As Shadows Fade

by Colleen Gleason

Page 18

 

  Victoria fell asleep in her clothing on top of her bed, waking only when Verbena brought her a tray much later that night.

  Amid clucking and tsk ing, the maid helped her mistress to remove her rumpled gown and insisted that she eat the meal of cold chicken, bread, tomatoes, and cheese. Victoria felt marginally better after her nap and a good meal, yet an angry, itchy sort of internal grumbling continued to nag at her.

  Even after her bustling maid finished brushing out her hair for the night and helped her dress for bed-she had no social engagements tonight, and apparently there weren’t any vampires left in London to hunt-Victoria hadn’t relinquished her mood. Half of her wanted to curl up and sob, over what, she wasn’t certain… and the other part would have loved to come face-to-face with a pack of vampires.

  She’d annihilate them.

  Verbena’s twittering began to grate on her nerves, and at last Victoria sent her maid away for the night-which apparently was the right thing to do, as Verbena confessed that she and Oliver had planned for a drive to Vauxhall Gardens.

  “Then be off with you,” Victoria said, noting that it was only eleven o’clock.

  Perhaps all she needed was a bit more sleep.

  And she did, for a time, dreaming of black-smoke demons and red-eyed vampires and dark-eyed men.

  But after a while she woke to a cool moonbeam shining through her window, lighting the room as if it were a gray-and-blue-tinted day.

  The thought that had been worrying, grumbling, grating in the back of her mind now came out to the fore with full force: Perhaps she ought to let Max go.

  Victoria sat up, slid off her bed, walked over to her dressing table. Her face shone ghostly in the mirror, her thick dark hair falling over her shoulders, brushing past her elbows, her eyes dark almonds alongside the bridge of her nose. A faint sheen of moisture dampened her upper lip, for the heat of day still lingered.

  Perhaps Sebastian was right. She was pining for a man who couldn’t give her what she wanted. Who didn’t want, or need, anyone.

  She looked at herself in the mirror for a long time and at last made her decision.

  If that was what he really wanted, she’d let him go. But the way he’d looked, as he stood over her in the carriage after the dinner dance, spoke otherwise.

  Perhaps it was time to force his hand. One way or the other.

  Rising from the stool, she whisked off her simple white night rail and pulled from the wardrobe a lacy shell pink gown. The fabric weighed little more than a whisper, and fitted her breasts like two lace hands… then fell free, in a sheer pink glaze from her bodice to the floor. Her two vis bullae glinted behind it, at her navel.

  Victoria left her chamber silently and padded through the small town house to the rear, where the servants kept their rooms. Then she climbed up a flight of stairs to the next level, where the heat lingered even more heavily.

  Her gown swirled around her, light as smoke, as she came to a stop outside Max’s room. The crack under the door showed no illumination, but it was well after two o’clock in the morning. He was either sleeping or out. And since there weren’t any vampires in London anymore…

  Victoria opened the door and saw the same moonbeam splaying over his bed. Empty. Unslept in.

  He wasn’t there.

  Victoria backed out of the room, her stomach twisting uncomfortably, her palms suddenly damp.

  She felt foolish.

  Back down the stairs she went, and kept going down to the ground floor. She found herself near the kitchen at the back of the town house. She wasn’t hungry, but walked through to the front of the house, now wide-awake and alert. Suddenly she realized why.

  The hair on the back of her arms lifted, and she slowed her careless movements into something silent. The sound had been a soft clink, or a dull scrape, perhaps.

  Not a vampire-she didn’t feel a chill. It could be Kritanu or Charley or…

  Victoria drew herself up tall and continued along the corridor to the sitting room. Her heart pounded.

  A yellow glow shone from under the door, faint and unassuming. She turned the knob and pushed it open.

  Max sat in Aunt Eustacia’s favorite chair near the piecrust table on which her stakes had lain. A short glass with liquid that glowed amber in the lamplight gave testament to the dull scrape Victoria had heard, and the fat decanter next to it, the clink. He raised his face, half of it burnished gold from the lamp, and the other melding into shadow. His white shirt, with a loose neck cloth draped around his shoulders, glowed in the dim light.

  “What do you want?”

  She stepped across the threshold and stood close to the wall, feeling anger… and something else… bubbling through her. Her fingers gripped the edge of the door, but she moved to stand in that beautiful, broad moonbeam from the side window. “I couldn’t sleep. ”

  His glance flickered over her, and she saw his mouth compress. “Go away, Victoria. ”

  “Max. ”

  Then he looked at her, straight on, and she was knocked nearly breathless by the venom in his expression. The same bitterness he’d had earlier that afternoon. That same deep, flat anger he’d had when she drugged him with salvi three weeks ago.

