Blueblood: A Dark Southern Aristocracy - 30. A Carpetbagger in Reverse

We flew home to Charleston on a commercial flight. Gabriella was staying in Manhattan. Duh. We had the tablets Stan had mentioned and I was researching the files about Charleston on the plane.

“The fact there is another vampire in Charleston is kind of…disheartening,” Colin said. “I lived there a while. I had no clue.”

I nodded. “You weren’t supposed to,” I said simply. “Whoever this vampire is, they know how to cover their tracks.”

“He might have been the one to turn Brett Marshall.”

“Or not, but he has to feed daily.” I pointed out. “We’ll have to glean the news feeds more. We also need archived data to see the past.”

Colin frowned as he sulked a little. “This isn’t the life I wanted for us.”

I sighed at this tiresome guilt he had been carrying. “This isn’t your fault, Colin. I don’t blame you at all.” I put the tablet down. “But this is our life now. We took vows to be in each other’s lives. Good and bad. Are you never going to forgive yourself? You did not do this.”

Colin shook his head. “I did to you.”

I frowned. “No, I did it to myself. I gave myself to you. I chose.” I pulled his head toward me. “Please, let it go.”

Colin smiled. “I’m trying.”

I bumped my forehead against his gently. “Try harder.” I kissed him. “I love you, husband.”

Colin grinned. “I know.”

We got back to Wentworth Manor about lunch time. Entering I noticed the usual people that worked here. I still felt a little…aware…we had servants. That just was not right to me. Not that it was wrong, these people needed jobs, so why not? I just never considered myself the servant needing type. That wasn’t true for everyone in my family. A house this size, it was not always easy to locate other people, but it was nearly noon so we went into the dining area and then to the cozier dining area we often used. There was my mother, looking like a real queen dressed in pink the color of a rose, wearing in a casual suit with pants and eating with a gentleman I didn’t know. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, but a nice looking man with graying hair though what had been ashy blonde and he looked like he tried to stay in shape. A lady we hired was serving them something that was steaming.

My mother looked up and a smile came to her face. “My boys!” She said happily getting up and hugging us.

The lady that was serving the meal smiled at us both. “Mister Devon, Mister Colin, welcome home. Shall I serve you two?”

Colin grinned at her. “You know me, Bertie.”

Bertie chuckled. “I do. I’ll get more. It’s shrimp and grits.”

“Shrimp for me, thank you, but no grits,” I said.

Colin grinned. “I like both of your shrimp and grits.”

Bertie shook her head. “I know that, too.” She chuckled as she went back to the kitchen. She glanced back as she walked. “How could that boy be raised in the South and not like grits, I’ll never understand.” She muttered as she went.

Mom looked at her guest. “David, these are my sons. Devon Wentworth and Colin Wentworth. Devon, Colin…this is David Braun. I showed him a few properties and decided we should have lunch.”

David stood and shook our hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’ve got a great home here.”

Colin nodded. “It was a work of love. The property has been in the family for two centuries. I just rebuilt the home.”

David nodded. “And what is that you do to afford this sort of life?”

“I do investments and work with a company in Manhattan. We make good money.” Colin said sitting.

Mom smiled touching David on the hand. “David is shopping for property here in Charleston to expand his business. He’s from Atlanta.”

My eyes widened as I saw her touch him, and the smile that came on David’s face as he looked at her and took her hand and squeezed it lightly.

Colin’s mouth went up slightly in the corners when he saw my reaction to what he’d seen. “Really? What sort of business?” Colin asked.

“I have a chain of stores that I own, this will be my first store outside Georgia.”

They were on a date!? My mind was going over some things like…she was an adult; I didn’t know the man, so how could I judge him?

I had mixed feelings about Mom with her friend. She was not married. I hadn’t hidden my affection for Colin from her. She was the one to push me toward Colin in the first place, but…well…she was my mother! Dad has been out of the picture a while and she was lonely. When my mother touched this man, so casually, I admit to being a little…annoyed? Why was I annoyed?

Colin noticed, but waited until we were getting ready for bed. He looked at me as he was undressing. “Are you going to say something? Or are you just going to stew?” He asked smiling.

I was so busy with my thoughts; I didn’t quite get what he was asking me. “What?”

He chuckled and came over. “Big surprise! Your mother is dating.” He said not quite in a sing-song voice, but close.

“He came for lunch! That’s not a date.” I said huffily.

