Page 2 of A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence (The Unexpected Adventures of Lady and Lord Riven #2)

She was here to work—she’d already been distracted far too long—but surely it couldn’t hurt to take a moment to enjoy this intimacy first, after all she’d endured along their journey.

She’d spent so much of her life alone before their marriage, braced to take on every challenge by herself; even now, so many months after their wedding, the sensation of finding a haven in another person’s arms still felt like a life-shifting revelation.

So, she pressed her cheek against his silk waistcoat to breathe in his cloves-and-cinnamon scent as she continued, “Those absurd courtiers were all hoping for scandal and titillation. I was only documenting scientific facts, with accurate historical documents and explanations!”

“Of course. No more than scientific facts, exact descriptions, and thorough historical context...around the intoxicating pleasures experienced with a vampiric lover’s bite.

What could possibly be more high-minded and academic?

” Lord Riven’s voice deepened; he shifted his grip downwards to rub both of his thumbs in maddeningly soft caresses against the soft hollows of her neck, and she arched like a cat in instinctive response, barely holding back a purr.

“Believe me, I will never forget the process of assisting you in your research. ”

Heat flared within truly unmentionable parts of Margaret’s figure; despite herself, her voice took on a breathless note. “But that isn’t the point! It was not a sensationalist or salacious piece of literature, no matter what any of those dreadful journalists may claim— or society hostesses hope.”

She tipped her head back to catch his gaze, all the better to make her point.

..but her breath caught at the sight of tell-tale amber sheening her husband’s hazel eyes.

Her tongue darted out to moisten her upper lip as she continued, her pulse speeding uncontrollably, “It was a very...a very serious...very importan t...”

Her husband smiled wickedly down at her, and her mind blurred in a way that would have shocked any of her former tutors or colleagues. Blinking rapidly, she sought for her lost train of thought...

And Lord Riven leaned closer yet. “ Very serious and important. I agree.” His voice lowered to a murmur as his body curved around her, and his breath swept, hot and close, across her tingling neck.

Biting back a moan, she tipped her head in invitation, and he pulled her lower body close in a firm yank that made a helpless whimper escape her guard.

“Then again,” her husband breathed against her skin, “can research ever be said to be fully done?”

It had been weeks since Margaret had achieved anything of substance in her life’s work.

She’d been waiting for days to sink into it the moment they arrived here.

..but surely she deserved some comfort first for the horrors she’d endured along the way?

Besides, her far-too-attractive husband certainly deserved to feel the depths of her appreciation for the perfect sanctuary he had found them.

So...

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to confirm my findings one more time,” Margaret agreed, and abandoned herself, for once, to scandalously carefree decadence. She only pulled free of his arms a moment later to shove the heavy wooden bolt into place across the door.

Her own meal could wait after all. As she’d pointed out to their host, dawn would be arriving far too soon...

And she had far more pressing issues than food to address beforehand.

By the time she finally reopened her bedroom door, the contents of the tray in the corridor outside their room looked remarkably unappetizing.

Fortunately, Margaret was feeling far too well-pleasured and full of revived energy to be thrown off course by the tasteless, dried sludge—perhaps some indeterminate form of stew?

Or a startlingly meaty porridge?—that filled the bowl.

Even the cold and bitter tea could not dissuade her.

With her husband now fixed in a rigid state of sleep that would last until tonight’s sundown, no remaining distractions could compare to the appeal of supernatural secrets waiting to be solved, and here in the heart of the Black Forest lurked some of the most tantalizing that she had ever studied.

From amidst the large pile of luggage that had been stacked in the corridor by the tray, she seized upon the heavy, leatherbound carrier bag full of her most essential needs and left all the rest to be dealt with later.

There was no useful work-desk in this room, unfortunately, but there was a dainty wooden vanity table complete with a spindly chair and a tall and dusty mirror, so she ruthlessly co-opted its narrow surface area for her tea, stew, and academic necessities.

