Argeneau Family - Vampires Are Forever Part 26

Marguerite glanced down at herself, trying to see where she was injured. She couldn't see a wound, but there was a line of blood dripping down her upper chest and soaking into the satin of the pale blue nightgown she wore. Frowning, she felt around on her throat until she found the nick in her neck. Apparently the sword had caught her as she rolled away.

"Tell me what happened," Tiny ordered as he flipped on the bathroom light.

"I woke up to find a man standing over the bed. He had a sword. I rolled off the bed as he swung it," Marguerite said simply, her gaze shifting out toward the bedroom and the balcony doors through which the man had escaped. Her adrenaline was still pumping and she now found she had itchy feet. She wanted to be doing something to pursue the man who'd attacked her.

"Roll faster next time," Tiny muttered, drawing her mind back to their conversation. He'd been dampening a washcloth under the tap as he listened. Now he turned and began to wash the blood away from her skin. He scowled at the sight of the wound, and then said it wasn't too bad. "Not deep, I don't think. Just a nick."

"It will heal quickly," Marguerite murmured, moving away from him and back into the bedroom. She wasn't used to being taken care of and wasn't comfortable with it. She was more used to being the caretaker. Her feet took her to the curtained balcony doors and she shifted the cloth to peer out on the bright terrace. There was no one there, and no rope or anything else to suggest how he'd gotten onto her balcony either.

She scowled out at the skyline. They were on the seventh and top floor. Her attacker must have climbed down from the roof.

"He was aiming to cut off your head."

Marguerite released the curtain and glanced around at that comment. Tiny was at the side of the bed, examining the slice across the mattress right below her pillow... where her neck had been. But then she'd known that. She'd rolled to the side, managing to keep her head at the expense of a small nick to the neck.

She shifted on her feet, her thoughts starting to take order in her head. Her attacker had used a sword. That told her he was definitely an immortal. Mortals usually killed, or tried to kill, each other, with guns or knives. If they were trying to kill an immortal they went for the cla.s.sic stake. Cutting off the head with a sword was the most efficient method of killing one of her kind; it was also usually the sign of another immortal.

"Do you have enemies here in England that you forgot to mention?" Tiny asked suddenly, straightening from examining the bed to spear her with a frown.

Marguerite shook her head, her gaze sliding back to the damaged bed. "It must be connected with this case."

He raised a doubtful eyebrow. "Why? We haven't found out anything yet."

Marguerite grimaced, sharing the disgust he felt at their inability to unearth even a bit of information regarding Christian Notte's birth or his mother. That was the case they were on. They were there to help Christian Notte, a five-hundred-year-old immortal, find his birth mother. It had sounded an easy task on first hearing it, but she was coming to realize it wouldn't be. A lot of time had pa.s.sed since his birth, and he had little information he could offer them except that he'd learned that his father had been in England until shortly after Christian's birth and had returned home to Italy with him barely two days old.

England being where the boy was born, that was where Tiny and Marguerite had gone in search of information. Since arriving in England, they'd spent the last three weeks searching through dusty church archives across the country looking for mention of his birth or even of the name Notte. They'd started in the southernmost part of the country, working their way north until they'd reached Berwick-upon-Tweed. It was there that Tiny had finally suggested they meet up with Christian and question him again to see if there wasn't some bit of information he could give them to help narrow the search to one area, or at least one half of the country.

Marguerite had promptly agreed. She'd expected private detective work to be much more interesting than it was turning out to be and was seriously reconsidering her decision to become one. But she'd promised to help Christian find out the ident.i.ty of his mother and intended to do her best to accomplish that first. They'd called Christian in Italy and made arrangements to meet him in London, then rented a car and driven south through the night, arriving at the hotel shortly before dawn to find that his flight had arrived several hours earlier and he'd already checked in. They'd met briefly with Christian Notte, and his cousins Dante and Tommaso on arriving, but Tiny and Marguerite had both been exhausted from the long drive and it had nearly been sunrise so they'd merely made arrangements to meet at sunset to discuss the case, then had parted to go to their rooms.

As it turned out, the two-bedroom suite Marguerite and Tiny had been given was right next to the one Christian and his cousins were sharing. It would make it convenient for meeting up at sunset. Whoever was up and about first was simply to go to the suite of the other. Marguerite suspected the men would end up coming here to the suite she and Tiny shared to wait for her in the living room. Men were generally quicker about getting ready to face the day than women and she was a particularly slow starter. Seven hundred years as a housewife had not prepared her for the rush to dress and eat to get herself off to work.