by Колин Глисон
"No, you'll never be able to find it. I'll go with you and we can cover up my gown. But my mother—"
"Eustacia will send her a note explaining," Max replied, ushering her toward the door. "Come, we have time, but not that much time. The holy salt water will only slow the Guardian's poison for a short time." He fairly pushed her out the door and followed her directions down the hall, back toward the party.
When she'd found her cloak and arranged it to cover her gown, he took a moment to adjust the fallen piece of hair, tucking it firmly into the collar of her cloak so that it would hide the bite.
Moments later he was propelling her across the ballroom, dodging anyone who appeared eager to stop and talk, when the Marquess of Rock-something materialized. Victoria froze; Max could feel it all the way along the arm he'd been using to steer her through the crowd.
"Miss Grantworth. And… er… ahem." He looked pointedly at Max. "I was looking for you."
"Lord Rockley," Victoria said, with a gentle note in her voice that Max had yet to notice in any of his conversations with her, "I apologize for disappearing, and I regret even more that I am being called away to my great-aunt's bedside. She is ill again."
Rockley—so that was his name—looked at Max again, then back at Victoria. "I see. Well, my lady, I regret that I was not able to quench your thirst this evening. Good night."
"My lord, wait." Victoria pulled away from Max and reached for the marquess's arm. He stopped and looked down at her, and even from Max's view, he appeared cool and untouched, although surely one of the most beautiful women in the room was pulling him back. "May I present to you my aunt's personal guard, and my cousin"—Max heard her stress that last word—"Maximilian Pesaro. He came to fetch me to her side. Urgently."
Rockley gave Max another of his measuring looks, then the barest trace of a bow. "Phillip de Lacy, Marquess of Rockley, at your service, er, sir."
Max's patience was gone. The niceties of society and the flirtation between a debutante and a titled fop meant nothing in the grand scheme of things—namely that the beloved niece of Eustacia Gardella was currently carrying a vampire bite on her neck. "My pleasure, I'm sure. Victoria, I must insist we be on our way. Your aunt is in desperate straits."
To his surprise, Victoria allowed him to practically tow her off in his wake; she had to take quick steps in order to keep up with him, but she did so with a minimum of fuss.
"You appear to have no concept of how little time we have to address the situation in which you've so foolishly placed yourself," he snapped, shoving her into the coach that had been waiting for his return.
Victoria stumbled in and crawled over to a far corner, dragging her skirts and cloak. Despite her bravado in fac-ing him, she looked more than a little terrified about the result of her weakness. However, she recovered much too quickly.
"I suppose you will have some sort of nasty remarks to make regarding my weakness," she said as the coach lurched into movement. "Regarding my failure as a Venator. Bitten by a vampire. A great laugh for you."
Max stared at her from his seat across the coach. A small lantern hung in the corner, casting a soft glow over the interior, enough that she could see his mouth set into a thin line.
He hesitated for only a moment; then he reached toward his throat and whipped the cravat from its perfect anchor, stripping it away and tossing it aside. Victoria watched, dumbfounded, as he snapped open the buttons on his collar and yanked it wide, exposing his neck. He turned to one side, displaying the four small marks of a vampire bite: two from the top fangs, two from the bottom.
With a steady look, he turned in the other direction and showed her the other side of his neck, right at the juncture of his shoulder. The one that had not quite healed.
"The reason I carry a vial of salted holy water."
He settled back in his seat and turned to stare out the window.
Victoria closed her mouth and said not another word.
Victoria could not forget how easily she'd succumbed to the vampire's allure. When his lips had touched her neck, she'd softened, swayed, under his influence. His teeth, needle sharp, had played there… scraping gently over her skin, taunting, stroking, glancing over her pulse point as she lay in his arms, malleable and soft as a puddle of wax.
And then, just as he sank his fangs into her skin… as the painful pleasure flooded over her, into her… she gathered every last bit of reality that swam in her mind, and closed her fingers over the stake. He moaned in ecstasy, and she struck.
Poof.
He was gone, and suddenly Maximilian was there. And now he'd brought her to Aunt Eustacia's house.
