by Ranae Rose
“I drained their bodies dry and disposed of them like the fiend I was, by dumping them in the Thames. They’re still there for all I know – bones at the bottom of the river.” He tore up another clump of grass. “I don’t know if the tailor had a family, but I wonder every day. If he did, they’ll never know what happened to him.”
When the silence had stretched so long that Elsie feared he intended to spend the rest of the night in wordless contemplation, he finally broke it. “It was not long after that that I found you. I’d been despairing for several days, devastated that my heroic plans had fallen through. I wandered to the Thames that night – returning to the scene of my crime, I suppose – and thought to throw myself in, thinking it would be a fit end for me if my bones lay for eternity beneath the water with my victims’. Of course, I later found out that a vampire can’t be drowned, so it would have been a wasted effort if I’d tried. But I didn’t, because something caught my eye as I stood ready to jump – a beacon of flames in the distance. I abandoned my morbid intentions then and went to it, where I discovered your house.” He shocked Elsie by taking one of her hands in his. “You know what happened after that.”
“Yes, I do.” Emboldened by his unexpected touch, she hurried to kiss him before she could second-guess her decision to do so.
He let her kiss him, though their lips brushed for only a moment before parting. Elsie settled back into the grass, glad that he still held her hand. Seeking something – anything – to distract him from his surely morbid thoughts, she turned her gaze to the sky. “Do you know the summer constellations?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I spend a great deal of my time outdoors at night.”
“There’s Aquila,” she said, pointing, “the eagle.”
He nodded, and to her satisfaction, followed her lead when she sank back into the grass, lying sprawled beside him on her back.
“And Draco,” he said, motioning toward the glittering string of stars that made up the celestial dragon.
“I’ve always liked that one.” She shifted closer to him, so that their shoulders touched.
They passed nearly an hour that way, lying together and admiring the sky, occasionally pointing out a favorite constellation. Elsie measured his comfort level by the feel of his muscles against hers. When at last the tension seemed to have gone out of his shoulder, arm and leg, she dared to break the spell of their companionable study by kissing him.
He returned her kiss with alacrity, crushing his lips against hers. The feel of his mouth was like silk, and his tongue like velvet against hers. The heat that had been burning in her belly since he’d first touched her flared in intensity, causing her to moan.
He lay down on his back in the grass, pulling her on top of him. He was unmistakably hard, his erection unmissable, even through the layers of their clothing. She gasped as he slipped a hand beneath her skirts and raised them, baring everything below her waist to the stars overhead. Slipping a finger into the slick heat between her legs, he smiled. “Another thing I forgot to mention about being a vampire is that your sense of touch is more acute.”
“I’d already noticed,” she gasped as her body tightened around him. He pushed another finger against her damp folds until it disappeared into her inflamed flesh, sending white-hot pleasure spiking up through her belly. She moaned.
Smiling wickedly, he cupped one of her breasts with his free hand, massaging a nipple. Even through the layers of her dress and shift, it tingled and hardened immediately. The neckline of the gown – another he’d borrowed from his sister’s wardrobe – was blessedly low. When he pulled it down, freeing her breasts with little effort, she trembled against him in anticipation. As he plunged his fingers into her sex again, he touched his tongue to each of her nipples, causing them to shrink to rigid, aching points. He drew one into his mouth and teased it with his teeth, biting lightly. She arched her back, forcing it deeper into his mouth and burying his fingers to their knuckles inside her. Her body responded by tightening impossibly around them as wild contractions wracked her core, more intense even than when he’d made love to her in bed that morning. She vaguely wondered what it would feel like to come now with his cock inside her, if just his fingers could bring this on. The thought was lost in a haze of pleasure as she cried out, writhing against him.
Several breathless moments later, he unbuttoned his pantaloons. “I intend to see that you enjoy this night, for in the morning we must go to London.”
****
“Do not take anything my parents may offer you to drink, and try not to be caught alone with either of them.” Damon repeated what had become a sort of mantra for what seemed the twentieth time.
Elsie nodded as the carriage rumbled over a bump in the road. They were scarcely a mile from the city now, and Damon seemed desperate to reinforce the warnings he’d given her several times already. Remembering his story about drinking the stableman’s blood, she was determined not to take any sustenance his parents might offer her. But did she really need to worry if she happened to find herself alone with either of them? Mr. Remington was intimidating, but just weeks ago she’d been a candidate for becoming Mrs. Remington’s personal maid. “Your mother was always kind to me. I shouldn’t think any harm would come to me if I happened to find myself alone with her.”
Damon shot her a dark look. “My mother is not the woman she pretends to be in front of her servants.”
That seemed a rather incredible claim, seeing as how the woman spent the majority of her time being waited upon hand and foot. “If a lady’s maid doesn’t know her, then who does?”
“I do.” Seeing Elsie’s skeptical expression, he continued. “All those years you worked in her house, and you never would have dreamed she’d been throwing out the food you brought her and feeding on innocent people instead. Some of them were servants just like you. She drained their bodies and dumped them in the Thames, and you never knew.”
