Out of the Dark

by Jennifer Blake

  “Roquelaire has revealed his past to me, including the details of his several meetings. I have made inquires and am now satisfied. I feel sure he will explain to you also if you should ask. Have you any other objections?”

  “I hardly know the man,” she declared, barely glancing at Lucien’s set face. “How am I to guess what else I may find objectionable?”

  “My dear girl, you are in no position to pick and choose,” her stepmother said in scathing tones. “People are chattering like magpies about your escapades with this beastly cat, both at the ball and in the woods. Some claim you are touched in the head, and those are the ones who are being kind. There are others who think you are in league with the devil himself, that you must be a witch to be able to command such a terrible creature. They fear you and use your name to frighten their children. What you need is a strong man to curb your ways. Now, drink!”

  Once more, she brought the glass to Anne-Marie’s lips. As Anne-Marie pushed it away, it spilled yet again, this time splashing the older woman’s cloth slippers. With a cry of outrage, Madame Decoulet drew back her hand to strike Anne-Marie.

  “That will do!”

  The biting command came from Lucien. He walked forward, took the glass from the older woman’s hand and set it on the table. Then he strode to the door and pulled it open, holding it while his gaze raked Anne-Marie’s father and stepmother. “I would like to talk to my future bride. Alone, if you please.”

  The last words were mere politeness. It was obvious from the tempered steel in his voice that he meant to speak to her without their presence whether it pleased them or not. Or regardless of whether she herself wished for it.

  As he closed the door behind her father and stepmother and turned to face her, it was all Anne-Marie could do to remain where she stood. The need to flee was so strong that her lower limbs twitched, quivering with it. But there was nowhere to go. She was trapped.

  With his hand still on the door knob, Lucien spoke in low tones. “I apologize for springing this on you in this way. I assumed your stepmother would inform you, as is customary. Since there had been no suggestion that you were not agreeable, I felt everything was in order.”

  His gaze was dark with concern, yet direct. She had little choice except to believe him. She suspected that her father might also have been given the idea that she was amenable, a deliberate ploy of her stepmother’s to prevent her from registering her protest until it was too late.

  She said, “If you feel this is necessary because of possible talk concerning our adventure the other day, then I must tell you that it is not.”

  “My decision has nothing to do with compromising behavior, real or otherwise.”

  “No? Well, then what? The novelty, perhaps? Do you think having a wife who consorts with animals will be sufficiently entertaining to make up for my other defects? Or do you simply feel sorry for me?”

  His frown was instant as he moved away from the door, coming closer to where she stood on the Turkish carpet that centered the room. “None of those things apply. How could they? You are a beautiful and intelligent woman, one who doesn’t bore me or giggle or cling. You have more courage than most men, and you don’t mind showing it. You may not adore me, but you aren’t afraid of me, either. If you don’t like what I’ve done, you say so; you don’t smile to my face and damn me behind my back.”

  “Oh, I see. You want me because I don’t dote on you. You require the stimulation of a full-scale argument before breakfast every morning, and wish to feel that you are not leaving a disconsolate wife at home when you go out on your usual round of drinking and gambling with your friends.”

  A sardonic smile carved lines of amusement into his face. “What an opinion you have of me,” he said softly. “Would you believe me if I tell you I intend to be an exemplary husband, hanging on your every word, seldom leaving your side? Can you accept that I am consumed with impatience to put my wedding day behind me so that I may keep you close at my side and the rest of the world at arm’s length?”

  “No,” she said in steadfast disbelief.

  He studied her, from the suffocating color in her face to her clenched hands at her side. “No one has ever told you that you are beautiful, have they? No one has ever said they wanted you. Are they blind?”

  “Maybe it’s you who are blind,” she said rudely. “Or insane after all.”

  “I am neither. Rather, I am a man who knows his own mind and goes after what he wants when he finds it. I would have liked to proceed differently, but there was no time. If we are to save Satan, then you must marry me without delay and leave all the rest to work itself out as it will.”

  Her interest shifted, sharpened. “Satan? What do you mean?”

  “If he stays here, he will eventually be killed. It can be no other way. If he is transferred to my home below New Orleans, he will have a vast new territory to explore. The acreage is large, a grant of several thousand arpents received from the French king more than a hundred and thirty years ago. There is no reason why your panther should ever have to see another human being. He will be safe there.”

  “But how could you take him? There is no way he could be captured and caged for transportation. He would not enter a cage, not even for me.”

  “Satan came to you when he was injured. It was as natural to him as breathing. He answers when you call, follows where you go, I think, because of the mystical connection that sometimes occurs between people and the animals they love. He would trail after you into the mouth of hell itself—or to my home if you come as my wife.”

  Was it possible? She would like to think so, but who could tell?

  Had he mentioned hell and his home in the same breath for a reason, or was it an accident? Did he realize she saw the choice before her in that light? He was a man of perception, with a penchant for irony. He might well take an odd pleasure in presenting this union to her in the blackest possible light.

  “Yes, I begin to see,” she said, the words barely above a whisper. And she did. She saw that he wanted her. Her, personally. For herself.

