1 Blood Price Read online

  “I didn’t kill that man. I arrived at the body just before you did.”

  “Yeah?” She realized suddenly what was wrong. “Where are my glasses?”

  “Your . . . oh.” The oval swiveled away and returned a moment later.

  She waited, eyes closed, as he pushed the ends in over her ears, approximately where they belonged, and settled the bridge gently against her nose. When she opened her eyes again, things hadn’t changed significantly. “Could you turn on a light?”

  Vicki could sense his bemusement as he rose. So she wasn’t reacting as he expected: if he wanted terror, she’d have to try for it later, at present her head hurt too much to make the effort. And besides, if it turned out he was the killer, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it now.

  The light, although it wasn’t strong enough to banish shadows from far corners, helped. From where she lay, she could see an expensive stereo system and the edge of a bookshelf with glass doors. Slowly, balancing her head like an egg in a spoon, she sat up.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  She wasn’t. But she wasn’t going to admit it. “I’m fine,” she snapped, closing her throat on a wave of nausea and successfully fighting it back down. Peeling off her gloves, she studied her captor from under beetled brows.

  He didn’t look like an insane killer. Okay, Vicki, you’re so smart, in twenty-five words or less, describe an insane killer She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, though an educated guess said light hazel, but his brows and lashes were redder than his strawberry-blond hair—coloring that freckled in the sun. His face was broad, without being in the least bit fat—the kind of face that got labeled honest—and his mouth held just the smallest hint of a cupid’s bow. Definitely attractive. She measured his height against the stereo and added, But short.

  “So,” she said, settling carefully back against the sofa cushions, keeping her tone conversational. Talk to them, said the rule book. Get their trust. “Why should I believe you had nothing to do with ripping that man’s throat out?”

  Henry stepped forward and handed her the ice pack. “You were right behind me,” he told her quietly. “You must have seen. . . .”

  Seen what? She’d seen the body, him bending over it. the lights of the car, the ruined garage door and the darkness beyond it. Darkness swirled against darkness and was gone. No. She shook her head, the physical pain the action caused a secondary consideration. Darkness swirled against darkness and was gone. She couldn’t catch her breath and began to struggle against the strong hands that held her. “No. . . .”

  “Yes.”

  Gradually, under the strength of his gaze and his touch, she calmed. “What . . .” She wet dry lips and tried again. “What was it?”

  “A demon.”

  “Demons don’t . . .” Darkness swirled against darkness and was gone. “Oh.”

  Straightening, Henry almost smiled. He could practically see her turning the facts over, accepting the evidence, and adjusting her worldview to fit. She didn’t look happy about it, but she did it anyway. He was impressed.

  Vicki took a deep breath. Okay, a demon. It certainly answered all the questions and made a kind of horrific sense. “Why were you there?” She was pleased to note her voice sounded almost normal.

  What should he tell her? Although she wasn’t exactly receptive—not that he blamed her—she wasn’t openly hostile either. The truth, then, or as much of it as seemed safe.

  “I was hunting the demon. I was just a little too late. I kept it from feeding but couldn’t stop the kill.” He frowned slightly. “Why were you there, Ms. Nelson?”

  So he’s found my ID. For the first time, Vicki became aware that the contents of her bag were spread out over the smocked glass top of the coffee table. The garlic, the package of mustard seed, the Bible, the crucifix—all spread out in plain, ridiculous sight. She snorted gently. “I was hunting a vampire.”

  To her surprise, after one incredulous glance down at the contents of her bag, as if he, too, were seeing them for the first time, her captor, the demon-hunter, threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  Henry, Duke of Richmond, had felt her speculative gaze on him all through the meal. Whenever he glanced her way she was staring at him, but every time he tried to actually catch her eye she’d drop her lids and look demurely at her plate, the long sweep of her lashes—lashes so black he was sure they must be tinted—lying against the curve of an alabaster cheek. He thought she smiled once, but that could have been a trick of the light.

