The Secrets of Wolverton Manor (paranormal shifters and vampires) (Victorian Werewolves and Immortals) (4 page)

Chapter Eight: Night

That evening when the guests had gone to bed, Ida found Lucy in their room.

“Wait until eleven or so and then head out the servants’ entrance as usual,” she said. “Make your way past Dunston to Norville. It’s been a while since any of our folks have been that way; usually they go to Cranston, so you can quietly go about your business. Bring your most comfortable boots, mind. It’s a long run.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m set, I think. I shouldn’t have waited so long since my last outing, though. I feel as though I’ve been suffering all day for it.”

“You’ll get better at gauging your needs as time goes on,” said Ida. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’ve all had our urges…for blood as well as other things.”

Lucy found herself surprised to hear this. “Even you?” she said.

Ida laughed. “Am I so very ancient that you don’t imagine that I have needs?” she asked.

“I’m so sorry. I only meant…”

“I know. I’m only teasing. Yes, I’ve had mine as well. It happens. We are, after all, part human, and humans have needs as much as our kind does.”

“Of course.”

“You just be careful tonight, Lucy.”

“I will, Ida. Thank you.”

When eleven o’clock rolled around, Lucy donned her warmest dress and headed out into the misty night. She walked the length of the path extending from the servants’ door, not wanting to draw attention to herself by sprinting. That she could do when she was out of sight of the house.

She thought she heard gravel crunching
behind her and she suspected that it was a guest out for a walk. Best not to turn, lest she should be noticed.

As she walked, the steps behind her seemed to grow closer and faster, and she tried to speed up her
pace without breaking into a jog. But as she did so, the footfalls behind her quickened to a run and she turned to see who was behind her. She wondered now if it might be another member of the staff having fun with her.

“Now listen...” Her words were cut off mid-sentence as she saw that Mr. Thornton was running towards her.
Vile man. Attractive, but vile.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said.
So he knew her name. “I saw you from my window. It’s a bit late to be going for a walk, isn’t it?” He was smiling his charming, I-know-perfectly-well-how-handsome-I-am smile. Lucy looked around, feeling suddenly desperate.

“I’m just going into town. Mrs. Drake needs some last minute supplies for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

Mr. Thornton was in front of her now, just as he had stood before her in his room earlier. He looked down at her and without stepping towards her seemed nevertheless to move his body closer. She smelled him again now, his musky scent wafting through the night air, all the more intense for his having run and broken into a sweat. Her eyes closed as she took it in, and it was all she could do to stand with her hands to her sides when what she really wanted was to reach for him and pull him to her.

“May I walk with you a little?” he asked. “I find the night air invigorating.”

“I…certainly, sir,” she said, opening her eyes and turning again to face the village.

They walked a little and Mr. Thornton asked her questions about where she grew up, what her family was like. Lucy kept her eyes ahead and replied, offering facts but nothing else. “Hawk
esbury. No, sir. Yes, sir. Three brothers, sir.”

Towards the end of the path they came to a wooded area. Mr. Thornton
stopped there, and Lucy paused as well.

“Well,” she said, “Good night then, sir.”

“Is it now?” he asked. He put the fingers of his right hand on her neck and lifted her chin again, stroking her flesh lightly. She involuntarily let out a sigh, feeling that same blast of warmth flow through her as it had earlier, her lips filling with blood and a sensation of tingling between her legs. With each breath, Lucy surrendered a little more decorum. She allowed herself slowly and steadily to be filled with the desire of a young woman for the man who aggressively, assertively and in no uncertain terms wanted her.

Thornton
leaned in and kissed her neck as a hand pulled at her clothing, trying in vain to separate the fabric from her body. In his frustration to get at her, he cupped a hand over her right breast and squeezed it gently before she felt both of his hands move to her back and begin to undo her buttons. She stood in a frozen sort of panic, torn between her lustful desire for his flesh, to take him and to be taken by him, and the knowledge that she could lose her job if this went any further. She wanted to devour this man in every sense of the word, this “gentleman” who was everything but.

Thornton pushed her into the woods, concealing them both, and she knew then that there was no turning back
. She could not and would not cry out for help, and nor did she want to. She allowed him instead to pull down the top of her dress, her round breasts white under the faint glow of the moon, her pretty pink nipples standing at attention. The cool breeze seemed to blow directly on them, causing the nubs to stiffen and to point eagerly at Thornton. They begged and pleaded to be licked, fondled, suckled.

