Midnight Kiss

by Nancy Gideon

  The music was beautiful and stirring, but Arabella was more entranced by the study of her new husband. Silhouetted against the faint house lights and the deeper shadows of their box, he was chiseled perfection, his profile strong and proud and flawless. Her husband. The idea still flustered her. Hers to reach out and caress, to take home and love, to hold and adore. She supposed the fact that he was wealthy beyond belief should have held some sway, but it didn’t figure in the least when he turned toward her, his eyes softened to a warm green-gold glow and steeped in tender affection. Nothing would compare in worth to that brief gaze and the way he carried her hand to his lips for just the featherlight brush of a kiss.

  Contentment settled into a dreamy languor. She found herself leaning against him, her head upon his shoulder, her eyes sagging shut as the sights and sounds within the King’s Theatre faded from significance. She heard the low accented voice crooning to her.

  Arabella. Arabella, come.

  She rose up wordlessly, and, at Louis’s questioning gaze, murmured that she’d return in a moment. He nodded, already drawn back into the mesmerizing power of the story staged below.

  HE WASN’T SURE how much time had passed, but suddenly Louis knew it had been too long. Concerned but not yet panicked, he readied to stand when fingertips stroked along his shoulders and he felt a kiss touch to his crown. Sighing, he sank back into his seat and enjoyed the firm massage that worked up his neck to his jaw, then paused for a sensuous kneading at his temples. It was bliss, and he shut his eyes to luxuriate in it.

  Then the slow, rubbing movements ceased and the pressure increased, steadily drawing his head back over the edge of the seat until his neck curved in a taut bow. Perplexed, he let his eyes flutter open and he looked up at the soulless smile of Bianca du Maurier.

  “Enjoying the opera, il mio amore?”

  The tension she applied was crushing. Held helpless, Louis couldn’t even swallow. Not that he could with the way his mouth went dry.

  “What have you done with my wife?” His words escaped in a hoarse rattle.

  “Done? Why, nothing. Gerardo is keeping her entertained so we might have a little time together. You are so beautiful. I had forgotten that, Luigino. Time can dull even the most precious memories.”

  “What do you want, Bianca?” He made his tone crisp and annoyed, and he could feel her recoil. Her agonizing press became a lingering caress along the lean angles of his face and down his neck to begin a feline kneading upon his chest.

  “Why, Gino, I want what I’ve always wanted. I want for you to love me. I want for you to adore and worship me. I want you to be my slave.”

  He caught her hands and plucked them away with a dismissing indifference. “Well, it is not what I want. It wasn’t then, it isn’t now, il nemico.”

  He heard the hiss of her breath and felt her draw in close behind him. “Evil one?” His nape tingled and the flesh of his throat grew tight, but he refused to act afraid. Even when he felt the chill of her tongue circling his ear. “Gino,” she whispered, all wet and silky. “No—Louis. Louis, is there something you are trying to hide from your old friends? Something like the fact that you have somehow become mortal again?”

  When he tried to rise, her fingers clenched in his hair, securing him in place with a fierce twist that angled his head sharply to one side. She nuzzled his neck, tasting with her lips, testing the flurry of his pulse with her tongue.

  “How sweet and strong,” she murmured thickly. “Imagine the pleasure of bringing you over not once, but twice.” Her breathing was erratic now, blasting against his bare skin like the scorch of death, fetid with the stale blood of her last victim. Apparently, she’d recently fed, or she’d have no such control. For instead of sinking her teeth into his throat, she jerked him about to roughly take his mouth with hers. Louis fought against the gagging revulsion—and against the distant part of him that enjoyed the taste, if not the act, as her sharp incisors cut into his lip.

  Abruptly, Louis moaned low in his throat, and his mouth yielded. Tasting his surrender, Bianca released her paralyzing grip to stroke him into a greater passion. And as soon as she did, he hooked his arm around her neck and he flung her with all his might over the edge of the third-tier opera box. Her look of surprise seemed frozen in time. Then she disappeared without a sound.

