Chapter One
February 6, 1750
Westing house Manor
Bedfordshire, England
"Comtesse de Fournier? Is that you, my lady?" The voice held not the slightest edge of fear, confirming Rose's suspicions. Sir Walter Pithwater knew little of the history of his people. To night, that shameful gap in his education would hasten his journey to the grave.
Rose crept slowly through the garden's maze, grateful the hedges had yet to reach their full height. Pithwater was clearly visible above the top of the shrubbery, his bald head gleaming in the moonlight, while her own figure remained concealed. True, she was barely five feet and two in her heeled slippers—but even Lord Drummand, the host of the country party and a man close to six feet, would be largely concealed. The people of the tribe were simply unusually tall, and Sir Walter was no exception.
It was one of the clues that had alerted her to the ogre's true nature, in addition to his monstrous appetite. A late-night venture down to the earl's kitchens confirmed her worst fears. The cook needed little prying to confess she worried the baronet would eat her employers out of house and home, forcing them to end their party early and disgrace themselves in front of many influential friends and members of Society.
The woman should have been more concerned about the ravenous guest eating her out of chambermaids and stable boys. Two of the house hold staff had gone missing in the past week. Rose doubted their bodies would ever be found. Ogres were unique among supernatural predators in that they ate the entirety of their victims—bones and all.
"Comtesse? Is that your delicate step I hear?" Pithwater called again, a suggestive lilt in his tone. "Come out, come out, my little rosebud."
Rose grimaced beneath the black hood concealing her powdered blond curls from the light of the moon. She had been christened Rosemarie, and allowed a select few to call her Rose, but had never been pleased with ridiculous pet names. Especially when they sprung from the mouth of a repulsive goat like Pithwater.
Still, she had no one but herself to blame.
She had led the man to believe she was penniless and in need of a protector, lest she follow in the footsteps of other impoverished women of standing who lived their lives in the shadows of polite society as courtesans. Nothing had been said outright, all communicated in hushed intimations as such things usually were, but Pithwater had taken the bait.
He'd invited her to the garden maze to night for what she gathered was a trial of sorts, to see if she would please him as a mistress. The reward for his plea sure would be her own cottage near Marylebone Gardens and an allowance he had named generous, but which they both knew to be hundreds of pounds short of a livable sum. Not that the allowance was of any real consequence.
Rose knew what her fate would truly be—a few months in his bed and an eternity in his stomach. Ogres could never retain a human lover for long, no matter how fetching they found them. Their appetite for flesh always outweighed their desire for carnal pleasure.
"I see . . . You wish to play the fox and the rabbit, eh?" She heard Pithwater move through the maze, closer to her position. "But who will be the fox and who the rabbit?"
There was a question she would most happily answer. "I shall be the fox, Sir Walter."
"So it is you, my lady." The arousal was clear in his voice. Revulsion served to steady Rose's hand as she threw back her hood and reached between her shoulders for the handle of her blade. The sheath ran the length of her spine and under a dancing partner's hands felt like nothing more dangerous than the bones of her stays. "I would think a dear little thing like you would prefer to leave the foxing to those with more natural aptitude for the art."
"Shame, sir. 'Tis hardly noble to insult a lady's aptitude." Rose maintained an edge of coyness in her tone while increasing her volume, guiding Pithwater to her location.
The handle of her blade thickened and grew longer in her grasp, a result of the faerie magic that had created it. Rose braced herself for the killing blow, knowing she would need a clean cut if she hoped to fell him in one stroke. Unfortunately, there hadn't been time to change out of her evening gown after the formal dinner. As a result, she wouldn't be as sure on her feet.
In recent years, she had made a habit of dressing as a young boy on the evenings she hunted the members of the tribe. It was easier to move freely in male clothing. So much easier, in fact, she began to suspect feminine fashion a plot to keep females docile and submissive.
After all, how could one think on matters of country, estate, or Society, let alone debate them, when one could barely draw a breath unencumbered?
