‘You are free, and welcome, to stay here as long as you wish, Belinda,’ he said as they began to ascend the stairs. ‘The storm last night was unusual, I believe. Apart from it, we have been enjoying a spell of quite clement weather. I am sure that you will find the priory very restful.’ He turned to her, his smile slight, but latent with unexpected significance. ‘As I do.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but –’ The words died on her lips. For a moment, she seemed to see the places she and Jonathan had planned to visit, their itinerary mapped out before them, and Paula, waiting in puzzlement for their call. Then, inexplicably, none of it interested her any more. She looked around her: at the polished panels of the landing, the rare furnishings, the lavish pictures, then finally back to her smiling enigma of a host. ‘I’d love to stay,’ she heard herself say, ‘and I’m sure Jonathan will too. He said only yesterday that he was getting fed up of driving. It’s very kind of you to ask us.’
‘It is my pleasure,’ replied André quietly, stepping back and making another of his minute bows. ‘It is a long time since I had such –’ He paused as he straightened, and his blue eyes seemed to flare even brighter ‘– such compatible company.’ He stepped back, still looking at her intently. ‘Until dinner then. The dining room is to be found directly across the hall from the library. A bientôt!’
French as well now, thought Belinda as her host turned on his heel like a cavalry officer and strode away down the landing in the direction of the stairs that led up to the long gallery and his tower. And just what other talents and accomplishments does he possess? she pondered, turning the huge cut-glass door knob and opening the door to her room.
Fool! You damned fool!
André cursed himself as he ascended the stairs to his eyrie, taking them two at a time in his impatience, and making the most of his current strength and vigour.
The temptation of Belinda Seward had been too great for him to resist in his newly-wakened and not yet fully-adjusted state. The girl was so much like Arabelle, her body so sweet and so gently rounded at breast and hip, that it had been almost like caressing his beloved again. As he entered his chamber he gasped aloud with yearning, praying with all his heart that he had not gone too far and too fast and ruined everything. As ever, for reassurance, he glanced towards Belle’s rosewood casket, but its blue glow was subdued and quiescent.
Could Belinda Seward really be the one? he thought, drawing aside the veils around his bed and tying them back. Had he finally found a woman who was fully compatible? He flung himself on the bed and considered the prospect.
They had been close from time to time, he and Arabelle, and enjoyed a few all-too-brief interludes of stolen communion. But these episodes were almost as painful as they were comforting. To hold Belle in his arms again and touch her and give her pleasure meant everything to him; but on each occasion they had known their happiness was transient. There was always the knowledge that in a few moments it would all be over again, and she would lose her hold on her host and have to leave. It seemed cruel to even attempt being together under such circumstances, but the state of missing her hurt him so hideously that he couldn’t forgo even the slightest chance of happiness.
Should he wake Belle? Tell her what he had found? He turned again towards the box and the crystal vial that lay within it, but his mind was still full of doubt. It would be too cruel to inspire her hopes just yet. Perhaps it would be better to wait until he was sure. Sure that Belinda Seward was the woman who could help them, and also certain that he wasn’t going to spoil everything by snatching too greedily for the sustaining pleasure he so needed. Covering his face with his hands, he tried to relax his taut body and find the stillness and composure to think clearly.
But such quietude was difficult to achieve and his mind remained active, pondering and ruminating incessantly in the blackness behind his fingers. Once again, he felt the urge to reach for Belle.
Suddenly, he sensed a change in the room’s solemn ambience. He dropped his hands from his face, sat up, and stared towards the casket, his hopes rising as the fey blue light intensified and into the silence came the answer to his invocation.
My love, you are awake. Are you troubled?
Her voice was as gentle and animated as it had been in life, and it soothed his anxious spirit with a sense of peacefulness and stoicism he could barely credit given the parameters of her existence.
‘Yes, I am troubled,’ he answered, speaking aloud as seemed natural when her voice sounded so real to him. ‘I think I may have found her, my love. The one who can help us. She seems a perfect match but I cannot help but be afraid.’
