Alba swallowed hard. “Teddy was attacked.”
“By whom?”
“I think the more accurate question is, what attacked Teddy?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Teddy was bitten by a bat.”
The masculine-looking woman retracted. “How odd. I thought bats could only be found in the countryside.”
Alba hated to lie, but it seemed an easier alternative than telling the outlandish truth. “I saw the creature with my own eyes.”
“I have no experience treating a bat bite.” Mavis spoke the word as if it were something poisonous she wanted to extract from her mouth.
“Nor can I give you any advice on how to do so.” Alba paused.
“I suppose the best thing to do is keep an eye on Teddy.”
“Keep an eye on him? Miss Spencer, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation.”
Perhaps not. In fact, Alba wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. Her head ached and she felt completely disoriented.
“Mr. Rollingsworth lost a great deal of blood,” Mavis stated firmly. “He is cold as ice and he needs a blood transfusion.”
“We cannot take him to the hospital,” she cried. “People wouldn’t understand . . .”
The nurse raised a thin eyebrow. “Understand what, Miss Spencer?”
Alba looked at her imploringly. “I’m in no position to explain everything, but I’m sure Mr. Rollingsworth would like for this episode to remain confidential.”
“What exactly are you asking, Miss Spencer?”
“I’m asking for your discretion, Miss Bedford.” She paused. “Can you perform the blood transfusion here?”
The nurse hesitated. “I . . . I suppose so.” She hesitated again. “Oh, very well. Expose your arm.”
Alba removed her elbow-length glove while Teddy moaned. She hovered over him and he pulled her closer. “Couldn’t protect Alba . . . I’m sorry . . .”
“I’m fine, Teddy,” she said. “I’m right here with . . .” Her vision clouded, and thanks to the tremendous pain at the back of her head, she slumped weakly across Teddy’s knees.
“Gracious!” Mavis circled the bed.
The nurse put a hand to the bloody gash at the base of Alba’s skull. Alba could barely make out the words “administer a painkiller” and “stitch up the wound.” Then she plunged into a deep sleep.
Throughout the night, Mavis attended to Teddy and Alba alternately, offering Teddy rounds of lemon-barley water and taking Alba’s vital signs until morning broke.
Dawn’s light slipped through the lace curtains and Alba woke with a start. The sound of her rousing woke Mavis as well. “How is Teddy?” Alba asked.
“I gave him my blood last night.” The nurse, who looked alarmingly pale, touched the sizeable bandage that encircled her arm.
“Thank you, Miss Bedford.” Alba offered her a grateful look. “The Rollingsworth family is very lucky to have you.”
Mavis nodded and appeared satisfied—as if she’d received the compliment she had been waiting for.
Alba moved to Teddy’s side. As she studied his face, she saw that he’d regained some color in his cheeks. However, he was clenching and unclenching his jaw violently. When his head rolled from side to side, Alba squeezed his hand for comfort. Then she thought of the ring box. Is it still in my reticule?
She reached into her handbag to make sure it was still there. She was tempted to pull it out and return it to Teddy, but then she realized he had slipped into a peaceful sleep.
Alba stood, her skirts rustling. Mavis bolted out of her chair. “You’re going home?” the nurse asked.
“Yes,” Alba replied. “Teddy is in good hands and I’m sure Mrs. T. is worried out of her mind about me.”
“Before you go, Miss Spencer, let me say something.” The nurse stopped Alba by placing her hand on her arm. “I suspect you haven’t told me the truth about what happened to Mr. Rollingsworth. And you have never explained the startling gash on your head.”
Alba thought it best to keep her encounter with vampires to herself. “Rest assured Teddy did get bitten by a bat. And I fell against a lamppost trying to swat it away.”
“It seems an extraordinary story,” Mavis said.
“You’d be wise to remember your place, Miss Bedford,” Alba replied curtly.
Grunting with doubt, the nurse turned to check Teddy’s pulse.
