The Vampire Who Loved Me (3 page)

“Why don’t ye quit the cards and play with me for a while, guv’nor?” the brunette crooned, wiggling deeper into the cup of his lap.

The blonde leaned over his shoulder to pour him a fresh glass of port from the half-empty bottle on the table. She batted her fawn-colored lashes at him, pressing her ample breasts against the muscled contours of his upper arm. “If ye play yer cards right, luv, ye can win the both of us for the night.”

Julian shifted in his chair. Their efforts were
undeniably…stirring, but he wasn’t quite ready to abandon the table. “Patience, my sweets,” he said. “At the moment luck is my only mistress, and I’ll be damned if I’ll leave her to a cold and empty bed when she’s still warm and willing.” While the blonde gave his earlobe a nip of protest, he soothed the brunette’s pout by planting a lingering kiss on her rouged lips.

Someone cleared their throat.

There was such a stinging note of disapproval in the sound that Julian barely resisted the urge to jerk to attention like a guilty schoolboy caught at some mischief. He slowly lifted his head to find a woman standing just behind the chair directly across from him.

No, not a woman, but a
lady,
he corrected himself, his gaze sweeping from the burgundy of her mink-trimmed velvet pelisse to the feathered bonnet perched atop her upswept coils of gleaming sable hair. A bulging satin reticule dangled from her arm, the pouch’s ribbons drawn tightly closed over its mouth. The exquisite cut and quality of her garments presented a startling contrast to the shabby finery of most of the club’s patrons. A glowing halo seemed to surround her, separating her from the cigar
smoke and raucous laughter that filled the room. From the corner of his eye, Julian could see her already garnering other glances—some curious, some wary, others openly predatory.

They’d seen her kind here before. Wealthy ladies with an insatiable appetite for deep play. Since the fair sex wasn’t even allowed in the more reputable clubs that their husbands frequented, they were forced to seek their satisfaction in hells such as this. They were so in thrall to the thrill of the game that they were willing to risk their reputations and their fortunes on one fickle roll of the dice or turn of a card.

More often than not, a lady would play until every last coin of her blunt was gone, leaving her with only one way to pay off her debts. For some reason, Julian couldn’t bear the thought of this woman being forced to accompany some gloating gambler to one of the rooms upstairs. Couldn’t stomach the image of her being shoved to her knees and stripped of that ridiculous bonnet by his fumbling hands.

The net veil attached to its sweeping brim shadowed her eyes and gave her an irresistible aura of mystery. All he could see was the curve of a dimpled cheek, a pointed chin that boded a
heart-shaped face, and a pair of lush lips perfectly fashioned for kissing and other even more illicit pleasures.

With some difficulty, he tugged his gaze away from her mouth only to have it settle on the burgundy velvet ribbon she wore around her throat as a choker; her long, graceful throat where a pulse, nearly invisible to the naked eye, danced to each throbbing beat of her heart. Julian jerked his hungry gaze away before he could betray himself. Bringing the glass to his lips, he took a deep swallow of the port, knowing it to be a pale substitute for what he craved.

“Might I have a word with you?” she asked, her voice low and rich.

He flicked a lazy glance her way, but before he could respond, the brunette snapped, “Ye ought to address ’im as ‘sir’! ’Im’s a knight, ’e is, knighted by the king ’isself. A real ’ero.”

“
My
’ero,” the blonde purred, slipping a hand into the open throat of his shirt and raking her crimson nails through the crisp whorls of his chest hair.

Those lovely lips tightened with distaste. Or some other emotion Julian couldn’t quite read.

“Very well…
sir
. I was wondering if I might have a word with you,” she repeated, her scornful tone dismissing his companions. “In private.”

It was the most intriguing proposition he’d received all night. She must be seeking more than just the thrill of the game. He’d encountered her kind before as well, in nearly every city around the world. Women possessed of a hunger as unholy as his own. Women who recognized and deliberately sought out creatures like him, courting danger and death as if they were the most accomplished of lovers.

