Page 1 of A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence (The Unexpected Adventures of Lady and Lord Riven #2)
I t was well past midnight when the vampire’s carriage finally pulled to a stop in the overgrown drive of a ramshackle, half-timbered and ancient coaching inn.
Once, it might have marked a public crossroads worthy of its size; now, the long, rambling building and its stables were surrounded by looming ranks of fir and pine trees, with only one narrow road breaking through to end at the inn’s door.
A motley assemblage of steeply-sloping roofs rose above the exposed timber and peeling plaster walls like eyebrows made of blackened wood, sharply raised in disapproval. All the windows below were shuttered, the eyes of the inn closed to the world beyond its walls.
“Oh, this really is ideal!” Margaret, the vampire’s wife, had been peering anxiously through the windows for the past hour of their journey, but she relaxed now against her cushioned leather seat with a sigh of deep relief. “We certainly shouldn’t have to endure any balls or soirées here.”
“I am glad you approve the choice, my dear.” In the shadows of their carriage, Lord Riven gave her a wry smile.
“I must tell you, my new man of business was not nearly so impressed when I directed him to find the most isolated location possible for our visit to Baden-Württemberg—and when it transpired that no human servants would be allowed to stay here with us, he very nearly had an attack of apoplexy. I believe Atkins harbors grave fears for the future of our union once you’ve seen this next stop on our honeymoon journey. ”
“Pah.” Margaret gathered up the long skirts of her sturdy travel gown in anticipation as their footman, Thomas, sprang to the ground and approached the carriage door. “He clearly doesn’t understand the nature of our partnership.”
“Mmm...”
Her husband’s voice held a surprisingly enigmatic note, but after so many days of travel, she didn’t linger over that small mystery.
A far greater one had been simmering in her mind for months, and now, after endless maddening delays and interruptions, she should finally have a chance to solve it.
As the carriage door swung open, she started briskly down the steps by the light of the carriage lamp, ready to begin her work.
At Thomas’s first rap upon the inn’s front door, there was no answer. However, even as he retreated to gather the assorted luggage from the carriage, Margaret stepped forward and gave it a decisive hammer of her own.
It creaked open a moment later, exposing even deeper darkness within. Then the darkness blinked...
And wide, glowing white eyeballs revealed themselves within it, hovering a full foot and a half above Margaret’s head.
“ Ohhh .” The word was half-sighed, half-moaned as the eyes disappeared and the door began to creak shut once more.
“Oh noooo . Foolish mortal! This is not a place for such as youuuuu. ”
“Nonsense!” said Margaret sharply and stepped forward to hold the heavy door in place with both hands. “This stop was chosen with great care, and I believe you’ll find that our reservation for the month has been paid in full.”
“But—wait, stop that —no, you can’t under staaand ...ouch!” A high-pitched yelp sounded as the rough bottom edge of the door at the center of their skirmish apparently scraped against an invisible foot.
“Has there been some difficulty with our booking?” Lord Riven’s voice was mild, but as he stepped up behind Margaret, he braced one strong hand beside hers in support, effectively ending the physical battle.
“Oh, you poor, innocent fools!” the voice groaned. “If you only had any notion of the dark horrors that lie in wai— oh .” The voice’s tone shifted abruptly as the glowing eyes reappeared and fixed on Lord Riven’s face. “You’re no human.”
“Indeed not.” Lord Riven smiled thinly, the tips of his sharp canine teeth visible by the dim glow of the nearby carriage lamp. “Nor have I been innocent for quite some centuries now, I assure you.”
“And I am no fool,” Margaret said briskly, “so if you’ll direct us to our chambers and arrange for our luggage and a meal to be sent there as quickly as possible, we would both appreciate it. Dawn comes early at this time of year, you know.”
“Not to thiiiiiis cursed house,” the spectral voice groaned...but soft footsteps shuffled obediently backwards, and the door finally swung fully open.
Unfortunately, Margaret did not share her husband’s supernatural ability to see in the dark.
However, with one hand safely tucked into his arm and the pale glow of their host’s eyeballs floating ahead to light their way, she was able to keep her place without tripping.
