Love at First Bite (3 page)

That sounded so final! "I await your return, then…" She tried to make her voice sound both stubborn and cheerful.

"No." He pressed his lips to her fingers. The touch made her feel faint with impending loss. "Move on with your life, Emma. I can promise you nothing."

That was it then…

He snapped upright and let go her hand. All color drained from his face. His eyes shone. "Your servant, Miss Fairfield." He nodded curtly, then spun on his heel and shut the breakfast room door behind him.

Emma was left staring at the closed door. Emotions careened and collided in her breast. Surely… surely his expression, if not his words, said he cared for her, that it was only duty that called him away… Was she wrong about that?

The door creaked open and her brother let himself into the room. "Emma? I ran smack into Ware. He looked like he'd seen a relative executed. You didn't refuse him, did you, girl?"

"I didn't get a chance," she said, trying to make her voice light.

"He didn't offer?" Her brother was incredulous.

"It seems he's off to Africa tomorrow." She took up a piece of needlework at random. Her hands were shaking. "The expectations at White's will go unsatisfied." Her voice cracked on the last sentence. She despised herself for her lack of control.

"Oh, Emma!" Richard put a hand on her shoulder. "What a time to be mistaken in a suitor, just when you finally found one you liked." He sighed. "There will be others."

"Putting up with who I am because of my fortune, no doubt," she said bitterly. "I thought Davie… well, that he liked me as I was.

If I can't have that, I'd rather be a spinster. Not a fate worse than death." But spinsterhood rankled. Marriage, too, with anyone but Davie, would gall her. What kind of diplomatic mission brought a certainty of death? Or had he just made that up to put her off? She watched her fingers pull small, even stitches through her needlework as though they belonged to someone else.

Everything had changed.

Somewhere inside she felt a storm building, one that might sweep away her sanity.

Chapter Two

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The sun sank behind the Kasbah tents in Casablanca. Davie watched the light die from the third-story window of the room he had taken. Fear thumped in his chest. The night belonged to them. How would he find Rufford in this teeming city?

He lit a small oil lamp against the coming twilight. The Admiral had given Davie his fastest cutter. Supplies were diverted from a shipment to Gibraltar and sent to Casablanca. Whitehall was pulling out all the stops to give Rufford anything he needed for the war he was waging against the forces of darkness.

Darkness to darkness, monster over monster. Did it matter who won? Davie asked that question and answered himself a dozen times a day.

Yes. The world probably depended on Rufford's brand of darkness prevailing.

Davie had a hard time caring for the world just now. It was eleven days, ummmm, four hours, and twenty minutes since he had seen Emma Fairfield's face, incredulous, then hurt. That look had stayed with him through choppy seas and the smell of tar and salt water. She'd done everything but beg him to take her with him. A woman like Emma Fairfield did not beg. The need to be with her was a physical pain in his belly.

He went to the room's lone window, just an opening in the thick mud brick walls. He looked out across the city. Lights began to flicker as the Kasbah turned into a night market. The braying of donkeys and camels, the smell of spice and fruit and overripe meat, wafted up from streets that teemed with sellers and shoppers and no doubt something far more deadly. He could not have brought her into this chaos and danger.

"You came."

Davie whirled to see Ian Rufford standing in the shadows of the bare room, containing only a narrow bed and a dresser. He sucked in a breath. He thought he saw the gleam of red in Rufford's eyes. But then the man—if that was what you could call him these days—stepped out of the shadows and his eyes were as blue as Davie remembered them. Rufford had powerful shoulders and curling light brown hair worn too long and tied back in a black ribbon. The air was electric with the energy emanating from him. Davie recognized the telltale scent of cinnamon and something else, sweeter, underneath. They all had a variant of that scent and put out some version of that vibrating energy. The brute was handsome. So handsome he had enticed Elizabeth Rochewell into marrying him, even though she knew what he was. Davie and Emma Fairfield had stood up at their wedding. Davie still couldn't believe that Rufford had brought his new wife into the danger of North Africa. "How did you get in?"

Rufford shrugged. "Thank you for coming."