Alba seized the chance to leave the Rollingsworth home unseen. She returned to the dormitory with the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was as if her entire existence had changed in a matter of days—and that change began the moment Dimitri reappeared in her life. She’d started to lie as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Teddy’s behavior was also growing bizarre, and the way Alba viewed her position as a barrister had become completely skewed.
Not only were these changes driving her to the edge of a dangerous precipice, they had unlocked things she’d forbidden to a remote recess of her mind. Her plan to go with Dimitri tonight, however hazardous it might prove, was a perfect example of her gravitation toward danger. He was dominating her life—and she had little control over the transition.
Was the Egyptian amulet to blame?
Refusing to think about it anymore that morning, she came through the door of the dormitory.
“Alba!” Mrs. T. gathered her in her arms as if she were a lost child. “You had us worried sick! I was on the verge of notifying Scotland Yard. Where in St. Peter’s have you been?”
Alba felt the woman’s heart beat to an insane rhythm—a rhythm only a mother’s concern could fuel—and she erupted into tears in the middle of the embrace. “It was horrible,” she choked out. “I didn’t know what to do . . .”
“There, there.” Mrs. T. gave her a squeeze. “As long as you’re alive and well.”
The Tuttlebaum girls bounced out of the bedroom, one nearly tripping over the other. They gathered around Alba and their mother, each asking different questions in the same high-pitched voice.
“Calm yourselves, girls,” Mrs. T. urged. “Alba has returned safely. If we all sit and listen, I’m sure she will tell us the entire story.”
Like the dutiful daughters they were, the girls complied. Evelyn made a pot of tea while Elaine and Eugenia set a pile of raspberry scones on the kitchen table—around which the eight females gathered.
“Sorry we ate all of your favorite apple ones from the Captain,” Eugenia apologized.
“It’s no matter,” Alba said. She wasn’t hungry, but she was exhausted. Still, she stared into the girls’ patient faces and decided she owed them an explanation.
“You dears are the only people who know what I ran away from in Romania,” she began.
“Yes,” cried Mrs. T. “That witch of a woman! If I had my way, Ileana Zpda would plummet off the London Bridge, straight to her doom.” Mrs. T. crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “Wouldn’t mind giving her a push myself.”
“Please let Alba talk, Mother,” Elaine said.
The rotund woman fell silent and rolled her eyes.
“I ran away from my stepmother because I had to protect myself,” Alba said. “She planned to kill me—and now she’s here in London.”
Gasps circled the table.
“She’s here?” Edith spoke through a mouthful of pastry.
Alba’s fingers trembled around the fluted teacup. “Ileana is a malicious person, I agree. But it’s time I confessed something myself.”
“Confess?” Ella echoed. “That can’t be good.”
“Shh,” urged Evelyn. “She’ll tell us everything if you’re quiet.”
Alba’s audience settled in and listened intently as she relayed the story of how she, Simona, and Dimitri had desecrated the grave of Vlad Dracul’s lover in the shadows of Castle Bran. She admitted that the sacrilege still haunted her deeply. She also told them that Ileana had been using Simona to taunt her—from prodding Simona to steal the amulet in the first place t
o convincing Dimitri to pass it on to Alba to curse her. Alba also relayed the night’s events inside the British Museum, ending with a show of her head injury.
“There is no doubt that Ileana wants to destroy Teddy,” Alba asserted. “It’s another way she can hurt me.”
“ ‘From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,’ ” Ellen said softly. “That’s from Romeo and Juliet.”
Her sisters groaned with annoyance.
“You mustn’t feel bad for any of this.” Mrs. T. patted Alba’s hand. “Besides, I don’t believe in vampires or black magic. Just a lot of hocus-pocus phooey, if you ask me.”
“You’re wrong, Mrs. T.” Alba’s bottom lip quivered. “Teddy lies in bed at this very moment with two bite marks in his neck—and I am responsible.”
“Teddy’s been bitten by a vampire?” Edwina fretted. “Alba, you must go back to him.”
“I intend to. I need to wash up first and change my clothes. Meanwhile, Constance Rollingsworth’s nurse is watching over him. She is the one who stitched my injury.”
