They were silent, studying each other so intently that neither noticed the mizzle that began to fall—the gentle preface to the approaching squall. It was gentle at first, but with a sudden gust the sky cracked open to unleash a veritable deluge upon them.
And then, right there amidst the old Saxon graves and the roaring tempest, he kissed her with all the passion of the fulminating sky. It was as unexpected as the streak of lightning that forked over the sea. He held her fast—a kiss to equal the force of nature whipping around them.
His lips, the feel of them pressed hard against hers, were now as intimate as his scent, the rhythm of his tongue somehow familiar as it took full and fiery possession of hers. His hands moved, unrestrained, over her sodden back and into her hair, releasing the pins so that her tresses lay heavy against her spine. Despite herself, she melted into him, her heart drowning out the tempest.
The redolence of his skin flavored by the rain and the wind intoxicated her completely. She hardly noticed when he swept her off her feet and swiftly knelt to lay her flat against one of the headstones, cradling her head in one hand without releasing her mouth. His fingers glided down her throat to her bodice as she writhed beneath him. From here the kiss only deepened. She reveled in his touch.
The rain lashed furiously at their faces, but she was insensible to all except the glorious weight of his masterful kiss. Blind to all but the thrilling pressure of his body against hers. Without the slightest fumble, Winterly’s hands moved beneath her skirts. He dragged his lips to her ear, whispering things that became lost in the gale, and then down her throat, sucking the tender flesh gently between his teeth. Her hands tightened in his hair as his fingers slipped up to her naked hip. She arched her back and pressed herself closer to him, her moans eclipsed by the roar of the sky.
He grew still of a sudden. Emma felt his lips at the hollow of her neck, his kisses gentling even as the sky raged and cracked with more jagged light. With her senses still chaotic, churning, she was only vaguely aware that Winterly had hoisted her up in his arms like a bride, as though she weighed no more than a flower, and was carrying her over the escarpment. Were it not for his drugging lips, she might have regained her senses the sooner.
It was not till they reached the bottom of the stone steps that the full measure of her own wanton behavior dawned on her. She immediately implored him to put her down, utterly mortified. He complied, grinning broadly as she endeavored to straighten her skirts and fix her hair—a futile task in the pelting rain, but her hands wanted some employment. Wherever her bonnet had gone, she wished it safe travels, doubting very much she’d ever see it again. Would that she never had to look upon his knowing smirk again either.
The barouche appeared through the downpour, and Winterly quickly handed her up into the carriage and then climbed up after her. They were soon tearing down the empty road, past the row of shipbuilding warehouses and little shops.
Neither of them said aught as the wheels rolled wetly across the countryside. He only stared out of the window, his lips curled. She thought him unaware of her gaze drifting over his mouth, over the sculpted lips she still craved.
“If you continue to stare,” he said, “I shall consider it an invitation to continue what was started on that cliff, Emma.”
She nearly gasped at the suddenness of his voice, preoccupied as he’d appeared to be. He’d used her name like a wicked promise. She had not invited him to use it, but he had done so anyway, rake that he was. She ought to have felt outraged at his taking such liberties, but they both knew that she had been as willing a participant as he. And though she had promptly averted her gaze, she could now feel his as he followed the heat creeping out over neck and bosom. Her heart skipped wildly. Her chest heaved. Beneath the drenched layers of muslin, her flesh pebbled. He had made good on his promise—the second kiss was indeed unchaste.
She should hate herself for her own base reaction to him, but she could find no will to regret their impulsive kiss. She was an old maid after all, and had not so much as kissed a man before (well, only in her dreams), let alone such a man as this. If she was going to berate herself, let it be for kissing a vampyre. Let it be for craving him despite what he was. He scattered her thoughts with his next words.
“Shall I come to your room tonight, Emma?” Not even the rain thundering at the carriage roof could drown out his silky voice.
Taking a deep, bolstering breath into her lungs, she said, “No.”