  He didn’t wait to see what happened to her. He was certain she came nowhere near hitting the gallery below. She was too agile for that, too powerful and quick to recover from a lapse of control. And he knew he didn’t want to be there when she regained it.

  The lobby of the theatre was empty when he burst out into it, and Louis knew a sudden and soul-deep devastation.

  What had Gerardo done with Arabella?

  Chapter Fourteen

  ARABELLA FOUND herself standing in the theatre lobby with no idea why she’d come there. She felt light-headed and unsure of her balance. Had she become ill inside? Knowing Louis must be worrying, she circled to return to their box and found herself blocked by an elegantly garbed figure.

  “Buona sera, Signora.”

  Arabella froze. Devils, Louis had said, but in his evening finery, Gerardo Pasquale looked more the angel. He was tall and very dark, with eyes of a piercing blue. About him was that same unnatural shimmer of beauty she’d first seen in Louis. And as much as she was wary of him, she was drawn to that magnetic aura. She found herself powerless as he lifted her hand for a courtly kiss.

  “Are you enjoying the opera? Splendido! How wonderful it is. Such sounds. Reminds me of home. Gino, too? Or does he try to forget those days?”

  There was a wistfulness to his expression that made Arabella want to console him. “He remembers, but sadly, I think. As if he’s lost something of value he cannot restore.”

  Gerardo nodded, his smile pursed and bittersweet. “It is there we lost our innocence and our love for one another. We were inseparable friends in those days, Gino and I.”

  “What happened to change that?” she heard herself asking. Part of her wanted to know, while another part urged her to flee while she could, that she was in terrible danger. But it was already too late. She understood instinctively. Something about Gerardo compelled her attention. It was impossible to draw away. And she wanted to know his link to her husband.

  “What happened?” He shrugged with a liquid grace. “A woman.”

  “Bianca du Maurier,” she supplied, making that triangle without effort.

  Gerardo made an acknowledging sound, one of regret, of pain. “She was so beautiful, my Bianca. I lost my heart to her the first time I beheld her. I was so in love, and in love with the very idea of it.” He gave a soft laugh, just a touch of cynicism edging into the warm tones. He took Arabella’s arm and wound it casually through his so he could lead her in a companionable stroll toward the deeper shadows of the theatre. In the back of her mind, Arabella tried to protest, but she simply could not pull away.

  “Bianca, she was so cruel with my heart. It amused her to toy with it. But she did not love me. For her, it was Gino, whom I loved like a brother.”

  Arabella listened, a great sadness welling up inside her as if she was experiencing her escort’s pain. How sharp and bitter it must have been.

  “And then,” he continued quietly, “I found the two of them together, as lovers. Gino, he was so distraught. He came to me with tears in his eyes, begging for my forgiveness. I could not give it, even knowing as I do now that the fault was not his. You see, he had betrayed my trust, my love for him, and that wounded more deeply than Bianca’s faithlessness. A sad story, no? Perhaps it would make great opera.”

  They’d come to a secluded corner where the lights and sound fell short, and there was only Gerardo and his sad tale and his soothing manner. Arabella gazed up into those brilliant eyes, her own filled with empathic dampness. When he touched her face, her mind recoiled, but her body st
ood still and passively allowed it.

  “So, now you know about Gino and me. Oh, how I miss his company. Such times we had. And now I am so alone. But Gino, how lucky for him to have found a woman such as you. He loves you. I can see that. How envious I am.”

  His caress intensified, stroking her cheek, smoothing over her hair, a gentle touch, a lover’s touch. And Arabella was leaning into it, all languid invitation, lost to the dazzle of his gaze.

  “’Twould be a fitting punishment for him to lose his love to me, don’t you think? Kiss me, Arabella.”

