by Kat Ross
Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. “It is evil men who make this evil world,” he said in a low voice.
“You’ve read Saint Augustine.”
“Every word. He was a true sage.”
“He had some interesting ideas, I’ll grant you. But I don’t believe evil is the result of man’s original sin. It’s a matter of choice.”
“And you think I’m evil?”
Anne said nothing.
“Yet you’re not afraid.”
“If you wanted me dead, I would be. That much is clear. But I’m of more value to you alive. It’s the only reason I’m sitting here.”
“Nom de dieu!” Gabriel pushed off the windowsill and spun around. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty.” He stabbed a finger at her. “I’m the wronged party here.”
“No,” Anne said patiently. “You already feel guilty. That’s why you cook these elaborate meals and bring me priceless books and violins. All of it is unnecessary. You could simply give me a crust of bread and a cup of water and be done with it. But it assuages your conscience to think you’re treating me like royalty.”
He stared at her, then laughed and shook his head.
“And since you’re atoning for your sins, you can give me a tour of the house now.”
“What?”
“I’m not tired and I don’t want to go up there yet.” She glanced at the inner door to the tower. “So you’ll have to drag me, screaming and wailing, up the staircase. I’ll likely end up with bruises. Or you can just show me around. One more hour.”
He blew out a breath. “Thirty minutes.”
“Done.”
Anne smiled.
Full dark had fallen outside. Gabriel lifted the candle and followed her to the stairs. This time, when they reached the bottom of the tower, he unlocked another door. It led to a large, gloomy gallery festooned with cobwebs.
“You see?” he said with a curt gesture. “Nothing of interest.”
Anne strode past him and examined the row of portraits on the walls, all of unsmiling aristocrats with stiff collars and bad wigs. “Is this your family?”
He laughed. “I don’t come from money.”
“But you own this place now.”
He shrugged.
“What happened to the people who lived here?”
He drew a slow finger across his throat.
“You murdered them?”
He shot her an affronted look. “No! Don’t you know your history?”
“Ah. Executed in the Revolution?” she guessed.
“They deserved it.”
“That’s rather callous, don’t you think?”
His face darkened. “If you’d seen the way the peasants lived back then, you wouldn’t feel sorry for them.”
“It was a hundred years ago.” She cast him a shrewd look. “A bit before your time, wasn’t it, Gabriel?”
He cleared his throat. “The name of the house is the Chateau de Saint-Évreux. It sat empty for a long time. I bought it cheap, but I never came here much.”
“Until now.”
“Yes. Can we go back now?”
“No.”
Gabriel sighed but followed as she walked to the end of the gallery and up a wide staircase. They drifted through the keep like ghosts, passing through rooms with furniture covered in sheets and more cobwebs dangling from the chandeliers. There were creaky suits of armor and all sorts of nasty medieval weapons hanging in brackets on the walls, which she pointedly ignored.
She knew he was watching her closely.
“It’s getting late,” he said.
“Just one more.” She darted ahead before he could seize her arm and pushed open a door on the uppermost floor. Anne made a sound of delight.
“The music room!”
She whisked the sheets off, admiring the pianoforte and harp, which stood a full foot taller than her. The western wall facing the sea had beautiful stained glass windows, though most were broken. Gabriel set the candle atop the piano and danced his fingers across the keys, wincing slightly at the off-kilter notes.
“Do you play?” she asked.
In answer, he launched into the first chords of Schumann’s Toccata in C Major, a notoriously difficult piece.
“Show-off,” Anne muttered, shards of glass crunching beneath her feet as she crossed to the windows.
“They must have been broken by one of the storms that blow in from the Channel,” Gabriel said, his feet working the pedals, fingers flying as the octaves gained speed.
“Lucky thing you have shutters.” She grinned at him. “You’re a good cook, but a poor housekeeper…. Damn!” She pressed her hand to her mouth. The music cut off and Gabriel was suddenly at her side.
“Let me see it,” he demanded.
She held out her palm. Blood flowed freely from a long gash.
“Make a fist,” he ordered. “I’ll bind it up.”
“You could use that.” She pointed to one of the dust coverings. “I’ll wash it out when we get back.”
Gabriel hurried over to the sheet puddled at the base of the harp. The moment his back was turned, Anne slipped the catch to the shutters, taking care to keep them closed. She spun back just as he was rising. He tore a strip from the sheet and bent over her hand with an intent, focused expression.
He was always like that, she realized. Whatever Gabriel did, whether it was laying the table or buckling his boot or listening to her talk, he gave the task his full attention. It was a quality very few people had.
“There. I have a clean dish towel in the kitchen. You might need stitches—”
“It’s fine. I’ll heal.”
He nodded. Anne prayed he wouldn’t look over at the hook to the shutters, now dangling loose.
“I suppose we’d better get back,” he said.
They returned to the tower and Gabriel hovered in the doorway, asking if she needed anything else. He obviously had little use for first aid, and seemed to feel bad that he didn’t have any iodine or bandages. Anne gave him a cheerful smile.
“I’m fine, really. Thank you for the tour, Gabriel. Goodnight.”
She derived great satisfaction from closing the door in his face.
