The Vampire Dimitri

6 In Which Our Heroine Makes A Confession

“Angelica?” Maia rushed out of her bedchamber, hair swinging loosely, nightgown bunching around her feet. “What is it?”

She’d been in a half slumber, spiraling into that warm, red world of sensuality that seemed to lure her every night as of late. It was the first night since her return from Black Maude’s that Angelica had slept in her own bed, and Maia had kept her ears attuned for any sounds of distress from her sister’s chamber…until she slipped into her dreams.

There must have been something that woke her, for when she came out into the hall, she nearly collided with Angelica.

“Oh!” her sister said, obviously surprised to see Maia.

“I was coming to check on you,” she said, looking at Angelica’s wide eyes and pale face. Something had happened. Something more than a dream… Then she noticed something in her sister’s hand. “What’s that in your hand? A stick?”

But even as she said it, she understood. It wasn’t merely a stick in Angelica’s hand, held close to the folds of her night gown, but a stake. Meant to stab a vampir. “Oh,” she said. She looked at her sister and their eyes met. The poor darling! She’d had such a horrible experience.

“What are you doing awake?” Angelica asked.

“I came to check on you. What’s happened?” Maia asked, grabbing Angelica’s hand and allowing her to lead the way back to Maia’s chamber.

“I had a dream,” Angelica replied. But Maia noticed that she glanced covertly back toward her chamber, as if expecting to see something. Or someone coming out of the door. “That Vo—that Dewhurst came into my chamber at night.”

Maia looked at her sharply, her attention captured. They settled on her bed and she closed the door most of the way behind them. She left it cracked in the event there was something to hear from the corridor without.

“Darling, I’m so sorry,” Maia said, closing her fingers around Angelica’s. Her hands were chilled, so unusual for the warm summer’s night. “How terrifying it must be. I didn’t hear you cry out, although I heard something that sounded like you mumbling in your sleep. Or talking to someone.”

“It seemed so real,” she whispered. Her eyes were far away. “He…”

Maia couldn’t help but think of her own dreams. Certainly they’d awakened her…but never because she was frightened. Only because she wanted them to be real. She squeezed her sister’s hands and struggled for the words to comfort her. “Sometimes dreams can be more frightening than reality,” Maia said. “And sometimes, they can be so much more…beautiful…than reality.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” Maia felt her face warm as she realized the direction in which their conversation was going. She sat up and pulled a pillow onto her lap, clutching it over her torso. Perhaps this wasn’t an appropriate conversation to have after all. “I don’t know if I should tell you about it. After all, you’re still unwed and—”

“And so are you,” Angelica shot back. “You aren’t married yet, dear sister, and so you haven’t any more experience than I have.”

Maia couldn’t hold back the little smile that came along with the warm bubbling in her belly. “But that isn’t true, dear younger sister. Alexander and I have—” She stopped and decided that there were some things Angelica didn’t need to know. The very thought of Alexander and his imminent return made her middle fill with nervousness. She collected her thoughts, trying to figure out just how much to confess. “Well, we are engaged, and Chas and the lady patrons haven’t been as vigilant as they were before our engagement was announced.”

Angelica’s eyes bulged, and Maia read the bald shock there. Obviously she believed that her elder sister was just as prim and proper as did the rest of the world. Including Corvindale.

“You and Mr. Bradington have—”

“No, no,” Maia said. “Not exactly. Not precisely. But… Angelica. It’s quite nice. Erin and Beth are right. It’s very pleasant. And I think it gets nicer.” She could do nothing to diffuse the blush warming her cheeks.

“And what does this have to do with dreams being better than the reality? Or did you mean they were more frightening than reality?”

“Well.” Maia hesitated. Perhaps this wasn’t something she should confess to her sister. After all, it was very…personal. She looked away, adjusting the pillow in her lap. Perhaps it would be best if she changed the subject. But before she could, Angelica pressed.

“What is it?”

Maia glanced around the room, noticing the soft golden light cast by the lamp and the rumpled bedclothes. Somehow, in the dimness, in the middle of the night, it seemed almost permissible to talk about it—just as she and Angelica had shared confidences when they were younger, deep under the covers when they were supposed to be sleeping. It had been a long time since she’d wanted to share her deepest confidences…with anyone. But she needed to. Maia drew in a deep breath and spoke. “After your experience with Dewhurst, I had a dream. About…it.”

