As Vital as Blood (Victorian Vampires Book 1)

by Amanda DeWees

  “Well…there was one. An old colleague of my father’s. But it would have felt like marrying my grandfather.” She took up her fork and tasted her dinner. The fragrances of chicken, onion, and fennel wafted toward him, momentarily masking the delightful perfume of the woman herself. She must use lemon verbena soap, for that sweet, innocent scent emanated from her skin, and he guessed that she usually stored her clothes in a cedar clothes press with bundles of dried lavender, for he caught those scents over the whiff of wool. There was a tender hint of rosewater, perhaps from some preparation for her complexion or hair. And an alluring, indefinable scent that was her own, compounded of youth and health and femininity and something else, the unique and individual chemistry of Michael Catherine Cargrave.

  “You think I did wrong in refusing him?” she asked now, and he realized she had taken his silence as rebuke.

  He mustn’t let his thoughts wander, especially into such dangerous directions. “What I think is beside the point. It is your hand to give or withhold. If you do not care for older men, that is all there is to it.”

  “I am very fond of the gentleman,” she said, which did not answer his implicit question, “but to think of him as a husband was out of the question. I know that we women are supposed to want husbands who will take over the role of fathers in our lives—guide us, protect us, give us direction.” She took another sip of Tokay. “But for me…”

  “You strike me as a young lady who prefers to heed her own guidance.”

  “Well—yes! I have a mind; why should I not use it? Besides…”

  This time he did not interrupt; she seemed to be becoming a little flushed from the wine, and if it was loosening her tongue as well, he wanted to learn all he could before decorum took hold again.

  She brushed the vagrant lock of hair back from her pink cheek. “I think that above all, a husband and wife should be companions to each other. I loved my father dearly, but I don’t need another.”

  “But a marriage between companions is a luxury that few are afforded,” he said. She was too charming in this new mood not to be teased, just a little. “And a husband is not the same as a sweetheart.”

  Stubbornness showed in the angle of her chin. “He ought to be, though, oughtn’t he? I mean a husband is that, in part. At least, I would expect mine to be. And it’s difficult to imagine…I mean, with dear old Mr. Durbin…” She shook her head. “I don’t think he has so much as flirted with anyone since the days of Beau Brummell. I just couldn’t marry him.”

  He was careful to hide his amusement at how very young she sounded. Gravely he said, “Yet many young women do marry much older men.”

  “Some have to, don’t they? They have no choice. I suppose you think me quite impractical. But if I should decide to marry, I would want a husband I can enjoy a future with, not one whose life is mostly behind him.” She lifted her glass, then blinked when she saw that it was empty. As she set it back down, a change came over her—a belated sense of decorum that showed at once in her subdued manner.

  “I suspect I’ve been more frank than is proper,” she said, “and if so I beg your pardon, Baron Dalca.”

  “Not at all. I have found the conversation illuminating and enjoyable.”

  But she was truly embarrassed, he saw, and he was suddenly ashamed of himself. He should be demonstrating that his home was a safe place for her, not baiting her to make her blush. She was not, as she had pointed out, present to entertain him but to catalogue his library, and he ought to show more respect for her tenuous position—not make her regret her initiative in coming here on her own.

  Just as pressing was the realization that the longer he spent with her, the more he found himself picturing how she would have looked in that brocade gown, how the antique lace would have framed her creamy throat and bosom, the way her slender arms would have emerged like the stems of lilies from the elbow sleeves, and this was about as far from honoring her wishes as it was possible to be. He tried to shake the tantalizing vision off.

  But it would not be so easily dismissed. Instead he imagined the softness of her throat, how smooth her skin would feel beneath his fingertips. Beneath his lips.

  “I shall leave you to the rest of your meal in peace,” he said, rising so suddenly that his chair scraped loudly against the floor. “Without my interruptions you may be able to finish while it is still hot.”

  His impatience with himself made the words sound abrupt, and she said, “I hope I haven’t driven you away from your own table, sir.”

  “Not at all, Miss Cargrave. I apologize for my manners, but I have just recalled an urgent matter I must attend to.” He bowed. “Until tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Baron Dalca.” Her soft voice followed him as he strode from the hall.

  Dumitru was in the kitchen, having supper with his mother. When Vasile appeared at the door and beckoned, the manservant rose from the table. “Keep my plate warm, Mămică,” he told Ana before following Vasile out of the warm kitchen into the chilly corridor that led to the baron’s room.

  Vasile’s chamber was nearly as spartan as a monk’s cell, and it could only be reached through a vestibule with a door at each end. These doors could never be open at once; he had impressed upon his servants that one door must close before the other could open. In that fashion he could avoid the risk of harm from an unexpected shaft of sunlight.

  What his servants did not know was that he did not sleep in that room but in a subterranean chamber accessed through a secret trapdoor concealed beneath the bed—another safeguard.

  Dumitru was already rolling up one sleeve of his smock as Vasile retrieved the paraphernalia from a small wooden chest. A lancet, a wine glass, clean bandages, and a length of India-rubber tubing. As the young man watched impassively, Vasile tied the tubing around his arm, located a promising vein, and pricked it with the lancet. Dumitru held his arm so that the blood dripped into the glass.

