She only just remembered to breathe on the incisions and lick the wound clean. He nodded and wiped her chin with his thumb. “Thank you,” she said, confused. Was that all she would be allowed?
“Good.”
“Luke, is this some sort of game we play, that I speak, and you answer with one word? I assure you I am able to talk at great length, but such an unequal conversation may bore me. I—”
“Let me explain, Jane. You are to dine upstairs tonight in company, and I need the edge to be taken from your hunger so that you do not shame me or yourself.”
“You mean, I have to drink from someone I do not know in the drawing room? In front of everyone?”
“Oh, you’ll know the person quite well by the time you have finished, I should think.” He smiled. “Or as much as you care to. I assure you no one will take much notice; the others will be busy too.”
“But—that’s shocking.” She had a fairly good idea what sorts of activities would keep them busy.
“So shocking you are en sanglant again.” He pulled two chairs out from the wall and placed them together. “Sit.”
He took the chair next to her and undid another button on the ruffled placket of his shirt, tilting his head away from her. “Do be careful not to get blood on my shirt, Jane.”
“You want me to bite your neck?” She was appalled, ravenous, afraid.
“Oh, yes—yes, if you please,” he breathed, in a parody of genteel surrender, and winked at her. “Now, gently, Jane, do not chomp at me, if you please. Put your lips on my neck first. Ah.” He gave a long sigh.
“You are laughing at me.”
“No, I assure you I am not.” He had achieved full en sanglant; his eyes were bright and his scent filled her nostrils.
“Where do I put my hand?”
“What a question to ask a gentleman. First, allow me to place your fan aside, so. On my other shoulder will do quite nicely, although if you wish to—”
“I believe you are not entirely indifferent to my intentions.” She blew gently on his neck and saw him shiver.
“And why should I not enjoy it, my dear Jane? I find bearleading to be a tedious occupation. I deserve some reward.”
She gazed at his neck, at the pale skin with a hint of stubble where his razor had missed a spot. She had never been so close to a gentleman before—but of course she had, when William had created her, although she remembered it only as a swirl of confusing, startling pleasure.
“Don’t be afraid,” Luke said. “You decide when you are to bite. Slowly. Allow your canines to sink in; it’s easier than a wrist, the skin is softer. Ah, very good.”
She whimpered as his blood flowed onto her tongue, a sweet flood of power, before pulling away. She breathed on his neck, licking the last drops. “I can’t drink any more from you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re so sad.”
He grinned and wrapped an arm around her waist. “On the contrary, my dear, I am quite cheered at the moment.”
“Consider the gravitas of your position as my Bearleader, sir.”
“You are quite right. I am behaving disgracefully.” He released her, and pulled his shirt front straight.
“Not a drop spilled,” she said, cheered by her success.
“Excellent. Now remember that if the person is excited, which invariably he will be, the blood will pulse. Take care not to choke, and pray he has not eaten onions recently.” He handed her her fan.
“How will I know when to stop?”
“You’ll know. If you seem a little too, ah, enthusiastic, I shall let you know. I shall be nearby.” He rose and, pulling his coat on, walked to the sideboard, where a decanter of wine and wineglass stood. “Some Madeira? Now, others will be dining when you enter the drawing room. Pray do not express too much interest; it will be considered excessively vulgar. In particular you must avoid meeting the eye of one who dines, for he or she will consider it a request to join. Since you are a fledgling it would be monstrously improper of you to solicit an invitation thus, and you should await for one senior to you to make a proper introduction—”
“Good heavens!” cried Jane, nearly choking on her wine. “It reminds me of a Basingstoke assembly!”
“As I was saying: if, on the other hand, another of us invites you to join, it is considered proper to accept, for it is a high honor. If you wish to decline, you may do so by bowing your head and dropping a curtsy.”
“And at what point should I remove my gloves?” Jane asked, struggling to keep a straight face.
