by Amber Benson
William was taken aback by this confession. A smile came unbidden to him, and he even uttered a small chuckle.
“So long ago? Sophia, we barely knew each other then. It’s only little more than a year since that party at the Hartwells’, when we bumped into each other—”
She glanced down shyly. “Are you really that blind, sir? Well, I suppose men often are. Let me confess that our renewed acquaintance was hardly that casual. You might even say I arranged the entire thing, and had been wanting to do so ever since that first dance.
“I have acted the coquette, William, and invited the advances of other men who wished to court me. I have said cruel things to you, but it has all been to protect myself, to hide from you just how many of my hopes I have wagered on you. You have held my heart and my dreams in your hands for years, William Swift, though you never knew.”
“We were just children,” William said, amazed.
“Yes, but we’re not children anymore.”
Sophia reached up and undid the simple knot that kept her hair pinned. She let it cascade across her neck and shoulders. She shook it out, even as she touched William’s face again.
“So, you see, I have only two choices. I can live a mundane life of shallow society parties, inventing new ways to spend my inheritance. Then, certainly, I would be safe. Or I can pursue the dream born of that little girl whose toes you once stepped on while trying to dance, and cherish every day of our courtship. Then become your bride, despite whatever dangers I may face at your side.”
She laid her cheek upon his shoulder.
“I think I’ll risk it,” she murmured, “and thank God for the chance.”
Sophia tilted her head back to meet his eyes again. “So now I have exposed myself to you fully, William. I have put my heart at your mercy.”
He gazed down at her, and for a moment he could neither speak nor breathe. It wasn’t the elegance of her features that so paralyzed him, however, but the openness and vulnerability of the light that shone in her eyes.
And it terrified him. William wanted Sophia beside him forever, wanted her to marry him and for them to fill Ludlow House with the laughter of family, of children, in a way it had not been for so very long. But now that she had revealed the depth of her love for him, he feared for her more than ever. Sophia had said this had always been her dream, and it was his as well. Yet it would not be a simple dream to fulfill.
“Your courage astounds me,” he whispered.
Sophia smiled. “It is a reflection of your own. You give me faith.”
William could not help himself. He pushed his fingers through her hair and stroked her face, and instead of stepping back from her for propriety’s sake, he pressed himself against her.
If he had any hope of an ordinary life, it would require a woman of rare spirit. How had he had the fortune to discover such a woman as this, who loved him to distraction, just as he loved her?
“You are all I ever wished for,” William rasped, voice thick with emotion.
Sophia slid her fingers behind his neck and drew him down to kiss her. William’s chest ached as he surrendered. Their lips met tentatively at first, brushing gentle and moist. Then they kissed in earnest.
Her hands slid down his back. William cupped the back of her head with one hand and with the other he traced light lines upon her upper arm. Their tongues danced together playfully and for a moment they separated, foreheads pressed together, laughing softly. The smile on Sophia’s face in that moment was a reminder of the little girl he had danced with so long ago, and he fell in love all over again.
He kissed her again, blood rushing through him, the heat of arousal turning into a blazing fire. Sophia took his right hand and placed it upon her breast. The hard material of her dress and the corset beneath were rough to the touch, but his thumb and first finger lay upon the soft and tender skin that was not covered by her clothing. In what little part of her breast was revealed he could feel her pulse, feel the warmth that flushed her.
Mustering all his strength, William stepped away.
“No,” Sophia whispered, and she caught her breath as she reached out to take both his hands in hers.
“I . . . they’ll be wondering what is taking me so long.”
Sophia went to the door and closed it. “Let them wonder,” she said, returning to him.
He shook his head. “If I stay, we both know what will happen.”
Sophia smiled. “Yes. We do.”
“And the desire rages in me like nothing I have ever felt. It is an ache so deep that it brings real pain. I wish this were our wedding night, Sophia, but it is not. It would be a disservice to you if I—”
She laughed, but there was only love in it. She pulled him close again, pressing herself against him.
