roaring surge of hunger, an ache of primal need, and he sprang back from her in torment.
‘What have I done?’ he said in horror. ‘Oh, my love, what have I done to you? I’ve frightened you. You’re shaking.’ He stepped forward to comfort her, then stopped himself by an effort of will and forced himself back. ‘I never meant it to be like this. I thought you need never know, I thought I could keep it from you, I thought we could be happy, and perhaps, if things had been different, if they had been what I thought they were… but I should not have taken the risk, I should never have dragged you into this nightmare. I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I wanted you so much that I fooled myself into thinking it was possible. But it isn’t. It can never be.’
‘Darcy—’
‘I have wanted to tell you so many times. When you asked me what was wrong I tried to tell you, but I could never find the words, and even if I had found them, I would not have had the right to rob you of your safe and familiar world. How could I plunge you into a world of such nightmares? A deeper, darker world where creatures stalk the night? I never meant to hurt you. I never meant you to know. I never wanted to do this to you, to make you afraid, to see you tremble…’
‘I’m not shaking with fear, I’m shaking with relief,’ she said with a catch in her throat. ‘If you only knew what I have been thinking, the dark thoughts that have plagued my soul. I thought it was something far, far worse. I thought you didn’t love me.’
He looked at her in bewilderment. ‘You thought I didn’t love you?’ He stood, astonished. Then he closed the gap between them in one stride and ran his hands through her hair. ‘I love you to distraction. I thought I would go mad, being with you every day but never able to touch you. If you only knew how I have longed to do this, to feel your skin, to run my fingers through your hair and over your face, to feel you, touch you, be with you… but I couldn’t, I couldn’t. It was different when we married. I thought that as long as I didn’t bite you that you would never turn, and that I could hide my nature from you; that we could live together at Pemberley and that you need never know. But then I found out on our wedding day that there was a chance, just a chance, that I would turn you if I claimed you, that you might become a vampyre if I truly made you my wife.’
‘The look of torment,’ said Elizabeth, remembering. ‘That was what caused it.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was one of the messages,’ she said, realising it must be so.
‘Yes, it was slipped in with the messages of congratulation. I did not know at the time if it was true. It could just have been a cruel hoax, designed to destroy my marriage, but I had to find out for sure. And so that is why I took you to Europe, to consult more widely with people who might know.’
‘And did they know?’
‘No, my love. No one knows for certain. Whilst there is a chance I will turn you we can never be together. This must be our last kiss. If I have to be with you, day after day, sooner or later my self-control will slip, and you may end up like me, a creature of the night. You have to get away from me.’
‘No,’ she said resolutely. ‘I will never leave you. We are together for ever. Whatever happens, there is only one place I want to be, and that is with you.’
He took her palm and kissed it, sending hot shivers up her arm. Her eyelids drooped and her limbs felt heavy and languorous. She felt rather than saw him lean towards her, and she became very still as she sensed a predatory animal close to her. She instinctively inclined her head, exposing her throat. She knew in some tiny corner of her mind that it was dangerous, but she no longer cared. She felt his breath as his mouth moved towards the graceful arc of her neck and then the soft touch of his lips on her skin and she was held, mesmerised, knowing that if he should bite her, she would