Silently cursing the ghost of his scruples, he said, “I’m afraid I can’t help you, miss. As you can see, my attentions are already”—he slid his hand from the brunette’s hip to the rounded curve of her thigh—“occupied.”

“Ye’d best scurry back to yer fine carriage, m’lady,” the brunette said. “A great wolf like this one would gobble ye down in one bite.”

The golden-haired wench looped her arms around his neck. “’E needs a woman, not a lady.”

“Or two women,” the brunette countered,
earning a throaty laugh from her companion.

Taking another sip of the port to quench his regret, Julian waited for the woman to turn and flee into the night.

Instead those lush lips curved into the sweetest of smiles. “I hate to deprive you of such scintillating company, but I really must insist.”

Julian glanced around the club, keenly aware that their exchange was beginning to garner more than casual interest. “This is no place for a woman like you. Why don’t you go home before your husband wakes up and realizes you’ve crept out of his bed?” He arched the dark wing of one brow before leveling his iciest look at her, the one that had been known to freeze grown men in their tracks. “If you linger, I’m afraid you’ll end up with nothing but regrets.”

She lifted her chin, her smile fading. “Are you threatening me, sir?”

“If you’d like, you can take it as a warning.”

“And if I don’t choose to heed your warning?”

“Then you’re a bloody little fool,” he said, making no apology for his crude language.

“I’m not leaving until I get what I came here for. You owe me and I’ve come to collect.” Re
vealing the tiniest crack in her composure, she reached up with trembling hands and drew off her bonnet.

For one fleeting second, Julian was almost thankful he was a vampire because it took a supernatural effort to keep his features schooled in indifference. She was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The sable curls piled atop her head were matched by the graceful arch of her brows and impossibly thick lashes that ringed eyes the same dark blue as the Aegean Sea at midnight. The delicate bones of her face were narrow at the chin and broad at the cheek. Those cheeks were blessed with a hint of natural color, as if someone had taken a rose petal and lightly dusted it over her satiny skin. She possessed a natural sophistication that all of the expensive powders and rouges in the world couldn’t duplicate. Her mouth tilted upward slightly at the corners, just enough to make a man wonder if she was laughing with him or at him.

And all Julian could think as he faced this paragon of feminine beauty was that he wished she’d put her damned hat back on. Without the
veil to hide her eyes, her gaze was too frank. Too challenging. Too blue. Desperate to escape her presence for reasons even he couldn’t fathom, he surged to his feet, nearly dumping the sputtering brunette onto the floor.

He swirled the last of the port around the bottom of the glass before bringing it to his lips. “You can’t be one of my creditors, my dear, because I’m sure I’d remember
dunning
someone as lovely as you,” he said, giving the word an inflection that was impossible to ignore. “And if you’re not one of my creditors, then I suggest you step out of my way because I don’t owe you so much as the time of day.”

Returning the glass to the table with a forceful thump, he claimed the brunette’s hand and took a step toward the stairs.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Kane.” Her fingers steady this time, she reached up, jerked off the velvet choker and tossed it on the table as if it were a wager he could never hope to answer.

Julian froze in his tracks, mesmerized by the sight of that graceful throat. A throat that should have been as creamy and flawless as the
rest of her, but was instead marred by the faded scars of two distinct puncture wounds.

As Julian lifted his disbelieving gaze to meet the defiant blue of Portia Cabot’s eyes, he knew his luck had finally run out.

He hadn’t recognized her.

Julian Kane had looked right at her with the same burning dark eyes that had haunted her dreams for the past five years and betrayed nothing more than the faintest flicker of interest. Or was it annoyance?

Apparently their time together had meant so little to him that he barely remembered her. And why should he? Portia thought. In the years since he’d been gone, he’d probably had dozens—she stole a bitter glance at the blowsy brunette still clinging to his hand—no,
hordes
of other women only too eager to help erase her from his mem
ory. Why should he remember one awkward seventeen-year-old girl who had blushed and stammered and practically thrown herself at him every time he sauntered into a room?

