Lady Killer

  “But what does it mean?” Clio had asked, dropping the papers with frustration. “I wish we knew what it meant.”

  Miles had been about to agree with her when something tugged at his memory. “Perhaps we do.” He picked up the small blue volume and started flipping through it.

  “What is that?” Clio asked.

  “It’s that perennial favorite, the Compendium of Vampires,” he told her absently as he skimmed the pages. “I remember reading something about this. Something that explained how vampires chose their victims.”

  She frowned. “Where did you get that book?”

  “I took it from the reading alcove when we were leaving. It was sitting on the table.”

  “Impossible.”

  Miles looked up. “Why?”

  “I looked all over the alcove for it and it was not there, much less on the table.”

  “Then it must have appeared by divine intervention.”

  “Or by the office of whomever it was that entered the room while we were there.”

  “It would make sense that someone in my household was looking at it,” he said, brushing it off. He had not wanted to think more about those moments in the reading alcove than necessary. “Here, look at this.”

  Studiously avoiding touching her, he had extended the book across the table to Clio, his finger indicating a passage:

  “They say that the Vampire must have the blood of whatever creature had the Nursing of him as a child, so that if he was put out to nurse with a Goat, it will be a Goat he requires, or a Cow, or a Sheep, or a Woman, of whatsoever type she be. Only this blood will he have a taste for, and only this blood will be sweet to him. For whatsoever creature whose blood he takes, the Vampire has afterward a soft place, as for his mother who gave him life, or one with whom he had dined often and eat well. So therefore will he take away a token from them, as a memento, or in the French, soovineer, for to remember them by.

  And in one family there might be only one Vampire of four siblings, and ye can know him by his bad behavior, because even from a youth he will not be like the other children, and he will try to harm them, so he may lick their blood as if by chance and not give himself entire away. For this reason, and for his wickedness, the Vampire as a child is impossible to love.”

  Miles had been surprised by the shocked expression on her face when she raised her eyes and looked at him. He did not know that the words “impossible to love” seemed to vibrate on the page in front of her, or that in her head she heard Mariana’s voice repeating You are unlovable, you are unlovable, taunting her, in an eerie echo of the book. You are unlovable. Impossible to love.

  It won’t happen again. No, it won’t. IT WON’T IT WON’T IT WON’T IT—

  “Why did you show me this?” she had demanded in a voice that shook with emotion. “What you said before made your position quite clear.”

  He had not tried to conceal his confusion from her. “What the devil are you talking about?”

  “About your wanting nothing to do with me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “There is no need to hide behind excuses. Just say that you have changed your mind and you want to send me away from your house. Send me to Newgate.” When Miles appeared too bewildered to speak, Clio went on. “ ‘As a youth he will not be like the other children and try to harm them, so he may lick their blood as if by chance,’ ” she read aloud. “I told you, I did that. When I bit Mariana.”

  “Please. Please do not say you are going to start claiming to be the vampire again.”

  “How else—”

  “I was talking about the paragraph above that,” he had interrupted her forcefully. “Where it says that the vampire drinks the blood of ‘whatever creature had the nursing of him.’ Since our vampire kills only women from Devonshire, we can assume he comes from Devonshire. You see? And since you are not from Devonshire, it cannot be you.”

  She had looked up at him with excitement then, but it faded quickly. “My nurse. My mother died when I was just a few months old and a nurse brought me up. She was from Devonshire.”

  Of course, Miles had thought grimly then. He had been a fool to think it would be that easy to persuade her. He realized that what struck him most, besides the depth of her belief in her wickedness, was that her concern was not for herself, but for the people she might hurt.

  Miles’s concerns were precisely the opposite. Whoever was setting out to frame Clio had done it with a perfection bordering on the obsessive, right down to the risk they had run in hurting her ankle. The fact that no constables had been alerted by an anonymous tip to check her house for bodies told Miles that the vampire’s plans for Clio Thornton were not as simple as having her arrested for his crimes. He seemed determined not merely to get her into prison, but to convince her that she was a vampire so she would turn herself in.

  “He is like a hunter setting a trap, but a trap you must spring yourself,” Miles had mused aloud before they went to bed—damn he could use some wine—and his words came back to him now. Even as he spoke them he had known that was only half an explanation, and it left a crucial question hanging: Why? Why was it important to the vampire that Clio think herself guilty?

  Answering that was the key to understanding—and catching—his enemy, Miles knew. And there was only one way to find out. Sitting up in bed, his mind roved over different plans until he found the one he liked. It was simple, and, with Clio locked in his apartment, would be both easy and safe to implement. Plus it should get quick results. Which would mean that soon she could be home and he could get on with his life.

  He told himself that this was a pleasing thought.

  With Clio locked in his apartment. Yes. That was the key. Lock her up so she could not bother him anymore, could not distract him, or worry him or… S’teeth he wanted a drink. With her out of the way, he could finally undertake a real investigation. From now on, this would be between him and the vampire. You failed, he heard Beatrice whisper in his head. You failed.

  But not this time. This time the vampire would die.

