Tainted Love

by Nancy Morse

  Christophe tried to raise his head, but in his weakened state the only thing he could move was his eyes. His lids fluttered and strained to see past the beautiful face hovering inches above his own. The last thing he saw was the French crucifix on the wall before the hands on his face tightened and with one quick motion snapped his neck.

  Nicholas rose and glared down at the dead body lying in a pool of its own blood. “Absinthe,” he said with a grimace. “I never did like the taste of that stuff.”

  He left the cottage on Rue d’Orleans, the taste of blood and absinthe lingering on his tongue. By the time the quadroon’s body was discovered, it would have decomposed beyond recognition, with no telltale sign of the puncture wounds on the throat. He could have buried it in the swamp, but he was anxious to get back to Rue Bourbon and to Prudence.

  The moonlight filtered through the limbs of the Spanish lime tree as he hurried along the flagstones to the front door. He didn’t wait for her to answer his knock. Pressing his fingers to the door, he pushed it open and entered the house.

  There was an eerie stillness about the rooms. The crystal chandeliers were unlit, the Oriental carpets bearing no trace of footsteps having tread on them. The silk screens painted with flowers and birds stood like lonely sentinels. He went from room to room, searching for a sign of treachery, detecting nothing in the cold, still air. The music room that had rang with the melodious chords of the violoncello was now deathly quiet. The parlor, once so lively with conversation, even if it was verbal sparring with Prudence, had a ghostliness about it. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. Something was not right.

  He took the stairs two at a time. Even he, so accustomed to the cold that ravaged his body, shivered at the icy fingers running up and down his spine as he raced to her room. He somehow knew even before he saw the empty bed that she would not be there. One thought tore through his mind. The window.

  He stood in the middle of the room, not daring to look toward the window for fear of finding the panes shattered like before. Drawing in a ragged breath he turned his face toward it. It was not broken. An immense sigh of relief shuddered through him. And yet, something, he knew not what, caused the breath to tighten in his chest. His gaze flew to the dressing table and flared wide to find it empty of the articles with which she primped. He went to the armoire and threw open the doors. Her clothes were missing from their hooks.

  Nicholas stumbled backwards. He threw his fist up to his mouth but could not stifle the audible groan. He stood rooted to his spot, trying desperately to make sense of it as his heart heaved in his chest.

  It could have been minutes; it could have been hours. Gradually, movement returned to his limbs, and with it came the chilling realization that she was gone.

  He turned and left the room. Outside, the leaves on the Spanish lime tree shuddered in the wind as he walked away from the house on Rue Bourbon.

  ***

  “Nicholas, mon ami! How good it is to see you.”

  But Marie’s elation at seeing her friend and former lover was short-lived when he pushed past her, demanding, “Is she here? Where is she?”

  “I do not understand,” she said, hurrying after him as he stormed from room to room.

  “Prudence. Is she here?” he snapped, his anger radiating through his distress.

  “No, she is not. I have not seen her in many days.”

  She practically slammed into him when he stopped abruptly and shrank back when he whirled to face her.

  “Where is that miserable pirate?”

  “Stede?” Marie’s face paled. “He left two days ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “He does not tell me where he goes, but—”

  “But what? Marie, if you know anything, you must tell me.”

  “I heard him talking to one of his men. He told the man to get the ship ready. The Marie’s Fortune. He named it after me.”

  “Did she go with him?” His tone was accusing, the look in his eyes beseeching.

  Meekly, the girl replied, “I do not know.”

  “Where is the ship now?”

  Was it true? Had Stede run off with Prudence? Marie bit a corner of her lip, hesitating. Would he do such a thing to her? Her chin trembled and she struggled in vain to keep the tears at bay as her hands ran over her softly swelling belly beneath her dress. “On the south side of Grand Terre,” she said. “That is where you will find the ship.”

  He left her standing there, her heart on the verge of breaking.

