Victoria made her way between the other guests, slipping her arm around Gwendolyn, who’d just returned from refreshing herself. As they walked to the parlor, she glanced out at the gardens behind the house. It was barely eight o’clock, so the sun had slipped near the horizon, but was still at just the top of the trees in the distance. She would stay for another hour, perhaps ninety minutes, and then would make her excuses.
Once the flurry of skirts and crocheted wraps and reticules were settled, along with their owners, in the parlor, Victoria realized that Sara Regalado was missing. Drat and blast! She should have hung back and waited to enter the room until she was sure the other woman had joined them.
That faintly supercilious smile during the soup course had implied the Italian chit was up to no good. But now Victoria was in a fix. The men were in the study, enjoying their cigars and brandy, and until they came in to join the women in the parlor, she was going to be stuck he
re, playing whist or listening to wedding plans or gossip about who was fornicating with whom.
Or at least, if she weren’t Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy, she would be stuck in this green and gold parlor, playing the polite Society matron. But being Illa Gardella, and having other matters to deal with besides gossip and fashion, she would take matters into her own hands.
Victoria stood, excusing herself to freshen up.
And, as luck would have it, as she started out of the room, she glanced toward one of the hip-level square windows that faced the Hungreaths’ enthusiastic gardens of pergolas flanked by clusters of lilies and hyacinth bushes, decorated with climbing roses. She saw the flutter of a rose-colored fabric as it passed behind the statue of a water-spouting cupid.
Sara had been wearing a rose-colored frock.
Moments later, Victoria was hurrying along the slate pathway, staying out of sight of the house windows as much as possible. Although she had to enter from the other side of the garden, she found the cupid fountain and started off in the direction in which the fluttering skirt had disappeared.
Victoria avoided dry sticks and rustling leaves, peering around trees and hedges before turning a corner. One arm of the path took her through the herb garden, where she passed clumps of silver-leafed sage, yellow hyssop, and miniature myrtle. She paused often to look through a filter of climbing rose vines and decorative wrought iron, or clusters of tall grasses and equally tall blooms.
Everything was still but the spray of water from the cupid’s mouth, rumbling in the distance. A bird chirped a warning, then fluttered to its nest, sending a few dried leaves drifting down. The sun lowered, its orange ball blazing through the treetops in the distance, still clearly lighting the garden.
Victoria increased her pace, and found herself retracing her steps through the four large circular pathways of the garden, all of which intersected at the cupid fountain. There was no one about.
Frowning, she pivoted at last to return to the house, admitting defeat. Either she hadn’t seen what she thought she had, or Sara had made her way back inside. Or she was hiding somewhere that Victoria couldn’t find—but there was really no place for her to do so.
Other than the small gardener’s shed.
Victoria’s heart rate kicked up as her attention landed on the small, well-kept building—hardly larger than an old-fashioned outhouse. It was situated in the far left corner of the garden, next to the stone enclosure that bordered the grounds. Her skin prickling, she crept up to the small building, listening for any human sounds. What could Sara Regalado be doing out here?
But when Victoria came close enough to sidle alongside the small building, her mouth began to water and her heart started to thump hard. The scent of blood filtered through the air. Her vision clouded at the edges.
No. Not again.
Easing her way around the corner of the shed to the front, she found the door. It was locked . . . but the aroma of thick, rich blood was stronger. It was as if it weighted the summer evening air, clogging the delicate essence of roses and lilies with rust. Her head pounding, Victoria blinked hard and moved along the front of the shed, following the smell and her instincts around the corner toward the back . . . and then she needed to go no further.
It was just as bloody a mess as the last one she’d found, in the park. Her mouth salivating so that she had to swallow back, twice, Victoria bent shakily next to what remained of the body.
It wasn’t Sara Regalado. Victoria didn’t recognize her, but based on the simple worsted wool of her dress—now bloodied and torn—the victim appeared to be a chamber-maid or some other servant. The puncture wounds on her throat and claw marks on the top of her shoulders clearly indicated an attack by an undead.
Victoria’s hand shook as she reached to close the woman’s sightless eyes. Her lids were still warm, and Victoria let her fingers move gingerly over cheeks so pudgy they could belong to her own maid, Verbena. The vampire probably hadn’t gone far.
A sound behind her had the hair on the back of her arms prickling, and Victoria half turned as she looked automatically for something that could be used as a stake.
“Lady Rockley?”
Victoria looked up into the face of Brodebaugh, Gwen’s earl, who was flanked by Baron Hungreath and George Starcasset. She pulled to her feet and swallowed again. “She’s dead. ”
“So it appears. ” Hungreath was looking at her with something like apprehension tinged with suspicion. “How did you come to find her?”
Victoria glanced at George, instinctively looking to see if he was somehow responsible for the trio discovering her and the mauled maid. His soft face was bland, but she saw a glint in his blue eyes that made her tighten her lips. And while the other two men were looking at the bloodied body with a combination of disgust and horror, George appeared unmoved.
As if recognizing her suspicions, he said, “The other women are in the parlor enjoying their sherry. When they said you’d been gone for some time, and no one knew where you were, we thought it would be best to check the gardens. ” His deceptively sweet dimples appeared.
Smoothing her skirt, which she realized now had streaks of blood on it, Victoria said, “Someone had best send for the magistrate. And perhaps the housekeeper, to see if she recognizes the poor thing. ”
“What ho,” said George, bending toward a bush. When he stood, he was holding a long shawl, stained with blood. “What is this?”
Victoria stared at it, feeling light of head. Her vision blushed with red as she recognized her own shawl. The one that she’d left on a small table in the foyer, upon arrival this evening.