by Колин Глисон
And then of his threat to call on the Tarruscelli twins when he became inexplicably angry with her.
And then back to last night, when he'd called her mine. And casually invoked the name of a powerful vampire.
"It's a bit late for tea, Sebastian," she said coolly, trying to keep her breathing easy and her stomach from fluttering. The way he was looking at her… it made her want to cover her cheeks to hold back the blush, to touch his thick, golden brown hair, to back out of the room before he put his hands on her, as it was clear he intended to.
Apparently something had changed since he'd chased the vampires away from her neck.
"We must talk," he said, but there was a wholly different message in his eyes. Now she couldn't stop it—the unfortunate warmth billowed up from her bosom over her neck and to her cheeks. "Will you permit me to take you for a drive?"
"It is unfashionably late for a drive in the park," she countered.
"Other than my attire, I thrive on being unfashionable. Will you come with me?"
Victoria knew that if she accepted his invitation, it would be tantamount to accepting whatever was to develop between them. Most likely to continue what they'd started in this very room only a few days ago, but what had been simmering betwixt them for more than a year.
And then there was the minor fact that he had questions to answer, and having him closed up in a carriage with her would be conducive to getting those answers… among other things. She gave him a thoughtful look, then said casually, "I'll freshen up, and then I will be delighted to accompany you."
"Merci, ma chère."
Victoria hurried up to her bedchamber, calling for Verbena. It didn't take long for her to have her hair re-pinned, to change into a more flattering gown of rose pink, and to pull on a matching pelisse to keep the cooling fall air away. It had long sleeves that buttoned tightly from elbow to wrist, and would keep her arms warm even if she had occasion to remove her gloves.
Which would come in handy with Sebastian around, since he seemed to have a penchant for relieving her of her handwear.
"You look much refreshed," he told her in the foyer when she returned back down the stairs. "I took it upon myself to ask for a dinner basket to be prepared for us; it will be some time until we arrive at our destination, and I would not wish you to become famished."
"I did not realize we would be gone for so long."
Sebastian paused in the act of placing the tall, curly-brimmed hat on his head. "Do you have another engagement this afternoon? This evening? I did not realize."
"No," she replied, eyeing him suspiciously.
"There were other callers today, my lady," Verbena interrupted as she and Oliver walked in carrying a large basket. "Their cards are on the table."
Annoyed that Sebastian's presence had distracted her from that simple task of looking at the front table, Victoria turned and thumbed through the small stack of cards. The Tarruscelli twins and Sara Regalado. Silvio Galliani. Obviously they'd all made it home from the opera unscathed. She was thankful she hadn't been home when they called, for how on earth could she have conversed casually with them after watching Sara succumb so wantonly to a vampire bite? Even her mother would have been hard-pressed to accomplish such a feat.
No one else had called.
Victoria would not even acknowledge that she'd hoped for anyone else; she knew Max had told her all he was going to tell her.
It just confirmed her realization earlier today at the Consilium. She was on her own.
"Shall we?" Sebastian asked, donning his gloves and then offering her his arm.
There was much more room for her fingers inside the crook of his elbow than there had been in Zavier's. And he was taller. And much handsomer.
And less trustworthy.
Yet, she did trust him after a fashion. He had, at least, saved her from being mauled by the vampire last evening. That must count for something.
Inside the carriage, they sat across from each other as it lurched off, reminding Victoria of Barth's erratic driving back in London. She smiled, and Sebastian noticed.
"Fond memories, my dear? Or are you merely thinking how brilliantly I handled getting us alone in a carriage yet again?"
"Your technique was brilliantly transparent." Victoria watched him warily.
He noticed and laughed. "Are you afraid I will leap across the carriage and tear your clothes off? It is not that it hasn't occurred to me, but I would hope you would grant me more finesse than that."
"I am never quite sure of what you will do, Sebastian. In fact, I was more than surprised by your actions last night."
