by Alicia Ryan
***
“How do you feel?” Andrew asked, rousing Darren for the second day in a row.
“Terrible.”
“What happened? Tell me everything.”
Darren groaned and flipped his head sideways on the pillow, but refused to roll over. “A tiny, young whore, one of two idiot pickpockets who tried to relieve Pietro of his pocketbook, and, against my better judgment, the older of two genteel cousins on their way home from a ball in a carriage parked in a place decidedly too dark for safety.”
“Three?” Andrew’s voice had become a screech.
“That’s right.”
“What about restraint? What about discretion? What about all we’ve worked for?”
“Pietro must be humored, Andrew. There is no other course.”
“Did you...?”
“No. They all remain blissfully ignorant and fully alive.”
“He’s not killing, then?”
“Not yet.” He rolled over to begin his own inquisition. “Did you see Roxanna?”
Andrew nodded. “I did as you asked.”
“And?”
“And...I’m not sure. I think she believed me.”
“What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t she believe you?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “She said she did, but something in her manner...it was almost as if she was expecting me.”
“I don’t understand,” Darren said. “How could she have known you were coming?”
“Well, maybe not me, in particular. Rather it was the news that you would be absent for a time.” He thought for a minute. “No, I guess she did seem surprised by that, at first. But then she just appeared resigned. Not nearly concerned enough for your welfare, I might add.”
Darren closed his eyes. “God,” he said, “don’t let her lose faith in me.”
“Oh,” Andrew said. “That would make sense. She doesn’t trust you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, why should she? You’re a vampire. You essentially kidnapped her. And now you’ve left her on her own in a strange time and place with only some vague promise that you’ll get back to her someday and maybe you’ll send her home if she asks.” He pursed his lips and nodded. “Yes, I can see her side of it now.”
“I really hate you.”
Andrew laughed. “You only hate me when I point out how less than wonderful you are.”
“I’m serious. I can’t lose her, Andrew. You have to go back, talk to her.”
Andrew shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I was instructed to leave her room on peril of her ‘kicking my spirit ass’,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Andrew...”
His spirit twin sighed. “Will it help you?” he asked. “Will it help you to know she’s waiting?”
“She’s all I care about, Andrew. I don’t know what would become of me if I lost her.”
“Is it really as bad as that?”
“There’s no one else for me. Nothing else.”
“Then I’ll talk to her again.” He held up his hand. “Not right away. I’ll give it a day or two, but I’ll make her understand. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you from becoming what you once were—or worse.” He shrugged. “If this woman is the key, so be it.”
“I can’t contemplate a future without her in it, Andrew.” He stared at the spirit that wore his face. “Do you understand?”
“You’re afraid if Darren, the man, loses her, there might not be enough of him left to restrain the vampire.”
“There will be nothing of him left without her.”
Andrew sighed. “I see.”
Chapter Sixteen
Phillip thought a day might have cooled her anger, but that did not appear to be the case. Last night, he’d come back expecting to find the incredible woman—more than friend, not sure what—who’d been with him that afternoon. But the woman who met him at the piano was distant. And when she sang, he could have sworn Padworth’s shook to its foundations. He’d never heard her like that before—so much power, and so much darkness, with deep undercurrents of pain and anger. She’d mesmerized him—and not just him. The audience was packed to standing room only before she was done.
Tonight was shaping up in similar fashion. He wanted her to talk to him, but when he remembered Darren hadn’t ever shown up last night, he felt he had a hint of what was causing her distress. But he couldn’t bring himself to care over much if Highmore fell out of the picture. Not that he wanted Roxanna to suffer, not at all. But as he watched her over the piano, delivering a version of “Cold Man’s Nightmare”, a song she sang often, that this time had started out delicate and coy but now grew into something dangerous as it painted a picture of obsession instead of love or mere sexual interest. And as “Cold Man’s Nightmare” gave way to the pulsing, writhing “One Wild Night”, he had to admit that, in a certain way, the touch of darkness suited her. It certainly suited her voice. She was delivering another command performance. On the second trip through the chorus, “one wild night” became a chant rising up from the audience. And even more heads peeked in from the outer room. And heads became bodies as they squeezed in to see her for themselves.
“Always a Woman” was her last song of the night, and Phillip couldn’t keep his heart out of his eyes as she sang. Ostensibly about the vicissitudes of the female sex, he wanted to cry when she sang about being ahead of her time. All the more when the lyrics bemoaned the reluctance of women to reveal anything but what they wanted you to see. Right now, he knew, she was angry and hurt, but she wouldn’t let him see.
And, if he credited her story about being from the future, which, to his unending surprise, he rather did, then she’d entrusted him with a tremendous secret. Which left him wondering why he was so certain she still kept back more than she shared.
Topping one surprise with another, she walked over to him, hips swaying under pale yellow fabric, the bare skin of her thigh visible with every step, and untied his cravat to wipe the sweat from her brow and across her chest.
“Get me a whiskey, yeah?” she asked.