"The Guardians had found her by the time I arrived," Max explained as he hustled Victoria into the salon. Her neck was still throbbing, thanks to another generous application of Max's salted holy water during the ride in his carriage, driven by Briyani.
"Guardians?" Victoria asked as he directed her toward a chair. She sank into it and sat placidly while Eustacia and Kritanu bustled about the room. They were preparing something that smelled nasty and she expected would soon be plastered over her bite. Or, worse, that she would have to drink.
"Guardian vampires," Kritanu told her in his gentle accent. "Fierce and loyal to Lilith, they are her elite guard. She turned each of them herself; they are her personal servants. Many of them have been undead for centuries or more. A common, less powerful vampire has eyes the color of blood. You can tell a Guardian by the color of his eyes—they are not so red as that, but lighter, ruby pink."
Victoria nodded. "Is that the only thing that makes them different from other vampires?"
"Guardians carry a poison in their fangs, unlike other vampires and Imperials. If it is not stopped, it will cause death—even in a Venator. That is why Max was so determined to bring you back without delay."
"Imperials? What are they?" asked Victoria. "You did not tell me there were different types of vampires."
"Guardians and Imperials are not common, and since there is so much you must learn, I felt it necessary to focus your time on learning to fight them, and teach you other aspects of the undead as time goes on," Aunt Eustacia confessed. "I see that I have done a disservice in trying not to overwhelm you, Victoria. You might have been better prepared to recognize them tonight."
"Imperials are the oldest vampires," Kritanu explained kindly. "Many of them are centuries, even millennia old. They carry swords, and they can fly or move about with such speed that they appear to fly. Their eyes are dark red-purple, and although they do not have the poison that the Guardians do, they are the most fearsome of the vampires. And the rarest."
"And that is why I did not feel you needed to know that so soon." Eustacia looked over at Max. "I did not expect them to be so bold. Usually the Guardians stay close by Lilith; and Max has not fought an Imperial for two years."
"It was obvious they were looking for Victoria; they sought her out at the ball."
"Did you execute them?" Eustacia asked as she bent toward Victoria's neck, bringing a lamp so close it heated her skin. "You did well, Max," she added, brushing her fingers over the sore area. "Your quick thinking will make this much less painful."
"Victoria staked the one who was biting her. I happened to stop the other." Max appeared to be perusing the page of an open book quite studiously. The page whisked as he turned it.
Eustacia looked at Max, then at Victoria. "You staked the Guardian who bit you? Sorprendente! Kritanu, the ointment."
"Yes… they were both attacking me, but he pushed the woman away. Then when he…" She glanced at Max, who looked as disinterested as if she were describing a new gown. Nevertheless, she dropped her voice. She didn't want the depths of her weakness to be so… evident. "When he bent to bite me… I let him. He… hypnotized me, I think. I felt him pulling me—Yeow!" she squealed. And she didn't even think about how mortifying the sound was. It hurt.
The ointment wasn't merely cold and putrid-smelling… it stung as if it were drilling into he
r skin. It burned ten times worse than Max's salt water, and Victoria couldn't hold back the tears of pain.
"I know it's uncomfortable, my dear, but this will keep the scarring to a minimum and destroy most, if not all, of the Guardian poison. With any luck, it will look like no more than some faint blemishes. And along with the fact that you executed the vampire who did it… well, there should be no harmful effects."
Victoria resisted the urge to look at Max, who had turned three more pages. He'd rebuttoned his collar and retied his cravat. But she remembered the scars on his neck. They were much more noticeable than a faint blemish. The man was fortunate that high starched collars were in style.
Eustacia turned away to clean her hands and Kritanu gently wrapped a cloth around Victoria's neck, covering the paste that still felt as if it were ravaging her skin. "Breathe deeply and slowly, in and out," he told her quietly. "In and out. It will help to ease the discomfort."
Victoria did as he suggested, and it did, indeed, lessen the pain.
"You'll want to sleep here tonight," Eustacia told her. "I've sent word to the Dunsteads for your mother, so she won't be alarmed. I'll tell her I sent a coach for you myself, for if I know Melly, if she ever found out you'd ridden alone with Max, she would be quite beside herself."
