Lady Killer (29 page)

“He insisted on seeing you, Lady Thornton,” Snug said apologetically.

“What is it?” Clio snapped, then was sorry. “I beg your pardon. What can I do for you?”

“Here,” the boy said, extending a folded packet. Then, he quickly backed out of the study and ran through the door.

Clio opened the packet, scanned its contents, and yelled, “Wait!” But the boy, following orders, was long gone.

‘I must meet you,’
the message read.
‘Tomorrow, at ten o’clock in the morning, be at the west crypt of Saint Paul’s. It is of the greatest importance that you come alone.’

Under normal circumstances Clio would have disregarded the message entirely. She had alienated enough people—besides the Special Commissioner—in the course of her investigations to know better than to attend secret rendezvous. Particularly those held in deserted parts of popular meeting places perfectly designed to let people slip in and out without being seen, a category that might have been invented especially for the crypt of Saint Paul’s. But she knew without question that she would attend this meeting, knew she would do whatever the message said as soon as she had seen it. There was no mistaking that the hand which had requested the meeting was the same as the one that had told her
You do not know what you are
three days earlier. It would be a relief, if not a pleasure, finally to find out.

The words left a bitter taste in her mouth. Not at all like the taste of Miles. She shuddered as she remembered the morning, his arms, his hands, his smell. Had it all been a lie? All a ploy to get her to acquiesce easily to his plans. Had he seduced her to ensure her compliance?

When, that morning, she had learned the news that “Clio Thornton” had been arrested and was being held at Newgate as the vampire, she was thrilled. This, at last, was proof that she was not the fiend. Only the vampire himself would have orchestrated such a ploy. She was free of the taint, innocent of the crimes she had feared.

And then Miles had explained it to her. Explained it in calm, measured tones. Explained without apology, as if he could not understand why she would be mad that he had lied to her, that he really had been holding her prisoner, that he had given her false hope. That he had made love to her just to keep her in his house. Although, he had said in an icy tone, he did not know why he was bothering to explain anything to a woman even the Special Commissioner had deemed unfit to investigate.

How could he do this? How could he have acted the way he did. Were all his words false? Had he been forced to struggle through their time together, forced to pretend she was someone else? His voice rang in her ears, saying
I can see fireworks anytime but I will only have you for a few days,
saying
You are spectacular Clio Thornton,
saying
happy birthday,
and suddenly Clio had to know. Had to know if it had all been fake. Had to know before her meeting the next day, had to know before she learned what she really was. Had to know if he had been lying to her the entire time.

She ran to Dearbourn Hall, almost invisible in the feeble light of the quarter moon, slinking around the side of the stables and into the servant’s corridor next to the kitchen. She forced herself to stop when she was inside, and catch her breath. She would be reasoned. Logical. Coherent. When she was only vaguely panting, she continued down the corridor, finally stopping at the door that led to his bedroom. It slid open soundlessly.

The place was dark and, as best she could make out by the light seeping in from around the entrance to the outer chamber, empty. Hearing a whisper of voices, she tiptoed toward the door through which the light was coming and pressed her eye against it.

Miles was sitting in a chair, his head back, his eyes closed. He looked like he was sleeping, but that seemed unlikely given that the elegant form of Lady Starrat sat astride his lap. As Clio watched, Lady Starrat deliberately dragged Miles’s shirt from his breeches and bent over. Miles gave a low sigh.

“Ahh, Miles, aren’t we dangerous,” Lady Starrat whispered to him in a heady voice, running her hands over his stomach. “My dearest wasp. I will leave you so you can never sting anyone again.” Miles murmured something Clio could not make out, and she did not bother to try. Calmly, silently, she backed away, crossed the room, and left.

As she closed the door of the service corridor behind her she heard Lady Starrat begin to hum
The first time I did see you dear.
“A very good friend used to sing that song often,” Clio remembered Miles saying at the Jubilee Fair, remembered his wistful tone and expression. A very good friend indeed.

Clio’s calmness abandoned her then. She stumbled blindly through the corridors, rushing out into the deserted street, running without direction.

The footsteps behind her were inaudible to her over the clanging confusion of her thoughts.

4 hours after midnight: Moon—three degrees less than half-f. Waning.

“Darling, wake up,” a voice, much too close to Miles’s ear, implored.

Miles blinked at the sunlight flooding into the outer chamber of his apartment, then at the woman before him. He staggered to his feet.

“What has happened?” he asked, trying to sort out why he felt like a hundred horses had pounded through his head, as well as why he was sleeping in a chair in the outer room of his apartment, and where Clio was. The pile of decanters he spied behind the back of the blonde woman in a nightgown suggested the answers to the first two and reminded him of the answer to the third one, but did nothing to explain why the woman was wailing.

“I know she only did this to hurt me, to hurt us,” Mariana began without preamble, sobbing. “She wanted to force us to postpone the wedding.”

“What are you talking about?” Miles growled.

“My cousin. My horrible cousin Clio. She has always been jealous. I knew she would try to ruin everything, Viscount, and now she has.”

“What has she done?”

Mariana just looked at him. “Haven’t you heard?”

“You mean about her being arrested?” Miles asked. “I do not see—”

“No. Oh dear, I thought you would have heard. Everyone has heard.”

Miles’s mouth suddenly went dry in a way that had nothing to do with having drunk three quarts of wine. “Heard what?”

“That she is dead. My cousin Clio is dead. They found her body this morning.”

Chapter Sixteen

YOU FAILED!

The floor lurched and swayed under Miles’s legs. “How did she die,” he asked, white knuckles on the back of his chair the only thing keeping him standing.

“Poison they say. I do not know. But I really think we should not put off the wedding.”

