A Dark Heart (7 page)

Over the course of their year apart, especially in the past couple of
months when she'd been out of the city, his condition had visibly deteriorated
– quite severely, if her deepening expression of concern was any
indication.

"Elijah!" she said breathlessly.

Just his name on her tongue sent a bolt of sexual desire through his
loins, both separate from his bloodlust and inextricably entwined with it. He
couldn't even tell where one appetite ended and the other began anymore.

He’d been with women before his transformation. After what O’Connor had
done to him, he’d not expected to ever have the needs of a normal man, but as
he’d grown into adulthood, he’d discovered he was not immune to the opposite
sex. It had come as something of a relief, to be honest, but it had also been a
bit daunting, for the opposite sex wasn’t immune to him either, even with his
Welding eye and crippled leg. He’d categorically refused to ever consider going
to a prostitute, as so many men in his position did without a qualm, but he’d
found willing women enough when he felt the need for bed sport. There had been
a reason O’Connor had pursued him so assiduously as a child, and it seemed the
beauty he’d inherited from his mother had never totally faded, despite his scars
and the passage of the years.

But his past as a gutter whore never truly left him, even during those
brief encounters. He’d always left the beds of his women feeling vaguely
unclean and riddled with guilt. He’d never shaken off the sense that any sexual
desire he felt was somehow dirty and shameful – that he was unworthy of
feeling such urges altogether, let alone foisting them upon another, no matter
how willing his partner was.

When Lady Christiana had come to London all of those years ago, he’d discovered
a whole new universe of anguish. He’d never felt so overwhelmingly attracted to
a woman, and his feelings of guilt and shame had been just as overwhelming.
She’d looked just like the dead girl that still lived in his heart, for one. To
be attracted to her seemed a perversion of the one good, clean memory he had of
his boyhood. And for another, Lady Christiana had been so young – or at
least he’d believed so at the time – barely old enough for her Society
debut. She’d been as fresh and bright as a newly minted golden guinea.

 That his cock had stirred and his pulse had leapt whenever she’d
entered a room and turned those eager green eyes in his direction had seemed so
wrong. That he’d begun to picture her face whenever he was with a woman was
even more iniquitous. It had reached the point that he’d had to stop taking
lovers and shove his base urges deep down inside altogether. He could think of
no other way to cope with his unbidden desire for the one woman he could never
have, not in a million lifetimes.

She hadn’t deserved a broken, used-up molly like him. She certainly hadn’t
deserved one second of the lustful, perverted fantasies that streaked through
his mind whenever she was near – whenever he so much as thought of her.
So he’d avoided her when he’d visited Llewellyn House, and was as scrupulously
polite and formal in all of his dealings with her whenever avoidance proved
impossible. His feelings for her were just too confusing, too frightening.

But when she’d turned him into a leech, everything had become impossibly
worse. The latent attraction had only been exacerbated by his monstrous
bloodlust. And his
unworthiness
had only increased. Not only was he
damaged to the soul by his childhood profession; he was also a god-cursed blood-sucking
monster.

He’d never understood why she’d even bothered to save him at all that
night, when he’d done his damnedest to stay clear of her, to give her no reason
to care about him. He supposed her sentimental memory of him as a boy had
motivated her actions. But even that memory had been an illusion, for she’d
never known what he’d truly been before the fire.

If she’d known the truth, she wouldn’t have saved him. He knew that with
a bone-deep conviction. She certainly wouldn’t look at him as she did now, with
such
yearning
. And he didn’t even think it was sexual in intent. Even
though she was nearly half a century old, her life had been so sheltered and
circumscribed by convention that he doubted she even knew what went on between
a man and a woman when they lay together, much less what
buggery
was.

But
he
knew. Oh, he could write a dissertation on the subject, and
all of the countless perversions between men and women – and men and
children
– he’d both witnessed and been a part of after spending his formative
years in a brothel. They were ingrained deep in his brain, tainting him
forever.

He refused to taint her.

