Chapter 2: Forget-Me-Not, Part 1

Aubrey shivered and drew his cloak more tightly around his shoulders, tugging the fur-trimmed hood up just a bit more, wishing home were not still an hour or so away.

He could, of course, simply use the carriage - but he'd much rather freeze to death, which he was quite nicely proving.

The wind picked up, making him grimace, but after three days of travel, one hour more would not kill him. Not unless the snow resumed falling, but thankfully, the sky was clear.

Sighing softly, he twisted around to examine the carriage behind him, which was packed with the majority of his things. The rest would follow by cart more slowly, mostly crates of books, warm-weather clothing and other things he would not need right away. Those things he did require, or simply refused to be without, were packed into the carriage.

Including the dog rose he was bringing his sister, snitched from the school greenhouse. He didn't think she had a dog rose yet, though she very nearly had every rose known to the world and a few unique to the Sangre gardens.

He frowned, thinking of the home he had not seen in five years. His father, Lord Jonathan Bathory, Earl of Sangre, had not been pleased when his son and heir had decided to depart to follow his studies, rather than remain at home to focus on training to someday take over the family estate.

His sister had been rather unhappy as well, though she at least had been understanding and forgiving. Still, Aubrey dreaded the pending reunion. He'd sent word ahead that he was returning, but received not so much as a single note in reply.

Sighing again, he took out his pocket watch and flipped it open, staring at the minute family portrait painted with meticulous care. It was old, a copy of the family portrait which had once hung in the grand salon, now buried away in the attic somewhere per his father's instructions. It was of his parents, himself at age four, and his sister at three.

Not quite two years after the portrait had been painted and hung, his mother and her Pet, Mina, had been brutally murdered by bandits while returning from a trip to the little village near their family seat. Aubrey had been with them, but he remembered little of it outside of nightmares that still plagued him and a fear of being inside carriages.

It was also when their family had ceased to be one. He had vague memories of a much warmer father, though they were fuzzy and, more than likely, all made up. The servants had told him stories of his parents, how warm and loving they had been, but he had never been able to match the stories to the cold man who spent all his time locked away in his bedroom or study, emerging only to find fault with someone and administer suitable punishment.

Some of that had changed once his father had come home one day with Elisabeth, but even then he and Aubrey had never gotten along. It was a good day if they managed to remain civil.

He wondered what sort of reception he would get - if there would be any sort of reception at all, or if he would merely see his father over the dinner table as though not a day had passed from the moment of his leaving.

Was Carmilla all right? He had written her often, as well as Stregoni, but both had been annoyingly vague on the matter of her condition. Not wanting him to worry, likely, but all it did was make him worry that much more.

He thought again of the dog rose, it's vibrant pink petals, and hoped it was secured well against the biting cold.

The sharp tinkling of jingle bells drew him from his brooding, and he looked up as he came round the bend in the road - and broke into a smile as he saw who was ahead of him.

No matter how many years might pass, there would never be any mistaking the vibrant, chaotic mass of orange-red curls of Stregoni Benefici.

"Hail, stranger," he called out cheerfully, shoving back his hood. He laughed when Stregoni whipped around, blue-gray eyes going wide.

"Brey!" Stregoni broke into a grin. "Well, I never! No one told me you were due to arrive today. Carmilla said they weren't sure, that little brat! She probably wanted to surprise me."

Aubrey attempted to smooth down his messy, light brown hair and returned Stregoni's smile as they drew even. "No doubt, knowing Milla. So tell me everything, Stregoni. What have I missed? How is Carmilla? Father? Gilles."

At the mention of Gilles, Aubrey's cousin who'd come to live with them when Aubrey was twelve, Stregoni's face abruptly clouded, pain flashing through his eyes before he smiled through it and recovered his levity. His fingers reached up to touch the pin nestled in his neck cloth, a beautiful enameled pink rose. It stood out bright against the dark cream stock, a lovely compliment to the deep forest green of his coat and the black winter cloak. "Your sister is doing relatively well, all things considered. I have put her on a new medicine, and I am headed there now to see how it has performed this past week, see what adjustments might be made. Lord Sangre is much the same," Stregoni said with a shrug. "Your cousin..." He grimaced and again touched the rose at his throat. "Gilles only grows worse with every passing year, I swear."

"I cannot say it surprises me," Aubrey said with a sigh.

Just days after his twelfth birthday, Sangre had brought Gilles home, and said he would be living with them from then on, and they should treat him as a brother. Why, no ever said. To this day, Aubrey did not know. So far as he knew, his Uncle George was alive and quite healthy, though he had always been an odd recluse who never left his estate.

Perhaps he was too much of a recluse to tend his own son; Aubrey simply did not know. Nor did he really care, as Gilles had always been a brat with a bit of a mean streak who strove to ensure he made no real sense to anyone.

Of the family, Gilles was the only one who bothered to move about society, traveling to the city every other Season or so, and tend to business matters that could not be addressed from the house.

Scowling, Aubrey switched the direction of his thoughts. "Is there anything about which I should be warned?"

Stregoni winced. "Actually, there is - and it did not make sense to me until I saw you, and now I'm afraid it is all too clear."

Aubrey groaned. "What?"

"Gilles left two weeks ago on a trip for which he would not give details. Not unusual for him, but he returned yesterday with a new Pet and said only it was not for him, but a present for 'someone special'. I assumed perhaps he was courting someone, even though he and your father have never been the type to treat their Pet the way so many others do."

"Yet they keep Pets all the same," Aubrey said, mouth tight. "And now they're dragging me into it, even though I've always vehemently refused to have anything to do with the practice." He dragged a hand down his face. "Did they really buy me a Pet?"

"They have," Stregoni said, the paused before adding hesitantly. "He's quite handsome and seems friendly. I think your father is trying to extend a peace offering, or something in that vein, anyway."