Did men who weren’t cursed know how truly fortunate they were? Rafe grimaced. Probably not, for they remained ignorant of what other beings were out there.
That opened up another avenue of thought as he scanned the crush on the dance floor for Elizabeth. Did he still wish to be one of those clueless men? For years, the driving force in his life had been to find a lady, fall in love with her, have her return those affections, and break the curse on one of the designated full moons. That plan had been rendered next to impossible, for he could never forget Elizabeth… and neither did he want to.
Yet she wouldn’t consider a suit from him with any seriousness if he still labored beneath the curse. What a damnable coil.
He heaved a sigh. And then his gaze fell upon her as she joined the jaunty country reel currently assembling, her face lit with happiness—something he could not apparently give her. This is insane. She doesn’t want me, yet I’m dangling after her like a pup.
Her partner, a young man not much older than one and twenty, led her through the steps and each time they came back together, the admiration in his eyes was unmistakable. Rafe stifled a snort, but he admitted that she looked stunning, as always, yet tonight she was especially gorgeous in green satin trimmed with white seed pearls.
Damnation.
Focusing his attention briefly on the marquess, who also danced with a different partner and who couldn’t stop finding Lizzy with his gaze, Rafe’s chest tightened and he gave into the stab of jealousy. Perhaps he should give up attempting to change Elizabeth’s mind and track down the vampire who’d stolen away the maid’s life the other night. It would be a noble deed and if the death wasn’t an accident, if it was maliciously carried out, he could help bring the perpetrator to justice.
Yet…
He swung his attention back to Elizabeth, the woman he’d held in high regard since she first Came Out amidst a cloud of gossip, since she first started her campaign to make her brother and all the Cursed Lords more acceptable within society, since she’d begun working with the wretched and the poor living in the Dials. Something about Lizzy called to him deep down in his soul. He had to know why, which meant he couldn’t concentrate on anything else at the moment.
The dance ended and another started. This one happened to be a waltz, and of course the perfect, golden-haired marquess partnered her this time.
As Rafe quietly fumed from the shadows in the opposite side of the room, he studied her face as she stared up at the other man. Was she infatuated with Rockingham? Nothing about her expression showed such a thing. For the moment, she was happy and enjoying the exercise, perhaps the chance to be out among people who were more like her than not. She and the marquess engaged in animated chatting that had her eyes sparkling and brought out color in her cheeks. Damn him. Rafe vowed to bring her joy through being with him—if she’d let him—as well as dance with her before she left his life, for if something didn’t change, he’d lose her.
Forever.
I refuse to let that happen.
At the end of the waltz, Rockingham guided her to the side of the ballroom and then he left the area. Did he go to play cards or was he merely fetching punch? Rafe didn’t care; this was as good a moment as any.
When he started her way, she moved, escaping the room. Did she mean to meet the marquess for an assignation? Another spear of jealousy lanced through him. Bloody hell. More determined than ever to speak with her before she promised her life to Rockingham, Rafe followed her through the corridors lined with gilt paintings.
“Elizabeth.” The utterance of her name echoed in the empty hallway, and she started.
With a glance over her shoulder, her eyes widened. “Rafe.” His name was a benediction and an admonition all at the same time. “In here.” When she slipped into a retiring room, he darted in after her. “Keep the door open, if you please.”
Perhaps he didn’t please, but he abided by her order, for finally he had an opportunity.
She flounced to a mauve brocade settee and dropped onto it. Her skirting flowed around her. “What do you want?” Her brandy-hued eyes flashed in annoyance. “I thought I’d said everything I needed to the other day.”
I want you. But aloud he said, “To talk.” He held up a hand, palm outward in a non-threatening manner. “Merely to talk.”
For several moments, marked by the ticking of a long-case clock in one corner of the room, Elizabeth regarded him with speculation. Then she nodded, and he released the breath he hadn’t known he held. “That is probably for the best, so we can both move forward—in different directions.”
