The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

by Lauren Willig

  Lucien’s head snapped up. “Don’t say that.” His eyes burned brighter than the coals on the brazier, smoldering from within. “It wasn’t for nothing. You’ve given me my home back.” A hint of amusement quirked the corner of his lips. “You’ve brought me back from the realms of the undead.”

  Sally wrapped her hands in the cool silk of her tunic. “I thought you didn’t believe in vampires.”

  “I don’t. But there’s more than one kind of tomb.” Lucien touched her cheek, as gently as the brush of a flower petal. “You rescued me from a mausoleum of my own making. Even if I wasn’t terribly gracious about it.”

  It was rather gratifying to be appreciated, even if it had taken him a while. “You would have done it yourself eventually. I didn’t do anything except ambush you in a ballroom.”

  “And my garden,” Lucien pointed out, smiling in a way that did dangerous things to Sally’s insides. “Don’t forget my garden.”

  Sally tossed her curls back over her shoulder, striving for normalcy. “How could I? You were absolutely infuriating.”

  “And you were trespassing,” Lucien reminded her. There was a glint in his eye that Sally found deeply unsettling. “Isn’t there generally a forfeit in that sort of situation?”

  Lucien reached out, twining one of her bright curls around his finger. Sally couldn’t take her eyes off it. “If so, you should have taken it at the time,” she croaked.

  Lucien followed the length of the curl up to her cheek. “I didn’t know you then.”

  “But you do now?” There was something deeply unsettling and exhilarating about that thought.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and Sally could feel his breath soft against her lips. “If I had known then . . .”

  It was rather close in the greenhouse. Sally was finding it more than a little bit difficult to breathe. “Then what?” she demanded.

  “Then this,” he said, and kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  He kissed her because she looked so damned kissable in the low light of the braziers. He kissed her because he couldn’t help kissing her. He kissed her because it was easier than trying to tell her all the confused thoughts that were bumping around in his head, all of which began with “stay,” and ended, frighteningly, dangerously, with “love.”

  He didn’t want to think of love. Love was terrifying. Love made you vulnerable. Love hurt. So he kissed her instead, long and hard and desperately, with all the feelings he didn’t have the words to express, his hands spreading across the warm silk of her back, her curls tickling his cheek and neck.

  “You are so lovely,” Lucien said tenderly. “Inside and out.”

  Sally drew an uneven breath, her breasts rising above the low neckline of her tunic. “What about meddlesome?” she demanded.

  “That too,” said Lucien. He couldn’t stop the foolish smile that was spreading across his face. Her indomitable will was part of what made her Sally, and he wouldn’t have her any other way. “Especially that.”

  “But—,” Sally began, which promptly turned to “mmrph” as Lucien leaned forward and kissed her again, more thoroughly this time, the crushed petals releasing their exotic fragrance in the air around them, and then to a very different sort of “mrrph” as her fingernails rasped against the velvet of his tunic and her rings caught in his hair and she kissed him back as though her very survival depended upon it.

  Which it might, given that he seemed to be holding her at a rather gravity-defying angle.

  Dragging his lips from hers, Lucien flicked aside one long golden curl and kissed the base of Sally’s ear, just below a dangling pearl that teased his nose; he kissed the side of her neck, the slope of her shoulder; he kissed the skin exposed by the embroidered straps that held up the bodice of her tunic, the gold of the embroidery dark and dull next to the bright color of her hair.

  “Sally,” he said raggedly, but the response came not from Sally, but from behind him, as someone cleared a throat.

  Sally let out a squeak and pulled back, yanking at the strap of her tunic. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair rumpled, her carefully arranged curls falling the wrong way forward over a diadem that was distinctly askew.

  Her eyes darted from Lucien—to someone just over his shoulder—and back to Lucien again.

  “Well,” she said faintly. “Well, then.”

  Lady Florence lifted her head from her quiver and subjected Lucien to a frankly appraising stare.

