Page 8 of The Vampire's Guide to Wooing a Curator
“What does this have to do with your exhibit?” Mr. Blackwood asked, using a patronizing tone that made her hackles rise. He was about to launch into a lecture about how he had agreed to hire her as assistant curator, despite there being no other women in similar positions in the city. It apparently didn’t matter that she’d successfully organized several tremendously successful but mind-numbingly boring exhibits before this one, each of which had earned the museum substantial revenues. She had earned this opportunity, but all he could see was a woman involving herself in a subject he considered inappropriate. It was already scandalous for an unmarried lady to be unchaperoned, let alone for her to be employed. Getting past those concerns had required several reminders of her undesirable state as an orphan and thedonation of a Sorrow family artifact, a diamond necklace previously owned by Marie de’ Medici.
Clearly, the newspaper was not going to convince Mr. Blackwood. She would have to find another tactic. She spun around and grabbed the centerpiece of her collection. Even without considering its contents, the manuscript would have sold for thousands of pounds at auction for its beauty and age alone. She stopped at a detailed depiction of the streets of Paris.
Mr. Blackwood leaned forward and adjusted his spectacles. “Remarkable.”
“With the attacks lately, our guests will be titillated by the idea of a vampire killer. And there’s more.” She flipped to a sketch of a dark-haired man with a prominent nose and then tapped the caption, which read,Marcus Deville, 1707. Extreme danger. Do not approach. “It’s the Earl of Kingsbury! When our guests see this, the gossip alone will sell tickets.”
Mr. Blackwood’s lips pressed into a thin line, but to her relief, he did not comment. Her obsession with the earl had been a point of contention between them since she’d proposed the exhibit. The curator’s belief in supernatural creatures did not extend to accusing a lord of being a vampire. It had taken weeks to convince him that the earl was unlikely to care about a tiny exhibit hosted in a museum primarily visited by the working class. She’d clung to the lie so stubbornly that she’d almost convinced herself.
“I suppose,” he said, and she could tell from the change in his posture that there was nothing more he would say on that topic.
He flipped the newspaper back to the front page. “Have you seen this?” He struck his fingers against the front page, emblazoned with the words:ART THIEF STRIKES AGAIN.
She sighed. Every week, the old man insisted there was a new and pressing problem they had to address immediately. Mr. Drake’s demonstration had been alarming, and she could notdiscount the possibility thathewas the thief described in the paper, but it didn’t matter. The museum could not afford to hire additional staff. “Paris is very far away, Mr. Blackwood, and we are hardly a target.”
“I am not so confident.” He furrowed his brow. “Perhaps we should consider more security.”
She almost asked if he’d been talking to Mr. Drake but held the words back. She’d had more than enough of arguing with men for one night. With tremendous force of will, she resisted telling him they had no budget with which to hire anyone and instead spent several minutes persuading him to drop the matter. When he finally left, she returned to the illuminated manuscript and read until she found a spell that would suit her needs—a protective ward. She took careful note of the herbs she’d need, then tucked the manuscript into a crate and slid it beneath a table. She didn’t want to leave the artifacts unprotected, but it was safer for them to remain where they were than for her to risk being ambushed while transporting them home.
With her eyes growing heavier by the minute, she exited the Sloan House onto the street to find a cab to take her back to the Sorrow base.
She could have found her own accommodation, of course. Several other ladies employed at the museum had even recommended an affordable boarding house nearby. But moving out of the home she’d shared with her extended family for the past six years felt too much like giving up. While she remained in residence, she had easy access to the Sorrow archives, training area, and supply room. If she lived elsewhere, she might be tempted to forget about hunting and move on with her life.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not until she was certain the vampire who had killed her parents was dead. With few clues as to the woman’s identity or location, the best she could dowas use her exhibit to force as many vampires out of hiding as possible. The demons were highly territorial. If the black-veiled woman lived, she was still in London.
A cab rattled to a halt in front of her. She gave the driver the address, accepted the man’s jovial assurance that he would transport her in good time, then settled inside.
Perhaps she was foolish to be so fixated on the vampire who had slaughtered her parents when her brother and uncle had been taken from her more recently, but her Great-Uncle Ezra’s edict meant she couldn’t directly pursue the Earl of Kingsbury without risking a bloody war.
The cab stopped in front of a narrow, brick townhouse on the edge of the fashionable Mayfair district. She paid the driver and then walked around the building to the kitchen rather than risk being cornered by one of her cousins. They knew how much she longed to join the patrols and so, likely on Great-Uncle Ezra’s orders, took every opportunity to stress how much she didn’t belong within their ranks.
As she passed the second floor, she heard thumping and raucous laughter, confirming her cousins were home. She briefly imagined herself throwing open the doors to the library and tossing the severed head of a vampire into the center of the crowd.Thatwould show them she was serious…and get her kicked out of the house.
She reached the door to her room and pushed it open. The cramped space was barely large enough for a dressing table, a chest of drawers, and her bed. A narrow window let in a sliver of moonlight, casting a square of silver on the wooden floor. She crossed the room and gazed at the house beside hers. As usual, the curtains were drawn, and there was no sign of light or movement. She might have thought it was abandoned were it not for the frequent visitors.
Movement caught her attention. A man in a top hat and burgundy suit strode purposefully up the steps and pounded on the door. It opened immediately, blocking Felicity’s view of who was on the other side.
That was when she noticed the envelope waiting on her dressing table. She rushed to it, tore open the top and spread the contents across her desk. This was one of the few tasks Great-Uncle Ezra had entrusted to her. Each night, one of her cousins recorded the vital details of every vampire they tracked and killed, to the best of their ability, and sent them to her to record in the ledgers.
Her parents had been two of the best hunters in London, and she was a blasted scribe.
She sighed, then sat down at her desk, opened a thick, leather-bound notebook to the latest page, and began writing in a careful script.
The hunting patrols had been successful over the past several days, eliminating a dozen vampires. Although none of the descriptions matched the creature that haunted her dreams, at least the city was slightly safer. Not that anyone in London knew of or appreciated their efforts.
Another reason she had to continue with the exhibit.
Even if Mr. Blackwood disapproved. Even if her own family would disown her if they discovered she’d taken artifacts out of storage. If there was even a slight chance that she could flush the monster that had killed her parents out of hiding, it was worth it.
When she finished her work, she was too restless to sleep. She set the book aside and made her way to the basement, where the familiar scent of rosin and metal enveloped her like a warm embrace. The empty practice range beckoned, but she strode past it and entered the supply room.
Her younger cousin Theresa was currently responsible for restocking the hundreds of herb-filled glass jars. Theresa wasalso prone to sleeping late and kept the key to the supply room hanging on a nail on her writing desk.
Felicity gathered the materials she needed to cast a protective ward in the Sloan House, then closed the door and left the key in the lock. The next person to come for supplies would likely assume Theresa had left it by mistake. At worst, Felicity’s cousin would be chastised for her forgetfulness and reassigned to a different duty.
With her task complete, Felicity took up a position at the end of the practice range, removed a dagger from her belt, and took aim.
Steady.
