He was sorely underdressed by Society’s standards, as was his way-his white shirt was rumpled and his neck cloth slightly askew. The dark breeches and coat he wore were well made but certainly not recently pressed, nor were they at the height of fashion. Tonight, his thick, dark hair was pulled back into what Victoria had come to think of as his pirate look-in a short club at the base of his skull, the hair sticking out from the leather thong like the stiff bristles of a brush. With his swarthy skin, dark brows, and angular features, he wouldn’t be considered handsome as much as striking. Imposing. His dark eyes barely glanced over her, as if terrified that by lingering they might be trapped.

“Indeed. Duchess Winnie-of course you’ve met her,” Victoria added with a little laugh.

Max had indeed met Duchess Farnham, one of Victoria’s honorary aunts and a bosom friend of her mother, when the duchess had tried her hand at staking a vampire during a visit in Rome. That vampire had been the Conte Regalado, and had been intent on wooing Victoria’s mother. Victoria still smiled at the memory of the duchess brandishing a stake the thickness of her wrist.

Although, at the time, she’d been doing everything but smiling.

“The duchess is hosting a dance tonight, and of course I dare not miss it. Especially now that the new Marquess of Rockley has suddenly disappeared. All of London is abuzz with that choice bit of gossip,” she said.

Upon his arrival from America to assume his title, Victoria’s deceased husband’s heir had become the victim of vampires. An undead impostor had been introduced into the ton in his place, and had later met the pointed end of Victoria’s stake. As there was no body to be found, the new Rockley had been given up as mysteriously disappeared-a fact that both intrigued and worried the peerage.