He gaped for a moment, but just nodded and rose to go to the bar. He’d only taken three long steps when she started to sing again—his song. The song about wanting a hero. He turned; she was facing the audience, her fists clenched, her voice towering. And so full of longing it made his heart ache. And it made him want. Want her, want to be that for her. God, if he could live up to that song, she could be his. And he’d deserve her.
He did manage to get the whiskey and return with it before the song ended. She smiled at him, crossed the stage, took the glass from his hand and tossed it back as if she drank it every day at breakfast. That earned her a rousing round of applause.
“Back at your post, piano boy,” she said, smiling. “I’m not nearly done.”
He gave her a mock bow. “You know I’m at your service.”
She laughed and winked at him. “Be careful what you promise a lady.”
He grinned back at her. “When I meet one, no doubt I will be.”
“Ouch,” she said. “Okay, that round goes to you.” She handed him her empty glass and waved him back to the piano. “Now try to keep up.”
The rest of the night, about ten more songs, some of which he knew and some he didn’t, was as wild and unconstrained as any performance she’d given yet. Every song was hard-driving, sexually charged, defiant and, at last, fun—“Bad Romance”, “Addicted to Love”, and “I Want to Do Bad Things to You” becoming three of his new favorites. He identified a bit too much with the subject of the second song, who couldn’t sleep or eat because of his new-found addiction.
Phillip waited for the crowd to thin, and then went to see Roxanna in the bar. She was sitting in a wing-backed chair sipping a glass of water. He took the chair opposite.
“I see Darren failed to make an appearance,” he commented. “Again.”
Ro
xanna just drank her water.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but only in part.”
She gave him a sharp look.
“I meant that his absence has motivated you. I’ve never heard you as good as you were tonight.”
“Thanks,” she said with a weak smile.
“But I wish you’d tell me what’s happened. I can’t believe we’ve seen the last of him.”
“I don’t know,” she said, sighing and leaning forward to put her glass on the polished wood table between them. “I don’t even know why I’m angry. He’s entertaining some old friend and doesn’t want to have me around.”
“Surely that’s not so odd?”
“Except the friend may be here for an indefinite period of time.”
“Then he’ll eventually introduce you. Why wouldn’t he?”
“He’s...protecting me.”
Phillip frowned. “From his friend?”
“Yes.”
“Who the hell has friends like that?”
“Dangerous men.”
“Roxanna, I don’t think it’s just my selfishness asking you to reconsider your relationship with him.”
“I know. And I may have to consider that good advice at some point. But not yet.”
“You’ll wait for him?”
She closed her eyes and nodded, but her mouth was a thin, unhappy line. “I’ll wait.”
Phillip waited, too, but she said nothing more on the subject.
“You’re off to bed?” he asked. “I don’t want to leave you here unattended.”
She smiled and stood. “No need to babysit me. I’m turning in.” She closed her eyes again for a moment. “Though I may make a stop by the kitchen.”
He laughed. “You should. You earned your keep tonight. You must be starving.”
“Something like that,” she said, her curiously sad eyes causing him to hesitate.
“Is there nothing I can do for you?” he asked.
She smiled stiffly, but put a gentle hand to his face. “No, sweet Phillip. There’s nothing you can do.”
“I wish there were.”
She dropped her hand. “Until tomorrow, okay?”
He smiled. “Okay.”
***
Roxanna washed, rinsed out her dress, and changed into her chemise. The knife she’d pilfered from the kitchen gleamed at her from the small table that held the single candle she’d been allotted. She’d never thought of the past as being so goddamn dark all the time.
She closed her hand around the hilt. It was narrow, carved wood, and it fit perfectly in her palm. Best of all, it was sharp. From the few she’d examined, Myrtle and Sherman were meticulous about their knives.
Flopping down onto her ridiculous mattress, she drew the chemise up from her knees to the crease of her right thigh, exposing all her scars. She stared at them and took a deep breath, pain—the internal kind—making her chest ache with the effort. She was cut off from Darren, and she hadn’t anticipated how much it would hurt.
“Please refrain from doing that while a guest is present.”
She rolled her eyes and looked around, recognizing Andrew’s voice. A moment later, he appeared at the foot of her bed, the flickering candle making him appear to fade in and out at different places.
“What’s up, Casper?” she said drily, laying the knife on the bed beside her.
“I don’t know what that means,” he replied, “but I’ll just assume it to be something undignified and not at all flattering and get on with what I’ve come to say.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Yes, well.” He hesitated, and Roxanna raised her brows expectantly. “Darren asked me to reiterate his very dear wish that you should wait for him.”
“It wasn’t necessary,” she said. “I’ll wait.”
“Roxanna,” he went on, “it would be remiss of me not to point out the safest place for you would be back in your own time. If Darren were thinking straight, he’d tell you the same.”
“Is this Pietro really so bad?”
“He’s a vampire. Isn’t that bad enough?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course, I am. And to further answer your question, by all accounts Pietro is monstrous and not to be trusted.”
“Why is he here? I thought Darren hadn’t seen him in ages.”
