TEXT: A Morbid InitiationTM
  
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  First Volume in the Victorian Age Trilogy
  Philippe Boulle
  A Morbid Initiation TM
  
  And after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but
  The truth in masquerade.
  —Lord Byron, Don Juan
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  ISBN 1-58846-828-3
  First Edition: November 2002
  Printed in Canada
  White Wolf Publishing
  1554 Litton Drive
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  www.white-wolf.com/fiction
  Author: Philippe Boulle
  Cover Artist: Christopher Shy
  Editor: Diane Piron-Gelman
  Graphic Designer: Aaron Voss
  Cover Designer: Chris McDonough
  Art Director: Richard Thomas
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  A Morbid Initiation
  Prologue
  Cairo, May, 1886
  In which one nefarious plot is undone
  and another set in motion.
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  A Morbid Initiation
  thereafter and died within another year. One of Napoleon
  Bonaparte’s aides took up residence there for a few months
  during the French occupation, but he grew palsied and
  left it for better lodgings.
  From that point on the house stood empty, an oasis
  of quiet decay in the prosperous Bab al-Khalq district.
  The high walls that surrounded it on all sides kept out
  casual observers, but invited squatters and beggars in.
  None knew how many of these unfortunates lost their
  lives inside, because few even took note.
  Beckett reckoned it was time to rectify that,
  regardless of the risks—or the laughter. He made his
  way through the tall grasses that had invaded the inner
  courtyard toward the smoke-blackened stone entryway.
  The moon was full and it bathed the area in wan light,
  but he knew a great many things could be hiding in the
  deep shadows. Crouching behind what had once been
  a well, he tried to join them.
  Beckett’s contact in London, an antiquarian named
  Halim Bey, had sent him word that the British
  authorities had acquired a variety of artifacts that might
  be of interest. Beckett was a scholar and suffered from
  an insatiable desire to uncover the secrets of the past.
  Just like Heinrich Schliemann had at Troy and Mycenae
  and Alphonse Mariette had at Memphis, he sought to
  peel back the layers of time. That Beckett, like the
  subjects of his chosen field of research, was what folklore
  variously called “undead” or “vampire” only made his
  existence that much more interesting.
  Tonight was certainly a case in point. In all
  likelihood the British archeologists who had collected
  relics from a tomb just east of Luxor had thought the
  unique designs hinted at a heretofore unknown dynasty
  or cult. Beckett, on the other hand, had recognized in
  the hieroglyphics reproduced from the tomb in the head
  Beckett hadn’t expected laughter.
  Ritual chants, perhaps. Or the screams of victims
  of unspeakable acts. Even simple conversation. But not
  laughter. He had come far enough, though, that he could
  hardly turn back now because of some madman’s
  unexpected mirth.
  He dropped from the stone wall into the garden
  below and moved toward the house. The place was a
  shambles, long disused and the victim of at least one fire
  in the last decade. Once, this had been the home of a
  wealthy merchant, probably built in the early years of
  Mameluke rule, if Beckett was any judge of architecture.
  To hear the locals tell it, though, the last hundred years
  had not been good to this place—the Ottoman tax
  collector who had lived in the house in the middle of
  the last century had been murdered by the son of a farmer
  who’d been evicted from his land. The official’s body was
  never recovered since the murderer took the liberty of
  feeding him to street dogs. Beckett liked that image, but
  the story did not end there. The Arab murderer had been
  caught by the authorities and flogged before his
  execution. He supposedly pronounced a curse on those
  who dwelt in the house of the man who’d evicted his
  father. The next year, the Mameluke pasha who’d taken
  possession of the fine manse cut himself on a nail that
  protruded from one wall. The scratch became infected
  and ultimately gangrenous. His arm was amputated, but
  too late, and he died an agonizing death. His two wives
  both contracted a terrible withering disease shortly
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  A Morbid Initiation
  itself. Fahd whispered invocations in a language all
  but dead centuries before the first Arab invader came
  to the Delta.
  Emma shed her simple dyed-cotton robe to expose
  the marks of the Goddess’s favor. She took seven deliberate
  steps southward, the fissure widening with each one. Anwar
  placed a small golden plate and scalpel at her feet. On the
  plate was a shriveled, petrified gray mass, whose shape
  implied something organic. Neither Emma nor Fahd would
  consider questioning its nature or import—the master
  treated it with reverence and so blessed it was.
  Anwar looked up at his fair-skinned chattel, handed
  her the scalpel, and nodded. Emma took the thin, sharp
  blade in her right hand, holding her index finger along
  its dull edge for stability. She looked up at the stars
  twinkling down through the ruin of the old house’s roof,
  placed the tip of the blade at the top of her sternum,
  and pulled down.
  The blade ran along her bone, sending jolts of ecstatic
  agony through her. Red, hot lifeblood welled from the
  incision, forming like a crimson river in the valley of her
  milky breasts. It flowed down her stomach, to her pubis
  and along her left thigh. Blood collected on the underside
  of her slight belly and in the folds of her sex, before falling
  in thick droplets to the plate waiting under her.
  The first drop hit the withered organ on its tip,
  others soon covering it in a red sheen. The first wisp of
  smoke rose from the crack and it smelled of great
  pestilence.
  His broad smile exposing snake-like canines,
  Anwar al-Beshi laughed anew.
  ***
  Well, that was enough of that.
  Crouched in the shadows that gathered amid the
  ruined remains of the top floor of the home, Beckett
  researcher’s notebooks several passages referring to aspects
  of the vampiric condition: the desire for blood, the fear
  of the sun, and so forth. This told him that the relics
  themselves were worth inspecting. Unlike the researcher
  and his notes, however, these had not returned to
  England, and so Beckett set off for Egypt. He had not
  been surprised to find that the artifacts had disappeared
  by the time he got there. The hieroglyphs also spoke of a
  variety of rituals and although Beckett was no sorcerer,
  he understood that ritual magic was no more superstition
  than vampirism was. It was rare, but it existed.
  Some of the mundane pieces in the stolen
  collection ended up on the black market and from there
  Beckett had been able to find the seller, a boy named
  Fahd Benezra. He’d watched Fahd for several nights,
  and the boy always came back to this abandoned house.
  ***
  Anwar al-Beshi smiled. There was a fissure running
  through the earthen tile of the home’s central room. It
  had started as a simple nick in the center-most tile, just
  another random mark of the passage of time in this old
  dwelling. Then, while he made the first preparations for
  tonight’s rite, it had graduated to a crack.
  With the first incantations to the storm and
  shadow, the crack had grown, spreading first to one and
  then to many other tiles. When the first slave, the Arab
  man Fahd, knelt in the northeastern part of the room,
  making obeisance to a specific place in the western
  desert, other cracks had appeared, joining their
  progenitor and becoming the dark, jagged line that now
  split the room in twain.
  “Her blessings upon us.” Anwar’s voice was a
  reverent whisper. He nodded to the other slave, the
  Englishwoman Emma. She stood in the north,
  aligning herself with the power of the Great Nile
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  A Morbid Initiation
  flies and gnats emerging from the crack, the scurry of
  beetles and locusts flocking from miles around, and the
  scrabbling of rats crawling from under rocks to feed on
  the carrion to come.
  He jumped down.
  ***
  The intruder ruined everything. Anwar was
  pronouncing the twenty-third of the seventy-five secret
  names when he barreled in from above. Tall and stocky,
  he slammed into Anwar and strong-armed Emma to the
  ground.
  “Apologies for the interruption,” he said. An
  Englishman it seemed, fair-skinned and brown-haired.
  He wore heavy cotton pants, a leather jacket, heavy
  boots and an infantile smile.
  Anwar focused his attention on the man, trying to
  peel back any and all lies this one might have shrouded
  around himself. His instincts for such things, sharpened
  by years of moving unseen through the bazaars of North
  Africa, told Anwar that this one was a blood-drinker too,
  a vampire, though unlikely to be a child of the Dark God.
  Fahd sensed his master’s anger and responded
  unbidden. Rising silently, he drew a large flat blade from
  under his robe and moved to attack. Anwar appreciated
  the effort, of course, but he knew it was futile. The boy
  got to within two steps of the intruder before the man
  pivoted on his left foot and struck out with his right
  hand. Anwar watched in mild fascination as the man’s
  fingers sprouted terrible, animalistic talons, which raked
  across Fahd’s chest. A jet of the boy’s blood splashed
  against the eastern wall an instant before he collapsed.
  This foreigner was an excellent killer, and despite
  everything, Anwar appreciated that.
  “You should run,” the stranger said. His voice had
  lost its flippant mirth and came out a rough growl. He
  had a good view of the ritual going on downstairs. He’d
  just watched thus far, taking notes and looking for an
  easy opportunity to gather what he needed to. But now,
  things seemed to be going too far.
  Beckett generally disliked blood sorcerers, but they
  were an occupational hazard and he hadn’t expected the
  goings-on to be especially bothersome. He’d given up using
  ghouls long ago, but most of his ilk still fed their blood to
  a choice few living slaves to serve as majordomos, daylight
  guardians and attendants. He’d guessed that Fahd was one
  such slave and it was nice to be proven right—sorcerers
  were, if anything, more likely to have need of such seconds.
  The flow of blood streaming down the nude
  woman’s chest was a bit more problematic. Its rich odor
  called to the hungry beast that had sat in Beckett’s breast
  ever since he took his last breath. But one did not
  survive as a vampire for as long as he had without being
  able to control the urge to feed. And the woman was
  obviously long gone into the addled servitude and ritual
  requirements of her bondage—her pale skin was marked
  with a delicate pattern of scars emanating from her shorn
  crotch and highlighted by the blood that clung to the
  white puckers of tissue. She was long past any
  compassion that might still linger in Beckett’s heart.
  No, what pushed him to act was the smell. It rose
  from the cracked tile like a pillar of smoky bile, rotting
  the very air in the room. Beckett’s nostrils flared and
  the noxious stuff curled into his disused lungs. Undeath
  had sharpened his senses in countless ways, but now he
  regretted it. His chest convulsed in a dry heave, trying
  to expel the pestilence within.
  Simultaneously, the vermin began to call to him.
  Beckett was a thing of the night and had long ago
  discovered he had a unique empathy for the other beasts
  who made it their home. Now, he heard the buzzing of
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  A Morbid Initiation
  examined the walls in detail. The ritualist had decorated
  it with a complex series of hieroglyphs that seemed to be a
  continuation of the ones Beckett had lifted from the
  notebook in London. The central image took up the
  entirety of the east wall, right where the sorcerer had been
  performing his rite. It was of a female figure, in the typical
  twisted profile of hieroglyphs, sitting on a throne. What
  was interesting about this woman, though, was that instead
  of a head, she had a black disc on her shoulders. Except for
  its color, it might be a solar image, because it had long rays
  reaching out to a variety of smaller figures. These were
  human males—probably servants—who bore large animal
  heads on their shoulders. It was these heads that were
  connected by black rays to the woman’s head-disc.
  Beckett had never seen this figure before, but some
  instinct told him it was worth remembering. He was
  making a sketch of it when the shooting started.
  When the bullet dug into his shoulder, Beckett
  cursed himself for getting distracted. He turned
  around—the shot hurt, but it would take a lot more
  than that to stop him—and saw a middle-aged man in
  the uniform of a British cavalry regiment. He was
  holding a smoking pistol.
  “Get away from my wife!” he said in English.
  “Be careful, Colonel Blake,” came a second voice,
  this time with a heavy Egyptian accent. “It is a devil.”
  The Arab with the gift for hyperbole was a religious man,
  dressed in flowing traditional robes. He was holding a
  simple torch, which cast flickering light in the room.
  This is getting out of hand, Beckett decided. He
  grabbed the satchel in which he had placed the major
  artifacts and ran. Blake shot him again as he jumped up
  and through a high window, but that didn’t stop him.
  One more strange story from the colonies.
  held up his hand, now dripping with Fahd’s blood, and
  his lips curled back to reveal thick fangs. “Now.”
  “If only things were that simple, khawaga.” Anwar
  noted with more than a little chagrin that the great
  fissure had already sealed itself. All that remained was
  a pattern of hairline fractures in the tiled floor. The
  ritual was irrevocably ruined and he could feel the effects
  working upon him already. “In such things, a price must
  always be paid.”
  The foreigner must have expected an attack
  because he kicked out at Anwar with a strength that
  spoke of potent blood indeed. The sorcerer took the
  blow to the chest and fell back several yards away, feeling
  bones break and organs rend within him. Experienced
  with the mystic ways, he wasn’t terribly shocked to see
  the subtle marks of fate reveal themselves to him.
  “Give my regards to the Lady,” he said, sure that
  the stranger had no idea just whom he had served this
  night. Then, he propped himself up with his weakening
  arms and his torso, riddled with the dry tumors and
  bleeding cancers that had emerged when the ritual was
  ruined, gave way and separated from his shattered pelvis.
  The darkness took him then, and Anwar al-Beshi
  rotted away with a smile on his face.
  ***
  Beckett took some time to survey the ritual chamber.
  The woman he’d tackled was unconscious but breathing.
  Assuming she had been tied to the main ritualist, she
  was probably in for a rough patch. Vampiric blood was
  highly addictive to the living and when the vampire in
  question was destroyed it left the mortal bereft and alone.
  Fahd, who’d led him here, was good and dead, and the
  ritualist himself was just a pile of ash now.
  But that didn’t mean the room wasn’t of interest.
  Beckett gathered up what artifacts he could and then
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  Morbid Initiation
  Part One:
  County Durham, Christmastide, 1887
  In which death pays a visit to Bernan House, along with
   several other strange guests
  
