Blood Marriage (7 page)

"No, nothing is wrong," she said.

"Would you like to talk about it?" The doctor closed his book.

Explaining to the handsome doctor that her fiancé seemed to go to great lengths to avoid her was not something Elizabeth wanted to do, but she'd already been rude to the man and didn't wish to offend him again. She pretended interest in the book that lay in his lap.

"What are you reading?" 

Doctor Bergen held the brown leather volume up so Elizabeth could see the gold lettering on its cover. 

"Vampires and Other Hideous Beings of the British Empire," she read aloud. Her surprise must have been evident because the doctor chuckled.

"You were expecting something more serious? A book on setting broken limbs or curing palsy?"

"Well, yes," Elizabeth answered truthfully. 

The doctor lifted his brows and shrugged, mischief in his eyes. Elizabeth knew he was waiting for her to ask. She smiled, charmed by his polite, but playful manner. "Very well then. What does the book say about monsters?"

He tapped the title with one elegant finger. "Hideous beings," he corrected. Elizabeth's smile widened. 

"The ones in this book are disappointingly ordinary sorts -- banshees, leprechauns, faeries, and such," he said.

"Which is your favorite?"

"Vampires."

"Vampires? Those are your favorite?"

"Yes. I confess I feel a certain affinity for them, being a doctor." His face was serious. His eyes were not. 

He was playing with her, leading her, but it was amusing, so she allowed herself to be led. "How so?"

"We share common names...bloodsuckers...leeches."

Elizabeth muffled her laughter with one hand, afraid to disturb her mother. Doctor Bergen grinned.

"What does it truly say, Doctor?" 

"It describes the vampire clans found in the various regions of the British Empire, though not very accurately."

"Not accurately?" Elizabeth repeated. "How does one accurately describe monsters that don't exist?"

"Vampires are not monsters." His voice was light, but some of the twinkle left his eyes.

"But they are evil beasts. Isn't that what a monster is?"

"Not all monsters are evil -- not all beasts are monsters -- some are more humane than humans themselves. Regardless, vampires are neither monsters nor beasts."

"Then what are they?"

"Human. Different, but human. At least most. There are exceptions. But those exceptions are evil beyond human imagining."

Elizabeth felt suddenly chilled; her amusement with the topic gone. But something in her couldn't allow the doctor's strange notions to go unchallenged.

"Vampires are human? You're teasing me, Doctor. Vampires are the dead come back to feed on the blood of the living. They are horrifying monsters."

"No, Elizabeth Smith. Vampires are humans with an inherited craving, a disorder of a sort, that only the blood of their fellow man can ease. Fortunately, the amount of blood required is not enough to be missed by the donor -- any more than a flower misses the sip of nectar taken by the bee."

"You're not seriously defending vampirism? How could you be? And why? Vampires are not real."

"Have you ever met a cannibal, Miss Smith?"

"What? No, of course not."

"But you believe they exist, or did at one time?"

"Yes, of course. There are records of such people, reported by English sailors visiting distant…" Elizabeth frowned. "It's not the same. Vampires have special powers and weaknesses that aren't human. They can't bear sunlight, they have the power to mesmerize their victims, they have extraordinary strength and eyesight, they can fly."

"Do all Englishmen drink tea, Miss Smith?"

"Most."

"But not all?"

Elizabeth folded her arms across her chest. If the doctor was playing with her, she no longer liked this game. He continued to smile, but there was something in the way he spoke, the way he looked at her, that made her wish they did not travel alone.

"No. Some prefer coffee," she conceded. 

"But the rest of the world is certain all Englishmen drink tea. And all Americans are brash and rowdy. All Irish are sentimental. All Scotsmen thrifty."

"You're saying some vampires may not fly?"

"Or avoid daylight. Or fail to reflect in mirrors. Like Englishmen and Americans and Irishmen, vampires from different regions might be different. And some monsters who appear to be vampires, who mimic the ways and covet the abilities of the Clans, may not be true vampires at all, but something evil and, much, much more hideous." The doctor smiled and tapped the book again with his finger, this time pointing to the author's name. "If Mr. Arthur Wellborn is to be believed."

