The Vampire Who Loved Me (4 page)

In lieu of a coffin, a sagging cast-iron bedstead slumped in one corner. Portia accepted Julian’s unspoken invitation to precede him into the room, averting her eyes from its rumpled bedclothes.

As she turned to face him, he closed the door and leaned his back against it, surveying her through heavy-lidded eyes. “So little Portia Cabot is all grown up.”

Warned by the wary edge in his voice that he was none too pleased by the notion, Portia shrugged. “It was bound to happen. I couldn’t stay a naïve young girl besotted with Byron’s poetry forever.”

“More’s the pity,” Julian muttered.

Abandoning his post by the door, he brushed past her to get to the table. After blowing the dust out of a pair of mismatched goblets, he poured two drinks from the amber bottle resting next to them. He offered her one of them, his long, elegant fingers cradling the bowl of the goblet.

She took it and brought it to her nose, eyeing him suspiciously as she sniffed at the ruby red liquid.

“Don’t worry, it’s only port,” he assured her, a spark of amusement lighting his eyes. “And cheap port at that. But it’s all I can afford at the moment.”

She took a tentative sip of the musky wine. “Just how much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Not nearly enough,” he said, leaning against the table and draining his glass in one deep swig. He lifted the empty goblet to her in a
mocking toast. “I do hope you’ll forgive my ill temper. You interrupted my evening meal and I tend to get a bit cranky when I’m hungry.”

Portia choked on the port, her eyes widening in horror. “Those women back there at the g-gambling hell? You were going to…eat them?”

He opened his mouth, then evidently thought better of what he was about to say and closed it again. “If you’re asking me if I was going to kill them, the answer is no. I prefer to think of them as more of a tasty little snack.”

When her eyes only widened further, he sighed. “There’s only so much rare roast beef and butcher shop blood a vampire can stomach. As I was traveling the world in the past few years, I made a fascinating discovery. It seems that wherever I go, there are always women willing—no, eager—to offer me a little sip of themselves. I take just what I need to survive, and in return…I make sure they get what they need.” His jaded gaze flicked over the pale scars on her throat. “Since you were the first woman I ever drank from, I suppose I have you to thank for teaching me that lesson.”

Portia almost hated him in that moment. Hated him for taking an act born out of
desperation and tenderness and trying to turn it into something sordid and dirty.

As if that wasn’t enough of an affront, he took one step toward her, then another. “I’m not nearly so careless or clumsy as I was with you. I’ve even learned to drink from other places so the scars won’t be so visible.” He lifted one hand to her throat, his fingertips caressing the marks he had left on her with a seductive tenderness that made her shiver. “Did you know there’s a particularly juicy little artery on the inside of a woman’s thigh, just below—”

“Stop it!” Portia shouted, slapping his hand away. “Stop being so horrid! I know exactly what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work!”

He backed away from her, holding up both hands in mocking surrender. “You never did scare easily, did you, Bright Eyes?”

He was wrong. She was terrified. Terrified of the way her pulse had raced beneath his fingertips. Terrified of the power his touch still had over her. Terrified she might be no better than those women who were willing and eager to satisfy his cravings as long as he satisfied theirs.

But he wasn’t the only one who had learned
how to bluff in the past few years. She smiled at him, using her dimples to their best advantage. “I hate to wound your legendary vanity, but I have no intention of scurrying out the door just because you say ‘Boo!’ to me.”

She shrugged off his coat and tossed it toward the bed, removed her bonnet and set it carefully on the table, then began to tug off her gloves one finger at a time. As she slipped out of her pelisse, one of Julian’s eyebrows shot up, as if to inquire just what garment she might consider removing next.

Keeping the ribbons of her reticule looped around her wrist, she settled herself gingerly on the edge of the wing-chair and took another dainty sip of the port. “Your growling and posturing might impress the sort of women you’re accustomed to consorting with, but quite frankly, I find them to be a bit of a bore.”

The dark wing of Julian’s eyebrow shot even higher. “I beg your pardon, Miss Cabot. I obviously mistook you for the enchanting child who used to hang on my every syllable with breathless delight.”

“I’m afraid even the most enchanting of children must someday grow up. I hope it won’t
disappoint you to learn that I no longer believe in mermaids, leprechauns, or werewolves.”

“But you still believe in me.”

Portia barely managed to hide her start. Had he developed a talent for reading minds along with his other dark gifts?

“You still believe in the existence of vampires,” he clarified to her keen relief.

“I haven’t any choice, have I? Not when your brother has spent the last five years driving the worst of them out of London.”

“Well, that would explain why they’re overrunning the alleys of Florence and Madrid.” Scowling, Julian poured himself another glass of port and settled one lean hip against the opposite corner of the table. “Adrian has obviously been neglecting his duties as your guardian. I would have thought he’d have you married off by now to some wealthy viscount or earl who could give you a half dozen babes to keep you in the nursery where you belong.”

