by Colette Gale
The Count of Monte Cristo waited until the door of the well-sprung black velvet interior barouche was opened before taking his first steps onto a street of the famed city. He sniffed the air, noted that it smelled far cleaner than that of Singapore, but not nearly as crisp and pleasant as he’d expected for springtime, and nodded to the man who’d opened the door for him.
“Be prepared to leave again at precisely nine forty-five,” he told him, and then strode up the walkway of his new residence.
Before he even considered raising his hand to knock, the door opened. With a flourish, a rather stout man with thinning brown hair and small, sharp eyes, very correctly attired and standing quite erectly, bowed. “Welcome, Your Excellency. I hope that you will find everything as you desire.”
Monte Cristo nodded to his majordomo. “I am quite sure I shall, Bertuccio. You have never disappointed me.”
“Your chamber has been prepared if you wish to freshen your toilette.”
Although anyone who might have seen the count would have considered him more fashionably appointed than even the most fastidious of courtiers, Monte Cristo fully intended to attend to his appearance and preparation in the four hours before he renewed his acquaintance with young Albert de Morcerf.
“Haydée and Ali and the others shall be arriving shortly,” Monte Cristo informed Bertuccio.
The other man bowed. “I shall see that the lady is made comfortable, Your Excellency. If you wish, I’ll have a hot bath drawn for you. And perhaps a shave, if you require it.” Even though Monte Cristo would have shaved already this morning, Bertuccio was aware of his master’s meticulousness when it came to his appearance and grooming.
“I will bathe in one hour. Now I require some time alone.”
By now the two had reached the massive chamber that would serve as the master’s private apartments in the Paris mansion. Monte Cristo did not expect to be here above three or four months, at the very longest. And then he would leave Paris, leave all of this behind, and never return to France again.
Once Bertuccio closed the door and left him alone, Monte Cristo allowed himself to relax—something he did only in the presence of one other person on this earth, and even then, with some caution.
He examined the chamber, wandering through the spacious six-room suite appointed with a tasteful and luxurious combination of European and Oriental furnishings. Red-and-sapphire velvet brocade, edged with gold fringe, hung on the walls. Gold-and-silver brocade drapes were pulled away from tall floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Champs-Élysées, as well as the colorful gardens that wrapped around the side and back of the mansion. The furnishings were similar to that which he’d become accustomed to during his decade traveling the Orient: low, flush with cushions, and sparing on wooden arms, legs, and headboards.
There was a spacious dressing room, an adjoining room with one of the largest tubs Paris had ever seen, along with running water, and in a third chamber, the massive round bed piled high with tasseled pillows and silk cushions. A large mahogany table, complete with two lamps, ink pens, papers, blotter and ink, dominated one of the rooms. Potted plants and tall, formal flower arrangements brought the gardens into the apartments— a characteristic that, along with many windows and lots of light, Monte Cristo required of his living space. Bowls of fresh fruit, along with water, wine, and brandy, adorned at least one surface in each room as well.
Monte Cristo walked out onto the private balcony of his suite. Paris lay beyond, with its pale blond buildings like decorative cubes of Montrachet in the early-morning light, and the fountains and walkways of Marie de’ Medici’s famous avenue below. The Seine sparkled some few streets away, and the rising sun cast long dark brown shadows as it lifted over the city.
To his right, away from the river, rose the Arc de Triomphe, that massive archway celebrating the arrival of Napoleon in the city. Only four years since its completion, it blazed new and white in the bright sun as Monte Cristo’s mouth firmed and his eyes narrowed. Any reminder of the emperor and politics— either that of the dead ruler or that of the Royals—lit a deep burn in his chest. Politics and greed and jealousy had destroyed the life of an innocent man. And now all of Paris was awash with talk about the possible return of the man’s ashes to his city. Monte Cristo could care less, for he was concerned with another man’s arrival: his own.
He was here, in Paris.
At last.