She went up to her room and played the violin for a spell. Then she waited.
When the moon was setting and she estimated the hour to be after three, she pulled her boots back on. The music room was no accidental discovery. It was the very room in the adjacent tower that had thwarted her once before.
But not tonight.
Gabriel had never come to check on her after dinner, not once. In fact, after seeing the rest of Chateau de Saint-Évreux, she felt sure he went someplace else. Who could live in that dismal, drafty old castle? He always arrived on horseback.
Yes, she thought, he must go elsewhere to do … whatever it is he does.
She didn’t like to dwell on what that might be.
Anne went into the privy, opened the window, and hoisted a leg over the sill.
14
The rain had stopped, but the peak of the roof between the two towers was still slippery. Anne crept along it with care, conscious of the long drop to either side. It was very dark and she couldn’t see a glimmer of light in any direction. She tried to remember what towns might be found along the Alabaster Coast. Once Gabriel discovered her gone, he would pursue her relentlessly, she had no doubts about that. He was a man who took things personally. A man with an explosive temper.
And he might be able to hunt by scent.
The laudanum had left her memory fuzzy around the edges. Anne remembered little about the night he’d tracked her in the snow, only his glowing eyes and the lonely whistle of the train. In some ways this was worse because her imagination conjured up all sorts of visions of the beast that lived inside him.
But fear made a person careless, and Anne took pride in being precise and logical, so she put the thought from her mind and focused on reaching the second tower without falling.
So
mewhere nearby an owl screeched, startling her. She clung to the roofline until her heart slowed, then resumed crawling, knees straddling the slate tiles. At last, she reached the second tower. She stood and inched her way along a narrow ledge to the window, fumbling with the shutters until she found the one she’d left unlatched. They opened outward so there was a terrifying moment where she hung, feet dangling over a hundred feet of open air. Then a toe found the sill and she swung inside, dropping silently to the carpet.
Anne stood there for a full minute, listening to the sounds of the house. The rustle of mice nesting in musty goosedown mattresses. The creaks of loose boards settling. Nothing else, though Gabriel’s familiar scent lingered in the room like a specter.
She retraced their steps from the evening before, navigating by the faint starlight coming through the windows. She found the gallery of dead nobles and followed it to the end where it flowed into a grand entrance hall with two large doors. Anne laid her palm on the heavy oak and took a deep breath.
It swung open.
He hadn’t bothered to lock it.
Why?
Because he never expected her to get this far. Well, he’d be in for a rude surprise.
Anne stepped into the night.
A low fog hovered above the ground, swirling around her legs as she ran across the inner bailey. Now for the curtain wall. This presented a minor obstacle. She wasn’t as strong or fast with the talisman around her neck, but she could still climb like a monkey and this wall was in far worse condition than the tower, with cracks that had gone unrepaired for decades. Anne removed her boots and hooked her fingers into crevices in the stone, scaling it with grim determination. Descending the other side proved trickier, but she managed it with a few scrapes, dropping to the soft ground from six paces up.
Ragged shreds of cloud raced overhead, the moon appearing and vanishing. She followed the wall, staying in the shadows, until she stumbled across the road. Anne set off at a brisk walk, still recovering her strength. The road wound through the woods, hard-packed earth with deep ruts from the carts and carriages that had once come to Chateau de Saint-Évreux.
She’d gone about a half a mile when she thought she heard the faint thunder of hooves. She hurried to the shelter of the woods where the firs grew thickly together and crouched down. Rain dripped from the branches of the trees. Two screech owls called to each other in the night, thin, unearthly cries that reminded her of the train whistle. Night insects chirped in the carpet of dead leaves.
Anne heard no more hoofbeats, but she decided the road was too exposed and set off into the forest. It was old growth, untouched by an axe for generations. This made for easier travel since the dense canopy of hardwoods kept the undergrowth sparse. After several minutes, she saw an unbroken stretch of darkness ahead. Anne’s steps slowed as she approached a high brick wall.
The whole estate was enclosed.
She gazed up at it, gathering courage. Her legs ached from running and climbing, and her arms hung at her sides like dead weights. The adrenaline burst of escaping the tower was ebbing, but she had to scale the wall. There was no going back now.
Suddenly, Anne realized that the nocturnal sounds of the forest had ceased, leaving a pocket of perfect silence. Her scalp prickled as she slowly turned around.
Nothing….
Her eyes strained to see into the darkness. Mist swirled around her bare feet, lapping at the wall like a white sea.
There.
At the edge of an open meadow about sixty feet away, a humped shadow. It might have been a boulder, except for the two gleaming pinpricks of silver. Even from a distance, she felt its gaze fixed on her.
Coppery fear flooded her mouth. She spun and ran at an angle away from the meadow into a denser thicket, frantically seeking a hiding place. Thorns dragged at her gown and rocks bit her bare feet. The blood thudded in her ears as she mentally cursed the talisman around her neck. Freed, she would have been swifter than a gazelle. But this was like running in a suit of armor.
