MacNachton Vampires: Born To Bite Part 20

She remained frozen in silence.

Even more confounding was the undeniable fact that she'd twice ignored his command. As far as Cain knew, resistance was impossible. Human minds were unable to withstand the will of a powerful vampire. Even more potent was a vampire's spoken word. In centuries of history, he'd never heard of a human failing to obey vampiric Compulsion. Was it possible the girl was in too much shock to process her environment?

"Speak," he said again, but this time gently, so as not to startle her overmuch.

The tip of her tongue nudged between the parted edges of her (very normal, very human) teeth.

Rapt, his entire body tensed in fascination.

The tip curled over her incisor, trapping the sole drop of blood between her tooth and tongue. Her pupils contracted, giving her iris the unsettling appearance of a solid disc of icy blue. Her chest stopped moving and no breath escaped her pink mouth. Her heart slowed-or perhaps time itself stopped as Miss Ramsay's tongue disappeared once again, taking that single drop of his blood with it.

Music crashed down around them, and the moment was gone.

Leather boots and satin slippers slapped methodically across the floor as the brainless hive trampled about the parquet on the other side of the folding screen. Perhaps it was simply acute homesickness that was making him uncharacteristically torpid, imagining significance where there was none.

With a strangled gasp, Miss Ramsay clasped a white-gloved hand to her face as if holding back bile. Her eyes were normal, if a bit gla.s.sy and over-wide. Her breathing was shallow. She looked as if she might bolt at any second.

Cain bit back a frustrated sigh. She was clearly not the vampire he'd been seeking for centuries ... but she was troublesome nonetheless.

Before Miss Ramsay's arrival into his life, he had been on his single longest run of successful love nips (as the ton was wont to call them) in ballrooms across England. A slight sting where the curve of his neck met the muscle of his shoulder proved a reminder that the skin there had been broken. He could scarcely credit that the chit had succeeded where he had not.

He gentled his hold on Miss Ramsay and whirled her around the folding screen and back into the tide of dancers. Part of his carefully crafted mystique was never to abscond with fair maidens for a second longer than it took to take a sip of ambrosia and turn the memory into a half-remembered dream. He would not allow Miss Ramsay's unprecedented counterattack to ruin his acceptance in Society. The more invitations extended to "Lord Lovenip," the better chance he had of locating the Deserter.

Meanwhile, he would solve the puzzle of Miss Ramsay.

She released her lower lip from between her teeth and finally met his eyes. "I-I didn't mean to bite you."

Unquestionably. He gave her a half smile. "Then why did you?"

Miss Ramsay blushed. The blood rising to kiss the pale softness of her cheeks was nearly Cain's undoing.

"I don't know," she muttered.

He believed her. Miss Ramsay was hardly one of his kind. She was far stranger. "I believe it's safe to say that you're not like the other ladies."

"Certainly not." Her chin rose defiantly. "I'm smarter."

His amus.e.m.e.nt was overshadowed only by his interest in her choice of adjectives. She hadn't said she was prettier, or wealthier, or better connected. She'd chosen an attribute for which no one in the room cared one whit. Well, except for him. A warrior prized intelligence above all other traits.

"You're certainly less predictable," he agreed, pleased to see the blood rise to her cheeks anew at the reminder. He leaned closer. She smelled so fresh, so fragile, so alive. He should have kissed her when they were hidden in the gardens. "Are you from this part of the country? Or are you a city miss, barely surviving until the Season is upon us again?"

If he hadn't been watching her so closely, he might have missed the tiny frown that flickered between her brows.

"Neither." She broke eye contact, s.h.i.+fting her gaze over his shoulder. "And you?"

A pretty evasion ... Cain wondered why she felt it necessary. "I was born on the Isle of Mull, but I've now been in England more years than I lived in Scotland."

Her focus returned to his face. "Is it beautiful? Your homeland, I mean?"

He smiled despite the pain in his heart. "Very. Have you never had the opportunity to visit?"

She shook her head.

"You ought, if you get the chance." It occurred to him she might not have the means for extensive travel; then he discarded the thought as nonsense. Country ball or not, one was not invited to rub noses with this set of people if they did not believe their guest to be of means. "Have you traveled much?"

"More than I prefer to have done." An expression flashed across her face too quickly to decipher. Anger? Distaste? Regret? "Are you afflicted with wanderl.u.s.t, my lord?"

"To l.u.s.t," he said with a wicked smile, "and not the slightest inclination to wander."

