by Liz Carlyle
“Why, yes,” Madame Moreau replied, but her gaze had turned suddenly inward. “I believe it is.”
“How utterly delightful.” Anaïs smiled, and offered her arm. “Why do we not take a closer look?”
Just then a long shadow fell across their path.
Anaïs looked up to see Geoff standing by the opposite stall, waiting for the pedestrians to clear. His expression was dark as a thunderhead.
“Oh,” she said a little witheringly. “Look. There is my husband now.”
Chapter 9
To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
It was too late; already Geoff was stalking across the cobbles, bearing down upon them like a fully-gunned frigate as he swept off his tall, very expensive hat. He was dressed today like a wealthy young gentleman of fashion in a dark morning coat, cut away to reveal the lean turn of his waist and a pearl-gray waistcoat of jacquard silk. His black stock was tied tight and high against the brilliant white collar of his shirt.
The path cleared before him as he approached, a brass-knobbed walking stick in hand.
“My dear.” He tucked the hat beneath his arm and bowed stiffly, his eyes lined and hollow, as if he had not slept.
Anaïs forced a smile. “How fortuitous, Geoffrey,” she said brightly. “I have had the good fortune of meeting one of our neighbors.” Swiftly she made the introductions.
“A pleasure, Mr. MacLachlan.” Madame Moreau bobbed a rather deep curtsy—in the face of Geoff’s sartorial splendor and piercing gaze, even the Queen herself might have done so.
“Indeed, ma’am.” Geoff bowed over her hand. “Might I give you my arm, my dear, and persuade you to walk home with me?” he asked, returning his hat to his head.
“Well, actually, we were just—”
But something deep in those glittering eyes stopped her.
Madame Moreau must have sensed her unease. “Please, Mrs. MacLachlan, do go,” she said, again shaking her hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
But Anaïs held on to her fingers an instant longer than she should have. “Promise me that you will call for tea tomorrow,” she blurted. “At four. Would that be convenient?”
Madame Moreau looked faintly anxious. “Well, yes . . . I daresay I might do. If I cannot, I—I shall send word.”
Anaïs released her hand, and gave a little bob. “Then I shall bid you good day,” she said. “Thank you for a lovely morning.”
They left Madame Moreau standing a little forlornly by the lacemaker’s stall and walked home past the Hôtel de Ville, Anaïs’s hand tucked into the crook of Geoff’s arm. And though he did not drag her, Anaïs could not but be reminded of how he’d hauled her up the stairs that night at the St. James Society.
But this time, his mood was not one of mere aggravation. It was a cold, barely restrained fury.
He spoke not a word until they were past the front door of the house. Then he slammed it shut and whirled on her. “Now, Anaïs, pray tell me,” he gritted, “just what part of ‘You will take Petit along’ did you not understand?”
“But Geoff, I thought that was—”
“What, ambiguous?” He hurled his hat onto the hall table. “Optional? A mere suggestion?”
“—unnecessary,” she snapped.
“Oh!” he shouted, dragging the word out derisively. “Then what about ‘I wish you to exercise every precaution’? Did that instruction miss its mark as well? Was it unnecessary?”
Anaïs narrowed her eyes, then began to toss her things onto the coat rack. “No,” she said, yanking off her scarf, “but I simply thought—”
“By God, Anaïs, it is not your place to think.” Geoff’s eyes drilled down into her, his voice more ominous. “Did I or did I not say that I would make—and again, I quote—every decision at every turn of this operation?”
One of the housemaids peeked round the corner, then jerked back again.
Anaïs sighed. “Geoff, why are you so upset? It isn’t as—”
“Yes. It is.” He was almost snarling now. “Now was that, or was it not, our bargain? Because the time for negotiation was then, not now.”
“Oh, as if you would have entertained any thought of negotiation!” Somehow, she managed to lift her skirts and brush past him to the steps.
“Anaïs,” he snapped. “Get. Back. Down. Here.”