It was Davie's turn to shrug. "Rally round and all that." But he had been thinking about Rufford's wife. "I wonder that you didn't get your wife to see to your supply lines. She was a hand at organizing expeditions as I recall."

"My wife is doing just that for Khalenberg and Beatrix Lisse in Tripoli," he said. "The… extermination effort proceeds on several fronts. Urbano has Algiers."

Beatrix Lisse! Of course! The famous courtesan always wore perfume smelling vaguely like cinnamon. He should have guessed it wasn't perfume at all. "Why not send me to Tripoli and keep your wife by your side?" he couldn't help asking. Too late he realized that Rufford's wife might have left him, and the man just didn't want to admit that.

Rufford smiled grimly. "She can handle Khalenberg. You could not."

Davie was stung into a retort. "A slip of a girl?"

"She's our kind now," Rufford said. "And her blood is strong."

That stopped Davie. Elizabeth Rufford had been made vampire? A fate worse than death. Rufford once thought so, too. His saving grace was that he hadn't wanted to become a monster, had fought against it, hated it. Davie examined Rufford's face. The old pain and sorrow he had once seen there were gone. Rufford looked tired but… comfortable with himself, confident. Had he stopped hating that he was a monster? So much so that he made his wife into a monster, too?

"She was dying." It was as though he read Davie's thoughts. "My blood could save her. What would you have me do?"

Death is better than becoming a monster
. That was what came of letting a woman come with you into dangerous climes.

Thank God he had not been weak enough to ask Emma to marry him. Davie's heart clenched. He would probably never hold Emma Fairfield in his arms, now.

But he was not here to judge Rufford, or to mourn for what might have been with Emma. He was here to do his duty and help eradicate the remnants of Asharti's army, else humans would be kept as cattle and raised for their blood. He pushed the image of Emma's smile from his mind. "How goes the battle?"

Rufford didn't answer. His mouth set itself into a line and his jaw worked. "We need a safe house to heal during the daylight hours. We'll have to change the location frequently. Food, fresh clothing—African mostly, since we must pry them out of the local population."

Davie nodded. "Weapons? I brought an arsenal of guns."

Rufford shook his head. "Useless. Perhaps some sabers or cutlasses."

"Done. Bandages?"

Rufford raised his intense blue eyes. "No." He hesitated. "But we're going to need—"

Davie didn't want to hear the word. "I've been thinking about that," he interrupted. "Would it raise suspicions if I solicited donations? I could pay handsomely."

Rufford shook his head. "The city is frightened enough as it is. Bring five or six healthy specimens to the safe house each evening before we go out. We'll do the rest, and leave them with pleasant memories of a night of wine or love and money in their pocket they'll think they won at dice. We'll take a bit from each so no one is the worse for wear."

So. He was to be a procurer of blood. His face must have shown his revulsion.

"Look, Ware," Rufford said, his voice rough. "I'm not sure what you know of us, based on your time with her. Asharti," he almost choked on the name even still, "is not a good example of our kind. But you need to know our Rules."

Davie sucked in a breath and nodded. Rufford had suffered at her hands as well.

Rufford held himself still. The light of the lamp was the only flickering defense against the darkness that had grown in the room.

Rufford stood outside its circle of illumination. His face was dimly visible in the shadows. "We have a parasite in our blood. We call it the Companion. It gives us strength. We can compel weaker minds as well as suggest memories. We can translocate—

draw the power of our Companion until we pop out of space and time and reappear at a place of our choice within a range of a few miles. We are stronger than humans. The Companion rebuilds its host rather than relocating, so we heal wounds and life is extended… indefinitely." He made his tone matter-of-fact.

Immortal? The concept was too big to comprehend. Yet Davie knew from his terrible time with Asharti how true some of those impossible facts were. He had firsthand experience with compulsion. A woman of eight stone had brute strength that far surpassed his own. And he had seen Rufford heal a broken neck after trying to kill himself.

"We aren't harmed by garlic or wolfsbane or symbols of any religion. We don't sleep in the earth of our homeland. We have never been dead and we don't turn into wolves or bats. Those are superstitious myths."