  “Go away,” Lucien snapped, his eyes intent on Sally. There was so much that needed to be said, if only he could think of the way to say it. And who the hell’s business was it but their own? They were betrothed, after all. Anyone with any decency would turn around and scurry away, not stand there harrumphing like a dowager with a chest infection. “This room is occupied.”

  “I see that,” came the apologetic voice of Lucien’s former tutor. “I hate to intrude, but it really is rather urgent.”

  Sally whisked around Lucien so quickly that Lady Florence gave an indignant squeak from the depths of her quiver. “Mr. Quentin! What are you doing here?”

  “Intruding,” said Lucien flatly, fighting a wave of irritation mingled with more than a little fear that, once broken, the moment would never come again, that Sally would whisk away out of his life, leaving him darkling.

  Love. He hadn’t mentioned love. Perhaps he ought to have done so before he swooped. But she was looking so kissable that swooping had felt absolutely imperative at that particular moment.

  Sherry stepped into the room, a cloak still draped around his shoulders, spattered with mud or a very convincing facsimile thereof. “With good cause, I promise.”

  “It had better be very good cause,” Lucien said grimly.

  His eyes slid towards Sally, who had drawn herself up with her usual aplomb, as if she were at St. James and ready to be presented. Even ruffled and befuddled, she looked like a queen. No, a duchess.

  His duchess.

  Lucien could imagine a dozen Sallys throughout the years: Sally wrangling the tenantry and making them drink soup, whether they wanted it or not; Sally feeding raspberry jam to a child with his dark eyes and her bright gold curls; Sally cream and rose and gold against the crimson sheets of that ducal bed that was far too large for one.

  Lucien felt a powerful surge of possessiveness. He hadn’t been lying when he said she’d given him his home back; what he hadn’t realized was that it was a home only if she was in it with him.

  It was a distinctly terrifying thought.

  Sally sidled in the direction of the door. “I’ll just leave you to it,” she said, with a bright social smile. “I’m sure you both have a great deal to speak about.”

  “No,” said Lucien, just as Sherry said, “Yes.”

  Sally’s eyes met Lucien’s and then flicked away again. “I’ll be in the ballroom,” she said quickly. “Dancing. And . . . dancing.”

  Lucien moved to intercept her. “Wait for me. I’ll see you back.” With a pointed look at Sherry, he added, “I’m sure this won’t take long. And I don’t want you roaming the corridors by yourself.”

  Better to sound overprotective than lovelorn? Lucien quietly gnashed his teeth. All they needed were five more minutes alone. Just five more minutes.

  Or maybe ten.

  “No, really, it’s all right.” Sally made an airy gesture with one hand. “I’m in no danger from your cousin.”

  Lucien grasped at straws. “Are you sure? That note in the carriage—”

  “Was pure pretense,” said Sally confidently. With splendid illogic, she added, “Hal Caldicott belongs to my brother’s club. He wouldn’t dare to hurt ME.”

  And with that, she disappeared out the door in a swish of spangled silk, leaving Lucien torn between affection and frustration.

  “I understand you’re betrothed?” said Sherry mildly, from so
mewhere behind him.

  “For the moment,” Lucien said shortly. He turned reluctantly away from the door. Sally was right; Hal had no reason to hurt her. And if Hal tried, she didn’t need those arrows to skewer him. She could do it with one or two well-chosen words. “I assume you didn’t come all this way merely to offer your felicitations.”

  If Sherry was put off by his ungracious tone, he didn’t show it. “No—although I assume felicitations are in order?”

  For a moment, the urge to pour out his troubles to the man who had once been his confidant was overwhelming. Sherry had always been a good listener. But that had been a long time ago, and the moments were ticking away.

  There was the small matter of Hal to be dealt with, but, more importantly, he needed to make sure that Sally didn’t break off their betrothal before he had a chance to persuade her otherwise.

  He was rather looking forward to the persuading.

