Chapter Fifteen
“Your hat is, ah…fluffy,” Marcus said to the sack of flour tilted precariously on the chair next to him.
“Thank you, my lord,” Winifred said, in a squeaky falsetto.
He steadfastly kept his gaze on the lumpy bag. The last time he’d addressed Winifred instead of the “guest” with whom he was supposed to have been making polite conversation, she’d kicked his shin beneath the table.
“I am s-seeking a milliner. No, not a milliner. A, er…” What was the term?
His grasp of language departed, leaving him tongue-tied before the contents of his cook’s pantry, and his cravat became a noose around his throat.
There were so many things he should have been doing.
Continuing his experiments. Keeping his siblings from squabbling.
Figuring out why hunters were lurking about.
Preventing Winifred from figuring out why he slept through the day and rarely ate.
He was capable of consuming food but did not enjoy the experience, as it often caused him to feel unwell for days after.
A repetitive clicking invaded his mind. His teeth were chattering.
If he didn’t stop the hunters, he would be responsible for the next headless vampire that appeared.
It might even be his Cordon, killed because Marcus had sent him to investigate.
It would be as if he’d wielded a dagger and sliced it across his brother’s throat himself.
Blood would spray in an arc, splattering the dusty bricks on either side of the dark alley that was the scene of the ambush.
The image was so clear in his mind that it felt like a memory.
A teacup rattled off the edge of the table and shattered on the floor.
“Breathe,” Winifred said. “Then count, like I taught you.”
Marcus inhaled slowly through his nose and out through his mouth.
One… two… three.
“Remember where you are,” Winifred said.
Crouched in a dark alley far from the safety of his home, holding his brother’s dying body in his arms. Cordon had called him, begged him to come, but Marcus had ignored the summons out of fear.
Now it was too late. His siblings would never know how much he regretted pushing them away, even though it had been necessary to protect them.
“Marcus!”
He blinked and suddenly he was back in the music room. Winifred had come to his side and wrapped her fingers around his numb wrists.
She leaned closer. “There you are. You went somewhere else for a moment.”
He forcibly relaxed the tense muscles of his shoulders and arms. Then a word came to him, like a bolt of lightning. “Hatter!” He slapped his palm on the table, making his cutlery shake. “I am seeking a hatter. Do you have a recommendation?”
“Well done,” Winifred said. “Although I would suggest you do not strike the table next time. Mrs. Berry was so alarmed by your outburst that she spread a rumor across the ton that you imbibed too much wine and behaved inappropriately.”
He wiped sweat from his forehead. The practice session Winifred had laid out had seemed laughable, but this was the fourth time he’d failed to get through the dinner with the Berry family, which included the gossipmonger Mrs. Berry (barley topped with a straw hat), her husband, Mr. Berry (flour lashed together with twine), and the soft-spoken Miss Berry (three pumpkins stacked in a pyramid, the topmost draped with a diamond necklace).
The problem was the fictional Mr. Berry was nearly deaf, requiring Marcus to speak loudly for the man to hear, but Miss Berry startled at the slightest sound.
His heart still pounded from the attack, but at least he’d forced his way out of it. A small accomplishment, but one worth celebrating.
“Shall we try again?” Winifred asked.
He put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
“I do not remember dinner parties being so wretched.” Possibly because even before his involuntary confinement, he’d avoided socializing in favor of more scandalous events, much like Cordon.
There had been a time when he’d taken his duties as a lord seriously, but that had been long ago.
Winifred sighed. “They usually aren’t, but the entire purpose of this is to force you to manage your nerves.” The screech of her chair being pushed back made him look up. She was adjusting Mr. Berry’s body, which had slid to the point of nearly falling off his chair.
Marcus rubbed his handkerchief across the back of his neck, then balled it up and shoved it in his pocket. “You have succeeded. Where did you get the idea for this scenario, anyway?”
She paused in the motion of tilting Mrs. Berry’s hat.
“My parents invited a family very similar to the Berrys to dine with us. It was a miserable night. I had to hold my tongue a dozen times, and even then there were rumors spread the next day that I stormed off before the meal was complete.” She chuckled.
“It wasn’t true, of course. I simply left the table the moment it was socially acceptable to do so. ”
He could imagine what that must have been like, with a woman as proper as the Mrs. Berry character. It had been years since he’d attended a social event. As much as he longed for a cure for his affliction, he was becoming increasingly aware that a life spent in solitude was not one worth living.
Winifred returned to her seat and picked up her wineglass by the stem. That was his signal that the scenario was beginning again.
“Mr. and Mrs. Berry enter with their daughter,” Winifred said.
The room fell silent.
Winifred raised her voice. “I said, Mr. and—”
The footmen Winifred had roped into assisting them swung the doors open.
After several seconds, Marcus realized Winifred was watching and hurriedly stood. For the third attempt in a row, he’d nearly missed his cue. He walked to the front of the table and bowed. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Berry.”