YOU FAILED!

“Who told you about this?”

“Grandmother. She heard this morning that Clio was in jail and she was just dressing so she could go visit her, with Saunders in case anything disturbed her—you know how he positively dotes on her, for my sake—when they received the news. Saunders says I shall need a new set of pearls to wear with my mourning clothes. That will be all right, won’t it, Viscount darling?”

YOU FAILED THE WOMAN YOU
—

“How?”

“Well, I suppose I will send over to Beaumond. He has such lovely things. Or per—”

“I mean, how did they receive the news.”

“Well, naturally they were upset. I mean, it is such a scandal for the family.”

Miles was as close to committing murder as he had ever been. “By what means did they receive the news,” he asked, his grip leaving permanent indentations on the wood of the chair. “Who told them? Or who sent a message?”

Mariana looked confused. “Why should that matter?” Then, apparently recognizing in her betrothed’s expression something akin to that of a baby lion ready to make its first kill, she said, “I believe the warden told them. When they arrived at Newgate. Her body had just been found in her cell.”

The floor, which had been reeling under Miles, suddenly straightened. The sun, which had gone out, bloomed again. Mariana, who had been about to be murdered, was given a reprieve. Clio was not dead. Clio was alive. But one of his men was dead. It was the decoy for Clio that he had sent who had been killed, the fake Clio—

The floor stayed put, but the sunlight dimmed again. He had sent a man to his death and Clio was in grave danger. If someone would kill her imposter, what might they do to her?

“And the scandal was really unnecessary,” Mariana was saying, “because poor dear Clio was not the vampire at all. Another body was found this morning, and she could not have been responsible, could she?”

Miles, halfway to the door, stopped and turned. “What? Another body?”

“Yes. The body of that dear woman Lady Starrat Peters. They found her curled up in her bed with those horrible marks on her neck. But even though poor dear Clio was not the vampire, I am not sorry she is dead. She had such a sad and lonely life. It must have been dreadful to be so unlovely. However, it does present some difficulties for my wardrobe.”

Mariana had only begun wondering aloud whether she should have her mourning clothes made in silk or velvet—did the darling viscount think it was going to be a mild summer or a cool one, she would be guided by him—when Miles disappeared out the door.

At that moment, nothing, not Justin, not the vampire, nothing mattered except protecting Clio.

Unfortunately, he was already too late.

Clio stopped walking and the footsteps behind her stopped. She resumed walking and they resumed. After performing this experiment three times she was sure she was being followed. She would have been sure after the first time, but with the way she was feeling this morning, she would not trust her senses.

She had absolutely no recollection of what had happened to her after leaving Miles’s house. With any luck, and a little work, she would manage to obliterate the memory of what she had seen there just as completely.

And then she would go on with her life as if she had never made love with him. She had been happy before. She would be happy again. Without him. Without the taste or smell or touch or memory of him. Without—

Damn! There were tears in her eyes. This was not the place for tears. She had determined that she could cry about what had happened from nine to half past nine every morning, and no more. It was now ten o’clock, which meant no crying.

And that she had an appointment.

She stopped, but this time the footsteps continued. She swung around to look behind her, and saw only a wizened old woman with a dusting cloth wearing heavy clogs. Clio watched as the old woman paused to run her cloth over the bronze candlesticks in one of the family chapels that lined the wall, then moved on to the next one, and the next. Just like Miles, Clio thought, moving from one woman to—

She was losing her mind. She had known she could never have Miles, so why did she care who he slept with? And even if she did care, this was not the occasion to dwell on it. Pressing those thoughts deeply away, Clio turned from the old woman and continued toward the end of the nave where the crypts were. She moved away from the walls that contained the family chapels and the footsteps behind her ceased. The crowds, which had been large in the farther part of the church, thinned as she approached the altar, and she was almost alone by the time she reached the stairs that descended into the crypt.

The warmth of the summer day seemed to vanish abruptly at the top of the stairs that led downward. As the staircase wound down and around, the light from the nave above disappeared. Candles flickered in wall sconces but did almost nothing to lift the gloom that intensified as Clio descended. With tremendous relief, she felt her mind prepare itself for work, and all thoughts of Miles, all emotions, receded. Her head became blissfully empty, blissfully sharp, a blank sheet ready to record every impression. It was this feeling—the feeling of being entirely independent and self-contained, entirely cerebral—that she loved, and that kept her investigating. Pain and loneliness, along with love, and fear, meant nothing to her when she was like this. The only thing that mattered was what was immediately around her, and she let her eyes roam.

She had reached the bottom of the staircase and was standing in a low chamber. In the hazy circle of light given off by a lantern hanging to her left, she could see that the floor was made of packed dirt, and that the wall nearest her was badly, and not recently, whitewashed. But the rest of the chamber was hidden in shadow, and she could not even be sure how large it was.

“Hello?” she said, her voice disappearing in the cold, damp air. There was no answer, not even an echo, suggesting that the chamber was large. She took a deep breath, removed the lantern from the peg on which it was hanging, and, holding it above her head, moved more deeply into the shadows.

As she made her way carefully toward the center of the space, the hair on her arms stood up. She took two more steps then stopped. She had heard something—a footfall?—behind her. There was someone else with her. For the third time in four days, she knew she was not alone.

She swung around. The lantern swung in her hand, and the chamber was filled with crazy shadows. Noses and chins and foreheads twisted together as the light bounced off the faces of the people along the walls. Grinning faces, deathly pale, watched her, staring out of lifeless, pupil-less eyes. For a moment Clio’s calm abandoned her and she began to tremble and she thought her legs might give out, leaving her there, trapped with them.