Ravensclaw (11 page)

Michael insisted they were betrothed. Did he justify his thefts as only taking what would eventually be his?

Well, they weren’t betrothed, nor would they be, if Emily had anything to say about it, which she did and would.

Jamie pulled away from her. “I wadna be surprised if ye’re no’ a wee bit daft! Come awa’ noo. ‘Afore Isidore finds out where I brought ye and gie me a skelpit dowp.”

“I’ll give you a skelpit dowp, whatever that is, if you don’t stop scolding. For the last time, show me where Mr. Ross went.”

The air was damp with a grey mist, the “haar” Jamie called it, that was blowing in from the Firth of Forth. Emily brushed rebellious tendrils of hair away from her face.

Along the High Street Jamie led her, toward the Royal Exchange. Emily regretted she had no time to stop and warm herself in a coffee shop, listen to gossip and peruse the latest newspapers to learn what folly Prinny’s Tory ministers had most recently committed and discover who of interest had lately gotten married, disgraced themselves, or died. She and Drogo followed Jamie down a flight of sloping stairs, worn from centuries of traffic, into another steep and winding street. They rounded a corner into a close — ‘closes’, he informed her, having once been private property, narrow canyon-like alleyways with buildings on each side that were gated to the public and often named after someone who had resided there, as opposed to ‘wynds’, open thoroughfares usually wide enough for a horse and cart to navigate.

Jamie pointed toward an archway. “He went in there.” Drogo growled deep in his throat.

Emily hesitated. The entry looked ominous. But so had Corby Castle, and she’d marched right up to the front door. Emily didn’t plan to accost Michael at his front door, of course, merely to pick the lock and have a quick look around. He shouldn’t be home at this hour. But if he was—

She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Emily had sat back and done nothing for far too long. If only she had taken inventory earlier, and opened that lead-lined chest, instead of seeking to soothe the warring factions of the Society while attempting at the same time to deal with her own feelings of inadequacy and loss—

But she had, and here she was. Resolutely, she took a forward step.

Or attempted to. Still growling, Drogo blocked her path. “I dinna think,” protested Jamie, “that ye should go in there.”

“Stop it, the both of you. Oh, do get out of my way!” Emily glared at Drogo, who didn’t budge an inch. Then she scowled at Jamie. “Why are you staring at me as if I’d grown a second head?”

Jamie pointed. “Behind ye, miss!”

Emily spun around. Three hulking brutes loitered at the mouth of the close. No sooner had she spied them than they abandoned all pretense of idleness and advanced on her. Rather, two advanced. The third jerked like a puppet when he walked, his pale face twitching uncontrollably. In one hand he clutched a sack.

Emily might have run, but Drogo was tangled in her skirts. She raised her umbrella and prepared to defend herself.

The men were already upon them. Emily speared the instep of one assailant, whacked another in the shin, had picked up her skirts to flee when the twitching man yanked the umbrella from her hand and tossed a sack over her head.

Jamie, being of shorter stature and fewer inhibitions, had aimed directly for the nearest crotch.  A moment of contact, an agonized bellow, and then he was batted into a towering pile of refuse. Drogo took to his heels.

‘Twas a right bourach. Jamie flailed about in the slippery, stinking rubbish. Emily kicked and flung her arms about inside her prison, which smelled most unpleasantly of spoiled fish. “Bloody, blooming, blasted—”

Her captor punched the sack, hard. The blow knocked the breath out of her, and Emily went limp. She would have a sore belly tomorrow. Providing that she saw tomorrow. Why had these ruffians set on her? Were they resurrection men in search of a fresh body to steal and sell? An extremely fresh body, considering that she was still very much alive.

Why would they be interested in a little bit of nothing like herself? There was hardly enough meat on Emily’s bones to exercise a surgeon’s scalpel. Maybe her bones themselves were of more value. Maybe her skeleton would have a place of honor in some anatomist’s dissecting room.

Emily didn’t want to be dissected.
Concentrate!
she told herself. Her abductors were arguing. She heard the word “feartie” mentioned, and more clearly, “sweerbreeks.”

Oxter and Mowdiewarp, as they called each other, were the more vocal of the three. Emily was relieved to learn that these were not resurrection men, merely ruffians for hire; and it was just as well their employer didn’t want the lass dead instead of tossed over Twitcher’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, because none of them had the stomach for such work.

