Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark)

by Michele Hauf

  “You have mastered the costume.”

  “Yes, but can I shuck it off? Anjou remains at large, despite my having him in my grasp. Had I been alert I could have ended the whole thing right there. No worry for the Ripper or vampires, for that matter.”

  “Are you going to pursue him now?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t need to consider the options. “I can’t have him going after another innocent.”

  “Very good.” With a subservient nod, Toussaint left the room.

  In the silence that followed, Gabriel wondered if maybe—just maybe—a morsel of truth lived in Mademoiselle Desrue’s macabre claims. Could lunatics hold such a firm grip on outer rationale and calmness?

  The woman was beguiling and delicate, yet intriguingly decided in her beliefs. So different from the lamps he had been around. Lamps fussed and primped so much they never did make it out before nightfall. They were weak and vapid, so much less.

  Roxane Desrues was a lustrous blend of celadon and fraises et al crème. Slender as a willow branch, but, he decided, equally as strong. Something about her refusal to lower her head—to be an agreeable female—set his blood to a race. A woman who knew her own mind, and yet, she blushed so gorgeously.

  She was more woman than he could hope to touch. To know. To taste. To…

  No. He would not think the ‘L’ word. His needs would for ever go unmet—his parents had taught him that cruel truth years ago, and any attempt to move beyond his predestined misery had failed.

  To close his eyes and press away the words, the thoughts, the dreams, Gabriel moved to the core physicality of his being. He felt something beyond the pulsing reminder of attack on his neck. ’Twas lower. There, in the center of his chest. An ache in his heart.

  A man has to believe in something.

  A long forgotten epitaph issued by his father on the last night he’d seen the man. Cecil Renan had believed in greed, of the flesh, mind, and purse, all in the pursuit of his comfort. And ever he sought to please his fickle Juin-Marie.

  Determined to create beliefs so distant from his absent parents’ licentious greed, Gabriel had striven to walk higher ground. Much as he had clung to that high path while taking the Grand Tour, upon return to Paris he had been kicked and shoved by the naysayers who could not see beyond his parents’ damning legacy.

  His disappointments had turned his heart cold.

  A man could lose himself in the cream of Paris, floating upon the surface, mired in the thickness of it all. Mayhap he had already lost. What did he believe in?

  Could he believe in a vampire?

  He fingered the wound on his neck. You do believe. You just don’t know how to admit it.

  He drew in a breath that captured lingering tendrils of rosemary. Traces of her. A breath of freshness he had not hoped to have. Despite himself, he smiled.

  “Toussaint!”

  The valet’s head immediately popped inside the bedroom. “Yes?”

  “Bring along Leo’s clothing. We will go after Mademoiselle Desrues.”

  FOUR

  Toussaint knew Roxane lived in a garret not far from the Palais Royale on the rue Vivienne, for the two had talked much during Gabriel’s confinement. She did not occupy a cell in Bicêtre, as he had sullenly mused. Though certainly she did display a tendency toward eccentricity, if not outright lunacy.

  His attention focused inward, Gabriel stared out the carriage window at the passing building fronts. He felt oddly envious that Toussaint possessed so much knowledge of the pale beauty. Almost as if the valet had uncovered her secrets, and Gabriel was left to grope through a mire to discover any small fact.

  Foolishness. He could learn the woman’s secrets with but a crook of his finger and a wink. Seduction was as easy as selecting a waistcoat from one’s armoire.

  But to truly know a woman? That was a different challenge entirely.

  Beyond mastering her physical desires, he had never really known a woman. If they were lovers he attended to her pleasures, and in turn, his own. If a lover had ever shown promise toward the future, well, lately, he’d gotten himself as far from their presence as possible. Why risk torturing himself with hope?

  Because it is hope that fills your empty heart. If only for a moment.

  And moments were often all he was offered.

  You’ve but days until the full moon.

  Many moments, that wait. But all in all? So little time.