He turned away, his smile deepening. No more words passed between them after that. It was the longest carriage ride of her life, and all the way home she knew, with certainty, that this would not be the last time he asked her that particular question. And, likewise, she was not sure, even knowing what he was, that she could refuse him forever.
Chapter Thirty
The Riddle
Dearest Emma,—Vanishing libraries? Supernaturalism? Howling moors? Upon my word, you do sound strange, indeed. But trust yourself, nevertheless, for I know you to be a woman of sound mind and adamantine spirit. God bless you always,
Mary.
“He asked what?!” Milli’s hands flew up to her mouth in astonishment. “Mercy!” she cried, “how shocking!” But, however, as egregious as she found Emma’s account of her private carriage ride with Winterly, Milli also appeared to be taking an abominable sort of delight in the whole affair. “How utterly romantic.”
“Well, which is it? Shocking or romantic?”
“Both!”
“Your notion of romance,” said Emma, tossing a pillow at Milli, “is decidedly primeval.”
Milli caught the pillow and curtsied, addressing the room at large as though they were at court. “May I present, the Right Honorable, the Viscountess Winterly.”
“Oh, do shut up.”
Not even the sepulchral silence of the keep preponderated over Milli’s laughter. “The man has it backwards,” she said. “Doesn’t he understand that weddings come before beddings.”
“Well, I want neither from him.”
Milli’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Don’t tell me you refused him, Emma?”
“I wonder at your feeling the need to even ask that of me. Of course I refused the man.”
“But Lord Winterly is very handsome, I myself should have been sorely tempted.”
“Yes, thank you, Milli. I am well aware of your propensity to romanticize infelicitous behavior.” But wasn’t she, Emma, guilty of the same? Had the temptation really been so great? Had his power over her really been so indomitable that she’d thought nothing of surrendering her virtue right there on the Saxon tombstones? She’d thanked heaven afterwards that he’d stopped when he had, for whatever reason, because her own probity had utterly deserted her.
“Truly, Emma, I’d be fair in a quake for you if I wasn’t so titillated by it all.” Milli stifled her laughter into the same feather pillow that Emma had thrown. “Were you at all frightened?”
“To say the least of it,” she lied. Well, it was only half a lie. The whole truth of it was that she had been far more thrilled than she wanted to admit to herself. But he is a vampyre! Never forget that.
That inward warning, however, lacked conviction. More and more was she becoming dominated by this powerful attraction she felt for him. Each time she thought to give herself over to wicked daydreams, she would perforce remind herself of what he was. Then, somehow, he would worm a way into her heart again. And so the cycle perpetuated itself.
“But why should he even suggest such a thing? And out of nowhere besides.” Milli chewed the puzzle over on her lip.
“It wasn’t…he did not act without some…encouragement on my part,” Emma admitted. “He kissed me in the abbey—”
“He did what?!”
“—and I’ll own to you that I thoroughly kissed him back. Whatever were his impressions or expectations after my…participation, I assure you I did not wittingly encourage…bedding.”
“Emma, you little hussy! Is it any wonder you’ve
hidden yourself in your room since then? Oh,” she said with a sigh, “to be so bold in a tempest, and so missish now…” Then began the fervent inquisition: How long exactly had they kissed for? Was Winterly devilishly good at it? And were they like to do so again? The girl was in an agony of restive curiosity.
Why Emma had felt the need to tell her sister she knew not, for now Milli would never let the matter rest until she had exhausted herself, chewing the cud of amatory rapture. But, in Emma’s defense, the compulsion to confess all had been an overwhelming one, for her heart might have burst otherwise. Winterly had haunted what little sleep she’d had these last few days and she needed to tell somebody or else go mad. Madder than she already was.
Perhaps in sharing, some small part of her had hoped to dilute the effect of this power he held over her; moreover, make sense of it. Yet no such dilution or sense was forthcoming. Especially not from Milli’s corner.
