I borrowed money from Justin without telling him why and then I hired a hack again, not wanting our family carriage to be recognized on the street outside a bachelor’s lodgings. A hunter without a reputation is no hunter at all. How else will I gain admittance to the drawing rooms and ballrooms that swell with gossip nightly? I must think ahead. I must plan and prepare and do my duty. This is the litany that ran through my head as we rumbled down the roads, coachmen shouting at a muffin girl who stepped off the curb without looking, dogs barking, gentlemen laughing and lifting their hats to fine ladies.
It all seemed so ordinary. Just another summer afternoon in London. Behind the windows of Grosvenor Square and the attached neighborhoods, women were bathing with rose petal soap, maids were applying hot irons to ringlets or scrubbing stains out of petticoats. Valets were preparing silk waistcoats and inspecting cravats. Hostesses were scolding French chefs, housekeepers were running off their feet, girls were dreaming of waltzing.
Except behind one window, the window above my carriage door, a vampire slept.
I admit I sat in the carriage for an inordinately long time. The coachman tapped the roof impatiently. “Miss, are you well?”
“Quite well, thank you.” I slid out because there was nothing else to be done. “Please wait around the corner.”
He leered at me, thinking he knew exactly what I was doing. I knew perfectly well it was unacceptable for a lady to visit a man, never mind at his bachelor lodging. But desperate measures were called for, Evangeline. And I had a veil pulled down from my little riding hat to obscure my features. I wore a day dress of sprigged muslin, my favorite velvet reticule held three slender stakes, and I had a crossbow strapped to my back under my cloak. It was most uncomfortable. It wouldn’t do to call even more attention to myself in trousers. I did not know my way around the house and I was certain the proprietor would recognize me as an intruder. It was nearly supper time after all, with no shadows in which to hide.
I went down the lane and around the back. The stable hands were busy with the horses, the maids were in the kitchen or delivering tea and biscuits throughout the house. I slipped into a side entrance and hurried up the back stairs, careful to keep my face hidden. My heart was pounding like cannon fire against the barricade of my ribs. I felt sick.
But I was quite determined to put an end to Dante Cowan. Then perhaps my father might be proud of me and I might claim my rightful place within the League. What did it matter if Dante invaded my every thought, if he made me warm all over and short of breath. Sensibilities have no place in a hunter’s life.
I paced the hall, wondering which door would lead me to him. The wall sconces were well polished, the floors swept clean. I could smell lemon oil, could hear someone’s footsteps clattering up the stairs. All the doors looked the same.
I turned on my heel, frowning. This was a most pathetic and easily thwarted attempt to rid the world of evil. One of the doors opened and I whirled to face it.
“Hey, love, who are you looking for?”
I recognized Jared Peabody, even with his hair rumpled and his cravat askew. There was stubble on his jaw and a glass of red wine dangling negligently from his fingers.
I cleared my throat and tried to disguise my voice by making it husky. I probably sounded like I was coming down with a case of putrid throat. “Lord Cowan.”
His eyebrows rose with his surprise. “Doesn’t usually call for a lightskirt, that one.” I could hardly take umbrage at being thought a woman of easy virtue. Anyway, what did it matter now? “Lucky bastard has a way with the ladies, even the fancy ones.” He drained his glass with a exaggerated mournful sigh. “Ah, well, what’s a baronet to an earl’s son, eh? He’s down that way, next to the green parlor.”
He watched me walk away. I went slowly, pretending to fidget with the lace on my boot. I waited until I heard his door close before stopping in front of Dante’s chambers. I tried the handle but it was locked, as expected. He was a vampire, not an idiot.
