Author's Note: I'd just like to thank Lizella and Nemi Jade for their reviews (along with, obviously, the rest of my reviewers who I've already thanked) }-)
This is from Miss McCauley's POV. I figured that I'd done a POV for Countie, but not for her. So here it is.
Please Read, Review and enjoy }-)
It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. It was almost as if he'd never seen a dustpan and brush before, never mind used one. His velvet jacket was folded neatly on a table in a nearby classroom, but he couldn't exactly remove his leather trousers. If he did…
Every time I took a quick peek at him, on his knees, trying to work the dustpan and brush (and failing miserably), I bit my lip. It wasn't my fault. He was just so damn…delectable-oh, brilliant! Now I was picking up bits and pieces of his vocabulary as well…I was just one step away from practising my signature with his surname-
'Mrs-
It only just occurred to me, then, that I didn't know his first name. Mr Count-that's all I knew him as. He never mentioned his first name; it didn't even appear as part of his signature or as an initial on forms. He was always simply 'Count'. So what was his first name?
I opened my mouth to ask the question, and almost immediately, I spied him out of the corner of my eye looking up at me expectantly, as if he were waiting for me to ask the question that was burning on the inside of my skull.
But I didn't ask. I shook my head.
What was happening to me? I had always been the one that asked the questions that everyone else was afraid of; I had always been the one doing the scary things. But asking his name was apparently beyond me…I was sick to death of him being able to affect me the way he did-it wasn't fair. I couldn't even take him up on his offer of a drink…
He was still staring at me, as if he saw into my soul and knew my inner turmoil. The way he could do that unnerved me.
But then, face it, everything about him unnerved me. His hair for one. Long hair doesn't suit many men, but it did him. I'd caught myself on more than one occasion wondering what it would feel like running through my fingers, what it would feel like trailing over my heated skin…And then there were his brows; they were wickedly black-sinfully black arches that were simply too expressive for words. Every quirk held a multitude of meanings from humour to fury. Never mind the fact that they were just sexy. And what about his hands? What I thought about his hands, I have no intention of repeating. That's far too personal.
"What is it?" he asked softly, cocking his head to one side.
"What is what?" I replied innocently, not wanting him to know the trail of my thoughts. He rolled his eyes and stood up, dusting himself off. "What is bothering you?" He was within arm's reach. I had to step back. "Nothing's bothering me." I lied, staring into his searching, blue eyes.
His lips quirked slightly at the corner. "I think I know you well enough to know when you're lying. So tell me, what is putting that frown on your lovely face?"
Before I could blush at his compliment and make up an answer, Mr Count's manservant came scuttling down the corridor. "Master!" he cried, "Master!"
Mr Count turned on Mr Renfield with the most evil look in his eyes. "What is it?" he demanded tersely. Mr Renfield then proceeded to whisper into Mr Count's ear which made the latter's jaw drop. All malignancy left his features and he turned to me, saying: "I have to go. Something is very, very wrong."
"What's wrong?" I asked, purely out of concern. What had happened to make him react like this? Had Vlad done something? Mr Count had said that Vlad was back to his old self; had he been mistaken?
"Vladimir has gone." He murmured weakly, before shooing Mr Renfield.
"I-" he began, gesturing vaguely around him, where we'd been cleaning up some of the mess that Vlad had made before the OFSTEAD inspector arrived.
"Go." I said simply, "Find Vlad."
He nodded gratefully. I bent to pick up the dustpan and brush and when I stood, he had already disappeared. I hoped Vlad was alright-what must Ingrid and Wolfie be feeling at their brother's desertion? What was Mr Count going to do?
No matter how physically attractive that man was, the thing that touched me most was always going to be the fact that when he cared about something, he really, really cared. Perhaps if I could pluck up the courage, I could make him care about me that way. But I doubted it; romance was for myth and fantasy. This was the real world where things like Vampires and Battles and Quests and True Love was all a fabrication.
If only...
