Tainted Love

by Nancy Morse

  Outside, the swamp rose in misty tatters. Moss-hung cypresses seemed to float against the night sky, and the languid air filled with the sounds of crickets. Candles burning in the upstairs parlor sent soft yellow light skimming across the imported rosewood furnishings and through the French windows, sifting through the lace curtains and spilling out into the night, casting a shimmer over the wisteria that clung to the shutters.

  Stede walked to the edge of the gallery and stared out into the darkness. “Sometimes I sit out here for hours just thinking.”

  “And what do you think about?” she ventured.

  “Oh, lots of things. Why we’re born who we are and why we’re so afraid of dying.”

  “How do we know we weren’t as afraid of being born as we are of dying?”

  “What do you know of such things?” he jested.

  “Of being born, nothing.”

  He looked at her askance. “Of dying?”

  She hesitated. “My mother died in London many years ago, and my papa was close to death before recovering. And my Aunt Vivienne died. And the young man to whom I was betrothed.” And herself. She died. She was dead. Could he not tell? Could he not sense it in his pirate’s soul? “I know no more of dying than anyone else, I suppose.” The lie was thick in her throat. “You have had your share of it. Your mother of yellow fever. Your father. Evangeline.”

  The name caused him to wince. “I’ll tell you what does not die.”

  Pru stiffened. With dark foreboding she wondered if he knew about vampires.

  “Love,” he muttered. “Love doesn’t die.”

  Her muscles relaxed, yet she felt a rush of doubt. “Are you saying Evangeline was the only woman you could ever love?”

  “It takes just one bad experience to teach a man that love is for fools,” he scoffed.

  She came close. Toying with the buttons on his shirt, she peered up at him and asked, “And me? What are your feelings for me?”

  His breathing quickened. “There isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t sell his soul to be with you,” he said.

  This was not the impression he gave yesterday when they’d made love beneath the live oak when he professed to want to know her so much better. “For what? An evening or two of pleasure?” She affected a frivolous laugh. “What about forever?”

  “Forever is a very long time,” Stede remarked.

  Didn’t she know that only too well?

  “As the Creoles are fond of saying,” he went on, “he who takes a partner takes a master.” He reached for her and drew her into his arms. “But let’s not talk about such things.”

  She softened at his touch and pressed a cheek to his shoulder. “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean to imply that your feelings for me should go beyond an accommodating friendship.”

  “There, that’s better.” His eyes caught the starlight and his mouth curved up at one corner. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of running at sea, it’s to live for the moment. And at this moment I think you know what I want.”

  Yes, she knew what he wanted. What all men want. She would show him what she could do, how she could make him feel, how she could make him desire only her, and in his desire, gain his love.

  Forcing his evasion to the back of her mind, she pressed herself against him and felt the bite of his arousal through his breeches. He was already hot for her.

  Her lips parted and her eyelashes brushed downward as his arm slid around her waist.

  His kiss was gentle at first, a slow and warm movement over her lips. His free hand slipped down to press her tighter against him. She stirred her hips, responding provocatively as his arm tightened at her waist and his mouth opened over hers. He tasted of wine and lust and smelled of the sea, a heady combination that brought the hot need surging up from the depths of her being. She wanted to bury her face in his dark hair and feel his big hands on her body. Her breath changed at the feel of his body’s excitement. She wanted to please him, to lay herself bare to him, to do all the things she knew he wanted, hoping it would be enough to secure his love.

  A desperate longing spread through her body, coursing from the possession of her mouth down to her breasts pinned against the hard wall of his chest, across her belly and to that place between her thighs that was moist and hot and aching for him.

  He pushed her hair back, twining the silken tresses around his fingers as he kissed her throat. Tugging the fabric of her bodice downward, he buried his face in the generous curve of her breasts, nuzzling the soft, white flesh. With moves that grew rougher and more frantic, he forced the fabric off her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the damp swamp air. His tongue swirled around her nipples, first one, then the other, drawing each into his mouth in turn until they were swelling with pleasure.

  He could have taken her right there on the gallery, and she would have let him, but instead he lifted his face and pressed a kiss to her hair.

  “God, Pru,” he rasped, “You’re driving me crazy.”

  She opened her eyes and peered up at him. Her heart beat faster.

  The expression on his face was loving, lips drawn back in a serene smile.

  The way to a man’s heart is through his loins.

  “Let’s go inside,” she whispered seductively.

  His tongue darted out to sweep across his lips at the suggestive tone. “What’d you have in mind?” he drawled.

  Only to seduce him into loving her. “I’m sure I can think of something,” she cooed.

  Her breasts disappeared into her bodice as she pulled the fabric back up over her shoulders. Taking his hand, she was about to lead him back inside when a throat nervously cleared behind them.

  “Pardonnez-moi.”

  Stede groaned audibly and turned around. “What is it, Delphine?”

  “A man to see you, monsieur,” she said, her English heavily accented, her eyes shifting to Pru.

  “Who is it?”

  Her gaze darted away. “I do not know. But he has a face like, how do you say it, une figure de pomme cuite.”