  Of the choices Roxane had offered him, the one she was not sure of seemed his best hope. He would kill the vampire before the full moon, thus ensuring he did not become one himself. But to find the man, he needed Roxane. Unless she was correct in her guess that Anjou would seek him.

  He hoped for that. He would be waiting, stake in hand.

  “She is wrong, you know.”

  Gabriel smoothed his fingers across the tender wounds on his neck. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You are not a swish.”

  Certainly not.

  “You were winded following the duel with the drunk. That is why you were not at the top of your game.”

  He had not needed that to be pointed out to him. But Toussaint never avoided the truth. “Winded by a skirmish with an idiot dancing in his cups,” Gabriel mocked himself.

  He pressed his forehead against the glass pane in the carriage door. “It doesn’t matter what Mademoiselle Desrues thinks I am.”

  “Don’t lie to yourself, man. You’re already falling. I can see it in your eyes. They are seeking, searching, dreaming of Roxane.”

  Gabriel clicked his fingernails against the dirty glass and smirked. “Silence, Toussaint.”

  Roxane lived in a positively medieval neighborhood unhampered by wide streets or sanitation, to judge from the refuse piled outside doors and leaking onto the streets. No center gutters here to redirect the sewage.

  Toussaint directed the driver to stop outside a three-story limestone building sandwiched between others of its like.

  Gabriel stepped out onto the cobbled street and stretched his neck to look over the perimeter. Long iron brackets attached to the building fronts thrust over the street, their precious lamps dangling precariously, so that a high-seated coach driver must duck to avoid a fierce thunking. None were lit, for the increasing moonlight. High above, an assortment of chipped and heavily-sooted gargoyles stared down upon the street.

  A flying chunk of stone? Truly, his mental state had taken a bruising since the night of his attack.

  He untwisted the rapier from its sheath and slid it up and down.

  At that moment a miserable moan preceded a creeping shadow that may have been female, but for the oddly distorted skull. Releasing his blade, he went en garde.

  The woman suddenly noticed her observers as she took the steps to the same apartment building. She literally held up her head, one hand to a massive confection of wig, ribbons, curls and flour powder. The creation soared three feet into the air and would have given a giant a megrim.

  “I’ve no interest, messieurs,” she muttered weakly. Dipping her head forward to enter the building, she toppled across the threshold.

  Gabriel dashed up the steps and caught her arm, preventing her from a painful landing. “Careful.”

  She pushed him away, but sunk to her knees and literally crawled toward a door but five strides away. The wig collapsed and folded over her forehead. “Please, monsieur, I am well.”

  Silently cursing a female’s need to possess such extravagant hairstyles, but at the same time noting the woman wore a very plain dress—hardly a match to the wig—Gabriel stepped to her door and opened it for her. As he sheathed his rapier, she crawled inside and kicked the door shut. Sobs seeped out into the foyer like imperfect jewels discarded with a toss.

  Toussaint merely shrugged and gestured they take the dark staircase.

  Reluctantly, Gabriel took the first creaking wood step. “You don’t think we should attempt to help?”

  “Help her with what? Pry the
hideous monstrosity from her head?” Toussaint snorted. “Women.”

  “Something was wrong,” he said. “Beyond the wig. I sense it.”

  “Save your charity for those who need it.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, but no one will touch my money.”

  “They’ll touch Leo’s money. Soon enough. This must be the place.” Toussaint landed on the second floor and pointed out a plain door with a dash of gold paint swirled in a loose ‘S’ in the center. “What’s the ‘S’ for?”

  “May be from a former resident.” Gabriel rapped with the head of his walking stick. “You’re sure of the place? It looks dismal.”

  Still concerned with the woman’s crying, he glanced down the darkened staircase. The sobbing could no longer be heard. Had someone hurt her? He really should—

  The door opened to emit a gush of warm candlelight and Roxane’s surprised face, enswathed in the faded ruffles of a night robe.