“Will Teddy become a vampire?” Edwina flushed profusely. “Oh, please, Alba. Tell him I’m very worried.”
“I don’t think he’ll become a creature of the night,” Alba replied.
“How can you be so sure?” Edwina asked.
“It’s a hunch.”
“There you have it, Edwina.” Ella scowled. “Now, can’t you see that Teddy is completely infatuated with Alba, not you?”
“You’re horrible, Ella!” Edwina said. “‘Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness?’ That’s from—”
“Who cares what blasted play it’s from!” Ella countered.
Edwina scowled. “Just because you’re the eldest girl and you have no suitor doesn’t mean—”
“Girls!” Mrs. T. threw up her hands. “That’s quite enough. It’s time for your ballet class. Gather your things while I tend to Alba.”
Falling into silence, the sisters scattered around the parlor, grabbing pairs of tights from the mantel and plucking up pointe shoes.
“Come with me, my dear,” Mrs. T. instructed Alba. The large woman helped her into a nightgown, then into bed. “God knows if that nurse treated your wound competently.”
“I do have a splitting headache.”
“You see? That means you must lie down before you go back to the Rollingsworth house. I’m going to give you one of my special headache pills.”
Mrs. T. disappeared. A moment later she entered the bedroom carrying a large white pill and a glass of water. “Take this.”
Alba propped herself against the pillow and did as Mrs. T. advised.
“Now. I want you to listen to what I have to say.” Mrs. T. gave her a stern look.
Alba’s eyes widened because she’d never seen the woman’s pleasant expression drop before.
“I swore to your lovely mother that I would take care of you if anything—God forbid—happened to you. She was sick for a long while before she died, you know.”
Alba nodded. Mrs. T. rarely spoke of her mother, so she was paying careful attention.
“As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, I know this Dimitri Grigorescu is trouble. I can feel it in my bones, Alba. He came looking for you last night. I was going to tell him to mind his own business—that you are practically betrothed to Teddy Rollingsworth—but he bewitched me with those brimstone eyes of his.”
“Bewitched you?” Alba would have laughed if Mrs. T.’s expression hadn’t been so grave.
“As sure as I’m standing here, he cast a spell over me. It’s the same thing that happened to those girls.”
“What girls?”
“The prostitutes that lunatic cut up.” Mrs. T. did the sign of the cross. “Whoever killed those poor women lured them straight to it. The Whitechapel Murderer enchanted them into doing what he wanted.”
“Those women were paid companions,” Alba reminded her.
Mrs. T. sat on the bed and the mattress sagged. “You’re a smart girl, Alba, but you aren’t comprehending what I’m trying to tell you. The victims of this Jack the Ripper began dropping off around the time Dimitri Grigorescu came to town.”
Alba drew back. “Are you implying that Dimitri is Jack the Ripper?”
Mrs. T. crossed her arms. “I may not look very intelligent, but I can put two and two together.”
The insinuation ripped the air from Alba’s lungs—as it had when Teddy suggested the very same thing. “You don’t know Dimitri. He has tremendous integrity—and he holds women in the highest regard.”
“People change, Alba. Especially people you haven’t seen for eleven years.”
As the headache pill Mrs. T. gave her began to take effect, Alba closed her eyes to the disturbing notion.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alba slept all day and into the night, thanks to Mrs. T.’s special medicine. As ten o’clock neared, her eyes popped open. The Tuttlebaum girls were snug in their beds and the moon shone on their serene faces. They were dear girls, and their mother was even dearer, but if they knew Dimitri was a vampire they would surely take action against him.
When Mrs. T. had suggested that Dimitri was the maniacal killer stalking the bowels of London, Alba had defended him out of instinct. But did she really know him anymore? If he was capable of ending someone’s life as a bloodsucker, maybe he wouldn’t stop at mutilating innocent women.
Alba flipped over and stared up at the ceiling. Where was Dimitri? Fear mingled with excitement as she glanced at the bedside clock again and tried to will its hands to move faster.
