by Nancy Gideon
“Did you never love her?”
She would have liked for him to look at her when he answered, but then she probably wouldn’t have been able to read anything of value in his jewel-like eyes. Not unless he wanted to reveal it.
“I hold to a memory of love, but I don’t remember the exact feeling anymore. Amusing how an emotion you are willing to die for becomes an indifferent habit. Without Bianca, there would be endless mediocrity, and that I could not stand.”
“Have you never tried to make friends among the people?”
He glanced at her then as if he thought her suggestion quite astonishing. “Among mortals? Why, that would be like . . . playing with my food, and I was taught as a child that it was impolite. They can be entertaining, for a while. But what they are eventually brings out what I am. Not much future in that type of friendship.”
“So you feel nothing for humanity?”
“No. Why should I?”
“What about my mother?”
He didn’t move, yet she could feel the sudden flurry of his thoughts, complex in intensity and zealously guarded from her probing. “What about her?”
“She has been with my father for at least eighteen years. He must find her company more than mildly entertaining.”
“Your mother is an exceptional creature,” he answered with a studied neutrality. “And Gino is not like me. Besides, they made you between them and that creates a different circumstance.”
“Then there is a chance that we can coexist without harming one another.”
Finally, he took note of her hopeful tone and rightly guessed its cause. “You speak of the one you claim is not your lover.”
“I’m speaking hypothetically,” she argued.
“Ummm. Of course. Only you can judge that, Nicole. Only you can read your heart and place a value upon his life. Can you be with him night after night, resisting the instinct to take him while he sleeps? Can you exist with the guilt of a momentary lapse of control? My advice to you was learned most painfully, and it is to stay away from those you care for. We are solitary creatures, prone to an independent and territorial nature. We hunt alone, we guard our secrets well. We kill without thought when threatened and we feed to survive. That is my nature and I have accepted it. You would be wise to do the same. Forget this mortal, for you can have no normal life with him. I don’t say this to hurt you, but so you don’t do something that will cause you unforgivable pain. You are still learning, and you must be careful of consequence.”
His words upset her because she was longing for Marchand with an intensity most compelling. She craved his humanity, his conscience, his basic warmth, all those things she found lacking here. But she feared that consequence Gerard warned of. Because even now, the hunger gnawed through her, streaking a tense agony along starving veins, a hunger that would sooner or later have to be satisfied. A future devoid of any passion or pleasure stretched out before her and she looked to it without anticipation. And for the first time, she damned her parents for so selfishly bringing her into this turmoiled existence.
Gerard had been watching the play of emotion upon her face. For all his glib talk and careless nonchalance, he was far from oblivious to her distress. He stepped up beside her to enfold her in a loose embrace. His kiss was brief and tender against her brow.
Nicole fought against the want to turn into his arms in self-pitying tears. They would solve nothing, and he would despise her weakness. She had to get stronger. She had to know more. That was her only hope of attaining any kind of direction in her life.
So when she spoke at last, her voice was crisp and commanding. “Teach me something new, Gerard.”
But he merely rubbed his cheek against her hair and murmured silkily, “But I just have. I’ve taught you the most important lesson of all.”
She drew back to regard him with confusion.
He smiled, sadly she thought, and he touched her chin with his fingertips. “I’ve shown you what it’s like to be alone.” Then he left her there to savor that new sensation.
And she hated it.
“HOW IS OUR guest?” Bianca asked as Gerard joined her in the antechamber.
“I’m not sure what to make of her,” he admitted, glancing back from whence he’d come. “She has an ability that quite amazes me, yet she resists her vampiric nature. She hasn’t severed her ties to the mortal world and mourns its loss.”
“It’s loss or his loss?”
Gerard gave her an innocuous look. “Non capísco.”
“Of course you understand, Gerardo, so don’t raise those innocent brows to me. She pines for some fool mortal man. She has that same calf look that comes over you when you dream about Arabella Radman.”