“He’s here because of you.”
“Me? What the hell have I got to do with this?”
“It seems vampires have some sort of sense of what goes on with those they create. He’s developed a perverse curiosity about why Darren’s mood has so suddenly lifted.”
“And, let me guess, he’s not a big fan of other people’s happiness.”
“We fear that to be the case.”
“So him finding out about me would likely be an unpleasant experience.”
“That is one possibility.”
She looked down, absent-mindedly pulling her chemise back to her knee. “Let me ask you something, Andrew. I know you do the time-travelling trick. If I went home, you could bring me back, right?”
His mouth twisted in seeming contemplation. “Perhaps,” he said. “If we could find you again. So, in truth, I don’t know. It is not a certainty.”
“Nothing ever is, is it?” she said on a sigh. “Only pain.” She gave him a sad smile. “I would have also said death, but having met Darren....” She paused to think for a moment. “Could you send us both back—to my time?”
Andrew shook his head. “I suspect that would be beyond my power. Perhaps if Darren were an older vampire...but I’m limited by the blood he gives me.”
“Oh, well. That was too much to hope for. Hope hasn’t done well by me in the past. I don’t know why it should start now.
“If I’m gone...” she continued, “this Pietro...he’ll eventually go too, won’t he? He’ll leave Darren alone.”
“Very probably.”
She ran her hand down her scarred leg. “How much danger is he in?”
“I don’t know. He’s not killing, for the time being. I don’t know that he would. His desire to please you—and not lose you—may hold him fast. I can’t deny how strongly he feels for you.”
“Then tell him I’ll wait,” she said, looking around her tiny room. “But you know I can’t stay here forever.” She looked back at Andrew. “I don’t belong here. I can’t have a life here—certainly not without him.”
“If and when you wish it, he will help me send you back. He won’t keep you here if you no longer wish to stay. I do know that.”
She nodded. “For now, just tell him I’ll wait. And tell him to please be careful.”
Andrew nodded and disappeared.
“I really hate how you do that,” she muttered into the air.
Leaning back against the stone wall, she grabbed up the knife, looked at it, but then tossed it away. She missed her vampire, and she feared for him—for them both. Blowing out the candle, she lay down, cradling her pillow in her arms to catch her tears.
Chapter Seventeen
“You didn’t have to come, you know,” Roxanna said as, clad in the blue dress Darren had bought her, she made her way to the piano.
Phillip was back in his usual spot, playing something astoundingly lovely and horribly difficult. He turned to look at her.
“I know I said I’d see you this morning,” she explained, “but I forgot today was Monday. And I think we deserve a day off.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I must look a wreck for you to ask that first thing.”
He chuckled. “Not at all.” He paused to look her over. “I do so like your hair down, even though it’s not particularly lady-like.”
She smiled, walked close enough to bend over him and whispered in his ear. “You don’t like me lady-like at all.”
He flushed pink. “That’s disturbingly true.” He took her hands in his. “But your appearance is not why I asked after you. I know you’re upset.”
“
Time heals all wounds, right?”
“You know Chaucer?”
“Who?”
“‘As time him hurt, so a time doth him cure.’ Geoffrey Chaucer.”
“Well, my classical literature is a bit rusty, but yes, that’s the gist.”
He raised his brows.
“That’s what I meant,” she explained.
Somewhere behind them, a woman coughed, and Roxanna turned to see a young girl, well turned out in a deep burgundy velvet and wool dress, with black hair and blue eyes she recognized immediately.
The second hint came when Phillip dropped her hands like she was contagious.
“Diana,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here?”
Diana looked Roxanna over and then shifted her gaze back to her brother. “I’m looking for someone,” she said. “A female acquaintance of Lord Hartley’s.”
“Roxanna Collins, by any chance?” she asked the girl.
“Are you her?” Unlike Phillip’s, her eyes were cold.
“I am.” Roxanna stepped down and extended her hand. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
Diana wore matching burgundy velvet gloves, and took Roxanna’s hand, seemingly with quite a bit of reluctance.
“How do you know about Roxanna?” Phillip asked.
“I could ask you the same question,” his sister replied, arching a delicate brow.
“More or less the same way as Hartley, I suppose,” he said.
Diana’s cheeks flamed. “I hope not. Though that’s precisely what I came here to find out.”
“I think perhaps you should start at the beginning,” Roxanna said. “I’d hate for there to be any...misunderstanding.”
“Lord Hartley has been calling on me,” the girl replied, somewhat defiantly. “He has candidly informed me that he decided to pursue me on the advice of a singer of his acquaintance. I came to meet the woman whose advice he holds in such high esteem.”
Roxanna successfully held back a grin. “Well, you’ve met her. Lord Hartley and I are acquainted, and I’d say we have a mutual respect for one another, but that is the extent of our relationship.”
Diana folded her arms across her chest. “And what is the extent of your relationship with my brother?”
“That’s hardly your concern,” Phillip objected. “And you shouldn’t even be here. This is no place for you to be seen.”