Colin grinned. “Isn’t it?” He sat behind me and spoke to my ear. “Who’s to know? Maybe she’s just having him for sex.” He suggested behind me.

The very idea pissed me off as I spun. “Are you crazy!?”

Colin laughed. “I remember someone telling me about Gabriella, she’s an adult. She can make her choices.” He pinned me on the mattress. “Well, Mom’s an adult. She’s had sex before…the evidence is you’re here!”

I hated when he was making me eat my own words. I grimaced. “This is my MOTHER,” I said like that should be enough of an explanation. “I was ten when I fully understood about sex and that is how babies come into the world. I knew mom and dad made me when I was five years old, but…as a result of sex!? Then when I really understood, I thought I must have been conceived as Christ had been, no humans involved!” I chuckled. “Then when I accepted they were both human and maybe they had sex. I conceded that they did it once to have me, but never again.” I smiled at the absurdity of those thoughts as a child.

Colin nodded. “Immaculately conceived?” He grinned. “I seriously doubt that. To be fair, your mom accepted a lot. First, her little boy is gay. Then second, was he was in love with a man that turns out to be a vampire. Talk about your alternate lifestyles. I’d say she should be cut some slack…and acceptance. She’s a widow and so is he!”

I nodded. “I know that she’s an adult and deserves to be liked and even loved, in here.” I tapped my own head. “I need to understand it here. Accepting it is more difficult.” I said tapping my chest and then my eye narrowed. “And my mother doesn’t just have sex!” I rolled us where I was on top. “Parents aren’t supposed to be human, you know?”

Colin chuckled again. “But we are.” He gave a shrug. “Or I used to be.”

I groaned. “Colin, there’s more human in you than in a lot of people I know. Don’t give me the used to be shit.” I watched his eyebrows rise. “Yes, I cussed. I really mean it! You’re the kindest man I’ve ever met. You want me to give Mom slack, cut yourself slack.” I leaned closer kissing him, but I knew this would be an ongoing battle from him having thought this way for so long. “And, I will say, what you said back at VUN, about the sexy vampires…?”

He grinned. “Yes?”

“I see one right now.”

Colin laughed as he and I kissed. “So, do I.” He chuckled as our kissing became deeper and more consuming.

The next morning I hit the internet to find someone with a good knowledge of Charleston. I should have guessed it would be at the College of Charleston. I made an appointment to see this person who was a professor of Charleston History. I’m never late. I said we’d be there at ten for our appointment. We arrived at 9:45 am.

We waited outside her classroom for her to finish teaching her morning class. I smiled when I saw this professor. She was about forty and thin, but you could just tell by her mannerisms she was a bit of a flake. Her brown hair was clean, but not done in any attractive style. The idea of covering any grey had not been a concern for her. She dressed in something that looked comfortable, pants and a loose blouse, but neat also without style. The glasses on her face had large lenses. When she was done and students were heading out of the lecture hall, we approached her.

“Hello, Professor Cooke,” I said to her. “I’m Devon Wentworth. We had an appointment with you at ten?”

The professor was putting things in her briefcase looked up with a nod. “You did?” She thought. “Oh, yes, you did.” She remembered and looked at Colin and her eyes grew. “And you’re Colin Wentworth!” She said in awe.

Colin looked shocked. “I am. Do you recognize me from the TV show?”

She was not ready for that. “What? No. I don’t watch much TV.” She shook her head. “It’s just that…how are you related to Colin Wentworth? I mean, the original Colin Wentworth from the early 19^th century?”

Colin wasn’t ready for this either. “He’s an ancestor.”

“A direct ancestor, I’d say.” She pushed her glasses farther up her nose and looked at him carefully with her brown-green eyes. “I guess the rumors are true.”

I frowned. “What rumors?”

She motioned for us to follow her. We arrived at her office, which I wasn’t surprised to see. It was cluttered with books and objects in what appeared to be in a haphazard kind of organization. She went to a shelf and looked quickly and pulled out a large book. She knew where things were in here. “There’s not a lot about this branch of the Wentworth family; practically none after the war.” She smiled. “That’s the Civil War.” She flipped a few pages until she reached where she knew it to be. “Here.” She turned the book around to show a picture of a painting. “You can see…you are almost the spitting image of the original Colin Wentworth.” This picture was like the one I’d seen when I met Colin, but Colin was alone in this pose. Only this picture wasn’t tattered or torn. It was Colin. “Before the war, he was a very progressive man. He made a few enemies with some other plantation owners when he insisted on paying those that worked for him. The rumor is…after his wife died. He managed to marry his daughter off and then shortly afterward, disappeared. It was rumored that he had run off with another woman and fathered another family.”