His voice had grown not louder, but instead deathly quiet. She cut a glance over her shoulder to see that Geoff’s eyes had a strange, unholy look about them; both distant and yet all too seeing. Something apprehensive ran down her spine.
“Now,” he rasped.
Anaïs shook off the sudden frisson, then turned on the steps, still holding her hems aloft. “No,” she said. “If you wish to berate me, Geoff, then come upstairs and do so in my bedchamber. Not here in the front hall as if we’re a pair of common fishwives.”
His face going faintly pale, he strode across the hall.
“And the gauntlet is taken up,” she murmured, turning and starting up the rest of the stairs.
“I only wonder it took you this long to fling it down,” he retorted.
Once inside, Anaïs held on to the door and let him stride past, then closed it herself so as to keep him from slamming it. “Now, Geoff,” she began, “be reasonable.”
His eyes glittered, cold and blue, like a shaft of ice in sunlight. “I do not have to be reasonable,” he rasped, backing her up against the wall. “You do.”
“But why—”
“Because I say so!” Geoff gritted. “Because Lezennes is a dangerous man.”
“And he was nowhere in sight!” said Anaïs, throwing up her hands.
“You don’t know that.” His perfect jaw twitched. “What if he was?”
Anaïs tried to rein in her temper, but it was a struggle. “For God’s sake, Geoff, I’m not blind,” she managed, “or witless.”
“And what if he was having her followed?” Geoff leaned in, planting a hand against the wall by her shoulder. “Good God, Anaïs, what if DuPont is wrong, and she’s as wicked as he is?”
“But she is not,” said Anaïs hotly. “That much I do know.”
“But you don’t know,” he bellowed. “You simply don’t. You met her—what? Less than an hour ago? Damn it, woman, just do as I say!”
It was madness, she knew, to provoke him, but Anaïs was angry. Something worse than angry, perhaps. She could literally feel the blood thrumming through her veins as it had not in years. She came away from the wall and looked up at him, hardening her gaze.
“So I’m to just do as you say,” she retorted, “blindly, without question—or what?”
In a flash his hand caught her, his fingers digging deep into the hair at her nape, turning her face to his. “Or so help me God, Anaïs,” he rasped, “I’ll turn you over my knee and wear out your backside.”
Anaïs let her gaze flick hotly down him. “Oh, do you think so?” she whispered. “Why don’t you just give that a try, Geoff? Yes, you’re oh-so-rigid and perfectly controlled, aren’t you, until someone challenges—”
His mouth was on hers before she could draw breath.
This time there was no gentleness in his kiss. His mouth opened over hers, urgent and demanding. One arm lashing round her waist, he drove her head back against the wall as his fingers tightened in her hair, stilling her to the determined thrust of his tongue.
For long moments he kissed her, pillaging her mouth and giving her no chance to respond in turn but instead forcing her against the wall with his weight. Hungrily his hand cupped over her breast, his thumb circling her nipple till it hardened. One of his thighs thrust between hers, then the lust swamped her again, leaving her sagging against the wall, yearning for more, yet still outraged.
She wanted to smack him a cracking good blow across the cheek.
She wanted to drag him to her bed, and sli
de her hands beneath that well-tailored façade of civility he wore. Wanted to stroke and tempt and touch until his bare skin shivered beneath her fingers.
She was strongly favoring the latter. But before she could settle the matter in her mind, he turned his face from hers and uttered a quiet oath.
Anaïs went with option one, the back of her hand.
The resulting crack! was not entirely satisfying for they stood too close, but it achieved her purpose.
“Bloody hell!” Eyes wide, Geoff stepped away, touching at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Next time ask,” Anaïs snapped.
He simply stared at her.
Deliberately, she cocked one eyebrow. “You can even ask now,” she added, “so long as it’s politely done.”
“I . . . beg your pardon?”
“Yet another good idea,” she answered. “You certainly ought to be begging my pardon. Now, are you inviting me to your bed or not? Just so I know where I stand.”
“Good God, Anaïs,” he whispered. “Have we both run mad?”
