Blood - Blood Rose Part 9

She let only the softest sighs escape. Each time she almost moaned, she bit the sound back. Playing the dominant, she wanted to disguise how much he pleasured her, and how she loved to be filled with his c.o.c.k.

Bastien watched as she arranged herself to sit like a lady on him. He wanted her to pump on him like a wanton; instead she sat with demure grace, not moving at all. And rang the bellpull.

The stretch of her arm shifted her around his c.o.c.k, and he let a howl of pleasure ring to the rococo ceiling.

"What are you doing?" He laughed.

"Summoning tea."

"You plan to have a servant come in here?" The chair sc.r.a.ped the floor as he jerked in surprise.

"If you are silent, he will never be the wiser."

"And how-" Even seated on his c.o.c.k, she held up her hand imperiously. He shut his mouth, intrigued.

A blindfolded footman brought the tea tray and followed her directions to place it on the table before her. Bastien cast him a brief glance and worked to lift his hips, thrusting lightly into Althea's derriere. He bit back a l.u.s.ty laugh as he heard her soft gasp, as he saw her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-and her larger, darker, longer nipples-bounce with each jiggle.

How had he ever deserved such an inventive and luscious woman?

The muscular footman bowed and withdrew.

Althea leaned forward, changing the glorious pressure surrounding his c.o.c.k as she set about making tea.

How he wished he wasn't bound. He'd soon put an end to her game. His fingers on her nipples and between her legs would quickly have her desperately working to an o.r.g.a.s.m.

She began shifting her hips slightly on him, teasing him. Then she opened herself even more with her muscles and swallowed him deeper.

Squeezing the muscles of her lush bottom, she jiggled up and down on him. Calmly, she lifted her cup and sipped tea.

"Come on, my lady, give me a good hard f.u.c.king." Bastien kept his voice a harsh rasp, full of male need, male hunger-and heard her splutter her tea. "f.u.c.k me hard with your sweet rump. I deserve it, don't I? And you-" He made this a brash and confident statement. "You want it."

"You might remember, my devilish husband, that you are bound and now serve me at my pleasure." There was laughter, l.u.s.t, delighted agony in Althea's voice. Then she cried, "Oh, I can't bear it anymore-!"

She began bouncing on him. Her saucer fell to the carpet. Her tea sloshed out of the cup. She rode him like wild and their chair tipped dangerously. But he didn't care. He was almost ripping the legs off it, trying to pull against his bonds to pump into her.

He was close-too d.a.m.n close-he had to make her come first.

The door opened. The footman strode in, still blindfolded, but he moved with the a.s.surance of a man who could see. h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation! But the footman yanked the blindfold away and tossed off his white wig.

Christ! Yannick!

"You little wanton witch," Bastien groaned against Althea's ear. She laughed-and then cried out as she ground her bottom hard into his crotch and took him impossibly deep. Yannick gave an austere glare. "You cannot steal my wife so easily, brother."

"Our wife!" Bastien shouted it, gnashed his teeth, fighting not to explode. He almost yelled in relief as Yannick dropped to his knees and buried his face into Althea's quim. A few flicks of his brother's tongue and Althea climaxed. She ripped at Yannick's shoulders, mercilessly pounded his c.o.c.k, and screamed.

Bastien's o.r.g.a.s.m tore through him like fire through a dry forest. It consumed him, flared into a ma.s.sive, brilliant flame, and scorched him.

The chair broke with an explosive "crack." He fell hard in the jumble of wooden legs and twisted seat. Althea fell with him, but his c.o.c.k fell out, and Yannick collapsed too.

"Athlea, love, are you all right?"

She giggled-the sweet, naughty giggle that he knew so well-and began to untie him. As soon as he was released, Bastien fell back, sated, ma.s.saging his numb hands. He cracked open his eyes to see Althea present her rear to Yannick and his excited brother plunge into her sweet p.u.s.s.y from behind, and from his view, Bastien could watch her luscious t.i.ts bounce.

G.o.d, he loved married life.

Yannick de Wynter, Lord Brookshire, bent and brushed a kiss to Althea's cheek as she slept. Her nightgown was a satin tangle around shapely silken legs. The bodice had slid down, giving a tempting hint of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was true-enceinte women did glow-she seemed to shimmer like a star. Althea had always possessed a special magic that had captured his heart. He couldn't let her put herself in danger, not even to save a girl who had no one else to champion her.