Of course, she did love the frock she was wearing, a pale blue and gray sateen with a pearl inlaid stomacher that had cost nearly as much as the "generous" yearly allowance she would have as Pithwater's mistress. It made her hope the man's blood wouldn't spray too madly. Ogre bloodstains were nearly impossible to remove.
"My dearest rosebud, I do not doubt your aptitude in the slightest. If that were the case, I most certainly would not have initiated such a . . ." Pithwater rounded the corner of the hedge, emerging not five feet from where she stood. His eyes, still sunken in his skull despite the human flesh he had consumed, widened at the sight of the sword in her hand. "My lady?"
"Your people call me Briar Rose. She of many thorns."
Rose closed the distance between them in seconds. Before the light of recognition in Sir Pithwater's eyes could translate into action, she had sliced him in half, a feat made easier by the fact that her raised arms were nearly level with his waist.
With a great wail, the baronet fell to the ground. His head and torso flew backward, arms still .ailing mightily, while his hips and legs tipped forward, spraying blood and gore like a font.
"Blast," Rose cursed as the thick, black sludge splashed her dress and cape. She should have known better. He had fed on human flesh too recently to have a sluggish heartbeat.
Now blood coated not only her dress, but her gloves, cloak, and face as well. She swiped at her cheek, trying not to gag at the stench. Pithwater had been of the tribe; she had not been mistaken in that. His essence reeked of bile and rot.
But then, she had never been wrong, never drawn her sword to find out too late the creature she hunted was anything other than an abomination. That fact gave her comfort on nights when the violence of her work threatened to undo her. This, however, was not one of those nights. Other than the spray, Pithwater had been delightfully easy prey. Almost too easy. It left her with an "unfinished" feeling about the entire business.
Apparently, she wasn't the only one.
"Truly, Rose, could you have not let the man run a bit? Given him a few moments to plead for his wretched life? Something?" Gareth Barrows slunk from the darkness with a sigh, his footsteps as silent as the shadows themselves. "This was hardly worth the time it took to travel from the city."
"This isn't a game, Mr. Barrows. I make the kill to accomplish the task, not for the sport of the matter." Rose sheathed her blade, her voice more sour than it might have been if she hadn't presently been covered in ogre blood. She had been attempting to be patient with her latest protégé, a vampire of nearly two hundred years who nevertheless seemed to have no more sense than a child.
He had volunteered his time to aid in controlling the ogre population of Great Britain, a far from magnanimous act as the exploding numbers of the tribe negatively affected his own hunting grounds. Still, volunteer or no, he could have brought more dedication to his training. In the fortnight since they had been introduced by her liaison among the Fey de la Nuit, he had failed to show for four of his seven assignments. He seemed to think a charming smile at their next meeting was sufficient apology for the time she wasted sending him endless communiqués, and that there was little he could learn about killing he hadn't mastered in his years as a creature of the night.
Irritatingly, the rascal was usually correct on the last account.
"I see you've neglected to bring a weapon, yet again. Must I remind you, Mr. Barrows, that supernatural strength and a pair of sharp teeth will not—"
"Not another lecture on the reasons I shouldn't play with my food, dearest. I don't think I could bear that particular discussion again after such a dreary night," he sighed, smoothing a hand over the dark brown hair tied at the nape of his neck.
Rose had never seen him without a wig before and some foolish part of her wished the moonlight were brighter, for she suspected he looked quite fine. In over a hundred years of working with breathtaking vampires, she had never allowed a professional relationship to become anything more, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy a pleasant view.
"I couldn't care less what you do with your food, sir, only with the ogres who will be your prey," Rose said, blushing a bit in spite of herself. "Remember, Mr. Barrows, never—"
"Ingest the blood of an ogre. I understood that directive the first twelve times. As if I would be foolish enough to sink my teeth into anything so rancid." His green eyes shone like a cat's, catching unseen light and flaring in the darkness. He moved closer and Rose did her best to appear unaffected. Gareth was not certain of her origins, and she meant to keep it that way. "In addition, I'm fairly certain strength alone will be sufficient. I've killed many a mortal scoundrel with nothing more than my bare hands."