  Anger in him built to a deafening crescendo, blocking out all thought. The moon was large over the moss-draped cypresses as a tiny winged creature took flight, winging its way over the swamp and across the water.

  ***

  The Marie’s Fortune was sailing before a light breeze. On deck, Pru stood at the bulwark, arms resting on the rail, lost in thought as she watched the dolphins swimming alongside the ship.

  Nicholas would have discovered her absence by now. If she knew him, he wasn’t taking it very well. She felt guilty for her surreptitious flight in the middle of the night, but what choice did she have? She had no doubt that he would kill Christophe and then return for her. His words rankled in her mind. “You are mine,” he said. “You will always be mine.” She could not deny the unbridled passion she felt in his arms, but neither could she give him what he wanted—her love. Love was just an inconvenience of the heart. Look what it had gotten her. She had gone to great lengths to secure a man’s love only to have him fall in love with another woman. No, she was not likely to ever fall in love again, and certainly not with the vampire who swore he’d never let her go.

  “How is your father?”

  At the sound of Stede’s voice, she turned and hid her thoughts behind a smile. “Not much better, I’m afraid. This voyage has him looking rather green.”

  He came to stand beside her at the rail, the wide sleeves of his shirt billowing in the sea breeze. “The best thing for seasickness is to fix your eyesight on a spot on the horizon.”

  “I doubt I can convince him to come topside,” she said. “He has refused to leave his bunk for two days now.” Her one consolation was that if papa insisted on remaining below deck, at least he’d be resting on native soil, thanks to her foresight in scooping up several handfuls before leaving the house.

  “A small price to pay for avoiding a gambling debt.”

  She hated perpetuating the lie Nicholas told him about papa, but it was better than the truth of what they were running from. “He gave me his word he will never enter another gambling house for as long as he lives.” And that would be a very long time, she thought with wry amusement.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said as he gazed out upon the blue-green Caribbean Sea. “What if I was to turn the Marie’s Fortune into a gambling ship?”

  “Aren’t there already gambling houses on the water?”

  “Yeah, sure, the flatboats. But that’s not where the money is. It’s in the pockets of the gentry. If given the choice, I’m thinking those fine gentlemen would rather gamble in luxury than side by side with the Kaintocks. Besides, the Mississippi current is so strong the flatboats can only move downstream, and until someone builds a boat that can move upriver under its own power, it takes a hell of a lot of poling against the current to get back upriver. Can’t you just see it, Pru? A floating palace with a cafè on board and maybe even a little cabaret below deck. Ha! Imagine it. Me, a legitimate entrepreneur.” He threw his head back and laughed, the sound skimming across the water.

  Pru looked at his profile etched against the blue sky. These were the same features that had captured her heart, yet something was different, and with a start she realized that the difference resided within herself. The pain of despair she’d felt over losing him had eased to mild discomfort, and the love she’d once had for him had somehow changed to simple affection. She suppressed a laugh of self-deprecation. After all the trouble she’d gone through to win his love—even resortin
g to a voodoo love potion—this was what it had come to.

  Sweeping the burnished strands of hair from her eyes, she asked, “Where are we headed?”

  “Port Royal off the southern coast of Jamaica. The town’s not what it used to be. In its heyday it was the place for enterprising men much like me to set up shop, being so close to Spanish shipping lanes. The locals tell stories about how a big earthquake over a hundred years ago dumped most of the city into the harbor. These days it’s pretty much just a fishing village, but it has a natural deepwater harbor good for protecting ships at anchor. I’ll drop you and your father off there. Here, you’ll need this.” Into her hand he pressed a pouch jingling with coins. “This should buy you passage aboard another ship.”

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this, Stede.”

  “There’s no need, Pru. When you showed up at Grand Terre, I knew right off something was wrong. Is it him?”

  “Partly,” she admitted. “Nicholas will find you and demand to know where you’ve taken me. What will you tell him?”

