When she saw the hairpin, Maia’s heart kicked up again as she reached for it. This was no ordinary hairpin, but one studded with tiny…rubies.
Rubies.
Corvindale hated rubies. They infuriated him.
Maia shook her head. No. Something was wrong. She remembered how he’d been so odd in the carriage when Angelica had been abducted, when they both had been wearing ruby earbobs. It wasn’t that he simply hated them…it was that they had some sort of ill effect on him.
The prickling of certainty, her instinct, lifted the fine hairs on her arms.
With a flash, she recalled the night of the masquerade, and Mirabella’s description of the fight.There was a necklace of rubies on him.
A hairpin with rubies on it. Corvindale’s button. Blood, and signs of struggle.
Maia went cold. It was no coincidence. Something had happened to the earl.
She looked down at the hairpin, recognition tickling the back of her mind. She’d seen this accessory somewhere before. Someone had been wearing it, or something like it. She frowned, concentrating, trying to pull up a picture of her in her mind.
Someone she’d seen recently.
Someone she didn’t know.
But someone she was going to find.
Dimitri smelled,listened, felt…then opened his eyes.
He was in a chair, a large, upholstered one, sprawled as if dumped therein.
His body was still heavy—his arms, legs, nothing moved properly—yet he wasn’t restrained. So to speak.
She was standing over him, wearing rubies, looking down with satisfaction. She appeared exactly the same as she had that night in Vienna. Tall and slender, thick, dark hair, lush red lips and cheekbones that cut like right angles. Still lovely, but now there was a flash of permanent anger in her eyes.
“Lerina,” he managed to say, looking around the chamber. It appeared to be some sort of parlor. Not particularly well kept; it was dusty and some of the furnishings were covered with sheets. The windows were draped and the light was dim. Her scent filled his nostrils, along with other ones: blood, old fabric, dust, wornleather, water. Salt water. Fish. They were near the Thames, possibly the wharf.
“Have you missed me, darling?” she asked, lunging closer to pat him on the cheek. The rubies swung and shifted toward him. “We have so much to catch up on.”
He closed his eyes as a wave of pain swept him, then ebbed slightly as she pulled back. “Moldavi, I presume?”
Lerina smiled, showing her fangs. “You are a smart one, Dimitri.”
“Whose body did I find? Wearing…your gown?” he asked, trying to control his unsteady breathing. Now he knew how the secret of his Asthenia had become known. Being his mistress, Lerina must somehow have figured it out, for he certainly had never told her. Or she and Moldavi together had done so.
She shrugged and the rubies danced. “I haven’t any idea. Cezar took care of that. Some mortal, most likely. The whole point was to make you believe I’d died in the fire.”
Dimitri pulled himself upright in the chair. Every movement felt as if he were weighted down with lead pipes while slogging upriver through a heavy current. The pain from his Mark had melded with that from the rubies, stealing his breath and burning his skin. Yet, when he could lift himself above the physical discomfort, his mind worked like an oiled machine. And it was working now.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?” Lerina said, leaning close again.
Her scent filled his nose, along with a renewed rush of pain from the rubies. Dimitri didn’t flinch or blink, holding her gaze steady with his own. “You’ll tell me. Although I’m also…quite certain I already know.”
“Is that so?” Lerina grinned and ran her tongue over the points of her incisors. “I’ve waited more than a century for this, Dimitri, darling.”
“An entire century,” he managed to say. “Did you have nothing better to do?”
Her hand whipped out and caught the side of his face, one of her ruby rings slicing his skin. The blow left his ears ringing, but he didn’t move. Warm blood trickled down his cheek.
Her nostrils flared as she drew in the scent, her attention focused on his cut. Then she seemed to refocus, shaking her head a bit and stepping back with an odd smile.
He was certain he was in no imminent danger of anything more than Lerina’s nonstop chatter and further displays of temper. Moldavi had to be behind this, and Dimitri presumed the man would want to have a moment of glory in front of his victim before otherwise dispatching him—or whatever his plan was.