He turned and strode to her window, one hand set at the back of his neck, the other at his hip, pushing back his coat in that pensive posture that had already become almost achingly familiar to her. But there was still a strange, uneasy feeling in the air.
Anaïs followed, and watched him stare blindly out the glass, the muscles of his throat working up and down.
He spoke again, without looking at her, his voice mystified. “I really don’t know whether to bed you, or turn you over my knee.”
“You’re far more apt to survive the first,” she advised.
“Anaïs, we can’t go on like this.”
“I am not a child to be spanked, Geoff.” She stood beside him, resisting the urge to set a hand on his arm. “If you want an invitation to my bed, ask. If you wish to send me away, try. But if you are simply angry because you desire me—and if you’re going to coddle me at every turn because of it—then you’re the one who risks compromising this mission, not me.”
“Aye.” His voice was surprisingly soft, but his eyes had taken on that haunted, otherworldly look again. “Aye, perhaps you’re right. But for God’s sake, Anaïs, just don’t . . .”
Don’t what?
She looked at the beautifully sculpted turn of his face caught in a golden shaft of sunlight, and wanted to beg him for the answer.
Oh, she wanted to beg him for more than that. But despite her anger, her swollen lips, and the hair now tumbling so wantonly down her shoulder, Anaïs still had a little pride left to her.
“What do you want, Geoff?” she asked softly. “What do you want of me? Just say it.”
He exhaled suddenly and roughly, then shocked her by reaching out. He pulled her into his arms, and inexplicably, she went.
Geoff set his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. “Don’t refuse to do as I say, Anaïs,” he whispered. “Don’t make me send you packing, do you hear? For I’ll do it. I swear to God. I will.”
And he could, she realized. He had warned her, in fact, that that was precisely what he would do—and long before they’d ever left London.
She was still angry, yes. But perhaps—just perhaps—she had not handled this well. As her mother was ever fond of pointing out, Anaïs was like her father, often well-intentioned but emotionally ham-fisted.
In a pinch, she could handle Lezennes, she felt confident. But Geoff didn’t know that, and his protective instincts would likely have overridden that knowledge anyway. And he wasn’t just driven by lust. He was a gentleman to his very marrow. But she was not quite ready to admit any of this nascent insight to him. No, not yet.
Geoff, however, had suddenly loosened his embrace. Anaïs looked up to see him staring out the window again, more intently this time. She let one arm fall, turning to look.
In the street below, Charlotte Moreau was hastening along the pavement looking anxious to get home. At Lezennes’ door, she set down her basket, opened her reticule, and began to paw through it as if searching for a key.
That very instant, however, the door burst open and a little girl dashed out on a cry of delight, a gray-garbed servant on her heels.
Madame Moreau dropped the reticule and swept the child up in her embrace.
Beside Anaïs, Geoff stiffened. The air in the room seemed to still, then go utterly cold.
Again, Anaïs felt that odd frisson down her spine, and this time it felt like fear. “Geoff?”
As if he hadn’t heard her, he stepped nearer the glass, lifting one hand to touch it as he stared down into the street. Madame Moreau was still kneeling on the pavement, holding the little girl close. Geoff’s every muscle appeared to have gone rigid, and his eyes had taken on that strange, distant look once more.
He swallowed again. “She is frightened,” he said, the words deep and hollow. “Terrified. She . . . sees the blackness.”
Anaïs set a hand to his shoulder blade. “Who?” she murmured. “Charlotte?”
But his eyes were not precisely focused on Charlotte. “Yes. Madame Moreau. Her darkness is—” He stopped, and exhaled slowly and deeply.
Something was wrong.
Anaïs had sensed it, almost from the moment they had stepped inside the house. No, from the moment he’d touched her hand in the market square. It was as if his emotions were so tightly tethered the rope might snap. As if he were clinging to . . . something for all he was worth. Or shutting something out.
