For All Eternity by Miller Linda Lael

Author:Miller, Linda Lael [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Vampire
Published: 2012-09-27T09:34:34+00:00

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CHAPTER 11

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"You made his life miserable, you know," William said in a wooden voice as he and Calder stood in the formal parlor that afternoon. The undertaker and his assistant were upstairs, in their father's room, preparing the old man for viewing and subsequent burial.

Calder was still dazed, by his experiences in London with Maeve, by the death of his sire, and by the realization that he had indeed loved Bernard Holbrook, faults and all, despite his own utter conviction to the contrary. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. "Spare me the discourse on my shortcomings as a son," he said wearily, looking out the window. "I'm well aware, believe me, that I might have been a little more tolerant."

" 'A little more tolerant' ?" William repeated furiously. The last time Calder had glanced in his direction, his half brother had been standing next to the mantel, brooding over a glass of bourbon. "You crucified him daily with your damnable contempt, your self-righteous assumption that he didn't want to be better than he was. The man craved your respect and affection, God help him, every day of your life, and you withheld those very things!"

Calder closed his eyes tightly, for nothing possessed the power to wound quite so deeply as the truth. While he regretted some of the choices he'd made, and bitterly, he'd dance with the devil before apologizing to William.

"Are you through?" he inquired with biting politeness.

He heard the musical explosion of glass shattering against stone and turned at last to see that William had flung his drink onto the hearth. "No, God damn you, I am not through! My father is dead, and his suffering was compounded by your arrogance and insensitivity!"

"What do you expect me to do?" Calder asked reasonably, his voice as cold as his manner. "Resurrect him? Turn back the clock to the time he was driving my mother to despair, perhaps, and decide that it was all right for him to break her heart with his women? Declare that, after all, 'boys will be boys'?"

William's handsome if faintly ineffectual face went ruddy with anger. "You bastard! I want you to say you're sorry."

"Apologize to you?" Calder rubbed his chin, which was stubbly with a day's beard-growth. "Never. I've done you no wrong, William."

William's features contorted. "Haven't you? That's my father lying up there with embalming fluid in his veins! If it hadn't been for you, he might still be alive!"

"I won't take the blame for his death," Calder replied. "He came down with pneumonia and couldn't rally his strength. I had no part in that."

"You robbed him of his strength!" William insisted, and Calder began to fear that if his half brother did not contain his temper, he would burst a blood vessel. "Papa expended all of it, worrying that you had finally vanished forever. He might have used that fervor to cling to life!"

Calder shook his head and sighed, too weary and too stricken to be diplomatic.

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