Lady Killer

  “I have never really been interested in tales of murder. I much prefer romances. Now if—”

  Miles’s interesting literary commentary was cut short by Clio, who began to sing.

  “The first time I did see you, dear, my heart in me did pound. I knew that day as I know now, that my true love I’d found.”

  Saunders swung around to face her. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop singing that. Don’t sing that song.”

  “The second time our lips did meet, t’was better than the first,” Clio went on. “I felt the air float under me, and like me heart would burst.”

  “Stop it,” Saunders ordered, turning back and forth between her and the door. “Not that song. Do not sing it.”

  Clio saw that his eyes were getting a strange tint in them. “The third time we pressed mouth to mouth,” she continued, singing louder, “We lay under the starry sky. And when you said ‘you are my love,’ there was none happier than I.”

  Saunders crossed the room, his eyes roving in their sockets. “Stop. Singing. That. Song. I shall have to kill you, Clio, if you continue. That is her song. The song of the bloodsuckers. I shall have to—”

  “And now your breath goes from you love, and your lips have grown so thin—”

  “Stop it,” Saunders whispered, stretching his hands for Clio’s neck.

  “—And one last kiss I’ll give you dear, for all those there have—Now Miles!” Clio shouted, reaching with freed hands and pulling Saunders in front of her.

  The door flew open, the pistol sounded, and for a moment, there was complete silence. Then Saunders’s body slumped to the floor, Miles picked Clio up in his arms, and Toast began to dance in circles.

  “It’s over,” she said, hugging him as tightly as she could. “It’s over.”

  “I love you Clio,” was all he could say in reply.

  “Tell me again about how you found us,” Clio asked as she and Miles and Toast dined at the round table in Miles’s outer apartment. They had arrived home only half an hour earlier, after dropping the Triumvirate, Snug, and Inigo back at Which House. The puppy had been allowed to stay with them, since it was entirely thanks to him that they had been recovered at all.

  “I sent my cousins out to Hartwell Heath after I got your note, just in case I had misunderstood what you were saying.”

  “You told me yourself that you never trusted anyone who called you ‘my lord,’ ” Clio reminded him.

  “Yes, but under duress—Anyway, I remembered from my last adventure with your household how fond the puppy was of Toast, so I decided to see if he could follow him. And, after several missteps, including one that almost got us killed near the bear pits, we found you.” Miles reached out to touch her cheek. “Not very exciting compared to stopping a clock with hiccups, using the body of a madman as a shield against getting shot, and having your hands freed by a kleptomaniacal monkey who just happened to steal a knife from the other madman who tried to murder you today.”

  Toast, overcome by this praise, hid his head in his hands.

  “You two were marvelous,” Clio told them both. “I could not have survived without you.”

  “Yes you could have,” Miles said, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Toast took sides. He leapt onto Miles’s shoulder, and nodded furiously. “Your giving me that hint to delay Saunders by calling me ‘my lord’ again while Toast undid your hands despite having a pistol aimed at you was really remarkable, Clio.”

  “Anyone could have done that,” Clio said, waving the compliment away. “It was the only thing to do.”

  “Of course. It was easy,” Miles said rolling his eyes, and Toast rolled his as well.

  The clock at the far end of the room struck two then, and the smile that had taken hold at the corners of Clio’s mouth abruptly vanished.

  “There is something I need to speak to Clio about, Toast,” Miles said addressing the monkey. Toast nodded and crossed his arms. “Alone,” Miles added.

  With an expression of deep betrayal, Toast leaped from his shoulder, dashed across the floor, and plopped himself into the middle of an enormous suede divan. The puppy followed him doggedly, and sat on the floor, wagging his tail and staring up at his idol as if he had never been happier in his life. Taking Clio’s hand, Miles led her into the bedroom and shut the door behind them.

  “I shall miss this room,” Miles said, somewhat absently.

  Clio swallowed hard. “Will you be moving?”

