“I see.”
Muir’s scent had been shifting constantly all through their conversation but now it settled into something he recognised as greedy, avid pleasure.
Drew pressed on. “And if you became aware that an offer might be well received—perhaps at a particular sum—that would be of considerable interest to me.”
“I am sure the other parties would say the same,” Muir said mildly.
“Possibly,” Drew agreed, “But would they be properly grateful? Which reminds me—” Drew reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small leather purse which he set on the table close to Muir.
Muir lifted it. Opened the fastening and peered inside.
“A little thank you,” Drew said. “For accommodating our visit today and for your attentiveness to my wife.” He smiled. “My friends would attest that I am a man who likes to show his gratitude.”
He stepped back from the table then. “Now, we have inconvenienced you long enough. I will collect my wife. She is in your office you said?”
“Allow me,” Muir said, stuffing the purse inside his coat pocket. “I’ll fetch her now.”
“Actually,” Drew said in a hushed tone, “if you don’t mind, I’ll do it. Given that she was feeling faint, she may have loosened some clothing or be adjusting her garters or some such thing—you know how women are!” He winked. “Best if I go.”
Muir’s flush deepened. “Oh, yes, of course. It’s the next door on your right. I’ll wait here.”
“Very good. I’ll just be a moment.”
Drew slipped out, closing the door behind him to discourage Muir from following, and softly knocked on the next door along.
“My dear,” he said in a coaxing tone. “Are you feeling quite recovered?”
“Yes, come in.”
When he opened the door, Marguerite was sitting in her chair, holding her reticule, the very picture of patient virtue.
“Are you ready to go?” Drew asked, raising a brow.
She patted her reticule with a satisfied look. “Very ready,” she said. “I have decided that skeletons are absolutely not for me.”
Chapter Ten
The past, part 3 – 28 years earlier
* * *
Paris, June 1792
* * *
The pony that the farmer’s wife had arranged to take Drew to Paris was a sorry old bag of bones.
The blacksmith in the village had the beast tied up at the front of his shop, waiting for Drew. Its dark brown coat was mangy and dull, and its eyes were listless. Poor thing looked like it had been near worked to death already.
“You can do what you like with it when you get to Paris,” the smith told Drew unsentimentally. “You might get something for it, I suppose.” His tone was doubtful.
Drew would have been quicker stripping and shifting to his wolf, but he needed to arrive with clothes on his back and in full control of himself, so the pony it had to be, though the going proved to be frustratingly slow.
Finally, though, he was on the outskirts of Paris, and when he happened upon a group of Roma people, he was able, in a mixture of halting French and sign language, to make a deal with them: the pony in exchange for a guide to the Place de la Révolution. A boy of around twelve was assigned to be his guide—he listened to his elder’s instructions in silence, then, with a curt comment to Drew to follow him, set off at a swift pace.
Drew followed the boy into the city and through a maze of streets. The boy was half-running the whole way and Drew had to walk briskly to keep up with him, and so it wasn’t long before they were approaching their destination.
Drew thanked the boy and gave him a coin. He tucked it into his ragged breeches, gave an unsmiling nod, and dashed off, disappearing into the crowd.
The Place was thronged with people and traffic. Drew pulled Francis’s written instructions out of his pocket and began to read them while passersby jostled him. He was just about to cross to the opposite corner of the Place when, quite unexpectedly, the faintest thread of an achingly familiar scent reached him, making him turn abruptly and collide with a woman carrying a large basket crammed with skeins of wool. She cursed him roundly while he muttered a distracted apology and pushed past her, following that trace of… Oh Christ, that was Lindsay’s scent.
How Drew could possibly know that, he had no idea, only that he did know it.
Without stopping to examine the wisdom of his actions, he followed the scent, walking faster, then faster still, following his nose, despite the fact it was leading him away from the Place de la Révolution.
