“You have quite the imagination, Portia.”
“Is he a vampire?”
“Apparently.” At Portia’s wondering gaze she explained. “He seemed out of the ordinary. Not like vampires I’ve met. Rough-mannered. Dressed poorly.”
“Oh, dear, yes, no lace.”
“That, and did you see his walk? A bowlegged strut like something right off a pirate’s ship. The man was overall …” She searched for the correct summation.
“Wild,” Portia murmured with wicked delight.
Viviane hid a smile behind the card. Passion had flared in Rhys’s brown eyes as he’d stepped defiantly before her to divert her pace in the salon. When he’d stepped around behind her, she had felt his eyes roving down her back, lingering at the base of her spine. It was as if he had touched her there.
What a divine place to experience touch. And she preferred if it were by a man’s tongue while she lay naked before a blazing hearth fire. The tickle of a wet tongue down her spine, tracing into the dimples of Venus that crowned her derriere …
“You’re thinking about him,” Portia chided teasingly.
“He fascinates me, nothing more.” She studied the card again and wondered if there were more to the collection tucked away.
“Does he desire to give you what Salignac can?”
“What, exactly, is it Constantine can give me?”
“Safety. Life.”
She liked those things. But freedom was missing from the list.
“You do adore fine things, ma chérie. And your coffers are not growing larger. Hell, what coffers?”
She hated that Portia spoke the truth with little reserve. But she did not fault her for it.
All the servants had mutinied following Henri’s death. They were owed wages, and Viviane had discovered Henri’s caches empty. Upon Portia’s suggestion, she’d handed each employee a silver candelabra or two and bid them adieu. But the stable boy, Gabriel, and Portia remained.
Every day new creditors knocked at the door seeking to collect Henri’s debts. The furniture in the music room had been carried out yesterday. She had no idea how she would pay Rose Bertin, the dressmaker, yet supposed she could return all of Blanche’s gowns.
Viviane studied the shoe and wondered if she could pay off a few leeches with a damask mule or ermine slipper?
“I’ve pressed the gown with the hummingbirds on the sleeves.”
Viviane adored that one.
“Master Rosemont just arrived,” the maid added. “He’s copying out lessons.”
“Excellent. Help me prepare.”
IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON and Master Rosemont stood over Viviane, gently guiding and observing as she copied out the word carriage on the paper. Henri had seen to arranging for her studies but days after her arrival.
“It’s a complicated word,” Viviane said as she finished the e. “But pretty. Did I make it right?”
“Your penmanship is coming along well, Mademoiselle LaMourette.”
Much as she insisted he use her first name, he never did. He was young, and more than a few times Viviane had caught him observing the rise and fall of her bosom as she concentrated over her work. Once she had met his roaming gaze and he blushed so deeply, she decided never to do that again. The man was nervous, but a kind teacher.
“Are there some words you’d like to write today? List a few and I’ll write them for you to copy.”
Pressing the quill’s feathered end to her lips, Viviane perused the many objects in the room, wondering which of them she’d most often need to write about.
“Shoes,” she said. “Hmm, and wine.”
“Yes, of course.” Bemused, Master Rosemont scrawled the words on the page. His strokes elegantly imprinted the ink to paper with an ease that made her marvel. “A few more, and I’ll leave them as your homework. How about Portia’s name?”
“Oh yes. Portia. And gown. Salon. Book. Park.” Her mind wandered to some of the more lascivious pleasures— stroke, tickle, tongue—but she wouldn’t do that to him. Would kiss be too extreme to mention? Yes, it would. “How about … Hawkes?”
“Very good. Beautiful animals, are they not?”
“I’ve not seen one close up.” Save for the man version. “Have you?”
“Only a dead one. Poor thing. It hung in the taxidermy shop on the left bank. Gorgeous plumage. I felt sudden anger for the hunter at the sight of it.”
The hunter. Like a wolf slayer?
Averting her rising guilt, she studied the paper he turned toward her. “Is that the word?”
“You tell me.”
Viviane knew the first word began with an s. “Shoe,” she said.
“Very good. And the next.”
She recited them all, and when the short word beginning with h ended the list, she traced her finger beneath the letters. “Hawk.” Which wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted. “If I put an s at the end?”
“It will mean more than one.”
“My lady, there’s a visitor in the foyer,” Portia called as she entered the study. “Lord de Salignac.”
“I did not expect him. He knows I do not receive on Saturdays.”
“Shall I send him away?”
“No, I will speak to him.” There was still half the hour for her lesson, and she did not want to send Master Rosemont home. “I’ll send him away quickly,” she said. “Write a few more words for me, please. These few will hardly keep me busy the week.”
“I agree.” With a determined élan, Master Rosemont leaned over the paper.
Flames on a wall sconce flickered as Viviane entered the sitting room.
Constantine wore black, as usual. It was not a color aristocrats embraced, for black was the color of mourning, and of cheap wool they could only afford when they’ve nothing in their purses. Yet he wore the color as if he’d invented it. The damask coat was shot through with silver threads. In one pose the coat looked black. Yet if he tilted a shoulder or lifted a hand, it shimmered the fabric, turning it a jet silver, and then steel.
“I have told you this is not a day I receive visitors.”
“But surely you’ll receive me? Is there someone else here?” Constantine peered over her shoulder. “It’s a man, isn’t it? Viviane, I asked for exclusivity.”
“And I asked for proof of your devotion.”
“Three kin have left the brood,” he stated. Straining his head over her shoulder he glanced toward the study.
“It is not what you would guess it to be.”
“Really? So there is a man in the house?”
“Yes, but—”
He flew into a rage so quickly Viviane was swept off balance as he brushed past her. The last thing Master Rosemont needed was a raging vampire interrupting his work. She hurried after him, but he beat her to the study, and held the writing master slammed against the wall when she arrived.
“Let him go!”
“I demand an explanation,” Constantine hissed at the reddened teacher. “What are you doing in Mademoiselle LaMourette’s home?”
Viviane