A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience

I t 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 an entirely different 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 deep inconvenience ...

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 will not be 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 her very thorough steeping of the leaves and her first long, disappointing sip before he finally cleared his throat and drawled, "Would it be too unbearably 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 any milk in 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 both extremely clear 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 be some improvement, 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 claimed they were 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, faction may 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 from dementia , 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."

"And you mis-name me, my lord." Her hand tightened around the handle of her teacup. "As I believe you are fully 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..."

"Perhaps," said Lord Riven, "you might explore that point after we resolve the rather more urgent matter of our union."

"Of course." Sighing, Margaret tamped down her excitement and lifted her cup for another tasteless sip. "So, it was due to your own exigency that you chose to threaten my family?"

"No," he said, "it was in my state of exigency that your family chose to extort me . My man of business informed me that just in time to salvage my home, he'd discovered a most helpful gentleman with a niece who would be only too happy to wed me and take up the required state of residence...on the sole condition that I hand over my family's most prized heirloom, the Rose of Normandy."

"The what ?" Margaret had spent years in academia learning to never look surprised or unaware of any facts when other people were watching. Still, she couldn't control the sudden squeak of her voice or the jerk of her hand now, splashing hot tea across the cream-colored silk skirts of her wedding gown. She ignored that spreading wet heat as she stared at her new husband, searching for any signs of deception. "Do you mean to tell me that you had the fabled Rose of Normandy in your keeping all along? In this house? " Setting down the teacup, she looked about wildly, as if the infamous gem might suddenly strike her with its legendary rays amidst the decaying splendor.

"Where else should it have been hidden but here with all of the other old, forgotten relics?" Lord Riven let out a bitter bark of laughter. "I can't even fathom how your family knew of it in the first place. I'd thought all the battles over it centuries in the past, consigned by history to the ranks of mere myth."

"But they've hardly been forgotten ," Margaret said impatiently. "I've been researching those stories for years! Why do you think I chose Morningford College for my studies in the first place? Their collection of resources is without parallel—or so I'd thought. If I'd had any idea the real gem was available for study..."

"It wasn't ." His eyes narrowed. "How much of that research did you happen to share with your family over the years?"

"Why would I have discussed any of it with them ?" She flapped one hand in dismissal. "They've never cared a whit for my studies, nor made any attempt to understand them. My parents were both scholars and explorers, but all my uncle and aunt ever wanted of me was to catch a husband who might increase their social standing. Even after reaching the age of majority, I had to fight to use even the smallest fraction of my inheritance on university fees instead of waiting politely to hand it all over to a man."

"It certainly wasn't handed to me." As his voice lowered to a menacing rumble, his head tilted at an unusual angle, the sharpening of his canines clearly visible even in the low candlelight. In vain, Margaret attempted not to think of a fanged beast preparing to lunge. "My man of business informed me that, under the circumstances, I should be grateful to have a willing bride at all, regardless of her lack of dowry."

"Whereas I was told that all of my funds, along with those of my uncle, had been lost to unwise investments, and you'd bought up the debt." She gritted her teeth together. "No wonder they refused to stop at any inns along the way to let me sleep! They needed me too exhausted and confused to ask the right questions."

How could she have been such a fool? Her first-year tutor would have torn her to shreds for that shameful lack of critical thinking. The trouble was she'd spent too many years living thankfully apart from her family. Buried in her sanctuary of treasured books and a college-wide quest for learning, she'd forgotten just how little some people valued the truth.

They'd certainly never valued her. How could she have ever imagined that she had escaped their control, only because they'd indulged her for a span of time that had felt, cruelly, like freedom?

For a moment, that old feeling of suffocation was so visceral that her throat tightened to choking point.

Then she stiffened her shoulders, forced a breath through her aching chest, and took a bracing sip of tea. "Very well. Clearly, we'll need to find a way through this tangle together. An annulment should be simple enough, to begin with. If you contact the minister who wed us tonight and make the arrangements?—"

"Unfortunately, I did take the time to ask questions." Lord Riven's nostrils flared with distaste. "That new law is quite real, a creation of bigotry and greed that takes full force tomorrow. Should our marriage be annulled—or should you ever change your permanent residence—I will lose everything, and the sacrifice of my greatest responsibility and my honor will all have been for naught." Slowly and heavily, he shook his head. "No. I regret that you were tricked into this with me, but I don't think I shall request or pay for that particular privilege, thank you."