“Regarding that.” Rafe came into the room a few steps more, and not knowing what to do with his hands, he clasped them behind his back. “I am not certain I want to move on without you.” When a trace of fear sprang into her expression and her lips parted, he sighed. Would she ever look upon him with affection or even love? “I’m truly sorry about that night, Lizzy. It wasn’t well done of me. Not at all.” He took another few steps, which brought him near her location, and she didn’t shrink away. “I was six and twenty, careless, reckless even. I thought I could control the beast.”
“But you didn’t,” she said on a whisper, and again, she put gloved fingers to her neck, stroking that spot where he’d bitten her, drank from her, developed a craving for her.
“I know.” He didn’t look away, not even when she challenged him with her eyes. “Now I can. I’ve learned over the years what I need to do, how to avoid the warning signs or situations where my emotions might escalate.”
Elizabeth raked her gaze over him, and he stood very still in the hopes she would find what she searched for. “Can you? Truly?” She snapped her attention back to his face. “Even now, the ring around your irises glows red. I know what that means.” She dropped her hands into her lap and clasped them together.
Hot anger skittered through him, and he tamped down on it. “That may be so, but I have more experience in controlling my responses now.”
She tilted her head to one side, her gaze wide. “What of the curse? Do you wish to break it? And leave this… lifestyle behind?”
No more blood, no more feedings, no more waiting for the nighttime hours to go about London. “Is that what you wish of me?” he asked in a whisper, ignoring her question while carefully schooling his expression into what he hoped was a mask of nonchalance. “Is that the only way you’d consent to a suit from me?”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I prefer the man you are when your beast isn’t present. The man you are when you’re Donovan’s best friend, the man you were all those years ago, and we played at fairytales.”
All of those nights when he read to her from storybooks, when they dreamed together of the love within those pages. “I am the beast, though,” he said quietly. Rafe sent a hand through his hair, nearly yanking the strip of leather from it that kept the tresses tied back. “And you didn’t answer my question.” Though she’d told him everything he feared with her silence.
Elizabeth raised her gaze, and confusion flooded her brown depths. “Please don’t continue this conversation.”
How could he not when the woman he couldn’t banish from his thoughts hated his true nature? He could be nothing else. “If I may play devil’s advocate?” When she nodded, he continued. “Let us say that somehow fortune will grant me a chance at breaking the curse, why should I accept it? I have lived this way for thirty-seven years. I have finally come to understand the monster. It isn’t a bad life, and neither am I a bad person.”
Fear flashed through her eyes, but there was a wistful hopefulness in her expression that tugged at his heart. “Don’t you want to be fully human?” Her solicitous tone nearly shredded him.
Yet the anger cycling through him wouldn’t quiet. Already, his gums throbbed in warning. “Why do you harbor this notion that a human is better than a vampire, a cursed being?”
Slowly, she stood and the rustle of fabric sounded overly loud in the sudden quiet of the room. “
I’m not saying it is better, but the transformation would make life better. Don’t you think?” She cocked an eyebrow and stared at him, perhaps willing him to make the leap.
Does she assume I can magic the curse away just because she wishes it, because she cannot stomach it? The anger kept rising in his chest in a hot tide. “Better for who? You?” Bitterness dripped from the questions. Why couldn’t she try to understand him?
Disappointment filled her expression, and he died a little inside. “Vampires kill humans. They feed off them, hurt them—”
“Yes, vampires must feed, but they do not have to kill humans. I certainly don’t.” He frowned with she looked at him with doubt. “If you’re thinking about that maid, let me promise you once more that I had nothing to do with it.” Silence reigned between them, fraught with unspoken questions and need. Deep down in the depths of her eyes, she called to him, but her body language said the opposite. Rafe sighed. “You have championed your brother and his affliction, even during the times in his life when he killed humans, when he was at his worst.” It was maddening that she couldn’t accept him.
Elizabeth waved a hand. “What Donovan did or does now is not nearly as objectionable as what you are.” Disgust flitted through her expression, gone in an instant.
