by Olsen, Lisa
“No, miss. I imagine he’ll be gone for most of the night.”
“Cool beans on toast,” I sighed, shoulders slumping. “I don’t suppose you know how to dance?”
“Dance, miss?” he blinked in confusion at the question.
“Yes. The, um... the quadrille, the allemande, the... whatever fancy dances you have in these parts. Are you familiar with them?”
“If memory serves. How is it that you’re not... ah, the colonies,” he answered his own question.
“Right.” I tamped away my irritation at the assumption that we didn’t know how to do anything right in the backward colonies. For the moment it was true. “Anyway, Aubrey’s set to throw a ball in my honor, and I’m thinking I’ll be expected to dance a time or two.”
“And you thought to ask Bishop for instruction?” Clay’s broad smile indicated he thought the idea was hilarious.
“Of course. He is my brother, after all. Why is that funny?”
“He is not given to dancing.”
“He used to be. I figured he’d be the right place to start.” It was true, I supposed it might be a hard sell to get him to teach me how to dance. But if he went for it, it would give me a chance to spend some time with him.
“So how about it?” Bridget asked, giving him a speculative look.
“How about what, miss?”
“How about you teach us to dance? I’m thinking you’re all kinds of good at working up a sweet sweat,” she purred, accidentally pressing her breasts against him as she took his arm.
Clay flushed brighter than a radish. “I... that is...”
“We’re just looking for someone to help us with the steps,” I said quickly, afraid Bridget’s more direct manner would scare him off. “What do you say?”
Two hours later, we were lined up in the training room, going through the paces of the Dutch Skipper. Me, Bridget, Clay, and five other Order members danced the skipping jig while another member played on a piccolo. It’d started out with us three and another member named Wood who Clay recruited to be Bridget’s partner, but soon our numbers grew as others came to see what the racket and laughter was all about.
And criminitely did we laugh! Despite being fairly agile and not all that bad of a dancer, I had trouble remembering which group went first and which stayed still while the others danced around them, and I kept starting when I should’ve been stopping. Bridget for her part kept dancing too close to her partner, desperate to make him blush, and it threw the whole rhythm off. And the rest of the guys knew the steps, but it was obvious they didn’t spend a whole lot of time dancing themselves. It worked well enough on some of the slower dances, but for a jig like that one, we were kind of a hot mess.
We’d started over for the umpteenth time, the lines straight, and nothing amiss, when half of the guys went completely stock still, their attention focused on the door. One by one, the guys fell into line, staring straight ahead, bodies stiff at attention. I turned to find Bishop standing in the doorway to the training room, his face a mask of disbelief. Uh oh. Was he about to read them the riot act?
Smoothing the loose strands of hair away from my face, I tucked them behind my ear to try and fix my disheveled appearance. I gave him a brief curtsy, my smile contrite as I braced myself for his total meltdown.
Instead, he simply let out a long sigh and walked out of the room again.
It got really quiet in there for the next ten seconds, and then we all let out a nervous titter of laughter. “So... shall we take it from the top?” I asked, pleased as punch when nobody left to chase after Bishop and seek redemption.
After a few days of practicing, I wasn’t afraid to be asked to dance anymore, though I was far from expert at most of them. Bishop ignored our dance classes, either not knowing or caring about them. As much as it bummed me out that he continued to avoid me like the plague, at least he didn’t keep the men from participating. Besides, he’d have to see me sooner or later, and the ball was fast approaching.
Aubrey, on the other hand, seemed to want to steal all of my attention when he wasn’t sucking up to Sylvius and Corley. He’d glom onto my side from the moment I entered the hall until I retired for the night. I was polite but firm with him when he tried to get me alone, suggesting a turn about the garden, or hunting in London together, but he never seemed to get the message. Would I have to flat out tell him to buzz off to get it through his thick skull that I wasn’t interested in getting grindy with him? And if I did, would that spark the same kind of consequences it had the last time I’d rejected him and he’d sicced Volkov on me?
