Despite the fact that Claire had not been back to the tavern in two months, Sean had still gotten into the habit of trying to end most of his business by three a.m. each night. When he returned to their chambers that night, Claire was curled around their pillows with a thoughtful, if somewhat sad expression. She had removed the jacket and boots from her visit to the dock that night, and was once again covered by nothing more than the long, thin, translucent nightgown. Sean couldn’t help letting his eyes move over her for a long moment before even offering her a greeting, as the two had not been intimate at all since she had unofficially closed the tavern; and that fact was making it difficult for him to not stop and allow his eyes to take in her beauty.

Sean mentally scolded himself for such distraction before finally closing and locking the door behind him and moving towards the bed as he began removing his shirt, smiling over at where her eyes had moved to him as well. As she watched Sean drop his shirt to the sofa and take a seat there to remove his boots, she greeted him quietly, “I assume you’ve grown accustomed to ending your duties at this hour each night.”

“I still remember the perks of this particular schedule” he smiled over at her as he finished removing his footwear and moved to the bed next to her.

“Perks?” Claire returned.

“Given, it’s been a while since I enjoyed many of those” he told her with a sultry slant to his tone. Though Claire simply looked down at his reminder that they had not indulged in the physical side of their relationship in recent months. Sean tried to stifle a sigh as he moved his eyes from her body back to her face and continued with a slightly different subject, “so what mysteries did you manage to unravel about our attractive new French import? And where is he now, anyway?” he added as an afterthought.

“Sleeping in the adjoining room. I had to compel him not to enter our room without an invitation, of course though” Claire then sighed sadly as she tried to find the words to recount what she did manage to glean from her conversation with Nicolas earlier, “I think very bad things have happened to him, Sean” she stated softly.

Sean’s face did show some concern at her statement, but he needed more input than that. He then simply offered, “I doubt there are many good stories that end with siblings hiding aboard a ship and one of them not surviving the trip.”

“They were twins, actually” Claire informed sadly.

“I’m guessing that makes it even harder for him” Sean returned quietly. He then moved on, “did you manage to find out why he seemed so afraid of me?”

“I don’t think it was you in particular.”

“And did you come to some theory about it though?” Sean asked as he moved to wrap an arm around her shoulders, placing a soft kiss upon her head.

“Because very bad things happened to him” she repeated sadly.

“He didn’t seem quite so afraid of you though” Sean reminded.

“I think I have less in common than you with the one that damaged him so badly” she attempted.

“Meaning?” Sean asked warily.

“He told me… or tried to tell me how his father didn’t really look after them, and when he died, Nicolas and Madeleine were just abandoned to this other man. And from what little I could get out of Nicolas, this other man hurt them” she informed with another sad sigh, “so I’m guessing that’s why he seems a lot less comfortable with men in general; he and his sister were both victimized by one. And I didn’t get any real details, but I can imagine plenty” she finished as she pressed slightly closer to Sean.

“And they got on the ship to escape this man?” Sean offered his guess at the circumstances that had led Nicolas there.

“Like I said, he didn’t give me a lot of details.”

Sean sighed as he placed another comforting kiss upon her forehead, “and then his sister died on the journey instead of getting away after all.”

“Sounds like a fairly good guess” Claire returned with another sigh.

Sean was quiet another moment before offering any further words, “it’s just hard to believe that after all the things we’ve dealt with in the last two hundred plus years, we can still come across some kind of horror that the two of us couldn’t even imagine having to endure.”

Though Sean’s words were meant to comfort, Claire couldn’t help her immediate look downwards as they struck her hard, making her take stock of her own feelings of guilt and despair that she had already been nursing for two long months. Yes it was true that what happened to their friends that night was terrible, but at least their terror was over. She had already gotten the sense that Nicolas’ would probably last years, if not for the rest of his life.

Claire then couldn’t help asking a question she doubted there was any real answer to, “do you think it’s even possible for us to help him? I mean, without literally erasing the memory of his entire childhood; or however long it went on for.”

“I think first we need to understand exactly what happened to him” Sean offered, and then added, “and I doubt it will actually be us helping him, as I don’t imagine he’ll ever open up to me, or any other man. You may be on your own with this one, Claire” Sean stated with a sigh that mirrored hers, “but I can at least be here for you while you try to be there for him” he promised as he kissed her forehead once more.

“Even after how I’ve been lately?” she asked in a whisper as she pressed closer to him again.

“Do you actually think there would ever be any time that I wouldn’t be there for you when you needed me?” he told her in a gently scolding tone. Though as he felt her body tense in response to his words, he knew that her mind had most likely immediately flown back to that secret that she didn’t know that he now knew after all. Shaking his head at his own words, he pulled her even closer and moved his hand to her chin to tilt her face up to his, placing a tender kiss over her lips.

Once the kiss ended, Claire allowed the tiniest smile before speaking, “that’s about the fourth or fifth time you’ve made some kind of innuendo or advance this evening alone.”

Sean couldn’t help a chuckle, “I didn’t realize you were counting.”

“I don’t have to read minds to know that you are reacting to our lack of… intimacy these last couple of months” she told him while managing to hold her smile.

“Well, it is true that you haven’t seemed to be feeling all that romantic lately” Sean admitted the obvious.

