His Ruthless Bite | Historical Paranormal Romance: Vampires (Scandals With Bite Book 4) (2 page)

He had his hand on a woman’s shoulder as he spoke to her in a melodic, soothing voice.

“When I snap my fingers, Prudence, you will awaken feeling as if a great weight has been lifted from your soul.”

Prudence’s shoulders straightened and her posture became alert.

Elliotson withdrew his hand. “How do you feel?”

“Much better.” The woman breathed in awe. “It’s a miracle!”

He gave her a smile before his gaze suddenly lit on Lenore. “Miss Graves and Dr. Villar! How wonderful it is to see you here!”

Cassandra beamed at the address, even though they both knew that in the mortal world women could not be physicians. Elliotson’s audience gawped at the Lady Doctor a moment before showering Lenore with cheered greetings.

“Miss Graves.” A frail woman with morosely dark circles beneath her eyes rushed forward and grasped her hand. “I’d prayed you’d come tonight. Begging Dr. Elliotson’s pardon, I wanted you to help me. I stayed behind after my workday to wait for you.”

Lenore looked into the woman’s dark eyes, shadowed with pain, and forgot her own despair.

“What is your name?”

“Mary.”

“All right, Mary. Look at me and focus only on my eyes and my voice.” As she used her otherworldly power to mesmerize the woman, Lenore fought back the predatory urge to sink her fangs into Mary’s throat, and instead spoke softly. “Now tell me what is hurting.”

The woman poured out the tragic tale of her youngest son dying of consumption and her will to overcome her grief and gain the strength to continue to work to support her older boys.

Lenore blinked back tears for Mary’s plight. She couldn’t imagine the burden of such heartache. At least Lenore had been childless when her employer cast her into the streets after her own lungs had become afflicted. Still, she willed her patient to persevere and to gain comfort from her remaining children. As Mary’s eyes filled with blissful relief, warmth suffused Lenore’s heart.

After Mary thanked her and stepped aside, Elliotson patted her shoulder. “You have such a tender, effective way with them. How you do it, I’ll never know.”

Lenore closed her eyes to hide any revealing emotion. “Thank you.”

“I plan on inviting some of the more severe cases to my home the following Thursday.” Elliotson continued. “I do hope you would like to come assist me? I made certain to tell them to come in the evening.”

“I’m afraid I cannot. I… I have to move to Rochester.” A fresh wave of cold dread threatened to engulf her. What did Rochester want from her?

Elliotson frowned. “I am aggrieved to hear that. Are you going to continue your work there?”

Lenore began to shake her head —then froze as the question struck her full force.
Could
she continue her work in Rochester? Surely there were women in need there as well.

There were women in need all over the world.

“I hope to do so,” she said finally. “But I don’t know how I would begin.” Or whether her new lord would tolerate such a thing.

“Perhaps I could pay you a visit. I have a cousin in Rochester, after all.”

“That would be lovely.” The words left her mouth before she thought.

Cassandra lifted her head from the stethoscope she held to a woman’s back. Her eyes widened in alarm. “We must go now, Lenore, if we are to make our engagement on time.”

Lenore needed no further urging. “It was a pleasure to see you, Dr. Elliotson.”

“You as well, Miss Graves. Do send me a letter when you’re settled in.” He bowed. “Good night, Dr. Villar.”

The moment they were away from earshot of the mortals, Cassandra gripped Lenore’s arm tight enough to hurt. “What were you thinking? You know we’re supposed to limit our association with mortals. Rochester will be livid if this man comes to his territory to consort with you.”

“I know,” Lenore replied glumly. But she couldn’t bear to lose one of her only friends, much less her new reason for living.

She hadn’t even arrived in her new lord’s territory and already she had disobeyed him.

Rochester, England

Gavin Drake, Baron of Darkwood, and Lord Vampire of Rochester, coolly surveyed the rogue vampire chained before him. Even though the creature was disheveled and trembling, a glimmer of insolence remained in the rogue’s beady eyes. Or perhaps Gavin was imagining it.

He’d developed an extreme aversion to rogues of late.

When Gavin’s second and third in command had captured this rogue, he had claimed to be from Bristol on legitimate business for his lord, though his accent was clearly from Dover.

Taking no chances, Gavin had chained the vampire in the cellar and sent an inquiry to the Lord Vampire of Bristol.

As expected, Bristol denied any claim on the vampire. Shortly after, Gavin’s spies reported that the Lord of Dover had cast out a vampire matching this one’s description. There were only a handful of reasons for a Lord to banish one of his people: disobeying one’s Lord Vampire, theft, and in some cases, rape, though the latter often warranted execution, as it did in Gavin’s lands. Crimes such as killing another vampire, Changing a mortal without permission, killing humans, and revealing oneself to mortals merited death.

Further inquiries revealed that this one hadn’t committed theft or disobeyed an order.

Banishment was seen as an act of mercy, for it gave the rogue a fighting chance. In truth, exile was more often like an extended death sentence.

If any Lord Vampire caught a rogue in their territory, he or she had full right to execute him, unless the lord decided to allow the vampire to become one of his subordinates.

It hadn’t taken long for Gavin to decide which he would do.

“Harold?” he raised an inquiring brow at the rogue.

The vampire looked up at him with hopeful eyes. “Yes, m’lord?”

“I received a letter from the Lord of Dover. Your name is
Timothy
and you were exiled for rape.” Gavin despised liars. And rapists.

Timothy cringed and struggled once more in his chains. “M’lord, I can explain. I—”

“I, Gavin Drake, Lord of Rochester sentence you to death.” He turned to his second. “My sword, please.”

