Lady Killer (11 page)

“Of course. And I know why.” As if to build suspense, Mariana leaned over to study the plate of hazelnut cakes, picked one of them up, broke it in half, sniffed each half suspiciously, tried a taste, made a noise that indicated it was delicious, ate both halves, and then returned her gaze to Clio. “I fear what I am going to say will upset you, dear Clio, but you are not the only one who feels a fascination for me. There are others. I think the vampire is one of them. I think he has come back for my wedding.”

A guttural noise, almost like a sob, came from Lord Edwin’s corner. Everyone turned to where he was sitting, his eyes glassy, his face blanched, his mouth working. “Mother,” he said finally in a voice that sounded like it had traveled miles. “Mother.”

“Speak of this no more,” Lady Alecia commanded with a frown at Mariana.

“Why?” Mariana tossed her head adventurously. “I have no fear of his acollation.”

Doctor LaForge sighed. “Adulation.”

“It is upsetting your father.” Lady Alecia leaned toward her granddaughter and explained in a furious whisper. “You know very well that his sister, Clio’s mother, was killed that same year by that horrible, horrible man—”

“My father,” Clio volunteered, in case Mariana did not understand.

Lady Alecia glared fulsomely at her before resuming, “—and that he has never recovered from the blow of her loss. One shall not speak of anything that happened in those dark days.”

“But—” Mariana began to protest and was cut off.

“Was the vampire caught?” Clio asked, despite this warning.

“One shall not spea—”

“Like the fly, like the fly, like the fly,” Lord Edwin chanted from against the wall, as if it were a nursery rhyme.

“That is enough, Edwin,” Lady Alecia told him, then turned to Clio. As she did, her face changed into what Clio thought of as her “wicked abbess” expression, a mask of beneficence barely concealing a core of cruelty. “Now Clio, we summoned you to inform you that as a result of your behavior yesterday your allowance has been revoked. However, in honor of Mariana’s wedding, we deem it appropriate that you share in our good fortune. In commemoration of the happy day we shall set aside a small sum for you.” She paused, waiting for Clio’s professions of gratitude. When they did not come, she went on. “You may collect the purse here, that morning, before Mariana’s wedding.”

“It shall be a birthday present!” Mariana said, clapping her dainty hands. “Just like when we were girls. Only this time you really will be getting something. Oh! I am so happy for you dear Clio. For once you will know what it is like to be cared about.” Her eyes got large and misty with the enormity of her heart. “I want you to know that I understand why you behave wickedly, like you did last night. I understand how hard it must be to know that you are unlovable, that no one wants you.”

Clio took her leave quickly, and not only because it was evident that Mariana was about to embark on a series of “Poor dear Clio” statements that was going to make her head ache, or because the numbers in her ledger loomed larger than ever. For reasons she could not understand, Mariana’s words, her family’s dislike of her, still hurt, even after all these years. She did not know why, or how, she could care about them, why she craved their approval, their affection, but some part of her did, and some part of her was wrenched by their treatment. Was she really as awful—as unlovable—as they thought?

Her cheeks were burning and her eyes filled with tears as she rushed through the corridors of Dearbourn Hall. She wished she could be angry with them, angry and resentful, but her rage was turned against herself, for her weakness, for caring what they said, caring that no one had ever wished her a happy birthday, that no one ever would. And not just caring, but crying.

Silly, foolish, stupid girl. She heard Elwood’s kind words—
you are not stupid, Clio
—through her tears, but she was certain that if he really knew her, he would realize he was wrong. Crying! Letting her cousin make her cry! What was happening to her? She felt like she was peeling apart. First death’s head visions, now breaking down in unfamiliar corridors. Breaking down anywhere. She did not—
would not
—care that her birthday always went unmarked,
would not
care about Mariana and Lady Alecia. She stopped to wipe her eyes and as she did a golden puff of fur scurried around her ankles and set to work licking the tears off her boots.

She bent down and picked him up, and he reached out his tongue to lick the tears off her face as well. It tickled so nicely that despite the fact she refused to have anything to do with dogs, she laughed to herself, which is why she did not hear his footsteps.

Miles felt a pang of jealousy such as he had not known in years, watching Clio’s expression go from delight to disgust as her eyes moved from the puppy’s face to his. After Mariana’s reaction to the puppy—or rather, baby dog—that morning, which included shrieking, attempting to kick it, and declaring that she hated it and never wanted it to come into her presence again—Miles had half wished to change places with it, but not nearly as much as he did now.

“Oh,” Clio said when she saw him. “Here.” She extended the puppy toward him. When he made no move to take it, she set the dog down and began walking quickly away.

“I owe you an apology,” Miles said, following her closely.

Clio waved his words away.

“I treated you badly last night. I am sorry.”

Clio kept walking.

“Also, I should tell you that this corridor only goes to my bed chamber. Unless that is where you wish to go?”

Clio stopped and glared at him. “I think that was a record. Three seconds before you insulted me. Bravo. You are making progress.” She turned and began marching back the way she had come.

“That is not fair,” Miles said from behind her. “Last night I went at least five minutes before offending you.”

“I was taking an average,” Clio replied. The sound of Miles’s laughter stopped her and she whirled around. Her face was stark, her voice almost desperate as she said, “Please. Please just leave me alone.”

Miles closed the space between them. “What is wrong, Lady Thornton?”

