by Trisha Telep
Solange was young. She didn’t fully appreciate the fact that the money her sister had made with her body had kept then from starving on the streets, and had given her the luxury of being disdainful of the fact that her older sister was a woman of questionable virtue. Solange would no longer see her and that was, Justine supposed, the way things should be. But that didn’t stop her from driving past the convent every night and stopping to say her silent prayer for her sister’s happiness and well-being.
“God be with you,” she whispered, as she rapped on the polished wood of the carriage to signal the driver. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the velvet cushions.
The carriage door flew open and a man’s plumed hat sailed through the opening to land on the seat across from her. Justine sat upright, clutching at the velvet squabs, when the whole conveyance tipped wildly as the biggest man she had ever seen climbed in. He sat down on the seat opposite her and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Get out!” she yelled. “Henri! Henri!”
“He can’t help you,” the man said.
“What have you done with him?” she hissed.
“Ah good, you speak English. The boy is fine. He’s taking a walk.”
“Henri would not abandon his post.”
“To be fair to the lad I did suggest it rather . . . forcefully.”
She sat back and studied him. He wasn’t just tall, he was broad. His dark-blue coat and vest covered wide shoulders, which seemed to fill her small carriage. His hair was black and cut short, so unlike the long, curly wigs which were fashionable for men these days. Black leather riding boots covered his long legs and she had to shift to make room for them.
“What the devil do you want?” she snapped.
He leaned forwards, his dark eyes glittering, and rubbed the stubble which covered his very square jaw. “I want to see the woman who brought me all the way from England.”
She frowned. “I don’t even know you.”
“You are correct but you will know me well by the time this dance is done.”
“You speak in riddles.”
He leaned back and smiled. “Then let me make it plain to you. You have made a nuisance of yourself among some very powerful people.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What people?”
“Namely, Francois, the Regent of Paris. It seems that you keep killing his vampires.”
Her body tensed and she wondered if she could make it to the wooden stake that was tucked between the seat cushions in time. Careful not to draw his attention to her hand, she laid her palms on the seat and leaned forwards. There were, she realized, as his gaze was drawn to the swell of her breasts, things that being a vampire did not change. She took a deep breath, straining the limits of the pale-blue dress.
“I am not a murderer, Monsieur. If Francois would keep his vampires from killing humans, then I would not hunt them.”
“It is against the High King’s law to kill humans. How can you be certain they are doing this?”
“Because five of them nearly killed me two years ago.”
“Are they dead now?”
She smiled. “They were the first ones I killed. I execute only the guilty.”
He arched a brow at her. “And you decide who is innocent and who is guilty?”
She shrugged. “Someone must.”
He again crossed his arms over his massive chest. “I must say, my dear, you are quite impressive for a human women. Francois says that you have nearly a hundred kills to your credit.”
“Obviously it is not enough. One of his vampires murdered a woman near the Bastille two nights ago. But you did not cross the Channel to congratulate me.”
“No,” he said, his eyes raking hotly over her. “I’ve been hired to kill you.”
She jerked the stake from its hiding place and lunged at him. His hand caught her wrist like a vice and they both looked down to see the tip of the stake lost in the fabric of coat and vest.
“By God, you are a bloodthirsty wench,” he muttered and grabbed the back of her head with his free hand, pulling her mouth down to his.
The stake in her hand was all but forgotten as his lips met hers. Before she knew how it had happened her body was flush against his and the hand that held her wrist was pressing against the small of her back. She had no idea where the stake was and at the moment she didn’t care. His tongue swept into her mouth and she melted into him, her body quivering. It had been years since she’d been kissed and longer still since she’d been touched by a man she felt any sort of passion for. This man, God, he fired her blood. She curled her fingers into the fabric of his coat and wondered what that wide chest would feel like if it were bared to her hands.
Abruptly he turned her loose, unceremoniously dumping her back into her seat. While she was still trying to get her bearings he scooped his hat up and bounded out of the carriage. He paused outside the door and swept her a low bow before placing the plumed hat back on his head at a rakish angle.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” she said, inwardly wincing at the tremor and the faintest sound of disappointment in her voice.
“No. I said I’ve been hired to kill you,” he replied with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll most likely get to it tomorrow.”
And then he was gone, as if he’d been nothing more than her imagination. Justine blew out a breath. Her hands were shaking and she didn’t think it was from fear. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to be celibate these last few years. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have found herself in a torrid embrace with a vampire. In a carriage, she thought with disgust. While sitting in front of a convent.
“Mon Dieu, I am going to hell.”
But it would almost have been worth the trip.
The next night the theatre at the Tuileries Palace was filled to overflowing and Justine could not escape an invitation from the Duc d’Orleans to join his party at the neighbouring Palace Royal. For two hours she watched the clock, counting the minutes until she could make a graceful exit. Her thoughts completely revolved around the vampire in her carriage as she drank and danced and managed to successfully avoid the wandering hands of Monsieur La Fontaine. She was so pre-occupied that, when the Duc d’Orleans loudly hailed her from across the room, someone had to grab get by the sleeve to get her attention.
