by Alicia Ryan
“You noticed me?” He chided himself for his vanity, but it lifted his spirits that she hadn’t been oblivious to him. And she’d called him gorgeous.
She rolled her eyes again, but she was still smiling at him. “Come again tomorrow, Darren.”
“I’ll come every night until you say yes.”
She shook her head. “I’m only promising I’ll think about it. I can’t say as I’ve needed a vampire in my life up to now.”
Darren felt his shoulders sag again. “You must give me the chance to make you need me, Roxanna. I already need you. You have me at a disadvantage.”
Her smile widened. “That’s a mental image I could get used to. Having you at a disadvantage.”
He felt his eyes get wide. “Now you are teasing me.”
“Just come again tomorrow.”
He rose, nodding. “Anything you wish.”
A knot twisted in his insides as he turned away from her. No part of him wanted to be further from her than was absolutely necessary, but he consoled himself with the thought that perhaps he only had to wait until tomorrow night.
As he made his way toward the exit, he noted with surprise that he and Roxanna were not the only ones who’d remained in the sitting room. At the table farthest toward the back sat Phillip Branham, a blush still staining his cheeks.
He avoided Darren’s gaze, and Darren forced himself to keep moving. No young twit was a threat to him, certainly not that one. The boy’s nerve would fail him long before he got to Roxanna’s side.
Secure in the knowledge that he would see her tomorrow, Darren went to feed and then home to report to Andrew all that had happened.
Chapter Five
“M...m...miss, excuse me.”
Roxanna turned to find an angel staring at her. He had hair the color of straw that looked as soft as down, delicious high cheekbones, and blue eyes that shone even in the club’s dim interior. He was also blushing furiously, and she hoped the stammer was only temporary.
“Yes?” she asked.
He appeared to be fighting the urge to take a step back but managed to restrain himself. “I’m Phillip Branham, Miss. Mr. Padworth asked me to come around to see your...performance...to see if I’d be willing to play for you in future.”
“Oh, I see.” She looked him over again. He was still blushing, his brow was cut into deep furrows, and he kept his eyes focused on her face. “I’m guessing you’ve decided not to join me.” He could hardly accompany her every night if he couldn’t bear to look at her. She studied his blushing cheeks again, wondering what was going through his head. And why he seemed so young. He was probably a few years older than she was. Maybe it was all the blushing.
He shook his head. “I’m very sorry. I...I...well, I can’t be party to the kind of performance you’re giving here.” He smiled briefly. “Don’t mistake me; your voice is a pure delight, but the songs you’ve chosen are a scandal.” He blushed again. “Not to mention the way you sing them. My reputation would be worthless if I agreed to participate in such a thing.” His smile turned self-mocking. “And my reputation is one of the few things I have left.”
“So being seen with me would—what’s the word?—‘sully’ your reputation?”
“I don’t mean to upset you, but I set a great store by my family’s good name. I can’t be associated with anything so...well, inappropriate.”
Jack turned up at Roxanna’s elbow and extended his hand. “Phillip. Good to see you.”
Phillip shook it warmly. “Evening, Jack.”
“You two know each other well?” Roxanna asked.
“We were at Eton together,” Jack explained. “I only managed two years before my father fell off the twig and there was no more money. Phillip here made it all the way through, I think?”
Phillip nodded.
“Before his own father died. Unfortunately for him, all his dear ole’ da left him was a pile of debts. Phillip’s had to sell everything the family owned except their house in town.” He turned to Roxanna as if to share a secret. “And I’ve seen him in here trying to win his way out of his remaining debts—at which he has failed miserably.”
“Jack, certainly the lady doesn’t need to know my family’s sorry history. I’ve already refused the engagement, and that’s that.”
“Phillip, don’t say no. Your reputation isn’t worth a fig when it comes to putting food on the table for your mother and sister.”
Roxanna saw Phillip’s jaw tighten, and suddenly he didn’t seem so youthful anymore.
“Things are not quite so as dire as that.”
Jack snorted. “You owe people money, Phillip, and you can’t pay it off being a writer. But I happen to know you are a skilled musician. I don’t see that you have many choices. Do you want to have to move your mother into some cottage in the country and have her take in laundry? Or sell Diana off to the richest ogre you can find willing to take a pretty, but penniless, young girl for a wife?”
A horrified look skidded across Phillip’s beatific features.
“You have to face facts, Phillip. You need gainful employment.”
“You’re right, of course. And, you’re right that at the moment my writing is a hobby that earns me no income. All I have at the moment is a fairly steady pile of works to translate from the Latin for Keller’s Bookshop. But I have hopes of something better.”
“Then work here until you find something better.” He leaned toward Phillip. “Just in case something better takes longer than you think.”
Phillip put one hand to the side of his face and then slid it back through his hair with a long sigh. “There’s no way this won’t get back to my mother. What will I say to her? Everyone will know how bad our situation has gotten—and the depths to which I’ve stooped.”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t be so dramatic. Everyone already knows you’ve got debts and no visible way to pay them back. As for them being scandalized by you working here—well, it might cause your mother some embarrassment. I can’t deny that. But anyone spreading stories about you playing piano for Miss Collins will have to admit to being in attendance himself, so the story may not spread to the genteel ladies as quickly as you think.”
