The Vampire Voss (Regency Draculia 1)

Voss shifted in his seat and waited, smothering his impatience. The tankards were in position. The young man would find him.

He extracted a guinea from his pouch and set it on the table next to the tankards and lifted his own to drink.

Or, rather, to pretend to drink. And to hide his face should anyone look in his direction.

The young man didn’t waste any time. In fact, he was more obvious than Voss would have preferred, but Belial didn’t seem to notice how the red-cloaked figure made its way around the pub to the corner where Voss sat. He dropped a packet on the table and swiped up the guinea, then slipped out the rear entrance.

The packet of paper was heavy, and Voss unfolded it with hands that shook more than he’d care to admit. On the creamy paper, the scent of ink was laced with the smell of Angelica’s fingerprints, rising over stale ale and sweat. He breathed. A pang, unfamiliar and surprising in its intensity, sizzled through him—a pang different from the constant agony that had become part of his person, radiating from the Mark on his back.

As Bonaparte’s watch chain slipped from the packet, cool and snakelike into his palm, Voss reflected that he knew how to make the searing stop—if he chose to.

It would be easy. And very, very pleasurable. And, after all, pleasure was what he lived for…was it not?

It was all he had.

Yet…as he fingered the chain and unfolded the letter with it, he told himself he didn’t wish to endanger his own person by going after Angelica—after all, Dimitri and Giordan Cale would be watching even more closely for him now. And he’d heard from Rubey that even Woodmore had chanced a secret appearance in London, looking for Voss. The letter crinkled in his hands.

Her handwriting was feminine, with extra curlicues and sweeping descenders. It fit her, as did the few drips of ink and a smudged fingerprint that bespoke of haste or furtiveness. He found it strangely intimate, seeing a woman’s handwriting for the first time. It was rather like touching her bare hand after removing her gloves.

Did you not think I wouldn’t know whose it was the moment I touched it? she wrote. If I weren’t so eager to rid London of your presence, I would lie and say I saw nothing, for if this informatio— Here, she had scratched out the following words, leaving them illegible, then continued: But I dare not lie, for fear you would use that as an excuse to stay. And you must leave. I do not want to ever see you again, but nor do I wish for your demise. As for the owner of the enclosed item… His death will come, not on a battlefield, not from a coup or other attempt, but in a deathbed, surrounded by only three persons. The chamber is not a great or well-furnished one, but nor is it poor and mean. It feels as if it is some years in the future. The fact that he is alone but for the three, and his body is wasted and his face some years older, suggests that whatever power he now has will at that time be gone or greatly diminished. That is all I can tell you. I bid you adieu.

She hadn’t signed it.

Definitely not the sort of correspondence he was used to receiving from a woman. Not a hint of amour anywhere.

Although…she didn’t actually wish him dead. That was something.

But then again, he cared little for what she thought.

Voss folded the letter and considered lighting it on the candle sconce behind him, then setting it in one of the tankards to burn—but that was only a brief contemplation. Instead he tucked it into his breast pocket.

Right, then. Woodmore had come back to London, at least temporarily. Not that it was the first time the vampire hunter had been out for Voss’s heart…but he thought it best not to tempt the Fates. Now that he’d received the chain back from Angelica, with her valuable knowledge, he was going to leave London and make his way to…St. Petersburg, he decided impulsively. He pursed his lips, suffered through another sip of the thin, pale-as-piss ale and decided he’d send Angelica a brief correspondence to thank her, and to let her know he was leaving. And assuage the bit of conscience that dared niggle at him in the process.

On his way to St. Petersburg, there’d be a quick stop in Paris to meet Moldavi. He’d sell a select portion of the information to the bastard, and then—flush with even more blunt—he’d be putting himself far away from Angelica Woodmore.

Surely, then, the pain would stop.

“Angelica, I neglected to tell you how much I adore your frock,” said Mirabella as they settled in the carriage. “That rose hue is too bold for me, I think, but on you, it looks perfect.”

Angelica had to force herself to smile at the younger woman. The compliment was sincere, and Lord Corvindale’s sister was a delightful change from her own bossy sibling, but Angelica didn’t feel terribly cheery this evening. Her unpleasant mood had begun this morning, when she awoke from the disturbing dream that, hours later, still clung to the remnants of her consciousness.

“Thank you,” she said to Mirabella as she arranged her skirts to make room for Maia on the bench next to her.

“I wasn’t certain I approved of the fabric when you selected it, but I confess, you made the right choice. That pale pink I favored would have made you look too pale,” Maia said, settling neatly beside her.

Angelica smiled with more genuine feeling. Maia, admitting she was wrong? How refreshing. “Thank you, dear,” she said, wondering if her sister had received a new letter from Mr. Bradington. Perhaps he was to return to London in short order and that was why she seemed less rigid than usual.

Angelica pulled the hem of her whisper-thin wrap from where it had become caught between herself and Maia and reflected that, yes indeed, the gown was the perfect choice for tonight’s birthday party. She had loved the rosy-pink sateen the first moment she laid eyes on it at Madame Clovis’s, and with the pink, green and white sash and trims, it had turned out to be one of her favorite evening frocks.

The party, which wasn’t a formal ball but a small, intimate fete, was being given for Lord Harrington. And, based on his insistence that she attend, Angelica suspected that he might not be the only recipient of something pleasant that evening. He’d made a broad hint about their future only yesterday, when they went riding in the sunny park, leaving her to wonder if she might become engaged by the end of the evening. Or, at least, if he might ask.

The very thought made her stomach alternately squirm and flutter. Harrington would be an excellent match.

“The rubies are a nice touch,” Maia was saying, and touched her own matching earbobs. “I declare, if I hadn’t found those little pouches on your dressing table, Angelica, they might have been forgotten for weeks, or, more likely, knocked down behind the mirror.”