Adduné - the Vampire's Game (36 page)

New York was somewhere Miranda could visualize Chase succeeding. It struck all the right notes as the place that could keep up with him. He had eschewed it, but perhaps a few nights there could persuade him to move. Miranda had a small condo on the Upper East Side. It was modest, quite comfortable, and ever so convenient. It was nothing grand like her family’s estate, but she called it home. She would be so delighted to show her brother around. It would be fun living in New York with her brother as a pal and going out partner. Tiffany already was there and she knew Tiffany and Chase got along famously. It would be so much fun to see them both together – laughing and carrying on. Tiffany also had that huge circle of friends that included just about every eligible, attractive female on the East Coast. It would take Chase quite a while before he made a dent in that flock of fillies.

Miranda entered the soiree holding her head up high and attracting more than a little attention from the discerning crowd. She scanned the room noting that there was not a lot of competition in attendance. She was the youngest, best dressed, and the only one with more than a marginal smattering of sex appeal. Miranda knew the spotlight would be on her. It may not be the red carpet, but she’d take it. She liked being given the opportunity to shine.

She spotted Jake and headed over to him grabbing a glass of champagne on the way. He was standing with a group of elderly, finely-tuned attendees. She didn’t know if they were wealthy patrons of the museum or just curious folk plucked from Fairfield’s midsts via a coveted invitation.

“
Ah, here she is now. I’d like to introduce you to Miranda Perry who kindly agreed to let Fairfield Museum display this most sumptuous of collections and …”

Miranda sipped her champagne letting Jake prattle on about her and her father’s artifacts. She hated when he got into his official capacity mode and mostly tuned him out when he did so.

Miranda sipped her champagne – the drone of Jake a distant hum. Her eyes flitted about the room – taking in the spectacle of the crowd when a paparazzi-worthy white flash of a handsome smile caught her attention. It was from a man dressed in a frock that could have been fashioned in another century. He was skirting the periphery of the crowd. Miranda wasn’t sure who the smile had been directed at, but it was a sure hook that went deep into the soft palate of her mouth. With his good looks, he could have easily lent himself out as an exhibit to any museum in the world. He was more perfectly crafted than any item currently on display.

The blonde stranger disappeared from view. Miranda’s mind wandered back, taking in some of Jake’s endless conversation with people whose names had long escaped her recollection. She left it to Jake to play the social game – he was so much better at it than she was. More people gathered around Miranda and Jake – as did more introductions and the formality of the limp fish shaking of hands. Jake passed her around letting everyone get a piece of her. She felt like a baseball being shagged around the infield. Jake was seemingly ignorant of her mental shutdown. He insistently dragged her by her arm, introducing her to more fawning patrons. She smiled courteously, but the faces blended together to make a dull shade of brown. Her mind was a mass of contradictions and it was anywhere but in Fairfield.

Her mind wandered back to the only interesting part of the evening thus far. Where had he gone? She stood on her tiptoes looking over the heads of the well-heeled crowd. There was no sign of him. What a shame! What she needed now was an unobstructed view of that mysterious guest. He was a dashing figure to be sure – and a possible diversion. He had not only captured her attention, he had intrigued her. She concentrated on the bird in hand – her champagne. She quickly got her head back in the game by making chitchat with Fairfield’s best – biding her time until the next time her mystery man bobbed up for air in the sea of cultural junkies.

After the obligatory introductions to Fairfield’s movers and shakers were through, Miranda felt a hunger pang strike her in almost the same spot Jake had been kissing a few hours earlier.

“
And what do you think, Miranda?”

Jake’s voice floated to her over the din of the party. Her own thoughts were still occupying the greater part of her time, but then what did she expect from a party thrown in a cornfield?

She realized her pretentiousness was showing. She would have skewered Reginald if he had said anything that smacked of pomposity and royal derisiveness. Reginald. What was he doing? She could well imagine him wandering in Weatherly Hall, candle in hand, looking for ghosts. She hoped one with chains wrapped its metal encumbrances right around his neck – being careful to pull nice and tight. She still hadn’t forgiven him for giving her a bad case of the willies. She just knew it was Reginald to blame for her nightmares.

“
I think you’re right,” she blithely answered as she set her empty glass down and grabbed another from a passing tray. It was the answer that was always appropriate. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said departing before a reciprocal answer could be sounded. She expertly wove herself into the fabric of the partygoers, disappearing like an invisible seam in pricey Parisian couture.

She headed for the buffet table and filled a clean white plate with a sampling of the bite-sized delicacies. She spotted a far corner that was unoccupied by people or art, and headed straight for it. She needed to load-up and refuel. The barrage of sexual misadventures with Jake had made her ravenous. She set down her plate on a pedestal and wolfed down the miniature treats that teased her appetite rather than satisfied it. They weren’t at all bad and she thought perhaps she had misjudged the outer fringe of society by thinking that nothing cultural resided in the midst of a cornfield. Good food seemed to be alive and well.

Her hunger somewhat satiated, she decided to seek out one object in particular. It was the one she’d drawn on the sheet of paper – the one she’d kept silent about. She wanted another look.

She wandered into the exhibit hall. Jake had done a wonderful job with the remodeling. He’d replaced the old lighting, with a LED micro-track lighting system. It lent a cool modern look to the room and display cases. She passed the glass casings looking casually at the captured items inside. They looked much like pinned butterflies only waiting to be set free. She saw the one she was looking for. While the other exhibits had anxious onlookers, this was left alone with its thoughts. She posed stationary and expectant before the red egg. The closure was opened to reveal what lay inside. She wished the egg could speak. She stared at the ruby heart wondering if it could beat out its message.

