Page 38 of Wynter's Bite

“Good God, no!” He couldn’t hide his horror at the idea. “You are far too weak and malnourished for that.” Attempting some semblance of humor, he added, “Besides, I cannot fit my head through the bars. Now, please, take my hand.” Reaching out once more, he was gratified to see her lips twitch with a hint of a smile.

He sighed in pleasure as her warm fingers intertwined with his. Her other hand grasped the locket around his neck, her thumb rubbing the well worn gold filigree.

“Justus,” she said softly. “I cannot believe you are here. For years I waited for you. I’d given up.” Her gaze held his, with wonder echoing his own. “I was finally convinced that you weren’t real, that the night we met in the orchard was nothing but a delusional fantasy. That I was truly mad. But here you are. Very real.” Her eyes filled with tears, then narrowed. She jerked her hand from his grasp and shuffled backward. “Why didn’t you come for me sooner? I’ve been trapped in this horrid place for eight years!”

“I was arrested the night I was to come ask for your hand. My lord had heard that you’d told your betrothed that I was a vampire.” The old pain rose to the surface. “Why didn’t you tell me you were betrothed? And why did you reveal my secret when you’d made a solemn vow not to do so?”

“I didn’t know I was betrothed until that day!” she protested, lower lip quivering as if she were on the verge of tears. “And I did not mean to breathe a word about your secret. It’s just that I’d fallen from my horse and injured my knee. The laudanum made me voice my thoughts aloud.”

“You fell?” His heart slammed against his ribs. She could have broken her neck. “Are you alright?”

She chuckled. “Physically, yes. It was only a sprain. But the medicine I was given due to said injury has done untold damage. I was declared a lunatic, rejected by my own mother and father, and you were arrested, you say? For what I said in my drugged haze?” Aching sympathy pooled in her large blue eyes. “What became of you then? Did you escape?”

He shook his head. “The penalty of revealing oneself to a mortal is death.” Her sharp intake of breath made him long to pull her into his arms. “But my lord had mercy on me and sentenced me to exile instead. I’d heard word that you’d been taken to Derbyshire to stay with a relative...”

Bethany snorted. “That’s what mother and father told everyone. To avoid gossip for where they really took me.”

Justus cursed his own stupidity. Of course Lord Wickshire would be averse to making it public knowledge that he’d packed his daughter off to an asylum. “I’d thought that the Lord Vampire of Rochester had you killed and had lied to get me away before he did the deed.” He attempted a pathetic justification for his reasoning. “Although it is forbidden to kill mortals, there are loopholes. So I temporarily abandoned my search and embarked on a foolish quest for vengeance that got other vampires killed. One deservedly so, but that’s not the point. Their blood is on my hands, and all for naught.”

Her soft warm hands covered his. “What happened?”

“My first years as a rogue vampire were miserable. To be honest, it is still not an easy life. I am constantly on the run, hiding from patrols of vampires who specifically hunt rogues. Securing meals and shelter are endless challenges. I blamed my lord for inflicting this suffering upon me, for without you, all I had left to hold onto was hatred.” The confession came tumbling out, like leaching an infection from an inflamed wound. “I gathered together a band of rogues, intent on making the Lord of Rochester suffer as I’ve suffered. Opportunity struck when at last, he fell in love.” And Justus knew all too well how foolish and desperate love could make a man. “I tried to cast suspicion on his bride so the Elders would strip him from his rank and exile him. Instead, my actions lured a Hunter to Rochester, which resulted in the deaths of two vampires. One of mine and one of his. Still, I was determined on vengeance. I kidnapped Rochester’s bride and held her hostage in exchange for a full pardon and for him to step down as Lord Vampire. And I was going to take his love away from him, to deprive him of her as he’d deprived you of me.” A bitter smile contorted his lips at the memory of the debacle he’d wrought. “Rochester offered a compromise. If I’d return his bride, I’d receive my pardon and your location, for his spies had determined that you were brought to Manchester, but not that you’d been committed. Lord knows how he managed to come by that information, but he’s always been a master of knowing everything about everyone.” And once upon a time, Justus had been the best of Gavin’s spies. Yet it seemed that the vampire who’d been his best of friends was doing just fine without him. Justus sighed and continued. “He should have killed me for the havoc and danger I brought to his land. Instead, he offered me a pardon, which I declined the moment he told me where you were, for if I’d accepted his offer I would have had to remain in Rochester under probation and would have been forbidden to go after you.”

Bethany stroked his knuckles with excruciating gentleness. “You gave up a chance to end your misery for me?”

He nodded. “I never stopped loving you. And my guilt will never abate for giving up my search for you in favor of vengeance.” His shoulders slumped. “I cannot fathom how to ask you to forgive me.”

She looked down at her feet covered in worn stockings. “After all you’ve told me, I do not know when I shall be able to contemplate forgiving you. But you said you would take me from this place. Right now, that is all I wish.”

“Oh, I will get you out of this horrid cell,” he growled. “But alas, I cannot do so tonight.”

Her chin jerked up so fast that her hair flew up around her shoulders like a cloud. “Why not?”

“If I tear these bars from the stone, people will hear.” His fists clenched on the iron bars with impotent fury. He could easily wrest them free from the red brick, but it would make a dreadful racket. “Furthermore, the Manchester vampires will know I’m in their lands. I am still a rogue, so if they find me, they will capture or kill me.”

“Heavens! You are still in danger,” she gasped. For a moment she looked as if she would object to his assistance, then a mixture of resolution and fear hardened her features. “When will you secure my release then?”

“As soon as possible,” he vowed. “I will find something to pry these bars free, then we will climb down and flee the area.”

“Where will we go?” she asked.

He paused as the magnitude and potential danger of such a trek impressed upon his consciousness. “Cornwall.”

Bethany gasped. “Cornwall? Why so far away?”

“I’ve heard word that the Lord of Cornwall often allows rogues and miscreants to take shelter with him, even become citizens.” Hope infused his words. To be able to stop running and hiding. To have a shelter to take refuge in for the day. A place to call home, a purpose. And best of all, to have Bethany in his arms. Yet there was no guarantee that the Earl of Deveril would grant him mercy. “And if we cannot settle in Cornwall, then we will find a ship bound for the Americas.”

“So far away,” she breathed. Then she squeezed his hand so tightly that he could feel a shiver wrack her body. “But we must leave soon!”

The urgency in her voice filled him with unease. “Why the rush? I understand that you are miserable here, yet you sound as if there is some pressing matter.”

“Greeves,” she said with such terror that he longed to tear through the window and pull her into his arms. “He guards the female ward at night and does atrocious things to the patients. So far, Doctor Keene has kept me safe from his attentions, even though he refuses to believe me, but the doctor is going on holiday at week’s end. And Greeves has promised to take advantage of that fact.”

Justus bared his fangs and growled. “He means to violate you?” He jerked on the bars of her window so hard that the iron shrieked. “I’ll kill him!”

Bethany nodded. “Though I do indeed wish him dead, and I do not care if that makes me a deplorable person, won’t you attract suspicion if you do him in?”

His growl deepened. “Bloody hell, you’re right. I apologize for cursing in front of you.”

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