"But...!" Margaret gaped at him. "Can you not see for yourself the impossibility of this situation?"

"You think I'm the one blind to impossibility?" He aimed a skeptical look at her from the couch. "My dear Lady Riven, where do you imagine you would go if I were willing to annul our marriage? You did mention, did you not, that your university charges fees for residence and study?"

"Well, yes...and they still won't offer any scholarships to female students, even now." Margaret scowled at the reminder of that long-loathed injustice. "But if we did secure an annulment, I could...oh, curse it. No, I couldn't, could I?" Shoulders slumping, she sat back in her chair. "My uncle will never willingly hand back my inheritance now that he has it in his grasp—not without a protracted legal battle."

"And lawyers, I do believe, cost money too." Her new husband's tone was gratingly unsympathetic. "No, for better or worse, we are joined together from this day forwards, just as that droning minister ordained. At least you may take some consolation, madam. As you don't happen to share my curse, this won't have to be an eternal union. You'll be released from it in a mere sixty years or so, leaving me to start the whole inconvenient process over again."

"What a charming perspective on the matter." Margaret glowered at him. "Perhaps I'll choose to poison you instead to win my early release."

"Not unless you're willing to poison yourself, as the only source of nourishment you could possibly gift me." He arched a single, sardonic eyebrow as he turned his gaze pointedly to her bare neck. "Was that intended as a hint, lady wife? Are you offering me a celebratory wedding meal? The experience is pleasurable for both parties, you know."

" Ugh . You are insufferable!" Snatching up her cup, Margaret gulped down the rest of her tea in one unpalatable rush. Then she gathered up her skirts and stormed out of the room, leaving the half-full pot behind her along with her stubborn new, unwanted, and bloodthirsty partner in life.

Unfortunately for him, she had been forced into working with undesirable partners more than once before in her years of academic study. Those unpleasant experiences had taught Margaret one important truth: some debates simply couldn't be won without sleep and hours of research beforehand.

She wasn't giving up on this one.

A single night of sleep could hardly gift her all the clarity and answers that she needed. Still, Margaret awoke the next morning to one significant realization: if she wished to survive her marriage, regardless of its length, she would have to find a reliable source of sustenance. Last night, she hadn't spotted a single servant in the dusty manor house. She certainly wouldn't trust any moldy old remnants she might find in that long-abandoned kitchen.

So, it was with a pleasing sense of purpose that she set off, once attired in more sensible clothing, to find the closest door to the outside world...

Only to be derailed before the first turning of the corridor by an unexpected set of odors.

Was that— could that be fried bacon somewhere nearby? And—her breath caught in longing—could that gently clinking sound of crockery possibly forebode...

" Tea? " She picked up her skirts to sweep around the corner—and nearly barreled into a moving figure.

"Your Ladyship." Shifting neatly out of the way, a plainly dressed woman managed an impressive curtsy without losing her grip on the full breakfast tray she carried. "I was instructed by his Lordship to bring this to your room."

"Hmm." Margaret's brows rose as she turned to return to her bedroom at the other woman's side. "How very considerate of him."

And how very unlike her sardonic groom in their last interaction! He must have been busy all night to hire new servants and procure fresh food for his human bride...neither of which acts he'd considered necessary in preparation for their wedding.

She didn't trust this act of kindness for an instant, but she was not a masochist. Any further conclusions could wait until she'd had her first pot of tea.

These leaves, thank goodness, were reasonably fresh. Once Margaret was safely seated on her bed, with the sturdy legs of the breakfast tray arranged on the aged bedcovers around her figure, she poured the tea through its elegant silver strainer into a blue-and-white cup and inhaled the scented steam with deep satisfaction. With that heavenly fragrance filling her senses, Margaret looked with fresh focus at the older woman who stood to one side, hands folded and gaze politely lowered.

"Have you worked for His Lordship long?"

