Ysanne

She stood outside the main bedroom door, looking at the little carved heart on the framework. Every room in this house held memories, but none more so than this one, and she still didn't know that she was ready to go back inside.

But if she wanted Edmond to stay, she didn't have much choice. Now that she had burned the children's beds, there was only one left in the house, and she couldn't expect Edmond to spend all winter sleeping on the floor. He hadn't raised the issue himself, but Ysanne had slept there with him – she knew exactly how uncomfortable it was. She didn't want to do it again, but equally, she wasn't prepared to sleep up here and leave Edmond nothing but the hard floor.

Slowly, she pushed open the door.

Musty, stale air wafted out, and she heard the scritch of tiny claws as something fled. Her own feet made no noise as she stepped inside, but for just a moment she thought she could hear the phantom thumping of her heart, and she put a hand to her chest. Her heart had beat like that the first time she'd come into this room as Richart's wife. Although she didn't love him in that way, she had known she would be expected to perform her duties as his wife, and she had been both nervous and strangely curious.

It had been over too quickly for her to form much of an opinion about it.

But she would never forget how gentle and considerate Richart had been – that time, and every time after that, for the year-long duration of their marriage.

And she would never forget how different it had been with Julien, when she took him into this room, into this bed, as a confident experienced woman, rather than the nervous girl she had been.

There was virtually nothing left of that nervous girl now, but standing here, Ysanne thought the faintest echo of her might still be woven into the fabric of the house.

She ran her hand along the carved wooden posts that held up the canopy of the bed, and touched the dusty, moth-eaten side curtains. Those posts would have to go if she wanted to get the bed down the stairs, and the thought of dismantling it made her quail.

But the weather outside the house was still brutally cold, and though the bedroom had a fireplace, Ysanne thought it was better to move the bed to the warmth downstairs than try to keep two fires going. And she hoped that, on some level, moving the bed out of the bedroom itself would make Edmond feel less . . . scandalised about her proposal that they share.

Because they would have to share.

She hadn't mentioned it to him yet, but she was sure she knew what his reaction would be.

He'd have to get used to being scandalised in her company.

Ysanne pulled down the side curtains and folded them up, placing them on the bed. Then she ripped down the canopy, and smashed the four posters away from the main framework, before carrying them downstairs for the fire.

The front room was smoky, and thick with the smell of roast horse. The pelt and tail hung from one of the window frames. Several bones, cleaned and dried, were piled next to the hearth – they could be used for tools in the absence of anything else. Edmond crouched in front of the fire, turning hunks of meat over a makeshift spit, and Ysanne winced to see his shirt pulled against his shoulders, highlighting how thin he was.

"What are these?" Edmond asked, as Ysanne stacked the posts next to the hearth.

"They're from the bed." She left the room before he could ask anything else.

Upstairs, she dragged the bed into the middle of the floor, wincing as the screech of wood on wood raked against her eardrums. A family of mice, nesting near the head of the bed, scattered when she disturbed them, their small tails whipping along the floor before they disappeared into a hole in the wall.

To get the bed through the doorway, Ysanne had to tip it onto one side, and even then it only just fit. She clenched her teeth as she shoved it through that narrow entryway, the sides of the bed scraping along the frame of the door. As necessary as this was, she didn't want to lose the heart Julien had carved.

But when the bed was safely through, the heart had survived intact, and Ysanne let out a sigh of relief, tracing the rough lines with her fingertips.

"I never thought I'd bring another man into this bed," she whispered, as if some trace of Julien was still here, as if some part of him could still hear her. "But I know you'd understand why this is necessary. You never were the jealous type."

Of course there was no answer, and Ysanne shook her head. Talking to ghosts? What a fool she was.

Setting her shoulder against the bed, she shoved it down the stairs.

Edmond

He had no idea what Ysanne was doing upstairs, but it was noisy.

Something heavy scraped along the floor, right over his head.

Then there was a thump as something huge came down the stairs, but he stayed in front of the fire, too nervous to go and see what was going on.

Even though Ysanne had done nothing but help him, part of him still feared her. He had seen what she was capable of. He had seen her tear through that band of thieves like she was swatting flies; she could kill him just as easily. He didn't believe she would do it, but there was a primal part of him that couldn't help but be wary around something so dangerous.