So he held on to his anger, as one would hold on to a life raft, and
refused to see the silent plea for a truce in her green eyes.

Even still, she approached him, as undaunted by his fangs and scowls as
ever. She even smiled tentatively, though it did not reach her eyes. “Did you
miss me, Inspector?”

“Was I supposed to?” he answered with a sneer, in his broadest Cockney
accent, trying not to breathe in her scent.

“I thought perhaps you took a moment here and there out of your life of
fighting villains to reflect upon me,” she said so sincerely he almost missed
the hint of sarcasm peppering her tone. But, alas, he was so attuned to
everything she did, down to the rhythm of her beating heart, that he noticed.
And wondered. She’d never seemed capable of sarcasm in the past.

“Perhaps I did, my Lady,” he said. “Perhaps I thought how wonderful it
was to have several large bodies of water between us.” It
had
been
wonderful. Wonderful and awful all at once. He’d been torn between his relief of
being free of temptation and the nearly debilitating agony of knowing she was a
thousand miles away for two endless months. But he’d cut off his own head
before he admitted as much to her.

Her smile remained stubbornly fixed on her perfect lips, but the light in
her eyes dimmed just a little bit more. “So you did think about me,” she
persisted.

“Aye. Two months and not one headache. I felt truly blessed.”

“And now your headache has returned. I am glad to know I haven’t lost my
touch,” she said dryly, taking him further aback. When had she become so
sarcastic? When had she developed the ability to fight back at his verbal
assaults? Usually one cruel comment from him sent her practically bolting from
his company.

This was no doubt what came from spending two months in Paris with Aline
and Sasha Romanov, who were both known for their biting wit. She’d apparently developed
a backbone on her little holiday. He was not sure if he approved.

Then he shook himself out of his strange line of thought. It was not for
him to approve or disapprove of anything she did. His only job where she was
concerned was to keep her at arm’s length. And apparently his usual line of
attack needed tweaking.

 “I heard a frog had the honor of becoming your latest victim.”
Bloody,
bloody hell
. He cringed inwardly at his words. A
frog
?
Really
?
He sounded like a damned fool.

She narrowed her eyes. “Where did you hear that?”

He’d read it in the
Times-Dispatch
gossip column, but he couldn’t
tell her that. He’d never live it down. “The Earl,” he said.

She looked unconvinced and a little perplexed. “Why would Rowan talk to
you about something like that?
If
we’re even thinking of the same thing,
which is doubtful. If by
frog
, you mean the
French
Duc Du Berry, and
if
you are implying that he asked for my hand and I refused it, that is
entirely none of your business anyway,” she said haughtily.

“How many is that? Ten? Twelve marriage proposals?”

She scowled and put her hands on her hips. “This conversation leads me to
two conclusions. One, that you have been reading the gossip columns as if you
were an actual human being, and two, that you have been keeping a tally of my
‘conquests’ for some perverse reason I hope never to know.”

Touché
. She had
definitely
been changed by her trip.

“But I’m not
human
, am I, your Ladyship?” he growled, knowing
exactly how his words would wound her. It was a low blow, even for him, but he
was beginning to panic. What was he doing, arguing with her at all when he
should be halfway across the city by now?

She winced at his words. But she continued to surprise him by standing
her ground. She actually looked a bit angry. Which was also new … and terrifying.
Her anger had the perverse effect of making him want her even more. He’d not
thought it possible.

“I know that, Elijah,” she said softly. “Just as
you
know why I
must turn down all of those proposals. I can never marry.”

“I don’t know why you must have them in the first place,” he muttered.

He really needed to keep his mouth shut.

“Do you think I encourage them?” she asked, clenching her hands into
fists. She
was
angry. “And even if I did, what do you care? You’ve made
no claim.”

As if he ever could
. For once he didn’t know what to say to her,
or how he’d fallen into this muddled conversation in the first place. Was she
suggesting that she
wanted
him to make a claim?

“Why would I?” he finally managed to say.

She shook her head, the light receding just a little bit more from her
eyes. “At least my suitors, uninspiring though they are, have hearts.
You
have none.”