  The manservant was placid about the ritual now. After all, he was paid richly for it, and he was strong and healthy enough to recover swiftly from losing a small amount of blood from time to time. When Dumitru aged to the point that his body began to lose its resilience, Vasile would pension him off and hire someone new, as he had done for generations.

  Thus did Vasile detach the act of acquiring sustenance from the animalistic predation that had been his destiny ever since he had been transformed into a vampire nearly a century and a half ago.

  It would have been simpler to bite the man’s throat, of course. A bite would also heal with supernatural speed, unlike the cut, but Dumitru accepted bleeding as a medical procedure, whereas Vasile would have had to cast a glamour over his mind to change the memory of a bite into something benign. Simplicity was probably safest in the long run, and in this case it also seemed more civilized, which was important to him. He knew he was deluding himself, but for reasons that were not entirely clear even to him, he needed to feel that he was still a gentleman in some sense, not a monster.

  But a monster was what he was, and that was why it was so dangerous to permit Michael Cargrave to stay—both for her sake and for his own. Hers because every moment that he breathed in her scent it became harder to resist the thirst. His because the risk of exposure could not be ignored.

  With some part of his mind he knew that even more than the prospect of death at the hands of a mob he dreaded something that should not matter at all—the way this young woman’s esteem for him would change to horror and revulsion. Was it merely his vanity that rebelled at this, or had she touched something deeper in him?

  Strange that her presence should remind him so strongly of Ioana. Not that the memories were ever far from his mind. The cruelty of losing such happiness never grew less piercing. He could blunt it if he was vigilant against the memories, if he pushed all thoughts of his past happiness away and instead filled his mind with the contents of books. And, praise be to whatever gods or demons might rule over his kind, he never dreamed. That torment, at least, he was spared
—the onslaught of memories when he was helpless to guard his thoughts.

  Otherwise…

  He knew his kind could be destroyed, though he had never seen it done. The remnants of his human religiosity had so far served to prevent him from self-destruction, though he had thought of it. Especially in those first years after parting from Ioana, when the agony was worst and he had been most tempted to return to her, no matter what the consequences.

  But those consequences would have been more harmful to her than to him. Especially when the love he still felt for her was tainted by the thirst. To fall prey to her monstrous husband’s need for blood—that was a fate she did not deserve. He had not wanted the last sight before her dying eyes to be her husband maddened with hunger, his blood-smeared mouth gaping wide that he might feed from her. If he had to obliterate himself to remove that threat, he felt, it would be only fair.

  Gradually, though, it had become…not easier, exactly, but less arduous, to resist the hateful impulse. And then, in what seemed a jarringly short time, he learned she was dead, and the struggle was over. A struggle that he missed almost at once, in that it had given his existence a shape and intention that prevented him from being unmoored, without purpose.

  The church no longer offered meaning, for he was no longer a child of God. The need to earn a living, to protect and provide for his family—gone. The ambition for more power, more land, more troops—pointless.

  Now all he knew was that he was wanted for some purpose in England, yet to be disclosed, and it was his duty to comply. That should be the single ruling fact in his existence now, no matter how charming Miss Cargrave was, how poignant her sweet seriousness, how stirring her difficult situation.

  But there might be another use to which he could put his energies, he remembered.

  “Dumitru, have you learned anything more about the young woman who went missing?”

  “There’s been no trace of her, Lordul meu. They’ve been searching the woods.”

  “And still nothing?” He decided to carry out his own scouting expedition. There might be clues undetectable to humans that he could easily detect in his wolf form. His spirits lifted somewhat at the prospect of a prowl, imagining the freedom, the speed, the tantalizing smells borne by the cold air and the forest undergrowth. Yes, a few hours out of doors, alone and unfettered, might go some way toward dislodging Miss Cargrave from his mind.

  After all, he reminded himself, the moment she even suspected the truth, all of that touching regard for him would vanish. As he removed the tubing from Dumitru’s arm and bandaged the wound, he was in no doubt of what she would have thought if she had been witness to this sad, gruesome ritual.

  And especially if she could see him now as he put the glass to his lips and, with greedy haste, drank the hot blood to the last drop.

  Chapter VI

  If ever Michael had entertained any delusions that she could make her way in high society, tonight had scotched them.

  Accusing the baron of trying to dress her up to be ogled! Her cheeks smarted as she thought of what a fool she had made of herself. And, worse, blathering on about her naive thoughts on marriage. It was a wonder he had not laughed at her outright. But that was his aristocratic breeding, no doubt—good manners were so deeply ingrained in him that he didn’t want to embarrass her even when she so richly deserved it.

  Back in her room, she plucked out her hairpins and flung them down with disgust. As her hair was released and unwound from its knot, she put her face in her hands and groaned, thinking about his rapid departure. She must have taxed his courtesy to the point that he could not remain in the same room with her without laughing.

  If only she were Rosamond. Somehow her little sister always knew the right thing to say to charm people. Rosamond never humiliated herself by drinking a glass of wine too quickly and letting her tongue run away with her. If it had been Rosamond at his table instead of Michael, the baron would not have been embarrassed for her but delighted by her sweetness and ladylike demeanor. Rosamond would not have insulted her employer by rejecting his kind loan of the gown.

