Bite Me, Your Grace

Twenty-three


The next evening, Ian returned home immediately after feeding, for he missed his wife. He had been thinking a lot about Angelica’s behavior these past two months. Perhaps he’d judged her too harshly and her cool behavior toward him was due to being intimidated by her new position as a duchess. After all, her cool demeanor had been noticeably absent last evening.

Knowing how overzealous her mother was on subjects of propriety, he wondered if perhaps Angelica was now afraid to be herself. He would talk to her tonight, he resolved. He was sick of living with a veritable ghost of the woman who’d so delighted him in the beginning of their relationship.

He looked out the window of their bedchamber and saw that she had taken Loki outside in the garden. He knew that if he didn’t catch her now, she would flee back into her writing room to scribble until dawn. As he headed out of the room and down the hall, he noticed that the door to the writing room was ajar. Perhaps it would be a better idea to wait for her there, so she had no chance of escaping him. Also, if she were somewhere comfortable, perhaps she would be more receptive to granting him an explanation of her coldness outside of the marriage bed.

When he entered the room, his nose wrinkled at the sharp, acrid odor of burnt tobacco. At first she’d tried to hide her smoking habit from him, but she didn’t appear to care anymore what he thought. After they talked, he was determined to convince her to quit before the habit became a full-fledged addiction.

His eyes rested on her cherry wood desk, cluttered with ink bottles and papers from her manuscript and an ashtray overflowing with crushed cheroots. Ian closed his eyes as memories of making love to her on the desk flashed through his mind like quicksilver. He decided to remove the items so they could have a repeat performance.

He opened a drawer and put away her quill and ink bottle. When he emptied the ashtray into the dustbin, he was tempted to drop the piece of engraved silver in as well. He resisted the urge and placed it in the drawer with her other items.

As he swept up the pages of her manuscript, the title caught his eye. The Vampyre’s Bride, a Novel by Angelica Ashton. His jaw clenched. She would not dare!

But as he sat down in her chair and began to read, his brows knitted together and his lips thinned in rage as he realized that she did indeed dare.

***

Angelica had spent more time in the garden than she intended. After relieving himself, Loki caught a moth. The insect continued to escape—or Loki intentionally released it. He would catch his prey again, tossing the moth into the air and batting at it with dainty paws, his inky tail puffed up like a feather duster. She watched for nearly an hour, laughing at his silly antics and amazed at his keen night vision. When the kitten finally grew tired of his game, the hapless insect was reduced to tatters.

“What a fierce hunter you are!” she exclaimed, scooping him up and burying her face in his warm midnight fur. “Such prowess deserves a reward. Let’s go see if Cook will spare some cream.”

She lingered in the kitchen longer than usual, dipping a crusty roll into a bowl of hearty soup. She was in a fix with her book. The hero and heroine had had a terrible fight and the hero was about to leave her. Angelica had no idea how to compose their reconciliation and form the happy ending. What if my story doesn’t have a happy ending? an insidious voice whispered in the back of her mind. Nonsense, she told it. This is my book and thus will have any ending I choose. And I choose a happy ending because it’s likely the only one I will get!

She finished her soup and dragged her feet up the stairs, dreading the daunting hours of staring at her blank pages as she willed her characters to speak to her. The door to her writing room was ajar, and the light pouring out into the hallway was brighter than usual. As she drew near, she could hear the crackle and pop of burning wood. Why would the chambermaid light the fireplace in this warm weather?

With gentle pressure, she nudged the door open farther, her heart lodging in her throat as she saw a dark figure leaning against her desk, his back to the flames. Ian’s face was cast in shadow, his eyes gleaming a sinister silver like a specter’s. In his hand he held her incomplete manuscript. He slapped the stack of papers against his thigh in a steady ominous rhythm.

“Wh-what are you doing here, Your Grace?” she stammered.

His voice was low and dangerous, rife with silky threat. “I saved you and your family from ruin. I gave you my hand and my name. I gave you a beautiful home to do with as you pleased. I gave you gowns, jewels, and anything else you desired. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

“What do you mean?” she whispered as the blood seemed to drain from her body.

He stalked toward her like the savage being he was. “You seek to destroy me with this!” He thrust the painstakingly written pages at her as if she were a dog who’d defecated on the floor and he would rub her nose in it.

She was terrified. She’d never seen him this angry before. His eyes glowed demonically, and his fangs were bared and gleaming. He looked like the monster of a child’s worst nightmares.

“Ian, I—” she whispered, not knowing what she was pleading for.

He raised his hand, and she flinched in terror that he would strike her. Instead, he whirled around and slammed his fist on her desk. The sound of cracking wood brought a shriek of terror from her lips. The desk split in two. Angelica’s hand flew to her mouth and she stumbled backward. She had no idea that he was so strong. The knowledge that he could not only drain her of her life’s blood but shatter every bone in her body as well shook her to the core.

“This book,” he said in a chilling, awful voice, “especially given the identity of the author, would undo everything I’ve worked for to salvage my reputation. Would you have every vampire hunter in the civilized world breaking down my doors to slay me?”

“No!” she cried, unable to believe that he would think her capable of such betrayal. “The publisher wanted me to write a vampire story. And I thought…”

“You thought!” he sneered. “You did not think at all, you foolish woman!” He strode to the hearth and threw her manuscript in the fire.

“No!” she shrieked, diving at the fireplace, heedless of the danger.

He caught her by the waist and pulled her away. Angelica struggled with all her strength as she watched the pages ignite and immediately curl and blacken as the hungry flames devoured months of hard work and dedication.

“You bloodsucking fiend!” A momentary pang of guilt struck her as he flinched from the insult, but Angelica forced it down. He had burned her book. He had hurt her, and she would hurt him back. He had burned her book! Rage curdled in her belly, rancid and fiery.

Angelica whirled around with a shriek of fury, pounding her fists impotently against his chest. She may as well have been striking a brick wall. She leaped up, trying in vain to land a blow to his face.

He seized her by the arms and shook her, his fingers digging cruelly into her flesh. “Be still!” he thundered. “Before I give you the sound thrashing you deserve.”

She ceased struggling and searched his face for any sign of the man who had smiled at her, laughed with her, made tender love to her and called her “Angel.” There was none. In his place was a furious, terrifying monster, looming over her and promising certain dire consequences if she made the wrong move or spoke once more. The fire popped and hissed ominously.

“Listen to me very carefully, madam,” he said through clenched teeth. “You may scribble to your heart’s content on any subject you choose, except in regard to me or my kind. If you disobey me on this in the slightest, I will know, even after I leave this house and city, which will be soon. If I hear one word breathed in connection to you and vampires, you will not like the consequences!” He bared his fangs in a hideous, threatening grimace. “Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes,” she choked, fighting back the tears that threatened to crumple her where she stood.

“Good.” He released her and rubbed his hands on his trousers as if he had touched something loathsome. “I should be gone in a month’s time. I will leave you this house and all my other estates, as well as sufficient funds to keep you in luxury for the rest of your life. In the meantime I would greatly appreciate it if you stayed the hell away from me.”

He pivoted and left the room, slamming the door. The crack of the frame mirrored that of her heart.

Angelica fell to her knees in a heap of skirts, unable to stand any longer as the racking sobs tore out of her body.

“Oh God,” she whispered, gazing into the fire, her vision painfully blurred through the sheen of her tears. “What have I done?”