“Why, thank you, my lord,” Winifred said, in a comically deep voice. It had made him burst into laughter the first time he’d heard it. The woman was clever, humorous, and intelligent. He could hardly believe she cared enough to conjure up situations designed to help him.
He greeted the young Miss Berry and joined his guests at the table, all without earning a hiss from Winifred that would indicate he’d committed a social gaffe.
The success criteria of this dinner party was to finish the night without embarrassing himself badly enough that Winifred judged the stuffy Mrs. Berry character would spread rumors the following evening.
But if he focused his attention too much on charming her, then her jealous, hot-headed husband would challenge him to a duel.
It was, quite honestly, exhausting.
“This wine is atrocious,” Winifred said as Mrs. Berry.
The first time Marcus had been given that prompt, he’d responded by defending his choice, but that route had inevitably led to failure.
According to Winifred, Mrs. Berry’s insults were intended to rattle him.
Therefore, the correct response was to grin and not say or do anything that she could use against him.
“I will summon my butler to bring another,” he said.
The rest of the dinner party played out as he expected, with Winifred only throwing in a few changes, as she did with each repetition, so as not to let him grow too comfortable.
In this round, Mr. Berry loudly complained about the small portions and Miss Berry dropped her fan.
For the former, Marcus instructed his butler to provide additional servings.
For the latter, he was spared from failure when he reached down to grab the “fan” by Winifred, making a soft sound in the back of her throat.
He quickly straightened and said, instead, “A footman notices the fan and fetches it for Miss Berry.”
Winifred released a rush of air. “That was close.”
Taking her words as a sign that the scenario was over, he slumped. “What would have happened if I had retrieved it?”
Winifred grinned. “Miss Berry would have accepted it and the moment your fingers brushed hers, she would have dropped in a faint.”
He groaned. “I do not remember young ladies being so fragile.”
Winifred fluffed her skirts. “Shall we go again?”
He wanted to say yes, but his backside was growing sore from sitting, there was a dull throb in his head, and he’d lost sensation in his fingers and toes.
She must have seen something in his face, because she walked around the table and put her hands on the back of his chair. “That’s enough for today.”
Something inside him that had wound tightly throughout the past few hours relaxed.
Putting on an act in his own house was ridiculous, but it was surprisingly easy to forget it wasn’t real.
Winifred’s voices and costumes made the characters come to life.
He was solitary by nature, but he had to admit that he missed attending the occasional social event.
He put a hand on top of hers. “Thank you.” Then he rose and kissed her fingers. “I eagerly anticipate our next session, my lady.”
She lowered her gaze. “I find myself in an awkward position, my lord. I can recite poetry in Greek or Latin and have memorized the reported casualties of tsunamis and the maximum wind speed of several more hurricanes, but I have little understanding of what occurs between husbands and wives.” She tilted her head. “Perhaps you could educate me?”
Marcus felt as if he were floating above his body.
Winifred wanted him. He could hardly believe it.
If not for his exhaustion, he would have stood and wrapped her in his arms. Unfortunately, his weakened state meant he could only abide the day for short periods.
A vampire of his age should have had no difficulty remaining awake, but already, fatigue was settling on him, making it difficult to focus.
“I… cannot,” he whispered.
He wanted to stay. Would have given anything to remain and continue their practice, or even better, drop to his knees and crawl beneath her skirts.
He most looked forward to bringing her to completion with his mouth and hands and then again with his cock and fangs.
The coppery scent of her blood wreathed around him and made his jaw ache.
But touching her when he was not fully in control was too dangerous.
No matter how much he wanted her, he would not risk her life for one night of pleasure.
Marguerite had not given him a choice before she’d taken him as her human lover and she hadn’t even tried to be careful.
If the worst happened with Winifred and he felt compelled to turn her, she might come to despise him, as he sometimes hated his maker.
She furrowed her brow. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Of course not. It is only that I… I have been alone for quite some time.” It was a pathetic excuse, though not entirely a lie. He hadn’t felt the kiss of a lover in years.
Her expression smoothed. “I see.”
The waver in her voice belied her words. “Be patient with me, my dear.”
“It’s not that.” She exhaled harshly. “I cannot believe I am admitting this, but… tonight has made me realize how much I miss people. A month ago, I resented my mother for dragging me to balls. Now I would give anything to host my own.”
He brushed a stray curl away from her face. “I wish I could give that to you.”
She scrunched her nose. “Perhaps you can.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “What did you have in mind?”
“You could invite a few people from the village and introduce me as your wife. Consider it the next phase of practice.”
He stiffened. “Allow strangers into the castle?” The wedding had been bad enough. Talking to objects was trivial compared to facing the real thing. If he failed and began stuttering or collapsed, the embarrassment might haunt and worsen his attacks.
“Only a few people,” she said. “The vicar’s family?”
He sighed. “If that is what you wish.”