"And what does Mr. Wellborn say about faeries? Are they misunderstood as well?" Elizabeth wanted to end this talk of vampires. The back of her neck was tingling. Doctor Bergen's smile suddenly seemed too broad, too sharp.

"Of course, but unlike vampires, faeries aren’t real." The doctor winked at Elizabeth, pulled the carriage curtains tight against the dawn light, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the padded backrest, ending the conversation.

"Vampires aren't real," Elizabeth insisted.

"Umhum," he agreed, but didn't open his eyes. 

He slept the morning away. Elizabeth resisted the urge to pry the book from his hands and have a look. By the time he woke, he seemed to have forgotten the topic altogether. But it lingered in Elizabeth's mind for the rest of the journey.

Chapter Eleven

The feeling was as misty as the fabric he carried in the package at his side. And yet just as real. Nicholas scanned the street of expensive London shops. In another hour this lane would be crowded with carts and hackneys, shoppers and strollers, but at this early hour no more than a handful of people were about. He lifted his head and breathed deep, seeking the source of the alarm crawling over his skin, that faint odor of corruption. But the street was quiet, save for the retreating clip-clop of the hackney that had dropped him off and the rattle of a flower seller's cart as a woman positioned it in a shady spot a few doors down. She lifted a daisy at him, her cat green eyes inviting him to buy. 

Nicholas declined with a shake of his head and shifted the package from one arm to the other to reach for the doorknob of the dressmaker's shop. The view through the shop window arrested his hand. He turned away. When Mrs. Huntington had assured him that Madame Nanette was the best seamstress in London, she'd failed to mention Madame's pretty shop attendant kissed the male customers with admirable abandon. 

The flush-faced man who exited the shop moments later stopped short. His eyes raked over Nicholas. He frowned and his head swung toward the window. Dawning realization carved angry lines at the corners of his mouth. Nicholas tamped down the nip of rising hunger as the man's blood pounded more fiercely through his veins, the scent as pleasant as oven-fresh bread. 

"Going in there, are you?" The fellow's fists clenched. He jerked his head at the window where the shop girl, her back to the men, arranged bolts of cloth on a table. "She's spoken for and soon to be married," the man growled. He stomped his foot and the toe of his worn leather boot scuffed a marring streak on Nicholas's polished Hessian. The man's chin jutted forward, exposing his neck. The pulse beat strong, the jugular bulging beneath ruddy young flesh. 

Nicholas's tongue passed over the sharp tip of one incisor as the siren scent of angry blood danced around him. They were on a public street. Nicholas reached deep, stilling the beast within. The man tapped his fist twice against Nicholas's lapel. 

"There's some that's not to be trifled with, if a gentleman knows what's good for him." The man jerked his head at the window.

On the other side of the pane the shop girl hummed as she worked, unaware of her gallant's possessive defense of her on the cobblestones outside. The man's fist punched Nicholas's lapel harder, a final time. Nicholas inclined his head once in the man's direction and felt the rake of un-slaked hunger as the fellow stomped off down the street, taking the toothsome scent of overheated blood with him.

Chapter Twelve

The sound of wheels on gravel sent Elizabeth hurrying to the second-story window. Another carriage emerged from the woods and clattered up the drive that wound to the elegant country house. It was the third to arrive that morning.

"Is it him?" Elizabeth's mother, Amelia, tried to sit up, the effort precipitating a coughing fit. Elizabeth went to her mother and propped her up with extra pillows. She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed back her mother's silver-streaked hair.

"Probably not," Elizabeth said when her mother's coughing subsided. "The carriage has no crest. It's likely another guest."

"How much longer?" Amelia closed her eyes. The draught Elizabeth had given her a short time ago was taking effect. She would sleep. 

"Soon, Mother. He'll have to come soon. The wedding is tomorrow."

Elizabeth returned to the window and pulled aside the lacy pink curtains. Below, the carriage rolled to a halt before the main entrance. Mr. Fosse stepped out and turned to assist his new bride and mother-in-law while a footman helped the coachman wrestle baggage off the top of the vehicle. Amanda was beaming with happiness. Marriage obviously agreed with her. Mrs. Blakely said something to Mr. Fosse and they all laughed, a family well in charity with one another. Elizabeth's heart lightened. Things had turned out well for the Fosses. 

