"Oliver seems a gentle sort, for all his size," Victoria ventured. "Has he been giving you any trouble?"
"Trouble? Not him, no, my lady, trouble's the least thing he gives me. He's too accom'datin' is what he is. Always askin' what's to be done, how can he help. I say he's a green boy from the country and never been to the city before, and it shows." Verbena had moved to stand behind her mistress and began to comb through the long stream of curls. "I shudder to think what'd happen if he actu'lly saw a vampire… he'd prob'ly ask'm in for tea! Hmmph. Now, for yer debut here't'night, we must take care ye're lookin' yer best, my lady. An' I'm puttin' at least two stakes in your hair, just in th' case of runnin' into a vampire. Who knows if they're out 'n' about tonight."
"I haven't felt any sensation of their presence since we arrived," Victoria replied. "Not one cool breeze to the back of the neck except when it comes in from the sea. I'm beginning to wonder if the Tutela is here in Venice at all. And don't you always ensure that I look my best?" Victoria added with a fond smile.
She was in a happy mood tonight, the first time in a long time she felt like enjoying herself at a social event. Their first week in Venice had been slow and frustrating. They'd had to set up the household, announce their presence to any and all English expatriates, and wait for invitations.
In the evenings she'd been forced to sit in the house and practice her kalaripayattu in the parlor, for she didn't know the city well enough to patrol it in search of vampires. And there was the added complication that half of the streets were not streets but canals.
But at last Victoria had been asked to attend a gathering at none other than Lord Byron's home. She hadn't expected to have such success so quickly: a tea here, a dinner party there, before she made a connection with Byron. But apparently her mention of Dr. Polidori's untimely death had garnered her the entree into Byron's society she needed.
"Y' know I do m' best, my lady," Verbena said. "Not that it's a har'ship to make ye look beaut'ful. Ye've got that lovely skin, like a pret' pale rose, and them big green-brown eyes. An' all this hair! Who could find fault with this hair?"
"There have been times when I've thought of cutting it," Victoria confessed as her maid sectioned off a piece for her coiffure. "It gets in the way when I am fighting."
"Ye can't!" Verbena exclaimed, her blue eyes goggling like cornflowers in full bloom. "I willn't allow it, my lady. I'll find a way to dress't so it cannot fall int' your face. An' asides… if ye cut it, how can I put yer stakes in there? Nothin' to hold 'em up, then, if you cut it all off short! I know as some ladies are doin' it, but I won't let my mistress."
Verbena's chatter did not ease as she finished coiffing and dressing Victoria. This was lovely for her mistress, as it allowed her to sink into a quiet reverie that was pestered only by an occasional too-hard pull on her hair, or a pin stuck in too tightly, or a direction such as, "Now stand," or, "Raise your arms, my lady."
Unfortunately, her thoughts wanted to center on that last interlude with Sebastian in the carriage, and the way he'd looked at her when he'd said, I was giving you time to grieve.
Even now, remembering that look made her stomach feel like a ball of dough being kneaded. Not that she'd ever kneaded a ball of dough, but when she was young, she'd seen Landa, the cook at home in Grantworth House, do it with such verve and enthusiasm that she rather thought it must feel like her stomach.
But she would never stop grieving, not completely. The pain would ease, she would move on with her life—she already had, in a sense—but the grief would never completely go away. It would always mark her, somehow.
If she were different, perhaps she would find someone to love again. Widows did; it wasn't unheard-of. She suspected that her mother had developed a tendre for Lord Jellington, now, three years after Victoria's father's death.
But Victoria couldn't expect to do so.
Certainly, most people who lost a loved one would feel as if they never wanted to love again. Never wanted to go through that horrific pain of loss. But they could love again, when the grief eased. They would be able to.
Victoria couldn't.
Well, she could. It was possible and perhaps even likely that love would find her someday, as she was still young and attractive, and if her response to Sebastian was any indication, she appreciated being considered so by a man.
But she was a Venator. Her life was a patchwork of danger and deceit, night patrols, incessant hunting, violence, and matches with evil. A greater evil than most people would ever face.
Loving someone would endanger him—and endanger herself by dividing her concentration. The lies, the subterfuge, the lifestyle would pick away at and erode any chance of happiness she might imagine.
She couldn't allow herself to love—or, worse, truly worse, to be loved.
Her last words to Max had been to tell him he'd been right. He'd been right that she should not have married Phillip for all of the reasons that she now knew. Victoria would never finish grieving because she would never be able to forgive herself for marrying him anyway.
Yet, she missed the feel of a man's lips under hers, the steadiness of his embrace. The smell of masculinity and the broad height of shoulders, the race of her pulse when an attractive man looked at her like he wished to gobble her up whilst he was speaking of the weather or, as in Sebastian's case, about a secret society of vampire protectors.
She didn't have to marry, or even to love, to find pleasure in such a refuge from her world. She was a widow now, experienced in love and more experienced in life than most women her mother's age.
When she was lonely, she could find companionship with a man. Selectively, of course. Discreetly. Without the emotional attachment that could endanger them both.
She might be a Venator, a widow, a peer of Society. But she was still, and always would be, a woman too.
Being introduced at La Villa Foscarini was a most unusual experience for Victoria. Arriving at a small party where she knew no one, without a male escort, completely on her own, was something she could not do amongst the London haute ton without turning many heads and causing untold whispers of impropriety.
But Aunt Eustacia had explained that Italian Society was not nearly as rigid as that in England, and that their social mores were much more relaxed than what Victoria was used to. And this little clique of English expatriates that had become Lord Byron's miniature circle of Society were even more forgiving of accepted rules.
Still, it felt exceedingly odd to be announced as Mrs. Emmaline Withers and to face a small sea of faces that were unrecognizable to her.
In an effort to keep her identity as a Venator a secret, Victoria had agreed with Wayren's suggestion that she use an assumed name during her movements in Italian Society. Lilith most certainly knew who she was, and although many of the vampires she might encounter would recognize her name, they would not know her by sight. Thus, if Victoria were to penetrate the Tutela, she must take care not to be found out.
The consequences, as Eustacia said, were obvious.
"Mrs. Withers! How delighted we are that you could attend our little party." An energetic man, with dark hair even more curling and wild than John Polidori's had been, bolted from his seat and moved forward to meet her, keeping his limp as smooth as possible.
So this was Lord Byron, poet and, if all the rumors were true, lover extraordinaire.
He certainly had lovely hair. And a tall forehead. But he was rather short.