  He had not said so in those exact words, yet the suggestion had been in every phrase he spoke. That explanation was slightly more understandable, and acceptable, than any protestation of undying love and devotion. Desire did not require perfection, had little use for logic, cared nothing for suitability. It did not depend on morals, easily overcame antipathy. She had discovered these truths for herself since meeting Lucien Roquelaire.

  She was surprised that he was willing to exchange his freedom for the prospect of attaining what he coveted. Still, was that not what men had been doing for countless ages?

  His wife. If she agreed, she would drive away with him to his home many long miles away. There, she would be close to him, near his side, forever. Everything would be changed; she would have a position, a new name. She would be free of her stepmother’s dominion.

  Free. That was a strange way of thinking about this marriage when just minutes before she had considered it a trap.

  “Well?” he said, moving away toward the table where her wine glass stood. He picked it up, and, returning to her side, held it out to her. His gaze steady, faintly demanding, he said, “Shall we drink to our betrothal after all?”

  She met his eyes, her own dark and still and filled with cogent decision. She was breathing fast, each intake of air lifting her breasts against the bodice of her old gown as if she were in a desperate race. She studied his face as if the answers she found there could mean the difference between life and death.

  Abruptly, she gave a nod. Her fingers trembled as she reached out to take the glass from his hands. So did her lips as she tried to smile. Still, her voice did not falter as she said quietly, “Yes, to us.”

  Touching the wine to her lips, she drank it down.

  In a few short hours it would be her wedding day.

  Anne-Marie stood on the veranda staring into the dark and trying to make herself believe it. It seemed impossible.

 
; Had she really agreed to be married? Could she force herself to stand composed and still beside Lucien Roquelaire while she was united with him for a lifetime?

  The very idea made her feel panicky and ill with nerves. She could not think how she had come to agree; it was almost as if she had been under a spell. Perhaps he was a dark angel, after all—a being come down among them who could control people and animals and force them to his will.

  That did not, of course, explain why he wanted her. She was no clearer in her mind about that point than she had been on the day two short weeks ago when they had become betrothed. She had thought it mere physical desire, yet he had made no attempt to take advantage of his privileges as her husband-to-be. It was puzzling; she had not expected him to be so punctilious.

  Where had the time gone? The days had seemed to rush past like the wind, turning from morning into evening between one breath and the next. Somehow, she kept expecting that something would happen—that Lucien would change his mind or her father would suddenly discover the marriage was a mistake. Nothing did.

  She had hardly seen Lucien, in all truth. There had been so much to do on such short notice: seeing the priest, writing out the invitations, planning and organizing the preparation of food and drink, ordering the wedding cake and special nougat confections to be shipped upriver by steamboat to arrive with the New Orleans guests, begging flowers from neighbors to supplement their own. Then there had been appointments with the local dressmaker for the necessary fittings for her wedding gown.

  Her stepmother had offered her own wedding dress for Anne-Marie’s use—a billowing, too-large creation of widow’s lavender satin with gigot sleeves. Anne-Marie had refused it outright and resisted all efforts at persuasion. She would wear her own mother’s gown. Of soft silk mousseline sewn with seed pearls and diamante, it was a gown of simple design that had yellowed over the years to a shade of amber only a little lighter than the cravat Lucien had worn to the Picard’s ball.

  How marvelous it had been, achieving that point over her stepmother’s opposition. It had made her think that she should have enforced her will more strongly before. She had been able to do it now, she knew, only because it no longer mattered if her stepmother was angry or her father upset by quarreling. Their displeasure could not disturb her since she would soon be leaving her childhood home for that of her husband, one that would become her own.

  Yet how was it possible, after so many years of being kept close and chided for every small breach of conduct, that she would have leave tomorrow to drive away with a virtual stranger? It made no sense that a few words and a piece of paper could bring about such a difference.

  Behind her, a change in the light falling from the salon signaled an end to her time alone. Turning slightly where she stood at the end of the veranda, she watched as Lucien sauntered toward her.

  “No sign of him?” her future husband said.

  He meant Satan, of course. She wondered briefly how many of the others gathered for the wedding could have guessed she was still keeping watch for the great black cat, even after so long a time. She shook her head. Voice compressed, she said, “I think—I’m so afraid he must have been killed.”

  “No one has claimed credit for it.” His voice held steady reassurance as he stopped a few feet away from her.

  “No—but he wasn’t as strong as usual, and may have run into more dogs. Or he could have crawled off somewhere to die of blood poisoning in his injured foot. Then maybe he was bitten by a snake, or tangled with a bear.”

  “And could be he found a mate and is enjoying a protracted…courtship,” Lucien suggested.

  She wanted so badly to be convinced that she ignored the impropriety of his allusion. “I suppose it may be possible, but he never has before.”

  “Some males come late to its joys. As I did, for instance. Have I told you that you’re looking particularly ravishing this evening?”

  He was trying to distract her, and making a fair job of it. She glanced away from him in sudden embarrassment.

  “Don’t you care for compliments?” he asked, tipping his head as he tried to see her face.