Luke shot her a stern glance. “If one of the mortals requests you dine from him or her, you must be careful they do not ask to stir up trouble between us. Some of our group are jealous of mortals they consider their own.” He added, “Unless it is Ann, for she is with the household, although Clarissa tends to regard her as her property. Apparently Ann has a certain way of darning stockings that is most rare.”
“I see,” Jane said, again suppressing a smile. “But she does not darn stockings while one dines upon her, I think.”
“Indeed not.” Luke took her empty wineglass and held the dining-room door open. “Let us proceed to your debut among the Damned. By the by, George told me he very much enjoyed meeting you. It is good for him to have the company of another fledgling.”
“I must admit, I liked him better than I should have expected.”
“Oh, he’s a good enough fellow.”
They started up the stairs.
“How is Margaret? Is she recovered?”
“She is well enough, I believe.” Luke’s voice was cold and formal once more, his playfulness gone. He walked ahead of her into the drawing room, and a woman ran forward and grasped her hands, leaning to whisper in his ear. He put her aside and gestured with his head for Jane to follow him.
The woman gazed at Jane with curiosity, but most of the other occupants of the room, intimately twined together in groups of two or three, gave her only the most cursory of glances. She was careful to keep her gaze modestly lowered. To her relief she could not see William although she knew that almost certainly he was nearby.
“Luke bearleads her,” she heard someone say. “It is most good of him to take her on.”
“Ah, she is the one who fancies William is the one who created her. She aims high.” An insinuating laugh.
She raised her head and followed Luke across the room. He stood with someone who looked familiar, although it took her a moment to recognize him in evening clothes and not regimentals. He was one of the few men in the drawing room who wore a neckcloth. He bowed low over her hand. “Miss Austen, the pastrycook. Your servant, ma’am.”
“Colonel Poulett! How delightful to meet you again. Do you come to talk tactics with Luke?”
“Heavens, no, ma’am. I abide by the terms of the truce.” He winked at her. “But Venning suggested I offer my services to you.”
“Your services?” she repeated.
“Indeed, ma’am.” He cleared his throat. “That is, my blood.”
Her canines shot out and Luke glared at her.
“I beg your pardon,” she muttered, restoring her canines to their normal state.
“If you’ll have me, that is, ma’am. When I was younger I frequently indulged myself, but of late … Well, Luke thought you might be more comfortable with me rather than one of the others.” He smiled, but she could see he was ill at ease. “Do have me, ma’am.”
“That is most considerate,” Jane said. “Shall we sit? You realize, I hope, that I am somewhat inexperienced, but Luke will be nearby to make sure no harm comes to you.”
Poulett threw up his hands. “Good heavens, ma’am, I trust you implicitly. You are a gentlewoman!”
“And a vampire.” She sat on a nearby sofa and after a moment’s hesitation Poulett sat next to her and untied his neckcloth. He unbuttoned his coat, waistcoat, and the placket of his shirt with a determined, if not enthusiastic air. Jane sighed. Was she destined to drink from reluctant mil
itary men? She wished she had not thought of the French soldier at that moment.
She leaned forward and placed a hand on his wrist. His pulse hurtled and she sensed the pain and humiliation that lay beneath his stoic façade—the burden of his defeat and the men for whose deaths he had been responsible.
“I trust I may provide you with some solace, sir. Will you not call me Jane?”
“My pleasure, ma’am—Jane, that is. My name is John.”
She laid her fan on the sofa and slipped her hand inside the collar of his shirt, overwarm skin and rough hair. She’d never touched a man so, never even thought of daring to slide her hand below the cambric of a shirt. His heart thudded in time with the pulse in his neck. His hair was touched with gray and curled into the back of his neck and over his ears.
She leaned into him, placing her other hand on his shoulder, and he took a deep, sudden breath. I have power over him. She touched her tongue to his neck and to the taste of sweat and bay rum, wine, and tobacco. Her canines sank into his neck and the blood pulsed onto her tongue, a rich tide of pleasure and strength.
He groaned and placed his hand on hers, large and rough, the hand of a soldier, as she drank his sadness and defeat away.
