The Rest Falls Away

Chapter Seventeen In Which Miss Grantworth's Bedchamber Sees Much Activity

The next thirty minutes were a blur of activity. Max, although confused and weak, was still coherent enough to explain that he'd managed to stop a vampire in the midst of an attack on Phillip.

"Was he bitten?" asked Victoria, wrapping one of his heavy arms around her shoulders so that he leaned against her and one hand dangled free just below her left breast. She was helping him out to his unmarked carriage—not as difficult a task as it would have been if she didn't wear a vis bulla.

"No… got there in time. Staked the bastard."

Victoria assumed he meant the vampire, not Phillip. Although she wasn't completely positive.

Max had saved Phillip, hustled him into Barth's hackney, and given the driver explicit instructions on how to get him home and what to do once there. Phillip was unhurt, but confused and nearly unconscious from the ensuing scuffle.

"What will he remember?" asked Victoria as she helped Max climb into his carriage.

"Nothing. Used the… pendant."

She pushed him into his seat, then climbed back out of the carriage to say good-bye to Sebastian, who, although he hadn't been much help getting Max outside, had not hindered her effort either. He'd come along, showed her another way out from the back area, and helped to call Max's carriage around.

"Thank you," she told him, although she wasn't sure what she was thanking him for.

"Until we meet again," he said simply. He made no move to offer her glove, and she didn't ask. Victoria turned and climbed into the vehicle. Sebastian closed the door behind her.

The carriage lurched as they started off, and she tipped onto the seat across from Max.

He was slumped in the corner, a rumpled lump of black and gray. As the street lamps flashed into the interior, she saw that his eyes were closed.

Had he been bitten? She hadn't even thought to ask… she'd been so worried about Phillip since Max's dire announcement.

Victoria stood carefully, coming over to his side of the carriage, and nearly fell in his lap when they went around an unexpected corner.

She was just reaching for his collar when he opened his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked, pushing himself upright.

"I thought you might have been bitten."

"Sit down." He glowered at her. "I haven't been bitten in… years."

"Then why do you carry salted holy water? And why does that bite look like it's new?"

"So that if I am with anyone who's bitten, I can pour it on their bite." He seemed to be suddenly more alert.

"What happened to you, then, if you weren't bitten?"

He drew in a deep breath, folding his arms over his middle. "I was drugged. By your marquess."

Victoria's eyebrows rose. "Really. So a mere slip of a marquess got the best of you, when a nasty vampire couldn't? And you freely admit this?"

Max opened his mouth as if to speak, but appeared to change his mind. He turned to look out the window, his profile flashing every time a street lamp illuminated the carriage interior. She looked at the haughty slope of his nose, the set ridges of his mouth, the unruly mess of dark hair. He looked beat.

"What happened, Max?"

"I did what you asked, Victoria. We needn't discuss it further." He did not look away from the window. "Your marquess is safe and will suffer no ill effects—and very little memory of what happened, because I took care of that too. He was trying to shoot a vampire with a pistol." Scorn laced his voice. Then, "Where is your glove?"

Victoria looked down; both of her arms were hidden under her cloak, the bare one and the gloved one. "I… Sebastian took it."

Max turned to look at her. "And what else did he take?"

Victoria's heart thumped faster. She shook her head.

"He expected payment for his information; what else did he take?"

Liberties. Liberties her fiance hadn't taken. And in a way, he'd taken yet another piece of her naivete. Shown her exactly why women wore gloves. All the time.

"Victoria."

"Nothing. He has my glove, and has taken nothing else. I am a Venator, Max. He is no match for me."

It might have been a laugh that issued from his lips; Victoria wasn't sure. But he said nothing, just turned and looked back out the window.

They rode in silence for a time; then she spoke. "Thank you. For what you did tonight."

That drew his attention from the passing scenery. He looked at her, dark and angry, from his corner across the narrow space. "Rockley had no idea what he'd walked into tonight. This is exactly the reason you cannot marry, Victoria. Your two worlds simply cannot intersect as they did tonight. Continuing on this path will only cause more destruction."

And with that, he turned back to the window and said nothing more.

Victoria did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were filled with a storm of images melding together: Phillip and Sebastian, Aunt Eustacia and Max, and words and voices running together: I've always wanted to taste a Venator… You cannot marry… That is something I would pay dearly to see… Does he know you walk the streets at night?… What else did he take?

