Rises The Night (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 2)

Of Balconies and Reprimands

* * *

Victoria smoothed her thumb over the bronze amulet. Surely it was no coincidence she’d found one at Sebastian’s place and then here again…where Sebastian just happened to be.

Lips firming in irksome thought, she cast one last assuring look at George, who snored comfortably in his wingback chair, then hurried out of the library and up the stairs.

Aunt Eustacia had not received a response from Wayren regarding the amulet before Victoria left London, but she’d been assured of an update as soon as she did. Victoria’d assumed the amulet had belonged to the demon, but that appeared not to be the case since there were no demons or vampires here at Claythorne.

Focused on her thoughts, Victoria didn’t see him until it was too late.

He stepped out of an alcove just a short distance from her bedchamber, causing her to falter in her hurried pace.

Sloppy. She should have expected it. She should have known.

“Sebastian,” she said, looking up into his handsome face. Light from her candle flowed over his cheeks, settling a golden cast over his curling hair. His lips were positioned in that sensual, amused smile that alternately annoyed and charmed her.

“Why, Lady Rockley,” he said smoothly. “What a surprise to find you wandering the halls in the middle of the night.”

She was in no mood to be charmed. “I suppose I have you to thank for my rude awakening.”

The amusement spread to his eyes as he bowed his head slightly. “Mr. Starcasset

is madly in love with your fetching person, and, I have found, is quite biddable when plied with enough brandy.”

Victoria realized they were standing in the hall, where, unlikely as it might be in the wee hours of the night, they could easily be seen. With an angry look, she stalked past him and reached for her door, Sebastian at her heels.

Once inside her chamber, she placed the candle on her dressing table and turned to face him, arms crossed over her middle. Suddenly she was quite glad she’d had the wherewithal to don the pelisse. “You sent that poor man in here?”

“Let us go out on the balcony,” he suggested. “Despite the fact that you are a widow, and being found with a man in your bedchamber wouldn’t be considered overly scandalous, it is a lovely night. Besides,” he added as he strode past her toward the French doors that opened to a small terrace, “I don’t wish to be in the same chamber as you and a bed…unless you mean to put it to use.” He paused dramatically. “Do you?”

Ignoring the spike of interest that sent a warm rush over her cheeks and down to her bosom, Victoria brushed past the irritating man, heading out onto the terrace.

“Alas…apparently not.” Closing the doors behind them, Sebastian walked out to stand across the way from her. “And as for Starcasset…well, in reviewing the situation, I determined it was much more prudent to get you out of your room if I wished to speak with you than to attempt to breach it myself. I had a feeling your hospitality might be a bit…chilly.” His smile shone in the moonlight. “And yet…here I am. Exactly where I planned to be. And it is not so very chilly as I’d feared.”

“On the contrary. I find the temperature rather brisk.”

A very light breeze brushed the tips of his tousled hair and skimmed over Victoria’s cheeks. It was indeed a lovely night. The roses and lilies that grew in the garden below scented the balcony. She breathed deeply and smelled fresh country and night air, tangy and dark—so different from the mosaic of artificial smells of London and Society.

The silvery moonlight only enhanced Sebastian’s appearance, a factor she could only assume had prompted his suggestion to withdraw to the balcony, the proximity of a bed notwithstanding. His arms extended, hands propped on the top of the rail, he watched her with an easiness that irked her. The pale illumination from the celestial bodies tipped the edges of his curls silver, and helped to keep his expression partially hidden.

Victoria waited for him to speak, but he did not. Her patience wearing thin, she could no longer remain silent. “Now that you’ve gone through such great pains to draw me from my bed, surely you’ll keep me in suspense no longer.”

“So you have left London.” He looked at her as though searching for something. “How are you, Victoria?”

She turned away. There were bountiful layers of meaning in his simple question; whether he intended every one that she read there, she did not know. “Why do you ask? Perhaps because your plan to deliver me to Lilith’s vampires didn’t work? Because you are ashamed you ran from The Silver Chalice last year and left Max and Phillip to face the vampires on their own?” Though she kept it steady, surely he could not mistake the anger in her voice.

He stood angled so that his eyes were shadowed, and she could not read what was truly there. “Ah. Then I have the answer to one of my questions. You still think the worst of me—that I would be so despicable as to make love to you in a carriage as I was delivering you to the vampires. Despite the fact that I warned you when your husband came to The Silver Chalice. Despite the fact that without my assistance with the Book of Antwartha, Max Pesaro would be dead, and Lilith would most likely have it in her possession.” Cool and unruffled he spoke, but there was an underlying emotion Victoria could not identify. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to.

“As I recall, you would have stood by and watched Max perish when he tried to take the book. But regardless of that small point, what else was I to think?”

“That perhaps I simply got carried away by your beautiful mouth and other delicious parts of your person and wanted to distract you from the pain that was so obvious in your eyes—and that the arrival of vampires was no more a part of my plan than to get you undressed.”

Now she could see his eyes, and the look there sent a little shiver over her shoulders. “According to Max, you would always take the opportunity to undress a woman, particularly in a carriage.”

“I have no wish to hear Pesaro’s opinions, for that’s what they are—merely opinions, and would most likely be indicative of his own inclinations were he not so bound and determined to be a Venator and nothing more. A hunter, a killer…a man of violence with little left for anything—or anyone—else. I, Victoria…I am not a man of violence.”

“A fact supported by your cowardly escape from The Silver Chalice last summer.”