Blood Secret (20 page)
He reached for her cheek and she pushed his hand away. Pain tugged his lips downward. “I’m sorry. Lucy, it’s impossible to look at you without wanting to touch you.”
He would not make her feel wrong or bad. She wrapped the sheet tightly around her body. “You will have to learn.”
On a groan, he stood and pulled on the blue robe, then tied the belt. “You need breakfast, love.”
She buried her face in her hands as he rang the bell pull, and he went to the door and instructed someone on the other side to bring her breakfast. Suddenly, her thoughts went to her brother. She jerked her head up, forced words through her tight throat. “Jack ... he is still alive, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He shifted shape when he saw me and flew away.”
“He deserted us?” She meant her and James. Why should it surprise her? She’d seen enough to now know Jack had become a coward.
She could not simply take this in stride and move ahead. For she had no idea where she was supposed to go. Her whole world had been turned upside down. She knew Jack was careless, but she’d never thought he could do deliberate evil. Now she was in a bedchamber with a man sworn to kill her, who was waiting by the door to receive a breakfast tray for her, and who was showing her more concern and kindness than anyone ever had.
She had always taken care of things since her mother’s death. She had been the one to look after her family, because Father was busy with looking after the Drago clan. But her brother had betrayed her, she was in danger from both slayers and her own kind, and she couldn’t see any solutions to those problems.
It had only been a few days ago that she had gone to Sinjin’s house, thinking all she had to do to solve problems was give him her body. Lucy couldn’t stop a desperate laugh at the insanity of it—one that sounded like a half sob when it came out.
“I don’t know what happened to Jack.” She should not be revealing such things, now she knew what Sinjin was. Heavens, she should keep her thoughts, her secrets, and facts about her family to herself. She could put her family at risk.
But she needed to talk to someone, or else she thought her heart would explode.
The madness of the thought made her draw a shuddering breath. How much worse could their lives be? Well, there were more horrifying prospects. She could be running with her sisters, scrambling across London, chased by dragon slayers. Or she and her sisters could be dead.
Instead, at this moment, they were all under the
protection
of a dragon slayer.
protection
of a dragon slayer.
A discreet rap sounded at the door. Sinjin opened it and took a large silver tray—one stacked with covered dishes—from a servant’s hands. He brought it to the bed, set it down on the elegant table that sat beside the headboard. “What do you mean, love?”
Lucy closed her eyes. That was why she did not see his hand come to her. His palm, warm and soft, settled against her skin. She felt the light scratch of his fingertips and swallowed back a moan. She was too tired to fight. Or perhaps she finally didn’t know what to fight for. She had always fought, in her own way, for her family’s safety. She had been willing to be ruined to protect her family. But now she had no idea how to beat back enemies, for she no longer knew who her enemies were.
With eyes closed, she whispered, “I mean Jack has changed. He was always careless, but I never would have dreamed he would willingly, deliberately hurt us.”
“I don’t know how willing he is, Lucy.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I overheard him, he said he had no other choice. He might have captured you because he feared for his own life.”
“Of course he would sacrifice mine in place of his,” she said bitterly.
“I expect he was very afraid, love.”
She opened his eyes. Sinjin’s image was watery, as though a shimmering wall stood between them. It was the glossy barrier of tears. She blinked fiercely. “He is a coward. And you—you could have taken James and run away. It would have been better for James. Instead you stayed.”
“You know why, love, don’t you?”
How soft and coaxing his voice was. Her own kind had turned against her, yet the dragon slayer had not hurt her. “I have no idea why.”
Before he could answer, she added numbly, “I keep remembering all the things I used to do with Jack. Now that is all lost to me. It is as though he is dead—the brother I knew certainly is.”
“Shh. I know what it is like to lose family.” His arms encircled her, his embrace firm, warm, and strong. One stubborn tear dropped out of her eye and splattered on her cheek. Oh God, she should not do this. It was madness to cry against his chest.
But he pulled her there, with his arms around her. “It is all right to cry, Lucy. It will help.”
Heaven help her, she trusted him.
He insisted she eat.
Lucy did not know how Sinjin was fighting his need to sleep. He had explained to her that it was not like human sleep: it was almost impossible for a vampire to deny; his body simply shut down during daylight. Yet somehow, Sinjin fought it to stay with her. Finally, when she had filled her stomach at his command, though she had no appetite, she became the one to make demands. She forced him to get into bed. His arm had locked around her waist at first, until she begged him to let her go to her sisters.
“All right,” he said. “But don’t try to escape, Lucy. Your brother would likely catch you. Or a slayer could. I suspect by this point, my prince—the vampire demon that commands me—has guessed that I’m not going to do my duty. He will send someone else. Someone who will be instructed to kill us all.”
Her stomach threatened to toss up all the food at that thought, but she gained control. She nodded, then left him. Armed with Sinjin’s directions to her sisters’ rooms, she made her way down the hall. She wore the dress he had acquired for her. It was deep blue silk, and surprisingly demure, with a rounded neckline that came high on her bosom.
Lucy moved down the hallway as quietly as she could. Carpeting absorbed her footfalls. It seemed silly but she imagined there were women resting behind the various closed doors and she ... didn’t want to disturb them. Then she reached a gallery—an open curve of the hallway, framed with wrought-iron railing, and from it she could see down into the foyer.
She’d always thought brothels were active at night. Apparently, they were very busy during the afternoon. Two gentlemen stepped into the foyer, admitted by a footman in powdered wig and immaculate scarlet livery. Each doffed his hat at the same time, revealing identical curls of white-blond. Two women sashayed out to the gentleman, their full bosoms jiggling in low-cut dresses. Both men grinned, showing dimples in the exact same place on their right cheeks and flashing matching blue eyes. Twins. Remarkably handsome twins. The men were perhaps two-and-twenty, slender and broad-shouldered.