  Philippe Boulle
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  Morbid Initiation
  There had been hard times, of course. What had
  started as assignment to some of the British overseers of
  the khedive’s debts turned into military occupation with
  the Arabi Revolts by violent nationalists opposed to the
  longstanding British and French presence in Egypt. Regina
  was a child then, but she still had memories of Europeans
  being targeted in the streets before her father’s regiment of
  hussars (and others) had restored order. Throughout her
  years blooming into a young woman, Cairo’s British enclave
  had grown into a beautiful outpost of the Empire. She’d
  explored it and many other parts of the great city on the
  Nile thanks in large part to the complicity of her brother
  and several of the house servants. Father had given a stern
  warning about the dangers of the streets and the strange
  people who might wish to ensnare her. Surely he would
  have thought her already the slave to some foreign cult
  had he seen her moving through the souq dressed in the
  robes of a local woman, flanked by her brother and Fallah,
  whom her father called her maid but she looked to more as
  a guide.
  All that had changed two years ago, when Regina’s
  mother fell ill in Cairo. Lady Emma had never been of
  the strongest constitution, but her downturn was
  nevertheless quite sudden. Fifteen-year old Regina had
  had a long and pleasant conversation with her about a
  certain lieutenant who had caught her eye on a Monday.
  By Friday, Emma Blake was bedridden, her hair and brow
  soaked in sweat and raving about plagues of snakes and
  toads. Father had already been under pressure to return
  to England and assume the full responsibilities of his rank
  as a viscount now that the Arabist threat was ended, and
  his wife’s malady convinced him it was indeed time. That
  spring, they had set sail for London and ultimately for
  this dreary estate. All save Daniel, of course, who—
  “Daydreaming again, Regina?”
  She started at the sound of her father’s voice so close
  at hand. Lord Blake was already dressed for dinner, and
  Chapter One
  Regina had never been overly fond of her family’s
  ancestral home. Bernan House, as the mansion itself was
  called, was built on a slight rise some twenty miles from
  Durham proper, near the border of Northumberland. It
  overlooked the great estate that was the foundation of
  the family’s wealth and position. Tenant farmers raised a
  variety of crops and livestock, making some fine cheeses
  and other products. Bernan House and its lands were all
  that a viscount like her father might need to support his
  peerage—namely land, title, and plentiful grouse and
  other game for sport. At this time of year, the lands took
  on the gray-brown hue of trees stripped bare and farmlands
  made fallow by the winter. The house, however, was
  decked in garlands of holly for the Christmas season. A
  gilded cage indeed.
  Approaching her eighteenth year, Regina longed for
  the days when her father’s steward oversaw the estate and
  kept the house in his stead. Father, Mother, Daniel and
  she had left for Egypt when she was but a babe and she
  had grown up there, far away from the moors of north
  England. Many, she knew, would see assignment to Cairo
  as a hardship—“an existence with all the pains and none
  of the pleasures of India,” she had heard one grumpy
  captain in Father’s regiment call it—but for Regina it had
  been a marvelous adventure. At first in the safe company
  of her brother Daniel or one of her parents, she had
  explored the bazaars and souqs, listened to the call of the
  muezzin from the Mohammedan minarets that dotted the
  city, watched the fellaheen bringing their crops to market,
  and looked at the wonders of the ancient Egyptian past.
  There were perhaps a score of other girls in all of England
  who had seen Giza under the light of the full moon, and
  she had met none of them here.
  
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  Morbid Initiation
  “What about you, Father? Did you enjoy them?”
  He smiled. “Some, yes. Your grandparents were the
  finest hosts in London, some said, and one always had a
  fine time with the finest people. But your grandfather
  always said that he was born to the manor and I to the
  saddle, and I must agree with his judgment. Give me a
  regiment of fine men at my side and my duty to the Queen
  in my heart.”
  “How could you give it all up, Father?”
  “Hush, Regina. I have never had a fool for a daughter
  and I won’t have one now. You know full well that the
  choice was not mine to make. It was only the revolts and
  the needs of the Empire that kept me in Egypt after my
  father died. The family needs its lord at home now.”
  “Yes, Father.” She wanted to scream, to lash out at
  the man who was damning her to balls and parlors and
  being seen but not heard.
  “But enough of this talk of gloom and duty. I am
  here with happy news for you, Regina.” He smiled and
  looked at his daughter’s doubting eyes. “I have received a
  cable from London that Lieutenant Seward will be joining
  us in time to see the New Year in.”
  Regina couldn’t suppress a smile of her own, one that
  brought a chuckle to her father.
  “You see, happy news. And happier still. When last
  I was in London, I met with Seward and he made a request
  of me, my dear. He asked me for your hand in marriage.”
  Regina felt a chill run through her, followed by a
  flush of heat. Marriage! With Seward, the one man who—
  how to put it?—had made his way into her thoughts again
  and again.
  “We shall discuss the details upon his arrival, my dear,
  for if the life of an army man’s daughter is not easy, the
  life of his wife is truly Herculean. I wish you to be happy
  my dear, and I need to know that you would be so at his
  side—his career is in the colonies, I think.”
  looked to all the respected aristocrat and military man.
  His black hair, shot through with gray, was still cut in a
  military style, an effect accented by his mustache and the
  medals pinned to the sash under his dinner jacket. Once
  a hussar, always a hussar. A smile spread across his face as
  he beheld his only daughter, and she was quite sure some
  of it had to do with having successfully entered her
  drawing room without her noticing. It reminded Regina
  of the games they had played when she was younger.
  “I was thinking of…” Her mouth dried to a nervous,
  parched cavity. “Yes, daydreaming.”
  “There is not much day left to dream away,
  Daughter.” Indeed, although it was barely four in the
  afternoon, the sun, beautifully crimson, was dipping
  toward the western horizon, and the snow-tinged
  countryside seen from Regina’s window was plunged into
  elongated shadow and ruddy light. Winter days were very
  short in County Durham. “Shepherd’s delight, it would
  seem,” her father added.
  “Yes.” She turned to face her father. “Father, I…”
  “Hardly the same as the sun between the pyramids
  in Giza, is it?”
  Regina smiled. “No. No it isn’t. I miss it still, Father.”
  “As do I, my dear.” He took a seat next to her. “Your
  grandfather was much better at shouldering the
  requirements of status and title than I. Do you remember
  at all any of the balls you attended at Monroe House
  before we left for Cairo?”
  Regina gently shook her head. Monroe House was
  the family’s London residence and although she had fond
  memories of time spent there, they were the faint
  recollections of childhood. “Not especially, although
  Mother has always talked fondly of them.”
  “Yes, your mother enjoyed those evening affairs a
  great deal before…” He looked his daughter in the eyes,
  who nodded her understanding. Some things were better
  left unspoken. “Well, before.”
  
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  Morbid Initiation
  father to select for him a wife based solely on the fact
  that her dowry and inheritance would make solvent a
  viscounty just as ancient as it was impoverished. How he
  had bemoaned that decision! Only to find in Emma
  Ducheski that rarest of flowers: a true love.
  That was before, of course. Before those terrible
  nights on Hampstead Heath in London. Before poor
  Lewis—who’d stood as his groomsman on that happy
  wedding day—met his awful fate. Before the departure
  for Cairo and the sickness, the scars and the betrayals.
  Lord Blake didn’t even notice the smile vanish from
  his face and the cold thing curl up in his gut.
  ***
  Alone in her bed, Regina’s dreams and memories
  came to celebrate with her. Closing her eyes, she returned
  to that night little more than a year ago. One of her last
  in Egypt and her first alone with Seward.
  It was September and a pleasant heat tinged the
  Cairene night. In the three months since Father had
  announced that the family would be returning to England,
  hardly a day or night had seemed to go by without some
  new visit or social gathering. Father had been under a
  great deal of pressure to return to the mother country
  and take up the duties of a viscount, something that
  colonial service precluded, but now that he had given in,
  the task of relocation seemed epic in scale. Sea captains,
  land agents and military officers paraded through their
  home in the growing Garden City district of Cairo, and
  Father was constantly going over their reports. His
  military mind attacked the task of uprooting himself with
  vigor, but it seemed to Regina that he was making things
  more difficult than they needed to be. It was intentional,
  she knew now, a way for him to delay becoming the man
  he’d fought long and hard to avoid being—a country lord.
  “Oh, Father! Yes, yes, and again, yes.”
  “Careful, Regina, do not make any hasty decisions. I
  have not yet given my assent to this union. Do not be in
  a rush to spend your life in the heat of Java, Honduras or
  Lagos.”
  Could he know, she wondered. Could Father
  understand that that was exactly what she was in a rush
  to do? To get away from this large and empty house a
  stone’s throw from the Northumbrian border. To get away
  from the things expected of a proper young girl and see
  the places others only dreamed of.
  “We shall have plenty of opportunity to discuss
  matters. I have invited Seward to stay with us through
  Twelfth Night.”
  “Yes, Father, of course.” She embraced him. “Thank
  you.”
  “Yes, yes. Now off to bed with you.”
  ***
  James, Lord Blake watched his daughter head for her
  bedchamber with a happy scurry and it brought to mind
  the child she had been. The child she no longer was, he
  realized with a touch of chagrin. What had happened to
  the little girl with unruly brown locks who had a thousand
  questions he was happy to answer? The girl who’d hiked
  up her skirts to run across the decks of the steamship to
  Alexandria?
  The answer was simple, of course: she’d grown into
  a fine young woman. Unruly locks had become well-
  tended curls. All the pudginess of childhood was long
  gone and the fine features of a beauty had emerged, one
  that not even the dour clothes of the day could conceal.
  She reminded him of Emma on their wedding day, of the
  lithe and cheerful beauty who’d stolen his heart and
  turned a marriage of obligation into something more. To
  think he’d railed against the fates that compelled his
  
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  muscular frame, steel-gray eyes—refused to leave her be.
  She’d even found herself in an uncharacteristic girlish fit
  when he arrived at the ball with the daughter of one of
  Sir Evelyn Baring’s aides on his arm. What was that girl’s
  name? Oh, yes.
  “I’m surprised you aren’t with Paulina this evening,
  Lieutenant.”
  Seward, standing on the balcony overlooking the
  twisting lanes of the Garden City and the Nile beyond
  it, looked away. “No, not tonight. Her father wouldn’t
  want that.”
  In her memory, Regina could perfectly read the anger
  and frustration Seward tried so hard to hold in check. At
  the time, she’d just thrilled that Paulina might no longer
  be a concern. She couldn’t resist a mild jab. “Oh? Are
  you not to be trusted, Lieutenant?”
  His gaze turned on her and for a second something
  dark roiled behind his eyes. “Did Paulina say anything to
  you?”
  “Hardly.” Regina had barely even seen the girl in
  the last few months. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I did not mean
  to upset you.”
  He walked from the balcony’s Grecian railing to one
  of the white stone benches designed for a comfortable
  view of the river. He sat with his back to the Nile, facing
  the doors into the house proper. “No,” he said, his voice
  defeated and deflated, “I’m the one who owes you an
  apology. It’s…”
  Regina went to him, interposing herself between the
  bench and doors, kneeling to look him in the eye. The
  whalebone spine in her corset dug into her sternum.
  “Please, Malcolm, what happened?”
  A thrill of fear went through her. Without realizing
  it until the deed was done, she’d used his Christian name.
  Doing so without invitation was to assume an intimacy
  she only hoped existed between the two of them. He
  would be well within his rights to be cross.
  What Regina remembered most, however, was the
  parade of doctors attending Mother. A “tropical fever,”
  Father called the ailment that kept his wife in bed much
  of the day and sent her through raving nightmares most
  of the night. Regina had been shocked by her mother’s
  screams the first time she’d heard them and run to find
  her father, but the night terrors became a taboo after that.
  Everyone in the house knew they existed, but Father
  would only discuss them in the vaguest terms and usually
  only with stern-looking medical professionals arrived on
  the latest train from Alexandria or Port Said.
  All this meant that he’d had little time for Regina
  or her feelings about returning to England. Despite the
  visitors who increasingly insisted on calling her “Lady
  Regina,” she had little interest in the life of a viscount’s
  marriageable daughter. She had enjoyed the freedom of
  living among the Queen’s subjects in Egypt, where the
  pressures to marry and produce an heir were less severe.
  Her father had been in no hurry to dowry off his daughter
  to a colonial social climber, but she feared he would
  succumb to the pressures of expectation once back in
  England. In the meantime, she had found herself in the
  lone company of various house servants.
  But this evening, Lieutenant Malcolm Seward was
  her accompaniment. The young man, perhaps ten years
  Regina’s senior, had served under her father since the
  military occupation of 1882. Colonel Blake’s style had
  never been so rigid as to discount the value of his junior
  officers and the two had become as close to friends as
  possible under the circumstances. That bond only grew
  tighter when Seward wrestled a manservant with Arabist
  sympathies to the ground just before he could run Colonel
  Blake through with a knife. Regina was aware of the high
  regard in which her father held the young lieutenant and
  their paths had crossed at several social functions.
  And, truth be told, she’d thought of him much at
  other times. His features—fine blond hair, broad and
  