“I’ve been out of the nursery for several years now and I’ve no intention of going back. At least not for a very long while. So tell me,” she said, blinking up at him, “while you were traveling the world learning how to enslave weak-willed
women with your seductive powers, you didn’t stumble across anything else of interest, did you? Like, for instance, your immortal soul?”

He rested the goblet on the table, then patted the pockets of his waistcoat, as if the one thing that held the power to restore him to humanity was of no more import than a lost riding glove or a misplaced cravat. “Damn thing’s proved to be devilishly slippery. I haven’t had a single vampire stroll up to me and offer to let me tear out their throat so I can suck my stolen soul out of them.”

“So you never even found the vampire who sired Duvalier, the one who inherited your soul after Duvalier was destroyed?”

“I’m afraid not. Unless they’re feeding, vampires are a notoriously close-mouthed lot, even amongst themselves.”

Portia frowned. Something in his tone made her suspect that he wasn’t being completely forthcoming. “So you didn’t find your soul, but you did find time to prove yourself a hero on the battlefields of Burma?”

He lifted one shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “How difficult is it to be a hero when you can’t die? Why shouldn’t I volunteer to lead every
charge? Sneak behind enemy lines and rescue every fallen soldier? I had nothing to lose.”

“Unless the sun came out.”

His lips slanted in a mocking smile. “It was monsoon season.”

“Since he bestowed a knighthood upon you, I gather the king was more impressed with your efforts than you were.”

“The dreamers of this world are always looking for a hero. I suppose the king is no different from any other man.”

“Or woman,” she remarked, meeting his gaze boldly.

He straightened, folding his arms over his chest. “Perhaps it’s time you told me exactly what
you’re
looking for, Portia. Because if it’s a hero, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

Unnerved by his unblinking stare, she rose from the chair and strolled over to the window. Easing aside the veil of crepe, she peered into the dimly lit alley below. Every shadow seemed to hide some faceless menace, yet none of them was more dangerous to her than the man waiting—not so patiently—for her reply.

She traded a bracing glance with her reflection in the glass, then let the crepe fall and
turned to face him. “I’m looking for a murderer.”

The grim words hung in the air between them until Julian threw back his head with a hearty laugh and said, “Then I suppose you have come to the right place after all, haven’t you?”

Portia felt the blood drain from her face.
“So it’s true,” she breathed, her fingers biting into the sleek satin of her reticule.

“That I’m a murderer? That I’ve taken human life in order to survive? I hate to crush the last of your girlhood illusions about me, sweetheart, but in that respect I’m no different from any other soldier in His Majesty’s Army.”

She drew in a deep breath to steady her voice. “I wasn’t talking about battle. I was talking about those women in Charing Cross and Whitechapel.”

The sparkle of amusement in his eyes faded. He frowned. “What women?”

“The four women who have died since you returned to London. The four women who were drained of every last drop of their blood by some merciless fiend.”

Julian’s frown deepened. He turned away from her, toward the brick fireplace. “Just when did these murders take place?”

“The first was a fortnight ago, just before Adrian received word that you’d been spotted in London. The next two followed shortly thereafter. Then just three nights ago, a fourth woman was found in an alley behind the Blessed Mary church, her corpse still warm.”

He gazed into the cold hearth, locking his hands at the small of his back. “Are you absolutely certain they were killed by a vampire?”

“Beyond any shadow of a doubt,” Portia informed him, her voice trembling with suppressed emotion. “And I can assure you that these women were not willing victims eager to surrender themselves to the vampire’s kiss. Their hands were bloody, their fingernails torn. They all fought quite passionately and courageously
for their lives.” Although she knew it was madness, she could not seem to stop herself from creeping closer to him. “Did you do it, Julian? Did you slaughter those poor, helpless creatures?”

He turned and lifted his dark-lashed eyes to her. “You believe me capable of such a crime and yet you sought me out tonight? Why would you be so foolhardy?”

How could she explain her unshaken faith in him? Her unswerving belief that he would not harm her? Not even when she knew
exactly
what he was capable of. “I didn’t believe you would hurt me.”

“I’ve already hurt you.” His heavy-lidded gaze flicked to her throat, avoiding her eyes. “You’ve still got the scars to prove it.”

Portia touched her fingers to the faded marks to still their tingling, wishing she had never surrendered her choker on the gambling table. Without it, she felt exposed. Naked.

She forced herself to lower her hand and lift her chin, boldly meeting his gaze. “I came here tonight because I had to make sure that you didn’t kill those women. I’m the one who kept you alive in that crypt all those years ago. If
you take an innocent life now, then I’m just as responsible as you are.”

