“How can you say that when you’ve sacrificed so much to save your brother?”
“Because I haven’t saved him,” he replied grimly. “Not yet.”
“Adrian hasn’t just been hunting vampires for the past five years,” Julian said. “He’s been studying their lore as well. He was the one who discovered that there may be a way to restore my soul.”
“How is that possible?” Caroline asked.
Julian’s eyes glittered with excitement. “If I destroy the vampire who sired me and retrieve what he stole from me, I can live again. We have to find and capture Duvalier, then I have to be the one to drain him dry.”
“Drain him dry?” Caroline swallowed. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
Julian nodded. “I’m afraid I’ll have to give up my fastidious eating habits for at least one meal.”
“But what if someone else destroys him first? Will your soul be lost forever?”
Adrian exchanged a look with his brother before saying, “Not necessarily. But it would make things extraordinarily more difficult because Julian’s soul and all the souls that Duvalier has stolen in the past five years would revert back to the vampire who sired Duvalier, only making him more powerful. And although we have a few prospects, we’re not entirely certain who that was.”
Caroline gave her head a little shake, plainly still struggling to sift through everything they were telling her. “So vampires aren’t just creatures who drink blood to survive. They have no souls of their own, but they hoard the souls of those they convert into their own kind.”
“That’s right,” Adrian confirmed. “They feed on them and grow stronger with every soul they steal.”
Wrapping her arms around herself, Caroline hugged back a shiver. “So Duvalier has been growing more powerful all these years.”
“More powerful, but not invincible,” Adrian said grimly. “We’ve spent the last five years tracking the bastard all over the world—Rome, Paris, Istanbul, the Carpathians. We’ve kept him on the run, but he’s always managed to stay one step ahead of us. Until now.”
“Now?” Caroline echoed. “Why now?”
Adrian reached for Caroline, no longer able to resist putting his hands on her. Especially since it might be for the last time. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tenderly stroking the creamy satin of her cheeks. “Because we finally found something that he couldn’t resist.”
Julian propped one boot on the wall and began to buff at an invisible scuff with his handkerchief, looking as if he desperately wished he could turn into a bat and fly away.
Caroline shook her head in bewilderment. “But what could possibly tempt such a monster to…?”
Adrian could only watch helplessly as her bewilderment began to harden into horror.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, the blood visibly draining from her face. “It’s Vivienne, isn’t it? Aunt Marietta told me that the first time you saw her, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost. Larkin tried to warn me that she bore a striking resemblance to Eloisa, but I wouldn’t listen. That’s why you were coaching her on how to wear her hair. The cameo…the ball gown…they belonged to Eloisa, didn’t they? Why, I’ll wager she even wore white roses in her hair and played the harp, didn’t she?”
“Like an angel,” Adrian reluctantly confessed.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Caroline wrenched herself away from him. This time when he reached for her, she recoiled violently from his touch. “Dear Lord,” she breathed, backing away from him. “You just wanted to use my sister for bait. You never cared for her at all.”
“Of course I care for her! She’s a very dear girl!”
“Dear enough to lure that monster out of hiding for you? Dear enough to be led like a lamb to the slaughter?” Caroline’s voice rose, cracking on a hoarse note. “You gave her a dead girl’s dress! Did you intend for it to become her shroud?”
Adrian shook his head, desperate to erase the anguish from Caroline’s eyes. “I swear to you on my life that I would never let any harm come to her. I wouldn’t have approached her at all if I didn’t believe I was powerful enough to protect her.”
“The same way you protected Eloisa?”
Adrian closed his eyes briefly. “I’m much stronger now than I was then. I’ve spent every day since she died honing my skills, both physical and mental. Even then, if I’d have realized sooner that she was in mortal danger, I might have been able to save her.”
“But you didn’t save her, did you?”
Adrian had no defense against that blow. Caroline whirled around and started back across the bridge, her fists clenched with determination. This time Julian made no move to stop her.
“Where are you going?” Adrian called after her.
