by Nancy Gideon
After an interminable moment, she nodded. When she drew back, he let her go. She didn’t look up at him again, but was very aware of him walking at her side as they made their way back down to the chateau. In the foyer, she paused to murmur, “I must rest for a time. Will I see you later?” And then her eyes lifted to engage his in poignant entreaty.
With infinite care, he curled his fingers beneath hers and carried her hand up to press a warm kiss upon it. She fought the urge to squeeze tight or to pursue him further when he released her. Slowly. Let him come to her. Give him time.
She just hoped they had it.
Marchand watched her climb the stairs. How difficult it was to juxtapose the slight feminine figure of Nicole Radouix with the snarling creature he’d seen at Bianca du Maurier’s. How hard to accept her kisses and her confessions of love and still wonder if she was going to slay him. It was no longer a matter of love, because he loved her madly. It was an issue of trust. And that, he had yet to resolve.
“It isn’t easy accepting what they are.”
He turned and sketched a polite bow to Arabella. “No, madame, it is not,” he admitted.
“Who they are is not what they do to survive.”
“I know.”
“But knowing doesn’t make it any easier to bear when they go out at night and return filled with that hot flush to the skin and you have to tell yourself not to wonder, not to ask.”
“And do you never wonder, madame?”
She gave him a slight smile. “I’m not a saint, m’sieur. I have my failings, too. I deal with them as best I can. Just as you will if you want a life with Nicole.” Then she fixed him with an unswerving look. “Do you, Marchand?”
He didn’t answer her directly. Instead, he said, “I’m returning to Paris in the morning.”
No one needed to tell Arabella the significance of that. She studied his handsome features, reading the determination, the grim nobility of his cause in each line. And she asked, “Have you any idea of what you’ll be facing?”
“Oui, madame, only too well.”
She took up his hand in hers, holding it tight. “Are you strong enough?”
“I will soon find out.”
“Do you have what you need?”
“I have your gift.” He touched fingertips to his second shirt button, feeling the silver cross beneath it. “The rest I will obtain in Paris.”
His confidence gave no comfort. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I would ask a favor of you, if it’s not too much.”
“Ask.”
“Would you care for Musette while I’m gone? She has no other family. Just me. It would be a great burden off my mind to know she’ll be seen to if I—until I return.”
“She is welcomed to stay with us for as long as needs be. She’ll be good company for Nicole. Marchand . . . they are ruthless.”
“I know what they are. And I know what they do.”
“Would you let me send Takeo with you? He’s had . . . experience . . . in this sort of thing, and he could assist you.”
“Madame, this is a personal matter—”
“It won’t matter to anyone if you’re killed. Honorable causes must be tempered with reasonable caution. I thought you and I agreed on that, Marchand.”
He permitted a small smile. “We do, and I thank you. I would be grateful for the help.”
“And you will take our coach. It’s unmarked so no questions will be raised. You can see to what you must and affect a quick return.”
“That is my hope, madame.” And he raised her hand up for a respectful kiss.
AFTER A LATE LUNCH, Marchand drew Musette aside to tell her of his journey. She listened with eyes wide and tears gathering, then cried, “Why do you have to go?” not fully understanding the danger but intuiting it just the same.
“I must see to Frederic.” And Camille. He didn’t add that because she believed their young artist friend already dead and long buried. If only that were true!
“Then I would like to go with you.”
“No, cher, you cannot. Let me make the arrangements, then I will come for you and we can pray over him together as he’s laid to rest. Stay here with Nicole and her family. They’ve promised to watch out for you in case I—if I am delayed. Now, you be a good girl and give them no trouble.”
She blushed and vowed she would not and he kissed her gently on the brow.
“Musette,” he broached awkwardly, “I must ask you to keep to your own bed tonight.”
“Oh?” She glanced up at him, the first provocative light he’d seen since Frederic’s death dancing in her eyes. “You prefer some other company, do you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Marchand, you are a great fool if you don’t take her to your bed tonight. She is crazy for you and you for her, I think.”
“Perhaps.” But he was smiling faintly.
“Don’t waste time when you could be together. Every opportunity is precious.” And her gaze grew cloudy as she thought of her fiancé and the times they would not share. “Love her often and well so she will never have the occasion to feel regret over what might have been. That is my one consolation. I have no regrets.” She stroked his impassive face. “March, don’t you have any.”
As Marchand stretched out upon his bed in the lazy late-afternoon shadows, he was considering more than just regrets. His earlier outing with Nicole had done more than exhaust what little physical reserves he’d managed to restore. The confrontation had forced him to face what she was and what he’d be without her.
Nicole wasn’t human. And without her, he’d be lost.
Perhaps it was his fatigue or the quiet somnolence of the chateau, but as he lay there in the comfort of his shirtsleeves, eyes closed and thoughts adrift, it was somehow simpler to conceive of the impossible and to dream of the unheard of.
