Alexander-Fyn-Sanguinarian

several days. By then we can surely think of a way to get away and he won’t even bother to come after me because it will be too late for his inheritance anyway. Once I am no longer of any use to him he will not want me. He doesn’t want me now, he has made that plain. I am merely the vehicle for him to gain his inheritance.”
    “What would a man like him do without his inheritance?” Mrs.
    Brackett asked doubtfully. “He can hardly go out into the world and try to support himself, not the way he looks. People would run a mile.”
    “He can run this pile of old stones as a boarding house like us and instead of genteel ladies he can take in werewolves and vampires.”
    She laughed.
    “There now, that’s right, you must cheer up. We can’t let this situation get us down. If we could put up with miserly old Silas Sidley all those years, we can put up with Lord Yellow Eyes for a few days.”
    Mrs. Brackett stood up and stepped back to admire her mistress, patting her curls protectively. “There now, lamb, I think you’ll do very nicely. You’re far too fine for the likes of him.”
    “Fine? In this old gown. I look like a twelve-year-old.”
    Evangeline assessed herself.
    “You do, pet, and maybe it will shame him down there into leaving you alone.”
    “You don’t think he’ll try to do anything to me tonight, do you?”
    “I hope not, but I can hardly come and monitor him in his own dining room, can I?”
    “Not even as my chaperone?” Evangeline looked doubtful.
    “Do you think he’d put up with that? I may be able to get the better of that mannish creature with the keys dangling from her waist like a bloody warden in Newgate, but he won’t be browbeat by no one, not that monster. You’ll have to be on your guard down there.
    Just remember now, humour him.”

    Sanguinarian 43
    Evangeline clasped her hands in an attitude of prayer. “We must get away, we must. I simply can’t marry him.”
    “We’ll think of something.” Mrs. Brackett gave her a reassuring hug. “Right now you have no choice but to go and join the brute for dinner. I hope he minds his manners, that’s all I can say.”
    “What about you?” Evangeline enquired.
    “Don’t you worry about me, Miss Evie, I’ll look after myself. I’ll find the kitchen and get me dinner and I’ll be here when you’re finished with him.”
    “Walk me down,” Evangeline said. “It’s so dark. Why is there only candlelight? You’d think he could afford oil lamps. He can’t be that hard up.”
    “I don’t know what’s going on here.” Mrs. Brackett draped Evangeline’s shawl about her shoulders and they went out into the frigid stone passage. “But there’s more going on than meets the eye, and no mistake.”
    The long, cavernous dining room was freezing cold, dark, and disquieting. Evangeline shivered for more than one reason when she was finally left alone there. The fire in the hearth had been lit too recently for it to take the edge off the cold air. Her nostrils singed with cold when she breathed hard.
    There was no sign of the Raven.
    A candelabrum in the middle of the long table blazed with light, but beyond that there was only the hearth. Rubbing her arms, she walked toward the fire to stand with her hands held out to the warmth.
    The chamber was deathly silent, though she swore she could hear mice scratching in the walls. Why was he leaving her alone like this?
    To frighten her? Well, it was working like a charm. The urge to keep looking over her shoulder into the distant corners of the chamber was overwhelming.
    By the time Raven stepped out of the shadows saying, “Good evening, Miss Rutledge,” she had worked herself into such a state of fear and anticipation that she screamed.

    44
    Fyn Alexander
    Despite her pounding heart, she could not help but notice his long-legged, elegant walk as he approached her. “Do you intend to scream every time I greet you?” He sounded impatient.
    “No sir.” Her heart fluttered in her chest.
    “That’s a great relief, Miss Rutledge. I should find it immensely tiresome if you did.”
    “I find it immensely tiresome that you keep hiding from me then leaping out,” she said.
    “I do not leap out .” His eyes flashed amber at her in the light from the fire. She had made him angry. “How dare you say I leap out at ladies? I merely prefer to be away from the light. My eyes suffer in bright light.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, my lord. Myself, I find it disturbingly