“You dreamed about Dewhurst?”

“Shh!” Maia looked toward the ajar door. “You’ll wake Mirabella! No, I didn’t dream about Dewhurst.” She looked at her sister, scrutinizing her closely. What would Angelica think of her if she knew she’d liked the bite of a vampir?

But perhaps…perhaps it would make her sister feel a little better, knowing that there was a different perspective. After all, even in Granny Grapes’s stories, there had been vampirs who didn’t mean to hurt people. And there were people who’d found the creatures fascinating. “It’s going to sound horrible to you, Angelica. You’ll think me mad.”

“Not any more than I already do,” Angelica replied with a small smile. “Tell me.”

Maia realized her fingers were plucking energetically at the lace on the pillow in her lap. “I dreamed that a vampir visited me in my chamber. But it wasn’t frightening. It was…like embracing Alexander, and kissing him…but it was different. Better. And when the vampire bit me—”

Angelica gasped. “What?”

“In my dream, he bit me. Right…here. It didn’t hurt, in my dream. In fact, it was…it made me…” She clamped her lips shut, realizing her voice had become a little breathy. That was just too much information. The next thing she knew, Maia would be confessing the kiss she’d shared with the Knave of Diamonds. Something real that had happened…and that she’d forced herself to try and forget.

Perhaps that was why she’d been focusing on the dreams so much—they weren’t real. They couldn’t happen.

She couldn’t feel guilty about them. Especially now that Alexander was coming back. “You liked it?” Angelica exclaimed, causing Maia to glance toward the door for fear someone would hear them.

Her whole body froze, her belly dropping low and her heart stopping when she met a pair of glittering dark eyes in the dark corridor. Corvindale. Maia felt ill and hot and faint all at once and she clutched the pillow to her chest. “My lord.”

How long had he been standing there? What had he heard? Oh, heavens… What if he’d heard her talking about her dream? Thank God she hadn’t told Angelica about the Knave of Diamonds, too!

His face seemed stonier, even more tight and angry than usual and she had to swallow hard to keep her heart from surging up into her throat. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever been so mortified.

“My apologies. I was just arriving home and heard voices,” the earl said—or something like that. Maia couldn’t hear a thing over the rushing sound in her ears and the pounding of her heart.

Of all people to hear her confess such a thing…it had to be Corvindale.

She wanted to crawl under the bed and hide. But she didn’t. She managed to speak calmly, she supposed; but she couldn’t remember exactly what she said. And soon he was gone to investigate some noises he’d heard below, leaving her and Angelica alone again.

With the door closed tightly behind him.

Her sister didn’t seem to realize what had happened, and for that Maia was grateful. But her cheeks were still hot and it took a long time for her heart to stop pounding so erratically.

Part of the reason was that, for a moment there, she’d only seen part of the earl’s face. The lower part, exposed by the wavering light from her lamp. And for a stunning, heart-stopping second, she’d focused on his mouth.

And she recognized it.

The Knave of Diamonds.

It was a good thing she was curled up on her bed, for her knees turned to water and she was literally unable to breathe.

But by the time the earl had spoken, and then taken his leave, Maia had realized her error. There were a multitude of reasons that the knave couldn’t have been Corvindale—the most compelling of which was the fact that the masked man had not only conversed and flirted with her, but kissed her, as well. All without one insulting comment.

For Corvindale to have done something so out of character was an impossibility. Especially since it was clear that he despised Maia as much as she despised him.

Although “I do hope you aren’t about to cast up your accounts on my waistcoat” might qualify as an insult….

“Angelica,” Maia whispered, when she saw her sister with her ear pressed to the crack of the door. “What are you doing?” But it was obvious: she was listening to whatever Corvindale had gone to investigate.

Curious and willing to have a distraction, she joined her taller sibling, forced to half crouch next to her at the open door. They listened for a moment and heard nothing but the faint creaks and groans of the house.

“Did you really like it, in your dream? When he bit you?”

Angelica whispered.

Maia froze. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped softly. I wish I’d kept my mouth closed. She heard a dull thud below, then silence.

“I cannot imagine finding it anything but horrifying,”

Angelica whispered back.

Maia had to close her eyes as a warm shiver of remembrance trickled through her. “Even those stories Granny used to tell us, about the vampires…even then there were some people who didn’t find it…horrible.” Apparently she was one of them. Of course, perhaps if it happened in reality she might change her mind…. “And it was just a dream, Angelica.”