One other thing bothered me – I definitely needed to feed every night. I’d never had to feed every night, not even my first days as a newbie vampire. So why did I feel the hunger so strongly now?
Sure, I knew I’d given up my immortality, but did that mean I’d grow weaker and weaker until I died? I was too chicken to find out, so I kept self-medicating with blood. It wasn’t a problem when I had access to feeders at Vetis, but what would happen when I returned to my own time? Would I end up like Rob when he’d been under the influence of the curse and had to feed three times a day to feel normal? Had I cursed myself in going back for Bishop?
Chapter Fifteen
The night of the ball came, and Bridget and I spent the better part of two hours getting ready. A dress suitable for the ball had arrived the night before, and it was stunning. On the surface, it was a simple white dress with an empire waist and short puffy sleeves with a blue ribbon beneath the bodice. But the sheer white overlay was intricately embroidered with ornate flowers, white on white so the pattern was subtle, but rich when you got up close enough to see it. It must’ve taken a hundred hours or more to work that fine of a detail on the flimsy material and I was scared to death I might stain or tear it.
Sylvius sent over an actual lady’s maid to help with my hair, and she did this elaborate braid thing, incorporating blue ribbons and tiny white flowers that came out both elegant and fancypants at the same time. The overall effect was pretty and fresh, and I felt like Cinderella at her first ball, despite the fact that it wasn’t my first rodeo at Vetis.
Bridget’s dress was a deep forest green silk, stiff enough to rustle as she walked, and cut low enough that there was no chance of her looking virginal or innocent. Her dark hair was piled atop her head, and the maid left a couple of heavy ringlets to fall across her exposed neck.
“You look good enough to eat,” I said once we crowded in front of the standing mirror in the dressing room.
“I know,” she beamed, smoothing her hands over her hips. “I wish this dress had a bit more slink though.”
“You don’t need it,” I laughed, trying not to stare at her cleavage. “What do you think? Will Bishop talk to me in this getup?”
“Nah,” she replied after a speculative inspection. “He’ll be too busy trying to eat you up. You look like jailbait.”
“Is that a good thing?” I frowned at my reflection.
“For a guy like Bishop? Yeah. He won’t be able to resist.”
A knock at the door caught our attention, and I looked at her in the mirror. “Who do you think that is?”
“Only one way to find out.”
I beat her to the door, hoping with some silly part of my heart that it would be Bishop out there, but it was Aubrey who stood in the hallway, dressed in his finest. His outfit was immaculate, a black cutaway coat with a golden waistcoat over white pantaloons, white hose, the old fashioned shoes with big gold buckles, the whole ten yards. He even had on gloves and a hat tucked under his arm, despite the fact that we weren’t leaving the house.
“You’re breathtaking,” he said, his eyes glowing with warmth and a touch of hunger.
“You look very dapper yourself,” I said, curtseying, to which he returned a respectful bow.
“I came to escort you to the ball. The better to assert your position here at Vetis, by my side.”
Wode tìan. By his side? I had to nip this thing in
the bud. “Aubrey, I think you should come in for a minute so we can talk. Bridget, can you please wait for me downstairs?”
She didn’t move an inch. “Nuh uh, I wanna watch.”
“Bridge...”
“Fine,” she muttered with an epic eye roll. “See you down there, but later on I want the deets.”
I nodded as I herded her out, holding the door open to Aubrey. “I’m sorry, please come in.”
“I like this even better,” he grinned, sailing into the sitting room and leaving his hat on a table. “I can give you my gift and you can thank me properly now that we’re alone.”
“I don’t need any gifts.” And I for sure as heck didn’t want to thank him properly.
“No one ever needs gifts, sweeting. But wait until you see it before you reject it out of hand.” Pulling a long slender box from his coat pocket, he opened it to reveal a glittering necklace of aquamarine stones surrounded by diamonds. “They won’t hold a candle to your eyes, but...”
