by Колин Глисон
“Perhaps if Alexander ever returned from the Continent and you actually married him, Chas would allow me to,” Angelica said, lifting her nose.
To her surprise, Maia’s eyes dampened and the tip of her nose turned pink. “That’s just like you, Angelica. We don’t even know if Chas is all right and you’re making horrible jokes.”
Immediately, Angelica felt guilty and bumped gently against her sister, nudging her in a sort of armless embrace. She wasn’t certain if the mistiness was over worry for Chas or Alexander’s absence, but it didn’t matter. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But…I’m just so sure that Chas is fine. He’ll be back.”
“Really? Do you know that?” Maia had stopped just into the ballroom, and they were back near that same lemon tree from earlier in the evening. She looked sharply into Angelica’s eyes, her dark blue ones penetrating and hopeful. Then she sagged, hope fading. “But I know you can’t. Not for us, not for people you’re close to. I only wish you could…just this once.”
Angelica squirmed—literally and figuratively. She did not want to open that box. But Maia didn’t understand why she wasn’t worried about Chas, and perhaps she could give her something that would alleviate her stress…without opening the whole mess. “I just don’t feel like he’s in danger, Maia. Maybe it’s wrong of me not to worry, but I just have a feeling I’d sense it if he were gone.”
To her surprise, Maia gave a little sniffle and nodded, as if receiving confirmation of something she’d already known. “I think I’m foolish to feel that way, too, especially since I don’t have your…gift. But I do. And I confess I’m glad to hear you say it, as well. I just hope it isn’t wishful thinking on both our parts. But…we’ve been so close for so long, the four of us, since Mama and Papa died.… I feel as though we have some sort of spiritual connection. Perhaps it’s absurd, but it’s the only hope I have.”
These last words came out as little more than a murmur and Angelica was forced to watch her sister’s lips and try to interpret. A pang of guilt pricked at her—there was a way to put Maia out of her misery. But no. This was enough.
It would all work out in the end and Maia need never know that Angelica had indeed opened visions to the lives—and deaths—of all of her siblings.
That was her burden to carry alone.
3
Wherein Our Hero Is Assigned A Most Inconvenient Task
Voss stared at himself in the mirror.
His eyes, rarely fully wide even on a happy night, were past half-mast. And bloodshot. Bleary.
Filled with disbelief and shock.
Impossible.
“How could I have been so bloody foolish?” he demanded of his reflection.
It was the same question he’d pummeled himself with for hours. But it was too late for questions and recriminations. Now he had to decide how to proceed.
After leaving the enticing Miss Woodmore—who’d teased him with her alternately dancing then earnest eyes, tantalized him with her long, graceful neck and beckoning scent—he, Eddersley and Brickbank had gone to Rubey’s.
It was either that or descend into a brawl with that bastard Corvindale. Tempting as it might have been, Voss was in no mood to have his shirt crinkled or his clothing torn.
Nor, suddenly, had he felt the urge to tease and coax the pink-frocked matron with whom he’d exchanged glances earlier. No. His need and fury had burrowed deep and fierce.
So he’d allowed his two companions to draw him away and they went to Rubey’s.
The original Rubey was long-dead, but her discreet establishment near Charing Cross remained. The current “Rubey”—certainly that wasn’t her real name—ran it with the same discriminating business sense as her predecessors. In all, Voss believed there had been more than a dozen Rubeys over the centuries, providing the members of the Draculia with a variety of pleasures of the flesh.
Dracule had discriminating tastes when it came to food, drink and pleasure, and Rubey’s catered to all of them. The current proprietress provided an establishment that offered women and men who found it titillating and arousing to be fed upon by vampires, along with other physical pleasures. The best drink, the best food—for even though the Dracule required lifeblood for sustenance, many of them had never lost their taste for the same food mortals consumed. Just as they drank brandy often laced with blood, or wine or ale, they could find pleasure in the texture, scent and taste of food, despite the fact that it provided no real nourishment. As with opium and drink, cooked food was a sensual pleasure but not a necessity.