Colin chuckled. “That’s the rumor?” I jabbed him lightly unseen by the professor.

“Yes, and as his daughter married, but had no children, he might have fathered a family elsewhere. He had to!” She said waving at Colin. “Where are you from?”

“New York,” Colin answered.

“A reverse carpetbagger?” The professor chuckled. Carpetbaggers were big after the war. They were Northerners that came from the North often exploiting the war-torn Southerners. They saw the opportunity for business and came to make a profit, sometimes not so honestly. “But you clearly are a Wentworth. Did you know your grandparents and great-grandparents?”

“I knew of them, but they died when I was young.” Colin covered. “My parents, too. I know very little about the past hundred and fifty years.”

“But your accent is clearly Southern.” She observed and then shrugged. “Well, it’s a mystery.” She sat waving at the two chairs in front of her desk. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” I began sitting in a chair. “We’d like to find out just how old the family is here in Charleston. When did they arrive and who else was here at the beginning. Were the Wentworths here at the beginning?”

Colin nodded. “And, since we’re talking about people that disappeared. Are there records of people who disappeared in the past? We know that Colin Wentworth disappeared, but were there others?”

She nodded. “There were plenty.” She wrote on a piece of paper. “We have an extensive database now. I’m writing the address and password that will allow access to the records.” She told us there was an archive that we could access if needed and who to look up.

After we were done, Colin wasn’t happy. “We could have done this without coming here. This may not have been a good idea.”

“Why not?” I asked as we got back in the car.

“She recognized me,” Colin said.

“She recognized you are a Wentworth,” I said logically as I shrugged. “From a painting, just like I did. That wasn’t even the best painting she showed us. Putting together that you are the same Colin in that painting would be nearly impossible. It doesn’t add up logically.” I smiled. “Just like you told me when I saw that picture. We all know that’s impossible for you to be two hundred years old. The resemblance is a genetic fluke.” I waved the web address I was given. “At least now we have a website to search and a password for delving deeper. With that marvelous computer, we can access a lot.” I grinned. “With Stan’s programs and Stan’s help, we may get closer to finding this elusive vampire after all these centuries.”

Colin shook his head. “Old habits die hard. I was so used to hiding. I don’t like the attention.”

I nodded as I started the car using the key fob as we approached it. I hate using words to say this, but it purred like a tiger! “And we drove this why?” I waved at the Aston Martin we got in. “A sports car that is almost never seen on the streets of Charleston definitely attracts attention.” I pointed outside as I pulled on the street. Almost every guy on the sidewalk was looking and a few girls. This was a college area and full of young men and women, all gawking with smiles that grew at seeing what they seldom, if ever, see.

Colin chuckled. “Point taken.”

I nodded. “And now, we know a little more about your past.”

Colin’s eyebrows rose. “We do?”

I chuckled. “Sure. You were a womanizer and ran off with a young thing and started a whole new family!”

Colin laughed at that.

Armed with new site address and password, we both started going through the records. I will say this, whoever had scanned and digitally put the information in the data files did a good job. Stan used the computer at VUN to compile and cross-reference everything. I don’t know that anyone had bothered to do anything like this in the past. What it was that Stan had programmed his program to do, it was looking at each entry. It took out the causes that were natural and man-made. We were left with the disappearances and mysterious deaths and saw death certificates if available and even investigations as they had been done to find a common thread. We video-conferenced Stan in Manhattan.

He let out a grunt of disgust after a few minutes. “Okay, let me do what I did here in New York.” He said as he typed. “I’m downloading the whole database.”

I was shocked. “I know we have plenty of memory, but all these databases?”

Stan nodded. “Most databases are centrally located. Complete and one location that allows local access for certain files for certain things. All these files need to be transferred to our database. Since most records were handwritten back then, Buddy here will have to read, digitally translate and transfer all that to a data file.”

“Buddy?” I grinned. “You named the computer?”