  With a heavy sigh, she picked up her mother’s hairbrush and began drawing it through her hair. The ritual soothed her somewhat. At least, she reminded herself, he hadn’t dismissed her. The position was still hers. Why, then, was it such agony to think what his opinion of her must be after tonight?

  The question was so uncomfortable that she was almost relieved to find herself distracted by a curious sensation of being watched.

  Disquieted, she went to open the door. The corridor beyond was too dark for her to see much beyond her own doorway, and when she called loudly, “Is anyone there?” the complete stillness told her that it was empty.

  Closing the door again, she surveyed the room. There were few places that could conceal anyone. She checked under the bed and inside the clothes press. Not until she had twitched aside the long curtains framing the windows to ensure that no one was concealed behind them did she realize where the strange feeling originated.

  But how could anyone be outside her window?

  Somehow, though, she was certain of it. Uneasiness tightened her scalp as she unfastened the casement and leaned out.

  The cold air tingled against her face as she surveyed the scene. The forest beneath looked just as it had the night before. The illumination of the moon showed that no one was lurking by the castle wall, peering up at her. There was not even a passing owl or bat to peep in. The dark treetops stirred in the wind, looking like the surface of a strange ocean, and she shivered as the breeze lifted her hair. But it was more than the cold that made her shiver.

  She began to make out a lighter patch near the edge of the woods. Not the right shape to be human, but a momentary glimpse of light glinting off its eyes told her that it was something living.

  As she stared, there was movement, and the shape advanced until it cleared the trees. It was a gray wolf, huge and shaggy, and the back of her neck prickled with gooseflesh as she saw that it seemed to be looking up at her.

  But that was impossible from such a distance, wasn’t it?

  It sat on its haunches and moved no more. Its head was raised, and its eyes still seemed to be fixed on her. It was completely silent. The effect was so eerie that the skin on the back of her neck prickled.

  “Shoo,” she said loudly. “Go away!”

  As a wild animal, it ought to have been startled by the sound of her voice, or so she had thought. It ought to have fled. Instead it sat there unmoving, and anxiety tightened her chest at the strange sense that its gaze was deliberate and menacing. She was so unnerved that she shut the window and yanked the curtains across it.

  Even with the drapes closed, though, she had the uneasy feeling that the animal was still watching her as she undressed and put on her nightgown. And when she climbed into bed and rested her cold feet against the foot warmer Ana had placed there, instead of feeling safe, she found when she closed her eyes that she still saw the wolf’s knowing red eyes hovering before her.

  Her first day at work in the baron’s library was enough to banish all nocturnal unease from her thoughts. All that was orderly in her nature was delighted by her employer’s care in organizing his books. And the books themselves! She had to keep herself strictly in hand or else she would spend the whole day dipping into different volumes to sample the contents and marvel over the treasures she continually discovered. A first-edition copy of Endymion! All twenty-eight volumes of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, and the Panckoucke supplements as well!

  She managed to keep herself mostly on task, however, and by the time she stopped long enough to check the time she found that nearly six hours had passed. She was about to ring for Ana when the woman herself entered.

  “How perfect,” Michael said. “I was just wondering if you could bring me a bite to eat. Just some bread and cheese would be—”

  But Ana bustled up and took her by the arm. “Come,” she said in her deep, gruff voice, urging he
r toward the door. “Madmoazelă Cargrave, come!”

  It was difficult to read her expression, for her face was settled into such habitual creases, but there was agitation in her voice. Michael let herself be guided, and soon found herself at the massive front door of the castle.

  Dumitru stood on the threshold in the midst of what seemed to be an argument with a handful of men in traditional garb. They were talking so quickly, and interrupting each other so much, that even if they had been speaking English she would have had difficulty understanding them. Beyond them, three saddle horses were tethered in the courtyard.

  The man who appeared to be the leader broke off as the two women came into view. “Madmoazelă Cargrave,” he said, and removed his conical black hat. “We have not formally met. I am Mihai Petran, the primar—the mayor.”

  “Mayor Petran.” She extended her hand, wondering if she would be rebuffed, but he clasped it briefly. So the baron’s refusal to shake hands was not a regional preference but a personal one.

  “Why has the baron’s servant summoned you to join this discussion?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” she said, since Ana merely stood by with her massive arms folded, glaring at the visitors. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  The mayor glanced uneasily at Dumitru as he answered. He was short and had a bit of a paunch, and at a glance it was clear he would be completely out of his depth if the giant Dumitru decided to make the debate physical.

  “We merely seek information,” he said, and Michael couldn’t be certain whether he spoke with such emphasis to placate Dumitru, who was looming over him, or because English was unfamiliar to him. “You have perhaps heard of the young girl who went missing?”

  “She hasn’t been found yet?”

  The man’s lips thinned. “There has been no sign of her. And this worries us.”

  “I can well imagine,” she said, uneasy at the implications. If the girl was still alive, someone ought to have found a trace of her by now. “She hasn’t been here, if that’s what you wish to know.”