“Quite the opposite, in fact.”
This time, she was the one who stepped away. She reached behind her head and began to unbutton her dress.
“Now, you listen to me, William Swift. This may not be our wedding night, but one day soon I will be your wife. I care not a whit for the proper order of things.”
The dress slid to the floor, crumpling around her ankles, and she stepped out of it.
William watched, entranced, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The lamplight flickered across Sophia’s face and her pale skin as her loveliness was revealed to him in full for the first time. One by one her undergarments were shed until at last she stood before him, entirely nude.
The curve of her hip made his breath catch in his throat. The revelation of her. He felt a hunger like nothing he’d ever known.
“Now,” she whispered, walking toward him. “I have burned for you all this time. And if I wait another day, another hour, I fear the fire will consume me.”
“Oh, my God, Sophia,” William said.
It was all he could manage. He took her in his arms, his hands exploring her, caressing every soft curve of her. She guided him, and he found her slick and warm. One finger slipped into her, and then Sophia’s knees went weak. She collapsed against him.
William lifted her up and carried her to the bed. He laid her there and she watched, an angelic smile upon her face, there in the lamplight, as he removed his own clothes. There was no more hesitation in him now. Nothing he had done in his life had ever felt as purely true and right as this.
When he went to her she stopped him at the edge of the bed.
“I just want to look at you,” she said.
But that was a lie, for her hands caressed his chest, her fingers running all over him. The chill breeze from the open window made him shiver, but her touch was warm. His arousal was so complete that it hurt him, and when she slid her hands over his prick it leaped at her touch. It seemed as if every nerve ending in his body had clustered there.
“Now come to me,” Sophia said, and she gazed up at him as he slipped onto the bed.
At first he lay beside her. He kissed her deeply, stroking her face and hair and soft, pale breasts. His tongue made small circles around her dark nipples, hard and quivering, and again his fingers slid inside her, then caressed the slippery folds of her sex.
Their kisses grew more fevered, and Sophia lay back, her hair fallen around her, framing her face. The lamplight danced, and he shook his head in amazement as he gazed upon her beauty, as he looked into her eyes and saw there everything he had ever hoped to see. All other responsibilities, all other duties, were secondary in that moment.
Forgotten.
Once again her fingers wound about his pego, taking him in her grip. She guided him between her legs and as he thrust forward, pushing into her, she shuddered with pleasure and began to whimper, the edges of her mouth lifting in a smile of gratification, of fulfillment long delayed.
He took her in long, slow strokes and she drew her fingernails down his back and wrapped her legs around him, quivering anew with each thrust. William felt as though his entire being were focused at the point where their bodies met. The moist heat of her flesh gave way to hi
m and now the twin fires that had so long been stoked within each of them were joined in a single exultant blaze.
BY THE LIGHT of oil lamps and the blaze of crackling flames in the fireplace, Tamara and Nigel Townsend sat in the library of Ludlow House poring through ancient texts her grandfather had collected throughout his life. Most of them had been stored among his personal possessions; others he had given over to Nigel for safekeeping, or stored in secret caches throughout the city. Since his death, they had gathered as much of his collection of Arcanum as possible into this room.
When Bodicea had delivered word that the Swifts needed his help, Nigel had come far more quickly than Tamara would have expected. In truth, it troubled her. For him to respond thus, he must have felt that the crisis they were facing was even more perilous than she had imagined.
Having summoned their ally, Bodicea had been restless, but there was no new task for her. It was difficult for ghosts to grasp physical objects, so even the turning of the pages of a book proved a significant effort. Thus, Tamara had asked the queen to relieve Byron at last of the job of standing guard over Oblis. This left her alone with Nigel. Once upon a time, that would have been unthinkable.
In the aftermath of their grandfather’s death, Ludlow House had been overrun by supernatural creatures. Tamara and her brother had been in desperate need of a safe haven.
