The Vampire Voss (Regency Draculia 1)

If you hadn’t been so nosy, poking about my dressing table, I wouldn’t have been forced to open them. Angelica’s smile had frozen and she adjusted the seam on her left glove. The weight of the robin’s egg-size rubies hanging from her ears was only part of the reason for her deteriorating mood. Another part was the horrifying dream she had had the night before, and yet another part was the letter she’d received earlier that day.

“Where did you say you got them from, Angelica?” Maia asked. “I don’t recall ever seeing two pairs of ruby earbobs before.”

“They’re part of Granny Grapes’s collection. Surely you remember when we used to try them on when we played lady dress-up,” Angelica said in a blatant lie for which she felt no remorse. “I declare, Maia, you seem more fuzzy-brained than usual.”

Her elder sister sniffed and frowned, obviously trying to recall an event that had never happened. Angelica hid a smile. Eventually she’d figure out it was a fabrication, but for now, it felt good to have fooled her. Perhaps one day, she’d feel right about telling Maia the truth.

Years from now, after they were both wed.

And as for the letters they’d received earlier… Maia might have had a correspondence that improved her cheer, but Angelica had not. The seal on the snowy paper clearly indicated that the message was from Voss, and the fact that he’d been so bold as to simply write Angelica on it in heavy, masculine ink instead of addressing it properly was just another indication of his lack of propriety.

As with the little black velvet pouches, Angelica intended to leave the letter unopened. She had no desire to read anything he’d written to her; she’d done her part, given him all the information she gleaned from the watch chain, and she didn’t want to read any further excuses or requests.

She hadn’t had the chance to burn the missive because Maia had come in to snoop around, but that would be rectified as soon as she returned tonight. Instead she’d stuffed it into the drawer with her other stationery before her sister could see it and demand to know all of the pertinent details.

But for some reason, the sight of her name, written so confidently and boldly—such a simple image—on the heavy paper, was burned into her memory and would not be dislodged. No man had ever sent her a letter before, and she couldn’t ever recall seeing her name written in a man’s hand.

And then there was the dream, still niggling at her. Stark and clear as a garden in the afternoon sun, but far from pleasant. But surely since he’d sent the letter, the dream hadn’t come true.… He wasn’t yet dead.

Perhaps she ought to open the letter before she burned it.

Perhaps she ought to warn him.

But no. Angelica didn’t warn people when she saw their demise. It did no good—and Lord Brickbank was proof of that.

It was a burden she bore on her own. Knowledge that she must carry in secret.

But in a dream. Another dream. Why could she not read his future by holding his glove? But that it was foisted upon her in a dream…just as his friend’s had done. It made no sense.

I wish Granny Grapes was here to help me understand.

She bit her lip and moved the curtain to glance out the carriage window. The moon wasn’t quite full, but it cast a strong-willed light that filtered through heavy gray clouds.

“Shall we close the door?” Maia said, leaning forward to latch the half-open thing. “Or is Aunt Iliana feeling well enough to join us after all? We shall be late if we don’t leave soon.”

“She isn’t coming,” Mirabella said, “but Corvindale is going to join us in her stead.”

“Here? In the carriage?” Maia froze and Angelica felt rather than saw the tension rise as if someone were filling her sister with something unpleasant. “Why does he not meet us there as he usually does?”

“A shocking concept for the earl to ride with us, I agree, but he insisted,” Mirabella replied. She seemed delighted about the possibility of riding to the fete with her brother. “I believe he’s concerned that we might be waylaid by those horrible men again. Although in another breath, he urges me to have no worries about being in danger.”

“I don’t see why he has to ride—” Maia snapped her lips closed as the carriage door opened.

Corvindale loomed in the doorway, then climbed in swiftly, and so gracefully that he brushed nary a hem nor bumped a slipper as he settled next to his sister. Nevertheless, the generous space shrunk to a much smaller one with addition of his large, gruff presence. The closeness made the mixture of rose water aroma and Angelica’s lily of the valley scent mesh with something sharp and masculine, along with wool and smoke. Dressed in a dark coat, topped with a matching hat and giving the glimpse of a brilliant white shirt and a neckcloth of muted colors, the earl was more formally attired than Angelica could recall ever having seen him, except the first night they’d all met. Apparently he took his chaperonage duties seriously—if not reluctantly.

“Good evening, my lord,” Angelica said. “How kind of you to join us. Maia was just commenting on that event and how gratified she is that you’ve taken our safety so seriously that you’d deign to ride with us.”

Maia wasn’t very subtle as she knocked her pointed slipper into Angelica’s ankle, but the latter had been expecting such a reaction and adjusted her foot appropriately. But any further commentary waned as she glanced over at Corvindale.

The coach had started off with a little jerk, but the man was sitting there with an oddly arrested expression on his face. He seemed frozen, his harsh features even more stony than usual. Dark hair gleamed in the low moonlight, brushed neatly away from his temples, but rough and shaggy around the edges of his collar.

Maia, who had turned up her slender, pretty nose and her face toward the small, curtained window, was pointedly not looking at him. And Mirabella, who seemed to have lost her chattiness the moment her elder brother entered the scene, had succumbed to picking at the embroidery on the back of her glove.

Angelica realized that Corvindale seemed to be staring at her—no, at her ears, and that he appeared to be having difficulty breathing. Had he somehow recognized that her earbobs were from Voss? Was he working to control his fury?

Rather than anger in his face, however, she thought the emotion there was more akin to shock. Or pain?

“My lord?” she asked, tipping slightly into Maia as the coach turned a sharp corner. He didn’t respond.