Authors: Editor
Serina rolled her eyes.
“Ah—but then we are not twins.”
“Oh, about that, Lucian! I don’t know what to think just yet but I’d bet my powers you two are twins. I don’t know how or why but I’ve never seen cousins resemble each other like identical twins before. Of course, anything is possible. Vampires prove that. Will you tuck me in? I really am tired and want to look like a blushing bride for you tomorrow.” Serina slipped out of Lucian’s hold and patted the bed. “Come sit by me.”
“Keep having thoughts like the ones you just had about André and I and you’ll be blushing again.”
“Lucian…” She tried to sound appalled, but it was a wasted attempt.
“I couldn’t resist that, m’lady.” Once tucked in, Lucian sat on the edge of her bed and brushed her hair. After he braided it, he gave a little tug of her tail to land her in his lap looking up at him. “I would love nothing more than to make love to you now, but for this night only I’ll be the gentleman and wait. Serina, I will call for you in the morning.” He bent down to kiss her goodnight and Serina snaked her arms around him and pulled him down to her.
“Kiss me once more, Lucian. Lay with me ’til I drift off and dream of you, or your twin/cousin, whatever he is.”
“Serina!” Lucian slapped her bottom.
“I owed you that one. Not to worry, my love, it is you and only you I shall spend my dreams with. Until the sunrise, m’lord.”
****
Each with a glass of brandy in hand, Lucian found Duncan and André in the atrium catching up on old times. He listened with reverence about their escapades in Paris the previous year and how they ended up buying the thoroughbreds. Lucian basked in their laughter. Up until then, he hadn’t realized how much he actually missed André. They’d grown together as brothers, learning to ride, hunt, use a bow, and fence. Both were excellent marksmen; neither man better than the other, yet they professed to best the other at every opportunity. Lucian claimed it healthy competition.
“André, tell me of your life these past years. Have you met a woman who can put up with you yet?”
Lucian sat and flung his feet over the arm of the chair. His long, lanky legs hit André’s chair. He tapped his foot purposely, nudging André’s arm.
André growled, “My, what big feet you have.” He laughed when Lucian looked curiously between André’s feet and then back at his own.
“That’s not all that’s big,” Lucian jested.
“Other than your sense of self,” Duncan tossed in.
“Lucian, you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I’ve been slaying vampires now for the past few years. It seems someone out there wants me either dead, or undead. I’m not sure which yet, and hope not to find out.”
Lucian sat up, processing the information while he rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Try me. Raven and I were attacked this past month and all but killed. Serina saved us. She’s a doctor. Did I mention that to you before?” Lucian beamed with schoolboy pride.
“Oh, Lucian, how she has you strung like a puppet.” André turned his attention to Duncan. “Is he always this bad?”
“More so, usually. I never thought I’d see it with mine eyes, but the boy’s beyond words.”
“What can I say?” Lucian shrugged his shoulders.
André tapped his fingers on the table repetitively. “Maybe together we could find out who is behind these attempts on our lives. We will finish this conversation when you and Serina return from your honeymoon. You never answered me before. Where will you go?”
“Virginia Falls in Surrey. The falls are beautiful this time of year, and there are some hot springs too. Remember the cabin?”
André laughed. “Remember stealing your parent’s clothes from the rocks by the springs?”
“Do I? I couldn’t sit straight for a week when father caught us. Mother laughed ridiculously, but he was upset. He screamed, ‘A woman’s pride is worth your heart.’ Funny, I finally understand that now. Will you be staying long with us?”
“If you’ll have me—”
Lucian cut André off, “Of course. We want you back home with us. We should never have been separated. I never understood mother’s decision, but I’m grateful you’ve returned. And you never answered me. Is there no woman yet?”
“Too many to choose from.” André went quiet deciding on whether or not to tell his tale of woe. With both Lucian and Duncan bent over in their seats awaiting an answer, André opened up. “Four years back there was a woman, an insanely, bold blond.” André visibly blushed thinking of her.