Some of the most popular of Rubey’s women—or men— were ones who shared the taste for blood with a Dracule customer, sipping from a sliced vein and giving that unique pleasure in return as they copulated or did whatever the customer fancied.
Last night, Voss had partaken of a bottle of blood-red Bordeaux and then the very sleek, very accommodating limbs of three young women in a room thick with scented smoke designed to heighten the pleasure of all. They certainly seemed well pleased, indeed, when he was finished.
But he found himself unable to slake his lust; nor, surprisingly, was he all that interested in pursuing that conclusion. He considered engaging the only female Dracule that Rubey had on staff and having a rough, bloody time of it…but even that didn’t appeal to him.
Too messy, and then there would be unsightly marks all over his skin.
Things became slow and foggy when he had a goblet of Rubey’s special drink. Laced with opium and brandy, it had turned the rest of his night into a long, red, sensual blur.
Yet, despite that blur, he recalled mulling over the fact that Angelica Woodmore was not as young as she’d appeared—at least if one looked in her eyes. There, one most definitely saw not only bright intelligence, but also an innate…comprehension—he supposed was the best word—that was missing from most other women. And, to be honest, men.
And Voss had indeed been looking in her cocoa-brown eyes. He’d even tested out his thrall on her, allowing his irises to take on the faintest bit of a glow, an edge of his coaxing tug, in an attempt to draw her away from the party instead of to the dance floor. Just to see what her face would look like, caught up in that sensual moment. Perhaps to see if he could identify any part of her unforgettable scent.
She was young and inexperienced, and he wouldn’t need more than a little hint of his power to enthrall her.
But…it hadn’t worked. She’d seemed immune to the lure in his eyes.
To be sure, he hadn’t intended anything other than to ease her away for a moment. A mere moment, where they might have a chance to speak privately, without being—as they’d been—interrupted by Dimitri. Damn him.
Of course, Dimitri hadn’t believed Voss when he’d asserted he had merely been asking for a dance, and, now compelled to honesty by the reflection of his drawn, stubbled face, Voss could admit that, in the same position, he wouldn’t have believed himself, either.
Regardless of Voss’s intentions last evening, the fact remained that Angelica Woodmore hadn’t seemed affected by his compelling gaze. And that, perhaps more than anything else, was what had jammed such a burr up his arse at Rubey’s.
In the face of his—albeit gentle—onslaught of charm and glamouring, Miss Angelica Woodmore had simply turned and started off toward the dance floor, fairly towing him in her wake.
Now, Voss shifted away from the mirror and stripped off the mangled neckcloth he’d been wearing since leaving for the Lundhames’ ball last night. It was well past noon today, and he hadn’t arrived back to his house until the sun was well above the horizon—yet another thing that had gone wrong in a night that had started out so promising and that had turned so hellish. He was normally safely in bed before dawn, sleeping until noon like most other gentlemen.
Fortunately the sun was weak today, shrouded in London fog and fighting through the accompanying mist, so at least Voss hadn’t had to content with being sizzled by its rays. An enveloping cloak and a bit of care had kept him from being exp
osed when the beams did peek out as he climbed into a closed carriage.
His shirt had bloodstains on it and he tossed it onto a chair, knowing that Kimton wouldn’t even flicker an eyelash.
Christ-blood. How could it have happened?
They’d left Rubey’s an hour or so before dawn and somehow had decided to go to Vauxhall—for them, an easy walk down Whitehall and across the river a bit. Three Dracule on a tear, with nothing to fear from any mortal armed with any weapon who might lurk in the shadows. They were fast, strong and could see throughout the green-tinged night.
There was nothing to fear. Always nothing to fear.
Yet, somehow through the red fog of his frenetic pleasure, Voss remembered Angelica’s warning about Brickbank.
I must beg of you to keep him away from Blackfriars Bridge. Especially tonight. It was that bridge, and his exact attire, that I saw in my dream.