  Clio’s leg brushed his then and her bare foot came to rest on his calf, taking him by surprise. Undoubtedly it was not the quiet pressure of her foot against his leg, the feel of her arch curving around his muscle, the warm touch of her body on his, that made him relax. Undoubtedly it was not the nearness of her, the softness, the canny comfort of her proximity, not the knowledge that she would be there in the morning, next to him, just as fiery and stubborn and antagonizing and beautiful as she had been that night, that made his tension, his anger, his pain, drain from him in a rush, as if it had never been there. It was the fact that he had a plan he liked, the fact that he was about to catch the vampire, that affected all that. Undoubtedly.

  For a moment, he stayed very still, unable to move. Then, carefully so he would not disturb her, Miles lay back down on the bed.

  In ten minutes he was asleep. He had forgotten all about wine.

  4 hours after midnight: Moon—one degree less than half-full. Waning.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Try to explain again what you mean by the words, ‘she just slipped away’?” Miles demanded that evening as the clock struck seven.

  “Just that, sir,” the footman said, his voice quivering. “She was here one moment and then the next, no one.”

  A muscle stood out on the side of Miles’s jaw and inadvertently the footman flinched. “Do you think you could explain how one woman could get by all six of you?” he asked, directing his scorching gaze at the group of men assembled before him. “Three of you were trained by the queen’s guards. If this is the best England has to offer, we would do well to surrender to our enemies right now. Answer me!”

  A gangly youth with bright red hair stepped forward. He was the newest, and therefore the most foolhardy. “I believe she must have sneaked out behind one of them crates when we was watching the monkey, Your Lordship,” he offered.

  “Really?” Miles’s voice could have flay
ed the skin off a rhinoceros. “I thought perhaps she had jumped from the window.”

  “No,” the youth said, perking up. “I was watching the windows. No one got out that way.”

  “This room is on the third floor,” Miles pointed out to him, his voice cool as iron. “Anyone ‘getting out that way’ would be lying splattered on the ground.” He turned from them and faced Corin. “Where did we get these bloody idiots?”

  “Now, sir, I think you are being over harsh. T’was your order that sent them unpacking the boxes. ‘Might as well be useful if they’re going to sit around guarding her all day,’ were, I believe, your exact words.” No member of Miles’s family, let alone his household, would have dared to do what Corin had just done, but then none of them knew the man Corin had adopted as his master three years earlier quite as well as he did. “If I might make a suggestion, sir,” he went on, “her monkey is still here. I am sure she will come back soon if we just wait.”

  “I am afraid that is not an option.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in less than an hour every news sheet seller in London will be spreading the word that she was arrested this afternoon as the Vampire of London,” Miles explained in a lowered voice through clenched teeth. “Which would make it very inconvenient for her to be seen in the street.”

  “Maybe we could use the monkey to find her then,” Corin volunteered. “He might be able to lead us to her.”

  The vein in Miles’s jaw continued to throb, but not as acutely. “You propose I go searching the city with a monkey on a leash? Who knows where the hell she is? I wouldn’t put it past her to be having tea with the queen.”

  “She was not dressed for a royal visit, sir,” the redhaired youth who had been contorting his neck to hear put in helpfully. If he had been smarter he would have known that the appraising look Miles gave him indicated that his life expectancy had just been cut in half.

  “Get rid of him,” Miles muttered under his breath.

  “Can’t,” Corin told him. “Nephew of the chancellor of the Exchequer. The CE especially requested an important posting for him.”

  “Then post him somewhere important. Maybe somewhere in Spain. Give him to the Spanish Army. Let him do his damage on their side rather than ours.”

  Corin took the boy aside and dispatched him to the kitchens to await further “vital and confidential” instructions. Then he rejoined the group.

  “I want you to take the monkey and these three men and head into the city,” Miles said to his manservant, pointing to three of the footmen. “You,” he said to one of the remaining two, “go to Which House and see if she stopped there or left word. And you,” to the final footman, “alert the guards we already have stationed. As soon as you find her, sequester her and send for me. I will bring her back myself.”

  “If I had known that I would have waited and let you carry me home in your coach,” Clio said as she slipped in between the shoulders of the gawking footmen. “It would have spared me a great deal of pain in my ankle.”

  Miles swung to face her. “When did you get here?” He hoped to hell she had not heard what he told to Corin about the news sheets.

  “Just now.”

  He relaxed slightly inside, but his expression remained grim. “Where the devil were you?”

  Clio regarded him for a moment, trying to decide how much she felt like goading him. If things had not gone so smoothly that afternoon, she might have been tempted to ask him by what authority he was holding her prisoner and if clenching his jaw that much was as painful as it looked, but as it was she was in an excellent mood and let him off easily. “I was visiting a sick friend,” she told him.

  And it was almost true. Norton Nitely had greeted her from his plumped up bed with the words “It is infinitely kind of you to pay your last respects this way, dear Clio. I fear it is the end for me this time.”

