The Vampire Who Loved Me (18 page)

Portia slid the crossbow’s strap over her shoulder and fastened the quiver of bolts to the belt of her riding habit, the motion she’d practiced so many times in the deserted ballroom of the mansion as natural to her as breathing.

The manor below looked even sadder and
more dilapidated washed by the golden hue of the late afternoon sun. Sunlight sparkled off the thin crust of snow that draped its sagging roof and crumbling chimneys, but still failed to brighten the shadow of gloom that hung over the place.

Before they could drive their horses down the hill, the crisp winter wind carried the sound of muffled hoofbeats to their ears. They turned to find another rider cresting the knoll behind them.

For one agonizing moment, Portia could barely breathe. Then she saw the startling shock of white hair that crowned the head of the approaching rider.

Larkin shook his head in disbelief. “Surely you jest.”

Adrian shot Portia an accusing glance, but she could only shrug. “I had no idea he was following me.”

Wilbury came riding up on one of Adrian’s most spirited—and most expensive—stallions. The butler was hunched over the saddle, his bony body bowed nearly double beneath the weight of numerous weapons, including a bow and a quiver of arrows, a leather sash sporting
several stakes of varying lengths, and a blade that looked suspiciously like a kitchen carving knife. He’d even jammed an ancient flintlock pistol into the waistband of his old-fashioned knee breeches. Despite his attempt at bravado, he still looked as if he’d be more comfortable riding in the back of a hearse.

He drew his mount up beside Portia’s, drolly intoning, “You rang?”

“No, I most certainly did not ring,” Adrian snapped. “Have you lost your wits, old man? You should be at home polishing the silver, not risking your fragile old bones cantering across the countryside on a horse that’s barely been broken.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t have any silver to polish. Nor a home to polish it in. Which is why I’ve come to lend you my assistance. I’ve lived a long and full life, my lord. What’s the worst that could happen to me?”

Eyeing his cadaverous form, Larkin bit back a grin. “They might mistake you for one of their own and try to make you their king?”

Wilbury gave him a withering look. “With a little good fortune and some excellent shooting
on
your
part, Mr. Larkin, I might even live to see my sixty-fourth birthday.”

Larkin’s eyes widened in disbelief while Portia hid a sudden coughing fit behind her riding glove.

Adrian studied him through narrowed eyes. “Wilbury, you had to be at
least
sixty when I was in short pants.”

“Nonsense,” the butler said with a dignified sniff. “I just seemed older because you were younger. And you needn’t worry that I’ll get in your way. It’s not as if I don’t know how to handle myself in these situations. I can assure you that I saw my share of battle in my youth.”

Larkin snorted. “Battled the Norman hordes when they invaded England, did you?”

Portia reached over and gave the old man’s gnarled hand a squeeze. “I would consider it an honor to ride into battle at your side, Wilbury.”

“Thank you, Miss Portia,” he replied with equal earnestness. “I wouldn’t have come, but I was worried about Miss Eloisa. You see, I’m the only one who’s able to comfort her when she awakens from a nightmare. A nice cup of warm
milk and a few verses of ‘Sally in Our Alley’ and she usually goes right back to sleep.”

Portia blinked away the sting of tears, hoping Wilbury would blame them on the chill wind whipping across the hillside. “I’m sure you’ll be a tremendous comfort to her when we find her.”

Adrian glanced over his shoulder at the rapidly sinking sun. “If we’re going to go, we’d best go now before the twins show up on a pair of ponies, waving wooden swords.”

Following his lead, they spurred their mounts down the hill, determined not to waste another precious minute of daylight.

They stormed the manor as if it
were
a battlefield, ripping every scrap of crepe from every window and flooding its dusty rooms and deserted corridors with winter sunshine. Portia and Adrian searched the upstairs chambers and attics for any sign of secret stairwells or passages while Larkin and Wilbury combed the basement kitchens and cellars, crossbows at the ready.

Portia started into a spacious bedchamber on the third floor, then froze in her tracks. Two
empty sets of iron manacles hung from iron hooks set deep in the wall. She shuddered, remembering how Valentine had offered to let Raphael’s minions keep her
occupied
while she entertained Julian. Judging from the coppery tang still hanging in the air and the dark stains soaked into the wooden floor, she doubted they would be keeping anyone
occupied
ever again.

