Free A Dark Heart by Margaret Foxe

deserved a broken, used-up molly like him. She certainly hadn’t
deserved one second of the lustful, perverted fantasies that streaked through
his mind whenever she was near – whenever he so much as thought of her.
So he’d avoided her when he’d visited Llewellyn House, and was as scrupulously
polite and formal in all of his dealings with her whenever avoidance proved
impossible. His feelings for her were just too confusing, too frightening.
    But when she’d turned him into a leech, everything had become impossibly
worse. The latent attraction had only been exacerbated by his monstrous
bloodlust. And his unworthiness had only increased. Not only was he
damaged to the soul by his childhood profession; he was also a god-cursed blood-sucking
monster.
    He’d never understood why she’d even bothered to save him at all that
night, when he’d done his damnedest to stay clear of her, to give her no reason
to care about him. He supposed her sentimental memory of him as a boy had
motivated her actions. But even that memory had been an illusion, for she’d
never known what he’d truly been before the fire.
    If she’d known the truth, she wouldn’t have saved him. He knew that with
a bone-deep conviction. She certainly wouldn’t look at him as she did now, with
such yearning . And he didn’t even think it was sexual in intent. Even
though she was nearly half a century old, her life had been so sheltered and
circumscribed by convention that he doubted she even knew what went on between
a man and a woman when they lay together, much less what buggery was.
    But he knew. Oh, he could write a dissertation on the subject, and
all of the countless perversions between men and women – and men and children – he’d both witnessed and been a part of after spending his formative
years in a brothel. They were ingrained deep in his brain, tainting him
forever.
    He refused to taint her.
    So he held on to his anger, as one would hold on to a life raft, and
refused to see the silent plea for a truce in her green eyes.
    Even still, she approached him, as undaunted by his fangs and scowls as
ever. She even smiled tentatively, though it did not reach her eyes. “Did you
miss me, Inspector?”
    “Was I supposed to?” he answered with a sneer, in his broadest Cockney
accent, trying not to breathe in her scent.
    “I thought perhaps you took a moment here and there out of your life of
fighting villains to reflect upon me,” she said so sincerely he almost missed
the hint of sarcasm peppering her tone. But, alas, he was so attuned to
everything she did, down to the rhythm of her beating heart, that he noticed.
And wondered. She’d never seemed capable of sarcasm in the past.
    “Perhaps I did, my Lady,” he said. “Perhaps I thought how wonderful it
was to have several large bodies of water between us.” It had been
wonderful. Wonderful and awful all at once. He’d been torn between his relief of
being free of temptation and the nearly debilitating agony of knowing she was a
thousand miles away for two endless months. But he’d cut off his own head
before he admitted as much to her.
    Her smile remained stubbornly fixed on her perfect lips, but the light in
her eyes dimmed just a little bit more. “So you did think about me,” she
persisted.
    “Aye. Two months and not one headache. I felt truly blessed.”
    “And now your headache has returned. I am glad to know I haven’t lost my
touch,” she said dryly, taking him further aback. When had she become so
sarcastic? When had she developed the ability to fight back at his verbal
assaults? Usually one cruel comment from him sent her practically bolting from
his company.
    This was no doubt what came from spending two months in Paris with Aline
and Sasha Romanov, who were both known for their biting wit. She’d apparently developed
a backbone on her little holiday. He was not sure if he approved.
    Then he shook himself out of his strange line of thought. It was not for
him to