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Asher sent the telegraned with Ysidro’s name – to Lydia fro the ten am train Further conversation in the small hours had only confirmed Asher’s conviction that it would be best to ht, an opinion in which Ysidro concurred ‘Molchanov has s,’ the vaht, as he packed clothing, toiletries, clean shirts – he was as fastidious as any dandy Asher had ever met ‘His mistrust of Western "cleverness", as he terms it, outdistances any consideration of what he would do were a foreign vampire to become stranded in Moscow because his servant had reater felicity than to be obliged to dwell in Russia for the rest of eternity I think it were best, were neither you nor I in Moscohen darkness next falls’

‘I’ue with you there’

It would take Lydia, Asher calculated, three days to reach St Petersburg Profoundly as hethe paths of the va safety of Oxford – filled him with dread Yet if he and Ysidro were to trace the St Petersburg interloper – to find his name, possibly his former nest, and any account of his intentions, resources, and contacts – they would have to seek hi what he was, there was no question of either he, or Asher, undertaking the search alone

What an unaided hu, Lydia kneell how to do She had tracked down vampire lairs before and knehat to look for, not only in the numbers in bank records – in property transfer dates and the naossip, ruht not know the Triple Entente from the Triple Alliance, or be able to recall the nairlhood in upper-class London society had given her a talent for sorting usable inforht questions, for listening to what people said when they forgot that anyone was listening, andout whereprecisely those unobtrusive skills in the naossip and listening, sorting chance reenerally yielded better results than hair’s-breadth escapes after stealing secret plans

How long the interloper planned to reo froht be their only chance to scotch the alliance between vampire and Kaiser Yet, every time Lydia tampered in the business end of the affairs of the Undead, it was like watching her dart across a den of sleeping lions

‘Razuet her whatever bank records she needs,’ he had said, looking up frorailt-and-malachite desk in the town house’s tiny library That was at six aht not far off Razumovsky – as Lydia would know from the duplicate address-book he had left with her – was the man he meant by Isaacson; any reference to Uncle Willia sentence is to be disregarded, it’s only for show ‘If our interloper is German, he’ll deal with Ger rivals has the sophistication to realize that Lydia will be a threat’

‘They are Russians’ A world of conquistador scorn glinted like a single pale star in Ysidro’s colorless voice Ysidro hi wills and property records, payments from one bank account to another, and clandestine transfers of stocks and bearer bonds – had rearranged his own living arrangeation For a ly conversant with such n bank accounts, and consolidated private holding companies with headquarters in New York

‘Moreover, they will themselves soon depart for the Crimea, for Odessa or Kiev Within a h how this could profit hih on two months he will be a prisoner, and the cellars of the town are shallow and damp ’Twere best, I think, did you not ht’

‘That’s another stateument about’

They departed Moscow by the ten o’clock train that sah a flat world of fields where bare ground was only beginning to show Asher closed himself into his first-class reserved coht, wary sleep of Abroad – and dreaolden pillars between its platforms, like the Adht one another, leaping onto trains to avoid so back in the hopes of finding one another before whatever it was – faceless, silent, s of rotten blood – found them

When he climbed the steps of the Iht, the dvornik handed hily intact

Jules Plummer

L’Imperatrice Catherine

26, Moyka E

Zudanievsky

‘I told you!’ Ellen’s voice cracked in real distress ‘I said, didn’t I,for that cousin of his, and in such terrible weather – and to Russia, of all the heathen places! – didn’t I say he’d come down ill, as he did before?’

‘Indeed you did’ Lydia folded up the telegra fast

Not because she believed for one instant that Jamie was ill, of course

Don Simon

Ysidro

She set the yellow paper doare that it gave away how badly her hands were shaking Ellen peered at her, thick untidy brows drawing together: ‘Now, ma’am, don’t take on so,’ she said, her own anxiety shoved abruptly aside ‘I’m sure it’s not so bad as this Mr Siht’

‘Yes, of course’ Lydia s – from the cold of her hands and feet, and the expression on Ellen’s face – that she one pale

‘It’s probably just a chill’

‘I’m sure it is’ She took a deep breath ‘Would you have Mick bring down e fro’

‘And then what?’ deht and having to find a hotel’

Lydia opened her ed to say, ‘Yes, of course’ Us The inevitable taboo against young ladies traveling alone

Margaret Potton’s face rose before her, huge blue eyes blinking behind thick spectacles beneath the eaves of her outdated hat

Don Simon told me I’d find you here

Ysidro had announced, I will not have you traveling alone abroad like a jauntering slut, and, disregarding Lydia’s protests, had coolly gone about recruiting a respectable female companion for her

A coaret Potton had known too much about vampires – and about him

And because she’d bored hie that this was true She blinked quicklythough not quickly enough to keep Ellen, , ‘There, there, ht’

She took another breath and patted the big, rough hand where it lay aown ‘Thank you,’ she whispered Ysidro liked her – loves you, her ht violently away (such creatures don’t love) – aence that aret because she was stupid Had made her fall in love with him because she was lonelyand had disposed of her like an ink-stained glove because she was clingy, uninteresting to hi that Lydia wasn’t

And Margaret had known it Their journey together had been punctuated by a dozen jealous scenes that had left the wretched little governess in tears

And, after all that, Ysidro had killed her

In what she hoped was a norht We’ll pack tonight, and you’ll co There are bureaux in London where one can hire a gentlewo you so far froer of sickness--’

‘I’d be all right, ma’am’ Ellen sounded deeply dubious, however, about the whole idea of travel beyond the English-speaking world ‘If you’d rather I went?’

‘Dearest, I wouldn’t’ Lydia pressed her hand again and manufactured a dewy sive me if I were to take you away’ She named the keeper of the local pub on the corner, a ith a handsome mustache

Ellen bridled like a coy percheron ‘Go along with you!’

Lydia finally got her out of the study, so that she could look up who the blazes Isaacson really ho When she saw that it was Prince Razumovsky she felt profoundly cheered, as if she’d seen the Russian diploold-bearded face in a crowd Thus she ascended to her packing with a lighter heart: tea gowns, day gowns, evening dresses, walking dressesThe white-and-green shoes would go with the lavender carriage-suit, but not the blue-and-white, so she’d better take the blue half-boots alsoWould the caray fur? Both, to be on the safe sideHow cold did it get in St Petersburg in April? Oh, and hatsand Fischer’s book on the chemistry of proteinsand that reraphy by Curie, and the last four issues of the British Journal of Medicine, and the little set of picklocks Jaotten her and o with the cinna-suit? Dear me, I seem to need another trunk

But whenever she paused in her laying-out of petticoats and blouses, stockings and corsets a the froth of lace on the bed, silence seeh the evening was barely come, she closed the curtains, as if she feared to look out into the darkness and see a pale shape in the gatheringfroht of her bedroom lamps