He lifted her flesh to his mouth as he bent to meet it
and pursed eager lips around a nipple, sucking hungrily on her sensitive, hard flesh. Her juices again soaked her undergarments, her most private folds swelling and tightening in the anticipation of his touch. She literally ached for him, muscles contracting, desperately longing for his hardness to be enveloped between them; for any part of him to pierce her, enter her, fuck her.

But in spite of her very human desire for his body,
Lucy knew that she needed, for the time being, to keep her mouth away from him. Her lips on any part of his own body were too great a risk; his scent was irretrievably enticing and she would drink him dry of blood if he let her, she knew. The vampire in her was the one thing stronger than her carnal desire.

Fortunately, t
here was no real issue at the moment. Preoccupied with the worship of her shapely young form, he moved now down her torso, kissing her belly, his tongue darting out on occasion to lick at her pale flesh. She put a hand on either side of his head and he smiled as the heretofore shy housemaid guided his face along her body, instructing him silently.

He pulled her dress and her undergarments down at last and so she sto
od naked but for her boots, displaying herself before him. Any trace of shyness was now gone. He felt his cock straining against itself, becoming agonizingly painful in its desperate hope to penetrate her, to encase itself between wet, inviting lips.

“I’ve wanted you so badly,” he moaned. “I’ve th
ought of nothing but you since I met you this afternoon, sweet thing.”

“Is that right?” she said, a wicked smile curling on her lips.
She felt the immortal inside her begin to take over, and any notion of ladylike behaviour was rapidly becoming trivial. Ida had warned her about this, and yet…

His mouth moved down further and he kissed at the dark hairs covering her mound, inhaling to take in her heady scent. “Oh, yes,” he said. “My God, how perfect you are.”
Lucy gasped with arousal. That nose and mouth, so close to her sex. Any second now she would feel contact. She needed it. She would die without it.

He looked up at her as he slid a hand between her legs. He was deligh
ted to find that she spread her thighs apart for him. What a naughty girl she was.

He ran
his fingers along her lips, coating them in her clear juice. Lucy allowed herself a quiet moan as a finger casually flicked over her clitoris.

“There it is,” he said on hearing her reaction. “Beautiful thing.”

He thrust his mouth between her thighs and sucked hungrily at her. His fingers slid their way inside her, and she squeezed him hard as he ate her, his tongue finding the spot that had made her react so positively seconds before.

“How strange,” she thought, “That we are both so eager to consume one another
, in such different ways.”

Lucy allowed her hands to touch her breasts now and she stroked her nipples with her fingertips as she watched the man eat her. He wanted her to come, she knew, and for a moment that endeared him to her. He could si
mply have had his way with her, fucked her against a tree. But he was intent on her pleasure and that was to be appreciated, at least. Even if he was simply a cad, a man who pursued maids for his own selfish pleasure.

His tongue moved in small circles, lifting the small hood that covered her most se
nsitive flesh, and gently probed at her. “You’re so wet,” he moaned, overjoyed. “Your beautiful body is betraying your desire for me. It’s all right, my sweet girl. I’m here to pleasure you. To eat your gushing, perfect cunt.” Lucy was shocked at his language and yet found herself more and more aroused as he spoke. She felt her body tense as he licked her, her focus utterly bent now on the nerves of her sensitive clit.

“Yes,” she said finally
, her fingers wrapping themselves around his hair and pulling. “Oh yes.”

He felt her pink folds
pulse around his fingers, which had been slowly moving in and out of her soaking flesh, and he knew that she was coming. For him. This beautiful creature had sensations shooting through her body, into her nipples, into her sex, aching for him, his mouth, his cock.

He lapped at her until he was satisfied that her orgasm had finished and
then he rose and undid his trousers. Lucy looked down and could see the thick outline of his shaft, which was trying its best to extract itself from the garment. Finally he succeeded in freeing it.

It was, she had to admit, very attractive. Thick, veined, throbbing for her touch.

She reached a hand down and allowed herself to caress it gently. As a human, she had only once made contact with a cock, and that was purely accidental, not to mention that the member in question was fully clothed. She felt somehow, in her immortal form, that her instincts were now better; that she knew how to stroke a man’s member despite having never done such a thing. And his groans told her that she was correct.

