by Nancy Morse
The cool nip of early spring felt like a slap against her fevered cheeks. She sucked the air into her lungs, taking huge, deep gulps in an attempt to calm her wildly beating heart. Hugging her cloak tighter about herself, she proceeded down the street, mindless of the people who jostled past her, heedless of the shouting hackney-coachmen and the jostling chairmen and the insolent footmen who thrust their way through, making a hideous noise on the cobblestones and splattering mud on the hem of her dress. She was oblivious to the bells of the postmen, the cries of the merchants who sold hot and cold viands on street corners, and to the whole noisy, smelly metropolis that was London.
She hurried on past the shops of crumbling bricks and knotty timber of the cobblers, broom-men and pointers. Upon passing the botcher’s shop, she was unceremoniously reminded of the torn gown and made a note to bring it in for repair.
At the Spitalfield market the women were still arriving with basket-loads of soft fruit perched upon their heads. She entered beneath the canopy to make her daily purchase of fruits and meats, vegetables being much too costly to afford but a few. She chose half a pound of cheese, a loaf of bread, some eggs, three fat mutton chops, a jar of preserved peaches, and although fish was dearer than anything else, a piece of salt-cod for Papa. She finished with some roots and herbs, salt, vinegar, mustard and pickles.
“At’ll be a bob and sixpence, miss.” The merchant, a hatchet-faced man, extended his hand, palm up, for payment while keeping an eye out for filchers. “Aye, ya hafta watch for em buggers, ya do. Ain’t as bad as Field Lane where ya can have yer handkerchief dipped at one end and buy it back at the other, but ya can’t take no chances.”
Pru offered a commiserating smile as she delved into her pocket for the coins to pay for her purchases. It was then she spotted the basket of strawberries, and froze. An unsettling sensation overwhelmed her. As she stared at the ripe, red fruit, she could almost taste the sweetness upon her tongue. Odd indeed, considering that she had never tasted a strawberry until…last night. And then she remembered the tea of the most unusual flavor, and strawberries so succulent that her mouth fairly watered to taste them again. She reached out to scoop a handful, but though better of it, trying hard to convince herself that the cost was too steep for her pocket, when she knew the truth was of a far more intimate nature than that.
“C’mon now, miss,” came the merchant’s impatient voice. “I got more customers ‘ere.”
Pru turned away from the strawberries and the memories that converged upon her with the force of a steam engine, memories so tawdry and thrilling she thought she might swoon.
She emerged shaking from beneath the tent to a sky that was overcast and gray, reliving what little she recalled of those passionate moments when she had become initiated into the art of lovemaking. She had a vague recollection of his hands on her body, teasingly soft, then harsh, a touch so intimate it could only have been a dream, of writhing against him, of opening her eyes to his covert smile that seemed at once both sweet and cruel. Her heart quickened at the thought of the disgraceful things he had done to her.
Through it all, one question begged for an answer. Why her? She knew she was not beautiful. She’d been courted only once, by Edmund de Vere, who had made it brutally clear today that it had not been for her good looks. From whence, then, had come Nicolae’s lust? Had he, too, been moved past irrationality by the music? Had he been overcome by some ferocious itch that needed scratching? Had he been so long without a woman that any female body would do? Although it was difficult to imagine that a man as compelling as he was would not have his choice of women and all the sexual pleasure he could possibly want.
She tried not to think about it, for if she did, she might still hear the sound of her own ragged breath at the moment of explosion, still feel the pain and the pleasure mingling until one was indistinguishable from the other, still experience the shame with which she had responded to his demanding caresses. Had he guessed how badly she had wanted it? How his ravenous kisses had kindled her own dark hunger? But try as she might, she could not turn her thoughts away from last night.
Her shoes clattered on the cobblestones as she hurried down the street. Something, she knew not what, compelled her to look up. There, on the far side of the street was a figure she had come to recognize only too well.
He stood there watching her, his amazing green eyes shining like beacons out of the perpetual mist, the barest hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.
Pru struggled for composure. Her throat felt so arid she thought she would choke. She remained rooted to her spot, unable to move, until she saw him take a step in her direction, and then she backed away slowly. She could not face him, not after last night. Tearing her gaze from his, she turned and started to run, straight into the path of an oncoming coach.
The coachman yelled for her to get the bloody hell out of the way. The grating rattle of wheels against the cobblestones loomed in her ears. The hot breath of the horses was upon her, the smell of the froth on their coats overbearing as they bore down on her.
It all happened so fast. One moment she was standing in the middle of the street, looking back over her shoulder at Nicolae. In the next instant her basket of produce and meats was airborne as she was tackled to the ground with an unceremonious jolt that sent her senses reeling. The coachman cussed as he careened on past. There was a concerted gasp from the onlookers. She felt herself being lifted to her feet and righted on wobbly legs. When her eyes finally stopped rolling around in her head and her vision cleared, she found herself looking into Nicolae’s handsome face.
