The Companion (39 page)

Beth smiled wanly. “Did you come up to London only for the wedding?”

The blue-eyed woman was Rufford’s sister-in-law, Lady Stanbridge. “I am ashamed to say we did not know. We came to thank Ian. He did a great kindness to us, and to our children.”

Beth nodded, coming to herself a bit. “I do not doubt it. He is very unselfish.”

Lady Stanbridge chuckled. “I think you may be right. It was not always so. He has changed a great deal since he has been away.”

“That is understandable, with what he went through.”

Lady Stanbridge grew serious. “He would tell us only
that pirates sold him into slavery. We can only guess what horrors he endured.” She raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps you know the whole.”

“No.” Beth shook her head. And it was not a lie. It could not be her place to tell what little she did know.

“We thought him dead for more than two years.” Lady Stanbridge sighed and looked at Beth from under her lashes. “After the first joy of his return, I could not help but note how bereft he looked. Henry and I were exceedingly worried about him. He seemed so . . . distant, unable to take pleasure in even simple things.” She gazed down the table at her brother-in-law, and Beth followed her look. Rufford felt their eyes on him and glanced their way. His face softened and he raised his glass silently. Beth smiled in return. Lady Stanbridge glanced between them. “Perhaps marriage will agree with him,” she said. “He deserves happiness.”

“I hope it will.” Beth was not sure it would. But she knew at that moment that she wanted it to agree with him, that she wanted to soothe his doubts about himself and make him happy.

“Once more into the breach, my friends.” Rufford rose from the tables and bundled the party away, refusing to answer any questions.

But as Beth sat opposite the gentlemen and between Lady Stanbridge and Miss Fairfield in the crisp air of London February, their destination soon became apparent. They joined a long line of carriages depositing their cargoes in front of number 46 Berkeley Square. It struck Beth that Miss Fairfield and Lady Stanbridge were both dressed well enough for a ball, as was she herself, if it came to that. But surely the entire town would have been buzzing for weeks at the prospect of the Countess giving a ball. Beth had heard nothing about it.

After shedding their cloaks, Beth and Rufford climbed the great staircase to the first floor. The footman announced the Honorable Ian Rufford and Mrs. Rufford. To Beth’s amazement, all around the crowded room people turned and applauded.

“The married couple!”

“Lucky dog, Rufford!”

“Cut me out, sure!”

The cries of the men and looks of either astonishment or jealousy from the women shocked Beth. The Countess stepped out of the crowd, wearing lustrous midnight blue. “The guests of honor! I had almost given you up.” She kissed Beth’s cheek. “Stunning, child.” She presented her own cheek to Rufford, who obliged her.

“I could not have wished for better, Beatrix,” Rufford said, looking around the room.

Lady Jersey, Lady Sefton, and the Countess Lieven represented the Patronesses of Almack’s. Two royal Dukes lumbered ponderously forward. Two Diamonds of the First Water had brought out all the fashionable young men. The Countess smiled complacently. “I have been busy, have I not? No one else’s credit could have brought this off, you know.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“Well.” She shushed them into the room. “Go display your trophy, Rufford. Every man will be green. The world is at your bride’s feet tonight, just as you wished.”

Beth found herself receiving compliments from a hundred people as though it were a dream. The very people who had cut her dead or dismissed her now openly fawned. She danced with Rufford time after time without breaking any social rules, since on one’s wedding night it was far too early to be fashionably bored with one’s husband. Several people remarked on her aunt’s absence, but Beth played up the funeral without mentioning it was for a second cousin.

Still, the specter of a child vampire who needed blood instead of mother’s milk lurked in the back of her mind. What was her duty here? Rufford was so attentive she began to wonder if it was for show only. She sent him off to dance with Miss Fairfield, who had danced all three of her allowed dances with Ware and was now finding the evening insipid. In the ensuing moment of calm Beth saw the Countess float by.

An idea flashed into her brain. Here was a woman who
could banish or confirm her image of conceiving a vampire child. Before she could hesitate, she rose, murmured an apology to the Stanbridges, and stepped after the red-haired woman. “My lady . . .” The woman turned, surprised. “Could I have a word with you, uh, privately?”

