Blood Bond

by Alicia Ryan

  “Not that I mind,” he clarified. “I like you the way you are. You make me want to be free.”

  “Don’t get carried away. I kind of like you a little on the proper side.” She leaned down. “Makes it so much more fun when you get all improper.”

  He grinned and reached out and pulled her to him.

  “You know, you’ve put a lot of faith in me,” she said. “I hope I can live up to it.”

  “You’ve no worries there. And I’ll always have faith in you.” He smiled. “No matter what insane ideas you come out with next.”

  “I am sorry to keep springing things on you.”

  He gave a wry laugh. “I think when a woman says that to a man she’s generally referring to unexpected dinner guests or an unreasonable bill from the dressmaker. You’ve told me you’re from the future, you’re sleeping with a vampire, and, oh, by the way, so I should be also.”

  “Well, I eventually got used to it. Hopefully, you can, too.”

  He paused to think about that. “You intimated once that Darren brought you here.”

  She nodded. “I’m still not entirely clear on how, but yes. So he says.”

  “Then I guess that’s another reason I have to like Darren.” He kissed the fabric of her dress where it stretched taut across her ribcage.

  He looked up and saw her eyes go wide. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Phillip?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Isn’t this what you want? Not so proper Phillip?”

  “Well, yes, but you seem to have made a lot of very sudden progress.”

  “I’m a fast learner.”

  “I think maybe you are delirious.”

  “Why? It’s almost easier to believe that you’re from the future and a vampire brought you here than it is to believe that a girl like you exists in this time and place. And that she’s interested in me.”

  Roxanna shook her head. “I don’t know what someone like you sees in me.”

  Phillip’s smile grew. “I see the future.”

  Roxanna laughed and swatted him on the shoulder. “This is hardly the time for jokes.”

  “I wasn’t joking.” He frowned as a thought struck him. “Do you still want to go back?”

  She let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. Not at the moment, but...”

  “He doesn’t know, does he?” Phillip asked. “That you were going to leave?”

  She shook her head. “I’d rather not bring it up just now.”

  “That’s fine, but promise me we’ll talk about it. Don’t make a decision like that without us.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Then she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss. His hands went into her hair, pulling her to him.

  “Are we actually going to practice today?” she asked, breathing against his lips.

  He shook his head. “We don’t need practice. Not of the musical kind.”

  “You’re thinking we should retire to my room?”

  “Exactly.” He paused. “Wait a minute,” Phillip said, leaning back to look at her. “I do have one more question. How did Darren find you in the future?”

  “Oh. He said he dreamed about me—about my face and my...well, my smell...and somehow from that he was able to bring me here.”

  “Maybe at some point we should talk to him about what he can and can’t do. I don’t know many vampires. I’d hate to wake up one day and find him hanging by his toes from the rafters.”

  She snickered. “I can’t see Darren doing anything nearly so undignified, can you?”

  He smiled. “No—but you take my point?”

  “I do.”

  “Does he eat?”

  ”That’s what you want to know?” She shook her head. “The answer is no. I’m pretty sure the only thing he needs is blood.”

  “That scares me a little.” He looked past her. “And he’s really dead? As in corpse, no heartbeat, no soul—dead?”

  Roxanna nodded. “Though the soul issue is a little more complicated. His soul hasn’t given up on him and still hangs around.”

  “Hangs around?”

  “Literally. He looks just like Darren and pops up like a freaking ghost. I think he likes scaring me, frankly.”

  “You’ve seen him? It? What does one call a soul?”

  “Its name is Andrew. And yes, I’ve had the not-so-great pleasure of speaking to Andrew on several occasions.”

  “You don’t seem to care for Darren’s soul.”

  “Darren’s soul doesn’t seem to care for me. He says he’s worried about Darren. Personally, I think he just doesn’t like Darren having any other companions.”

  “Curious a soul would be jealous.”

  She shrugged. “I guess Darren was a good man when he was alive, but not perfect. Maybe it’s only what he made of it.”

