And she was fairly certain that event would lace Maia’s mouth closed tighter than her smallest corset.
“Shhh! You’ll wake Mirabella! No, I didn’t dream about Dewhurst. It’s going to sound horrible to you, Angelica.” Now Maia’s eyes had lost that secretive look, and she shifted back as if to recant her words. “You’ll think me mad.”
“Not any more than I already do,” Angelica replied with a small smile. “Tell me.”
Maia smiled, too, but her fingers were plucking energetically at the fringe of lace on her pillow. “I dreamed that a vampire visited me in my chamber. But it wasn’t frightening. It was…like embracing Alexander, and kissing him.… But it wasn’t him. This was different. Better. And when the vampire bit me—”
Angelica gasped. “What?”
“In my dream, he bit me. Right…here,” Maia said softly, touching the side of her smooth, white neck just above the shoulder. “It didn’t hurt, in my dream. In fact, it was… It made me…”
That secretive smile was back, and Angelica could hardly credit her ears. “You liked it?”
But Maia’s eyes had widened in shock and she straightened up sharply, clutching the pillow to her bosom like a shield. “My lord.” Her words were shocked and prim with affront.
Angelica turned to look behind her, but she already knew that Corvindale had appeared there in the open door. Dark and shadowed, he stood like a sentinel. Nevertheless, the moon light caught him across the eyes, giving them a faint glint along with a white shine on the bridge of his strong nose.
Did he already know that Voss had sneaked into her chamber? Was that why he’d ventured to their floor? Should she tell him?
The earl seemed stiffer than usual, and for a moment, he didn’t speak. Then said, “My apologies, Miss Woodmore. Angelica,” he said. “I had just arrived home when I heard voices. I came to investigate.”
“Now that you’ve determined all is well, perhaps you would allow us to return to our conversation,” Maia said stiffly.
“Indeed,” Corvindale said, and then, just as he began to turn, he stilled. Raising a peremptory hand, as if to forestall any further comments from Maia, he tilted his head, and then turned back to them. Now his expression was intense and serious. “Someone is below. Stay here.”
And then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Angelica bolted off the bed and went to the door, opened it and put her ear to the crack. Was Voss still about? Had she been wrong and he hadn’t left?
“Angelica,” Maia admonished in a low voice. “What are you doing?” But then there she was, crowding behind her. Perhaps the reprimand was meant to get Angelica to move and to give Maia the better spot, but she wasn’t about to do that, so her sister was forced to crouch and duck beneath her arm to listen. She was shorter than Angelica anyway, so it was only fair.
As they listened to hear if anything was happening below, Angelica whispered, “Did you really like it, in your dream? When he bit you?”
Maia stilled, her shoulder pressed into Angelica’s side. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped back. “I wish I’d kept my mouth closed.”
They were silent for a moment as a single, soft thud from below reached their ears, then nothing.
“I cannot imagine finding it anything but horrifying,” Angelica said, her belly tightening at the memory. She’d tried to forget about that moment of soft, sensual kissing and Voss’s hands sliding over her breasts in a reckless but delightful way. She’d been flooded with pleasure and heat, and then suddenly…the pain. The surprise and the pain.
Never one to allow another to have the last word, Maia replied, “Even those stories Granny used to tell us, about the vampires. Even then there were some people who didn’t find it…horrible. And it was just a dream, Angelica.”
Angelica opened her mouth to reply, but clamped it shut when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Without another word, the two of them spun away from the door and fairly leaped back onto the mattress—just as they had done when they were younger and weren’t supposed to be out of bed.
As expected, the footsteps came to their chamber and, since it hadn’t been shut completely in their haste, the door swung open. But it wasn’t Corvindale who stood there.
“Chas!” exclaimed Angelica as she and Maia bounded off the bed.
“Hush,” he said, gathering each of them in with one strong arm. “No one can know I’m here.”
Angelica looked up at him, the obvious question forming on her lips, but before she could speak, he added, “Come down to the study with me so we can converse privately.”
Quickly Angelica returned to her room to don a robe and slippers. The window was open wider than it had been, the curtains fluttering in the soft breeze. That was how Voss had left, of course.
She paused and found herself sniffing the air. Did she fancy it, or did his scent linger? A tightening in her belly reminded her how much she hated him now, how, despite the way he smelled and held her and had kissed her, how handsome and charming he was…how he had listened to her, as if he cared what she thought…despite all of the things that had attracted her to him, she could no longer care for him.
