Her heart stopped. Mr. Virgil.

Maia got out of bed as if to escape the images, her heart pounding. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like this at all, the feelings crawling over her. The ugliness, dark memories that began to pour into her mind.

And then something changed in the memory…there was a burst of energy, something dark and fast. Glowing red eyes. Lashing out, violence, and suddenly she was caught up in it…

And then she was safe. Away from it. In a carriage.

With Corvindale.

Maia stood there in her dark chamber, breathing hard. Her stomach hurt, her hair plastered to her neck and throat. Her face was stark, and as white as her night rail, reflecting back from the mirror in the dim light.

She needed answers.

“My lord, there is an individual without who wishes to speak with you.”

Dimitri looked up from the bloody damned book Wayren had foisted upon him. Anything for an excuse to leave off reading about the beauty and her beastly host in a conveniently Gothic castle.

The fact that it was past midnight and someone had come calling bothered him not one bit, nor would it be a surprise to his butler Crewston. There was just as much activity at Blackmont Hall once the sun set as there was during the daylight hours.

Such was the lifestyle of a Dracule.

“Who is it?” he asked, rising from his desk.

“It is a female individual,” Crewston explained. “She waits in a carriage. She asked that I give you this.” He offered a handkerchief.

But Dimitri didn’t need to take the scrap of fabric; he could scent her the moment his butler waved it. Lerina.

His flash of rage was instantly banked. She wouldn’t trick him again, and he had no desire to waste any thought or energy on her. Yet, he was curious as to why she would chance encountering him again.

Instead of responding to Crewston, he pulled on his coat and slipped a slender wooden stake into the pocket. He suspected she was here on a peacemaking visit, but naturally there was no trusting the woman.

Outside in the late-summer heat, Dimitri sniffed the air as he walked down the three steps. Her carriage had been drawn up in the half-circle drive, only a few paces from the stairs. The air was humid and heavy with the perfume of mature roses and lilies, underscored by London’s constant tinge of waste and garbage. The vehicle’s door opened as he stepped down to the ground, but he went no farther.

“It’s safe, my dear Dimitri,” she said, peering out from the opening. “Not a ruby in sight.”

“Pardon me if I don’t trust your word on that,” Dimitri replied. “I cannot imagine what you think you might have to talk to me about, but you must come out if you wish to do so.”

“It was a misunderstanding, Dimitri darling,” Lerina said as she emerged gracefully from the carriage, her hair and skirts tumbling prettily about her.

He paused, waiting to see if he sensed the proximity of a ruby or two. Or a dozen. He didn’t, and he hadn’t expected to. Nor did he scent anyone else in the area, other than her driver.

Lerina might not be the brightest of people, but she apparently had a great sense of self-preservation. And she knew him well—that, unless provoked, he wouldn’t harm her.

“If that episode was a misunderstanding, I cannot imagine what you think the incident in Vienna was. A picnic? Let’s not play games, Lerina. You tried to abduct me, you failed and now you are here…for what reason, precisely? You must know you won’t have the advantage of tricking me again.”

She pouted. “But I’m still in love with you, Dimitri.”

“You have a unique way of showing it.”

“I was a fool. I always have been.”

“How gratifying to know that nothing has changed.”

Her face tightened, losing that flirtatious expression for the first time since she’d arrived. “I had to take the chance to see you alone. The others who were with me are Cezar’s makes. If they realized I was here…”

Dimitri was shaking his head. “No. Try again.”

“Damn you, Dimitri.”

He shrugged. “I’m afraid you’re a bit late on that, too.

Now what do you wa—”

A noise behind him had him turning. Bloody damned Lucifer’s soul.

“Miss Woodmore,” he said, with what he deemed great control. Great, immense, precise control.

She ducked her head and shoulders back inside the open window, where she quite probably had been eavesdropping, and seconds later the front door opened. There she stood, the proper Miss Woodmore, wearing nothing but a flimsy night rail. Her thick hair poured over her shoulders in dark waves, glinting gold in the weak circle of illumination from the streetlamp.

Dimitri paused for a moment to thank the Fates there was no moonlight tonight to shine through the fabric as he struggled to keep his expression blank. “What are you doing?”

She’d stepped onto the top step and he noticed a slender implement in her hand, half hidden behind her and by the folds of her skirt. A stake? Did she mean to protect him? A wave of annoyance and fury battled with some other emotion that he dared not define. Addled woman.