  Phillip grimaced. “A jealous Darren would be bad news for me, I think.”

  “Darren’s not jealous.” She hesitated. “Well, not a lot jealous.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  A cough Roxanna now recognized interrupted them.

  “Diana,” Phillip exclaimed. “Again? What are you doing here?”

  His sister was again looking resplendent in a well-tailored gown—deep blue this time, making her eyes stand out in her pale face.

  “Well, you’re hardly at home anymore,” she said, smiling at Roxanna. “Though I can see why.”

  Phillip grunted in response.

  “At any rate,” she said. “I’ll get to the point. I’ve come to give you the news.”

  Roxanna felt her heart speed up in hope and anticipation.

  “Can I guess what news this is?” Phillip asked.

  A smile brightened Diana’s stern features. “If you’re guessing Lord Hartley has proposed, then yes.”

  “Oh, that’s fantastic,” Roxanna exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “How’d he do it?”

  Diana’s smile went from bright to a bit sheepish. “Like a real gentleman—down on one knee with a promise ring of sapphire and diamonds.”

  Roxanna glanced at Diana’s hands. They were gloved, but there was no outline of a ring of the size she was sure Hartley would have bought her.

  “You haven’t accepted?” she asked.

  Diana shook her head and looked at her brother. “Lord Hartley didn’t seem to feel he needed to get your permission, but I thought otherwise.”

  Phillip gave his sister a gentle smile. “You don’t need my permission, Diana. You are smarter about these sorts of things than I will probably ever be. If you want to marry Hartley, marry him—as long as you’re doing it because he makes you happy?”

  She nodded. “He does.”

  “Then, for what it’s worth, you have whatever permission you want or need from me.”

  She ran forward and threw her arms around him, Phillip barely managing to stand and catch her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I wanted so much for you to approve.”

  “I approve,” he said. “I approve of you marrying the man of your choice. Whether it’s Hartley or any other scoundrel.”

  “I say!” came another voice, and Roxanna looked up to see the fiancé in question. He was dressed in dapper green, with a gold waistcoat and cream breeches. His red-gold hair tousled by the wind. “You said you wouldn’t do this, Branham,” he cried out. “You were supposed to give me a chance!”

  “No, no,” Diana said, turning around. “It’s fine. We have his blessing.”

  Hartley looked confused. “We do?”

  “Doesn’t mean I still don’t think you’re a scoundrel,” Phillip replied, but with a smile.

  “Oh,” Hartley said, looking back and forth between brother and sister. “Well, that’s alright then.”

  He walked forward and dropped to one knee in front of Diana. “So, I’ll ask again. Diana Branham, will you be my wife?”

  Roxanna held her breath, even though she knew what was coming.

  “Yes, Lord Hartley,” the girl said. �
�I will do you that honor.”

  After a moment of stunned silence, Hartley burst into laughter and pulled a jeweler’s box out of his inside pocket. “Well then, put this on, so I don’t have to keep saying nasty things about you to all your other suitors to keep them away.”

  “What?” she cried, pulling off her left glove. “You didn’t.”

  “Only a few times,” he confessed. “But they won’t remember any of that once we’re engaged.”

  “Lucky I said yes, then.”

  “Very. I tried to tell you how lucky you’d be to have me.”

  “So you did.”

  “Congratulations,” Roxanna said, interrupting the lovers’ flirtation she was beginning to fear might go on forever. It appeared they’d never lack for conversation.

  “Ah,” Hartley said, getting to his feet. “And I owe you thanks, dear lady. Without your sage advice, I never would have found a woman like her.” He turned back, smiling. “Like my dear Diana.”

  “You should inform Mother,” Phillip put in.

  “Oh, yes,” Diana agreed. “That has to be our next stop.”

  Hartley offered her his arm. “Then let us be off, wife.”

  “Don’t be presumptuous. I haven’t married you yet.”

  “But I never doubted it.”