She woke to find sun streaming through the window, nothing at all like the dark dinginess of her clash of memories. It was nearly eleven o'clock. Madame LeClaire would be arriving in two hours for her gown fitting.

Her wedding gown fitting.

Victoria passed a hand over her eyes. Was Max right? If she married Phillip, was she attracting more destruction?

Emptiness clawed her belly, and it was not because she'd had nothing to eat. How could she not marry Phillip? Charming, funny, handsome Phillip? The man who made her laugh, who jested with her, who helped her to see the humor in the society she was forced to live in. Who'd brought her flowers after she lectured him. The man who did the right thing, what was expected. A man she could understand.

He had followed her last night. Followed her into a den of vampires with little thought for his safety and no understanding of the world he was entering. If she married him, would she be able to keep her secret? Would she have to? If he knew she was a Venator, and safer than anyone on earth, would he understand?

He had made his confessions… harmless they were. Did she owe him the same?

Sebastian's words haunted her. Does he know that it means his love walks the streets at night? That she must mingle with those from the dark side to learn their secrets? That she kills every time she raises her weapon? That she has a strength he cannot hope to possess?

How could he understand? It had taken her weeks to understand, and she was called to this duty.

He was so good, so proper. How could he be married to a woman who stalked evil? Who was violent… who killed? He could never accept that in a wife—he should not have to.

He couldn't understand her world. Aunt Eustacia, and Max, and Kritanu… even Verbena and Barth… they understood. They were all a part of that world, that life.

Phillip was not, and could never be.

She drew a deep breath, knowing what she would do.

A heavy knot settled in her middle as she began to consider life without Phillip. A life that consisted of lurking in dark streets, in subterranean pubs, the need to always hunt and kill. The end of dancing and laughing and no hope of having someone to love, someone to care for her.

Perhaps that explained Max: his demeanor, the undercurrents of anger, and his ripping sarcasm. He was so alone. Victoria had believed it was by choice. Perhaps she was wrong.

Perhaps she had no choice either.

A loud slam from below, and the sound of pounding footsteps rushing up the stairs, caused her to turn toward the door to her bedroom.

Shouts; they sounded like Jimmons, and even Verbena, and suddenly her door flew open, slamming into the wall.

Phillip.

"Victoria!" He stood there, tall and wild, his cloak whirling about him and his hair falling over his brow. "You are here, and safe!"

She was so aghast she did not move even to close her jaw; Verbena and Jimmons and Maisie the housekeeper were standing in the doorway, all speaking at once, explaining how it had happened that Phillip had made his way up here.

"Send them away," he said to her, striding toward her where she remained in bed, her blankets pulled over her nightgown. "I am your betrothed; we are to be married in three weeks… send them away!"

She had never seen him like this, the unruffled and proper Phillip in such a stir. "Go ahead; you may go." She waved at Jimmons and Verbena. Then, amazingly, considering the situation, she had a logical thought. "Is Mother up and about?"

"She will be now," replied Verbena.

"Keep her from me, then. Tell her whatever you wish, but keep her from here until the marquess leaves."

"But it is not proper—" began Maisie.

"Go. Please. It will be fine if no one speaks of this."

Only after they left did Victoria allow herself to look at Phillip. The knot in her stomach had twisted tighter. She had thought to have more time to decide what to do… how to respond to Phillip. How to tell him she could not marry him.

But her decision was made. It was the right one.

"Victoria, Victoria." He stood next to her bed, hands behind him, as if trying to keep himself from reaching for her. "I am so sorry, but I could not wait. I needed to make sure you were here, were safe."

"Phillip…" She shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. What could she say? "Phillip, I am fine. You see me; I am safe. I only had the headache."

Where had that come from? She hadn't planned to continue her charade.

He looked at her from above, standing over her, his blue eyes sharp but still wild. "Victoria."

"Phillip, sit down. Here." She smoothed her hand over the French-knotted coverlet, making a space for him next to her hip.

"I don't know if I… should." He looked at her, and she saw something in his gaze she'd never seen before. "If it's proper."

Victoria laughed; she couldn't help it. "Phillip, don't be absurd… you are already here, in my bedchamber. In three weeks I will be in yours." Their eyes met and her mouth dried. Had she really said that? That lie?

He sat, his solid weight heavy on the edge of the bed, tilting her toward him. Through the layers of blankets his leg touched hers.

"In three weeks. I don't know that I can wait so long." He reached over, touched her unbound hair, and let his hand trace her cheekbone before curling it back next to him. "But I must know, where did you go last night, Victoria? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"I wasn't feeling well," she told him. Why was she still lying? She had to let him go.