Monte Cristo grasped the wrought-iron balcony rail, marveling at the array of sins and miracles it had taken to get him here. Paris, the location in which he would wreak his holy vengeance on the four men who had betrayed Edmond Dantès and sent an innocent man to prison for fourteen years.
Twenty-four years ago, Dantès had everything to live for.
Now the young, uneducated man who’d once made love to his woman under an olive tree no longer existed.
He fingered the large onyx pin he always wore to remind himself of his duty—the duty he’d accepted in exchange for the miracles that brought him here. Inside was a list of names. Monte Cristo didn’t need to open the pin’s secret catch in order to review them, but he did, now, as he stood looking over the city. It seemed fitting, a necessary ritual.
The paper shuffled gently in the light morning breeze as he looked down at the small scrap and the names written on it. There were five.
The first four names were scribed neatly, with well-formed letters and without ink blotches. The last one was not. Though written with the same hand, the final name was scrawled so hard that the pen nib had scraped the paper.
His heart beating rapidly, his fingers trembling, Monte Cristo folded the paper along its well-worn creases and replaced it in the black brooch.
He would show no mercy, for none had been shown to him. A man’s life had been destroyed by the jealousy, greed, and fear harbored by these four men. A simple letter, a blatant lie, that falsely accused Edmond Dantès of an involvement in a plot to return Napoleon to the throne had set the events in motion.
Danglars and Morcerf had written and posted the letter that claimed Dantès was involved in the plot because he was in possession of a missive describing the details of the emperor’s intent to break free of Elba. Danglars did so because he wanted the captaincy of the Pharaon, and Fernand de Morcerf because he wanted Mercédès.
Caderousse had known of it, but had not come forward to expose them.
And Villefort, the crown prosecutor, had sent Dantès to prison because the missive that an unknowing Dantès had been asked to deliver incriminated his own father, and thus threatened Villefort’s political position as a loyalist to the crown. The letter that Dantès had been duped into delivering had named Villefort’s father, Monsieur Noirtier, as a participant in the emperor’s plan to escape from Elba. If that knowledge had been revealed, Villefort’s career would have been destroyed.
Greed, jealousy, and fear.
Monte Cristo had taken ten years to put his affairs in order, to plot and plan the revenge, to learn what he needed to know and to put enough time and distance between himself and the betrayers so that he could destroy them cleanly, and unemotionally, in the same way they had destroyed the innocent Edmond Dantès.
And Mercédès. She had waited for him—the man she swore to love until she died—for a mere eighteen months.
“ ‘Frailty, thy name is woman,’ ” Monte Cristo had whispered when he had learned this.
Frailty indeed. Eighteen months. She should have waited eighteen years, and more. But she had spread her glorious legs for Morcerf, and had spent the last twenty-two years moaning and sighing beneath the man, in his bed, while Dantès suffered through fourteen years of darkness and cold and despair, dreaming of her. Waiting for her. Wanting her.
All the while, she had been loving someone else. One of his betrayers.
Since she alone had loved Edmond Dantès, her betrayal was the greatest of them all.
His palms were slick, but he resisted wiping them on his trousers. No signs of weakness.
The Count of Monte Cristo had no weakness. No mercy, no weakness, no second thoughts. No miscalculations.
A tremor ran through his body and he closed his eyes, leaning against the railing, again drawing in the fresh air of the early morning—something once he thought never to do again. Thank God for Abbé Faria’s wrong turn in his tunnel of escape.
The old man had befriended the young, nearly mad Dantès and brought him back to sanity. He’d spent four years educating him, teaching him everything he knew as they secretly communed between their prison cells.
He shared with the younger man the secret of Cardinal Spada’s family treasure buried on Monte Cristo island. For, as a younger man, the abbé had been the personal secretary of Count Spada, the last descendant of the old cardinal. He often spoke so wistfully of his family’s lost treasure that, at first, Faria thought it was only a legend.
But after the count’s death, Faria found a scrap of the cardinal’s will inside the family breviary that Count Spada had bequeathed to him. That scrap of paper was enough for the abbé to puzzle out the location of the treasure, and to confirm its existence.
