“Merci, ma chère.”
Victoria hurried up to her bedchamber, calling for Verbena. It didn’t take long for her to have her hair re-pinned, to change into a more flattering gown of rose pink, and to pull on a matching pelisse to keep away the cooling air of autumn. It had long sleeves that buttoned tightly from elbow to wrist, and would keep her arms warm even if she had occasion to remove her gloves.
Which would come in handy with Sebastian around, since he seemed to have a penchant for relieving her of her handwear.
“You look much refreshed,” he told her in the foyer when she returned back down the stairs. “I took it upon myself to ask for a dinner basket to be prepared for us. It will be some time until we arrive at our destination, and I would not wish you to become famished.”
“I did not realize we would be gone for so long.”
Sebastian paused in the act of placing the tall, curly-brimmed hat on his head. “Do you have another engagement this afternoon? This evening? I did not realize.”
“No,” she replied, eyeing him suspiciously.
“There were other callers today, my lady,” Verbena interrupted as she and Oliver walked in carrying a large basket. “Their cards are on the table.”
Annoyed that Sebastian’s presence had distracted her from the simple task of looking at the front table, Victoria turned and thumbed through the small stack of cards. The Tarruscelli twins and Sara Regalado. Silvio Galliani. Obviously they’d all made it home from the opera unscathed. She was thankful she hadn’t been home when they visited, for how on earth could she have conversed casually with them after watching Sara succumb so wantonly to a vampire bite? Even her mother would have been hard-pressed to accomplish such a feat.
No one else had called.
Victoria wouldn’t even acknowledge that she’d hoped for anyone else; she knew Max had told her all he was going to tell her.
His continued silence confirmed her earlier realization at the Consilium. She was on her own.
“Shall we?” Sebastian asked, donning his gloves and then offering her his arm.
There was much more room for her fingers inside the crook of his elbow than there had been in Zavier’s. And he was taller. And much handsomer.
And less trustworthy.
Yet, she did trust him after a fashion. He had, at least, saved her from being mauled by the vampire last evening. That must count for something.
Inside the carriage, they sat across from each other as it lurched off, reminding Victoria of Barth’s erratic driving back in London. She smiled, and Sebastian noticed.
“Fond memories, my dear? Or are you merely thinking how brilliantly I handled getting us alone in a carriage yet again?”
“Your technique was brilliantly transparent.” Victoria watched him warily.
He noticed and laughed. “Are you afraid I’ll leap across the carriage and tear your clothes off? It’s not that it hasn’t occurred to me, but I would hope you would grant me more finesse than that.”
“I am never quite sure of what you will do, Sebastian. In fact, I was more than surprised by your actions last night.”
His eyebrows rose, as they tended to do when he played the innocent. “Do you mean my extended attentions toward Portiera? I do hope it didn’t bruise your pride, ma chère Victoire. You must know it is you who has truly captured my regard.” His voice was light and merry, as if to cut the meaning of the words, but the sentiment caused a sudden sharp tingle in her middle.
“I was not referring to your gross flirtations with the Tarruscelli twins,” she replied. “And you know it. I was expecting your visit today, as I was certain you would wish to claim some sort of acknowledgment from me—not compensation, Sebastian; I know you have decried that motive in the recent past—some acknowledgment that you saved me from a very unpleasant experience last night. I was, and am, very grateful.”
“Ah, but you are a Venator,” he reminded her, still with that light tone, “you did not truly need my assistance. I merely stepped in because I could not bear to see that lovely neck marred again.” His voice slipped into a low tenor, and all humor evaporated
from his countenance. “And you are dying to know who Beauregard is and how I know him.”
“Of course I am. And I know you will tell me only if you wish it, and so there’s no point in my asking. I don’t wish to play this game of cat and mouse with you, Sebastian.” Her words were steady, unlike her fingers, which, if she hadn’t been clasping them in her filmy silk skirt, would have been trembling.
“Then we shan’t play.” In a trice he was sitting next to her on the bench. He swept off his hat and tossed it indolently across the carriage, ignoring the fact that it rolled and landed on the floor near the door. “Will you kiss me this time, Victoria, or will you make me do the dirty work?”
“I kissed you at the docks in London.”
“Of course you did, because you knew it was safe. You were getting on a ship to come here. But now…” After shrugging out of his jacket, he settled back in the corner and looked at her, his arms crossed over his waistcoat. His leg pushed against hers in the center of the bench, his chest rose and fell, and his shoulders jolted off rhythm with the movement of the carriage. “Are you brave enough, my lovely Venator?”
She leaned forward, and he pulled up from his relaxed pose to meet her halfway. Their mouths met in a tangle of lips and tongue and her delicious, deep sigh of pleasure.