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  dream-hand traveled down his chest to the source of his
  manhood. For his part, her imagined lover explored her
  body suddenly and fantastically devoid of the corset,
  petticoats, gowns and garments that had bound her in
  reality. Delicious heat rose from her naked skin and she
  felt his ardor grow.
  “Darling…” Her raspy whisper was the only real
  vocalization of the passionate moans of her fantasy. It
  was enough.
  ***
  Regina preferred Bernan House at night, truth be
  told. Her head still full of images of Malcolm Seward, she
  walked the empty hallways of the third floor. It was cold,
  certainly, but she was well bundled and now too restless
  to remain in bed. She slipped into one of the upstairs
  rooms with a view to the north. It had been her
  grandmother’s sewing room, if the enameled workbox and
  bolts of fabric were any indication, but it probably had
  not been used in the years since her death seven years
  before.
  Regina wondered what the woman had been like.
  She’d only known her as an infant. Her only real image
  of her grandmother was the sepia-toned daguerreotype
  taken of her and her husband—Regina’s grandfather—
  lying in their graves before they were buried. The Arabi
  problem had made a return to County Durham impossible
  for the new Lord Blake and his family, but the funerary
  cards had arrived by ship some months later, there to
  complete the black wardrobe the family had adopted in
  mourning. Black, like the bolt of dyed broadcloth ready
  for sewing that lay nearby and would for a while to come.
  Indeed, Mother hadn’t been able to use the room since
  her arrival here, her sickness keeping her mostly in bed,
  but the room was cleaned and ready for her. Mary, her
  “The truth, I suppose.” He looked into her eyes and
  she saw his agony, but no anger. “Her father decided I
  was not a proper match for his daughter. A minor officer,
  untitled and unlanded, just wasn’t what he expected.”
  “Oh, Malcolm…” Regina hoped she’d kept the relief
  out of her voice.
  “My father purchased my commission with his last
  pound and I have no land or estate to offer. It was foolish
  of me to even entertain a girl of Paulina’s status.”
  “She…” Regina found her throat suddenly dry. Her
  thoughts were her own, but to share them… “She is the
  one who was a fool.”
  “What?” His eyes grew soft and Regina feared she’d
  be lost in them forever. “What did you say?”
  “You heard me, darling.” And she kissed him.
  She’d never kissed a man before and feared she
  wouldn’t know how. Her lips trembled and when he didn’t
  immediately react, she thought she’d damned herself as a
  foolish child. But then his hands were cupping her face,
  pulling the two of them closer together into a deep
  embrace. His lips parted and enveloped hers and she felt
  heat welling up in her body. The painful corset faded from
  her awareness and all she could feel was him. She inhaled
  his scent, felt the tickle of his mustache, tasted the
  saltiness of his lips tinged with tears she didn’t know were
  hers.
  Something told her to remember everything about
  the moment, and those memories (backed by letters to
  and from Malcolm) had sustained her for over a year. Now,
  with her father’s happy news, memory gave way to dreams
  thus far undreamed. Alone in her bedroom at Bernan
  House she felt his lips part anew and a delicious thrill
  went through as she felt his slick tongue probe her. She
  knew these desires were improper, but that very fact made
  them all the more enticing.
  Like a wanton woman from one of the secret books
  she had found in her mother’s study last year, Regina’s
  
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  short and corpulent—had walked several miles
  in the dark, through the light snow covering the
  frozen ground. They’d set out at sunset and it
  was well past midnight now, when they arrived
  on the grounds of the great house their wayward
  cousin inhabited.
  The tall man looked to the upstairs window from
  the darkness of the grounds. He carried no light and
  needed none thanks to the gifts his servitude brought with
  it. There, lit by the flickering light of a candle, he saw
  the young daughter of the house. A beauty, that one.
  “Come.” The short man whispered, but the tone of
  command was unmistakable. The tall man responded—
  the master had charged him to accompany the other man,
  after all—but he felt his bile rise. If he were to keep his
  composure, he’d have to find a way to sate the hatred he
  felt toward this pudgy little fellow.
  The girl in the window extinguished the candle. To
  others that would hide her as well as the darkness hid the
  two of them, but not to him. She was still there, and he
  had to admit, she looked delicious.
  Yes, she would do nicely.
  lady’s maid, had prepared it and maintained it without
  having to be told to.
  Regina had passed by an entrance to the servants’
  quarters below-stairs earlier in her midnight wanderings
  and Mary had emerged as if on cue, seemingly aware of
  every movement in the old house. Regina had sent her
  back to sleep, shushing away complaints that it wasn’t
  proper or some such. Regina had suppressed a smirk,
  wondering just what Mary—with her concern for
  propriety—would think of the dreams that had sent her
  mistress’s daughter wandering the halls.
  She took a seat in the rocking chair by the window,
  allowing herself a smile at the thought of shocking Mary.
  Beyond the thin windows of the house, the Durham
  countryside had been swallowed by a moonless night. A
  tapestry of stars spread across the sky, with bands of gray
  clouds creating a pattern within them. The landscape was
  a uniform black, like a bottomless sea or some preacher’s
  description of the purgatory between luminous heaven
  and fiery hell. An expanse of sheer nothingness.
  Regina smothered the candle she had been carrying
  to light her way and stared out into that nothingness.
  Sitting in a darkness almost as absolute, she strained to
  find some detail in the lands that were her father’s. Some
  nocturnal bird or scavenger whose movements would
  betray it, some lonely farmer heading out by lamplight to
  the fields he would till at first light. A daughter returning
  from a secret rendezvous with the son of a neighboring
  family. But she found none of it. The land was dark and
  empty, devoid of the endless variety she had known in
  Cairo, devoid of any hint of a life other than that expected
  of her.
  “Oh Malcolm,” she whispered to the night.
  ***
  The two men—one tall and thin, the other
  
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  security with a proper husband. To hear her give voice,
  after twenty years of marriage, to some of the same fears
  she herself struggled with was more than worrisome. Truth
  be told, it felt like a betrayal.
  “What are all these dark tidings, Emmy?”
  Regina turned around toward the room and the
  unfamiliar voice. Mary was standing to the side of the
  door, demurely positioned to usher in two visitors. The
  first, the man who had spoken and now smiled broadly in
  Regina and Emma Blake’s direction, was short and more
  than a little round. He wore a beard and his black hair
  was turning gray. Spectacles with small but absurdly thick
  lenses straddled a slightly crooked nose, giving him the
  appearance of a mole dressed as a man. Behind him,
  mostly obscured by a combination of the first man’s girth
  and the shadows of the room, stood a taller man. He gave
  off the impression of an undertaker, his eyes sunk under a
  heavy brow and the brim of a tall black hat.
  “Uncle!” said Emma. Her voice rose to a semblance
  of happy energy, better than Regina had heard in months.
  “Happy Christmas. When did you arrive?”
  “Just now, Emmy. We left Durham by coach this
  morning and came straight here.” He waddled slightly as
  he stepped onto the balcony, and the image of a
  countryside burrowing creature stayed with Regina. “We
  could hardly have made another stop before coming to
  visit my favorite niece.”
  The other man stepped forward as well. If his portly
  companion was a mole, then he was a serpent, moving
  with quiet and deadly grace. His long, thin arms ended
  in gloved fists clenched around a wooden walking stick.
  His eyes, pinpricks of reflection in shadow, darted about
  and Regina had the unsettling impression he was looking
  for prey. She stood to greet them.
  “Uncle Thomas,” Emma said. “You remember my
  daughter Regina. Regina, Mr. Thomas Ducheski, your
  great-uncle.”
  Chapter Two
  “Do you ever dream of escaping, darling girl?”
  The question sent fingers of numbness through
  Regina. She’d had Mary wheel her mother out to the
  north balcony outside her bedroom to enjoy the
  unexpected warmth of the noonday sun, but Emma Blake
  hadn’t spoken before she asked that question. Despite the
  day’s comparative warmth—last night’s frozen fields would
  be muddy and wet, now—a woolen blanket seemed to
  keep her nestled in the wooden, wheeled chair Mary had
  used to move her mistress from her bedchamber. Beneath
  it, a simple but heavy dress, covering her from the top of
  her neck to the tip of her toes, and a matching bonnet
  completed the envelopment of the sickly woman. Until
  she spoke, Regina had thought her mother was sleeping.
  “Sometimes.” Regina looked down at her mother,
  who seemed as pale and thin as ghost. Tears had welled
  in the corner of her eyes and that sent dread to Regina’s
  heart. “But what do you mean? Escape from what?”
  “From everything. From me, from this house, from…
  from yourself… from…” She looked out at the estate,
  unable or unwilling to put into words just what bondage
  she felt her daughter might wish to escape.
  “Oh, mother.” Regina sat by her mother, looking into
  the clouded eyes of the woman she’d once thought of as
  so strong. “Do not worry about me. Lieutenant Seward
  arrives soon and he brings happy news. I—”
  “Be careful, Regina,” her mother interrupted. “Your
  father has been a good man, but it isn’t enough. It’s never
  enough.”
  “I…” Regina’s throat tightened. Despite the sickness
  and spells that had plagued her over the last two years,
  Emma had always been a role model for her daughter.
  Regina looked to her mother as a guide for the ways in
  which a woman might find partnership, respect and
  
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  her. I will not have my own blood’s lies undo that policy.
  The truth, please.”
  Gareth placed his hand on his smaller relative’s
  shoulder, his long black-clad fingers bent slightly and
  digging into the wool of the man’s jacket. “Yes, cousin
  Thomas. No need for dissimulation.”
  “Of course, of course.” His smile almost covered his
  wince. “To be fully up front, there is some familial business
  to attend to. A matter of your… inheritance, Emma.”
  “Oh.” Emma Blake’s eyes closed for several seconds
  and it seemed to her daughter that she was fighting for
  consciousness. “I had hoped this could wait for another
  time. In London, perhaps?”
  “That it could wait?” Gareth asked, his incredulity
  eclipsing his predatory menace. “This is hardly the
  attitude I’d expected in one such—”
  “Now, now,” interrupted Thomas. “Please forgive
  Gareth’s brusqueness, my darling niece. He is less used to
  the niceties of society than you or I.”
  “Not at all,” said Emma. Regina remained silent but
  was not at all displeased to see the tall, serpentine man
  put in his place.
  “I would have liked nothing more,” Thomas
  continued, “than to discuss all this in the quiet confines
  of Lady Merritt’s garden on Park Lane once you had come
  south to London for the season, but Aunt Eleanor tells
  me there is a certain urgency to matters.”
  “Is Eleanor here?” Emma raised a weak hand to her
  chest, suppressing a shudder.
  “No, she remains at Lion’s Green. But she is anxious
  to hear from you.” Lion’s Green, Regina knew, was a small
  property some ways from Bernan House, near the city of
  Durham proper.
  “Of course,” Emma said. “We should go inside.”
  “My, um, my thoughts precisely,” Thomas said.
  “Mary,” Regina said, “will you please get Father
  and—”
  “Dear Regina,” Thomas the Mole said with a smile
  of broad, white teeth. “I haven’t seen you since Lord
  Blake’s departure for Egypt. You were but a child then.”
  “No longer.” The tall man’s voice was as reptilian as
  his body, a slithering cold thing laced with threat. “Our
  cousin has grown into a woman.”
  “Yes, yes.” Thomas looked slightly discomforted, but
  covered it with a chuckle. “Emma, Regina, may I present
  Mr. Gareth Ducheski, solicitor with offices in Durham
  and London.”
  “A pleasure,” Emma said without conviction.
  Regina held her tongue altogether. Her mother had
  never spoken very much about her family or her life before
  she married James Blake, then a dashing lieutenant in
  the hussars. The Ducheski were merchants and
  manufacturers, removed from aristocratic circles by their
  professions and their Slavic origins. They were successful
  in the age of industry, however, and grew wealthy from
  warehouses in Newcastle and Liverpool, mines in County
  Durham, and a growing number of factories across the
  north of England. Regina knew well that her parents’
  marriage had been a strategic one—an old title paired
  with new capital. Marriage as an exchange of goods was
  hardly the thing of the romantics, however, and it made
  Regina uncomfortable given the news her father had
  brought her. Did Malcolm see her as a conveyance for
  some similar social exchange?
  “What brings you to our home, Mr. Ducheski?”
  Regina directed her question squarely at Thomas,
  avoiding Gareth’s cold, hungry gaze and her own lingering
  doubts.
  “Why, the pleasure of seeing you and your mother,
  of course.” The smile again.
  “Now, Uncle Thomas,” Emma said, her voice
  growing tired anew, “My husband and I have never
  tolerated foolishness in Regina or in those who addressed
  
