Vampire Lords of Blacknall: Trinity (16 page)

“Please, Father, help me away from here,” she pleaded with her voice mulled with suppressed sobs.

“I think you ought to stay for a few moments,” Father Christian whispered to her, holding her upright with a solid arm. Then he said, “Ah, here they come … reinforcements.”

Beth didn’t want to look at anything. She wanted to flee. The people of her social circle knew every sordid detail of events she’d thought concealed. The facts were a young woman was barely allowed to kiss a gentleman without disproportionate scandal, much less be carried out of the woods, half-naked, and by a gentleman of such dubious character. She was ruined.

“Ah, here is my future
wife.
Lady Winslow. You’ve made me the happiest man, by accepting my proposal.”

Beth blinked, barely understanding the words’ meaning, however happy, Lord Trinity, did
not
sound. No, he sounded as if each word grated loudly from his throat like shards of glass. Then he announced even more loudly, “Accepting my proposal
last
weekend.”

Gasps filtered through the ballroom, hers mingled with them, and her gaze turned upward to his strong features.
Why would he announce they were engaged?
She didn’t understand a word of it, or its meaning. To see his face with his eyes so fierce, the rich blue looked black … that someone came to her aid … had even approached her. She’d never felt such gratitude. It overwhelmed her and one hot tear slid down her cheek.

“Lady Beth,” Trinity’s voice etched her name with a bass tremor. He stepped forward grasping her from Father Christian’s support.

He was dressed in the finest ballroom attire with his normally-disheveled, dark-streaked blond hair pulled back and tied at his nape. She had no choice but to take his strong arm for support as his hand and forearm wound behind her waist.

“I’m not certain I c-can stand,” she whispered.

She felt his hand beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to his. “You can,” he vowed in a low, but strong voice. “I’ll hold you.” His hand moved from her chin to wipe his thumb across the tears on her cheeks. “Bastards,” he cursed harshly, raising his gaze to glare around the ballroom at the crowd of people.

Beth saw the Duke of Blacknall raise his hand above the crowd with some gesture. The next moment music started. The Duke of Blacknall dipped his head toward Trinity, and Beth heard him say, “We will mingle with the happy news. Make a show of it.” It sounded like a command, and then the duke nodded to her, turning away with his white hair throwing red highlights beneath the blazing chandeliers.

“We will dance,” Trinity announced close to her ear.

She clutched his arm tightly. “I can’t,” she whispered, with sounds of desperation coloring her breath.

“Look at me now, Beth.”

Her gaze leaped to his suppressed command. “You will suspend belief or questions.” He squeezed her waist with an intimacy that riveted her. “For me,” he added with a low provoking growl.

Her eyes flowed into the depths of his gaze, then to his mouth, and then back to his endless dark eyes. They were moving out onto the dance floor and she heard the strands of a waltz. She could feel each of Trinity’s fingers spread out on the small of her back.

She’d never been touched so intimately … but then she remembered that she had. Her face grew scarlet with the thought and she felt Trinity lifting her other hand into position for a waltz. His crisp white cravat transfixed her gaze and it seemed ridiculous that her wild, untamed vampire should wear one for her.

She’d never danced the waltz … Oh, she knew how, yet an unmarried woman didn’t dance such an intimate dance with a gentleman.

“Why are you doing this?” she exclaimed, not looking up at Trinity as they began the movements to the waltz.

“Because I chose to.” Her gaze leaped upward. “Now, no questions, maiden.”

She felt the sway of his hard body moving around hers. She’d never felt anything like it. Things inside of her fluttered and her gaze latched onto the vein in his wrist. She knew that her features melted into longing. There was such respite there, in his blood.

The pull of it wasn’t a hundred times as strong as it had been. But her desire for it was to escape, not for its wicked temptations. If she tasted it, she wouldn’t care what anyone thought. She wouldn’t care they danced alone, covering every inch of the dance floor, a swirling spectacle for all to see.

She saw the Duke of Blacknall speaking to Lord and Lady Lancaster. They were nodding. She saw the brother called Lord Baptiste standing beside the musicians as though guarding against them stopping. Father Christian was in a different place each time she looked talking to different groups, where before they’d turned their backs to her, now they were watching her dance.