  Gabriel had to catch himself from gasping. A woman endishabille. What easy plunder she offered. The balding blue velvet robe clutched at the bottom of her face looked a night flower seeking the sun.

  A nudge from Toussaint redirected his straying thoughts.

  “Oh, er…yes. I’ve come to beg your apology, mademoiselle,” he spoke the practiced lines. “My treatment of you earlier was unforgivable. I had no right to speak to you so.”

  “You are fearful to spend the night alone?” A lift of brow exposed her sneaky mirth.

  “Of course not. I merely—”

  “I talked him into it, mademoiselle,” Toussaint tossed in over Gabriel’s shoulder. “The two of us know little regarding my master’s condition. If that is what it can be called? A condition? It would be a tremendous boon if you would see to staying a night or two and teaching us all that you know.”

  Gabriel flashed Toussaint a scathing look, but turned a warm smile on Roxane. “What he said.”

  Pity reflected in her eyes. Gabriel thought to protest her misplaced concern, but then, the charade must be maintained. Surely she thought him a vapid and utterly helpless swish.

  Clutching the robe tightly, she sighed. “Apology accepted.”

  “Might we enter?”

  “What for?”

  “Certainly not to pillage,” Gabriel offered at sight of her fearful eyes. “Is it a bad time?”

  “No, er no. Certainly, you are welcome inside. Give me a moment to straighten things.”

  The door slammed shut. The clatter of furniture scraped a wood floor and clinking metal sounded.

  Gabriel looked to Toussaint. The valet shrugged.

  A strange whisking noise stroked behind the outer wall. Gabriel pressed a palm to the wall and again exchanged curious looks with Toussaint. “She is an interesting study, yes?”

  Suddenly the door swung inward and Roxane beckoned, “Come in, messieurs.”

  They followed her into a wide sitting room, the walls lined in fading English paper that had seen better years—perhaps better centuries. Half a dozen thick cathedral candles placed upon the windowsill and hearth flickered.

  A faded wool blanket had been pinned to the outer wall where Gabriel had heard the strange sound. As a tapestry? Or…to hide? He cautioned himself from tugging it free. A tufted chair and plain wood table furnished the room. A fieldstone hearth to his left snapped fire sparkles up the chimney.

  “Settling in for the night?” He strode to the fire and spread out his palms. A scatter of chalk lines on the stone hearth took his interest. And there, next to a stack of ash wood, a piece of black cloth was draped over something. Bowls? He thought to lift the cloth, but felt Roxane’s stare upon his back.

  Hands spread before the blaze, the cozy warmth settled his apprehensions. This woman is not insane. A simple home, though oddly decorated, did not lend to a tainted mind. Besides, he liked her all snuggled into that blossom of a robe. There was no reason whatsoever he should not seek the treasures she hid beneath the faded fabric. Perhaps Toussaint could wait out in the carriage?

  “So, you wish me to stay with you?”

  Did he? That had been Toussaint’s idea. “I’m not sure about staying, but there is a certain amount of information I’m sure—”

  “There is much to consider,” she replied.

  And the closer this gorgeous beauty was to him, the easier it would be to seduce her.

  “I do have an extra room. You’ve nothing to fear from me. Certainly your virtue will not be in danger. Toussaint will keep me in check.” The valet did not meet Gabriel’s glance. But the man’s knowing smirk was, fortunately, out of Roxane’s eyesight.

  “Ah yes, the very same valet who keeps the lair of sensual delights in order for his master?”

  Gabriel’s smugness fell. “Of course, you will bring along your maid.”

  “I…” She shrugged a hand up the sleeve of the ruffled robe. “I have not had opportunity to employ a maid since arriving in Paris. If truth be told, it is unnecessary.”

  “Astounding. How do you dress?”

