Spade POV
Lia spun away from Spade, and by instinct, he grabbed hold of her arm and tugged her behind him. The sword belonged to a guest, who was brandishing it at another.
"How dare you insult me in that way? You will pay for this, you bastard!"
The other man had no sword. "Everything I just said was true. Your wife is a whore and your children are soon to be following in her footsteps. You are a cheap, lying piss-artist with no honor to his name!"
The first man began to charge his defenseless opponent, who grabbed the nearest waiter and pulled him in front. Spade distantly heard Lia scream.
"No! Bennie!"
She tried to run to him, but Spade held her back. They watched as the armed man shook his head and ran at the two anyway.
Spade released Lia, but it was too late. The sword was already traveling straight through the boy and into the man. Spade rushed at the man wielding the sword as he pulled it out of the two and began to wipe the blood on his pants. Instead, Spade grabbed the blade and angled it so it went straight through the cloth and into the skin.
The man screamed and Spade took his momentary distraction to throw him against the wall. He could easily have just snapped his neck, but any man who would kill a ten year old boy deserved more.
Spade then turned to Lia. The front of her dusty pink dress was soaked in crimson and there was a streak of it across her cheek. Spade heard no heartbeat in the body she cradled. She cried raggedly, a sound that made Spade want to inflict the worst of tortures on the man who had done this.
Around them, the ballroom was emptying. Nobody wanted involvement when the police showed up. Of course they didn't. There were two, soon to be three bodies, a sobbing girl, and what everyone thought was her dangerous, vengeful husband.
"Lia," he said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. She glanced at him once and turned back to Bennie's body.
"Can you do anything, Spade? Will you do anything for him?"
"There is nothing I can do. He was gone almost the second the sword went in and I've not the cruelty to raise him any other way."
Lia nodded as another sob ripped out of her throat.
"Come. We've got to go before the coppers come."
Lia stood and let Spade wrap the small body in his jacket. He picked it up and they walked out to the carriage. The driver took one look at them and yelled.
"Bloody hell!"
Spade looked the man in the eye, his eyes lighting. "Drive to number 16 Montague Street, Whitechapel. There is no blood and there is no body."
Spade set the tiny boy on one seat, handed Lia up, and sat next to her. The carriage began to move. It jerked to one side and Lia was thrown into him. She didn't move away, but instead buried her face in his shoulder.
"I knew this would happen. I knew it."
"You did all you could to prevent it. If it still happened, there was nothing more you could do." He wrapped an arm around her.
"Mr. Mason is going to kill me. It was my fault Bennie…" She trailed off, not wanting to say it.
Spade offered no other condolences. It wasn't her fault, and he wanted to tell her that, but he knew that if he told her, she would sink deeper into the guilt. He concentrated instead on the feel of her in his arms, her warm breath against his neck, the scent beyond the blood and Baker. She smelled like rain and oranges.
When they arrived, Spade once again handed Lia out, lifted the body, and dismissed the carriage. When they entered the house, Addie came out of the kitchen, saw Lia's dress and the bundle in Spade's arms, and fainted. Sid and Seamus came next. Seamus wrapped and arm around Lia and led her upstairs to get changed. As she started up, she turned to Spade.
"Help Addie, will you? She's awfully pale."
Sid asked Spade what happened, if it was Baker who'd done it.
"No. Two men got in an argument and Bennie got caught in the middle of it."
"Who started it? I'll kill him!"
"There's no need. It's already been taken care of."
At that moment, Mr. Mason came down the stairs, dressed in his nightclothes. "Mr. DeMortimer? What happened? Lia's all covered in blood, but neither she nor Seamus'll say what happened-" his eyes fell on the body and he sat down heavily on the steps. "We'll see what we can do for a burial in the next few days."
Sid took the body from Spade and put it in one of the unused guest rooms. "Mr. Mason," Spade said, taking off his blood and tear-stained gloves, "I am willing to provide some or all of the money needed for a casket and a space in the cemetery."
Mr. Mason merely nodded. Spade turned away and knelt next to Addie, who was still unconscious on the floor. He discreetly cut his thumb open and let a single drop into her mouth. She woke up immediately.
"Lia, Bennie, blood- Mr. DeMortimer!"
"You're okay, Addie."
"It's not me I'm concerned with. Where's Miss Lia? Is she hurt?"
"Not physically."
"And Bennie?"
Spade said nothing, a confirmation of what Addie already knew. Tears leaked out of her eyes as Spade simply wrapped his arms around her.
Maybe he was destined to comfort crying women forever.