Duncan smirked. “Oh, I’ve seen that look before.”
Lucian cut in, “Yes, old man, on you at dinner tonight, beside Molly.”
“I noticed it too, Luce.” André raised a brow to Duncan and continued, “My lady disappeared right from under me. I searched for an endless year. A detective I’d hired gave clues to her whereabouts with none ever panning out. Lousy detective if you ask me. Went by the name of Holmes. Sherlock, I believe.”
Duncan burst out laughing. “Ands, he’s fictional. ’Tis no wonder you never found your lassie.”
“I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. I met her at a train station in a tiny hamlet after Raven’s attack. Had a torrid affair with the woman and left my heart in her hands. I told her I’d return in a fortnight, but when I did she disappeared. I received one letter from her a few months later asking me to join her in Paris. I was there, in her empty hotel. However, I did encounter an over abundance of vampires waiting for me on every corner. I’ve lost count of how many kills I’ve made, but I’ve become rather proficient with my new career...Fell head-over-heels in love with her. And four years later nothing has changed. If I saw her tonight, I’d ask her to marry me.” And if she was already married? She wouldn’t be. He knew it deep in his heart that she felt the same way he did. André rolled his eyes towards Lucian, a smirk covering his face. “Laugh and we’ll duel here and now, I swear.” André turned to Duncan. “So—old man, see you’ve gone and found yourself a pretty lady as well. Saw you at dinner holding hands with her under the table.”
Duncan studied the two men in an entirely new light, as if he’d never really seen them before today even though he’d spent his entire life with them.
“My, my Ands, you don’t miss a thing. Then, you never did. Molly is Serina’s neighbor.” Duncan continued to eye the men oddly. First one then the next and blurted out, “Holy God, you two
are
identical. I never noticed it as much when you were growing up, you know with awkward growth spurts, weight gain—Lucian, and pimples—André, and the dreadful haircuts Raven gave each of you, but it is undeniable now.” Duncan grabbed one hand of each of the men and flipped their hands over, palms up.
Lucian accused, “You’re hanging around my fiancé too much, old man.”
Duncan ignored him. “Did you know Scotland Yard is working on a new way of detecting crimes and
who-done-its
, so to speak? They say each of us has our set of fingerprints, unlike anyone else’s. There’s this detective, Sherlock…”
André socked him in the arm. Duncan ignored the shooting pain riveting up his arm and continued, “Doctor Henry Faulds. He states you can grease up your fingers and put them on a glass and you can see your fingers printed on the glass. He said identical twins are extremely similar, so close that you can barely tell them apart. You two up for a test?” Duncan wanted to know if his feelings were right. This was just too much of a coincidence for them not to be twins. But that left many unanswered questions. Duncan thought for a brief moment that Pandora’s Box had been delivered to him. “No, we won’t do this now.” He let go of the two men’s hands.
Both men sat with the same puzzled look.
Lucian, fighting a smirk asked, “I don’t mean to be rude, but how do you know these things, Duncan?”
“Lucian, when you look at me, all you are able to see is beauty and brawn and rightfully so.” Duncan doubled over and laughed hysterically at his own joke. He spit out, “Young man, there happens to be a very intelligent brain that goes with this
oh-so-manly
body.” Duncan took a deep breath, puffed out his chest while stiffening his arms to show off his finely whittled muscles.
After the laughter died down, André added, “I’m glad one of us thinks so.” Then he gave Duncan a mischievous smile that Duncan had seen plastered on Lucian’s face a million times before.
Lucian and André turned their attention to their hands, and then each other, both making “humph” sounds.
“How do we do it?” they asked in unison.
“Each of you slip your finger into a bit of lard then hold a glass. That’s how they described it at the Yard. One of the constables said it’s truly amazing.”
“Duncan, you amaze me.” Lucian’s tone serious.
“Oh, like that’s so hard to do,” Duncan rebutted.
André grabbed Lucian’s shoulder laughing, as tears welled behind his eyes. “Oh, I miss you. Good one, old man.”
