When she glanced back over her shoulder again, the snow and ash was falling on an empty walk. Julian was gone.
Eighteen
Cuthbert nestled deeper into his bed, sighing with contentment. With a heated brick wrapped in flannel to warm his toes and the flaming plum pudding he’d eaten at supper still warming his belly, he was looking forward to a long cozy nap on this cold winter night.
He was nearly asleep when something began to tap on his bedchamber window. The snow must have turned to sleet, he thought drowsily, rolling over and drawing the blankets up to his chin. The tapping continued, not only persistent, but oddly rhythmic.
He abruptly sat up in the bed, the tassel of his nightcap flopping over one eye. Perhaps the weight of the snow had simply snapped a branch and set it to smacking against his windowpane. Knowing there was only one way to find out, he parted the bed curtains and reluctantly slid his feet to the cold wooden floor.
His heart settling into an uneasy rhythm, he crept toward the window. The waning firelight cast peculiar shadows on the wall, making even the familiar shapes of wardrobe and washstand look strange and forbidding. He was nearly to the window when he caught a glimpse of a winged shadow out of the corner of his eye. He whirled around, but everything in the room looked exactly as it had.
Shaking his head at his own fancy, he turned back to the window. Julian was perched on the narrow ledge outside, peering directly at him.
Letting out a high-pitched shriek, Cuthbert stumbled backward. He fumbled inside the ruffled neck of his nightshirt, wrapping his shaking hand around the piece of jewelry he’d obtained for just such an eventuality. Snapping the chain with a desperate twist, he whipped out the silver crucifix and thrust it toward the window.
Julian recoiled, letting out a disgusted hiss. “Oh, for God’s sake, Cubby,” he said just loudly enough to be heard through the window, “put that thing in a drawer and open the bloody window. I’m freezing my ass off out here.” When Cuthbert only added a theatrical flourish, he sighed and rolled his eyes. “You don’t need the crucifix anyway. I can’t come into the room unless you invite me.”
“Oh,” Cuthbert said, mildly disappointed that both his dramatic gesture and the two pounds he’d spent on the bauble had been wasted.
He obediently went over and dropped it into a drawer of the wardrobe before returning to edge open the window a crack. “So why have you come here? Did your master send you?”
Julian frowned. “My master?”
“You know—the Dark Prince. Lucifer. Beelzebub.”
Julian glared at him. “Although I suspect I’ll be making the gentleman’s acquaintance sooner than I’d like, we’re not on the friendliest of terms right now.”
“Then why have you come?”
“If you’ll invite me in, I’ll tell you.”
Cuthbert eyed him suspiciously. “How do I know this isn’t just a trick so you can sink your fangs into my throat and suck every drop of blood from my poor, helpless body?”
Julian’s hand shot through the narrow opening, catching him by the ruffled collar of his nightshirt and jerking him back through the window until they were nose to nose. “Because it would be much quicker to just drag you out this window and drop you three stories to the ground below. With all your bones broken, I doubt you’d be able to struggle very hard when I was sucking the life out of you.”
As Julian released the choking pressure on his nightshirt, Cuthbert said with withering politeness, “Very well. Please do come in.”
“How on earth did you get up here?” he inquired, backing away as Julian came clambering over the ledge.
“Trust me—you’d rather not know,” Julian replied, dusting the snow off of the shoulders of his shirt.
“What happened to your coat?”
“I gave it to a pretty girl. Would you have expected anything less of me?”
“I suppose not.”
Cuthbert leaned out the window and peered both ways down the empty street before drawing it closed. “You’re lucky no one saw you arrive. Wallingford and his hired guns have been following me everywhere for the past few days.”
“Why is that?”
“From what I can gather, he’s hoping you’ll lure me back into your snare and he can catch us at something that would warrant a trip to either prison or the gallows. Rumor has it that he’s absolutely furious because your brother paid off all your gambling debts. He’s also obsessed with the notion that you’re intent upon some new lechery now that you’re living beneath the same roof as the lovely and chaste Miss Portia Cabot.”