“Mrs. Throckmullins,” Miss Woodmore said as easily as if she’d just arrived for tea. “I should not have expected a social call from you, after our last meeting.”

“Get back into the house, Miss Woodmore,” Dimitri told her, glancing at Lerina. To his dismay, her face was rapt with attention.

“I was just leaving,” Lerina said to the new arrival. Her eyes narrowed and her smile seemed forced. It was a cunning expression that didn’t bode well, along with a spark of something dark. “I have everything that I came for.”

Dimitri turned back toward Miss Woodmore, turning his furious glare on her. She ignored him and he stepped onto the lower stair in an effort to draw her attention to him, and away from Lerina. If the chit would see how angry he was, she’d listen and go back inside. “Miss Woodmore, you will catch your death of cold out here. Dressed in that,” he added flatly, studiously ignoring the way one side of her bodice had slipped, revealing the curve of a delicious collarbone.

“There’s not the least bit of a chill out here,” she replied. The fact that her nipples were outlined by the light fabric put her statement into question.

“Miss Woodmore,” he said in a low voice, his teeth clenched. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that, but your interference is unnecessary. And—”

He heard rustling behind him, then a faint creak. When he turned, it was to see Lerina’s carriage door closing behind her. The vehicle lurched into motion and he watched it drive away, an unpleasant prickle running down his spine mingling with the throb from his Mark.

“In the house,” he said, brushing past Miss Woodmore to open the door, wondering where in the damned bloody hell Crewston was, and what he was thinking, allowing her to come out dressed as she was.

He was only slightly mollified when his ward stepped into the house without further argument. Just then Iliana came rushing around the corner, long braid flying, stake in hand. Her bare feet slapped to a halt and she looked at Dimitri.

At once he realized what had happened and it was all he could do to keep from shouting at Miss Woodmore that he didn’t need to be bloody damn protected. Lucifer’s black soul, what had possessed her to think so?

Iliana took one look at his face and pivoted away, prudently heading back from whence she’d come.

This left Dimitri alone with his ward, for apparently, Crewston had other things to do. Or, more likely, he was lurking somewhere, had seen the fury on his master’s face and decided to remain out of eyesight.

“I need to speak with you, Corvindale,” Miss Woodmore said coolly. She was still holding the stake.

Here, inside the house, he wasn’t quite as fortunate. For the lamps lighting the front hall and the small sconce on the corridor provided a spill of soft, warm illumination around, and through, her night rail.

Before he could respond, she turned and flounced down the corridor to his sanctuary. His study. Dimitri looked away, grinding his teeth as he followed her—he followed her—into his den. He had a few things he should say to her, as well.

But when he came into the chamber and closed the door behind him, Dimitri had a sudden attack of wariness. His palms actually began to dampen. For the bloody Fates, he hadn’t had sweaty palms since he was standing for his first Latin exam at Cambridge.

What was it about this woman who needled him to no end?

“Incidentally, you were wrong, Corvindale,” she was saying. She’d positioned herself at the far end of the room, where two chairs faced the center with a small table between them. The window whose curtains she had the temerity to open every bloody time she came in was next to one of the seats. The chamber was suffused with her scent, that of slumber and spice and fresh cotton and whatever she used to clean her hair.

He forced himself to wander casually to the cabinet where he kept his French brandy and Scotch whiskey. Since the night last week when he’d downed two full bottles of blood whiskey, he hadn’t indulged. But tonight he thought he might be able to justify at least a finger or two of the best vintage, especially since he’d made certain he hadn’t been face-to-face with her since the events at Rubey’s. He hadn’t seen more than the flutter of her hem around a corner since he’d tucked her into the carriage for the ride home.

“I? Wrong?” He sipped the golden liquid and realized his heart was slamming in his chest. His insides were tight. What in the bloody damned hell was wrong with him?

“You said she’d tried to abduct you and failed. That isn’t precisely true, is it? Mrs. Throckmullins—Lerina—did succeed in abducting you. And if I hadn’t shown up, who knows what would have happened?”

His fingers tightened over the glass. What did she want, honors and an audience at court in appreciation? “As I understand it, you didn’t exactly show up. You were abducted, as well.”

“That is quite true,” she replied. “But I managed to free myself. Although I do understand there were extenuating circumstances on your part.”