“You saw nothing?” He wasn’t certain whether to be alarmed or relieved. Did that mean he wasn’t to die? Ever? Something like relief blossomed.
“Are you hard of hearing?” She held out her hand. “Give me the chain and be off with you.”
“You will attempt it?”
“Leave it with me, and I’ll meditate upon it. I’ll send you a message in the morning through Rubey with any information I can cull from the chain.” The stake shifted warningly in her hand, its point still aimed at him.
Voss hid his surprise. “But how can I trust that you will follow through on our agreement, Angelica?” He allowed his voice to caress her name the way he had done to her shoulder.
That very same shoulder lifted in a delicate shrug. “You will have to trust me.” Her eyes narrowed and she straightened. For a moment, he saw something else besides hatred and anger there. It might have been hurt.
“And how am I to know that you wouldn’t send me a message simply so that you can advise Corvindale of my direction?”
Her lips quirked a bit. “A brilliant suggestion. Thank you, Dewhurst. I’m not certain I would have thought of that myself in my haste to rid London of your vile presence. Now, if you please, remove yourself from my chamber. And this house.”
He couldn’t leave. “Don’t you wish to know to whom that watch chain belongs?”
Again, a shrug. His eyes followed the shift of moonlight over the hollow of her shoulder and he swallowed, clenching his teeth. “I couldn’t care less about anything in regards to you. Now, Dewhurst, if you please…I should like to return to my slumber. You interrupted a very delightful dream.”
“I don’t suppose I figured in your nocturnal visions,” he said, lowering his voice and allowing his eyes to glow a bit. “But you have appeared in mine. Angelica…” He dug his fingers into his thighs to keep from reaching for her…and to distract himself from the pain.
Her shoulders shifted back and her breasts thrust forward and he nearly lunged for her at that point. “Indeed you have,” she said, surprising him again. But her voice had dropped and for the first time, it was unsteady. “You’ve figured quite vividly—in my darkest nightmares. This is the first night I’ve slept without Maia since I returned.”
Voss couldn’t breathe. Every bit of insouciance fled and he felt as if he’d been slammed in the gut. “Angelica,” he began, searching for something…something to say that would truly placate her. Something real, something to heal her. His thrall seemed to have no effect on her, leaving him helpless.
Her eyes had become haunted circles. “Go away, Dewhurst. I’ll send a message to Rubey’s in your care. And I’ll return the chain then.”
Words failed him.
She truly meant it.
Anger, sudden and inexplicable, flared through him, surging to his hands, down his legs. His fangs shot forth, his eyes flamed hot and the dark room filled with a red haze. Voss’s fingers curled, ready to grab at her, to tear into her, and he even jerked toward Angelica—but somehow caught himself, turning before he touched the bed.
Somehow, somehow he fought through it, battling the white fury that ordered him to take, take, take.…
Something helped him stumble to the window—the cold night air, the smooth slide of moonbeam—and he grasped its sill even as the blast of pain seared in his hands and behind his eyes. Lucifer was intent that he would do his bidding.
Voss held on so that he wouldn’t turn back. So he wouldn’t tear into her.
“Get out of here,” he managed to say. If she would leave… “Go. Now.”
In the recesses of his consciousness, he heard the rustle of the bedclothes. He battled needy red fog and the demands of his body, somehow focusing on the sounds of her sliding the door’s bolt and then the slide as it closed behind her.
When she was gone, he vaulted through the window and landed easily on the ground three floors below.
Angelica stumbled from her chamber still clutching the stake. Her heart pounded and her knees were weak, and she had one thought: to get away. As she turned to rush down the corridor, she slammed into something—someone—soft and warm.
“Angelica, what is it?” Maia automatically caught her in a comforting embrace.
Angelica’s arms went around her sister, but even as she did so, she had the presence of mind to push her down the hall, toward Maia’s chamber.
She didn’t believe Voss would follow her. He’d ordered her to leave, but she wasn’t certain. His face…it had been so terrifying.
Almost as if he’d turned into someone else.Go. Get away.
No, he wasn’t coming after her.
But she wasn’t going to go back in that chamber again.
“What’s that in your hand?” Maia asked as they went into her room. She caught Angelica’s wrist and held it up so she could see the stake. “A stick?” Then her eyes went wide. “Oh.”
She remembered Granny Grapes’s stories, too.