  “The truth. Port Royal. From there, who knows?

  “What about you? Where are you off to?”

  “Back to Nawlins. To Marie. She’s been talking some nonsense lately about getting married. I never figured I was the marrying kind, but—” He shrugged. “She’s carrying my babe, so, yeah, why not?”

  She would miss this pirate with the bright gray eyes and happy-go-lucky nature and the lilting cadence of his speech that marked him as a man of this time and place.

  “I’m happy for you and Marie,” she said, and though she meant it, she could not help but feel a bit sorry for herself.

  Stede and Marie had a future ahead of them filled with children and grandchildren. Fortune was not so kind to her, however. Where was the love for which she hungered? In which direction did her future lie? Was her wish for mortality destined to remain an unanswered prayer?

  ***

  Nicholas returned to his cottage at the bend in the bayou, inconsolable with grief and pain and rage. When he’d gotten to the island, the ship, and Prudence, were gone. He had lost the one true love of his life. He howled a lost and lonely lament, the sound infiltrating every dark corner of the swamp.

  Long into the night he sat on the floor, his back pressed against the wall of cypress timber, looking at nothing, feeling nothing. Even his pain had drained out of him, leaving a hollow shell in which the beats of his broken heart echoed. Little by little the blood thirst came upon him. It started in the pit of his belly and worked its way insidiously into his throat, but he made no move to sate it. He didn’t want to hunt, tonight or ever. He wanted the one thing that someone like him would never have—peace. Peace of mind. Peace of heart. The peace that comes to all mortals in their final moments. If he could will himself into eternal sleep, he would have done so, if only to be released from the prison of immortality. The one bright spot in his life over all these centuries had been snuffed out like a tallow candle as if it had never existed. What was left for him now except bitter memories of love unrequited and a life half-lived in darkness?

  Prudence.

  Her name formed like a prayer in his mind. He hated her beyond endurance. He loved her beyond belief. With her, he could embrace life. Without her, he could only endure it. Aching for redemption and deliverance, he knew he would never find it now.

  Somewhere in the wide world was the only being who had ever seen that part of him that was lost forever—his soul. If only there was a way to get her back. But where was she? Where would he even begin to look? A great sigh racked his body. She was gone.

  Gone.

  He closed his eyes, shuddering inside, holding back the threatening tide of emotion.

  And then, when all seemed lost, a glimmer of hope pierced his consciousness like a dim ray of light in a dark and lonely place. Perhaps there was a way to get her back, after all.

  He pushed himself up from the floor and went to his bedroom. Grasping the brass handles of the top drawer of the chifferobe, he slid it open. There it was, just waiting for the right time to be of use to him. He lifted it out and smiled wickedly. If it took him until the end of the world he would find her. And when he did, he would use this—the Book of Chants he’d told Prudence was lost in the swamp—to lure her back to him with the promise of the one thing she desired above all others.

  Mortality.

  The End

  Dear Reader:

  I write about love, that crazy thing that makes us act like jerks when we’re trying hard to be cool. For anyone who has ever loved, or loved and lost, or been a fool for love, or done things in the name of love, whether it’s puppy love or love so strong it defies all logic, love on the Grand Prix racing circuit or love aboard a pirate ship, I welcome you to enter my historical and contemporary romance novels…where love is always an adventure.

  I want to thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please help others find it. There are ways you can do this.

  1. This book is lendable, so send it to a friend who you think might enjoy it.

  2. Help others find this book by writing a review.

  3. Discover my other books listed below, or visit my website.

  4. As a reader, I often discover wonderful new books through word of mouth, so if you enjoyed this one, or any of my other books, I would ask that you spread the word.

  Again, thank you. You are what makes this all worthwhile.

  ***

  http://www.nancymorse.com

  http://www.amazon.com/author/nancymorse

  Historical and Contemporary Romance

  Where Love Is Always An Adventure

  ***

  Also Available:

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