by Колин Глисон
He forced his eyes open again, and the room tilted violently. He closed them, tasting the blood whiskey still clinging to his lips and tongue, smelling it on his hands and from the empty bottle on the desk in front of him. A bleary glance told him dawn threatened, but that the world was still silent with night. He was in his study, which was good, because that was the last thing he remembered. Settling into place with two—perhaps three—bottles of the stuff. Just as the sun went down. Tuning out the sounds, the scents, the memories, the darkness.
It was two days after the Incident at Rubey’s.
Two days after everything had changed.
“What did you do to my sister?” Chas said. His voice was slick with anger and dark with loathing. He stood across the desk from Dimitri, a mere arm’s length away. “I trusted you.”
“There is no explanation for what occurred. You have every right to finish things now.” Dimitri pulled his waistcoat helpfully away from his shirt. “I won’t fight you, Chas. I won’t even ask you to make it quick. Just bloody well do it. It’s a long time coming.”
“Devil take it, have you had the whole bottle tonight?” There was a clink as Woodmore picked it up as if to check its contents.
“No,” Dimitri drawled. “Two.” His eyes sank closed. Oblivion was lovely.
More clinking and the rustle of books and papers. “What in the devil are you doing, Corvindale?” Chas demanded.
“Waiting. What the damned hell is taking you so long? You’re never this slow.” His eyes remained closed.
“What did you do to Maia?”
Dimitri purposely picked the most vulgar of words. “I fucked her. I violated her. I bloody fed on her.” He tried to focus. “But she’s going to marry Bradington. No one will know. And you’re going to stake me. Anytime now.”
“And if she’s with child?”
“I pray she is not. It’s highly unlikely.” But, oh, the Fates, it was possible.
“But if she is…then Lucifer could claim him.”
A wave of nausea surged and Dimitri swallowed hard. As if the thought hadn’t been swirling around and around in his whiskey-fogged brain, sloshing along in his upset belly. Threatening him for days, threading through his dreams. Silence.
Dimitri opened his eyes and found Chas looking at him. Pity seemed to have replaced pure loathing, although the hard, dark fury was still there. What the hell was he waiting for? Dimitri wouldn’t have waited. He’d have driven the stake home long before now. “It was Rubey who told me,” Woodmore said, answering a question Dimitri hadn’t cared to ask. “Not Maia. She’s said nothing. To anyone.”
Dimitri adjusted his position in the chair and blinked. Apparently they were going to have a civil conversation before the man killed him. “There isn’t a damned thing I can do to change it,” he said. “It’s done. I’ve settled a dowry on her—”
“She doesn’t need a bloody damned dowry from you,”
Chas said. “And there certainly isn’t anything you can do.
If you were a mortal, I’d have you at the altar tomorrow because I know at least you’d never hurt her. At any rate, I don’t want you to touch her again.”
Dimitri gave a bitter laugh. “There is no chance of that.”
“Very well. The sad thing is, I believe you, Dimitri.” Chas shoved the stake back into his inside pocket. “I came for another reason, besides to kill you.”
“But you haven’t killed me,” Dimitri said flatly. “Damn you.”
“No, and I don’t think I will. It’s clear killing’s too easy a way out for you, Corvindale. Aside of that, I might be in need of you in the future. You’ll owe me.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m going to visit Sonia, in Scotland. I’m going to see if she’ll use her Sight to tell me about Moldavi so we can stop him for good. Narcise won’t be free until he’s dead.”
Dimitri felt a stirring of interest. “Sonia has a different skill than Angelica. She might do it. She might be of help.”
“But she won’t use it,” Chas said. “I’m hoping to convince her that it’s worthwhile.”
Dimitri sat up, gave his head a little shake to rid himself of the fogginess. “Narcise is going with you?”
“Yes.” Woodmore looked at him, seemed ready to say something, then stopped. “We leave in the morning. I might not be back for Maia’s wedding.”