Afraid to die? Arabelle asked, her voice soft and steady in his mind.
‘No, never that,’ he answered. ‘I shall be glad of it when the time comes … No, what I am afraid of is that I may harm her. This Belinda. She is so much like you, my darling. I could be fond of her, perhaps, had you never existed, and I have to question my right to risk her life.’
Arabelle remained silent but he sensed that she was listening patiently, letting him take his time.
‘And yet if I do not try, you can never be released, my love!’ he cried out, feeling torn a thousand ways by his emotions.
Hush, my André, do not fret, Arabelle soothed. If this thing is meant to happen, it will. Perhaps, if you are open with her … if you tell her of our plight, and let her choose, she will help us of her own free will.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ murmured André, lifting his hands away from his face and staring at them. Those fingers had touched Belinda Seward a little while ago, but many decades in the past they had once caressed Arabelle. He could still remember the superlative softness of her skin, the way she would sigh when he stroked her and blush when he pushed and took liberties. Her erotic soul had just been stirring and growing when they were parted, and each time they had been together he had sensed her wanting him and becoming more daring. The fact that they had so nearly been one flesh, yet never been allowed to achieve that precious goal, was like someone plunging his black-handled dagger into his chest again and again, in blows that hurt and bled and went on hurting, yet which could never give the release he so craved.
Do not torture yourself, my love. Remember what we shared with pleasure, not sadness. Arabelle’s voice echoed in his mind like a clear, high bell, a sound so lovely that he started feeling better. Look forward with hope, my André, and take comfort where you can … I truly believe that all may yet be well.
André still had his doubts, and he knew that his wise, all-perceiving beloved was fully aware of them, but as he sent his mind across the years and imagined her sweet body in his arms, his heart grew calmer and he closed his eyes and smiled.
Chapter Six
Nemesis
LEANING BACK AGAINST the fragrant, kid-skin upholstery of her chauffeur-driven limousine, Isidora Katori closed her painted eyes and smiled in satisfaction. Her narrow, gloved hand stole momentarily to her cleavage, where beneath her clothes rested her talisman of Astarte.
To an observer, she appeared completely tranquil, as she always did, but on the inside she was a mass of swirling passions.
She had found him again! Her fallen angel. Her object of desire and hate. Tapping the precious medallion with her finger, she considered him: the only man who had ever defied her, and who had obsessed her for decade after decade. André von Kastel, who she had changed and damned for ever.
Drowsing in the opulent comfort of the long black car after a tiresome flight and an exhausting stay in Paris, she had sent her mind roaming through the aether, and suddenly hit the mental signature she sought. André was awake somewhere, in this country of England, and quite close; his consciousness a beacon she could follow.
Sending her imagination back over the years, she could still see his face as she had last seen it, in every beautiful, graven detail. She could taste the rage in his newly-blue eyes; savour his sorrow and his desperate confusion. He had still desired her while he hated her
utterly. And that, to Isidora, had been her purest, most gratifying triumph.
‘Are you OK?’ enquired a voice beside her, snapping her reverie and banishing André’s tortured countenance.
Isidora opened her eyes and viewed her companion with momentary annoyance.
Who was this worm? What was his name? She couldn’t even recall it. He was just a handsome face on the plane, a clean-cut yuppie – fresh from successful business no doubt – who had made a pass at her after too much champagne. Isidora had felt wasted after the debauch of Paris, but even so his gauche advances had amused her. And his expression, on seeing her limousine, had been a picture.
‘Yes, thank you –’ She paused, trying to remember ‘– Miles. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Paris was … fatiguing. Delicious but fatiguing. But don’t worry –’ She hesitated again, then laid her gloved hand delicately on his thigh, quite high up ‘– I’m very resilient. I have a strong constitution.’
‘Oh … er … great,’ Miles replied, his eyes bright and eager but bemused. He really had no idea what she was doing to him, she realised; no inkling of how controllable he was.
