“My hero,” I sighed.
About Terri Garey
A Southern girl with an overactive imagination, TERRI GAREY grew up in Florida, always wondering why tropical prints and socks with sandals were considered a fashion statement. She survived the heat by reading in the shade, and watching cool shows like The Twilight Zone and the classic gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Born too late to be a hippy and too early to be a Goth, Terri did the logical thing and became a computer geek.
Balancing a career with marriage and motherhood convinced her that life was too short to rely entirely on the left side of her brain, and quirky ideas about life among the undead began to replace the dry logic of computers. Deciding imagination was her best weapon in the war against reality, Terri dove even deeper into the world of the unexplained and started writing her own demented tales from the dark side. Her debut novel, Dead Girls Are Easy, was released in September 2007 and will be followed by the sequel, A Match Made in Hell, in July 2008. She still lives in the Sunshine State with her husband and three children and still refuses to wear tropical prints or socks with sandals.
Visit Terri Garey on the web at www.tgarey.com or
www.harpercollins.com/TerriGarey.
THE WEDDING KNIGHT
Kathryn Smith
Chapter 1
London, 1879
“And of course you know that Violet is to be married next week.”
Payen Carr froze, a large bite of rare steak halfway to his mouth. He raised his head to smile pleasantly—falsely so—at the elderly woman across the table. “Who?”
Lady Verge fixed him with a vaguely chiding expression, as though she thought him deliberately obtuse—which, of course, he was. “Violet Wynston-Jones, the Earl of Wolfram’s ward. You do remember dear Violet, do you not?”
Payen shoved the steak into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, savoring the rich juices as they embraced his tongue. Remember “dear” Violet? Damn it all, he couldn’t seem to forget her. She was the reason he had left England five years ago, and now on his first night back in the city, she was the first subject he heard spoken of. He began to cut another slice of meat.
Married. Good. At least she hadn’t been sitting around pining for him as he’d feared. Not pining at all if she had met someone she liked the look of enough to marry. Enough to share a bed with.
“Payen.”
Who was she marrying? Some rich young buck, no doubt. Handsome, he’d wager. Human—that went without saying. And probably hung like a stallion.
“Payen!”
He looked up just as his dinner plate shattered. He had driven his knife right through the fine china. Oh, hell. Shame-faced, he met Lady Verge’s wide blue gaze. “Sorry, old girl. Wasn’t paying attention.”
“I’d say it is safe to assume that you do remember Miss Wynston-Jones after all.”
A gentleman should remember the women whose beds he shared, especially the virgins. Especially those named Violet.
“Of course I remember the girl.”
Lady Verge watched him with a gimlet gaze, her eyes unnaturally bright in her pale, English rose complexion. He had met and befriended Lord Verge some forty years past and remained a friend right up until the man’s death eight years ago. The most painful drawback of immortality was watching one’s friends age and die. Once, Payen had determined to never befriend a human again. That resolve hadn’t lasted more than ten years—a damn sight longer than most vows he made.
One vow he took very seriously was his promise to look after Margaret—Lady Verge—not that she needed his assistance. She was one of the few humans who knew that he was a vampire. At first she’d been a little afraid of him, and more than a little disgusted, but once she’d realized that he wasn’t some undead fiend, preying on children, and came to know him as a person, she accepted him as her husband’s friend, and her own. Payen had never bothered to tell her that he was part demon, turned that way by willingly drinking from a chalice that contained the essence of the Vampire Queen, Lilith. He had done so to protect that same chalice from others who would use it for some unknown dark purpose, but that didn’t change the fact that as a “child” of Lilith he had been cursed to walk in darkness by the Almighty. It was a long story, as most of the good ones were, and he really didn’t want this church-going woman thinking he was an affront to her God.
“I take it that you have not been invited to the happy occasion?”
“Must have gotten lost in the post.”
“Yes,” she agreed politely. “It must have, indeed.”