She took Victoria's hands. "You staked a Guardian vampire while he was biting you. If I had any reservation at all about your calling as a Venator, Victoria Gardella Grantworth, it would be gone now. As it is, I suspected from the beginning that you were special. Now I know you are. If anyone can stop Lilith, it will be you."
Chapter Five
In Which Miss Grantworth Finds an Unexpected Ally
"My lady! You've been bit by a vampire!" Verbena's eyes goggled in the mirror over Victoria's shoulder. With her round face and abominably frizzy red-blond hair, the maid looked like a babe just awakened from her sleep.
Before Victoria could think how to respond, let alone grasp that her maid had recognized the bite, Verbena bent to look closer. "It looks like it'll heal just fine," she said, nodding sagely. "Put salted holy water on it, did ye?"
"Verbena… how…" Victoria collected herself. "You aren't shocked at all."
"No, my lady, and why would I be? With all the fuss about crosses, and stakes lying around, and that cross ye've got in your belly, what kind of maid would I be if I missed them clues? I've been waitin' for ye to ask me to find a way to hide garlic in your gloves!"
"That wouldn't smell very pleasant at all," Victoria replied slowly. She wanted to shake her head to clear it. But she didn't think that would help.
"And why you're not carrying your own salted holy water, I've been wondering meself. And how did ye manage to get bit anyway? I thought Ven'tors didn't get bit?"
"How did you know I was a Venator?" Tired of looking at her maid through the mirror, Victoria turned on her stool and faced her.
Verbena stabbed a finger toward her abdomen. "You carry the sign, of course, my lady."
"How do you know about all of this? Vampires and Venators?"
Verbena shrugged. "Who doesn't know about 'em? Vampires, I mean. Most peoples do, just they choose not to believe they exist. Unless they get bit; then they believe—but by then it's too late, in most cases. Everyone knows you got to stab them in the heart with a wooden stake, and everyone knows about the cross and holy water. I know most peoples think vampires are ugly, fright'nin' people who claw up your chest, but that ain't so. I've seen a bit before in me lifetime, I have. Me cousin twice removed, Barth, he knows lots about vampires, and he's been telling me stories since I was a little one. And he sees 'em a lot, too, over to the places in St. Giles. He carries a big crucifix, he does. Holds it out in front of him when he walks on the street. Looks pretty funny to me eyes, but it's better walkin' safe than lookin' smart."
It seemed once Verbena was given leave to talk, she took it. Greedily.
"Well, Verbena, I must say it is quite fortunate that you are so… er… well accustomed to the idea, as it will make things much easier for me. Because, of course, Lady Melly mustn't know anything about this at all."
The maid bobbed. "Yes, my lady. Your mother would up and faint dead away, then ship you off to the country for good. And then where would we be? There ain't no vampires in the country that I know. An' I've already been thinking about other ways to dress your hair so we can put a stake in there, if need be, so's you can pull it out real easy if you need it.
"An' there's prob'ly a way to put in two, 'cause I'm sure it could happen when ye might lose the one, and then what would ye do? Fortunate ye are to have such thick, heavy hair, so we have lots to work with. And until that bite is healed… well, my lady, that's going to be a challenge with these low styles that show off your neck and bosom, but I have some ideas, and we'll manage it. You just let me worry about that."
"Indeed." Victoria turned back to her mirror. For, after all, what else was there to say?
"I can appreciate her devotion to her aunt, but if Victoria continues to disappear at inopportune moments, she will lose all chance of landing the marquess—or any other prudent marriage contract!" Lady Melisande was pacing the parlor of Grantworth House.
"Now, now, Melly, don't fuss," Petronilla urged. "Surely the fact that your foyer and sitting rooms are filled with flowers indicate that Victoria has intrigued more than one potential beau!"
"Indeed, but none of them are from the Marquess of Rockley! He did not call today, and I am fearful that Victoria's leaving the ball early last night has cooled his interest."
Winifred reached for a ginger cookie, a large crucifix thunking against her chest as she sat back. "You said your aunt is ill?"
"I do not know—but she sent her friend Maximilian Pesaro to fetch Victoria to her side last night, claiming that she was. I do not wish to interfere, for my aunt has a vast fortune she will leave to us… and… well, she can be a bit frightening… but it could not have been a more inopportune moment for her to call Victoria away!"
