A Most Peculiar Season Series Boxed Set: Five Full-length Connected Novels by Award-winning and Bestselling Authors

by Michelle Willingham

  She held out a warning hand. “What are you doing, entering through my window?” Was that why she’d been so fearful? Had she somehow sensed his presence nearby?”

  “I wanted to know how you were faring.” He gazed at her intently. “The potion does not work?”

  The concern in his voice soothed her panic. Such warmth. Such caring in those few words. There wasn’t another person in her life who would care about her well-being. She touched her fingertips to her temple. “It has helped a great deal. My headache is vastly improved.” She sounded calm, but her heart continued to race. “You shouldn’t be here. What if someone hears?”

  “There is no one else on this floor.”

  This could not be happening. Men did not enter the chamber of a respectable female by way of a window. “Please. Go away.”

  A hand touched her shoulder, a gentle caress. “Mignonne, what is it?”

  His touch soothed. Calmed. She backed away. She would not let him lull her into a false sense of security. “You will be the ruin of me.”

  “I promise no one will see me.” His deep voice offered assurance she longed to accept.

  She wanted to walk into his arms, lean into him, let him support her. It had been so long since any one had held her. Not since her mother died. “Why?” she said desperately. “Because you—” She dare not say it. Accuse him of being one of them. In case she was wrong. In case, despite all she was sure of, what she saw were tricks of her mind. “Perhaps this is nothing but a dream.” Or a terrible nightmare. If so, she wished she could wake up.

  He put one hand on her waist, with the other he tipped up her chin. “Do I feel like a dream?” He bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

  A kiss. Warm. Tender. So very right. So very familiar. She put her arms around his neck and held on tight, returning his kiss with abandoned passion. Pouring her soul, her feelings into the sensation of his mouth on hers.

  A growl rumbled up from his chest.

  Mine.

  The word echoed in her mind. Deep. Dark. Tempting. He teased at the seam of her lips with his tongue, the delectable tingle made her gasp and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. The silky slide of his tongue against hers was a revelation of the erotic. She leaned into him, pressed her body against the hard muscled shape of his body and trembled at her daring.

  Carefully, and reluctantly too, she thought, he eased her away. “Little one,” he murmured in her ear, pressing a tender kiss to her throat.

  She had the overwhelming urge to arch her neck to give him better access, but he stepped back, his face pale in the candlelight, his eyes glowing—red?

  He blinked and the glow was gone. A reflection of the light. Imagined.

  Breathing hard, she touched her fingers to her lips. “You think me dreadfully wanton.”

  “Not at all,” he said harshly as if he too was deeply affected by their kiss.

  “Then why did you come?” She glanced at the window. “How?”

  “A ladder. A gardener cutting back ivy, I presume.”

  She choked back a laugh at his audacity and decided to believe him. It was far better than the alternative. Believing he was indeed one of those Others. “How very convenient.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “For me, perhaps?” He raised a brow.

  She sighed. “If Lord Orrick were to discover...”

  “He will not.” He frowned. “Will you not tell me what is wrong?” He glanced at the bottle of tonic on the bedside table. “I had hoped to find you much improved.”

  She lowered her lashes. Should she tell him? Hint? Would he laugh? Call her insane? “I experienced a strange feeling that some creature would fly through my open window.”

  His lips quirked in amusement. “And here I am.”

  “Something dangerous. With claws. And teeth.”

  His expression sobered. “A nightmare? Do you suffer them often?”

  She twisted her hands together. “Only when I am wide awake.”

  He muttered something under his breath. A curse, she thought.

  “You must think me foolish in the extreme to give rein to such fantasies.” She gave a small laugh. “Ignore me. I am tired.”

  He took her hand. “Tell me about this nightmare of yours. I hear that talking about fears can relieve the mind.”

  “More likely send one to the asylum,” she said and was shocked at the bitterness in her voice.

  He drew her to the chair by the hearth. “Sit with me. Tell me.”

  His voice was seductive, persuasive and oh so very tender. When he pulled her down onto his lap, she could not help but lean her head against his shoulder. He stroked her back in soothing circles. “Tell me.”

  “I see creatures no one else seems to see,” she whispered into the folds of his cloak, not wanting him to hear her words yet needing to say them.

  He didn’t move, the steady beat of his heart continued in her ear, but a stillness enveloped him. Shock? Horror? Would her confession drive him away?

  She made to raise her head, but his hand, large and warm held her gently in place. “What sort of creatures?”

  “People of the night.” People like you. Breath held, she waited for him to admit it, or to accuse her of madness.

  His chest rose and fell. “I do not understand what you mean. Monsters?”

  Now she’d begun, she couldn’t very well draw back, and she had the feeling Anton would not betray her trust. Though why she thought that, she was not sure. “They don’t look like monsters,” she said. “Most of them look like ordinary people. But they move at lightning speed. One of them attacked another of his kind and killed him in an alley not far from here. And... and no one noticed, except me. It was horrible.” She took a deep breath.

  “When? When did you see this killing” His tone was urgent.

  She lifted her head to look into his face, to see his thoughts. “You believe me?”