He drew nearer, his shadow falling over her. His voice was a husky lullaby, perfectly pitched to lure a woman to either delight or doom. “But what if I did kill them? What if I stalked them through the night, haunted their every step, just waiting for them to hesitate or stumble so I could make them mine?” Bracing his hands against the window frame behind her, he lowered his head, brushing his cheek against hers. His flesh should have been cold, but it was warm, burning with an unnatural fever that threatened to incinerate her every defense. As his parted lips grazed the downy flesh behind her ear, a primal shiver that had little to do with fear raked through her. “What’s to stop me from doing the same to you?”

“This,” she whispered, pressing the sharp point of the stake she had just drawn out of her reticule against his heart.

He went as still as a statue. She expected him to jerk away from her so she could begin to think about breathing again. But he simply spread his arms in surrender, his smile as lethal a weapon as the stake in her hand. “If you’ve come here to
finish me, then let’s have done with it, shall we? My heart, as you well know, Bright Eyes, has always been yours for the asking. Or the staking.”

As badly as she wanted to believe him, Portia suspected he’d offered that same heart to a multitude of women, only to yank it out of their hands as soon as they dared to reach for it—or the next morning after they’d awakened in his bed, dazed from blood loss but satisfied beyond their wildest dreams.

“If you were as eager for oblivion as you’d like me to believe,” she replied, “you’d simply take a morning stroll in the sunshine.”

Despite his crooked smile, Julian’s eyes were oddly somber. “Would you mourn me after I was gone? Would you scorn every man who tried to win your heart and squander your youth weeping over my grave?”

“No,” she retorted sweetly, “but if one of my more ardent suitors should ever give me a cat, I might consider naming it after you.”

“Perhaps I should leave you with something else to remember me by.” Ignoring the press of the stake against his vulnerable breastbone, he leaned even closer.

As the seductive scents of port and spice soap
and tobacco enveloped her, Portia felt her lips part and her eyes began to flutter shut against her will. That was all the distraction Julian needed. One dizzying blur of movement and he was holding both the stake and her reticule, leaving her empty-handed.

As he backed away from her, taking his seductive fragrance with him, Portia settled back against the windowsill, blowing a stray curl out of her eyes. “That was a bit unsporting of you, don’t you think?”

Eyeing her disbelievingly, he held up the stake. “More unsporting than you threatening to impale me with a pointy stick?”

She shrugged, her delicate sniff less than penitent. “A lady has every right to defend herself against unsought advances.
And
creatures of the night.”

Apparently, he had no argument for that because he simply rested the stake and reticule on the table and began to root around in the bulging purse. His hand emerged with one of the delicate scent bottles that had become so popular with the young ladies.

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother with that,” Portia quickly said as he withdrew the stopper and
brought the bottle to his nose. “That’s just my lavender—”

She winced as he recoiled from its contents, baring his teeth in an involuntary grimace.

He rammed the stopper back into the bottle, shooting her an accusing glare. “Nothing like a dab of holy water behind the ears to stir a young man’s fancy.”

He gingerly set the bottle aside before reaching back into the reticule. He was rewarded for his successive forays into its silken interior with a miniature stake no larger than a quill pen, a sheathed dagger, three leather garrotes of varying lengths, and an elegant pearl-handled flintlock pistol just large enough to hold a single pistol ball.

Studying the mini-arsenal displayed on the table, Julian shook his head. “Prepared for all eventualities, aren’t you, my dear?”

Portia didn’t even try to hide her smirk. “You should see what I can do with a hatpin.”

“You
are
full of surprises, aren’t you, pet?” His bemused gaze took a languorous journey from the snug bodice of her gown to her dainty little kid boots. “Just what other weapons do you have stashed under there?”

“Keep your distance and you won’t have to find out.”

“Am I to assume that my brother has recruited you for his vampire hunting enterprise?”

She lowered her eyes. “Not exactly. Well, at least not yet,” she amended. “But I believe it’s only a matter of time before he realizes what an asset I could be.”

He surveyed her with grudging admiration. “And to think I was worried about what those rogues at the gambling hell might do to you. I should have been worried about what you might do to them.” He trailed his hand down the length of the stake. “Or what you might do to me.”

Portia jerked her gaze away from the long, elegant fingers wrapped around the smooth shaft of wood, flushing to the roots of her hair. “If I’d have come here tonight to stake you, you’d already be dust.”

“Or I’d have had some dinner to go along with my wine.” The mocking glitter in his eyes made it impossible to tell if he was teasing her or threatening her.

She gave him a cheery smile. “If you’re hungry, I’d be more than glad to run down to the
nearest butcher shop and fetch you some rare roast beef or a nice kidney pie.”

“I had something a little fresher in mind.” His gaze flirted with her throat again. “Something sweeter.”

Her smile faded. “Is that what you were looking for when you murdered those women?”

“Is that what you believe?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed, turning back to the window and edging aside the crepe to escape his penetrating gaze.