"Fifteen years now as needed, Your Ladyship." Her gaze was direct in return, her expression calmly confident. "My husband and I have always been called upon to help with such matters as his Lordship couldn't attend to himself, and my husband's parents before us, too. It's been that way ever since he was Turned, by agreement with my husband's great-grandmother. We keep a cottage on the grounds, with a nice little garden too, and are quite comfortable there."

"What a sensible arrangement." Margaret considered the matter as she took her first sip—and then, with the rumbling of her neglected stomach making other needs known, took up the bacon and eggs with enthusiasm. Once finished, she gave a sigh of deep appreciation. "You do excellent work, Mrs...?"

"Haworth, Your Ladyship."

"Thank you, Mrs. Haworth." Nudging aside her empty plate, Margaret smiled at her sincerely. "We'll have to see about your salary being raised while I'm in residence."

"Oh, his Lordship saw to all that last night." Mrs. Haworth nodded serenely. "For the rest of your lifetime, Your Ladyship, our family will shift to fulltime work in the manor, and we'll be taking on a deal more staff too, for your comfort. There's nothing left for you to worry about."

‘The rest of your lifetime...'

Margaret's teeth set together. "I'm afraid it may not last quite so long, Mrs. Haworth. But while I am living here, of course we will both welcome and appreciate your service." Taking another long, invigorating sip of tea, she straightened her shoulders. "To begin with, perhaps you could direct me to the local town." Food, she apparently no longer required, but information —whether about her new husband or her location itself —would always be of use. Now that she was nourished, she was ready to gather it.

Mrs. Haworth's head tilted. "If there's anything you require, my husband will happily acquire it for you, Your Ladyship. Only let me know, and we'll see to it."

Margaret's eyes narrowed as she gazed upon the housekeeper's perfectly innocent expression. " Fresh air would do me a world of good," she said firmly. "After all, I've been cooped up in a library so long"—she almost gagged on the falsity of that description—"I'm sure I would most enjoy a long, hearty walk in the countryside and a good"—or at least, useful —"chat with my new neighbors."

Mrs. Haworth let out a regretful t'sk. "I'm afraid it's been raining all night, Your Ladyship. The mud is something terrible around here. Perhaps you might ask Your Lordship tonight about holding a dinner party soon? I'm sure all the local gentlefolk would be glad of an invitation."

...And Margaret, in any such situation, would remain safely inside the house.

No wonder Lord Riven had hurried to make all the arrangements for her food and keeping while she slept, rather than waiting to allow her to take on that wifely duty herself. If he'd thought her a willing party to their marriage, he wouldn't have seen any harm in leaving such domestic matters to her. But if he was afraid that she would run away, ignoring all practicalities of funds and survival, only to leave them both homeless and desperate...

How much of a fool did he think she was?

Margaret's teeth ground together in preparation to say something extraordinarily rude about the manor's beloved lord and master.

Mrs. Haworth spoke first. "Would you care to see the library here, Your Ladyship? His Lordship did ask me to show you the way if you'd any interest in such matters..."

Damnation. A library was the one temptation Margaret could never possibly refuse. From the telling curve of the housekeeper's lips, both she and Lord Riven knew it.

Margaret's new husband, though, truly was a fool if he imagined that his family's library was a safer option when it came to occupying his reluctant new wife.

Smiling with steely determination, Margaret set down her empty first cup of tea and nodded for Mrs. Haworth to take the pot with them. "Show me the way, if you please."

Information and research were always the keys to success.

She knew exactly what her next step should be.

Lord Riven had at least enough wits to look distinctly wary as he stepped into the dining room that night. Under Margaret's direction, the two enormous chandeliers had been dusted, and every candle had been lit to illuminate the lavish meal laid out across the long table.

His gaze flicked across that enormous spread of offerings, from ham to chicken to roast potatoes and candied walnuts. For a moment, a wave of red sheened across his eyes, and his lips parted. Then they slammed shut, and he turned his burning gaze upon her.

Margaret smiled back at him with perfect satisfaction from her seat at the foot of the table. "Welcome, husband. I thought you'd be pleased to see all of your old favorites."

She'd found centuries of household records and accounts along with all the other dusty texts. For a woman accustomed to research, it had been no great challenge to work out the obvious implications.

