Stay the Night by Lynn Viehl

“That was very, ah, polite of her.”
    â€œAm I no one to her, then? Someone she must thank in writing? For what? A mistake she never intends to repeat?” Robin threw the note to the floor. “She used me. A mortal. A mortal used me .”
    â€œThe stone-hearted bitch.” Will fluffed the pillows. “Shall I track her back to her lair and offer her a sternly worded rebuke, my lord?”
    Robin hardly heard him. “She did not purchase anything at the auction last night, but she did register as a bidder. She would have had to show her identification and give them a credit card. You will go to the auctioneer’s office and obtain whatever information they have for her. I particularly want her full name and where she resides.” He remembered something she had said at the club. “She told me that she recently transferred here from Chicago. One you have her full name, call Jaus and ask him to run a background check on her.”
    â€œRob.” His seneschal came to stand before him. “It was ill-mannered of this mortal to leave in such haste, but her actions are hardly worth so much trouble. Forget this.”
    â€œNo. I was not finished with her.” He went to his closet and jerked out fresh garments, tearing the sleeve from a shirt in the process. He tossed it aside and took out another.
    â€œYou know that women of this time are not like Kyn females,” Will suggested carefully. “They have much freedom and independence, and they do as they wish. They do not respect men as we expect they should, but that is how things are in this society—”
    â€œWhen have you known me to sleep the day through, from dawn to dusk?” Robin demanded. “With a mortal in my bed?”
    â€œNever,” Will admitted.
    â€œJust so.” He thrust his arms into the sleeves of the second shirt. “She did something to me, this female. I shall learn exactly what it was.”
    â€œShe could not drug you or exhaust you,” his seneschal said as he picked up the torn shirt from the floor. “Could it be that she made you happy?”
    Robin turned on him. “Do I look happy to you now?”
    â€œNot in least, my lord. Forgive me for suggesting otherwise.” Will’s radio buzzed, and he pressed the response button and spoke into it. “What is it, Sylas?”
    â€œAn Italian lady has arrived to call on our lord,” the guard said. “She gives her name as Contessa Salvatora Borgiana.”
    Robin nodded.
    â€œEscort her to the reception room,” Will replied. “Our lord will meet with her shortly.” He switched off the radio. “Were you expecting the contessa to call?”
    â€œI did not know she was in America.”
    The last thing Robin felt like doing was receiving a suzerain’s widow, but Kyn customs gave him no choice. The contessa was obliged to pay her respects upon entering his territory, and it was his duty to welcome her—and find out what she was about.
    Then he would deal with Chris.
    His seneschal looked thoughtful. “She may have been driven out of Italy by the Brethren. So many have, these last months. Shall I prepare rooms for her and her men?”
    â€œSylas and Bergen can attend to her needs,” Robin said as he buttoned his cuffs. “You have work to do. Go. I want to know everything you can learn about this mortal before dawn.”

Chapter 5
    O n the outskirts of London, Michael Cyprien escorted his sygkenis , Alexandra Keller, from their limousine to the couple waiting for them on the front marble steps of the baroque mansion. He knew from her closed expression that she was feeling apprehensive, and kept her hand in his.that
    â€œDo you smell apricots?” she whispered.
    â€œGeoffrey has an orchard of them, and keeps great heaping bowls all over the house,” Michael murmured back.
    â€œWhat for?”
    He wondered why she had never noticed the baskets of lavender