“You two are more like peas in pod.” After Lucian ran and got the butter, he and André stuck their fingers in it and then pressed their fingers onto a glass. Duncan pulled out a magnifying glass and they each stared in silence. There was no telling the prints apart. The men had no knowledge of this training, but the evidence before them was undeniable. Silence consumed the room.
Raven walked in carting a champagne glass half-f, glassy-eyed and smiling. “What’s up, me boys?” Raven threw her slender frame on top of Lucian, squashing him flat into the chair cushion. “What is it that has you all looking like you’ve seen a ghost? You’ve not, have you? Vampires, ghosts, werewolves, what’s next? Fairies?” Raven pushed herself off Lucian.
No one answered.
“Someone had best spill the beans. Come on then, out with it.” She bent over and pressed her nose up to Lucian’s looking him directly in the eyes, spilling some of her champagne on him.
“Oops! Luce, tell me what’s going on.”
Lucian closed his eyes.
She proceeded to Duncan. He shook his head no. Last, but not least, she went to André who never lifted his gaze from his fingers or the glass.
“Have I lost me charm?” Raven positioned herself next to Duncan watching them closely, the way a cat does a mouse just before it pounces. Each looked guilty, Raven was positive of that, but what?
André looked to Lucian. “You want to tell her or shall I?”
Lucian pointed to André.
“Ray, did you ever just once think I could have been your brother? Really? Did it ever occur to you that Luce’s and my resemblance wasn’t just a coincidence? Did you ever think in the grand scheme of life that the three of us had totally been snookered—lied to our entire lives?” André was very close to losing his edge. His sight became blurred, and he stood in haste, shrugging his shoulders as if he could dismiss the overbearing pain and humiliation so easily. He took long, heavy strides to the windows that overlooked the lake and he watched as the moonlight danced alone off the waves effectively shielding his pain.
Antsy, Raven waited for someone to make some sort of sense, because André certainly didn’t. She tapped her fingers out of annoyance on the back of the chair and watched Lucian cross the room to André, place his arm around the other man, and share the window with him.
“Oh, blimey already. Would one of you talk?” Raven shot across the room, nudging her way in between the two men and looked from one to the other. “What did I miss? Please tell me. I feel like a small girl all over again asking you two to give me the time of day.”
Lucian whispered to André, “She’s your sister.” Then patted his back.
André produced a smile, real and sincere as he glanced over to Lucian. “God help us.”
“How much brandy did you three get into?” Raven asked, annoyance heavy in her tone.
Duncan started talking again and what he said would leave all of them with more questions than answers since the only people capable of answering them were long gone from this world. “When you three were born, I was ten. I honestly don’t remember Chyna being pregnant, André. Chyna was always the tiniest, frail creature. Lorelei was enormous, even in her early stages of pregnancy, unnaturally so. She’d been restricted to bed rest for the last four months of her pregnancy. I remember because I was the one who had done all the running for her. One day Mum, Chyna and Lorelei took off for a fortnight then came home with all of you, all three of you. Oh, and some midwife. The midwife came ’round religiously. Every month she would pop in and give everyone in the home medicinal potions and herbs, claiming it kept everyone’s health up. It did help, because not a one of us ever had any illness. Chyna always had you, André, in her care. I guess I always suspected something deep down, but never thought too much about it. I just figured you were her baby because what woman in her right mind would give a baby away? I don’t know why I thought of it now. It must be seeing the two of you together again. When Chyna turned up missing, Lorelei...she went berserk. She didn’t let any of you out of her sight for months. The three of you actually slept in her chambers. Your mum figured she and your father were next on the list and damn if she wasn’t right. Just like that. Life gone in the blink of an eye. Maybe that’s why she separated all of you. Maybe she thought you all had a better chance at living apart from each other. I know separating you all took a terrible toll. I even felt it. I felt sick for you André.” Duncan shrugged his shoulders. He went on to explain the fingerprint theory to Raven.