Prince Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles 11)

lking distance from Davies Symphony Hall and the San Francisco Opera House.

Their small house on a tree-lined street in Palo Alto was charming. And though the change of coasts meant a new housekeeper, and two new drivers, Rose was soon settled in and loving the California sunshine.

After her first week of classes, Rose was in love with her literature professor, a tall, wiry, and introspective man who spoke with the affectation of an actor. Gardner Paleston was his name; he'd been a prodigy of sorts, publishing four volumes of poetry as well as two books on the work of William Carlos Williams before he was thirty. At thirty-five, he was brooding, intense, bombastic, and utterly seductive. He flirted openly with Rose, and told her over coffee after class that she was the most beautiful young woman he'd ever seen. He e-mailed her poems about her "raven hair" and "inquisitive eyes." He took her to dinner at expensive restaurants and showed her his large, old Georgian-style home in old Palo Alto. His mother and father were dead, he said. His brother had died in Afghanistan. And so he haunted the house, now, what a waste, but he couldn't bear to give it up, filled as it was with the "rag-and-bone shop of my childhood."

When Uncle Lestan came to visit, he took Rose walking through the quiet leafy streets of Palo Alto. He remarked on the magnolia trees and their hard, rustling green leaves, and how he loved them from his time "in the South."

He was mussed and dusty all over and Rose realized that she'd often seen Uncle Lestan this way, exquisitely dressed, but dusty.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tease him about flying about in the stars, but she didn't. His skin was more darkly tanned than usual and looked almost burned, and his beautiful thick hair was almost white.

He wore a dark blue blazer and khaki pants and black shoes shined to look like glass, and he talked in a low, gentle voice telling her that she must always remember: she could do absolutely anything in this world that she wanted. She could be a writer, a poet, a musician, an architect, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever it was, that she wanted. And if she wanted to marry and make a home for her husband and her children that was fine, too. "If money can't buy you the freedom to do anything you want, well, what is the good of it?" he asked. He sounded almost sad. "And money you have, Rose. Plenty of it. And time. And if time can't give us freedom to do what we want, what good is time?"

Rose felt a terrible pain. She was in love with Uncle Lestan. Beside Uncle Lestan, all thoughts of her teacher, Gardner Paleston, simply faded into nothingness. But Rose didn't say a word. On the verge of tears, she only smiled, and explained that yes, she knew this, that he'd told her this long ago when she'd been a little girl, that she could be and do anything she wanted. "The trouble is I want to do everything!" she said. "I want to live and study here, and live and study in Paris, and in Rome and in New York; I want to do everything."

Uncle Lestan smiled and told her how proud of her he was. "You've grown into a beautiful woman, Rose," he said. "I knew you'd be pretty. You were pretty when I first saw you. But you're beautiful now. You're strong and healthy and, well, you're beautiful. There's no point mincing words about it." And then he turned suddenly into a tyrant, telling her that her driver had to go with her wherever she went, that he even wanted her driver sitting in the back of her college classrooms when there was room, or right outside of them. Rose argued. She wanted freedom. But he wouldn't hear of it. He had become an overzealous and intensely European guardian, it seemed to Rose, but how could Rose really argue? When she thought of all Uncle Lestan had done for her, she fell silent. All right. Her driver would go everywhere with her. He could carry her books. That would be nice, though these days with iPads and Kindles, she didn't have to carry many books.

Six months after that visit, Rose received a letter from Uncle Lestan saying that she would not be hearing from him so often anymore but that he loved her, and he needed this time to be alone. Be assured of his love, and be patient. He would eventually come round. And in the meantime she was entirely safe and must ask his attorneys for whatever her heart desired.

That had always been the way, really. And how could she ask for more?

A year passed without her hearing from Uncle Lestan.

But she had been so busy with other things. And then another year, but it was all right. It would have been wicked and ungrateful to complain, especially when his attorney in Paris called regularly every month.

