“Mrs. Thomas, I wouldn’t dream of aspiring so high,” Althea responded, heart pounding.
She noticed her father, who’d joined them for supper, about to protest but he stuffed a piece of potato in his mouth instead—no doubt realizing he’d been about to defend his daughter’s suitability to wed a vampire.
“Good. Even a second son would be a coup, gel. Though a life with Bastien de Wynter would not be an easy one. Wild as they come, that one. Remember the rumors that he’d been knifed in the stews, dead drunk before an upcoming duel with the Duke of Ormston. Some scandalous business with Ormston’s actress mistress—”
A sharp intake of breath by Lady Peters at that. Apparently, Mrs. Thomas’ conversation was decidedly improper. But the elderly lady, who was half deaf, continued in the loud voice used by those who didn’t hear well. “Some as thought he’d died there, but others insisted he’d fled to the Continent. Can see why—Ormston was a notoriously good shot, even at his age.”
Mrs. Thomas’ small eyes narrowed even further. “Now Mr. Fenwick would make a good match for you—“
A milquetoast. Dull, moon-faced, but in truth, in the eyes of the haute
ton
, Miss Althea Yates should be delighted to receive an offer from a man with a solid income and good family.
Mr. Fenwick had shown interest at the Fortesques’ so she’d promptly told him about vampire hunting. He’d gone a shade whiter and had looked distinctly ill.
Her father, she noted, also looked distinctly ill as Mrs. Thomas and Lady Peters launched into a lively debate about the merits of potential suitors. Maybe he now realized what he’d Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 173
thrown her into.
“I’m sorry, lass. They’re like dogs on a scent, aren’t they.” Her father spoke in hushed tones, in the quiet of Sir Randolph’s library.
“You did seek a good matchmaker, Father,” Althea replied, knowing that she would best make her point by “allowing” Father to come to the conclusion himself.
“But you are lovely, lass.” Father slid his arm across her shoulders and hugged her. “I wish—” his voice caught. “I wish Anne could have lived to see you grow up.”
Althea swallowed hard around the sudden tightness in her throat.
“Ah,” he sighed. “But she would have had my head for letting you hunt vampires.”
He had said that before, but she wasn’t convinced it was true.
Father let his arm drop from her shoulders. “Brookshire came to see me, while I was searching Zayan’s crypt, and demanded to know where you were. The madman walked in on me while I was surrounded by armed men.”
Even though she knew Yannick had survived—she’d seen him last night—she still felt her heart thump erratically.
“His lordship claimed to love you,” he continued. “And I expect he does.”
With that, as she stared at him in astonishment, Father bent over and retrieved a book from the seat of a chair. The leather book he’d brought with him. He laid it on the table. “Zayan’s journal. Kept it for a century, he has. Thought you might wish to read it for me—search it for clues.”
She caught his sleeve. Tugged. “Are you telling me that Y—the earl came to you to tell you that he loves me?”
He gave a deep, sad sigh. “I can see it in your eyes, lass. You love him too, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Her heart soared the instant she admitted it. Nerves and happiness and shock and delight tumbled around inside.
“Lass—”
She held up a quelling hand. Though it surprised her when he stopped. “I know, Father.
He’s a vampire. I still love him, but I understand that we can never be together. But to save his life, I have to find Zayan.”
She opened the leather bound cover of Zayan’s journal. “I know he’s in London, I just haven’t the resources to find out where. And I’ve only two nights to do it in.” Her voice rose in panic. Calm, she must stay calm. Panic wouldn’t help her find Zayan. Panic wouldn’t save Yannick. Or Bastien. Even after Mrs. Thomas’ attempts to show how inappropriate Bastien was, she still loved him. Loved him more perhaps, because she sensed his bad ways concealed an aching, lonely heart.
“There must be deaths—Bow Street might know about that,” she reasoned. “I’m assuming he will go out in society—and I hope to interview ladies and gentlemen at the musicale and balls tonight.”
One musicale and two balls were on her night’s itinerary. If it wasn’t for the opportunity to hunt for Zayan, to see Bastien and Yannick, she’d faint at the thought.
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“What I fear, lass, is that Zayan will find you.”