As Yannick joined Bastien for one last swallow of brandy before dawn, he met his twin's wary and concerned gaze.

Bastien handed him a gla.s.s, half-filled with French brandy. "We have to get Althea out of England-away from the reach of the Society."

Yannick could hear the vicious edge to his brother's words. Bastien was afraid.

As the eldest twin, he'd always been the cool, rational one of the two. But where Althea was concerned, emotion ruled him too. He had to force himself to plan carefully. "I agree, brother. But we aren't going to the Carpathians."

"What in h.e.l.l are you talking about? We have to leave-those blasted vampire slayers are not going to allow a vampire child to survive." Bastien stalked around his open coffin, ran his hand through his tangled hair, and tossed back his gla.s.s of brandy like water. "I fear they want to destroy our child-and Althea. I think this Serena Lark is a tool of the Society. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are using her to get to Althea, to make her vulnerable."

Yannick shook his head. "They might be using Miss Lark, but I don't believe she's a willing partic.i.p.ant. I hadn't told you yet, but I've purchased a villa in Italy-very discreetly. We will make it appear that we have gone to the castle as we had planned, but instead we will travel to the villa and stay there."

Bastien's face set in a restrained fury. "You suspect they'd pursue?"

Grimly, Yannick nodded. "As you said yourself, our child is a great threat to the Society. For once, brother, we are in total agreement. We need to do anything to protect Althea."

Bastien set down his empty gla.s.s and strode back to his coffin. He leaned on it, arms braced, obviously warring with his emotions. "Althea had her heart set on returning to the Carpathians to see her father again."

Yannick finished his brandy. He hated lying to Althea. Hated hurting her. Their unusual marriage-between he, his brother, and Althea-had been forged by honesty. It was only when he and Bastien could be honest with each other, honest about their pasts, that they had captured Althea's love. What would it do to their marriage to lie to her? "We have to protect her," Yannick vowed, "even if it means breaking her heart. Even if she hates us for it."

The slim blade caught the reflection of light and sent it shimmering through the gloom. Jonathon adjusted the metal platter in front of him. He glanced up at the clock, and with his left hand he scrawled a note. Dissection of the brain taken from Miss Abigail Litchford, vampire, commenced at 1:30 p.m.

With his right hand, he aligned the blade, even before he'd finished the sentence. He could carry out tasks with both hands at once. He could even write with both hands at once-forward and backward. His father had been both delighted and unnerved by his skill, but he'd followed his father's advice and ensured no one else learned about it.

His father had been correct. The world feared those who were different.

Jonathon steadied the tray-the soft, gray brain was fixed in place by taut wire attached to thumbscrews. The blade sliced through cleanly. He had his father's dozens of journals of meticulous detailings of the vampire brain. Pictures. Weights. Notations of similarities, differences-in color, in structure, in unusual construction or markings.

None of it had given any answers.

d.a.m.n, he hated this work, hated the smell of it, the very act of it. He tried to be dispa.s.sionate. What was a body, after all, when the soul had left?

A clue, his father had said. The most valuable clue we possess to understand the vampire.But after four decades of study, his father had been no closer to understanding the vampire.How could he hope to do it before All Hallow's Eve? He had nine days to save Serena Lark's life.

He needed those b.l.o.o.d.y books of his father's. Repeating these experiments would get him nowhere. He had to hunt down those books- The sharp knock surprised him. Enough to slip a fraction of an inch, to slice where he hadn't intended. d.a.m.n and blast!

Cursing, he strode to the door. Abruptly opening it, he found Rumpole behind it with a note on the salver. Jonathon flicked it open and scanned Ashcroft's summons.

His mission as guardian to the tempting Miss Lark was about to begin.

Chapter Nine.

Tempted "Good evenin', Mr. Swift."

Drake flinched at Ma Bellamy's loud, coa.r.s.e voice. The madam scurried through her dimly lit parlor to reach his side. She put out her hand, lightly resting her gloved fingers on his arm, and leered into his face. Ma Bellamy was a b.l.o.o.d.y revolting sight, her face marred by burn scars, pockmarks, and a knife wound that had cost her an eye but that was why he came here. No gentlemen did, so Ma Bellamy appreciated his money. She kept her mouth shut and was clever enough not to be tempted by blackmail.