Lia POV
I wasn't thinking. There was nothing but waves of guilt and grief inside me, eroding any other emotion that might have existed. Once Seamus laid out my nightgown for me and left the room, I changed mindlessly; left the bloody gown crumpled on the floor, washed the remaining spots of blood from my body, snuffed the candle, and lay on my bed.
I didn't sleep. I would have been foolish to think I would get a single bit of rest that night. I stayed awake throughout the hours, the scene replaying in my mind. I started to think about how I could have saved him. In my mind, I saved him so many times, he was alive again. My mind drifted to how it could have been if it was just Spade and me, going out to a ball together. How there would have been no Baker, and I'd be wearing a brilliantly colored dress with no blood, and we'd just be Baron Charles DeMortimer and his wife, Baroness Natalia DeMortimer.
The sun began to come up as this thought entered my mind, and with the sun came reality. I was Natalia Helena Rose Lexington, near street urchin, and he was a fabulously rich baron who had the power to heal and control. I had no other dress than my plain old grey one, and Bennie was dead.
It didn't help much.
I got up, dressed in my training clothes, put up my hair, and went down to the basement. I blindly kicked and punched, not caring where I hit the bag. My knuckles bled openly and strands fell out of my braids. Every kick deepened the bruises on my feet. Maybe, if I suffered enough pain, Bennie would come back. He would accept the blood flowing from my hands and onto the stone floor, the aches that came every step I took, and maybe he wouldn't be dead anymore.
I stopped only when the pain was such that I couldn't stand anymore. Nobody came down the steps, for which I was grateful. I sat against the wall, thinking of nothing. I didn't feel the pain, but couldn't summon the energy to stand again.
I slept fitfully for hours, and when I woke my watch said it was three in the morning.
My pains had lessened in some places and increased intensity in others, but at any rate, I stood again and started all over.
The cuts in my hands split open again and scrapes deepened on my feet. The blood dripped onto the floor and I think a part of me was horrified at what I was doing to my body.
When at last someone came down, I heard nothing, but suddenly saw Spade appear, fully dressed, at the doorway, just like he had last time. I ignored him and continued to move until a last hit made the bones in my hand warp and splinter. I just stood there, panting, and leant my forehead against the bag.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up, meeting Spade's eyes.
"Everyone's worried about you."
I said nothing as he led me over to a chair in the corner. I sat and he knelt in front of me. He took my hand in his and examined the break. When he opened his mouth, I saw fangs, long and lethal. He held his wrist to his mouth and I heard the tear of his flesh as he ripped through the vein.
Spade held the bloodied skin to me. "Drink."
I cautiously took his wrist and licked the blood off. More flowed out, and I had a hard time keeping it from dripping onto my trousers. When there was no more blood left on the skin, I looked and saw that the cut was nowhere to be seen.
The cuts on my hands were sealed and the bone was mended perfectly. The bruises and scrapes on my feet were gone. I looked back at Spade and saw a swirl of green in his eyes, but then he blinked and it was gone.
"You've got to tell me now," I said suddenly.
"Tell you what?"
"What you are. Why you think you can't do everything."
He stood and fetched another chair. "You first."
"That's not fair!"
"I won't tell you otherwise." There was a hint of mischief in his eyes that seemed to have replaced the green.
"Fine," I sighed. "Full version or abridged?"
"Full, please."
I began the story. "I was born in 1838 on the outsides of Whitechapel. My mother, Mary, was the nicest woman who ever lived. I had an older brother, Archer. He was five years older than me. My father was a drunken bastard who never said a kind word to anyone. He didn't work and my mother and I had to go into the factories to make our living.
"My mother died of sickness when I was six. My father, otherwise absent in our lives, decided to make his presence known. He began to abuse Archer and me. He'd hit us if we brought his dinner cold; he'd hit us if it was too hot. Archer ran away when I was ten. He tried to bring me with him, but my father caught us. He got away but I was caught. I think my father found and killed him later anyway.
"He began bringing his whores home with him. While I cleaned, I could hear him fucking his latest one. I think he was teaching me indirectly. After about half a year after my brother left, he abandoned them and came after me. It was horrible. Some nights I wouldn't know whether he'd be coming after me with his knife or his body.
"Finally, after it had been going on for around eight months, I took my skipping rope and tied it at the bottom of my doorway. When he came for me that night, I hid in my closet. He tripped on the rope and fell unconscious on the floor. I took everything I owned and spent the rest of the year on the streets. I begged and worked odd jobs. When I came here, I was eleven years old and twenty pounds underweight. Mr. Mason said I could live here if I promised to work for him. I've been here ever since."