Maia’s wedding. He’d been afraid, initially, that something would have happened to cancel it altogether, but Dimitri knew it had been rescheduled for two weeks from now. Not soon enough. But at least it was going forward. At least soon she would be out of his hands. Out of his reach.
“Does she know this?”
“No. That’s part of what you owe me, Corvindale. You can deliver the news…and take my place, walking her down the aisle. Giving her away.”
“I’ll go to blasted Scotland, you stay here,” Dimitri suggested.
Chas’s response was a laugh as bitter as Dimitri’s. “No, you’ll stay here and make certain my sister is wed without a bloody damned hint of scandal. If you have to force Bradington down the aisle, if you have to enthrall all of the ton, you make certain it happens. That it’s the happiest day of her life, damn you. You owe me, Corvindale. You broke my trust, you put your damned vampire hands on my sister when she was under your care. And your fangs. You’re worse than Voss. You damned well owe me. If we didn’t have a history, if I didn’t owe you, you would be dead by now.”
No one had ever spoken to Dimitri in that way and lived to tell about it. But this time, he allowed it. Because Chas had the right.
“I’ll see to it. Gladly,” he added. He couldn’t wait to wash his hands of Maia Woodmore.
17
The Lion Is Bearded In His Den
Maia sat up, suddenly wide-awake.
She’d been dreaming. Or perhaps she hadn’t.
The world was dark, for there was a new moon tonight and the stars were cloaked in clouds and fog. She could barely discern the shapes of her dressing table and the chair in the corner.
Lingering in her mind was a memory…a dream or reality, she wasn’t certain… She was in a chamber furnished with great luxury. There were men there, and a woman who was tall and broad and sported a bit of a mustache. Although the place was richly appointed, Maia felt wrong. It was wrong.
Horrible and evil.
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind, trying to focus. Hands grabbing at her, lascivious smiles, the clink of glasses as drinks were poured…Mr. Virgil was there. Smiling. Laughing heartily.
Her heart stopped. Mr. Virgil.
Maia got out of bed as if to escape the images, her heart pounding. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like this at all, the feelings crawling over her. The ugliness, dark memories that began to pour into her mind.
And then something changed in the memory…there was a burst of energy, something dark and fast. Glowing red eyes. Lashing out, violence, and suddenly she was caught up in it…
And then she was safe. Away from it. In a carriage.
With Corvindale.
Maia stood there in her dark chamber, breathing hard. Her stomach hurt, her hair plastered to her neck and throat. Her face was stark, and as white as her night rail, reflecting back from the mirror in the dim light.
She needed answers.
“My lord, there is an individual without who wishes to speak with you.”
Dimitri looked up from the bloody damned book Wayren had foisted upon him. Anything for an excuse to leave off reading about the beauty and her beastly host in a conveniently Gothic castle.
The fact that it was past midnight and someone had come calling bothered him not one bit, nor would it be a surprise to his butler Crewston. There was just as much activity at Blackmont Hall once the sun set as there was during the daylight hours.
Such was the lifestyle of a Dracule.
“Who is it?” he asked, rising from his desk.
“It is a female individual,” Crews
ton explained. “She waits in a carriage. She asked that I give you this.” He offered a handkerchief.
But Dimitri didn’t need to take the scrap of fabric; he could scent her the moment his butler waved it. Lerina.
His flash of rage was instantly banked. She wouldn’t trick him again, and he had no desire to waste any thought or energy on her. Yet, he was curious as to why she would chance encountering him again.
Instead of responding to Crewston, he pulled on his coat and slipped a slender wooden stake into the pocket. He suspected she was here on a peacemaking visit, but naturally there was no trusting the woman.
Outside in the late-summer heat, Dimitri sniffed the air as he walked down the three steps. Her carriage had been drawn up in the half-circle drive, only a few paces from the stairs. The air was humid and heavy with the perfume of mature roses and lilies, underscored by London’s constant tinge of waste and garbage. The vehicle’s door opened as he stepped down to the ground, but he went no farther.