Appetite now lost, his plate in ruins, Payen placed his knife and fork neatly together across the ruined china and dabbed at his mouth with his snowy white napkin. “Miss Wynston-Jones’s fiancé, is he a good man?”
“He is.” Damn it all, that wasn’t sympathy in her eyes, was it? Because it shouldn’t be there—wouldn’t be there if she knew that he had robbed Violet’s soon-to-be husband of his wedding night prize. And no one knew that he and Violet had shared a bed one glorious night. No one but the two of them.
“They had their photograph taken for the engagement. Perhaps after dinner you would like to see it?”
No. He’d rather eat this broken plate. Rather stick this fork into the soft, squishy part of his eye. “Of course.”
After a dessert he barely tasted—it might have been dirt for all he knew—Payen followed his hostess to her favorite parlor—the one dripping in lace and painted the most nauseating shade of powdery pink—and sat while she poured them both a glass of sherry. His mind remained focused on the same topic during the entire ordeal.
His Violet was getting married.
That meant she wasn’t his anymore. That was supposed to be a good thing. It was. It was a bloody good thing.
Margaret—he was never to call her Maggie, or worse, Peg—joined him on the sofa a few moments later with a glass of sherry, which might as well be water as far as the effect it would have on him—and a small framed photograph. Despite the wine’s lack of potency, he took a drink before looking at the picture.
Black, white and gray did nothing to capture the essence of Violet, yet there she was all the same. A kick in the chest would have affected him less. In a tightly fitting gown with a demure square neckline and lace at the elbows, and her thick hair piled up on top of her head, she looked every inch the proper young woman. Only he knew there was nothing demure about her, nothing at all. But where was the gleam in her eye that he so adored? Why wasn’t she smiling and turning her cheeks into little apples he so loved to nibble upon? She looked so serious, so mature. He may as well be looking at a stranger with black hair, gray eyes, and pale gray skin, garbed in yet more gray. This was not his vibrant Violet.
And he blamed the equally colorless man seated in front of her.
The fiancé—he didn’t even know the boy’s name, and didn’t care to—was just that, a boy. He might have been five and twenty at best—just a few years younger than Payen had been when he drank from the Blood Grail, taking his oath to protect both it and the world from the forces of evil more than seven centuries ago.
Anyone under the age of 90 was youthful as far as he was concerned. Which was why he had no business taking such an interest in Violet’s affairs.
“Her fiancé is Rupert Villiers,” Margaret remarked with forced neutrality. “Handsome, isn’t he?”
Payen shrugged, his gaze never leaving the gray girl in the photograph. “I wouldn’t know the current taste in good looks.” He looked at the boy—Villiers—once more. He had a tolerable enough face. “Is he French?”
“Heavens, no!” Margaret was one of those Brits who retained a great disdain for the French, no matter how many French dishes she served and French fashions she wore. “His family has been in England for many generations.”
Payen smiled, enjoying egging her on. “But they were French, once upon a time. De Villiers, I would imagine.”
Margaret sniffed and extended her hand for the photograph. “He’s a
lovely young man. He went to Oxford.”
“So did I,” He replied. His gaze settled on the photograph one last time, and as his old friend tried to take it, his fingers tightened on the frame. The hand-carved wood groaned. “Jesus H. Christ.”
“Ouch!” Margaret shook her hand as Payen snatched the photograph from her.
Payen ignored her. Normally he would have apologized immediately—he was nothing if not polite—but the roar of his own blood in his ears robbed him of all thought of decorum. He was on his feet, staring at the tiny detail that had somehow managed to grab his attention.
He wouldn’t have seen it if Villiers hadn’t chosen to place his hand over the one Violet set on his shoulder.
On the forefinger of the boy’s right hand was a ring. Its brightness told Payen that it was silver, but he would have known that regardless from the signet on the top. Were he human, he probably wouldn’t be able to see the detail, but he hadn’t been human since before the Villiers family stopped being French.