“You must tell nobody, Milli. Promise me!”
“Upon my honor, Emma, there was never any question of that.” Milli’s brow was clouded with affront. “And you needn’t be so stubbornly unforthcoming.”
“Stubbornly unforthcoming?” Emma sniffed. “What more is there to say? We kissed and then it rained.”
“Well, well, you admit you were so caught up in a passion you did not even notice the oncoming storm? Nor mind a good drenching? Better and better.”
Emma was tempted to throw another pillow. “Isn’t it time you go dress yourself and leave me to my morning toilette?”
Milli skipped to the door, giggling. “For such a man, I too would have risked a cold!”
“Off you go.” Emma shooed her out with another pillow.
But Milli had one last thing to say before she withdrew. “You cannot avoid him forever, Emma, the bal masqué is in one week.”
“You worry about yourself, Milli, you’re still looking far too pale.” Avoiding everyone else meant that Emma had been unforgivably neglectful of her sister. She rose from her chair by the fire and joined Milli by the door. “Let me see your neck.”
“Whatever for?” Milli drew back.
“Hold still.” Despite Milli slapping her hands away, Emma’s insistence paid off and, with a little force, she was able to inspect her sister’s neck. Nothing.
“What has gotten into you?” said Milli, drawing her shawl securely around her shoulders with a terse shrug.
“I was looking for bite marks.”
Milli’s face instantly lost what little color had been there. She backed away from Emma, disconcertion twisting her brow. “I’m fine, there isn’t anything the matter with me.” And with that she rushed off.
Emma watched her sister go, perturbed by Milli’s keeping secrets of her own.
As to Emma’s behavior, Milli was right, she had been avoiding the master of the castle under pretense of a cold. To her shame, it was not because he was a vampyre—yes, she was almost certain of his possessing a preternatural nature of some kind—but because her own behavior frightened her. But just because she had not seen him did not mean his countenance was effaced from her mind’s yearning eye, or the fever calmed from her blood.
She could not even blame a contagion, or magische ansteckung, for she’d inspected every inch of her neck for bite marks when she’d returned, sopping wet, to her room, lest the beast have infected her blood somehow. There were none to be seen, of course. She was, therefore, left only with the unpalatable intelligence that she was, in fact, a wanton at heart; Winterly held court in that faithless heart every unremitting moment of each day.
With a grimace, she thought back on how she’d rushed to her room after alighting from the carriage that day, almost a sennight ago now, his raffish laughter mocking her as she’d fled. Thankfully, he’d accepted her refusal, for she’d feared for an instant that he might follow her there. She’d ventured downstairs but rarely since then, and only when she was assured of his being out. It was easy to avoid him at mealtimes, for he often dined out, keeping faithfully to his odd hours. And when Emma had been informed of his intentions to join them for dinner last night, she had had the foresight to develop a megrim—if Victoria could sham megrims over sunlight then she could do the same over a feigned cold.
She was a hen-hearted ninny, she knew that, but clever withal for thinking to catch a cold in that storm. How else was she to linger conveniently above stairs for almost a week. However, there was only so much convalescing she could do without arousing skepticism or calling for a physician. Trifling cold or no, Milli was right, it was time to gird her loins and face him.
“Shall I come to your room tonight, Emma?” Just the memory of those words left her atremble.
Emma ought to drag her sister home today, this minute! But what would she say to Milli? “My mind misgives me, Milli,” said she, mocking herself, “we are in a den of vampyres!” Ha! Milli was as like to laugh in her face as help Victoria pack her off to Bedlam.
There was nothing for it. She would stay and face Winterly and, in a week, go to the Midsummers Ball. For now, though, it was imperative that she busy herself with her book—there was nothing like a little vampirology to quell this perverse obsession with him.
After donning a morning gown, Emma settled into the comfortable sofa by her window and opened the volume at the place she’d marked with a piece of ribbon.