Louis Radouix was a vampire, but not of the same sort as Bianca and Gerard. His daughter was some kind of unnatural hybrid, and that daughter firmly held his own heart. The shock of discovering what she was hadn’t changed that. Knowing the truth didn’t alter what he already loved about her. In fact, knowing what she was only increased his fascination. It was her strength that he admired; her depth of emotion, of commitment, of her resolve to protect those close to her. And most recently, her strength of will. She could have taken his blood any number of times but had refrained. And then there was the unbending belief in justice and common sense they both held to. He couldn’t fool himself into believing he’d ever find another woman who possessed these qualities. It wasn’t bred into the Parisian women of the day. But in Nicole Radouix he’d discovered everything he needed in a soulmate. He couldn’t just give her up because—because she wasn’t the average woman. The average woman had never interested him beyond a matter of minutes upon a horizontal plane. In Nicole, he’d found the attraction of a lifetime. Or an eternity.
And as he was thinking these radical thoughts, a seeping awareness came over him that he was not alone. Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
Nicole was standing at the foot of his bed. He hadn’t heard the door open or her approach. But he was no longer surprised by either of those things. What did startle him was the dampness glistening in her great green-gold eyes.
“Musette told me you were leaving for Paris in the morning.” Her voice was low and rough with poorly checked emotion. “Why, Marchand? Have you so little faith in our happiness?”
He came up on his elbows and told her simply, “I no longer have any doubts there at all.” And he extended his hand to her. When she hesitated, appearing unsure, he beckoned with his fingers and called, “Nicole, come here to me.”
Still, she held back. “Are you sure you want me to?”
“Very sure.”
So she came to him, accept
ing his outstretched hand in hers rather meekly. And he pushed himself over, inviting, “Join me.”
Nicole settled atop the covers. When she lay back, she curled his arm around her, nudging so she was pressed back-to-front against him, with his forearm hugged to her breast. He was bemused by the position and wondered if her intent was not to alarm him with a face-to-face encounter. He slipped his other arm about her, too, and conformed his legs to the curl of hers.
“Comfortable?” he crooned. Her silken hair tickled his nose as she nodded.
They lay like that for several minutes, soaking up the shared heat and sense of closeness until Nicole remembered her question.
“Why are you going to Paris?”
“I must see to Frederic and Camille. I can’t let them wander as they are now. I can’t.”
Her face was turned away from his so he couldn’t see her expression. She was quiet for a time and then he felt her trembling. She lifted his hands and began to press frantic little kisses to them. Finally, she said, “It would do no good for me to beg you to stay, would it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Oh, March, you don’t know how strong they are, how cruel they are.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then how can you do this? Let me—”
“No. Before you even ask, the answer is no, you can’t go with me. I need you here to see to Musette. I need you here where it is safe. Your father has given me the benefit of his knowledge and your mother offered me the company of Takeo, so you see, I won’t be going there blind or alone. I’ll be going in the daylight hours so the danger is slight and I should be back by tomorrow evening if all goes well.”
“And if it doesn’t go well? If you don’t come back?”
He said nothing.
Her voice was all quivering command as she told him, “Don’t you dare leave me to face the future alone, Marchand. Don’t you dare!”
“I won’t, my love, I won’t.”
And then he was brushing her hair aside so he could place a string of kisses from her temple to her collarbone. She made a soft sound that was his undoing. She lifted his hand and settled it upon the curve of her breast and sighed at his unhurried fondling. The way her body rubbed against him suggested he move on from there as love and desperate longing encouraged a more fulfilling intimacy. His need for her becoming an urgent thing, Marchand’s hands lowered to bunch and gather the volume of her skirt and petticoat upward. She lifted obligingly so he could tug her drawers down, then she gave a tremulous moan at the first warm caress of his hands. It took very little coaxing for her to be wet and ready to receive him. She gave a small cry when he became a part of her and he was amazed anew by the powerful way she welcomed him. Then there were no doubts for either of them that they belonged together.
In no time at all, she’d found that exquisite point of no return. Her back arched away from him as tiny tremors started deep and grew to overwhelming quakes. And with one final thrust, Marchand’s seed was planted deep within her receptive female form and there it took tenacious hold without either of them knowing it.
Too replete to do more than pull the counterpane up over them both, Marchand held her close as awareness drifted away on a satisfied tide.
He was somewhere deep in slumber when the first persistent call intruded.
Marchand.
An unpleasant tingling raced along his limbs. In an odd state of suspension, he was aware of Nicole curled against him, of the heaviness of the shadows that foretold of sunset. He tried to open his eyes but found he could not.
Marchand, where are you?
Drowsily, his mind formed a reply. In bed with Nicole.
He shivered as a current of tension shot through him. He moaned in his unnatural sleep and tried to twist away from the discomfort.
Where are you?
He continued to shift, not wanting to answer, unable to keep from doing so. With Nicole’s family.
With Gino.
Gino? Marchand’s head shook from side to side. No, he didn’t know any Gino. Want to sleep.
After you tell me where. Where can I find you? You must tell me. You must answer.
