When Twilight Burns (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 4)

Other than the small gardener’s shed.

Victoria’s heart rate kicked up as her attention landed on the small, well-kept building—hardly larger than an old-fashioned outhouse. It was situated in the far left corner of the garden, next to the stone enclosure that bordered the grounds. Her skin prickling, she crept up to the small building, listening for any human sounds. What could Sara Regalado be doing out here?

But when Victoria came close enough to sidle alongside the small building, her mouth began to water and her heart started to thump hard. The scent of blood filtered through the air. Her vision clouded at the edges.

No. Not again.

Easing her way around the corner of the shed to the front, she found the door. It was locked . . . but the aroma of thick, rich blood was stronger. It was as if it weighted the summer evening air, clogging the delicate essence of roses and lilies with rust. Her head pounding, Victoria blinked hard and moved along the front of the shed, following the smell and her instincts around the corner toward the back . . . and then she needed to go no further.

It was just as bloody a mess as the last one she’d found, in the park. Her mouth salivating so that she had to swallow back, twice, Victoria bent shakily next to what remained of the body.

It wasn’t Sara Regalado. Victoria didn’t recognize her, but based on the simple worsted wool of her dress—now bloodied and torn—the victim appeared to be a chamber-maid or some other servant. The puncture wounds on her throat and claw marks on the top of her shoulders clearly indicated an attack by an undead.

Victoria’s hand shook as she reached to close the woman’s sightless eyes. Her lids were still warm, and Victoria let her fingers move gingerly over cheeks so pudgy they could belong to her own maid, Verbena. The vampire probably hadn’t gone far.

A sound behind her had the hair on the back of her arms prickling, and Victoria half turned as she looked automatically for something that could be used as a stake.

“Lady Rockley?”

Victoria looked up into the face of Brodebaugh, Gwen’s earl, who was flanked by Baron Hungreath and George Starcasset. She pulled to her feet and swallowed again. “She’s dead.”

“So it appears.” Hungreath was looking at her with something like apprehension tinged with suspicion. “How did you come to find her?”

Victoria glanced at George, instinctively looking to see if he was somehow responsible for the trio discovering her and the mauled maid. His soft face was bland, but she saw a glint in his blue eyes that made her tighten her lips. And while the other two men were looking at the bloodied body with a combination of disgust and horror, George appeared unmoved.

As if recognizing her suspicions, he said, “The other women are in the parlor enjoying their sherry. When they said you’d been gone for some time, and no one knew where you were, we thought it would be best to check the gardens.” His deceptively sweet dimples appeared.

Smoothing her skirt, which she realized now had streaks of blood on it, Victoria said, “Someone had best send for the magistrate. And perhaps the housekeeper, to see if she recognizes the poor thing.”

“What ho,” said George, bending toward a bush. When he stood, he was holding a long shawl, stained with blood. “What is this?”

Victoria stared at it, feeling light of head. Her vision blushed with red as she recognized her own shawl. The one that she’d left on a small table in the foyer, upon arrival this evening.

“Poor gel,” Brodebaugh said, with real sincerity in his voice as he looked down at the victim. Then he turned and offered Victoria his arm, cementing her affection for the man that her best friend was to wed. “And for you, Lady Rockley, to have found her in such a state. Lean on my arm, and I’ll assist you back to the house.”

Victoria did as he suggested, not because she needed his support, of course . . . but because the expression on George Starcasset’s face made her uneasy. When he’d produced the shawl, there was an unmistakable smugness in his expression that suggested he knew that it was hers. Not that she would deny it of course, but she wondered how it had gotten there—and who had moved it.

It was most certainly not beyond the realm of possibility—and in fact, was likely—that Sara had lured her into the gardens so that she would discover the remnants of another daylight vampire attack, and had planted the shawl nearby.

Which then begged the question: was it Sara or George who had turned undead?

Or someone else?

Victoria came awake sharply.

She didn’t move, kept her breathing easy and regular, and slitted her eyes a crack. Someone or something was in the bedchamber with her.

The room was all shapes and shades of dark gray, any detail that might be discernable in the predawn light distorted by her narrow view. She’d have to turn her head. . . .

“Good God. You might as well open your eyes, Victoria. A gnat could do a better job feigning sleep than you.”

Victoria’s eyes flew open. She sat up abruptly, her fingers tightening around a stake as she pulled it from beneath the coverlet. She hadn’t slept without one since the night she’d killed Phillip.

“Well, Max. It’s been quite some time since you’ve visited my bedchamber.”

Her voice was rough with slumber, and she wasn’t quite certain why she said such a provocative thing . . . unless it was because there was nothing else one could say to a man who sneaked into one’s bedchamber in the hours just before dawn.

Particularly a man who’d kissed one against the stone wall of a Roman villa, then had given up his role as a Venator and disappeared without saying good-bye.

Something fluttered deep in her stomach.

He was standing in a dark corner of the room, well in the shadows. It was only his voice that had given him away. None of the windows were open, nor was the door, to indicate how he’d managed to enter.

“I don’t think you’ll need that,” he said, obviously noticing the stake. “Unless it’s become an addition to your nighttime bedchamber activities.”

“What are you doing here?”

He stepped more fully into view. Max was taller than most men, looming over the bed, and he preferred black clothing. Neither factor did much to reveal the details of his form or countenance tonight; he remained an elegant shadow with only the bridge of his long, straight nose outlined by the pale light glazing the window. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Victoria gave an impatient jerk of the stake against the coverlet’s whitework embroidery. “I mean, what are you doing in London? Of course you came to talk to me. What other reason would you have to be in my bedchamber?”