  “They will be,” Lucien said brusquely. “What brings you here?”

  Sherry subjected Lucien to a long, searching look, but he didn’t press the topic. “We cleaned out Fanny’s dressing room this week.”

  Lucien remembered being there with Sally, in that close, crowded dressing room, back when they scarcely knew each other, when she was Miss Fitzhugh, and he—he had been wrapped in his own despair still.

  But not too wrapped in his despair not to notice how infinitely alluring Sally was. Even when she was ordering him about.

  “Yes?” said Lucien gruffly.

  “I found this beneath Fanny’s dressing table.” From the folds of his cloak, Sherry brought out a grimy piece of paper. He handed it to Lucien. “I thought you should see it.”

  Automatically, Lucien took it from him, smoothing out the crumpled page. It was good, cream-colored paper, but it had been crushed and crumpled, the ink on the letters running together, as though the note had been stuffed down a damp bodice in some haste, or crushed in a warm hand.

  The words were blurry, but still legible, written in a strong, clear hand. “If you come to Richmond on the evening of the tenth of October, I am sure we can reach an arrangement to our mutual satisfaction.”

  The tenth of October. The night of Clarissa’s ball. The night Fanny Logan had been killed.

  Someone had summoned Fanny Logan to her death. The same someone who had drawn fang marks on her neck. The same someone who had planted Lucien’s father’s snuffbox by her body.

  “I had thought this might be of interest to you,” said Sherry quietly. “I assume you didn’t write it.”

  “No.” Lucien stared unseeingly at the blurred words. “I didn’t even know she existed.”

  Hal had. Hal had motive. Hal had means.

  But this wasn’t Hal’s handwriting.

  Lucien should have realized. He should have realized before, when he received the note in the ballroom, the note in his carriage. All had been on the same cream paper, all written in the same bold, black ink.

  None of them in Hal’s hand.

  Lucien looked up abruptly at his old tutor. “You have no idea who sent it?”

  Sherry shook his head. “I know only what I told you—Fanny said that she was moving on to better things. I suspect,” he added delicately, “that she might have been blackmailing someone.”

  Not Hal. Fanny Logan had already drained him dry. What if Mrs. Reid were right? What if a half-mad, scarred French spy were intent on preventing him from accessing his mother’s papers? They hadn’t found anything particularly damning yet, but that didn’t mean that the damning document didn’t exist, a document so damning that a man would contemplate murder.

  Again.

  And again.

  Lucien had a fleeting memory of a scattering of manzanilla leaves, and a note, a note on the same cream-colored paper, in the same hand.

  Stay away. Or she’ll be next.

  If Hal hadn’t killed Fanny Logan, someone else had. And that someone was still out there, in the writhing, dancing, whirling mob of revelers.

  Just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  Lucien thrust the note into his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said to his old tutor, his voice hoarse. “I need to find Miss Fitzhugh.”

  Before someone else found her first.

  What had happened to This is a mistake? What had happened to It won’t happen again?

  Sally blundered down the corridors of Hullingden Castle, her quiver banging against her back as she passed through a long gallery filled with portraits of long-dead dukes of Belliston. Theoretically, she was in search of the ballroom. In reality, she wasn’t in much of a hurry to find it. At the moment, she was grateful for the maze of passageways that separated her from the other partygoers, that provided time for her hot cheeks to cool, and, hopefully, for the marks to fade from her neck.

  If Delia Cartwright saw the red blotches, she would start screaming about the vampire’s bite. There would most likely be swooning involved.

  Maybe there was something to that. It would certainly explain her otherwise inexplicable behavior. Sally’s cheeks burned with shame and wounded pride. All it had taken was one little I’m sorry, one little You’re so lovely, and there she was, behaving like—like Lucy Ponsonby. Like one of those silly, simpering creatures out there in the ballroom.