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  than she could know to calm her. If there was one thing
  she’d never worried about, it was her mother dancing
  under the moon at a witch’s Sabbath. “You’ll be telling
  me to tie foxglove and wolfsbane on her door next.”
  “I don’t know just what to believe when it comes to
  their lot, ma’am. But the Devil works in strange ways, I
  know that much. And the Devil has a long history in
  these lands.”
  “And God is everywhere, Mary.” Regina stood and
  walked toward the hall. “I’m more concerned with the
  affairs of Man these days, if you must know.”
  “If you don’t mind me saying, Lady Regina, all is
  God’s affair.” Mary moved toward the back staircase, and
  the hidden world of servants. Before she vanished, she
  added, “And the Devil’s too.”
  ***
  He liked the girl’s smell, Gareth did. A fine odor,
  like a lily wilting under a too-strong sun, or peat moss
  just beginning to ripen on the moor. Sweetness laced with
  the prospect of decay. A bud in need of picking.
  Let Thomas play at liking and loving dear Cousin
  Emma and her pathetic life of aristocratic normalcy. Let
  him mournfully bring her the news. Pathetic to carry what
  should be a great honor as if it were a condemnation.
  Sitting in the drawing room chair, his eyes closed
  and his nostrils flaring, he concentrated on the smell of
  the girl imbued in the very furniture. He turned his head
  and brushed his long nose against the satin fabric and
  the cover placed to protect the chair from the hair oils of
  gentlemen. He inhaled sharply with an audible sniff and
  gulped in the air and its odors.
  She’d been here much of the afternoon, reading and
  talking with that prattling, bony maid. The scent told
  the story of dear Regina—confusion, anger, with an
  “That won’t be necessary, dear,” her mother
  interrupted. “I’m sure there’s nothing that needs your
  father’s attention.”
  “No, certainly not,” put in Thomas. “If we could just
  discuss matters alone?”
  “Yes, of course,” Emma answered. “Regina, thank you
  dear. We can continue our conversation later. Mary, could
  you assist me?”
  And with that, Mary was wheeling her mistress inside
  with Thomas and Gareth Ducheski in tow. Regina was
  left behind, a child dismissed by adults concerned with
  serious matters. No tolerance for foolishness, indeed.
  ***
  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” said Mary, “but I trust
  those people not a whit.” Mary’s accent gave her judgment
  the semblance of a pronouncement from some medieval
  midwife or even, if one overlooked gender, a rural sheriff.
  “They are a strange lot.”
  “I know what you mean, Mary.” Regina was sitting
  in one of the downstairs rooms, trying to read through
  one of the literary supplements she’d received from
  London. She was not being very successful as thoughts of
  Malcolm, of Mother, and of her own newly arrived
  relatives affected her concentration and made her lose
  track of Mr. Hardy’s latest story. Mary’s commentary pulled
  her out of the tales of Wessex once and for all.
  “There are stories about them in Durham, ma’am.”
  Mary took a seat. Her slight frame was draped in a simple
  woman’s dress, blue cotton sewn by her own hands late
  at night when the mistress hadn’t needed her. She never
  quite looked Regina in the eyes—such wouldn’t be proper.
  “Mr. Collinsworth the innkeeper says they were accused
  of witchcraft years ago.”
  “Mary, don’t tell me you believe such tall tales.”
  Regina smiled, the maid’s quaint superstitions doing more
  
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  Chapter Three
  That night, Regina dreamed of dark things. She was
  trapped in the dream, sealed away in some forgotten
  labyrinth, with serpents and beetles crawling across the
  walls of weathered stone. A great weight was upon her
  too, as if terrible shackles held her down lest she should
  become loose in her fury.
  And furious she was. Anger as she had never known
  boiled in her breast, a slavering hatred directed at all those
  who had wronged her. Against the father who had brought
  her back to England. Against the mother whose illness
  had forced that fate on the family. And against Daniel,
  especially against her brother Daniel, who had had the
  ability to say no, to flee to the Navy to escape his duties
  as his father’s son. Gnashing against the hard leather strap
  that passed through her mouth and kept her teeth from
  clenching, she knew just how ready she’d be to pay her
  brother’s price for freedom. So what if hated-father and
  coward-mother banished her from their thoughts? What
  were familial bonds if they ended in shackles or a noose?
  Flies, bloated on the meat of corpses, buzzed through
  her dark prison and laid their eggs in her very flesh. She
  raged and felt a great scream welling up within her
  parched throat. A scream terrible enough to shake the
  foundations of her jail and tear the bonds from her mouth
  so she could feed the broiling hatred once and for all.
  Screams that would never end—
  And it was screams that woke her, but not her own.
  Regina sat bolt upright in the bed, with only the
  wan light of earliest morning coming through the east
  window of her bedchamber. For a second all was quiet,
  and then the shrill screech returned. Mary.
  Without even grabbing a housecoat to cover her
  shift, Regina ran to the hallway, following the maid’s cries.
  They led her down the east wing of the house, toward
  undercurrent of what, anticipation? Yes, and deeper than
  that another scent, the lingering pungency of sex.
  The thought of that fine little thing rutting like a mare
  played itself in his mind’s eye and the scarred vestiges of his
  manhood unfurled themselves as best they could. Savoring
  the image, he inhaled anew and played with the perfumes
  of this wet, young thing. Ah, no. She was no country whore,
  riding the stable hand in some cheap novelette passed
  discreetly in parlors and uproariously in taverns. No, her
  scent had the tinny flavor of dreams and imaginings. This
  girl’s legs parted only in some private fantasy. She dreamed
  of what she could not have, what she hadn’t the courage or
  gifts to become.
  Poor girl. He wondered what it would be like to be
  as blind as she was, to live like the rest of the world. What
  would he be if he did not know the pleasure of scent and
  sound, of the rich unholy ichor that brewed in his veins
  and opened the benighted world to him? What if he did
  not share the gifts of his master and his line and was
  nothing more than another weakling of a man? That
  would be a very unpleasant thing indeed.
  He breathed in her scent again and smiled.
  
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  and smears of something that could only be blood ran
  from her mouth.
  There was no doubt in Regina at that moment: her
  mother was dead. Nevertheless, she felt for the beating
  of a heart, and found only a chill expanse of unmoving
  flesh. A layer of perspiration, like dew on the cool grass
  of morning, covered Emma’s skin. Regina threw the
  blanket over her and tried to raise her head, which hung
  like a dead weight. She managed to ease her mother’s
  back into a recline and saw more evidence of a sickly
  fever, great stains of sweat soaked into the sheets on which
  she had lain.
  “Oh, Mother.” Regina leaned in and kissed her lips.
  They felt clammy as the skin of any fish in the sea, and
  tasted coppery with blood. She closed Emma’s eyes with
  her fingertips. The corners were caked with the white,
  salty residue of tears, the result of the fever, perhaps, or
  great sorrow. “Rest in peace.”
  Regina felt tears of her own welling inside her, and
  searched for some activity with which to hold them at
  bay. She landed on Mary, still sobbing and screeching
  intermittently, frozen at the threshold of the bedchamber.
  “Hush, Mary,” Regina said, to no visible effect. The
  maid stood, crying, looking at the bed. “Mary!”
  Still no response. Regina walked back to Mary and
  waved a hand in her face, but she reacted not at all.
  Standing where she was, Regina clearly blocked Mary’s
  view of the bed and the body of Emma Blake, yet she still
  seemed to be looking that way, sorrow and terror playing
  out on her face. She mouthed the word “no” over and
  over between her cries.
  “Mary! Wake up!” Regina said, grabbing her at the
  shoulders and giving her a solid shake. She vaguely
  remembered that such was hardly what one should do
  with sleepwalkers and others in shock, but that seemed
  unimportant. She just wanted Mary to be quiet, to stop
  screaming and to let her mourn her mother. “Quiet!”
  her mother’s apartments. Lady Emma rested in the north
  wing in the hopes that isolation from the bustle of main
  house would calm her spells. This morning, at least, there
  was no calm in the north.
  Regina ran along the mezzanine overlooking the
  main hall, which connected the wings of the house, and
  took a servant’s door directly into her mother’s foyer. She
  found Mary at the threshold of the bedchamber. In
  between her cries, great wet sobs came upon her as she
  stared into the room. Regina pushed past her, hoping
  against hope that her mother was well. She was not.
  Emma, Lady Blake lay across her bed not at all as
  Regina had left her the evening before. Where once she
  had been wrapped tightly in the downy covers, they were
  now strewn across the floor. She was naked, save for the
  shreds of what had one been her silk chemise. Her head
  lolled over the side of the bed away from the door and
  her skin was pale in the half-light, so that she looked like
  nothing so much as some Greek statuary—save that this
  statuary had been marred by vandals.
  Pink puckers of scar tissue covered her flesh like the
  tattoos of some Pacific warrior or pagan priestess. They
  formed intricate patterns on her skin and came in a variety
  of shapes and sizes. Small round points, as if she had
  repeatedly stabbed herself with a knitting needle, formed
  a V on her stomach, pointing at the more definite lattice
  of lines around her most intimate areas. An ugly, glossy
  line of tissue ran down the middle of her chest above all
  those marks, a clear testament that someone or something
  had tried to cleave her in twain along her breastbone.
  Regina had never seen her mother unclothed before,
  clearly for reasons that went far beyond propriety.
  Regina ran to her mother’s side, quickly picking up
  one of the blankets to cover her nakedness. It was cold
  and clammy in her hands, soaked with the sweat of a
  fever, no doubt. She made it around the bed and gasped.
  Emma Blake’s cold, empty eyes stared up at her daughter
  
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  Regina had of course seen this behavior from he
  father many times before, but never in a situation that
  struck so closely to her heart and his. “But, Papa, I can’t…”
  “You can and you will!” he thundered. “There are
  things I must attend to alone, and I will not have you in
  my way. Now hurry.”
  James Blake had long taught his daughter to value
  honesty above all else. The plain truth is the highest of
  monarchs, he would say. So she refused to back down from
  him at this moment. “No, Father. The marks on her skin,
  I have to—”
  He was upon her in a second, his face red with fury.
  “Quiet your prattling! I am your father and I will be obeyed
  in this matter! There will be no talk of savagery and
  paganism in this house, young lady!”
  For the first time in her life, Regina feared her father
  would strike her. Instead, he laid his hand on her shoulder.
  She felt him tremble, and although his voice fell to a
  whisper, there was still steel in his words. “Your mother
  died of a fever brought from Egypt, nothing else. She will
  be buried in sanctified soil and I will hear nothing else
  on the subject.” With that he walked back to the bedside,
  and gathered up the sheets to cover her completely, hiding
  all signs of the arcane markings across her flesh. He placed
  her properly on the bed, in a position of quiet repose,
  and used his thumb to wipe the crusted blood from her
  lips. “Absolutely nothing else.”
  Finding her mother had opened a chasm of grief
  within Regina, and she now saw her father on the other
  side of it, separated from her. “Yes, father.”
  With that he turned from her, as if Regina had
  suddenly ceased to be relevant. She slowly backed out of
  the room, watching her father attend to his “things.” First
  he wiped the last of the bloody residue from Emma’s lips
  and face with a washcloth and then he went about the
  room, gathering up the various artisanal items Regina had
  always associated with her mother. The engraved
  Regina slapped her then. It was harder than she had
  intended, harder than poor Mary deserved, but it did the
  trick. The maid fell quiet for a second, and then
  exclaimed, “Milady! Get away from—”
  Her eyes focused on Regina for the first time. “Lady
  Regina… What…? Your mother…”
  “I know, Mary. I know.” She embraced her then,
  holding the maid to her and surrendering some tears of
  her own. “I know.”
  “Emma.”
  Regina opened my eyes to see her father standing
  not three feet away, looking past Mary and her. Dressed
  in a housecoat, his gray hair standing in strange angles,
  his mustache unwaxed. No more the royal hussar or
  viscount—just the mourning husband. “My Emma.”
  He pushed past his daughter and the maid and went
  to his wife’s bedside. It took Regina a moment to extricate
  herself from Mary’s grip and join him. He was stroking
  Emma’s raven-black hair, whispering some quiet nothings
  to his companion of many years. Such softness was not
  typical of Lord Blake, which had made his wife’s illness
  all the harder, since his reaction to adversity was always
  to fight against it. Regina knew she had benefited from
  his tendency to leave her to her own devices, but such a
  display of tenderness coming after her mother’s final hour
  only made her long for it all the more.
  Regardless of her desires, the display of affection
  ended as soon as Regina came close. Standing bolt upright
  like the cavalryman he was, Blake took charge of the
  situation. “Mary, stop your bleating and go ready us some
  breakfast. Snap to it.”
  “Yes, my lord.” She nodded and headed out.
  “Regina, go get yourself dressed and we will begin
  making preparations. When you are ready, find Mrs. Baker
  and Nelson and have them ready mourning dress.
  Someone will have to fetch the vicar as well.”
  
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  other figurative pieces, but she far preferred what she had.
  Not that it mattered now—jewels were banished during
  deep mourning and even a half-year from now, only
  blackest jet would be proper.
  That day, Father Duncan, the town vicar, came to
  visit and whisper last rites, and he mentioned to Regina
  and her father that the Bishop of Durham and perhaps
  even the Archbishop of York would make the journey to
  Bernan House. If this was meant to hearten her, it did
  not at all. The visitors who would soon follow would only
  make her discomfort worse.
  ***
  In the late afternoon, Regina could stand the
  questions of her own mind no longer and went to the
  north wing. Malcolm had yet to arrive and her father
  had adopted a stoicism she thought beyond even him,
  concentrating on the minutia of mourning and paying
  no heed to his daughter’s trauma.
  As the day wore on, and sleep had not come, Regina
  had wondered if perhaps she had imagined some, if not
  all, of the terrible scene. For an awful, beautiful moment
  after she rose herself from an open-eyed daze on the divan
  of her drawing room, she had even hoped her mother’s
  death was a phantasm created by fatigue and anticipation.
  But no, the sentiment of loss came crashing down upon
  her too quickly to be a falsehood. But the scars and strange
  ritual markings? The blood on her mother’s lips? Those
  she was less certain of. She had to know, to make sure.
  The necessities of death had been tended to early
  on, she supposed, and the north wing of the house was
  eerily quiet. No maids scurrying, no sounds of the kitchen
  down below wafting up through ceilings and floors.
  Instead, only the cloying, dark heat of a house closed
  against even the slight sun of winter. It was as if the
  shadows emanated from her mother’s bedchamber because
  cartouche of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the lapis-lazuli beads
  that evoked the shape of blue eyes—he gathered them
  all into a makeshift sack made with a flap of his housecoat,
  as if they were poison to him.
  “Dirty superstition,” he muttered. “Bloody
  witchcraft.”
  ***
  Regina didn’t feel much of anything the rest of the
  night, and into the wan light of the next morning. Under
  the watchful eyes of Mrs. Baker the housekeeper, the
  servants ushered in a pall of blackness on Bernan House
  as the Blake family adopted heavy mourning dress. The
  boughs of holly and other signs of the season vanished
  from the house, and Regina wandered into her own
  dressing room to find Mary gathering up her white and
  gray dresses to be dyed a deep black. She knew layer upon
  layer of crinoline would come to engulf her as was proper
  for a mourning daughter. The Queen herself, in long
  lament for her dear departed consort Prince Albert, had
  set the stage of the depths of dreary somberness the
  bereaved of standing should aim for and in this, it seemed,
  her father had decided to accept all the requirements of
  his station.
  Standing aside as the servants attended to their
  lengthy work of banishing all signs of color and joy from
  her quarters and the rest of Bernan House, Regina took a
  moment to gaze at the jewelry of her trousseau. One of
  the great benefits of being the daughter of a colonial
  military man was the access her family had had to the
  great bazaars of Cairo and the Far East. Her trousseau was
  full of exotic jewels in fine settings of filigree and
  arabesque. The Mohammedan prohibitions on figurative
  art, she’d observed, made their artisans all the more
  expressive in the fine geometric patterns of their jewelry.
  Some would say her trousseau was lacking in cameos and
  