Nigel Townsend had at one time been an apprentice to Ludlow Swift, learning from their grandfather the trade of the magician. Tamara and William were aware, of course, that a rift of some sort had come between the two men. Indeed, Nigel had been largely missing from their lives for quite some time. But after Ludlow’s death, Nigel had been one of the first people they’d considered going to. And the ghosts concurred.
Nigel had accepted the Swifts into his home, and had taught the fledgling sorcerers what magic he could. He had some small sorceries at his disposal, but he knew that the Protectors of Albion would most require guidance, and time to study. For their power was innate.
So Nigel had given them access to his occult library, had offered a place to sleep, and had fed them. And one night he had appeared in the shadows of the guest room he had provided for Tamara. At first he had attempted to seduce her, and then to taste her blood.
Nigel Townsend was, of course, a vampire.
The resultant horror and fury had led to a brief conflict, and the severing of their relationship with Nigel. The Swifts had even considered that Townsend might have been in league with the forces of darkness. But the truth was that Tamara had never believed that. Not for a moment.
Even during the time of their estrangement, her grandfather had spoken admiringly of his old friend. And Townsend had seemed genuinely forlorn when he had learned of Ludlow’s death.
And that night when Nigel had visited her so secretly in her bedchamber . . . in her heart she knew that he ought not to bear the blame entirely. There had been a magnetism between them from the moment she had entered his home, and she had relished his attentions. Not that she had intended to take that attraction any farther. She was quite young, even naÏve, and Nigel was far older even than she had known, and more than worldly.
She had not resisted when he went to kiss her. Not really.
But had she known he was a vampire . . . known that his supernatural bloodlust might drive him to do something terrible . . .
Nevertheless, while all of the others had been swearing vengeance against Townsend, Tamara had sought only to discover his true nature. For she believed that at heart he was the man her grandfather had called friend and ally; that he would be a defender of Albion, rather than one of its enemies. In the end, her instinct had proven correct. Nigel made amends, and a peace was struck in time for all of them to band together for the common good.
Nigel spent many a night at Ludlow House. He often helped to watch over the possessed Henry Swift. The vampire had proven himself their ally on several other occasions. But he and Tamara had never again spoken of that night in her bedchamber.
“Tamara,” he said, that deep, honey-sweet voice snapping her from her reverie. “Are we keeping you from something?”
She blinked, cheeks flushing warmly, and smiled at him.
“Not at all. Sorry. I was a bit lost for a moment there. I’m afraid I’m not very used to fighting an enemy I cannot see. It’s damnably frustrating, isn’t it? To have had so much darkness spread through the city, almost under our noses, and to be no closer to solving the puzzle than we were at the start.”
Nigel frowned, his face etched with the same dignity and nobility she had always admired. Beneath his roguish exterior, these qualities were what had allowed her to retain faith in him when others would not. He was handsome in his own way, his features bespeaking origins in northern Africa, perhaps Egypt, though he never spoke of such things. But it was the strength of character, the sincerity of his eyes, that led her to trust him.
“We are closer,” he assured her. “Much closer. We know, at the least, what we are facing. Now we must discover who is responsible, and what they hope to achieve with all this horror, the spreading of this plague, the theft of Indian icons and the vandalism of the tombs in St. Paul’s. Our enemy originates from India, of that much we can be reasonably certain. And the best way to find the answers we seek, to at last confront the evil directly, is to recruit the assistance of the Protector of Bharath.”
Tamara nodded. “I believe he’s already provided some assistance, and may be in need of it himself.”
“Either way,” Nigel replied. “Whatever he knows, we need to know. There are many pieces to this puzzle, and it seems as if we are missing the largest of them. Perhaps William will discover something useful at the Algernon Club. But I think our best chance is to . . .”
The vampire frowned. “Where is William? It’s taking him an awfully long time to dress.”