He felt a small tremor of hurt go through that very same organ. He would
not feel stung. The problem was that he
did
have a heart, though it was
slowly rotting from the inside out, just like the rest of his body.

“For once, you’ve hit the nail on the head,” he said instead. Then he
left her, before he could make an even bigger arse of himself.

WELL,
that
hadn't gone well, Christiana thought bitterly as she stared at the place Elijah
had last stood. She didn’t know how many times her heart could break before it
became impossible to mend. But she was quite sure she didn't want to find out.
She was through letting Elijah Drexler hurt her. She was through with
him
,
full stop.

She knew it was hard for him to be around her. She
knew
how much
he loathed her for what she'd done. Her guilt was like the proverbial albatross
around her neck, a burden she could never lift. She didn’t even deny that she
deserved it. But every venomous glare and cutting remark was like salt in the
wound.

He didn't have to be such a bastard about it.

Yes
, she thought to herself, clenching her hands into fists. He
was a bastard.
A right proper bastard.

She was getting quite comfortable with cursing – in her mind, if
nothing else. She was still getting used to doing it out loud. A lifetime of
acting the perfect lady was a hard habit to break, but she was determined to do
so. According to her best friend Aline, she was "set in her ways"
– a kind way of saying she acted like a middle-aged prude.

Which she
was
– a horrible realization she'd come to
recently. She was a forty-four year old virgin destined to remain one for
eternity. Literally. And she'd been in love with a man who'd loathed the very
air she breathed for what seemed half her life. One couldn't get much more
pathetic than that.

Well, she'd had enough. Elijah couldn't make himself any clearer. He
wanted nothing to do with her. Every time he was around her, he acted like she
was going to throw herself at him, or make some horrifying confession of
undying devotion. Or worse, somehow manipulate him with her wiles. But she’d
never pursued him. She'd done that only once before – to
save his life
,
not to seduce him – and it had ended in complete disaster. So she'd kept
her distance for nine long years, just as he'd practically ordered her to do.

It had been nearly a year since they'd last seen each other, for heaven's
sake, and even then, it had not been because she’d sought him out.
She’d
been shot by a madman who’d kidnapped her best friend
, for heaven’s sake.
What should she have done? Bled out on the streets of Mayfair for all of the
ton
to see?

Furthermore, she thought to herself indignantly, she lived here, so it
shouldn't be so shocking to him if they crossed paths when he visited. Good
Lord!

A right bastard indeed.

She paused at the door to Rowan's study as a sudden realization swept
over her. For the first time, Elijah's rejection hadn't laid her low. Usually
she felt so crushed by the confusing mélange of guilt, hurt and despair
following one of their encounters that she retreated to her room. “Took to her
bed,” as her mother would have called it, like the fragile, missish virgin she
was.

But not this time. The hurt had been brutal but fleeting today, quickly
replaced by her frustration. And anger. A great deal of repressed anger that
she probably had no right to feel. But she did.

And it felt good to let that anger burn through her unremitting guilt for
once.

Her time away had been good for her. She'd spent the past two months in
Paris with the Romanovs, keeping Aline company through the lying-in and birth
of her twins, who were now a month old and healthy, despite their strange
conception. Living with Aline and her husband, who were both so unconventional
compared to the stiff-necked nobility who comprised her usual circle of
acquaintance, had been refreshing and liberating.

Now that she had returned, she was determined more than ever to break out
of her old, familiar patterns. Which started with putting her pathetic
obsession with the Inspector firmly in the past.

Though he had looked
terrible
...

Not
her problem. He wouldn’t let it
be
her problem. And for
the first time in nearly a decade, she was determined that she wouldn’t care
that it wasn’t. She
wouldn’t
.

She shook her head firmly and pushed the door open, pasting a smile on
her face, refusing to let her mind dwell on Elijah a moment longer.

Rowan looked surprised to see her. "Tia, you're back early," he
said, rising from his desk.