As hoped, the blush once again rose to her porcelain cheeks. Miss Ramsay was by far the most fetching female in the entire region. No doubt their dancing together after having stepped behind the Oriental folding screen would add a new page to the betting books on the morrow. After having treated himself to a pretty neck, he refrained from further dalliance-meaning Lord Lovenip had never continued to dance attendance upon anyone he'd sequestered for a quick bite. And here he was-swirling a young lady about the room long after, with not a hope of disguising his enjoyment of the flirtation.

"You're shameless," she admonished.

He grinned. "Guilty as charged."

"And highly inappropriate," she added.

He pulled her closer and dipped his head to whisper in her ear. "You wound my sensibilities, madam."

She shook her head in consternation and amus.e.m.e.nt. Not the reaction he usually effected, but then, nor was Miss Ramsay the usual sort of female. He was having far more fun than he'd had on his previous dances added together.

"I doubt you have any sensibilities," she said tartly.

Rather than reply, he allowed his gaze to settle on her lips. Ninety-nine times he'd whisked an English rose into a garden for a quick nip at her neck, and for the first time, he'd rather kiss one senseless. Miss Ramsay gazed at him with sharp intelligence, rather than mindless flirtation. She kept her secrets to herself and turned his questions back upon him rather than prattle endlessly about nonsense. And after centuries of witnessing human interaction, this was the first time he honestly couldn't guess what a mortal would say or do next.

He only hoped it involved kissing.

The melody closed on a crescendo. The musicians set down their instruments for a brief intermission. Propriety demanded he release Miss Ramsay from his embrace. Cain did so, blaming his distraction for not having Compelled the orchestra to keep playing. He bowed. She dipped in the briefest of curtseys and slipped away amongst the milling n.o.bility.

The moment the musicians returned, he would secure her hand for another dance. He would purloin her at first opportunity, abduct her back out to the gardens, and tempt a hunger that had nothing to do with blood. He yearned to taste her, to feel her breath on his skin, the warmth of her flesh, the flutter of her heart beating against his chest.

But when the music resumed, she was gone.

Cain searched the ballroom, then the peripheral rooms, then the entire grounds. Nothing. She had disappeared without a word. Without even letting him know how to reach her, should he wish to do so.

He wished for much more than that.

Luckily, a woman like that could hardly escape notice. Her being the recipient of an invitation meant someone had to know her well enough to invite her. Besides, the upper circles were woven so close that he was undoubtedly the only person present who hadn't had the pleasure of receiving her card. He would have her direction in a trice.

"My apologies." He paused before a clump of florid peac.o.c.ks. "Could any of you tell me Miss Ramsay's direction?"

The gentlemen screwed up their faces at him as if he'd spoken Gaelic. "Who?"

"Miss Elspeth Ramsay. Red-blond hair, dimple in her left cheek, impertinent but undeniably bonny ..." Cain trailed off as he realized both his words and the accompanying hand gestures were most likely ill-advised in polite society. "That is to say, the lovely young woman I was just dancing with."

A pa.s.sing viscountess came to a sharp halt upon overhearing this last. There! He knew finding a simple direction wouldn't be that difficult.

"Did you dance the last waltz?" she asked, blinking as if just having awoken from a deep sleep. She rapped his shoulder with a painted fan. "Horrid, horrid beast. You well know I would love to be your ... partner."

Cain made the expected flirtatious replies and circled about the room, growing more and more incredulous after each frustrating encounter. Not a soul could help him. For the first time since he'd entered Society, the lords and ladies had taken their eyes from him-just long enough to have missed his waltz partner (and the detour into the gardens) entirely.

Even more baffling: No one had ever heard of Miss Elspeth Ramsay.

Chapter Three.

If the perturbed expression on her client's stony face was any indication, Ellie would not be earning a single penny for her fruitless investigation into Mr. Macane. If anything, Miss Breckenridge's continued silence indicated Ellie should count herself lucky to have been granted a ride home in the Breckenridge carriage. She had been hired to prove Lord Lovenip either monster or fraud, and instead she had first a.s.saulted the suspect, then flirted shamelessly with him, followed most ignominiously by fleeing the scene altogether. Ellie could well acknowledge how such behavior might be perceived as a breach of contract.

"Do forgive me," she blurted when she could no longer stand staring into her erstwhile client's icy countenance. "I am all apologies. I should not have-"

"It's not what you should not have done," Miss Breckenridge snapped, "but what you should have done, yet failed to do. I brought you to the ball specifically so you could scientifically evaluate Martainn Macane, not so you could-"

"Don't say it," Ellie begged, blus.h.i.+ng furiously at the realization her client might have witnessed the role reversal in the gardens. She'd gone and ruined an opportunity for easy money by losing her mind. "I know it was not at all well done of me, but when I realized what he was about, my only thought was that the best defense is a quick offense, and the next thing I knew-"

"-was that you'd disappeared entirely," Miss Breckenridge interrupted coldly. "And once I did come across you, nothing would do but to leave. Leave! A mere hour and a half after arriving! Regardless of your contract with me, one does not depart a Wedgeworth soiree a moment before three, and it isn't even half one. I'll be gossip fodder for days. And here we are, without an iota more information than when we began. What have you to say for yourself?"