“To tell Vivienne all about your ugly little scheme.”
“Are you going to tell her about us as well?”
Caroline froze in mid-stride. If not for the wind stirring the folds of his cloak and sifting its fingers through the moonlit silk of her hair, Adrian might have believed she’d been turned to stone.
She slowly turned to face him. It wasn’t the contempt in her eyes that cut the deepest. It was the longing, the regret. Her voice was soft, yet as clear as crystal. “Just when I was starting to believe that you weren’t a monster, you had to go and prove me wrong.”
Although he wanted nothing more than to go after her, to drag her into his arms and beg her to understand, Adrian could only stand and watch as Caroline walked off the bridge, taking what was left of his battered heart with her.
Caroline slipped silently into her sisters’ chamber. After hours of weeping, her tears had finally dried up, leaving her ravaged face feeling as numb as her heart.
She had expected to find her sisters nestled in their respective bedchambers, but they had both fallen asleep in the sitting room. Portia was curled up in an overstuffed wing chair, her nightcap sliding down over one eye, while Vivienne was sprawled on the chaise in front of the hearth, her cheek pillowed on her folded hands and a faded quilt tucked around her. The waning fire cast a cozy glow over their sleep-flushed faces. Judging from the pair of half-empty tea-cups and the china plate littered with biscuit crumbs resting on the hearth, Portia had made good on her promise to keep Vivienne occupied for the evening.
Caroline was still reeling from learning that Julian was a vampire and Adrian was a vampire hunter. But as shocking as those disclosures had been, they couldn’t compare to the most astonishing revelation of all: Adrian didn’t want Vivienne—he wanted her.
For years she’d been stuck playing the prince in the theatricals they put on for their parents just because she was older and taller than her sisters. Now she’d finally found a man willing to cast her in the role of princess only to make the bitter discovery that there would be no happy ending for the two of them.
Adrian had proved himself to be as ruthless as Duvalier. Duvalier might steal souls, but Adrian had slipped past all of her well-honed defenses to steal her heart. She had to close her eyes against a wave of yearning as she remembered those moments in his arms, in his bed—the only ones she would ever know.
She drifted deeper into the room, her slippers whispering over the Aubusson carpet. Like an honored guest at a tea party, the box containing the ball gown had been left open and propped in a sitting position on the damask-draped sofa, where it could best be admired. Just a few short hours ago she had been as besotted with its beauty as her sisters. Now the mere thought of it touching Vivienne’s skin made her want to shudder. If the dress was no more than a shroud, then the box was a coffin, ready to be nailed shut with all of her dreams inside.
Yet even now, something about the gown’s radiance still proved irresistible. Caroline reluctantly trailed her fingertips over the shimmering tulle, wondering about the girl who had once worn it. Had her heartbeat quickened every time Adrian walked into a room? Had she ached with longing every time he gave her one of his lazy smiles? Had she believed he would rush in and rescue he
r up until that very moment when she met her unthinkable fate at the hands of a man she had once trusted but never loved?
Caroline withdrew her hand from the gown, turning back to her sisters. It seemed only yesterday that they had been little girls, all scraped knees and flyaway curls. Now they teetered on the verge of being women grown, yet still their lush lips curved into wistful half smiles as they dreamed of exquisite gowns and masquerade balls and handsome princes who would rescue them from every peril.
She reached for Vivienne’s shoulder, determined to shake her from those dreams and take her away from this place before they turned into nightmares. But something stilled her hand.
She could still see Adrian standing on that bridge, the wind blowing through his hair. Even though he wasn’t a man who begged, she had seen the entreaty in his eyes. She thought of the years he’d spent hunting Duvalier and other monsters like him, the enormity of the sacrifices he’d made to protect his brother’s secret. While other men of his age and station in life were dancing until dawn, gambling away their fortunes, and seducing married women, he’d spent the last five years exiled from his own kind, living in the shadows just like the beasts he hunted.
