In the Heat of the Bite (6 page)

“I could ask ye the same thing,” she shot back.

“As well as I can be, considering the circumstances.” He took her hand and placed it back on his arm. But what circumstances did he refer to? The fact that he’d somehow become a vampyre? Or that Cait had married another? “Take a stroll around the room with me?”

“Of course,” Rhi said immediately. Cait gave her a small nod and her husband shot Alec a look that made him chuckle, which seemed completely inappropriate. Nothing about this situation was humorous in the least. The very thought of Alec changing into one of the undead made Rhi immeasurably sad.

“Chin up, Miss Sinclair,” Alec whispered dramatically as he led her around the perimeter of the ballroom. “Or else you’ll shock the insipid English right out of their finery with the little storm brewing over your head.” Rhi looked up and, sure enough, a small storm cloud hovered high above the chandeliers. She forced herself to take a deep breath. The cloud dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

“How did ye ken?” she asked. No one knew about her powers. Not outside the coven. And yet every vampyre she met seemed to be apprised of the fact.

“When I went after Blaire,” he began, but then shook his head slowly. “It’s a very long story, Rhiannon. I couldn’t even do it justice in this setting.”

“Will ye give me the shortened version?” she suggested. “Then we can meet tomorrow so I can hear the whole tale.”

He inclined his dark head in agreement. “Cait was concerned about Blaire. Said she was being chased by something with dead eyes. So I went after her. I followed the Lindsays to Briarcraig, the captain’s castle.”

“I thought ye left because yer heart was broken,” Rhiannon said, but instantly regretted her words when his cheery façade melted away.

“That, too,” he grunted.

“And ye became one of them?”

He nodded slowly. “I did.”

Rhiannon wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

“Tell me ye’re all right.” She stopped walking and looked directly up at him. His once-brown eyes no longer shined back at her. They were black.

“I’m as right as I can be. This does take some getting used to. But I’m managing.” He smiled softly at her. Alec was still the same. He was still the jovial, considerate, compassionate man she’d grown up with.

“Who did this ta ye?” she whispered.

“Speak of the devil,” Alec murmured just as Lord Blodswell stepped into her path. He bowed to Rhiannon and smiled. “
Mrs.
Sinclair,” he began, a teasing smile on his face. “You look so lovely this evening.”

Startled, Rhiannon sucked in a breath. Blast him for being so handsome that he stole her breath, and blast herself for letting him do so; because she knew instantly he’d done it. Blodswell had turned Alec into what he was.

“How could ye?” she gasped and covered her mouth.

Someone shrieked as the punch bowl across the room shattered. Lightning had a way of doing that. The Duchess of Hythe screamed aloud as an icicle Rhi had accidentally allowed to form dropped from the chandelier into her cleavage, where it landed directly between the old woman’s breasts.

“Rhiannon,” Alec warned, “you need to get hold of yourself.” He took her shoulders in his hands and turned her toward him. He said quietly, “He
saved
my life. He didn’t kill me.”

But Blodswell
had
killed him, no matter what Alec said. He wasn’t a human any longer. He was something else, something sinister and dangerous.

“I doona believe ye,” she said as she shrugged out of his hold and backed away. Thunder boomed outside as she swallowed a sob. She stared into Lord Blodswell’s black-as-night eyes and felt the anger as it rose to a crescendo. A footman, standing sentry at the veranda doors, jumped as a tile beneath his feet broke.

“Rhiannon,” Cait called from a few feet away. Both she and Eynsford moved quickly across the floor toward her.

But before her friend could reach her, Rhi turned on Lord Blodswell. “How could ye do such a thing? What kind of a man are ye?” A drenching rain began to pour outside the open doors leading to the balcony. It came down in sheets and out of nowhere.

“I’d like to explain,” Lord Blodswell began, with a most irritating, placating look upon his face.

The slap rang out almost as loudly as the thunder outdoors did. Blodswell took the palm of her hand across his cheek and did nothing more than grit his teeth for a moment with his eyes closed before he finally looked down at her again.

“Do you feel better?” he asked as he tested his jaw with his fingertips.

“Hardly,” she hissed as the whole room fell silent.