A twig snapped behind her. Anne stumbled and fell headlong down a steep slope into the shallows of a creek. She rolled to her back in the chill water as a massive weight crushed her into the streambed. She felt a thick ruff of fur between in her fingers and then teeth pressed against her throat, claws digging into her skin. The same animal musk she’d smelled before filled her nose, but a hundred times more potent.
“Stop, Gabriel,” Anne whispered hoarsely, unable to draw breath. “Please … don’t….”
And then she heard his voice, hard and commanding.
“Donné! Au pied!”
The beast on top of her emitted a deep growl. Anne felt the vibrations of it rumble through her ribcage, where the massive chest pressed against her.
“Donné!”
The weight lifted. Anne drew a ragged breath as something huge slunk off into the trees. She sat up and examined the claw marks on her arm in a daze.
“Nom de dieu.” Gabriel crouched beside her, fully human but with leaves in his hair and streaks of dirt across his bare chest. She expected one of his titanic furies, but he looked … frightened. He cupped her face and she saw only concern in his eyes.
“Where are you hurt?”
She blinked and looked down. A shaft of moonlight fell across a pale hip and muscled thigh.
Oh God, he’s naked.
“I’ve had worse,” she managed. “A thousand times worse.” She held up her arm. “Just scratches, see?” But they were deep and rivulets of blood ran down, dripping from her elbow.
Gabriel cursed roundly and slid his arms beneath her back, lifting her as easily as a child. Anne opened her mouth to object, but she felt suddenly very tired. Her dress was soaking wet. A shiver wracked her body.
Without another word, he started to run through the forest. She laid her head on his shoulder and watched the crescent moon overhead through drowsy eyes. It followed them all the way back to Chateau de Saint-Évreux.
She expected to be returned to her prison, but Gabriel entered the main keep and kicked open a door on the third floor. The master bedroom, judging by the palatial size of the four-poster bed. Anne was too exhausted to care as he eased her onto the coverlet.
“Drink this.” He pressed a cup to her lips.
She weakly tried to push it away. “No laudanum.”
“It’s not, I swear. Just brandy, to help you sleep.”
Anne sniffed it, then took a small sip. Warmth spread through her frozen limbs.
“The sheets are clean. But I must dress your wounds.” His voice was both rough and oddly gentle. “Trust me, you don’t want to be awake for it. Once more.”
He raised the cup to her lips again and Anne swallowed a mouthful, then turned her head away, nestling her cheek into the pillow. A pile of books sat on the bedside table. She read the titles with bleary eyes.
On Grace and Free Will, by Saint Augustine.
A battered copy of The Koran in Arabic.
And Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, by Edgar Allen Poe.
Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed, fussing with a needle and thread. She smelled the sharp tang of spirits. Anne reached up and patted his cheek, the brandy smoothing away the pain in her arm. Her thoughts felt pleasantly slow. “You’re a peculiar man, Gabriel.” She smiled. “I should have known it wasn’t you. It had silver eyes and yours are gold.”
He frowned down at her. “Just sleep, Anne.”
As consciousness fled, she realized it was the first time he’d ever used her Christian name.
Anne woke to bright sunlight spilling through the windows. For a moment, she had no idea where she was. Then she saw Gabriel sitting in a chair, looking haggard but more like himself. All traces of mud were gone. His hair was tied back in a black ribbon. He wore a blue frock coat and snug trousers and looked every inch the dapper country gentleman — had the year been 1760.
“That was a very stupid thing you did,” he growled as their eyes met.
“Good morni
ng to you, too,” Anne retorted, sitting up against the headboard. Her arm was bandaged from wrist to shoulder with what looked like one of Gabriel’s old shirts. She felt woozy and hot. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same if you were in my place.”
He leapt to his feet. “That doesn’t make it any less foolish!”
“How was I to know you had some vicious … pet … roaming the grounds? You never tell me anything. If you’d warned me, I might—” She bit her lip. There was no point in being nice to him anymore. He’d never let her out of his sight again. Anne looked down at the frilly nightgown and her fury redoubled. “And you undressed me.”
He threw his hands up. “You were soaked to the bone! Believe me, it was no great thrill.”
They glared at each other for a long moment.
“What was that?” she demanded. “Not a wolf or a dog. It felt like a bloody rhinoceros with teeth.”
Gabriel didn’t reply.
“It has to do with what you are, doesn’t it?” She studied him. “What was done to you, Gabriel?”
“Nothing was done to me. And I’m not a monster, whatever you might think.”
Her lip curled. “No? You killed those children in Mara Vardac.”
Gabriel stiffened, but the fight seemed to leave him. “That wasn’t me,” he muttered.
“Who then?”
He sank back into the chair and laid his head in his hands. “I made a terrible mistake, Anne. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. His name was Adrian.” Gabriel looked up at her with reddened eyes. “He paid for it. I tore his throat out myself, just as he did to the children.”
Anne stared at him until he turned away. “Let me go,” she said quietly. “I won’t tell anyone where this place is. You have my word. But you’ve no right to keep me here any longer.”
“I can’t.”
“No, you won’t. There’s a difference.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me to understand!”
“I never wanted you, Anne.” Gabriel sounded weary. “You shouldn’t have come to Saint George’s.” He stood and walked to the door. “But now it’s too late. I have to finish it. I have to.”