"Very little, Miss Breckenridge." Despite the luxury of the carriage, the sumptuous squab beneath Ellie's bustle felt as though it were filled with rocks rather than down. Despite the latest technology in joints and shocks, every time the wheels rolled over the slightest pebble, Ellie's body was so tense, she felt each b.u.mp all the way to her bones. She needed Miss Breckenridge's patronage far more than Miss Breckenridge needed her. For the daughter of a duke, the soiree had been nothing more than an evening's lark. But for Ellie, it had meant food and shelter. She and her mother needed those ten pounds to survive. "All I can say is that I would not have a.s.saulted him had he not tried to attack me first. When I realized he wished to bite me-"

"What?" Miss Breckenridge's jaw dropped. When Ellie failed to elucidate quickly enough, Miss Breckenridge trapped Ellie's shaking knee in a surprisingly strong grip. "Are you talking about Martainn Macane?"

"Yes," Ellie said with a slight frown. "Er ... aren't you?"

"You spoke with him? And he tried to bite you?"

"Yes," she repeated, blinking slowly. The thread of the conversation seemed to be unraveling in opposite directions.

Miss Breckenridge clasped Ellie's knees even tighter. "Where?"

"In the gardens," she stammered. "There was a Chinese folding screen near the exit, and he-"

"No, no, you ninny, where did he try to bite you?"

"Er ... on the neck?" Ellie answered, deciding now was not the moment to take offense at being called a ninny. She certainly deserved the appellation for overreacting thusly to a perceived attack.

"On the neck," Miss Breckenridge crowed. "What did I tell you? I knew he was evil!" A panicked expression quickly replaced joy, and Miss Breckenridge's stupendous grip transferred from Ellie's knees to her shoulders, jerking her forward. Miss Breckenridge pulled Ellie's curls from her nape, twisting her head first one way then another as she inspected all angles of Ellie's neck. "Are you certain he didn't bite you? You won't make any kind of witness if you become a monster yourself or succ.u.mb to his unholy hypnotism. Dear heavens, what would I do then?"

"He didn't bite me. I swear it." Ellie wrenched out of her client's grasp and flattened her shoulders against the thick wall separating them from the driver's perch. "And there's no such thing as monsters."

Miss Breckenridge sputtered, "No such-my dear girl, you were nearly bitten by the sp.a.w.n of the devil himself, and you wish to quibble over the existence of vampires?" She waved a silk-gloved hand in Ellie's direction and sat back with a pleased nod. "Certainly now you must believe."

"We have proven he bites," Ellie admitted begrudgingly. "We have not proven that he drinks blood."

Even as she said the words, she recalled the taste of that single drop of blood on her tongue, and her body thrilled with a sensation she could only liken to arousal. Her petticoats seemed simultaneously too tight, too heavy, too thick, the carriage too quick and too confining, and the oxygen altogether too insignificant to fulfill the quant.i.ty needed by her gasping lungs.

For a moment, a very brief, very intense moment, she had wanted him with terrible acuteness. Her vision had closed to only his face, his neck, and she'd longed to bite him, kiss him, tear his clothes from his limbs and demand he do the same to her.

Even now, she could taste his blood in her mouth, feel his strength beneath her palms, smell his scent and his own arousal, sense the danger exuding from his every pore. It was the disturbing sensation that she, too, was just as dangerous that had snapped her out of her trance long enough for her to gather her wits. Some of them, anyway. At least she'd managed to finish the waltz without attacking him again.

"Even if we'd proven he has a taste for blood," she said, grateful the dark interior of the carriage would mask her telltale blush, "that would not prove him a vampire. It would just make him ... an extremely eccentric Scot. One must have empirical evidence before making sweeping claims."

Miss Breckenridge smiled as if, shadows or no, she detected the lie of Ellie's forced confidence. As if she saw through the careful facade of bluestocking scientist to the very rattled young woman underneath.

"See? You just presumed it possible-if not probable-that we will in fact prove your eccentric Scot boasts a taste for blood." Miss Breckenridge gave a pleased nod. "Whether you admit it or not, you are already starting to believe."

Peevishly, Ellie returned her client's gaze and refused to respond.