The rogue’s struggles increased, along with his piteous bleating, as Gavin lifted his ancient broadsword. “M’lord, please have mercy! I didn’t know! The woman teased me, she—”

Gavin silenced him with a blade thrust through the heart. As Timothy’s eyes glazed with death, Gavin’s second and third in command unchained him so Gavin could behead the body. The remains would be placed in the rear courtyard to be destroyed by the sun before the human servants rose.

“Has Cecil returned from his errand yet?” he asked as he cleaned the blood from his blade.

Benson, his second, shook his head. “No, my lord.”

“Send him to the Chattertons’ manor when he does.”

“You’re going to that ball?”

Gavin raised his gaze heavenward. “If I do not, they’ll come here and call on me, and I cannot have any interruptions for the next few nights.”

Benson gave him a rueful smile. “Doubtless you’re right.”

After taking a bath, Gavin changed into black breeches, a black tailcoat, and a claret waistcoat embroidered with jet. By the time he tied his cravat, his carriage was readied.

When he arrived at the ball, Lady Chatterton did not greet him with censure for his tardiness as he’d hoped. Instead, she eyed him with avarice and prattled on about her daughter.

Gavin gnashed his fangs in impatience as yet another blushing young girl was thrust in front of him.

“My Lauren sings like a bird,” her mother crowed proudly. “You must attend our musicale this Wednesday and hear for yourself.”

The tips of Lauren’s ears turned red as she curtsied. Gavin inclined his head and resisted the urge to glare at the mother. This girl looked to be still in the schoolroom. If she was anywhere near the age of majority, he’d eat his cravat.

“It dismays me to say that I have another engagement.” Bowing, he turned away from the avaricious matchmaker only to walk headlong into another’s clutches.

Lady Summerly gushed. “It is so good to see you, Darkwood. Have you heard that Jenny had her come-out this Season? We were so dismayed not to see you in London.”

He bit back a sigh and stepped out into the gardens the moment he was able to extricate himself. It was happening again. Throughout his every incarnation as the Baron of Darkwood, his mortal peers inevitably took a vexing interest in his marital status— or lack thereof.

Though he avoided the London Season like the plague, the summer country parties were impossible to escape without causing undue gossip. Unfortunately, he’d discovered over the last century that remaining a bachelor also prodded tongues to wag. After he’d had to fight a duel back in the 1735 for allegedly ruining some whey-faced debutante, Gavin knew that something had to be done.

Gavin’s thoughts broke off as his preternatural senses detected the approach of one of his vampires. Moments later, Cecil appeared in the garden.

“Lord Villar is delivering the vampire you requested tonight,” he said with a bow. “They should arrive in little more than two hours.”

“Splendid. Now I have an excuse to make an early departure. Tell Jane and Benjamin to keep an eye on their progress and notify me if anything befalls the carriage, and then you are free to enjoy the rest of the night as you please.”

The first time Lenore had come to Rochester, she’d been so weak she could barely walk, and rogues had been pursuing her.

This time she’d arrive here safe, and in much better condition.

“Yes, my lord.”
Cecil bowed again and departed as unobtrusively as he had appeared.

After Cecil departed, Gavin lingered in the garden. He wondered how Lenore had reacted to his calling in her debt, and how she would respond to his reason for it.

Although he’d known exactly what he wanted from her the night he’d joined his forces with the Lord of London’s to do battle with a usurper, he’d waited.

She’d been through an unfathomable nightmare, and he wanted to give her time to recover. His spies kept him informed, and he was pleased to hear that Villar had displayed proper gratitude for Lenore’s service to him and leased a townhouse for her. Apparently before that, she slept in a crypt with London’s poorest vampires.

Villar’s physician wife also saw her regularly, though his informants were unable to see or hear what transpired during those visits.

But it wasn’t nearly enough. Gavin clenched his fists. After everything Lenore endured and accomplished in service of her Lord Vampire, she deserved far better recompense. And far more effort to ensure that her inner wounds healed.

He would easily accomplish the former.

Unfortunately, he was less confident in regards to the latter.

***

Lenore peered out the window at the full moon nestled in a ring of silver clouds. The tranquil sight was at odds with the hammering of her heart and the jolts of the carriage on the rutted country road. In mere minutes, she would see the Lord of Rochester again… and be relinquished to him. He’d handily trapped her in this arrangement, knowing she would have no choice but to obey Lord Villar. And she mustn’t forget that she owed Rochester a debt as well. Would her moving to his lands pay her debt as well as Villar’s? Or would he want something further from her?

In mere minutes she might learn why they called him ruthless.

Thankfully, Lord Villar and his wife remained silent throughout the journey, as if they sensed that even mild conversation would take a toll on her jangled nerves.

But when the carriage trundled down the driveway of a vast estate, Cassandra reached forward and patted her hand. “Breathe, Lenore.”

Swallowing, she nodded, knotting her fists in her skirts as the conveyance rolled to a halt. Rafael exited first, helping his bride with one hand while gripping his jeweled walking stick with the other. The cane concealed a narrow, but deadly blade.

Courage bolstered by their determination to protect her, Lenore accepted the footman’s assistance out of the carriage.

Instead of being greeted at the door by the butler, Rochester himself met them in the drive. Somehow he looked even larger than he had when they’d first met. His eyes, black as sin, roved over her, searing her body with awareness of his danger. Quickly, she curtsied.

His lips curved in a smile that looked oddly triumphant before he addressed them all. “Miss Graves, Lord Villar, Lady Villar. I am happy you arrived. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”

Rafael’s eyes widened at Rochester’s greeting Lenore before a fellow Lord. Lenore met his stunned gaze and shook her head in confusion as Cassandra answered curtly, “Indeed, my lord.”

Rochester ignored Cassandra’s suspicious tone and kept his smiling gaze on Lenore. “Splendid. Now if you’ll follow me inside, I have refreshments waiting.”

Lenore started forward, but Rafael gripped her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.