Chasing Midnight. Susan Krinard
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Chapter Four
ALLEGRA CHASE STOOD UP SLOWLY, undeniably majestic in spite of her scandalously short dress and painted face. She met Griffin’s gaze without flinching, and he felt alarm and astonishment give way to very different feelings over which he had not the slightest command.
He had never expected to see her again, and certainly not like this. Oh, he’d known at their first meeting that she was wild—a true child of the bold new generation, no matter when she’d been Converted. But he’d assumed that she had briefly escaped the authority of her patron and would soon return to the protection of her own kind.
He’d clearly been wrong.Whoever her patron might be, he must have no objection to his protégée making a spectacle of herself in a very human public place.And Allegra Chase was a spectacle, flaunting her nearly naked legs, commanding the attention of every male in the room. Griffin understood at once that she ruled this seamy hotbed of Bohemians, dissipates and addicts.
It would have been disconcerting enough to meet her again under such circumstances, but to find her with Gemma was nearly inconceivable. What were the odds of such an occurrence?
What were the odds that Allegra Chase could plunge him into confusion with a single glance of those remarkable eyes?
“Your sister is perfectly safe,” she said, her voice cool and reasonable, as if nothing were at all out of the ordinary. “Why don’t you join us, Mr. Durant?”
He steeled himself against the powerful allure of her nearness. “Did you bring Gemma to this place, Miss Chase?”
She lifted one dark, sculpted brow. “I never met her before tonight. She walked in on her own. My pals and I just happened to be here at the time.”
“Yet you don’t seem surprised to see me,” he said, keeping a tight rein on his anger.
“Ruby—Gemma—mentioned that she had a brother, and I put two and two together. There is a family resemblance, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“You knoweach other?” Gemma said in a small voice.
Griffin’s glare silenced her immediately. “Our acquaintance has been brief, Miss Chase, but I had assumed you to be an intelligent woman. If my arrival has failed to surprise you, you must have guessed that I would hardly approve of my sister coming to a dive in the middle of the night. Or are you so accustomed to the habitués of such sordid environments that you mistook Gemma for one of them?”
A muscular young man rose from the table. “Hey, you—”
“It’s all right, Bruce.” Miss Chase toyed with the oddly old-fashioned locket that was her only jewelry, swinging the chain between her fingers. “It’s no wonder she has to sneak around, Mr. Durant, if this is the way you treat her. And anyway, since she’d already gotten here by herself, I didn’t figure she would become much more corrupt if she stayed for a few hours.”
One of Allie’s “pals” smothered a laugh. Griffin gazed at the faces about the table, men and women who considered illegal clubs their natural homes. Gemma, in her flimsy dress and bright-red lipstick, did indeed, look just like one of them.
A woman like Allegra Chase would draw Gemma to her as a blossom lures a bee. She was beautiful, witty, willful…and obviously contemptuous of the civilized standards that gave life its structure. It would be an easy matter for her to lead an innocent girl like Gemma to her ruin, even if she weren’t a vampire.
Griffin circled the table, ignoring Miss Chase, and stood over Gemma with folded arms. “Miss Spires admitted everything,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Gemma sank down into her chair. “I…I didn’t mean—”
“Do you know how many places like this Mal and I have searched tonight? I was beginning to think you…” He took a steadying breath, remembering that he mustn’t let any of them, his sister least of all, see him lose his composure. He picked up one of the numerous empty glasses on the table. “How much have you been drinking, Gemma?”
“We haven’t given her a thing,” Allegra said.
Gemma cast Allegra such a look of gratitude that Griffin was sure she was lying. He carefully replaced the glass and stared at Gemma until she lowered her gaze. “Where did you get that dress?”
“I…I ordered it two weeks ago. Griffin—”
“And your hair. How did that come about, might I ask?”
“I cut it for her,” Allegra said. “I think it’s very becoming.”
Griffin swung toward her, his tongue tripping on harsh words he couldn’t bring himself to speak. “You had no right,” he said. “She is my sister. My responsibility.”
Miss Chase continued to gaze at Griffin through half-lidded, kohl-rimmed eyes. “What bothers you most, Mr. Durant, Gemma’s clothes and hair, or the fact that she slipped out of your control for a few brief hours?”
“I beg your—” He broke off, refusing to take her bait. He cupped Gemma’s chin in his hand. “Do you have any conception of the trouble you’ve caused?”
“I…I didn’t think it would be dangerous…”
“You could have been hurt, Gemma. Don’t you understand that?”
All at once the noisy room seemed very quiet. Gemma set her jaw. “Allie wouldn’t let anyone hurt me.”
Griffin hesitated. Perhaps Gemma didn’t know what Allie was. Not all loups-garous could recognize strigoi by sight or smell. “Did you go out tonight expecting you’d find someone to take care of you? Is that it?”
“She didn’t come running to me,” Allegra said. “But if she were to find herself in a position where she couldn’t fight back, whose fault is that?”
“I don’t believe I take your meaning, Miss Chase.”
She shrugged, as if to dismiss her own comment, but the redheaded woman across the table snorted loudly and pulled a face. “You ought to know, sugar, that if it hadn’t been for Allie, you’d have had a real reason to worry.”
Griffin’s mouth went dry. “Gemma,” he said, “did someone…bother you tonight?”
“Allie took care of it,” said the man called Bruce, his mouth twisted in contempt.
“That’s why she took your sister under her wing,” said the slender man seated next to Bruce. “None of us meant any harm, Mr. Durant.”
Griffin well remembered how Miss Chase had been prepared to take on the muggers for the sake of her maid, but he found it hard to believe that any of these people knew of Allie’s true nature. “Who was this person?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Allegra said. “He’s gone, and he won’t be back.”
“I see.” He held her gaze. “It seems I owe you an apology, as well as my thanks, Miss Chase.”
She smiled with familiar mockery. “I accept your apology.”
“I hope you’ll allow me to repay the debt.”
“Let’s just say we’re even now, Mr. Durant.”
He looked away so she wouldn’t see how much he’d felt the sting of her rebuff. “In that case,” he said stiffly, “Gemma and I will be leaving.”
He helped Gemma out of her seat and draped his overcoat around her. She shivered in the crook of his arm. As he started for the door, he heard raised voices outside the building, and suddenly the men standing guard at the entrance turned and dashed for the bar. The bartender and waiters scrambled toward the darkened rear of the speakeasy. Men and women at the tables shouted questions and craned their necks to determine the source of the disturbance.
Allegra appeared