“W—what?” Her head whirled around to the place where he’d been standing only moments ago, then back to where he was now, within mere inches, his hands firmly clasped about her waist. “How did you…?” Bewilderment brightened her eyes. It simply wasn’t possible for him to have reached her so fast. Why, she hadn’t even seen him move. She shook her head to clear the confusion. “You were just…there.” She pointed a trembling finger to where he’d been. “And now you’re…here.” And holding her much too tightly, of that she was suddenly acutely aware. With a quaking breath, she squirmed away from him.
Nicolae took a step back. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, quite,” she replied as she patted the dust from her cloak and ran her palms over her dress to smooth the wrinkles. “I suppose I should thank you. If you hadn’t been so…so…quick, I shudder to think what would have become of me.”
He bowed courteously. “It was my pleasure.”
Pleasure. The word conjured up all sorts of memories that Pru wanted desperately to forget. She drew back, frowning. “Do not mistake my thanks for friendship,” she told him. “Not after the liberties you took with me last night. Or perhaps you think I have forgotten your ungentlemanly behavior.”
His smile froze and faded from his face, his mouth now forming a savage little line. “I never claimed to be a gentleman.” He chuckled, a flash of mockery in his tone. “On the contrary, I fully admit to being a very bad man.”
Pru’s mortification was complete. And to think, she had actually entertained the preposterous notion that she was attracted to this rake. Whatever charm she imagined he possessed was lost in the narrowed eyes and the shadowed mouth and the awful truth that she’d been used by a clever debaucher. “It appears I have been mistaken about you,” she announced.
“How so?” he asked, although the lazy lifting of his brows seemed to indicate his utter disinterest in her reply.
“You are not the person whose soul I thought I glimpsed through your music. Why, you, sir, have no soul at all.”
His look turned hard, almost vicious, for a moment, causing her to shrink in fear of retribution. Then he laughed, so hard that his shoulders shook beneath his cloak, but the frigid sound left little doubt that he was not amused. “So, you have discovered that about me, have you? And shall I tell you what I have discovered about you?”
“I’ve no wish to hear it.” She cast
a look around for her basket and gave out with a little cry of distress to find its contents strewn about the street, the eggs broken and their runny contents spreading over the cobblestones. She gathered her purchases and placed them in the battered basket, all the while muttering under her breath. When she was done, she straightened up, whirled around to face him, and exclaimed, “You are a detestable man.”
“You seemed not to mind last night.”
She sucked in her breath. “I…I was not myself last night.”
“Well, whoever you were,” he said mockingly, “was most accommodating. And may I add, not the least bit shy about it. You were made for it, you know.”
“Oh!” Her shoes clacked furiously against the cobblestones as she stormed off.
His boot heels made no sound at all when he fell into place beside her. “I meant that as a compliment. Some women spend their entire lives learning the skills with which to please a man. You seem to come by them quite naturally.”
Pru ground her eyes shut at the possibility that there was more to last night’s escapades than what she was able to recall. “Oh, do shut up.” Frustration made her sound uncharacteristically harsh.
“That’s just one of the things I discovered about you,” he went on in a teasing and dangerous voice. “Another is that you pretend to be modest, but beneath your unassuming manner of dress and your almost-convincing meekness beats a heart that burns for passion. I wonder if your fiancé knows what a little Messalina you are.”
Having been educated in the liberal arts at Mrs. Draper’s School for Girls, she had learned Latin, Italian, geography and enough Roman history to know that Messalina, the wife of the emperor Claudius, was a woman of uncommonly loose morals. The comparison was dreadful enough, but what was even more shocking was the apparent ease with which he had looked past her veneer to her secret longings. How was it possible for him to know this thing about her innermost self that was only just awakening within her? A lucky guess, although she would never admit it to the likes of him. “I no longer have a fiancé,” she said. “I broke it off today, not that it’s any of your business.”
“I see. Is there anything I can do to take your mind off your broken betrothal?”
Astonished, she said, “Certainly not.”
With sugary sweetness, he ventured, “Not even if I were to play a piece I composed especially for you?”
“I doubt anything you do is for anyone but yourself.”
“I take that to mean you do not want to hear it? Very well. But it may interest you to know that I have decided to take you up on your offer to play the suite I finished for your father at the concert next month. I was on my way to make the arrangements when you were so very nearly flattened by the coach. And how is your father? Has his condition improved?”
She detested that condescending tone and note of false concern and was sorry she had asked him to play the piece at Vauxhall Gardens. But his inquiry into Papa’s health thrust her misgivings aside. When she left Papa last night, his face had looked so pale and drawn that whatever wild hope had invaded her heart for his recovery had been all but dashed. She heaved a beleaguered sigh, and admitted, “Not well.”
“Would you care to walk with me to the quay?”
Pru looked at him, mystified by the change. How could he be so malicious one moment and so beguiling the next? So heartless and then so caring? What cruel sport was this? And why, despite every reason she had to mistrust and to hate him, did she feel herself softening beneath his beautiful green gaze? Struggling to wipe her feelings from her face, she stiffened her resolve, and asked, “For what purpose?”
He answered, “I go there sometimes at night to watch the ships when I feel lonely. The sight of their dark sails coming and going fills me with a sense of…I don’t know…meaning, I suppose.”