"But did you rip their body in two, top cleanly separated from the bottom?" she asked, refusing to retreat when he moved so close she could feel the heat of his body. He had fed, and very recently if the flush in his cheeks was any clue.
"No, I've never ripped anyone asunder." His hands moved to her waist. Rose managed—just barely—not to .inch at the contact. "But I imagine I could accomplish the business without the aid of a weapon."
His large hands encircled her waist and squeezed none too gently. Rose sucked in a surprised breath, more from the unexpected heat curling low in her belly than from any real fear. Of course, Gareth had no idea she was simply a mortal, though gifted by the Fey de la Nuit. He might assume she could take more damage than was safe.
"Please," she said, not trusting herself to look him in the eye a moment longer. It had been far too long since she'd had a companion of any sort, but especially that sort, and her body was aching to betray her.
"Please what, Rose?" His warm breath puffed against the top of her head and she fought the desire to lift her face and find the source of that breath with her mouth. "You are a beautiful woman, you must know that. But for all your beauty you act as if—"
"Wait," Rose whispered, turning to search the shadows. She was certain she had heard a sound, but now all was quiet. She tried to pull away, but Gareth held her fast.
"I won't wait. I'm dying of curiosity. We all are. They've taken bets at my club—"
"Down!" Rose threw her weight to the right, but her strength was not sufficient to move them both out of danger. The ogre diving toward them caught Gareth's cloak in his hands, and took the vampire to the ground.
"Damnation!" Rose scrambled to her feet, throwing off her cape as she reached for her blade. But before she could grasp the handle, she was hit from behind and went tumbling back to the earth.
"Such coarse language," a homely, black-haired female of the tribe hissed as Rose closed her hands around the ogress's throat. She lacked the strength to choke the other woman, but she at least hoped to keep the creature's teeth from her flesh. "But you aren't truly a comtesse at all, are you, Briar Rose?"
She lunged forward with a snarl just as Rose relaxed her arms and shifted to the right. The ogress howled as her face connected with the muddy earth and Rose—via pure force of will and with no help from her blasted hoops and heavy skirts—rolled atop her. Rose was reaching for her blade a second time when a hand fisted in her hair and pulled her backward.
She screamed as she was dragged several feet, cursing her aversion to wigs. If she had worn one this evening she might have freed herself without having hair pulled out by the root. Still, better no hair than no flesh.
Rose dug her hands into the dirt and jerked her neck forward, crying out as a fistful of blond locks remained behind in her would-be captor's hands.
"Behind you, Rose!" She was scrambling to her feet yet again, but at Gareth's shout rolled back to the ground, only daring to stand when she had put several feet between herself and the scuffle taking place at the center of the maze.
"Dear God," she breathed as she finally managed to free her blade. Now that she had a clear look at what she and Gareth were pitted against, she wondered if one blade would be enough.
The first three ogres had been joined by two more, and from the sounds echoing through the night air, they would soon be welcoming even more company. There was no longer any doubt. Pithwater—whether he'd been aware of it or not—had been bait, a lure to get Rose to the maze, far from the house where the humans slept and even farther from the dark faeries who would have come to her aid in any parish in En gland. After nearly a hundred years the ogres had grown bold, or else she had grown careless.
Whichever the case, she would soon see if she would walk free of this dark garden, or if Lord and Lady Drummand would be missing more than one guest come morning.
"Presumably they will be more troubled by my absence than that of the chambermaid or stable boy," Rose muttered before she raised her sword and threw herself into the fray.
Excerpted from Night's Rose by ANNALIESE EVANS
Copyright © 2009 by Annaliese Evans
Published in April 2009 by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.