Midnight Temptation

by Nancy Gideon

  As they walked toward the bridge across the Seine, all Nicole’s senses came jarringly alive. Alarm sizzled through her like a charged current, making the hairs prickle up along her arms and rise at the nape of her neck.

  Mon Dieu! What was it?

  Still tucked into Frederic’s side, she let her gaze fly along the outline of intimate cafés, seeking out the source of danger. She could taste terror in the back of her throat just above where her heart seemed to crowd, beating a frantic tempo.

  And then her gaze settled far back in the shadows, upon the figure of a man in stark silhouette. She saw him jerk as if with some shock of recognition, then he took one gliding step forward to the edge of lamplight.

  Reflection played an eerie game upon his face, highlighting skin so fair it seemed translucent and hollows so sharp and deep they were like caverns; a face so startling, so unnaturally beautiful she came close to stumbling in her study. Beneath an arch of black brows, eyes of an icy, luminous blue entranced her. And even as she jerked her head away, she caught the impression of his smile; serene and sinister all at once.

  Nicole had never seen the Devil, but on this night, she was sure he walked abroad. And she was just as certain that he followed safely back amongst the shadows. She could feel him, an essence so powerful, it frightened her. But the moment they crossed the bridge, the sensations faded and she knew he was gone. But the fear lingered, lending a quickness to her heartbeats and an anxious panic to her mind.

  “ARE YOU SURE?” the woman demanded again as her companion sprawled indolently within one of her chairs so that his legs dangled over one arm and his head hung down over the other. He was smiling most provokingly.

  “Of course I am sure.” He gave a leisurely stretch, extending his arms over his head and arching like a supple cat. A dark, deadly cat. He continued to smile as he watched her agitation grow. A cautious soul would have been wary, but he had no soul to fear for.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Across the river to that bastion of young hedonists who call themselves defenders of the poor. Forgive me, but I was unable to follow over the flow of water. A nuisance, but what can one do.”

  “She was alone?”

  He waved a negligent hand. “She was with other mortals.”

  “But she, alone, sensed you.”

  “Ummm. Quite an experience that was. I felt her testing me all the way across the square. She’s very strong, but I don’t think she understands the power. Not yet.”

  The woman ceased her pacing and regarded him with a pensive smile. “Not yet. Oh, this is too wonderful.”

  “I thought you would be pleased, cara. And how do you plan to reward me for bringing you this news?”

  She knelt down beside him, seeing her beauty dazzle in his pale eyes. “You have my eternal devotion.”

  “Pah!” He laughed at that. “Oh, mia amora, I know exactly what that vow is worth. Give me something—new.”

  She bent down close to the diabolical perfection of his face; the mocking face of her three-century-old lover, and she let her fingertips trail down the taut arch of his throat. His eyes slid down to a glittery half-mast as the muscles moved beneath her touch in a roil of anticipation.

  “You, my love,” she purred against the cool part of his lips, “shall have the first taste of her innocent blood.”

  Chapter Six

  “WHERE HAVE YOU been?”

  Marchand glowered up at them over a nearly emptied bottle of wine when they joined him in the quiet café; quiet for the Latin Quarter, where life didn’t truly begin until after sunset.

  “We aren’t all that late, mon frère,” Frederic replied, reaching down to rumple his brother’s hair. Marchand jerked away with a toss of his head, his mood too dark to be easily dismissed.

  “Tomorrow, I go to bury a friend. I’m glad you are amused by my unwillingness to bury another.”

  “March, you worry too much.”

  “And you, not at all.” He poured himself another glass, nearly missing it with the spill of rich red liquid, making Nicole wonder if this was his first bottle or merely one in a procession. “You were with your romantic-minded friends, plotting revolution as if it was some piece of pretty fiction flowing from your pen, as if you will be able to blot up the blood that spills if you decide it displeases you.”

