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JILLIAN had lucked out TWA had too led as she cae plane-had to ride in first class, jeans, muslin shirt and all She found her seat by theand shoved her ca that doubled as a purse under the seat, then dropped gratefully into the wide, padded chair This was great, she thought as she fastened her seat belt, and reached down to pull a couple of paperback books out of her bag, then settled back to read
She had just got into the story when a voice spoke beside her "Excuse er, she looked up and smiled a little at what she saw The man was short, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, with the look of early e about him His clothes were very simple and obviously expensive His black three-piece suit was a wool and silk blend, superbly tailored to his triainst a black silk tie, just the right width, and secured with an unadorned ruby stickpin Jillian noticed with ahtly heeled "Excuse ain in his pleasant, melodic voice "I believe that is my seat"
Julian&039;s face sank This couldn&039;t happen, not after she had been so lucky She fu pass "This is the pass they gaveit out to him
A stewardess, attracted by the confusion, approached the Is there some trouble?"
The man turned an attractive, wry smile on the woman "A ned us the sa passes, frowning as she read them "Just a moment I&039;m sure we can correct this" She turned away as she spoke and went toward the galley
"I&039;etically Now that she had had a moment to watch the man, she found him quite awesome
"No, no Don&039;t be foolish Machines are far from perfect, after all And first class is not wholly filled We will be accom eyes "I have no wish to impose on you"
Jillian waved her hands to show that there was no i She blushed and felt abashed-here she was, allance upward through her fair lashes showed her that the stranger was aive hi daunting in his expression, and she kept quiet
A moment later the stewardess: "I&039;m sorry, sir," she said to the man "Apparently there was some difficulty with the print-out on the card Yours is seat B, on the aisle If this is inconvenient"
"No, not in the least" He took the boarding passes from her and handed one to Jillian "I thank you for your trouble You were ain the smile flashed and he bent to put his sli to Jillian, "I arateful you have the "
"Oh," Jillian said, surprised, "don&039;t you like the ?"
"I&039; It is difficult to be so far froround" He seated himself and fastened the seat belt
Jillian started to open her book again, but said, "I think flying&039;s exciting"
"Have you flown often?" the man asked somewhat absent-mindedly
"Well, not very often," she confided "Never this far before I flew to Denver a couple of times to visit my father, and once to Florida, but I haven&039;t been to Europe before"
"And you&039;ve spent the summer in Italy? What did you think of it?" He seemed to enjoy her excite I decided to fly in and out of Milan because it seeood place to start froe and set the book aside for the uess"
"Not for some time But I had friends there, once" He folded small, beautiful hands over the seat belt "What else did you see? Paris? Vienna? Roue and Budapest and Belgrade and Bucharest and Sofia, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Trieste, and Venice" She recited the low of enthusiash those ancient, ancient countries
The man&039;s fine brows lifted "Not the usual student trek, is it? Hungary, Ruoslavia hardly countries one associates with American students"
On the loudspeaker, the stewardess said in three languages that cigarettes uished and seat belts fastened in preparation for take-off
Jillian frowned "Isan American student that obvious?"
"Certainly," he said kindly "Students everywhere have a kind of uniforht blond hair-oh, most surely, an American, and from the way you pronounce your r&039;s, I would say froly, Jillian said, "Des Moines"
"That is in Iowa, is it not?"
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of engines roaring as the jet started to ave the custoen lish, French, and Italian Jillian listened to the talk, trying to appear nonchalant and still feeling the stir of pleasure in flying The man in the seat beside her closed his eyes
For fivefor a position on the runway, one of three jets preparing for takeoff Then there was the fierce, lunging roll as the plane raced into the air The ground dropped away below the cli, and then the stewardess re was permitted in specified sections only, that they were free to move about the cabin, and that headsets for the movie would be available shortly, before lunch was served
Jillian looked out theand saw Milan growing distant and shed "You are sad?" asked thehome, but it was such a wonderful suet hoot a job at the junior high school It&039;s ain
"You don&039;t seem much pleased with your job" There was no criticism in his tone "If it is not what you wish to do, why do you do it?"
"Well," Jillian said in what she hoped was herI&039;" She broke off, thinking of how disappointed her ed her mind about Harold But it wouldn&039;t have worked, she said to herself, as she had almost every day since the tenth of April when she had returned his ring
"I&039;iveto h up we are"
"Were you" His dark, enigmatic eyes rested on her a mos you saw in eastern Europe"
"Well," she said, glad to have sohts other than Harold "I wanted to see all those strange places They were really interesting I was really a is"
"Different? How?"