And just now—that explosive temper, that raw, utterly sensual kiss—all of it had been driven by passion and fury, yes, but something unbridled had run beneath it, like an underground stream wearing away at Geoff’s emotional bedrock.
He was a man who kept his emotions shut tightly away, but today it was as if he’d edged too near a precipice.
The slamming of a door recalled Anaïs to the present. She looked up to see that Charlotte and the little girl had vanished, and Lezennes’ door had shut.
Anaïs urged Geoff from the window, the better to see him.
He came, but his motions were those of an automaton. His face was rigid, all color drained away, and his eyes had taken on that eerie, icy look, like a wild creature—like a wolf—as if he looked through her, or far beyond her. As if he saw not this room, but another time or another place entirely.
In Tuscany, Vittorio had introduced her to such a man; a boy, really, who had been brought by his family from Malta. They had come in desperate search of answers, for the young man had lived with a mind half in the present and half in the future, and seemingly no boundary between. Dreams and visions had constantly possessed him, and upon meeting him, it was as if Anaïs could see the very portal to hell in his eyes.
But there had been little Vittorio could do, save confirm what they already knew. That the boy was not mad. He had been cursed—cursed with the Gift—an inapt name if ever Anaïs had heard one.
On the way home, the boy had taken matters into his own hands. He had tied an anchor round his ankle and leapt into Valetta’s harbor, never to be seen again.
Anaïs set a hand to the soft wool of his morning coat. “Geoff?” she said softly. “How long have you been fighting this?”
His hand came up suddenly, causing Anaïs to flinch. But he merely set it to his temple, two fingers positioned just above his eyebrow. “I cannot recall,” he admitted, obviously trying to focus. “Since . . . sometime late last night? I tried to see—to open to the void—and could not. But later, in the early hours, I couldn’t sleep. I could feel it—the blackness—creeping in round the edges. And still, nothing came. Then . . . then I met her.”
“Madame Moreau, you mean?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I met her. Touched her hand.”
And now the portal to hell had cracked open.
It worked that way sometimes, Anaïs knew. She took his arm. “Come, sit by the hearth.”
But Geoff didn’t move. His opposite hand had gone rigid at his side, his fist so hard his knuckles had t
urned bloodless.
“Geoff,” she said uncertainly, “come sit down. Tell me what you’re sensing.”
“No—just—don’t—”
His eyes squeezed shut, and his nostrils flared wide. He still held his hand to his temple, and she could feel his entire body beginning to shudder. The sun passed behind a cloud, dimming the room, and it was as if a maelstrom of evil blew through, though the window was barely cracked.
Anaïs felt the temperature literally drop again, sending that horrid, icy shiver down her spine again, and with it a hint of nausea. The underdrapes lifted eerily on the breeze, floating around them as if borne upon an invisible cloud. Geoff’s eyes flew wide, yet his gaze was eerily distant. He grabbed her by both wrists, and dragged her nearer. She began to shake so hard she feared her teeth might chatter.
“Anaïs,” he rasped, “you have to stay away from her. The child. There is evil—I can feel it—all around her. Around you.”
Suddenly, Anaïs understood. “Who?” she whispered. “Can you see the source? Is it Lezennes? Good God, it cannot be Madame Moreau?”
He shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know,” he said, his fingers digging into her flesh. “I cannot see. There is something—something black and potent. Like a shadow over us all. I feel it. I know it—and it knows me. That I am here.”
She resisted the urge to fling herself into his arms. “G-Geoff,” she whispered, “what is going on?”
And then the wind vanished, and the room fell quiet again. The surreal cold receded, and with it her strange, sudden anxiety. It was as if her blood resumed its pulse and flow, and her senses became one with the real world again. The heavy footsteps of a servant passing by her door, the smell of something baking inside the house, the coo of a pigeon upon her windowsill; all these things came back to her, the world as it should be.
With Geoff still holding her wrists, she leaned into him and set her cheek to his lapel. “It is all right,” she soothed. “Let it go. Let it go for now. It will come back when it is clearer.”
