by Колин Глисон
Max felt Vioget’s eyes flicker to him, then to the door. As if Max had somehow arranged such an interruption. He tightened his lips. If anyone had arranged anything, it was Victoria. Not Max.
And if Vioget didn’t understand that, then perhaps he was not wholly prepared to handle Victoria.
Max looked at her, noticed that while she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking extremely innocent. Blast it. Blast her.
“Pardon me,” said Vioget, standing abruptly. He gave a little bow to Victoria. “Are you quite finished?” he asked.
She looked directly at him and replied, “For now. But I will be here if you wish to return.”
Max blinked and nearly missed the sharp look Vioget sent toward him. He edged toward the door, ready to make his exit. Vioget stepped aside, quite willing to let him pass.
“Max.”
He turned, his fingers tightening. Their eyes met, and he knew she wasn’t about to let him leave.
Vioget could delay no longer without looking the fool, and so he left, leaving the door ajar behind him. Victoria walked over and closed it, brushing against Max as she did so.
He steeled himself, remembering those moments in the carriage. She’d looked up at him, everything written on her face that he knew was also engraved deep inside himself. “What is it?” he said, his voice hard. Angry.
Why did she persist?
“Thank you for taking Wayren last night. I knew… you were the only one I could trust to do it.”
“I was the one you had to protect.”
“I knew you were the one who would succeed in bringing her back, Max. Vis bulla or no. We spoke last night. She told me she asked you to return to the Venators.”
“I won’t.” The words were out of his mouth before he could consider them.
“As she told me.” She stood there, far enough away that he couldn’t reach to touch her-if he’d wanted to-but close enough that he could smell the remnants of her bath. “You don’t have to risk your life and become a Venator again. It matters not to me.”
Max snorted. “I risk my bloody life every damn day, Victoria. As if that fear would keep me from the Trial.”
“Ah, that clears things up for me, then.” Her voice grew cold, and she turned slightly away. A damp curl clung to her bruised cheek. “It’s not fear of death. It’s that if-when-you succeeded in reinstating your Venator powers, then you would have no excuse to leave. No reason to hide. To shunt me off on Sebastian. Isn’t it, Max?”
He opened his mouth to speak, anger driving through him. He didn’t want to talk about this. “You should cut your hair.”
She looked at him in surprise, but accepted the change of subject. “I’ve thought of it. It’s too long and dangerous.”
That was not the response he’d expected. He didn’t like it.
Damn it to Hell. He didn’t like anything right now.
“Max, you’re right. As long as Lilith is obsessed with you, there is an added danger.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, an uncomfortable feeling rising inside him again.
“So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands.” She smiled. It wasn’t a seductive smile, or even a pleased one. It was feral. Bestial. “Once I’m sure Wayren is safe, I’m going to find Lilith, and kill her.”
Seven
Wherein Sebastian Swears Off Women
Sebastian did not return to Victoria’s chamber after all.
He thought to have had his mount saddled in order to take himself off to the rooms he let while in London, but something drew him back to the sitting room. He had a compelling desire to see if the Gardella Bible, about which he’d heard so much, was there. An odd thought, to be sure… It certainly wouldn’t be sitting out, and, furthermore, why did he feel the need to see it? It had never occurred to him to care before.
Nevertheless, that persuasive thought directed him to the small room when he would have left the house, plagued by other unpleasant thoughts instead.
Though Victoria had said that Wayren was resting, she seemed to be waiting for him. He would have backed out of the room if she hadn’t fastened those all-seeing blue-gray eyes on him from her half-reclined position on a chaise.
“Sebastian. Come.”
“But you’re weary.” Something niggled uncomfortably inside him, something that told him he would be happier if he left.
“Please.”
Before he realized it, he was limping into the sitting room, as though drawn by some invisible thread. Wayren had always unsettled him-from the first time he met her, years ago, when he first learned of his Venator calling… to less than six months ago, when he was discovered sneaking about in the Consilium, the secret headquarters of the Venators in Rome.