Tamara smiled mischievously. “Sophia arrived some time ago. Apparently the news of the plague has frightened her so much that she had to seek solace. I’m quite certain I don’t know what’s become of him since.”
Nigel raised both eyebrows, and a twinkle appeared in his eyes. “I do so love to see the righteous brought low.”
“Yes, indeed. He won’t be chastening me for quite some time, I’ll wager.” Tamara laughed softly.
“All right, back to work, then. We’ve still got a great deal to do,” Nigel reminded her.
A squat, powerful figure appeared in the open door of the library. Tamara twisted around, catching a glimpse of the figure in her peripheral vision, and saw that it was Farris, carrying a heavy iron pot in front of him. A vague, burned smell emanated from it.
“Yes, well,” the butler sniffed, “p’raps if certain people would quit flappin’ their gums, we’d make more progress.”
Tamara’s eyes went wide. “Farris!”
Nigel only smiled. “Ah, well, even a little garden snake has fangs. You don’t like me much at all, do you, Mr. Farris?”
“Can’t say I do, sir. Where I was raised, you get a leech attached to your skin, you’ve got to burn it off. Never believed in all the stories about your sort, but nothin’ I’ve heard makes me want to trust a vampire.”
With that Farris fell silent, and Nigel turned away. In his hands, he held the figure of Vishnu and the serpent that Tipu Gupta had once given Ludlow Swift, Protector of Bharath to Protector of Albion. He studied it now. By the light of tall white candles, he gazed at every facet of the arcane object, and for a moment it seemed as if he hadn’t even noticed Farris’s insult.
Tamara stared at her butler, this man who worked for her, but who had also become a friend to herself and her brother. She tried to put all her surprise and disapproval into her gaze, but Farris steadfastly refused to meet her eyes. Instead he stubbornly stared at Nigel, awaiting some response.
The silence in the room was palpable. This was the very library where she and William had spent long days and nights, poring over every volume of supernatural lore and occult instruction they
could lay hands upon, trying to teach themselves mastery over the powers they had inherited.
Those had been terrifying times, and yet they had also been among the most exciting, the most tangibly real days of her life, for in that time Tamara had realized that in some horrifying way, a dream had come true for her. She had always believed herself destined for a life beyond the constraints of society. Something of consequence. She had received all she had desired, and learned to fear it, as well.
“Farris—” she began.
“You know, Tamara,” Nigel interrupted, still examining the talisman. “I have endured the doubts and suspicions, even the animosity of your brother and your ghostly confidants, because despite outward appearances I do have a certain respect for them.”
He picked up one of the white candles and angled it so that its dripping wax fell onto the bronze figure of Vishnu, cooling quickly and hardening in place.
“I will not, however, allow myself to be denigrated by the help.” The vampire sneered, his eyes going crimson in the gloom, and his fangs glistening in the candlelight. “So you’d best rein in this yapping dog of a servant . . . that is, if you wish to continue to enjoy his services.”
Farris’s face grew ruddy with anger, and he took several more steps into the room with that cast-iron pot in his hands.
“Now, see here!” he began.
“That will be enough, Farris!” Tamara snapped, silencing the man immediately. He had the good sense to look chastened, but she could practically see steam rising from his ears.
Tamara pushed away the books she had been searching through and stood up from the study desk. Atop it stood a bronze lion William had once accidentally brought to life. Such amusing times were a distant memory at the moment, however. She picked up an apple that sat on the edge of the desk and opened and closed her fingers around it; then she crossed her arms and regarded them both.
“Why men run this world is a mystery for the ages,” she said. A lock of hair had fallen across her eyes, and she blew it away with a puff of breath. “Nigel, you know well how staunch an ally Farris has proven since we first engaged him as our butler here at Ludlow House. He is as much a part of our crusade to defend Albion as any of us. He never shirks a fight, and has shown unmatched courage in the face of terrors that would have made lesser men soil their drawers and bawl like infants.”