The monster that he was had destroyed any affection she might have had.
The robe skimmed her bare feet, and she decided to disdain slippers. But as she turned to leave the chamber, she noticed the two black velvet pouches on her dressing table—Voss’s “apology” as he called it.
She paused, then tucked her curiosity beneath her loathing for the man and her desire to talk with Chas, and she hurried from the room.
Down one flight of stairs to the first floor, Angelica followed the spill of light from beneath the door of Corvindale’s study. The murmur of voices was so low that she wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t known they were there.
When she walked in, she saw that there was a fifth person in the chamber. A tall, gaunt-faced man in a wide-brimmed hat stood near the fireplace. A small fire burned therein, giving off unnecessary warmth on this summer night. Its illumination, however, was welcome in the dark room.
Maia must have thought the same, for as Angelica walked in, she saw that her sister was in the process of turning up the gas lamp on the other side of the chamber.
Corvindale sat in an armchair, not behind his desk, but in a shadowed corner near a tall window. He was dressed in only his white shirtsleeves and trousers, the shirt unadorned by a neckcloth, but fastened at the throat nevertheless. His long legs were crossed and one scuffed boot was highlighted by a shaft of moonlight. He held a short glass of something that looked like whiskey, reminding Angelica of her unfortunate experience with that liquor.
Maia, having finished adjusting the light of the room to her preference, selected a seat near the lamp. The soft yellow light made her unbound chestnut hair gleam in a variety of shades of bronze, mahogany and honey. The fact that she hadn’t pinned it up surprised Angelica, for her sister was so particular about propriety. Being in the room with two men other than their brother, dressed only in a night rail, robe and slippers was hardly permissible…but to have her hair down, as well?
Chas leaned against the desk littered with papers, a pile of pens and a haphazard stack of books. He looked weary and yet, powerful. Angelica hadn’t ever thought of her brother as a particularly strong, virile man…but at that moment, she saw him with new eyes, saw him as being formidable. This was a man who, according to Voss, had somehow outsmarted a very strong, evil vampire to kidnap—or elope with—his sister.
At that moment, he looked every bit as capable as that.
She looked at the other man, standing near the fireplace, and realized that it wasn’t a man at all. Simply a woman dressed as a man.
“You must be Narcise Moldavi,” she said, looking at her. “The vampire.”
The woman swept away the wide-brimmed hat that had shadowed her face, and Angelica saw at once that she had been a fool to believe this woman was a man. She was beautiful— the most beautiful woman Angelica had ever seen.
What she’d originally perceived as gauntness in the harsh shadows was instead a lovely face with high cheekbones and sculpted lips. Her hair, pinned up and yet sagging now with the removal of the hat, was coal-black. Her skin… Angelica had never seen such porcelain skin—smooth and white and delicate. The gaze that swept to fasten on her was startlingly blue.
“I am,” Narcise replied in a voice nearly as low as a man’s. Now without her hat, and her gender acknowledged, it was obvious that the white shirtwaist and loose coat were meant to hide her shape.
“Are you here so that we can welcome you to the family?” Angelica responded. She didn’t try to hide her disdain and disapproval, and the woman noticed. Her eyes flared hot and red for a moment, then subsided to blue.
“I’m here, in fact, endangering my person, only because of you,” replied the vampire in an even voice.
Chas shot Angelica a warning look that did nothing to quell the horror that her brother could possibly have fallen in love with a bloodthirsty, violent vampire woman. Seeing Narcise, Angelica couldn’t imagine any man not falling in love with her. Yet…how could he? She was…unnatural.
At that point, Chas would likely have spoken, but Narcise stepped away from the fireplace and walked over to help herself to a glass of Corvindale’s whiskey. As she did so, she spoke. “Your brother learned that Voss had abducted you and he insisted on coming to London, despite the danger to me.”
“You know very well you didn’t have to come to London with him,” came a new voice from the doorway. “Don’t blame your own cowardice on the girl, Narcise.”
Angelica whirled to see another, vaguely familiar man striding into the study. He was shedding his own hat, which exposed a head of thick, curling dark hair and a handsome, strong-jawed face. The flaps and hem of his coat fluttered behind him as he stalked over to stand near Maia. His expression was blank, but she fancied she saw a fire in his eyes.