And when Abbé Faria died at last, he gave Dantès a final gift: freedom.
Dantès had replaced the abbé’s body with his own, wrapped in the shroud for burial and left in his cell. When the would-be corpse had been tossed in the sea from the cliffs of Château d’If, he had managed a harrowing escape: one of the miracles that had brought him to this sunny day in May, on a balcony overlooking Paris.
Dantès had died, but the Count of Monte Cristo had been born.
Precisely one hour after Monte Cristo had closed the door of the private suite, Bertuccio knocked on it again.
Monte Cristo bade him enter, and the stout man did so, followed by a beautiful young woman dressed in Persian clothing.
“Your Excellency, I shall have the bath prepared now.”
His master nodded in agreement, then transferred his attention to Haydée. “And so you have arrived in Paris,” he said kindly. “Do you not think it a beautiful city?”
Haydée smiled, showing perfect white teeth and a tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth. “What little I have seen is beautiful, Excellency, but very different from Istanbul and Peking.”
Monte Cristo smiled indulgently. “Now that we are in Paris, you must act as any young woman of Europe would. You will be my companion about the city. We will visit the opera and the theater, as well as attend some parties. You will, of course, require new clothing.”
She was merely twenty years old, less than half his age, and a gloriously beautiful woman. The olive skin of her Greek ancestry was smooth and supple, and her hair black as ink and straight as the tail of an Arabian horse. Dark eyes slanted upward at the corners, giving her an exotic, mysterious look, and her mouth was slender and wide with a deep vee in the upper lip. Haydée was a princess—the daughter of the Ali Pasha, who had been the ruler of the westernmost part of the Ottoman Empire. He’d been assassinated in Janina in 1822, leaving Haydée and her mother to be sold into slavery.
The mother had died shortly after, but Monte Cristo had seen and purchased the young woman some years ago. He had had the pleasure of watching her grow into the loveliest of young women. He would soon be in a position to release her from servitude.
“Shall I assist with your bath today, Excellency?” the girl asked with a smile.
His attention swept over her, over the loose silken trousers and the tight beaded bodice that ended above her navel. “If you wish.”
Perhaps her slender hands and cheerful disposition would distract him from the matters at hand.
Haydée smiled and bowed, leaving the room gracefully just as the door to the chamber opened again.
A massive man with skin of ebony and a bald head entered and approached Monte Cristo. He also wore the garb of the Orient: a loose, silken tunic belted over full trousers, a blinding white against his smooth coal flesh. His feet were bare. He wore gold armbands on his wrists and ankles, and two golden hoops in one ear.
He bowed in front of Monte Cristo.
“Ali,” said the count, “I trust there were no problems with your arrival today.”
The man shook his head, then spoke with his hands to give more details.
Ali had entered the service of the Count of Monte Cristo after the man had saved his life three years earlier. He had taken a vow of silence along with the mantle of his service until such a time in which he could return the favor; after which, he would return to his native Nubia.
“Very good,” Monte Cristo said when the man finished. “I will return later this afternoon.” With that, he rose from where he had been sitting and walked into the room where the bath had been prepared.
Haydée and two other servants were there. The pleasant scent of cardamom and lemon filtered through the air as Monte Cristo was divested of his fine garments. He gave instructions to one of the servants in regards to his new attire, and then climbed into the steaming tub.
The hot water streamed over his face and hair, and he closed his eyes, letting two pairs of hands minister to him. One set, impersonal and quick, soaped his feet and legs.
But the other pair of hands belonged to Haydée; he knew because she was scrubbing his thick hair, and he could smell the jasmine that she favored. She was so young and beautiful. He’d noticed her skin: smooth and supple, like a tanned deer hide, and the curve of her breasts and hips. Even her feet, which she kept bare whenever in the house, were elegant and brown and her toes encircled with silver rings.
He opened his eyes and realized that the other servant had gone, dismissed by Haydée perhaps. Turning to ask why she had done so, Monte Cristo found her face very close to his.