  While Sir Thomas, seated to his left, prated on about sheep, he rolled a grape between his fingers and tried to figure out just who the lady could be. She had to be a member of the local nobility invited to Sheriffhuton for the day for surely he would have remembered her if she’d been with the household on the journey north from London. The little bit he could see of her gown was black. Was she a widow, then, or did she wear the color only because she knew how beautifully it became her and was there a husband lurking in the background?

  For the first time in weeks he was glad that Surrey had decided against journeying to Sheriffhuton with him. Women never look at me when he’s around.

  There, she smiled. I’m sure of it. He wiped the crushed grape off against his hose and reached for his wine, emptying the delicate Venetian glass in one frantic swallow. He couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Sir Thomas.”

  “. . . of course, the best ram for the purpose is. . Yes milord?”

  Henry leaned closer to the elderly knight; he didn’t want the rest of the table to hear, he got enough teasing as it was. He’d barely managed to live down the ditty his father’s fool, Will Sommers, had written about him; Though he may have his sire’s face/He cannot keep the royal pace.

  “Sir Thomas, who is that woman seated next to Sir Giles and his lady?”

  “Woman, milord?”

  “Yes, woman.” It took an effort, but the young duke kept his voice level and calm. Sir Thomas was a valued retainer, had been a faithful chamberlain at Sheriffhuton all the long years he’d been away in France, and by age alone deserved his respect. “The one in black. Next to Sir Giles and his lady.”

  “Ah, next to Sir Giles. . . .” Sir Thomas leaned forward and squinted. The lady in question looked demurely at her plate. “Why that’s old Beswick’s relic.”

  “Beswick?” This beautiful creature had been married to Beswick? Why the baron was Sir Thomas’ age at least. Henry couldn’t believe it. “But he’s old!”

  “He’s dead, milord.” Sir Thomas snickered. “But he met his maker a happy man, I fancy. She’s a sweet thing though, and seemed to take the old goat’s death hard. Saw little enough of her when he was alive and less now.”

  “Hour long were they married?”

  “Month . . . no, two.”

  “And she lives at Beswick Castle?”

  Sir Thomas snorted. “If you can call that moldering ruin a castle, yes, milord.”

  “If you can call this heap a castle,” Henry waved a hand at the great hall, relatively unchanged since the twelfth century, “you can call anything a castle.”

  “This is a royal residence,” Sir Thomas protested huffily.

  She did smile. I saw her clearly. She smiled. At me. “And where she dwells, it would be heaven come to earth,” Henry murmured dreamily, forgetting for a moment where he was, losing himself in that smile.

  Sir Thomas gave a great guffaw of laughter, choked on a mouthful of ale, and had to be vigorously pounded on the back, attracting the attention Henry had been hoping to avoid.

  “You should be more careful of excitement, good sir knight,” chided the Archbishop of York as those who had hurried to the rescue moved back to their places.

  “Not me, your Grace,” Sir Thomas told the prelate piously, “it’s our good duke who finds his codpiece tied too tightly.”

  As he felt his face redden, Henry cursed the Tudor coloring that showed every blush as though he were a maid
en and not a man full sixteen summers old.

  Later, when the musicians began to play up in the old minstrel’s gallery, Henry walked among his guests, trying, he thought successfully, to hide his ultimate goal. They’d be watching him now and one or two, he knew, reported back to his father.

  As he at last crossed the hall toward her, she gathered her black and silver skirts in one hand and headed for the open doors and the castle courtyard. Henry followed. She was waiting for him, as he knew she would be, on the second of the broad steps; far enough away from the door to be in darkness, close enough for him to find her.

  “It, uh, it is hot in the hall, isn’t it?”

  She turned toward him, her face and bosom glimmering pale white. “It is August. ”

  “Yes, uh, it is.” They weren’t, in fact, the only couple to seek a respite from the stifling, smoky hall but the others discreetly moved away when they saw the duke appear. “You, uh, aren’t afraid of night chills?”