“They’re shiny, but I can’t accept this, Aubrey,” I said, not making a move to touch them, and his brows drew together.
“Whyever not? You prefer rubies? I chose these specifically to match your dress. Let me put it on you.” He started toward me, and I took a step back, my hands coming up.
“No, Aubrey, that’s not it. Look, I know you like me...”
“Do not seek to trivialize my feelings by such insipid terms.” Aubrey moved closer, thrusting the box toward me with one hand and reaching for my hand with the other. “I burn for you, Anja. Please, put me out of my misery and say you’ll be mine.”
I caught hold of his hand to keep him from crowding any closer. Where was that compulsion when I needed it? “I like you, Aubrey, as a friend and nothing more,” I said as gently as I could. “I’m sorry if that hurts you.”
“You haven’t given yourself a chance to love me,” he said, undaunted. He tried once more to tug me closer. “If we...”
“You’re not listening,” I scowled, twisting his arm into a hold that sent him down on one knee.
Instead of being angry at the position, a slow smile spread across his face. “I like woman who takes control. Carys was ever thus.”
“If you’re looking for a woman who’s like Carys, that’s not me.”
“I meant no slight by the comparison, sweeting.”
“I’m trying to be straight with you, and I’m not your sweeting. As I said, I like you, and I’m sure we’re going to be great friends, but my heart is already spoken for.”
For the first time, I dented his natural arrogance, and doubt crept into his features. “Truly?”
“Truly. Now, I could flirt with you and accept your gifts, play a lot of games the way Carys would, but I don’t want to lead you on, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“I think I’d prefer the former,” he frowned.
“Well, I wouldn’t. What do you say, can we be friends?”
Aubrey let out a long breath, his gray eyes losing some of their spark. “If that is all you are offering, I will accept your friendship. But should you change your mind...”
I could’ve made it abundantly clear that he didn’t stand a Firefly’s chance on a Friday night with me, but I decided to spare his feelings instead. “You’ll be the first to know. But I’d love it if you would still escort me down to the ball.”
“In that case, I accept.” I let go of him and he offered me his arm, as if I hadn’t had him down on his knees seconds before. “Shall we?”
“Indeed,” I smiled, laying my hand on his arm.
* * *
I knew what to expect from a fancy shindig at Vetis. These were my people. It might be a different time, but there were all the same conversations about war and politics, dissatisfaction with the Order, same old, same old. Everyone was dressed in their finest, excruciatingly polite manners on display. I didn’t have trouble keeping up at all.
Poised and confident, I held my own as Aubrey introduced me around, sticking to my Anja Gudrun identity, and nobody batted an eye. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd. Besides the Vetis people there was Rein Faust from Belanoc, Erik Erlendur with his Warden Niels from Valbjorn, though I didn’t recognize the Elder of Toulac, it must’ve been before Jean Pierre’s time.
There was music, there was dancing, there were blood and delicacies. I would’ve been content to sit on the sidelines and watch it all as my own private show of the ball at Netherfield Park, but Aubrey kept me on his arm every time I slipped away. Maybe he was trying to publicly demonstrate our ties, but I didn’t mind. If it made people accept that I was Carys’ progeny, I wasn’t about to argue with it.
Besides, I hadn’t seen a single sign of Bishop at all yet. Part of me wondered if he planned to show at all. Clay and Wood and some of the others were at the ball, but they mostly kept to the sidelines, not partaking of the festivities. Were they expecting some kind of trouble?
Bridget gave me a crisp salute when I spotted her, but pretty much ignored me after that, practically in the lap of one of the werewolves who looked less concerned about security than his peers.
I was about to try and beg off to go talk to Clay about it when Aubrey tugged me to the piano.
“And now my lovely sister, Anja, will delight us with a song,” he announced, which was received with a polite smattering of applause.