“I just guess I’ve felt bad about letting myself enjoy… anything lately” she admitted quietly.

Sean couldn’t help another chuckle as he moved to flip her onto her back, his body following after hers. He then gave her another kiss before speaking, “so, am I to take that to mean that you still enjoy my lovemaking after 233 years; and after the various other flavors we’ve each tasted during those years?” he teased.

“Do you really need me to assure you of your prowess as a lover?” she smirked as she looked up into his eyes.

“Well I am over 250 years old. That’s a quarter of a millennium. Wouldn’t want to think I’ve fallen out of practice or anything” Sean teased further. Claire just shook her head with her own tiny laugh before moving to kiss him back; once again assuring him that his touch was the one thing she had never grown tired of once in those 233 years since she had first met a boy in a forest.

Upon waking the next evening, Sean excused himself from their bed to go attend to his usual duties. Claire quickly dressed and went about trying to locate the newest addition to their home. Not having found Nicolas in the room she had left him in the night before, she eventually located him in the kitchen once more.

There, he was apparently making himself useful helping three of Sean’s young female servants prepare dinner. Though the three girls were a bit surprised by Claire being outside of her own quarters for once, they smiled back at her nonetheless. Nicolas did startle a bit as Claire appeared in the doorway, casting those pools of brown downward before speaking, “Pardon, Madame…” he began, then shifted back to his somewhat broken English, “I had not seen you full day. Was hungry. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize Nicolas. I usually don’t leave my chamber until evening anyway” she stated hesitantly as the three servants averted their eyes with knowing smiles.

Then the most outspoken of the three girls responded, “besides we like having him here. He can lift heavy things and reach high shelves” she allowed a slight giggle, “and he’s not hard to look at… or listen to with that accent” she added with another giggle as Nicolas looked down with a bit of a blush touching his now clean and even more beautiful face.

Claire just shook her head at the young blonde girl, “please tell me you haven’t been embarrassing the poor boy by flirting with him all day, Amanda” she attempted a lightness to her tone, but there was worry there too, considering she only had her imagination to supply her with all the traumatic facts of his past thus far.

“Would I do a thing like that?” Amanda teased back as she then thankfully moved to attend to the meal they were still preparing.

“How long before supper is ready?” Claire asked as the girls looked back at her with a bit of surprise at Claire ever inquiring about any meal.

“About half an hour” one of the other two girls supplied the answer.

“Would you like to come talk with me ‘til then?” Claire asked Nicolas gently.

“Talk?” he repeated warily.

“I’d like to get to know more about you if you’ll be staying here for a while” she offered another smile despite the discomfort that Nicolas seemed to display at the suggestion, though understandably so.

Nicolas did quietly follow her into the main hall where she gestured for him to join her on one of the deep red velvet sofas, “I am staying here?” he asked in his usual shy tone once they were seated.

“I assumed you had nowhere else to go” Claire returned.

“What I do here?” he asked as he looked around, “you have many servants already.”

“Those are my husband’s servants” she informed, causing him to look down again in response to another reference to Sean.

“Not yours?” he asked quietly.

“I suppose they are to some extent…” she attempted to explain, then switched back to another subject, “and why is it that you seem so wary of Sean?”

“Sean?” he repeated in the same hesitant manner.

“My husband” Claire supplied, to which Nicolas looked down again.

“He is wealthy, powerful man” Nicolas stated with a slight stammer to his voice.

“As true as that may be, I’m still not sure why you seem so afraid of him” she urged as gently as she could.

“Men like that… they…” he then simply looked down again.

Claire sighed again before continuing, “the man who took you and your sister; he was like that?”

“He is dead. Why ask?” Nicolas replied, his discomfort deepening.

Claire was a little caught by that, but also relieved. “If he’s dead, he can’t… he can’t hurt you anymore” she finished with a drop in volume. Though Nicolas did not respond as he simply looked away again. “But I suppose that the memories are still there” she conceded.

“Why you ask so much about Donatien? He is gone.”

“Donatien? Was that his name?” Claire asked, though Nicolas only nodded, eyes still averted. Claire then sighed again, “I just want to understand why you’re so fearful. Sean wants to understand too. He is a good man. You don’t have to be afraid of him” she attempted to assure.

“Donatien is dead and gone. Don’t need to understand” Nicolas argued, though his voice was weak and troubled.

“I was just hoping that if you could tell me what actually happened with this man; then maybe I could try to find some way to help you try and move past it. And let you know that if you do stay here with us, we’ll do our best to try and keep anything like that from happening again” she attempted further comfort.

“He hurt us. He hurt us for a long time. And Madeleine died with that man being the last...” he shook his head, “how does she move past? She is gone too” he whispered, finally letting his teary eyes turn back to her at last.

Claire tried to force back her own emotional response to his words before trying to find any more of her own, “at least no one can ever hurt Madeleine again. She is free now” she attempted to assure, despite her own deeply troubling knowledge of the nothingness that really was the only thing waiting after death. She then sighed slightly, “I just hope that you can take comfort in the fact that she is safe now and forever. And I want to do whatever I can to try and make you feel safe too. That’s all I want to try to do.”

“No safe. That man comes back to hurt me every time I close eyes” he confessed with a despair that cut Claire as deep as her own.