He didn’t want to. He grew increasingly agitated. No.
You mustn’t resist. I’ll hurt you if you resist and I’ll hurt those you love.
No, don’t. “Don’t hurt me.” He tossed restlessly, eyes squeezing tight. “Don’t hurt them.”
“Marchand?” Nicole blinked groggily awake.
Tell me where you are?
Chateau.
Where, fool! Tell me where!
“Camille’s painting. In Camille’s painting.”
“Marchand, are you awake?” Nicole stroked his hot cheek and his eyes came open. His gaze was dark and glassy.
“In the painting,” he mumbled again then he gave a sudden jerk, coming fully awake. “Nicole? What is it?”
“You were talking in your sleep.”
“I was?” His confusion gave way to the depthless pleasure of seeing her there beside him. He smiled smugly. “Did I say anything I shouldn’t have?”
“If you mean did you compromise yourself by crying out ‘Fifi’ or ‘Renee,’ no you did not, lucky for you.”
“Then it must have been dreams of you that awakened me in such an impatient state.” And he drew her up close so she could feel what had stirred to life. He throbbed hard and huge against the tangle of her clothing.
She tipped her face up so that only inches separated them. The desire in his dark eyes excited. She could feel his anticipation in the way his breathing quickened and his heartbeats hurried. She put her hand to his cheek. He didn’t shy from her touch. Instead, he leaned into it. Her emotions trembled.
“Then we shall have to do something to make those dreams into reality, won’t we?” she suggested with a husky rumble. “How can we do that?”
“We can start here.” He began to unbutton her bodice, slipping his hands inside to repeat the process down the length of her corset. Then there was the plain fabric of her chemise, which was easily pushed from her shoulders to expose a wondrously fair bosom. He adored that pale firm flesh with his touch, with his kisses, until she was impatiently yanking his shirt free.
What followed was a sensuous tussle through one another’s clothing and then the exquisite feel of skin on skin. Entwined in limb and spirit, they shared a lengthy kiss, then Nicole pushed away.
“Roll over.”
“What?”
“Onto your stomach. Go on.”
He did so, bemused, then he sighed with sheer delight as her hands plied the tense cording of his shoulders. She bent to place a kiss between them and to murmur, “I love you, Marchand,” before moving that penetrating massage downward.
And as she kneaded each swell of dramatically molded man, Nicole was searching his bared surfaces for signs of a vampire’s bite.
He was complete putty by the time she ground the heels of her hands into the small of his back and palmed the tight curve of his buttocks. His legs spasmed in involuntary reflex as she worked his toes, and then she whispered throatily, “Other side now.”
Relaxation was the furthest thing from his mind as Nicole eased her way up to his sturdy thighs. He gripped her hand and guided it up a little farther to where the real tension of the moment lay. And the instant her hand closed around him, his eyes closed and the breath began to shudder from him.
She wasn’t gentle with him. Her touch was strong, greedy, demanding. She made him so hot and achy he didn’t think he could stand another stroke. Gripping her by the upper arms, he hauled her up and then she was plundering his mouth with wild, plunging kisses that were every bit as aggressive as her caress had been. That’s when he understood. During the daylight hours, she would be his sweet, responsive lover, but at night,
when her more basic instincts growled to life, he was hers.
He had nothing against compromise.
Without relinquishing his mouth, Nicole came up over him, straddling his hips, moving slick and hot above him. And just as she started to drop down onto him, he caught the backs of her thighs, holding her immobile, keeping her from the paradise she pursued until she was panting desperately into his kisses.
“Marchand . . .” It was a plea. It was a command.
He let her down slowly, easing into her so gradually that she was trembling in helpless abandon by the time the fit was complete. And then he held her there so she could feel the strength of him pulsing all the way up to her womb. She lifted off his lips, her eyes seeking his in an awed daze, then rolling up white from the force of his first thrust.
From there, it became a rough, sweaty mating punctuated with wet, wide kisses and low, hoarse cries of pleasure. And when she let go uncontrollably, she had his fingers meshed between hers, pressing the backs of his hands down into the mattress as she rode him to a mutual release of shattering intensity. Then she stretched out along the hard, bare length of him and sighed with a blissful contentment.
After a timeless, lazy moment, Nicole shifted back, wanting to look down upon his handsome face, to smile at him, to revel in the matching glow of perfect harmony shining in his eyes. She did those things and her heart filled with the marvel of loving him. She saw about his neck her mother’s crucifix, and realized he’d already won her family’s blessing. The moment was perfect.
Until a stray gaze wandered down the muscular curve of his forearm to the valley of his elbow.
“My God, Marchand, what is that?”
And he followed her horrified stare to the pair of marks that branded him the possession of another.
Chapter Twenty
MARCHAND’S OTHER hand clapped over the bite and he made the incredible claim, “It’s nothing!” There was a growling edge to that, warning her away from further questions. But she couldn’t afford to ignore the obvious. She pulled his concealing hand away.
