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There were about eighteen people who belonged to Danny’s station. Household staff, and those who maintained the building and merino sheep. In gathering together the latter, Dev quickly pieced together that Ian had allowed the flock to dwindle to such a low number it barely qualified as a hobby, keeping the men dangerously idle except for violent pursuits like Danny’s ambush. Dev suspected she’d have to dismiss most of them and start from scratch.
Lord Charles’s men stood off to one side, below where Charles stood on the porch, leaning against the railing. Those in the courtyard had their eyes fastened on their new Mistress, who’d stepped out in the blood-spattered taffeta dress. The torchlight made the fabric shimmer, fire glittering in her golden hair. There was a slash of blood across her cheek. Dev noted old Jim off to the side, and the old stockman looked . . . relieved. Remarkably unsurprised by this turn of events. Strewth, Dev apparently had a lot to learn about vampires. The question was, did he want to know any more?
“Ian is dead because of his attempt to kill me.” Danny addressed them all bluntly, glancing toward Ruskin. “I have reclaimed my mother’s station. You stay, work for me, you’ll get a good wage. If you aren’t a good worker, I’ll sack you. You can hike the twenty or so miles to intercept a truck train to take you out of here.” The frost of her eyes increased, made brilliant by the torchlight, as if a demon within surged to the forefront, capturing their attention. Dev noted no one coughed or shifted. There was no muttering. They were riveted upon her.
“Betray me, and I will stake you out on the fence, give you enough water to keep you suffering and alive for days, and let the sun, bugs and the limitation of your frail human body kill you. Do not make the mistake of thinking I will not employ violence when necessary, simply because I am not as violent as Ian.” She looked toward old Jim. “Put Ian’s body out past the fence to burn when the sun rises. Have the maids prepare his servant’s body for burial. Put her outside our family plot, but give her a decent marker.” Her attention moved back to the assembly. “I will give her that. I’ve no idea of her character, but her judgment in relationships was poor. Bear that lesson in mind.”
Her gaze then shifted to the maid staff. “After I change, Lord Ruskin and I will have a fencing match in the courtyard. Please have brandy brought there. Oh”—she stopped in midturn—“Devlin is the new station manager until I say otherwise. You will bring any questions to him. That is all. Go back to your duties or your sleep.”
He saw their speculative looks. What they didn’t know was he had as many questions as they did. She hadn’t given him much of a job description up to now. It wasn’t the first job he’d had to learn by the seat of his pants, and a description seemed a bit laughable in any case. They hadn’t talked wages, either. Another absurd topic, really. But after he assisted old Jim and the rest of the staff in cleaning up the aftermath of her coup, he decided she owed all of them a raise.
He’d gone from the graveside of his son and wife straight into the army. It wasn’t until that was over that he’d known he wasn’t returning to his station, ever again. Instead, he’d gone on walkabout. He came in and out of towns, worked here or there as he wanted or needed to. Being a swagman had become a state of mind, a drifting to find something of meaning. A purpose, an arrow of sorts? He certainly felt he’d been shot by one.
He’d thought it over and couldn’t do this. He couldn’t live in a world like this. That was the end of it. He’d stick with her through tonight, though. When these immediate tasks were handled as best as could be managed, he’d find her to let her know. That was the type of message she deserved to have delivered in person.
Plus, she’d been silent as a stump in his mind since she left the porch. He was learning her voice came from a certain direction in his mind, for lack of a better description, and right now there was a solid wall in that spot. He wasn’t even sure if he “thought” his intentions at her, she’d hear them.
So when at last he went looking for her, he found she hadn’t come back down yet. Probably still getting ready for her fencing match. How in the hell could she manage an idle sport after that? He shook his head, closed it off. Not his issue, really.
But as he reached the top of the stairs, prepared to move down the main second floor hallway, he stopped. Her scent, that light perfume she’d worn for dinner . . . it was here, as if she’d recently gone this way. Turning down a narrower, left-hand corridor, and obeying that instinctive sense of her, he put his hand on the doorknob of a room he hadn’t explored and turned it.
It was a smaller bedroom, though it had a washroom like the master rooms. He moved around the bed, studying the simple, elegant arrangement of a guest room, similar to where Danny had put him.
The mirror in the washroom confirmed this area was intended for human habitants. He almost turned away, since he didn’t see her in the reflection that showed the rest of the bathroom, then he stopped. While he’d already learned some lore about vampires wasn’t true, and some of it was unimaginable, it was possible that certain things, like the inability to cast a reflection, could be fact.
He leaned into the room.
Since he’d met her, she’d overwhelmed him sexually and emotionally. He’d seen her fight like a tiger for her life against superior numbers and firepower, overcome third-degree burns, and tonight, single-handedly murder the overlord of this territory. Still, she could surprise him. Like now.