As the initial rush of hurt passed, Portia had to fight the urge to fly into a towering rage. Despite her boast to Adrian that she was no longer a child, she wanted nothing more than to toss her lovely bonnet to the floor and jump up and down on it.

“Bright Eyes?” Julian whispered, his handsome face a gratifying study in shock and confusion.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, suddenly despising the endearment. If he tried to tweak her nose, she was going to bite his fingers.

He cast a desperate glance around them, as if becoming aware of the squalor of their surroundings for the very first time. “What in the name of God are you doing in a hell like this?”

“Where better to look for a missing devil?” she retorted.

They were beginning to attract an audience. Several of the seedier-looking men were already edging nearer, almost as if they scented blood in the air.

“If the lady’s lookin’ for a game,” called out a hulking chap with a red-veined nose and hands as meaty as hams, “I’m ready to play.”

“Big Jim is always ready,” someone else shouted, nudging the man next to him. “That’s ’ow ’e ended up with twelve brats and only two o’ them on ’is poor wife.”

Raucous laughter greeted his words, but there was no mistaking its ugly undertone. As Julian dropped the brunette’s hand and advanced toward her, Portia took a step backward, feeling a tiny thrill of alarm.

It seemed she had finally succeeded in getting his attention.

His stride was as smooth and lethal as any predator’s. Before she could protest, he had seized her hand in a crushing grip.

“Ow!” she muttered, trying to twist away.

“Sorry,” he mumbled beneath his breath, gentling his grip but refusing to yield his claim on her hand. “Sometimes I forget my own strength.”

That strength was in full evidence as he swung her around as gracefully as if they were waltzing across a ballroom floor and tucked her back against his broad chest.

As they faced the group of men who seemed to be rapidly devolving into a pack, Julian called out, “I’m afraid she’s not looking for a game, lads. She’s looking for me.” He closed his hands gently over her shoulders and nuzzled her hair, his melodic baritone striking a pitch perfect note between rakish and sheepish. “And she’s no lady. She’s my wife.”

Sympathetic groans rippled through the crowd. It obviously wasn’t the first time an irate wife had marched into the club to drag her husband home. The men gazed at her with new respect, some of them even reaching up to doff their caps. But Portia was distracted from all of that by the disconcerting tickle of Julian’s nose grazing her earlobe. She would have almost sworn he was sniffing her.

Determined to prove she wasn’t quite as helpless—or as witless—as he believed her to be, she resisted the urge to stomp on his instep and twisted around to give him a dazzling smile instead. “When I awoke to find you gone from my bed, I couldn’t help but worry, darling.” She patted the ruffled shirtfront peeping out from the deep V of his waistcoat. “I know you promised me your French pox was all healed up, but
you can never be too careful with those weeping sores.”

The men’s groans were even more sympathetic this time. The brunette gasped in outrage, then seized the sputtering blonde’s hand. Both of the women went flouncing toward the stairs, shooting Julian disgusted looks over their shoulders.

Julian’s eyes narrowed on her face even as he slid one arm around her waist, drawing the lower half of her body flush against his. Keenly aware of the dangerously snug cut of his trousers, she tried to wiggle an inch of distance between them, but her struggles only deepened his smirk.

“Your concern is most touching, my love,” he said. “And how fortuitous that you should appear just as I was beginning to wonder where my next meal was coming from.”

His lips parted, giving her a teasing glimpse of his fangs. Fangs that only lengthened and sharpened when he was hungry. Or aroused. Portia swallowed. Perhaps she had been unwise to bait him. If Adrian and Caroline were right and he had given up on the search for his soul, he was nothing more to her now than a
dangerous stranger. And she was nothing more to him than a particularly juicy morsel.

She forced herself to give his chest another wifely pat, keenly aware of the rock-hard muscles beneath her gloved hand. “If you wish to play another hand of cards, sweeting, I’ll hurry home and rouse the maid from her bed to fix you a midnight supper.”

