The Rest Falls Away (23 page)

“Someone you know?” asked Sebastian lightly in his faint French accent. He was watching them closely, as if feeling his disconnection from the two of them. “I do hope he is not planning to cause trouble.”

“Miss Grantworth's fiancé,” Victoria dimly heard Max explain as her brain fumbled for a solution. “She must leave before he sees her.”

Thank goodness he understood. And he was right—she had to leave before he saw her! The shock began to wane, replaced by focus and determination.

Sebastian looked at Victoria in surprise. “Sneaking around on your betrothed? Tsk, tsk, my dear Miss Grantworth.” Lifting his eyes, he caught Max's. “I will show her another way out, so she'll not be seen.” Apparently Sebastian understood too.

Max appeared ready to argue, but Victoria took his arm again, looking at him from under the hood of her cloak. “Max, you must see to him. Please. Make certain he gets out of here, and home safely. He doesn't belong here.”

Sebastian stood, pulling Victoria to her feet without waiting for Max's agreement. “Come with me, Miss Grantworth,” he murmured, closing his fingers firmly around her arm.

Victoria sent Max one last pleading look—much as she hated the fact that she had to ask for his help—and allowed Sebastian to lead her two paces from their table and through the door to the hidden hallway.

Max would make sure Phillip was safe.

 

+ + +

Max watched Vioget whisk Victoria from the main room.
Damnation.
What the hell did Rockley think he was doing?

It didn't matter how or why…now the only concern was getting the fop out of here before the vampires decided to take offense at the pistol he was holding.

During their murmured conversation, Rockley had only scanned the room and taken three uncertain steps farther into the pub. If he'd seen Victoria, it had been only as a shadowed figure.

“Rockley,” Max said as he approached the man, who still stood at the entrance looking around and gathering the attention of every undead in the room. Fresh blood was always better than the kegged stuff Vioget kept in the back. “May I offer some advice? Put the weapon away. You won't need it here.”

The fop looked at him, and Max was gratified there was no fear in his eyes, nor was there the jumpiness that often accompanied men who waved pistols around in the form of courage. His look was not only steady, but unsurprised at seeing a face that he recognized.

“It was necessary to get from my coach to the door to this place,” Rockley replied, tucking the pistol into his pocket. “And I'll use it if I need to in order to find Victoria and get her to safety.”

Here was where Max had to show his skill as an actor—better, he thought snidely, than Victoria and Vioget had done earlier with their demonstration of a first meeting. “Victoria? Miss Grantworth? What in the bloody hell are you talking about, Rockley?”

“She's here somewhere. I followed her, and I cannot imagine what she is doing here. In a place like this.” Even as he spoke, his sharp eyes darted around the room again, as if to assure himself she hadn't reappeared. “What are you doing here?”

“I haven't seen Victoria,” Max said unequivocally. “I've been in this seat for well over an hour, and if she were anywhere around, I would have seen her. I won't even ask the question why you think she would come to a place like this, in the middle of the night. You must have some reason for thinking so, ridiculous as it is.”

“I followed her from her house. I saw her get out of a hired hackney, for God's sake. A hackney! Your cousin got out of the hackney and came down here.”

Right. Max couldn't forget that Victoria had told Rockley they were cousins. “How long ago did you see her?” he asked, knowing there had been a lapse of time between his arrival and Rockley's. Victoria had already been here when he came back into the Chalice after a quick patrol through the neighborhood. Max had been waiting for her since eleven o'clock.

“Some little bit of time,” he replied. “I fell into an altercation when I first came out of my carriage, and had to persuade a few gentlemen that I was coming down here, either with their permission or without.”

Ah. That explained the pistol.

“As I have said, Rockley, she is not here. Indeed, if I had seen my cousin come into an establishment such as this, I would have escorted her home immediately. This is no place for a woman, nor for most men either.”

“I followed her from her house,” Rockley said stubbornly. “She said she was feeling ill, so I brought her home after the theater. But she left her wrap in my carriage. When I came back to return it, I saw her come out the front entrance and climb into a hackney.”