“What are you doing awake?” Angelica asked, sitting on her sister’s bed. There was something about being in Maia’s chamber, with all of her things cluttering the dressing table, and more pillows than anyone could ever use piled high on her bed and chair, that made her feel comforted and safe.
“I came to check on you,” Maia told her. They sat on the bed facing each other. “What’s happened?”
Angelica considered whether to tell her sister or not. Maia would be angry and worried for her if she learned that Voss had sneaked into her room, and she’d become even more managing and motherly and smother her to death.
But if she told Maia, then her sister would certainly tell Corvindale—likely in a high-pitched, demanding tone. And she was sure that the earl would make certain it didn’t happen again.
And that would make her sleep so much easier.
“I had a dream,” she said. Which was strictly the truth. She had been dreaming before he woke her. Perhaps she could weave fact with fiction.… “That—Dewhurst came into my chamber at night.”
“Darling, I’m so sorry. How terrifying it must be,” Maia said, stroking her arm. “I didn’t hear you cry out, although I heard something that sounded like you mumbling in your sleep. Or talking to someone.”
“It seemed so real,” Angelica said, continuing with the charade. “He…” He was so gentle. I was sleeping and then I felt him touching me and I wanted him to slide closer and take me in his arms. To be the man he’d been…before.
She wanted to say that. But she couldn’t. She hardly dared think those words, let alone confess them to Maia. Her sister would not understand.
Her sister, who did everything so perfectly and who always had the answer and who didn’t have to live with the demons of death that Angelica did. How could she comprehend the fact that Angelica was both terrified of Voss…and attracted to him, as well?
Or, at least, she had been attracted to him. Now, when she thought of him, there was little more than that heavy ball in her belly. He’d lied to her, he’d tricked her and he’d attacked her. All under the guise of protecting her.
“Sometimes dreams can be more frightening than reality,” Maia said. She sounded so certain, so sure. Just as she always did. Angelica thought it would be nice to be so certain about things. All the time. “And sometimes, they can be so much more…beautiful…than reality.”
More than willing to turn the subject from her experience, desperate to think of something other than the way she’d warred internally between wanting Voss to touch her and truly wanting to kill him, Angelica said, “What do you mean?”
Maia smiled in a way that Angelica had never seen before. A rather secret sort of smile, as if she were being coy or discreet. She fancied that if there were more illumination than the glow of a lamp in the corner, and a hint of moonlight outside, she might see the rise of a blush on Maia’s cheeks.
“Well.” Her sister sat up and pulled one of the two dozen pillows onto her lap, clutching it over her belly. Her face changed, becoming more reserved. “I don’t know if I should tell you about it. After all, you’re still unwed and—”
“And so are you.” Angelica was glad to have the spurt of annoyance to focus on, instead of her fingers that still trembled and the sealike pitching of her belly. Why had he come? Just when she was beginning to feel safer, to begin to forget him and think about other men. “You aren’t married yet, dear sister, and so you haven’t any more experience than I have.”
There was that secret smile again—so odd from her prim sister—and Maia looked up at her over the top of the ruffled pillow. “But that isn’t true, dear younger sister. Alexander and I have… Well, we are engaged, and Chas and the lady patrons haven’t been as vigilant as they were before our engagement was announced.”
Now it was Angelica’s turn to sit up straight and grab a pillow. She felt her eyes as if they were about to bug from their sockets. “You and Mr. Bradington have—”
“No, no,” Maia said. “Not exactly. Not precisely. But… Angelica. It’s quite…nice. Flossa and Betty are right. It’s very pleasant. And I think it gets nicer.” Her lips curved a bit.
“And what does this have to do with dreams being better than the reality? Or did you mean they were more frightening than reality?”
“Well.” She looked away, adjusting the pillow in her lap. Hesitating.
“What is it?” Angelica pressed, now morbidly curious, as this was a side of her proper sister she had never before seen— and had assumed didn’t even exist. Maia had an odd expression on her face—as if she were bursting to share the confidence, but at the same time, ashamed to do so.
“After your experience with Dewhurst, I had a dream. About…it.”
“You dreamed about Dewhurst?” Angelica’s voice might have risen, but not enough to be heard outside the chamber. She didn’t think. Although the door wasn’t shut tightly. She needed to keep her voice down or Mirabella would hear them.