Gen had a muttered expletive for that. Chloe merely shook her head at Alanna. “When I saw it in the car mirror, I cried about it. Wasn’t that stupid? That poor farmer. I’m going to bake him cookies, because I know I freaked him out. It’s a good thing Gen hadn’t done my makeup yet. It was so dumb, because Brendan wouldn’t care if I did show up bald.” She gave Gen a censorious glance.
“The most important thing is the puppy’s safe now. Robert, that’s Tyler’s gardener and Sara’s husband—and oh my God, he’s almost sixty but he’s the sexiest gardener in the world—said he could stay with him and Sara until after the wedding. I was thinking he’d be the perfect dog for me and Brendan, because he’s a rottweiler mix, which is just the best sign for how great this marriage is going to be, because the first gift Brendan ever gave me was a stuffed rottweiler puppy—”
“Chloe.”
Alanna doubted anything could stop the rush of words, but the simple utterance of her name was enough to bring her to a halt. Possibly because the two syllables were infused with the power of a warm, sultry wind, reminding her vividly of Lady Lyssa. A tall woman with moonlight-colored hair now stepped away from the wall, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s all right for you to talk, but we have an hour to get you ready. Let’s see if Alanna can fix it.”
This had to be Marguerite Winterman. Reputably an exceptional Mistress was an additional comment Niall had made about her, and it fit this woman to a T. Obviously in command of her surroundings, aware of every nuance in the room, she was practically a feminine mirror of her husband. When her gaze turned to Alanna, she lowered her own on instinct, barely suppressing the same compulsion to kneel.
“Yes, ma’am. It would be my pleasure to help.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate,” Chloe assured her. “I mean, look at me. I’m a flower child throwback. My dress is way fancier than I am, but a girl’s got to dress up sometime. Look at you, you’d be gorgeous in a sack. Tyler went running with Evan before dawn—yeah, they’re complete freaks, but Tyler is so hot, how can you argue with that workout schedule? Anyhow, Marguerite said Evan and Niall are so into you, but it’s not just because you’re pretty. They’re not that simple. You have that ‘other’ quality that makes Evan’s gears jam. With the way his brain is, that can happen, but what’s funny is she sees it in Niall the way Tyler saw it in Evan. They’re over the moon about you.”
While Chloe chattered, Marguerite guided her back to the stool and directed Gen to bring scissors, comb, brush and other hair accessories. From Gen’s significant glance, Alanna understood that, though Chloe was normally quite talkative, wedding nerves were taking it to excess. Fortunately, erratic hand movements and head bobbing from animated conversation were no deterrent to Alanna’s hairdressing skills.
She’d handled preparations for vampires in the middle of heated political discussions, including scenarios that had ended in bloodshed. As a servant, she had no right to request stillness, so she’d learned how to make the most of brief pauses of motion and anticipate unpredictable movement where she might otherwise stab her subject in the eye or worse, hack off a piece of hair. A vampire female knew the eye would heal immediately, but the hair would take several days to grow back. In such a situation, a servant paid a higher price for injured vanity.
Since Chloe was unlikely to backhand her in the face and knock her into the wall, this would be easy. She had to quell the inappropriate desire to ask her to elaborate on what Niall or Evan had said, though. Of course, humans engaged in extraneous talk, social niceties to make things flow. But Chloe didn’t seem the type to do that. Over the moon . . . The unexpected heat in her cheeks wasn’t unwelcome. Just confusing.
The girl had beautiful, unruly hair, but Alanna had a lot of experience in dressing hair, as well as a knack for it. Thinning the girl’s bangs so she had a pretty spiked fringe framed by her lustrous curls, Alanna used a silk ribbon for a hairband. It gave her hair an artful wildness. The ends of the ribbon trailed down her bare, soft-skinned shoulder since she was dressed only in lacy white bra and slip right now.
Delighted with it, Chloe hugged her, then was towed off by an impatient Gen and other attendants to put her strapless dress on, since they were in a thirty-minute countdown to the wedding itself. Alanna could see the dark rose and gold streaks of impending sunset out the room’s window. Evan would be up soon, and she’d be able to see both of her males in tuxedos. Her heart beat a little faster, even as she wondered at her possessive thoughts.
Last to leave, Marguerite paused and examined Alanna with pale blue eyes. “Well done. Thank you, Alanna.”
“It’s my pleasure to serve, ma’am.”