“It’s safe, my dear Dimitri,” she said, peering out from the opening. “Not a ruby in sight.”
“Pardon me if I don’t trust your word on that,” Dimitri replied. “I cannot imagine what you think you might have to talk to me about, but you must come out if you wish to do so.”
“It was a misunderstanding, Dimitri darling,” Lerina said as she emerged gracefully from the carriage, her hair and skirts tumbling prettily about her.
He paused, waiting to see if he sensed the proximity of a ruby or two. Or a dozen. He didn’t, and he hadn’t expected to. Nor did he scent anyone else in the area, other than her driver.
Lerina might not be the brightest of people, but she apparently had a great sense of self-preservation. And she knew him well—that, unless provoked, he wouldn’t harm her.
“If that episode was a misunderstanding, I cannot imagine what you think the incident in Vienna was. A picnic? Let’s not play games, Lerina. You tried to abduct me, you failed and now you are here…for what reason, precisely? You must know you won’t have the advantage of tricking me again.”
She pouted. “But I’m still in love with you, Dimitri.”
“You have a unique way of showing it.”
“I was a fool. I always have been.”
“How gratifying to know that nothing has changed.”
Her face tightened, losing that flirtatious expression for the first time since she’d arrived. “I had to take the chance to see you alone. The others who were with me are Cezar’s makes. If they realized I was here…”
Dimitri was shaking his head. “No. Try again.”
“Damn you, Dimitri.”
He shrugged. “I’m afraid you’re a bit late on that, too.
Now what do you wa—”
A noise behind him had him turning. Bloody damned Lucifer’s soul.
“Miss Woodmore,” he said, with what he deemed great control. Great, immense, precise control.
She ducked her head and shoulders back inside the open window, where she quite probably had been eavesdropping, and seconds later the front door opened. There she stood, the proper Miss Woodmore, wearing nothing but a flimsy night rail. Her thick hair poured over her shoulders in dark waves, glinting gold in the weak circle of illumination from the streetlamp.
Dimitri paused for a moment to thank the Fates there was no moonlight tonight to shine through the fabric as he struggled to keep his expression blank. “What are you doing?”
She’d stepped onto the top step and he noticed a slender implement in her hand, half hidden behind her and by the folds of her skirt. A stake? Did she mean to protect him? A wave of annoyance and fury battled with some other emotion that he dared not define. Addled woman.
“Mrs. Throckmullins,” Miss Woodmore said as easily as if she’d just arrived for tea. “I should not have expected a social call from you, after our last meeting.”
“Get back into the house, Miss Woodmore,” Dimitri told her, glancing at Lerina. To his dismay, her face was rapt with attention.
“I was just leaving,” Lerina said to the new arrival. Her eyes narrowed and her smile seemed forced. It was a cunning expression that didn’t bode well, along with a spark of something dark. “I have everything that I came for.”
Dimitri turned back toward Miss Woodmore, turning his furious glare on her. She ignored him and he stepped onto the lower stair in an effort to draw her attention to him, and away from Lerina. If the chit would see how angry he was, she’d listen and go back inside. “Miss Woodmore, you will catch your death of cold out here. Dressed in that,” he added flatly, studiously ignoring the way one side of her bodice had slipped, revealing the curve of a delicious collarbone.
“There’s not the least bit of a chill out here,” she replied. The fact that her nipples were outlined by the light fabric put her statement into question.
“Miss Woodmore,” he said in a low voice, his teeth clenched. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that, but your interference is unnecessary. And—”
He heard rustling behind him, then a faint creak. When he turned, it was to see Lerina’s carriage door closing behind her. The vehicle lurched into motion and he watched it drive away, an unpleasant prickle running down his spine mingling with the throb from his Mark.
“In the house,” he said, brushing past Miss Woodmore to open the door, wondering where in the damned bloody hell Crewston was, and what he was thinking, allowing her to come out dressed as she was.