“Oh, my darling…” he uttered, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Lucy wanted him. With almost every fibre of her being, though this man was horrid in his way, she wanted him inside her. But even more than that, his scent had put her into a fit of madness, and now its headiness was combined with her own juices, which coated his lips and tongue. She felt that she could already taste his blood; its sweetness tinged with salt.

She leaned forward as she wrapped her hand tightly around his shaft and kissed him at last, tasting herself on him. She let
her tongue make its way into his mouth and cleanse him of traces of her own arousal. The urge to bite into his lip was overwhelming.

She pulled away
, resisting her instinct.

He smiled at her and said, “Beautiful, beautiful girl,” his cock twitching in her hand. “It’s such a shame that I can’t take you home with me.”

The words brought her back to reality.

No, he couldn’t. And even if he could, he wouldn’t. He considered himself better than her, after all, and so he would have his way with her and discard her like a pile of rubbish. No, he had no real interest in her, other than in her physical appeal.

She smiled at him then and knelt on the ground before him. He sighed audibly, thinking that he knew what would come next.

He had no idea.

Seconds later, the man screamed as he felt teeth piercing the flesh of his hard cock. He tried to pry himself away, but this caused more pain, a searing agony which shot through him. Lucy sucked and drank, filling herself, growing stronger with each second as she consumed pints of his blood.

“No!” he shouted. “No! What a
re you doing? Stop it at once. Oh God, let me go.”

Finally
, her feast completed, she released him, pushing him away and wiping her reddened lips.

“You’re free to go
where you please,” she said, throwing her hands up as if in surrender. She turned, grabbed her clothing off the ground and began the walk back to the house.

“Wait, you can’t leave me like this. I’m bleeding!” said Thornton
, collapsing on the ground.

“
Aye, that you are. You’ll be fine though,” said Lucy.

She quickly threw on her dress and jogged to the servants’ en
trance, delighted to have satisfied herself in every conceivable way without having had to make the hike all the way to Norville.

“We know what must be done,” said Lady Downing to her husband. His expression was a mixture of grimness and rage.
His wife continued, “He will live, and he will talk. We cannot bring this on our family, not after everything we’ve been through.”

It was his
Lordship who’d heard the scream. He was preparing for bed when it rang in his ears, as though it had come from the room next door. He’d run for Cameron and the two of them had found Mr. Thornton lying unconscious, Lord Downing sniffing him out from as far away as the house.

“He smells of sex and blood,” he’d said, disgusted with the man. “Why can these people not learn to control themselves?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, your Lordship,” said Cameron.

“Well, we’re going to have to carry him to the house. It won’t do to leave him out here.”

Cameron had sent for Doctor Miller when they’d put Thornton in his bed. By now most of the house knew that something was afoot but the lesser servants were kept in the dark as to what had occurred. The guests, Mr. and Miss Harrington and Miss Ashbury had somehow slept through the entire ordeal, no doubt aided by their weak human ears.

When Lucy had come back so soon, Ida had put the pieces together and was
now sitting on her bed, panicked. She liked the young maid, and after all, it wasn’t her fault that she’d been pursued. She was in the infancy of her life as a vampire and it was terribly difficult to control. No, this was Mr. Thornton’s fault, and Lucy should not suffer for it.

“Try and get some sleep, Lucy,” she’d said, though she knew perfectly well that she would have no such luxury that night.

When the doctor arrived, Cameron escorted him upstairs. He was a friend, both to the family and to the staff. He was well aware of their “specialness,” as he called it, having delivered Lady Downing’s children and having tended to more than one vampire’s bite. The man had secrets of his own and understood discretion better than anyone.

“And so? Will he turn?” asked Lady Downing as the doctor examined Thornton. The young man was breathing heavily now, but still unconscious.

“Not likely, your Ladyship. No, I don’t think he will. Our best hope would be for him to assume he’s had a terrible dream, but he would quickly be dispelled of the notion when…er…”

“
Yes, yes, when he uses his chamber pot,” said Lord Downing impatiently. “The lady of the house is well acquainted with the male anatomy by now.”

“Of course,
your Lordship.”

“So there’s nothing for it,” said his
Lordship. “We need to rid the place of him.”