Her smile faltered just a little bit as he kissed her cheeks and squeezed
her hands in greeting. Rowan had started calling her Tia after he'd Bonded her.
It made sense for him to have a nickname for her, and for it to be different
from the one she'd answered to for the first seventeen years of her life. In
many ways, she
had
become a new person that day, leaving Ana behind
forever. And she'd never minded it – or at least, she'd never thought
she'd had the right to mind it, since he'd saved her life.

But today...

Everything seemed to be grating on her today, including the sight of
Brightlingsea brooding by the bay window. Not exactly a welcome sight. He chose
the most inopportune times to pop into their lives. Christiana didn’t think the
Duke capable of having a real friend, but his cousin Rowan seemed the closest
thing the man had to one, despite the centuries of secrets they both kept from
each other –
especially
the one Rowan was keeping for her sake.

Now a bolt of anxiety tinged her mounting irritation. One slip of the
tongue, and Brightlingsea could very well choose to take her head.
Not
a
soothing thought.

"Aline and Sasha decided to return to London early with the
twins," she answered, her smile now frozen on her face. "So I came
with them."

"Twins!" Rowan said, shaking his head. "I still can't
believe it. And they are in good health?" he inquired diplomatically,
though she knew "in good health" was a euphemism for
"normal". It was a valid question, considering Sasha was an immortal
and Aline his Bonded companion, and the entire pregnancy had been about as expected
as a virgin birth.

No one, not even Brightlingsea, could predict whether the twins would
indeed inherit any of their parents’ unique qualities. Though the Elders were
theoretically capable of fathering children on mortal women, it was simply not
done, so they had no way of knowing what to expect. But the twins did seem
remarkably human at the moment, if unusually fractious. She would
not
miss
being kept awake by their wails long into the early hours of the morning.

"Not that it's any of your business," she said, sending a
pointed glance in the Duke's direction, determined not to let him cow her.
"But yes. They seem 'in good health.'"

Brightlingsea rolled his eyes and strode to the decanter to pour himself
a drink, as if the turn of the conversation had exasperated him. Christiana
smiled smugly. The Duke and Aline had not quite hit it off when they'd met last
year, and he was doubtless still annoyed at Sasha Romanov’s enduring unwillingness
to join the Elder Council, now that Sasha had finally been cleared of the
murder charges that had hung over his head for centuries.

Aline, cheeky creature that she was, had once claimed that the Duke was
ninety percent bluster. While Christiana couldn’t quite believe that, having
heard Rowan’s violent stories of the Crimea, in which the Duke and his sword featured
prominently, she was determined to grow a backbone where Brightlingsea was
concerned. If Aline and Sasha could defy the four hundred year old curmudgeon
who’d apparently singlehandedly slaughtered the Russian Scourge at Sevastopol, well,
so could she.

Perhaps.

If only she didn't have to worry about Brightlingsea discovering that she
was the one who'd turned Elijah. The Duke had surprised her last year by his
unconventional leniency towards Aline's situation, but she didn't think his
leniency would stretch to cover her transgression. Even
she
agreed
turning Elijah was a heinous crime.

But she couldn’t stand to live in fear any longer.

She stayed chatting for a moment longer before retreating to her suite of
rooms, where she spent the rest of the day unpacking her new wardrobe. She'd
lived for two months in Paris, after all, and she'd been determined to buy
gowns that matched her new mission in life.

She held up a deep emerald silk evening gown that was her favorite and
most daring purchase. Nothing was conservative about it, from the narrow lines
of the skirt that would cling to the shape of her legs, to the deep plunge at
the bust, and the even deeper plunge in the back. In fact, the back was
practically non-existent.

She'd shock the
pince-nez
off the dowagers' wrinkled noses in this
gown, and perhaps by the end of the upcoming season she'd have even succeeded
in landing a gentleman capable of giving her what she wanted.

