Page 1 of A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience
A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience
It was Margaret Dunhaven’s opinion that a marriage which constrained her to drink stale tea could not be described as ‘convenient’ in any meaningful sense of the word. In fact, as she emptied out the last of the cavernous old kitchen cupboards and a mound of stirred-up dust billowed into her face, she realized—through a set of convulsive sneezes—that her current circumstances merited anentirelydifferent term.
Despite every claim made by her relatives across the nightmarish forty-eight hours since they had kidnapped her from the luxuriant depths of her college library, she found herself trapped in a marriage of deepinconvenience...and she would have to resign herself to brewing those tattered and scent-less old tea leaves after all, if only to sharpen her brain for working out an escape route.
Grumbling under her breath, she tucked up the folds of her absurdly elaborate wedding gown with one hand, picked up the dusty tin of tea leaves with the other, and stepped down from the rickety old chair she had used as a precarious stool.
“Ahem,” said the deathly-pale and wild-haired man who loomed in the doorway of the kitchen, his disheveled grey suit a full century out of fashion.
“No.” Exchanging the tin for a battered old kettle, Margaret stalked through the room to the connected scullery and yanked hard on the brass tap.
Pipes wailed in protest at being woken from their long slumber. Margaret set her teeth together and endured the racket.
“What I was attempting to say...” he continued.
Margaret had been honing the force of her venomous glare to warn rival research students away from her chosen study desk for well over three years now. She called on that skill once more as she turned, deliberately, to face him. “You may now be my husband,” she enunciated tightly, “but I willnotbe listening to another word you say until I’ve had a proper cup of tea.”
Apparently, even the undead could be made to understand some simple facts of life. The vampire lord of Shadowcroft Manor stepped back a full two inches under her regard, his bulky shoulders stiffening defensively.
That’s better. Margaret set the newly-full kettle on the stove and refused to worry about the fact that she was turning her back on her new spouse...even as the exposed nape of her neck prickled in atavistic warning.
Well, if he did lunge forward to try to bite her, she’d simply whack him over the head with the kettle she’d just filled and take care of the problem that way. Honestly, she almost hoped that he would. It would give her the perfect excuse to let out all of her pent-up fury.
Unfortunately for her more violent impulses, her sinister new husband waited with apparent patience all the way through herverythorough steeping of the leaves and her first long, disappointing sip before he finally cleared his throat and drawled, “Would it betoounbearably forward of me, madam, to escort you to the parlor?”
Margaret’s shoulders sagged as she sighed.
This tea, no matter how unpleasant, was indeed the bolster she had needed to recall her common sense. Making an enemy of her unwanted spouse would be no more sensible than alienating her most persnickety academic supervisor. So, she ignored the sardonic tone of his offer and said, “That would be helpful, my lord. Thank you.”
Bowing, he led her through a maze of cobwebbed, empty corridors and dust-shroud-covered rooms to a small but surprisingly comfortable-looking parlor, with two deep-cushioned sofas set close together. Candles cast a warm glow from old-fashioned candelabras set atop sturdy oak cabinets. The thick black velvet curtains were firmly closed when they arrived, but Lord Riven drew them open to reveal the even thicker darkness outside as Margaret set her teapot and cup on a side table and braced herself for their first conversation since they’d met at an altar an hour earlier.
“You must know,” she said, “that this will never work. Regardless of whatever mad urge led you to blackmail my family, you can’t have truly wished for an unwilling wife—and I’ll be useless as a housekeeper or a hostess, I promise you.”
A shaggy swathe of tawny hair fell across his eyes as his head tilted, shielding his expression as he stood by the darkened windows. “Blackmail? I’m not quite sure...”
She flapped one hand impatiently. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. Do you expect me to pretty it up for tact’s sake? There wasn’t even anymilkin the kitchen for my tea, after a two-day journey without any stops that were long enough to rest. You can’t expect me to dance about with words now!
“My aunt and uncle were bothextremelyclear that I—and they—had no choice in this matter. If I said no, the whole family would be ruined, cast out upon the streets for rats to nibble upon our hair as we slept in the stinking gutters; I would have to sell off all of my books to eat, or possibly my body—which might besomeimprovement, I suppose, if I could keep my books in that case, but then again...” Blinking, she cut herself off. “Have I mentioned that I haven’t slept in days?”
“You have.” He prowled with leonine grace around the edges of the room to take his own seat, as far from her as possible within the small space. “However, I must confess that I am still a bit confused. Am I to understand that your relatives claimedtheywere being forced into this marriage?”
“Oh, Lord.” There was nothing for it; she would have to drink more wretched tea to get through this. Margaret took a long, restorative sip and sought for the tact and diplomacy she’d never mastered—and hadn’t even bothered to attempt in years. “My lord,” she said, “it is my understanding that some particularly ancient members of your, ah,factionmay find their memories beginning to loosen, as is only natural in the ravages of time. Some even suffer an experience similar to mortal sleepwalking, in which they speak and act without any conscious volition. If you made your own threats in such a state, I’m sure everyone will be happy to entirely forgive and forget from this moment forwards?—”
“I am not suffering fromdementia, Miss Dunhaven.” Red swept in a sudden, sheening wave across the vampire’s brown eyes, making Margaret suck in a breath, as he sliced out his words with a lethal edge. “You gravely misunderstand me if you think me de-fanged.”
“Andyoumis-name me, my lord.” Her hand tightened around the handle of her teacup. “As I believe you arefully aware, my name is ‘Lady Riven’ now.”
His red-sheened eyes narrowed.
She bared a ferocious smile in response.
Growling, Lord Riven slumped back against his couch, tipping his shaggy head back against the faded cushions and closing his eyes as if to re-gather his scattered willpower. It was a reaction Margaret was quite accustomed to from her colleagues in academia. Slowly she allowed her held breath to release. Still, she kept her right hand firmly locked around her cup until she could be certain that her fingers wouldn’t tremble.
“Perhaps,” she said at last, “we should begin again. I’ve related my own understanding of how we came to be here. Does it not align with yours?”
“You could say as much.” Letting out a humorless laugh, he opened his eyes but remained in his half-prone position. “I was woken far too early from my Sleep”—the capitalization, while unorthodox, was aurally unmistakable—“by my man of business, who informed me that should I not be wed to a respectably living and breathing woman by the end of this week, my house and lands would be forfeit to the crown, re-distributed to a living family, while I, myself...” He slid a wry glance in her direction. “Well, I can hardly better your earlier description of the disasters that would ensue...except that none of the books in my own family library would be mine to sell.”
“Oh, you have a library?” Momentarily, she brightened. Then suspicion hit. “Wait. What sort of library, exactly? Is it one of those sad collections made only for show, full of old farming almanacs and Latin primers, with nothing interesting to uncover? Or...”
