“What in god's name do you think you’re doing?” She whispered harshly, and I tried my best not to cower.
“I’m old enough, mother,” I replied with my own plastered smile to keep the guests unaware of the quarrel that was brewing.
She shook her head ever so slightly in disappointment. “You have no idea what you’ve done. They aren’t like what you think.”
“I think it’s about time I decide that for myself,” I hissed back as I wrenched my arm out of her grasp. I could see the pain in her expression then, and for a moment I felt remorse that I’d hurt her. I didn’t hate my mother, I just thought it was time for this bird to fly. For this belle, to take on the ball.
I was concerned she would try to drag me out of the room, but the gentleman she had been talking with came over and joined us. He gave a bow, extending out his hand. I placed mine within his and he gave a soft kiss on it. I was startled to feel his hard teeth behind the lips.
His red hair was striking and appeared like tamed flames on his head. His emerald green eyes were brilliant and shimmered with excitement. When he spoke, his accent was refined and deep.
“I am sure I have not yet met you, for how could I forget such an ethereal vision?”
I blushed under his attention and I could feel the cold daggers my mother was mentally throwing in my direction. I gave the best curtsy I could manage because it seemed like the fitting thing to do.
“What is your name, my dear?”
“It’s Eloise. You know my mother, Madame Leona.”
That was the name she went by when conducting business. It was common for blood traders to choose stately titles to help cater to their clients. Most of the vampires who could afford the illegal human blood that was offered as product were old and came from hundreds of years of refined manners and conduct. That’s why the balls were a popular event my mother put on often. It impressed her clientele and allowed an opportunity to make deals and sample the supplies.
“Ah, yes. You have your mother’s beauty,” he charmingly grinned at her. “How come I have not seen you at one of the balls before? Surely you’re of age for suitors. Your sister just married, I believe.”
My mother quickly stepped in before I could open my mouth. “Yes, Madge was just married. Eloise will be looking for a human suitor, however.”
I hadn’t really decided if I wanted to marry a human or a vampire. I had literally just appeared before society at all. But I was mad that my mother was seemingly making the decision for me. I could feel my cheeks going red.
“Actually, I think vampires are quite handsome gentlemen. I wouldn’t mind entertaining the idea.”
I was digging my grave deeper and deeper. The level of resentment was rising at a worrying rate. I prayed silently to any god out there that I was doing the right thing.
“Well, my name is Ferdinand, and I like to boast that I am one of your mother’s most loyal clients. Perhaps I could introduce you around and catch you up to speed, my dear.”
He motioned to take his arm, and I happily placed my hand where it was meant to go. He walked me away into the main part of the room and I glanced over my shoulder to glance at my mother once more. She was wringing her hands nervously, and that was one thing I had never ever seen my mother do.
Four
Arden
"And so, I always thought that if my previous plan didn't, you know, pan out, I could always fall back on my back up."
The woman giggled, lips curling away from horse teeth. “Isn’t that funny? Is that why they call it a backup?”
I gritted my teeth and feigned what I hoped was a smile. I had no intention of bringing dishonor to the Jardin House.
She batted her eyelashes at me and gave me what she hoped was a coquettish glance. I couldn't help but fixate on that smudge of red lipstick smeared on her right canine.
Good god. These days, our kind were accepting just about anyone into our fold.
Even a hundred years ago, we vampires were highly selective of whom we shared our immortality with.
Beauty. Talent. Influence. Cunning.
We cared little for money, because when you've been alive for more than a century, chances were high that unless you were an absolute imbecile, you had money in scads.
But this chick.
Whatever had she done to warrant such a gift?
Still, I could not afford to offend her. Anyone who warranted an invitation to one of Madame Leona's little "soirees" had to be rather high up in the chain of command, and if she, unlike me, had indeed received an invitation on her own merit, then I would do well to keep on her good side.
"Your beauty is as all-encompassing as your wit, Miss Lavoisier."
A ridiculously pretentious surname and one I was sure she had fashioned for herself, as she looked decidedly Slavic instead of the trademark delicate features my country women were famous for.
She giggled at me once more from the top of her elaborate, exquisitely painted hand fan, batting those ridiculously thick, patently false lashes that were starting to peel from the corner of her left eye.
That was the thing about the newly turned. Those who had been reborn before the turn of the century still remembered what it felt like to be hunted down like rats on a ship.
We learned to hide, make ourselves as human as we possibly could.
Now that vampirism was suddenly in vogue, those turned in the past fifty years had taken it onto themselves to drape themselves in eye-poppingly costly fabrics of silk and ermine, dressing like a reject from a colorful renaissance art piece. They looked more like the old ones, than the old ones did.
I rather prided myself upon passing my first century and well onto my way of hitting the second century milestone. There is precious little to celebrate, sadly. Not when there were vampires who were over a millennia older than me... nay, even two millennia.
A shudder ran through me.
In the corner of my eye, Jardin scratched his right earlobe. The signal. I nodded imperceptibly and excused myself with not a little relief as I made my way towards him.