They both heard the footsteps ascending the stairs at the same time. They whipped around simultaneously, silently dashing back to the bed. They’d just tumbled onto it in a heap of nightgowns and pillows when someone rapped on the bedchamber door.

“At least he knocked this time,” Maia muttered as the door eased open.

But then she saw who it was, and she was right behind Angelica as she flew off the bed. “Chas!” she and Angelica cried at the same time.

“Hush—no one can know I’m here,” he said, embracing them both. “Come down to the study with me so we can converse privately.”

Relief and annoyance rushed through Maia. She had plenty of questions for her brother, as well as a demand: to get her away from the Earl of Corvindale.

She was more than delighted to pull on a robe and follow him down to the parlor.

So these are Chas’s sisters.

Narcise Moldavi watched as the two young women entered the parlor at Blackmont Hall. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat and men’s clothing, Narcise leaned against the fireplace and waited, knowing that they wouldn’t realize she was a woman. The brim shaded her face, and the faint brush of soot she’d applied beneath her cheekbones to give her not only the impression of gauntness, but a bit of stubble, made her look like a skinny old man.

The sisters were very different in appearance, as well as in demeanor. One of them was dark and gypsyish looking like Chas, with lush brown hair, dusky-rose skin and exotic eyes. She took a seat and scanned the room, clearly observing and taking it all in. She was taller than the other, lighter-haired one, who strode in and immediately began to make adjustments: the lamp wicks, the pillows on the sofa, even Dimitri’s stacks of books.

That one must be Maia, and the dark one was Angelica.

Both women were striking, but the elder one was a classic English beauty with her fair complexion. Petite and delicate, unlike Narcise, Maia had hair that defied description: it was neither blond nor chestnut nor auburn, but a mixture of the three shades, and then some. She had a heart-shaped face and a rosebud mouth that seemed to be pursed with annoyance. Her sharp green-brown eyes shot daggers at Chas when he was standing next to Dimitri, talking in a low voice as they sipped whiskey.

Chas had best keep her from Cezar’s sight. Narcise shivered, thinking of what her brother would do to such a beautiful young woman as Maia Woodmore. Considering what he’d done to Narcise, his own sister…

Of course, the fact that she was Dracule and must live forever was added incentive for Cezar to do what he would. Or to have his friends do what they would, which was more to his taste anyway. Incest, at least, was not one of Cezar’s many sins.

After all, no matter what sort of torment and pleasure they put her through, Narcise couldn’t die without a wooden stake to the heart or ten minutes in the sun. Which was why Cezar had made certain all of the furnishings in her windowless chamber had been made of metal. He was taking no chances of losing his favorite bargaining chip.

At the thought, Narcise couldn’t quite suppress the flutter of panic that swirled in her belly. Chas had helped her escape from that horror, but that didn’t mean she’d never return to it. Cezar wouldn’t stop searching for her until he was dead.

Or until she was.

Narcise remembered her fantasies of finding feathers and wrapping herself in them, then falling out of a window to lie in the sun. Eventually she’d have to die, weakened by the feathers and burned by the sun’s rays. Some days, even now, she considered it. At least then Cezar couldn’t get to her.

And Chas would be safe.

Her glance flickered to him as he greeted his sisters, who were both loose-haired and dressed in nightclothes, and they settled in their seats. At this moment, he looked more like an English gentleman—albeit an exotic one, with his Romanian coloring—than she was used to seeing him: in a white shirt done up to the throat, covered by a dark coat, along with pantaloons. He was holding a glass, his hair fairly tamed and pomaded smooth. Clean-shaven. All this in deference to his proper sisters, who, according to him, had no idea that he spent his days and nights hunting vampirs.

The irony that he was an enemy of her race only fueled Narcise’s fascination with him. A Dracule involved with a vampire hunter. How absurd and dangerous.

And how surprising that she could actually find pleasure with a man, actually trust one, after all she’d been through.

Chas glanced over at her and she met his black gaze coolly.

She’d learned long ago not to show weakness or truth in her face or eyes. It could be used against her. And it had.

Oh, it had.

Chas’s eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as the ends of his mouth tipped slightly, and she knew he was measuring her response to meeting two of his sisters. Narcise tucked down the little unfurling of warmth in her belly. She felt safe with him. Safe and comfortable.