“Still, I can’t risk doing that to her, Jack.”
“Your father embarrassed her for years—embarrassed all of you—just in a different way.”
“That certainly doesn’t make this okay!” Phillip’s eyes became piercing.
Jack shook his head. “I understand how you feel, but there is another possibility.”
Phillip raised his brows. “What am I missing?”
“If people do find out about your employment here, you may find some of them more inclined to take up your case and help you get that “something better” you’re so desperate to find.”
“Humiliate myself and throw myself on the mercy of my genteel acquaintances?”
“At least it’s not just waiting around. We’d all love to be running our own estates or publishing literary magazines or speaking in front of Parliament—but sometimes the best we can do is to keep the books at a gentlemen’s club.”
Phillip’s mouth dropped open. “Jack, you know I didn’t mean...”
“I work here, Phillip. I work here because, for the moment, it’s the best money to be had, and that’s what my family needs. It’s not glamorous or ‘genteel’”—he fairly sneered the word—“but it’s honest work.” He nodded toward Roxanna. “You may not like the style of her performance, but being a musician is honest work. And what kind of man turns down honest work when his family needs him to provide for them?”
Phillip remained silent.
“For God’s sake, Phillip,” Jack exclaimed. “She’s just a singer, and you’re just going to be playing the piano. You’re not opening a whorehouse together.”
Phillip turned red once more. “That’s what it feels like.”
Jack laughed. “If you know the first thing about whorehouses, I’ll eat Padworth’s accounting ledgers for all
of this year.”
Roxanna was relieved when Phillip cracked a smile.
“I think your digestion is safe, Jack.” He looked at Roxanna and then back at Jack. “You think I should do this?”
Jack nodded. “I think sometimes you have to look at any opportunity as a good opportunity, Phillip. Your mother may not be thrilled, but you’re the man of the house now. It’s up to you.” He grinned at Roxanna. “Besides, no one here is going to make jokes once they realize you’re the only one of them that gets to talk to our new attraction here.”
Phillip’s brow drew down. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Padworth won’t allow her to talk to his patrons after her act. He wants her to be as mysterious as possible for as long as possible. You, on the other hand, will be practicing with her day in and day out. The rest of the little lordlings will be jealous as hell.”
She saw Phillip look at her then—really look at her. And then she saw him take a deep breath. Lord, he looks nervous, she thought. She decided to intervene, so she stepped closer and gave him her most winning smile.
“Will you do it, Phillip? I’m already looking forward to getting to know you.”
“Come on, Phillip,” Jack said. “Maybe Roxanna can ease you into her style of singing with some less...controversial....numbers.”
“I...I...”
“Tell me, Phillip,” she asked, “if you don’t play for me, do you never intend to see another performance? Will you avoid me altogether?”
Phillip took a deep breath and looked at the floor. “I...I didn’t say that.”
“So she’s good enough to watch, but not good enough for you to associate with?” Jack asked. “I never pegged you for a hypocrite, Phillip.”
“You know that’s not the way of it.”
“Either way, you’ve given her performance your stamp of approval. You might as well suffer through a few more dents to your reputation and agree to play for her.”
Roxanna extended her hand. “Please say you’ll do it, Phillip.”
She saw him take a deep breath, but then he surprised her by bringing her hand to his lips for a light kiss. “I can, unfortunately, find no fault in Jack’s reasoning,” he said. “I will be here in the morning to begin practice.”
“Thank you.”
“Make no mistake why I’m doing this, Miss...?”
Roxanna frowned, wondering if this would work even if he agreed. “Collins, but please call me Roxanna.”
Jack snorted out a laugh.
“For me to call you by your Christian name would be most improper, Miss Collins.”
Roxanna smiled at him, and he blushed again. “As you wish, then, Mr. Branham.”
Jack was still laughing after Phillip left. “This is going to be hilarious,” he commented. “I honestly was only thinking of him when I suggested him to Padworth, but I should have done it for the entertainment value alone.”
“You say you’re friends. How is it you are so cynical and he’s so...not?”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. He’s always been that way. I don’t think he’s ever done anything wrong in his life.”
“Until now.”
“Until now. Maybe it’ll do him some good.”
“Is he really the only choice?” she asked. “I hate feeling like he’s being blackmailed into doing something he finds repulsive.”
“Oh, he’ll come around. He can’t resist a beautiful woman, though you may have to take it easy on him at first. You might scare him off, I suppose—all my dire predictions about his fortune notwithstanding. He doesn’t have a daring bone in his body.”
“Are things really so bad for him?”
Jack nodded. “I wish they weren’t, but his father was a drunken, debauched lout. The only good thing he ever did was send Phillip to school, and that was just to stroke his own pride.”
“What’s the use of an Eton education if Phillip’s forced into playing piano for a living?”
