Love At First Bite Part 23

hear. "But... I will be going away tomorrow."

Emma felt as though she had been slapped. "Where?" she blurted.

His eyes were pained. "I expect I'll start in Casablanca. After that, I don't know."

"How... long will you be gone?" she managed after a moment.

"I don't know that, either." He looked at his hands. He took a breath as though he had to fight for it. "It isn't my choice..." He

trailed off.

"Well, I'll be anxious for your return," she said carefully, trying to sense the truth of his feelings about this turn of events. Was he relieved that he was escaping the "expectations"? He didn't look relieved.

He shook his head convulsively. "Everything will be changed by then. A woman like you gets offers of marriage every week."

"I've managed to resist temptation so far." She couldn't believe she was telling him so clearly how she felt about him, not knowing if he returned the sentiment.

"It could be years..." he choked, turning.

Years? He was trying to put her off! Did he long to get away from her? Had she mistaken echoes of warmth for a childhood friend for something more? She had to know. "Surely a wife could accompany you, help you in your mission."

He turned a gaze on her filled with such longing and such... loss it almost staggered her. He swallowed. Then his countenance

closed. "Too dangerous in Africa. And if... the worst... happened... a widow without being properly a bride... worse, alone in a strange land..."

He thought he would die there? My G.o.d!

"An unfair proposition all the way around," he croaked. "No, there are no obligations between us. You must look to your own happiness." He took a tentative step in her direction and another, until he loomed over her with all of his six-plus feet. Slowly he bent to her hand and lifted it gently with his own. The feel of his flesh against hers sent a thrill coursing through her. His hand was strong, the nails clean half-moons. He smelled like soap and lavender water. She was most aware of the muscle in his shoulders.

She could hardly concentrate with the sensation of skin to skin a.s.saulting her. "I shall always treasure our moments together."

That sounded so final! "I await your return, then..." She tried to make her voice sound both stubborn and cheerful.

"No." He pressed his lips to her fingers. The touch made her feel faint with impending loss. "Move on with your life, Emma. I can promise you nothing."

That was it then...

He snapped upright and let go her hand. All color drained from his face. His eyes shone. "Your servant, Miss Fairfield." He

nodded curtly, then spun on his heel and shut the breakfast room door behind him.

Emma was left staring at the closed door. Emotions careened and collided in her breast. Surely... surely his expression, if not his words, said he cared for her, that it was only duty that called him away... Was she wrong about that?

The door creaked open and her brother let himself into the room. "Emma? I ran smack into Ware. He looked like he'd seen a

relative executed. You didn't refuse him, did you, girl?"

"I didn't get a chance," she said, trying to make her voice light.

"He didn't offer?" Her brother was incredulous.

"It seems he's off to Africa tomorrow." She took up a piece of needlework at random. Her hands were shaking. "The

expectations at White's will go unsatisfied." Her voice cracked on the last sentence. She despised herself for her lack of control.

"Oh, Emma!" Richard put a hand on her shoulder. "What a time to be mistaken in a suitor, just when you finally found one you liked." He sighed. "There will be others."

"Putting up with who I am because of my fortune, no doubt," she said bitterly. "I thought Davie... well, that he liked me as I was.

If I can't have that, I'd rather be a spinster. Not a fate worse than death." But spinsterhood rankled. Marriage, too, with anyone but Davie, would gall her. What kind of diplomatic mission brought a certainty of death? Or had he just made that up to put her off? She watched her fingers pull small, even st.i.tches through her needlework as though they belonged to someone else. Everything had changed.

Somewhere inside she felt a storm building, one that might sweep away her sanity.

Chapter Two.

The sun sank behind the Kasbah tents in Casablanca. Davie watched the light die from the third-story window of the room he had taken. Fear thumped in his chest. The night belonged to them. How would he find Rufford in this teeming city?

He lit a small oil lamp against the coming twilight. The Admiral had given Davie his fastest cutter. Supplies were diverted from a s.h.i.+pment to Gibraltar and sent to Casablanca. Whitehall was pulling out all the stops to give Rufford anything he needed for the war he was waging against the forces of darkness.

Darkness to darkness, monster over monster. Did it matter who won? Davie asked that question and answered himself a dozen times a day.

Yes. The world probably depended on Rufford's brand of darkness prevailing.

Davie had a hard time caring for the world just now. It was eleven days, ummmm, four hours, and twenty minutes since he had seen Emma Fairfield's face, incredulous, then hurt. That look had stayed with him through choppy seas and the smell of tar and salt water. She'd done everything but beg him to take her with him. A woman like Emma Fairfield did not beg. The need to be with her was a physical pain in his belly.

He went to the room's lone window, just an opening in the thick mud brick walls. He looked out across the city. Lights began to flicker as the Kasbah turned into a night market. The braying of donkeys and camels, the smell of spice and fruit and overripe meat, wafted up from streets that teemed with sellers and shoppers and no doubt something far more deadly. He could not have brought her into this chaos and danger.

"You came."