His expression tightened into a hard mask from out of which pale eyes glittered. “What nonsense you speak.”
“Is it?” she taunted.
“You know it is! I have no heart to suffer its breaking. You’ve often said so yourself.”
“If that is true, you won’t mind helping me rid our dear Nicole of her foolish sentiments.”
His gaze narrowed with suspicion. “How so?”
“I think sweet Nicole needs a harder push to recognize what she is. Do you know who this mortal is?”
Gerard hesitated, then shrugged. “I’ve seen him.”
“And you can bring him here tomorrow night?”
“Sì.”
Bianca smiled with divine malevolence and leaned close to press cool lips upon his still ones. “You are right, my love. You have no heart.”
And he stood unblinking while she stroked one lean cheek with a careless fingertip.
IT WAS HARD TO concentrate on anything. Marchand found himself drifting through the days and nights in a glaze of wine-soaked indifference. He had no patience with Frederic, who seemed to be genuinely trying to sever his ties to the rebellion. It was no easy task when revolution teemed about them. More often than he liked, he found himself remembering the old life they’d had, with servants and silver and no worries. But those days were gone and the present was full of danger. He wished for a way to remove them from its temptation, for the means to leave the city and the influences of the revolt, but there was no help in sight. Money was short. He, himself, was finding no legitimate work and it frustrated him to have to depend upon the coins Nicole left behind.
Coins . . . such a cold reminder of what beat so hot within his heart. She’d said she didn’t love him, yet how could she have met his last kiss with so much passion if that were true? He could drive himself mad considering it. In fact, he was almost certain he was destined toward that end. He’d wanted to believe her when she said he could count upon her support. That was what he dwelt upon when he wasn’t berating himself for lowering his guard to her cruel handling, or totally disgusted with the world in general. His life was miserable and he made sure all around him were aware of it.
They were partaking of an evening meal and he was grumbling unkindly about its quality until Musette fled across the room in tears.
“Enough,” Frederic stated, slapping his hands down upon the tabletop, startling him momentarily from his sullen stupor. “Your love life may be a disaster, but you’ll not ruin mine. You will apologize to Musette.”
“I won’t,” he growled.
“You will or you will find someplace else to stay.”
Marchand stared at him in astonishment. “W-what?” The idea was absurd! He gave a dismissing laugh. “And who will pay the rent, mon frère? Who will protect you and your silly strumpet from the ills you seem determined to court?”
Frederic struck him. The blow was hard enough to knock him from his chair, hard enough to rattle his senses. And as he sat on the floor, jaw cradled in hand, Frederic shook a finger down at him.
“Don’t look surprised. Did you think I’d forgotten ev
erything I learned from you about brawling when we were boys? You seem to forget all but your sneering contempt these days. It might further surprise you to know I am not a helpless fool led by dreams of utopias in the clouds. I am not a child, Marchand, and you will not treat me as such again. You will not interfere in my life, in my plans. And you will not be insufferably rude to my friends or my fiancée.”
“Fiancée?” Both Marchand and Musette, who had turned back toward them, echoed that in mutual shock.
“Yes. We will be married in the spring. If that’s all right with you, my love?” he amended, blushing at his slight oversight. He hadn’t asked her first.
“Oh, yes! Yes!” And she crossed to him and her arms flew about Frederic’s neck.
Marchand managed to drag himself up to regard their blissful happiness. Aware of it, they stepped apart, uncomfortable with their joy in the face of his pain. But then Marchand embraced them both, placing firm kisses on both their cheeks.
“That is wonderful news. I’m glad for you. Forgive my stupid talk—”
“Oh, March, it’s all right,” Musette cooed, hugging him tight. “I know Nicole’s leaving broke your heart. I’m so sorry for what she did. I could have sworn she cared for you.”
“You must forget her, March. Move on.”
