As Shadows Fade

Page 12

His muscles trembling, his salved wounds still oozing stubbornly, he changed out of his dirty clothes, all the while grimly considering Wayren’s request.
Become a Venator again.
He’d not need the bloody draft if he did. He’d not need to step aside and let a faster, stronger Vioget save a comrade. He’d have no reason to leave.
Yet he couldn’t bear to stay.
Even if he got his Venator capabilities back, he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust himself to be strong enough, to do the right thing.
To share her.
Pouring the still-hot water into the basin, Max felt a wave of steam rise. He splashed it on his face and chest, gasping at the sudden twinge of pain when he moved his arms too vigorously in his ablutions, and pausing to catch his breath.
His face was buried in one of Kritanu’s lemon-scented towels when there came a knock at the door. He flung the door open, startling the twitchy red-haired servant, Oliver. The groom who’d taken his mount earlier tonight had obviously been pressed into other service within the small household.
“Beg your pardon, sir, but my lady wishes you to attend on her,” Oliver said most correctly.
Max glowered at him. “My lady?” Wayren or Victoria?
Oliver looked confused for a moment, then recovered, offering, “Lady Rockley.” Apparently, he didn’t consider Wayren a lady, which wasn’t surprising. Only the Venators-and the evil ones-knew what she was capable of.
Max wadded up the towel and tossed it onto the table. One end flipped over the side of the basin, landing a corner in the water. Blast it. Could she not leave him be? He pulled out his last clean shirt and tugged it over his damp skin, where it seemed to stick everywhere. Just as his head emerged from the opening, he heard the man add, “She awaits you in her chamber.”
Max stilled, his hands crushing into the soft linen. “Her chamber?”
Christ.
Then he centered on the whirl of thoughts-and, damnation, the images –that bit of information invoked, and extracted the most palatable one. Victoria’s face had been dead white and her clothes soaked with blood. Was she injured more severely than he’d thought? She’d never released Wayren’s hand during their short meeting in the parlor.
Max opened his mouth to ask Oliver, but the young man had scuttled off, leaving the door ajar.
There was nothing for it but to “attend to her.”
His mouth closed grimly, his jaw tight, he set off, certain that whatever he found, it wouldn’t be to his liking.
When he reached Victoria’s chamber, his peremptory knock produced no response. Max waited for a moment, then knocked again, a bit harder, and the door edged open. Hell. Was he supposed to go in?
Blast it.
He’d not hesitated entering her chamber a few months ago when he first came back to London. He’d been uninvited then.
And now it was morning. Filled with light, which meant exposure. And few shadows in which to hide.
Max pushed the door open, his attention going immediately to the bed. It was empty.
He stepped inside and closed the door, firmly, behind him, looking around the chamber. Early-morning sunlight filtered through the nearby tree branches, casting the small room in a soft warm glow. The bed lay pristine and made, high off the ground, with a bumpy white coverlet. The dressing table was situated near the entrance to what must be a small dressing room. The mirrored table held an array of ladylike items-and a few that were not so ladylike: perfume bottles, combs, brushes, jewelry, stakes, holy water vials…
He paused and looked more closely, seeking a slender blue-tinted bottle. No. It was gone. The potion that he knew Victoria drank in order to keep from getting with child. Aunt Eustacia, and now Kritanu, made it for her. But it was gone, and he knew that Victoria had made good on her promise to stop taking it.
Max did not want to consider the implications of that fact, and he turned abruptly to examine the rest of the room.
The fireplace held a neat stack of kindling ready to be lit should the weather turn chill or rainy. A chair in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling drapes would provide a good, distant seat from any other furnishings or activity in the room; it was the same chair in which he’d sat when he’d visited her chamber before. This morning, the windows had been flung open, and a soft breeze filtered through them.
Where the hell was Victoria? Had she sent for him or not?
Suddenly, he heard a faint… splash . Water.
Max looked past the dressing table toward the dressing room and swore. Under his breath.
She was taking a bloody bath .
He turned, ready to flee, when the chamber door opened and in bustled Verbena, the poof-haired maid. She carried a load of linens and didn’t appear surprised to see him.
And now it was too damned late for him to slip out without being noticed.
“Oh, an’ there y’are,” the maid said, bustling past him. “S’sorry t’keep ye waiting, my lord, sir,” she added, her skirts sending a glass bottle clinking against another on the table as she hurried into the dressing room.
Where Victoria was bathing.
Christ. Almighty.