Holding Lord Riven's gaze, she reached out and deliberately stabbed a piece of chicken, raising it to her mouth.

He didn't respond in words...but he swallowed convulsively.

She took her time chewing the chicken before swallowing it with relish. Then she gave a little shiver of delight. "Mmm. Delicious! I only wish you could share it with me."

"Quite." He sank into his seat at the head of the table and sprawled across it, regarding her under lowered lashes. "Is that why you summoned me, madam wife? To watch you feast?"

She batted her eyelashes at him. "Sharing a meal is the bare minimum expected of any married couple, is it not? And don't worry..." She nodded to the single clay mug set at his place, filled with a dark, unappetizing liquid supplied by the local butcher. "Your own sustenance is here as well."

"How thoughtful." The words were a snarl.

Margaret poured fragrant gravy over her roast potatoes, watching his hot gaze follow each decadent swirl. "You've taken such care to keep me safe within these walls. How could I not return the favor? From the state of the house when I arrived, I could tell just what a social nature you must have. Apparently, you wish us to be each other's only company—so from now on, we shall simply share every waking hour. Never a moment apart nor any pause for breath! That is what you were hoping for, is it not?"

" Enough , madam. You've made your point!" Scowling, Lord Riven snatched up the clay mug and took a long swig. He grimaced as he swallowed, but he didn't set the mug down. Instead, he held it close to his chest as he regarded her broodingly. "I take it you weren't satisfied by my arrangements for your comfort."

"Would you be satisfied by imprisonment, no matter how comfortable your environs?" She'd meant her words as a challenge, but she was startled by the visible hunching of his broad shoulders in response, as if he were absorbing a physical blow.

His voice, when it finally emerged, was a low and bitter rumble. "Unlike you, I've had plenty of practice."

"Now, whatever can you mean by that?" Margaret frowned and lowered her fork. The supernatural creatures of the world had never been her area of academic focus. While her primary academic rival at Morningford College had put most of his attention into those commonplace, salacious details, she had kept her own focus on the remarkable gem itself—but studying the legends of the Rose of Normandy meant some supernatural knowledge was inescapable. "There's no element of a physical cage in vampirism. Despite some of the more gruesome myths, no grave dirt is involved or needed. So long as you're not caught out by direct sunlight?—"

"I am, in fact, aware of the rules of my own condition," he said tightly, "but there's a good deal of my history that you don't know, despite your sharp wits."

"Then tell me—or at the very least, grant me the means to find it out!" Abandoning her meal, Margaret sat forward, resting her elbows on the table like the bloody-minded scholar she was, not the ladylike puppet her family had tried so hard to mold her into. "There's not a single mention of the Rose of Normandy in your library, so you must keep those records hidden elsewhere. Don't tell me you handed them all over to your man of business along with the gem."

The silent curl of his upper lip was all the answer that she needed.

She nodded firmly, her thesis confirmed. "Of course, the next question we ought to answer is how your man of business even knew you had the gem—and he must have known in order to agree that transaction with my family. You didn't mention it to him or any of his predecessors, did you?"

"Believe it or not," her husband drawled, "I'm not in the habit of spilling my family's secrets over wine like a drunken fool."

"No, really? And yet you seem so talkative and prone to idle chatter." Margaret rolled her eyes. "Well, we'll simply have to solve that mystery before we get it back."

"‘Get it back ?'" Lord Riven repeated, his voice rising. "Madam, are you perchance hard of hearing? I am quite certain I already told you that the gem was handed irrevocably to your family in exchange for our marriage. The contractual terms are clear. Even should we dissolve our own connection, thus giving up my home and land and?—"

"Yes, yes, yes, I understand. They won't be legally required to give it back even in that case... if they do have it themselves, which I doubt." Margaret tapped one finger on the table, her brows lowering with concentration. "I cannot imagine my aunt and uncle, of all people, having any interest in a supernatural relic—but we'll sort that mystery out along the way."

"We...will?" Her husband's tawny eyebrows rose.

"Well, naturally," said Margaret impatiently. "Firstly, there is no chance in the world that I would ever come so close to the actual Rose of Normandy without even seeing it for myself—and secondly, without regaining the Rose, how am I meant to reverse your curse?"