“You must be mistaken. It must have been her maid you saw, or someone else leaving her house. It's simply ludicrous to think Victoria came to a place such as this.”

Max noticed one of the larger vampires had been eyeing Rockley with more than curiosity. He needed to get the man out of here before he found himself in the middle of a brawl. The truce the undead and mortals shared here at the Silver Chalice was tenuous. If strained or stretched, it quickly disintegrated into a melee. He'd seen it happen.

He'd caused it to happen.

Though a bloody brawl would be more than an inconvenience to Sebastian Vioget, Max couldn't let that occur. At least, tonight. He looked at Rockley, who, for all his every-hair-in-place appearance and perfectly folded cravat, appeared ready and able to protect himself.

Acting the hero was all well and good, and it certainly must be attractive to the ladies…but the Marquess of Rockley was not the least bit equipped to deal with the particular dangers here. Max had plenty of experience and little patience with such naive do-gooders.

The only thing to do in a situation like this was buy some time, get the man a drink, and put
salvi
in his whiskey. That would make him much easier to manage.

 

+ + +

“You did not tell me you were engaged,” murmured Sebastian in the flickering light.

Victoria felt the cold stone wall of the passageway behind her, and the warmth of his words on her face. He'd closed the door behind them, and they were alone in the curved-ceilinged hall. His fingers still held her gloved arm between her wrist and elbow, but she could easily snap his grip with one tug.

“And you did not tell Max about the protection on the Book of Antwartha,” she replied. “We all have our secrets.”

He smiled. “Is it a secret that you are engaged to a rich dandy? One who must be rescued from the darkness like a debutante fending off an overzealous suitor?”

At that, Victoria did yank her arm away, breaking his grip. “Rockley is no secret, and he is not the weak fool you make him out to be. You needn't stand so close to me.”

“Has he seen your
vis bulla
?”
He had not moved away, and his hand had shifted between them, below her breasts, to press flat over her shirtwaist against the trembling muscles of her stomach. “Does he know what it means?”

She shoved against his shoulders and pushed him away. He moved, but barely stumbled backward. He was stronger than she realized.

“Does he know that it means his love walks the streets at night? That she must mingle with those from the dark side to learn their secrets?” Unruffled, nonplussed by her violent reaction, he spoke, his voice low and hypnotic. “That she kills every time she raises her weapon? That she has a strength he cannot hope to possess?”

“He knows nothing.” Victoria spoke from between clenched teeth. Sebastian had moved in toward her again, crowding her back against the wall, but he did not touch her.

“Has he seen it, Victoria?” The gentle roll of her name's last syllables caused an odd wave in her middle. “Has he?”

She could not look away from his tigerish eyes, could barely move her lungs to breathe. The damp, rough wall jutted into her cloak and through the cloth of her flimsy gown, just as the pressure of his hand had come through the front of her skirt. She felt a trickle of sweat from the stones seeping into the back of her head. It was cold and musty.

“No,” she whispered.

Satisfaction flared in his expression. “I see.”

He stepped back suddenly, as if he'd been yanked away. As if her proximity had suddenly become too much. Victoria was able to breathe and to move, and she leveraged herself from the wall, shifting away from him.

“Come. Let us go before your Venator comes back to check on us.”

He turned and strode down the passageway, leaving Victoria to follow—so different from the first time, when he'd led her by the arm. She hesitated, as she had then.

The choice between Scylla and Charybdis: solid Phillip and the maelstrom of Sebastian. Which was the lesser of the two challenges?

In the end, she followed Sebastian.

Phillip was a bigger part of her life, one she would not risk jeopardizing.

Sebastian was merely a man.

+ 16 +

The Marquess Wins the Shell Game

But Makes a Grave Error

Phillip de Lacy was
no fool. Not a bit.

He knew something was amiss; what he did not know was whether Victoria's brooding cousin Maximilian Pesaro was the cause or the cure.

The man seemed capable and intelligent, yet he did not appear sly or devious. By firmly suggesting Phillip put away his pistol, he had likely saved him from causing an altercation here in this filthy place—something Phillip had missed because of his concern for Victoria. He had to give Pesaro credit for that, if nothing else.

