“You killed Safina.”
“As I said, she tried to kill me first. And I let her slice me before I ended her. I think that was more than fair.” His free hand came up to run his thumb over her cheekbone, a feather-light caress that abraded her nerves. His voice turned smoky and persuasive. “You don’t need to fear me, Miss Dryden. Won’t you tell me your given name?”
“Saying that in a honey voice doesn’t automatically make me trust you,” she said tightly. “May I go now, please?”
ChapterNine
Genevieve stumbled back to her bolt hole, a hand pressed to her face. Vampires did not blush—so why did it feel like her face was aflame? Chagrin and bafflement warred within her.
Vampire men did not like mouthy women who did not know their place. They especially did not like sharp-tongued spinsters who grabbed them by the shirt placket and harangued them! All her experience thus far in the Ossuary bore this out. There was a hierarchy to be obeyed. Old vampires were at the top of the social ladder, then those men of noble birth, followed by women of noble birth. Then everyone else trickled down in order of time in the dark and the rest of England’s class structure. As men of noble birth and status before their deaths, Bacchus and Laurent most of all had been opposed to anything that smacked of opposition. Genevieve clenched her gloved fists.
Yet Kendrick, their new master, had watched her with an interest she could not begin to fathom. And he hadn’t lashed out when she had taken him to task. He had…asked her opinion? Held her hand gently? And he had escorted her out of his room when she had asked to go. He hadn’t demanded her given name, only asked. He hadn’t punished her for impertinence.
And he had bowed over her hand before bidding her a good night.
Genevieve pressed her hand to her chest. Ducking her head to clear the low overhang of her shared bolt hole, she said, “Elspeth, you will call me every kind of fool?—”
She broke off at the sight of Robbie MacPherson sitting beside Elspeth, the two of them hastily leaning away from each other. “Oh. Forgive me, Mr. MacPherson.”
Robbie MacPherson was a flame-haired Scotsman who had died at Culloden and had come south to London after the Highland clearances had shattered many of the communities he had depended on to stay hidden. He had been kind to Genevieve and Elspeth when they had first been turned, offering what knowledge and assistance he could without their makers’ knowledge. He was one of the few men in the Ossuary whom Genevieve would term a friend. Elspeth might have called him something else.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Dryden—my visit has gone on for too long,” Robbie said, reaching for his crutch to lever himself up to his one leg. He had lost the other below the knee. While vampirism would repair injuries sustained after death, it could not regrow limbs or mend wounds sustained before they were turned.
“No, no, please. Don’t mind me.” Genevieve collapsed across from them in an ungraceful puddle of skirts as her knees gave out. “I’ve just been a pea goose of the highest order, that’s all.”
“Pea goose? You?” Elspeth asked, taking Robbie’s crutch and leaning it back against the wall. “Do tell, Genevieve.”
Robbie cleared his throat, tugging at his collar. His red hair gave the impression of a blush, even if his skin stayed pale and gray. “I can?—”
Genevieve squeezed her eyes shut. “I just gave the new master a tongue lashing of the highest order. Nothing to worry about.”
And Iogledhim!He appeared again in her mind’s eye, the glow of his regard, his hair loose about his shoulders, burnished in the light of the candle flame, his corded neck visible through his opened shirt. The feel of his thumb on her cheekbone. She blinked rapidly to dispel the vision.
Elspeth gaped. “You? Scolded him? How did you evenencounterhim?”
Genevieve took a deep breath and explained about the overheard plots and the notes, and how she had been caught. Robbie knew of her talent and could be trusted. Loyalty was one of his best qualities—next to his silent constancy towards Elspeth.
She gulped and finished with, “And I was so—unsettled, and irritated with him, I told him what I thought of his management so far. So, you see. Pea goose.”
“Gracious,” Elspeth murmured.
Robbie leaned forward. “Kendrick’s a good man. His ego won’t be pricked by a lass’s honesty, Miss Dryden.”
Elspeth turned to him, alight with interest. “Youknowhim?”
“Knowofhim, aye. He’s old—older than anyone else I can think of. Knows his Erse,” he added with a grin. “Been here and there, goes as he will. Never been involved with politicking before that I remember. He’s old friends with Etienne Flambeau and Salem.”
Etienne and Salem were the other two vampires who had contributed to Rupert’s death and downfall, Genevieve had heard. Etienne, she knew of—a blond Frenchman, always very correct—but he didn’t come to the Ossuary often. Salem, she had never seen. He was a bit of a legend among the underground. He had toppled the power behind the previous master, Theron, which had allowed Rupert to swoop in and usurp Theron. Which she was sure had always stuck in Rupert’s craw.
“He is older than Godfrey de Bayeux?” Elspeth asked. “Or Bohémond, who died during that impenetrable fog several years ago when he fell into the Thames just before daybreak?”
Godfrey de Bayeux was reputed to be a former Norman lord, and Bohémond?—
“NottheBohémond de Terente, surely?” Genevieve put in. “Thecrusader?”
Elspeth frowned. “I don’t know. He was quite old, but—might it have been someone using the name?” Vampires freely changed their names as the fancy took them.
Genevieve pressed a hand to her forehead and giggled, the emotions of the night suddenly overwhelming her. “Was he extraordinarily tall, slender of waist and flanks, with broad shoulders and chest, but perfectly proportioned, conformed to the ideal of Polykleitos, and the skin of his body very pale? Did he breathe freely through nostrils that were broad, worthy of his chest?”