She was squatting on her heels, wedged in the far corner, between the commode and the sink. Hunched over, she had her arms wrapped around herself, her back to the door.
He didn’t believe anyone could come upon her unawares, and he didn’t believe he did so now. Which might explain one of the reasons his heart lurched when he squatted behind her, and she merely lowered her head further. As he wrapped his arms over hers, blanketing her, tremors rippling across her back became hard convulsions, terrible, strangled things that made him realize she was crying. Crying the way a hysterical woman would cry, only in complete silence.
I hate this, Dev. Hate it so much.
Relieved to hear it, love.
She made a noise, something like a snort and a sob. When he tightened his arms around her, the twisted sense of wrongness in him loosened. He’d no doubt she was comfortable with her dominant sexuality, her predator’s bloodlust, but until Ian, he’d seen her as a beautiful wild animal, like a cougar. It all clicked together, even before she opened her mind to let him see it, because it hadn’t made sense until this minute. And a different twist wrenched his vitals.
“It wasn’t just what he did to your mother. Bloody hell.”
Her response came in a painful flood of thoughts and images, jumbled like her emotions. I never cared much for him, but he seemed to love her so much. When she was away . . . I was over a hundred, but he was older, and he took me by surprise.
Took by force what I wouldn’t give. Only the two of us here, and the staff, who couldn’t interfere. Only old Jim is left of those to remember, thank God. But he was the only one who came up afterward to see if there was anything he could do.
He’s a good sort. But it’s something you don’t forget, having someone hurting you, with so many close by, but none able to help.
He remembered the way she’d let Ian touch her, tease the strawberry over her breast, how soft and willing her gaze had been. Ah, love . . .
But she wouldn’t take his comfort. Abruptly, she turned, putting her back to the wall. He kept his hands on her as she slid to a sitting position on the floor, planted her bare feet between his boots. She’d changed into jodhpurs and a snug shirt for her fencing.
“Like I said, Dev, I’m not her. You do get that, don’t you?”
“I do.” He reached out, cupped her face. “You’re nothing like Tina, love.” She searched his countenance, nodded. “This is the way it is for vampires. What they can take from one another through violence and force, some of that’s allowed. Like me killing Ian tonight. That’s okay, as long as I pay my due to Ruskin. As long as we stay within the boundaries of the Council’s rules. We’re monsters, playing at being civilized, that’s all.” He tipped her chin. “Sounds a lot like humans.”
She shifted her glance back to the tile, nodded. “I’m sorry, Dev. I used you for the distraction. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t glad to have you at my back. You came to tell me you’re going, didn’t you?”
“You’re a selfish bitch. That’s a fact.” Pushing a lock of her hair over her ear, he lingered there, passed his thumb over her cheek.
No tears. She’d allowed herself only the sobbing, and that had been stingy, hard-won. She tilted her head away, and he made himself lower his touch. He wondered at the dark swirl of his own feelings, which seemed to be intertwined with hers. “I knew that, the first time you took me to your bed. But there’s more to you than that. I don’t think we’re done with one another yet.” Fanning out her fingers on her knees, she closed her eyes. “If it helps to know . . . I did what I had to do tonight, but I knew the highest price I might pay for my vengeance was losing you.”
“Tweaking my ego, love?” He couldn’t quite manage a smile.
“Well, you’re so full of yourself, always putting on airs and bragging. Thought I should play to that.”
“You don’t have to play me at all, love. You might figure that out one day.” He reached over her bent knee, squeezed her cold fingers. Feeling an unexpected brush of hair, he looked down to see she held a lock of it beneath that palm. She shook her head.
“I didn’t come in here to fall to pieces. When he did it, all those years ago, I cut off a piece of my hair, put it behind this loose tile.
So that when I took his worthless life, I could take this part of that younger, naive version of myself, and tell that woman it was done. I’m no victim, Dev.” The truth of it was in the sharp edge of her voice, the brief glimpse of banked anger in her gaze. “The day it happened, I’d have torn him to pieces once I got free, but I wanted my mother to know the truth, to send him away, because that would be a worse punishment. She didn’t. She believed him when he said I was angry because I’d tried to lure him to my bed and failed.” She gave a brittle laugh. “So bloody clichéd, but women in love with monsters fall for it, all the time. And I was no better, acting like one of those ridiculous heroines. Hurt, betrayed, I left, turned my back on her. Knowing the Ennui was starting to get a grip on her, I should have stayed, figured out a way to do this then, and then forced her to see the truth. She was . . . she was never right after my father’s death. Far more gullible. She needed me. I failed my father in that regard.” Turning her hand, she tucked the silken curl in his. It had been lighter then, he noted, and wondered if the older she got, the darker gold her hair would become, until she would be like a sun unto herself, moving through darkness.