  Miles, his back to her, said, “I think it is inevitable.”

  Clio felt deathly cold inside. She did not want to talk about this. She did not want to think about it. “I am sure your new quarters will be lovely.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She wanted to scream at him, scream at him to stop, not to think about it, not for a few moments. Why could she not stop this clock the way she stopped the one earlier? Why was she so powerless when it mattered most? “In time, my lord, you will grow accustomed to Mariana’s taste,” she said, hoping her voice did not crack.

  Miles swung Clio toward him. “I doubt that, too. Because I am not marrying Mariana. I am going to marry you. If you will have me.”

  Clio stood stock still. “What are you saying, Miles? You cannot. The betrothal. Your father. You cannot break the contract.”

  “Why?” Miles asked simply in return.

  “I cannot ask you to sacrifice your entire fortune for me, Miles. You have no idea what it is like to be poor.”

  “Yes I do. Because I know what life would be like without you. And that would be an impoverished existence indeed.” He took her hands in his. “You are all I want in the world, Clio. You are all the riches I need.”

  Now her voice cracked. “Do you really mean that, Miles? Really?” Her heart was beating so fast she thought she might take flight.

  “Yes, Clio. I do.”

  She threw herself into his arms, crying and laughing at once, clinging to him, kissing him, wanting to lift him up and spin him around. “I love you Miles,” she repeated over and over again, and for the first time, the words had no biting aftertaste.

  Miles had ordered a tub of water to be brought to his bedroom and it stood, still steaming, in the corner. He undressed his future wife lovingly, and led her to it. He climbed into the rose-scented water after her and while she lay in front of him, in his arms, he used a soft sea sponge to bathe her. He washed Saunders’s blood from her chest, washed Doctor LaForge’s sweat from her wrists, washed the horror of the day from her, washed away the bittersweet anticipation of the night.

  He filled the sponge with water and then squeezed it out, letting it trickle over her head. She bent her neck back to drink it in, pressing herself against his chest, and he wrapped his arms beneath her breasts. He marveled at her perfection, at her size. She was so small, her entire length could not cover him, and yet she was the most powerful being he had ever met. He kissed her behind the ear, and on the neck, and she turned around and kissed him back, holding his shoulders with her hands.

  “I read in a book once that making love in the water is different than making love out of the water,” she whispered to him.

  “No you didn’t,” Miles replied.

  Clio smiled. “You are right. But perhaps we should try it anyway.”

  “There is no rush, you know,” Miles said. “We have the rest of our lives together.”

  But the effect of those words on Clio made delay impossible. They made love in the water, Miles using the sponge to rub against her sensitive place until she moaned and begged him to stop and never to stop. They made love on the floor, Clio finding the foxtail he had worn to some betrothal ball what felt like years ago, and sliding it wrapped up and down his hard member until he thought he was going to go mad. They made love on the bed, passionately and wildly and eagerly, mingling their bodies together in a luxurious shower of I love you’s. And when it was over, when the first signs of dawn were beginning to tinge the sky outside, when they lay together in one another’s arms,
Clio wondered what amazing insight would come to her.

  It came slowly, in bits. At first it did not seem amazing at all. It began with the realization that Princess Erika’s prediction had been true. That Inigo had brought good fortune to Clio. The best fortune. Inigo had brought her Miles. And he was hers forever.

  She would have to tell Princess Erika the next day. That made two perfect predictions for the water jug. That left only “You will never find true love until the fireflies come out at noon.” But she had found true love. She had.

  She had.

  “Impossible,” Clio breathed to herself. It was not possible that she was questioning her relationship with Miles over a prediction made years ago by her neighbor, the notoriously unreliable psychic. But she realized, even as she thought about it, that the prediction was not all. She could already hear her grandmother hollering, yelling about how spoiled and selfish she was, about how she had deliberately inserted herself into Miles’s life, deliberately ruined Mariana’s wedding and dishonored the family. How Lady Alecia had known all along Clio would do something like this, because she was wicked and evil and this only confirmed it. And how she had disgraced not just her family, but Miles’s family, the Arboretti as well.