"What be yer fancy tonight?" she cooed, and candlelight sparked on the diamonds at her throat, her ears, and on her bejeweled eye patch.

"Solange is my fancy, tonight, Mrs. Bellamy." Drake threaded a gold sovereign through his fingers.

She shook her head, her greasy hennaed curls waving. "The apothecary bloke 'asn't been tonight, sir."

G.o.dd.a.m.n. The apothecary knew he would pay any price; why deny him the supply?

Drake flicked Ma Bellamy's clutching fingers from his arm and turned to leave.

She grabbed his wrist. "But the twins are 'ere, sir, if you've a fancy for fine t.i.ts. And I'll send Crenshaw round to that apothecary. Ma will take of ye, sir, just ye leave it to her. The twins are pining for ye, Mr. Swift."

The "twins" were no more twins than he and the Bellamy were. But Kitty and Emma possessed large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a boundless enthusiasm for c.o.c.k sucking, and surprisingly sunny smiles for hard-working jades.

Drake felt his arm begin to tremble. His eyelids were starting to twitch. Two wh.o.r.es in a bed would take the edge off the need, but it was not what he wanted anymore. He wrenched his shaking arm free of Ma's grip. "Not tonight, Mrs. Bellamy."

Serena had thought he would never leave.

Fog rolled over the circular drive and swathed Lord Sommersby's waiting carriage in an eerie mantle of silvery white. Clad entirely in black-her raven hair an advantage now-Serena waited in the shadow of an oak, hidden behind its large trunk.

She had waited here since dusk, armed with two vital tools-a lock pick and a description of the location of his laboratory. Serena prayed Mr. Bastien de Wynter had remembered its location correctly-he'd admitted to only being inside it once, while the late earl was alive. He hadn't shown any suspicion as she'd idly asked him questions.

Boot soles crunched on the gravel. The lamp glow touched the tall, ma.s.sive, dark figure as he crossed to the open carriage door. It must be Sommersby. No other man was quite so large. The earl vanished into the carriage, the door closed with a decisive snap, and the traces jingled as the four grays began to walk.

Serena gave a triumphant smile in the dark. The arrogant man had sent a note to Althea insisting she be locked in her room for her own protection. At least Althea had crumpled his presumptuous missive and had tossed it in the fire.

Now it was time for her to get to work. The moon lit up the night, but cloud soon slid past. With her hood up, Serena crossed the gravel path toward the kitchen entrance. The door would be unlocked-there would be sc.r.a.ps and waste going out, along with used washing water and such. At least here, in Sommersby's mansion, she would not have to worry about being captured by six vampires.

As for being captured, it...rankled. The humiliation of it was worse than the fear.

Serena darted across dew-damp gra.s.s and slipped around the rear corner of the house. Other houses along the street blazed with light, even at this time of year, and carriages filled the street. But Sommersby's house was silent. Large and dark-like its master.

Squaring her shoulders, she moved along the rear facade, her shoulder brushing the stone. The door to the kitchen opened and an elderly woman sauntered out, balancing a basket on her hip. Plastered back against the wall, Serena held her breath-this had to be the cook. Sommersby kept only a handful of servants. Taking a deep breath, Serena sprinted in through the door, into his lordship's house.

The strangest smell wafted at her through the door. Serena glanced once more down the shadowed hallway and stayed motionless, listening.

In a distant room, windowpanes rattled as a gust of October wind struck them. A clock ticked beyond the locked door at which she was crouching. No other sound reached her ears-no footsteps, no voices, no clink of a servant's keys. It appeared no servants ventured in this part of the house with the master out.

Moonlight glinted through an undraped window, striking the lock in front of her. Serena eased the long, slim end of the lock pick into the keyhole, just as Mr. de Wynter had taught her. There had been something quite naughty about "getting the feel" for the insertion and engaging the lock with the gorgeous gentleman leaning over the back of her neck.

Click! The lock sprang open, and Serena turned the k.n.o.b carefully. Soundlessly the door swung wide, revealing a large well of blackness, with only slivers of bluish light giving a hint of what might be inside. Was it the laboratory? Widening her eyes, she fought to focus on the gloom. There was a wardrobe beside the door, and a candleholder sat upon it-with a stub of a candle, but a flint at least. She could suddenly see surprisingly well in the faint silvery glow cast by the moon, but she doubted she could read without a lit candle.