I looked at Spade. He was looking at me funny.
"What?"
"That's one of the most miserable childhoods I've ever heard of."
"I know. It's what I've been thinking ever since I learned that word. Your turn, now."
"I'm outlawing interruptions."
"Fine, now get on with it."
He smiled, something I'd rarely seen him do. "I was born in 1765."
"What? That was nearly a hundred years ago!"
"Ah, ah! No interruptions." I huffed and sat back in my chair.
"My father was a gambler. He lost so much of our money that I had to be married to a very rich woman named Madeleine. Even that, he gambled away. One night, he lost a great amount to the Duke of Warwick, who brought together every person he owed and got them to complain to the king. He was jailed, our estate was seized by the crown, and Madeleine left me, as my title was then worthless. My father began to weaken in Newgate, and I went to the duke as asked him to transfer my father's debt to me.
"I was put on a ship and sent with sixty-two other poor sods to the penal colonies in Australia. I'll spare you the details and just say that the journey was more miserable than anything I've ever experienced since.
"When we were in the colonies, they worked us literally to death. One day, one of my mates, Ian, ran away. Nobody thought they'd see him again. When he did return, he had an army. They freed us all, and thinking he was doing us a favor, Ian turned me and our other mates, Crispin and Timothy, into what he was."
"And what was that?" I asked. He didn't scold me this time.
"Vampires."
I must have misheard. "Did you say vampires?"
"Yes. What did you think I said?"
"Vampires. Just making sure."
Spade looked amused. "You don't believe me."
"Not really, no."
"Then come with me. I was just going out."
"All right." I wasn't really sure what I was agreeing to here.
Spade got up and I followed him, ignoring the spots of blood still on the floor. I slipped into my tall leather boots and he handed me his jacket. He picked me up and settled me on his beautiful grey mare, then swung up behind me. We started off along the deserted street.
"Here's what I don't understand. Why is it me drinking your blood when you're the vampire?"
"Because vampire blood heals. I don't need to feed very often anyway, once every one or two days maybe."
"Is that what we're going out to do now?"
"Yes."
We rode further in silence. I let myself enjoy the feeling of his hard, muscular chest against my back. The fact that he was a vampire should have repulsed me, but it didn't.
"Here we are." We dismounted at a nondescript building.
"Is this a special place to get blood?"
He cracked a grin. "No. It's an opium house."
I stayed silent after that.
I trailed after Spade as he entered the building. The only person to be seen was a Chinese man sitting behind a desk.
"How many?" He asked in a bored voice.
I looked at Spade just as his eyes lit up. "Stay quiet. When we leave, you won't remember us ever being here." He moved behind the desk, picked up the man like a rag doll, and bent his head to his neck.
I caught the tiniest flash of his fang before his mouth fastened on the skin. I saw his pale, smooth throat moving as he swallowed and his eyes came up to meet mine. The same green was swimming in his irises again.
He finished and brought his thumb to his fang, then dripped some of his own blood upon the holes in his neck. They sealed immediately.
"Do you believe me now?"
"Yes." My voice was quiet.
"Good." We exited the building and mounted his horse again.
Spade POV
Spade hadn't quite planned on this when he'd taken a detour downstairs on his way out the door. He'd hated the sight of Lia inflicting such pain on herself. He'd loved the feeling of her mouth taking his blood in, healing her. And he didn't think she knew it, but when she'd looked back up at him, her eyes had been so full of heat that his blood had burned to go lower. When she'd told him about her father, a bolt of rage had shot through him. He wanted to find this man and repay to him what he had done to Lia.
When she'd stared at him in the opium house, he almost hadn't been able to control the heat that had flared in him at that first look in her eyes. She hadn't looked frightened. She'd looked interested, with a tiny bit of the heat from before.
"Are you afraid of me now?" Spade asked suddenly.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't think so."
When they arrived back at the house on Montague Street, Spade knotted Riptide's reins once more to the porch and they entered the door. Lia gave him his coat back when they parted at the second floor, and he gave her a fully fanged grin. She smiled back wryly and went into her room.
He heard her breathing even out in sleep a few minutes later. He was glad she was getting the sleep. Bennie's funeral was the next day.
When Spade got down to the kitchen early the next morning, Mr. Mason was waiting for him.
"Mr. DeMortimer," he began uncomfortably, "I'm very grateful for the money you've given for the funeral and… well… I saw you gave us a bit too much, and I was wondering if we could use it to get a mourning dress for Lia? She's only got that old grey one. It would be second hand, of course..."