The way some of the patrons here were looking at him, as if he were a young hare ready for the spit, made Phillip more than a bit uneasy. He was no light-footed jackrabbit, skittering off at the slightest hint of danger. But there was something wrong about this place. Something that made his blood run cold.

He'd seen Victoria leave her house. Despite Pesaro's arguments, he was certain it was she. The way she walked, her height, even her movement as she closed the door behind her. He would recognize Victoria anywhere, in any disguise. And that garnet-colored cloak was fine wool. Surely she would not loan it to her maid.

Thus he'd followed the hackney, at first with a jealous twisting in his heart—was she going to meet someone? A lover? This was not the first time she'd left an evening early or cut short her visit. Uncertainty borne of his need for her, and worry for her safety, drove him to follow her. He did love her, and he could not bear it if there were someone else who possessed her heart.

When the hackney took a turn to the worst part of London and finally rolled to a stop in this dark, dingy neighborhood, Phillip no longer worried she was meeting a lover. Instead he realized that whatever called her to this part of town went much deeper than lust or passion.

Whatever she was involved in she could not, should not handle alone. She must be frightened out of her mind to travel to such a place; and it could be only the worst of circumstances for her to be unwilling to confide in him. But he would take her home and convince her to tell him…for they were to be married, and he to be her husband. He would take care of her. He would fix whatever needed to be fixed.

That, at least, had been his plan until he walked down the stairs into this hellhole of a pub that smelled like rusting iron and must. The cousin had drawn him to a table in the most shadowy corner and ordered him a drink. It wasn't until he saw, from the corner of his eye, Pesaro's hand shift over Phillip's own drink, ever so quickly, so slightly—but enough that he recognized the movement—that Phillip realized Pesaro had his own agenda. And when Phillip took a sip of the whiskey and felt Pesaro watching him, he knew it for certain.

So when the other man turned to speak to the massively well-endowed serving woman, Phillip exchanged their glasses.

And when Pesaro turned back, Phillip offered a toast, watching as the other man drank of the same drug he'd attempted to foist upon him, all the while wondering why Pesaro would do such a thing. Was he trying to kill him, or merely drug him?

He supposed if Victoria's cousin wanted him dead, he wouldn't have advised him to put his pistol away, or drawn him away from the center of attention in the room.

No matter. He would either ask him or, if he died, it would be a moot issue.

Unsurprisingly, Pesaro appeared eager for Phillip to drink his whiskey; so he obliged, but only if the cousin drank with him. It was when their glasses were nearly empty that he began to see signs of the other man's edges wearing down. His eyes drooped and his words came slower and with more care. Whether he was being poisoned or merely drugged, Phillip did not know…but whatever it was, the other man had attempted to foist it upon Phillip, so he felt very little remorse.

“You switched glasses,” Pesaro said, his voice slurred and his eyes glistening with anger. “Damn fool.”

“It's only what you deserve. Why have you tried to poison me?”

“You do…not know…danger….Keep you…safe .. . Fool.”

He waited until Max gave up, his head slumping to the table. “Now I will find Victoria.” Phillip dropped a few coins on the sticky wooden planks and they clattered to a stop next to the man's half-curled fingers. Then he stood and walked away without looking back.

It was clear his fiancée was not here, if she ever had been. He crossed the room, hurrying toward the stairs, fingering the pistol under his cloak.

Phillip couldn't wait to get out of this cloying, depressing place. He rushed up the steps, needing to breathe the clean night air. He had to clear his mind, which now had many more questions than when he'd arrived—including the reason Victoria's cousin would try to drug him.

When he reached the top of the stairs, Phillip heard heavy steps behind him. He turned and saw one of the patrons, large and pale-faced, stalking up the stairs.

Slipping through the door, Phillip was back in the night. He closed the door and turned to hurry away. But the man came through more quickly than he could have imagined. Suddenly he was right behind him, and Phillip felt hot breath on his neck…even though it was covered by his cloak, and the man was not touching him.