“Alright,” I agreed, deciding to go with something he wouldn’t have a chance of joining in on for a duet. Instead, I went with something they’d never heard before, something that wouldn’t bore the pants off of Bridget. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the arrangement of Dream On that Kelly Sweet does, but it takes the rock anthem from Aerosmith and turns it into a dreamy, almost ethereal ballad. That’s what I began to sing.
My voice soared high, filling the hall with the stripped down version of the song. I admit, I thought maybe Bishop might put in an appearance when I started to sing, but still, there was no sign of him. It lent a touch of melancholy to my performance that suited the song well enough, and by the time I sang the final notes, I started to wonder –was the past gone? Had I truly blown my chance to be with Bishop?
There was enough applause to let me know they’d by and large enjoyed the song, though there were a few puzzled looks from people who hadn’t made up their minds about the unfamiliar tune. Even Sylvius looked like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“That was lovely, my child,” he said with a genial smile. “Though I’m not familiar with the composition.”
“It’s American,” I replied, waiting for that ripple of understanding and condescension that came right on schedule. “Would you prefer something more traditional?”
“Yes, indeed. Something traditional,” Sylvius agreed with far too much enthusiasm. I guessed they weren’t ready for Aerosmith.
“Traditional I can do,” I said, digging deep for another classical song. I decided on O occhi manza mia, even though it was written for a four part harmony. The soprano part was still a lovely melody, and I knew the part backwards and forwards from the quartet back in college. But before I got through the third bar, the other three parts joined me, all from the piano. I almost lost my place when I looked over and saw Bishop at the pianoforte, accompanying me without being asked.
Without realizing it, I approached Bishop’s side, singing to him the whole while. I’d sung it once before to Jakob during a performance, but there was no compulsion as I sang of my love for him. Oh eyes of my beloved – those eyes were full of... I didn’t know what exactly, but they were warmer than they’d been since that night we’d gone hunting.
This time when the song was over, the applause was enthusiastic, but I only had eyes for Bishop. He looked better than any Regency heartthrob to grace the silver screen. His black coat, creamy waistcoat, and silk breeches were less fancy than Aubrey’s but the overall effect still made the breath catch in my throat.
“Thank you. That was wonderful,” I said, low enough for his ears only.
“I only accompanied you. Any wonder brought to the performance was entirely yours, madam.” His tone was still formal, but the coldness was gone.
“Careful now, that almost sounded like a compliment,” I teased, and he looked down at his hands on the keys.
“You have a fondness for Italian love songs,” he remarked.
“I have a fondness for Italians.”
“Do you?” His gaze came up to meet mine, and I couldn’t help flirting back.
“Well, one Italian.” He looked away, and I thought maybe he might try to skedaddle out of there, so I decided to be bold. “Ask me to dance, Bishop.” The music had started again, couples lining up on the dance floor.
“I don’t dance.”
“Oh come on, I happen to know that you’re a very good dancer.”
He gave me a penetrating stare. “I don’t know these dances,” he gestured at the moving bodies with distaste. “It’s... it has been a while since I’ve danced,” he admitted with a touch of melancholy.
“Same here. I crashed way too many times during Clay’s crash course on dancing,” I laughed. “Who cares? Let’s have fun. You at least can waltz with me. No fancy steps there. You do know how to waltz, don’t you?”
For long seconds his fear warred with desire, and then I saw the exact moment when he chickened out, his eyes on a fixed point over my shoulder. “Perhaps some other time.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Rein Faust approaching with a polite smile and an invitation. “May I have the next dance, Miss Gudrun?”
I looked back but Bishop was gone. Typical. “Yes, I would be honored,” I agreed, not wanting to snub the man. After all, I’d have to interact with him when I got back. Or would I? Would meeting him now change things too much in the future? I hardly knew, but instead of working my way into a migraine over it, I let it go, taking his hand to line up with the others for the dance.
It was a slow one, the steps easy to follow, and the Elder of Belanoc was apparently a talker while he danced. “You speak Italian like a native,” he said as we promenaded next to each other. “Are you originally from Italy then, like Ulrik?”
