“Wait. That reminds me,” Ruby said, sitting up. “Whatever happened to your children? Did you start going into the village during the day once you discovered you were a daywalker?”

“No, not at first. Too many years had passed, and even though I wasn’t sure they’d recognize me, I didn’t want to risk it. The last thing I wanted was to confuse them or scare them, so I stuck to my nightly routine. I saw them every so often, watching from afar as they got older, got married…had children.”

“Hard to think of you as a grandmother?” Ruby said, offering a small smile. “But you never talked to them? Never went into the village?”

Bennett drew in a long breath. “After my kidnapping and those eight years of captivity, when Max and I finally returned to England, I headed for the village straight away. By then, I’d been dead to everyone there for thirty-five years, so I doubted anyone would recognize me, including my children, except I never had a chance to find out.”

“Why?”

“The villagers I spoke to told me they’d all moved away, and it wasn’t a time when you left forwarding addresses.”

“Shit.”

“Yes. Definitely shit,” Bennett said quietly. “So not only do I have Napoleon and Simeon to thank for eight years of hell, but I also have them to thank for losing my children…forever.”

***

Bennett came back into the bedroom carrying a snifter of brandy, and slipping out of her robe, she climbed back into bed.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby murmured.

“About what?”

“I have a feeling I upset you, asking about your children.”

“Not really,” Bennett said quietly. “What bothers me the most is that after all this time, their faces have become a blur in my mind, and that hurts. But I remember loving them, and I remember them loving me back, and that’s what I hold on to.”

“So…should I drop my previous question for the night?”

Bennett stared blankly at Ruby for a moment. “Oh…the one about how many times I’ve been in love?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Not at all. Where was I?”

“I interrupted you after you mentioned Warrick.”

“That’s right,” Bennett said, nodding. “So, after Warrick came Desiree.”

“Not Angelique?”

“No, I was never in love with Angelique. In lust, yes, and we’ve had a great deal of fun, but love never entered the equation for either of us.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, Desiree was next. Max and I were living in France, and she was a shopkeeper’s daughter. She was polite and innocent and beautiful, and we fell madly in love. Our affair started in the back of that shop in 1678, and the following year, she overheard Max talking about continuing our travels to the Dutch Republic. You know it as the Netherlands.”

“Okay.”