“Move.” Victoria realized she’d begun to sound like Max, with her blunt, terse commands—ironic, but she had no time for gentle manners. She got to the gate, saw the metal lock that had obviously been secured after her mother’s companions had come through, and she started to pull on it.
That was when she heard the sound of an approaching carriage, and at the same moment her neck chilled.
Victoria froze for an instant; then with a jerk of her hand she sent the others scuttling into the shadows. Maybe…just maybe…
She adjusted the grip on her stake, eased herself into the darkness, and waited.
The carriage rumbled to a halt in front of the gates, bringing with it the faintest bit of light from its lantern, filtering through the iron bars. Victoria’s heart began to pump harder. It was possible.
Her fingers tightened, her breath quickened, and she waited.
The sound of someone alighting from the barouche—a woman, she was certain, based on the faint rustle and swish—spiked Victoria’s hope. If it was her mother, and she was still…
A titter, a coy one that Victoria would never have attributed to Lady Melly, tinkled over the night air, and a surge of relief swept over her. Odd as it sounded, it was definitely her mother.
The metal lock clinked at the gate, and Victoria eased flatter against the damp wall, realizing suddenly that her toes were like tiny pieces of ice inside her soggy slippers…but she didn’t care. Her mother was here.
Only a moment more…
The chain fell away and the gates swung open. Lady Melly came into view, her arm slipped through the elbow crook of none other than the Conte Regalado, she looking like a fresh young woman strolling along with her beau, he with his bare head shining in the dim light.
Before Victoria could make a move, something—someone—pushed past her in a froth of skirts and lace and with an unwieldy stake.
“Let her go!” pronounced Lady Winnie, as though she were a patroness at Almack’s, refusing to let a debutante dance a third dance with the same man.
Regalado turned to the duchess, his even white teeth suddenly gleaming in a charming smile. “Why, if it isn’t your friend, my dear Melly. Have you come to join us?”
Her mother had given him permission to call her by her Christian name? Already?
Victoria gave herself a little shake of the head at the absurdity of her thought; perhaps it was the sense of relief that her mother was alive and well that had sent her mind scuttling to such a thing. Well, they were no longer in London, and they certainly had other things to concern themselves with besides the codes of propriety.
“Winnie! My heavens! What on earth are you doing here?”
“Well, now, my dear, we had a bit of a fright, ’tis all,” replied the duchess in a calm voice. She surreptitiously tucked the stake behind her skirts.
Victoria saw no reason to wait for them to politely discuss the situation, as they were wont to, so she stepped out of the shadows. When Regalado saw her, the menacing edge to his smile slipped.
“Good evening, Conte,” Victoria said. “Mother.”
“Victoria!” Her mother’s voice was understandably shrill and horrified. “What is the meaning of all this?”
Victoria had no choice but to ignore her, although she knew she would pay for it later. Her ears began to ring in preparation. Unless she could get Wayren to use Aunt Eustacia’s golden disk, what she was about to say and do would shock her mother far more than her unexpected—and unladylike—appearance.
But brevity was necessary, for she had neither the wish nor the patience to spend several minutes churning through an explanation and its unavoidable discussion. “Regalado, because you’ve managed to keep your fangs off my mother thus far, and obviously she’s had a lovely evening in your company, I’ll allow you a choice: Release her, or I’ll turn you into a pile of dust.”
Regalado nearly leaped from Melly’s side in his haste to comply. “Of course, my dear. Of course. I meant no harm. Your mother is a charming and handsome woman, I must say. I meant no harm a’tall.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed. That was a bit too easy. But…her neck was still only a bit chilled—just enough to account for Regalado’s presence—and she didn’t smell the horrible, dank death-smell of any demons. Perhaps the man was just the same repulsive, superficial coward he’d been before being turned into a vampire.
Apparently, though the soul became mutated and malevolent in its undead form, the personality attached to it didn’t undergo any great change.
“Victoria, how dare you,” said Lady Melly, grabbing at Regalado’s arm as if to pull it back into her possession. “I do not know what has befallen you, but since you arrived here in Rome, you have been not at all yourself. I cannot begin to imagine what you think you are going to accomplish by interfering—”
As her mother continued to lecture, Victoria wished desperately for Aunt Eustacia’s golden disk.
The irony of the situation was that many years ago, Lady Melly herself had been called to be a Venator. She had declined the task, opting instead to marry Victoria’s father, and thus not only had her mind been wiped clean of information about vampires and Venators, but all of her innate skills and Venatorial powers had been passed on to her daughter.
