She forced her stiff muscles to relax. “What, exactly, do you know?”
Betty tugged at a curl that had come free from her coiffure. “Father told me Mr. Blaylock was only pursuing me to pressure you into repaying the money Father gave you to open the shop. I should be furious that you didn’t tell me, but… I’m more grateful he’s gone.”
All the air vanished from Kitty’s lungs. “Y-You are?”
The death of Mr. Blaylock still weighed on her. Cordon had assured her that his body would never be found, but she still had nightmares of being carted away for questioning by constables.
Betty lowered her gaze. “I can’t believe I almost married him.”
“You would have seen through his lies eventually,” Kitty said. Her sister was stubborn but not stupid. “Do you have any other suitors you favor?”
They occupied the next hour laughing and discussing Betty’s prospects until Kitty’s need to feed grew stronger than her desire for her sister’s company. Betty seemed to sense it, too, because she made Kitty promise to visit, then left.
When Cordon was back in his seat, Kitty realized something about her conversation with her sister had bothered her. Betty believed Mr. Blaylock had courted her to pressure Kitty, but that wasn’t true. He may have started out attempting to threaten the family into repaying his money, but his true goal, once he had realized their connection, once he’d become aware of the supernatural world, had been to separate Kitty from Cordon. But Mr. Blaylock’s actions had achieved the opposite.
“What’s wrong?” Cordon asked. “I thought you’d be happy after talking to your sister.”
Kitty wrapped her arms around her knees. “I was just thinking that if Mr. Blaylock had never broken into my shop and threatened me, I might not have agreed to become your mistress.”
It was odd to feel grateful to someone who had tried to kill her.
Cordon darted forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Nonsense. I would not have given up so easily. You were on my list, after all.”
Epilogue
Five years later
“It’s not working,”Kitty said as she crouched on the thick rug in front of her husband in her new Montmartre atelier. “You look like a strawberry.”
Cordon spun around, making the lime-green coat tails on his jacket flare. “Well, I think it’s marvelous.”
She snorted. “You’ve said the same thing about the last three suits.”
Not that she would disagree. Cordon looked extraordinary in nearly anything. Since their mating, his light-brown hair had thickened, and his pale complexion had warmed enough that he no longer looked as if he had crawled out of a grave.
The changes were reassuring, but also vexing, as she was constantly adjusting his wardrobe to account for his increasingly muscular frame and finding patterns and fabrics that had once complemented his coloring now made him look washed out.
“It is merely an afternoon visit,” he said, crossing his arms. “It need not be perfect.”
She shook her head. “I have a reputation to maintain. Anything that leaves my shop must be perfect.” She kissed his jaw. “Especially anything you wear.” Then she stepped back quickly before anyone could notice them. The atelier was busy, as it always was on weeknights, bustling with the sixseamstresses she’d hired since settling in Paris. It hadn’t been her intention to expand so quickly, but her fashions had proven so popular among the nests in France, she’d barely been able to keep up with the incoming orders.
Leaving London had been difficult, but every time she’d walked into her shop, she’d remembered what she’d done to Mr. Blaylock. Starting fresh in a new city had been exactly what she’d needed to forget that night, and Alyssa had been thrilled to take over the shop.
She tilted the polished obsidian mirrors so he could see his reflection. The mirrors were one of the many accommodations her vampire clientele appreciated. Like Cordon, many were uncomfortable seeing their clothing floating in midair. The thick curtains covering the windows were another of her decorating choices. Even the most stubborn sunbeam would not penetrate cotton-lined velvet.
She stood and circled her husband, examining the outfit she’d chosen for him. The fit was correct, the lines excellent. She had even designed it with pockets to accommodate vials of blood, a contingency she’d insisted upon since leaving England. But there was something about the shape and the color that wasn’t quite right.
“Another spin,” she said.
He twirled again, and this time, the hematite buttons twinkled in the gaslight. They looked like seeds. That was the problem. She removed her shears and snipped the buttons off. When she was done, she removed the garment from him and folded it over her arm.
“Do you regret it?” she asked.
Cordon lifted one eyebrow. “Regret what?”
“Turning me.”
He scoffed. “Do you regret not taking Seraphina’s offer to make her gowns for the Sultan’s Ball?”