Surprise fluttered in his belly, followed by delight. Those lips were close enough. . . . Yes, she leaned forward and covered his mouth with her sweet one.
She’d never done such a thing before—and he’d never asked or even suggested it—but it was not unwelcome. He felt the rise of pleasure sweep over him as her lips opened against his and her slick tongue slipped through.
He realized he’d closed his eyes, and he didn’t open them until she pulled away.
“What are you about?” he asked, a harsh note creeping into his voice as she sat back on her haunches.
She smiled as she unbuttoned her short, tight bodice. Her generous, high breasts spilled out, nipples pink and dusky against her olive skin. She wore a thin gold chain around her waist, and it settled over the curve of her bare hips, just above the low waistline of her trousers. Monte Cristo felt his mouth go dry and the sudden lift of his cock stir the water.
“You haven’t been with a woman for months,” she said, her hands moving to cover her breasts, lifting them to him.
He touched her with his left hand, moving his fingers over the warm skin, as his right hand lay against the other side of the tub, fingers curled easily. “How do you know this?” Her nipple puckered beneath his touch. If nothing else, she was willing.
“It is obvious, Excellency. Since you returned from Monte Cristo, you’ve not had a woman here, nor gone to one. I suspected, and Ali . . . well, he has confirmed it.” She had the grace to look a bit ashamed at this revelation that his two servants had been in consultation about him, but Monte Cristo was too taken aback to react. And aside from that, her royal bearing held her in good stead even though she was bound in servitude. “Excellency, I wish to erase that crease between your brows,” she said, tracing the offending line.
He closed his eyes in silent acquiescence and tried to settle his leaping pulse. The girl was a virgin, but she was his, and she offered herself to him. He’d never made any such overtures or hinted at any expectations in all of the time she’d served him.
And she was correct. He hadn’t been with a woman since November.
The bathwater tinkled and surged, and he felt two narrow feet slide in on either side of his torso, then a warm weight on his belly, settled just north of his raging cock. Small hands
moved over his chest, raising the hair he’d allowed to grow back, and then up and over his shoulders. She bent forward to kiss him again, and he didn’t even have to raise his head to meet her lips.
As her hands and mouth were busy, he drifted on a sea of pleasure and memories. He opened his eyes once to see two ripe breasts in front of his face, offered to his mouth, dark and smooth. They were high and tight and young, but the ones he saw when he closed his eyes again were golden . . . the size of oranges, and no longer so high and tight.
His mouth tightened against hers, and she moved to kiss along his jaw, her hands smoothing up and down over his chest, but going no farther. Clearly, she was a virgin and wasn’t quite certain how to go about the process at hand. . . . He took one of Haydée’s hands and closed it around his cock. Showed her how to move it.
Ah.
Desire surged again, and he almost spilled it right there.
With his eyes closed, he tried to focus on the young woman in front—on top—of him. But instead, he was pummeled with images and textures, sensations and sounds that didn’t belong here . . . weren’t part of this moment, this day, this woman.
Golden skin, not quite as firm as he remembered; hips flaring like that of a woman, not a young girl; long, wavy black hair unbound and damp mingling with his . . . her heavy, ratcheting breathing as Neru and Omania danced for them, which had been more arousing than their performance.
He’d brought her there to memorize her desires, fine-tune her body and needs, to learn her.
So that he could plan his revenge.
Ten years had passed since Mercédès first met Sinbad in Marseille. Ten years and countless women and experiences. And yet . . . when they were together on Monte Cristo, he’d forgotten his purpose, become caught up in the memories, the desires, the need.
So he sent her back, aborting his experiment.
Monte Cristo dragged himself back from those hazy, hashish-filled memories . . . of Neru kneeling between those slender golden thighs . . . of the way her breasts shivered and puckered while he touched them, caressed and teased her . . . of the long, undulating tremors that shook her beneath his own hands, the soft sighs and little trickles of tears. Of the way she’d mounted him, and reached high above her head, lifting her breasts as she rode him with skill and driving rhythm.