What would she do if their situations were reversed? She gazed at Portia as she gently stroked Vivienne’s hair. To what lengths would she go to spare her sisters’ lives? To save their very souls?
She had believed her tears were all dried up, but she’d been wrong. She could feel them stinging her eyes as she realized exactly what she would do.
Anything.
Anything at all.
Chapter Seventeen
“What do you mean I can’t go to the ball? How could you be so cruel?”
Caroline gazed down at Portia, steeling herself against the wounded outrage in her sister’s eyes. It felt doubly cruel to deliver this blow while standing in the middle of Portia’s bedchamber surrounded by a colorful swirl of petticoats, ribbons, and lace. Garbed only in her chemise and pantalettes, and with her dark hair bound up in curling rags, Portia looked all of twelve years old. The open box of rice powder glimmering on the vanity might have been fairy dust, just waiting to transform an awkward young girl into a lovely young woman on the night of her very first ball.
“I’m not being cruel,” Caroline replied. “I’m simply being practical. You’ve yet to be introduced at court, so you’ve never had a proper coming out. It simply wouldn’t do for you to appear at a ball attended by some of the most illustrious members of the ton with your hair up and your hemline down.”
“But I’m seventeen years old!” Portia wailed. “If I don’t come out soon, it will be time for me to go back in again!” Her eyes narrowed to accusing slits. “And besides, you’ve never had a proper coming out and you’re going to the ball.”
“I have no choice. Your sister requires a chaperone.”
Portia glanced frantically around the room, casting about for some new argument to sway her. “You don’t have to be afraid that I’ll embarrass you. One of the maids helped Vivienne and I cobble together a perfectly respectable ball gown from my old Sunday frock.” She swept the familiar blue-striped muslin off the back of a chair and held it against her chest for Caroline to admire, giving her a hopeful smile. “Isn’t it lovely? We even stitched on a new sash and an extra layer of flounces to hide how much my bosom has grown in the past year. And just look at this!” She snatched a papier-mâché half-mask decorated with a pert pink nose and long feline whiskers from the vanity and held it up to her face. “Julian found it for me in one of the castle attics.”
Caroline stiffened. She desperately wanted to believe that Julian had truly rejected his destiny, but as she remembered the darkness that had conquered his eyes and the glint of the moonlight on his fangs, she felt her trepidation rising.
Plucking the mask from Portia’s hand, Caroline tossed it back to the vanity. “It’s all quite lovely and I’m sure you’ll have the chance to wear it one day very soon. But not tonight.”
Her smile shifting to a stormy scowl, Portia pitched the dress on the bed in a careless heap. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with you. You haven’t been yourself since you went looking for Lord Trevelyan yesterday. One minute you’re convinced he might be the devil incarnate. The next you’re telling me it was all some sort of silly mistake.”
Caroline tugged a length of lace from the vanity and twined it around her finger, avoiding Portia’s eyes. “What I told you was that the viscount and I had cleared up all of our misunderstandings. He’s no vampire and I’ve decided that he’ll make a perfectly fine husband.”
“For Vivienne?” Portia folded her arms over her chest. “Or for you?”
Feeling her cheeks flood with color, Caroline jerked up her head to meet her sister’s defiant gaze. She should have anticipated this. Despite the difference in their ages, she’d always been closer to Portia than Vivienne. Which made it doubly difficult to lie to her now.
“For Vivienne, of course, you silly little goose! I don’t know why you have to indulge your imagination with all of these romantic fantasies when you know nothing of what really goes on between a man and a woman.”
“If you don’t let me go to the ball, I may never find out! Please, Caroline!” Portia clasped her hands together, her beseeching gaze winsome enough to melt a heart of stone. “When I told Julian how the three of us used to practice our dancing in the parlor at Edgeleaf, he promised to save me a waltz.”
As she pictured her sister whirling around the ballroom in Julian’s arms, his gleaming teeth only inches from the vulnerable curve of her throat, Caroline’s trepidation swelled into full blown panic.