Regalado himself, as creepy and slimy as he seemed, also appeared to be quite disconcerted by Lady Melly’s leech-like propensity. He tried to extricate himself from the woman, all the while watching Victoria with trepidation.
It was, in the end, a blessing that two more vampires arrived at that very moment; for if things had continued as they’d begun, Victoria wasn’t at all certain how she would have pried her mother away from the most inappropriate of all candidates for a second husband.
But the appearance of two more undead—apparently the coachman from Regalado’s barouche and a female acting, ironically, as a chaperone, perhaps?—set the next events in motion.
Unaware of the situation into which they’d entered, the newcomers bared their fangs, let their eyes light up with a red glow, and dove into the melee. Moments later, after a flurry of lace and silk and damp feathers (from Lady Melly’s bonnet, after she was shoved face-first into a bush), stakes of all sizes and efficacy, along with much poofing and grunting and thunking of bulky silver crosses, there were two piles of vampire dust, three would-be victims still cowering against the wall, an indignant widow being ushered off to Oliver and his carriage, and the flapping coattails of the Conte Regalado as he dashed up the front steps of the villa.
Victoria wasn’t even breathing hard, but she was flush with satisfaction and a feeling of well-being. Verbena wore a smug smile, and somehow her mistress had a feeling that poor Oliver was never going to hear the end of the adventure, even though he’d been relegated to stay in the carriage.
“Excuse me for one moment,” Victoria said to no one in particular, eyeing the door through which the conte had disappeared. If he thought she was going to let him live another day to court her mother, he was severely mistaken. “Keep the carriage waiting.”
She slipped away as the rest of them burrowed into the carriage, Lady Melly still screeching her outrage with her daughter and the world in general. She hadn’t seen the dispatching of the vampires, for by the time she’d extricated herself from that fortuitous bush, they were nothing but piles of dust.
Victoria intended to feed her mother’s ignorance by utilizing the gold disk as soon as possible.
However, she had this one last thing to take care of.
It wasn’t hard for her to find the conte. He was under the impression that she’d allowed him to walk away a free undead, so he hadn’t gone far into the villa and was peering through a side window at the ladies being helped into the carriage by Oliver.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” she said as he whirled. She slammed the stake into his chest and added, “and the vampire too.” His poof wasn’t even especially large.
To ensure that they all returned home safely, Victoria crowded into the carriage with Lady Winnie, a pouting Lady Melly, and the dreamy-eyed Lady Nilly.
Two of the other near victims—a Miss Anne Malloren and a Mrs. Stefania Faygan, both Americans—clambered into the carriage as well. Their male companion elected to ride above with Verbena and Oliver, leaving Victoria crushed in the midst of skirts and the target of her mother’s death-gaze.
There was nothing for it, however, and Victoria resigned herself to an uncomfortable—yet oh, so relieved!—ride back to the Gardella villa. Oliver had agreed to take the three others to their quarters, and until they left the carriage, at least, Victoria would be spared the lecture that was sure to come.
Instead she allowed herself to relax a bit, now that her neck was feeling normal and the carriage was moving at a rapid pace away from the horrible villa. As if unwilling to acknowledge the events of the evening, the ladies about her were chatting as if they were returning from a night at the theater. Victoria thought she heard the dark-haired Miss Malloren mention something about swimming with a shark…but that must have been a moment when her mind wandered and she’d misunderstood. Surely no one would be so foolish!
Although…when one considered Victoria’s own vocation, perhaps it wasn’t so crazy.
The other woman, Mrs. Faygan, who was dressed in a lovely gown of rose, decorated with matching pink pearls, seemed to be quite enamored with the Italian pasta noodles she’d become familiar with during their visit to Rome.
This launched the conversation into a direction quite distant from vampires and stakes and eerie villas…and the women began a heated discourse about the merits of cannoli versus English lemon biscuits.
Victoria faded in and out of the conversation, but it wasn’t until they had delivered their three guests to their quarters that she realized what she’d forgotten.
The leather cord, with the splinter, was still lying somewhere in the gardens at Villa Palombara.
Eighteen
Wherein the Ruby Box Is Opened
Max stripped off his soaking clothes and slapped them over a wood-backed chair. His hair was still wet enough to plaster to his face and neck, but at least it wasn’t dripping anymore, and at least it wasn’t long enough to get in his eyes and mouth. He combed his fingers through the wet locks and slicked it back from his forehead and temples and over his ears.