Free The Vampire Who Loved Me by Teresa Medeiros

down heavily on the edge of the ottoman and running a handover his unshaven jaw. “I know you probably think I’m overreacting, but when I saw you standing on the edge of that roof with your face so pale and your hair all atumble…”
    “You believed the worst,” she finished for him.
    He nodded. “I was afraid he’d drank from you again. That he’d come one step closer to killing you, or worse yet, stealing your soul.”
    Knowing that it wasn’t her soul in jeopardy, but her heart, Portia looped an arm through his and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry I gave you such a fright. What I told Wallingford was partially true. I just wanted to bring him home. For you.” There was no guile in the gaze she swept over her family. “For all of us.”
    Adrian stood, tugging her to her feet and pressing a gentle kiss to her brow. “Vivienne is right. For now the only thing that matters is that you’re home and safe. We’ll worry about the rest of it later.”
    As he moved toward the door, Vivienne rose with a graceful swish of her skirts. “Come darling,” she told her husband. “We’d best go rescue the boys from Wilbury’s clutches before we find them in a cookpot somewhere.”
    “Didn’t they lock poor Wilbury in the cupboard the last time we left them alone with him?” Larkin asked.
    “No, that was the time before. The last time he locked them in the broom closet,” she replied as they followed Adrian from the drawing room.
    Only Caroline remained seated, gazing thoughtfully into the dancing flames of the fire. Portia was inching toward the door when her sister said, “Not so fast, pet.”
    Portia widened her eyes in a look of studied innocence. “Did you say something?”
    Caroline patted the sofa next to her, her smile equally innocent. “Why don’t you join me for a little chat?”
    Portia reluctantly complied, sinking down on the sofa but maintaining her stony silence.
    “You know,” Caroline said, toying with the monogrammed handkerchief in her lap, “I’ve been dying of curiosity, but in all these years I never once pressed you to tell me what happened in that crypt with Julian.”
    Portia couldn’t quite hide her guilty start. She had assumed her sister was going to question her about the events of last night, not the eventsof six years ago. “I always did admire your restraint. It was very unlike you.”
    “I suppose it was easier for all of us to just pretend it had never happened, wasn’t it?” Caroline’s candid gray eyes searched her face. “But I never stopped wondering if Julian took more from you in that crypt than just your blood. If that might not explain your lingering feelings for him. Your obvious reluctance to marry.”
    Portia could keep her voice deliberately light but she couldn’t stop the heavy rush of blood to her cheeks. She studied her own hands, wishing for a handkerchief to wring. “If that’s what you suspected, why didn’t you send for a physician to examine me?”
    “Adrian suggested it, but I refused to subject you to such an indignity. In truth, we both believed you’d suffered enough at his brother’s hands.”
    Before Portia could stop it, a brittle laugh bubbled from her lips. “I appreciate your concern, Caro, but I can assure you that no woman has ever suffered unduly at Julian Kane’s hands.”
    “Even now?” Caroline countered, her gaze more probing than before.
    Since she had no answer for that, Portiasimply rose and strode from the drawing room, her head held high and her secrets still her own.
     
    Portia sat curled up in the window seat of her third-story bedchamber that night, watching the lights in the windows of the Georgian-style town houses that lined the other side of the Mayfair square wink out one by one. Just as a distant church bell tolled a single note, the last lamp in the square surrendered to the darkness, leaving her alone with the moon.
    She pushed open the window, preferring the chill rush of air to the stifling warmth of