Elsie lowered her eyes as her insides squirmed at the thought. “I know you’re right, but it’s all so hard for me to believe. To think she might have done the same to me that first night I arrived at the house…”
“I never would have let them touch you,” Damon said, his voice suddenly sharp. “I patrolled the hallway outside your quarters every night for two weeks, until I was sure you’d been there long enough that your absence would be noted if you went missing.”
A sudden warmth flared in Elsie’s heart as she imagined sixteen year old Damon guarding her room as she slept. She never would have imagined then that the handsome boy had given her so much as a second thought after rescuing her from the factory workers’ slum. How had she been so blind for seven years? She reached out and took one of his hands in hers, smiling. “What a romantic boy you were.”
“Romantic?” he asked, half choking on the word. “Lurking in dark hallways to guard a twelve year old girl from my murderous parents is not at all what I would call romantic.”
“Well I think so,” she said, peering out the window at the looming city. “After my parents died in the fire, I thought I was alone. I never imagined that there was someone looking after me.”
“Yes, and what a splendid job I did,” he said bitterly, glaring out the window as if the city itself were at fault.
Elsie’s stomach knotted as she realized what he was referring to – her tryst with Lord Wilkes. With each day she spent with Damon, what she’d done with that other man seemed less and less significant to her. If only Damon felt the same way. “I wish you wouldn’t bring that up.”
His expression softened as he looked at her. “Forgive me. You know I hold it only against myself, not you.”
“I know. But I’d rather not think about it, all the same.” In truth, there wasn’t much to think about. Lord Wilkes had been a selfish lover – nothing at all like Damon, who made her feel as if she were the luckiest and most important woman in the world each time he touched her. Lord Wilkes had possessed none of Damon’s skill and little of his concern for
her pleasure. What really bothered her was that Damon felt he’d failed her, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“How is your headache?” Damon asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“It’s not as bad as it was yesterday.” The throbbing ache was still distinctly unpleasant, but her worries over how Damon’s parents would receive the news of their marriage distracted her from the pain. “I’m almost too nervous to notice that it hurts at all.”
“There’s no need for you to worry. I’ll handle my parents.”
“Do you think they’ll be angry?” Elsie asked, trying to imagine how they could possibly not be when their former servant barged into their home, dressed in borrowed finery and hanging on their only son’s arm.
“They have no reason to be.”
Elsie’s heart sank as she recognized Damon’s comment as a rather delicate way of saying that they might be.
He gave her hand a squeeze as the horses clip-clopped down the city streets, their every step bringing Elsie closer to the confrontation she was dreading more and more. “What if they hate me for marrying you? There’s probably some rich heiress they’d rather you married. I’m just a housemaid.”
“You are not a housemaid anymore,” he said firmly. “You are my wife, and nothing they say can change that. Besides, I think that in time, they will be glad to have another vampire in the family. Keeping the secret from nearly everyone is tiring.” He frowned. “Of course, it would be much easier if they didn’t throw themselves into the middle of London’s social circles and burgeoning industries, but they insist upon amassing an empire.”
“Aren’t you proud of your family’s accomplishments? They own half the factories in the city, and you are heir to them, after all.”
“Proud?” Damon turned over Elsie’s hand and uncurled her fingers, holding her palm open to the light that streamed in through the window. Delicately, he traced the callouses that roughened her skin at her fingertips and below her knuckles. She’d had them as long as she could remember. “Proud of an industry that makes its profit off the backs of children? No.”
The carriage slowed as it approached the Remington house, smoothly rolling through the gates. “Here we are,” Damon murmured.
Chapter 12
Before Elsie knew it she was climbing out of the carriage, wincing only slightly at the sunlight. Then she and Damon were entering the house, standing on the foyer floor she’d swept a thousand times. She felt ridiculous in the airy, pale blue gown she’d borrowed from Lucinda, who’d gladly handed over the dress in exchange for a meticulous account of every last detail of Elsie and Damon’s marriage. They’d left her at the Hertfordshire estate, smirking as her eyes glittered with apparent amusement. She’d claimed to have plans for the day, but Elsie suspected that she simply hadn’t wanted to be caught in the middle of whatever argument might unfold between Damon and their parents.
The servant that met Damon and Elsie at the door wore his usual blandly polite expression at first, but shock flashed in his eyes as he took a second look at Elsie. She forced herself to keep a straight face as the man gave her a third look, and then a fourth before his gaze finally settled on her wedding ring. His name was Jonathan Carver and he’d been working in the house for three years – knowing those things only made Elsie feel even more out of place in Lucinda’s luxurious gown. She didn’t need his incredulous stare to remind her that last time she’d seen the man, she’d been a halfway convalescent housemaid. At last he regained his dignity, wiping all traces of surprise from his face. “Shall I inform your mother that you’ve arrived, sir?”
“Is my father here?”
“No, I’m afraid he’s gone out on business.”
“We’ll see my mother immediately, then.”
Jonathan silently led them upstairs. In the corridor on the second floor, they passed a maid dusting an expensive vase that sat on a pedestal in an alcove. She was not but fifteen, one of the lower housemaids who Elsie herself had instructed many a time. Rebecca, she was called. Stifling the urge to nod at the girl or offer a greeting, Elsie forced herself to glide quietly past as the girl shot furtive, wide-eyed glances over her shoulder. The awkwardness was almost as bad as the anger that filled Elsie when she wondered whether she might encounter another housemaid – Jenny.
