Bite Me, Your Grace

For the next few days, the servants pampered her shamelessly as she drifted through the house like a ghost, smoking much, eating little, and feeling nothing. But when she happened to see Ian step out the rear door close to dawn, something quickened within her—anger.

 

He has not been sleeping in our bedchamber at all! He only evicted me from it to be spiteful! That bloody bastard! The next evening, after Ian left for his evening hunt, Angelica took a candle down to the cellar. There, she discovered something far more infuriating. The hidden chamber in which he’d slept was covered in dust and cobwebs. He hadn’t been sleeping there, either. So where was he spending his days?

 

A sudden memory assailed her. The elfin-faced vampire female had appeared guilty the night Ian had presented Angelica to his people. Perhaps Ian was with her! Perhaps he always had been. The lump in Angelica’s throat made breathing nearly impossible as she dashed away her tears with a clenched fist and returned to her bed.

 

The naked pity in the eyes and voices of her servants was like salt in the wound. And when Liza brought her breakfast and chocolate that morning, crooning to her as if she were a sick child, Angelica could take the sympathetic coddling no longer.

 

Her pacing ceased as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. She could hardly recognize the ragged countenance staring back at her. She resembled a walking corpse. Her hair was tangled and matted in some places and ragged and wispy as cobwebs in others. She was skinny as a wraith; her skin held a sickly gray-tinged pallor against her linen night shift, and the circles under her red-rimmed eyes were the dark purple of thunderclouds.

 

“Bloody hell, I look worse than pitiful,” she whispered to her image. “I am positively ghastly!” She grimaced and noticed that her teeth were stained yellow from the cheroots she’d been smoking.

 

She whirled from the mirror and strode to her bureau with militant determination. Cursing under her breath, she removed the offending cheroots from their case and threw them into the fireplace. She would never smoke again. Next, she rang the maids for a hot bath and rummaged through her vanity for her tooth powder and brush. While waiting, she forced herself to eat every morsel of her breakfast.

 

As the maids poured the steaming water and lavender oil into her bathing tub, Angelica was heartened to see their encouraging smiles. The hot water relaxed her muscles, and she scrubbed her body with newfound vigor as if she was washing her troubles away… at least on the surface. Her hair took more effort and the water was tepid by the time she was able to get the ebony masses clean. Once the locks somewhat dried, she attacked the tangles with the hairbrush, muttering and cursing under her breath as she struggled to tame the knotted tresses.

 

Once her body and hair were addressed and she had cleaned her teeth twice, Angelica stood before the mirror dressed impeccably in a royal purple gown trimmed with black lace. “I am the Duchess of Burnrath, and I swear before God that I shall never be pitiful again!”

 

With that, she flounced downstairs to order the carriage. Now she had to purchase a new writing desk. Her resemblance to a walking corpse these past few days had given her inspiration for a new macabre story.

 

But writing wouldn’t be enough to occupy her. The thought of resuming her frantic social schedule, even with the few who would still receive her, made Angelica’s stomach turn. There had to be something she could do, something worthwhile. The memory of the squalor of Soho came to her. The faces of the starving men and the desperate drabs came forth with aching clarity, making her flush with guilt. How could she be dissatisfied with so much when others had so little?

 

Angelica threw herself into charity work with all the determination in her being. She donated vast sums to children’s schools and houses for the homeless. She submitted articles to the papers about the plight of London’s poverty-stricken masses. She went to the constabulary and related her tale of being attacked in Soho, offering a generous donation on the condition that more men were hired to keep the peace.

 

She dove into her new gothic novel with twice as much zealous determination as she had the last. She worked so hard that by the time she crawled into her bed every night, she was too tired to think about her shattered heart. And when Loki presented her with a dead rat nearly the same size as the cat, Angelica found that she could smile again.

 

***

 

“Your Grace?” Burke said to Ian as soon as he took his hat and topcoat. “There is quite a bit of mail that needs to be seen to. The duchess… er, Her Grace… seems to be too busy to address it.” The butler’s nervousness was made obvious by his stumbling words and wringing hands.

 

“Very well,” Ian replied, wondering why Angelica was shirking her responsibilities. What was she up to that caused her to be too busy to answer her letters? Such behavior was not like her. “Bring the letters to me in the library.”