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  a nearby dresser, before shaking the match out. “I’m sorry,
  my dear but you must not open the drapes or shutters.”
  “And why not?” Regina’s voice was hard and
  accusatory, but she spared a quick look behind the man
  toward her mother. The candlelight barely reached the
  bed and the woman laying under its covers. The long
  shadows gave Emma Blake’s corpse an animal aspect,
  deepening the lines on her face and turning her fine lips
  into something akin to a snarl. Regina gaped.
  “Because…” Thomas too looked back toward the bed
  and promptly shifted his position to interpose himself
  between mother and child. “Because it is tradition,
  Regina. We Ducheski come from the east and we still
  bear some of the ways of the Slavs. To expose a departed
  soul to the light of day is to curse it, Regina. Your great
  aunt Eleanor will explain it all when she arrives this
  evening.”
  “I certainly hope so,” Regina said as she moved closer
  to her mother’s deathbed. The tricks of the flickering
  candlelight had passed and Lady Emma looked to be in
  quiet repose—pale and drawn, but no snarling beast. “I
  hope so.”
  ***
  Thomas was true to his word, at least in terms of the
  timing of Eleanor Ducheski’s arrival at Bernan House.
  The black four-horse coach arrived just as the horizon
  swallowed the last red rays of sunlight, the team’s hooves
  and the cab’s wheels crunching through the packed earth
  and gravel of the long drive. Regina—who had been on
  watch for the possible arrival of her betrothed from the
  Durham station—watched Morris the coachman greet the
  horses. Thomas Ducheski emerged from the house as if
  on cue to receive his relatives, opening the coach’s door
  to help the passengers out.
  the closer she moved to it down the long, broad hall, the
  scarcer light became. Cracks of sunlight pressed through
  shutters only to be blocked by drapes. Wan candles and
  lanterns vanished, replaced by unlit wicks and empty
  sconces.
  When Regina opened the double doors into the
  bedroom itself, the darkness was complete. She could be
  looking into the stygian depths, so absolute was the
  shadow that awaited her. She waited a few moments for
  her eyes to adjust, but even then she could only make
  out a few vague shapes thanks to the measly light coming
  in from the hall behind her. There the rough contour of
  the four-poster bed that held her mother’s corpse, near it
  the bulk of a large chair, across from that a heavy dresser.
  “Enough,” she whispered to no one in particular and
  made her way through the darkness toward the window
  she knew awaited her at the far wall. She braced herself
  for contact with some unseen trinket or piece of furniture,
  but made it to the wall in a few long, easy strides. There,
  she grabbed the heavy curtains, found the part between
  the two where a bit of light might make its way in despite
  the shutters beyond and drew them apart.
  “No!” The voice was loud and panicked, half merging
  with some guttural growl. Regina, startled, stepped away
  and turned toward the bed, to see her mole-like uncle,
  Thomas Ducheski, hurtling himself at her from the chair
  where the shadows had hidden him. “You mustn’t!”
  The short, round man, moved with astonishing
  speed, pushing his young niece out of the way and shutting
  the curtains tight against the single blade of sunlight that
  had pierced the room. Regina stumbled, knocked aside
  with a force that hardly seemed possible from such a little
  man.
  “What..? Who?!” Regina’s heart was racing.
  “It is me,” said her uncle. A sudden smell of sulfur
  and a sharp scratching sound accompanied a flare of light
  as he lit a long match. He proceeded to light a candle on
  
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  she feared she would be sick, but then the old crone looked
  away and continued toward the front door where Mrs.
  Baker was surely awaiting them.
  Regina headed downstairs. It was time to greet the
  family, it seemed.
  “Other family members will arrive later,” Thomas
  was explaining hurriedly when Regina made it downstairs.
  The little man was holding up the rear of a party made
  up of her father, the crone Eleanor and her apparent
  favorite Gareth. “Aunt Eleanor is here to make initial
  preparations for the funeral.”
  “Yes, well,” Lord Blake put in as they made their way
  toward the staircase. “There are some matters to be
  discussed on that front.”
  “Later.” Eleanor Ducheski’s voice was a cold thing,
  lacking in volume but powerful nonetheless. She sounded
  like the aggregate of a governess and a military officer,
  with an accent that spoke of foreign and less-civilized
  lands. “First, I see Emma. Then we talk.”
  “Of course, but—”
  “Ah!” Eleanor exclaimed looking up from her crouch
  to see Regina. The old woman’s eyes were two black peas
  set deep in the furrows of her wrinkled flesh. When she
  spoke, she exposed teeth set at odd angles and discolored
  by the years. “This is the daughter.”
  “Um, yes. Mrs. Ducheski, my daughter, Lady Regina.”
  Her father, she noted, was struggling to maintain his
  composure.
  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, madam.”
  Regina bowed down to reach the crone’s eye level.
  As a response, Eleanor Ducheski walked right up to
  Regina and began to inspect her as she imagined a butcher
  might an animal for slaughter. One hand still clutching
  her cane, she used the other to grasp Regina’s waist, then
  her hips. “Yes, I see.”
  Ignoring Regina’s dumbfounded reaction, she
  continued her inspection. She felt her niece’s bosom
  Regina, watching from a front-facing window on the
  second floor, tried to make out the details in the twilight.
  The driver, sitting high in the front of the carriage to
  man the reins, wore a long overcoat against the winter
  chill. He wore no hat, but it was too dark to make out
  any features—Regina had the impression of baldness, but
  could not be sure.
  Gareth Ducheski was the first to disembark from the
  coach’s innards. Regina had no trouble at all recognizing
  him in the gloom. His tall, thin form, all angles and
  sharpness, made him unmistakable, as did the harsh way
  in which he pushed his cousin aside to help the next
  passenger out. Regina remembered with sudden clarity a
  moment in Cairo: street dogs fighting for status and the
  right to pick at a discarded lamb bone, the most dominant
  of the mangy creatures pinning the other momentarily
  to remind it of its inferiority.
  The woman who emerged from the black coach,
  Regina concluded, must be Aunt Eleanor, the very
  mention of whom had had such an effect on her mother
  the day before her death. Physically, there could be no
  greater contrast than between her and her nephew
  Gareth. If he was a serpent—long and sleek—then she
  was a small, gnarled spider. She walked with the help of a
  cane and seemed bent over with the weight of years
  unnumbered and acts unspoken. She moved slowly but
  with assurance, swatting away Thomas’s attempt to
  interpose himself as the helpful nephew. Her dress was a
  deep black shell, a simple accessory to the shadows that
  seemed to cling to her like a second skin. Her face, what
  Regina could see of it, was a convergence of lines and
  wrinkles tied together with steel-gray hair in a tight bun.
  She had moved only three small steps from the coach
  when she suddenly looked up—straight at the second floor
  window where her little niece was watching. Regina felt
  a chill like a cold blade run down her spine and tension
  coil in jaw, at the hinge just behind her ears. For a moment
  
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  enough to shake off the last bit of stupor. This was not
  right.
  Regina’s stunned sleep after her dismissal on the
  staircase lasted only a few hours and gave way to tossing
  and turning. She felt fevered and flitted between tense
  consciousness and flashes of dark dreams that mostly fled
  from her memory as soon as she awoke. Only a few details
  of the nightmares remained behind as terrible reminders,
  most prominently twisted images of the crone Eleanor
  Ducheski. Regina saw her great-aunt’s wrinkled and
  wizened face streaked with blood, her eyes turned black
  as coal, and her emaciated fingers tipped with nails like
  talons. She tried to escape me, the apparition said, but she
  could not. And neither will you, little cousin. Several times,
  Regina woke with a start, gasping for air and convinced
  the old woman’s hands were at her throat.
  Eventually, she gave up on bed and sleep altogether
  and returned to her Egyptian habit of early morning
  wanderings. Regina expected to find Bernan House empty
  at that hour, but instead she only avoided her maternal
  cousins by luck. The crone herself was seated in the
  downstairs library where Regina had intended to nest for
  a few hours, attended by both Gareth and Thomas
  Ducheski. Regina peaked in through a door and remained
  hidden from view, listening to their idle conversation,
  much as she had done as a girl in Cairo when spying on
  her parents.
  “I had thought the initiation wasn’t to be until
  Michaelmas,” said Thomas. “That is months away.”
  “You need not remind me of the calendar, nephew,”
  Eleanor answered in a voice full of scorn. “All is as it
  should be.”
  “But I had just carried the news the day before,” he
  continued. “There was no time—”
  Regina was sure she hadn’t moved, but she must have
  made a slight noise at that moment, because Gareth
  turned in her direction much like a cat who has suddenly
  under the tight corset, pulled the girl’s face forward and,
  handing her cane to Gareth, used both hands to pull back
  Regina’s lips and inspect her teeth.
  “Mrs. Ducheski!” Lord Blake forcibly moved his
  daughter away from the old woman. Regina, for her part,
  could only raise her hands to her face where the woman
  had pinched skin and pulled flesh. “That is…”
  “She is truly Emma’s daughter, yes? More beautiful
  than her mother, even.”
  “Th… Thank you…” Regina stammered out.
  “Tsk,” the old woman scoffed and started up the stairs.
  “Beauty makes a woman weak.”
  ***
  Regina’s stupor lasted through the night and into
  the early hours of the next morning. The shock of her
  mother’s death and the procession of strange events that
  happened over the following twenty-four hours—the
  unexplained scars, the Ducheski traditions, Eleanor’s
  “inspection,” and most of all, her father’s refusal to address
  any of it—simply overloaded her heart so that she was
  barely aware of collapsing in bed that night. It was finding
  Mary, the poor woman who had actually found Emma
  that terrible morning, that finally revived Regina’s spirit.
  In the year Regina had spent at Bernan House—
  interrupted by the summer season in London—Mary had
  never struck her as the strongest of women. She seemed
  rather to be of that breed of house servants who survive
  the vagaries of their masters’ humors by doing their very
  best to remain invisible. Regina knew that was a
  commendable skill, one that she was sure had served Mary
  well, but it had the unfortunate side-effect of making the
  maid seem more mouse than woman. Her screeching and
  stammering before Emma Blake’s body had hardly seemed
  out of character. Still, when Regina found her wrapped
  into a tight ball in the corner of her small quarters, it was
  
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  “It’s all right, Mary. I won’t tell my father or anyone
  else. Please, I only wish to help.”
  “It’s just that, it’s as if I’ve caught your dear mother’s
  humors, milady.” The maid continued to babble as Regina
  guided her to a small bench on the far wall of the foyer,
  where she might be more comfortable. “Ever since I saw…
  that is, found her… I can’t sleep at night.”
  “That’s to be expected, Mary. You’ve had quite a
  shock and it was only the night before last. I can’t sleep
  either.”
  “Yes, ma’am, that’s kind of you to say. But the nights,
  and most of all the early mornings, have been like pieces
  of hell itself, if you’ll excuse me saying.”
   Regina nodded quickly to forgive her understandable
  blasphemy, not wanting to stop her speech now that it
  was flowing at last. The maid continued unbidden. “The
  time before dawn is when I get the great bulk of my work
  done, milady, getting the house ready and all. But now,
  when those hours come and I wake as I always have, it’s
  like the nightmares wake with me. Oh, ma’am.”
  “Shhh, I have had dreams as well, Mary. What do
  you dream of?”
  “The most terrible things, ma’am. Like seeing your
  fine mother again and again, and her night gown all torn
  and… revealing… that is… I see her naked ma’am, like
  a harlot, and covered with those terrible marks, like
  witch’s teats.”
  She braced for the physical retort she expected from
  a peer who’s just heard her mother called a harlot and a
  witch. Instead, Regina just stroked her loose auburn hair.
  “Go on, Mary, it’s alright.”
  “And I see eyes, ma’am. Dark and terrible, like wells
  into the Pit itself!” She sobbed again. “All through the
  hours before dawn, I see them everywhere, looking at me
  and into me. Like the Devil Himself, I swear it. He’s cursed
  me, I think.” She broke into quiet sobs and, although
  Regina half-hoped she would say more, she couldn’t bring
  detected a mouse. She quickly retreated down the hall
  into adjoining rooms, and then headed to the second floor
  by the back stairway. Breathing all together too heavily
  for her own peace of mind, she crouched at the top of the
  thin, spiraling stairs and listened for signs of pursuit. After
  a few minutes of silence she opened the top door and
  crept into the maids’ foyer.
  There she found Mary, curled in the darkest corner
  of the room, muttering quietly. At first, Regina thought
  she might even be snoring, but as she crept closer to the
  woman, she could make out words. “The eyes… the
  eyes… the eyes…” Mary said, over and over.
  Regina extended a hand toward her, hoping to
  comfort or rouse her, but she would have none of it. Mary
  lashed out with her arm, pushing Regina’s away and
  screaming incoherently. She then flattened herself against
  the wall, trying to back away from her master’s daughter.
  Her eyes were wild with terror and Regina could see cold
  sweat beading on her brow even in the half-light of the
  two candles illuminating the small foyer. Regina was
  convinced the maid was in some sort of sleepwalking state.
  “Mary! Wake up! It’s Regina…”
  “No! The eyes… No!” And with that she collapsed
  anew, clutching at her own face with the fury of a child
  ready to spite itself. Regina rushed to pull her hands away,
  but Mary still managed to raise several large welts on her
  cheeks and brow before Regina clamped her hands to the
  floor. She struggled with the strength of the mad for a
  few seconds, but thankfully Regina could bring the weight
  of her body to bear, holding her hands down. And then,
  as suddenly as it had started, the maid’s fit ended.
  “Oh, what…?” Mary blinked back a few tears. “Oh,
  Lady Regina, ma’am, I’m…”
  “Shhh,” Regina said, trying to console her. “It’s all
  right. What happened to you, Mary?”
  “Oh, Lady Regina, I… well… that is…”
  