“It looks as if the King’s brother is bringing you a present,” Madame de Montespan, Louis’ current mistress, informed her with a sly smile.
“Oh dear God,” Justine moaned as she stood rooted to the floor, watching the Duc cross the room with her vampire in tow.
Madame de Montespan chuckled and patted her on the arm. “Good luck, dear,” she said with a wink, before blending back into the crowd.
Justine had to admit, in the moments before Philippe descended on her, that the vampire was quite a fine figure of a man. Tall and broad, every inch of him was overpoweringly male. No wonder he had caught Philippe’s eye. Despite two marriages and five surviving children, the Duc d’Orleans was unashamedly, and quite flamboyantly, a lover of men. At any given time he wore more perfume than Justine had ever owned, and just about as much lace. It had come as quite a surprise to everyone when he had proven himself to be an excellent military commander. For all his foppishness though, Justine quite liked him.
“Cherie!” he greeted her. “I have met the most charming man. Allow me to introduce you to John Devlin, Earl of Falconhurst. He is newly arrived from King Charles’ court.”
Justine arched a brow at the vampire’s title but made her curtsey nonetheless.
“Yes, the Earl is an old acquaintance,” she assured Philippe.
The vampire inclined his head. “It is lovely to see you again, Mademoiselle.”
They stared at each other for a long moment until the Duc loudly cleared his throat. “Then I will leave you alone to renew your acquaintance,” he said with a wink.
When Philippe was out of earshot Justine looked the vampire up and down. The silks and lace which looked so ele
gant on Louis’ courtiers seemed out of place on him. His broad, muscular chest appeared more suited to chain mail than velvet.
“You look ridiculous,” she said.
He frowned, glancing down at his dark-blue velvet coat, heavily adorned with braiding and lace, the silk vest and knee breeches beneath it, and his silk hose and high-heeled shoes. “I look like everyone else,” he protested.
“You still look ridiculous.”
He shrugged. “Well, the fashions today are rather absurd. To tell you the truth, I’ve worn suits of armour more comfortable than these shoes.”
Unable to help herself, she laughed. “Do you know the punishment for impersonating the nobility?”
“And what makes you think my title is not my own?” he asked with an arrogance in his voice that made her pause.
“How long have you been a vampire?”
“Over three hundred years.”
“Well then the title is no longer yours, if it ever was to begin with.”
He shrugged. “I left no heirs so I feel justified in using it when I see fit.”
She cast him a look which clearly said that she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “Why are you here, vampire?”
He winced and glanced around. “I have been called many things, including the Devil himself, but I would appreciate it if you would call me Devlin instead of ‘vampire’.”
She inclined her head. “Devlin, why are you here? Surely you do not plan to kill me in front of the King’s brother and half the court?”
“Research, my dear,” he said simply. “It is always to one’s advantage to know as much as possible about your enemy.”
“And what have you learned in this room full of gossips?”
“Well, they – ” he started, but his attention was quickly drawn to something across the room. “Why is that young man glaring at me?”
Justine turned and promptly let out an embarrassed chuckle. “That is Philippe de Lorraine, the Duc’s lover. Be careful of that one. He’s beautiful but just as immoral and dangerous as any vampire in this city.”
“Perhaps we should take a stroll through the gardens? I fear it would complicate my time here if I was forced to kill the King’s brother’s jealous lover.”
She stared at him incredulous. “Do you think I’ve taken leave of my senses, Monsieur? I will not be taking a stroll in the gardens with a man who has been hired to kill me.”
He leaned in close to her, until his dark eyes filled her vision. “Ah, but I promise not to kill you tonight.”
She pursed her lips. “That is hardly comforting.”
He laid one hand on his heart. “My word of honour as a knight, no harm will come to you.”
“I must be mad,” she muttered, but allowed him to take her hand and place it on his arm.
When they were free of the prying eyes and the gilded confines of the Duc’s apartment, the tension in Devlin’s body began to ease. Justine was almost disappointed. She had been enjoying the taut feel of his biceps under her hand.
Devlin closed his eyes and inhaled the warm spring air. “They call you ‘le chardonneret du Roi’, the King’s goldfinch.”
Justine nodded. “your English king called me his ‘French canary’.”
He rolled his eyes. “Charles, on occasion lacks imagination. You are much more than a pretty voice.”
“Am I?”
“You are, I think, a woman of great fortitude. When your parents died, leaving you with the care of a baby sister, you could have scraped out a living doing any number of things. Instead you ended up the mistress of the King.”
She snorted. “That was not my intention, I assure you. All I wanted to do was sing.”
He smiles. “They say you stole a dress from some mantua-maker. . .”
“From the finest dressmaker in Paris,” she assured him.
“And then you ambushed poor Lully outside the Tuileries one afternoon and convinced him to let you sing for him.”
She stiffened. “I do not know this word ‘ambush’.”
