicholas," Jo said quietly, leaning into his shoulder. "None of this is your fault. You're a victim here too."
"Maybe, but you wouldn't be about to be locked up in a cell with me if it weren't for my baggage. Had I stuck around fifty years ago, maybe this all would have been solved ages ago."
"Or maybe you would have been executed, or murdered, or maybe you wouldn't have been skulking around after Ernie that night and he might have taken me and I'd be just another Dee or dead," she pointed out. "Besides, I can think of worse things than being locked up with the man I love for a while… in a cell with a double bed."
"And wine and roses," he reminded her wryly.
"Hmm," Jo murmured, but shook her head. "I suspect Lucian was teasing about that. Your uncle doesn't seem the romantic type."
"You're probably right, that was probably sarcasm," Nicholas agreed with a grin. "But I bet you ten thousand kisses that Aunt Marguerite will insist Sam put them on the list anyway."
"You can have the ten thousand kisses without the bet," Jo assured him with a smile and then placed her hand to his cheek and said solemnly, "I love you Nicholas, and whether it's in a cell or this room or a cheap motel, there isn't anywhere I'd rather be than with you."
"I hope you feel the same way if this drags on for ten or twenty years," he said on a sigh.
"I feel that way now, and will feel that way forever," she assured him solemnly, and then frowned. "Surely they can sort it out faster than ten or twenty years?"
"I hope so, but…"
"But?" she asked.
Nicholas grimaced, and then pointed out, "It's been fifty years and we don't have much to go on. And while I don't think the Council would execute me without being certain that I did it, they might be reluctant to set me free without the same certainty that I didn't."
"So… what?" Jo asked with alarm. "They'd just keep you locked up here forever?"
"No, not forever," he said slowly, considering it, and then said quietly, "But they might keep me locked up for the length of the life I was accused of taking."
"You mean fifty or sixty years?" Jo asked with dismay.
"More like eighty or ninety since there was a baby involved," Nicholas said quietly, and when she stared at him wide-eyed with horror, quickly said, "I could be wrong. I'm just guessing based on various different decisions they've made over the centuries."
"This has happened before?" Jo asked, and thought she might be hyperventilating now. Eighty or ninety years? Dear God, she thought, so much for school… and her job would definitely be toast if she didn't show up for that long. Although, she supposed marine biology wasn't a very practical career for a vampire, and managing the bar had just been a temporary gig anyway while she attended school.
Sighing, Jo forced herself to calm down. Everything would work out. It had to. And if it didn't and they ended up spending eighty or ninety years in a cell together… well, from what she understood they'd have centuries together afterward, and maybe the Council would give Nicholas time off for good behavior as well as already having had to live on the run for fifty years. And maybe they'd cut the time in half or something because she would be sharing it with him.
"Jo."
"Hmm?" she asked absently, her mind on whether she should ask Sam to represent them to approach the Council, or if someone who was actually immortal and knew all their laws and such might be a better bet.