But they were going to cross Westminster Bridge, loudly and exuberantly, hopeful of finding some gang of thieves or other group of no-gooders in the Gardens that could be terrorized by a trio of drunk vampires. If not, there were always any number of young dandies and their companions who could be frightened.
It was Westminster Bridge, far from Blackfriars, and Voss barely hesitated as they stepped on it.
How could Brickbank die from a fall off a bridge, anyway? There was simply no manner in which he could.
Voss laughed at the absurdity. Laughed, loud and long, exuberant, his mouth still wide with mirth as it happened.
Whether it was Brickbank’s Asthenia (copper, the poor brute) that made him fall or merely that he was clumsy from all the drink, they would never know. None of the details were clear: how had he been so close to the edge, what had happened, how could it have happened? But something made the man stumble suddenly, and as he attempted to catch his balance, he fell from the bridge.
Voss stopped laughing and ran to the side, expecting to see his friend bobbing in the water and chuckling about the fact that half of the premonition had come true…but that was not the case.
He was not bobbing in the water. Nor was he chuckling.
A freak accident was the only explanation. Brickbank had somehow landed on an old, rotting piece of dock jutting from the water not far from the shoreline, impaling himself through the chest.
Dead. Instantly. One of the only ways a Dracule could die.
The very thought made Voss’s blood run cold. Brickbank was dead.
Impossible.
Now, hours later, after the body had been retrieved and he and Eddersley had gone to the secret rooms at White’s and shared yet another bottle of something to take the sting away, Voss was home.
Pounding headed, thin-blooded, filled with guilt and self-loathing. He could have prevented it.
And on top of that, his Mark was throbbing.
With a snarl, he rang for Kimton and ordered a bath.
Thirty minutes later, despite no sleep, Voss felt marginally better—and that was only because Kimton had scrubbed his back (avoiding the Mark) and given him a shave. At least on the outside, he looked less like a man who’d allowed his friend to die. Dressing in neat, pressed clothing helped further, and when he was fully attired, he agreed with himself that he looked just as magnetic and attractive as he always did.
For, although it was only late in the afternoon and the sun was still up, Voss needed to go out. He’d flirted with the idea all morning, knowing all along that he would end up deciding to go; that it was merely the details left to be decided.
He must speak with Miss Angelica Woodmore.
Corvindale would be apoplectic, and Voss’s only real hesitation was in determining whether to call on Angelica (when had he begun to think of her in that way?) openly, so that the earl would know he had defied his command, or to do it clandestinely so that they wouldn’t be interrupted.
In the end, he decided to do it openly. Corvindale would learn about it regardless and think the worst of him no matter what, and, frankly, Voss wasn’t terribly opposed to dusting a bit of the floor with Dimitri, bloody Earl of Corvindale. Especially in his current mood.
He wouldn’t even care if he got blood on his shirt, because he needed something else to think about. Something other than what had happened to Brickbank.
When he arrived at the relatively small, but very elegant, well-kept Woodmore home in Mayfair, Voss alighted from his closed carriage (a very undashing necessity for daytime transportation) gloved and cloaked. He also held a wide umbrella low over his hat—ostensibly to protect his perfectly combed and lightly pomaded hair from the faint drizzle.
It occurred to him that the sisters might already have been removed to the safety of the earl’s home, so it was to his surprise and delight that the door was answered immediately by a well-mannered butler. He accepted his card, hat and cloak, then admitted him promptly with a gesture toward the parlor. Voss had suspected that after last night, Corvindale would have left strict orders that Voss not be received, and he’d anticipated having to bluff or barrel his way in.
Mildly disappointed, he stepped through the parlor door and realized immediately why Corvindale had apparently not seen fit to do so.
“Voss Arden, Viscount Dewhurst,” announced the butler.
No fewer than a dozen faces turned and looked over at him, shock blazoning on all of them. Two were the lovely countenances of the sisters Woodmore—but the vast majority of the others were male.