With another loud shriek of wood, a bed suddenly emerged in the doorway and Edmond instinctively scrambled to one side, even though there was plenty of space between him and the bed. Ysanne shoved it the last foot or so into the room, and tipped it back onto all four legs with a thump that seemed to shake the walls.

She pushed her hair off her face with a dusty hand and smiled at him.

"What . . . what is this?" Edmond said, edging around the bed.

"What does it look like?"

"I know what it is, but . . . why have you brought it downstairs?"

"So we can sleep in it."

"We?" Edmond backed away, his cheeks flushing. "We can't . . . it's not . . ."

"I know, I know, it's improper, it's scandalous, it's awful, wanton behaviour." Ysanne waved a pale hand as if none of that mattered. "I'm a vampire, Edmond. I have lived for a very long time, and one thing I have learned is that I really don't give a damn what other people think. Besides, we're in the middle of nowhere. Who do you think will ever know?"

"That's not the point," Edmond muttered, staring at the floor. "We're not married."

Ysanne lifted an eyebrow. "Edmond, I'm inviting you to share my bed, not my body, so don't flatter yourself with anything else."

His flush deepened, and he saw Ysanne suppress a small smile. He had thought about it, but he didn't want her to know that.

"This is for the sake of survival – namely yours," she said. "I can't freeze to death, but you can. We can keep this fire going for months, but I don't wish to waste the wood trying to heat every room in the house. It's more practical to move the bed in here and focus on this fire."

Edmond lifted his chin, still unable to meet her eyes. "But your reputation –"

"I don't have a reputation. The friends, the family I had when I was human? They've been dead for hundreds of years. Even if they weren't, I wouldn't give a damn. I'm more than two centuries old, and if you think I haven't had plenty of lovers in that time, then you are sorely mistaken." Ysanne's voice softened. "I know that this is a lot to take in, but society has very strict rules about what is considered appropriate for women, and a long time ago I realised that I didn't like that. I do what I want, and I'm afraid you'll have to get used to it."

She pushed the bed into place in front of the fire, leaving a gap large enough for them to sit on the floor if they wished, and then she perched on the edge of the frame.

Edmond didn't know where to look.

His heart was hammering in his chest. When Lucy had agreed to marry him, the thought of their wedding night had filled him with a trembling excitement. Other boys his age had tumbled village girls in the hay, but with no father to support the family, Edmond had never had the time. Lucy had allowed him certain . . . liberties, but she had refused to fully lift her skirts until they were husband and wife.

Ysanne was offering nothing more than a place to sleep, but sharing a bed with a woman came with certain connotations, ones that he couldn't help thinking about.

Especially when she sat on the bed like that, in men's breeches that showed off the shape of her legs and hips, the outline of her chest pressing against her thin white shirt.

"I promise that I will do nothing to tarnish your reputation," Ysanne said, and though her voice was solemn, there was laughter in her eyes.

Edmond thought about it. What was the alternative – sleeping on the floor? He'd done it before, back in his old village life, and he'd slept rough every night for the last two years, so it wasn't like he wasn't used to it, but . . . the bed did look inviting. Was he throwing away a rare chance at comfort for some sense of propriety?

Did it really matter when no one else would ever know what had happened here?

Tentatively, Edmond shuffled forward and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Can I stay in this house then?" he said, staring into the fire.

"If you want to."

He did want to. Since leaving the village, his life had become steadily harder and harder, struggling to eke out a solitary existence in a world that didn't care if he survived or not. Fear of the plague had kept him from civilisation, from people – he'd almost forgotten what it was to have a friend.

Could Ysanne be a friend?

He was almost afraid to think so, because he still thought he was going to wake up and find that this all been a dream, some delightful fantasy conjured up by his dying brain as he slowly froze to death in a ditch somewhere.

But he did like this strange, beautiful woman who had stalked into his life like some blood-spattered angel.

Even as he was unsure about the predatory, dangerous side of her nature, he enjoyed her company. In the short time that he had known her, he had started to feel something that . . . well, it wasn't quite happiness, but it was the closest that he had come in two years.

He didn't want to lose that.

At last, he lifted his eyes and met Ysanne's gaze.

"You'll share the bed?" she asked, but something in her tone of voice made him think she'd already guessed his decision.

"Yes," he said.