  “No. I love the night.”

  Her voice reminded him of the sea, and he suspected it could sweep him away as easily. Inside, under torchlight, he had thought her not much older than he, but outside, under starlight, she seemed ageless. He wet lips gone suddenly dry and searched for something more to say.

  “You weren’t at the hunt today.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t hunt, then?”

  In spite of the darkness, her eyes caught and held his. “Oh, but I do.”

  Henry swallowed hard and shifted uncomfortably—his codpiece was now, indeed, too tight. If three years at the French Court had taught him nothing else, he had learned to recognize an invitation from a beautiful woman. Hoping his palm had not gone damp, he held out a hand.

  “Have you a name?” he asked as she laid cool fingers across his.

  “Christina.”

  “Vampire?” Henry stared at Christina in astonishment. “I was making a joke.”

  “Were you?” She turned from the window, arms crossed under her breasts. “It is what Norfolk calls me.”

  “Norfolk is a jealous fool.” Henry suspected his father had sent the Duke of Norfolk to keep an eye on him, to discover why he continued at Sheriffhuton, a residence he made no pretense of liking, into September. He also suspected that the only reason he hadn’t been ordered back to Court was because his father secretly approved of his dalliance with an older, and very beautiful, widow. He wasn’t fool enough to think his father didn’t know.

  “Is he? Perhaps.” Ebony brows drew down into a frown. “Have you never wondered, Henry, why you only see me at night?”

  “As long as I get to see you. . . .”

  “Have you never wondered why you have never seen me eat or drink?”

  “You’ve been to banquets,” Henry protested, confused. He had only been making a joke.

  “But you have never seen me eat or drink,” Christina insisted. “And, this very night, you yourself commented on my strength.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” His life had come to revolve around the hours they spent in his great canopied bed. She was perfect. He wouldn’t see her otherwise.

  “Norfolk has named me vampire.” Her eyes caught his and held them although he tried to break away. “The next step will be to prove it. He will say to you, if I am not as he names me, then surely I will come to you by day.” She paused and her voice grew cold. “And you, wondering, will order it. And either I will flee and never see you again, or I will die.”

  “I, I would never order you. . . .”

  “You would, if you did not believe me vampire. This is why I tell you.”

  Henry’s mouth opened and closed in stunned silence, and when he finally spoke his voice came out a shrill caricature of his normal tone. “But I’ve seen you receive the sacrament.”

  “I’m as good a Catholic as you are, Henry. Better perhaps, as you have more to lose while the king’s favor wanes toward the Mass.” She smiled, a little sadly. “I am not a creature of the devil. I was born of two mortal parents.”

  He had never seen her in daylight. He had never seen her eat or drink. She possessed strength far beyond her sex or size. But she received the sacraments and she filled his nights with glory. “Born,” his voice had almost returned to normal, “when?”

  “Thirteen twenty-seven, the year that Edward the Third came to the throne. Your grandfather’s grandfather had not yet been conceived.”

  It wasn’t hard to think of her as an ageless beauty, forever unchanging down through the centuries. From there, it wasn’t hard to believe the rest.

  Vampire.

  She saw the acceptance on his face and spread her arms wide. The loose robe she wore dropped to the floor and she allowed him to look away now that she was sure he would not. “Will you banish me?” she asked softly, casting the net of her beauty over him. “Will you give me to the pyre? Or will you have the strength to love me and be loved in return?”

  The firelight threw her shadow against the tapestries on the wall. Angel or demon, Henry didn’t really care. He was hers and if that damned his soul to hell so be it.

  He opened his arms in answer.

  As she buried herself in his embrace, he pressed his lips against the scented ebony of her hair and whispered, “Why have you never fed from me?”

  “But I have. I do.”

  He frowned. “I’ve never borne your mark upon my throat. . . .”