Davie whirled to see Ian Rufford standing in the shadows of the bare room, containing only a narrow bed and a dresser. He sucked in a breath. He thought he saw the gleam of red in Rufford's eyes. But then the man-if that was what you could call him these days-stepped out of the shadows and his eyes were as blue as Davie remembered them. Rufford had powerful shoulders and curling light brown hair worn too long and tied back in a black ribbon. The air was electric with the energy emanating from him. Davie recognized the telltale scent of cinnamon and something else, sweeter, underneath. They all had a variant of that scent and put out some version of that vibrating energy. The brute was handsome. So handsome he had enticed Elizabeth Rochewell into marrying him, even though she knew what he was. Davie and Emma Fairfield had stood up at their wedding. Davie still couldn't believe that Rufford had brought his new wife into the danger of North Africa. "How did you get in?"

Rufford shrugged. "Thank you for coming."

It was Davie's turn to shrug. "Rally round and all that." But he had been thinking about Rufford's wife. "I wonder that you didn't get your wife to see to your supply lines. She was a hand at organizing expeditions as I recall."

"My wife is doing just that for Khalenberg and Beatrix Lisse in Tripoli," he said. "The... extermination effort proceeds on several fronts. Urbano has Algiers."

Beatrix Lisse! Of course! The famous courtesan always wore perfume smelling vaguely like cinnamon. He should have guessed it wasn't perfume at all. "Why not send me to Tripoli and keep your wife by your side?" he couldn't help asking. Too late he realized that Rufford's wife might have left him, and the man just didn't want to admit that.

Rufford smiled grimly. "She can handle Khalenberg. You could not."

Davie was stung into a retort. "A slip of a girl?"

"She's our kind now," Rufford said. "And her blood is strong."

That stopped Davie. Elizabeth Rufford had been made vampire? A fate worse than death. Rufford once thought so, too. His

saving grace was that he hadn't wanted to become a monster, had fought against it, hated it. Davie examined Rufford's face. The old pain and sorrow he had once seen there were gone. Rufford looked tired but... comfortable with himself, confident. Had he stopped hating that he was a monster? So much so that he made his wife into a monster, too?

"She was dying." It was as though he read Davie's thoughts. "My blood could save her. What would you have me do?" Death is better than becoming a monster. That was what came of letting a woman come with you into dangerous climes.

Thank G.o.d he had not been weak enough to ask Emma to marry him. Davie's heart clenched. He would probably never hold Emma Fairfield in his arms, now.

But he was not here to judge Rufford, or to mourn for what might have been with Emma. He was here to do his duty and help

eradicate the remnants of Asharti's army, else humans would be kept as cattle and raised for their blood. He pushed the image of

Emma's smile from his mind. "How goes the battle?"

Rufford didn't answer. His mouth set itself into a line and his jaw worked. "We need a safe house to heal during the daylight hours. We'll have to change the location frequently. Food, fresh clothing-African mostly, since we must pry them out of the local population."

Davie nodded. "Weapons? I brought an a.r.s.enal of guns."

Rufford shook his head. "Useless. Perhaps some sabers or cutla.s.ses."

"Done. Bandages?"

Rufford raised his intense blue eyes. "No." He hesitated. "But we're going to need-"

Davie didn't want to hear the word. "I've been thinking about that," he interrupted. "Would it raise suspicions if I solicited

donations? I could pay handsomely."

Rufford shook his head. "The city is frightened enough as it is. Bring five or six healthy specimens to the safe house each evening

before we go out. We'll do the rest, and leave them with pleasant memories of a night of wine or love and money in their pocket they'll think they won at dice. We'll take a bit from each so no one is the worse for wear."

So. He was to be a procurer of blood. His face must have shown his revulsion.

"Look, Ware," Rufford said, his voice rough. "I'm not sure what you know of us, based on your time with her. Asharti," he

almost choked on the name even still, "is not a good example of our kind. But you need to know our Rules."

Davie sucked in a breath and nodded. Rufford had suffered at her hands as well.

Rufford held himself still. The light of the lamp was the only flickering defense against the darkness that had grown in the room.

Rufford stood outside its circle of illumination. His face was dimly visible in the shadows. "We have a parasite in our blood. We

call it the Companion. It gives us strength. We can compel weaker minds as well as suggest memories. We can translocate- draw the power of our Companion until we pop out of s.p.a.ce and time and reappear at a place of our choice within a range of a few miles. We are stronger than humans. The Companion rebuilds its host rather than relocating, so we heal wounds and life is extended... indefinitely." He made his tone matter-of-fact.

Immortal? The concept was too big to comprehend. Yet Davie knew from his terrible time with Asharti how true some of those impossible facts were. He had firsthand experience with compulsion. A woman of eight stone had brute strength that far surpa.s.sed his own. And he had seen Rufford heal a broken neck after trying to kill himself.

"We aren't harmed by garlic or wolfsbane or symbols of any religion. We don't sleep in the earth of our homeland. We have never been dead and we don't turn into wolves or bats. Those are superst.i.tious myths."