  “I hope other parts of you are as big as your ego,” she retorted.

  Roxanna chortled, but Phillip groaned. “Weren’t you two leaving? Please?”

  Diana looked back at him with one dark brow prettily arched. “In a hurry to be alone, dear brother?”

  “No,” he retorted. “In a hurry to not be alone.”

  “I see,” she said, smiling. “Perhaps it’s good news all around today.”

  “Just don’t share any but your own with Mother,” he cautioned.

  She shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. Don’t worry on that front.”

  “And we’re off,” Hartley said, dragging Diana to the door.

  “Are they?” Roxanna heard Hartley ask as they disappeared down the hall. “Really?”

  Diana laughed, but Roxanna couldn’t hear if she made any other response.

  When they were out of earshot, Phillip looked up at her. “I briefly entertained the idea that we could have that,” he said.

  “Get married?”

  He nodded. “I understand now that things are different.”

  “Phillip, I’m different.”

  “I know. And I’m not saying I’m opposed to this arrangement we have. I just wonder where it leads.”

  When she didn’t respond, he changed the subject. “Why don’t you sing for a bit?” he asked. “That always puts a new spin on things.”

  Smiling, she agreed, and they practiced for several hours before Roxanna called a halt on the grounds of hunger.

  “I’ll just make my way back to where the second-class citizens eat,” she joked. “You go on up and rub elbows with society.”

  “It’s not as much fun as you might imagine. Besides,” he said, “I have an errand I need to run first. But don’t worry. I’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight’s performance.”

  “I should hope so,” she said, “or that’s one hell of an errand.”

  “I don’t expect to be long.”

  She quirked a brow at him. “It’s not like you to be mysterious.”

  “I’m doing a lot of things that aren’t like me lately.”

  “Alright. I get the message. Go run your ‘errand’.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Phillip walked the distance to Darren’s townhouse with no small measure of trepidation. Was Darren really as sanguine about his involvement with Roxanna as he’d seemed?

  When Harris greeted him at the door, he opened with the usual line about His Lordship not yet receiving guests, but Phillip pushed past him with an excuse about urgency and that he’d see himself upstairs.

  He hesitated outside Darren’s bedroom door, knowing this was necessary, but dreading any of several outcomes he’d imagined. He gathered his courage and went in.

  Of course, it was dark, but he could make out Darren’s pale skin as he sat up in bed.

  “Phillip,” he said, sounding understandably startled, “what are you doing here at this hour? Is Roxanna –”

  “She’s fine. I’m here because I want to make sure she stays that way.”

  “I thought we covered that.”

  “Not to my satisfaction.”

  Darren frowned but nodded. “Let me get dressed. I’ll meet you in my private study. It’s the room next to this one.”

  “Fine,” Phillip said, turning to exit. “Don’t take too long. I have to get back to Padworth’s.”

  “Roxanna doesn’t go on for hours. What’s the rush?”

  “I don’t want her to worry,” he replied. “And some of us have to eat.”

  Darren started to rise, and Phillip hastened to leave when he realized Darren was completely nude.

  Out in the hallway, though, he laughed at himself. Some habits will be a little hard to break, he thought.

  Darren’s private study was a darker version of the one downstairs except the predominant color in this one was a dark red—the rug, the leather chairs, the desk made of a wood he didn’t recognize, and the color of the walls, except for a cream-colored wainscoting. It had only one window, covered by heavy curtains between which he could make out a tightly woven Roman shade.

  He lit the two oil lamps on the desk and the one on the small table between the two chairs that fronted the window. Taking a seat in the chair closest to the unlit fireplace, he noted that even its gray marble setting was veined with shades of red.

  When Darren entered, he moved to the fireplace and remained standing, his height allowing him to rest his elbow on top of the uncluttered mantelpiece.

  “So, what have you come to ask?”

  “I want to know what kind of man you are,” Phillip replied, deciding to be frank.