“
I can see someone has the right idea,” came the full-bodied, deep voice. It had a slight vibrato and resonated with a tone much like an organ being played in church. It was the voice of a schooled Shakespearean actor.

“
You’ve picked the perfect spot,” it continued.

Miranda was caught off guard by the remark. She hadn’t realized someone had encroached upon her personal space. Usually her radar was activated long before someone entered into close proximity. This person had slipped through the defense she’d cultivated. Whoever it was stood in front of her. She looked up, delighted and surprised to see the face of the intriguing stranger she’d glimpsed across the room.

This close, he was shockingly beautiful. Blindingly so. It was the kind of beauty that could hold you spellbound and Miranda reacted to it with a quickened pulse and slight flush. His skin was eerily smooth. It was tautly stretched over an exotic bone structure that more resembled a woman than a man. It was the jaw that delivered the truth. It was square and firm. It set the face within its footprint, and turned what would have been only beauty into a wild fierceness. The kind found in nature or in feral animals. There was something else that exuded from him. It was an intoxicating kind of magnetism that Miranda could feel all the way into her loins. Like it or not, her genitalia began throbbing with an intensity only achieved through considered, skillful foreplay.

Miranda was rocked by his appearance and that smoldering sexuality that promised illicit nights of sinful pleasure. She couldn’t take her eyes off him because of the added ingredient – danger. Within him lay the element of danger, and when beauty is intermingled with it, it always produces an incendiary mix. Miranda well knew what it meant – that this man was one giant red flag. Even four feet away, she felt too near. In her imagination, she could easily picture him leaping forward over the square of glass and devouring her whole without batting a beautiful icy blue eye. She didn’t know why she felt so intimidated. She was completely safe in the museum. And there was nothing demonstrable in his movements – he hadn’t strayed an inch from where he was standing. Nonetheless the threat was implicit and hung in the air.

Miranda wondered if it were the anomaly of light that was playing into it. The spotlight trained on the egg was casting a glitter of red light upon his face. Logically, she knew that it was only light reflecting off the red ruby heart, but reason didn’t help calm her restive heart. The red was splayed down one delicious corner of his full, pink lips. It resembled an ever so faint trail of blood from a victim laid waste – and tasted like fine wine. She idly wondered if that same mouth were capable of delivering scandalously rich, delicious kisses all night long. She would bet on it.

She nervously collected her thoughts. Even this random encounter left her a jumble of nerves. She gripped her glass of champagne in one hand as if it were the controlling rudder setting the direction her conversation would take. Was it simple chance that caused him to be standing alongside her? Or had it been planned? Was it possible that he wanted to talk to her? And if he did, was it because she was Miranda Perry or because he found her appealing?

The scales weighed heavily in favor of him merely recognizing her. Her photo had appeared in any number of local newspapers and magazines that Jake had used to promote this exhibit. What did it matter? She had wanted to meet him and he was here. As for the course of conversation, she could certainly handle any direction it took. She’d met enough powerful people while working in her father’s empire to commander this encounter.

Before replying, she reminded herself one more time to calm down. Her brain finally kicked in and determined not to be one of
those
women. She could well imagine that because of the way he looked, that he received weak-kneed responses from throngs of women ready to lick his bootstraps on that basis alone. Well, she wasn’t a redundant schoolgirl and wouldn’t be prey to his devastating charms. She wasn’t about to consent to a one-night stand just so he could keep an overblown ego intact. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he thought a little too well of himself, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. It was the fault of the nameless conquests that surrendered to desire. Most likely, it was the legion of women that dropped to their knees – and not for the purpose of prayer – that had inflated it.
If
he were interested, she was ready. However at this point, it wasn’t a certainty that he was. He might just want a pleasant conversation. Either way, she was not a pushover – not even for men that carved their way into the jellied hearts of women going soft from the full on assault of a strutting male peacock. She fired an opening shot.

“
I’m glad you’re so admiring of my perch. You must realize that I had selected it not only for the view, but for the solitude.”

An almost imperceptible shift in one of his superbly shaped brows occurred. Miranda knew the money women wasted to handcraft their own misshapen, sparse brows – all to end up with meager approximations of the ones this man possessed naturally. While she knew he’d heard her, there was an equally long pause before he responded. Perhaps he wasn’t used to a gentle rebuff – or perhaps he was as taken aback as she had been. While she waited for a response, she assessed her opponent.

The frock he wore added an Old World thrust to his façade. It gave him a timeless quality. If you transported him back in time, and placed him in any century, he would have fit in without a ripple of being out of place. Very few men she knew could have pulled off wearing his costume without looking like a caricature or actor ready for the stage, but this man did so effortlessly. The attire complemented him and his bearing, in part because while the textures and materials were elaborate, its design was simple. She’d learned at a very young age that complicated designs date themselves, while shapes masterfully and deceivingly pure were the ones that never gave their age away. That was what this man must have understood. The ¾ jacket looked pure haute couture. While nothing like it had been produced in this century, it looked right at home in the midst of this event. The opulence of the velvet and the way it shaped this man’s body made it a worthy addition. It was black in color and trimmed in a gold brocade. Underneath its matching vest, he wore a black satin shirt with cravat. The buttons running down the front of the jacket matched the color of the egg. They shone red in this dark corner, glinting as real jewels and perhaps they were. Rubies worn as buttons? With this man, anything was possible. The effect was extravagant and bespoke of him occupying an elevated station in life – one that no longer existed.