Julian averted his eyes, his lean face grim. “Well, he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Because she’s no longer chaste or you’re no longer living beneath the same roof?”
In lieu of replying, Julian simply gave the rumpled cuffs of his shirt a practiced flick.
“Oh, dear,” Cuthbert said, sinking down against the windowsill. “She’s no longer chaste and that’s why you’re no longer living beneath the same roof. Why am I not surprised?”
Still avoiding his eyes, Julian began to prowl restlessly around the room. When he neared the bed, he recoiled, his nostrils flaring with distaste. “Christ, Cubby, what is that awful stench?” When Cuthbert didn’t answer, he drew back the bed curtains to reveal a string of garlic bulbs dangling from the canopy.
Beneath Julian’s reproachful gaze, Cuthbert retrieved them and tossed them out the window to the snow below.
He returned to find Julian gazing down at the glass of water on the table next to the bed. “Please tell me that’s not—”
“Oh, no,” Cuthbert said hastily. “That’s just water. Sometimes I get thirsty in the middle of the night and I hate to trot all the way down to the kitchen in my dressing gown.”
“You know, if I was going to eat you,” Julian said pleasantly, “I’d have probably done it the time you drank too much wine at that little tavern in Florence and passed out in the opera dancer’s lap. It would have been so much easier than throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you all the way back up the hill to our hotel.”
Cuthbert blew out a sheepish sigh. “Truth be told, Jules, I’ve missed you something terrible. My father keeps dragging me to afternoon musicales and high teas and excruciatingly long sermons on the physical and spiritual benefits of temperance.”
Julian shuddered. “I’m surprised you haven’t been praying for a swift death at the fangs of the nearest vampire.”
“I read your letter, you know. About how you became a vampire and what that dreadful rascal Duvalier did to you.”
Julian frowned at him in bewilderment. “How could you have read it? It was returned to me with the seal unbroken.”
“I didn’t want you to know I’d read it so I melted a candle and resealed it.” He pulled off his nightcap and began to toy with its tassel, avoiding his friend’s eyes. “If you must know, I was only sulking because it hurt my feelings when that brother of yours and his friend called me your ‘minion.’”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re not a minion! A minion is a mortal who willingly serves a vampire by taking care of his business during the daylight hours. He runs errands and provides the vampire with funds when he doesn’t have…” Julian trailed off as Cuthbert cocked one sandy eyebrow at him. “Never mind.”
He paced a few feet away, then turned back, his soulful dark eyes as earnest and desperate as Cuthbert had ever seen them. “I didn’t come here tonight because I needed your money, Cubby. I came because I need your help. A little girl’s life and my entire future may very well be at stake.”
“By any chance, will this help I provide you put me in dreadful danger?”
Julian nodded solemnly. “Of the very worst sort.”
“Will I be risking both life and limb and possibly my own immortal soul?”
“I’m afraid so. We may even face a painful and gruesome destruction at the hands of my enemies.”
Cuthbert shrugged. “Oh, well.
Beats dying of gout or old age in my warm cozy bed. Or attending another temperance lecture with my father.” He donned his nightcap, adjusting it to a cocky angle. “So when do we leave?”
It was shortly after dawn when the physician finally emerged from the bedchamber of Larkin and Vivienne’s town house where Adrian had carried Caroline just a few short hours before.
Adrian pushed himself away from the wall he’d been slumped against, his eyes burning with hope despite his unshaven jaw and haggard face. Larkin slipped a steadying arm around Vivienne, who had just returned from one of her numerous trips to the nursery to make sure the twins were still tucked safely in their beds. Portia turned away from the window at the end of the corridor. She’d been watching the sun begin its slow creep over the horizon and wondering if Julian was safe from its deadly rays.
Adrian still wore his soot-streaked shirt and ash-covered boots. “How is she, doctor?”
Dr. McKinley was a short, stout man with a snub nose and kind eyes that might very well twinkle in less grave circumstances. “I’m afraid your wife has suffered a severe shock. But I have reason to believe the baby she’s carrying will be just fine.”
