The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla A Pink Carnation Novel Read Online Free Page B

night air. Her teeth were chattering slightly and her skin was turning a faint shade of blue that matched the color of her gown.
    “Here,” Sally said, and took the light shawl from her own shoulders and wrapped it around Agnes, who hadn’t had the sense to bring her own. “What are you talking about?”
    “The rumors,” said Agnes, blinking innocently at Sally as she absently tucked the corners of the wrap beneath her arms. “Haven’t you heard? They say he’s a vampire.”
    “A vampire? Hardly.” Sally paused to glower in the general direction of the ballroom. There was no love lost between her and their host. Lord Vaughn was not an admirer of Sally’s brother, Turnip, which meant that Sally was not an admirer of Lord Vaughn. No one but Sally was allowed to insult Turnip. Still, even so . . . “Whatever else I may think of the man, Lord Vaughn looks perfectly corporeal to me. Those waistcoats are just an affectation.”
    It would be just like Lord Vaughn to set himself up as an undead creature of the night. He prided himself on being slightly sinister, going about in those black waistcoats with silver serpents, murmuring cryptic comments. It was, reflected Sally critically, all just a little too obvious.
    “Not Lord Vaughn,” said Agnes patiently. “The Duke of Belliston.”
    “The Duke of Who?” Lizzy joined them on the balcony, her bronze curls escaping from a wreath of flowers that had gone askew, like the halo of a naughty angel. There was a healthy glow in her cheeks and her brown eyes were bright.
    “Belliston,” said Agnes, palpably unaware of any social frissons or fissures. “In the house across the garden.”
    She gestured in the other direction, away from the crowded ballroom, past long rows of perfectly trimmed parterres.
    Even in the waning season of the year, Lord Vaughn’s shrubbery didn’t have a leaf out of place. The garden was arranged in the French style, all gravel paths and geometric designs, scorning the more natural wilderness gardens coming into vogue. Above the close-clipped hedges and the marble statues glimmering white in the moonlight, Sally could just make out the outline of the great house across the way.
    Unlike Lord Vaughn’s, that garden had been allowed to run to seed, by either accident or design. Weeping willows trailed ghostly fingers over the dim outline of a pond on which no swans swam, while ivy climbed the walls of the house, dangling from the balconies, obscuring the windows. In the heart of London, the edifice had an eerie air of isolation.
    It was the largest house in the square, larger by far than Lord Vaughn’s. Sally felt a certain satisfaction at that thought. Lord Vaughn could put on all the airs he liked, but he still wasn’t the biggest fish in the square. And by fish, she meant duke. The Duke of Belliston out-housed and outranked Vaughn.
    He was also remarkably elusive. In her two Seasons in society, Sally had never met the man. There was some sort of story about him . . . something to do with a curse and his parents.
    But vampires? Nonsense.
    “Is that Belliston House?” Lizzy shook back her curls as she stared avidly at the house across the way. “I hadn’t realized we were so close to the Lair of the Vampire.”
    Sally rolled her eyes at the idiocy of mankind. “Vampires are a myth. And not a particularly interesting one,” she added repressively.
    “People said the same thing about the Duke of Belliston,” Agnes pointed out. “About his being a myth, I mean. But you can’t deny there are lights in the windows.”
    That much was true. Through the ivy and the dust, a faint but distinct light shone.
    “She has you there,” said Lizzy. There was no denying that someone was in residence at Belliston House. Whoever—or whatever—that someone might be.
    “Yes, but . . .” Sally made an impatient gesture with her hands. “Next you’ll be telling me you saw a bat flying around his belfry.”
    Lizzy cocked her head,