  “I am not of the society that was born to such expectations of servitude, such as yourself. And, much as you may find this remarkable to digest, we country women are perfectly capable of dressing ourselves.”

  “That is quite remarkable.” He cast Toussaint a knowing lift of brow.

  “Ninon does stop by.”

  “Ninon?”

  “She lives downstairs.”

  “The one with the wig?” Toussaint interjected.

  “You’ve met her?”

  “She seemed terribly sad.” Gabriel drew his gaze up and down the dusty velvet curtains drawn before the window that looked over the stinking street. Such old things. Very little in the way of personal possessions. Not a figurine or portrait in sight. And there was the obvious, that her dress was years out of vogue.

  But what were they discussing? Ah yes, the woman down the stairs. “Rather a contrast, her hair and clothing.”

  “She only does it for the coin.”

  “Does it?” He turned to Roxane. A flip of his lacy wrist splayed out a questioning hand. Yes, he’d mastered the fop’s flip. Just when Gabriel began to sneak up on Leo an extravagant gesture reeled him into the costume. “In what delicious wonders does the bewigged creature indulge?”

  “Ninon is in debt after her mother’s expenses. The old woman is dreadfully ill. The coiffures pay her to experiment with new hairstyles.”

  “I see. I have never before heard such a thing. To pay women to use their hair?”

  “It is quite miserable. Being prodded and poked and curled and burned and powdered all the day. She’s a nasty burn on her ear from a careless barber. But it does pay well enough to keep her mother in laudanum.”

  Gabriel nodded, and muttered laudanum under his breath. The word worked like a snake coiling in his gut, clenching and writhing. For accompanying that word always came addiction. An addiction to comfort. I am in my comfort now. Mustn’t bother mama…

  He glanced to Toussaint, who, companion that he was, nodded that “I understand” nod.

  Realizing with a start that he’d pressed the nail of his forefinger deep into his palm, Gabriel shook out his hand and mentally shrugged off the dark thoughts. “So you’ll dress yourself then?”

  “Of course. And if I need assistance, I am sure Toussaint can lace me up.”

  Toussaint gaped.

  Gabriel asked, “You do not fear the lacking propriety? You could be ruined.”

  “I don’t subscribe to malicious whispers. I know my truths, Leo. I hardly feel you will impose upon my kindness in any manner that will see me ruined. Nor would I allow such. If you’ll excuse me, messieurs, I’ll pack some things.” She strode from the room.

  The woman certainly had a mind to her. Gabriel wasn’t sure how to take her bravado. She had no idea what she was walking into.

  “Me?” Toussaint stabbed his chest with a thumb. “Handmaid to a woman? I don’t know how to lace and primp and do whatever else it is women
require.”

  Gabriel winced to think the valet did just that every day to him. “You’ll fare well enough, old man. It’s either you or leave Mademoiselle Desrues to me.”

  “Not a wise choice.”

  “At least not until she trusts me. Course, then I am sure I’ll engage more in undressing than dressing, eh?”

  “Remind me to ignore the next queer opportunity that arises, will you?”

  “I thought you were excited for this adventure, Toussaint? You’ve opportunity to step beyond the mundane. You already play handmaid to a swish, what’s so different about dressing a woman?”

  “Oh, my soul. Laces and boning and petticoats and—” He molded the air before him. “—curves.”

  Gabriel smiled. Perhaps he would see to assisting the beauty himself. Pity to waste those curves on Toussaint.

  Locking the door to her bed chamber, Roxane shrugged from the night robe and blew out the breath she had been holding since opening the door to discover Leo’s puppy dog pout.

  Shivering as the cool night air whispered across her bare flesh, she hastily wiggled into the dress she had previously worn. Tugging the laced stays to a comfortable fit, she bent her arms up and over her shoulders and tied them securely. A maid? Ha!

  A mad scramble had hidden all from her visitors’ wondering gazes. But the man had almost lifted the cloth from the bowl of herbs sitting before the hearth.