Every word sliced through him with the accuracy of knives. Resentment flooded him and mixed with the anger. His mouth filled with saliva and he hurriedly swallowed, willed the fangs, the claws, to stay embedded. Showing the beast now wouldn’t endear him to her. “That disappoints me.” His jaw worked as he curled his hands into fists, taking the pain into himself. “Every Lord of the Night was cursed the same, yet you give him a pass, accept his failures and what he is—”
“He is my brother,” she hissed and glared. “What else can I do but love him?”
The statement rankled. “I was your lover, Lizzy. Or have you forgotten what you once felt for me? What we once were to each other?”
“My feelings aside, you weren’t my lover by choice.” Her voice rose with each word. She stalked toward him. “You took what I didn’t offer.”
Rafe snorted. Is that how she wished to portray that night? “Ah, so then I misunderstood when you encouraged my embrace, my kisses. I must have heard you wrong when you begged me to finish you after we’d thoroughly explored each other’s naked bodies, after you put forth the night of our assignation and left your balcony doors unlocked.”
“How dare you!” A dark blush colored her cheeks. She lifted a hand. Did she wish to slap him? He welcomed the pain, her touch. “I was young, didn’t know better.” Her hand fluttered and then fell. “Wanted the experience. I wished to know what lying with a man felt like.”
It wasn’t well done of him at all to say those things to her, but he couldn’t stop himself, wished to wound her as she’d hurt him. “There was no demure, virginal protest that night, and it was the first time I saw you as more than my best friend’s sister, the first time I wanted you as a woman, to perhaps live our lives together.” He hadn’t meant to confess that, but where she was concerned, he could never keep a secret.
“I did all of those things under your enthrallment, I’d swear it,” she said from around clenched teeth. She even went so far as to drill a finger into his chest. “You know that for a fact.”
“Do I?” He backed away, for if she continued to touch him in any capacity, he’d lose his hard-fought control. “I rather doubt you were enthralled at all, my dear, for if you were, you wouldn’t remember anything about that damn night. That’s how it works. Yet, you do for whatever reason, and it makes you fearful of me.”
“I…” Shock jumped into her eyes. Her lips parted. She opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out.
“Or do you fear what you feel for me more?” Rafe muttered a curse and turned his back on her. “As I said before, I am not that man anymore. I’ve learned copious things about myself, about the beast that lurks beneath. We have a harmonious existence. He only requires one thing to remain content and at bay.”
“Blood.”
“Yes.” He lowered his voice as he faced her once more, caught the emotions darting so rapidly through her expression he couldn’t settle upon just one. “I am not the monster you think I am.” Except, put into such bald terms, it certainly sounded as if he was.
Heavy, pregnant silence fell over them as they stared at one another.
“Oh, Rafe.” Tears glimmered in Elizabeth’s eyes. “I want you to find happiness in your life. I do, but at the moment, I’m not certain that can be possible with me. I’m not the woman you need, the woman you wish me to be.”
The words held a note of finality to them he couldn’t overcome. “As I cannot be the man you wish me to be.” He rubbed a hand over his heart where that organ ached. “Listen to me, Lizzy.” Rafe stumbled toward her and then stopped when she retreated to the settee. “Being a vampire is what I am, this is true, but it is not who I am.” He held out a hand, imploring her. “I am the same man that you once regarded with desire, that you whispered words of love to, the man of your fairytale dreams, the Earl of Devon who can offer you a lifetime of joy beyond your imagining. Please, give me a chance to show you that. I only need one.”
“One chance,” she whispered on the heels of a stifled sob. “To break the curse?” Hope shined in her eyes, and he fell into a cloud of depression. Apparently, that was the only way she’d welcome him.
Rafe let his hand drop. “Time is running out, so breaking the curse would largely depend on us falling in love. I need but little encouragement from you to make the jump.”