  “I don’t want to argue this with you tonight. Let’s talk of something else,” Frederic suggested amiably. He seated the two ladies, then assumed a spot at his brother’s elbow.

  But Marchand shook his head. “No, I want to talk of it. And I want you to listen.”

  “All right. I’m listening.” Frederic spoke with a resigned sigh, as if he were placating a difficult child. And that hint of patronage angered Marchand all the more. He tossed down the last of his wine and banged the glass upon the table.

  “Can’t you see what a farce this all it? Why, half of Paris claims to be artists and freethinkers, when all they are are weak individuals following in a common mold. By their outbursts they proclaim their lack of originality. Such theatrics these bohemians display, shunning everything that speaks of comfort or success. They claim to espouse fraternity, equality and freedom from self-interest, but I say if it were a genuine contempt for this bourgeois life, they wouldn’t dream of it and cry over its loss. This poverty they worship like some golden calf gives them an excuse to ignore their responsibilities to family and to this nation as a whole. I say they are cowards and fools.”

  “You have very little respect for me, Marchand,” Frederic said softly. “A moment ago, I was ready to fight to protect your views. Will you discard mine as so unimportant? You always have, you know.”

  “That’s not true. You have a marvelous gift for words. All I ask is that you go back and finish your education. Make something of your life. Devote it to a worthy cause.”

  “I already have.” And he reached out to cup his brother’s flushed face between his hands, wishing to quietly convey his conviction.

  “No!” He pushed Frederic’s hands away.

  “March, can’t you trust me to follow my own conscience?”

  “Your conscience? You wail and moan about how your conscience won’t permit you to attend school and better yourself. You cry about how it would be a sin against your moral character to support yourself and raise a decent family. You hide behind some romantic notion that it would prostitute your integrity to put food on the table while I—while I sell my principles so you will have that freedom. Here.” He slapped a heap of coins upon the table. “That is the cost of my pride. Take it. Squander it on your vain pleasures. Use it to fuel your foolish revolt. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. See how many of your noble friends remain when you are truly poor.”

  He stood up, spilling his chair over backward. Frederic surged up to catch his shoulders.

  “March, what is wrong with you? Why are you speaking this way?”

  He reached up to clasp his brother’s forearms, squeezing tight. “You are all I have . . . all I have. I cannot let you risk your life for such a fruitless cause.”

  Frederic smiled at him. “Ah, but what good is life if it’s not spent in a cause worth dying for? You can’t weigh that value for me. I alone have that privilege.”

  “Please, Frederic . . . please don’t involve yourself in this. Don’t follow after folly just like—” He broke off, emotions overcoming his power of speech.

  “Just like Papa?”

  Marchand recoiled as if Frederic had struck him. Realizing his error, Frederic tried to tighten his grasp but Marchand pulled away from it and without a word, stalked from the café into the shadow-drenched streets.

  And without thinking, Nicole was up, racing after him.

  She fell in step and walked with him in silence, waiting for him to acknowledge she was there. He gave her a quick glan
ce, then focused upon the winding road ahead

  “He was a fool, a dreamer. Frederic doesn’t remember like I do. Always some cause, always some brave and futile rebellion with the needs of the many more important than the needs of his family. Oh, how he made my mama cry. But she stood by him, letting him sell off all our silver, letting him sell out our futures for his frivolous plots and schemes. Damn him! How we fought, shouting until he’d raise his hand to me in anger. But he never struck me, not until I told him I was going into the military. He threw me down the front steps, called me traitor, told me never to come home again. He didn’t understand that I was just trying to provide some sense of security for Mama and Frederic. And him. I needed some order in my life, a sense of stability he would never give us. But he would not listen.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He lost his head for treason against the state. They wouldn’t let me provide him with a decent burial. I went to Mama, to take care of her, and she wouldn’t see me. She took her own life a month later. I never got the chance to tell her—anything.”

  Nicole reached over to touch the back of his hand. Oh, how she knew that feeling of desperate loss! “I’m so sorry.”