Clio swallowed hard. They stood facing each other, in silence, as the clock at the end of the corridor ticked off the seconds. Up close, he did not look detestable. Nor did his ears, chin, lips, eyes, hair, teeth, neck, chest—what she could see of it, at eye level—nor did his hands, hands which were moving up to cup her face, soft warm hands, hands caressing her cheek, hands tilting her head back, lips…

She pushed past him at a run. It was not the way her knees got tingly that made her rush from him. It was not the fact that his personality suddenly seemed entirely un-detestable that made her careen down the stairs, almost tripping, and fly through the front door of his house. It was the fact that she felt them coming on.

The hiccups.

And she did not know why. She searched her head as she ran, searched for any sign of violence, any desire to harm anyone, but could find none. Certainly she would never be averse to strangling Mariana, but that was a different impulse than the deep, scary violence that prompted the hiccups. Once outside the gates of Dearbourn Hall she slowed, but the hiccups came quickly, fast like they did when she had to work hard to suppress her rage. Her primary emotion was not rage, however, it was fear, fear that she no longer even felt the violence inside of her. Fear of what she might be capable of. Fear of herself.

She was walking blindly, clenching her fists into tight balls, moving with the crowds that filled the streets but not hearing them, not seeing them. The hiccups meant one thing. She wanted to hurt someone. And she did not even know it.

Just as she did not know the identity of the person who pushed her into the street in front of an onrushing coach. Her surprise paralyzed her and she stood, unable to move, looking at the horses rearing above her. For an instant she was aware of every detail of her surroundings as if they had all been frozen in amber—the perspiration of the horses flying like raindrops from their necks, a shabby looking boy running down the street in the opposite direction, the shouts of the people around her hanging in the air in individual syllables, the gold puppy leaping high into the air, a figure in one of the second floor windows of Dearbourn Hall observing, a familiar looking man with a mustache dressed in a fancy red doublet staring at her with a smile and then winking (winking!), a butterfly alighting from a flower eight feet away, a rivulet of water between the smooth gray stones of the street, an orange skidding past her feet, mud on her boots, mud on her boots, mud on her boots—and then, slam, everything started moving again and she was moving also, flying, and the horses had brushed past her and no one was shouting and the man across the way had vanished and the gold puppy was jumping up and trying to get into her arms but he couldn’t because someone was holding them at the shoulders and she looked up and it was the viscount and his lips were moving and what he was saying was, “Are you all right?”

Clio blinked, realized that her hiccups were gone, then nodded. “Did you see a man in red?” she asked.

Miles frowned. Of the questions he would have expected someone to ask after he had saved their life—are
you
all right, what happened, where am I, what can I ever do to repay you—“Did you see a man in red?” was very low on the list.

“Are you sure you are all right?” he asked again.

Clio nodded impatiently and pulled away from him. “I am fine. But I have to find that man.”

“I did not see anyone in red,” Miles said, but then, he had not exactly been paying perfect attention.

He had been glad if slightly surprised to see Clio Thornton in the hallway of his house, principally because he was on his way to call on her and her appearance would save him the trip. He was going to her house to find out everything she knew about the Vampire of London, and to order her not to attempt to unmask him herself, to leave it to him. He was damned if he was going to have Lady Clio Thornton’s death on his conscience as well.

Then there she was, miraculously on the threshold of his room, and instead of inviting her in and asking her questions he was about to kiss her.

It was ridiculous. He had not kissed anyone—besides, of course, Clio at the Painted Lady the day before—in over two years.

He had not wanted to. After Beatrice’s death he found that physical intimacy only left him feeling lonely. The mere thought of kissing any of the women who sought his attention had almost repulsed him. Unlike the thought of kissing Clio.

The man known and feared as Three did not kiss women, he lectured himself. It was a distraction and a nuisance—who had time, with someone killing his guard dogs, a smuggling investigation in process, the Vampire of London on the loose, and his impending marriage to Mariana? He would not kiss Clio Thornton. And definitely not in the middle of the street.

Her mouth, when Miles brought his lips to cover it, was more succulent and delicious than anything he had ever tasted in his life.

Clio stood on her tiptoes, and he bent down over her, gently, softly brushing his lips against hers. Butterflies, satin, blades of grass, honey, rose petals, marble, none of them were right for the feeling of his lips on hers. They were barely touching, and yet Clio was astonishingly aware that this was different than what she had felt with Justin Greeley. This was achingly, impossibly wonderful.

Miles felt transported back in time, back to a moment before the pain, the enforced emptiness, before the vision. Before Beatrice.

The kiss lasted less than two seconds.

It was Clio who ended it, pulling away sharply. She reached her fingers up to her lips, touching them where his mouth had been, kicking herself mentally. This man was betrothed to her cousin. He could never be hers, he would always be one more thing that she lost, one more person who was fascinated by Mariana and repulsed by her.
How hard it must be to know you are unlovable,
she heard Mariana say again. She was not jealous, it was different than that. She just needed never to see him again.

“Good day Lord Dearbourn,” she said, then spun and walked away.

Miles did not follow her. It had been Clio who ended the kiss, but Miles who was charred by it. He had won his peace by ridding himself of all those emotions, emptying himself (and his wine cellar) and he would not go back.

But where would his peace be if he let Clio Thornton be killed by the Vampire of London? Where was his peace anyway?

“Wait,” he shouted, moving quickly after her. He wanted to let her go, wanted to force her to go away from him, forever, but he could not. He had to make sure she would do nothing that got her killed. “I need to talk to you,” he said when he caught up with her.

Clio did not stop moving. “About what just happened?” she asked in a stilted voice, not looking at him. “Don’t worry, it—”

“No. About the vampire.”

Clio walked on in silence, still avoiding his gaze.

“I want your promise that you will not pursue him,” Miles continued when it was clear she would not speak.

Now Clio looked up at him. “I will make no such promise. Why should I?”

“I will pay you.”