  “New houseboy,” Astor had whispered to her as he passed out of the sumptuous chamber with a tray. “He’s jealous as an old maid.”

  “I heard that,” Norton called after him, the sternness in his voice belied by the fond expression on his face as he watched Astor’s receding back. He briskly motioned Clio over to the bed. “I just do this dying man routine to make him feel important,” he confided to her. “After twenty-three years together, you know, I don’t want him to worry about the state of my affections.” Then he sighed. “He has been spending an awful lot of time with that new footman, though. You would not consider hiding out in the kitchens for a few days and—” He stopped speaking when the violence of Clio’s head shaking became apparent.

  “No, under no circumstances and never,” Clio said firmly. “Besides, it would be a waste of your money. You know he is devoted to you.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are right. But if he found out I’d hired someone to keep an eye on him we could have a huge row, and then afterwards—”

  “—Afterwards your heart pains would act up,” Astor said, coming into the room again. “And you would be even less entertaining to deal with than you are now.” He tenderly brushed the hair off the other man’s forehead, seated himself on the bed, and looked at Clio. “What can we do for you, love? I assume you did not drop in simply for the pleasure of watching an old couple bicker.”

  Something inside of Clio tightened as she looked at the two old comrades. They were so happy together, so content in one another’s friendship. She had met them four years earlier when they hired her to take care of a small matter involving the theft of a prized French chair in which King Francis the First was said to have made love to his mistress three times. Over the course of their acquaintance, she had learned that Norton Nitely and his business partner Astor Buff-Carter were not at all what they seemed. Their partnership was much more than financial; and their business in European furniture was merely a cover for the fact that they were very highly skilled con men.

  Working selectively—only on aristocratic families that could afford it and those who mistreated their horses—Norton and Astor would insinuate themselves into a household and siphon off good pieces of furniture, but so gracefully and with such aplomb that they would actually be thanked for it in the end. Their success was based on the fact that they knew more about the nobility than anyone else in England, more about many aristocratic families than the scions themselves, and could therefore pass themselves off as long-lost relatives of almost anyone they chose at any time.

  It was this knowledge that Clio had come to tap. If she accepted Miles’s arguments that she was not the vampire—which she could afford to do by day since the vampire seemed only to kill by night—then she knew that it was probably a man. A man who, according to Toast, had been at Mariana and Miles’s first betrothal ball. A man from Devonshire. Which meant that all she needed was to ascertain which males on the ball guest list had been from Devonshire. Once she had done that, she would turn the tables on him.

  It was Miles who had given her the idea. “He is like a hunter setting a trap,” he had said the night before about the vampire. A hunter she had repeated over and over in her mind that night as she lay in bed next to him, trying to block out the memory of his kiss, of his words, of his touch, trying to ignore the desire that was pulsing through her. (Do not worry, it will never happen again. No, it won’t.) Trying above all not to cry.

  He is a hunter. And I, she had realized suddenly, am the prey.

  But not for long.

  She supposed she could have gone to Elwood with this. He was, in fact, originally from Devonshire. But she knew he would demand to know why she wanted the information and she did not want him involved. Plus, she could not get around the fact that accepting that she was not the vampire meant accepting that someone—possibly even Elwood himself—had drugged her. So she called upon Norton and Astor instead.

  “Who on this list is from Devonshire?” she asked, holding out the three sheets of paper on which she had transcribed the names of those invited to the ball.

  “Conceivably we coul
d all be, if we went back far enough,” Norton told her, dropping the guise of the invalid entirely. “There are those who think Devonshire is almost Eden. But I assume you mean in the last two generations.”

  Thus narrowed, Norton and Astor found six names on the list for Clio. Two of them were very elderly and slightly infirm, making it unlikely that they had hauled a girl up a ladder, and one of them was the woman, Lady Starrat, who had been entertaining Miles’s cousin Sebastian in the library the night before. This left only three real candidates. Clio proffered her sincere thanks to Norton and Astor and was just about to take her leave, when she thought of something.

  “What about the Mayhew family? Serena Mayhew?” she asked as she rose from her chair. Serena Mayhew was one of the two victims of the vampire that Clio and Miles had been unable to definitively link to Devonshire the night before.

  “Mayhew,” Astor repeated, tapping a finger on his cheek. “Married?”

  “I do not know. Why?”

  “There was a Serena Arlington from Devonshire, who married Lord Winston Mayhew,” Astor hazarded.

  “But he was from Kent,” Norton put in. “One of our ‘friends.’ Man was a real tyrant. Do you remember how we found his horses?”

  “He said it was his son that beat them,” Astor reminded him.

  “Hogwash,” Norton declared. “That man was a—”

  “What about Theolinda Rightson?” Clio introduced the other victim’s name in a desperate effort to change the subject. She knew from experience where their tirades over the treatment of horses could end up if not checked immediately.

  “Rightson?” Norton repeated, frowning. Then his face brightened. “Oh yes, of course. Rightsons of Devonshire. Old family. Not much money. Kind to their livestock, though. Sent their boy Samuel to London to make something of himself. Wonder what became of him.”