"It&039;s not just the way they look, and everything being old," Jillian said with sudden intensity "It feels different here, like all the things they pooh-pooh in schools are real When I went to Castle Bran, I ends about the place It made sense that people would believe them"
The man&039;s interest increased "Castle Bran?"
"Yes, you know, it&039;s very famous It&039;s the castle that Bram Stoker used as a model for Castle Dracula, at least that&039;s what o to the ruins of the real Castle Dracula, but the weather was bad, so I didn&039;t"
"Strange But why are you interested in such places? Surely the resistance to the Turkish invasions is not your area of study"
"Oh, no," she laughed a little e"
"Indeed" There was an ironic note in his voice now
"Well, they reat art, but they&039;re wonderful to"
"Fantasize about?" he suggested gently
Jillian felt herself flush and wished that she hadn&039;t mentioned the subject "Soosi, Lee, all of thereat I think they&039;re sexy"
The ravity that almost infuriated Jillian "A novel idea," he said after a moment
"It isn&039;t," she insisted "I know lots of people who think vampires are sexy"
"American irreverence, do you think?" He shook his head "There was a tio, when such an avoould be absolutely heretical"
"That&039;s silly," she said, a little less sure of herself In her travels, she had come to realize that heresy was not just an obsolete prejudice
"Hardly silly," the man said in a soony for believing such things And there are those who think that the practice should be reinstated"
"But it&039;s just superstition," Jillian burst out, inwardly shocked at her reaction "Nobody today could possibly believe that vampires really exist"
"Are you so certain they do not?" he inquired mildly
"Well, how could they?" she retorted "It&039;s absurd"
He favored her with a nod that was more of a bow "Of course"
Jillian felt the need to pursue the s, they would have been found out by now There&039;d be good, solid proof"
"Proof? But how could such a thing be proved? As you said yourself, the idea is absurd"
"There ought to be ways to do it" She hadn&039;t considered the er in the seat beside her "It wouldn&039;t be the premature burial concerns, because that&039;s a different ends are right, burial of a vampire is hardly premature"
She decided to overlook this remark "The trouble is," she said seriously, "the best ould be to get volunteers, and I don&039;t suppose it would be easy to convince any real vaht to submit himself to scientific study"
"It would be impossible, I should think," her seat partner interjected
"And how could it be proven, Ithe volunteer? I don&039;t suppose there are any real proofs short of putting a stake through their hearts or severing their heads"
"Burning is also a goodto agree to that And it wouldn&039;t de at all Anyone would die of it, whether or not they were va up here talking about experi uncomfortable with the subject and was anxious to speak of sohts, for he said, "Hardly what one would call profitable speculation"
Jillian had the odd feeling that she should be polite and decided to ask him a few questions "Is this your first trip to Alish, but"
"But you know I aner Naturally" He paused "I have been to Ao, and then it was to the capital of Mexico A strange place, that city built on swamps"
His description of Mexico City startled Jillian a little, because though it was true enough that the city had been built on swao, it seemed an odd aspect of its history to
"This is o to so vast a land, and be so far from home"
The stewardess appeared at his elbow "Pardon me, Count We&039;re about to serve cocktails, and if you&039;d like one ?"
"No, thank you, but perhaps"-he turned to Jillian-"you would doht at the invitation and the strictures of her youth that had warned against such tein and tonic Tanqueray gin, if you have it"
"Tanqueray and tonic," the stewardess repeated, then turned to the ain "If you don&039;t want a cocktail, we have an excellent selection of wines"
"Thank you, no I do not drink wine" With a slight, imperious nod, he dismissed the stewardess
"She called you Count," Jillian accused hiforward to telling her friends about the flight when she got home It would be wonderful to say, as casually as she could, "Oh, yes, on the way back, I had this lovely conversation with a European Count," and then watch them stare at her
"A courtesy title, these days," the ed much from the time I was born, and now there are feould respectof the history of Europe and nodded sympathetically "How unfortunate for you Does it es in your country?" She realized she didn&039;t knohich country he was fro rude
"It is true thatties to es, and in tirows accustomed, one adapts The alternative is to die"
Never before had Jillian felt the plight of the exiled as she did looking into that civilized, intelligent face "How terrible! You et very lonely"