Before she could stop herself, she had grabbed Portia by the arm and given her a sharp shake. “You’re not to set foot outside of this room tonight, young lady. If I find out you did, I’ll send you back to Edgeleaf in the morning and you’ll never lay eyes on Julian Kane again. Or any other man!”
Wrenching herself out of Caroline’s grasp, Portia began to back away from her, tears swimming in her eyes. “Why, you’re nothing but a selfish, hateful creature! You just want me to be a dried-up old spinster like you so you won’t be left all alone when Vivienne marries the man you love!” Turning, she flung herself facedown on the bed and burst into heart-wrenching sobs.
Only yesterday, Portia’s words might have cut her heart to the quick. But not today. Caroline knew her sister was as tenderhearted as she was impulsive. Portia would soon regret her unkind words, if she didn’t already.
Although she wanted nothing more than to sink down on the bed and rub Portia’s shoulders until their violent shuddering subsided, Caroline forced herself to turn and walk away.
“I’m sorry, pet,” she whispered, gently drawing the bedchamber door shut behind her. “Perhaps someday you’ll understand.”
She flinched as something heavy that sounded suspiciously like a boot struck the closed door behind her, warning her that someday might not come as soon as she had hoped.
“A maid brought me your note. You wished to see me?”
Caroline slowly pivoted on the vanity bench to find Vivienne standing in the doorway of the tower, looking absolutely radiant in the viscount’s gifts.
The maiden’s blush of the ball gown’s tulle skirt coaxed out the roses in her cheeks, while the cameo nestled between the swell of her breasts only served to emphasize their own ivory perfection. The everpresent white rose was tucked behind her right ear. On second glance, Caroline decided that her sister looked a bit too radiant. Her eyes were too bright, her cheeks too flushed. As Caroline watched, one of Vivienne’s pale, slender hands darted nervously to her hair, smoothing the cascade of golden curls that had been gathered at the crown of her head with a pink satin ribbon and adorned with a plume of white ostrich feathers.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Vivienne squinted at Caroline’s velvet dressing gown and braids in obvious bewilderment. “It’s nearly time to go downstairs for the ball.”
Caroline rose f
rom the bench, feeling curiously calm as she glided toward her sister. “Don’t worry. There’s ample time. Is Portia still sulking?”
Vivienne sighed. “I haven’t heard a peep from her room in over an hour. I do wish you’d relent and at least let her come down for one dance.”
“Nothing would please me more, but it simply wouldn’t be proper.” Or prudent, Caroline thought grimly, once again picturing her little sister being swept around the ballroom in Julian’s embrace. “Portia’s young. I’m confident that she’ll recover from this dire tragedy. By next week she probably won’t even remember why she was so angry at me. Besides, this is supposed to be your special night, not hers.”
Vivienne pressed a hand to her stomach. “That must be why I feel as if I’ve swallowed an entire flock of bats.”
“I had the feeling you might be a little anxious, so I rang for something to soothe your nerves.”
With her back to Vivienne, Caroline poured a cup of tea from the tray on the table next to the bed, her hand perfectly steady. Her fear that Vivienne might refuse her offer vanished as her sister snatched the cup from her hand and downed its contents in three grateful gulps.
“I can’t imagine why I’m so jittery.” Vivienne held out the cup in a plea for more. “It’s not as if I’ve never attended a masquerade ball before.”
“But you’ve never before received a proposal from a wealthy viscount.” Caroline gently removed the cup from her sister’s hand and replaced it on the tray next to the open bottle of laudanum.
It took Vivienne less than a minute to sink down on the edge of the bed, a glazed expression slowly replacing the feverish glitter in her eyes.
She startled Caroline by seizing her hand and tugging her down on the bed next to her. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me, Caro?” Her lush lower lip began to tremble as she searched Caroline’s face.
“For what?” Caroline asked, baffled by her sister’s plea. Especially when she should be the one begging for forgiveness.
After Midnight Page 18