"Certainly. And get it new, Mr. Mason. Addie, you and Lia can borrow my horse if you'd like to get to the shops downtown."
"Yes, Mr. DeMortimer," Addie said excitedly and made for the door.
"Also, Addie?"
"Yes?"
"Get one for yourself as well."
"I will! Thank you, Mr. DeMortimer!"
Spade turned back to Mr. Mason, who was looking at him oddly.
"What?"
"Don't you have to be careful with the money you make?"
"Mr. Mason, I am very careful with my money. I also, to put it frankly, have lot of it. It makes me very happy to give Lia and Addie some for new dresses."
"It saddens me that I am not able to give them the same."
"Believe me, Mr. Mason. You will someday."
Cook set a plate down in front of Mr. Mason.
"What time do we go down to the cemetery?"
"Five."
Spade excused himself from the table and went back upstairs to write a letter to Alten. He'd been leaving most of his affairs to his oldest vampire lately.
A few hours later, his letter had been sent, and Lia and Addie were back. They were changing in Lia's room.
Everyone else was already waiting silently in the parlor. They were all dressed in their best mourning clothes and were awaiting the walk to the cemetery, where they'd meet the priest.
When the two girls descended in the black gowns, Spade was very grateful he'd given the money to them. Addie had chosen plain black muslin, but Lia's was pitch-colored satin. The skirt was full with a narrow ruffle spiraling up and around it, stopping at the shoulder, where it crossed the high neck. The sleeves were full length and simple.
"Lia," Mr. Mason said, "I hate to say this, but you'll have another job on Baker tomorrow."
Lia nodded. She came down the rest of the stairs and they all walked to the cemetery. When they arrived, the priest was waiting with the casket next to him. They began the ceremony, the priest droning on and on.
When it came time to lower the casket, Spade noticed Lia had her knuckle clenched between her teeth, straining not to make a noise. Tears were trailing down her face and onto her collar. He reached up, removed her hand from her mouth, and took it into his own. When the first clumps of dirt hit the coffin, she made a tiny gasp that was imperceptible to everyone but Spade.
He wrapped his other arm around her shoulder and let her lean into him. Everyone began to move gradually away from the grave and make their way home. Spade and Lia went last, trailing behind as Lia struggled to gain control of herself. They walked further, Lia only letting out the occasional hiccup.
When they reached the house, she brushed his hand with her own and went into the kitchen. Cook was already beginning supper. Spade scented over-done Brussels sprouts, potatoes, and day-old lamb. He followed Lia into the kitchen. The room was very somber, as if a grey cloud had entered the room. When Cook set the food down, they ate in silence.
One by one, the people around the table began to stifle their yawns and straggle upstairs. Spade went up as well and sat on his bed. Charlie had told him earlier that it was Lia's birthday on Thursday the next week. He had to remember to get Alten to send up some of the names of the reputable dressmakers around. And maybe something else. He'd have to think about that.
Lia POV
I knew my job was dangerous that day. Mr. Mason had given me the details earlier in the morning, and I wasn't particularly happy with them. I was to dress as a whore, get Mr. Baker to pick me up, get some information out of him, and let the rest of the team get me out. I was using my old grey dress to play the part.
I'd been training the entire day. The blood had been cleaned from the basement, which I was grateful for. I didn't dare eat dinner; I was fearful I'd vomit later on Baker and ruin the whole cheap enchantress image.
I sat on my bed, gazing into my chip of a mirror, and wondering how to do this makeup. Lots of rouge and kohl would be required, along with my regular security strap tied high around my ribs instead to emphasize my bosom. I was already dressed.
I began to rim my eyes in smudgy lines of black until the lashes looked ridiculously long. I picked up the rouge and puffed it on until I looked like the women I saw on the streets. Finally, I took the tube of lipstick and applied a layer. I heard a knock on the door and looked up to see Spade looking at me curiously.
"Yes, I know," I grumbled. "It's awful. I don't do this much."
"No, no. You've got it perfect. Except for one thing…"
He drew closer to inspect, and I blushed, though I doubt he could tell under all the powder.
"Your lipstick. It's got to look like someone just shagged you good."
I blushed further. I was just about to say something when his lips descended on mine.
His mouth, strong and talented, played teasingly, and I shivered when I felt his tongue slightly press at the seam of my mouth.
Suddenly, he moved away. I watched him as he drew his forearm across his mouth.
"Bugger, that stuff tastes nasty. Dunno how you stand it." He looked up at me and inspected my mouth.
"Now you're perfect."