The corner of his mouth quirked upward in a knowing smile. “Nonsense, pet. I do believe you’ve roused an appetite that only you can satisfy.” His long, sooty lashes swept downward as he leaned toward her. Too late, Portia realized that he had no intention of tweaking her nose.

She opened her mouth to protest but his lips were already there, sweeping over hers like molten velvet. The shock was so great that she might have jerked away were it not for the powerful hand that glided up her nape, the strong, sure fingers that wound their way through her upswept curls until she was as bound to him as any slave girl to her master.

Tugging her head gently backward, he laid waste to her inhibitions with devastating finesse. He brushed his lips back and forth across hers, then gently licked his way into her mouth,
ravishing and seducing with each lazy stroke of his tongue. He kissed like a creature with an eternity to devote to her pleasure. He kissed like a vampire.

Portia clung to his waistcoat, but she could still feel herself falling, tumbling into some dark abyss where only he and the tantalizing promise of his kiss existed. She could barely hear the ribald hoots and catcalls of the hell’s patrons through the roaring in her ears.

She might have been content to throw herself into that abyss, never to emerge, if not for the sudden sting on the inside of her bottom lip. She didn’t realize she’d been nicked by one of Julian’s fangs until she tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. He tasted it, too. His sharply indrawn breath that wasn’t actually a breath at all threatened to suck the remaining air from her lungs. He jerked away from her as if she had been the one to bite him.

His nostrils were flared, his pupils dilated. Although he didn’t move a muscle, his entire body seemed to be vibrating with some sort of primitive hunger.

Portia touched a trembling hand to her lips. Her white glove came away smudged with a
single droplet of blood. Julian closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, they were as hard and opaque as black quartz.

One of the men cleared his throat, then jerked a shoulder toward the stairs. “You and yer lady can rent one o’ the rooms upstairs for a shilling or two.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Julian said smoothly, gathering her back into his arms as if they were the most loving of spouses. “I’ve discovered that anything worth having, including your wife, is worth waiting for.”

To the appreciative chuckles of the crowd, he laid claim to his winnings, including Portia’s velvet choker, and wrapped his coat around her shoulders. Before she could utter so much as a token protest, he had swept her out of the gambling hell and into the night.

Driven forward by Julian’s possessive grip on her elbow, Portia struggled to hold on to her bonnet and reticule and match his long strides.

His good-natured veneer of charm had vanished, leaving his jaw stern and his profile impenetrable. She could not stop stealing curious glances at that profile. Despite the excesses of
wine and women she had witnessed in the gambling hell, dissipation hadn’t left a single scar on his face. His strong aquiline nose, the sensual cut of his full lips, and his cleft chin possessed the same Byronic beauty she remembered only too well. Byron had been moldering in his Nottinghamshire crypt for nearly two years now, the victim of a mysterious fever and his own excesses, but thanks to the vampire who had stolen his soul Julian remained frozen forever in the first potent flush of manhood.

The snow had finally stopped. The muted glow of the streetlamps veiled his eyes and cast sinister shadows beneath his high cheekbones.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

“To your carriage.”

“I don’t have a carriage. It was rented and the driver refused to linger in this neighborhood after dark.”

“Which would make him far more intelligent than you, would it not?”

“You can insult me all you like, but I have no intention of storming off in a huff.”

“Then I’ll take you where you belong,” he said shortly. “Home.”

She dug in her heels, bringing them both to an abrupt halt. “I can’t let you do that.”

He swung around to face her. “Why not?”

She opened her mouth, but hesitated a heartbeat too long.

He held up a hand. “Wait. Let me guess. I’m probably no longer welcome in my brother’s household. After all, what father in his right mind would want me lurking around his helpless child?” He snorted. “Adrian would probably run me through with one of Caroline’s parasols before I could open my arms and croon, ‘Come here, Eloisa, and meet your Uncle Julian. My, what a pretty little neck you have!’”

