Chapter 6
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE MAKES A CONFESSION
“Angelica?” Maia rushed out of her bedchamber, hair swinging loosely, nightgown bunching around her feet. “What is it?”
She’d been in a half slumber, spiraling into that warm, red world of sensuality that seemed to lure her every night as of late.
It was the first night since her return from Black Maude’s that Angelica had slept in her own bed, and Maia had kept her ears attuned for any sounds of distress from her sister’s chamber… until she slipped into her dreams.
There must have been something that woke her, for when she came out into the hall, she nearly collided with Angelica.
“Oh!” her sister said, obviously surprised to see Maia.
“I was coming to check on you,” Maia said, looking at Angelica’s wide eyes and pale face. Something had happened. Something more than a dream… Then she noticed something in her sister’s hand. “What’s that in your hand? A stick?”
But even as she said it, she understood. It wasn’t merely a stick in Angelica’s hand, held close to the folds of her nightgown, but a stake. Meant to stab a vampir.
“Oh,” she said. She looked at her sister and their eyes met. The poor darling! She’d had such a horrible experience.
“What are you doing awake?” Angelica asked.
“I came to check on you. What’s happened?” Maia asked, grabbing Angelica’s hand and allowing her to lead the way back to Maia’s chamber.
“I had a dream,” Angelica replied. But Maia noticed she glanced covertly back toward her chamber, as if expecting to see something. Or someone coming out of the door. “That Vo—that Dewhurst came into my chamber at night.”
Maia looked at her sharply, her attention captured. They settled on her bed and she closed the door most of the way behind them. She left it cracked in the event there was something to hear from the corridor without.
“Darling, I’m so sorry,” Maia said, closing her fingers around Angelica’s. Her hands were chilled, so unusual for the warm summer’s night. “How terrifying it must be. I didn’t hear you cry out, although I heard something that sounded like you mumbling in your sleep. Or talking to someone.”
“It seemed so real,” Angelica whispered. Her eyes were faraway. “He…”
Maia couldn’t help but think of her own dreams. Certainly they’d awakened her…but never because she was frightened. Only because she wanted them to be real.
She squeezed her sister’s hands and struggled for the words to comfort her. “Sometimes dreams can be more frightening than reality,” Maia said. “And sometimes, they can be so much more…beautiful…than reality.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” Maia felt her face warm as she realized the direction in which their conversation was going.
She sat up and pulled a pillow onto her lap, clutching it over her torso.
Perhaps this wasn’t an appropriate conversation to have after all.
“I don’t know if I should tell you about it. After all, you’re still unwed and—”
“And so are you,” Angelica shot back. “You aren’t married yet, dear sister, and so you haven’t any more experience than I have.”
Maia couldn’t hold back the little smile that came along with the warm bubbling in her belly. “But that isn’t true, dear younger sister. Alexander and I have—” She stopped and decided there were some things Angelica didn’t need to know.
The very thought of Alexander and his imminent return made her middle fill with nervousness.
She collected her thoughts, trying to figure out just how much to confess. “Well, we are engaged, and Chas and the lady patrons haven’t been as vigilant as they were before our engagement was announced.”
Angelica’s eyes bulged, and Maia read the bald shock there. Obviously she believed her elder sister was just as prim and proper as did the rest of the world. Including Corvindale.
“You and Mr. Bradington have—”
“No, no,” Maia said. “Not exactly. Not precisely. But…Angelica. It’s quite nice. It’s very pleasant. And I think it gets nicer.” She could do nothing to diffuse the blush warming her cheeks.
“And what does this have to do with dreams being better than the reality? Or did you mean they were more frightening than reality?”
“Well.” Maia hesitated. Perhaps this wasn’t something she should confess to her sister. After all, it was very…personal. She looked away, adjusting the pillow in her lap. Perhaps it would be best if she changed the subject. But before she could, Angelica pressed.
“What is it?”
Maia glanced around the room, noticing the soft golden light cast by the lamp and the rumpled bedclothes.
Somehow, in the dimness, in the middle of the night, it seemed almost permissible to talk about it—just as she and Angelica had shared confidences when they were younger, deep under the covers when they were supposed to be sleeping.
It had been a long time since she’d wanted to share her deepest confidences… with anyone. But she needed to.