  “You’ve settled things with Vioget. Why are you here?”

  There was no use wondering how he’d known she’d visited Sebastian; she’d accepted that about him long ago. Max knew everything.

  “Ye-” she began, but he didn’t wait to hear the rest of it.

  “Get. Away. ” His words were little more than a breath.

  She took a step closer, and felt the whisper of fabric around her legs. She knew what he saw, with the white glow behind her: the froth of pink gauze outlining her from torso to toes, the heavy bundle of thick curls cascading down her back. Victoria had no illusions about the image she made.

  She needed all the help she could get.

  “Max, I went to your chamber, looking for you. ”

  “Obviously. ” Those dark eyes scraped over her, somehow managing to be cold and yet arrogant. “I’ve no interest in Vioget’s leavings. Or is it that you don’t want to know your child’s patrimony?”

  So he also knew that she had stopped taking the potion. Again, that was no surprise to Victoria. She’d told him it was her intention, and Max, being Max, would confirm it. But his other accusations…

  “Sebastian’s leavings?” She gave a short laugh, trying not to let that cold voice penetrate too deeply. “Max, don’t be-”

  “Or was that someone else’s mark on your neck?” He’d not raised his voice this whole time. It came out quiet and flat. Cold.

  Victoria reached reflexively to her shoulder, where Sebastian had indeed left a small mark earlier today. Max couldn’t have seen it now, for her hair covered it. But this afternoon…

  “This is the last time I’ll say it. Leave. ”

  His eyes looked like black pits with a faint glitter in their centers. Though the glass of whiskey sat next to him, he never lifted a hand toward it. Instead, she saw that his fingers curled around the arm of his chair.

  “Or what?” she countered. “You’ll make me?”

  They both knew what had happened the last time he had laid angry hands on her. Angry hands that had turned to passionate ones.

  “I’m leaving London. As soon as the sun rises. ”

  She glanced toward the window. The sky still boasted stars and moon, but a faint essence of lighter blue could be seen in the east. Victoria gave a brief nod. So be it.

  But she had something to say first.

  Later, she was never certain how she managed to keep the emotion from her voice, the shock and grief that he would have left without telling her, without saying good-bye. How she kept her words steady and as cool as his. But she did.

  “Sebastian and I have settled things, but not in the way you thought we should. ” She looked directly at
Max. “You’re mistaken on many fronts. I’ve not been with him since Rome, Max. Since… you and I… went to the Door of Alchemy. ” Since Max had kissed her, flat up against that damp, rough stone wall.

  Little had she realized, but that had been the defining moment.

  He didn’t respond, merely sat unmoving, his gaze as flat as ever.

  “But if you leave, I will be with him. And there will be no question about the paternity of my child. ” There. She couldn’t keep a bit of bitterness, a hint of mockery from her voice.

  Silence stretched for a moment, and at last she understood that he was Max, and that Sebastian had been right about him.

  Victoria turned and walked out of the room. Head high, but stomach churning.

  Her hand was on the newel post at the base of the stairs when she heard her name.

  She turned and Max stood in the doorway of the parlor.

  The expression on his face made the bottom drop out of her stomach and a sharp quiver snap through her, leaving her knees weak, her palms damp. A small lamp in the foyer illuminated his eyes, hot and heavy and calculating.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said quietly, a hand moving to pull the untied neck cloth away from his collar. Slowly, deliberately, his eyes moved over her. “And when we’re finished, Victoria, you won’t remember your own name… let alone Vioget’s. ”

  Nine

  In Which Our Heroes Accept Their Mission

  Her heart thumping madly, her stomach fluttering, Victoria drew in an unsteady breath as Max moved toward her. She’d never seen this expression on his face: the hot avidity in his eyes, the set of his mouth more gentle than harsh and grim.

  “You’ve… changed… your mind?” Her words, unnecessary and completely absurd, considering the way he was looking at her, came out breathy and feeble. And very unVenator-like.

  She stood on the second step, her hand still curled around the top of the newel post, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, they were face-to-face. Instead of reaching to grab her to him, to devour her, Max surprised her by moving so that they were flush and he was sliding his hands along her torso to close them over her hips.

  He bent, not to her mouth, but to the side of her neck just below the ear-a place that, when his mouth touched it, quite literally made pleasure shoot through her in all directions. Her fingers trembled over the banister. Her eyes closed. He pressed his lips to that strong tendon at the side of her throat, moving them, slow and warm and thorough, over her skin. Little bumps rose everywhere, and she reached out, her hand landing on his solid shoulder.