“Two of them? Do they have guns or weapons?”

“They’re fighting with their hands and—kicking, and throwing things. It’s…amazing,” she whispered. “My brother…he’s so fast, they’re all so fast…but he’s… I can hardly see him move. And…he just lifted that big desk and threw it at one of them,” she said. Her voice was half shocked, half terrified. “Oh! He punched one, and oh! Oh, dear! Oh. There. He’s back up and slammed the other one into the wall, and then he flipped over a sofa and landed on his feet—”

“Who?” Maia demanded again.

“The earl. He’s fighting them off. Both of them. He’s—but he’s bleeding…and there goes a chair on the head and oh!”

The next thing Maia knew, the girl was dragging, or pushing and pulling, her somewhere. “We’ve got to hide. Behind this…potted tree,” she managed, breathless with effort. “They might see us!”

But by then, Mirabella had ceased to pull and tug at her bound body, and Maia got the impression she was no longer near her. Where did she go? Surely she hadn’t left her here alone, bound up like a loaf of bread?

And then…Angelica! Fear seized her, and with a flood of panic she remembered the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the malevolent aura about them. Now she began to struggle anew, but Corvindale had been much too efficient with the curtain cord. She couldn’t loosen it, and Mirabella didn’t seem to be inclined to do much to assist.

“Mirabella?” she said, a bit more loudly now.

A shifting in the air, and then the presence of someone next to her indicated the younger woman’s return. Maia felt her bump against her in haste. “It’s Corvindale! A third man came in, and then something happened—he just stopped. Corvindale just…stopped. He’s down on the ground, or dead, or something!”

“Did they shoot him?” Maia demanded. “Do you see a lot of blood?”

“I didn’t see anything, and surely I would have heard a gunshot.”

“Let me out of here,” Maia said, struggling harder. She had to see. She had to find a way to take care of this. The earl couldn’t be dead. “Do you see any blood?”

“He’s looking around the room—there’s only one man now,” Mirabella hissed, her mouth close to the spot she must assume was Maia’s head, but was really her shoulder. “Another one came in. He just kicked my brother…and he didn’t move. Oh, dear God, I hope he isn’t dead!”

“Unwrap me!” Maia said. Torn between disbelief that the implacable earl could actually be prone—not to mention that he’d allowed himself to be kicked—and the terror of what could be happening to Angelica, she found herself flopping about like a netted fish. Were there really vampirs here?

“No, I’d better not. Not until—oh, the man left. He’s gone. I’m going to wait a minute to make sure he’s gone for good. Then I’ll sneak in and see to the earl.”

Mirabella moved and Maia heard her shifting away, and then, after a long moment, the soft rattle of the French doors. And then a marginally louder rattle, and the gentle bump as Mirabella came back.

“Someone else came in! He nearly saw me. I don’t know who he is, but I thought I should—”

“What about Corvindale? Did you see blood? Did you get in there?”

“He’s not moving, but his eyes seem to be open. And his shirt is all torn, and there is a necklace of rubies across his neck that he wasn’t wearing earlier. It’s very peculiar. But I didn’t get close enough because the door opened and I ran back outside.”

Maia could hear the distress in her friend’s voice, and she supposed she couldn’t blame the girl for running after the door opened again. But how could she have left her brother there? Maia would never have—

Mirabella gasped. “The man is taking the necklace of rubies! Is he a thief—oh! Corvindale!”

And then the sound of the French doors crashing open and heavy footsteps had Maia tensing.

“Are you hurt?” Mirabella was asking, and then suddenly Maia was being scooped up and untangled from her bindings. Unfortunately she recognized the strong, efficient handling of Corvindale as he toted her away once more.

By the time the fabric fell away from her face, and she saw that the earl was, apparently, no worse for wear, he’d deposited her on the floor in the very same room she’d been in some time earlier. It was in shambles.

“Angelica!” was the first thing that came out of her mouth, just as she noticed Lord Dewhurst leaving the chamber. He was carrying a necklace of rubies.

The curtains had fallen in a thick heap around her feet, tangling with her high shoes and the multitude of folds from her gown. She tried to kick it away, frantic to get to her sister, but Corvindale stopped her with a strong grip around her arm. “Take your hands off me,” she snapped. “I have to find Angelica.”

