When Twilight Burns (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 4)

The fact that the three men with whom she was acquainted had found her, recognizing her so quickly and easily when she’d taken such pains to remain anonymous, gave Max’s criticism new credibility. She hoped that George hadn’t seen through her disguise as easily.

“Good evening, my lord,” Victoria said when she realized her two other companions had not responded, and made a brief curtsy. James was dressed as a medieval knight, complete with woolen hose—which had to be stifling in the warm summer evening—and a loose tunic, belted and boasting a wooden sword.

“Perhaps you would grant me this waltz,” James said, giving a disjointed bow. She noticed that he’d positioned himself so that he was between Sebastian and herself.

“I certainly would—”

“But she’s already promised it to me.”

Victoria could not have been more surprised if Lilith had walked into the room and asked to be staked. She might have expected Sebastian to make such a statement— and if the strangled look on his face was any indication, he had intended to—but not Max.

Max? Dance?

Max? Engage in social frivolities? It was just as well that Victoria couldn’t speak right away, for that gave James the opportunity to respond. “But is there another spot on your dance card, Mrs.—er, Lady Rockley?” And before she could respond, he plucked it out of her hand, complete with the tiny pencil and its silvery blue ribbon. “But there is nothing written on here,” he began.

Max smoothly relieved him of his possession and glanced at it. “Indeed there isn’t.” Victoria couldn’t see his brows raise in that way he had, but she knew they did, beneath his mask. “My mistake.” He returned the dance card to James, adding, “Be my guest, my lord. We shall return.”

Max directed Victoria none too gently to the dance floor. “Do close your gaping mouth,” he said. “People will begin to think I’ve dragged you out here.”

“But you have. I never thought you would be one to engage in—”

“Social frivolities?”

Had she said those words aloud?

Max positioned her firmly, his hand at her waist, his legs nearly brushing hers. Their hands clasped, glove to glove, and were angled properly, bent and apart from their bodies. Very correctly, in fact. And the first steps into the waltz, which brought them fairly into the center of the room, he executed so smoothly and perfectly between the other dancers that she could not help but look up at him in surprise. Again.

“You needn’t look so bloody shocked,” he said as they whirled past another couple. “I may dislike dancing, but I’m quite good at it.”

Indeed. And as he eased them in and around the other couples as if they were cogs within a well-oiled watch-works, without hesitation, without lurching or shifting, or even coming within inches of anyone else, she realized she’d been foolish to expect anything other than grace and timing from a man who fought like Max. After all, a man who could glide through the air could surely navigate the dance floor.

In fact, gliding through the air was something she had been unable to fathom ever doing, after having spent only one day practicing her qinggong under Kritanu’s direction. She wondered if Max knew about that. She realized she was gripping his shoulder more tightly than she needed to, and eased her touch.

“If you dislike dancing, why are we out here?” she asked impertinently.

“How else can we talk without being overheard?”

She looked up, realizing again how tall he was. She wasn’t a short woman, and she barely reached to Max’s broad shoulder. But he was looking down at her, and she could discern the expression in his eyes. He didn’t look as though this social frivolity was much of a hardship at all. Victoria felt suddenly breathless and flushed, so she spoke. “Did you have something you wished to tell me?”

“I had rather hoped the opposite. What have you done about that Bow Street Runner?”

She didn’t bother to ask how or what he knew of Mr. Goodwin’s second visit and ensuing interrogation. “I’ve set Barth and Oliver on the task to spy on the man and find out what they can. Charley followed him today when he left, and returned with his direction. Now Oliver and Barth are taking turns watching him.”

Barth was Verbena’s cousin, and the hackney driver who habitually took Victoria to the unsavory parts of town when she was hunting vampires. After all, she could hardly take the Rockley carriage—or any other carriage that might be identified as hers. And Oliver, who was Barth’s friend and the bane of Verbena’s existence, had traveled to Italy with Victoria and her maid. He was a large man who more often than not was cowed by Verbena’ssharply wagging finger and tart tongue—though she barely reached to his elbow.

“But he is a legitimate Bow Street Runner? Not that it matters; they’re so bloody corrupt anyway.”

She nodded as he directed them through an unexpected, complicated maneuver between two other couples—one of which was completely out of step with the music—and felt the surprise of cooler air over her leg when her skirt swirled wide and open. “When Charley followed him, he returned to the magistrate’s office. Someone will need to make inquiries about him, however, to see what else we can learn.”

Max nodded, used gentle pressure at the center of her back to ease them into a spin, and Victoria nearly gasped aloud as she came face-to-face with Sara Regalado. Max’s hands tightened on her, and they twirled again, away from Romeo and Juliet, who were waltzing in a much more structured manner.

“I wonder,” he said after a moment, breaking into her enjoyment of the elegant flow of their steps and the confident touch of his hands guiding her movements, “if it has occurred to you that the new marquess might be our daytime vampire.”

“James?”

“James, is it? Such familiarity with a man to whom you have no attachment.” He managed, somehow, to lift his chin while looking down at her, annoying and arrogant even behind the mask.

“Of course it’s occurred to me,” she replied. It was at least partly true. “And it’s also occurred to me that it could be you as well.”

Ah! She’d succeeded in surprising him—she saw it in the sudden glint in his eyes and felt it when one of his steps wasn’t quite as perfectly smooth as the previous. “After all, for all I know, you’ve been captured by Lilith, turned undead, and have come to London for some nefarious purpose—drinking the special elixir, of course, so that you can move about in daylight and so that I cannot sense your vampirism.”