His eyebrows rose, as they tended to do when he played the innocent. "Do you mean my extended attentions toward Portiera? I do hope it didn't bruise your pride, ma chère Victoire. You must know that it is you who has truly captured my regard." His voice was light and merry, as if to cut the meaning of the words, but the sentiment caused a sudden sharp tingle in her middle.
"I was not referring to your gross flirtations with the Tarruscelli twins," she replied. "And you know it. I was expecting your visit, as I was certain you would wish to claim some sort of acknowledgment from me—not compensation, Sebastian; I know you have decried that motive in the recent past—some acknowledgment that you saved me from a very unpleasant experience last night. I was, and am, very grateful."
"Ah, but you are a Venator," he reminded her, still with that light tone, "you did not truly need my assistance. I merely stepped in because I could not bear to see that lovely neck marred again." His voice slipped into a low tenor, and all humor evaporated from his countenance. "And you are dying to know who Beauregard is and how I know him."
"Of course I am. And I know that you will tell me only if you wish it, and so there is no point in asking. I don't wish to play this game of cat and mouse with you, Sebastian." Her words were steady, unlike her fingers, which, if she hadn't been clasping them in her filmy silk skirt, would have been trembling.
"Then we shan't play." In a trice he was sitting next to her on the bench. He swept off his hat and tossed it indolently across the carriage, ignoring the fact that it rolled and landed on the floor near the door. "Will you kiss me this time, Victoria, or will you make me do the dirty work?"
"I kissed you at the docks in London."
"Of course you did, because you knew it was safe. You were getting on a ship to come here. But now…" After shrugging out of his jacket, he settled back in the corner and looked at her, his arms crossed over his waistcoat. His leg pushed against hers in the center of the bench, his chest rose and fell, and his shoulders jolted off rhythm with the movement of the carriage. "Are you brave enough, my lovely Venator?"
She leaned forward, and he pulled up from his relaxed pose to meet her halfway. Their mouths met in a tangle of lips and tongue and her delicious, deep sigh of pleasure.
Before she knew it her hair was falling around her, the pins scattering from Sebastian's fingers to her shoulders, the cushioned bench, and the floor below. He pushed his hands through her curls and the coils Verbena had made, combing from her neck along her upper arms, then moving to unfasten the pelisse that buttoned tightly over her bosom.
Pulling the tight jacket off her shoulders, pushing it down over her arms, he continued to kiss her on the mouth, the jaw, the neck, until she struggled beneath him. "The sleeves… need to be unbuttoned," she told him, trying to shrug out of the tight jacket.
"I know," he said in her ear, and pushed the sleeves farther down her arms so that the coat slipped over her hands, leaving her wrists trapped inside the arms, pulling the pelisse taut behind her hips.
"Sebastian," she said, a warning note and a tinge of panic in her voice. "I don't like this."
"Shhh," he murmured against her neck, brushing his eyelashes over her cheek. "Just relax. Enjoy." He sucked on her earlobe, his mouth warm and slick.
Victoria took a deep, shaky breath and realized that the hint of panic was subsiding as he spread his hands over her sh
oulders, pulling the bodice away, then slipping behind to unfasten the buttons and unlace the top of her stays—mainly because of what his mouth and hands were doing to distract her.
He was quick and smooth, her breasts free and bare, jouncing in the darkening carriage before she realized it. He covered them, lifted and thumbed them, gentle and then firm in his touch. Victoria closed her eyes and sighed when his lips closed over one nipple and drew it sharply into his hot mouth, flicking over it with the tip of his tongue. The pulsing sensation matched the throb between her legs, and she shifted her hips beneath his weight.
With one last tug from his lips, Sebastian chuckled against her breast. "Patience, my dear," he said, but lifted himself away to attend to his breeches. She saw them fall, baring muscular thighs, and then his drawers; and then he bent forward as his hands smoothed up beneath her skirts, sliding along her thighs, baring her legs and piling her gown into a mass of silk and lace in her lap.
