Barbara Hancock - Brimstone Bride

He was supposed to be a sophisticated vintner with her. No more. No less. But she stoked the fire in his blood until his disguise went up in smoke.

He checked on his men. They had standing instructions. When he saw all was in hand, he turned away to seek sanctuary in his own rooms. What the guests would make of his and Victoria’s early disappearance from the party wasn’t his concern. He needed to wash away the blood and forget the look of fear in her eyes.

She’d pretended not to fully understand what had happened, but a darker knowledge had been in her hazel gaze when she’d trained it on his face.

A spiral iron staircase provided an outside entrance to his private retreat in the house. It was almost hidden by his mother’s roses. She’d loved the climbing vine varieties and he’d continued to have them tended after she was gone. They’d become a profusion of tangles near the staircase where he’d instructed the gardeners to allow them to grow unchecked. In this back corner of the house, he had a bed, bath and study that were completely separated from guest bedrooms. Guests were rarely invited to stay longer than a night. He didn’t run a bed-and-breakfast. He only allowed visitors at all in order to provide an alibi for his actual activities beyond wine making.

As he climbed the familiar treads of the staircase, it wasn’t the Brimstone in his blood that made him see red. His memory called up the image of the petite opera singer in the grip of a madman trained to be merciless. His anger came from the same sense he’d always had of a wrong that needed to be righted—magnified by fury at an innocent’s pain.

Victoria was caught up in a war that wasn’t her making. Just as he’d been as a child.

Adam shed his ruined clothes and left them for a housekeeper he could count on for stoic discretion. She’d seen worse. All his people had. The small sword he wore in a specially made sheath that fit close to his body between his shoulder blades he placed in a hidden compartment in the top of his mahogany dresser. He would clean it later after he’d cleaned himself.

He couldn’t afford empathy for Victoria, this sense of connection to her that shook him to his cursed core.

He told himself this even as he recalled the tense moment when he’d almost given in to the temptation to taste her lips.

Steam filled the bathroom when the cool water hit his Brimstone-warmed skin. Clouds of it rolled and swirled, disturbed by his movements as he scrubbed his hair and his hands. Beneath the soap, he felt his scars as he washed. A familiar reminder of what he’d been through and what he still needed to accomplish with the long life the Brimstone had given him.

Father Malachi was his objective. Finding him, capturing him, delivering him to Lucifer’s court. It wasn’t revenge. It was justice. Not only for the abuse he’d suffered at the obsessive monk’s hands—all in the name of “training”—but also to keep him from harming other children.

This dance with Victoria added another element of challenge to his mission. If she knew he was aware of why she’d come to Nightingale Vineyards, she might become even more determined and reckless to find and free his prisoners before Lucifer’s Army came to claim them. The Loyalists came when the moon was full each month. On that night, he held a party to provide cover for the prisoner delivery. The full moon galas were much larger than the occasional dinner parties held at other times. The gala was a coveted invitation, never more so than in June. To commemorate his mother’s birthday each year, he brought in an orchestra, dancing and a Firebird theme. He needed to keep Victoria in the dark until then, or longer if possible.

And while he kept her in the dark he needed to keep himself under control.

The water became superheated to the point of pain as it ran down his skin. Paired with the stitched wound on his back, the discomfort distracted him from the lush, full red lips he saw every time he closed his eyes. They’d been slightly open, welcoming, even though she’d seen him at his most ferocious.

He’d been trained to be a ruthless killer. Though he’d turned those skills on the men who had made him, he was pretty sure that didn’t negate the fact that they’d created a monster.

It had been dark in the garden and she’d been thrown to the ground with her face in the grass, but she’d seen the blood on her shoes.

And a monster had no right to kiss a woman with the voice of an angel, even if she’d temporarily forgotten how to sing.

Chapter 4

Dressing for breakfast with a man who had decapitated an evil monk for you was more challenging than you might think. Adam Turov had secrets the regular world wasn’t privy to. He’d showed her his true nature for several violent seconds. Now, she either had to pretend she’d been disoriented enough to not fully realize what she’d seen, or she had to risk more honest discussion.

Honesty wasn’t possible between them. Not as long as Michael was in danger.

She’d had wine on an empty stomach after a long trip. She’d been accosted in the garden and her host had helped her. She wouldn’t mention the sword. She wouldn’t mention the blood on her shoes. It would only work if he wanted to maintain his disguise enough to play along.

So, she dressed in a light dress with a soft cashmere sweater and sandals. Very holiday. Much innocent.

She matched her outfit to the embossed invitation that had arrived with a fragrant coffee tray at her cottage door that morning. Semicasual, but elegant and nothing that said, “I saw a man lose his head in the garden last night.”

Her sundress was translucent georgette in white with fine satin polka dots sprinkled in black across the skirt. The dots lessened in number until they disappeared completely at her cap sleeves and the cut flared out softly from a pinched waist and tight bodice. She gathered up her hair in a soft chignon with a clip that allowed wayward tendrils to brush her cheeks.

She couldn’t help it if her expression didn’t match the swingy skirt that swirled against her pale legs as she walked out to meet her host. She couldn’t help that her eyes looked wide and dark, much greener than the usual soft hazel that had to be lined with kohl to show brightly enough onstage.

She followed the directions of the invitation to a—thankfully—different part of the grounds, where a table had been set among the wildly abundant roses. Her low-heeled sandals crunched on the path. The silky rose petals were soft and dewy against her fingers when she reached to brush the blooms as she walked by.

Victoria had to present herself at the table as a regular guest even as she decided how best to explore the estate in secret. So far she’d seen no other evidence of Turov’s activities involving the Order of Samuel. None beyond his aiding her against the monk last night.

She had to pretend she hadn’t seen him in the pale moonlight with a bloody sword or that afterward he hadn’t courteously offered to replace her shoes. How else could she proceed? She knew who and what he was. He might have suspicions about her. But she had to pretend innocence over toast and orange juice.

Luckily, Adam Turov had been living a double life long enough to cover for them both.

He sat at the table sipping his juice from a cut crystal glass. His suit was tailored tight to his broad, lean chest. His black hair was as dark and gleaming as the shine of his jacket’s gabardine. He was freshly shaven. Not a wave of his hair was out of place. His blue eyes glittered mildly in the sun as she joined him.

“Just us?” Victoria asked. She took the only other seat at the table. It was on the opposite end from Turov, giving her a reprieve from his Brimstone heat.

“Yes. No one else is staying with us at this time,” her host said. He used a silver knife to spread butter on a toast point as he spoke. Its blunt blade winked in the sun. The larger sword he’d used last night was a secret best kept in the moonlight.