It was ludicrous. Her entire fate changed by a man. Now, she’d become acceptable. If only they knew he wasn’t really a man. A type of unhinged giggle began in her chest. Trinity’s grip tightened on her, pulling her breasts into his chest. Not even that temptation could stop her laughter edged on crazed, as it broke free with tears scoring her cheeks.

Trinity waltzed Beth between one of the open patio doors leading outside as she laughed with overwrought qualities. There were tears streaming down her lovely face and he growled deep in his chest at the cruelty of humans. He decided they’d made their display. It would have to be enough. According to Church, the next step to save Beth was to marry her immediately. They couldn’t wait for a hastily-put-together wedding.

“Beth.” Her name left his lips as he caressed her face. How could he marry her? How could he not? Church had said the benefit would be to both of them. He’d only known the need to save her was too much a part of him; he couldn’t deny acting on it.

Trinity turned them, until his back was to the miscreants catching the last crumbs of gossip by peering out at them. He lifted Beth up into his arms and she crumpled against his chest. He could feel her slow sobs as he stalked to the patio steps. He wouldn’t go back through the ballroom. He could only imagine what an ordeal the malicious social ostracisms must be to a young noble woman, because his Beth was very strong, and this was close to breaking her. She had stood up against him and she had dealt with the addiction of his blood, not crumbling.

Aye, his maiden was strong, so he took it on faith that what nearly happened to her was devastating. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass about society, and what they thought. He went about his business and did as he pleased. Church would bellow that wasn’t true. They did follow social rules, but nothing close to what a young, unattached lady of the
ton
must follow. Nay, he might not fully understand the feminine trials, but he did take them as truth.

He could bemoan his fate and he could say he couldn’t do it. It was dangerous for Beth. Her humanity would be at stake. Yet he’d already controlled the nearly insane desire for her pure blood. As vampires, he and his brothers had consciences and they would struggle, yet they would also overcome those urges they chose to. He liked to think that made him more man than vampire.

He looked down at Beth clinging to him as he carried her to his waiting carriage. This scheme was so irrational, yet if he faltered, she would be destroyed. He already knew from Christian that she had every piece of her possessions strapped to a carriage waiting in the drive of the Lancaster’s mansion. If there’d been any hope her plan to teach at a ladies school would work, he would have let her go.

Maybe.

The unconscious thought startled him and he nearly stopped walking, thinking it would have meant never seeing her again. Perhaps, but after last night …
never.
He growled deep in this throat. All right, he wanted her. That didn’t just make it possible.

“Where are y-you taking me?” Beth’s voice cracked as she spoke into the jacket covering his chest. She sounded calmer … ragged, but calmer.

He hit the winding driveway with the crunch of his boots sounding on the gravel. The blazing lights from the entry way lit the way even as far out as they were. His carriage was at the end, turned to leave quickly. They would make Gretna Green.

“To my carriage,” he replied, keeping it simple. He knew once inside the carriage there would be more discussion than he cared for. Beth was beginning to shiver and he realized the night air was too cold for her light dress. She’d looked quite tempting in pink. When he’d first seen her in the ballroom, under the lights, he’d nearly stopped short, just taking in how lovely she’d looked. Their time together hadn’t given him the impression of her from head to toe before that moment. Some men might think her bottom a bit round or her breasts a bit too plump. They were fools.

“I don’t understand.” Beth’s soft voice was unsure and he assumed she meant why would they be going to his carriage. Why would the vampire save the maiden? Why would the maiden accept? “B-but I have my belongings in a … I have a driver, I cannot leave.”

“It’s been taken care of. Your belongings will be taken to Blacknall.”

Trinity felt Beth tense at his answer. Any reply she might make was forestalled by their arrival at his carriage.

Chapter Eighteen

T
rinity looked at Beth on the opposite side of the carriage in the opposing corner. He’d given her his jacket to pull over her shoulders and he’d put a lap robe over her. At least she appeared warm enough.