She’d done her best lately not to think about her friend – or at least, her former friend. How could she count Jenny as a companion after what she’d done? Disapproving of Elsie’s feelings for Damon was one thing, but lying to her? Elsie never would have imagined that Jenny would have had the gall – or the necessary cruelness of spirit – to invent a nonexistent ‘fiancé’ for Damon in order to keep Elsie away from him. But looking back on it, that was exactly what she’d done.
Elsie should have realized then that it had been a lie. After all, Jenny had conveniently said that Damon’s supposed fiancé was to arrive at the London house ‘sometime within the next few days’, knowing that Elsie would likely depart for Hertfordshire again within the same time frame. No doubt she’d wanted Elsie to return to the country thinking that Damon was a claimed man. Well, she’d underestimated them both. Jenny’s lie had failed to do anything but destroy the trust Elsie had invested in her.
But perhaps that was for the best. She was having a difficult enough time convincing herself that she was Mrs. Damon Remington, and all that the title entailed. Maybe it would be easier for everyone else to see her as more than just a housemaid if she disassociated herself from the servants. There was a time when the notion would have broken her heart, but that was before Jenny had deceived her. Now it prompted a rush of emotions, not the least of which were sadness, confusion and a burning sense of betrayal.
Damon touched the small of Elsie’s back in an intimate gesture that reminded her of the news they were about to break to his mother. The footman knocked on the doors to Mrs. Remington’s chambers and opened them when instructed. Taking a deep breath, Elsie let Damon guide her into the antechamber.
Mrs. Remington was perched on the edge of the damask sofa in the center of the room, just as Elsie had found her so many times when she’d served her tea. Were it not for Damon’s gentle touch and the nervousness boiling in the pit of her stomach, she would have felt like a maid entering the room on some bland errand.
“Damon.” Mrs. Remington’s voice held only the faintest note of surprise. No doubt it was due less to the sudden arrival of her son than to the sight of Elsie at his side. “You’ve brought Elsie back. Has the country air improved her health so quickly?” Her hazel eyes widened as they swept over Elsie’s fashionable gown.
Damon’s voice was steady. “She is well, but that is not why I’ve brought her here. She comes with me. We have married.”
The silence that followed his statement might have lasted for millennia, or perhaps only a second. Elsie held her breath, not sure whether to expect a dose of the iciness Mrs. Remington was known for or an angry outburst.
“Married?” Mrs. Remington said the word slowly, exploring it with her musical voice as if it were some foreign expression she was trying to grasp the meaning of.
“Yes, just recently. It was a small ceremony, but a legal one in a small chapel in Hertfordshire. She is one of us now.”
It was clear that by ‘one of us’, he meant that he’d exchanged her humanity for the immortal status the Remingtons all shared.
Mrs. Remington exhaled slowly, her gaze sweeping over her son and his bride, resting on the gold band that gleamed from Elsie’s left hand. “Of all the impulsive things you’ve done – of all the things you’ve sprung upon your father and me – this is by far the most shocking and perplexing.”
“I am not in the habit of springing things upon you, unless arriving for visits unannounced is enough to constitute a reputation for impulsivity.”
“Regardless, I hope that the next thing you’ll surprise me with is an explanation of why you have eloped with my best maid.”
Damon’s touch against the
small of Elsie’s back became firmer, even possessive. “I am of an age to marry, and my fortune is well established. There was no reason why I should have remained a bachelor the rest of my life, if only the right woman could be found. Elsie is that woman.”
“I am interested to know what particular qualities led you to determine that my maid was the ideal candidate for marriage.” There was an edge to Mrs. Remington’s voice, which was otherwise admirably controlled.
“She was dying,” Damon replied, with a sharp edge to match his mother’s, “if that means anything to you. It occurred to me that I could save her life by changing her. You know the conditions for transformation. I brought her into the family by making her my wife.”
“So you bound yourself to this girl for the rest of your immortal lives because you’d taken pity on her?”
“No.” Damon stroked the small of Elsie’s back in a calming gesture that no one could see. Whether he meant it to soothe her or himself was unclear. “I wanted her, and I wished to have a wife. The urgency of her condition gave me the motivation to take initiative I might otherwise have never realized.”
“I see,” Mrs. Remington said flatly, her eyes glittering, her gaze deadlocked with Damon’s. “And did you ever stop to consider how the decision you made so easily would affect the family?”
“I see no harm in adding one more to our number. Keeping such an enormous secret among just four people is dreadfully stifling.”
“There are consequences to your actions, Damon!” Mrs. Remington’s voice finally rose as she stood, her skirts rustling. “It is not up to you to take the fate of the family into your own careless hands.”
Damon’s hand tensed against Elsie’s back. “On the contrary, mother – who I choose to marry is indeed up to me. It is the only significant choice in my life that was not set in stone for me, and I do not regret exercising the right that was ultimately mine, whatever alternatives you and father might have had in mind.”