"Maximilian Pesaro? I do not believe I know him," Winnie commented, looking with interest at the lemon icing on a plate of chocolate biscuits. She had yet to make her selection, for fear of choosing one with a lesser amount of icing. "Who is he?"
"He was the frightfully tall man who came striding through the room just after dinner like he was on a mission somewhere important. Dark hair, swarthy skin, and an expression that was like to send my heart pounding from my chest!" Petronilla replied, hand clasped to said chest as though to keep the organ in place. "He looks terrifyingly dangerous. Like a pirate!"
"At least you did not say he looked like a vampire." Melly took a seat on her favorite chaise. "He is a particular friend of my aunt, and has recently arrived from Italy, perhaps six months ago."
"He could be a vampire," considered Petronilla, her eyes gleaming. "I wonder if he is! Your aunt seems to know an awful lot about them."
"I have taken to carrying garlic in my indispensable, on the recommendation of my butler's sister's mother-in-law," the duchess confessed. "I do not wish to be a victim of those creatures!"
"A duchess carrying garlic. How ridiculous!" Melly laughed. "Winnie, there are no such things as vampires. In fact, the latest I have heard from my cousin Lord Jellington is that the Runners believe those people left for dead by the wharves were attacked by some kind of mad dog, and that the claws made the marks that people think look like Xs. They shot and killed one just two days ago, and there have been no more attacks since."
"And what about the people who have disappeared? Beresford-Gellingham and Teldford?"
Melly put her teacup down rather a bit too abruptly. "And what do you believe happened to them, Winnie? They turned into vampires themselves? That's ludicrous. Beresford-Gellingham likely took himself off to the Continent to get away from his creditors, and Teldford is foolish enough to have tripped and fallen in the Thames, never to be seen again. Just because two or three people have not given their whereabouts does not mean there are vampires about!"
"My maid told me she heard of a woman who was visited by a vampire in her bedchamber," Petronilla breathed. Her hand fluttered at her throat. "She said that it wasn't frightening at all… that he was very gentle and… passionate."
"Gentle until he sucked all of her blood out with his fangs!" exclaimed Winnie in shock. "Nilly, I assure you, it would be no sweet picnic to have a creature suck the blood from your chest!"
"I would agree if I believed they even existed. Now, enough of that ridiculous topic. Tell me what I shall do to ensure that Rockley regains his interest in Victoria," Melly said, forgetting her habit of nibbling. She stuffed a whole ginger cookie in her mouth.
"Rockley was so attentive last evening, and the way he spoke about fetching your lemonade and having a thirst all night… well, I was certain he intended to ask you for a second dance, Victoria. I can't imagine what could have happened," Lady Melly said as they settled in the carriage that evening.
"I can't either, Mama," Victoria lied.
"Unless that girl Gwendolyn Starcasset has caught his eye again. He did dance with her twice at Lady Fiorina's ball three weeks ago." Lady Melly's eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. "You must invest greater effort into catching his attention, Victoria. Unless something has put him off, which I can't imagine what, you should have no problem regaining his attention. He finds you very attractive; he had his eyes on you whilst you were dancing with that dreadful Lord Truscott I warned you about."
"Lord Truscott wasn't so dreadful."
"Hmph. He hasn't the money nor the looks of Rockley. I do hope you will pay some attention to the marquess the next time we see him at an event. Perhaps you should not have left the ball early last night."
Victoria nodded and agreed. Once her mother was put to something, she was put to it. And apparently Lady Melly was determined to make a match betwixt her daughter and the marquess.
In all honesty, Victoria had to admit that it was a pleasant thought. She'd danced with Rockley several times, and spoken with him at other social engagements, and she found nothing about him lacking. He was agreeable enough. Handsome enough. Witty and kind and charming, just as he had been that summer long ago when she knew him only as a young man—certainly not a marquess!—who seemed carefree and bold. They'd met every day for a fortnight, and he'd never let on that he was more than a boy from the village. He thought she was interesting and original and he had sought her out, based on his memory of her. That meant something, did it not?