I hurried into the parlor and stepped out onto the narrow balcony. Providence was finally smiling on me, for the rooms overlooked the back of the house and Dante had his own balcony, not three feet away. I had to discard my cloak and tie my skirts into knots on either side to free my legs. I slung my reticule securely against one shoulder and my crossbow over the other. It took some maneuvering but finally I was able to stand on the parlor’s iron railing and swing my other leg over onto the other balcony, until I was straddling them both. My dress was bunched at my hips, my face red with effort and I was grunting like a pig at her dinner. I am profoundly glad no one looked up to see me there. I must train harder for just such a circumstance in the future!
I was finally safely over onto the other balcony, my arm muscles straining. I have discovered I am not fond of heights at all. I was faintly dizzy for a moment and my knees felt odd, like jelly.
Dante’s balcony doors had been decorated with panes of glass at one time, but now they were covered with dark wood. I broke the lock though it took several attempts. The doors creaked slightly when they parted and I was wrapped in thick, dark velvet curtains. I peeked inside most carefully, saw the usual furniture clustered around the hearth, the clock on the mantle, the washstand made of mahogany and hung with clean linen towels. There was the front door and then another door, shut and locked, leading to the bedroom.
Everything was quiet. It wasn’t the usual quiet, when you know someone is in the house even if they are not being rambunctious in any way. This was different. You’ll think me dramatic but the quality of the silence was different when there is a human within without a beating heart, without breath of any kind. Shivers chased along my spine, like mice caught in the pantry.
I picked the bedroom lock with a hairpin and it was more obliging than the balcony lock had been. Inside, all was dark shadows. The curtains were even thicker and pinned close to the wall and another set of heavy, plum-colored brocade hung from the four-poster bed. He had created a cave of sorts, secure and private. It wasn’t enough to keep out a seasoned hunter but then, no one had a glimmer of suspicion that he was anything but a spoiled gentleman home from his travels abroad. He stayed out all night and slept the day away, for certain, but so did most of the others. It was easy enough not to be noticed, as long as one was seen at the right balls and soirees. I crept closer still and parted the curtains, loosening the silver pins.
Dante lay beyond, sprawled on his back, shirtless. His chest was pale as starlight. One arm was flung over his forehead, as if he feared the sunlight even in his dead sleep. His hair fell in soft curls over the white pillow and there was a faint scar on his throat, usually hidden by his starched collar points and cravat. They were puncture points, already shiny, as if they’d healed years ago. I knew them to be more recent than that.
It wasn’t his fault, you know. He is a victim, as surely as he is a monster.
The stake was heavy in my hand.
It might have helped if he were ugly in some way, if his mouth was cruel or he smelled like boiled cabbage. His mouth was wicked, sensual. And he smelled of sandalwood soap.
Most unfair.
You’ll think me dishonorable but I didn’t want to kill him, Evangeline. I am weak.
He lied to me. He prowls the night and drinks maidens dry and still I … love him. There is one way to cure such an affliction, such an illness. You must cut the disease from your body, like a parasite. It must not be allowed to sink into your flesh and your bones and alter your very self.
It must not.
I spent so long dithering and entranced by his dark beauty like a pea brain that I never noticed the setting of the sun. There was no change in the light, no lengthening of shadows to warn me. The room was too well secured for that.
There was only a sleeping vampire waking suddenly, near mad with hunger.
That is not an exaggeration, Evangeline. For a long moment I did not recognize him. His eyes went silver, his fangs sharpened and gleamed. He was famished and
I was there in my pretty dress like a pastry on a dessert tray. He reared up off the bed and I stumbled back, finger on the crossbow trigger. There was the rattle of metal and the creak of the bed frame as it protested his weight. He flung himself at me, snarling.
But he never touched me.
The chains on his one wrist, hidden under the pillow’s edge so I hadn’t noticed, pinned him down like a moth to a board. And I was the flame.
He nearly whimpered with thirst. Tears burned my eyes. He was suffering, Evie, and suffering keenly. No one ever mentions that part. But I will not forget it. Could not, even if I tried. Some inner strength had him going still, as suddenly as he had exploded into motion. The change was dizzying. So was the hoarse, almost tender, tone of his voice. “Rosalind?”
