The Golden Blood Husband

CHAPTER NINE: THE VIAL

The Delmar estate glowed on its hill like a ship lit up at anchor. On Thursday night, every window blazed, and the glass ballroom on the east lawn shimmered with chandeliers and the slow music of a string quartet. Beyond it, connected by a covered walkway, stood a great domed conservatory, its panes fogged from the warmth of the plants inside.

The Garden.

Lorcan stood at the ballroom's edge in the only suit he owned, the dark one he had worn on his wedding day, a little loose now across the shoulders. Clement had insisted he come. Lucius Delmar, he said, wanted to see "the family's donor," and he had said it the way a man might speak of a racehorse. Gloria had flinched at the words, but she hadn't argued.

Lorcan had welcomed the invitation. Esme might be somewhere beneath that fogged glass, and tonight he was walking right up to its door. Half the waiters carrying canapés through the crowd were Rocco's men in borrowed white jackets, and a tiny earpiece sat hidden in his left ear.

"Lights are on in the conservatory," Nadia murmured. "We're working our way around the back. Keep them looking at you."

That turned out to be easy.

"Lorcan!" Fabian Delmar cut through the crowd in a dark blue tuxedo, smiling like a host who had been waiting all evening for this moment. He took a silver tray of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and pushed it into Lorcan's hands. "Make yourself useful. You must be used to serving."

Laughter rippled through the nearby guests. Fabian threw an arm around Lorcan's shoulders and steered him through the room, tray and all, introducing him to bankers, judges, shipping magnates, and their glittering wives.

"Have you met the Ashcombes' walking blood bank?" he asked each group. "Rarest blood in the world, and they keep it in a sweater. Isn't that marvelous?"

Lorcan lowered his eyes and offered champagne. He let them laugh. He memorized every face.

At ten o'clock, the auctioneer took the stage. A painting went, then a yacht weekend, then a diamond bracelet. Then Fabian stepped up beside the podium, and the lights dimmed to a single spotlight on a velvet cushion.

On the cushion sat a small glass vial of dark red blood.

"Our special lot," Fabian announced. "Rh-null. Golden blood. Fewer than fifty donors on earth, and this one comes from the Ashcombe family's private reserve, drawn from their very own donor." He gestured grandly toward the back of the room, and two hundred heads turned to look at Lorcan. "Shall we start at a hundred thousand?"

Paddles rose immediately.

Lorcan didn't move. He watched the bidding climb. Two hundred thousand. Five hundred. A silver-haired woman in emeralds raised her paddle without even pausing her conversation. A heavyset shipping magnate bid with the bored ease of a man buying wine. A retired judge, a hospital board chairman, a property developer whose face was on half the billboards in the city. Eight hundred thousand. A million.

These people were not bidding on a curiosity. They knew exactly what a vial of golden blood was worth, because they had paid for it before, quietly, in places like St. Oriel's. Every raised paddle was a confession, and Lorcan filed each face away with its number. The Circle's clients had just introduced themselves.

The hammer fell at one point eight million. The room applauded.

Fabian wasn't finished. He jumped down from the stage, took a small velvet box from his pocket, and crossed the floor to where Annika stood beside her uncle. Before she could step back, he dropped to one knee and opened the box. The diamond inside caught the chandeliers and threw light across the room.

"Annika," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Delmar Bank will fund Aurum for as long as you need. Every dollar, forever. All you have to do is divorce the Blood Bag tonight."

Annika flinched at the name. Clement, standing at her shoulder, nodded approvingly. The whole ballroom waited for her answer.

Lorcan set his tray down on a passing waiter's arm and walked forward through the silent crowd. He stopped beside Fabian, reached into his breast pocket, and held out a folded slip of paper. It was the fifty-thousand-dollar check, uncashed.

"Keep it," Lorcan said quietly. "Your family will need every cent."

Fabian stared up at him, puzzled, and the corner of his mouth began to lift into a laugh.

Before it could come, Annika stepped past the ring and took Lorcan's hand. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was firm, and she looked down at Fabian without a trace of warmth.

"I'm already married," she said.

Whispers swept the ballroom like wind through dry leaves. Fabian rose slowly from his knee, the velvet box still open in his hand, and his smile curdled into something ugly. Clement's face had gone rigid. Across the room, somebody laughed and quickly turned it into a cough.

The quartet started playing again, a little too brightly. Annika held on to Lorcan's hand a moment longer, then let go when one of her board members drew her aside, her back very straight.

Five minutes later, three men in Delmar security blazers closed around Lorcan near the buffet. Two took his arms, the third pressed close behind him, and together they steered him through a swinging door into a narrow service corridor lined with white tiles.

"Mr. Delmar says you need a lesson in manners," the biggest one muttered, cracking his knuckles. "Ribs first. Where nobody can see."

The door swung shut behind them.

Thirty seconds later, it swung open again. Lorcan walked back into the ballroom alone, straightening his cuffs. His tie was still perfectly knotted, and there wasn't a mark on his face.

Fabian had been watching the door with a drink in his hand and a satisfied smile. As it swung closed behind Lorcan, he caught a glimpse of the corridor beyond. His three guards lay sprawled on the white tiles, one curled around his stomach, one groaning against the wall, one not moving at all.

The smile slid off Fabian's face. Lorcan picked up a glass of champagne from a tray and didn't look at him.

In Lorcan's ear, Nadia's voice dropped to a whisper. "We found it. There's a stairwell under the conservatory floor, hidden behind the irrigation pumps. It goes down a long way."

Before he could answer, the music stopped. Every guest turned toward the grand double doors at the far end.

Slowly, they swung open for the host.