  “I never know what to say.” The words were barely audible.

  “Nothing much is required, only a polite word or two by way of acknowledgment.”

  “I—thank you, then.”

  “Very good. You should get used to that exercise because you will need it. You were attractive when we first met, but you seem to grow more so every day. And I am a man driven to salute beauty when I see it.”

  She gave him a brief glance. “Are you quite certain it isn’t a habit you bring out when other forms of conversation fail?”

  “You think I have nothing else to say to you?” He turned to place his back to the railing near where she stood then crossed his arms over his chest. “Now that you put me in mind of it, there is a subject I’ve been trying to raise since we first met. Only something always prevents it or else you manage to turn it aside.”

  She said quickly, “So tell if you have heard from your letters to your family, and who among them we may expect to be present.”

  “I had a long missive from my sister. She wishes us every joy, but is increasing, hoping to add a boy to the family of girls she and her husband have collected. Since it would unwise to travel, she won’t appear. My brother, ordinarily a sober citizen, fell off his horse and broke an ankle while involved in a drunken race, so sends his profound, and profane, regrets. My cousins who have been giving me house room are agog; they can’t wait to fire off a description of the nuptials to all their friends. That takes care of my family. But you know full well that was not my meaning.”

  She did, of course. With great reluctance, she said, “I suppose you were speaking of your career as a duelist then. You are quite right; I see no need to go into it.”

  “But I do. You called me a murderer some time back. To be condemned without a hearing seems hard.”

  “My view of the pastime is not unbiased, as you know.” The words had a more placating sound than she intended.

  “Certainly. But just as your brother had no alternative to appearing on the field of honor for the first time, neither did I. A loose-tongued fool raised the question of my mother’s good name and why she was killed by my father. Some things cannot be left unanswered.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  He gave her a dark glance. “I doubt it. She was innocent, my mother, her death a tragic accident that turned my father into a half-deranged drunkard whose punishment was mainly self-inflicted. Being hot-headed and only eighteen, I thought only of the slur cast on my family name.”

  “My brother was also that age,” she said quietly.

  “Then you should realize that once matters reach a certain pass, there is no way, save dishonor, to draw back. The difference between my case and your brother’s is that I was the one left alive when the thing was over.”

  “That may be,” she said in neutral tones, “but it explains just one meeting.”

  “You are interested in the others? My second was with the cousin of the first man I had bested. He demanded revenge for family honor, you see, and was carried home on a jalousie for a stretcher. The third was over a lady’s mistake. She began an affair with an actor who threatened blackmail when she tried to break it off. I intervened at her request, and her paramour objected. A puffed up Romeo with more ego than sense, the actor would not declare himself satisfied at first blood, and so he died. The fourth man was a young fool who wagered that he could break my winning streak—he still carries his arm in a sling in damp weather. The fifth was a card sharp who happened to be a relation of mine. He became offended when I dared speak to him about his habits. The sixth—but do I bore you?”

  She gave him a straight look. “I do see your point.”

  “I’m delighted. But having begun, I would like to finish the list for you. As it happens, it was somewhere around this time that it became the fashion to cross swords with the man people were c
alling the Dark Angel, and the next eight meetings fall into that category—my life was not my own until I managed to discourage that particular test of courage. My fourteenth meeting, however, was with a man I saw beating his servant boy with a riding crop. He now has trouble breathing due to a badly healed puncture wound in one lung. The fifteenth was with a sea captain whose mistake was thinking I would be less able with an old-fashioned cutlass than with my usual sword. Then there was the last man.”

  “Number sixteen? I had not realized the count went so high.”

  “Actually, it is a recent affair, one that I pushed without mercy. My opponent was an arrogant rake who seduced the daughter of an old friend, then watched her leap to her death from a steamboat deck after he denied responsibility for the child he gave her. I meant to correct his manners, and interrupt his career of seduction with a mark or two on the face, but he was as much a coward on the dueling field as in his private affairs. As the challenged party, he chose pistols. We were stepping off the normal ten paces when he turned at the count of eight and fired. He missed, and was killed by his own second for that breach of the rules—a second who happened to be his brother.”

  “Dear Heaven,” she breathed with a shudder. “What a terrible thing dueling is.”

  “It is. And you can be sure I remember every meeting, every man, every drop of blood spilled and last breath of life taken by those I fought. Yet the practice ensures that men remember their manners and deal fairly with their fellow men or suffer the consequences. It’s the inescapable code we live by. If I have killed, it is because the only other choice was dying. And I am not ready to die.”

  “No,” she said in constricted tones, “but neither was my brother.” She could see him still in her mind’s eye, laughing, teasing, so full of life. Yet he had been bloodlessly pale and cool when they brought him back from his meeting in the dawn.

  “For that loss, I am desperately sorry,” Lucien said. “I would take it from you if I could. But I am not to blame. Death is a natural thing, whether for a man or a panther; it always comes in its time. Whether it arrives early or late is in the lap of the gods. It is only left for us to feel gladness for being alive instead of guilt, to celebrate the joy rather than fear the pain.”