Excerpt of Lady Sybil's Vampire by Ann Lethbridge

June 19, 1811, Carlton House

Royalty, nobility, and England’s most powerful
politicians dined cheek by jowl. King in all but name,
the Regent gleefully presided over all, smiling and
nodding with benevolent majesty at surrounding lesser
mortals. Lady Sybil Lofstrom, seated with Lord Orrick and
his daughter Caro at the far end of the immense table,
scarcely warranted a glance.

And Sybil was content to have it so. The less she was
noticed the better. She didn’t even use her title
anymore.

The conservatory had been turned into a dining room for
the event. Its glass roof and walls reflected light from
a myriad of chandeliers and candelabra as did the jewels
worn by the attendant ladies and gentlemen. The forty-
foot dinner table with its replica of a stream meandering
down the middle, amid banks of flowers, sparkled with
gold and silver cutlery and epergnes bearing exotic
fruit. In short the whole thing was blindingly brilliant
and uncomfortably hot.

“Poor old chap is completely mad,” Lord Orrick, her
charge’s father, said to his neighbour at the dinner
table.

Sybil repressed a shiver. Mad. The word struck at her
heart like a knife. Accusations of lunacy, fear of
incarceration, were her constant companion. But Lord
Orrick was not talking about her, he was talking about
poor King George.

“Locked up tight,” Orrick said, nodding. He was a
handsome man, an earl and a member of the Prince’s
Carleton House set. He employed Sybil as a chaperon for
his daughter. If he knew what Sybil saw, he’d be
horrified. Likely he’d want her locked up tight too.

She closed her eyes briefly. Better not to think of it.

Say nothing. See nothing. It was her only option. Sybil
pushed at the food on her golden plate with her golden
fork. What would they say, if they knew what she saw,
these lords and ladies up and down the long table? They
would shun her, as they had shunned her mother. Shut her
away.

“Oh, no, Sybby, do you see it?” Lady Caroline Orrick said
over the babble around them.

Sybil’s heart lurched. Her stomach shifted queasily. “Do
I see what, Caro?” she murmured quietly. A chaperon never
drew attention to herself if she wanted to retain her
position.

“Fish. Swimming.” Brown eyes wide, luxurious chestnut
curls framing a pretty, heart-shaped face she leaned
forward to peer into the water. “Ew. There’s a dead one.”
Her charge made the sort of face only a schoolgirl would
show to the world.

Fish. Sybil closed her eyes briefly, thankfully. Fish
were normal everyday creatures. All she had ever wanted
was to be ordinary. Unremarkable. “Keep your voice down,”
Sybil whispered in her charge’s ear. Any breach of the
young woman’s manners and Sybil would be blamed. Lord
Orrick was a good and kind man, but he wanted a good
marriage for his daughter and Sybil wanted to prove her
worth in that regard. It would stand her in good stead
when a new position was required.

Caroline blinked. “Sorry,” she whispered, so low Sybil
could scarcely hear her.

Dash it, she’d spoken more sharply than she’d intended.
Nerves. “Apology accepted. Remember a lady never squeals
or shouts. Normal tones are quite acceptable.”

“It is disgusting to have dead fish in the middle of the
table,” Caro said, at a sensible volume.

“Don’t let the Prince Regent hear you.” Lord Orrick
muttered from the other side of his daughter. “He is a
sensitive sort of chap. Might take a pet.”

Sybil flushed at the implied criticism of her charge’s
manners, but Caro didn’t notice. She was too busy trying
to catch the eye of the young man on the opposite side of
the table. A handsome young fellow in naval uniform. He
winked.

Sybil sighed and pretended not to see. A little
flirtation for a debutante was harmless enough. As long
as it stayed within reasonable bounds.

“Who is the man sitting beside King Louis,” Sybil asked
Lord Orrick thinking to improve the tone of their
conversation and perhaps distract Caro from the sailor.
“The dark, handsome one with the blue sash covered in
orders.”

Orrick’s lip curled in disapproval. “Another displaced
royal we are supporting to keep safe from Bonaparte.
Vlad, King of Mondavia. On his right is Prince David, a
cousin or some such, and on his left, Viscompte Dryden,
his Ambassador to the Court of King George.”

“Oh my!” Caro said staring. “Kings and Princes. Are we
likely to meet them at parties, do you think?”

Orrick gave her a hard look. “Let us hope not. None of
them have a feather to fly between them, and Dryden is an
absolute disgrace. Not once have I seen him less than
half seas over. Not even at the palace. If he is an
example of Mondavian manhood, you will do well to avoid
them all.”

The information about King Vlad had been in all the
newspapers some years before. His father, the King of a
small country in the Alps had been brutally murdered in a
coup supported by Napoleon Bonaparte. Like the Bourbons
from France, the son was exiled in Britain. His dark eyes
were full of shadows, but his square jaw showed a
determination beyond his youth. But it was not the King
and his seated companions at table upon on whom Sybil’s
gaze lingered, it was the man standing behind them who
held her attention.

A member of the King’s personal guard, she assumed. A
darkly handsome bleak-eyed man who seemed of an age with
the King. He stood so still in the shadows, so unmoving,
he could have been a statue, if it wasn’t for the flash
of a diamond when he breathed. While his form seemed
solid enough, tall and broad shouldered, the shadows
around him shimmered strangely whenever her gaze drifted
off him. A horribly familiar sort of shimmer. Surely he
was not one of them? An Other.