There were too many people clogging the streets, too many voices chattering—far too many other scents—but Drew ignored them all. He gathered pace, beginning to jog, then run, cutting through the crowds without caring how many people he elbowed or how many angry curses he provoked. Lindsay’s intoxicating scent was luring him on and his wolf was wildly excited. It was such a perfect, wonderful smell—rain, dripping from tree branches, soaking into the loamy earth—and God! So utterly out of place in these filthy city streets.
He knew the instant before he turned the final corner that Lindsay was going to be on the other side of it. Knew even as he barrelled around, too fast, narrowly missing a small group of sans-culottes with their distinctive red caps, who berated him as he sped past. And then he saw him—Lindsay—standing further up the long street, looking frantically about him with a stunned, disbelieving expression. Elegant as ever in a beautifully-cut bottle-green coat and gleaming boots.
Drew stumbled to a halt and for an instant he stood there, paralysed, until Lindsay’s gaze swung to him as unerringly as the needle of a compass.
He saw Lindsay’s lips move, his mouth framing Drew’s own name. And then they were moving towards one another.
Drew realised with some part of his brain that he had to get control of the wolf instincts that had driven him here and that were now compelling him onwards, towards Lindsay. He had to think about what he was going to say and do. He slowed his pace, drawing to a halt, but Lindsay was still moving and as he closed the final few feet between them, his astonished expression began to transform into something very like joy. He reached for Drew as soon as he was close enough to touch him, grasping him by the shoulders and staring right into his eyes.
“I can’t believe it,” he said breathlessly. His smile was painfully happy. “You’re here. In Paris.” His lips parted and his eyes shone and for an instant all Drew could think was how much he wanted to kiss him.
And then he felt it. A powerful, dominant pulse of possessive desire, breaking against him like a wave slapping the hull of a great ship. It came from Lindsay and it was so intense, so demanding—it made him want to drop to his knees and expose his throat; to show his maker how much he revered him.
His final glimpse of Francis and Duncan as he left the farmhouse flashed in his mind. Nausea roiled in his belly. However much this might feel like true joy, genuine love, it was not. This was the manufactured bond that a bite created between maker and wolf. The same bond that had Francis and Duncan trapped in that farmhouse right now.
Drew took a swift step back, breaking Lindsay’s hold on him. “I am here because Francis asked me to come to Paris with him,” he said stiffly. “Didn’t he tell you I was coming?”
Lindsay let his arms fall to his sides, his smile fading as his dark eyes searched Drew’s face. “I had no idea till I caught your scent a few moments ago. I thought—” He broke off, glancing around as though he’d only just remembered where he was.
Drew realised they were attracting some curious looks. “Are we close to your house?” he asked.
Lindsay frowned. “Don’t you know where you are?”
Drew felt himself flush. “Not really. I was in the Place de la Révolution when I caught your scent and then I started—” He broke off, flushing.
“What?”
“Following it,” Drew admitted helplessly.
Lindsay blinked. “When did you notice it?”
<
br /> Drew cleared his throat. Shrugged. “A few streets back.”
Lindsay’s eyes widened. “But how did you know it was me? It’s been four years. And you’d only just transformed when I left. How could you—”
“I know your scent,” Drew said. When Lindsay’s lips curved, he added quickly, “I know the scent of everyone I’ve ever met. Francis says I’m like him. That I have an affinity for scents.”
“Oh,” Lindsay said, his smile fading. “I see.”
A man with a wide wooden handcart stopped beside them. He pulled off his red cap and began to complain in angry rapid French. Drew couldn’t make out what he said but his hostility was clear. Lindsay made a sharp reply even as he tugged Drew out of the man’s path to let him pass.
He was frowning when he met Drew’s gaze again.
“Let’s go to the house,” he said. “These streets become more uncivil by the day. The sooner we leave this city the better.”
Lindsay led Drew back in the direction he had come from. They crossed the Place de la Révolution and headed for one of the nearby side streets. Halfway down, Lindsay paused outside a tall, narrow house with a glossy black door.
