She seemed to be breathing hard, but she did not appear to be in any distress, and she disengaged herself from his death grip more easily than she should have been able to. She was looking at him, surprise and something else…
intense… in her beautiful face. For a moment he forgot his worry and just enjoyed the perfection of her countenance—and wondered why her eyes carried such a predatory glint.
"Phillip? I am fine. I am not hurt at all. What is wrong?"
"I heard someone scream, and I thought it was you! You weren't on the terrace when I came back. " He realized he'd dropped her wrap somewhere along the way, and he slipped his arm around her waist. After all, she had accepted his proposal. Although it wasn't official, they were engaged. It was proper enough.
"I dropped my indispensable from the terrace, and when I went down to get it, I heard a woman… talking, arguing—she sounded as if she were in danger. "
"So you went after her to help?" Phillip wanted to shake her, his fragile love. "You could have been hurt!"
"But I was not… it was Emily Colton. She ran past me. Did you see her?"
"Yes; she is frightened, but appeared to be unharmed. Foolish girl," he said, squeezing her close to him with his arm around her waist. He should have expected nothing less of one who would dress down a young man half again as tall as she was when she was only twelve—her beauty and her boldness, her charm and her tendency to think for herself and not as Society would dictate. No wonder he loved her. "You were brave to go to her aid, but you could have been hurt yourself! You should have called for assistance. "
Victoria nodded against him. They were walking up the steps of the terrace, and Phillip was pleased to see that the terrace was still empty. Miss Colton would be taken care of after her fright, whatever it had been—perhaps something as simple as a branch catching at her or an argument with Truscott, wherever he had gone off to—and he and Victoria could stand on the patio alone.
And start again where they had left off.
He looked down, ready to gather her back into his arms. "Victoria, what is that in your hand?"
He saw even in the half-light that her cheeks flushed light pink. She looked down at the slender piece of wood she held as if wondering how it got there. "I… it was falling from my hair as I hurried to help Miss Colton. I'll just put it in my indispensable, for only my maid knows how to repair my hair. "
Phillip thought that the stick looked rather large and unwieldy to be part of such an intricate coiffure, but what did he know about how women dressed their hair? He appreciated the results, but had little interest in the mechanics.
He was just pulling her close to him, tipping her chin up with a gentle nudge of his thumb, when he realized she was looking over his shoulder into the ballroom. "Phillip… I really must go check on Miss Colton and make certain she is unhurt. "
Disappointment rolled over him. "I am certain she is being cared for. Although I do not know what became of Lord Truscott. "
She pulled easily from what he thought was a firm grip. "Phillip, I promise… I will return in just a moment. I feel responsible for her. Won't you come inside with me?" She smiled so prettily, and hugged his arm so close to the length of her body, brushing against the side of her bosom, that he couldn't refuse.
Back inside the Madagascar home, Victoria quickly excused herself from Phillip. Frantic with the delay he'd caused by catching her in the gardens, she hurried through the throngs of people, knowing that she would have to offer more explanation to him later.
She was relieved that there didn't seem to be a massive sense of panic or outrage from the party goers; more clusters of people were talking than dancing, but they did not seem to be upset. It appeared that possibly Miss Colton had made her way to the ladies' changing room without causing too much of a commotion about the vampire attack that had happened only yards away from the merrymaking.
Victoria prayed that was the case, and hoped that Miss Colton was in no frame of mind to speak of what had happened… or ask about the whereabouts of Lord Truscott. She wasn't sure how she was going to explain that he'd poofed into a cloud of ashes.
It was perhaps too much to hope that Emily Colton hadn't realized what was happening before Victoria arrived upon the scene; but she did indeed hope. It had happened quickly; Lord Truscott was just bending his face to her neck when Victoria burst upon them.
Emily escaped, disappearing into the brush with a shriek, before Victoria had come face-to-face with Truscott and plunged the stake into his chest.
Now she hurried down the hall and reached the ladies' retiring room. Pausing to collect her breath and pat down her hair, Victoria eased the door open and found a small cluster of women around a white-faced Emily Colton.
"Emily," Victoria said, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. "How are you?"
"Oh!" shrieked Emily, leaping to her feet and throwing herself at Victoria. "You are unhurt! I was so frightened for you!"
Victoria gently extricated her from the other woman's arms. "I am not hurt at all. And how do you feel?"
Emily ignored the question and began babbling to the others, pointing at Victoria with a shaking finger. "She came right in at the moment he attacked me! I ran away; I shouldn't have left her, but I was too frightened to think!"
The five other ladies looked from Victoria to Emily and back again, as if measuring the difference in their demeanors. Victoria was careful to keep her expression gentle even though she needed to know what Emily had seen, and whether she'd realized what happened.
Emily was still speaking rapidly, as though she had to let the words loose or she would lose them. "What happened? Did Lord Truscott—?"
"I do not know what happened to him," Victoria replied, clasping her fingers around Emily's hand. "As soon as you ran, he turned and disappeared in another direction. He did not hurt me. " That, at least, was true.
It appeared that Emily accepted this explanation; and the others had no reason to question it. The word vampire had not been uttered; she need give no explanation for Truscott's disappearance. Now Victoria could excuse herself and find Phillip.