Of course, marriage was not an option for a multitude of reasons, both
practical and moral. How could she marry someone who could never know what she
truly was – how would such an arrangement work at all? She did not age
like a normal human. Rowan's Heartsblood had both healed her and frozen her in
time. Eventually, the effects of the Heartsblood would slowly start to wear
off, but not for another half century at least. Then Rowan would Bond her
again, staving off time for another century, if she so chose. Theoretically,
she could live forever. And that was something a husband would notice.

No, it was not fair to
marry
anyone. But she could take a lover.
Rowan did all the time. Even Aline and Sasha had been lovers before their
marriage. Good heavens, it was three years shy of the twentieth century! It
wasn’t as if she’d be stoned in the street for a discreet
affaire de coeur
.
And it wasn’t as if she even had to worry about conception. Her body had been
frozen in
all
ways when she was seventeen. Perhaps as the Heartsblood
wore off over time and her mortality returned, there could be a chance of
things being ...
normal
in that way. She just didn't know. No one knew,
or if they did, they weren't willing to tell her.

The only exception to the rule had been Aline, who’d conceived before
being Bonded. But not even Aline herself or her doctor-husband understood how
her nascent pregnancy had survived the catastrophic effects of the Heartsblood.

Christiana hung the scandalous gown in her wardrobe and sat down on her
bed with a heavy sigh. She didn't know why she bothered even thinking about her
... her fertility. It didn't matter. Even if she could have a child, she
couldn't
.
Her oaths forbade it, as no Bonded, man or woman, was allowed a child once they
were turned.

And once the bonding started to wear off, her heart condition would
return anyway. Even if she chose not to renew the Blood Bond with Rowan when
the time came, she'd die of her original disease before having the chance to
have a child.

Well, she didn't want children anyway. She
didn't
. She just wanted
an affair. An ever-so-slightly-naughty liaison with a normal, discreet
gentleman. If she reached her forty-fifth year still a virgin, she was really
afraid she would internally combust. She didn’t even want passionate
declarations of love or grand romantic gestures. God forbid. She was
quite
through with messy entanglements and wishing for things that could never be.

So she couldn't explain why she suddenly felt too weary to do anything
but curl up on her bed, still in her travelling clothes and dusty boots. Why
she suddenly felt like she wanted to cry, despite all of her recent vows to
herself to become a strong, independent woman who lived life on her own terms.

She hated how weak she was.

She
hated
her life. She really did. She didn't think it was
possible to hate it any more…

…UNTIL later
that evening, when
everything
changed, and she discovered just how much
worse her life could get.

It began boringly and harmlessly enough when Brightlingsea joined them
for the evening meal in the vast, formal dining room they always used when they
had visitors. In an effort to bolster her resolve to be daring despite her rapidly
growing malaise, she wore one of her new Parisian gowns, though she wondered
why she bothered for the two of them. They didn't notice what she wore. They
hardly noticed she was even there as they droned on and on about people and
events that didn't interest her in the slightest. Stories that were probably centuries
old, knowing them.

Brightlingsea hadn't even bothered to dress for dinner at all. He still
wore the same slovenly clothes he'd had on that morning and sprawled out in his
seat as if it were still the fifteenth century and he was lord of the mead
hall.
And
he swore like a sailor, apparently having forgotten a lady was
present. She might be on a mission to allow herself the use of an occasional
oath, but Brightlingsea's language crossed a definite line. She wondered
sometimes how Rowan put up with the man … before remembering the large, ancient
broadsword the Duke usually had strapped to his back
and
his tendency to
use it.

That
could explain how he got away with being a boor.

By the time dessert was served, the frustration that had been plaguing
her all day had grown so strong it was nearly choking her. She picked at her
poached pear and glared across the table at her brother when he laughed at some
horrible quip Brightlingsea had made.

Rowan was not even her brother at all, of course, but rather her four
hundred year old ancestor. And despite his youthful appearance, he acted like
the old man he was. She wondered sometimes if he even realized it was nearly
the twentieth century. She loved him, she really did. And he
was
her
brother, in all ways that mattered. But he drove her insane. He had a terrible
tendency to treat her like a child. Which was exactly how she was feeling right
now.