The Moonlight Mistress

by Victoria Janssen

  His hands, so large and ludicrously familiar and comforting, rubbed her back as she had just rubbed his, then gradually pressed harder, crushing some of the ache out of her muscles. “You’re wearied.”

  Lucilla could only nod.

  “I must leave sometime tomorrow. I was not…I am supposed to be in Paris before I return to headquarters. Are you well?”

  “I had some patients at the last minute—Pascal!” Stunned that she’d temporarily forgotten about what she’d just seen, Lucilla pulled away and grabbed fistfuls of Pascal’s uniform jacket. She couldn’t think what to say.

  “You’re not well?” he asked, sounding worried.

  “No, no, that’s not it. Hell! You just missed him!”

  “Missed whom?” He scowled. “You have another lover?”

  Lucilla laughed. “This is a hospital operated by women, did you discover that, as well? No, of course I have no lover. This is—not two hours ago, I met a werewolf.”

  “She was here?”

  Lucilla was gratified he had no doubt of her truthfulness. “She? Oh, Kauz’s werewolf. No! This was another. A British officer, of all things. Pascal, I saw him change form.”

  His eyes widened. “Why did he do this? Why did you not tell me immediately?”

  “You were kissing me,” she pointed out. “I was glad to see you. I forgot.”

  Pascal leaned down and kissed her again. “And I you. So your werewolf, he’s gone?”

  “Back to his unit, I’m afraid. He came because of his batman—oh, it’s a long story,” she said. She didn’t think Pascal would betray Hailey’s secret, but she didn’t have the right to share that secret, so it was better to avoid the subject. Of course, she’d just betrayed Captain Ashby’s secret, but that didn’t feel the same; she hadn’t given his name or identifying information, after all. And she was sure Captain Ashby could take care of himself. Pascal had suspected about werewolves and had been searching for proof. Keeping that proof from him would be a greater betrayal by far.

  Pascal said, “You need not tell it to me now. Please, tell him I would like to speak with him. I will give you a way he can send a message to me.”

  She said, “I’ll do it as soon as I can.” Weariness settled on her head, pressing her down. “I haven’t slept in…I don’t know. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Very well,” Pascal said. “I have news for you, though, which should not wait. I, also, have met a werewolf, or someone who claims to be so. I have not seen her change form. She is a spy, a Belgian who is working against the Germans, and I fear she is a bit mad. That is the other reason I came to see you. I wanted to speak to you about this.”

  “She,” Lucilla said. “Is she Kauz’s werewolf?”

  He hesitated. “I think she might be. She is not very forthcoming. I was not as charming as I might have been.”

  Lucilla couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She cupped his cheek in her hand. He turned his face and kissed her palm, softly from his lips and prickly from his mustache, then slipped his arms around her. She said, “May we talk about it more tomorrow?” She pressed closer to him. “I’ve missed talking with you.”

  “I think of you every day. Sometimes, I imagine what you would say. My imagination is not satisfactory, however.” His hands slid lower, cupping her rear and squeezing lightly.

  “We have to bolt the door,” she said. “I can’t be caught with a man in here.” For the first time, she blessed the exigencies that had led to her sleeping far from the wards. She might not be getting any chemistry done, but at least she could have this benefit.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  Lucilla followed him with her eyes as he threw the bolt and secured the loop of string she’d added for additional privacy. “I suppose we’ll have to share the bed,” she said. “Only this time it’s mine.”

  How wicked, to invite a man into her bed. She could not think of anything she wanted more. Though if she pondered practicalities, she was sure his feet would freeze. Her bed wasn’t long enough for him, and she doubted her blankets were much better. Perhaps he would wake in the night, freezing, and want to find warmer quarters.

  Pascal touched her cheek. “I’ve dreamed of sleeping next to you. I was sorely disappointed each time to wake and find it untrue.”