  His fingers spread wide, inviting hers to wend between them as he shrugged eloquently. “But you don’t want to hear all this.”

  “We are friends, aren’t we?”

  He looked down at her with a fragile smile. “Yes, we are friends.”

  “Friends listen.”

  He said nothing, but his fingers squeezed tight around hers as they continued to walk.

  “So what happened then?”

  “I got Frederic accepted into the university and I devoted myself to my military career. I had hopes that everything would be fine, but Frederic, he got himself involved with these agitators and I found myself caught up in the July Rebellion. We were to scour the town to disperse the gatherings, while citizens threw saucepans and flowerpots down upon our heads. We were ordered to fire upon them in the Rue des Pyramides and the Rue St. Honoré. A baker’s workman threw the body of a woman who’d been killed by our fire at our heads, crying, “This is what your comrades do to our women! Will you do the same?” and that night, two companies of the Fifth Regiment went over the side of the revolt. I went with them. It was the only time Frederic and I wore the tricolor cockcades together.

  “When Louis-Philippe took power, I was asked to join in his army and I was proud to do so. I believed so strongly in everything I was told. Until the day I found myself with musket drawn, aiming it down the alleyways at my brother’s friends. A boy of no more than a half score of years lay dead upon the stones. I put down my gun that day. I could no longer understand my purpose in serving a ruler who would have me shoot down the very people who brought him to power, those he’d had us vow to die to protect.”

  “And so now you protect Frederic and his friends.”

  “It’s what I’ve sworn to do, and he fights me as I once fought our father. We are so far apart in the things we believe and yet the same in what we desire. Why can there never be a balance?”

  “I don’t know, Marchand.”

  He drew to a stop then, his expression troubled by more than what he’d said. He was kneading her fingers with his, a restless, agitated movement, one he was unaware of.

  “March, who is De Sivry?”

  He went very still, and for a moment she thought he would refuse to answer. Then he told her in a taut voice, “He is a member of the Paris underworld that preys upon the innocent like my brother. It is his whispering that stirs discontent and coaxes men to believe that violence is the only answer. Fools! If they listen to anyone, it should be to Marat, the villain of the Revolution. But he was a Frenchman and a realist who knew it was impossible to have a revolution without wholesale executions. Rebellion is borne in blood. I’ll not have Frederic’s spilled in its name. Not when nothing will change in the long run.”

  “And so you deal with De Sivry to keep him from your brother.”

  “And because he pays enough for me to support them all.”

  “Pays you to do what?”

  He looked away. “Whatever he asks.” She didn’t need to ask if those things were illegal. His unspoken anguish said they were. And then he told her in a hush of despair, “I think he may have killed Camille because I said I wanted to quit him.”

  “Marchand, no—” But she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t offer proof. Still, Nicole knew in her heart that no man killed Camille Viotti. No normal man.

  “Today, I helped break a man’s fingers because he was late in making a loan payment.” He glanced at her briefly and she watched the pain fill up in his eyes and liquify with a blink. “I try to hold to the image of Frederic and Bebe and Musette to erase the shame. I tell myself I must do what I must do and stay strong for them because I cannot support them if my conscience falters.”

  “And who supports you?”

  Her gentle question confused him.

  “Who is strong for you?”

  He stared at her, incomprehensibly.

  “I can be,” she told him, because she hurt so deeply for his solitary stand. She was beginning to understand how desolate that could be. “You may lean on me, Marchand. I’m strong enough to support you.”

  He didn’t move. She could see the uncertainty behind his gaze working to suppress any threads of hope. He’d gone too long alone to believe he could ever share the burden. Until she stepped up and put her arms about his waist and hugged firmly. She felt his startled inhalation and the churn of his inner struggle. Then, at last, his arms came up to curl about her and his cheek pillowed itself atop her head. And as he clutched tight and tremors shivered along his powerful embrace, she vowed she would not fail this man who, in such a short time, had come to mean so very much to her.