Althea had set society on its ear. Tongues wagged, fans pointed, discreet and not-so-discreet whispers flitted around the Benthlams’ ballroom. Not only had the Demon Twins attended a musicale where they had promptly attached themselves to a Miss Althea Yates, a nobody, they had apparently followed her to the Benthlams’ ball.
The earl had waltzed with Miss Yates three times, the matrons clucked, which clearly meant a partiality. More than two dances signaled an engagement in the offing. But then the earl’s brother, Mr. De Wynter, had claimed her for one more waltz and two country dances.
At the twins’ obvious interest, Miss Yates’ stock in the marriage mart had soared. Young men—viscounts, barons, earls, even a handsome duke—all sought a place on her dance card.
What was it about this seemingly ordinary young woman with the dark red hair that had tamed the Demon Twins?
Listening to Mrs. Thomas relay the gossip to Lady Peters, Althea groaned. Why were the twins being so conspicuous? For protection? She feared that all this attention would keep Zayan away and they only had two nights left.
But the twins were instinctively possessive, she realized. They couldn’t stand idly by and watch other men converse with her, flirt with her, dance with her. Her heart leapt in joy, knowing they cared so much.
She asked the group of matrons about Zayan.
“A Mr. Zayan? Indeed, I believe a Mr. Zayan has recently come to town, Miss Yates.”
Lady Rawlstone frowned. Obviously Zayan had a dark enough reputation that her question evoked curiosity. “And how did you say you were acquainted with him?”
Because he is the embodiment of evil.
“A distant relative of a close friend.”
Lady Rawlstone was a contemporary of Mrs. Thomas, and Althea had been learned much about the Demon Twins. She’d learned many scandalous rumors about Bastien. And about Yannick’s failed engagement—which he had never mentioned.
“Mr. Zayan is not the sort of gentleman that you should acknowledge, I fear,” said Lady Rawlstone, “I believe he favors gaming hells to good society, though alas, so many gentlemen do—oh goodness, here is Mr. De Wynter.”
Althea caught her breath as Bastien bowed before her. Another dance would surely shock society.
Lady Rawlstone smiled. “Your ears must be burning, Mr. De Wynter.”
Althea gaped. She hadn’t expected her ladyship to be so blunt.
Bastien only laughed. “They always are, dear lady. Always.” He gave her a courtly bow.
Althea stifled a soft whimper as he turned and bestowed a wicked smile upon her. Despite being surrounded by hundreds of watchful eyes, she felt her nipples tighten, threatening to pop forth from the scandalous neckline of the clinging apricot silk dress she wore. Creamy, hot, yearning, her cunny ached for him. For she knew exactly what he had come to her to do.
Follow me, love. I’ve come to lead you astray.
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Yannick drew her into a scorching kiss the instant she stepped behind the potted palm at the end of the terrace.
God, I’ve hungered all night to do this.
She sank into his heat and fire, hooked her arms around his neck as he swept her literally off her feet and into his embrace. The instant he released her, Bastien claimed his kiss. Together they kissed her into dizziness. The moon, a large white globe, almost full, watched over them, with blue shadowed eyes.
Or so it seemed.
Bastien began lifting her skirts from behind.
“On the terrace!” she squealed. “We don’t dare.”
“I dare anything,” Bastien promised.
“So I’ve heard,” she muttered. For some mad reason, jealousy prickled. Why should it?
She’d already watched—witnessed with her own eyes—Bastien make love to another man. Why should decade-old scandals bother her? But she heard the snippiness in her voice as she demanded, “Speaking of hunger, have you two fed?”
Bastien nodded, blond hair fluttering in the soft breeze, free of the black ribbon that had held it back.
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and looked from Bastien to Yannick. “Voluptuous maids, I assume?”
“A frisky widow interested in a liaison,” Bastien admitted.
“Goodness, did you give her one?”
“No, my love. I have pledged my fidelity to you.”
“And my prey was male—a footpad,” Yannick said. “I enjoy turning the tables on some brute who thinks I’m a soft toff easy to rob.”
She glanced at Bastien, to see his reaction to the word
footpad
, but his eyes were a swirling blend of reflected moonlight and black shadow.
