Let the Night Begin

England, 1899Olivia Gavin was a bit of a curiosity to the people of Clovelly.She lived in a whitewashed cottage high up the cliff, overlooking the harbor. Alone. She had servants of course, and everyone knew that servants didn't count as family, or even friends. For such a comely woman, her face unaffected by the sometimes cruel wind that blew across the water, she had decidedly little male company. In fact, she had little company at all.She was obviously a woman of some means because she did not have to resort to any kind of labor, although she would sometimes make jewelry and small trinkets, which were sold in Henrietta Jewel's little dress shop. She was very generous with loosening her pocketbook strings whenever funds were being raised, or help was needed. Despite this, she had very few servants—a housekeeper, a maid, and a man of all work. This struck most of the townsfolk as being far too practical for someone of the upper class, so they assumed that Mrs. Gavin was most likely a wealthy tradesman's widow.People about town liked her, though they rarely saw her. Rumor was that she kept city hours, staying up most of the night working on her baubles and gewgaws and sleeping away the day. There were those that scoffed at such fancy habits. There were also those who distrusted a woman who hid her face from the bright light of day. To support this theory, they argued that Olivia Gavin never went to church on Sunday morning.If Vicar Hathaway were within earshot of these busybodies, he informed them straight away that, "Mrs. Gavin is no stranger to God's house." And with that question answered for the time being, the speculation then fell upon Mr. Gavin. There were some who thought he didn't exist, and others who thought maybe his lovely wife had put him to rest in an early grave. Some made her the heroine of a gothic novel, the victim of a twisted and abusive marriage that she had fled in the dark of night, and Clovelly was her refuge. Most rejected these theories, and said that gossip was the Devil's fishing net—nothing it dredged up could ever come to any good.And of course, there were those who wished the private Mrs. Gavin would give them something more to gossip about.But despite her strange hours and seemingly obsessive desire for privacy, no one in Clovelly had a bad word to say about Olivia Gavin. And on those infrequent occasions when a young man from the village would wake up in someone's stables or in the back room of the Horse and Hare Tavern, pale and claiming to have no idea of how he got there, no one ever suspected that Mrs. Gavin might know the answer. And a good thing that was as well.Because Olivia tried very hard to conceal the fact that she was a vampire from her fellow townsfolk.That was one lesson Reign had taught her that she actually appreciated. Never reveal what you are—unless you have to. Of course, he hadn't told her just how difficult it would be to conceal what she was on occasion. To be fair, she supposed she hadn't given him time to teach her much else, and if he had tried she certainly would not have listened.People tended to notice when a woman only went out at night, or if she was unnaturally strong, Olivia reflected as she tossed a bale of hay that weighed roughly the same as she did into the loft high above her head. It was an effortless task for her, and it saved Charles, her man of all work, from having to do it. Of course, she lied to him and told him she hired a couple of boys from the village to do it.Charles knew what she was, but that didn't stop him from thinking ladies shouldn't toss...