Of course. Voss was so infrequently out during the daylight, and certainly not familiar with current London Society, that he’d forgotten about the rigid practice of afternoon calls.
“My lord, what an honor for you to join us,” said Angelica, who seemed to be wedged between two pansy-faced, juvenile-countenanced gentlemen on the settee. She appeared both surprised and delighted by his presence.
And perhaps there was the faintest tinge of rose on her cheeks. He certainly expected there should be.
“I hope you will take some tea?” she added.
Bloody tea wasn’t exactly what he’d come for, particularly since a mixture of brandy and wine still sloshed within his belly today. And he didn’t particularly care for the lascivious expression on the face of the good-looking dandy who stood behind Angelica. Likely staring down her bosom, the uncouth fop. Harringford or Harringmede or something like that. He’d seen him at White’s.
Voss would never do such a gauche thing openly. In fact, he never had to resort to stealing glances or ogles. His lips twitched in a self-satisfied smirk.
“Lord Dewhurst,” said Maia, the older one, drawing his attention. She was a pretty one, too, with lighter coloring and a more petite frame than her sister, and Voss wondered briefly whether, if he’d seen her first last night, he’d be as compelled to speak with her as he was to Angelica. His first instinct was no.
Was Angelica the only one with the Sight? Or did the others have it, too?
He nodded to the sisters and ignored the rest of the occupants. Non-Dracule members of Society meant little to him for a variety of reasons, and he’d long become impatient with the strictures of their domain: the farce of rigid politeness on the outer crust, while beneath it, a reality nearly as immoral and corrupt as his own world. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that he had no reason to follow mortal rules and live by mortal standards.
It had been a freeing discovery. And it had given him carte blanche to take and do whatever he desired.
And, he realized as he stood at the edge of the room, he desired Angelica Woodmore. Deeply.
It wasn’t lost on Voss that Maia Woodmore hadn’t made any statement of welcome. He could only assume that Corvindale had already begun to impress upon her all of the reasons Voss should be avoided. Hopefully the earl was still abed like any other sane Dracule would be.
Nevertheless, Voss decided that he had no time to waste.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt,” he said, actually putting sincerity in his tones, “but I must have a word with you, Miss
Woodmore.”
He was looking at Angelica, so it was clear to which sister he was speaking, but Maia was the first to respond. “Pray have a seat, then, my lord. We have just been discussing the newest play at Drury Lane.”
“I wish I could join you, for I hear the lead actress is devastating,” Voss replied, his voice now dripping with innocence. “But I fear that I have only a short time to enjoy your company, and it’s imperative that I speak with your sister.”
During this exchange, Angelica had risen from the sofa and, with a tempered glare at her sister, managed to navigate between the shod feet and pantalooned legs of the myriad of male callers. She was wearing a pale yellow frock today, trimmed with gold ribbon around the neckline (which was, of course, much higher than last night’s), and her hair was pulled into a smooth, neat gather at the back of her head. Only a few wisps of hair fanned her cheeks, giving her the look of an exotic pixie. A slender golden chain rested around the base of her throat, with a tiny, matching cross settling into the hollow there.
Voss swallowed hard and deflected his wayward thoughts as he trained his gaze up. To her eyes. Cocoa-brown eyes, wide and dark as night.
“I’m certain we don’t wish to keep Dewhurst,” Angelica was saying to her sister and the room at large. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“Angelica,” Maia said, beginning to rise. “I don’t—”
“Never fear, Miss Woodmore.” This time he clearly spoke to the elder sister. “Despite whatever warnings Corvindale might have given you, I have no plans to corrupt your sister in the few moments I will speak with her in the foyer.”
With that, he gave a little bow to Angelica, and gestured her to cross in front of him toward the parlor door. Before he turned to follow her out of the room, inhaling subtly as she swept past, Voss turned and took a moment to memorize the faces of the men in the room.
He locked eyes with each of them in turn until he saw the familiar leap of fear and terror in their eyes. Then, quite pleased with himself, he followed Angelica from the room.