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Chapter Nine<br />
She was not the reincarnation of Katherine.<br />
Driving back to the boarding house in the faint lavender hush before dawn, Stefan thought about that.<br />
He'd said as much to her, and it was true, but he was only now realizing how long he'd been<br />
working toward that conclusion. He'd been aware of Elena's every breath and move for weeks, and<br />
he'd catalogued every difference.<br />
Her hair was a shade or two paler than Katherine's, and her eyebrows and lashes were darker.<br />
Katherine's had been almost silvery. And she was taller than Katherine by a good handspan. She<br />
moved with greater freedom, too; the girls of this age were more comfortable with their bodies.<br />
Even her eyes, those eyes that had transfixed him with the shock of recognition that first day, were<br />
not really the same. Katherine's eyes had usually been wide with childlike wonder, or else cast down<br />
as was proper for a young girl of the late fifteenth century. But Elena's eyes met you straight on,<br />
looked at you steadily and without flinching. And sometimes they narrowed with determination or<br />
challenge in a way Katherine's never had.<br />
In grace and beauty and sheer fascination, they were alike. But where Katherine had been a white<br />
kitten, Elena was a snow-white tigress.<br />
As he drove past the silhouettes of maple trees, Stefan cringed from the memory that sprang up<br />
suddenly. He would not think about that, he would not let himself… but the images were already<br />
unreeling before him. It was as if the journal had fallen open and he could do no more than stare<br />
helplessly at the page while the story played itself out in his mind.<br />
White, Katherine had been wearing white that day. A new white gown of Venetian silk with slashed<br />
sleeves to show the fine linen chemise underneath. She had a necklace of gold and pearls about her<br />
neck and tiny pearl drop earrings in her ears.<br />
She had been so delighted with the new dress her father had commissioned especially for her.<br />
She had pirouetted in front of Stefan, lifting the full, floor-length skirt in one small hand to show the<br />
yellow brocaded underskirt beneath…<br />
"You see, it is even embroidered with my initials. Papa had that done. Mein lieber Papa …" Her<br />
voice trailed off, and she stopped twirling, one hand slowly settling to her side. "But what is wrong,<br />
Stefan? You are not smiling."<br />
He could not even try. The sight of her there, white and gold like some ethereal vision, was a<br />
physical pain to him. If he lost her, he did not know how he could live.<br />
His fingers closed convulsively around the cool engraved metal. "Katherine, how can I smile, how<br />
can I be happy when…"<br />
"When?"