“After all this time, you still…” The pools of moisture welling in her eyes overflowed as tears onto her cheeks. “Yet, I cannot…”
The lock he had on his anger slipped a fraction of an inch. He hardened his heart against her tears, for they always had the power to render him undone. “So, then you refuse to look past my beast. You are not the woman I thought you were, the woman I’d hoped you might be after all these years.”
“It’s not that simple!” Her exclamation exploded into the room, igniting his frayed temper.
“It is, but you refuse to see past the fear, the horror, the imagined gore!” His jaw worked. “I’m sorry to say that every man, even the human ones, have a hidden side. So, if perfect is what you’re searching for, you will never find it in any of us.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head so violently that a tress fell from her upswept coif. Was it as silky soft as he remembered? “Please understand my position.”
“Why should I, when you won’t understand mine?” His gums throbbed and his incisors began to lengthen. His fingernails ached, for they were already transforming into claws insides his gloves. It was always like that between them. No matter how they were together, passion simmered beneath the surface, and more often than not, it erupted into arguments, but it didn’t used to be that way. That wealth of emotion had exploded into desire and kisses and exploratory embraces and laughter. They’d been good together, so good. And fear had stolen it. “You either accept me—all of me—or you don’t. Period.” She had, once upon a time, before he’d bitten her and lost… everything. “I’m done hoping for a fairytale. This is life, Lizzy, raw and messy. Happily ever afters don’t come with magic; they come with hard work and sacrifice.”
“I’m so sorry, Rafe,” Elizabeth said, her tone halting and broken. She collapsed onto the settee as the tears fell freely to her cheeks.
His chest constricted and his throat tightened. Apparently, he wasn’t as immune to her as he’d hoped. Mortification slammed into him for bringing her to this pass. “Elizabeth…” He took a step toward her, but Lord Rockingham appeared in the doorway just then, and when the other man cleared his throat, Rafe halted with indecision.
“Lady Elizabeth, is this man bothering you?” he asked, and the deep rumble of his voice filled the space.
Rafe bristled. “This is a private conversation, Rockingham,” he muttered.
“Ye
t not the venue for privacy, is it?” he asked in a low voice. “If there are secrets a man wishes to keep, perhaps a closed and locked door would work better.”
What the devil? Did the marquess just issue a veiled threat?
“No, he is not bothering me.” Elizabeth dabbed at her eyes with a dainty, lace-edged handkerchief. She rose to her feet. “Lord Devon and I were catching up.” Briefly, she rested her watery gaze on him before giving Rockingham her full attention with a smile. Rafe’s heart constricted. “He’s my brother’s best friend, so of course some of our remembrances are… sad.”
And just like that, she’d relegated him to the past.
“Ah.” Rockingham nodded. He took a few steps toward Rafe. “Lord Devon. How nice to finally meet you.” When he held out a hand, Rafe ignored it.
I owe this man—my rival—nothing.
The marquess dropped his hand. “I see how things will go.” He leveled his blue gaze on Rafe, narrowed slightly. “Perhaps you should mind your steps in the future.” Then he skirted past him, and when he gained Elizabeth’s side, he slipped an arm around her waist, clearly staking a claim. “I suggest you leave the lady alone. There is nothing more here for you.” To her and in a gentler voice, he said, “Our next dance is rapidly approaching.”
Rafe curled one hand into a fist. Two of his claws had broken through the kid of his glove. Oh, how he’d love to land the man a facer, perhaps marring his perfect features by ripping out his throat. “Not until she asks me. I do not take orders from you.”
“Folly on your part, I wonder?” A smile curled the marquess’ lips. He looked at Elizabeth.
She peered at Rafe, all trace of tears gone. “It is best if you leave. I’m sorry.” The tendons in her throat worked with a hard swallow. “For everything.”
Hurt wormed its way through him, wrapped around his heart and attempted to throttle the life from that organ. He nodded. “Is this the end then?” He could barely force the words out past his own tears building in his throat.
Bitten By the Earl (Lords of the Night Book Two) Page 7