A lone man was melting out of the shadows that draped the alley below.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. “It can’t be him. He swore he wasn’t coming until morning.”

“What is it?” Instantly alert, Julian glided up behind her, making the tiny hairs on the back of her neck shiver to life.

He peered over her head, both of them hanging back from the window just enough to remain invisible from the alley below. The imposing shoulders beneath the layered cape of the intruder’s greatcoat were as distinctive as the walking stick gripped in his powerful hand. A walking stick that could be trans
formed into a deadly stake with nothing more than a deft flick of the wrist.

“My brother is nothing if not predictable,” Julian murmured, his smoky voice very close to her ear. “I suspected it would only be a matter of time before he came calling.”

“This might not be a social call,” Portia ventured as Adrian was joined by the long, lanky, and damningly familiar shadow of a second man.

Alastair Larkin was a former constable who had been Adrian’s best friend at Oxford. The two men had been estranged for years when Caroline came into their lives and brought them together to wreak revenge on Victor Duvalier, the vampire who had not only stolen Julian’s soul but murdered Adrian’s first love, Eloisa Markham. Larkin also just happened to be Adrian’s partner in his vampire-hunting endeavor—and Portia’s other brother-in-law, the doting father of her twin nephews.

As the two men briefly conferred, then proceeded toward the building, their shadows still hugging the wall, Portia spun around to face Julian, flattening a hand against his chest.
There’s no time to waste. We have to get you out of here right now!”

He covered her hand with his own, plainly bemused by her urgency. “I’m touched by your concern, darling, but there’s really no need for such high drama. What’s Adrian going to do? Give me a stern lecture for failing to write? He knows I’ve always been a wretched correspondent.”

“I’m afraid he’s not coming here to lecture you,” she informed him grimly.

“Then what’s he going to do—disown me? Cut me out from my inheritance? Can’t you just see him marching in here in high dudgeon and announcing, ‘You’re no longer my brother! You’re dead to me!’?”

When Portia failed to so much as crack a smile at his quip, he grew very still. Although his wry smile lingered, it no longer reached the glittering darkness of his eyes. “So my brother’s common sense has finally overcome his sentimental devotion to brotherly duty.” He lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I can hardly blame him, you know. He should have driven a stake through my black heart all those years
ago when Duvalier first stole my soul. It would have saved us both a great deal of bother.”

Portia grabbed his arm and tried to tug him away from the window. “Don’t you see? We have to go! Before it’s too late!”

He appeared to be on the verge of tweaking her nose. “It’s already too late for me, sweeting. So why don’t you run along before you earn a lecture from Adrian, too? There’s no need to fret about me. This is hardly the first torch-bearing mob I’ve faced.”

Hearing a fresh ruckus, Portia turned back to the window and lifted the crepe again. “I suspect
that
would be the torch-bearing mob,” she said, pointing toward the opposite end of the alley.

A tall man with a narrow nose and an upper lip perpetually curled into a sneer had just come striding into the alley, followed by at least a half dozen scraggly-looking henchmen, some of them actually bearing torches.

“Wallingford!” Julian exclaimed, adding an oath as his brother and Larkin moved to intercept the new arrivals. “I had hoped the bastard would at least allow me one more night of
freedom before he had me cast into debtor’s prison.”

She gave his arm another sharp tug. “Perhaps if he hadn’t caught you making love to his fiancée at their betrothal supper, he would have been in a more charitable frame of mind.”

Julian shifted his accusing glare to her. “You
were
in the park this morning, weren’t you? I knew I smelled you.” He tugged a coil of hair from the mass of curls piled on top of her head and brought it to his nose. His nostrils flared as if he was once again drinking in some elusive scent.

The scent of his prey.

Muffled shouting rose from the alley as the men below gave up all pretense of stealth. To her disbelief, Julian strolled over and sank down in the wing-chair, crossing his long legs at the ankles as if he had no intention of budging for the next century or so.

“What do you mean to do?” she demanded. “Just sit there and wait for Adrian to march up here and stake you?”

He buffed his fingernails on the cuff of his shirt. “If that’s his pleasure.”

“And if Wallingford gets to you first?”

“Debtor’s prison won’t be so bad,” he said cheerfully. “It’s always dark and there should be plenty of food.”

Portia’s frustration finally spilled over into anger. “Is this why you returned to London? Because you’re weary of provoking men who can’t kill you into challenging you to duels? Because you knew Adrian would eventually find you and do what you haven’t the nerve to do?”

In reply he simply gazed at her, as unblinking as an owl or some other far more dangerous nocturnal predator.

“Have you thought about what will happen to me if you stay?” she asked. “You may be destroyed but I’ll be ruined as well.”

A hint of unease flickered through his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“If I’m found here in this rented flat with you,” she replied, daring to give the rumpled bed a provocative glance, “my reputation will never survive.”