I nodded jerkily.
“Rosalind, you fool, go home!”
I lifted my chin. “Certainly not.”
He snarled again and lunged for the side table, iron chains rattling. He lifted a jug with both hands and drank greedily. As you must know, it was not wine. The smell of blood was coppery, disturbing. He drank it like it was the finest brandy, the warmest mulled cider on the coldest day. Despite myself, I was intrigued and lit one of the candles. The hiss of the wick catching and the burst of light had him hunching his shoulders, like an animal protecting his kill. When he’d drunk his fill, the jug was empty and sticky. He tossed it aside, wiping his mouth. When he turned back to look at me standing in the pool of candlelight, there was self-hatred in his eyes, now merely gray and not silver.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“I know,” I agreed.
“You’ve come to kill me?” He spread his arms wide, exposing his bare chest. I could see the line of his ribs, the muscles moving under his skin. “Go on then.”
He was mocking me. Or himself. I wasn’t exactly sure which.
“What makes you think I won’t kill you where you stand?” I demanded softly.
He looked amused. “Rosalind, you’re not the sort to stake an unarmed man, vampire or not.”
Devil take it, he was right. I didn’t know what to do, though it should have been painfully clear. Instead it was just painful.
“Since you won’t stake me, you might unlock me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I rather like you as you are.”
He half-smiled. “Please.”
I tilted my head, curious despite myself. “What would you do were I not here?”
“I knew you’d come,” he admitted. “But I chain myself every morning, just in case. I’ve warned the housekeeper and the maids not to disturb me, but I can’t rely on their discretion. Not when I first wake. I’m not … safe.”
“How do you set yourself free every night?”
“The key is there on the edge of the washstand.” I hadn’t noticed the second washstand, complete with shaving brush and mirror. “Once I’ve … drunk … I can reach it, but I’d rather not contort myself if I don’t have to. The landlord won’t be pleased if I break another bed.”
I eyed him warily and reached out to pluck the iron key off the nail. It swung on a white ribbon. I held it up, considering.
“I think not,” I said finally, sinking into a chair and crossing my ankles demurely. I wrapped the silk ribbon around my wrist. “I think, my lord”—I emphasized his title scathingly— “that I should rather like some answers from you.”
He watched me carefully, as if I was the dangerous one. “And would you believe those answers, Rosalind?”
“Let’s see, shall we?”
“Answer my question first.” He sat on the edge of the bed, smiled wickedly. “Did they give you the Helios-Ra tattoo?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I beg your pardon, how do you know about the League? Or our markings for that matter?” It still rankled that because I was a woman they’d refused to give me the sun mark that every other hunter received when they took their oath.
He read my expression correctly. “They didn’t, did they? Of course not. Did they tell you why?”
“Some tripe about the dangers if I should marry someone outside the League,” I replied, disgusted.
He snorted, equally disgusted. “And it never occurred to anyone that Helios-Ra men marry women who aren’t from a League family all the bloody time?”
“Exactly!” Is it any wonder I love him, Evie? “But wives aren’t supposed to ask questions,” I added acidly. I arched a brow at him, trying to appear more collected than I really was. “Now I really must insist, sir, that you tell me how you know so much about us?”
He folded his arms, looking remote and aristocratic. The candlelight made daggers of his cheekbones. He might have been made of moonlight and marble. “I was born into a hunter family, Rosalind.”
I gaped at him. “Impossible. There aren’t so many families in London that we don’t at least know them by name.”
“I spent most of my youth with my mother’s people in Scotland,” he explained. “They are the hunters, not my father, the earl. He doesn’t know about any of it.”
I exhaled forcefully, mind spinning. “I can scarcely believe it. Why did you never come to London and join the society? They have a house here after all, for the members. Well, for the male members,” I added bitterly.
“I was going to do just that,” he confirmed. “I’d planned to come down to the city with all manner of pomp and circumstance.”
“What happened?”