Unnoticed by the others, Jamie squirmed out from beneath the pile of rubbish. He couldna lounge there lak a doolally, greetin’ over the puir mawkit condition of his nice new clothes, now slechered in nasty substances he didna want to know the nature of. He must gather his wits about him so that he could follow when the bajins took Miss Emily away.

As it turned out, they took her nowhere. Drogo reappeared at the far end of the close. The wolf was not alone. Ravensclaw moved with startling speed to smash one man against the wall of a building. He flung another onto a rooftop. Twitcher took one look at the newcomer and promptly dropped his burden in the dirt. Ravensclaw caught him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

Twitcher kicked and gurgled and struggled to escape that killing grip, those compelling eyes, those long, pointed, razor-sharp fangs.

His captor spoke in a deep compelling voice. “None of this happened. You and your companions spent the past two hours getting drunk as David’s sow in that tavern on the corner. If you go near this young woman again, I will tear out your liver and wrap your intestines around your neck. Do you understand?”

Twitcher shuddered. “Aye.” Ravensclaw let him drop to the ground. The man scrambled unsteadily to his feet and staggered down the narrow street.

Jamie emerged from the pile of rubble. “Och, those are some grand teeth ye hae! I expected ye wid bite that bajin’s heid in twa. Be Miss Emily a’richt? Daft isna the half of it. She be a proper dare-the-de’il.”

Miss Emily, sprawled on the cobblestones, withheld comment. Ravensclaw bent to lift her in his arms. “Heed me, Jamie. You saw no teeth. You were never here. Go home.”

Jamie opened his mouth and closed it. A blank expression stole over his face. Without a word of protest, he left.

Emily opened her other eye. “Yes,
he did. Teeth. Saw them. So did I.” When Ravensclaw set her on her feet, she reached up and touched a curious finger to one fang. Winced as she sliced her finger on the sharp tooth. Said, “Oh, my.”

Ravensclaw stepped back, turned away from her. Turned back, caught her hand, licked the blood oozing from her cut.

The feeling was indescribable. Emily drew in a sharp breath. Drogo growled.

Abruptly, Ravensclaw released her.
Go now. While you can.
Emily took a last look at his grim expression and obeyed.

He that would eat the fruit must first climb the tree.

(Romanian proverb)

Emily set down her book, an ancient grimoire which contained, among other fascinating information, a shape-shifting spell that involved sticking twelve knives in the ground at intervals and somersaulting over each one. She rested her head against the back of her chair. Her stomach was sore where the ruffian had hit her. Indeed, she felt like every muscle in her body ached.

Machka jumped into her lap. “It seemed like such a good idea at the time,” Emily told the cat. Drogo, in his customary spot on the hearth, rolled one expressive eye.

Why had those men attacked her? Had it been a random act, or was it connected to the d’Auvergne athame? She had been almost on Michael’s doorstep. Had he sent those men to frighten her off?

They had seemed less intent on scaring her than snatching her. Emily didn’t care to dwell on what might have happened if the wolf — or rare Carpathian sleuth-hound — hadn’t fetched Ravensclaw.

Yes, and how had Ravensclaw come to be so close at hand?

Ravensclaw. Emily’s understanding of the ways of maids and men — or maids and the nonmortal — was increasing at an astonishing rate. First his touch, then the dreams, and now—

She regarded her wounded finger with awe. If a finger-lick could be so sensual, what must it be like to feel a vampire’s teeth? To experience a full-fledged fanging, so to speak?

The drawing room was pleasant in the daylight, a chamber designed not for entertaining guests but for everyday use. Here, too, books were piled everywhere. The only discordant note was Michael’s roses, great luxuriant crimson blooms that hadn’t yet begun to fade. Jamie and his clothing were being divested of their noxious stench by Zizi, Bela, and Lilian, a ‘skelpit dowp’ having turned out to be punishment delivered by Isidore to the boy’s backside. Lady Alberta was absent, having gone to Princes Street in search of a corset designed to give her figure the graceful curves of youth.

Emily had ceased her stroking. Machka bit her hand.

Val walked into the room. “Isidore said—” He turned pale, clutched his throat. “Take those bloody roses away!”