The Countess’s head cocked, ever so slightly. “Of course, my dear.” She led Beth to an alcove and sat on the delicate settee inside the embrasure. “What is it?”

Beth chewed a lip. How did one ask what she wanted to ask? There was no way. So one just asked. “I wanted to know something I think you can tell me.”

“Why do you think I can answer?” The woman’s dark eyes examined her.

“He told me nothing about you,” Beth said hastily. “Do not blame him. I knew the moment I heard you ask that girl about why she wore the scarf. And because of your perfume.”

Realization dawned in the woman’s dark eyes. She sat back. “What, then?”

“It is about . . . children.”

“Whether you can have them with him, or what they will be?”

Beth nodded, grateful. A woman after her own heart. “Both.”

“Children may be possible. He is new to the Companion. Among those born with the blood, a child is a rare thing, between two of us almost unheard of. Between human and vampire, a little more likely. But only a vampire mother produces a vampire child, because the babe is smeared with the mother’s blood as it is born.”

Beth was relieved. If she did have a child, it could not be vampire. But the concept of a vampire child still bothered her. “How . . . ?” What question could she ask without betraying a horror the Countess obviously would not feel?

“The Companion is quiescent until they reach puberty. They cannot draw the power, for instance. But it must be fed, and we must help them to their blood. It is up to the parents to instill proper values about the taking.”

“Yes . . . a challenge. Children always are, are they not?”

“But rewarding. The blood is the life.” She said it as though it was a mantra. “But you do not understand that, do you? Rufford knows, though I have never said it to him. He has felt the difference between his existence now and how he was when he was merely human. We are more alive than you are. It is a thing devoutly to be wished for, though the likes of you would never credit it. I only hope that he can accept it in himself.”

Beth lifted her chin. “You seem very sure of what I would think.” But in one way the Countess was right. Rufford must make peace with his state.

Lady Lente cocked her head, considering Beth. “I told him he must get over Asharti. She damaged him in many ways. I hope his expedition to Africa will help him escape her influence. Perhaps you have a role as well.” She paused. “Do not fail him.”

“What do you mean?” Beth asked, startled. Then more seriously, “What should I do?”

“Have courage. You will know when the time comes.” She stood. The interview was at an end. “I like him. I am sorry he has this burden. But I am glad he can be useful to our kind. He is exempted from the death sentence imposed on those made by wantons like Asharti. I wish you both success.” She nodded once and glided out into the room, leaving Beth wondering.

Ian searched the room for his bride but did not see her. His bride! How strange that she had accepted him, knowing what she did. He would never give her cause to regret it. Once he had found Kivala, he would remove her safely to Gibraltar while he went after Asharti. He would protect her with his strength, his life, for all of hers. A pang shot through him. She would grow old as he did not. He renewed again the private vows he had made along with the public ones today: he would never take her blood, he would protect her from infection by his own blood and the evil it brought, and he would never force her to accept the physical intimacy of
marriage with such as he was. He had thought at the time that the vow to resist taking her blood might be the hardest to keep, if the need was on him, but after dancing with her tonight he was not sure.

Even he had not anticipated her transformation, though he knew the colors chosen for her by her aunt had never shown her to advantage. Her exotic beauty had always been there. Yet when people thought her a boring eccentric, they had been unable to see beyond the fact that she was different. But tonight her marriage to a man desired by other mamas and the cachet of being feted by none other than the Countess of Lente ripped the blinders from all eyes.

Ian might need blinders in order to avoid the effect Beth had on him. The heave of her breasts in that dress, the feel of her small, erect form in his arms as they whirled around the floor, the softness in those luminous green-gold eyes as she looked up at him, had made him long for a complete relationship, even as they stirred memories of undressing her in Gibraltar. But he also remembered his temptation to compel her acquiescence to his desires. That was a temptation he would
never
indulge. He must not become like Asharti, whatever the cost. Beth had acceded to his bargain because she was destitute, but she could not want a true union with a creature such as he was.
Let that fact suppress my unruly desires
. It had been long since he had allowed himself release in a physical sense. Celibacy was really the only choice. He would get used to it.

