The Rest Falls Away (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 1)

Vampires had fed on them, but they had also destroyed them.

" 'Hell hath no fury…' "

Victoria turned. Max looked weary, and his swarthy face was as pale as its olive color would allow. Three dark stains dampened his black coat. He held a stake in his hand.

"I presume the woman you speak of is Lilith?" she replied, proud that her voice was steady.

"Calling her a woman is a bit of a stretch, but yes, I would say this is her message to us."

"We got all the vampires except one who bolted. Are there any victims who can be saved?"

Max shook his head.

"Phillip?"

"He's gone. Sent home in my carriage, which no vampire will dare attack. Briyani knows what to do. He'll drive him around for a few hours before taking him back to St. Heath's Row. He was to give him some salvi; you'll be home before your husband, so you can tell him any story you like." His voice was strained.

"Max, you look like you're going to fall over."

"I've been worse. Let's get out of here before the Runners arrive. I don't want to have to clean their minds tonight too."

They stepped out together into the starry, moonless night. It was peaceful and warm and the streets were nearly empty. There was nothing to indicate that a horror had just occurred in the narrow brick building behind them.

Chapter Twenty-three

In Which the Truth Corned Out

Max would not let Victoria see to his wounds. He snarled at her when she tried to pull his jacket off to look at them, so she gave up and settled onto the threadbare seat of the hackney they'd been forced to hire to get them home.The edge of the horizon had just begun to color with the faintest gray-yellow of approaching dawn. Victoria couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. No more vampires to deal with until the night.

Now all she had to handle was her husband.

Despite the fact that he was growing gray and breathing more shallowly, Max insisted that the hackney drop Victoria off at St. Heath's Row before taking him home. And he wouldn't even consider coming into her house to have his wounds—whatever they were—attended to. Thus, when she climbed down from the hackney, she told the driver where to take him—not to his house, but to Aunt Eustacia's—and gave him an extra shilling to make certain he got Max inside and into her aunt's care.

It wasn't until she walked up the steps to the entrance of St. Heath's Row that Victoria realized she was still garbed in men's clothing, and that what was left of her gown was still in Max's carriage. It wouldn't seem so odd to Lettender, the butler, that she would arrive home at dawn in a hired hackney… but to arrive dressed as she was would certainly be cause for some comment and curious looks.

However, she was the marchioness, and though the austere butler might look at her askance, he surely would not dare to ask any questions.

The biggest concern Victoria had at that moment was whether Phillip was home. She rapped on the door, knowing that the household was already up, although perhaps Lettender was still snoring in his back room. One of the underbutlers opened the door, and from the bored look on his face Victoria knew that she had arrived home before Phillip.

Thank God.

She walked past the young man as if it were an everyday occurrence that she should leave in a ball gown and arrive home in men's clothing, and hurried up the stairs to her chamber. Verbena stumbled to her feet when she walked in, her springy hair smashed flat on the same side of her face that had sleep marks.

"My lady! You are home! How is your arm?"

"I am fine. Thank you for sending this clothing for me," Victoria said. "But quickly, now, I must get dressed in my nightclothes. The marquess should be arriving home shortly, and I do not want to him to see me dressed thus."

They worked quickly, and none too soon, for just as the sun began to show its glowing edge against the rooftops of London, Max's carriage pulled up in front of the estate.

Victoria flung on a cloak and dashed back down the stairs, skirts and hems held high.

Kritanu's nephew Briyani, a short, narrow-faced man with large muscles and the same bronze skin color of his uncle, was helping Phillip out of the carriage.

"Thank you for taking care of him," Victoria murmured to Max's driver. "Has he been awake?"

"Not so much, just as we were arriving home." He handed Verbena a bundle of frothy material—her ball gown, now crumpled and soiled beyond repair, but at least it would not remain in the carriage.

"Max is at your uncle's home, and he is injured quite badly," Victoria told him.

He nodded and climbed back into his perch, starting the carriage off. "I will go and see how he is."

"Victoria!"

Phillip was standing at the door of the house, looking bedraggled and exhausted. His eyes, always at half-mast, looked particularly weary.

"Darling! You are home at last." Victoria said brightly, slipping her arm around his.

"Max came to my club; he said you called for me to come home. And then there was some great altercation there—I left in the midst of it." He shook his head as if to clear it, and Victoria felt a renewed stab of guilt. "I must have fallen asleep on the way home."

Lies and more lies. Subterfuge and deceit. Phillip was an innocent bystander who just wanted to live a normal, happy life with the wife he loved… and he was caught up in a mess that he could not comprehend. And he didn't even know it.

How long could she continue to expend energy in making certain he didn't know? Making certain he was safe? Living a dual life?

Victoria drew him into her arms right there on the stoop of St. Heath's Row, just beyond the stone walls that separated their estate from the streets of London.

"I am fine. I am afraid there was no urgency for you to return home; I merely told Max, when I saw him at the Guilderstons' dinner dance, that if he should see you to let you know that I would be home early and would like to speak with you."

Perhaps another wife would have asked about his evening, about the altercation that apparently he faintly remembered at Bridge and Stokes, but Victoria could not take the charade that far.

"Come, you look exhausted. Why do you not take a rest?"

He slid his arm around her waist and propelled her with surprising strength into the house. "I will if you will join me, my lovely wife."

"That I will." Could he sense the relief in her voice? Could he tell that the tension had slipped from her as he appeared to accept so easily what had happened?

Victoria wasn't certain whether she should be relieved or disappointed that Phillip was too tired to make love to her, as he'd certainly intended. She curled up next to him and tried to sleep, knowing that something had to change before she went mad.