He was only slightly mollified when his ward stepped into the house without further argument. Just then Iliana came rushing around the corner, long braid flying, stake in hand. Her bare feet slapped to a halt and she looked at Dimitri.
At once he realized what had happened and it was all he could do to keep from shouting at Miss Woodmore that he didn’t need to be bloody damn protected. Lucifer’s black soul, what had possessed her to think so?
Iliana took one look at his face and pivoted away, prudently heading back from whence she’d come.
This left Dimitri alone with his ward, for apparently, Crewston had other things to do. Or, more likely, he was lurking somewhere, had seen the fury on his master’s face and decided to remain out of eyesight.
“I need to speak with you, Corvindale,” Miss Woodmore said coolly. She was still holding the stake.
Here, inside the house, he wasn’t quite as fortunate. For the lamps lighting the front hall and the small sconce on the corridor provided a spill of soft, warm illumination around, and through, her night rail.
Before he could respond, she turned and flounced down the corridor to his sanctuary. His study. Dimitri looked away, grinding his teeth as he followed her—he followed her—into his den. He had a few things he should say to her, as well.
But when he came into the chamber and closed the door behind him, Dimitri had a sudden attack of wariness. His palms actually began to dampen. For the bloody Fates, he hadn’t had sweaty palms since he was standing for his first Latin exam at Cambridge.
What was it about this woman who needled him to no end?
“Incidentally, you were wrong, Corvindale,” she was saying. She’d positioned herself at the far end of the room, where two chairs faced the center with a small table between them. The window whose curtains she had the temerity to open every bloody time she came in was next to one of the seats. The chamber was suffused with her scent, that of slumber and spice and fresh cotton and whatever she used to clean her hair.
He forced himself to wander casually to the cabinet where he kept his French brandy and Scotch whiskey. Since the night last week when he’d downed two full bottles of blood whiskey, he hadn’t indulged. But tonight he thought he might be able to justify at least a finger or two of the best vintage, especially since he’d made certain he hadn’t been face-to-face with her since the events at Rubey’s. He hadn’t seen more than the flutter of her hem around a corner since he’d tucked her into the carriage for the ride home.
“I? Wrong?” He sipped th
e golden liquid and realized his heart was slamming in his chest. His insides were tight. What in the bloody damned hell was wrong with him?
“You said she’d tried to abduct you and failed. That isn’t precisely true, is it? Mrs. Throckmullins—Lerina—did succeed in abducting you. And if I hadn’t shown up, who knows what would have happened?”
His fingers tightened over the glass. What did she want, honors and an audience at court in appreciation? “As I understand it, you didn’t exactly show up. You were abducted, as well.”
“That is quite true,” she replied. “But I managed to free myself. Although I do understand there were extenuating circumstances on your part.”
Dimitri struggled to keep his voice steady. “Indeed. I sup pose I have been remiss in expressing my gratitude for your…assistance.”
Surprisingly, forcing those words out didn’t have the debilitating affect he’d expected for himself. Instead, when he saw the flash of surprise and the hint of rose flushing her cheeks, he felt rather…pleased. He took another generous taste of whiskey.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and without that edge so often there. “We were…we worked together.”
He looked aside, trying to regain the annoyance and frustration that had begun to slip away. “What did you think you were doing tonight, Miss Woodmore? Did you really believe you and that little stake would have had a chance against Lerina if she had been a threat?”
She’d begun to straighten a pile of books on one of the tables. “In my mind,” she said, pulling out a French translation of The Iliad and placing it atop its counterpart, The Odyssey, “it never hurts to be prepared. One never knows when one might be caught unawares.”
“I’m never—” He stopped abruptly.
She looked up at him and their eyes met. And held. Something hurt, in his chest, something sharp and hot as if he’d been stabbed. Or staked. Yet, while unexpected, it wasn’t wholly unpleasant.
Her lips twitched, that full, luscious upper one curving into a hint of a smile. “Is it possible you’re learning, Corvindale? That you aren’t always right?”