Withdrawing her hand, Isidora lounged back again and studied her prey through her long black lashes.
He was presentable enough, she supposed, although with André in her mind he appeared bland and characterless. Miles was slim, smooth and well groomed, and under normal circumstances she would imagine him to be the acme of masculine self-confidence. But these weren’t normal circumstances, she thought creamily, picturing him naked, vulnerable and afraid. At her mercy, as André should have remained instead of cursing her, tricking her, and taking flight.
Enough of negativism, though. André was near, far nearer than she could have hoped for, and as she knew she was a psychic blank to him, there was no way he could be aware she had located him. She could bide her time, then strike out and reclaim him as and when she chose. Having waited so long, she could approach with stealth, then reveal herself when it was too late for him to flee.
And in the meantime, she had her handsome yuppie. A connoisseur of ever-changing fashion, Isidora admired Miles’s loosely-tailored designer suit and the way it hung on his well-toned body. She imagined him working out in some exclusive gym or health club; sweating designer sweat, no doubt. He would be sweating for her too, soon enough, she thought, relishing the scenario she was beginning to have in mind. He would sweat, he would cry out, he would lose the mastery of his own body. She would enjoy him, and when it was over he would adore her.
‘So, is there anyone waiting at home for you, Miles?’ she enquired, sitting up again and turning to him, giving him the full force of her brilliant green eyes.
‘Yes, there is actually,’ he replied, a little cockily.
Isidora felt like laughing out loud at the rather smug way he said it, as if he were boasting that he was a man of the world and fully accustomed to cheating on his partner. In a little while, he wouldn’t be feeling quite so full of himself.
‘Then why not ring her?’ she suggested. ‘Let her know that you won’t be rushing to her side.’
Miles frowned, clearly affected by some of the guilt Isidora had intended him to feel. He took a minute mobile phone out of his briefcase and quickly punched a number. Isidora kept her eyes on him as he spoke into the mouthpiece, enjoying the charge of his discomfort and sexual confusion. She continued to watch him closely while he concocted a garbled and implausible reason for not hurrying home. Faint but sharp words indicated that the other party was not happy with the delay, and Isidora sensed Miles’s ambivalence.
‘It’s OK. All sorted now,’ he said, snapping the phone shut jauntily in a vain effort to show her he was his own master.
‘I never said you could stay the night with me,’ she pointed out, watching the words bring a blush to Miles’s cheeks.
‘But –’
‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’ she said, cutting him off. ‘If you please me, I may want to keep you a lot longer.’
He opened his mouth to protest, but Isidora was on him before he could speak, taking control of his lips and pushing her tongue between them. In shock, he allowed her to plunder him, his own tongue retreating as she kissed him aggressively. He tasted of the champagne they had both consumed.
When they broke apart, Isidora pulled away, still smiling, and took out a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her bag. With it, she blotted all trace of him from her red-painted but completely unsmeared mouth.
‘We’re here,’ she said expressionlessly, placing the handkerchief in his hand as the limousine pulled up outside her building. He was still holding it when the chauffeur opened her door and helped her to alight.
The fact that she possessed a prestigious penthouse in a prestigious building in a prestigious part of London clearly impressed Miles. As they ascended in the bubble-like lift, he glanced around him, grinning with excitement and drinking in the sight of one of the city’s most exclusive views, as well as the understated symbols of wealth all around him.
Once they were inside her living room, he attempted to kiss her, but much as she relished his untutored mouth, Isidora swung away and left him standing alone, briefcase in hand, like a pupil on his first morning at the ‘big school’.
‘A drink, perhaps?’ she enquired, moving across to her varied selection of alcohol and drugs.
‘Oh … Yes! Great!’ he answered, shifting the briefcase from hand to hand, as if not sure what to do with it. Isidora refrained from offering to take it, and after a few moments he put it down beside a chair.
‘Wine?’ she enquired, reaching for a bottle of red from the wine rack and picking up a corkscrew before he had a chance to express a preference.