  And she rose up shamelessly for the taste of his mouth. She couldn’t stop herself. It was as if mind and body were somehow separated. She could see herself responding with a wanton eagerness, could feel the fright and distress of having him part her lips with the thrust of his tongue, to take deeply from her. And she writhed with the shame of it. But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t halt her arms from winding about his neck or hold in the low, guttural sounds of lustful longing that issued from her own throat. Or control the way her body undulated against his. Or the wanting, the incredible, desperate wanting, so wicked and irresistible.

  “Bella.”

  Louis’s soft call of her name sent a mild shock through her. And she wanted to cry out, Louis, thank God! Help me! But she couldn’t.

  The terrible part of it was that it wasn’t Louis’s voice that drew her away, but rather the fact that Gerardo pushed her gently from him. She stood, silent and shivering, part of her craving to return to the arms of the man who was not her husband, and part of her horrified of what Louis must think, to come upon her entangled passionately with another man.

  But Louis betrayed no sign of anger or hurt. He merely reached out to take her by the elbow.

  “Bella, come with me.”

  And she refused. She actually pulled within his kind yet unyielding grasp. And she didn’t know why.

  “Bella, come.”

  He stepped closer, putting his arm around her quivering shoulders, forcefully moving her while his gaze met that of his old friend.

  Gerardo smiled, a slow, taunting gesture, letting him take her, letting him know it was only through his will that she went peacefully. And his low, cunning laughter followed.

  In their coach, Arabella sat stiff and scarcely breathing. There was something wild and perverse inside her that would strike out at her beloved for taking her from the pleasure of another’s arms. But deeper was a cringing horror that she’d allowed herself to succumb to another’s seduction. And shame, a tremendous weight of shame and confusion.

  Louis sat across from her, watching her through expressionless eyes. He displayed no shock, no fury, no distress of a man scorned. He waited. She wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, until the numbness began to leave her and great tremors of disbelief rattled along her limbs, a shuddering realization of what she’d done. A small sound choked from her, and instantly, his arms were open to receive her.

  “Louis...”

  He cradled her to his chest, holding her while she sobbed in a helpless abandon. She huddled on the seat beside him, clutching at his shirt front until the weeping wore down to a pitiful whimpering. By then, they’d reached their secluded street where a light burned in welcome. Where Takeo waited at the door to be waved back by Louis’s hand as he carried her, weak and trembling, up the stairs.

  When he set her down, she still clung to him, hiding her face against his shoulder, not knowing if she could ever look up at him with such guilt savaging her heart. She felt the tenderness of his kiss at her brow, and the shame kept swelling.

  “You must hate me.”

  “No,” he soothed, petting her hair, kissing her again.

  “Louis... Louis, I love you.”

  “I know. I know, Bella. It’s all right.”

  “How can you say that?” she cried out wretchedly. “How can you pretend it doesn’t matter?”

  “Because it doesn’t. Bella, you were not to blame for what happened.”

  Her fingers curled tighter in his coat. Tears burned. She had to make him understand the vileness of what she’d done. “But he didn’t seduce me. He didn’t force me. I threw myself at him. I wanted him to—”

  “Don’t, little one. You are not to blame. He bewitched you.”

  She glanced up then, hoping there was some truth to what he said, some way to explain away her behavior. Because she couldn’t bear to break the trust of this man who’d wed her. Louis rubbed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. There was no disgust in his tender look.

  “His trickery is powerful. He can convince you that his will is your own. It’s deception, wicked, cruel deception. He can pull you in with promises, but he never speaks the entire truth. You mustn’t forget that. He will cloud your mind so he can use you. And he will use you to hurt me.”

  “Because of Bianca.”

  Louis hesitated but only for a moment. “Yes. Because once, long ago, she confused me the way he did you. And I have never stopped paying for that lapse of will.”

  “How he must hate you to wish such a terrible revenge.”

  “Yes. He hates me. For more reasons than you could ever guess. If only there were some way to undo what was done.”