Stan grinned. “Of course, I did.” He said logically. “He is my buddy, so why not?” Then he typed again. “I’ve programmed Buddy to cross-reference all deaths there looking for keywords; extreme blood loss bled to death and those like that…depending on how the doctor at the time was educated and how thorough he was. Reading the older writing might take a while longer, with the odd pen strokes and artsy writing and just bad penmanship, but once done, it will be quick. Then we’ll have some names and locations.”

I smiled at Stan. “You’re a smart man, Stan.”

Stan smiled, but I saw since he had a fair complexion, he was starting to pink. “It just makes sense.”

“The FBI was right to recruit you. You’re an asset for them, and now for us.” Colin said.

Now Stan was really turning red. “I hope to be.” He chuckled. “I did my best for the FBI, but…this is a better fit for me.” He frowned. “We’re still dealing with serial killers, but…” he shrugged. “When Ruben asked if we’d do this…and then when I saw those vampires…I knew we had to do this.”

“We?” I grinned. “You're saying we as a whole team or we as in you and Mark?”

Stan looked confused. “Well, sure…we as a whole team. Mark and I always have worked together. We were even at the academy at the same time. I don’t think I could have done it in the past without him.”

Colin nodded. “You work well together.”

Stan chuckled. “Well, yeah…I wouldn’t have made it through the physical part of training if he hadn’t helped me. He was always pushing to do another sit up and that last rep when I was working out. He coached me on how to subdue a suspect better. I’d have been lost without him.” Then he shrugged a nod. “In return, I helped him with the books part. I tutored him on procedure, math, and criminology. It’s a fair exchange. He’s smart, but it came quickly for me, so I helped him.”

“It sounds like you really like Mark,” I said lightly hinting about what Mark said about Stan.

“Sure.” Stan nodded. “He’s my best friend. I dread it when he moves on or gets married.”

“Do you worry about that he will?” Colin asked.

Stan frowned. “It’s inevitable. He’s always attracting women. He’s good looking and a very nice guy. I don’t know if I can do this if he’s not here.”

“Have you discussed this with Mark?” I asked.

Stan shook his head. “Absolutely not! I don’t want to trap him to stay just because of me.”

“Maybe he’s staying because he likes you, too,” Colin suggested.

“In a brother kind of way, sure,” Stan said sadly.

“You can ask him,” I said. “He might like you more than a brother. You’re practically the same age. It’s clear he cares about you.”

Stan stopped and looked at us through the screen. “He does?”

“He’s always looking out for you. He makes sure you eat, sleep and take care of yourself.” I said. “He knows you can get tunneled and watches out to make sure you don’t get so engrossed to do that. You don’t see that?”

“You think he likes me more than just as a friend?”

“Two human beings that care for each other like that isn’t bad.” Colin smiled.

“Talk to him,” I suggested.

Stan lost what he was doing. That meant something if it took his mind off working with Buddy. “You think he might…” he shook his head suddenly. “No, no way.”

“And how are you going to know, if you don’t ask?” I said logically. “He is a friend. He might like you a lot more! You’re a nice person and good looking yourself!”

Stan went back to his work clearly embarrassed. “No, I’m not.”

Colin chuckled. “Do we seem like people who give false compliments!? You know we’re married! We know a good looking man when we see him. You are! And you’re a nice guy and very smart.”

Stan gave a sputter at the smart part. “Too smart.” He muttered, but even while he was working he finally shook his head. “No. There’s no way.”

“Tell me,” I said. “You say he’s always attracting women. Does he respond to that?”

Stan stopped again. “I…I don’t know.” He thought again. “I’m sure he does.”

“But you’re not sure,” Colin said pointedly. “Does he date much?”

Now Stan was very uncomfortable. “I don’t…he never said…the job requires too much time…” his eyes widened. “I never asked!”

“There you go!” I pointed out. “You never asked. Perhaps you need to.”

Stan sat back. I mean, he stopped completely and sat back just thinking. “I never saw this. He’s always there. I assumed it was to keep me on track for the job. We were professional partners!”

“That may only be a part of it,” Colin suggested. “You do yourself harm if you don’t talk to him. He may like to be partners on another level.”

Stan now was alarmed. “I can’t do that!” He said in almost a panic. “What if he is just being friendly? If I offend him, he could leave me!”

“Talk to him!” I said again more firmly.

Stan was almost shaking as he thought now as his eyes were open to the idea. “I should.” He looked at us. “Shouldn’t I?”

Colin and I both said at the same time. “YES!!”