  His expression seemed impassive. Not disbelieving, but not believing either. He brushed her cheek with a gentle fingertip, his gaze intense, kind. “I hate to see you so distressed.”

  “I cannot say I like it either.”

  He smiled at that. A warm smile that lit the starburst of gold. “You call them the people of the night. Why is that?”

  How much more dare she say? She was so tired of being alone. She bit down on her lip. “You must promise not to tell anyone. Not Lord Orrick. Not anyone.”

  He looked at her gravely as if she was asking for more than he thought he should give.

  She averted her face. “It is all nonsense,” she said quickly. “The figment of an overactive imagination. Too many gothic novels, I am sure.”

  A warm palm cupped her cheek. “Look at me, Sybil.”

  She let him turn her face up to meet his gaze. His face held regret and sympathy. She felt something else, a feeling of calm, as if he was trying to instil her with courage. But she could also see the worry in his eyes.

  Worry for her. “You will think I have lost all reason.” She struggled to be free of him.

  “Sybil,” he said gently. “I do not think you insane. I swear it.”

  “It was what they said of my mother,” she blurted and pressed a hand to her mouth. The tears she had never cried, not once, not even the day they took her mother away, spilled over. Ran down her cheeks. Hot. Painful. “They chained her up,” she forced out past the blockage in her throat. “I went there once, saw her. She... it...” She couldn’t speak for the tears the terrible memory evoked.

  He pulled her close. “Hush. Oh dearling, hush. I promise. I will tell no one without your permission. No one. I swear it upon my soul.” He stroked her arm and tucked her head back onto his shoulder beneath his chin.

  Oh, he must think her the most ridiculous woman imaginable, extracting such a promise and then weeping all over him. Even if he did not believe her a lunatic, gentlemen hated watering pots. Slowly the tears ceased.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she said in muffled accents. “I
have no notion what came over me. I assure you I am better now.”

  He released her from his embrace and she sat up. He handed her a crisp white linen handkerchief with a smile. “I blame myself for pressing you too hard.”

  “Oh, no, you are all that was kind. Considerate.”

  “Then trust me.”

  And if he did not believe her? If he was not what she suspected?

  She would have to run.

  Cur. Villain. Anton couldn’t believe his cruelty to this gentle creature. He had not only damaged her mind, but he had clearly brought back the worst of her childhood memories.

  It hurt to know he’d pained her.

  People of the night. How close she had come with that description. How dangerous her words, to her, to his people, those he was sworn to protect. And now he was pressing her to tell him more than was good for her.

  He watched her wipe her eyes and dry her cheeks and longed pull her against his chest again, feel her sweet curves against his unquiet body. Worse. He wanted to claim her. Make her his. The thought had his fangs pressing for release as if he was once more a green youth with passions beyond his control. He’d conquered his emotions long ago. Cooled them to ice. And yet here he was, foreswearing his duty to make a promise he must not keep. His very words were a betrayal of his oath.

  Unthinkable. So why had he spoken them?

  If she knew what he was, a killer avoiding a painful and lingering death sentence by killing others, she would revile him.

  “I am sorry, mignonne,” he said softly. “Tell me about the people of the night.”

  Her blue eyes were misty as she gazed at him. “You really believe me?”

  The hope in her voice was almost more than he could bear. He took a chance. It wasn’t that he particularly cared about his life. If it was lost, the world would not mourn. But he did care about hers. So he cast his bread upon the waters. “I do. I must. You are not the sort of person to make wild claims.”

  The hope in her face turned to utter relief. It stabbed through flesh, sinew and bone to what remained of his heart. A small hardened lump that seemed to have become soft clay in her hands.

  She took a deep shuddering breath. “I didn’t start seeing them until I reached my eighteenth birthday.” Her hand clenched convulsively. “My mother warned me I might. Her family has always been gifted with what they call the sight, but sometimes it misses a generation.” She grimaced. “One of my ancestors in the sixteenth century was burned as a witch, so we keep it a secret.”

  He said nothing when she glanced up. He was having too much trouble believing what he was hearing, not because he thought she was lying but because it went against everything he thought he knew.

  “At first I was not afraid of them. They took no notice of me when I saw them on my rare visits to Harrogate, the nearest large town to where I lived.”

  He knew it. The waters there held religious significance for his people. He nodded. “Something changed.”

  “When I came to London, at first I ignored them as I always did. Then I realized something was different about some of them. They seemed... This is going to sound strange.”

  Nothing out of her mouth hadn’t sounded strange. Incomprehensible. Terrifyingly true. “Go on.”

  “Some of them here seem different. There is an aura of darkness about them. Evil. They make my skin crawl in a way they never did before. I saw one of the evil ones kill one of the usual ones.” She laughed uneasily. “I am sure none of this makes sense.”

  Unfortunately it did, though he did not understand it. “What makes you think only some of them are evil.” Some of us. She must know he was one of them, though she was clearly avoiding the issue.

  “The darkness around them is deeper, their forms more blurry than some of the others.” A shudder shook her frame.

  “Go on.”