  She felt his kiss stir her hair and the vibration of his speech.

  “You are very brave to align yourself with such a pack of hopeless fools.”

  “Life has no value if not attached to a cause. You’ve taken me into your family and I think it only right that I help defend it.”

  He didn’t laugh, because he was picturing her braced against wet brick with eyes flashing fire. He stroked a hand along her hair and whispered, “You make an admirable ally, Mademoiselle Nicole. We will protect our flock together.”

  Suddenly too comfortable in his arms, Nicole was absorbed by his warmth and solidity. Beneath her cheek, she could hear the strong drum of his heart as it pushed vitality through him. Her senses sharpened as she breathed in his heat, his scent, his energy. And beneath the emotional bond she felt for him rumbled a darker interest. Fearfully, she pushed away from him to begin walking. Though he didn’t touch her, she was acutely aware of him beside her. And aware, as well, of the disconcerting changes growling through her.

  How could she help him if she couldn’t protect him from her own threat?

  By the time they reached their flat, she felt in control again. Until they stepped inside and saw Bebe lost to wine and weeping as she studied a newly framed canvas.

  Nicole was unprepared for the sweep of longing those familiar fields and forests twisted through her. A pain so poignant and piercing, she reached out without thinking to claim the painting.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Bebe demanded, gripping one side of the frame possessively.

  “It’s mine.”

  “Yours? What do you mean? It’s Camille’s.”

  “He gave it to me. It’s mine.”

  “I’ve never seen this work. When did he give it to you?”

  “On the day he died. After he brought me to Paris.”

  “You—?” Refusing to relinquish the frame until she had the truth, she looked to Marchand and he reluctantly gave it.

  “The painting is hers, Bebe. Let her hav
e it.”

  Stunned, she released the canvas as a terrible understanding overtook her. She looked from Marchand, whose features were stoic, to Nicole, who was cradling the painting in her arms. With an anguished cry, Bebe fled the room, stumbling down the outside stairs to disappear into the darkness.

  Only then did consequence occur to Nicole. “Oh, Marchand, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s my fault,” he cut in curtly. “I brought the painting here. I had it restored because I knew how much it meant to you, because it was from Camille.”

  “No, that’s not why—” It had nothing to do with Camille. It was the place he’d captured with his delicate strokes; the place she’d been raised with love and lies and longed for even now. But Marchand wasn’t interested in hearing her reasoning.

  “I’d better go after her.”

  “Maybe I should leave—”

  “Wait here!” He spoke that command, giving no room for dissension as he strode out the door.

  She collapsed upon the pallet she shared with him and hugged the painting until the urge to weep passed over her. Briefly, she considered fleeing the tangle of misunderstanding she’d created, but she was too practical to think of it for long. Where would she go? Where would she find anyone as willing to take her in as these people had been? She’d been gone from home for three days. It felt like a lifetime. She no longer thought of herself as that pampered innocent sequestered from the dark side of existence. That dark side had been brought home to her most cruelly. Pride and panic kept her from returning until she could accept or excuse the facts that had been forced upon her. Until she could understand the changes warping through her own subconscious.

  No, she would stay here. She would do her best to fit in among this odd group of friends. She’d make Bebe understand about Camille, and she’d ease the burden crushing down upon Marchand. Because their acceptance felt very good and the sense of safety was wonderfully strong. And her feelings for Marchand stirred all sorts of new sensations. She wouldn’t call it love. They were yet strangers. Still, she’d learned to trust him and admired him for his integrity. She enjoyed the hot spark of his wit and the warm flow of his charm and respected his staunch commitment to the welfare of those close to him. He was strong enough to make her feel secure, and yet there was a lonely void in him she could fill and truly belong to. She wanted the chance to repay her gratitude. She wanted the chance to taste more of his kisses.