Lucy squinted, trying to look at the teeth as the men spoke and laughed. No fangs. They looked normal. Ordinary. Not vampires.
Then she blinked. One of the blond gentlemen had bent to his lady’s breasts and was licking and suckling them, leaving damp marks on her pink silk dress. The other had pressed his woman to the wall and was sliding his hands up her skirts.
A plump woman waddled forward. Diamonds glinted on her large expanse of bosom, and she had a rounded stomach and generous hips, obvious beneath her filmy cream silk gown. Her gray hair was piled on her head. Withdrawing a fan, she sharply tapped the shoulder of the man suckling the woman’s breasts. He straightened abruptly, blushed, and gave an apologetic bow. He called something to the other man, who removed his hand, let the girl’s skirts fall. Both ladies grasped their gentlemen by the wrists and towed them down the hall.
What had she been doing? She’d intended to find her sisters, yet something had compelled her to watch the scene.
Suddenly she realized the girls had been smiling. They had looked delighted to receive the ... gentlemen callers.
The door opened to admit more men—in the space of a few minutes, five came through the door, one at a time, and each man went off with a girl. It happened so swiftly, it seemed the women knew to expect the men. A great number of gentlemen, it appeared, liked to seek pleasure in the afternoon.
Lucy’s cheeks were warm with a blush. She had to stop gawking and find her sisters. Turning abruptly, she rushed down the corridor. The private rooms were at the back, but she must have made a mistake—she followed four twisting, twining corridors, and she had no idea what would be the “back” of the house. The brothel must be made up of several houses joined together. Either that or it was an enormous mansion.
Finally she found a door at the end of a hallway, and there was nowhere left to turn. This had to be it. She turned the knob and eased the door open.
Goodness. She glimpsed a woman, nude, bent over at the waist. A man’s erection was rhythmically disappearing in the woman’s mouth as her lips bobbed up and down on it. And a man was thrusting into her from behind.
Two men. One woman. Lucy was stunned. For a moment, she couldn’t move and she stared as the man’s hard stomach collided with the woman’s generous bottom. Then both men turned at once and saw her. Both
smiled
. One crooked his finger in invitation.
smiled
. One crooked his finger in invitation.
She retreated, pushed the door closed, and fled.
Now her face was flaming. Even after all the naughty things she’d done with Sinjin, she wasn’t able to see other people do it and not run in panic.
She rushed back the way she came. At the end of the hallway, she turned to the right—certain she had come from the left. In seconds, she was hopelessly confused.
Doors had been left ajar here, and erotic scenes were taking place in each room. Lucy tried to walk without looking, but she couldn’t seem to stop taking peeks.
A woman bound hand and foot, writhed on the carpet while a gentleman licked her pussy. In another, a man stroked his large erection while one woman slid an enormous ivory wand in and out of another woman’s bottom. Then she saw a group of four all making love together, in a laughing tangle of arms and legs.
In this place, sex was supposed to be a commodity, bought and sold. Yet each activity she had seen involved delighted participants. She knew she should not look, but it fascinated her.
Was nothing as it seemed? She had thought brothels would be terrible places, the women hurt and unhappy. She had thought dragon slayers were dangerous. Thought brothers should care about their families. And she had thought she must try to be proper, like a normal English lady. She had thought she could be proper, if she simply tried hard enough.
But all of those things she had thought had been wrong.
Then she saw one scene through the door that made her stop in shock.
A woman was moaning, obviously in pleasure, and a man was drinking from her neck.
Like her and Sinjin. Her quim ached at the remembered ecstasy of this.
A throat cleared and she squeaked in shock. “Lady Lucinda?”
She whirled to find a servant standing behind her, an elderly man with a completely impassive expression. She was about to ask him to take her to her sisters when he announced, “Mrs. Simpson wishes to speak to you.”
“Mrs. Simpson?” she echoed, mystified.
“The owner of this establishment.”
The madam. Lucy felt her eyes widen. But then, she was a guest in the house. It made sense, didn’t it, that the madam would wish to see her? She had spoken to a madam before, when she had been searching for Jack. She had spoken to the woman with Sinjin.
Perhaps, Lucy thought wryly, she was going to have to forget all the things she had learned from mortal society, all those ways she had tried to behave like a proper lady. For being a dragon trumped it all, didn’t it?
“All right. But I was searching for my sisters. Would you take me there afterward?”
“Indeed, Lady Lucinda.”
Lucy expected the madam would prove to be the woman with the gray coiffure, with the enormous spray of diamonds. What she had not expected was to be led to a very fashionable and tastefully appointed drawing room. Nor had she imagined she would discover a thin young girl painstakingly tapping the keys of a pianoforte.
The madam, Mrs. Simpson, rose and clapped her hands. “That is enough for today, Rosemary. You may return to your duties now.”
The girl curtsied, then hurried out. Lucy saw the girl was older than she had thought—Rosemary was definitely a young woman.
Duties
. She stared after the young girl, watching her graceful steps, measuring her age against her sisters. If this young woman had “duties,” it must mean she—
Duties
. She stared after the young girl, watching her graceful steps, measuring her age against her sisters. If this young woman had “duties,” it must mean she—
“My ward, who is like a daughter to me,” the madam said, as if she could glimpse thoughts. “The work I refer to is the account books. Rosemary has a remarkable head for figures and I would trust my finances to no one but my family.”
The words
trust
and
family
brought an odd sensation to Lucy’s stomach.
trust
and
family
brought an odd sensation to Lucy’s stomach.
“Do you not agree?”
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