How could she know from her heart and soul? Anything would be only a guess—
No, from what Raven had told her, she was convinced it was right. She believed in herself.
Lady Brookshire’s eyes twinkled. “You must call me Althea. All my very good friends do.”
“Thank you, Althea. And you are right. I do feel certain about this,” she said firmly.
“If you believe you are correct, that is enough for me,” Lord Brookshire said.
A footman ran up to them, breathing hard, his wig askew. “My lord, your carriage is waiting.”
“Come.” Sebastian de Wynter put his arm across Ophelia’s shoulders and gently turned her in the direction of the foyer. “Let us rescue Ravenhunt and his sister.”
But Harry grasped her hand. “Ophelia, do you care for Ravenhunt? Even though he took you prisoner?”
She nodded. “I love him.” She touched her brother’s arm. “You mustn’t destroy him. He is not bad. He’s changed. You don’t have to take just my word for it. Lady Brookshire is convinced he has.”
“He was bitter and angry,” Harry said. “He assassinated vampires, preying on them as he did on mortals. For that, the Royal Society let him live. It was advantageous to them to. But Frederica—his sister—believed he had changed after his fiancée died.”
“He was engaged?”
“Before he became a soldier. According to Frederica, he was madly in love with Lady Margaret Primworth, but she died, and he went off searching for battles.”
Heavens. That was why he had become a soldier. That was what he’d wanted to forget: losing the woman he loved.
Was that why he was willing to be destroyed now? Was he still in love with Lady Margaret? Jade had kept him from ever reuniting with his lost love, even in the afterlife, by giving him immortality.
Ravenhunt had been kept here as a prisoner. He had been forced to do this woman’s bidding. He had been forced to kill for her.
Ophelia’s heart clenched as she alighted from the carriage. They had stopped at the end of the street on which Queen Jade had her house. As they gathered in the shadows—Althea, Brookshire, de Wynter, her brother, and her—Ophelia peered down the block. The block consisted of a row of new townhomes. The fronts were of white stone, the windows clean, the railings freshly painted black.
Lord Brookshire, tall and blond, rested his crossbow on his broad shoulder. His black greatcoat snapped around his legs, lifted by the breeze. “This is how we will get into the house. Jade will have it heavily guarded and her servants will be both mortal and vampire. She no longer needs anything from you, Ophelia, which puts you in danger when you go in.”
Althea shook her head. Moonlight glinted on her large eyes. “I do not think that is true, my husband,” she whispered. “Why was Ravenhunt sent to take her power?”
“Jade wants it.”
“True,” Althea answered. “And she has forced Ravenhunt to return to her. I have conversed with Guidon, and he has explained the rules of this transfer of power. Ravenhunt needs love to survive when he gives the power to Jade. I think Jade was in love with Ravenhunt.”
Ophelia gasped, but it made sense. They had been lovers once. “You mean Jade wants him back. Could her love save him?”
“Not if he does not return it,” Althea said. “He needs true, unconditional love. Both received and given. That is why she cannot hurt you.”
“Because he would hate her if she did, do you mean?” Ophelia asked.
Suddenly she saw the truth. She had survived giving up her power. What a fool she had been. The very fact she survived must mean he loved her.
“She may need you to save him,” Althea answered softly.
Ophelia suddenly understood. “Then she will take him for herself. But until he gives the power and survives it, she does need me.”
“That is exactly what I am thinking,” Sebastian de Wynter said. “She will not hurt you.”
But she had no idea how to attack a vampire queen or how to break into a house. Though she had experience in breaking out. “I could be a distraction,” she said. “I could demand to see Ravenhunt. Just knock on the door and say I have come for him. They might let me in and they might take me to him.”
“It is very dangerous,” Althea warned.
“The risk is too high,” Harry said gruffly. “I won’t allow it.”
De Wynter looked to Althea. “What do you think, my dear? Too dangerous?”
Althea let out a fierce breath. “I think it would work. I would go with you. They would not see me as a threat. I could easily convince a queen that we females decided to do this alone, and we snuck away from the men to come.”
“No, as head of my household, I forbid this—”
“I promise you, Darlington, I will not let your sister be hurt,” de Wynter vowed. “And it would give us a good opportunity to get in. If Lady Ophelia, Ravenhunt’s beloved, is on Jade’s doorstep, I guarantee she will be distracted.”
Ravenhunt’s beloved. She had realized she might truly be loved by him. Althea had been right. She didn’t believe in herself, and she must.
“I think it will work,” Althea declared.
“I am not happy about it, either,” Brookshire protested. “I know, however, my worries won’t stop my wife. All right.”
Althea linked her arm. “Have courage.” Together they hurried down the street. It didn’t matter if they were seen, since they wanted to be a distraction. Ophelia was first up the steps and she put out her hand to halt Althea. “Wait at the bottom, please. I don’t want you to be in danger.”
“No, we are in this together.”
She had never had a friend. It was a heart-warming, wonderful thing. Ophelia grasped the knocker, and slammed it hard against the door. She would believe in herself. Believe there could be a happy ending and she would make it happen.
The door slowly creaked open. Yet she didn’t lose her nerve. Ravenhunt was in there and she must get to him.
She expected a footman, not a young blond man with long hair tied back with a velvet ribbon—hair that reached his hips. He wore no shirt, but he was dressed in black trousers and boots. Straps of leather wrapped around his bare biceps.
“I think,” Althea whispered, “we can guess exactly what sort of woman Jade is.”
Ophelia could not comment. Her mouth gaped open. Another young man stood inside the foyer, in the stance of a servant, and he was equally scantily dressed.
“We wish an audience with the queen,” Althea said.
“Yes.” Ophelia found her voice. After going to that naughty club with Ravenhunt, she couldn’t be shocked. Certainly not at the very moment she had to be brave.
“Her Highness is not receiving,” the young man said. The door began to close.
Ophelia stuck her booted foot in it. No, she was not going to be beaten by a shirtless footman and a door. “She will see me. I am the only woman who can save Ravenhunt. Tell her that and I know she will insist I am brought to her at once.”
His eyes seemed to roll back into his head. The blue irises vanished, replaced by whites. He jerked and trembled. Then he stopped twitching, and his eyes became normal again. He bowed briefly to her and Althea. “You may come with me.”
Eight doors led off the octagon-shaped foyer. The servant strode to the one directly opposite the front door. She and Althea went through the door, held open by the blond, and Ophelia gave a cry of surprise.
Two men waited in the corridor on the other side. They wore only loincloths slung low on their hips. They were hewn of solid muscle, and their hair flowed long over their shoulders and down their backs. The ends of their hair brushed the firm, rounded shape of their rumps beneath the cloths.