"How can you prevail against your… kind if they are essentially immortal?"

"Decapitation. The head must be separated entirely from the body or it will heal."

Ugly. But at least there was some way to kill them. That's why Rufford wanted swords.

"You'll leave that to us, of course," Rufford continued. "Fedeyah and I—"

"Fedeyah! Asharti's second in command?"

Rufford nodded. "We are responsible for clearing the land west of the Atlas Mountains."

Davie's jaw dropped in horror and surprise. "
Two
of you? For all that territory? And one her servant? I would never trust him!"

"I do," Rufford said quietly. "With my life. Every night." He brushed aside Davie's outrage and glanced to the window. Outside it had grown full dark. "I must get to it. They are converging on Casablanca, which means this place will get more dangerous before it gets safer. That brings us to you." He turned back to Davie. "Don't go out at night. Stay at the safe house, no matter what you hear, no matter how badly you want to leave. Never touch us when we are wounded. Examine yourself for wounds and bandage them carefully before you get anywhere near us. A drop of our blood in the tiniest scratch or accidentally swallowed will infect you. You either die a horrible death or get immunity to the parasite from ingesting large quantities of vampire blood and become a vampire yourself. Not what you want, I'm sure."

The very concept made Davie's mouth dry.

"Think of your job as setting up a field hospital in a dangerous area." Rufford stepped back into the shadows. A more intense blackness seemed to whirl around him. "Begin tomorrow with finding a safe house. Leave the location here. Cover your tracks.

They're everywhere."

And he was gone. Davie wondered where he and Fedeyah would find shelter tomorrow during the daylight. And he wondered just what he had gotten himself into. He had never felt so weak, so mortal. He turned to the window. Somewhere in the darkness Rufford and Fedeyah would do battle tonight with the remnants of Asharti's army converging on the city. He couldn't see them. But they were there. He stepped away from the window. Maybe they could see him.

Emma Fairfield stood next to the champagne fountain at Bedford House. She was very still. Couples danced in the precise dips and graceful patterns of a country dance. Ladies sipped punch and examined their dance cards. Dowagers in turbans and feathers rapped the knuckles of their equally ancient cicisbei. She could see tables of whist and pique through the card room door. It seemed unreal, it was so pointless. Richard danced courtly attendance on a woman he cared nothing for. He hated this evening as much as Emma did but had nothing better to do since Damien was gone up to Northumberland. Richard would have gone with him at any other time. They could be much freer there. In fact, Richard stayed in London only to give her countenance and allow her to have season after season where she refused all offers of marriage. She could not be so selfish as to let that go on forever. He glanced over to her. She made no sign. It seemed too much effort. Richard leaned in and spoke to a man on his left. The man—young Thurston, wasn't it?—glanced in her direction and then started across the room.

Emma breathed in and out carefully. It was only at her brother's instigation that she was here tonight. Actually, "instigation"

wasn't the word. "Prodding." "Nagging." In the end it was easier to come. She need only stand and watch after all. But Richard obviously had other ideas.

"Miss Fairfield." Thurston bowed crisply before her. He wore the uniform of the Seventh Hussars. It matched his blue eyes. Too much gold braid for her taste. "May I have this dance?"

She looked at him. She should say something. What did one say? "No, thank you."

His expression was startled. "Uh… Perhaps some punch?"

She shook her head. "No," she whispered.

"Oh." His dismay would once have been comical. But she didn't respond to absurdity anymore. She hadn't smiled for ten days.

He glanced back to her brother, who made threatening expressions with his eyebrows. Thurston turned back and chewed his lip.

She looked at him calmly, not letting him see the knot of wormy despair that lurked inside her. No one must see that.

"Well then, I'll just be…" He took two steps back, turned, and retreated in disarray. She saw Richard sigh. She didn't move, just stood there, her hands folded quietly in front of her. The music seemed a desecration to her mood. She should never have given in to Richard.

Several young women hurried across to her as the dance finished, abandoning their partners with unseemly haste. "There you are Miss Fairfax," Chlorinda Belchersand called. Emma had known Chlorinda almost as long as she had known Davie.