Emily stood up so abruptly that Machka went sailing through the air to land atop Nostradamus’s
Centuries.
She snatched up the roses and ran into the stairwell. “Isidore!
Isidore!”

The old man was hobbling up the steps. She cried, “Ravensclaw is ill!”

Isidore took the vase from her. “The master is allergic to roses, miss.”

Emily regarded him over the rim of her spectacles. “Then why in the name of heaven did you bring the blasted blossoms into the drawing room?”

“They were a gift. For you.” Isidore dripped disapproval. “From your young man.”

“He is
not
—” Emily stopped herself and drew in a calming breath. “What can we do?”

“There’s nothing
to
do. The master will be right as rain.” Isidore nodded to the roses. “As soon as I take these away.”

“Then why don’t you do that?” Emily bared her teeth at him.
“Now,
Isidore!”

“ ‘The butcher looked for the knife and it was in his mouth’.” Having managed to get in the last word, the old man descended the stair.

Emily hurried back into the drawing room, flung open the windows, waved her hands to speed the scent of flowers from the room. “Roses? Not garlic or crucifixes or holy water, but
roses?”

“Surely in all your reading you’ve come upon the superstition that a branch of the wild rose placed upon a corpse keeps a
vampir
trapped inside its grave.” Val’s voice was strained.

“I’ve also read that blood baths cure leprosy,” Emily retorted, “and that the crowing of a rooster will scare away the undead. I presume this means you don’t strew rose petals for your lady friends to lie upon?”

He loosened his cravat. “You know a great deal about strewing rose pedals, do you?”

“You can always substitute some other flower. Daisies. Lilies.”
Forget-me-nots.

Ravensclaw looked amused. Emily cleared her throat. “Thank you for rescuing us today. Jamie believes he accompanied me on an errand and had an unfortunate encounter with a rubbish cart. It was most impressive, the way you clouded his mind.”
Drat it, stop babbling
. “You frightened me. Those wretched roses. I thought I was going to see you crumble to dust before my eyes.”

Ravensclaw picked up Machka. The cat settled on his shoulder. “Would that distress you, little one?”

“How could it not distress me? I’ve grown, um, accustomed to you being around.”

Val no longer looked amused. “Emily, we have to talk.”

Emily
had
been talking. “About what?”

Val stroked the cat. “About what you’re feeling. No, I haven’t eavesdropped on your thoughts. It’s what everyone feels after they’ve encountered one of us.”

How serious he had become. How remote. In Emily’s experience, when gentlemen became serious and remote, they were about to be even more annoying than usual.

She too could be annoying. “One of you? You refer to hemovores?”

Val ignored this provocation. “You liked it when I took your blood. Everyone enjoys it when one of us takes his — or her — blood.” He paused reflectively. “Well, almost everyone.”

Emily took off her spectacles and gave the lenses a brisk polish. “I daresay it isn’t especially enjoyable to have one’s throat torn out.”

“Emily—”

She plopped her glasses on her nose. “I know all this. If you didn’t make people think they were enjoying the experience, no one would ever let you feed. But I don’t think you were
making
me feel what I felt, because to make me feel it, you would have had to overwhelm my senses, and I would have known.” Emily paused, considering. “Not that the experience
wasn’t
overwhelming, because it was. But it was my own overwhelming, not yours. At any rate, it’s not as if you bit me. You only gave me a little lick.”

Val still wore that closed expression. Emily folded her arms across her chest. “Are you acting so missish because blood-drinking is an adjunct of the amorous congress?”

“ ‘Missish’?” Val ran a lazy finger over Machka’s purring head.

Emily tilted her own head to one side. “Or perhaps vampires
don’t
—”

 “I can do everything a mortal man can.” A twinkle lit Val’s eye. “But better, of course. Are you asking if I am capable of amorous congress?”

No, because she didn’t doubt it for a moment. Emily didn’t care to dwell on what things Ravensclaw might do better than a mortal man. At least not until she was safely in the privacy of her bed. “You
did
say you were umbivalent,” she allowed.

“I have said any number of absurd things to you. Since you bring out the
worst in me, no doubt I will say more.” Ravensclaw walked toward the doorway. “Isidore! I know you’re lurking somewhere. Bring tea.”