Blood to Blood by Elaine Bergstrom Read Free Book Online Page B

she had picked up a few words of Romanian, she had thankfully learned nothing about vampires.
    If she had, Joanna would have been forced to kill her probably a dozen times during the two-day trip to Varna. Instead, the girl seemed to take Joanna's pale skin for granted, and accept her own story that she was an escaped hostage, a noble in her own land. Joanna told her that she had been traveling by night to avoid detection, and that she would continue to do so, hiding in the wooden box during daylight hours when she would be more likely to be seen and perhaps recognized.
    She made up an incredible tale about concealed breathing holes, and how she was a queen in her own land but unable to return to it. Colleen believed it all, or seemed to, and the language problem made any questions difficult.
    The ruse seemed so easily accepted that Joanna let out one of her anxious giggles when she'd finished. Colleen didn't question that either, but instead looked at her, head cocked as if trying to decipher the joke.
    So they went on, reaching the outskirts of Varna three days later.
     
    Colleen did as Joanna had ordered, and stopped some distance from the city. When Joanna joined her for the evening. Colleen had already made a fire and was eating bread and cheese she had purchased from a farmer earlier that day. "Would you like something?" Colleen asked when she saw her, holding out the bread so Joanna would understand her question.
    Joanna shook her head.
    "There's an inn just down the road, we could go there and have the stable tend to the horse. You could have a real meal."
    Colleen was no fool. She knew her employer had odd habits. But what she saw when Joanna deciphered her suggestion was unconcealed terror. Though she pitied the woman, Colleen thought there was some benefit to her timidity. Colleen would have to be the strong one, the clever one, if they were to survive.
    "Or we can stay here," she said in a soothing tone. "And where do you want to go tomorrow… into Varna? From there you can arrange passage to Russia? Turkey?"
    Joanna shook her head, still trying to remember.
    "India? Sweden? Egypt?"
    Colleen spoke the names slowly, so Joanna would understand. Joanna frowned, struggling with the memory of her brother's destination. "Your language?" she finally asked.
    "English?" I don't understand
    "English, England… London, England. I wish to go there… London," Joanna said at last.
    "Then I'll go too! I think we can find someone who can help us once we get there—that is, if you have the passage… the money."
    "Money." Joanna repeated the word, savoring it. Her brother had often spoken of money, and of places where it was kept.
    She suspected that she even had papers that would help concealed in her box. "You come. I pay and you come."
    "You want to employ me, you mean?"
    Joanna understood the words. She pulled in another breath of air and agreed.
    "We have to buy tickets. And we ought to dress up like ladies, British ladies. There are enough foreigners in Britain that you will fit in. No one will be looking for a lady and her maid," she went on, watching Joanna to see if her words were understood.
    "Yes. We do that," Joanna said. It pleased her that Colleen seemed to understand her words, seemed to actually relax now that she had some idea of their relationship to each other.
    Joanna stared into the fire, remembering how she had treated her servants so many years before when she was young.
    There had been so many that she could not remember even one name. But there had been one among them, a girl her own age who had become more than a servant, more even than a friend.
    No! She would not think of that. Illona gave her good advice when she said it was not wise to dwell too often on the past.
    And yet? She watched Colleen build up the fire that would keep predators away. She watched her comb the tangles from her light brown hair and twist it up under a loose-fitting cap to hide the weakness of her gender. She kept on sitting