This part of the mansion overlooked the high stone wall that surrounded the property. The light would not be seen from another part of the earl's house. She struck the flint, and the spark took to the wick. It flared as the wax fed it, and the light grew. But that new light blinded her for the moment, and she held the candle ahead of her, blinking.

A skull grinned at her.

Serena bit down on her lip, holding in a scream. Her hand moved, sending light glancing off another skull, and another. A row of them sat on a set of shelves. Her stomach whirled in horror- half of the skulls were tiny. Children.

The flickering light gleamed on bones of every description-the long bones of legs, the tibia and fibula of arms, rib bones, even wide, intact pelvic bones. They were all stacked on the shelves, and tags hung from them, tags with numbers, place names, dates.

Jars sat on the other shelves, beside curious pieces of scientific equipment. She recognized a set of scales and burning apparatuses, but the others she did not know. She held the candlelight close to the jars-she had no idea what the parts were, but she guessed they must be organs. Human? Or vampire?

Serena swallowed hard, her mouth filled with a horrid taste-it was as though she could imagine the taste of the organs in the jars. She could certainly smell an acrid, sharp scent. Was it the liquid in which they floated?

Books. What she wanted was his lordship's books. But even as she turned away from the jars, she shuddered. What did she fear-that the intact hand she had seen in the jar would reach for her shoulder?

But what did Lord Sommersby do with these macabre keepsakes? She knew that physicians- training surgeons-used the bodies of the dead for practice. Sommersby must be carrying out some kind of experiments. But what kind? Did he hope to find a way to change vampires back to human?

Concentrate on the journals! Her half boots shuffled over the floor; she was afraid of what she might step on. A discarded corpse? Body parts stacked on the floor?

Serena rounded one of the large tables in the center of the room. Her hip hit a shelf and sent the jars pinging against one another. Oh no!

Now she saw that the rows of shelves reached from floor to ceiling and that they ran along the width of the room and stretched for half the length. The rest of the s.p.a.ce was used for the ma.s.sive wooden tables. She tried the other end of the room, which led her far from the door-to more shelves with more jars. Two shelves held displays of jawbones, dozens of them, all mounted on boards with pins. They sported fangs of every imaginable size.

Books covered the last row of shelves, and these stretched around the walls. Serena held up her candle and stared at row upon row of leather-bound books. There were hundreds. She slid out the one directly in front of her.

A shiver tumbled down her spine. Lord Sommersby must have read his father's books. If the truth of her past was in any of these books, Lord Sommersby must know.

Hesitantly she walked the length of the shelves. At the row nearest the end, she found a s.p.a.ce in the crowded shelves and a sheath of papers laying flat. Serena's heart almost ceased to beat as she read her own name in faded sepia ink on the top sheet.

Cut slices of her brain? Examine her heart? Serena's stomach roiled, and she let the journal fall back to the table. Lord Sommersby's father had believed she was going to change into a vampire and he'd planned to dissect her-while she was alive.

There were only three pages of text in this horrible book. Where were the others journals?

Footsteps! She leapt to her feet.

"Miss Lark, what the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

She almost sobbed in relief as she recognized Drake Swift's voice, but he stepped into the candlelight and the sense of security fled. Golden light caressed his hair, his fallen-angel face, his piercing green eyes-and revealed his open shirt, his bare chest...and his linens. He wore nothing on his lower parts except his small clothes. His muscular legs were bare.

And she most certainly knew what that bulge in his linens was.

Serena jumped back as Mr. Swift strode toward her. She b.u.mped into the edge of the table behind her, winced as it bit into her hip. She skirted around it and darted to the other side, keeping the pocked wood surface and the strange gla.s.s contraption atop it between them.

"Miss Lark." His deep gravelly voice washed over her.

"I-I believe the late Lord Sommersby knew about my parents," she said.

"So you decided to break into his laboratory?" Mr. Swift crossed his arms in front of his bare chest. Such beautifully sculpted muscle. And his skin was so remarkably bronzed. His shirtsleeves were casually rolled up, like a laborers', revealing powerful muscles, the lines of long veins, the gleam of golden hairs reflecting the light.