Chapter Fourteen
“Thank you for visiting,” Felicity said for the hundredth time as a well-dressed couple breezed past her.
“…not worth the ticket price,” the man said. “Why would anyone want to steal something so unremarkable?”
Felicity forced herself to smile wider. Skeptics were expected. She’d known there would be guests who visited her exhibit only to snicker or gather fodder for gossip. They were not the people she needed to reach.
Still, it was difficult to remain in good spirits when the crowds Mr. Blackwood had insisted would swarm the Sloan House had not manifested.
There had been several groups of young ladies accompanied by one or more stern-faced matrons, but the former giggled behind their fans while the latter followed silently behind their charges.
Two days earlier, the disappointing turnout would have been devastating, but she was too eager to begin her search for her parents’ killer with Mr. Drake to dwell on the failure of her exhibit.
With the vampire at her side, she’d finally get the revenge she’d been seeking since that awful night.
When it was over and Mr. Drake had served his purpose, she’d dispose of him with a stake through the heart.
She lifted her hand to her neck. His bite had not left a mark, but she swore she could feel the wounds beneath the fabric of her black crepe blouse. She’d spent the entire night tossing in her bed, plagued by dreams of Mr. Drake plunging his fangs into more scandalous parts of her body.
Mr. Blackwood turned the corner and straightened when he spotted her.
He maneuvered through the few guests who remained in the corridor, then stopped in front of her.
The way his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows pulled down made her stiffen.
He made that expression only when he was delivering bad news.
“I am terribly sorry, Miss Sorrow,” he said. “It seems we have been upstaged.” He held out a folded newspaper she hadn’t noticed he’d been carrying. She accepted it with numb hands.
“It’s on the third page,” he said.
She reluctantly opened what turned out to be yesterday’s edition of a popular scandal sheet, Ladies Daily, and immediately found the problem.
An article in the center of the page decried ‘Miss Sorrow’s latest absurd notion’ and cautioned anyone that visited the Sloan House to first ‘anoint themselves with garlic.’ The writer also claimed that Felicity had planted the threatening note as a scheme to increase ticket sales and called on the public to abstain from visiting the museum.
Winifred.
It had to have been her cousin.
Well, Winifred could do as she wished. The exhibit had only been a means to an end, another way of pursuing revenge against the vampire scourge while operating around Great-Uncle Ezra’s refusal to let her join the nightly patrols.
Now that Jonathan was going to help her, she no longer cared if the people of London dismissed her.
She’d find the vampire who killed her parents without them.
*
Jonathan leaned against a lamppost across the street from the Sorrow townhouse.
It was a narrow brick building squashed between a busy boarding house and the den of a spiritualist. The former was a guess, but the latter was obvious.
A stylized crescent moon was painted above the front entrance, and faint curls of smoke exited the only open window that did not have the curtains drawn tightly closed.
Twice in as many minutes he’d found his attention drawn to that window, but he attributed this to the Sorrow hunters’ clever protection.
He’d walked past their home four times in increasing frustration before realizing Felicity’s family had cast some manner of enchantment that encouraged passersby to overlook the townhouse.
Impressive work. He was almost tempted to kick down the door and watch the hunters scramble like ants defending their colony.
But he was not so reckless as to trespass onto the grounds of people who wanted him dead.
He’d been able to avoid being recognized by Felicity even after he’d kissed her, and the leader of the Sorrow hunters had not discerned Jonathan’s nature in the museum, but in both cases, the hunters had been distracted.
An icy wind swirled around him, sending leaves skittering.
He kept his attention on the shadows moving behind the curtains on the third floor.
It was an hour past sunset. If Felicity was going to join him, it would have to be soon.
The gambling hall to which he intended to take her only operated for a few hours each night.
Most vampires, even those consumed by the vice of gambling, preferred not to risk their own lives by staying out too late.
At last, the door he had been watching creaked open, and a figure stepped out. She wore men’s clothing similar to those she’d worn the night he’d found her on patrol in Whitechapel, which probably meant she was carrying weapons. That was good. He didn’t know what danger they might face.
He waited long enough to make sure she didn’t flee back into the house before letting out a sharp whistle.
Her head jerked in his direction, then she scurried across the street.
She moved so quickly that her cloak lifted behind her like a cape and when she reached him, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with excitement.
“There you are,” she said. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“And miss an opportunity to introduce you to a world of sin?” He scoffed. “Absolutely not.”
He waved a hand, and a carriage rattled toward them.
He helped her inside and then sat across from her.
He had been tempted to force her to walk, but that would have been a punishment to him as much as to her, as the rattling in his lungs had worsened and the speed that had once come easily was failing with increasing frequency.
She pulled back the curtain hanging over the window and peered outside. “Where are we going?”
He flipped the curtain shut, then reached into his pocket and removed a length of black silk. “Wrap this around your head.”
She stared at it as if it were a snake about to strike. “Absolutely not.” She shifted in her seat. “I promise not to tell my family the location.”
He scoffed. “You think I would take the word of a hunter?”
Her cheeks reddened. She snatched the length of silk and wrapped it around her head.
He liked that look on her, unable to see him.
Unaware of what he was doing. If they were in a more private location, he might have considered suggesting a more sensual way to pass the time.
But she would surely assault him if he attempted to touch her.
A pity. There were many lovely things that could be done while one was blindfolded.