Real Vampires: Glory and the Pirates by Bartlett, Gerry (red white royal blue TXT) 📕

your work.” I grabbed the pillow then sat next to her, the pretty thing in my lap. “Look at this. You do such fine needlework and I am no hand at it. Of course, I don’t have my own beautiful pillows. Why, just see how clearly you made this view of a lake. Where is this? I have never seen a place like this near here.”

Anne stared at it. “No, it is the valley near my home. I used to ride there with my father. We would sit by that lake and eat cakes. He did have a love of sweets.” She sighed. “It will not be the same now. My mother’s husband sold that land to someone else. He is a fool for gaming. I just received a letter from Mama. She writes that she wants me home to meet someone. I know what that is about. The baron must owe a great debt and thinks to use me to settle it.” She took the pillow and squeezed it. “At least I’m good for something.”

I ignored what I knew to be self-pity.

“Must you go?” I was close enough to run my fingers over the fine stitches. It must have taken hours, days, weeks to finish the intricate needlepoint scene.

“It does not feel right to just live on your charity, Gloriana. Yours and Lord Campbell’s.” Lady Anne looked away. “What choice do I have but to find a place where I can be useful? Or to marry again.” Her chest heaved with a deep sigh.

“Didn’t Lord Ralph provide a widow’s portion for you?” I had asked Jeremiah about such things. Surely wives had some protections from poverty when a husband died. Not that my sham marriage to Michael had shown me that. Michael had been but a poor actor. When he died, I’d been lucky to be left with the few things in our rented room. Those I’d sold until there was nothing left and the landlord had sent me packing.

The other mistresses I had met in Edinburgh and London had advised me to look to my own future. That meant accepting jewels from my lover and saving them to sell once we parted. I refused to scheme for more gifts like some of those women did. They, like Florence, considered such an attitude merely practical.

I’d noticed Anne wearing some lovely pieces since I’d been here. “You have jewels you could sell, Lady Anne. That should give you a small independence.”

“I would hate to part with them, but they would provide a small dowry, I suppose. If Mama’s baron does not hear of them and sell them first.” Lady Anne walked to the window. “I had a generous dowry when I married Ralph. He was not a wealthy man. He used it to improve the castle. To please me, he said.” She stared out at the view of the sea.

“Then there were the horses, the sheep, the ship that he planned to use to vanquish the pirates.” She looked at me, her face bleak. “Those are all gone, taken by the pirates or destroyed. The ship sank in the harbor. They call it Bloody Bay, you know.”

“I didn’t know!” I jumped to my feet. Bloody Bay?

Jeremiah had told me he intended to attack the pirates. Plans had been made and he was going soon, perhaps on tomorrow’s tide. His father wanted to go with him and they had been excitedly talking of making the pirates rue the day they had harried the Scottish coast. Fergus had been told he would stay here and take charge of the men guarding the castle. He had accepted the duty, though he’d itched to go with them.

Men. They treated the coming battle like a grand adventure. I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach, fear gnawing at me. Bloody Bay. Gods! Anne was still talking.

“That is why there is a Guardian, of course. There is a long history of battles with the Irish along this coastline. The two shores are so very close here, mere hours away by ship with a fair wind.” Lady Anne sat again. “I must resign myself to my future. I am going home and can only hope that the man chosen for me is kind.”

I wanted to shake her.

“Stop this. You are no longer a young girl subject to your family’s control. Not even the king would think to make you obey them.” I knew that from questioning Jeremiah. Obviously, the king had forgotten Anne existed when he sent us here. I doubted the baron her mother had married had the king’s ear either. Jeremiah knew him as a wastrel and a gambler. She could safely defy him, couldn’t she?

“You are kind to worry about me, Gloriana. But I cannot just sit in this room stitching forever. Honestly? I am sick of it.” Anne’s face flushed even as she did sit in her chair and pick up her needlework from the basket beside her. “A bad marriage might be better than none.”

I remembered some of the cruel men I’d met in London, men with hard eyes who thought pain was the only way to get their pleasure. “That is not so. Think, Anne! You should have a choice, not just give in to another’s demands.” I took her hand and squeezed it. “Is there not someone here who would be to your liking? Someone who has been attentive of late?”

“What are you suggesting, Gloriana?” She pulled her hand away and picked up her needle. She ran her finger along its length. “You really think I should just refuse to go home?”

“Why not? As I said, you can certainly stay here as long as you wish. If there is not someone already in the castle who would suit you, we can invite guests from Edinburgh to visit.” I really didn’t want to do that. Entertaining the laird and Florence had been easy, they knew what we were. To bring in mortals when we were fighting a war? I