What she loved most about this book was the beautiful, morbid images that had been so carefully hand painted on each vellum leaf. One could appreciate the skill it had taken to create them all in turn, notwithstanding their grisly nature—depicting slaughterous wolves, long-fanged ghouls, and suchlike, except the page she was at now, which bore only a benign sort of gilded chalice. Benign if one presumed the contents within to be nothing more than red wine, nothing sinister in that. She only hoped, very dubiously withal, that it was only wine.
Beneath the image was written a strange sort of charade that instantly excited Emma, for she took great pleasure in a riddle.
From she who bears the grail’s mark
An ancient blood doth flow.
Light of life will draw the dark,
And stir the deathless eyes below;
Cup of life shall feed the night—
In red bathe fang and horn—
And quench immortal appetite.
From the grail is darkness borne.
“Grail?” she mused, tapping her chin. “What has the holy grail to do with vampyres.”
Finally, Emma gave up on deciphering the silly little charade and closed the book to wipe tiredly at her eyes.
The long, watchful nights seemed to have been for naught, no foul fiends appeared the least bit interested in stealing into her room before dawn. Well, the sun was up now and she was free to nap unmolested; dawn’s light brought with it a primal sense of safety, as that of a doe who knows the wolf has slunk back to his den to wait for dusk. But just to be sure, Emma applied a little Devil’s Bane before she surrendered herself to sleep, just for a little rest.
A little rest, however, turned into the better part of the day, and by late afternoon she was feeling much refreshed, ready to stand watch another night. What a nocturnal creature she herself had become. But that was to her advantage, wasn’t it?
She contemplated delaying her meeting with the master of Winterthurse for another night and told herself she would consider her next move over a glass of claret and some vittles. This small feast was shortly delivered by a wraithlike little undermaid and a footman. Wordlessly, they set to work tidying the room and lighting the fire. Emma endeavored to ignore these animated corpses by reposing in her chair to sketch.
She had brought only one ball gown with her, a pale blue crepe that would need to be pressed before the ball. It was nothing particularly grand, but it was all she had and it would have to do. She had yet to send to town for a mask, but there was still time enough for that; one could not go to a bal masqué without a mask.
Milli joined her again soon after the servants left her chambe
r. Her sister was looking beautiful, though still quite drawn, dressed in a white sarcenet with long sleeves. It seemed both sisters were languishing under the dark spell of this castle. “You’re in luck, my dear peahen,” said Milli.
“Am I?” Emma set her sketchbook down.
“May I see?” asked Milli, having ostensibly seen something of the face sketched therein.
“Certainly not.”
Milli flounced towards the door. “Then perhaps I shall not share my news after all.”
“Oh, go on,” said Emma, relenting with a sigh. She opened her sketchbook and passed it over for Milli’s perusal. A puckish grin spread slowly across Milli’s countenance. It was a testament to Emma’s proficiency that Milli so easily recognized the subject of her fancy.
“A fair likeness,” said Milli, “though you have made him look a trifle sinister.”
That was because something sinister smoldered beneath Markus Winterly’s handsome countenance. At least there was when one looked close enough, just before the light was extinguished. “Quid pro quo, sister—what have you to say about my being in luck?”
Milli handed the sketchbook back and helped herself to Emma’s wine. “I bear happy tidings, sister. You may safely shirk the guise of malady, for the dread Lord Winterly, his sister has just informed me, and all the menfolk have left the castle, and they shan’t return till the morning of the ball.”
“Are you sure?”
Milli sighed, doubtless lamenting the loss of Mr. Valko. “Quite sure. Some or other hunting trip with the dogs.” She gave a shudder. “Vicious beasts.”
“You speak as though you’ve first hand experience with the dogs.”
“You may say that. Oh, I have something for you.” Milli reached into her pocket and pulled out an epistle that was oddly folded, almost like a flat little parcel.
Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1) Page 21
