A loud slam drew her out of her focus. There was a familiar short figure standing outside her door, grinning and waving.
It was her sister.
Chapter Six
Cordon lounged ina chair in his office and recalled every moment of his interaction with Miss Carter. If he concentrated, he could almost feel the warmth of her hands flitting over his skin. It was easy to expand that image to her pressing her lips to the inside of his thigh, nibbling the soft flesh there, inching up until her mouth was close enough to…
But that was where he always stopped. For some reason, when he thought about being intimate with her, his usually fertile mind failed him. It was most vexing. Worse, however, was the realization that dismissing Miss Griffith had derailed his plans.
How was he to seduce Miss Carter when he no longer had a reason to visit her shop?
“Why not simply have this human take Miss Griffith’s place?” his nest brother Jonathan asked as he draped his legs over the arms of a wingback chair near the fireplace and swirled blood around his wineglass. The thick liquid clung to the edges and formed a scarlet sheen that was sure to have Cordon’s housekeeper cursing when his valet brought the glasses to the kitchen to clean.
Like Cordon, Jonathan had been turned by their maker in his mid-forties and shared many of the same physical traits that their maker had preferred in her lovers during that decade. Both men were tall and broad-shouldered with sharp facialfeatures and prominent noses. They were so similar, in fact, that his siblings couldn’t easily tell them apart, despite their vastly different temperaments. Whereas Cordon was reliable, always prepared to help with any emergency in the nest, Jonathan was fickle and often impossible to pin down for more than a few moments.
“She is a respectable dressmaker,” Cordon said. “Her reputation would suffer.”
That wasn’t entirely true. His wealthy colleagues would certainly spurn her, but those same men’s mistresses might see her association with a lord as a point in her favor. Still, asking her to make that choice would be unfair.
Jonathan refilled his wineglass with blood from a clay carafe, one of their nest brothers’ inventions designed to keep the liquid warm. That was Marcus, always helping the nest adapt to the changing times while remaining trapped in the castle he’d called home for more than ten years. Every member of the nest had tried to lure Marcus from his self-made prison on multiple occasions, but Marcus was the eldest and strongest of all of them—and equally stubborn.
“I don’t understand your concern,” Jonathan said. “If this human is uninterested, find another.”
Cordon sighed. He should have guessed that his brother wouldn’t understand. Jonathan was the second youngest in the nest. He’d been very attached to their maker near the end and had taken her departure the hardest. In the years since, it had pained Cordon to see Jonathan close himself up, becoming brasher and more impulsive, even insisting Marguerite was still alive. One day soon, Jonathan’s spiraling would land him in serious trouble. Cordon hoped he was around to help his brother when that day came.
He was still considering the problem of Kitty when he decided a change of location was needed to elicit further ideas.He struggled out of the lush grasp of his chair, walked across the room, opened his door, and nearly crashed into his butler.
Hughes bowed his head. “I apologize, my lord.”
Unlike the maids and footmen, who stood a fair distance away from Cordon rather than tilt their necks to look at his face, Hughes had a particular quirk of standing uncomfortably close.
“Dr. Rysel has arrived,” Hughes said, still staring determinedly forward.
Cordon groaned. He had forgotten his usual appointment was today. He was tempted to send the old vampire away, but he would not be able to rest unless he allowed the man to complete the annual examination and then insist, for the forty-third year in a row, that Cordonmustfind his fated mate.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he followed his butler to the red drawing room, where his physician was waiting, sitting on a settee, his hands carefully clasped atop a leather case. When Cordon entered, Dr. Rysel stood and squinted his cloudy, pale-green eyes. Cordon remembered when the man’s wide shoulders had filled out his silver-and-black striped suit. Now the garment hung on his lanky frame. It was not without irony that Cordon looked healthy but was likely to die in the next year, whereas this old vampire appeared frail enough to trip over a bit of dust on the carpet but would likely outlive Cordon by hundreds of years.
Unlike Cordon, Dr. Rysel was mated—to a lovely Scottish woman. All he had to do to restore his youthful appearance was consume the blood of his mate or a human donor. But for some baffling reason, he chose not to. Just like he refused to give Cordon any actionable advice on how to find his fated mate, other than insisting he ‘open himself to love.’
“Lord Grayson,” Dr. Rysel said, inclining his head. “I am relieved to see you looking so well.”
Cordon lifted his chin. “I hope your tests confirm that. Shall we proceed?”
Dr. Rysel set his Gladstone on a table and opened it, revealing a collection of bottles and silver instruments.
Much later, as they sat in the drawing room drinking a full-bodied red wine, Dr. Rysel cleared his throat.
“Your condition appears stable.”
Cordon heaved a sigh. He was always anxious about these visits. It was ridiculous because the result was inevitably the same. It was almost enough to have him wondering if mate atrophy was even real.
“But there was one thing that concerned me,” Dr. Rysel said. “There was some faint swelling on your lower back.”
All the moisture in Cordon’s mouth vanished. “‘Swelling’?”
Dr. Rysel took another tart. Each bite felt like he was chomping the inside of Cordon’s skull. Finally, he dabbed his lips with a napkin and shook his head. “Nothing too concerning. Just some minor redness. Perhaps another visit in three months? If you had found your betrothed, I would instruct you to drink their blood more frequently, but as that is not an option…” He clucked his tongue. “I would not be concerned yet, but you could be progressing to the next phase.”
Dr. Rysel continued talking, expounding upon the benefits of animal blood, but Cordon wasn’t listening. All he could think about was the sheaf of paper tucked in his writing desk that listed everything he had yet to accomplish. The remaining items were among the most difficult for him to complete on his own, as they required a willing partner. He could have asked Miss Griffith, but begging her to return to him now that he’d dismissed her was unacceptable. As was hiring a woman, especially because finding a human he was sufficiently attracted to on such short notice would be impossible. No, what he needed was someone who would not be recognized by his peers and had less of a reputation to risk. A woman who would help him inexchange for money and who could be trusted not to share any secret he shared.