  Now, now that she was away from Lucien, surrounded by the censorious stares of some rather grim-looking sixteenth-century Caldicotts, Sally knew exactly what she ought to have said. She ought to have reminded him that he had said their kiss was a mistake; she ought to have pointed out, kindly but firmly, that there was still his cousin Hal to be dealt with. She ought to have told him that she was flattered by his attention, but it would only lead to unnecessary complications should they indulge in such behavior.

  The words rolled so glibly off her tongue now. Where had they been then? Where had they been when Lucien was brushing her hair back from her face? Where had they been when his breath was warm on her lips? Where had they been when he had trailed kisses straight down to her shoulder?

  Had she slapped him? No. Instead, she’d arched her neck to give him better access.

  It was too, too shaming. Where was her pride? She had slapped men for less.

  But this wasn’t men. This was Lucien. Somehow, while she wasn’t looking, he had slipped into a category all his own. When he bantered with her, there was never an edge to it. His teasing had no bite. She felt comfortable with him, comfortable and safe and free to be as outrageous as she liked, knowing that he wouldn’t be appalled or disapproving or try to rein her in as so many others had. He liked her as she was. And there was something terribly heady about that.

  Not to mention that the man needed her, Sally reminded herself. Had she mentioned that he needed her? Lucien might be a duke, but he was too softhearted to be left to himself. He needed her. He needed her to take that troubled line away from between his eyes and make him laugh. He needed her to teach him the intrinsic value of stoats. He needed—

  In her quiver, Lady Florence yawned.

  “It’s true,” Sally insisted, and then felt even worse, because she was arguing with a stoat, for heaven’s sake. And everyone knew that stoats were just a whisper away from weasels, and you could never win an argument with a weasel, because they were just too slippery.

  All right, she would admit it. She liked the man. She liked him tremendously. She liked the wicked sense of humor that lurked behind that air of reserve, she liked his quiet good manners, she liked his instinctive gentlemanliness.

  And she felt obligated to him. That’s what it was. Obligation. After all, she had promised him that she would help him out of a coil, and, in doing so, she had created an even more coiled coil. Let it never be said that a Fitzhugh was one to turn her back on her debts.

  Sally fought a strange sensation of panic, as if she were clutching a rope that was slipping from her grasp,
tearing her palms the harder she tried to hold on to it.

  Just because she liked the man, just because she owed him a duty—wasn’t “duty” such a nice, noble-sounding sentiment?—just because she owed him a duty didn’t mean that there was anything more to it.

  Sally decided to focus on duty. Because, otherwise, she might have to admit that she cared. That she cared very much indeed. And that the thought of walking away from Hullingden, walking away from Lucien, leaving things just as they were, made her feel like a shriveled leaf that had lost its tree.

  Sally paused at the end of the gallery, just outside the bright circle of light streaming in from the ballroom, watching, unseeing, as the dancers danced and the players played and the gossipers gossiped, all frozen in place as the true horror of her situation dawned upon her.

  She could tell herself whatever she wanted, but the fact of the matter was that when she was in Lucien’s arms she wanted never to be anywhere else, ever again. It didn’t matter if they were in a moonlit greenhouse, or a frosty tundra. His embrace felt like home, as nothing else ever had.

  It was insupportable, unthinkable and entirely unacceptable, but there it was.

  How on earth had she been so careless as to allow herself to fall in love?

  It was all Lucien’s fault. It was his fault for being so—so himself.

  “Argh!” Sally jumped as a skeletal hand closed over her arm. The hand was attached to a dark sleeve of some rough fabric, which, in turn, was attached to a hideous specter, faceless in the shadows.

  “Miss Fitzhugh?” intoned the specter.

  “What the— Oh. It’s you.” Those weren’t skeleton fingers; they were white gloves.

  Sally’s breathing slowly returned to normal as the figure resolved itself into a man in a cassock, the hood pulled up over his head. Jangling metal implements hung from the leather cord around his waist.

  Trust Sir Matthew Egerton to come to the ball as the Grand Inquisitor.