“You know I don’t give information without compensation,” he said. His voice was tight, and his eyes angry.
Victoria looked up at him and recognized the pain in his face. She hated that she was the cause of it, but it couldn’t be helped. If she had any quest
ion before, she did no longer. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. ”
Now she stepped to the side, away, putting space between them. Her heart still slammed in her chest, but it wasn’t the right kind of slamming.
It just wasn’t.
A rumpled Victoria returned to the town house late that evening, tired and dejected. Despite the unpleasantness of their confrontation, she’d obtained more information than she’d hoped from Sebastian.
His knowledge had no doubt been obtained through the relationship he’d had with his grandfather Beauregard. Sebastian was able to answer several questions, and as a result gave Victoria enough to begin to formulate a plan. But the situation was not a hopeful one. It would mean long travel and danger, but worst of all, they would need Lilith’s cooperation.
Which was impossible to imagine.
To make matters worse, when she walked into the front entrance of the town house, Max was there. She had no idea what would cause him to be standing in the foyer, perhaps he was merely passing through-but he was the last person she wanted to see at that moment.
Apparently, the feeling was mutual.
His eyes scored her more sharply than usual, disdain pronounced in his expression. “Don’t expect me at supper tonight. ”
Surprised at the venom in his voice, she paused in her intention to sail past him, up the stairs, to the sanctuary of her chamber. “You’re going out?” she asked, suddenly aware of the burn of moisture at the corner of her eyes. No, not now.
Not in front of Max.
She drew in a deep breath, brought herself upright, and clasped her hand over the newel post. The sting abated, but her throat felt scratchy.
“I have matters to attend to,” he replied. Still just as bitterly. His face looked as though it had been sculpted from some harsh gray stone.
“As you wish. ” She turned away and started up the stairs without a backward glance. Her eyes filled with angry, furious tears, and the inside of her nose began to tingle.
Perhaps she ought to let him go.
Perhaps it would be best. For both of them.
Victoria fell asleep in her clothing on top of her bed, waking only when Verbena brought her a tray much later that night.
Amid clucking and tsk ing, the maid helped her mistress to remove her rumpled gown and insisted that she eat the meal of cold chicken, bread, tomatoes, and cheese. Victoria felt marginally better after her nap and a good meal, yet an angry, itchy sort of internal grumbling continued to nag at her.
Even after her bustling maid finished brushing out her hair for the night and helped her dress for bed-she had no social engagements tonight, and apparently there weren’t any vampires left in London to hunt-Victoria hadn’t relinquished her mood. Half of her wanted to curl up and sob, over what, she wasn’t certain… and the other part would have loved to come face-to-face with a pack of vampires.
She’d annihilate them.
Verbena’s twittering began to grate on her nerves, and at last Victoria sent her maid away for the night-which apparently was the right thing to do, as Verbena confessed that she and Oliver had planned for a drive to Vauxhall Gardens.
“Then be off with you,” Victoria said, noting that it was only eleven o’clock.
Perhaps all she needed was a bit more sleep.
And she did, for a time, dreaming of black-smoke demons and red-eyed vampires and dark-eyed men.
But after a while she woke to a cool moonbeam shining through her window, lighting the room as if it were a gray-and-blue-tinted day.
The thought that had been worrying, grumbling, grating in the back of her mind now came out to the fore with full force: Perhaps she ought to let Max go.
Victoria sat up, slid off her bed, walked over to her dressing table. Her face shone ghostly in the mirror, her thick dark hair falling over her shoulders, brushing past her elbows, her eyes dark almonds alongside the bridge of her nose. A faint sheen of moisture dampened her upper lip, for the heat of day still lingered.
Perhaps Sebastian was right. She was pining for a man who couldn’t give her what she wanted. Who didn’t want, or need, anyone.