Yet she seemed to mean him no harm, and unlike Pesaro, she had no condemnation in her eyes. They were peaceful. Serene.
And perceptive. His self-deprecating charm would be out of place in the face of such bald honesty and sincerity.
“Do the dreams still plague you?” she asked as he began to sit.
Startled by her question, Sebastian froze, half poised above the seat cushion. “Dreams?” How could she know?
But as soon as he thought it, he knew the question was foolish. Wayren knew many things-of past, present, and future. Of truth and deceit, of promise and threat.
Her weakness wasn’t knowledge. Wayren’s limitation was her inability to change what she knew-or portended. Or even, sometimes, to simply divulge her information.
She didn’t respond-merely looked at him. Sebastian allowed himself to sink into the chair. Devil take it. He should have left when he had had the chance. But now he had become entwined.
“I dream of Giulia, if that’s what you mean.” Sebastian could hardly believe he’d admitted it aloud. The dreams he had of the woman-girl, really-he’d loved all those years ago were a private thing. By admitting it aloud, he felt as though he tainted those nocturnal images and memories-at least, the pleasant ones. Yet he was compelled to speak honestly and without prevarication.
Wayren nodded. “Tell me about the dreams.”
Sebastian looked down at his hands. His fingers trembled in his lap. “I dream over and over again of the moment when I saw her… and realized she’d been turned undead. Her eyes turned red for only a moment, then dissolved back to normal mortal ones.”
Normal mortal ones that he saw every time he looked at Giulia’s brother. Max Pesaro.
“Your antipathy for him has not affected your work as a Venator… now that you’ve returned to us,” Wayren said quietly. It did not surprise him that she knew the trail on which his thoughts had gone. “I find that commendable.”
Antipathy? What Sebastian felt for Max Pesaro went deeper than antipathy. It had been Max who’d taken Giulia-as well as their elderly, crippled father-to the secret society of vampire protectors, believing that the Tutela could help prolong their lives. Even give them immortality, through the vampires.
Giulia, beautiful and gentle as she was, had always been a sickly girl, unlike her twin brother. Pale, delicate, and with a persistent cough that worried those who loved her.
In his more generous moments, Sebastian almost understood Max’s intent, naive as it had been: to protect and save his family.
But that empathy usually dissolved when Sebastian reminded himself that because of Max, he’d not only lost the woman he loved, but had been forced to send her to Hell by slamming a stake into her heart. Giulia had been the second vampire he’d slain, and she became the last undead he killed… until last autumn in Rome. Nearly fifteen years later.
Sebastian realized he’d been silent for too long, and looked up to find Wayren’s eyes focused on him. Patience limned her gaze, patience and sympathy.
“I dream it over and over: that her eyes turn red and her fangs… extend… and then moments later, she returns to normal. A mortal. Unchanged. But I slay her anyway. I slam that stake into her heart even as she opens her mouth to plead with me.” He swallowed. “
And then the dream shifts, so I don’t see if she turns to ash… and I wonder if I was mistaken… if I was wrong, and she hadn’t been undead. And if I killed her for no damn good reason.”
He didn’t care that those last words came out tight and low and hard, that fury burned through him. Moisture stung the corners of his eyes and he closed them tightly.
And now he was about to lose the second woman he loved. To the man he hated.
“It is said that those turned undead have souls damned for eternity upon the destruction of their physical body,” Wayren said. Her voice remained easy, soothing. And despite the turmoil inside, the anger and pain, Sebastian felt a vestige of peace slide over him. “And that is why you turned from the Venators for years, is it not? The belief that you had no right to send any soul to its eternal damnation.”
“Yes. How could I make that judgment? How would I know who was… deserving? For if they had been good in life…” To his great mortification, his voice cracked with emotion. Sebastian swallowed and forced himself to go on. “If they had been good, and blameless in life, and then unwillingly or unwittingly turned undead… how could I thrust eternal damnation upon them?”