I had been surprised that Madame Leona Hart had extended an invitation to Jardin, her rival, to attend this little gathering. I had been ever more surprised that he had accepted. His thinking was that she did it as a way to get a feel for who he knew and to make a show of her own connections. Jardin was hoping to seize the opportunity as a chance to send his plus one, me, to do some reconnaissance.
There was a hint of a smile in his voice as I paused next to him, an ear gently inclined in his direction. "You appeared as though you required extrication out of a somewhat uncomfortable social situation."
"My thanks, sir," I replied, making as though I were inspecting the platinum and emerald cufflinks, taken from Jardin's extensive jewelry collection. "Any longer and I may have been tempted to rip her head off."
"No court of our kind would've judged against you." He slanted a glance in her direction as she tried valiantly to gain the attention of another vampire who was less forgiving than I of her gauche attitude. "I recognize her as one of Haswell's lot. An idiot begets an idiot, as one would say. Or should, in any case. Am I right in assuming you got absolutely nothing of value from those polluted lips of hers?"
"None whatsoever."
He clicked his tongue. “A pity. And nothing about Haswell himself?”
“Only that the latest supply of blood from one of their usual donors has turned his stomach sour and now he farts like an ox.”
A guffaw burst free, garnering looks of censure from those around us, and he hastily brought a silken napkin to his mouth, his shoulders shaking slightly.
A few moments later, he pulled the napkin away and cleared his throat, giving me a look of mild reprimand. “Perhaps next time a warning would be apt. I didn’t know you had it in you to be a comedian, Arden. Truly, hidden depths.”
I inclined my head to one side humbly. In truth, I was pleased to amuse him.
He is, after all, my Master, my Raison
d’tre.
I owed him much.
I owed him my life.
He cleared his throat again and took a delicate sip from the tiny snifter of blood in his left hand. The bouquet from the crimson liquid made my nostrils flare, but I refused to imbibe.
I had not come to enjoy myself; I had come to work.
Finishing the sample, he placed the empty glass upon the tray of a passing waiter and then nodded to the other side of the room. “Do you see the woman in red? The one with the sapphires around her neck? She’s with the man in that ridiculous white linen suit and the other woman in sea-foam green.”
“Indeed, sir,” I replied, watching the woman in question laugh at something, her delicate stem of a neck arching gracefully, a small white hand pressed to her more-than ample bosom that appeared to be dangerously close to popping free of her tight red bodice.
“That, Arden, is a certain woman by the name of Tabitha Yeats.” His dark eyes narrowed as he grabbed another tiny snifter from the, this time, full tray of another passing waiter. “I’ve heard rumors of her connection with Leona Hart. Perhaps it is time to test just how deep her alliance runs with our little provincial blood trader. I would love to know what she knows.”
“She’s certainly a damn sight easier on the eyes than that twit you rescued me from.”
She was beautiful in a sophisticated way, with black liner artfully winged at the ends to give her blue eyes a catlike playfulness, lips artfully darkened with a dark purple-ish tinge that almost looked bruised.
It was a good look with her pallid skin and her wispy blond hair that she had teased up into a carefully arranged bun that was meant to look absolutely careless and yet perfect at the same time.
“I tried to get close to her about an hour ago, and she wouldn’t give me the time of night.” He shrugged his broad shoulders and brought the snifter up to his nose. He took a deep breath of the dark red liquid, his dark brown eyes closed, a look of pure delight clear on his weathered face. “Perhaps you can break the nut that I cannot.”
His eyes opened slightly, and suddenly the image of a resting cobra rose in my mind.
“That is, after all, one of your many gifts, no?” His lips twisted into an odd, almost sarcastic facsimile of a smile. “Put that handsome face to work, my boy.”
I took his closed eyes as dismissal and turned towards the woman, nervously smoothing a hand down the front of the borrowed French-tailored suit Jardin had supplied for me.
It fit me perfectly, which was more than a little discomforting. Jardin was wider in the chest and shoulders than me, which meant that the suit was most likely meant for me.
Exactly how long had he planned this?
I almost felt sorry for Madame Leona. If Jardin should ever try to step into her territory with intent and nothing else, there would be precious little left of her hastily put together kingdom.
As I approached Lady Yeats, her gaze had connected with mine.
The smile faded from her lips and she turned quickly to whisper into the Italian Suit’s ear.
He glanced at me and then gently steered the woman in sea-foam green away, giving me one last glance over his slight shoulders.
He thought he was doing something innocent, giving two lonely individuals some privacy.
He never knew just how much I appreciated his gesture of thoughtfulness, and I wondered if he’d ever find out why I chose to approach Tabitha Yeats.
Surely his thoughts would not be so charitable, then.
By the time I reached Tabitha, her companions had vanished into the crush and Tabitha herself had arranged herself beautifully upon a divan next to an open window, from which the heavy, redolent scent of roses and lilies filtered from the nearby expansive garden.
This close to her, she was even more alluring, and I found myself relieved that my show of attraction to her didn’t require any artifice as I took the place next to her.
Her floral perfume was thick, almost cloying, which was unfortunate, but I had faced more difficult tribulations as I conversed with her easily with my mouth hanging open for the most part.