“What is it?” Adrian murmured, coming up behind her.

She shook her head. “Something I’d rather not remember.”

He gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze before leading the way to the next room.

They returned to the ballroom just as Larkin and Wilbury were emerging from the lower reaches of the house, cobwebs draping their hair. Not surprisingly, Wilbury looked rather natural in them.

“Nothing,” Larkin confirmed, his expression grim. “No vampires. No minions. And worst of all—no Eloisa. We didn’t even find a single coffin where a vampire might be hiding.”

Portia frowned. “Could there be a family crypt located somewhere on the grounds of the estate?”

Larkin shook his head. “I took the liberty of paying a visit to the former owner of the property today. He swore his ancestors were all buried in the village churchyard.”

Shadows had begun to creep down the length of the long room, bruising the fading light. Portia stole a glance at the French windows at the far end of the ballroom. “The sun is setting, Adrian. What are we going to do?”

He swore an anguished oath. “What I’d like to do is burn this accursed place to the ground and leave nothing but a pile of ashes where it once stood.”

“I know you would but we don’t dare,” Portia said. “Not until we’re absolutely sure they haven’t stashed Eloisa somewhere within its walls.”

“There’s a good chance that Valentine knew this would be the first place we’d come looking for her,” Larkin said. “If she warned this Raphael chap, none of the vampires may ever darken this door again. Perhaps we should return to the town house,” he reluctantly suggested. “She might have sent some sort of note while we’ve been away.”

“A ransom note?” Adrian snorted. “What’s
she going to say? Bring me your brother’s head or you’ll never see your little girl alive again?”

“Well, actually you couldn’t bring her Julian’s head because if you cut it off, he would crumble into dust,” Larkin pointed out.

Adrian just glared at him. “I was speaking figuratively.”

“It’s not his head she wants anyway,” Portia said grimly. “It’s his heart.”

Adrian raked a hand through his hair. “Perhaps I should take one last look at the cellars myself before we go. If only to ease my own mind.”

“I’ll stay here and keep a lookout,” Portia volunteered as Larkin and Adrian went striding toward the archway. “The cellar is the last place we want to get trapped if the vampires should return.”

“Shall I stay with you?” Wilbury asked, casting a longing look after the men.

Portia drew her crossbow over her shoulder and slotted a bolt before giving him a reassuring smile. “I’ll be just fine, Wilbury. They might need a strapping young fellow like you to pry open a door or move a heavy stone.”

Nodding gratefully, he hurried after the men,
a youthful spring in his shuffle. Portia sank down on the marble steps that led up to the second-floor gallery, secretly grateful for the moment of privacy.

She could hardly believe that only two nights ago she had been whirling around this very ballroom in Julian’s arms. It was even more difficult to believe that she might never again taste the tender and intoxicating pleasure she had found there. She almost wished he had been able to get her with child. She would have gladly endured whatever disgrace society chose to heap upon her just to have something to remember him by. A little boy perhaps with dashing dark eyes and a devilish grin. The image sent a jolt of raw pain through her heart.

She surged to her feet, disgusted with herself for being so selfish as to dream of holding her own child when little Eloisa was still at the mercy of those fiends. She prowled restlessly around the ballroom, watching the last of the sunlight bleed from the air. Unable to bear the oppressiveness of the encroaching shadows, she drew a tinder box from the skirt of her riding habit and lit several of the candles scattered throughout the room.

As she retrieved her crossbow and surveyed her handiwork from the foot of the stairs, she once again saw Julian’s eyes sparkling down at her in the candlelight, felt his powerful hand against the small of her back, urging her closer with each graceful shift of his hips, each dizzying revolution around the ballroom floor. The dead leaves had swirled beneath their feet with each step, a crisp counterpart to the soaring strains of the waltz.

As Portia closed her eyes, she would have almost sworn she heard those strains again, drifting to her ears in a ghostly echo. She cocked her head to the side, so beside herself with yearning that it took her a minute to realize that she wasn’t hearing a waltz, but a lullaby. A lullaby crooned in a lilting soprano with just a trace of a French accent.

