The Highwayman's Bite by Brooklyn Ann

Author:Brooklyn Ann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire romance, regency paranormal romance, vampire romance series, regency vampire romance, regency romance series, paranormal romance series
Publisher: Brooklyn Ann
Published: 2017-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN, Aldric was preparing to retire for the day when he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. His heart quickened with hope. Had Vivian been found? Frantic knocking assaulted the door of his study.

“Enter,” he called, wishing he could have run to the door and flung it open. But that was unseemly for a viscount.

“My lord!” Jeffries burst in, panting with exhaustion. “It’s the companion!” He gasped and braced his hand on the doorframe.

Aldric’s eyes widened with alarm at the gray pallor of the elderly footman’s face. Tamping down the urge to demand the man keep talking, he gestured to the seat before his desk. “Sit down, Jeffries and catch your breath.”

He poured his servant a glass of wine and wrestled with his impatience as Jeffries recovered from his dash up the stairs.

“What’s this about the companion?” he asked when color returned to the footman’s face. “Do you mean Madame Renarde has returned?”

“Yes, my lord!” Jeffries bobbed his head frantically. “I found her staggering down the drive. She’s very ill, I’m afraid. Burning with fever and suffering the most terrible cough.”

“And my niece?” Aldric demanded. It wasn’t that he was unsympathetic to Renarde’s plight, but his hope for Vivian’s return could not be quenched.

Jeffries shook his head. “I did not see her.”

Aldric rose from his seat. “Take me to Madame Renarde, and then organize the servants to search the grounds.”

They went down to the kitchen and Aldric gasped at the sight of Vivian’s companion. Renarde’s face was gray and gaunt, her eyes glazed, and her frame trembled as if she’d been overtaken by palsy.

“Lord Thornton,” Renarde said with a crooked smile. “I have been released due to my illness.” Then she doubled over with a hoarse, racking cough.

“And Vivian?” he asked, though he suspected the answer.

Renarde shook her head sadly. “He will have his two hundred pounds, or die in the effort. But I assure you, Vivian is doing quite well under the circumstances.” She swayed in her seat and grasped the table for balance. “There is one other thing that I must tell you in confidence.”

Despite the feverish glaze, Aldric sensed an urgency that couldn’t be denied. He dismissed the cook and the scullery maid.

Once they were alone, he leaned forward. “What is it you wish to tell me?” he asked, and that’s when he smelled the answer. Beneath the stench of sweat and sickness, there was the unmistakable odor of something familiar. Something that chilled his blood.

Madame Renarde had been in close company with a vampire. A vampire who’d known precisely who he’d stolen from when he’d taken Vivian.

A low growl built in his throat. That was how Vivian’s captor had carried off the abduction and managed to evade Aldric’s hunt for so long.

But what Madame Renarde said next was not the information Aldric already gathered by scent, but something far worse. “I know what you are, Lord Thornton.”

Aldric bared his fangs. “The bloody whoreson told you?”

The companion nodded, then exploded in another fit of coughing.

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