  “There’s only one man I know with a face like a baked apple. Wait for me, Pru. I’ll be right back,” he said, running his thumb down her spine. “Delphine, will you show Pru to my room?”

  In the few short months she’d been in New Orleans Pru found the Creole way of life very different from that of Boston and New York and back home in London, where guests were received in parlors and never saw a bedroom unless someone was ill. But here, guests were invited into the most comfortable room which was invariably the bedroom. And this one was as well appointed as any fashionable London or Boston parlor.

  The focal point was the fireplace. Sitting atop the mantle were a fancy gilt clock and two Derbyshire vases. Placed upon the ornate wooden paneling above the mantle was a painting depicting the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and hand colored engravings of camellias. A mahogany armoire stood against one wall. The bed was an impressive four-poster piled with feather mattresses. Beside the bed was a night stand with a black- and gold-veined marble top. An argand lamp, brighter than half a dozen candles, with a wick that required less trimming, threw light across the beamed ceiling and over the carpet. The smell of burning oil caused Pru to wrinkle her nose as her gaze moved around the room.

  Then she saw it—the mirror, plumed and gilded—and drew a long, shuddering breath. What if Stede chanced to look in the mirror and saw no reflection of her in the glass? What if he again questioned the coolness of her skin and commented on her unusual paleness? She would stick to her story of the mist like blood upon a rusty knife and hope to divert him with coyness and caresses. A thought flitted across her mind of how much easier it was to be with Nicholas with whom there was no need to pretend nor fear her undead state being discovered.

  She shoved her disquieting thoughts aside and went to the French window where the night pulsed with insects and sounds breathed from out of the deep heart of the swamp. The whispered voices of men, sharp
and clear to her astute senses, drew her closer. A voice she did not recognize spoke with a desperate note.

  The anger curdled in Stede’s throat when he answered. “Let them try to dismantle my operation.” His whispered words carried across the still night with the ease of sound skimming across water. “The Americans don’t have an army big enough to protect their coast, much less have the audacity to attack me. Besides, technically, we’re not pirates. My men carry their letters of marque from Cartegena. We’re men of the open sea.”

  She knew by the hard strike of his boot heels against the flagstones that he was pacing. “The excessive customs taxes charged to move my trade down river was depleting my income,” he complained, bitterness rifling the merry ring of his voice that she was accustomed to hearing. “That’s why I moved my operation to Barataria in the first place. And now, Claiborne is complaining about pirates attacking American merchantmen. Damn that Virginian. You’d think he has enough to deal with trying to Americanize the city. I’ve ordered my men not to attack American vessels. Can I help it if one greedy sonofabitch hungry for gold bullion ransacked an outgoing American ship? They hanged him and that should have been the end of it, but being in charge means I have to accept blame for the crimes of my men. Very well, then. Go back to the island and ready the siege guns. If Claiborne sends troops to Grand Terre, we’ll be ready for them. But first, there’s something else I want you to do.”

  His voice dropped to a conspiratorial timbre as he walked with his cohort in the direction of the swamp.

  Pru cocked her head to hear them better, but her attention was diverted from their conversation to the sweet aroma that suddenly filled the room. She sucked in her breath and whirled around.

  He was sitting in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, one leg crossed casually over the other, staring moodily at her from across the room.

  She came forward in a rush. “What are you doing here?”

  Tapping his fingers on the arm of the splat back chair, he mused, “It’s quite comfortable. Louis Philippe, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Never mind the décor,” she seethed. “I asked you a question. What are you doing here?”

  A guilty look flashed across those ethereally handsome features. “I was curious about your pirate.

  “You mean you’re spying on us,” she charged in a furious whisper.

  “I had no idea you were here,” he said. “Really.”

  She cast him an appalled look. “How did you get in? Did you crawl up the side of the house like a spider?” She shivered. “Such nasty little creatures, they are.”

  “I can’t say I appreciate your mockery of my special talents,” he complained, the beautiful curve of his mouth shadowed in the lamplight. “But no, I didn’t climb up the side of the house. Let’s just say the mist from the river isn’t the only vapor that can infiltrate a room.”

  “Oh, you are insufferable.”

  “Have you recently fed, or is it your disdain for me that brings such a delightful flush to your otherwise pallid cheeks?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that when she opened them, he would be gone. But he was still there, watching her with those magnificent green eyes and that lazy, knowing look that made her want to scream. Forcing a level tone, she said, “Nicholas, please, I have no wish to spar with you tonight. You must leave. He’ll be back any moment.”

  “To do what? Ravish you with his big, brutish hands? Really, Prudence, couldn’t you have chosen someone more refined?”

  “Like who? You?”

  “Well, now that you mention it.”

  She hurried to the window and glanced out. Two figures were silhouetted against the night, their heads bent close in conversation. Safe for the moment, she whirled back around and demanded, “I want you to leave.”

  “Not unless you leave with me.”

  She stood rigid and adamant.

  “Then I will remain right here, as invisible as the mist, and watch while you and your pirate fornicate on that garish bed of his.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  But the diabolical gleam in his green eyes told her otherwise.

