Chapter Three: The Midnight Garden
The rest of the waltz passed in a hush of silk and secrets.
When the music ceased, Lucien released her hand, but his eyes lingered. “Come,” he said quietly. “There’s something you should see.”
Isabelle hesitated. Every rule whispered into her ear since she could walk told her not to follow a strange man into the night. But none of those rules accounted for storm-eyed strangers who felt more real than any London gentleman she had ever met.
She followed.
Out of the ballroom, past carved walnut doors, down a corridor lit by flickering sconces and echoing with the distant laughter. Then, through a small servants’ door, they stepped into the night air.
Lady Farthingale’s gardens were famed for their Grecian statues and marble fountains, all arranged in imitation of Versailles. But tonight, moonlight turned the hedges silver, and every petal glowed like it had drunk the stars.
Lucien led her to a hidden alcove beneath a stone archway where wild roses climbed wild unchecked.
He turned to her. “Do you know what blood runs in your veins?”
Isabelle frowned. “I’m a Greystone. Country gentry. My father studied at Oxford.”
“Your mother’s line,” Lucien said, stepping closer. “Did she ever speak of where her family’s origins?”
“She died when I was six,” Isabelle whispered.
Lucien exhaled, a sound almost like pain. “Then you never knew. You are the last descendant of the Bandrui line. Your blood carries something older than any title. Something that binds wolf and vampire alike.”
She stared at him. “You’re mad.”
“No.” He bent close, his voice a breath in the cold night. “You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The dreams that twist into memories. How the moon makes your skin hum. You sense things before they happen. You know things no one taught you.”
She swallowed. “I thought I was just… strange.”
“You’re not strange, Isabelle,” he said. “You’re the key to an ancient pact. The Crimson Accord. And Duval,”—his voice darkened—“wants to end it. To shatter the balance that has held our kind in check for centuries.”
Something flickered in the hedge.
Lucien’s hand moved in an instant, drawing Isabelle behind him.
From the shadows stepped Count Duval, his eyes glowing faintly red, lips curled in a smile as cold as frostbite.
“My Lord Fenwick,” he said smoothly, “I wondered where you had taken the girl.”
“She’s not yours,” Lucien growled.
“Ah,” Duval murmured, stepping into the moonlight. “But perhaps she is not yours either. Not yet.”
Isabelle’s breath caught as both men turned toward her—one cloaked in wild moonlight, the other in ancient shadows.
And she knew, in that instant, that the Season was over.
The real dance had begun.