She slowly opened her eyes and turned, her hackles rising.

Valentine stood at the top of the stairs just as she had on that night. Portia instinctively lifted the crossbow, then lowered it just as quickly. Because cradled tenderly in Valentine’s arms was a sleeping Eloisa.

Portia frantically searched her niece’s face
beneath its tumbled cap of honey-colored curls, torn between horror and relief. Eloisa’s little mouth was pursed into a perfect rosebud, her cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink. Her throat was unmarked and her chest rose and fell evenly beneath the ruffled bodice of her nightdress. She appeared to be both alive and unharmed.

Portia wanted to kick herself when she realized that Valentine must have come from the one room neither she nor Adrian had searched. The room with the nasty stains on the floor and the empty chains on the wall—chains that
could be tugged or twisted to reveal a secret chamber or passageway.

Her finger caressed the trigger of the crossbow. She knew she had no hope of getting a clean shot at Valentine’s heart—not as long as she was using Eloisa as a human shield.

Ellie was as sturdy as a little pony, but the vampire’s pale, slender arms showed no sign of strain. Her supernatural strength would probably allow her to bear the child for hours without suffering so much as a pesky muscle twitch.

“I had a child of my own once, you know,” Valentine said softly, gazing down into Eloisa’s face with chilling fondness. “A little girl much like this one.”

“What happened to her? Did you eat her?”

Valentine shot her a chiding glance. “Of course not. After I was attacked when I was strolling along the banks of the Seine and turned into a vampire, I never laid eyes on her again. I’ve often wondered what became of her.” She sighed, her striking emerald eyes touched with a hint of sadness. “I suppose she would be long dead of old age by now.”

Portia steeled herself against a pang of pity, knowing she could ill afford it. “If you were a
mother once, then you must remember what it’s like to suffer in fear for your child. My sister is suffering right now, her every moment a waking nightmare.” She planted a foot on the bottom stair, bringing herself one step closer to Eloisa. “If there’s even a scrap of humanity left in you, an ounce of mercy, please give me the baby and let me return her to her mother’s arms.”

“I really wish I could,” Valentine said with a sigh of regret. “Especially since you asked so prettily. But I’m afraid your sister will just have to continue to suffer until Julian is back in my arms.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t give you! I don’t even know where he is.”

“Surely he hasn’t tired of you so quickly? Have you forgotten that I know exactly how insatiable his sexual appetites can be? Why, the first time we were together, it was an entire glorious week before he even let me out of his bed.”

Portia’s stomach clenched into an agonized knot as she desperately tried not to picture Julian doing to Valentine all of the same wild and tender things he’d done to her.

“Why would he abandon you when you can
give him the one thing I never could—your
love
?”

On Valentine’s lips, the word sounded like an epithet. Eloisa stirred restlessly in her arms, her brow puckering in a frown.

“How could I expect you to understand the love of a mother for a child or the love of a woman for a man?” Portia demanded, inching up another step. “All you understand is greed and hunger and lust and violence. Love requires patience and tenderness and the willingness to sacrifice yourself for a greater good.”

“Love does nothing but make you weak! It turns you into an object of pity and derision—a mewling pathetic creature no more fit to live than a worm squirming on the pavement after a hard summer rain.”

Portia shook her head. “That’s not love. That’s obsession. True love doesn’t make you weak. It makes you strong. It gives you the courage you need to get through even the loneliest night.” Eloisa’s lashes were beginning to flutter. Portia dared another step. “I used to think that falling in love meant being swept off your feet by a handsome prince who would never leave you.
But now I know that prince can love you so much that he feels he has no choice but to let you go.”

A man’s droll voice came from behind her, accompanied by a round of dry applause. “Bravo! I haven’t heard such a touching performance since they coaxed Sarah Siddons out of retirement to trod the boards at the Drury Lane Theatre one final time.”

Before Portia could even turn around, Eloisa opened her eyes, stretched out her chubby little arms toward the French doors and crowed, “Unca Jules! Unca Jules!”