He’s lying, flashed through her mind. But the expression on his face, so downfallen, so heartfelt, gave her pause. A paralyzed silence fell over them during which Pru floundered for words to say.
Just then, the clouds parted a little to reveal a rare blue sky with the sun peeking through. At the first faint ray that slanted across his path, Nicolae thrust his head downward. “Perhaps another time,” he said quickly. “I must go.” But before he took his leave, he brought his face close to hers and whispered diabolically, “The day will come when you will seek me out for your pleasure, and I will be waiting.”
With that, he was gone, disappearing through the throng as quickly as he had appeared a short while ago, leaving her standing in the middle of the crowded street, her mouth agape at the scandalous prophecy, her sensibilities reeling, and a thrill unlike any she’d ever known careening through her blood.
***
Nicolae hurried down the street to escape the invading sunlight, but as the clouds closed in again, his footsteps slowed and his thoughts turned back to the woman.
She was right when she said that anything he did was for himself. Ah, how well she was beginning to know him. He’d been up all night working on the piece for her, or more precisely, for himself with which to woo her. With the crowing of the cock and the breaking of the dawn he had put the last finishing notes to paper and retired to his bed. No entombment in a casket for him, thank you, although where that preposterous notion arose from, he had no idea. He much preferred the comfort of his four-poster beneath whose linens was spread a thin layer of his native soil upon which he was obliged to rest.
So, she had broken her engagement to de Vere. He made a mental note to be especially careful now that de Vere had been soundly rejected. Men scorned tended to take their vengeance out in one way or another, and the last thing he needed was a stake through his heart, not at any time of course, but particularly now that he’d met this precious little pretender, for he was not finished with her just yet.
With all the confounded protection de Vere availed himself of—the crucifix suspended about his neck, the holy water he no doubt doused himself with each morning, and that God-awful garlic he hung everywhere—he’d never be able to approach him unawares. A crucifix posed no danger to one as strong as he, and all garlic did was render the wearer odorous. But if de Vere had gotten hold of the consecrated host, now that was a different matter all together, for of all the weapons at a hunter’s disposal, the Holy Eucharist was the most powerful. Since de Vere was not likely to come to Prudence’s rescue now that she was no longer his darling, his plan to trap the hunter needed altering. Well, no matter, he would think of some wonderfully sinister way in which to finish him off.
What was more important to him at the moment was Prudence. The crestfallen look on her face at the mention of her father had touched him unexpectedly. Perhaps it was because of the hopelessness it evoked, an emotion he knew only too well. He’d lost count of the years upon endless years of wishing for that which cannot be and the despair that came from knowing that nothing would ever change it. He knew what it was like to be drunk with sorrow, to yearn for peace. For him, the only peace to be found lay in the darkness that waited at the end of each day. For her, it would be in the recovery of the music master, a dark gift that was within his power to give and for which she would truly hate him. But if she lost her father, she would have no one. Oh yes, he recalled, there was the aunt. The stunningly beautiful woman he glimpsed at the theatre. Outwardly, she displayed the qualities of a frivolous, scatterbrained woman, but his astute senses perceived something controlling and calculating lurking beneath the surface.
It was better to belong to no one, he thought. Like himself. Did he belong to anything? To anyone? Did he belong to God, who had cruelly abandoned him? He felt suddenly glum, bereft of a single, solitary friend in the whole, wide world, save Prudence Hightower, the timid little mouse of a woman who had actually thought she’d seen a soul in him.
CHAPTER 7
A voice drifted out of the mists of slumber.
I know that voice, she thought. How beautiful it is. How sad. How cruel.
“You must come to me,” it said
.
No. No, I cannot. I will not.
Hot breath against her cheek, fanning the ends of her hair that was spread over the pillow. She struggled to move, but couldn’t.
“A kiss is all I ask.”
She felt an icy hand caress her face and trace a line down to her neck where it paused, a fingertip lingering at the warm pulsing hollow of her throat.
Terrified, she bunched her fists and arched her back, but blackness came down over her, and with an elegant hiss he wrapped his cloak about them both, drawing her up into his embrace and pressing himself against her. A cool touch slid up her thigh to the heated place that trembled and ached. An involuntary moan escaped her lips as ice struck fire.
I know who you are. You are a devil. A seducer. Oh, when you touch me like that. Her fingers opened to grasp his head from behind, tangling themselves in the silken locks, pulling his face closer to her own. I hate you. Receiving his kiss, the tongue that probed the warm, wet recesses of her mouth, the mellifluous breath that flowed into her.
“I want to taste you,” he whispered against her mouth. His body pushed against hers with urgency, flooding her with his lust.
She whimpered helplessly. No. You cannot. Yet her hands molded themselves to his back, fingers pressing against the taut muscles that flexed beneath her touch.
“Don’t be afraid.”
What do you mean to do?
“It will hurt only a little.”
No! she tried to cry. But no sound emerged. Why are you doing this?
As if he could read her terrified thoughts, he answered smoothly, devilishly, “Because it is my pleasure to do so.”
Oh, how I hate you. You are a detestable beast.
“I am a man,” he coldly replied. “With a man’s hungers that you cannot deny me.”