“Thank God!” Adrian sagged against the wall, blowing out a shuddering sigh of relief. He ran a shaking hand through his disheveled hair. “Please tell me what I can do for her.”
“I believe the baby is safe…at least for now. But I fear what might happen if you don’t find the villains who abducted your little girl.”
“Oh, we’ll find them,” Adrian vowed, the look in his eye making the doctor take an uneasy step backward.
“Have you contacted the authorities?” the physician asked.
Exchanging a look with Adrian, Larkin cleared his throat. “I was once a constable myself, Dr. McKinley. I can assure you that all of the proper authorities have been notified and that everything humanly possible will be done to return my niece to her mother’s arms before the sun has set today.”
“May I go to her?” Adrian asked, already starting forward.
The man held up a restraining hand, a rather brave move considering Adrian’s imposing size. “Not just yet.” He peered over his wire-rimmed spectacles at each of them in turn, his gaze finally settling on Portia. “Are you Portia?”
She stepped forward. “I am.”
“Your sister wishes to see you first.”
“Me? She wants to see me?” Portia could not hide her surprise. She had assumed that Caroline could only blame her for what had happened. Her older sister had forgiven her many faults and foibles throughout their lives, but surely even Caroline’s grace couldn’t cover up a sin this damning.
She exchanged a bewildered glance with Adrian, but he only gave her a weary nod, encouraging her to respect his wife’s wishes.
Mustering her courage, she brushed past the doctor and slipped into the bedchamber, gently drawing the door shut behind her.
Caroline was lying on the bed in one of Vivienne’s lavender dressing gowns, propped up on a nest of pillows. Her pale face was turned toward the window as if all of her hopes rested on the coming of the dawn.
She spoke before Portia could. “I’m afraid they’ll keep her somewhere dark. She doesn’t like the dark, you know. I’ve always told her not to be afraid, that monsters don’t live in the dark.” She turned her gaze from the window to Portia, her eyes as clear and gray as the dawn sky. “I shouldn’t have lied to her, should I? It was wrong of me.”
Portia crossed to the bed, sinking down next to her. “You used to tell me the same thing when I was little. But I never believed you.”
“That’s because you wanted to believe that there were all sorts of monsters nesting beneath your bed—pixies and bogies and goblins, all looking for the right little girl to break their dark enchantment and set them free.”
“Well, I’m obviously not the right little girl.” Portia bowed her head, hoping to hide the tears misting her eyes.
Caroline rumpled her uncombed curls, reminding them both of a time when they had only each other to cling to. “I shouldn’t have said those terrible things about Julian. He may be a monster but he’s your monster and it wasn’t fair of me.”
Portia took her sister’s hand, swallowing past the knot in her throat. “I need to tell you what happened in the crypt.”
Caroline shook her head, a ghost of her old, familiar smile curving her lips. “No, you don’t. There are secrets that should only be shared between a woman and the man she loves. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one thing you need to do for me.”
Portia gave Caroline’s hand a fierce squeeze. “Anything. You know I’d do anything at all for you.”
Caroline cupped Portia’s cheek in her other hand, enunciating each word as if it was the last she would ever utter. “Bring my baby home.”
Adrian and Larkin were sitting on their mounts atop the small rise overlooking Chillingsworth Manor when Portia came cantering up on the dappled filly Adrian had given her for her twenty-first birthday. She wore a dark blue riding habit of figured merino and a sturdy pair of calf-length boots. She’d drawn her hair back into a serviceable leather queue at the nape of her neck and draped a silk scarf around her throat to hide the fresh bruises.
Just as she had expected, Adrian didn’t try to lecture or dissuade her. He’d been well aware that she’d been following them ever since they left the outskirts of London. If he’d have wanted to stop her from accompanying them on this mission, he would have done so long before now.