Thomas and the luggage came close behind, and they all followed the spectral host up two rickety flights of stairs with crumbling banisters thickly covered in cobwebs.
At the top of the second staircase, they were led down a long and stiflingly narrow, windowless corridor with several sharp turns along the way.
At long last, the eyeballs came to a stop by one plain, unprepossessing door. Thankfully, no cobwebs covered its handle; Margaret waited one impatient moment for their host to do the honors before taking firm hold and pushing it open herself.
A cold and gloomy sigh that smelled of grave dust ruffled her upswept hair as she strode past those hovering eyeballs. “You won’t care for it at all,” the voice predicted mournfully.
Ha. Margaret had not only survived but thrived through years of study at a university where female students were seen as upstart interlopers; no amorphous specter would deter her now.
Stretching her lips into her most defiant smile, she gave the floating eyeballs a firm nod of dismissal.
“Do see to the comfort of our servants before they take their leave—and don’t forget: we will need that meal quickly . ”
It was not physically possible for eyeballs to sulk.
However, they did roll sickeningly in mid-air and then bounced away in a jittery, bobbing, up-and-down manner that gave a strong impression of angrily stomping feet somewhere below.
Only one final whisper trailed behind their host in farewell. “ Dooooooom...”
As Lord Riven took the luggage from Thomas and exchanged a few final words, Margaret lit the waiting gas lamp to reveal a small, old-fashioned bedroom enclosed in peeling crimson wallpaper.
She was looking about it with perfect satisfaction when the door to the bedroom closed, leaving them alone together.
“Well,” her husband said dryly, “this is a romantic setting indeed. I can’t imagine what my man of business was thinking to argue against it.”
“ So much better than Paris!” Margaret gave a heartfelt shudder at the memory. “All those dreadful, crowded parties! That over-perfumed air! And all those inane questions about my work!”
Lord Riven’s broad chest rose and fell in a low laugh, his expression easing as he stepped closer to untie the ribbons of her bonnet. Once she’d been freed of that binding irritation, his big hands speared into her chignon, scattering hairpins and massaging her aching scalp.
As she leaned into him with a sigh of relief, his deep voice rumbled against her. “I’m afraid, my dear, that is the price of fame. Did you not hope for every scholar on the continent to read your work and gnash their teeth over your achievement?”
Margaret huffed out a snort even as her body loosened under the hypnotic effect of his massaging fingers. “Scholars, yes. A fair few should gnash their teeth over their own incompetence in earlier papers! But why does everyone else have to become so hysterical over what I wrote in my article?”
After years of studying the supernatural, it had only made sense to document what she’d learned in the course of her own marriage.
After all, she’d had little else upon which to focus her mind while she’d waited through months of legal wrangling for her greedy relatives to finally hand back the dowry they’d stolen from her.
However, she had never anticipated the world’s reaction to her article.
After all, the liveliest reactions to any of her previous scholarly works had arrived only in the letters sections of following issues.
But when one enterprising London journalist drew a connection between the Lady Riven who’d published an obscure scholarly piece on the physical aspects of vampiric intimacy and the same Lady Riven whose aunt and uncle stood accused of defrauding one of the oldest supernatural aristocrats in Britain, Margaret had found her article unexpectedly republished in multiple major newspapers.
..in a shockingly slapdash amended version that left out every one of her careful footnotes and caused a veritable earthquake in high society across the continent.
Even Margaret had to admit that her newfound notoriety held some advantages; once she and her husband had finally reclaimed her dowry and arrived in Paris, the first step of their long-delayed wedding journey, they’d discovered that under orders of Emperor Napoleon IV, access to the treasure hoard of supernatural archives in the catacombs had been closed to all foreign scholars.
With political tensions simmering across the continent and rival nations rattling metaphorical sabers on all sides, the only route Margaret had found to access the records she needed had come by wielding the force of her newfound reputation with an influential French comtesse.
The clues that she’d found in those archives were invaluable, but they had been accompanied by a steep social cost.
“My poor darling,” Lord Riven murmured now, his breath ruffling her unbound hair. “We all know how deeply your popularity pains you.”
“You know perfectly well it isn’t mine ,” Margaret grumbled. Still, she couldn’t resist nestling even closer to him.