His fingers slipped and played where she ached and burned, making her sigh and shift and leaving her wanting the rest. She felt the brush of his hair over her cheek as he kissed her neck, his breath rough in her ears.
Victoria wanted to reach for him, but her arms were still trapped behind her. "Sebastian…" she began to say, but the rest was lost when he covered her mouth with his, closing off everything but her soft moan as his hands moved up and under her gown to touch her vis bulla. She felt them brush over it, tug gently on the silver cross. Then his hands spread over her belly, under her shift and stays, and lifted her hips so that her piled-up skirts rode higher.
Sebastian moved away, releasing her mouth with a low, delicious pop that made it clear he would have kissed her all night. With one last look up at her, as if to confirm this next move, he gave a gentle sigh and fitted himself into her with one smooth slide.
Oh. Victoria closed her eyes as her heart thrummed and the lovely feeling of being joined with a man settled over her. A pleasure tear trickled down into her hair, and she drew in a deep breath and just felt.
She realized he wasn't moving; they were joined there in the rumbling carriage, his hands positioned next to her shoulders, one knee bent next to her thigh on the bench. When she opened her eyes, it was to see him looking down at her with a grin.
"I always knew our first time would be in a carriage," he told her. And drew a deep, shaky breath. Then exhaled. Closed his eyes.
And still he didn't move.
She shifted under him because her hands were trapped. "Sebastian."
"What's the hurry, ma chère?" He bent to kiss her again, fondling her lips with his, tasting them as they rocked gently against each other with the carriage rhythm. It was enough of a movement, that incessant jolting, that Victoria felt every bit of her attention focused there where he'd slid in, and where her nipples brushed against the shirt he hadn't bothered to remove. Her gown bunched between them, spilling over the bench, and his legs were warm against hers.
He moved forward and she tasted the skin of his neck, faintly salty, and felt the hard pumping of the pulse in his throat. The throb between them ached and burned, and she felt the way they slid together ever so slightly, and the long-lost familiar coil that would begin to unwind deep inside her. That great need dug at her, incessant, until all she could think of, focus on, was him inside her and not moving.
Sebastian rested his cheek on her forehead and at last shifted. Slowly, drawing each stroke in and out with deliberation, he pressed down and in and up, his hands moving in the cushioned seat next to her shoulders, tangling in her hair, fingers crushing into her skin. Their breathing matched, rushed and urgent, capped with sighs and soft groans.
Victoria moved too, felt the tension that had sat dormant as it built inside her, and it wasn't long before she shuddered beneath him, more tears sliding from her closed eyes, then felt him bow into her one last time, and the pause as he came inside her.
"Ah, Victoria," he murmured next to her ear, his voice low and barely audible over the carriage rumble, "I am so glad you changed your mind."
"About what?" She could barely form the words.
"About making me wait a very long time for this."
"You gave me little choice," she said, her lips brushing against the beginning of stubble on his jaw. "You were quite convincing. And Sebastian… my wrists are hurting."
"Of course." He pulled out, sat back, and tucked himself back into his breeches, leaving her without the pleasure of seeing his chest or any other part of his body. Then he helped her extricate herself from the pelisse and tuck her breasts back into the dress.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, lounging back in his seat.
"How long until we arrive to wherever we are going? Or was it truly a ploy to get me into this carriage?"
He smiled with great insouciance. "It was indeed a ploy. I wanted desperately to get you into this carriage. But we can still eat, can we not?"
The basket had been tucked under one of the bench seats, and Victoria helped him to pull it out, her long hair sliding down to get in the way as she bent forward.
"What a pleasure to see your hair unbound like that," he commented as they hefted the basket next to him on the seat. "I've been wanting to see it that way since the first night we met at the Silver Chalice."
"It gets in the way," Victoria told him. "I have considered cutting it, but I cannot bear to."
"Thank heaven for vanity!" he said, opening a bottle of wine. "Will you look to see if there is any cheese in there?"
