“You misunderstand me,” Max was compelled to say. He would have rather let Sebastian go, let everything go, and accept the simple explanation. But. “I cannot feel anything. Any longer.”
Vioget turned, his hand on the door. “Did you ever, Pesaro? Feel anything?”
Max’s jaw tightened, but he plunged on. It had to be said. “I am no longer a Venator.” But he was damned if he’d give Vioget the whole story, the reasons and the trials and the burdens. The fact that he’d had no choice but to give up his powers—not in order to be freed from Lilith; no, he would have continued to bear that burden as long as he had to. But because, in order to kill the demon Akvan, who’d threatened to take over the city of Roma, he’d had to become merely a man once again.
“When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
Vioget’s gaze sharpened with calculation. “That was why you were leaving the Consilium, when I came to ask you for help with Victoria.” Max inclined his head, and Vioget looked startled, and grudgingly impressed. “You came with us unprotected by the vis bulla.”
“I did what had to be done,” Max replied. Unlike you. He left the words unspoken, but from the tightening of Vioget’s expression, he knew they were understood.
In clear dismissal, the blond man turned his attention to Wayren, who’d remained silent throughout their exchange. Her smooth brow was furrowed and her eyes worried as he asked, “What do you think? Can it merely be a residual effect of the near turning?”
She lifted her shoulders gracefully. “I do not know. As you’re aware, I cannot sense the presence of an undead as you can, nor could Ylito or Hannever, as they aren’t Venators themselves. There was no one else in the room with us, and . . . methinks it would accomplish no good at this time if the other Venators were to be told what happened. Perhaps”—she glanced at Max—“the effect will subside as she grows stronger.”
“Thus, the most prudent thing,” Vioget said, his voice smooth, “would be to stay very close to Victoria and keep her under observation. And protected.”
Max smothered a snort. Victoria, protected? She’d sooner cut off her hands and give up the vis bulla than allow someone else to protect her.
“Apparently, that task is going to fall to me,” Vioget continued in his rich tone. “Never fear, Wayren . . . I will make certain to stick very close to her. Day and night.”
Two
Wherein the Stench of Sewage Is Preferred to Lily of the Valley
Victoria hadn’t missed London in the least.
It held too many unpleasant memories. Beyond the sewage-lined streets and odiferous air, the swell of carriages and their nonstop clatter, there simmered the rest of it: Regents Park, where she’d ridden with Phillip, the Marquess of Rockley, and where he’d first kissed her. The grand residences, where she’d danced with him, fallen in love with him. The theater near Covent Garden, into which she’d sent him to fetch her supposedly lost shawl—so she could secretly stake a vampire.
The Silver Chalice, a pub patronized by the undead and owned by Sebastian, into which Phillip had followed her. And where, after they’d married, he had been captured by vampires.
St. Heath’s Row, the grand London Town estate of the Marquess and Marchioness of Rockley, where she and Phillip had lived in marital harmony for little more than four weeks before he made that fateful visit to the Silver Chalice.
And where, in her bedchamber, she’d slain the vampire he’d become.
No. Victoria had not missed London at all.
Yet, she was back at St. Heath’s Row after more than six months spent in Rome, for it was time for her to remove all of her belongings from the residence. The Rockley heir had been found at last, in a place called Kentucky, and he would soon take over the properties, leaving Victoria to return permanently to Rome—or wherever else the Venators needed her.
Thus, eighteen months after Phillip’s death, here she sat: surrounded by his essence, stifled by the memories— and awash in thick, cream-colored, engraved invitations that she cared not a blasted fig for.
“But what do you expect, Victoria dear? You hadn’t even come fully out of mourning for Rockley when you left for Venice,” said her mother, Lady Melisande Grantworth. There was clear reproach in her voice even as the calculating gleam in her eyes boded no good for Victoria’s solitude. She’d been rifling through the invitations as if they were her own, and her daughter still an unwed miss ready to debut into Society. “The ton is holding its collective breath, waiting to see who will be the first to host the Marchioness of Rockley in a year and a half. After the romantic tragedy of your short-lived marriage and Rockley dying at sea—”
“Stop it,” Victoria said sharply. She caught herself, pulled back on the deep-seated anger that always seemed to be with her now, and closed her eyes. “Mother, I am not here to reenter Society in any manner. Except for Gwendolyn’s wedding, I intend to make as few appearances as possible.”
“But—”
“Please,” she said between gritted teeth. Her head pounded and her fingers ached from being curled so tightly. “I’ve only just arrived yesterday.”
“And look how quickly all of the invitations have begun to pour in.”
Victoria opened her eyes to see Lady Melly looking at her. The gleam had ebbed from her gaze, yet she didn’t appear affronted by her daughter’s edgy voice.
“I know that Winnie would dearly love to be the one to introduce you back into Society before Miss Starcasset’s wedding. Please do think about how happy it would make her if you were to attend her fete on Friday.”
“I’ll consider it, Mama.”
Barely a week later, Victoria found herself slogging through ankle-deep sewage deep beneath London. Stake in hand, she ducked to keep from scraping her head on a low dip of the tunnel ceiling. What had once been a small river tributary flowing south to the Thames had been enclosed by the City’s construction during the last six centuries. The sluggish water now oozed with sewage, and only God and the toshers knew what else.
She considered herself quite hardened to repugnant images by now, but even she didn’t particularly relish the thought of what her boots were crushing as she stepped through the muck.
Victoria knew that she could have been dancing at the Bridgertons’ soiree, in a less damp—but just as odiferous—environment if she’d listened to her mother instead of Sebastian. (Lady Bridgerton was known for her exceedingly strong lily of the valley eau de toilette.) She hadn’t yet concluded which was the better choice, although despite the obvious drawbacks, she was leaning toward vampire hunting in the sewers.