  Darren looked at the gray coals. “You don’t know how often I’ve asked myself that same question.”

  “And the answer?”

  “A weak one,” Darren answered after a long silence. “A weak one.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Phillip asked, puzzling over an answer he hadn’t expected. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not something so...meek.

  Darren put his hand over his eyes. “It means I should let her go. That’s what it means. Compared to you...You’re what she deserves.” He lowered his hand. “Not the flawed creature I am.”

  “Why don’t you?” Phillip asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Because I can’t,” Darren said, the catch in his voice revealing as much as the pained look on his face. “I’m weak, and I can’t do it. I need her too much. You can’t know what it’s like to have waited two hundred years for someone who can know and accept the thing you are—someone who sees the man inside and doesn’t condemn him for...everything else.”

  “What’s it like?” Phillip asked. “What is it like to be what you are?”

  “Isolated,” Darren answered without hesitation. “My only true companion is a ghost. My own ghost.”

  “Have you killed...many?”

  “Yes.” Darren raised his gaze as if he could actually see out the window behind where Phillip sat. “The first years aren’t easy, and I wasn’t in good company.”

  “This Pietro person?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve broken with him. Roxanna says you no longer kill—that you haven’t for a very long time. To all appearances, you are trying to be a better man.”

  Darren shrugged. “Two hundred years is a long time to have no goals aside from one’s own personal pleasure.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t much more than a hedonist when I was a man. Maybe I finally grew up.”

  “It doesn’t take most men decades to grow up.”

  Darren cocked a brow at him. “I could
cite a few examples to refute that statement, but I’ll just point out that I’m not an ordinary man. I’m not a man at all.”

  “And, at some point, your soul came onto the scene to help you?”

  “Yes...but that was after.”

  “After?” Phillip knew his voice had risen. “After what?”

  “Oh,” Darren replied. “Nothing like you’re thinking. Quite the opposite, though I suppose you might debate the technicalities. But, no, I made up my mind to do something useful with my wretched condition, so I did. Andrew appeared a short time afterward.”

  “So your soul didn’t come to you until after you’d made up your mind to reform your ways?”

  “Made up my mind is perhaps putting it too strongly. He helped me firm up my decision and actually carry it out.”

  “What was it you did that turned the tide?”

  Darren gave a bitter laugh. “My first good deed? A bit of spying and torture under cover of darkness in an enemy camp.”

  “How –”

  Darren waved him into silence. “I warned you the details might not meet with your approval.”

  “So what are the generalities, then? What was it all for?”

  “To bring peace back to England. The wars of religious succession had ebbed and flowed since before I left. When I returned, the supporters of a Catholic monarchy were fomenting a rebellion in Scotland they hoped would allow them to invade England. I became persuaded George should stay on the throne, for the greater good.”

  “The Jacobite uprising. That’s what you’re referring to isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I was brought up in the Anglican tradition, but at that point, it was just time for the wars to end. So I helped end them. The Earl of Mar was the chief instigator, and his camp was easy enough for me to infiltrate. At first, I was able to glean enough information just by stealth to allow our forces to prevent the Jacobites from taking Edinburgh Castle. The effort to keep them from winning at Stirling took some...persuasion...on my part of one of the Earl’s advisors.”

  “What constitutes persuasion to a vampire?”

  “It turned out to be rather simple, really. I exposed myself for what I was and threatened the man with soulless damnation for all eternity unless he gave the Earl a bit of bad advice.”

  “That’s not so bad, really.”

  Darren went on as if he hadn’t heard. “To get the details of their planned uprising in England was a bloodier job. The officer I targeted proved intensely loyal to his cause. More traditional methods of torture would have broken him eventually, but I didn’t have time. So I inflicted every pain I could think of, force fed him my blood to marginally heal him and bring him around, and then did it all over again. It took most of the night, but I got the information. With it, the rebellion was easily quashed. George’s throne was secure, and thanks to a few well-placed whispers in the right ears, I got my earldom.”