Sensual Danger (Venice Vampyr #4)

“Nico,” she whispered now that she was alone and nobody could hear her.

But the words he’d said to her, his promise to take her to bed and that she would even beg him for it, were outrageous. She couldn’t allow this. From Ilaria, her friend, she knew how humiliating the experience was, and how painful at the same time. She wanted no part of it. And for certain he was hallucinating if he thought she would ever beg for it!

Tonight she would lock her door as well as the connecting door between their chambers so he wouldn’t be able to gain access to her. Surely if she continued this long enough, he would give up and pursue his pleasures with some trollop he found in a tavern. But she, Oriana, would never allow him to touch her that way, despite the fact that he was neither as old nor as ugly as Ilaria’s husband.

Having formed a plan, she fell asleep, but woke early. Like every day, she rose and performed her ablutions. Then she dressed herself without calling for the maid—she would put her corset on later—and snuck out of her room to find her way downstairs, carrying a candlestick with a lit candle to help her along in the darkness. Through a hidden door in the first floor hallway, she entered a secret corridor. It smelled musty and stale in the dark space, but Oriana had gotten used to it. It took her only seconds to reach the only room in this hidden part of the house.

She entered it and lit more candles in the room. They reflected in the mirrors she’d collected over the years and aligned along the walls. She’d acquired a large amount of scientific knowledge during her years of study and understood the principles of most disciplines. Since light reflected in mirrors, she’d decided to brighten the room with their help, thus using only a minimal number of candles.

It had helped her hide her activities from her father, who would have noticed if she had used up more candle wax than he believed she should. Nevertheless, he’d discovered her activities one day. That was when he’d decided to rid himself of her by way of marriage and make her another man’s responsibility—and problem.

For quite a while now, she’d been working on an apparatus that would make it possible to detect supernatural beings. Even before her chance encounter with a vampire, she’d been interested in science and had tinkered with it. Later she’d taken everything she’d learned about physics, chemistry, and biology, and combined it with the knowledge she’d gleaned from myths and legends. Thus she had come up with the formula of what would identify such a creature.

She was constantly fine-tuning her equipment, then testing it again and again out in the dark streets of Venice. She was no fool of course, knowing that if she ventured out on her own, she could fall victim to some cutthroat, so she’d let the second footman, Giuseppe, in on her secrets and found him to be not only a great protector when out on Venice’s dangerous streets, but also a talented assistant in her clandestine lab.

Oriana looked up from her work bench when she heard a sound coming from the corridor. As always on such occasions, she tensed until a soft knock sounded at the old wooden door.

“Come,” she answered, already knowing who asked for entry.

When Giuseppe entered, lowering his head as he stepped through the low door, he bowed briefly.

“I didn’t expect you to be down here so early, signorina, or I would have come earlier to assist you.”

She smiled, but didn’t correct him when he still called her signorina, when now she was a signora, a married woman.

“Where else would I be?”

He shuffled closer, embarrassed about something. “Your wedding, signorina, I mean signora. I would have expected . . . ” His voice died, then he cleared it loudly. “I wanted to let you know that cook has prepared breakfast.”

“Is it that late already?” she asked, surprised, since she hadn’t noticed the time pass.

“Indeed, signora. And cook delayed it by two hours already, given the fact that this is the morning after you wedding n-n-night.” Whenever he was nervous, his stutter was more pronounced.

“Well, then I’d better not disappoint cook. Has my husband risen?” The word husband sounded so foreign in her ears that she wondered whether she was still asleep and merely dreaming.

“He hasn’t rung for any assistance yet.”

Good. At least she could have breakfast in peace and quiet before returning to her lab.

“And, uh . . . ”

She looked at Giuseppe when he didn’t complete his sentence. “Yes, is there something else?”

He nodded quickly. “Do you remember when I mentioned a fortnight ago that I’d heard of some group who’s equally interested in the supernatural as yourself?”

Curious, she froze. “Yes.”

“It appears that this group is very interested in exchanging information with you. In fact, they would even be willing to pay money for seeing your research.”