He laughed, knowing that she knew the meaning exactly, and continued on. “And when the King first saw you and heard your voice, you and your sister never wanted for anything again. It is an amazing story.”
“And do you not think less of me for making my fortune in such a way?” After all, her own sister did.
He gave her an odd look. “There is no shame in being the mistress of a king. It’s a position of great power and influence. I think less of Louis for letting you go.”
“He needed a spy at the English court. When he asked me if I would go, I could hardly decline.”
“And Madame de Montespan?” he asked.
“When I returned, she had taken my place.”
“Did that not sting a bit?”
Justine shrugged. “When a woman is out of sight, she is out of mind. It is the way of kings . . . and men.”
He stopped and turned to her. “You have not been out of my mind since last night.”
“Such attentiveness must be quite useful for an assassin.”
He ignored her waspish comment and instead reached out to touch her hair. She had abandoned her wig after the opera and instead wore her own hair pulled back in loose curls. “Your hair is nearly silver in the moonlight,” he said, twining one long curl around his finger.
She looked up at him, not knowing what to say to that. He took advantage of her silence by leaning in and brushing his lips to hers. She sighed against his mouth and he accepted the invitation, pulling her into his arms. Her head whirled with the feel of his hard body against hers as he kissed her lips, her cheek, as his tongue stroked down across the pulse hammering in her throat. She was completely lost to him until she felt the sharp scrape of teeth against her neck. Suddenly she was no longer in Devlin’s arms. In her mind she was transported back to the night two years ago, the night when five vampires had caught her alone in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace. She pulled herself from Devlin’s embrace and hit him on the jaw as hard as she could.
His hand flew to his face as he stumbled back. “What the bloody hell was that for?”
Justine’s fingers touched her neck and came away with blood. “You bit me!”
He rolled his eyes. “I did not bite you. It’s a tiny scrape and it was an accident.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re a liar, vampire, and you will never touch me again.”
She turned and walked away, fury firing her every step. He caught her in a few strides, spinning her around to face him.
“Justine, let me turn you,” he pleaded.
“You’re mad,” she whispered. “I will not sell my soul to you, not even for the promise of that beautiful body.”
“What about for your sister? Will you sell your soul for her?” he asked softly.
Rage filled her until she was shaking with it. She pushed him back, punctuating each of her words with another shove to his very solid chest. “Do not dare threaten my sister.”
Devlin grabbed her wrists with both of his hands. “I am not the threat to her. You are.”
She kicked him in the shin and he grunted and released her. “I would never harm Solange,” she spat.
“No, but you will be the death of her,” he said. “Did you even consider that before you set out on this foolhardy venture?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You are, by all accounts, the most prolific slayer in the history of vampires. They will not let you live, they cannot. If it isn’t me who kills you, it will be someone else. You will not have your youth for ever, did you think of that? That one day you will get older, slower? They will kill you eventually, but first they will hurt you. And there is only one thing you care about enough to cause the kind of pain they’ll want you to suffer.”
“Solange,” she whispered. “But she is in a convent and intends to take the vows. They cannot harm her on hallowed ground.”
“That is not entirely accurate. It’s taboo but it isn�
�t impossible. If a vampire were to harm her on hallowed ground, well let’s just say that God’s vengeance would eventually be satisfied. Your sister, however, would still be dead. Is that the sort of death you want for her?”
Justine knew well what kind of death that would be. It was a death that should have been hers. She remembered the tearing teeth and clawing fingernails and in that moment she hated Devlin for making her think of these things. She hated him for making her realize that she hadn’t thought beyond her own vengeance. Perhaps she was no better than the silly, selfish creatures who populated the court of the Sun King. There was a time, before tonight, when she had thought that what she did was important, that she made a difference. Perhaps though, what she did was more important to her own vanity. Did she execute these murderers for the greater good, or was it simply to prove to herself and to them that they may have beaten her once but they would not do so again? She was a fighter, a survivor. She didn’t know any other way to be.
“I hate you,” she whispered and turned away.
This time, he let her go.
For two weeks Devlin did his best to make her see reason but his pleas fell on deaf ears, and more often than not these conversations led to a physical confrontation. The two of them fought across the length and breadth of Paris and Justine loved every moment of it. Devlin presented her with a fine sabre, even though the sword was not practical for fighting vampires. She lacked the upper-body strength needed to take a head with a sword, preferring her razor-sharp axe for such occasions. Devlin, however, seemed to enjoy watching her fight with a sword. He commented more than once on the beauty of her lithe, graceful movements.
Every night he tested the very limits of her skills and made her a better fighter. She would often goad him into a fight just to see what else he could teach her. It became a game to them and Justine could think no further into the future than where they would meet the next night and for how long she would let him kiss her when they grew weary of sparring.
Until the day the Mother Superior of the Ursulines arrived on her doorstep to tell her that two men in a closed carriage had snatched Solange off the side of the Rue Saint-Jacques in broad daylight.
