"A fortnight only, Duke Dante."
Another step back. The lad's hand went to his head before remembering himself and his position.
"You can take me to this woman in the tower? You know the way well enough?" The words sounded odd to Dante as he said them, as if they had been sifted through his tight throat. Hunger raged now, nearly driving him to his knees. Elizabeth had been but a fine wine preceding his necessary supper.
"The woman said you would come," the lad offered humbly.
"Did she, indeed?"
And she had sent him a package, all tied up in sinewy muscle and reeking of fear. The question was: Did she send the lad on purpose? Had Rothchilde already turned his future bride? He did not think so. He had seen her, sensed her innocence, smelled that innocence from across the room. If Rothchilde had turned her without Dante knowing it, Christopher Dante had lost his edge.
And the devil had put the angel in his tower.
The devil, as did most men, preferred toying with the divine.
As Dante looked up at the lad, he felt his smile return. If the lady had sent him the lad unbeknownst to her circumstances, or his, and unbeknownst to the dangers of Rothchilde castle after dark… well…
"You may tell the lady I will come."
He almost did so now, just thinking about her. Both his cock and his cravings were swelling beyond containment. And so soon after being appeased.
"You have not…" the lad began before remembering himself.
"Yes?" Dante said, moving closer to the boy.
"Read the note," the boy finished.
"Yes, well I find I need that warm drink after all," Dante said. "It will only hurt a little," he added with a swift, graceful lunge forward.
Chapter Six
« ^ »
Dante sped through the complex castle corridors. As he walked, he removed his bloodstained coat and tossed it aside. Visions of the angel filled him, now that his hunger had been appeased. He had regained some control.
Angel. Her skin would be as white beneath her gown as it had been above it. He might inch that gown over her bare shoulders slowly, deliberately. Torturously.
The angel's doe-like eyes, so bright and blue amongst the bottomless blank eyes of the night creatures, might plead with him to desist. Angels might imagine that men and their devilish counterparts might obey.
So senselessly naive.
Ah, and angels should not yet be experienced to a man's hand, gentle or otherwise. They could not be ethereal if they had ever closed hand or mouth over a suitor's engorged shaft. These very deficiencies would be the reasons Alan Rothchilde had chosen her. Virgin. Simple. Perhaps a sacrifice from her family, her village, her own castle? A barter for days of safety from the Rothchildes and their kind? Such things were common near to a nest.
Rounding a corner, Dante came up short. Senses on high alert, he grabbed hold of the coat of the servant halted there.
"Where would a man keep a star, had it fallen to the earth?" Dante asked the poor frozen man who obviously knew nothing of him other than what he could discern from Dante's clothes and noble bearing.
"You do not know the answer to my riddle?" Dante taunted. "Then perhaps you can tell me what part of darkness we are in. After midnight, or before sunrise?"
"Early," the servant said. "Or late, as the case may be. The sun is not just yet above ground."
"Is something amiss that would cause you to be about in the dark?"
The man looked up at Dante, two heads taller than himself. "I am waiting for a changing of the guard."
"Guards? For what?"
"Protection."
Dante released the man. He must be close to her now. Close to the angel. "Guard, is it? Then you must see to your task. And mind that you look around corners before you entangle yourself for good."
"By your leave, sir."
"No. By yours."
Dante glanced past the man, up the stairway from whence the man had come. The stairway to the tower. Smiling fully now, he repeated, "Where would someone hide a star fallen to earth? The answer is, the nearest place to heaven."
Hands raised, ready to push open the tower door, Dante hesitated. A question arose to plague the living daylight out of him and dampen his spirits. Though virgins were indeed rare in his travels, would a virgin's blue eyes truly compare to the emerald, intelligent, sometime belligerent stare of a paramour? His incredible paramour?
Elizabeth.
Would this angel so willingly give in to the darkness just to keep him close? More likely she would scream her bloody lungs out and he'd have to take care of that right off.
Another thought came, intrusive, blurring his way to the angel. Why had Elizabeth been so willing to sacrifice herself? How had she known about him?
Secrets.
Bloody hell, what did Elizabeth Rothchilde think she was doing? What was she keeping to herself?
Chapter Seven
« ^ »
The tower room lay in darkness. An acrid odor of burned-out candles permeated the air. A tapestry had been flung back to allow in the cold outside air.
Dante looked to the window, where a pink shadow tinted the stone. The sun would soon rise. Time was fleeting.
Despite the danger of approaching daylight, he was pleased with himself. He felt lucky. A note from the angel remained in his hand. The guard had conveniently removed himself, saving Dante the trouble. And the round room was empty, save for the person lying in the over-large oaken canopied bed in the center of it.
The angel was alone.
"Do angels need beauty sleep?" he whispered.
Without caution, he strode to the bed and swept back the heavy draperies. The benign action sent a thrill to the tip of his boots. There she was, luminous in her dark coverlets, long-necked body curled into a ball.
Angel.
Dark hair flowed across the pillows, uncoiffed and natural, like a waterfall spilling over sand. The angel's face was hidden by her hands. No jewelry adorned her fingers or wrists, contrary to the common practice women preferred of keeping their baubles to themselves. The tattered lace of a frivolously gauzy shift lay against her neck; not at all proper attire for the season.