  Her own words, her own question, posed days ago, came back to her now. “My lord, do you possess anything so precious you would rather suffer than lose it,” she had asked him after the Jubilee Fair. And he had answered, “my cousins.”

  Worse than knowing she had made true all her grandmother’s horrible predictions about her, was the thought, the terror, that one day Miles would regret everything he was forced to give up. Not his house and his title and his money. There had been people who wanted her to go away, Corin had said so, and she suspected they were the Arboretti. If she did not, if instead she heaped infamy on their honorable name, how could they ever accept her? She would act as a wedge between him and his cousins, driving them impassably apart forever. The sacrifice was too big. What could she possibly offer in recompense? How could her love possibly be enough to make up for that? She did not have enough to give him in return for that loss. There was no such thing as enough.

  If she stayed, she saw now, it would only be for selfish reasons, because she loved Miles so much. But if she really loved him, she would not force him to give up everything that mattered. She could never separate him from his family. True love, uncluttered with selfish motives, unclouded by her own needs, true love demanded that she go. And God knew she loved Miles truly.

  She did not let herself look at Miles as she slid from his arms. She did not let herself glance toward him as she picked up the gown, the purple gown, and quickly pulled it on. She did not let herself touch him as she sat on the bed to tie her boots. Only when she was fully dressed did she turn around and face him. He was sleeping peacefully, soundly. One arm was stretched out, where she had been lying, and the other was thrown across his stomach. His hair, unmonitored in sleep, dangled over his closed eyes. He had the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.

  In his sleep, Miles was painfully beautiful to look at. Unable to stop herself, Clio bent over and touched his mouth with hers. He brought his arm up and pulled her toward him. He nuzzled against her neck with his nose, and she fought unsuccessfully to hold back a sob.

  The tears came out slowly, drifting down her cheek and onto Miles’s. His face burrowed more deeply against her and she felt his lips on her throat.

  “I love you, Clio,” Miles said in a voice heavy with sleep. “I love you forever.” Clio breathed deeply, forcing herself to remember this, this smell, this touch, for always. His arm slipped away, then, releasing her. For a long horrible minute, she wavered.

  Then she picked up Toast and left.

  She was barely outside the gates of Dearbourn Hall when a black hood was thrown over her head and she was dragged into a waiting coach.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Corin was going to have to die. First. He was the first one who would die. Then all of his cousins. Everyone would die. Until Miles found out who had done it. Who had paid Clio to go away.

  It was easier to blame them than to think about what it really meant. He remembered the conversation clearly, remembered overhearing her say “a thousand,” as if sealing a bargain. If she wanted money, why hadn’t she just asked for it? She could have had all the money he poss—

  The thought caused Miles so much real pain that he had to stop where he stood. He did not have any money if he did not marry Mariana. She left him because he had no money.

  The words they had exchanged the night before flooded back to him. “You have no idea what it is like to be poor,” she had said, stressing that. At the time he had discounted it.

  At the time he had been a fool.

  No he hadn’t.

  Yes he had.

  This argument might have gone on quite a bit longer if Corin had not stumbled on Miles then in the hallway outside his apartment. The fact that his master was wearing exactly one boot and a not very long shirt alarmed him less than the expression on Miles’s face. Corin thought he knew them all but he had never seen this.

  Pure, unmitigated pain.

  “She is gone.” Miles squeezed the words out. “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing,” Corin assured him, leading Miles back into his apartment.

  “You did not offer to pay her?” Miles asked, his eyes burning into Corin’s.

  Corin looked away.

  “I knew it!” Miles declared. “What did you offer her, who gave it to you, and how the hell do you propose to get her back?”

  “I did not pay her anything,” Corin answered.

  “Then it must have been my cousins. Yesterday they tell me to marry her, knowing full well that she was going to leave. That sniveling bunch of scoundrels.”