But he didn’t need to know that.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want to be here, but Chas had given her little choice. It was either come to London with him, or be foisted off on Giordan.

And that was not going to happen. The very thought of being in the same city, let alone the same room, as Giordan Cale made her ill. Knowing that Chas had met up with him at the inn in Reither’s Closewell, where she and Chas had been staying, had been disturbing, to say the least. She’d remained upstairs in their chamber, out of sight.

Although, knowing Giordan, he’d probably scented her.

On Chas.

“You must be Narcise Moldavi. The vampire.”

The words came from Angelica, who’d been looking closely at her. Maia hissed something at her sister, and then both of them focused their attention on Narcise. Neither appeared pleased, although while Angelica looked angry, Maia seemed merely surprised.

Annoyed at having her disguise expunged, Narcise directed her own gaze onto the little chit who’d spoken in such distasteful tones, allowing the flare of heat to blaze there for a moment. You have no idea who you’re dealing with, little mortal girl. “I am.” She drew off her hat and flung it onto Dimitri’s desk. Her head and face immediately felt cooler as her hair sagged in its low knot.

“Are you here so that we can welcome you to the family?”

Angelica responded just as coolly.

Narcise ignored Chas’s slight movement, as if he were about to interfere. I can handle this, she said with a quick glare. “I’m here, in fact, endangering my person only because of you,” she told the girl.

Narcise moved deliberately, away from the fireplace and over to help herself to a glass of Corvindale’s whiskey. “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 smooth voice from the doorway. “Don’t blame your own cowardice on the girl, Narcise.”

The glass slipped in her hand, but she held on to it. Just barely. Turning, she faced Giordan Cale for the first time in a decade.

Their eyes met for a moment and she felt the twin spears of loathing: hers for him, and the same emotion shining in his own burning gaze. He was baiting her, referring to her imprudent choice to accompany Chas to London rather than stay with Giordan at Reither’s Closewell.

Narcise didn’t bother to respond other than to add a warning flash of fangs to a brief sneer. Sipping her whiskey—trying not to gulp what she suddenly, desperately needed—she walked over to stand next to Chas.

But Giordan was no longer paying attention to her. He’d turned, presenting her mostly with his back as Dimitri grudgingly introduced him to the Woodmore girls. Narcise sipped from her glass again, focusing on the heat burning down to her belly and through her limbs and not the back of his head, or the way his coffee-colored coat stretched perfectly over broad shoulders. Giordan paid his tailor well.

He looked the same as he had the last time they’d seen each other, although then his face had been bitter and hard, and worn from nights of depravity and hedonism. Tonight, his handsome features were relaxed and his eyes bland, except for that brief flash of emotion when she first saw him. Giordan still wore his hair unfashionably short, in close, rich-brown curls that left his Slavic forehead and temples exposed. She caught a glimpse of his hand, ungloved, curled into a fist against his thigh and realized he wasn’t as unmoved as he appeared.

But whether it was anger or hate that tensed his fingers, she didn’t know.

And she didn’t care. She was hardly aware of the conversation going on around her until Dimitri made a joke that wasn’t really a joke about Giordan taking over the responsibility of the Woodmore girls and their guardianship. It was quite clear to everyone in the room that he was deadly serious about it.

Giordan responded with easy humor, accepting a glass of whiskey that his friend had moved to pour for him. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you, Dimitri.”

“But why can’t we go with you, Chas?” asked Maia.

Narcise looked at her, noting the firm yet desperate note in her voice. Someone was either very attached to her brother, or exceedingly unhappy at Blackmont Hall. Pleased to have something to distract her from the presence of the man she loathed most in the world—or second most; that other honor belonged to Cezar—Narcise watched the elder Woodmore sister.

Upon closer observation, Narcise had to adjust her first impression of the young woman. Despite Maia’s self-assurance and need to be in control, there was an underlying sort of heat exuding from her that made her softer and more sensual than at first glance. Perhaps something only another woman would notice.

Narcise glanced at the young Maia and amended her thought—perhaps only another woman who was very experienced in the ways of intimacy would notice the sense of unfulfilled sensuality smoldering beneath capable hands and brisk movements. It lingered in the eyes, Narcise decided.

In the green-brown and gold eyes, in that full pout of an upper lip, and most of all, in the female, musky scent that her Draculian nose recognized.

This was a woman who was not experienced with men, but who was on the cusp of being so…who’d come to the edge and who hadn’t gone over. Who was waiting.