“Move on,” he mumbled, smiling at them crookedly. “To what? You have just cut the ties of fraternity. I must now regard you as a man and not as my little brother who needs my constant care.” He fit his palm to Frederic’s face, then gave a push away so his brother wouldn’t see just how upset he was by this turn of events. He’d had too much wine and he needed to think. “I’m going out to walk awhile.”
Already distracted by the way Musette was cozying up to him, Frederic murmured, “Don’t fall in the Seine.”
His walk was aimless at first, moving him through the Latin Quarter, where the sounds of merriment defied the desperate and despairing mood of the city. It started to rain, which he thought fitting to his own dark humor, and soon the chill downpour was enough to drive conspirators gathered around cheap red wine from the outdoor cafés, leaving their schemes to hatch another night. Marchand didn’t seek shelter. Instead, he lifted his face to the pelting rain, needing its freshness to wash away the stains of misery from his soul and wake his mind to the world around him. And when he pushed the damp strands of hair from out of his eyes, he was seeing things anew.
Always he’d existed on the surface in this district of dreamers. He’d held a soldier’s contempt for their idealism and believed himself apart from them in his own defensive arrogance. He’d been living in his own dream, where he made himself responsible for those who didn’t need or want his care. It wasn’t for them that he’d done these things, but rather for himself, because he’d been afraid to have no purpose. He’d been afraid he’d someday realize that he was just like all those around him for whom he held no respect. He was a member of the bohemian society; the group of young, shiftless and inventive characters who refused or were unable to take on a stable and useful identity. He lived, like them, within society but outside it, among eccentrics, visionaries, radicals, those rejected by family and the temporary or permanently poor. Seeing himself there was a terrible shock to his system and esteem. And he’d been drawn irrevocably into the underside of the system, into the shady underworld from necessity, not intention. He knew violence. That’s all he was good at with his background in the military. What he’d become was abhorrent to everything he’d stood for. No wonder Nicole could not love him. He, himself, could not admire what he was.
The rain eased and mists rose thickly off the surface of the Seine. He crossed at Pont de la Concorde and the bridge seemed a murky suspension in time and space. Rather like his future, he thought wryly. What was a man who knew nothing but discipline supposed to do with his life?
“Marchand.”
He turned at the thin call of his name and scanned the cloudy darkness. Finally the figure of Gaston emerged, and his lips curled in disgust for what the man was and for the part he played in his own moral plunge.
“Amazing the type of vermin scuttling about in the shadows on such a night.”
“I didn’t come to trade jokes with you, LaValois. Sebastien wants to know why you’ve been avoiding him.”
“Tell De Sivry to go to hell. I’ll do no more work for him.”
Gaston smiled. “You’ll do no more work for anyone, for hell is where he’s asked me to send you.”
The sound of footsteps on cobbles alerted Marchand to his danger even as a quartet of burly men came forward through the mists to stand ready at Gaston’s call. Marchand gave a low curse. He was without the means of defense, not so much as a chip of wood at hand when the others toted lengths of iron and blades that glittered beneath the evenly spaced streetlamps. From Gaston’s nasty smile, he knew there was no use trying to bargain for his life. As far as De Sivry’s second was concerned, his life was going to end here on this bridge.
Gaston took a step back and gestured to the bulky foursome. “I want nothing left recognizable when you dump him into the water. His brother must never guess our part in it.” Then he turned and walked away.
As Marchand ducked the first swing of iron, another caught him with a wind-sapping force against the ribs. He went down to his knees in a daze of pain, managing to shift away from a knifepoint aimed at his throat. The blade snagged on his jacket, tearing a line of agony along his shoulder. He let himself drop to the cobbles, but instead of lying there helpless, he rolled quickly to one side between two of his attackers. Before he could gain his feet, an explosive blow to the back of his head sent him sprawling in the muddy puddles.
“Don’t go cuttin’ up that jacket,” one of the bovine figures muttered. “It looks to be about my size.”