  “That must be us,” Ian deduced as he, Crispin, Sebastian, Tristan, Sophie, and Bianca entered the room. “What have we done now?”

  “Bastards,” Miles said, including Sophie and Bianca in his sweeping scowl for good measure. “How much did you pay her?”

  “You paid Clio to go away?” Sophie demanded of her husband, outraged.

  “No,” Crispin pled innocence. “I didn’t.” He looked at his brother. “Did you?”

  “You had best hope not, Ian Foscari,” Bianca said pointedly. “Not if you don’t want to be the subject of some very unpleasant medical experiments.”

  “I did not either,” Ian assured her.

  “Tristan and I would just have eloped with her,” Sebastian pointed out before Miles could transfer his glare to either of them.

  “Then why did she leave,” Miles asked, and the fury slipped away, leaving only the pain.

  “I think that might be my fault,” Corin put in after a moment. “The other night I did offer her money to go away. She said no,” he added quickly, reflexively moving away from Miles. “I just wanted to make sure she was sincere in her feelings about you. But as a sort of test, I told her that people would talk if she interfered with the betrothal, and that they might say she did it on purpose. Might say some mean things about her. And about you.”

  Miles could see exactly what had happened. Could see how Corin’s words would have affected Clio, would have made her afraid that marriage with her would hurt him somehow, cut him off from his family and friends. And Clio, his Clio, would never do anything to cause another person harm.

  “You’re fired.” Miles hurled the words at Corin. “After you find her and explain what you did and bring her back.”

  “Have you looked at Which House?” Ian hazarded. “Perhaps she just went home for a few things.”

  “That is right,” Miles said, brightening considerably. “Perhaps she just went home. Good idea. Corin, you go to Which House and—why are you shaking your head?”

  “That was what I was coming to tell you, sir. Messenger came from Which House wondering where you two and Toast and the pup were. Said you had promised to come this morning so you could all celebrate toget
her, but you had yet to appear.”

  For a moment, Miles just stood and ground his teeth. Then he started staring around the room like a crazy man. He bent on his knees and began crawling around, peering under the furniture.

  “She is rather small, but not that small, my lord,” Corin told him gently.

  “I am looking for the puppy. He can find her. If she has Toast with her.”

  “The puppy wasn’t here when I came up to clear the table earlier. He must have followed after them,” Corin said, grimacing.

  Miles got to his feet with the clear intention of wringing Corin’s neck, but Ian stepped in front of him. “Before we do anything else, I think you should inform Mariana and Lady Alecia that you are terminating the betrothal,” Ian suggested. “Since your wedding was to take place in fifteen minutes.”

  “You are right,” Miles nodded and began to head out the door.

  Tristan and Sebastian blocked his way.

  “I might also suggest that you put on some clothes,” Ian continued. When he saw Miles about to argue, he added quickly, “Not for the chapel. Who cares what they think? For the search. In case our search requires us to ride, for example.”

  “Or leave the house,” Crispin added.

  Miles was dressed in two minutes. Trailed by his cousins, he quickly made his way to the family chapel in the bottom corner of his house. There was a sizeable number of guests all of whom grew very silent as Miles and the Arboretti marched down the aisle toward the front where Mariana, Lady Alecia, and Sir Edwin were standing.

  “I just wanted you to know that I am not marrying Mariana,” he told Lady Alecia. Then he turned to Sir Edwin. “Congratulations, sir. This house is yours. The roof on the east wing needs repair before winter. Good day.” He turned to go, when Lady Alecia’s clawlike hand closed on his arm.

  “What are you talking about? Is it because of Saunders? Because he was a murderer? You can hardly blame my sweet Mariana for that.”

  “Saunders was not a murderer,” Mariana said. “He was just pretending to be the vampire. He just stuck that woman from the fair in the neck for fun and paid her to lie still so I would be afraid. It was a game, Viscount. He was not a killer.”