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  A vast pit of sorrow opened in Regina’s chest, and
  from it billowed pain and anger. The numbness was gone
  and now there was agony. This was her mother, the
  woman who had raised her and loved her like no other.
  Where others were cold and distant, she was warm and
  kind. Where others were petty and small, she was wise
  and caring.
  What terrible truths had she hidden beneath her
  demure clothes and caring smiles? Who was Emma Blake?
  herself to impose further suffering on the poor woman.
  “It’s all right, Mary. You are not cursed.” Regina wiped
  away some more tears from Mary’s cheek. “But perhaps
  you should take some time to yourself. Do you have kin
  you could stay with? We can certainly do without you for
  a few days and the rest might do you good.”
  “Oh, ma’am, yes, I suppose I could stay with my
  brother Harold. He is a cottager on Gables Heath.”
  “That’s the estate of Sir Milner, yes?” She nodded.
  “Fine, I will make arrangements for you. Now go get
  yourself dressed.”
  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you ma’am.” And Mary was
  gone.
  Once she had left, and Regina was alone in the little
  foyer, she felt tears of her own coming. She hadn’t yet
  cried, and now they came first in quiet crystal beads and
  then in wracking sobs that shook her to the core. The
  image of her mother, marked as if by some devilish artist
  or ancient torturer, returned in staggering detail: her skin,
  white and bloodless, glowing in the light of the moon,
  the splash of dried blood across her mouth. Regina
  collapsed on the ground, tears streaking down her face
  and her chest convulsing for air. She saw again her mother
  the next day—was that truly just yesterday?—in that room
  turned into a dark crypt by shutters and heavy drapes.
  In her grief, details of the scene became visible for
  the first time. Her mother’s lips curled back, revealing
  animalistic teeth in the wan candlelight. But then she
  had seemed in quiet repose when Regina finally
  approached, so peaceful and flushed. Her lips a deep red
  that belied her paleness just that morning.
  And what was this talk of initiation? Some deep
  secret was weighing on Regina’s heart, some fact about
  her mother that had remained hidden for years. A secret
  that only death could reveal. Mary saw the signs too and
  could hardly handle the strain. Regina wondered if she
  could herself.
  
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  others of her kind who might be interested in the goings
  on in County Durham, some of whom collected soldiers.
  ***
  “Marriage, eh Seward?” Easton lifted the glass of
  sherry that the barman finally brought around and toasted
  his brother in arms. “To the fine lady—what was her name
  again?”
  “Regina.” Seward laughed a bit at his large friend’s
  forgetfulness. Drink always did this to Easton, made him
  a loud, mirthful, clown. Hard to believe this bellowing,
  smiling drunkard was capable of acts of true savagery and
  true heroism in combat. “Her name is Lady Regina. Lord
  Blake’s daughter, yes?”
  “Don’t mind Easton,” Pool put in. Thinner and
  swarthier than the loud lummox Easton, Lieutenant Pool
  had been Seward’s friend for far more years. They’d served
  together in Egypt under Lord Blake’s command. “He’s only
  jealous.”
  “Ha!” Easton exclaimed. “A wife is a shackle I don’t
  need. They’re only good for dragging one about and
  squeezing out a brat every few years. No thank you!”
  “Not all of us,” Seward said, “are the second sons of
  a senile marquis who covers up our every indiscretion.
  Some of us need to establish ourselves.”
  “And not all of us,” Pool added in support, “are
  content to know only the pleasures of every whorehouse
  from Whitechapel to Calcutta!”
  “Ha!” Easton bellowed. “Give me a wet whore over
  every dry lady in Mayfair!”
  “You,” Seward said, “have been visiting the wrong
  ladies.”
  ***
  Victoria moved forward in the car, her senses
  sharpening and taking in every detail of the three men.
  Chapter Four
  The creature known as Victoria Ash glided more
  than walked into the dining car of an overnight train
  from London. The whole conveyance bumped and swayed
  with the irregularities of the rail, but she seemed not to
  be bothered at all. Grace in all circumstances had rarely
  been a problem for Victoria since she stopped breathing.
  The car should, by all rights, be closed at this late
  hour. The train had left London in the afternoon, heading
  first toward the coast and then turning north toward
  Durham, from where it would proceed to Newcastle-upon-
  Tyne and then on into Scotland. Victoria had been
  carefully ensconced in a large wooden crate at the time
  of departure, of course, her mind made insensate by the
  deep, dreamless slumber that took her each day. The wood
  of the crate and the careful layers of packing within it
  had protected her alabaster flesh from the rays of the sun,
  which had an unfortunate effect on her kind. In her more
  romantic moments, Victoria spoke of missing the delicate
  touch of sunlight warming her bare skin as she lay in the
  fields of Aquitaine in the heady days of June or July. The
  truth was, she was unsure if she could even remember
  that sensation. What was worse, she didn’t know just
  when she had forgotten it.
  The three men at the back of the car were likely
  responsible for keeping the car open long past its
  accustomed hours. The tired looking barman who was
  the only attendant still manning a station carried over
  another round of sherry and did his best to hide his
  exhaustion. His three clients were all young gentlemen
  serving in the hussars, if their waxed mustaches and
  uniforms were anything to judge by. They were playing
  cards—casino, she guessed, from the quick play—and
  laughing about days gone by. Victoria stood in the shadows
  of the car’s forward section and watched them. There were
  
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  eyes took her in with apprehension. He was no chaste
  choirboy, this one, but he saw danger in a beautiful woman
  approaching in the night—a risk to his engagement
  perhaps? Or to some other plan? His apprehension was
  interesting, the type of emotional flavor she enjoyed, but
  not tonight.
  “A fourth, splendid.” Pool, the short illegitimate,
  looked up at her with an easy smile and began dealing
  cards. “Whist it is, then.”
  Victoria sat opposite the man and marveled at his
  sheer calm. Flickers of emotions played themselves out
  under his façade—no breathing man could completely
  hide his feelings from one such as she—but they were
  only mild reactions. This man had faced enough in his
  life that the appearance of strange women on night trains
  was nothing to get excited about. He simply accepted
  the new circumstances and carried on.
  She picked up the cards of her first hand, ordered
  them with ease, and focused her attention on the little
  man. Or, more properly, she focused his attention on her.
  The dark, cold blood in her veins grew hot and she pulled
  his eyes to her. To her flesh, her eyes, her hair. Am I not
  beautiful, Lieutenant Pool?
  He reacted, certainly. She saw admiration, lust, even
  fascination, bloom in him. His pupils dilated and his neck
  developed a few stray beads of sweat. His hands shook
  just a bit. But the fascinating thing was that there was no
  fear. These new hungers swept over him and he neither
  thrilled to them nor ran from them. It was clear to Victoria
  that he simply accepted their presence and carried on.
  As Seward put down the first card to her right, she
  looked across at Pool, her partner. The scar on his neck
  ran just near the jugular. Whatever wound had caused it
  must have bled profusely. She felt her sharp teeth extend
  behind full, moist lips.
  She would taste that blood this night.
  So this was the fiancé of the daughter Blake, tall and
  handsome in the pedestrian way of English men. He had
  a hunger to him, she would give him that, some drive
  that put him a notch above a generation of well-bred,
  badly behaved aristocrats.
  The others, Easton and Pool, fit more into Victoria’s
  tastes for the bizarre. Easton, the connoisseur of flesh if
  his friends’ jibes were any indication, was a mountain of
  a man whose heart beat faster than it should, making him
  ruddy and flushed. His red mustache and mutton chops
  only added to his barbarian flair and rough edges. A
  modern-day Viking, this one.
  As for Pool, he was shorter than either of his
  companions, the more proper stature of a cavalryman. A
  fine scar ran down the side of his cheek and along his
  neck, tracing a line of fair, hairless flesh in the black beard
  and swarthy skin of his face. Italian or Spanish blood
  perhaps, surely on his mother’s side with a name like Pool.
  Had his father married a foreigner or simply diddled with
  an immigrant maid and had the decency to see to his
  education? Aristocrats had a tendency to do that—when
  the bastard child was male.
  “May I join you, gentlemen?” The three were
  satisfyingly surprised by her approach, although shock
  soon gave way to a wave of hungered emotions Victoria
  took in with the pleasure of a gourmet tasting a new dish.
  From the larger-than-life Easton, a hungry and boring
  grin of lust. His thoughts, in all likelihood, never strayed
  beyond his desire to mount this fortuitously arrived
  female. His only reaction was to shift in his seat to
  accommodate his swelling member. Typical. She dismissed
  him.
  “Of course, madam.” Seward, the soon-to-be-wed
  young lieutenant, reacted with a propriety that belied his
  own hungers. He half-stood to welcome the lady and
  looked about nervously. His hand shot out to catch the
  rim of his chair as the train swayed in the night, and his
  
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  Regina slipped away before Mary could excuse herself
  and sought some quiet corner to think. It had not even
  been two days since her mother’s passing and she already
  felt the fabric of her life unraveling. Strangers calling
  themselves kin had descended on the house throughout
  the course of the day, more Ducheski cousins and other
  relatives with names stranger still. They came in from
  Durham and from the port of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
  Some stank still of coal dust, attesting to their duties near
  the mines that dotted the horizon of the county. They
  even had servants of their own, and by the afternoon the
  whole north wing of the house was given over to them.
  Most certainly including the bedchamber in which lay
  Emma Blake.
  Worse still than this plague of invading black-clad
  locusts, Regina’s father, who had seemed like a pillar of
  strength her entire life, was crumbling along hidden fault
  lines of lies and secrets. He must have known about the
  scarring and whatever dark associations had caused it,
  but he would not discuss them with his daughter. She
  understood his desire to keep the memory of his wife as
  untainted as possible, but just like Regina’s brother
  Daniel’s decision not to return to Bernan House, this
  seemed like another subject that would drive father and
  daughter apart. In fact, James, Lord Blake had barely
  managed to speak to Regina at all since that terrible dawn
  discovery. It seemed to her that he was too conscious of
  betraying the truth he had always told Regina he
  worshiped, and now could not face the accusations he
  imagined in her eyes. Beneath it all, the creeping suspicion
  that her father might possibly bear matching scars and
  markings wound its way through Regina’s thoughts,
  widening the gap between the two.
  So to say that Regina Blake was relieved to see
  Lieutenant Malcolm Seward arrive would be a great
  understatement. Although they had shared only one
  precious evening of solitude, their letters had been like a
  Chapter Five
  Malcolm arrived that day. Taking the train from
  London and then hiring a hackney carriage from
  Shincliffe station just south of Durham proper, Easton,
  Pool and he all arrived in the middle of the afternoon.
  Seeing him descend from that coach, dressed in the finery
  of a hussar, Regina felt true joy for the first time in days.
  She had been busy much of that day making
  preparations with father. He agreed with her suggestion
  of sending Mary to stay with relatives, but only after he
  spent some time with the poor woman himself. Perhaps
  too curious for her own good, Regina managed to overhear
  their conversation much in the same way she had spied
  upon the Ducheskis in the early hours of the morning, by
  staying unseen in an adjoining room.
  “It is good that you find rest with your own family,
  Mary,” her father said, in the tone of a loving pater familias.
  “You have been a great help to us, and I know my dear
  wife was very fond of you.”
  “Thank you, your lordship. I was very fond of her
  ladyship myself.”
  “I must warn you, however,” he said, steel suddenly
  running through his voice, “that this is no time for gossip.”
  “Your… your lordship?”
  “I will not have tongues wagging across the shire with
  spurious tales of my beloved Emma’s death, do you
  understand? The fevers of Egypt took her at last and that
  is all we can ever know.” He must have actually grabbed
  her then, for her breath caught with shock. “I will tolerate
  nothing else, Mary. Nothing.”
  “Yes, your lordship.” Her voice cracked with tension,
  even fear. “Of course.”
  “Very well, now gather your things and Milton will
  take you to your family.”
  
