Batty Miss Breckenridge had been right.
Vampires absolutely existed. Mártainn Macane was an incontestable example. She’d kissed the beast. Who had then bitten her. The spread of infection was instantaneous. And now she, Elspeth Ramsay, self-professed bluestocking and scholar of all that was mundane and logical, was a godless, soulless bloodsucking monster with razor sharp fangs. They protruded from her mouth, for the love of science.
She had to get out of the open. Fast.
Bad enough if someone would have entered the conservatory and chanced upon her and Cain in a compromising position. Unimaginably worse, if someone were to stroll down the corridor and happen across the lowest-born houseguest with a brand new set of fangs to augment her perpetual queerness.
Mama would know what to do.
Well, no, Mama would have no inkling what to do. Ellie hadn’t the least spark of a plan, and she was the logical one. But her mother had been Ellie’s sole confidante since she was a baby, and as there was no one else to confide in anyway, they would just have to fathom it out together. Along with how to rid Ellie of her recent thirst for warm blood.
The hope of devising a working plan provided such a rush of relief, Ellie’s hand closed about the guest chamber’s doorknob before she realized there was no call for the other hand to keep covering her mouth. The strange fangs had retracted as quickly as they’d appeared.
Before she could begin to puzzle out the reason, the sound of rapid footfalls spurred Ellie back into motion. She pushed open the door, flung herself inside, and nearly bowled over her own mother as if playing a human game of skittles.
“Mama—” was all Ellie managed before she glimpsed the identity of the approaching observer.
Cain.
She slammed the door shut, slid home the lock, and leapt away from both as if she half-expected him to burst through anyway. He did not. When his footsteps finally receded, Ellie let out her pent-up breath and turned about. The sight of her mother’s blanched face sent Ellie’s heart into a panic all over again.
“Elspeth.” Mama’s voice was low, but each syllable thrummed with icy resolve. “You stay away from Mártainn Mac Eoin! Do you think he saw me?”
“Macane,” Ellie corrected automatically, then blinked to realize her reclusive mother had recognized a ton rake on sight—and recalled his Scottish name. “No, he was looking at me. I didn’t even see you. How would you know who he is? Had you met before?”
“Yes.” Mama shook her head. “No.” She jabbed a finger at Ellie’s midsection. “I’m not the one who needs to answer for myself. Since no one has seen me, everything is fine. But what about you? Did you join the picnic? Why are you back so soon? Where were you if not with the others?”
Ellie stared at her mother uncomprehendingly until it dawned on her that her mother’s alarm was of the normal, everyday, overprotective variety. She had no idea anything was amiss.
The lace of Ellie’s bodice covered the marks left by Cain’s fangs. Her own fangs had disappeared before she’d entered the room. If her curls were topsy-turvy or her gown a bit mussed, well, when was it not?
Ellie was having a personal crisis, and Mama... was simply being Mama.
With an inward sigh, Ellie realized that her hope of puzzling out this new twist together with her mother had been a foolish one. Mama believed in the world as she saw it. Her biggest fear was that her baby was not enjoying the house party she’d begged to attend. Mama was safely ignorant of the evil lurking just below the surface of those around her... and Ellie was swept with a fierce desire to keep it that way.
Unable to confess what was truly bothering her, Ellie smiled as cheerfully as she could. She headed to the tea tray across the room as if she hadn’t a care in the world, hoping Mama wouldn’t notice her shooting covert glances at the gilded looking-glass above the bookshelf. Ellie’s familiar—if ashen—visage reflected back at her.
Miss Breckenridge had been mistaken about the mirrors, then. Thank God.
“Everything’s fine, Mama.” Ellie poured herself a half cup of tepid tea. Everything was not fine. Things could not possibly be worse. How could she expect to keep a secret of this magnitude? “I came back because I forgot my parasol.”
“So that’s what it is!” Her mother rushed to Ellie’s side and pressed the back of her fingers to Ellie’s cheeks and forehead. “Are you feeling weak? I told you not to go, and now look what’s happened. Do you need to lie down?”
Ellie slid out of her mother’s grasp. “I’ll be fine once I’ve had a sip of this tea. I don’t have sunstroke, Mother. I have a dearth of social experience. I don’t know how to make small talk with Polite Society. Our ideas of what makes for interesting conversation are incredibly distinct.”
Mama stood for a moment longer, squinting down at Ellie as if searching for signs of trouble using microscopic vision. Apparently satisfied at last that her daughter appeared as normal as she ever did, Mama took a seat on a wingback chair opposite Ellie.
“Oh?” she asked as she settled back without partaking in the lukewarm tea. “What sorts of nonsense are the blue bloods mad about these days?”
Ellie added a lump of sugar to her cup. Now that she’d decided to pretend nothing was amiss, she needed to come up with a few details capable of convincing her mother that the High Society houseguests were nothing more than a gaggle of inane fops and fribbles.
“Well,” she said slowly. “One gentleman asked me if I’d ever been to Scotland. Twice.”
Mama jerked forward, her eyes suddenly intense. “And what did you say?”
“No, of course.”
Mama’s hyper-focused gaze continued unabated, as if she suspected Ellie of holding back details. “Was that the end of it?”