“So you
did
get the letter Caroline sent when Eloisa was born!” Portia said accusingly. “Why didn’t you ever reply?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I did. You know the post can be notoriously unreliable.”

She narrowed her eyes, suspecting that it wasn’t the post that was notorious or unreliable. “Well, it was quite thoughtless of you to leave us wondering about your whereabouts for so long. For all we knew, you could have been—”

“Undead?” he offered when she hesitated. In
response to her chiding glance, he sighed. “If you won’t allow me to escort you home, then how would you suggest I dispose of you? Should I just drop you off at the next gambling hell we come to?”

Portia slipped on her bonnet and knotted its satin ribbons in a jaunty bow beneath her chin, knowing she would need all of the courage it could provide. “I was hoping I could accompany you to your lodgings.”

All traces of humor vanished from Julian’s face, leaving it as cool and polished as a mask. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that would be advisable. Since you found your way here, I’m going to assume that you’ll be equally adept at finding your way home.” He sketched her a crisp bow. “Good night, Miss Cabot. Give my brother and his family my fondest regards.”

He turned and started to stride away as if he had every intention of leaving her standing all alone on that street corner, still wrapped in the warm tobacco-and-spice scented folds of his coat.

“If you won’t take me to your lodgings,” she called after him, “I’ll simply follow you.”

Julian swung around. As he came striding
back toward her, his face set in ruthless lines, Portia had to resist the overwhelming urge to go stumbling backward.

He stopped a scant foot from her, his dark eyes blazing. “First you come barging into the seediest of gambling hells like you’re bloody Queen Elizabeth. Then you volunteer to accompany a man like me—no, a
monster
like me—to his lodgings? Have you no care for your reputation, woman? For your very life?”

“It’s not my life that concerns me at the moment. It’s yours.”

“I don’t have a life, sweetheart. Only an existence.”

“Which could be rapidly drawing to an end if you don’t at least listen to what I have to say.”

He swore in fluent French. Portia lifted her chin, refusing to blush. She had heard far more colorful oaths from Adrian’s lips, most of those in English.

A man went stumbling past them, reeking of unwashed flesh and cheap gin. As the stranger’s greedy gaze raked over the ample swell of Portia’s breasts, Julian bared his teeth and growled, the primal sound lifting every hair on her nape. The man lurched into a clumsy trot,
barely missing a lamppost as he cast a terrified glance over his shoulder.

“It appears I’m not the only beast prowling the streets of London tonight.” Julian stroked his chin, visibly struggling with her demand. “Very well,” he finally bit off. “If you insist, I’ll take you to my lodgings. But only if you promise you’ll leave me to rest in peace once you’ve had your way and your say.” Without waiting for her pledge, he offered her his arm.

Still haunted by the echo of that growl, Portia hesitated for the briefest second before resting her gloved hand in the crook of his arm.

To Portia’s surprise the rickety stairs leading to Julian’s rented lodgings deep in the heart of the Strand led up instead of down. She had expected to find him inhabiting some luxurious cellar flat, much like his secret chamber in the dungeon of Trevelyan Castle, his and Adrian’s boyhood home.

That chamber had been draped in cashmere and Chinese silk and adorned with Chippendale furniture, numerous busts and paintings, and a marble chess set where he could while away the daylight hours when he wasn’t sleep
ing in the ornate wooden coffin that dominated the room. Julian had always been a vampire who prized his comforts, creature and otherwise.

Which was why it was such a shock to her sensibilities when he swept open the door at the top of the shadowy staircase to reveal a narrow, low-ceilinged room that was little more than a garret. The room was furnished with a battered armoire, a shabby wing-chair, and a scarred table flanked by two ladder-back chairs, all carved from the cheapest of pines. A lamp burned low on the table, sending shadows creeping over the peeling paint on the walls. If not for the sheets of thick black crepe draped over the dormer windows, no one would have guessed that there was a vampire in residence.