  “Throats are too public.” He could feel her smile against his chest. “And your throat is not the only part of your body I have put my mouth against.”

  Even as he reddened, she slid down to prove her point and somehow, knowing that she fed as she pleasured him lifted him to such heights that he thought he could not bear the ecstasy. Hell would be worth it.

  “This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  The Duke of Norfolk inclined his head. His eyes were sunk in shadow and the deep lines that bracketed his mouth had not been there a month before. “Yes,” he admitted heavily, “but it is for your own good, Henry.”

  “My own good?” Henry gave a bitter bark of laughter. “For your good more like. It does move you that much closer to the throne.” He saw the older man wince and was glad. He didn’t really believe Norfolk used him to get closer to the throne; the duke had proven his friendship any number of times, but Henry had just come from a painful interview with his father and he wanted to lash out.

  “You will wed Mary, Norfolk’s daughter, before the end of this month. You will spend Christmas with the Court and then you will retire to your estates at Richmond and you will never go to Sheriffhuton again. ”

  Norfolk sighed and laid a weary hand on Henry’s shoulder. His own interview with the young duke’s father had beer anything but pleasant. “What he does not know, he suspects; I offered this as your only way out.”

  Henry shook the hand free. Never to go to Sheriffhuton again. Never to see her again. Never to hear her laugh or feel her touch. Never to touch her in return. He clenched his teeth on the howl that threatened to break free. “You don’t understand,” he growled out instead, and strode off down the corridor before the tears he could feel building shamed him.

  “Christina!” He ran forward, threw himself to his knees, and buried his head in her lap. For a time, the world became the touch of her hands and the sound of her voice. When at last he had the strength to pull away, it was only far enough to see her face. “What are you doing here? Father and Norfolk, at least, suspect and if they find you. . . . ”

  She stroked cool fingers across his brow. “They won’t find me. I have a safe haven for the daylight hours and we will not have so many nights together that they will discover us.” She paused and cupped his cheek in her palm. “I am going away, but I could not leave without saying good-bye.”

  “Going away?” Henry repeated stupidly.

  She nodded, her unbound hair falling forward. “It has become too dangerous for me in England.”

  “But where. . . .”

&nb
sp; “France, I think. For now.”

  He caught up her hands in both of his. “Take me with you. I cannot live without you.”

  A wry smile curved her lips. “You cannot exactly live with me,” she reminded him.

  “Live, die, unlive, undie.” He leapt to his feet and threw his arms wide. “I don’t care as long as I’m with you.”

  “You’re very young.”

  The words lacked conviction and he could see the indecision on her face. She wanted him! Oh, blessed Jesu and all the saints, she wanted him. “How old were you when you died?” he demanded.

  She bit her lip. “Seventeen.”

  “I shall be seventeen in two months.” He threw himself back on his knees. “Can’t you wait that long?”

  “Two months. . . .”

  “Just two.” He couldn’t keep the triumph from his voice. “Then you will have me for all eternity.”

  She laughed then and pulled him to her breast. “You think highly of yourself, milord.”

  “I do,” he agreed, his voice a little muffled.

  “If your lady wife should come in. . . .”

  “Mary? She has rooms of her own and is happy to stay in them.” Still on his knees, he pulled her to the bed.

  Two months later, she began to feed nightly, taking as much as he could bear each night.

  Norfolk posted guards on his room. Henry ordered them away, for the first time in his life his father’s son.

  Two months after that, while revered doctors scratched their heads and wondered at his failing, while Norfolk tore the neighborhood apart in a fruitless search, she pulled him to her breast again and he suckled the blood of eternal life.

  “Let me get this straight; you’re the bastard son of Henry VIII?”

  “That’s right.” Henry Fitzroy, once Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Earl of Nottingham, and Knight of the Garter, leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the wincow and looked down at the lights of Toronto. It had been a long time since he’d told the story; he’d forgotten how drained it left him.