  “They wear long flowing cloaks with hoods, a bit like monks robes, and they have long sharp teeth.” She pointed to her incisor, “I only ever see them when the sun is down.” She wrinkled her brow. “My mother called them the Others. I sometimes think of them as people of the night. I have never seen them in daytime”

  He straightened. Who in the name of the gods was she seeing? The Pretender’s men? Whereas Vlad had brought his court to London, after the coup, the Pretender had taken up residence in Arabia, protected from Napoleon by the Ottoman Empire.

  Her low voice continued, even as his thoughts raced to analyze her revelations, fought to make sense of her words.

  “When the one of those in a robe attacked one of those dressed normally, like you, he didn’t seem to see him even though he was right in front of him. He struck him down and carried him off. No one took any notice. No one saw, apart from me!” She looked at his face to see if he understood what she was saying.

  He nodded.

  “That was the worst time,” she murmured “I did see one of the more normal sort biting women on the neck.” She blushed and touched her neck at the point of her jugular. “One of the fallen women who linger in the alleyways around Covent Garden. The woman seemed to like it.” She cast him a quick questioning glance. When he did not respond, though his body had hardened at the thought of biting her neck, she shrugged. “The carriage passed too swiftly to be sure exactly what was going on. That man was dressed in ordinary clothes. Like yours.”

  It was possible she had seen ordinary vampires, doing nothing more than harmless regulated feeding from willing humans. But the these fellows in robes? Were they the answer to the killings? If so, Vilhelm was becoming bold. But why had no one reported seeing this attack?

  “Do the kind dressed like monks also bite these women?”

  She frowned. “Not that I have seen. I really do not see them all that often.”

  “And they are all what you call, people of the night?” He dreaded her answer, but there was something else ticking away in the back of his mind. A thought he couldn’t quite grasp.

  A distant expression filled her face as she thought. “Yes. I see them only when the sun goes down. I saw one climb the side of a building once, like a spider.” She gasped and looked at him eyes wide. “That is how you got up here, isn’t it.” She leaped to her feet, a hand to her throat. “You really are one of them.”

  Dear gods! “Mignonne,” he said softly as one would gentling a wild animal, despite his surge of anger that the woman he wanted so badly feared him. He reached out a hand.

  She took another step back. “Your eyes. They are glowing.”

  The shock on her face made him want to rip throats, like a wild beast. The mating rage. He clenched his jaw until his back teeth ached, but his body would not stop its needful vibration. His fangs ached for release, His cock was stiff and pressing against the fabric of his trousers. The effort cost him vast sources of energy, but finally he beat back the animal side of his nature. He could never have this woman. Him wanting her was a dishonour to her purity. He was not fit to service any female let alone dream of a mating. And heaven help him, she was a human.

  He took a deep unsteady breath. The desire to protect her, would not let him deny her accusation. “I am Vampire.”

  She swallowed. “What? Isn’t that some sort of bat?”

  “It is also the name of what you call the people of the night. We live among humans, look like them, but we are not entirely human.”

  “And no one else can see you?” she whispered her hands clenched tight at her waist as if they were all that was holding her together.

  “Humans see us when we wish them to do so.”

  She frowned. “But—”

  It didn’t matter if she knew the truth. She wasn’t going to live. Claws raked across his insides. Breathing hurt as the realization took hold. Everything he was wanted to deny this terrible truth, but letting her think she was mad was a whole other level of cruelty. “We use the dark, shadows we draw close, to hide ourselves when we do not wish to be seen by humans. It seems that you alone have the power to pierce our shadowing. I
was shadowed when you saw me at Carlton House and again in Vauxhall Gardens. No other human could have seen me as you did.”

  Backing up, she collided with the bed post, braced herself against it. “You were biting that girl?”

  She sounded hurt rather than fearful.

  “No. Another vampire.... Our laws forbid feeding from humans without their permission and never to cause them harm. The boy made a mistake. The girl is fine.”

  “Feeding from humans?”

  He shrugged. “We feed on animal blood. Human blood is a rare delicacy. To some an addiction. But if the human gives permission—”

  “The prostitutes at Covent Garden.”

  He grimaced at her bluntness. “They are paid well. And never harmed on the pain of death. Our laws are most strict.”

  He could see her mind working frantically from the way her eyes darted at him and around the room. “Miss Lofstrom,” he said softly.

  A frown creased her brow. “But the men dressed in robes, they kill other vampires?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “How could you not know? Can you not see others of your kind who are... in shadow?”

  In shadow. She caught on very quickly. Her understanding, her intelligence was above the ordinary. “Vampires cannot hide from other vampires. There is no need to do so. We see them and know they are shadowed by the blurring to their form.”

  “A sort of shimmer? I have seen that.” She nodded. “But the man who was killed made no effort to escape, he seemed completely unaware of his attacker until it was too late.”

  He stared at her, his gut falling away in a sickening rush. “We can’t see them.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “We should be able to see them, but it seems from what you are saying, we cannot.” Along with the horror of this new danger, something none of his people could ever have imagined, was a strange sense of hope. “They have done something, changed something.” He got up and paced the floor. “How can we fight them if we cannot see them?” But she could. Yes, she could.