“That’s quite obvious.” Another few moments of scrutiny, then Marguerite stepped closer. Placed a precise hand on Alanna’s shoulder. That Mistress quality thrummed through Alanna’s skin, keeping her still beneath Marguerite’s touch, her eyes down. She had an elegant French manicure. “Evan is an unusual friend, but a good one,” the woman said. “Tyler said you are only in his care for a short period of time. I suspect Evan wishes it could be much longer.”
“So do I.” She was getting bad about blurting things out. The two men were ruining her training. The fact that she was blaming them for it, rather than her lack of discipline, underscored it. But she didn’t regret the words.
“Sometimes the deepest wish comes true, even when it seems the most unlikely one to ever be granted.” Marguerite nodded. “I’ll hope that for you. I’m also glad you’ll be joining in our festivities tomorrow night.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I hope I’ll be a credit to my Master, and an asset to the celebration.”
“I expect you never accept anything less than that from yourself, Alanna.”
Another squeeze and direct look—Marguerite really did remind her of Lady Lyssa, minus the sense that she could rip her throat out—and the woman was gone, following the trail of female laughter . . . giggles, even. Women bonding over a rite as old as time itself. It gave her an unexpected wistful twinge.
When she lifted her gaze, she saw Marguerite hadn’t gone after all, merely stopped in the doorway. “If your Master doesn’t require your attendance, Alanna, why don’t you join us? She’s been chirping like a nervous bird since seven this morning, and you can listen to her, keep her centered, while we’re getting her ready.”
Marguerite’s voice was full of affection for the young bride, but Alanna wondered what had motivated the invitation. She paused. Master?
When she sent a quick thought to relay the request, she received a wave of warm humor from Evan. Consider yourself at Marguerite’s disposal until she sends you back to me. Niall said he would appreciate any flashes of mostly naked bridesmaids, but I will try to curb his barbaric behavior. You can send those images to me, though.
She pressed her lips against a smile. I will do no such thing for either of you, Master, and you know it. That would be entirely dishonorable.
I didn’t think a servant’s job was to protect her Master’s moral character.
Perhaps she’s simply trying to make sure he has one.
She was teasing him. Her daring made her wonder at herself, but then she heard his laughter, the echo of Niall’s snort behind it.
I’ll deal with your disobedience later. Marguerite is waiting for your response.
In the vampire world, she was used to others waiting for a mental conference with her Master. At the reminder that this was not that world, she snapped out of it quickly. “My Master says that’s—I mean, I’m sure my Master is fine with that. He holds you in high esteem, ma’am.”
Marguerite arched a brow, cocked an ear toward the hallway. “You better follow me, then. They sound like a flock of disturbed pigeons. We’ve probably experienced another unthinkable horror, like a missing earring, or a run in Chloe’s stockings. They don’t realize we were lucky just to get her to wear shoes today . . . ”
For the next thirty minutes, she held Chloe’s hand, blotting the occasional tears carefully with a handkerchief so Gen wouldn’t murder her best friend for destroying her makeup work. She was told countless times how Brendan was the most wonderful man ever created.
She was barely older than Chloe, yet the girl acted as if Alanna was much older, and she expected in many ways she was. Still, she hoped Chloe wouldn’t ask a question about the nature of human marriage she couldn’t answer. Fortunately, there were others present who could help with that if she did.
Chloe’s mother and sister helped with the dress, snapped pictures, cried as well. When Chloe at last asked them to go check on some other wedding preparations, she leaned forward to speak to Alanna in a conspiratorial voice. “Okay, now it’s just those of us who are going to be at tomorrow night’s thing. We can’t talk about that in front of my mom. I mean, who could?”
When Alanna was ten, her mother told her why she must keep herself pure and untouched. At thirteen, there’d been a detailed discussion of what would be required of her sexually as a vampire’s servant. Being shared with other vampires and their servants, men or women, whatever her Master commanded. If she failed in maintaining the sanctity of her flesh for the InhServ training, the whole family would be dishonored and suffer.
She’d hungered and imagined what that training would be like, blowing it up in her mind the way only a hormonal teenager could. It had in fact been very physical, but that was all. There’d been no bond with the trainers or other servants with whom she learned foreplay, sexual positions and other practices she wouldn’t actually do until her virginity was taken by her assigned Master.
On the day of their departure for the InhServ program, her mother had sent Alanna into the plush interior of the limo with a brief straightening of her collar, a brush at her hair, and the firm admonishment to make them proud. Then she’d hung onto Adam and cried.