Miss Breckenridge carried on nonetheless. "Besides, drinking blood isn't the only sign of demonic vampirism."

One of Ellie's brows lifted despite herself. "No?"

At this query, Miss Breckenridge shook her head triumphantly.

"What else is there, then? Empirically, that is."

"For one, vampires cannot abide sunlight." Miss Breckenridge's voice dropped to a whisper. "And no one has ever see Martainn Macane during the day."

Ellie's shoulder twitched, but she refrained from indulging in a shrug. "With all due respect, that simply proves he dislikes the sun. Given that pale complexions are de rigueur, avoiding the sun hardly makes him suspicious. I'm a night person myself. I cannot remember the last time I gadded about during the day, if I ever have, and I'm certainly not a vampire. My own mother rarely leaves her bedchamber before dusk-surely you don't accuse her of vampirism, too?"

"No, no, of course not," Miss Breckenridge said with a wave of her lace-gloved hand. "But then, your mother hasn't been running about biting n.o.bility, as Lord Lovenip does." Miss Breckenridge gasped dramatically and pressed her hand to her throat in obvious consternation. "Oh dear Lord, I've gone and used that ridiculous moniker myself." She screwed up her face and glared at Ellie as if the slip were somehow Ellie's fault instead of her own. With a sigh, she collapsed back against her seat. "What can I do to convince you vampires exist and that the das.h.i.+ng Mr. Macane is living-or rather undead-proof? Is it money you wish? Here ..." She opened a satin, monogrammed reticule and dug through its contents before brandis.h.i.+ng a crumpled five-pound note. "I'll double the amount. This now, and fifteen more once you conclude the investigation. What do you say?"

Ellie stared at the wrinkled banknote in her client's elegant outstretched palm. The money would mean everything to her and nothing at all to Miss Breckenridge. Her client hadn't been about to sack her out of disappointment over her behavior, but rather due to a belief that she wasn't taking the situation seriously. Given that Ellie had felt herself under her mother's ultraconservative thumb her entire life, and had begun scientific investigations as much out of rebellion as industriousness, she could certainly empathize with a desire to be taken seriously. To know her own mind. Regardless of whether her beliefs matched everyone else's.

"Very well." Ellie plucked the crumpled paper from her client's palm and slowly, methodically, flattened it across one knee before folding it carefully and consigning it to the darkness of her own, otherwise vacant purse. Then she returned her gaze to her client and tried to apply her most scientific perspective to the topic at hand. "Are there any characteristics shared by supposed vampires that are not also plausibly explained by eccentric, but wholly human, actions of man?"

Miss Breckenridge bit her lip in consideration. "Well, I've never seen him eat a morsel of food, or drink a single drop of punch... ."

"No one with any brains drinks the ratafia," Ellie countered logically. "It's horrid."

"Fine." Miss Breckenridge's eyes narrowed at a spot just above Ellie's shoulder for a long moment. Her sudden victory squeal nearly knocked Ellie out of her skin. "A mirror!" she exclaimed, rapping Ellie's knee for emphasis. "Vampires have no reflections, and no one has ever seen Macane anywhere near a looking gla.s.s. I will double-nay, treble-your fee if you but maneuver him before a gla.s.s!"

Ellie hesitated. There was little she wouldn't (honorably) do to earn such a sum, but what was the likelihood of success? She leveled her gaze at her client and infused her voice with as much calm rationality as possible. "If Mr. Macane has a visible reflection, you will agree that I've disproved your theory?"

Miss Breckenridge's blinding grin bespoke utter confidence. "I will, indeed-because he will not have one. And I know just how to find out. My birthday is but a fortnight from now, and I've already planned a three-day party. I shall invite Macane-and you shall attend as well, of course-and we will have done with this investigation once and for all."

The five-pound note in Ellie's purse weighed as much as a five-ton anchor. Her family desperately needed the income, but there was no hope of Ellie attending a three-day party. She'd had to misrepresent quite a few details of tonight's festivities to garner her mother's permission for the outing.

"I apologize," she said quietly, "but there is no chance at all of my attendance. My mother is quite protective and will never allow me out of her sight for so long. She doesn't even know where we were tonight."

Miss Breckenridge's eyes widened. "Where on earth does she think you are?"

"At a local estate ... helping you find a lost kitten," Ellie admitted with another furious blush. "If Mama for one moment suspected I attended a soiree, I should never be allowed out of her sight again."

The young lady across from her merely laughed in response. "I am a Breckenridge," she said matter-of-factly, "and no one tells a Breckenridge no. I will call upon you on the morrow to extend the invitation in person. There will be no chance of refusal."