Chapter 10
Jane woke on the sofa where she had settled after dancing for several hours and reflected on how she had spent the previous night. In fact she had enjoyed herself thoroughly. She wished she could tell Cassandra about it, but that was impossible. What would Cassandra say if she knew her sister had languished in the arms of a gentleman she barely knew, and if that wasn’t bad enough, had drunk his blood to their great mutual enjoyment? She didn’t know which would shock her sister more.
On the other hand, there had been some very interesting gowns and headdresses, and she had danced and flirted with several partners, including Poulett, who was shy and grateful and apt to tread on her toes. To her relief there was no sign of him, for meeting in cold daylight after the intimacy of the previous night could only be awkward.
“Devil take it, daylight,” someone else grumbled; so at least one of the household was awake.
“I’m hungry,” said a familiar, plaintive voice.
“Stow it, George.”
“But I am. I’m a big fellow, you know.” The Prince of Wales loomed over her. “Good morning, Jane.”
“Good morning.” She sat and looked around the room and wished she hadn’t. Opposite her on a sofa, Luke lay asleep between two women whose gowns were more off than on and wearing little else besides. Clarissa sprawled close by on a pile of pillows with three men clad only in cotton drawers.
“Messy, ain’t it?” said the heir to the throne with great cheerfulness. He walked over to the fireplace and tugged the bellpull to summon a servant. “They—we, that is—tend to favor sleeping in heaps. You’ll learn to fight today, you know. I want a cup of tea.”
Jane struggled to connect these seemingly unrelated sentences. Someone on the floor beside the sofa sighed and she looked down to see a young man who wore only a cushion on his lap. Really, she should be a little more shocked, should she not?
“I’m Jack, miss,” he said.
“Good morning, Jack.”
He blinked long beautiful eyelashes at her. “I need to be revived, if you please, miss, for I have to get to work.”
“To work?”
“Yes, miss, I’m a stonemason. I repaired an angel on the Abbey. It’s the one on the bottom on the right-hand side.”
“Stop chattering and get your bottom down to the kitchen, where it belongs,” a masculine voice growled. “And for God’s sake put some clothes on.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
After some scuffling around, Jack emerged more or less dressed. He bowed in a vague sort of way to the room at large, and left.
George gave a cry of triumph and pounced on a half-naked woman, rolling her aside to pluck a gaudily embroidered waistcoat from the floor. “I knew I’d left it somewhere. I’m going downstairs for some tea.”
Jane rose and followed him, stepping carefully between sleeping bodies sprawled on pillows.
“One thing puzzles me,” she said to George as they went down the stairs. “Everyone seems to tolerate daylight quite well.”
“If you stay up all night you sleep most of the day. I never go to bed before four, generally. It’s thought to be vulgar to be seen in daylight, that’s all. I daresay they—we—might have fried in sunlight once upon a time, but that’s long past. Of course, some of them don’t sleep at all, but they’re old.” He opened the door to the dining room. “Good morning, sir.”
William, impeccably dressed, sat at the dining-room table, drinking tea with a slender young man. He nodded at George and ignored Jane. She had not expected him to be other than indifferent to her. Could he feel her misery at his coldness? She suspected that he could and attempted to block off her feelings from him.
The other man, dressed in an elegant dark blue coat and tan buckskins, rose. Glossy dark brown curls tumbled over his brow, and his face was just saved from prettiness by a bumpy nose. “Why, Your Highness—George—it’s true—you’re one of us!”
“George!”
“You cannot both be called George, it’s damned confusing,” William said. “Try numbers.”
“I may anticipate myself by taking on the number four,” the Prince of Wales proclaimed.
“But damn it, we can’t find two more Georges for your sake; your head will be even more swelled than usual,” said the other with easy familiarity. “And which number would I take? But won’t you introduce me?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” the future King said. “This is Jane. She’s a lady novelist, you know.”
“Indeed? Your servant, ma’am. George Brummell.” He looked at Jane with interest. “What do you write?”