“You believe that there might be hope for those undead.” Wayren did not ask a question; she stated a fact, a hope that had been buried so deeply inside Sebastian that he’d never really allowed himself to think it. Let alone to bring it to life by putting it into words.
Emboldened now-or, perhaps only dispirited-by her question, he looked at her. “Is it possible?”
Her eyes remained clear; he could read nothing there. But she replied, “Anything might be possible, Sebastian. I may know much, but I do not know all. I suspect that divine judgment considers many factors that we cannot comprehend. And that all we can do here is what we are called to do. No matter how difficult it might be.”
Sebastian sagged back in his seat. An answer that was no answer. He stood, brushing self-consciously at his rumpled shirt. “Thank you, Wayren.”
Her smile held a tinge of amusement and a bit more of sorrow. “I thank you, Sebastian. I know it was difficult for you to return. And to have this conversation with me.”
At this, he allowed his lips to quirk on one side. “I’ve had many difficult conversations with women in the last weeks,” he said, recalling the moment when Victoria attempted to tell him what he already knew: that she loved Max in a way that she’d never love him. “I begin to think that it would be best for me to avoid females until such a time as when my luck has changed.”
“I am sorry for your pain,” she said. “Sometimes, it is through pain that one discerns one’s true path.”
Sebastian would have liked to return with a quip about figurative stakes through the heart, but something stopped him. He closed his lips and bowed, relieved to quit the room.
“We couldn’t find you anywhere,” Lady Melly shrilled.
Victoria shifted her position slightly so that the high pitch of her mother’s voice didn’t go so directly into her ear. As she was sitting next to her, that was a bit of a feat, but she did the best she could. “I was there for a time, Mama,” she said, then glanced at their hostess. “The duchess saw me, indeed.”
Victoria had managed a brief nap after her bath and subsequent meeting with Sebastian and Max in her chambers, but she was still weary and achy. The only reason she’d left the house to join the triumvirate of ladies for an early tea was because the alternative would have been hosting them at her house.
At least here it was possible for her to make an escape.
“Lovely dress, my dear,” Duchess Winnie said, leaning forward to take up a little biscuit topped with strawberry preserves and a dollop of cream. Despite the fact that she’d hosted a dance the night before, it was her pleasure to have her dearest friends over the following day in order to scale through every bit of on dit or gossip that might have occurred. And aside of that, it was a well-known fact that her cook made the best, most unique biscuits and sweets. “A bit scandalous, to be sure, but you aren’t a virginal debutante anymore, are you?”
Lady Melly shot her a silencing glare and turned back to Victoria. “But where did you go off to? I never got to talk to you, and I intended to have Jellington introduce you to Davington’s heir, just returned from the Continent.”
“Mama,” Victoria began, but it was to no avail.
“Never say that you still harbor the idea that you might have an attachment to that Monsieur Vioget,” Melly said, her spoon clinking noisily as she stirred her tea. “Why, he wasn’t even there last night, and I just could not abide that your second husband should be French. And not of the ton. I simply would not permit it.”
“But, Melly, you cannot ignore that he is a handsome gentleman,” said Lady Nilly, who’d just returned to the room.
In light of her conversation with George Starcasset last evening, Victoria couldn’t help but examine the long, papery skin of Nilly’s neck for vampire bites. Unfortunately, Lady Nilly was wearing a wide choker that, as Victoria knew from personal experience, could work very well to hide fang marks. “What a lovely cameo,” Victoria said.
Her rising from the sofa, which she shared with her mother, had a dual purpose: one, to get her away from the shrill voice, and second, to examine the brooch… and its wearer ’s neck.
“Oh, do you like it?” asked Nilly, moving closer so that Victoria could see.
Victoria lifted the (quite ugly) cameo of a… well, she wasn’t certain what it was, but it wasn’t immediately recognizable… from the hollow of Lady Nilly’s throat under the guise of examining it more closely. As the wide lace lifted, Victoria saw that there were no marks on her mother’s friend’s neck, and allowed the cameo to settle back into place.
