The Hoard and the Coffin

The arrangement was struck three nights later, in the library of Blackwood Manor.

The manor was less a home and more a fortress dressed in Victorian drag. The furniture was heavy mahogany, the carpets were thick enough to drown in, and the fireplace was large enough to roast a carriage.

Ignatius sat behind a desk the size of a barge, organizing stacks of railway bonds. He was obsessively neat. Every paper was aligned; every pen was parallel.

Aurelia lounged on a chaise, examining her fingernails. “So,” she said. “Let me clarify. You require a wife because the Prime Minister is beginning to ask why the owner of Blackwood Industries never ages and refuses to attend daytime garden parties.”

“Precisely,” Ignatius grumbled, not looking up. “Rumors are bad for business. They destabilize the stock market. If I am married, I appear domesticated. Harmless.”

“And in exchange,” Aurelia continued, “I get access to your subterranean vaults.”

“The vaults are temperature-controlled, airtight, and fortified with goblin-wrought steel,” Ignatius said. “Complete darkness. Absolute security.”

“Perfect,” Aurelia sighed dreamily. “My current townhouse has a draft, and I woke up last Tuesday with a spider on my nose. It is undignified.”

Ignatius looked up, adjusting his monocle. “There are rules. One: No biting the staff. Two: No bringing dead things into the parlor. Three: absolute silence before sunset. I sleep during the day, and I am a light sleeper.”

“I am a vampire, darling,” Aurelia said, standing up and smoothing her silk skirts. “I am the definition of silent. I am a shadow. I am a whisper in the dark.”

She went to lean seductively against a bookshelf, but her elbow knocked over a priceless Ming vase.

Ignatius moved with a speed that blurred the air. He caught the vase inches from the floor, his claws momentarily lengthening to grip the porcelain.

He looked at her, his expression flat.

Aurelia burst out laughing. “Oh, your face! You looked like a startled pufferfish!”

Ignatius carefully placed the vase back. “This is going to be a nightmare,” he muttered.

“It’s going to be a marriage,” she corrected, linking her arm through his stiff, hot elbow. “Which is largely the same thing, I’m told.”