Beatrix emerged from an alcove, surveyed the room, and bore down on him. “Remarkable achievement, is it not? If only I did not find myself overheated and in need of a sojourn on the balcony, life would be perfect.”

Ian shook his head in mock despair. “Are you never subtle? A wrap?”

“Hardly.” She led the way to the French windows that gave out onto a balcony overlooking the square. In the brisk air she turned and cleared her throat. “Close the doors, Rufford.” Then, as he did so, “I find myself in an awkward position.”

He raised his brows. “How so? Does she not justify your sponsorship?”

“Of course she does,” Beatrix snapped. “She is lovely, intelligent, and disarmingly candid. No, I am afraid I must put myself forward in a role I find uncomfortable.” She took a breath. “As a bridegroom, you should know that it is not possible to pass your condition to any offspring. Only if her blood contains the Companion is it passed to a child she produces.”

Ian had not considered that possibility. His thoughts leaped ahead to the idea of Miss Rochewell producing his child and what that entailed. A vision of a family of his own like Henry’s, full of love and mutual respect, wavered in his mind. He felt himself flushing. “There is no danger of that,” he said dampingly. “Why do you take this upon yourself?”

“Because you are ignorant of your condition and . . . because she asked me.”

“She asked
you
if a child would be vampire?”

“She is not, as I said, unintelligent. She heard me question a woman who bore your puncture wounds, smelled my ‘perfume,’and concluded that I would know your circumstances.”

Ian drew himself up. “You need not worry. The situation will not arise.”

Beatrix turned to look out over the dark trees, their bare, clacking branches glistening with droplets from a rain shower that had moved through the city while they were engaged inside. “She seemed to think it might, and was preparing as best she could.”

Ian wanted to know a thousand things; whether she looked as though the event would be distasteful to her, exactly what she had said . . . But he could ask nothing. “Our bargain was for a marriage of convenience only.”

“Who knows what she thinks that might entail?” Beatrix asked the night. Her words drifted back over her shoulder.

“I never meant her virgin state to be a part of the cost to her,” Ian said stiffly.

Beatrix turned. “Perhaps you need more advice about females than vampires. I suggest you take your time with her. You are right about her being a virgin, in spite of what
everyone thinks about her life in foreign climes. Thank goodness you have been dallying with every woman in town. You can afford to go slowly.”

Ian’s face hardened. “Don’t believe every rumor about me.”

“Lord, you fought a duel over one silly cow.” Beatrix laughed.

“That does not mean I was guilty, only accused.”

Beatrix’s eyes narrowed. “And exactly how long has it been, Rufford?”

“A lady would never ask that question.” He opened the doors and gestured her inside.

She did not go. “Not since Asharti?” She examined him, her eyes concerned.

She had no right to be concerned. “Not your business.”

To his annoyance she smiled with some secret knowledge. “Then I shall be forced to let nature take its course, I suppose.” She shot a glance at him. “But go slowly.”

Eighteen

Beth found that the Countess had made arrangements for the newly wedded couple to stay in her best bedroom that night. At midnight, as the other guests went down to supper, married couples had pushed the two across the room to each other and begun calling for them to retire. Lewd comments and applause propelled them upstairs. Rufford seemed as nervous as a rat where cats are on the prowl. Her own back was ramrod-straight in apprehension. The great blue bedroom to which they were led had a fire crackling in the grate and candles set about the room. A man’s nightshirt and some soft silk sleeping gear were laid out upon the bed, which was turned back in what was meant to be an inviting fashion. It only felt like a threat. Brandy and Madeira were set out on the sideboard along with a tray of sweetmeats.

Rufford cleared his throat. “That will be all,” he said to the ancient servant with the knowing look in his eyes. Beth drifted to the fire, where she stood warming her hands with her back to the room. The door closed behind the servant with a finality she found chilling.