And now Victoria had no choice but to settle back into her place.
“And the other thing,” Lady Melly continued as though there’d been no interruption in her lecture, “I was certain you’d find it fascinating to hear that they have notified the new heir to the Rockley estate.”
“Indeed?” In spite of herself, Victoria was mildly interested. “After they’d searched so hard and long for James Lacy, I thought it would take much longer to locate the next in line.”
“But no, Victoria, for it wasn’t that they didn’t know who the heir was… It was where to find him,” Melly told her archly. “Surely you knew that.”
Victoria didn’t have the heart to tell her mother-who had memorized the lineage of every noble family in England-that her interest in Phillip had not extended to learning every branch of his sparse family tree. She’d been much less interested in his wealth than his generous and caring personality.
Blast. A tear pricked the corner of her eye. Would she never be able to think of Phillip without that happening?
“He has been living in Spain for the last ten years,” Melly told her. “But of course, now that the current marquess has disappeared and has not been heard from in weeks, the worst is believed to have happened.” She frowned thoughtfully. “What bad luck those de Lacys seem to have. Pardon me, dear,” she added hastily, realizing she might be infringing upon her daughter’s grief.
“He’s not the only one to have disappeared quite suddenly,” Lady Nilly said, lifting a biscuit genteelly to her lips. “Didn’t your friend Miss Starcasset-who was to marry the Earl of Brodebaugh-also go missing? After he was found dead in his own parlor?” She shuddered, but bit into the biscuit with gusto. Cook Mildred’s strawberry-cream biscuits were not to be missed for any reason. Since the berries were only in season for a short time, one could not squander the opportunity.
“Ah, indeed,” Victoria replied, wondering if Nilly had learned of that information about Gwendolyn through her interactions with her brother, George. “But, though I dislike spreading gossip”-she looked pointedly at the ladies three-“I do have it on good authority that Gwen has eloped with an exceedingly unsuitable man.”
It was gossip, but a better tale than the truth. And even Victoria, for a
ll of her virtuous activity hunting the immoral undead, was not perfect. She still felt the sting that her good friend, as a vampire, had planned Victoria’s demise simply because it had been Victoria-and not Gwen-who’d caught the eye of Phillip de Lacy, Marquess of Rockley, when the two girls debuted into Society. If the gossip behind Gwen’s disappearance was juicier than the oranges she’d had in Rome, Victoria figured it was only fair.
“Indeed?” Duchess Winnie’s eyes widened. “How unsuitable?”
“We can talk about that later,” Lady Melly interrupted, though the gleam of interest burned in her expression as well. “But I was telling Victoria about the new Rockley heir, which I am certain she will find most interesting. Of course, no one is certain what happened to the previous Rockley, our dear James, but since he’s disappeared without a trace, the lawyers have gone on to find the next in line in the event that he doesn’t return. Mr. Hubert de Lacy will arrive in London next week, so they say, and I believe it would be most fitting for the Marchioness of Rockley to attend his welcome-home ball.” She looked at her daughter. “He is a widower of five years, after marrying a Spanish girl and staying there on her family’s land after the war. A bit longer in tooth than your dear Rockley, Victoria, but as my mother always said, ‘what’s in the pocketbook before the measure of teeth’… or something of that nature.”
“Welcome-home ball? The man is not already here, and you’ve planned a welcome-home ball?” Victoria could not help but roll her eyes, but she took care to keep that unladylike expression out of her mother’s sight.
“I’m not hosting the welcome-home ball, my dear,” said Lady Melly with a gush of surprise. “If anyone in this family should be doing so, it would be you. But as you’re doing your best to deny your societal duties, I suppose I can have nothing to say about it. The party is being hosted by Viscount Rutledge, as he and Mr. de Lacy knew each other at Oxford… or somewhere from their youth.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her daughter. “I do hope you will make an appearance so you can at least meet the presumptive new Rockley.”