Instead, he simply slanted her a long look. “You know why we’re here, don’t you? If we destroy Valentine…”
He didn’t have to finish. If they destroyed Valentine, then Julian’s soul would revert to the vampire who had stolen her soul over two hundred years ago. Even if Julian was able to locate such a creature, the vampire would probably be so powerful that he—or she—would be nearly impossible to defeat.
Portia gazed straight ahead, her profile no less determined than theirs. “Julian made his own choice when he walked out on…” she swallowed, closing her eyes briefly “…on all of us. All that matters now is finding Eloisa and bringing her home.”
Adrian nodded his approval before unstrapping a small but lethal crossbow and a quiver of wooden bolts from his saddle and handing them across to her. He and Larkin had spent most of the day trolling the armories, blacksmiths, and docks just to replace a handful of the ancient weapons they’d lost in the fire.
Portia slid the crossbow’s strap over her shoulder and fastened the quiver of bolts to the belt of her riding habit, the motion she’d practiced so many times in the deserted ballroom of the mansion as natural to her as breathing.
The manor below looked even sadder and more dilapidated washed by the golden hue of the late afternoon sun. Sunlight sparkled off the thin crust of snow that draped its sagging roof and crumbling chimneys, but still failed to brighten the shadow of gloom that hung over the place.
Before they could drive their horses down the hill, the crisp winter wind carried the sound of muffled hoofbeats to their ears. They turned to find another rider cresting the knoll behind them.
For one agonizing moment, Portia could barely breathe. Then she saw the startling shock of white hair that crowned the head of the approaching rider.
Larkin shook his head in disbelief. “Surely you jest.”
Adrian shot Portia an accusing glance, but she could only shrug. “I had no idea he was following me.”
Wilbury came riding up on one of Adrian’s most spirited—and most expensive—stallions. The butler was hunched over the saddle, his bony body bowed nearly double beneath the weight of numerous weapons, including a bow and a quiver of arrows, a leather sash sporting several stakes of varying lengths, and a blade that looked suspiciously like a kitchen carving knife. He’d even jammed an ancient flintlock pistol into the waistband of his old-fashioned knee breeches. Despite his attempt at bravado, he still looked as if he’d be more comfortable riding in the back of a hears
e.
He drew his mount up beside Portia’s, drolly intoning, “You rang?”
“No, I most certainly did not ring,” Adrian snapped. “Have you lost your wits, old man? You should be at home polishing the silver, not risking your fragile old bones cantering across the countryside on a horse that’s barely been broken.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t have any silver to polish. Nor a home to polish it in. Which is why I’ve come to lend you my assistance. I’ve lived a long and full life, my lord. What’s the worst that could happen to me?”
Eyeing his cadaverous form, Larkin bit back a grin. “They might mistake you for one of their own and try to make you their king?”
Wilbury gave him a withering look. “With a little good fortune and some excellent shooting on your part, Mr. Larkin, I might even live to see my sixty-fourth birthday.”
Larkin’s eyes widened in disbelief while Portia hid a sudden coughing fit behind her riding glove.
Adrian studied him through narrowed eyes. “Wilbury, you had to be at least sixty when I was in short pants.”
“Nonsense,” the butler said with a dignified sniff. “I just seemed older because you were younger. And you needn’t worry that I’ll get in your way. It’s not as if I don’t know how to handle myself in these situations. I can assure you that I saw my share of battle in my youth.”
Larkin snorted. “Battled the Norman hordes when they invaded England, did you?”
Portia reached over and gave the old man’s gnarled hand a squeeze. “I would consider it an honor to ride into battle at your side, Wilbury.”
“Thank you, Miss Portia,” he replied with equal earnestness. “I wouldn’t have come, but I was worried about Miss Eloisa. You see, I’m the only one who’s able to comfort her when she awakens from a nightmare. A nice cup of warm milk and a few verses of ‘Sally in Our Alley’ and she usually goes right back to sleep.”
Portia blinked away the sting of tears, hoping Wilbury would blame them on the chill wind whipping across the hillside. “I’m sure you’ll be a tremendous comfort to her when we find her.”
The Vampire Who Loved Me Page 19
