Alexander-Fyn-Sanguinarian

the door. “Miss Rutledge, dinner will be served in ten minutes. His lordship is waiting for you in the Great Hall.”
    Evangeline refused to look at her. “I’ll dine in my chamber. Light the lamp, please.”
    The maid took the chimney from the oil lamp to light it with a taper from the fire. “I’m sorry, Miss, but his lordship said if you refused to come down, he would come upstairs and bring you down himself.”
    “Yes, I’m sure he did,” she replied. “And I am in no mood to deal with his ill temper. Wait there, I’ll tidy my hair and you can walk down with me.”
    Evangeline brushed her hair but did not bother to put it up, letting it cascade down her back, a thing she would never have done in polite society. The borrowed wool gown she wore was open at the neck and again she did not bother to fasten the buttons. Rules of decorum among vampires seemed nonexistent.
    “So tell me, are you a vampire as well?” When the young woman hesitated she went on. “It’s all right. Lord Ravenscroft has confessed himself to me. I know he drinks blood. I know all about sanguinarian vampires and prana and such.”
    The maid bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Miss Rutledge, I am.”
    “Are all the staff sanguinarians?”
    “Many of them, Miss Rutledge. The rest have family who are of the blood if they themselves are not vampires, so they understand.”
    Evangeline released a sigh of frustration and confusion. “Where Sanguinarian 241
    do you all come from? You can’t all be from Yorkshire. Someone would have noticed a preponderance of vampires on the moors before now.”
    “No, Miss Rutledge, we come from all over England and a few from France and Germany and Spain. Everyone who is of the blood knows that jobs are to be had at Castle Haven. There is also a laird in Scotland who is one of us and who also employs our kind. In York there are businesses like Madame Blethin’s and The Black Cross who employ only vampires and cater to our kind. I’m told that London has many more businesses that are owned by vampires, though it is true there are far more of you than there are of us.”
    “Thank God for that!” Evangeline pulled on her shawl and looked at the girl, saying rather more kindly, “And thank you for your honesty. But tell me what happened to the young family who came here for help a few weeks ago.”
    “They were not of the blood , so his lordship thought it best not to keep them in the castle. He gave them a cottage and a piece of land to farm. You see, Miss Rutledge, he is a good man.”
    Evangeline knew by now that that was true. “Show me
    downstairs—with the lamp. Unlike all of you I need a little help to see in the dark.”
    Raven rose and walked toward her when she entered the Great Hall. He took her arm and walked with her to the dining room where he seated her with great care in a chair as close to the blazing fire as possible without singeing her clothes or making himself sweat too profusely. He picked up his wine and drank before saying, quietly,
    “I’m sorry I slapped you, Evangeline, but you were becoming hysterical.”
    “No, I was not,” she said at once. “You slapped me because you lost your temper. Why don’t you be honest and admit it?”
    “All right, I admit it! I simply wanted you to stop.” He had begun by speaking calmly, but now had a distinct edge to his voice.
    Evangeline was angry at him, at the snow, at her own fears. “You 242
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    were attempting to seduce me in a graveyard, worse, in a crypt with the bodies of your ancestors lying about.”
    Raven gave a heavy sigh, clearly reining in his temper. “They were not lying about, as you put it, they were respectably entombed.
    You make it sound as though they were simply strewn about willy-nilly. Corpses everywhere.”
    Evangeline took a long swallow of her wine. “The fact that they were there at all, that we were in a cemetery, and that it was freezing cold, should have been enough to tell you it was not the place to make love to a lady. I did not want to go down there in the first place. You forced me.”
    “Yes, all right, I see now I was wrong.” His impatient tone was an indication for her to be quiet. A footman entered the dining room bringing her soup. “Eat it while it’s hot,” Raven told her.
    “Are you not having any?”
    “You know I don’t eat such things!” He drank his wine, watching her, toying with the stem of his glass and swirling the wine to encourage the bouquet. “You said