  Lucilla couldn’t find words to respond to this statement, which held the ring of truth. She turned away from him, dragged her cap from her head amid a spatter of hairpins and tossed it atop a crate. Her short cape was next, then her bloodstained apron. Pascal’s hands closed over her shoulders and massaged them for a few moments, occasionally leaning down to kiss the back of her neck. She moaned in relief. “Thank you,” she whispered. He helped her with the rest of her clothing, then stripped off his own uniform, heedlessly letting it fall to the dirt floor. Within a few moments, they were crammed together in her narrow bed, one of Pascal’s long legs crooked over her hip and his chest hot against her back. He felt so good that she shuddered; she’d forgotten what it was like to be touched so fully, with such intimate intent. He squeezed his arm around her belly, curling his fingers into her waist, circling his thumb on her skin.

  He murmured in French, so close to her skin she couldn’t discern his words, then kissed her ear. “Sleep.”

  “Pascal,” she whispered, already half drowning in slumber. She remembered nothing more until deep in the night, when she woke, gritty eyed, to his hands gently shaping her breasts.

  “Dreaming,” she mumbled, turning her face partially toward his nuzzling. His mustache pricked her cheek, then she felt the satiny brush of his tongue at the corner of her mouth. She turned in his arms and pressed her cold nose into his chest. When he didn’t flinch away, she clutched him more tightly.

  He eased his arms around her and kissed her behind the ear. “You smell delicious,” he said.

  “I’m so tired,” she said.

  His hands stilled, then moved in a long, soothing stroke down her spine. “Go back to sleep, then,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “You came all this way.”

  “It’s enough to lie here with you in my arms.”

  “That’s tosh,” she said. “I can feel your cock on my leg.”

  Pascal chuckled against her hair. “It can remain there. I’ve not died of it yet.”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. “If you leave without fucking me, I shall be very angry,” Lucilla said.

  His arms crushed her close. He didn’t say anything.

  “That is why you came here, isn’t it?” she asked, shifting against him for the pleasurable sensation of their skin stroking across one another. The thin stream of cold air that always worked its way into her hut from one crack or another blew across her bare shoulder, but the rest of her was warming deliciously. A male body provided a sovereign cure against cold weather.

  Pascal tucked the blanket back over her shoulder, from where it had fallen. “You didn’t want me to see you again,” he said. His voice gave nothing away, and his chin blocked her view of his facial expression, dimly lit by electric light shining in the window.

  “You’re in my bed now, aren’t you?”

  “I was already here. You could hardly push me out into the night.”

  Lucilla sighed. “I could have. I do want you.”

  “If I happen to be present. You would not have sought me out.”

  He had no right to be angry at her. She’d made no promises. Lucilla sat up and shoved at his chest with her hand. “I didn’t think you wanted to see me again!”

  Pascal captured her hand in his and kissed it, hard enough that she felt the pressure of his teeth through his lips. “I did not lie to you at Le Havre! Why did you doubt me?”

  His tone was angry, but his expression pained. Lucilla found she couldn’t meet his gaze. It wouldn’t be wise to tell him that she’d given up trusting men’s words long ago. Clearly, he felt he should be an exception. So far, he had proven himself to be an exception. Everything he had done since his arrival
spoke of a deeper attachment than Lucilla had dared imagine or hope for. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She’d only worried about being hurt herself.

  Pascal still held her hand. He kissed it again, gently this time, his mustache tickling between her knuckles. “If I misread your interest, I’m sorry,” he said. “I will leave if you ask me to do so. Even now.”

  Lucilla snorted and squeezed his fingers. “You don’t want to stride nobly out into the night. I appreciate that you offered, though.”

  “I would do it!” he protested.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said, took back her hand and lay down again, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his bare skin. “I was afraid,” she muttered. “Afraid I would never see you again.”

  “Because you want me to fuck with?” he asked, but his tone now was soft, teasing.

  She replied, “I could’ve had any number of dashing young men in my bed if I’d wanted.”