Beefy fingers twisted in his hair, dragging him up to his feet. Without a pause, Marchand used that upward momentum to drive forward, butting into an opponent’s face. There was a wail of distress, and immediately he lashed back, smashing the back of his head into the other’s chin. The fingers meshing in his hair loosened and Marchand bolted, skidding precariously on the slick stones before breaking into a desperate run for the far side of the bridge.
Behind him, he heard fiercely grumbled oaths and the clatter of pursuit. Not knowing if he had the strength left to outrun them, Marchand stumbled along the Quai des Tuileries, seeking some weapon or at least deep shadows of concealment. His legs gave out, spilling him down upon hands and knees. He scuttled around to face his enemies, fingers frantically scrabbling at the stones in hopes of prying one free. A weak defense was better than none at all. And he crouched there, dazed and panting, waiting for his assassins to emerge from the fog.
A moment passed, then two. All he heard was his own ragged breathing. And he was confused. They wouldn’t have given up the chase. De Sivry wouldn’t condone failure.
Then Marchand saw movement in the mist. A single figure filtered through it. Marchand backed up onto his heels, readying for fight or flight. Then surprise held him immobile.
It wasn’t one of De Sivry’s men who glided through the dim light pooling at the base of the bridge. But the sharply handsome face was familiar.
“You are Nicole’s Marchand?” an accented voice queried.
And that was all Marchand remembered before pitching forward unconscious upon the wet cobbles.
SNARLING ANIMALS frozen above him.
A sight so bizarre, it shocked Marchand back to awareness. He stirred, waking all sorts of bodily miseries, to find himself reclined upon a crimson sofa. The fierce bestial faces were carved into the wood of the couch’s elaborate arms.
Where was he?
Then he remembered the face of Nicole’s chosen lover. He sat up with a groan of effort to see that individual regarding him from across the room. He was posed indolently upon a stool, his features betrayin
g a mocking amusement.
“So you awake. It would seem I rescued you from a rather nasty situation, yes?”
Chagrined at being in this man’s debt, Marchand ignored the reference and muttered, “Who are you?”
“Mí scúsi. I am Gerardo Pasquale.”
“And you are Nicole’s . . .” He let that dangle so the other man could fill in the degree of his relationship.
Gerardo smiled. “A friend of the family.”
Marchand regarded him steadily but sensed no challenge of possession from the man. He relaxed slightly and gave way to the urge to rub the back of his head. The inside of his skull was thundering. “Those men—”
“Met with an end more tragic than they’d planned for you.”
He was so nonchalant, Marchand stared. “You killed them?” It seemed impossible. The impeccable lines of his clothing weren’t even wrinkled.
“I’m sorry, had you wanted me to invite them here so we could all dine together?”
“No,” Marchand said at last. “They were no friends of mine. I don’t care what you did with them. But I am grateful for it.”
“Va bène. Prègo.” At Marchand’s blank gaze, he added, “You are welcome.” Gerard came up from the chair, his movements all lazy grace and silky strength. He glanced away because Marchand had withdrawn his hand from the wound on his head and his palm was sticky with blood. “I suggest you clean yourself up before meeting with Nicole. It would grieve her to see you so—ill used.”
“Is she here?”
“Si. She is attending her—lessons.” And he gave a slow, sly smile.
“Perhaps she would rather not see me.” Marchand took in the heavy luxury of the room around him and the lethal good looks of the smooth Gerardo Pasquale, who claimed to be a friend. He felt very insignificant in comparison.
“Oh, no. She wants to see you very much, I assure you. Please.” He made a languid gesture. “The bath is through there. Take a moment to soak away your aches and pains while I find something more appropriate for you to put on. What you are wearing is—soiled.” And his narrowing stare lingered along the rent in Marchand’s jacket until he pulled his attention away with an effort. By then, his smug smile was rather strained and Marchand sensed an undercurrent that was far from genial. Gerard’s dark looks had altered from lazy feline to deadly predator. Yet he was smiling graciously as he bowed out of the room. Marchand never heard the sound of retreating footsteps on marble. He must have walked as light as a cat.