“Yes!” Winnie was becoming impatient. “If you have something to say, spit it out. I cannot stand here all the day long. It’s nearly time for tea. ”
“Oh…Your Grace…Lady Melly is in grave danger. ” The maid’s eyes were sparkling blue, and her round cheeks were flushed pink.
“Why, what do you mean?” Nilly spoke at last in a soft little sort of gasp.
“The Contay Reg’lado…why, we must help my lady!” As if suddenly galvanized into action, she whirled, starting down the hall in the opposite direction.
Lady Winnie’s imperative voice stopped her. “Young miss, I daresay you’d best not run off without telling us exactly of what you’re speaking!”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Your Grace, but milady’s in great danger, an’ we have to help her,” she said over her shoulder, then opened the door to Victoria’s bedchamber and dressing room. She disappeared inside, disregarding the other women.
“Danger? From what?” Winnie didn’t want to believe the little maid, but when she came back out of Victoria’s bedchamber holding something that looked like a wooden stake, her heart nearly stopped.
“What are you doing with that?” asked Nilly faintly.
The maid was slipping on a large silver cross. “I’m goin’ vampire huntin’. ”
Zavier waited in the heavy afternoon drizzle, a hat he would normally disdain tipped low over his face to keep the rain from getting in his eyes. The chankin and wet didn’t bother him at all; growing up in the Highlands, he’d had enough of it so that he’d become immune. The hat, something with a curling brim a London numpty would wear to protect his sensitive sk
in, served another purpose altogether: to keep his face from being seen. He wasn’t certain how long he’d have to wait. Despite the miserable weather, his worst discomfort came from the memories that plagued him, since he had nothing to do but think about things as he stood there, tucked into a nook between two narrow plastered buildings.
The carnage was bad enough…the image of Mansur sprawled on the brown grass, drenched in his dark blood, made Zavier’s own blood churn and his stomach swish as though he were drunk from too much whiskey.
A waste. A fagging bloody waste.
And a betrayal.
Victoria wasn’t seeing clearly. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t weak like that, and Zavier wasn’t about to watch her tumble further. Aye, she’d hurt him; he could accept that, though it still burned his gut. But he couldn’t accept that it had been with the arse-dicht Vioget. The boughin’ bastard who couldn’t dirty his hands enough to fight with his kin. Unbelievably, apparently, he was a Gardella too, from somewhere back in the ages of his family. They all were.
How could he have turned his back on them?
The arse-dicht and Victoria had been locked away for too long in the same small chamber where Vioget had been held during the battle outside Santo Quirinus. They’d been in there so long it made Zavier’s fingers tighten into one another, his short, blunt nails creasing his leathery palms.
He didn’t want to think about the boseying that was going on in there. But he couldn’t help it.
It made his head spin as if he were rubbered.
So he took himself outside and waited in the rain, and hoped for it to help make him a bit steadier.
But the anger built inside, simmered, sometimes roaring into his ears as he remembered the deaths last night, the intimacy and the expression he saw on her face when she was with Vioget. The Venator betrayer.
He didn’t believe Wayren when she said he wasn’t the cause of the attack. How else could it have happened?
It was well nigh onto noon when Zavier sighted his quarry. He waited until he walked past, head foolishly bent against the rain so that he didn’t notice when Zavier slipped from the corner of a building to follow.
Fool.
Perhaps it was best that he’d stayed away from the Venators if he was that careless.
Zavier stayed in the distance behind him, considering his options. He knew little about Vioget, but what he did know was enough to identify the influence behind the bastard and his defection: the legendary Beauregard.
Zavier’s hand searched the depths of his pocket, fumbling for the stake there. It was just about time that the vampire met his own damnation. He’d be pleased to help him. And whoever else dared get in his way.
“Where is the key?” Max asked as Victoria approached. Her skirts were drenched to her knees and so were her shoes. She should have found a pair of boots to wear before leaving the Consilium, but it was too late now. They had reached the stone wall on which the Door of Alchemy stood, after traipsing quickly through the tangled gardens with Max in the lead. He’d seemed to be in a great hurry to get here, and Victoria, who couldn’t quite tell where the sun was because of the clouds, didn’t argue. She was still more than a bit unsteady from the kiss they’d shared.
Although shared wasn’t exactly the word to describe the experience. Received, perhaps. Became immersed in. Was surprised by. Nearly lost her balance because of.
“Victoria. ”