  Pascal ran his big hand down her arm, raising fine hairs in its wake. “Perhaps one of them would not be so inconvenient as to arrive in the middle of the night, unannounced, and then to discomfit you with talk of affection.”

  Lucilla laid her head on his shoulder. “One of those men would be a poor bargain, then.” She chuckled. “How silly you are. No one else wants me.”

  “They’re incredibly foolish, then.” Pascal ducked his head and kissed her, closemouthed but lingering. “I obtained two English journals and read your work. You are worth any five of the men I knew at Cambridge.”

  Lucilla blinked. “What?”

  “The Journal of Palliative Care,” he said. “And the other, Pharmacopia.”

  “You read—”

  “I am not entirely sure I understood the implications of your report in Pharmacopia. My knowledge of chemistry was not sufficient. Perhaps later, you can—”

  “Pascal!”

  He kissed her ear. “Pardon. I became distracted.”

  He’d read her work. He’d gone to the trouble to find what she had written, to seek out journals in a foreign tongue and then to both read them and strive for understanding. No one, not even her own mother and father, had ever done so much, cared so much about the work she’d spent years producing. A glow expanded to fill her chest and belly, a deep joy such as she’d never felt before. Lucilla captured Pascal’s cheeks between her palms and kissed him softly. “Enough talking,” she said.

  She pushed him flat, arching herself over him, letting her nipples tease his chest, teasing herself at the same time, staring into his eyes and watching them crinkle at the corners. He would have creases there when he grew older. Propping herself on one arm, she smoothed her hand over his tousled brown hair, then pressed his mouth open with her fingers. His tongue swept out, encircling, sucking. She closed her eyes, swaying. She collapsed against him slowly, nestling herself into each hollow of his long body, stroking his lips and mustache with her damp fingers, then letting him suck them again.

  After a while, he dragged her up along him until they could kiss mouth to mouth. Lucilla experimented, brushing her lips so lightly against his that it felt as if a breeze blew over her skin. She licked her lips, then his, and did it again, pressing in slowly until their mouths slid slickly one across the other. Pascal made a sound, and she knew he’d made the same mental connection she had, of his cock sliding wetly in her vagina. She couldn’t keep up her teasing long. After a quick taste of his inner lip, she plunged her tongue into his mouth for a long, deep kiss, and slid her hand down to mimic the action on his cock. When she drew back from his mouth, Pascal laughed unsteadily. His hands moved restlessly over her back. “You are ravishing me,” he whispered. “Please continue.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Anything I like?”

  “I would be pleased to discover what pleases you,” Pascal said. “Then may we converse?”

  “About?” Lucilla teased the tip of her finger beneath his foreskin and watched him arch and shudder.

  “What—what we will do.”

  “I thought that was quite clear,” she said, giving his cock a firm stroke.

  “After. What we will do when the war ends.” Pascal’s eyes squeezed shut, then he opened them and stared directly at her. “I don’t wish to lose you.”

  She didn’t want to spoil this moment. “Later,” she said. “We’ll speak of it later.”

  “Very well.” His hand closed over hers, stopping her movement. “We have many things to talk about, together.”

  Lucilla smiled. “That’s true.” Still smiling, she bent and kissed him, then slid down upon his cock.

  Afterward, she lay half on, half beside him in the narrow bed, petting his chest hair with one hand and cupping his jutting hipbone with the other, her thumb circling lightly on the thin skin there. “I would like to read some of your writing,” she said. “Is any in English, or German? I’m afraid my technical vocabulary in French is nonexistent, outside of chemistry.”

  “I—” His hand shifted on her back. “I would like to, but I fear I cannot.”

  “I see.” She asked, “Have you reported on research like Kauz’s experiments? With people or animals?”

  “No!”

  “But he’s part of it, isn’t he? Kauz, and what he did. Does.”

  Warily, Pascal said, “Perhaps.”

  “Why?”

  “I cannot tell you.” He turned and looked closely at her. “They are not my secrets to share.”