Matthew wasn’t quite sure what to say, and he was immeasurably grateful when Lady Eynsford slid her hand into Miss Sinclair’s and gently tugged her toward an exit.

“
Havers!
” the marchioness exclaimed. “It appears as though ye’ve torn a flounce. Follow me, dear.” Then the two ladies escaped into the corridor.

Matthew had no idea what he was supposed to do in their wake. All of the Pickerings’ guests gaped in awe, while Alec MacQuarrie frowned at him.

“Pleased with yourself?” the annoyed Scot asked so softly that no one else could hear.

Matthew would have glared at MacQuarrie with a stare that had felled lesser men, but everyone’s eyes were still on him. What he wouldn’t give for the bloody orchestra to start playing again; but the musicians seemed as enthralled as all the guests with his predicament. Somewhere in the distance he heard the ticking of a clock and knew that his time was running extremely short. And so was Miss Sinclair’s. A generation from now, no one would remember this little incident. He’d waited out worse, but she didn’t have the same luxury.

“Apologies,” he said to Eynsford who stood just a few feet away, though everyone overheard him as he knew they would. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in polite society, I completely forgot my manners. Please do pass my sincerest apology to Miss Sinclair. She was most appropriate in her reprimand.”

A flash of unabashed humor lit Eynsford’s amber eyes. Yet he maintained his polite façade as he nodded and said, “I will be certain to extend your apologies to the lady, Blodswell.” Then his voice rose just a tad. “However, you may apologize to the lady yourself when you pay a call at Thorpe House tomorrow.”

Blast the damned Lycan for enjoying this.

Matthew nodded tightly.

“Viscount Radbourne. Mr. Grayson Hadley and Mr. Weston Hadley,” Pickerings’ butler intoned.

En masse, the entire ballroom’s occupants shifted their focus from Matthew to the three stunned gentlemen standing in the main threshold. Why the devil couldn’t the wolfish trio have arrived moments before?

Cait swiftly led Rhiannon to an antechamber that was doubling as a retiring room where they quietly waited for a pair of giggly girls to take their leave. As soon as they were alone, Cait locked the door behind them, which couldn’t have happened a moment too soon. The room was quickly filling with storm clouds as the sobs built within Rhiannon. She sank heavily onto a chintz chair.

“Oh, Rhi,” Cait sighed. “I canna believe ye did that. I wish Blaire had been here ta see it. Then she could tell ye it was the most bloody brilliant scene that she’d ever witnessed.”

“It wasna bloody brilliant,” Rhiannon gasped. “It was horrendous. I’ll never be able ta show my face again.”

Cait covered her mouth and giggled lightly.

And then Rhiannon allowed a watery smile to cross her lips. She’d just broken a punch bowl, nearly knocked a footman off his feet, and dropped an icicle into a fearsome duchess’ cleavage, an area where no one had obviously been in quite some time. Then she’d gone and slapped a revered peer of the realm.

No, she’d slapped the vampyre who’d turned Alec into what he was now, the creature who’d stolen her friend’s future. And she’d done it in front of the entire
ton
, in the middle of a crowded ballroom where her powers and her very nature could have been exposed. Rhiannon glanced up to find Cait regarding her curiously. “Are ye all right?”

Rhi blew out an exasperated breath. “Ye kent I was goin’ ta do that, and ye dinna give me any sort of warnin’.”

Cait shrugged. “Well, that’s no’ entirely true, Rhi. I
did
mention the picnic, if ye remember. And ever since ye arrived on my doorstep, ye’ve been remindin’ me that I shouldna peek inta yer future.”

Rhiannon folded her arms across her chest. “Well, ye picked a fine time ta start listenin’ ta me.”

“Chin up.” Cait smiled. “Ye’ll want ta get that knock.”

Knock? There was no…

A knock sounded at the locked door. Rhiannon gulped and leveled her friend with her most serious glare. Cait could be more than infuriating at times. “Tell me that isna Lord Blodswell.”

The blond witch shook her head. “He may be darin’, but I doubt even the benevolent Blodswell would attempt ta enter a ladies’ retirin’ room.”