“Most of the useless gentlemen you saw tonight have expensive educations. Even if they’ve gone all the way through university, unless they go into government or the army, there’s not much use for them. Some of them run their estates in profitable ways. A few have merchant businesses on the side, but that’s generally frowned on by the nobility. Phillip’s family is minor as far as aristocracy goes.” He paused. “I think his mother has a cousin who has a title of some sort. Phillip always thought he’d be running their country estate and making a small but decent income at it. Now he doesn’t have that option.”
“How sad.”
***
By the time Roxanna got to her room, it was almost four in the morning, but the night’s events still had her buzzing from head to toe. The reception to her singing had been all she could have hoped for. Everyone, once they got over the initial shock, seemed to enjoy themselves and looked as if they wouldn’t mind coming back for more. Old Padworth had even caught her on her way to her room to tell her how many compliments—scandalous compliments, but compliments all the same—he’d gotten on her debut.
And then there was the small matter of the magical vampire, who, if he’d approached her under any other circumstances, she’d have labeled a freak show and moved on to the next of her terrible choices in men. But he was the only one so far who seemed to have an explanation for the unbelievable events of the last two days. Not that she believed it, but if she stuck with him, maybe her brain would find its way back to consciousness in the twenty-first century. He did say he could send her back.
Not to mention he was totally scrumptious in a tall, dark, “I’m an Earl” sort of way. In fact, he was just further proof this was all in her unconscious imagination. What other kind of vampire would she have dreamed up than one who was tall and lean, had long-ish dark brown hair that framed his face, with eyes that looked black in candlelight but must be dark brown, with smooth skin and lips that looked like they were made for kissing? That was the vampire for her, all right.
Which begged the question—if this was all a dream, why shouldn’t she go with it? Where was the harm in being bitten by an imaginary vampire? An imaginary vampire who was an English lord. She smiled, thinking she’d have to imagine him up a mansion to live in. How hard could that be?
And of course he wouldn’t kill her. She didn’t have those kinds of dreams. He’d just promised to hurt her. Hurt her in a way she’d never been hurt before. And that was definitely her kind of dream. She hadn’t read any vampire books since she was a teenager, but when she woke up, she was going to give serious consideration to picking them up again. Lord Highmore—Darren—was the walking, talking embodiment of some very interesting possibilities.
How to tame a vampire? She laughed as she got undressed. She’d told Madame Graham not to bother with a night dress. If she couldn’t have a comfy t-shirt, she’d prefer to sleep naked than in some grandma gown. After all, who was going to know?
An image of Phillip Branham’s face popped into her head, and she had to laugh again. The idea had some appeal, if only to see if he’d ever do anything more improper than play the piano. She wondered what he’d be like if he did... He had a face to grace billboards, but she’d been too distracted to notice much else about him—except that he’d been miserable. She wondered what the 19th-century English word was for what he must think of her. It certainly wouldn’t be flattering.
Shaking off distraction, she hung her dress in the room’s small wardrobe, taking care to smooth out any creases as she might have to wear it again tomorrow night. She’d only left Madame Graham’s with the one evening gown and a much more modest dress for daytime. It would be another day or two before the others arrived. She’d wear the day dress to her practice session tomorrow. It was dark gray and buttoned up to her neck, so Phillip should approve. At least it shouldn’t send him storming out or give him an apoplectic fit or anything.
She sat naked on the edge of the small, lumpy bed. The thin mattress was stuffed with what felt like straw. A wool bl
anket covered it; there was no sheet of any kind. Wool and straw, she thought warily. Did she have to worry about fleas? She’d probably be itchy either way. Maybe she’d reconsider the night dress.
But, if she was dreaming, why would she conjure up a flea-ridden mattress? For that matter, how did she know so much about London? Answer: she didn’t. So she really had no idea if all the lords and their fancy clothes and the buildings and the streets were anything like London at all.
But then, this dream was beginning to take on massive proportions. Of course, she might wake up at any moment and have her clock tell her she’d only gone to bed an hour ago. Or she might be in a coma and this dream was going to last a lot longer.
She shook her head, and her hand came to rest on her thigh, pulling her attention to her scars and the freshest cut. Could she have cut herself more deeply than she’d realized? Could she be lying on her sofa bed bleeding to death?
The thought was chilling but doubtful. She knew how she cut herself. She wasn’t lying anywhere in a pool of blood. Not to mention, she seriously doubted 19th-century London was what she’d be seeing in that case. More like a white light or her life flashing before her eyes. And London, so far, didn’t seem like any afterlife she’d ever heard of.
She looked down once more at the cut on her leg. Was there even the tiniest, smallest, remotest possibility that he could have smelled her through time and brought her here?
No way. This wasn’t magic. It was some weird-ass dream.
But there had been the old fortune teller. And she had definitely been awake for that.
It had to be a coincidence.
But the old woman had said magic was seeking her. Isn’t that what Darren had just told her he had done?
She gritted her teeth and flopped backwards onto the bed. There was no way this was happening. No fucking way.
But the little voice in her head just had to ask “what if”.
What if this was real and Darren’s version of events was true? If he wanted her, and her alone, through all of time and space, what did that mean exactly?
She reminded herself she didn’t believe in fate. And if she did, then fate had pretty much screwed with her all her life, so to hell with fate.