  His expression pled for understanding. She said reluctantly, “I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  “Others, more than me,” he said. “I will tell you later, if I can obtain permission. I want to tell you more.”

  He was keeping secrets from her, yet she still trusted him. She said, “I’ll hold you to it.”

  13

  PASCAL USED THE SERVANTS’ ENTRANCE TO SLIP into the house at Rue Deuxième. He’d been hoping no one would notice he’d been gone for two days longer than his errand had warranted. The entrance was guarded, of course, but only by old Armand, who knew where he’d gone and why, and had cared for Pascal’s cats in his absence. Pascal set a bottle of wine on the kitchen table, and Armand turned it to see the vintage. “I hear that Antwerp has surrendered to the Boche,” he said. “Did our people escape?”

  “There is no word yet.” Armand shook his head, as if to fling off worry, and said, “And your errand? It was successful?”

  Pascal broke into a smile.

  Armand cackled. “If only I were twenty years younger, I would have accompanied you, and found myself a pretty English nurse.” He tapped out his pipe and added, “You’re a good boy, bringing me wine that I cannot afford on my pension. If you stay here and watch the door, I will make you coffee and an omelette.”

  He hadn’t eaten in almost nine hours. “Gladly.” He took over Armand’s chair, checked the pistol that lay to hand and propped his aching feet on a crate of turnips. “My informant—the blond woman—was to return this week. Did you see her?” Armand knew everything that went on in the Rue Deuxième.

  Armand looked up from the basket of onions. “The skinny one? Who is mad?”

  “She’s not—”

  Armand shook his head sadly. “Mad. She would cut a man’s balls off, that one, should he cross her. My second cousin’s third wife—”

  Pascal interrupted; Armand’s stories could stretch indefinitely. “Have you seen Madame Claes at all this week? Or had any word of her here?”

  “None at all. She went to Antwerp, you know.”

  Pascal’s stomach plunged to his feet. “She did not.”

  “She did. The colonel had a message, and she said she would take it, and no one else. We do not know if she was successful. We will not know until Piron and Verhelst return, if they return.”

  Pascal cursed, long and fluently, while Armand broke eggs into a bowl, added a little milk and beat them to a froth. As he wound down, Armand said, “I thought the English nurse was your woma
n. You are after the mad Belgian, too?”

  “It is imperative she stay alive,” he growled. “She is the most excellent spy we have.”

  “Not if she cannot obey orders,” Armand said. “In my day, men were shot for less.” He folded the omelette.

  “She is not a soldier,” Pascal said. “She has signed no papers. Our only hold on her is her hatred of the Boche.”

  “Ah,” said Armand. “That hold can be powerful.”

  “Not if her own hatred is stronger than is useful. I fear she will do something foolish, and be killed, and then where shall we be?” Pascal stared down at the omelette Armand slid in front of him and remembered one of his first meetings with Madame Claes.

  He’d sat across a table from her, and pushed papers across its surface. “If you memorize these maps now, as a human, it should help you as a wolf.”

  Her lip curled. “Do you think me a fool? I have already studied maps of the terrain.”

  “Unless you can fly, these maps are better. They show the lines of entrenchment from the air.”

  She spread the maps and peered at them, silently tracing lines with her finger. She said at last, in a distant tone, “It should not be, but it is true. From above, the lines look exactly the same. Never mind. I will know them by their scent.”

  Pascal wondered if she could truly tell friend from enemy by scent. If she could, would she have been taken captive by Kauz? And what if she was taken captive in Antwerp?

  Many duties awaited him, many more pressing than the fate of one woman, but he felt more responsible for her fate than for any other’s. She’d come to him first, with information, but she might not have continued had he not encouraged her and tried to channel her abilities for the good of France and, ultimately, Belgium. Had he been wrong to do so? He wasn’t used to doubting and rethinking his decisions in this way. He tried to remain scrupulously logical in these matters, but this time he had followed his emotions, as he did too often with women. Perhaps it had been unwise to trust that Madame Claes would know when the danger she courted was too much.