Benevolent. After what the villain had done to Alec, “benevolent” couldn’t be used to describe him. Rhiannon suppressed a snort as she rose to her feet. She crossed the small antechamber to the door Cait had locked. “A moment please.”

“Rhi, open up!” Ginny’s hushed voice filtered through the door. “Before someone sees me.”

Rhiannon wrenched the door open and felt the first bit of relief she’d experienced in more than a fortnight.

“Oh, Ginny!” Rhiannon threw her arms around her younger sister. “I’ve been so worried about ye.”

Ginny pulled back from Rhi’s embrace. “Ye’re worried about me? After the display in the ballroom, ye should be worried about yerself.”

“Ye saw that?” Rhiannon groaned. Blast it all. She’d lost her temper again. “How bad is it?” Her aunt would never let her near Ginny now. She’d released lightning indoors, for heaven’s sake! She’d never be able to show her face in London again. They’d chase her back to Scotland if she was lucky, and if she wasn’t… Well, not that long ago, witches had been put to death.

Ginny grinned. “It could be much worse, but I believe his lordship is smoothin’ everythin’ over. He said it was his fault.”

His fault?
What the in the world was Ginny talking about? “Lord Eynsford is takin’ the blame for my storm?”

“Was that torrent outside yer doin’?”

“And the one inside. The punch bowl. The footman.” The duchess… She couldn’t even bring herself to mention the last.

A peal of laughter escaped Ginny as she brushed past Rhiannon into the retiring room. “I had no idea. No one is concerned about the weather at all.”

How could no one be concerned about a storm that erupted
indoors
? Were Londoners all mad? “Then what is Lord Eynsford tryin’ ta smooth over?”

Ginny shook her head. “Why do ye keep askin’ about Eynsford? It’s the dark-haired gentleman ye slapped right in the middle of the ballroom who is takin’ the blame.” She frowned as she flopped into Rhiannon’s vacated seat. “By the way, Aunt Greer was traumatized by that.”

Aunt Greer could go hang. Rhiannon slumped against the closed door. “
That’s
what they’re worried about?”

Ginny gazed at her as though she had her gown on backward and her hair was on fire. “Well, ye canna go around slappin’ London gentlemen, Rhi.”

“Of course no’,” she admitted, “but it’s hardly more important than lightnin’ blasts inside a home.” Not that she should complain. If everyone was concerned about lightning blasts and attributed them to Rhi, they’d march her off to Newgate without a second thought.

“Who is the gentleman? And what in the world did he do?” Ginny’s hazel eyes rounded as she waited expectantly.

Cait, thankfully, rose from her spot at that point. “The gentleman in question is the Earl of Blodswell. As ta what he did, I can imagine Rhiannon would rather no’ speak of it, and I’d rather the ballroom no’ turn inta Noah’s flood, if ye doona mind. Three gentlemen have promised me their attendance, and they’ve no’ yet arrived. I’d hate for it ta all be for nothin’.”

That caught Ginny’s attention. “Who are ye waitin’ for, Caitrin?”

The marchioness smiled regally. “Relations of Eynsford. Three very handsome, very eligible relations.” His brothers, in fact, not that Cait could admit to the unfortunate circumstance of her husband’s birth.
Relations
would have to do.

“Indeed?” Ginny sat forward in her seat with rapt attention. “How handsome?”

“Well—” Cait began, but Rhiannon stopped her with a raise of her hands.

“Ye canna possibly want ta marry one of these Englishmen.” Hadn’t she just traveled south from Edinburgh to prevent such a thing? Well, she’d traveled south to retrieve Ginny, but now keeping her safe from Englishmen was at the top of Rhi’s list.

“I doona ken who I want ta marry,” Ginny admitted thoughtfully. “I imagine I have no’ met him yet. Now, Caitrin, what were ye sayin’ about Eynsford’s relations?”

“Ginny!” Rhiannon gasped. “Ye canna be serious.”

“Well, why no’?” Her sister blinked at her innocently. “Aunt Greer says I have a face that could land me quite a catch. Do they have sizeable fortunes?” She addressed the last to Cait who looked shocked at Ginny’s sudden mercenary question.