Max considered making his escape anyway when the chamber door opened again and in limped Vioget.
He hadn’t even knocked.
And he looked exceedingly pleased with himself as he came into the room dressed no more formally than Max himself, in trousers and an untucked shirt. Vioget never went about in such dishabille. He likely thought he’d not long be attired at all.
Fully aware of Vioget’s penchant for carriage seductions, Max couldn’t keep his mouth closed. “You’re a bit out of your element, Vioget. There’s not a carriage in the vicinity.”
He had to give the man credit; he eclipsed his shock almost immediately. “What are you doing here?”
“Likely the same as you,” Max replied smoothly, sinking into the chair in the corner. “Responding to our ladyship’s beck and call. Unless you weren’t beckoned and are calling uninvited?”
“I was referring to your presence in London, not in this chamber,” Vioget responded.
Max looked away. Bloody damned good question. If he’d leave, Victoria would have no choice but to be with Vioget.
Now that she wasn’t drinking from the little blue bottle.
He eyed Vioget with a mixture of loathing and candor. For all the man’s faults, Max knew Sebastian cared for Victoria and would protect the woman who feared little and needed no protection-at least, overt protection.
If only Max would get out of his way and allow him to do what both men wanted Vioget to do.
“She attended a ball without an escort last evening,” Max said. “And left with none other than George Starcasset. Perhaps if you were a bit more attentive, I could leave you to your courtship.”
Vioget’s fist tightened, and for a moment, Max thought he might use it. His glance flickered down to the clenched fingers, then back up to meet Vioget’s eyes. Yes.
Just then, he heard the quiet scuff of bare feet and the soft swish of clothing. Victoria entered the chamber, fresh from her bath. Her face flushed from the heat, her eyes bright, she brought in a waft of something spicy and exotic. She was properly clothed in a neck-to-floor robe. Only her bare toes peeked out, and in light of the fact that both Max and Vioget had seen-touched, tasted-considerably more than those slender digits, it seemed ridiculous to focus on that immodest display.
“Ah, so you’re both here. Good.” She sat on the edge of her bed, high enough off the ground that her feet didn’t quite touch. “I’m sorry for bringing you in here, but there was no other place for us to talk. Wayren is in the parlor, and I didn’t want to disturb her… and Brim and Michalas are sleeping on the floor in the kalari room. The house isn’t large enough to accommodate so many people.” She raised her chin, as if challenging him to argue that they could have met in the dining room, or… somewhere. Else.
In the most surreal moment of his life, Max realized he was about to have a strategy meeting with Victoria and Vioget in her bedchamber.
Someday, perhaps, he would find it amusing.
“Brim and Michalas aren’t invited?” he drawled. “What a shame.” Her hair fell in a dark cascade over one of her shoulders, and he remembered her scream as the clawed demon had lifted her by the scalp.
Victoria looked at him, and hell if there wasn’t a glaze of smugness in her expression. “I apologize for the informality of the accommodations, Max,” she said. “I realize you’d prefer to be anywhere but here.”
Bull’s-eye.
She turned to Vioget, who’d selected the chair in front of the dressing table, turning it to face the rest of the room. “How is your leg?”
“Verbena assisted Kritanu, and I do believe that between their efforts, I’ll be able to retain that limb, at least.” Vioget’s smile held a bit of self-deprecation, and Max’s attention flickered to the man’s left hand-which was missing two knuckles of his little finger, thanks to a particularly bloodthirsty woman named Sara Regalado.
“I never doubted that,” Victoria said, shifting on the edge of the bed. The hem of her robe gapped a bit, revealing a slice of the gown beneath it.
Max recognized it. Unfortunately. The fabric was the same pale lilac as the lacy, satin-skirted night rail she’d been wearing the last time he’d ventured into her chamber. The one that left little to the imagination, as the bodice was made purely of lace. At the time, he’d complained, telling her to cover up the ghastly gown… but he suspected in retrospect that she’d realized it wasn’t because of the design that he’d insisted. Hell.
“Perhaps I should take a look at it, Sebastian. Just to make certain,” Victoria was saying. She leaned forward, and the front of her robe gapped a bit, giving a hint of shadow and textured lace.
“Perhaps we could get to the matter at hand,” Max said crisply. “Then I can excuse myself and the two of you can examine each other’s injuries to your hearts’ content.”
He found it a bit more difficult to sound bored and annoyed today. And when Vioget gave him an arch look, Max merely ignored the smugness in his face.