Two weeks into her junior year, Rose was hopelessly in love again with Gardner Paleston. She was in three of his classes and certain that she could become a great poet someday if she listened to every single word he said. She'd gone to the campus clinic and gotten the information and pills she needed to prevent any accidental pregnancy, and she was just waiting for the time to be perfect for them to be together. Gardner Paleston called her every evening and talked to her for an hour. She had more potential than any other student he'd ever had, he said.

"I want to teach you all I know, Rose," he said. "I've never felt that way about anyone before. I want to give you all that I can, do you understand what I'm saying, Rose? Whatever I know, what I've learned, whatever I have to pass on, I want to give it to you." It sounded as if he was crying on the other end of the line. Rose was overcome.

She wanted desperately to talk with Uncle Lestan about Gardner but that was not to be. She wrote long letters and sent them to the attorney in Paris, and received the most touching little gifts in response. Surely they came from the attorney, she thought, but then each arrived with a gift card signed by Uncle Lestan, and these cards were more precious to her than the pearl necklaces or amethyst brooches they accompanied. Surely Uncle Lestan would one day see Gardner's exceptional talent, his passion, his genius, for what it was.

As she sat dreaming in class, Gardner Paleston became the most sensitive and brilliant being Rose had ever imagined. He was not as beautiful as Uncle Lestan, no, and he looked older actually, perhaps because he didn't have Uncle Lestan's health, she couldn't know. But she came to love everything about Gardner including his hawklike nose, his high forehead, and the long fingers with which he gestured dramatically as he strode back and forth before the classroom.

How disappointed he was, he declared, how crushed, he said bitterly, that "not a single student in this room understands a tenth of what I'm saying here!" He bowed his head, eyes closed, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose, and trembled. Rose could have cried.

She sat on the grass under a tree reading over and over William Carlos Williams's poem: "The Red Wheelbarrow." What did it mean? Rose wasn't sure she knew! How could she confess this to Gardner? She burst into tears.

Before Christmas, Gardner told Rose the time had come for them to be together. It was the weekend. He'd carefully prepared everything.

Rose had a big fight with her favorite driver, Murray. Murray was young and dedicated, and fun really, but just as obnoxious as all the other paid guardians. "You stay two blocks behind us," said Rose. "Don't let him see that you're following! I'll be spending the evening with him, you understand, and you can wait outside, quietly, unobtrusively. Now, Murray, don't ruin this for me."

Murray had his doubts. He was a small muscular man, of Russian Jewish descent, who'd been a San Francisco policeman for ten years before getting this job, which paid him three times what he'd made before. He was also a very honest, straightforward, and decent guy, like all the drivers, and he let it be known he didn't approve of "this professor." But he followed Rose's orders.

Gardner picked up Rose about six o'clock that evening and drove her to the mysterious old Georgian mansion in old Palo Alto, following a curved drive through the manicured garden up to a porte cochere that couldn't be seen from the street.

Rose was wearing a simple lilac cashmere dress for this blessed evening, with black stockings and black leather shoes, her hair free down her back, with a small diamond clasp over one ear. The soft leafy grounds of Gardner's house were beautiful to her in the gathering darkness.

It had been a splendid place once, that was obvious, with old creaking hardwood floors, richly paneled walls, and a broad central stairway. But now it was littered with Gardner's books and papers, the huge dining room table a glorified desk with his two computers and various notebooks strewn about.

Up the stairs they crept, over old worn red carpet, and down the long dark hall to the master bedroom. A fire blazed in a stone fireplace, and candles burned everywhere. Candles on the mantel, candles on the old high-mirrored dressing table, candles on the night tables. The bed itself was a delicate antique four-poster, with an old "rice design," Gardner explained, which his mother had inherited from her mother.

"Just a full bed, a small bed," he said. "They didn't make queen and king beds in those days, but this is all we need."

Rose nodded. On a long coffee table before an old red-velvet couch sat trays of French cheese, crackers, black caviar, and other choice tidbits. There was wine there, uncorked, waiting for them.

This was Rose's dream, that this, her first experience, would be one of the highest love, and that everything would be perfect.

"I take Holy Communion," whispered Gardner as he kissed her, "my innocent one, my sweet and gentle one, my flower."