The boy wore the mark of the Order of the Silver Palm. It had been so long since Payen had seen it, that at first he almost hadn’t recognized it, but there it was—a reminder of why he had become what he was. A reminder of betrayals that managed to enrage him even now.
The Silver Palm had been formed by men who were once Templars—men who were supposed to be deserving of the title “knight.” It was the Order that he had vowed to protect the Blood Grail from, and it was the Order that had betrayed the Templars by spreading those horrible rumors started by King Philip of France. Because of them, many had suffered unjustly. Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master, had been burned alive. Payen had lost many friends and sometimes, he still felt that old guilt at having survived. The Blood Grail was gone—under the protection of others now—but still he existed, because he had made a promise, and as long as the Blood Grail existed—as long as there was the slightest whimper from the Silver Palm, he would go on.
So long. And it chilled him to the bone to see evidence of the group he had started to hope no longer existed. Stopped his heart to see a member of that order holding his Violet’s hand.
“Payen, my dear, whatever is the matter?” Margaret didn’t hide her concern, she never had.
He glanced at her, knowing that she had hoped to get a reaction out of him when she told him about Violet’s marriage—and that he hadn’t given her the one she wanted. “When’s the ceremony?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll be leaving at eight. Payen? Where are you going?”
He gave her the photograph. He had to hurry. He had to get there before dawn. Had to get there in time to speak to Henry and Liza, Violet’s guardians.
“Have my things sent on to Hertford, would you, Old Girl? And I shouldn’t worry about getting up early tomorrow morning.” He smiled grimly. “There isn’t going to be a wedding.”
A girl should be happy on the eve of her marriage, Violet Wynston-Jones thought as she gazed around the crowded ballroom of her guardian, the Earl of Wolfram’s Hertford Mansion. A young lady should be ecstatic that all her friends and family had gathered to witness her wed a highly suitable and handsome young man.
So why wasn’t she happy? Why was she struck by this persistent anxiety? The answer was as obvious as the longing in her breast every time she gazed at the door.
Payen wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be coming. Even if he somehow managed to arrive in time, he could never risk the sunlight to watch her get married. He didn’t love her enough.
Sunlight killed vampires.
Straightening her shoulders—her too-broad shoulders, she often complained—she forced herself to stand as tall as possible, which with the heels on her shoes and high pile of her hair, put her somewhere close to six feet. Sturdy. That was what her father used to call her before he died. Strapping. Solid. Robust.
Losing a full stone over the past two months hadn’t changed that opinion of herself either. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw a woman better suited to hard labor than the life of a lady. Though she was dressed in the height of fashion in a slim gown of violet satin that came down low over her shoulders with a tiny, ivory lace ruffle, clung to her torso and hips to froth around her legs in little frilly layers, and cascaded out behind her in a small train from a delicate, gathered bustle, she still felt every inch the same large awkward girl who had first come to live with the earl and countess—Henry and Eliza—after her parents’ passing twelve years before.
The only time she had ever not felt like that girl was when Payen Carr looked at her, and she hadn’t laid eyes on him since that fateful night five years ago.
Lifting a glass of champagne to her lips, she allowed her gaze to drift about the ballroom until it landed on the tall, pleasing form of her husband-to-be. Rupert was possessed of thick, wavy hair, bright blue eyes and a smile that could charm the devil himself. He also had a good sense of humor and an inquisitive mind, which made conversation with him a treat. With any luck, he’d be one of those men who didn’t know a virgin from a dishrag and wouldn’t notice that his bride wasn’t innocent.
Then again, after five years, maybe her hymen had grown back. She’d heard Eliza and several of her friends joking about such a thing once.
As if sensing her gaze, Rupert turned his face in her direction. His gaze locked with hers and he smiled, raising his own glass of champagne in salute before having his attention called by his aunt, Lady Gantley.
“You have the look of a morning bride,” came a familiar voice at her elbow. It was Eliza, the woman who had become a mother to her.