‘Can I do that for you?’ he asked, as she set the device against the bottle’s neck. He was attempting to appear suave now and gain an advantage. Isidora was amused. Couldn’t he tell that he had never had a chance?
‘No,’ she said, watching him, her eyes level as she deftly relieved the bottle of its cork.
Turning away to pour the wine, she could sense him fidgeting behind her. What would he do if I put a drop of one of these in his glass? she thought, eyeing the row of tiny vials that stood on a low shelf out of sight of the rest of the room. They contained her own devised potions: aphrodisiacs, mood-altering compounds, preparations to aid sexual performance or to make a victim sleep. As she considered a mixture to increase Miles’s suggestibility, Isidora couldn’t prevent herself from thinking about another of her alchemical creations; one she had employed long, long ago, before he was born.
No! She needed no esoteric assistance to master this young cavalier of the 1990s, and she would not think of that blue fluid she had once made use of.
‘Here,’ she said, turning to Miles and holding out a large crystal goblet full of wine.
Miles accepted it, sipped gratefully, then seemed to realise he should have waited and made a toast. Isidora said nothing, took one sip from her own wine, and put it aside. Then, with neither modesty nor flourish, she began, very calmly, to remove her clothes.
First went her gloves, then her chic veiled hat, then her jacket, revealing the draped black moiré blouse she wore beneath. She held Miles’s gaze as her fingers sought its row of black pearl buttons.
‘Oh yeah … Great!’ he burbled, gulping down his wine and abandoning the empty glass before plucking at the lapels of his jacket.
‘Wait,’ commanded Isidora, her voice soft yet threatening.
Miles licked his lips, still grinning broadly. The fact that she appeared to be doing a strip was clearly a treat for him, and he made as if to sit down in one of her low, leather-covered chairs to enjoy it.
‘I said “wait”,’ she reiterated. ‘Exactly where you are,’ she continued, savouring his gasp as her blouse slid down her arms.
Isidora was wearing an ice-grey basque beneath her outer clothing, a sleek but sumptuous creation that most women would have found uncomfortable to wear for any length of
time. She, however, enjoyed the fierce embrace of its tightly-laced panels and the way her breasts were displayed by its flimsy quarter cups. More pleasurable even than that, though, was the secondary effect of its rigid, relentless boning. Her internal organs were constricted, and bore down heavily on her pleasure zones from within. Her vulva felt like a ripe fruit, constantly pouting open, and her clitoris was an aching pushed-out stud. Her swollen bladder, from the in-flight champagne, only enhanced the dark, erotic tension.
‘Wow!’ said Miles, as she retrieved her gloves and pulled them back on again, smoothing the thin hide very carefully over her fingers.
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak,’ Isidora said conversationally, sliding a gloved hand beneath each bulging breast to cup herself, then rolling each nipple between a leather-clad thumb and finger. ‘I require concentration and quiet, Miles. Your undivided attention.’ As the sensations built inside her, she closed her eyes and swirled her hips, gyrating elegantly on her narrow-tipped high heels.
Although she could no longer see him, Isidora studied her young admirer with her inner eye. He was gaping at her; ogling like that schoolboy she had likened him to earlier. At his groin, his fashionable trousers had begun to tent. She could almost feel the nerves twitching along the medians in his fingers. He was longing to touch her, or failing that, touch himself.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ she said as he lifted his hand, about to press it to his crotch. Her eyes snapped open, and she fixed her gaze on him.
‘Isidora?’ he began querulously. ‘What’s going on? I don’t –’
‘Silence!’ She cut him off, his thunderstruck expression exciting her.
‘But –’
This time she silenced him with a look using the full force of her sparkling eyes and her fierce beauty. His hands dropped to his sides and he looked shame-faced.
‘That’s better,’ she said, giving her nipples one last pinch, then beginning work on her narrow pencil skirt. She unhitched the placket, slid down the zip, then let the whole thing slither down to her ankles.
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