  That look of melancholy returned, and with it, Arabella’s complete devotion. She touched his face, coaxing him forward to kiss her. With that sweet kiss came a renewed sense of disgrace, and Arabella tried to pull back. Knowing she’d been a victim didn’t ease the shame as it should. And, evidently understanding that, Louis sought another way to show his forgiveness.

  With the greatest of care, he removed her evening finery down to the ivory blush of her skin. When she was supine upon their coverlet, he showered her with attentive kisses, with lingering caresses, murmuring his love for her while displaying it with an unquestionable passion. He ravaged the softness of her mouth, worshipped the heavy fullness of her breasts until their tips were diamond-hard, stroked and stoked a restless, fevered yearning with the purposeful circles of his hand until she burst beyond the constraints of pleasure. Then, after she’d come back down to a plane of replete luxury, he kissed her once, deeply, and told her once, conclusively, “I love you, Arabella.”

  How could she possibly disbelieve him?

  And after they’d made slow, satisfying love to one another, he held her within the protective cove of his arms until she drifted off to sleep. And he lay awake, warily guarding his bride, wondering when his old friend would tire of the games and come for him in earnest.

  IN THE CRYSTAL clarity of dawn, the events of the previous night seemed vague as a dream. Looking at the man asleep beside her, Arabella could not believe she’d ever want another. She lay on her side for long minutes, absorbed in the way his dark lashes curved along his cheeks, musing over the generous peaks and swells of his mouth. And she couldn’t fathom ever thinking of another man with anything but indifference.

  She was pillowed upon his outstretched arm. His other rested palm down upon his abdomen. She was admiring the fine, strong shape of his fingers when she happened to realize how still he was. There was no movement of his chest. She stared with a dread fascination. None at all.

  “Louis?”

  She touched his hand and drew back in shock. His skin was so cold, so lifeless. A terrible suspicion shook through her and she cried out in despair.

  “No! My God! Louis!”

  At the sound of her frantic voice and the feel of her rough shaking, Louis opened his eyes, then screwed them shut with a horrible wail.

  “The light! Shut the drapes! Bella, shut them!”

  Panicked, she ran to do so. When she returned, he’d rolled up onto his knees and had the heels of his hands digging into his eye sockets.

  “Burning,” he moaned frantically. “They’re burning.”

  “Let me see.”
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  “No!” He tried to wrench away, but she caught his wrists and wrestled his hands down. His eyes were still squeezed tight.

  “Let me see,” she urged quietly, easing her thumbs across the fragile lids, feeling the rapid movement beneath them.

  Slowly, he squinted up at her, flinching with discomfort. His eyes were pooled in a sea of red, their centers swollen, their color a hot, molten gold. And he made a low, anguished sound.

  She reacted quickly, not with a female’s hysterics, but with a physician’s cool practicality. “Lie back. Lie back, Louis, and close them. That’s right.”

  He felt her move off the bed and cried out sharply. “Bella, don’t leave me!”

  She caught at one grasping hand and kissed it lightly. “I won’t. I just want to get some cold water and a cloth to put over your eyes. All right? I’ll be right back.”

  He let her go and continued to shift restlessly until she returned to wring the wet rag over his eyes, hoping to flush whatever had gotten into them. Then she laid it out in a mask of cool darkness.

  “Better? Louis, what is it?”

  He didn’t answer. He’d fallen into an agitated state, rambling, muttering odd things about his flesh burning and the blood boiling in his veins. Yet his skin was so cool, without a trace of fever. And she was recalled to that night in her father’s office with an insightful terror.

  Alarmed, Arabella dressed hurriedly and went to the door, finding Takeo there before she even had a chance to call for him. The boy took one look and rushed to his master’s bedside to drop down on his knees, his expression warped with anxiousness.

  “Takeo, do you know what’s wrong with him?”

  The boy looked up at her, perplexed. She tried again.