“Do I?” Violet took a sip of champagne before she could say anything else—such as beg the older woman to save her from her fate. Nerves. It was just nerves.
“Yes.” Since Eliza was smiling, Violet took this to be a positive thing. “Your cheeks are flushed, your eyes are bright and your hands are trembling. Premarital jitters.”
“Yes, you must be right. I am feeling rather…anxious.”
“It’s all very normal, my dear.” Eliza slipped a slender arm around her. At just over five feet, she was a tiny little pixie compared to Violet’s gargantuan self, with glossy blond hair and pale green eyes.
“I’m pleased to hear that.” Was it normal to keep hoping the vampire who stole your heart and then abandoned you would walk through the door insisting that you were making a terrible mistake? Was it normal to hope that he then would sweep you into his arms—because a man that strong could tote you around like a rag doll—and whisk you off to some dark, gothic ruin where he would ravish you for a fortnight before finally making you his forever? Because that didn’t sound normal for a bride to be thinking—not when the vampire wasn’t the man she was about to marry.
“The night before I was set to marry Henry I tried to run away,” Eliza confessed in a conspiratorial tone, with a smile that said she was glad she hadn’t succeeded. “I fashioned a rope out of my bed clothes and tried to climb down from the balcony.”
Violet turned to her in surprise, closing the space between them so as not to be overheard by nosy guests. “What happened?”
Narrow shoulders formed a tiny shrug. “I made it to the garden gate. Who do you suppose was waiting there?”
“Your father?”
Eliza shook her head, diamond and emerald earrings swaying with the gesture. “Henry.”
“He knew you were running away?”
“No. He was running away. He just came to say good-bye.” At Violet’s gasp she continued, “He could stand his mother’s interference no longer and had resolved to leave for France that night.”
“What happened? Obviously you got married.” She knew the outcome, but it was the in between that fascinated her.
“We did. We realized that what we were running away from was our families and their plans and expectations. We eloped to Gretna Green—I grew up but a few miles from there in Cumbria, as you know—and returned in time for our English wedding, already married.”
Grinning, Viol
et shook her head. “Why? You eloped, why go through the ceremony the next day?”
Eliza smiled broadly, like a delighted child. “Because we owed it to our parents who had gone through all those arrangements—but we were able to stand against their heavy-handedness as man and wife. Knowing that we were already married made the rest of it cease to matter.”
Violet had met Eliza’s parents—Henry’s too—and could only imagine the row that must have resulted. “Your mother must have wanted to paddle your backside.”
“She did, but there was nothing she could do. I wasn’t her concern anymore.”
They shared a chuckle, and when Eliza held out her arms, Violet went into them without hesitation, accepting the embrace and all the love that came with it.
“Trust your heart, my dear,” the older woman whispered in her ear. “It will never steer you wrong.”
Violet’s good humor faded, but she kept a smile pasted on her face. That was exactly what worried her. Her heart was telling her to get the bloody hell out of there and run as far away as she could.
As Eliza left her to return to her duties as hostess, Violet glanced around once more, panic building in her chest. There had to be a way to escape. A way out without disappointing everyone.
And then, as though God saw and took pity on her, the door to the ballroom was flung open. The small string quartet playing in the upper corner stopped their music, and the dancers with it. Everyone turned their attention to this new guest, who stood just inside the door, his hair mussed by the wind.
Violet’s heart stopped cold. “Oh no,” she whispered, casting a disbelieving glance heavenward. “Why did you have to answer this prayer?”
It was Payen, looking no older than he had five years earlier when he’d left her. Oh his hair was a little different—a little shorter, neater, but just as thick and golden. His eyes were the same sherry color she remembered, his lips just as exquisitely perfect, and almost too feminine. He was beauty personified—Apollo come to life. Over six feet tall, he wore evening attire in a manner that would have made angels weep. As he swept into the room, black cloak swirling behind him, he kept his attention fastened on one person—her.