  “You truly are an evil man.” She gathered up her skirts in her hands and started for the door. “Very well. You can stay. I’ll leave. You cannot follow me everywhere. I will make love with him and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Has he told you he loves you?”

  She froze with her hand on the door latch. Slowly, she turned to face him.

  His look was petulant and dangerous, his voice dripping like honey from across the room. “Ah, I didn’t think so. Oh, well, you can always obtain a love potion, I suppose, or purchase some gris-gris for luck. Something tells me you’re going to need it.”

  Flinging open the door, she rushed out. In the downstairs parlor she stopped only to retrieve the shawl she’d left over the back of a chair. Twirling it around her shoulders, she marched past Delphine and out the door.

  Outside, a bright moon cast a ghostly light over the land. At the sound of the front door slamming shut, Stede looked up and saw her standing on the gallery. With a muffled curse, he sent his cohort disappearing into the shadows and strode toward the house.

  “Pru, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take so long. It was business.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You know?” he questioned.

  “I mean, I assumed.”

  “Come now, let’s go back inside.” He reached for her elbow to escort her into the house, but she drew back.

  “Not tonight, Stede. Would you call for Christophe? I’d like to go home.”

  “Aw, Pru, don’t be made at me.”

  “It’s not you.” It was that miserable creature upstairs. The one who haunted her. “I have developed a terrible headache.”

  “All right.” Disappointment rang in his tone. “I’ll have Christophe bring the carriage. I’ll take you home myself.”

  Upstairs, in the lavishly appointed bedroom, Nicholas stood at the French window watching as the carriage disappeared down the winding road that led back to the city.

  He wasn’t a man given to regrets, except, of course, for the one great regret of his life—his immortality. He tried to cast out the doubt over whether he’d done the right thing in taking Prudence’s mortality. Yes, she hated him for it, and in truth maybe he did regret it for all the grief it had caused him. His life, such as it was, had been perfectly under control before he met her. Why did she have to come along to fill him with such uncertainty, to make him hunger for more than blood and to suffer the pain of rejection? She would make good on her word to make love again with her pirate, and she was right that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. For decades he had known of her intimacies with mortal men, each one like a hawthorn stake driven into his vulnerable heart. Yet what could he do except stand by and wait for her love to shine its light on him?

  He should have abandoned her years ago. She was too much trouble, with her scorn and disdain, those damn blue eyes that made him do stupid things, and the infernal feistiness she had acquired since her making. The timid little mouse that had captured his fancy was now a formidable equal. She might not yet have acquired the power to transform into mist or assume the visage of a bat or a wolf—in time that would come—but her tongue was as sharp as a blade and her hunting skills were as deadly as his own.

  He knew her so well—better perhaps than she knew herself. Like him, she longed for love. If only she would look toward him and the love they might share through eternity. He knew the feel of her through silk, the way her lashes swept down over her eyes whenever she tried to mask her emotions, the way her voice deepened when she hurled vehemence at him, as if to emphasize a hatred she did not truly feel.

  For more than seventy years he’d been waiting for her to come to the realization that they were meant for each other. As much as it pained him to see her with her pirate lover, he would wait a hundred years and more. What was a century or two to a man wi
th all of eternity ahead of him?

  With that sobering thought in mind, he turned from the window and glanced about the room. Where to begin? The armoire, yes. He crossed the room with noiseless steps and stood before the mahogany armoire. A touch of the latch opened the door. His gaze raked over the clothing inside, the garments too costly to belong to a common pirate. But there was nothing common about Stede Bonham, was there? Prudence had been too busy hurling her hatred at him to notice, but the conversation he’d overhead outside the window confirmed there was more to this pirate than met the eye. But how much more? Was he merely a businessman operating a meager enterprise, or was he the commander of an army of leathery buccaneers who sailed the seas for plunder, bringing back spoils to sell for a price, raping ships at sea and harvesting the booty? Ah, well, who was he to judge how a man earned his keep?

  He was about to turn away when a familiar odor crept into his nostrils. His brow furrowed. Was that garlic? Dropping to his knees, he rummaged through the contents on the floor of the armoire, and drew back in horror at the discovery of a black bag tucked away in the farthest corner.

  Gingerly, he lifted it out and set it down on the floor. For an immortal afraid of nothing, he hesitated, fearful of what was inside. His pale hands fairly shook as he opened it, and his mouth tightened at the sight of the hawthorn stake, the vial of holy water, the string of garlic, and the wooden mallet—tools of a seasoned vampire hunter.

  Chapter 9

  “It’s not possible!” Pru wailed. “You’re just saying that to destroy my chances with him.”

  “Are you so sure of your pirate? I tell you, he is hiding a dangerous secret.”

  Yes, she had sensed as much, but certainly not this. “How can he be what you claim he is? He has no brothers, so how can he be a first born son?”

  “Who is to say his younger siblings didn’t die in childhood? Just because he has no living brothers does not mean he was an only child.”

  The tale of the Sanctum, a secret society of vampire slayers comprised of the first born sons of first born sons, tolled like a distant bell in Pru’s mind. “So what?” she argued. “Even if there were younger brothers, there are many first born sons who know nothing about our kind.”