Maia drew in a deep breath and spoke. “After your experience with Dewhurst, I had a dream. About…it.”
“You dreamed about Dewhurst?”
“Shh!” Maia looked toward the ajar door. “You’ll wake Mirabella! No, I didn’t dream about Dewhurst.” She looked at her sister, scrutinizing her closely. What would Angelica think of her if she knew she’d liked the bite of a vampir?
But perhaps…perhaps it would make her sister feel a little better, knowing there was a different perspective.
After all, even in Granny Grapes’s stories, there had been vampirs who didn’t mean to hurt people.
And there were people who’d found the creatures fascinating.
“It’s going to sound horrible to you, Angelica. You’ll think me mad.”
“Not any more than I already do,” Angelica replied with a small smile. “Tell me.”
Maia realized her fingers were plucking energetically at the lace on the pillow in her lap. “I dreamed a vampir visited me in my chamber. But it wasn’t frightening. It was…like embracing Alexander, and kissing him…but it was different. Better. And when the vampire bit me—”
Angelica gasped. “What?”
“In my dream, he bit me. Right…here. It didn’t hurt, in my dream.
In fact, it was…it made me…” She clamped her lips shut, realizing her voice had become a little breathy.
That was just too much information. The next thing she knew, Maia would be confessing the kiss she’d shared with the Knave of Diamonds.
Something real that had happened…and that she’d forced herself to try and forget.
Perhaps that was why she’d been focusing on the dreams so much—they weren’t real. They couldn’t happen.
She couldn’t feel guilty about them. Especially now that Alexander was coming back.
“You liked it?” Angelica exclaimed, causing Maia to glance toward the door for fear someone would hear them.
Her whole body froze, her belly dropping low and her heart stopping when she met a pair of glittering dark eyes in the dark corridor. Corvindale. Maia felt ill and hot and faint all at once and she clutched the pillow to her chest. “My lord.”
How long had he been standing there? What had he heard? Oh, heavens… What if he’d heard her talking about her dream? Thank God she hadn’t told Angelica about the Knave of Diamonds, too!
His face seemed stonier, even more tight and angry than usual, and she had to swallow hard to keep her heart from surging up into her throat. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever been so mortified.
“My apologies. I was just arriving home and heard voices,” the earl said—or something like that. Maia couldn’t hear a thing over the rushing sound in her ears and the pounding of her heart.
Of all people to hear her confess such a thing…it had to be Corvindale.
She wanted to crawl under the bed and hide. But she didn’t. She managed to speak calmly, she supposed, but she couldn’t remember exactly what she said. And soon he was gone to investigate some noises he’d heard below, leaving her and Angelica alone again.
With the door closed tightly behind him.
Her sister didn’t seem to realize what had happened, and for that Maia was grateful. But her cheeks were still hot and it took a long time for her heart to stop pounding so erratically.
Part of the reason was, for a moment there, she’d only seen part of the earl’s face. The lower part, exposed by the wavering light from her lamp. And for a stunning, heart-stopping second, she’d focused on his mouth.
And she recognized it.
The Knave of Diamonds.
It was a good thing she was curled up on her bed, for her knees turned to water and she was literally unable to breathe.
But by the time the earl had spoken, and then taken his leave, Maia had realized her error.
There were a multitude of reasons the knave couldn’t have been Corvindale—the most compelling of which was the masked man had not only conversed and flirted with her, but kissed her as well. All without one insulting comment.
For Corvindale to have done something so out of character was an impossibility. Especially since it was clear he despised Maia as much as she despised him.
Although “I do hope you aren’t about to cast up your accounts on my waistcoat” might qualify as an insult…
“Angelica,” Maia whispered, when she saw her sister with her ear pressed to the crack of the door. “What are you doing?” But it was obvious: she was listening to whatever Corvindale had gone to investigate.
Curious and willing to have a distraction, Maia joined her taller sibling, forced to half crouch next to her at the open door. They listened for a moment and heard nothing but the faint creaks and groans of the house.
“Did you really like it, in your dream? When he bit you?” Angelica whispered.
Maia froze. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped softly. I wish I’d kept my mouth closed. She heard a dull thud below, then silence.
“I cannot imagine finding it anything but horrifying,” Angelica whispered back.