"My girl will be married tomorrow....He will take care of you?" Amelia eyes fluttered as she fought sleep. "Is he wealthy? Handsome?"

"Yes, Mother. Lord Devlin is wealthy and handsome."
And absent
, Elizabeth thought. 

Between the well-sprung carriage, the feather bed, and the doctor's carefully timed doses of medication, Amelia Smith had made the journey from London with surprising ease. By the time they'd reached Heaven's Edge, Elizabeth had been so grateful to Lord Devlin for his care of her mother, she'd almost forgotten his previous neglect. But after a week of waiting at the Duke of Marlbourne's country house with no word from their host or his son, any goodwill she'd felt toward her fiancé was gone. 

"But is he...kind? Will he..?" Her mother's words were garbled now. 

Elizabeth left the window to tuck the blankets around her fragile form. Tomorrow she was to be married, yet she had no answers for her mother's half-formed questions. She knew next to nothing about the man who would soon be her husband, except that he could by turns be thoughtful and thoughtless. What else he was, well, did it really matter? Wasn't it enough her mother would be cared for now regardless of which of them left this world first?

Guilt stabbed through Elizabeth. She should tell him. Devlin had a right to know he was taking on not one dying woman but two, and that he would likely be a bridegroom and a widower in the same season. But there'd been no opportunity. She'd been in the same room with her betrothed only once since he'd announced their engagement in Mrs. Huntington's parlor. That once had been at the Fosse's wedding and there had been no time for private speech between them. Had he intended it that way? He'd ignored her messages, avoided speaking with her in person, and sent another man to escort her from London. Was he already regretting his choice?

"You should be downstairs greeting your guests." 

Elizabeth didn't even start at the sound of the doctor's voice, so accustomed had she become over the last week to the way Doctor Bergen came and went without a sound. She would find him suddenly at her side, as if he had been there for a long time studying her. At first she'd found it unnerving. How was it that a door that creaked when one of the maids entered the room never announced this man's arrival?

"It wouldn't be appropriate," Elizabeth said.

"You will be mistress here tomorrow," the doctor said. 

"But today I am a guest like everyone else. If Lord Devlin were here I would stand with him to greet his guests, but to do so alone would be--" Elizabeth shrugged. She gestured toward her mother, changing the subject. "How long?"

"A few days, a month perhaps. It's hard to say. She's a strong woman."

"But not strong enough," Elizabeth said softly.

"Death doesn't always win, but in this case it will." Doctor Bergen moved close behind her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

Her mother's face was still and peaceful, her skin the color of fine beeswax candles. If not for the soft rise and fall of her chest beneath the quilts... A shiver ran down Elizabeth's spine. She turned toward the doctor, wanting reassurance. Pale blue eyes gazed down into hers. 

He was so like Devlin, she thought. Their eyes were differing shades of blue and the doctor's hair was perhaps a little darker, but it curled in the same wild manner at the collar. The two men were close in height with the same slim build. Though Elizabeth imagined Nicholas was a little more muscular than the doctor and Dr. Bergen was a few years older. Still, they could easily have been brothers.

The compassion in those pale eyes began to change into something else, something more compelling. Bergen inhaled deeply. His grip on Elizabeth's shoulder tightened. There was a sharp rap on the door.

"I'll stay with her now, miss." Margaret, the diligent brown-eyed maid Dr. Bergen had selected to assist him in caring for her mother, came into the room. 

The doctor's hand dropped from Elizabeth's shoulder. Elizabeth crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders as a sudden chill passed through her. Margaret went to the window and closed the curtains against the late afternoon sun. 

"Cook says His Grace and Lord Devlin will be dining with you and the other guests tonight," the maid said. 

Elizabeth had been watching the arrivals all day. How could she have missed the duke and his son? Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Margaret shook her head.

"They haven't arrived yet, miss. But word came with the packages delivered in Mr. Fosse's carriage. The packages are all for you, miss. Lennie, the new footman, the one with all the muscles," --Margaret blushed-- "put them in your room. Cook sent Katie to help you with them. She's young, just fourteen, but she's a fine needlewoman, miss, even if she really is a downstairs maid. She's in your room, waiting to see what needs adjusting."