It held too many unpleasant memories. Beyond the sewage-lined streets and odiferous air, the swell of carriages and their nonstop clatter, there simmered the rest of it: Regents Park, where she’d ridden with Phillip, the Marquess of Rockley, and where he’d first kissed her. The grand residences, where she’d danced with him, fallen in love with him. The theater near Covent Garden, into which she’d sent him to fetch her supposedly lost shawl—so she could secretly stake a vampire.
The Silver Chalice, a pub patronized by the undead and owned by Sebastian, into which Phillip had followed her. And where, after they’d married, he had been captured by vampires.
St. Heath’s Row, the grand London Town estate of the Marquess and Marchioness of Rockley, where she and Phillip had lived in marital harmony for little more than four weeks before he made that fateful visit to the Silver Chalice.
And where, in her bedchamber, she’d slain the vampire he’d become.
No. Victoria had not missed London at all.
Yet, she was back at St. Heath’s Row after more than six months spent in Rome, for it was time for her to remove all of her belongings from the residence. The Rockley heir had been found at last, in a place called Kentucky, and he would soon take over the properties, leaving Victoria to return permanently to Rome—or wherever else the Venators needed her.
Thus, eighteen months after Phillip’s death, here she sat: surrounded by his essence, stifled by the memories— and awash in thick, cream-colored, engraved invitations that she cared not a blasted fig for.
“But what do you expect, Victoria dear? You hadn’t even come fully out of mourning for Rockley when you left for Venice,” said her mother, Lady Melisande Grantworth. There was clear reproach in her voice even as the calculating gleam in her eyes boded no good for Victoria’s solitude. She’d been rifling through the invitations as if they were her own, and her daughter still an unwed miss ready to debut into Society. “The ton is holding its collective breath, waiting to see who will be the first to host the Marchioness of Rockley in a year and a half. After the romantic tragedy of your short-lived marriage and Rockley dying at sea—”
“Stop it,” Vict
oria said sharply. She caught herself, pulled back on the deep-seated anger that always seemed to be with her now, and closed her eyes. “Mother, I am not here to reenter Society in any manner. Except for Gwendolyn’s wedding, I intend to make as few appearances as possible. ”
“But—”
“Please,” she said between gritted teeth. Her head pounded and her fingers ached from being curled so tightly. “I’ve only just arrived yesterday. ”
“And look how quickly all of the invitations have begun to pour in. ”
Victoria opened her eyes to see Lady Melly looking at her. The gleam had ebbed from her gaze, yet she didn’t appear affronted by her daughter’s edgy voice.
“I know that Winnie would dearly love to be the one to introduce you back into Society before Miss Starcasset’s wedding. Please do think about how happy it would make her if you were to attend her fete on Friday. ”
“I’ll consider it, Mama. ”
Barely a week later, Victoria found herself slogging through ankle-deep sewage deep beneath London. Stake in hand, she ducked to keep from scraping her head on a low dip of the tunnel ceiling. What had once been a small river tributary flowing south to the Thames had been enclosed by the City’s construction during the last six centuries. The sluggish water now oozed with sewage, and only God and the toshers knew what else.
She considered herself quite hardened to repugnant images by now, but even she didn’t particularly relish the thought of what her boots were crushing as she stepped through the muck.
Victoria knew that she could have been dancing at the Bridgertons’ soiree, in a less damp—but just as odiferous—environment if she’d listened to her mother instead of Sebastian. (Lady Bridgerton was known for her exceedingly strong lily of the valley eau de toilette. ) She hadn’t yet concluded which was the better choice, although despite the obvious drawbacks, she was leaning toward vampire hunting in the sewers.
At least here she could eliminate any creature that accostedher with the slam of a stake. It wouldn’t be quite that easy to dissuade the gossipmongers and fortune-hunting bachelors of the ton.
“I don’t sense any undead,” she told Sebastian as she stepped on something horribly squishy. A rank odor squelched afresh into the air, and with her next step she felt something hard and cylindrical roll beneath her boot. A bone. Hopefully a canine one.
“Do you not?” he asked, his voice smooth and echoing over the quiet splashing made by their stout leather boots. “Perhaps there are no vampires about, then. Only the harmless toshermen, which we may come upon if they venture this far. ”
“Or perhaps you lured me down here for another reason. ”
She could see the wickedness of his smile in the torch’s uneasy light. “Why should I ruin a perfectly good pair of breeches—not to mention boots—by coaxing you here, when I’d much prefer to have you . . . elsewhere. ”
His frank words caused a sudden swirl of pleasure in her belly, and Victoria gave an unladylike snort to diffuse the warm feeling—which had the added result of filling her nostrils with putrid stench. She wondered how the toshers could make a living, working down here day after day, collecting copper, bones, rags, and anything else of value to sell on the streets above. And how vampires could stand to live among the odor when the mere smell of garlic took them aback.
“Of course,” Sebastian continued, “it’s not as if you’ll be clutching at me and crying for protection, even in a place as revolting as this. Much to my great regret. ” He brandished a torch that cast sporadic shadows to break the darkness, but Victoria found that she could see surprisingly well even outside the glow.
She was just about to make a wry rejoinder when she became aware of a new sound—that of rushing or falling water. Then she felt a faint prickle at the back of her neck. Her disgust with the dark, viscous environment slid away, replaced by the familiar rush of readiness and a cold smile.
“Ah,” he said, cocking his head as if to hear better. “At last. Just when I thought we were well and truly lost. ”
“We’re not alone,” Victoria murmured, the prickle flushing into a full-blown chill.
“Undead?” His voice dropped to match hers.