She was a talented conversationalist, easy to converse with, and I estimated her age to be around two hundred years old, as she told me of her childhood in the Antebellum South.
She laughed softly, the back of a slim, pale hand held over her mouth. “I was common as dirt. My father was so poor and he and my mother worked alongside the slaves in the cotton and tobacco plantations in South Carolina.” She slid me a sly glance from underneath artfully darkened lashes. “I suppose most folks would never admit to such a travesty.”
“And I admire you more for your honesty,” I said.
“Oh, pish-posh.” She waved a hand in the air, even though I thought it obvious that my words had pleased her. “I didn’t tell you that to gain some kind of advantage. Even though, something tells me that I really ought to fight.”
“Fight?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what she was referring to.
Even so, she was older than I was, and the longer I spent with her, the more I realized that she was attracted to those younger than herself. She had been turned at the cusp of her thirty years while I had been turned in my early twenties.
“Yes.” She reached forward and put a hand on my knee.
Her fingers tightened, nails digging through the thin fabric of the trousers.
My body tightened in anticipation of feeling those nails against bare skin very soon, hopefully.
“Don’t be coy. It doesn’t suit someone like you. Surely you’d had more than your fair share of, ah, women?”
Taking heed of Jardin’s words, I put a hand over hers and leaned towards her, my mouth a scant inch away from hers.
It pleased me to find that her breathing was fast, erratic.
Good.
“Girls, perhaps,” I whispered, injecting amusement into my voice. “But women? I’m afraid not. At least... not yet.”
The question and the subsequent promise didn’t need to be uttered.
And yet... I could not afford to indulge. Not just yet.
Work, then play, as my damned Papa used to say right before he spent the day chasing empty bottles rolling around on the wooden floors of our shack in the middle of the bayou.
“What brings you to Madame Leona’s soiree? Are you two close?” I injected a note of laissez-faire into my voice. Not particularly difficult, as I had found it something of a talent of mine to lie between my teeth and be damnably good at it.
Genetics, no doubt.
She pouted, her hand slowly drifting up my knee toward my thigh. “Oh come now, surely there are other, more interesting things to talk about than my association with Leona, don’t you think?”
“Such as this.” She leaned forward, and I couldn’t suppress the shiver that racked my spine as her tongue lapped against my earlobe. “What do you say we get out of here? I’ve got a place not too far from here.”
Well, matters had come rapidly to a head, and I had no idea whether I had succeeded or failed.
Should I stay or go?
I tried to test her once more. “Are you sure Madame Leona wouldn’t take offense at you leaving so early?”
She drew back enough, her light brows furrowed in confusion. “Why should Leona care whether I stay or go?”
Now, it was my turn to show confusion, albeit mine was utterly feigned. “I was under the impression you two were close.”
Her befuddlement deepened as she drew away, her hand retreating from my leg. “Forgive me, but I have never once said such a thing.” Her mouth drew down at the corners, turning her beauty into something a little more skeletal, a little less pure. “Surely you aren’t trying to pump me for some kind of “in” into Leona’s good graces.”
Damnation.
“Not at all,” I said, smiling tentatively. “It is merely that... well, I’ve heard rumors that you are so close to Leona that it is hard for any man to approach you.”
Her eyes narrowed at my
less-than-glib lie. “Is that so?”
“Indeed, madam. Why, I would--” My voice trailed away as I realized that she was peering over my shoulder, the bones in her face in stark relief as her lips peeled away from her teeth in a nasty grimace. “La—Lady Yeats?”
“I really don’t know why she does it.” Her voice was laden with anger as she crossed her arms, almost shoving that magnificent bosom practically under her pertly turned nose. “That man is a jackal in expensive suits and one of these days, she is going to regret ever being so damn gracious to the man. Extending an olive branch, indeed!”
Her nostrils flared. “One of these days, he is going to rear back and bite her in the hand, just like that snake that he is. How dare he smile at me like that. The man knows no shame.”
I knew who she was referring to before I even turned to look.
Nonetheless, I turned because if he had allowed himself to be shown for so long to an ally of Madame Leona, it was for a very specific reason.
Jardin stood slightly apart from the crowd, a half-empty snifter in one hand. An almost infuriatingly smarmy smile still on his lips, he rubbed his left ear lobe before disappearing back into the crowd.
Just as well.
This woman had turned out to be a dud as well.
Still, now I was faced with the task of extricating myself from Lady Yeat’s presence without calling attention to myself or Jardin.
Face set into a petulant scowl, she glanced at me and then levered herself to her feet in a rush of silk and perfume that almost made my nose want to crawl off my face and go shrieking out the window.
“I really must speak to Leona,” she said in a hurry, the words tumbling head over heels past each other. “I truly am sorry to leave in such a rush.”
Relieved beyond all measure and praying desperately that it didn’t show on my face, I stood with her. “Not at all, Lady Yeats. Truly, I am sorry for causing you such distress. I didn’t mean to imply that I was only interested in your association with Madame Leona.”
The look on her face seemed to soften for a moment and she laid a hand upon my wrist, less seduction, more comforting now. “Will I see you again?”
Kiss of Crimson Page 3