Christian rode up top with the driver, while Church and Baptiste rode their stallions following the carriage. Every now and then, Church could be seen alongside the rolling carriage with his white hair flashing in the moonlight. Trinity thought dryly that Beth must feel as if she’d been kidnapped by a horde of vampires.

“Are you going to turn me into what you are?” Beth’s small voice drifted across the carriage.

For some unaccountable reason, he’d never considered her asking that question.
Fool.
Sometimes in the advent of trying to appear normal, he forgot what a monster he was. A lie formed on his lips … but then …

“I fight the hunger to taste your blood at every moment, maiden, until it is a part of me.”

He started to say more, but she whispered, “But you are stronger than your urges.”

Something deep and cramped inside him loosened and he nearly gasped. No one … not human, had
ever
…

“You said that to me.” Her voice sounded so softly, he was certain without his exceptional hearing he wouldn’t have heard her. “I might not have ever understood, except …”

Her voice faltered, and he supplied, “My blood.”

“Yes,” she whispered with her eyes shining in the carriage light, making him wonder if there were tears in them.

“I apologize for making that decision,” he said harshly, regretting the agony it had cost her.

“No.” Her hand, pale and small, reached outward then fell back. “It was providence, I think.”

He would have growled his dissent. Yet he had no wish to startle her. He brought the unique conversation back to her first question. “I can’t promise you that I will never succumb to my blood urges,” he stated flatly.

“Will you …” Her voice sounded anguished as she paused. “I am weak,” she blurted. “Will I taste your blood again?” Her voice sounded rushed and breathless, while her gaze turned down to the fingers she clenched in her lap.

He was stunned and he looked away from her out the carriage window. Of course, he had no idea. He couldn’t. He’d simply assumed her cravings had lessened with time. Devil take him, just the thought of her sucking his cold blood made him hard. The thought of him tasting her warm blood at the same moment made him throb.

He’d never be able to stop. He craved her blood too much and he was ashamed for his weakness. Even a lowlife vampire like Cull could have a feeder … and therefore stop. However he, with all his high morals about what vampires should and should not do, was afraid to try. It would be such a close thing, if he took too much of her blood and then she tasted his too soon after, she could be turned. No one knew the degree it took, exactly.

He was more honest than he’d ever been and the need for it was strong inside him. “I don’t know,” he answered. “You will be surprised, this is new for me,” he paused, “For us.”

“It is?” It was a more than a question. It was a softly amazed statement. “You’ve never given your b-blood to anyone before?” She sounded pleased, and his gaze returned to her as he nodded, a bit perplexed. “What will we do?” she asked.

“We will marry and carve out what life we can,” he said with a hint of uncertainty, not at all certain what he would do with a wife.

“I feel horrible that you are sacrificing yourself this way.” She sounded forlorn and lost with her voice cracking with emotion.

Suddenly, the need to be out of the carriage was overpowering.
He was not made for this.
He couldn’t sit and discuss emotional carnage.

“It doesn’t have to be that crippling, this necessity for marriage to save your reputation and save our vital secret. It could and should be done in
name
only.” His voice remained harsh as he reached for the door latch. “We have many residences you can reside in as my wife and you will not be forced to endure the monster that I am and will
always
be.” Trinity heard Beth’s cry as he left the moving carriage with a very blatant display of inhuman physical prowess.

“Fool! Fool!” Beth cried, berating herself for being so stupid. She worried her fingers against her throbbing temple. Too many things had happened. No time to think. She couldn’t confront them all, the least of which was watching Trinity leaving the moving carriage in a way that showed her unnervingly the fact he
wasn’t
human.

Monster, he’d called himself, more than once. No matter how confused she was, she’d never believe that. “Yet, are you desperate enough to marry him?” Because at the same time she felt tugs of longing for him. “More,” she muttered, rubbing her temple harder. He fascinated her and allured her. If things were normal, she’d desperately want him to kiss her. Maybe even court her.

This felt like a decision between marriage and death, and she didn’t want it to feel like that. She realized Trinity must feel the same way … forced, as she did.
I chose to.
Trinity’s words came back to her. He’d not been forced to say those words. He’d not been forced to arrive and rescue her … offering marriage.