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  She took them in for the first time. Easton was
  something of an oversized version of the traditional
  dashing hussar, taller even than Malcolm and red-haired.
  His mustache was well trimmed and his eyes blue and
  deep enough to cause a flutter in the hearts of many a
  countess or heiress, she was sure. Pool was slighter and
  darker, with finer features despite his thin beard and the
  scar along his face. His thin lips parted in a slight smile
  as he looked at Regina, and she had the impression of a
  corsair from a bolder time.
  “Pool was a classmate of mine as a child and served
  under your father’s command as well. Easton is newly
  attached to the regiment, but has already proved his worth
  many times over. In fact, I dare say I owe both these men
  more than I could ever repay after our latest battles in
  Sudan.”
  “Were you hurt, Malcolm?” Regina did her best to
  keep up with the news from Egypt and her father’s old
  regiment, helped at times by reports Lord Blake shared
  with her. She knew well that the Empire maintained itself
  through force of arms as well as trade.
  “No, or at least not seriously. We faced some harsh
  moments, however, and Lieutenant Pool managed to
  outmaneuver some of the insurgents as they were trying
  to cut us off from reinforcements. All ended as it should.”
  “Glad to hear it, my boy,” came Lord Blake’s
  thundering voice from atop the grand staircase. Regina
  thrilled to hear that officer’s tone in his voice, evidence
  of a strength she had not seen in him in the past few
  terrible days and nights.
  “Colonel.” All three lieutenants snapped to
  attention, but Regina could see a smile creeping onto
  Malcolm’s face. He had been her father’s closest man in
  Egypt and their reunion was one of true friends more than
  of a commander and his subordinate. “A pleasure, sir.”
  From that point on, the day was taken up in happy
  reunions, earnest condolences and talk of happenings in
  rescue line for her in her prison of proper English living
  over the last year. Now, with tragedy and secrecy conspiring
  against her, she needed his companionship more than ever,
  and she rushed to him with little concern for propriety or
  decorum. He and his mates were just entering the main
  foyer when she raced down the stairs and collided with
  him in an impromptu embrace.
  “Oh, Malcolm! Thank Providence you’re here.”
  “Regina, my darling.” He enveloped her in his arms
  for a brief few seconds. “I’ve just heard the terrible news
  this morning. I am at your service.”
  The previous year, during her father’s first
  parliamentary season in London, wagging tongues had
  called Regina a “New Woman.” She had taken it as a
  compliment, given her intolerance for fainting weakness
  in her sex. Seward’s appreciation of her as a person of
  worth, one not to be coddled or discounted, was one of
  the critical things that forged her own affection for him,
  and despite a longing to this once be weak, she decided
  to be strong with him instead. Stepping back from him a
  step, far enough for a certain propriety but close enough
  to feel his presence and he to feel hers, she was able to
  catch her breath.
  “Thank you, Lieutenant. My father and I welcome
  your presence and wish you a merry Christmastide despite
  the grief we know you share.” The pretense of formality
  surely seemed strained, but Regina noticed it put the other
  officers at ease and that must have relieved Malcolm.
  Pretense was an important part of military command, it
  would seem. “And my heart lightens to have you by my
  side.”
  “You are very gracious, Lady Regina.” He bowed ever
  so slightly, although Regina spied a small smile on his
  face at the pretense. “And may I present to you Lieutenant
  Easton and Lieutenant Pool, also of the 12th Hussars,
  and stalwart companions both.”
  “Milady,” they said in unison, bowing as well.
  
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  That night, Regina found that sleep still would not
  come. But this time it was not dark images of dread
  relatives, or the black eyes of poor Mary’s delusions, that
  kept her from Morpheus’s arms, but visions of the man
  who slept in the guest chambers nearby. Closing her eyes,
  her fantasized memories returned. She felt his arms around
  her and smelled the subtle perfume of his skin. She thrilled
  to his hands, paradoxically both rough and gentle,
  caressing her cheek and his lips finding her own.
  Propriety easily gave way to the longings of the night,
  all the more so because the reality of Regina’s days had
  become so bleak. She welcomed her imaginary Malcolm’s
  caresses, his touch along her neck, her arm and her leg.
  Unable to sleep, but as if in a dream, she felt heat building
  within her and writhed with forbidden sensations. To feel
  his kisses, to return them with the fire that she felt, wiped
  away all her sorrow and dread.
  “Malcolm…” She moaned and imagined his hands
  exploring her skin. Her own hands acted as his, pushing
  her shift up her thighs, exposing her sex. He, or she herself,
  pulled the muslin fabric higher, over her head until it fell
  off like some discarded skin. She lay back on the bed and
  felt his imaginary hands run over her stomach and cup
  her breasts, suddenly tender and aware in the cold air of
  a country house at winter. She tossed her head back and
  ran her hands back down between her thighs, like a
  wanton harlot or a pagan she-thing, like—
  Mother.
  She froze with the sudden image of her mother’s
  naked form, drawn back over her bed in a final apoplexy
  of want, the pink lines of arcane scarring attesting to long
  years of depravity. Regina quickly drew in Mary’s ravings
  of Emma Blake writhing just as she had been, and a sudden
  chill came over her. Gooseflesh rose on her skin and she
  felt sweat beading her brow. She trembled and curled onto
  her side, spasms and tears overcoming her. The sorrow
  within her opened further to swallow her whole.
  Egypt and elsewhere in the colonies. They spent a goodly
  amount of time discussing the recent declaration of the
  canal at Suez as a neutral waterway open to ships of all
  flags, and the implications for the flow of goods and
  relations with France. The political power of Sir Evelyn
  Baring, Her Majesty’s Consul General of Egypt, had
  continued to grow and there was talk of ascension to the
  peerage. The prospect of who would succeed the aging
  Khedive Taufiq as the nominal Egyptian head of state
  seemed moot—whoever it was would answer to Baring.
  Pool and Easton participated in some of these
  discussions, but for the most part it was Seward, Lord
  Blake and Regina chatting away as they had on a few
  occasions in Cairo. If the two newcomers seemed taken
  aback by a woman’s participation in these discussions of
  supposedly male matters, they kept their comments to
  themselves. Regina would have liked to believe they were
  awed by the vigor of her own personality, but she knew
  that in all likelihood they were but taking their cue from
  their superiors in the matter.
  A few times, Seward tried to move the conversation
  onto matters more grave. What had finally happened to
  Lady Blake? What arrangements were being made? Who
  were these visitors he had spied upon his arrival? Lord
  Blake would have none of it. He made cursory answers,
  but always returned the conversation to politics,
  economics and military affairs.
  The Ducheski kin, for their part, kept well away.
  They continued to use the north wing as their preserve
  and while a few of their servants came and went down
  the halls near the drawing room in which the Blakes and
  their guests chatted, neither Eleanor, Thomas, nor Gareth
  made an appearance. All the better, Regina thought.
  ***
  
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  bubbled up and caused flashes of heat. She tried her best
  not to run along the hall and down the stairs—Quiet, lest
  you wake Father.
  ***
  Gareth Ducheski watched Regina Blake from the
  shadows. Standing stock still in the darkened corner of
  the upstairs hall not twenty paces from the door to the
  young lady’s bedchamber, he’d listened with some interest
  to her whispers to her lover. That wastrel of an
  Englishman had passed directly in front of Gareth without
  noticing him, so focused was the lieutenant on the
  passions in his loins. Gareth hated the stink of that man,
  full of pride and hunger for things he felt the world owed
  him. A bastard son unless he missed his guess, or perhaps
  the last child of a poor pseudo-aristocrat who could just
  barely scrape together the twelve hundred pounds to buy
  his boy a commission in the cavalry. Pathetic. Gareth
  only hoped that Her Majesty’s Army had taught him to
  fight, so that he could at least enjoy killing the boy.
  The lady behind the thin wall to which Gareth
  pressed his back, however, was a far more interesting
  flower. He remembered well the scent of her on the
  drawing room chair. That scent had drawn him here
  tonight, the predator’s instinct that she would be fruit
  ripe for the picking.
  And how true his instinct had been! He’d arrived
  not a half-hour ago to the delicious aroma of rising blood
  and engorging labial folds. His keen hearing had made
  him privy to her moans and tremors as forbidden thoughts
  gave way to heated explorations. He could hear the slip
  of fabric on heated skin, of palms on stimulated flesh, the
  sudden inhalation of pleasures discovered. He had been
  mere moments from proceeding to the next phase—
  seasoning his prize with a dash of fear—when that
  A knock.
  Suddenly overcome with shame and the fear that it
  might be her father, Regina ran to the door to make sure
  it was locked. “Who is it?” she asked through the wood,
  trying and failing to keep her voice from sounding frantic.
  “Darling, it’s me.” A shudder went through Regina
  at the sound of Malcolm’s voice. What would he think
  were he to enter and find her naked and flushed? What
  would he do? Embarrassment and forbidden pleasure
  fought for control over her. “Let me in,” he said.
  “No… Father wouldn’t allow it.” Her stage whisper
  carried through the door and she turned the lock, which
  caught with an audible click. “He… he’s had more than
  enough to deal with.”
  “He is asleep, darling. I must see you.”
  “Not here, Malcolm. He’s bound to wake.”
  “Where then?”
  Regina searched her memory for some safe haven.
  Milton had yet to return from Gables Heath where he
  had brought Mary—no doubt Father had asked him to
  watch over the poor girl for a night before coming back.
  “The coach house. It will be empty. Meet me there in a
  quarter-hour. Hurry, before Father wakes.”
  She heard him walk off with a final invocation that
  was reduced to a mumble by the wood between them and
  his haste to leave. She scurried to the bed and slipped on
  her shift again and then a housecoat and slippers as well.
  She did her best to cancel out the marks of thrashing and
  sleep on her, pulling a brush through her hair and dabbing
  her face with a washcloth at the basin. She tied her hair
  back with the silk ribbon Malcolm had given her that
  night on the Nile and pinched her cheeks to bring some
  color to them.
  All these minute tasks of womanhood served to focus
  Regina’s attention somewhat, but she was well aware of a
  tense heat building within her. Sudden recollections of
  the desire to which she had so recently abandoned herself
  
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  the forbidden nature of their encounter, which made each
  breath sweeter.
  When they finally broke that initial embrace, they
  collapsed onto Milton’s simple bed in the corner of the
  room. Malcolm lay on his back and she curled next to
  him. She savored the simple joy of being with him and
  felt the undercurrent of passion long denied building
  anew.
  “I’ve missed you, Regina, more than you can know.”
  To hear an admission like that from a man of the world
  like Malcolm was a little shocking, but heartening as well,
  for she certainly had felt the same. To read sentiment in
  letters was one thing, to hear it coming from his very lips
  was another. It was his honesty that Regina loved most
  and his understanding that she would not stand for
  pretense. “The fighting in Sudan has been very difficult.
  There’s been a great deal of blood shed….”
  “Shh, my love.” She touched his lips with her
  fingertips and turned to face him. “You are here now.”
  He smiled. “Yes, yes, of course. I am a fool at times,
  my darling, to burden you with my troubles at a time such
  as this. Lady Blake was of the kindest sort and was so
  good to me and the men in Cairo. I… I’m so, sorry.”
  “Thank you.” She lay with her head on his chest,
  listening to the beating of that beloved heart for long
  minutes. To speak more seemed unnecessary. She just
  wanted the warm safety of his company, the assurance of
  being with one who understood. Malcolm seemed to feel
  the same, for he did not speak either for a long time.
  It was Regina who finally broke the comfortable
  silence. “I wish we could still marry, Malcolm.”
  “We shall, my love,” he said, “only later than we
  had both hoped. It would be wrong to bring so joyous an
  occasion in conflict with the proper mourning of one so
  loved as Lady Blake. We must wait.”
  “I know, but waiting is like a stabbing pain to me,
  Malcolm. Father is folding in upon himself and the house
  weak-chinned Lieutenant Seward had come up the stairs
  on his own illicit journey.
  Gareth had waited for the two lovers to exchange
  their whispers and now, at last, Regina emerged from the
  room to head downstairs to find her laughable paramour.
  His prize so close at hand, the shriveled root between his
  legs leapt to its twisted, painful fullness, but still he waited.
  They were headed outside, where they would be safely
  away from prying eyes, where he could play with them
  more freely.
  Lady Regina vanished down the hall stairs and
  Gareth allowed himself a smile. He would have his fruit
  tonight. Yes, indeed.
  ***
  Regina made it outside reasonably sure she hadn’t
  woken the house, and trotted across the frozen grounds,
  clutching her winter cape tightly. It was a cold winter
  night marked by only a touch of damp, but Regina felt
  only the heat in her blood as she wound her way down
  the darkened path toward the abode of Milton the
  coachman.
  She found no lights on at the coach house, but when
  she tried the door into the simple quarters there, it was
  unlocked and slipped open without even a creak. As soon
  as she entered, she saw the faint light of an oil lamp turned
  low in the corner and spied Malcolm’s silhouette near it.
  He increased the flame slightly and she saw him there,
  dressed in light clothing, having already stoked the small
  oven to create some warmth. He was beautiful.
  “Darling,” she said and ran into his arms. Away from
  the eyes of propriety, they searched for and found each
  other’s lips in short order and shared the deepest of kisses.
  His arms curled around her back, lifting her into him as
  her lips parted to accept his tongue. She clutched at his
  hair and head, welcoming his warmth. She thrilled to
  