Perhaps it was because Narcise herself recognized that feeling of unfulfilled expectancy. It had taken her decades to find it, to allow herself to truly feel on a plane deeper than the merely physical. To battle through the humiliation and pain at the hands of Cezar’s friends and enemies alike, to finally make love with a man who truly awakened and aroused her. Whom she trusted and opened herself to.

Now she couldn’t bear to look at him, even when they were in the same room.

Narcise turned her attention away from those dangerous thoughts and the man in question, and happened to glance at Dimitri. The man was a rock: hard, cold and emotionless.

Exactly the way Narcise wanted to be.

Dimitri noticed the contemplative way Narcise was looking at him, as if she meant to find some deep secret in his eyes. But she, intensely beautiful and deliciously scented as she was, was much easier to ignore than the daggerish looks Chas’s sister continued to slip him.

He was trying not to think about the shock in Miss Woodmore’s face when she’d seen him standing there, in the doorway of her chamber. Naturally he’d had a legitimate reason for being there, and it wasn’t his fault that her voice carried so that he heard what she was saying regarding her dream about a vampire. The woman needed to learn restraint, blast it all.

But for a moment, his heart had stopped cold when he thought he saw recognition along with mortification in her eyes.

Then he talked himself out of it, for she simply couldn’t have put the pieces together that he was the Knave of Diamonds. He’d even taken care to remove his costume with its glass ruby and red-and-black waistcoat immediately after their…interlude.

Apparently that interlude hadn’t made as much of an impression on her as some dark, erotic dreams, which was a damn good thing. Although the fact that she seemed to be having the same sorts of dreams that had been plaguing him was another problem entirely.

He sincerely hoped that her dreams weren’t nearly as explicit and erotic as his own.

Dimitri was half listening as Chas tried to explain to his sisters that he was a vampire hunter. The fact that he’d allied himself with a beautiful, if emotionally damaged Dracule woman caused even more confusion for the Misses Woodmore. It simply wasn’t logical, of course, and they had questions.

And even Dimitri could appreciate the position of the sisters.

Which meant, blast it all, that he’d be the recipient of more badgering by Miss Woodmore when her brother disappeared again with his paramour. For it had become abundantly clear that Chas and Narcise were not merely companions on an adventure, nor was she an unwilling partner in their journey. He could smell the intimacy between them.

That wasn’t the only thing he could scent. Voss had been here, the bastard. Despite the fact that Angelica hadn’t admitted it, Dimitri knew he’d been in the house—probably in the girl’s chamber with her—tonight. For all he knew, she could have let him in herself, enthralled and helpless under his influence.

Dimitri’s teeth ground together. He and Woodmore were going to take care of Voss as soon as they found him. And then Chas would have one of his problems taken care of…leaving him with a more sensitive one.

He scanned Narcise with objective eyes. Definitely a beautiful woman. But certainly not one who had ever interested him—even that night in Vienna when Moldavi had offered her to Dimitri as a bribe of sorts. When he had a woman, however occasional that event might be, he wanted her willing and without cold, dead eyes. Not that they were cold and dead now when she looked at Chas. Cool. But not dead.

Dimitri shifted impatiently and glowered at the trio of Woodmores, who had overrun his life, his home and now even his private office.

Would they never stop talking? He just bloody damn wished everyone would get out of his study so that he could get back to his work. His research and studies had been disrupted so much that he was certain what little he’d managed in the last week was worthless.

The stack of books that Miss Woodmore had taken it upon herself to neaten as soon as she entered this little meeting reminded him that he hadn’t been to the antiquarian bookstore yet. He flattened his lips. He would go tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest. He was through having his work completely disrupted.

“Corvindale is your guardian for the foreseeable future,” Chas was saying flatly, looking at Maia with an implacable expression, “but I wasn’t going to stand aside and let Voss compromise my sister.”

“I’m not compromised,” Angelica said stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Woodmore replied, glancing around the room. “We know he was here tonight, Angelica. Whether you invited him or welcomed him or—”

“I certainly didn’t invite him,” Angelica shot back in outrage. “I wouldn’t invite a terrifying creature like him anywhere!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chas continued. “Corvindale and Cale are going to help me find him. And then I’m going to kill him.”

And then Dimitri would be able to get back to his studies, and forget about the upheaval brought by a houseful of mortal women.

And perhaps then he’d stop dreaming about one in particular.