I want to make love to you from behind,
Bastien said in her thoughts.
It is perfectly safe
here. I will lift up your skirts and stand behind you here in the shadows. I will press you to the
railing and no one would ever guess what we are doing—never guess I am pleasuring you in
your bottom.
“What?” she gasped, startled. Her skirts were at mid-thigh at the back and she heard the men’s harsh, hungry breathing.
In an instant her cheeks were bared to the night air. She hadn’t bothered with drawers.
“Damn.” Her skirts fell with a swish and Bastien broke away quickly.
“So here you are, pet,” came Father’s cheerful voice, just at the instant her hems danced around her ankles.
“Why the devil were you out there with both of them?” Father demanded in the foyer of Sir Randolph’s townhouse. “They’re both in love with you, aren’t they? Fighting over you?”
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Althea was so tired and all she wanted to do was collapse in bed. Apparently debutantes also never went to bed before dawn. “Not fighting exactly—well, yes, I guess they are competing for me.” She couldn’t admit they were sharing her! “It was Zayan’s plan to lure them to fight over me.”
She regretted revealing even that much because she didn’t dare speak of the dreams. In the last few nights, she hadn’t had any dreams at all.
“And you love the earl.”
“I—”
“Oh blast, you’re not in love with both of them, are you?”
A telltale blush swept over her cheeks with the heat of wildfire and she turned to the stair to hide it.
Behind her, Father groaned. “Oh lass, you can’t be.”
She’d expected him to be horrified. But she suddenly understood—he wasn’t thinking of them sharing her. The shocking idea had not occurred to him at all.
And she thanked heaven for that. But if he learned the truth, she could imagine the damage it would do to his fragile heart.
“Bastien de Wynter is not the sort of man any woman should fall in love with—even if he were a mortal, which he bloody well isn’t. You can’t be in love with two vampires, lass. Please, please, Althea, I’m begging you—”
She leaned against the railing and turned to face him. “Father, I understand.”
She couldn’t even hope for a future with the twins. It would destroy her father.
Father held her hand as they climbed the stairs. He gave her a hesitant smile and she blinked away tears.
She’d force herself to wake early and read the rest of Zayan’s journal. There must be a clue there.
All she had to do was ensure Zayan was destroyed and neither Bastien nor Yannick died in the attempt.
And then she would have to say goodbye to the twins. Forever.
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“We shouldn’t have brought you here,” Yannick insisted.
“I was not about to stay away!” Masked, Althea stepped across the threshold of Madame Roi’s elegant brothel, on both Yannick’s and Bastien’s arms.
After all, she had been the one to find the reference in the last diary entry, in Zayan’s neat, perfect handwriting:
I have been to one of Madame Roi’s establishments. A mortal’s brothel.
Deep play, mesmerizing jades, an excellent selection of restraints, most assuredly the finest
establishment in London…
No, she was not going to miss adventure just because it would take place in a house of ill repute owned by a vampire queen. And since she had shared two vampires in bed—how could she be shocked by what went on in a London stew? Certainly nothing about Madame Roi’s foyer shocked. The flocked wall-paper, a glittering chandelier, a jewel-toned carpet looked suitable for a gentleman’s home. Statues of nude females stood about, but they were hardly scandalous.
The twins led her forward and Althea instinctively checked her disguise. Soft and supple, her black leather mask clung to her face from hairline to the upper curve of her lips. Large openings at her eyes let her see as well as she could without spectacles. Yannick had given her the lovely mask and had fastened it behind her head while they’d traveled through London in his luxurious carriage. She’d worn a gown of emerald green with her most revealing neckline—a woman who would come to a brothel wouldn’t be shy, after all. Yannick had given her one other gift—the beautiful necklace of emeralds and one heart-shaped diamond that now hung around her neck.
They stepped inside the salon and Althea gasped. The entire atmosphere changed—currents of sexual desire sizzled throughout the room. Handsome gentlemen attired in fashionable evening dress prowled Madame Roi’s salon. It appeared that only the most gorgeous of males were allowed admittance to Madame Roi’s. A rather interesting quirk for a woman who sought to make a living. Aging men losing their looks might be more likely to pay well for dalliances with lovely courtesans.