Taking a seat, she placed her open bag on her lap and began to mechanically spoon down bites of food while she rummaged through its delightful contents.

These weren’t, of course, all of the resources she’d packed for her marital tour of the continent; the rest filled another three pieces of luggage, two of them remaining in the traveling carriage until the next stage of their journey.

However, she’d carefully sorted out the contents of this bag back in Paris, nearly a week ago, as the most useful for her Black Forest quest. They included three of her late parents’ carefully preserved commonplace books, recording their own various Germanic explorations, along with a mix of Margaret’s own recent notes from the Parisian catacombs’ archives and earlier notes from the Morningford College library during her student years; various letters from other scholars across the continent; detailed German and French dictionaries; and a tattered old, wine-stained pamphlet that had been her most prized discovery in a Paris antiquary shop full of priceless treasures.

It was as she was lifting out that fascinating pamphlet with one hand, while placing her half-full teacup on the table with the other, that she abruptly caught a glimpse in the corner of her eye of the reflected bed in the vanity’s tall mirror...

And her pulse gave a sudden, panicked jolt.

Clearly reflected in the mirror, the ragged duvet was curved in the shape of her husband’s form—but his pillow was empty.

What foolishness ! Breathing in and out with slow control, Margaret set her teeth together and forced herself not to follow the instinctive urge to twist around and urgently assure herself that her life’s partner was safe.

The windows were fully shuttered with multiple layers of thick wooden slats. No sunlight could possibly reach inside this chamber, and she was no weak-nerved ingénue to be taken aback by a perfectly well-known side-effect of vampirism. She had been studying the supernatural for years .

Still, she’d never anticipated quite how unnerving it might feel when applied to the single person in the world who was undeniably hers .

Margaret had never particularly cared for mirrors even before she’d wed a vampire. Since then, she’d been horrified to find herself developing a true aversion.

Now, her fingers tightened convulsively around the tattered pamphlet as she fought against the frantic impulse of her nerves—and then she let out a resigned gust of breath and tucked that treasure back into her bag.

Rational or not, she would simply have to find another place to work this morning. It was either that or give up all dignity and cover up the mirror with a sheet...and her pride would never allow that option.

Carefully repacking all of her scholarly materials, she downed the last of her tepid tea but abandoned the second half of the stew as a lost cause.

She couldn’t prevent herself from striding to the window before she left, to make an unnecessary final inspection of its thick shutters, but she did at least manage to restrain herself from lingering with sickening sentimentality over her perfectly safe husband’s prone figure.

Theirs was an alliance of dear friends and equals who valued each other deeply. There was no call to exhibit any embarrassing mawkishness.

The mirror glinted like a taunt in the corner of her vision as she left the room, but she refused to spare another glance for it.

The corridor outside was only slightly better lit now than it had been in the middle of the night, its occasional high and narrow windows too smudged to allow in any substantial illumination.

Still, with care and determination, she found her way back to the main staircase and from its base mounted an exploration of the low-ceilinged maze of rooms that comprised the ground floor.

From a variety of faded sitting rooms to the sad remains of what might once have been an adequate library, two large dining rooms, and more, every room she found was empty, with no signs anywhere of her spectral host or any fellow guests.

The rooms were also in a universal state of shocking disrepair, and Margaret wrinkled her nose in distaste as she finally settled onto an ancient couch that sent up a sneeze-inducing explosion of dust at the indignity.

The landlord of this inn might be an incorporeal being, but really, as he’d shown himself capable of opening heavy doors, there was no excuse not to wield a broom and rag around the place every so often!

Still, she had dealt with far less comfortable conditions in some of the more thrilling expeditions on which she’d joined her adventuring parents as a child.

So, rather than allowing the mess to distract her, she simply swept the pile of yellowing newspapers from the coffee table to the floor, wiped away all the remaining dust from underneath, and then emptied out her bag to sink into what mattered most: finding out the truth of the world and sharing it with the scholarly community.