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  thoughts gone from her head, she bucked slightly, arching
  her back to push more tender flesh toward his probing
  fingers. His collar came loose, exposing muscular and
  downy chest for her hungry mouth. She kissed along his
  collarbone to the divot at the top of his sternum. Her
  tongue momentarily tasted cold metal as it passed over
  an iron bull’s-head pendant Malcolm wore, but she spit
  aside without a second thought.
  His hand stroked up her thigh till there was thigh
  no more, and she gasped in response, blood pumping
  through her veins so loudly that she did not hear her own
  exclamation. That was enough to loose his own fiery lust,
  it seemed, for before she could even react, his strong arms
  were flipping her over onto her back and he was atop
  her, her head pressed tightly against the wall of the
  coachman’s quarters. Her skirts were up to her waist and
  her legs wrapped around him trying to pull him within.
  She felt his swollen organ pressing through his breeches
  onto her most sensitive flesh and cries of pain and delight
  escaped from her throat.
  He moved down her neck, opening both housecoat
  and shift, his hands roughly grabbing her breasts and his
  mouth licking and biting her flesh. Desire raged within
  her, and her heart was fit to explode. Then, instead of
  rising up her body anew, he yanked her lower under him
  like a hungry animal ready to be sated. At that moment,
  she wanted nothing more than to be his prize, so when
  he bent to roughly bite at the flesh of her neck, she pushed
  herself into his manhood while raising her head to
  accommodate his bites.
  She saw a silhouette at the open door of the coach
  house.
  is full of cousins each more distant and ill-tempered than
  the last. I feel myself going mad already.”
  “I cannot account for your cousins, darling, but I
  know your father to be a good and strong man. He will
  come through well enough, as will you I’m sure. And I
  shall not be so far away, my love, for I think assignment
  in London is in my near future.”
  “Truly? On what account? I thought you were to stay
  in Egypt or even India…”
  “Ha,” he interrupted. “Your father has been gossiping,
  I see. Yes, there was talk of the East Indies, but I have
  friends in many regiments and they have let it be known
  that I could have a post more close at hand if need be.
  And seeing you, my love, tells me that need is.”
  “Oh, joy!” She did not wait for his embrace to come,
  but took it for herself, turning to find his lips anew. She
  felt him start for a second and then respond, and it was as
  if the dams of prudence were breaking like some rotted
  wall before a flood. Her body lay atop his like a blanket,
  pressed as close as could be without shedding clothing.
  She felt not only his heart, but his entire body moving
  and responding to her own.
  Such intimate, proximate contact was hardly the
  purview of proper young women and Regina had only
  ever been so close to a man in half-remembered dreams,
  but instinct filled the gap left by inexperience. Her thighs,
  pressed against his midriff, felt him swell with envy, and
  they responded as if on their own, writhing to
  accommodate his manhood. Wanting, needing to feel
  more, she let her lips descend to her beloved’s neck and
  kissed the salty, stubbly flesh there. A gasp escaped his
  lips and his hands moved down her back, finding her sides,
  thighs and rear.
  Regina slipped her hands to Malcolm’s chest to undo
  the jacket that tied at his neck. For his part, he reached
  down and gathered up the skirts of her chemise and
  housecoat, finding her bare flesh for the first time. All
  
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  fed from her slit wrist just a few hours ago, so her leash
  around his heart was tight indeed. More importantly, she’d
  spied something of interest down the lane and she had
  little time to waste.
  ***
  Gareth loved the hunt, especially out here in the
  country. London’s alleys and lanes provided him with
  some sport among those who would not be missed, but
  the chances of unwelcome witnesses and other
  distractions limited his opportunities. Even a Limehouse
  whore might attract the attention of a foolishly curious
  passerby and that meant a second body to dispose of. Now
  Gareth certainly had no objections to a second trophy,
  but such things could easily get out of hand and before
  long one was looking at massacre rather than murder.
  But the country! In the country he could let his prey
  run and scream and plead. Already delicious Regina was
  heading for the coach house and from there it was not far
  to acres of farmlands and fields quiet as the grave. And
  the fop of a lieutenant was no trouble, because he would
  make for an interesting motivation for his nubile
  paramour.
  The possibilities played themselves out in Gareth’s
  imagination while he followed Regina at a discreet
  distance. Perhaps he would cut out Seward’s weak heart
  and show it to the young lady. That had worked very well
  two years ago with that Welsh couple in Brixton, after
  all. Would it be too much to actually eat the poor hussar’s
  heart before moving on to Lady Regina? That would be a
  new twist on matters.
  Gareth cursed under his breath when he realized his
  prize had already entered the coach house. Too distracted
  by future possibilities, he’d lost track of present necessities.
  He imagined Aunt Eleanor’s raspy voice scolding him.
  Chapter Six
  Victoria Ash’s carriage, hired out near the train
  station in Durham, made its way down Bernan Lane. The
  coachman—a mountainous mulatto named Cedric—had
  accompanied his mistress from London along with her
  maid Theresa and he kept a careful eye on these two horses
  as they pulled the vehicle forward in the dark. The moon
  was up, thank Providence, but Bernan House had none
  of the gaslights of London to chase away the dark and
  the winter chill was deadening. They advanced into the
  blackness of night between two barely seen rows of elms.
  He only hoped the lane did not take any sudden turns,
  lest he end up pushing the carriage out of the
  Northumberland muck. If he had longed for the country
  life, Cedric would have stayed in Jamaica.
  “This is far enough, Cedric.” Miss Ash’s voice easily
  carried to his ears, despite the clip-clop of the horse team,
  the crunch of frozen gravel under steel-banded wheels,
  and the wood frame between cabin and driver’s seat.
  Cedric suspected that no barrier could truly stop him from
  hearing his mistress’s voice and he was right.
  In fact, Victoria had not spoken aloud at all, simply
  mouthed the words she wished her servant to hear. She
  was constantly aware of him, and of his unquestioning
  devotion to her. The carriage slowed and then stopped.
  “Wait here,” she said—aloud this time—after she
  descended from the carriage. “If I do not return by dawn,
  proceed to the house.”
  “Yes, ma’am.”
  Victoria did not spare him a backward glance as she
  proceeded afoot the last few hundred yards toward the
  grounds of the house proper and its entourage of stables,
  coach houses and other subordinate buildings. She knew
  very well Cedric would sit ramrod straight until she called
  him anew or the day’s light emerged from the east. He’d
  
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  shimmering from one place to another than a solid person.
  Only the faint whisper of robes shifting and gravel being
  kicked aside told him she was material at all, until he felt
  a quick knock at is right hand and a sharp pain in his gut.
  He looked down to see his own knife sticking out of his
  stomach.
  “Get to bed, boy,” the vampiress said, now standing
  a good ten paces away. “It is late.”
  Gareth collapsed. He smelled his own blood on the
  air.
  ***
  Victoria could feel sharp canines pressing out of her
  palate and longed for the taste of blood. The ghoul, surely
  one of the inbred degenerates who infested these parts,
  would survive if she left him be. He had fed on his master’s
  vitae copiously and it would heal the stab wound she had
  inflicted given a bit of rest. It would be easy to slit an
  artery right now and drink deep of him, sending him into
  a well-deserved grave and sating her own hunger for the
  time being. Yes it would be very easy—
  No. He was the thrall of another of her kind and
  vampires rarely took well to spiteful assassinations of well-
  trained slaves. No, he would be on his way and she could
  deal with the repercussions of hurt feelings. Let the little
  ghoul stew in his evident hate, she had better things to
  do. Like head for the coach house where Emma Blake’s
  child was hiding.
  Victoria walked to the isolated house near the stables
  at a more moderate pace than she had used with the ghoul.
  With every step, she focused her keen senses on the house.
  She could hear whispered conversation easily, but the
  night air carried other sensations. Passion. Desire. Fear.
  They blended into a heady soup that delighted Victoria.
  Getting within a few yards of the house, she
  concentrated a little further. The emotional waves lapped
  Concentrate on actions, she would say, not imaginings. He
  hurried toward the darkened coach house—
  Only to be stopped a few paces later by a strong hand
  on his shoulder.
  “Excuse me,” said a woman’s melodious voice, “but
  perhaps you had better leave them alone.”
  Gareth had already turned around by the time she
  completed her sentence, and in fact he had intended to
  lash out at whoever this interloper was. Instead he found
  himself looking straight into the deep eyes of a true beauty.
  Much more so than little Lady Regina, this redheaded
  woman, in her fine gown and evening shawl, with her
  hair in perfect little ringlets of crimson, was a rare prize.
  Like a piece of cold porcelain.
  Absently, in some part of his mind not quite so
  enraptured with this beauty, he wondered just how she
  had appeared behind him so suddenly, but that didn’t seem
  terribly important. No, all that mattered was scenting this
  new prize. Gareth called on all the hunter’s senses Master
  Wellig had granted him and inhaled sharply.
  He nearly gagged. Her scent was subtly sweet, like a
  rosewater bath or beeswax candles, but it carried an
  undercurrent of cold earth. It was the hint of things dead
  that clings to gravestones and swamps, the remains on a
  blade no matter how well oiled. It was the master’s smell,
  and that of all his inner circle of unbreathing and unliving
  acolytes and worthies. This woman—this creature—was
  a vampire. And a vampire unknown to him could mean
  only that she was a threat to the master.
  That thought broke the spell her gaze had put on
  Gareth—no lust could be greater than his devotion to
  the master. He smiled then and in one fluid motion drew
  his long hunting knife and struck. It took him a second
  to realize the woman was no longer there.
  In the instant it took his blade to travel out, she had
  circled to his left. She moved so quickly that she appeared
  even to Gareth’s impressive senses more like a mirage
  
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  Malcolm sought no cover but instead stood between
  the bed and the door as his beloved’s protector. How could
  a man go from hungry animal to stalwart gentlemen in
  naught but a heartbeat, Regina wondered.
  “Who is there?” he demanded. The figure was in the
  dark of night and barely visible. “Show yourself!”
  Regina did not quite see the newcomer’s entrance,
  for Malcolm blocked her from the door, so she had to
  read the surprise and awe in the sudden softness of his
  posture. What had been a military man’s garde-à-vous
  became a boy’s surprise. He took a step back and to the
  side and Regina saw, in the low light of the single oil
  lamp, the most beautiful creature she had ever known
  stride slowly into the coach house.
  The woman was taller than Regina, with hair of a
  red that spoke of Irish or Scots blood. In another woman,
  such ruddy locks might have marred her beauty, but not
  with her. Indeed, that hair was short and expertly curled
  to frame her fine, rich features. She wore a gown in the
  style of Regina’s mother’s or grandmother’s day, but it
  seemed not at all outdated on her, with its flowing skirts
  beneath a tight bodice that itself rose to a low, open collar.
  Her breasts, white porcelain orbs, were exposed
  practically—but not quite—to the aureoles. A choker of
  black or emerald was at her throat, centered on a cameo
  of ivory or bone that held the image of a black rose. But
  all this was merely a fine frame for the twin masterpieces
  that were her eyes. It seemed to Regina that they caught
  the wan light and reflected it back a hundred-fold,
  sparkling between blue and green.
  She knew she could lose herself in those eyes.
  “Forgive me,” the woman said in a lilting voice
  Regina associated with singers of operetta, “but I seem to
  have lost my way. I’m sorry for interrupting your sleep.”
  This beautiful stranger must have known, even if she
  had not been watching for more than a second, that sleep
  was not what she had interrupted. Regina felt a pang of
  up against her with a salty caress and she responded. The
  hot blood that sat in her cold, dead veins began to
  circulate, creating a current that caught those same waves
  and sent them back stronger. She felt the paramours’
  desires becoming overwhelming, cracking through the
  carefully constructed dikes of propriety and decorum.
  She pushed the door open and found them in a deep
  embrace. The heart of the moment came in tall breakers,
  smashing against her and returning to the two young
  lovers as a spray of carnal want. For the first time in nearly
  ten years, Victoria took a sudden, involuntary breath. She
  felt her skin, normally cold as marble, grow flushed and
  then paradoxically pucker with goose bumps.
  She absentmindedly undid her shawl and let it drop
  to the floor, but she could not take her eyes off the
  beautiful, unrestrained display on the bed across the small
  room. This young lieutenant whom she had so casually
  dismissed on the train from London seemed transformed
  by the presence of the beauty who had her bare legs
  wrapped about him.
  Victoria shifted just slightly to the left so as to better
  see the girl’s features. Another inhalation. Emma had been
  a rare flower in her nights in London, but young Regina
  was exceptional. A prize above prizes.
  Look to me, Victoria mouthed to the girl. And she
  did.
  ***
  Regina’s sudden scream broke the spell of her and
  Malcolm’s passion and he understood almost instantly
  that they had been seen. He quickly rose off the bed and
  covered her by throwing over her the blanket they had
  lain upon. Not the best pretense of virtue, but it would
  have to do, and Regina clutched it to herself as if it were
  as infallible as a nun’s habit.
  
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  guilt, but it faded before it could take hold. Indeed, the
  fires that this mysterious lady’s arrival should have
  quenched with icy shame, instead returned to the young
  aristocrat. The red-haired woman looked straight at her,
  half-naked below a thin coarse blanket and she felt her
  heart pound. Her right leg, still mostly exposed to the
  air, moved up and Regina delighted to the friction. She
  could not look away.
  “I am looking for Bernan House,” the mysterious
  woman said, without a hint of the fire she was stoking. “I
  wish to pay my respects.”
  “I… I will show you,” said Malcolm.
  “That would be very gracious of you, sir.”
  She looked away from Regina to take Malcolm in and
  his betrothed felt a sudden shiver run through her as the
  extent of her current position finally came to her. As had
  long been her custom, Regina covered her shame with
  words and questions. “Who… who are you, madam?”
  “Forgive me,” she said with a smile. “I am Miss
  Victoria Ash. I was a friend of your mother’s in London
  and came as soon as I heard of her tragic fate.”
  “Yes, Miss Ash, this way.” Malcolm grabbed his jacket
  and led her out the door and toward the house, leaving
  Regina to make her own way. It took Regina until she
  was fully clothed to let go of the pique that had grabbed
  her at being discarded thus and realize the full
  consequences of being caught in such a condition. This
  could very easily mean her ruin, and still she felt more
  jealous than mortified. It took her until she was at the
  house to realize she was as jealous of Malcolm for taking
  Miss Ash from her, as she was of Miss Ash for taking
  Malcolm.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/Vampire/Vampire (oWoD)/World of Darkness (WoD)/oWoD/Novels/Vampire/Vampire - Victorian Age - A Morbid Initiation (Novel).pdf