A thump rang out. She bolted to an upright position and her eyes swept the long room. Thankfully, none of the girls stirred. Heart hammering, her stare darted to the window. There, the silhouette of a dark figure materialized in the moonlight. The figure leapt from the balcony to the small landing beneath the window in a graceful bound, his black cape rippling behind him. The man’s face was shadowed, but from the cut of his wide shoulders and narrow hips Alba could tell it was Dimitri. Her heart continued to stutter as she pushed the window open for him.
“Dimitri.” She inhaled sharply. His stare grazed the curves of her body beneath her sheer lace nightgown. Sliding closer, he wrapped his arm around her waist and she was astounded at the hunger in his almond-shaped eyes. As they shimmered like polished gold in the moonlight, they captured her with temptation and commanded her without words. Before she knew it, he lifted her off the ground and they dissolved into a cloud of blue mist. In her entranced state Alba’s fears fell away to a womanly desire. Dimitri could have asked her to leap off the uppermost point of Parliament and she would have done it.
“My sweet Alba.” She heard Dimitri’s low voice in the mist. “Let me protect you from Ileana. I want to watch over you tonight.”
They touched down in the courtyard of his mansion and soon they were back in their human forms before the parlor fire. Dimitri hadn’t let her go yet and she melted into the fold of his cape. She gripped his waist desperately, suppressing a fountain of tears. He smelled familiar and manly and wonderful. And she never wanted to let go.
He took her hand and led her to the sofa. “How is your head?”
“It still throbs,” she said.
He edged her close with an arm wrapped around her waist, and a thrill shot through her.
“You slammed into that sarcophagus with full force. Damn Simona . . .”
Alba shook her head. “We needn’t worry about her anymore. We should concentrate on Ileana and poor Teddy. He needed a blood transfusion after you . . .”
“Bit him?”
“Yes,” she replied softly.
“Did you give him your blood?” He looked alarmed.
“No. The Rollingsworths’ nurse did.” She paused. “Dimitri, she saw the bite marks on Teddy’s neck.”
He got up and paced before her. “It’s no matter. A vampire is a very abstract thing. Most people don’t believe in the undead—even when they see the evidence we leave behind.”
<
br /> “I know who believes in vampires,” Alba said as she wrung her hands in her lap.
“Who?”
“Mrs. T. It seems you have entranced her.”
Dimitri joined her on the sofa again and smiled. “I suppose I’m getting good at that.”
“You must be careful whom you hypnotize.” Alba frowned.
“You’re right. Not all vampires are alike.” His tone changed. “When I was a child in the Gypsy camp, there was talk of mulo vampires. Mulos are strong, unstoppable creatures who were Szgamys before they crossed over. When I grew up, I realized these creatures got their power from consuming their victims sexually.”
“I still don’t understand.”
He took her hand. “After mulos seduce their victims into bed, they exhaust and destroy their partners sexually before drinking their blood.”
Alba put a hand to her neck and gulped. She met Dimitri’s stare. “Would you do that to me?”
He raked a hand through his hair and scowled. “You have no idea how much you fuel my lust.”
“You showed great restraint at the hospital,” Alba argued. “I’m trying not to be afraid of you, Dimitri.”
“Then come away with me,” he said. “I shall take you to a place your insane stepmother will never think to look for you. It’s the only way you can be safe from her—and from this killer who lurks in the alleyways.”
Would being alone with Dimitri mean being alone with Jack the Ripper? Alarm seized her. Yet as she gazed into his vivid eyes, she was able to sweep the worry under the rug, if only for the moment.
“We cannot run away from this vampire’s curse.” She paused and looked at his hand as it lay over hers. “But I’m glad we have the bracelet of Amenhotep. It will help us beat the Egyptian prophecy.”
He said nothing.
“Dimitri. You do have the bracelet, don’t you?”
“I had it,” he said with pain in his eyes, “but it dropped into the Thames when I sank Simona’s corpse.”
Fright pulsed through her. “You have to find it!”
“I already looked for it. But I’ll go back again—and I won’t give up until I locate it.”
Snow White and the Vampire (The Cursed Princes) Page 16
