Insatiable

“Oh, dear,” Meena said, feeling slightly deflated. This story was a bit of a downer.

She supposed she wasn’t surprised to hear of Vlad’s father’s cruelty, giving his sons over to a sultan in order to preserve peace, considering his image in the portrait. If Vlad Tepes looked anything like his dad, he couldn’t have been very nice. He had a long, sinister-looking black mustache and beady eyes.

Or maybe they just didn’t know how to draw very well back then. Meena had always avoided this part of the museum. Her tastes tended to run more toward the Romantics…

Lucien didn’t seem to notice Meena’s dislike for the subject matter, however. As a history professor, he was obviously very enthusiastic on the topic of his country’s greatest forefather.

Lucien went on. “Although his brother was a great favorite of the sultan, the Ottomans didn’t treat Vlad Tepes very well, I’m afraid. And when he finally did inherit the throne from his father and return home to Wallachia, he was still quite bitter about the whole thing…and things didn’t improve much for him after that, I’m afraid. He had an unfortunate life, filled with much sorrow. His first wife, whom he dearly loved, was a beautiful and i

Meena raised her eyebrows upon hearing this, and she saw Lucien give her a quick smile.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you’d like that part of the story.”

He took her hand and led her toward a primitive black-and-white woodcut depicting a turreted castle with a river ru

“Unfortunately,” he said in a voice that seemed carefully devoid of emotion to Meena, “it doesn’t have the kind of ending you like. Vlad and his wife lived in warlike times. Upon hearing their castle was under siege by the Turks-who were rumored to be unspeakably cruel to royal female prisoners back in those days-his young bride threw herself out an upper-story window, preferring death to what she thought she’d face at their hands.”

Meena sucked in her breath, her gaze flying to one of the high turrets pictured in the woodcut.

“She fell into the river beneath the palace window and drowned,” Lucien continued in the same emotionless tone. “That river is still referred to today as the Princess’s River.”

“Oh,” Meena said unhappily. She was liking this story less and less. “How sad!”

“It was sad,” Lucien said in agreement. “And it gets sadder still. Her husband had married her for love…a rarity in those days. He was never the same after her death. Some say he went mad. He began to treat his enemies-and even his own subjects, his own sons-in a…well, in a very regrettable ma

Meena looked up sharply when she heard him say the words a very regrettable ma

Because while his tone had still been as distantly academic as ever, and probably no one else would have noticed the slightest difference in his voice, Meena knew: the prince was thinking about his own childhood. Lucien’s father had treated him in “a very regrettable ma

And Meena’s heart twisted with pity for him. Yes, he was a prince, and handsome and rich and worldly.

But she knew what it was like to have problems. Real problems. The kind that kept you up nights, stumbling around in the dark, reaching for amber prescription sleeping-pill bottles.

It was at that moment that Meena was gripped by an urge, as sudden as it was fierce, to save him…the same urge she felt with everyone she met and knew was going to die soon.

Only in this case, she wanted to rescue Lucien from the sadness she could see in those dark brown eyes, not from certain death…the same way he’d saved her that night from the bats that had come shrieking down from the spires of St. George’s Cathedral.

Only she didn’t know how. She knew how to save people only from their futures (and even that she didn’t do very well).

How did you save someone from his past?

Then, Lucien seemed to shake himself and gave her hand a squeeze and said with a smile, “I’m sorry, Meena. You said you like stories with happy endings, and I tell you this one, which is most decidedly not happy. I don’t know why I felt such a strong desire to share it with you. It’s an important story-to me. To my people. But…it’s not for a woman like you, who is so filled with life and joy.”

Meena raised her eyebrows. Boy, did he ever have her wrong.

“But the point is,” Lucien said, still smiling, “Vlad Tepes is Romania’s greatest hero…like your General Washington. We wouldn’t exist as a country if it weren’t for him.”

“Oh,” Meena said. “Well, in that case, good for him.”

But she wasn’t sure she believed him. Not about this Vlad person, whoever he was, but about the smile he’d given her. She knew it was fake. She could still sense the secret sorrow in him…

And because she knew what it was like to feel so alone, she felt that it was up to her to find a balm for his despair.

Her gaze wandered, searching for something that might help.

And a second later, she was guiding him toward an icon that glowed gold in the light from its display case.

“Look,” she said triumphantly, thinking to herself, Oh, good. This will do the trick. “This is appropriate, considering the way we met.”

Meena smiled at the cheerful painting, on wood, of a knight on his valiant steed, his lance piercing the heart of a slithering serpent writhing beneath his mount’s hooves.

“Ah, yes,” Lucien said in the same academic tone that he’d used when discussing Vlad Tepes. “St. George. There’s the spring, guarded by the fearsome dragon, who for so long has not allowed the villagers to draw the water they so badly need…not unless they first sacrifice a maiden. But on this day, there is no maiden left in the village, save the king’s daughter. She’s bravely gone to the water’s edge, despite her father’s protests, expecting to die. But look who’s appeared…a knight called George who will slay the dragon and save her and her people. They’ll be so grateful to him, they will abandon paganism forever.”

Meena stood with her hand in his, gazing down at the icon.

Okay, she thought to herself. So, that didn’t work. He looks as depressed as ever.

And now I feel depressed, too. Thanks, St. George. Who knew you were also the patron saint of downers?

And then, just like that…

She knew.

It was crazy. It was revealing far too much of herself to him…far more than she’d ever wanted to.

But it was something, she realized, she had to do.

“Do you want to see my favorite painting in the whole world?” Meena turned to ask him.

He looked surprised…and amused. “I would love to,” he said.

This time Meena was the one to lead him…out of the medieval art exhibit and up the stairs to the nineteenth-century wing.

She was a little nervous when they approached the painting she’d loved for so long that it might not be everything that she’d remembered.

Then again, what was she worried about? This was Joan of Arc, beloved by everyone…

As they approached, she saw that she had nothing to worry about. No, the painting, as ever, was amazing…at least it was to Meena. The picture light above the elaborate gold frame was turned on and glowed down on the face of the boyish-looking peasant girl as she gazed off into the distance, while behind her, the archangel Michael beckoned. Meena was so transfixed, she actually forgot to be concerned over whether or not Lucien would like the painting.

She put Jack Bauer down on the floor and went right up to the painting, standing closer to it than she’d ever dared during museum visiting hours.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” she breathed, marveling at the painting’s details.