"Victoria, I love you and you will be my wife, but one thing I cannot tolerate is dishonesty." He was angry, an emotion she'd never seen in him before. True anger, layered with a sort of desperate concern. But not frightening. No, this was an anger she could live with. "What were you doing in St. Giles last night? Tell me the truth."

Then her tears burst forth. Everything she had held back in the last weeks, since she had had those dreams. Since she had learned of her calling.

Racking sobs, shaking, and trembling—the results of fear she'd submerged so deeply when fighting for her life—everything poured out of her into Phillip's shoulder, for he'd gathered her close, the bedsheets falling away as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Victoria, Victoria," he crooned, smoothing his hand over her head, down over the tangled curls of her hair, bumping along her spine. "My God, Victoria, what is it? I will fix it; just tell me. I will make it right. I am not without resources; I will use them all if I must."

When she pulled away from his drenched coat, he had a handkerchief ready to mop her face and wipe her nose, as if she were a child. She felt like a child being cared for. For the first time in almost two months she felt like she didn't need to be in charge. In control.

The strong one.

She had never loved Phillip more than she did in that moment.

"Thank you," she said with the soft hiccup of her last sob.

He dropped the handkerchief and grabbed her shoulders. "What is it? Tell me. I cannot bear to see you like this."

"I cannot." She drew in a long, hitching breath. "I cannot tell you, Phillip, but I swear it is nothing you can change. Even if you had all the money in the world, and you reigned over this land, you could not change this."

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes darting from side to side as if to get a better view inside her own gaze. The whites of his eyes were pink, cracked with red. "You must tell me."

"I cannot."

"Last night I came after you. I know it was you, despite the arguments your cousin made. At first I was afraid you were meeting a lover, and I followed you… because I had to know. I had to know if your heart was given to another. I thought even then that if it were, if I just knew it for certain, I would still want to marry you. I would find a way to drive him from your mind.

"But when your hackney—my God, Victoria, don't you know how dangerous it is to use a hackney?—stopped in St. Giles, I didn't know what to think. You wouldn't meet a lover there, no matter who he was. I saw you get out of the hackney and go through a door into one of the most dangerous-looking places I've ever seen. I would not have gone there if I hadn't known I must protect you. I had to use my pistol to convince some of the street men to let me by.

"Your cousin saved my life. I am not sure what happened; it is all quite a muddle in my mind. I just know I left to look for you, and then I woke up at home. How I got there is very unclear. I dreamed about red eyes…

"You see, my darling, I don't understand what happened last night, but I did not come here with accusations or preconceived notions. There is nothing you can tell me that would change the way I feel about you. Please."

She could give him something; maybe it would help him to understand. "Do you believe in destiny?"

He nodded, a bare hint of relief tangible in his face. "Of course. It was destiny that first brought us together years ago."

"Destiny is unchangeable. It's indelible, written in stone. Power and money and resources cannot change it, Phillip. You cannot alter it. And that is why I cannot tell you, no matter how much you beg, what I was doing in St. Giles last night. Because that is my destiny." A destiny he could not accept—a wife who killed, a world of evil and darkness. Phillip was too much in the light… she couldn't destroy his world.

"Victoria!"

She was shaking her head. "I love you, Phillip. But I cannot."

He looked stricken. "Victoria, with all that I am, I ask you to please tell me. I will not be angry, no matter what it is. But I cannot have this between us if we are to marry."

Now. Her hands frozen under the warmth of the blankets, she drew in her breath and closed her eyes. She would not look at him whilst she said it. "Then perhaps we should not marry."

He was still, so still. Even his breath stopped; she could hear nothing in the darkness of her closed eyes but the faint voices from belowstairs. And the rapid, painful thudding of her heart.

"Victoria." The anguish in his voice opened her eyes. Phillip was not looking at her; he looked out the window at the sunshine pouring on the rooftop of a nearby garret. A blue jay, with its unpleasant squawking song, fluttered to a stop on a nearby tree limb.

"I'm sorry, Phillip."

He stood abruptly, spinning away from the bed, stalking to the door. She watched him through pooling eyes, and he paused at the threshold. "If you change your mind…" He spoke to the door.

"I can't." She forced the words from her throat. She wanted to call him back.

Phillip didn't look at her; he went through the door, closing it with a soft finality behind him.

Victoria didn't understand. She would have slammed it.