“Very little, at present.”
“Of course, these times are not conducive to literature. George, go and find Luke, there’s a good fellow.”
Jane had been trying to adapt herself to the laxness of life among the Damned, but seeing the Prince of Wales ordered to fetch someone as though he were a lackey was astonishing, far more shocking than the casual nudity and debauchery she had witnessed upstairs. Even more surprising was the enthusiasm with which George left the room on his errand. She stole another look at George Brummell, admiring his pale, handsome face, and thought he might well be much older and more important than she had at first thought.
“Well?” William said.
She stared back at him and poured herself a cup of tea she didn’t want, pleased that her hands did not shake. “Good morning to you, sir.”
As she left the room she met Luke and George coming down the stairs, Luke rubbing his hair and yawning. “Ridiculously early, but I hope there’s some good news from London. What are you doing down here, Jane?”
“I invited her,” George said, and muttering again of cups of tea, returned to the dining room.
“You did quite well last night,” Luke said.
“I’m gratified I did not cause you any embarrassment.”
“I too.” He paused. “You may return to your family. Oh, heavens, don’t look at me like that. You will return, of course. Clarissa will call on you later this morning to invite you to take the waters and you’ll return here. We must teach you to fight with the others, after all.”
“Very well. Luke, I don’t understand. What can we do that the militia cannot?”
He smiled. “We are not just a handful of the Damned in Bath. There are thousands of us all over the country, fighting the French, and we do not need the Royal Mail to keep us informed. We are superior at night, curfews mean nothing to us, and by nature we are stronger and faster than any well-trained soldiers—even a fledgling such as you. What’s wrong?”
“When … when first I met William I accused him—us, the Damned—of being merely irresponsible and interested only in self-gratification.”
“And so we are,” Luke said. “We do
this for our own amusement and because the royalty of England, sorry clods though the present lot may be, have been kinder to us than the revolutionaries of France.”
“I see.” She lingered while Luke tapped one impatient foot. “I don’t want to go home. Well, it is not my home, but I hate being there. I hate deceiving my family.”
“The choice was yours,” Luke said.
“I see I am to get little sympathy from you.” Greatly daring, she extended her canines at him.
He laughed. “I’ll send a footman with you. Au revoir, my dear jane.”
“Every morning I wake and for a few seconds all is well.” Cassandra stabbed her needle into her embroidery. “And then I remember that England is invaded and you are unwell and there is a French officer here in our house—well, not our house, but our aunt and uncle’s house, and we don’t even know if they live or not—and we cannot send letters. And I must keep my spirits up because maybe that will help Mama. At least you have some friends.”
“Fellow invalids,” Jane said. “We have the most tedious conversations about our illnesses. Where is the Frenchman?”
“Out. He’s out most of the time. He did not dine with us last night but came home late, and we were glad for there was more food for us. Oh, Jane, you look so thin and pale.”
“I am well enough.” What Cassandra interpreted as a sign of illness Jane recognized as the pallor and lean beauty of a vampire. She stole a look at her reflection in the mirror that hung over the morning-room fireplace; sure enough, her cheeks, formerly round and pink, inspiring her brothers to compare her to a well-fed dormouse, were now hollow, her cheekbones sharp. Was there a slight fuzziness in her reflection?
She reached for the teapot. “I’ll take Mama some tea. Where is Papa?”
“Out trying to get us a pass to go home, for when you are well, that is.”
Jane laid a hand on her sister’s, bracing herself against the wash of emotions. “I am sorry. I feel you deal with everyone’s distress.”
“I do. And the worst of it is, Jane, that I am so bored!” Cassandra gave a little gulping sob. “It is a dreadful thing to say, for this is a terrible time, and I daresay we shall tell our grandchildren of how we lived through this historic event; in fact, we shall bore them to death, I am sure. But everything is so wretched, and the servants complain to me interminably of how difficult it is to buy food, and I hate cooking, but I must do something.”
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