“Here we are,” he said, and mounted the steps.
Drew followed him, watching as Lindsay unlocked the door and gestured to Drew to enter the small, tiled hallway.
“Are you hungry?” Lindsay asked behind him, as he followed Drew inside and secured the front door.
In truth, Drew was starving, but he wanted to deliver his news first. Before he could respond though, an old man’s voice interrupted. Thankfully his French was rather more comprehensible to Drew’s ear.
“Home, are you?” the voice said, as its owner shuffled out of the shadows and into the hallway. “Well, there’s cassoulet in the kitchen, and good bread from the market. I will bring you some.” As the speaker emerged into the light, Drew could see that he had been a tall man once and broad, but now his back was bowed and his shoulders were rounded with age. His eyes were bright, though, and they gleamed with affection when they rested on Lindsay. “Ah, my apologies. I didn’t realise you had a friend with you.”
Lindsay sent Drew an uncertain look, as though unsure of that description. Then he turned back to the old man.
“This is Drew Nicol. He’s a wolf. Drew, this is Monsieur Blaireau, Marguerite’s majordome.”
Drew gave a respectful nod and got one in return, but Monsieur Blaireau’s friendly expression faltered at the mention of Drew’s name and Drew had the distinct sense that the man already knew who he was… and wasn’t particularly pleased to meet him.
“I see,” Blaireau said. “Well, Madame is out just now. Perhaps—”
He got no further. Lindsay spoke over him, though his tone was kindly.
“Mr. Nicol and I are going to speak in the parlour for a while, my friend. Then we’ll have some of that excellent cassoulet. Does that sound all right?”
Blaireau sighed, but he nodded. “Very well. I’ll serve up in the dining room in half an hour.”
“Thank you,” Lindsay said, patting the man’s shoulder. Then he headed for the stairs, saying to Drew over his shoulder, “Follow me.”
As they climbed, Lindsay asked, “So what do you think of Paris? It’s your first visit, isn’t it?”
“Unsettling,” Drew said honestly. “The atmosphere is very strange. You can feel the threat of violence in the air.” In his case, he could scent it too. A sour, amorphous smell—the simmering rage of the mob. “That man with the handcart, for example. He was so angry. Just because we were standing there.”
“He was spoiling for a fight,” Lindsay said. “I suspect he picked on us because we weren’t wearing any patriotic emblems.” He sighed. “Thankfully we’ll be leaving Paris soon enough.” He led Drew down a tight corridor and into a small, cosy parlour, gesturing for Drew to sit, which he did, only to wish he hadn’t when Lindsay stayed on his feet.
“So, tell me,” Lindsay began. “Why is it that Francis decided to bring you to Paris with him?”
“He didn’t want to leave me alone in Edinburgh,” Drew said, flushing. His inability to control his wolf properly, even after four years, shamed him. “I’ve not dealt with a shift on my own since—well, since you bit me.”
Lindsay’s scent altered, signalling discontent. “I remember when we first discussed him staying with you in Edinburgh,” he said, frowning. “I wanted him to promise to be there for at least a year, but he refused to commit to any particular length of time.” He gave a short laugh and glanced ceilingward. “To think I was worried he’d leave you too soon. And now it’s been four years without his ever leaving your side.”
Drew watched Lindsay in silence, trying to interpret his sharp words and aggrieved expression. He sounded more irritated than anything else, but his scent was darkly jealous, and loweringly, something wolfish inside Drew responded to that.
When he spoke though, he did so calmly. “Francis is just as—and no more—protective of me as he is of everyone else,” he said.
Lindsay gave a rueful laugh. “I do actually know that.” He shook his head, as though exasperated. With himself perhaps. “Anyway, where is he?”
Drew took a deep breath. “In a farmhouse, a few miles outside Paris.” When Lindsay looked up sharply, plainly surprised, Drew added, “Duncan MacCormaic began following us a few days ago.”
Lindsay swallowed hard—Drew saw the betraying bob of his throat.