“I went to France on my Grand Tour,” he answered drily. “And I chose a singularly bad alley to stumble down very late one night.”
“But you survived.”
“If you’d call it that.”
“That’s why you never took your oath.”
He nodded sharply. “And why my mother kicked me out of her house and bid me disappear.”
I was trying not to feel compassion and sympathy for him but failing miserably. I’d lowered my crossbow without even realizing it. “What did your father say?”
“My father thinks we had a quarrel. My mother remains in Scotland and refuses to visit town while I am here. My father is perplexed but finds life easier without my mother and so is not questioning either of us too closely. This family rift suits him.”
Compassion or not, I couldn’t lose my focus entirely. “I’m sad for you, of course,” I said. “But it can hardly excuse you for trying to kill Lord Winterson.”
He snorted. “I saved his miserable life.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He jerked a hand through his hair. “You must. You’re the only one who could.”
“Explain it to me then.” I wasn’t convinced but I needed to hear the rest of his story.
“One of the hunters is a turncoat.”
That much I could vouch for. I’d overheard as much during the ball as I crouched behind the armoire at the top of the stairs.
“You don’t look shocked,” he remarked.
“I’m not. Do go on.”
“That turncoat has hired a vampire to murder Winterson, thus scapegoating every vampire in the city and sending the League into chaos.” He smiled solemnly, without an ounce of humor. “It would be a bloodbath.”
“And who is this person?”
“I cannot say. He hides his face. I would recognize his scent I suppose, but I’ve yet to come across it in a singular setting. Balls and theaters are too … crowded. The smell of blood and warm skin is staggering.” His fangs lengthened and I’m not even certain he noticed.
I noticed. I lifted the crossbow again warningly. He bowed his head, like any noble at court.
“And the vampire he hired?” I prodded.
“I killed him,” he answered darkly. “I won’t let him, or the rogue hunter, start a war.”
“At Vauxhall,” I murmured. “You staked him at Vauxhall.”
He met my eyes. “So it was you.”
“Yes.”
“You are beyond reckless,” he said.
“As I am proving with every second
I sit and listen to you.”
His smile was crooked this time, and intimate. Warmth tingled in my belly. I wagged the stake at him again. He chuckled before turning serious again. “I meant to lead the hunter into a trap, to reveal himself and still keep Winterson safe. I could only do that by pretending to at least try to assassinate Winterson. Even so, the traitor is more clever than I’d like. He sent someone else to do the same job.”
I stood up as regally and confidently as I could. “Then I must stop him.”
“You can’t stop him alone, Rosalind. Not even you.”
I hated that he was probably right.
“If you unlock me, I can help you.” His eyes glinted like iron.
I titled my head. “You might drain me dry right here on your fine rug.”
“You might put an arrow through my heart before the shackles are loose.”
“I might.”
But I knew I wouldn’t. I trusted him, despite everything. Don’t judge me too harshly, Evie.
I approached him cautiously, the key swinging from the ribbon at my wrist. “When do we go?”
“Tonight.”
June 25, 1815
Dearest Evangeline,
This is the last letter I will write.
You will scarcely believe what I am about to tell you. And hopefully, you shan’t believe any of the rumors you are sure to hear. I do not think you would ever believe me to be a traitor but I should hate to chance such a thing. Too many will curse my name as it is. No one would believe the truth even were they to hear it. Except you. No one must ever know what I am about to divulge. Not the League, not my friends, and not my family.
The annual summer hunters’ ball was held last night at the Helios-Ra town house headquarters. You will have heard all about it by now. It started as quite the lavish celebration. Dante and I were dressed in our finest. No one would ever have thought us anything but another fashionable couple courting through waltzes and champagne. Even at a hunters’ ball, no one suspected that the hairpins I wore were ebony and sharpened to perfect killing points. They will insist on seeing me as a willful child and nothing else, I see that now.
Vampire Bites: A Taste of the Drake Chronicles Page 12