“Do what you must,” said Lady Downing, turning to leave the room. “Cameron, fetch James to help his
Lordship.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The next morning, the guests were informed solemnly that Mr. Thornton’s body had been discovered on the moors by a hunter that morning, presumably having been attacked by a wild animal. Dr. Miller would confirm this news, citing the bite marks on his neck, which James, having shifted into his wolf form, had inflicted with fervour.

“But I don’t understand,” said Mr. Harrington, shocked at the sudden loss of his friend. “What was he doing out on the moors? And what sort of creature attacks a full grown man?”

“For years, sir, there have been rumours of wolves out here, and rather large ones,” said the doctor. “It’s unlikely that they’re as large as people say, of course, but on occasion when seeking food, animals do shift out of their natural habitats to hunt.”

“But why was he out at night?” asked Miss Harrington. She seemed interested, rather than upset, which irked her distraught brother.

“No one knows,” said Lord Downing. “Perhaps he simply wanted to clear his head or to go for a walk after dinner. Perhaps he got lost.”

“
Pity,” said Miss Harrington.

“Quite.”

Lady Victoria was in her room. She knew the truth of the whole matter and she was none too pleased. Ida was with her, preparing her for the day ahead.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Lucy. Lucy! When he could have had me he chose a vampire.”

Ida remained silent, knotting Victoria’s long hair.

“And he was a shameless flirt, you know. Well, obviously. He led me to believe that he was interested in me. Well, he’s paid the price for it, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Ida, I’m sorry. I know she’s your friend. But she should have known better than to get entangled with a house guest.”

“Yes, my lady, but if I may…”

“Well? What is it?”

“Lucy was off to hunt. She was desperate for blood, and he stopped her. It wasn’t her fault, truly. Had she said no, had she fought him off, the result would have been the same. He would have seen how strong she is and known that she was one of our kind, my lady.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“It’s only that I hate to think that she’ll lose her position over this.”

“Well, I really don’t see that we can do anything but let her go, Ida. She’s done it once; who’s to say that she won’t have a permanent taste for human flesh?”

“With all respect, my lady, we all have a taste for human flesh. We learn to control it is all.”

“Yes, of course. I apologize. I’m upset, you see. I don’t mean to speak of you as though you’re animals. After all, look at my family. Lucy may have sucked his blood, but my father and brother killed him.”

Ida went silent again.

“I’ll talk to papa and see about having Lucy stay on, at least for a little until this all dies down.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“Now, the next step will be to get rid o
f the Harringtons and Miss Ashbury.”

“Will they have to leave then, my lady?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s too risky, having them stay with all the questions circulating and the staff behaving strangely.”

“I understand, my lady.”

Edmund entered Mr. Harrington’s room that morning after breakfast to pack his things. The gentleman was nowhere to be seen, and the footman found himself bereft at the thought of never seeing him again in private.

He began to pack Harrington’s clothing in his case and heard the door open.

“Ah, Edmund,” said the young man as he walked in. He sat down on the bed, his hands to either side of him. “Isn’t it awful?”

“It is, sir. If I may say so, I’m very sorry for your loss.” Edmund continued to pack the clothes, his back to Mr. Harrington.

“Thank you.” The gentleman rose from his seat and walked up behind the servant. “If I may say so, I’m sorry that I won’t see you again. At least, not for a while.” With that, he put his hands on Edmund’s shoulders.

The footman stood up straight now, stiffening under Harrington’s touch, but he didn’t turn.

“I’m sorry for that as well, sir. Very sorry indeed.”

Stepping forward,
Harrington allowed his right hand to slide down Edmund’s chest, and then his left, and he embraced the man from behind. Edmund felt a pressure on his backside as Harrington held him tightly. He allowed himself to exhale slowly, realizing that he’d been holding his breath for several seconds.

His desire for this man was greater than any that he’d experienced since his change. He wanted nothing more than to turn and kiss him, to take him on the bed, to be enveloped by him and to take him
into his own body. But he knew that he could not and should not, and that to take advantage of the man’s grief would be wrong. He would have to wait and hope that they would see one another again one day.

“I will be back, you know,” said Harrington, his hot breath on Edmund’s neck. “And soon. I will find my way here, to you.”

Edmund turned at last and looked into the man’s eyes.

“And I will be here, waiting for you.”