Hand outstretched, Dante rested his fingers upon a strand of her hair. A shudder rocked him. Her hair was as black as midnight. Her skin was pure white, like goose down, like he remembered. Without touching her, he traced the outline of her cheek just inches above it, then drew back. A familiar pain shot through him. His stomach churned with a familiar heave.
The angel's bed was hung with garlic.
Dammit to hell!
Alan Rothchilde would surely have ordered it placed there to make certain no hands touched her until his did. That no one making use of the open window could stomach a long look at his future bride.
"The devil take you, Rothchilde," Dante murmured.
But though the garlic was a minor setback, it did provide one answer on his list of questions: Rothchilde had not yet turned her. The angel was intact.
Fingers to his lips to keep from laughing, Dante considered this further. The angel must indeed be special for Rothchilde to have withheld his infamous hunger. The cad. The brute. The bugger. His appetites were legendary.
Face lowered to hers, Dante took closer stock of the angel, holding his breath so as not to inhale the garlic into his lungs.
The angel, it seemed, might have skin like down, but she possessed no feathered wings. Too bad about the wings, he thought. It would have been a nice touch.
Still, this angel seemed completely vulnerable in her fetal pose, knees drawn up, back rounded. A position of self-protection. A little ball of naïveté. Did she realize to whom she was betrothed, and what would soon befall her? Had she any idea what she would become, if deemed worthy of Rothchilde's hand?
Undoubtedly not.
"Perhaps the same thing that keeps Rothchilde away from his future bride, at least temporarily, is what holds my own hands back," Dante reasoned as he stared. Thou
gh he was experienced in the art of making love to women and in shunning old superstitious devices used to keep creatures such as himself out… though he was twice this angel's weight and several hundred years her senior… she had the one thing they all coveted. True innocence.
"I will have you, my angel, if I so desire." Dante crooned so quietly, the words were a sigh. "I cannot remember what your thoughts must be like. I cannot conceive of a time when walking in the light meant life without the threat of peril."
She stirred. He stepped back.
A sound escaped from her lips. Her eyes opened. But she was blind in the dark. Dante covered her mouth with his hand to stifle a second sound.
"Not yet, my beam of starlight," he whispered, feeling the presence of the garlic as a humming inside of his head and a heaviness in his limbs. "I will not force myself upon any woman. I respect your kind, and hold you in the highest esteem."
He could rip her from the bed, of course. He could remove her from her sacred temple, away from the restraints of the beastly weed that surrounded her. So, why didn't he? What was wrong with him? He had fed. He had been sexually appeased. He always took what he wanted.
This was Elizabeth's fault, he knew with sudden certainty. His thoughts flew back to her, to the way he had left her. What he had done to her. And to the secrets he had been unable to unlock.
Elizabeth's infernal secrets.
Pain was beginning to spread from his stomach to his head. Particularly potent garlic, or merely the insufferable remembrance of having left loose ends in a room below?
With a glance to the window, to the angel, to the door, he backed away from the bed. At the door, he stopped.
"Vulnerabilities are deadly in this court. You must come to realize this or you will not be safe."
He tugged at the door, considered that toying with her might be more fun than a quick conquest anyway, then turned once more toward the angel. "It is only with extreme caution that one can truly be free. You may trust me well on this."
Chapter Eight
« ^ »
Elizabeth lay where he had left her, tumbled and wrapped in her blankets of fur. Robbed of so much of her life's force, Dante knew she would be unable to challenge.
He sat down beside her, found her shivering.
"I suppose it would be useless to ask where you have been," Elizabeth said in a voice emerging as little more than a whisper.
"I cannot explain," Dante said.
Carefully turning Elizabeth over, Dante slipped his arms beneath her shoulders to lift her from the pillows.
"You have never professed love for me and I have never demanded it," Elizabeth said, words taking some time to get past her bruised, swollen throat. "Have you returned for the information you seek? Shall I give it to you for leaving me like this? As a reward?"
"A reward for what?"
"Unraveling your true nature."
Dante looked closer at Elizabeth's wan face and waited for her to go on. He knew how sick she must feel. His own throat tightened.
"Her name is Dominique. But I am afraid, my beautiful lover, that my brother owns her, body and soul."
"Does he, indeed?"
"Rumor has it he won her." Elizabeth paused to cough. Dante wiped the speckles of blood from her chin with the back of his hand and refrained from touching his lips to the stain.
"She was a lavish gift from a bad debtor," Elizabeth continued weakly. "Plucked from a nunnery, they say. Well educated in some things, while sadly lacking in others. One can see this in her eyes, can they not? Would you be thinking her an unlikely candidate for the wife of my brother?"
"That depends on what comes with her."
"You assume there is more to her than a pretty face?"
Elizabeth struggled to breathe, to speak. Dante laid a cool hand to her throat to ease her discomfort. Elizabeth looked up to see the frown he was wearing.