While she rummaged in the basket, he poured a glass for her, and when she handed him the cheese and bread, he gave her the wine and they settled back to eat.
Her body still thrummed, and there were still a lot of questions to be asked and mysteries to be solved. Such as what he looked like underneath all those clothes.
And who Beauregard was.
As she sipped her wine and nibbled on a piece of bread, Victoria felt lazy and sleepy and content. It wasn't until her cup was half-empty that she realized it was an unnatural lazy, sleepy, content feeling.
She bolted upright and the carriage pitched. She grabbed at the wall next to her.
"May I take that, ma chère, before you spill it?" Sebastian was quick to relieve her of the wineglass.
"Salvi," she accused. Her tongue was thick; but she forced herself to say it again. "You put salvi in… this. You… lie…" The words were hard to get out; her eyes were drooping.
"I did not lie when I said it was a ploy to get you in here," he told her. "I am sorry it had to be done this way… but you would not have come otherwise. You are, after all, a Venator, and used to doing things your way." She thought… Was there a bit of mockery in his voice?
"Sebastian…" She put as much accusation in her voice as she could muster.
"You will be more comfortable if you come here." He helped her settle next to him, her head propped in the corner opposite him, her knees drawn up on the bench, her feet pushing into his leg.
"Why?"
"Unfortunately, you were becoming a problem for the Tutela's plans, and I was asked to remove you."
"You… liar… You… bastard."
"Such language! But it is only temporary, my dear. I promise no harm will come to you. You will be safer outside of Rome until after the second."
"Who is Beau… re… gard…?" Her eyes were closed. Sleep dragged her away.
He said something; perhaps he answered her question. She thought she heard it, but then she remembered no more.
Chapter 21
In Which Monsieur Vioget Makes an Unflattering Comparison to Our Heroine
When Victoria came back to herself, the first thing she noticed was that the nape of her neck was cold.
Then, that she couldn't move her arms. Or her legs.
She slitted her eyes open in an effort to pretend she was still unconscious, but it obviously didn't work.
"Ah… our lovely Venator has returned to us." Sebastian's voice was very near, and so Victoria opened her eye
s all the way and managed a sleepy glare.
He was sitting in a chair next to where she was lying on a narrow bed or sofa; she wasn't quite certain. She was certain that her wrists and ankles were bound, however, and that she was going to kill Sebastian.
A quick dart of eyes around the small room told her they were in some kind of residence: Curtains covered the windows, rugs protected the floor, a table with a wax candle on it sat next to Sebastian's elbow. Nice and homey.
Somewhere there were vampires, though. Not in the room, that she could tell; but somewhere nearby.
"I'm going to kill you," she said behind her teeth.
"Why do you think I took the precaution of confining you?"
"Did you say Beauregard is your grandfather?"
"Well, more precisely, he is my great-great-great-great… some vast number of generations back… grandfather." Sebastian smiled benevolently, as though he'd just announced his relationship to the king. He'd left his jacket off and sat in his shirtsleeves and breeches with a glass of wine next to him on the table.
"He's a vampire."
Sebastian bowed his head in acknowledgment.
"A vampire whose name obviously carries a great amount of weight and influence."
"So you heard me through the fog of their thrall? I wasn't certain what you remembered."
"I heard it all, including the part where you claimed that I belonged to you, like some piece of horseflesh. I had no idea you meant to spirit me off like a primitive and take advantage of me."
He looked at her then with tiger eyes that gleamed warning. "Might I remind you, Victoria, that I did not take anything you did not freely give."
She forced away the blush of fury and mortification and turned the conversation. "Who ordered you to take me away?"
"I was not ordered to do anything. I was asked quite reluctantly, and I readily agreed, knowing that it was to my benefit as well as your own, since it would keep your pretty skin from being caught in the crossfire and myself from being forced to take sides. And, might I clarify, I did so without requiring any compensation. Do you not think that heroic of me?"