Ignoring her, Corvindale lifted her from the pile of fabric as the door closed behind Dewhurst, and she noticed that his shirt was indeed torn, sagging over his uncovered shoulder, leaving his muscular arms bare. “Dewhurst will see to her,” the earl said.

“Dewhurst?” Maia said, staring at the door. And wasn’t the viscount supposed to be in Romania? “With my sister?”

“I’ll deal with him later,” Corvindale said grimly, grasping her by the arm and towing her toward the door. “Iliana’s waiting in the carriage. You’ve got to get out of here,” he said, and gestured sharply for Mirabella to follow.

“I’m not leaving without my sister,” Maia said, digging in her heels.

The earl’s response was simple, and it infuriated her further: he picked her up bodily and carried her out of the room and down the hall to the servants’ stairs.

The next thing she knew, Maia was shoved into a carriage along with Mirabella and their chaperone. No fewer than three footmen were to accompany them, which gave her a modicum of security. The door closed and clicked locked before she could speak, and the coach started off with a violent lurch.

She could barely catch her breath, she was so incensed. But before she could gather her thoughts to speak, she looked over at her two companions. Mirabella’s eyes were wide in her fair face, her fiery-red hair hanging in straggles around her cheekbones, her red lips parted.

But Aunt Iliana had a more composed, but intense, expression on her face. And for the first time, Maia noticed that the woman was holding a sharp wooden stake.

Maia had just finished opening the parlor drapes at Blackmont Hall again—for someone kept closing them and keeping the rooms so dark and dreary—when she heard the front entrance open. Her heart leaped, and she rushed to the parlor door to see if it was Angelica returning at last. But the low, sharp tones as the new arrival spoke to his butler indicated that it was the earl who had come home.

Determined to at least have some answers from him, she flew from the parlor and met him in the hall.

“Lord Corvindale,” she said, positioning herself in the center of the passageway so that he couldn’t walk to his study—where it appeared he was headed—without brushing past her.

“What is it, Miss Woodmore?” he demanded. His voice was flat and hard, and belied the disheveled, weary man in front of her. He’d either come home and changed into a new shirt (although she was certain he hadn’t been in the house since she returned from the masquerade last night; for she’d been waiting to accost him), or had somehow acquired a different one, for this shirt, though wrinkled and loose, seemed relatively pristine as compared to the one in shreds last night.

But his features were etched even more sharply than usual. His heavy dark brows lowered in a scowl, his mouth in a flat line, his thick, dark hair springing in erratic waves from his head and around his neck. He was well overdue for a shave, as well, she noted with a sniff. His coat was smudged with dirt and his hands were ungloved and one had a line of dried blood on the back of it.

Although Maia had filled her sleepless night by attempting to rest, then read, and then later when neither served to ease her mind, to bathe away the lingering bit of lint and dust from the curtains in which she’d been wrapped, she felt very little sympathy for the man in front of her…despite the fact that he seemed exhausted. Tension emanated from him like heat radiating from a fire, but Maia didn’t care. She needed answers, she needed to prepare, to take care of things and to address this situation—and she’d waited much too long for him. Aunt Iliana, who seemed to know much more than she let on, had merely assured her that they’d received word that Angelica was safe and that Dewhurst would be returning her shortly.

But the big question was: safe from what?

From the vampirs?

“It’s nearly four o’clock, Corvindale. I would like you to tell me precisely where Angelica is,” she demanded of him in return. “And when she is going to arrive here. But most of all, I require assurance that she is safe.”

His eyes flashed darkly. “Your sister will arrive here at Blackmont Hall when I am convinced it is safe for her to do so.” He made a clear gesture of dismissal. “Is that all?”

She drew in her breath and gave him an icy glare. “No, it is not. In fact, I wished to speak with you in regard to your conduct last evening.”

“My conduct?” Ice fairly formed in the air around his words.

Perhaps he assumed that the very tone of his livid, affronted voice would make her turn tail and run, but he was very wrong. “Not only was it abhorrent and crude, but you didn’t even take the moment to explain or apologize before shoving Mirabella and myself into a carriage and sending us off.”

“Indeed.”

“There was simply no reason for you to put your hands on me—” to her mortification, her voice dipped a bit with fury “—and toss me out onto the balcony like some sort of—”

Corvindale fixed her with icy black eyes. “In fact, I had sufficient reason for doing so. The least of which was the fact that you would not have obeyed me.”