"I have heard some mention of properties, true enough," Elizabeth confided, rallying, determined not to faint as the pain in her throat increased. "Yet the way my brother looks at her… The way you looked at her…"
She closed her eyes, fighting hard to finish what she had started. "What is it about her, Dante? What is her lure? You know nothing of her. Surely you do not crave her professed innocence? Every woman is innocent once in her life. Only once."
Dante ran a hand slowly over Elizabeth's silken shoulder, remembering what he had given up this night to return here. Conquest could wait. Elizabeth was an unfinished detail.
He said, "She is beautiful, is she not?"
"Ah," Elizabeth sighed. "Beauty. Is this your answer?"
"I am no poet, Elizabeth, nor am I likely to become one at your request."
"Yes, and my brother has gotten to her first, my keen friend. You would do well to remember it. His plans include nothing less than marriage."
Elizabeth observed his reaction, warded off light-headedness with a turn of her neck. "Whatever it is that you see in her, my brother also sees. He watches over her carefully and has set others to the task of doing the same. Do not be fooled. The girl is as much a captive here as she was in that nunnery, and nowhere near as safe."
Unsafe? Didn't he know it, Dante thought, allowing his fingers to drift to the swell of Elizabeth's breasts, observing the faint rise and fall of her breath.
"The bad debtor. The one who gave her away," he said. "Who was this?"
"Her father."
Dante's fingers hesitated in their exploration.
"It would seem that we are not the only dismal family in England," Elizabeth added laconically.
"Has this father of hers a name?" Dante asked.
"He does."
"What might that name be?"
"Wallace."
A small storm gathered upon the outskirts of the ivory sheets that surrounded Elizabeth's body as Dante heard the name. Conscious of nothing but the implications of this, he went inward for several seconds, reemerging only when Elizabeth's cough returned.
"I have every right to be jealous," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"As you cannot have her, I suppose your apology matters little."
"I am sorry, nonetheless."
Elizabeth's expression had dulled. With the dawn's light gaining strength in its battle over night, Dante could see her eyes less clearly, but found them round and bright, despite what he had done to dilute their color. For the first time that he could recall, he felt truly displeased with himself. He felt guilty. And then there might be a small bit of anger thrown in. Had Elizabeth merely allowed this… for love?
Slowly, he placed her back on her pillows, eyes locked to hers. He thought her suddenly younger than her twenty-two years, and much less wizened and callous than she pretended to be. Had she been drained of those trappings?
"I'll not help you," she stated faintly.
"I have not asked for your help."
"You will soon enough."
"On the contrary, I would ask of you nothing of the kind. I would do nothing to jeopardize your position here."
"I do not give a damn about my position here."
"One of us has to."
"I do not love you, Dante."
"Not even a little?"
Her green eyes softened, Dante imagined. But had she read his mind? Remnants of long-strained and departed heartstrings pulled at his chest. Elizabeth was correct in that he had never professed to love her. He could not love her, could not love anyone. He had no heart for such things.
"I stay here because of you, but I do not necessarily love you," Elizabeth told him. "Your feelings for Alan's bride are merely a nuisance."
Unable to find the strength to sit up, Elizabeth sagged back down to the covers. Her hand found Dante's, briefly, resting lightly. She said with complete directness, "My brother will kill you if you touch her."
"I have no intention of allowing him such an opportunity."
"I know you better than you think, Dante."
"Yes, I believe you do
."
"You will leave?"
"And miss the festivities? I wouldn't think of it."
"My beautiful Duke, devil, scoundrel. You must be careful. My brother already fears you. He fears anyone with a better title and a bigger…" Elizabeth coughed, went paler, closed her eyes.
"Yes, Elizabeth?" Dante pressed, bringing his face nearer to hers.
"My brother wishes he were half the man you are. He will not take kindly to your attentions."
"No? Then the Rothchildes have very different tastes, do they not?"
Elizabeth smiled. The smile dissolved into pain. "My brother allows me freedom in this castle because he fears me. I am able to do as I please because I am discreet."
Her expression grew clouded. Her lips glistened beneath the lick of her tongue. Dante watched her carefully.
"Alan will not be as lenient with her. You must promise me something, Dante. I will not help unless you do."
"What will you have of me, Elizabeth?"
"I would have you come to me each time you think of her. In this way, everyone will be safe."
Dante searched the outlines of Elizabeth's face, observing how close to fainting she was, how transparent she seemed in some areas, while maintaining her infuriatingly secretive world. Safe? he thought. She could not possibly believe being with him could be safe. Had she no idea of what he had done to her merely minutes ago? Or the battle he had faced in trying to keep her alive once he had had a taste of her?
Safe? He leaned forward, inhaling the smell of her fatigue, discerning no scent of fear. It came to him in that moment that her lack of fear was what made this union so thrilling.
He laid his lips on her cheek, touched her chilled skin with his tongue. Her skin was alive, though pale. Elizabeth was a creature who fed on sunlight.
The smell of dried blood on her throat floated to his nostrils, producing a strange mixture of pleasure and guilt. More inner battles.
His hands shook slightly.
"Perhaps it is a pity you can read me so well," he concluded, mouth moving over the bones of her chin, hands sliding into her thick, tangled hair.
"Yes, perhaps," Elizabeth whispered.
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