“He’d been trailing us for some time apparently,” Drew continued. “Once Francis realised, he let Duncan get closer and closer, till he was able to compel him. Earlier today, he managed to reel him in.”
“Francis is with Duncan now, then?” Lindsay said.
Drew nodded. “When I left him, he was holding him in a room at the farmhouse I mentioned. Francis commandeered it—he gave the farmer’s wife almost all his coin just to let him have the house for a day or two.” He gave a huff of laughter at the absurdity of that, running a shaking hand through his already dishevelled hair. Lindsay watched him, unsmiling.
“Anyway,” Drew went on. “He sent me ahead to tell you to leave Paris. You need to go soon because apparently Francis can only hold Duncan so long.”
Lindsay held his gaze for several long moments, then he turned away, strolling to the window. “Well, I didn’t expect that.” he said lightly, twitching the curtain aside and staring out at the street below. “Not Duncan—not you—not any of it.” He gave a brittle laugh. “To think, I was complaining to Marguerite of being bored over breakfast! I even thought I was heading for a spell of l’ennui.”
Francis had explained l’ennui to Drew during their journey—a state of melancholy that long-lived wolves sometimes went into.
“It is not easy to live these long years. One begins to question one’s purpose.”
When Francis had said that, Drew had shrugged and told him that such feelings were not the sole preserve of werewolves. He’d had exactly such thoughts as a human, following the death of his wife and child. He did not like to remember how Francis had looked at him then. The unbearable sympathy in his gaze.
For some reason, the thought of Lindsay feeling like that bothered him.
Lindsay’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“How long do I have before I must leave?” he asked.
Drew cleared his throat. “Not long, I’m afraid. Francis says he can only hold Duncan till tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s plenty of time,” Lindsay said. “Wynne and I are used to moonlit flits—or daylit in this case, I suppose. We can be packed and on our way very quickly.” He was still gazing out of the window, now resting his left temple against the glass. In profile he looked melancholy and Drew felt an unexpected bolt of resentment on his behalf.
“If it were up to me, I’d have killed Duncan so he couldn’t ever come after you again. But Francis won’t allow it.”
Lindsay shifted at that, turning to look at Drew, his expression curious.
/> Drew was aware of his heart beating, his blood rushing. Inside him, his wolf whined and paced.
“When he spoke of you, I wanted to kill him,” Drew admitted. At Lindsay’s soft look, he added quickly, “I know it’s the bond, but—” He broke off, shaking his head. Rubbed at the back of his neck again. His human self felt like a suit of ill-fitting clothes. Everything in him cried out for Lindsay, and his skin itched as though there were a thousand ants under his skin.
Was this how Lindsay felt too?
He certainly felt something. There were flashes of arousal and need and other things too fluid for Drew to identify in the knotty tangle of scents Lindsay was giving off.
Drew’s growing agitation forced him to his feet. He stood in the middle of the chamber, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides.
They stared at one another.
Lindsay said quietly, sincerely, “I think about you every day, you know. I long for you every single day.”
Drew closed his eyes, remembering the yearning he’d scented from Francis and Duncan. It was part of the bond. Manufactured and inescapable. It was not real.
“Do you ever think about me?” Lindsay’s voice broke on the words, quiet desperation in every syllable.
“How can I not?” Drew said hoarsely. “The bond compels me to do so.” He heard Lindsay’s soft footsteps approaching but couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.
“You think that’s all it is? The bond, compelling you to want me?”
“Isn’t it?”
Lindsay’s laugh was hollow. “I don’t know. My feelings for you are too big to measure and they haven’t diminished in the last four years. You are… everything to me. Have you any notion how terrifying that is?”
Finally, Drew opened his eyes. He said bleakly, “But it’s not real, Lindsay.”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t everything we experience real?” Lindsay raised his hand and rested it over his heart. “I feel it here,” he said. “An ache that will not ease.”
Master Wolf Page 10