Forbidden Lovers Boxed Set

by Jennifer Blake

He was coming. She could hear his quiet tread, the silken swish of his cape. She lifted her head and waited for him to emerge from the street shadows.

  The gray cat came first, stepping as light and proud as the most pampered of house pets, though he was an old tom and skittishly wild. It was odd that he had abandoned his cemetery haunt to escort Renfrey; he was usually wary of both familiar visitors and strangers alike. He might have felt the call to prowl, of course, and recognized in Renfrey a source of protection.

  There was little doubt that Renfrey could provide it. He had been alert back there, also valiant and strong—all the things expected in a man, yet so seldom found. She could admit that much, if only to herself.

  Behind her, there came a low growl. Her aunt's boxer dog must be out of the house. Aunt Berthe had probably released him into the fenced yard thinking Carita would let him back inside when she returned. No doubt he had seen the cat; she could hear his toenails clicking on the walk as he trotted toward the open gate.

  The gate! Carita stepped back and gave it a hard swing, trying to slam it closed.

  It was too late. The burly dog barreled through the opening. Tearing past her skirts with the ruff on his neck standing high and a threat rumbling in his throat, he charged the cat.

  The old stray feline leaped high and came down on all fours with a savage hiss of warning. The boxer skidded to a stop.

  “Down, boy!” Carita shouted. “Stay!”

  The boxer gave no sign of hearing. Feet planted, lips drawn back in a snarl, he watched his adversary. His chest rumbled and saliva dripped from his muzzle.

  Bow-backed, the cat faced the dog with its fur in wild spikes, its fangs bared and fierce challenge in its yellow eyes. Abruptly there was only a blurred tangle of legs and claws. Frenzied yowls and dust rose from it.

  The fight was furious, but the boxer was heavier and more powerful. With a hoarse growl, he lunged. The cat twisted away, spitting, but was caught by the scruff of the neck. The boxer shook the soft, limber body and prepared to toss it high, ready to seize a killing hold.

  Carita gave a cry of pity. It had happened so fast; she could not think what to do. There were only seconds left in which to make the dog drop the cat.

  Then Renfrey was there, striking the boxer a smart blow across the back with his cane. The dog's jaws opened as he yelped. The cat sprang free. Renfrey bent swiftly to scoop the feline up.

  The boxer, recovering, snarled and sprang to snap. Glistening white teeth closed on Renfrey's wrist. The cat squirmed out of his grasp, clawing its way up to a shoulder where it perched with a baleful stare.

  Grim-faced, Carita plunged forward to touch the dog with the tips of her fingers. The boxer shuddered at the familiar yet electrifyingly painful contact. Releasing his grip, he whined and dropped to his belly. With lowered ears and dragging tail, he rolled his eyes upward to her face. Finding no forgiveness there, he whimpered and lay still.

  Carita straightened, swung immediately toward Renfrey and reached for his wrist. “Let me see.”

  She thought for an instant that he would refuse. Then he thrust out his hand with the palm uppermost and his wrist exposed below the bloodied cuff of his shirt. She reached to push the cloth higher while she cradled his hand in hers.

  The dog's teeth had torn the skin, but the lacerations were not deep and no veins had been severed. She could feel a faint quivering in his fingers. The cause might be from pain or even shock, but she didn't think so.

  She looked up, and her gaze was snared by the darkness of his eyes. Their surfaces were so still, held such patience, so much understanding, that she felt something shift, achingly, inside of her.

  An impulse fluttered over her, gathered strength. It was so small a thing, yet a part of all that had passed unspoken between them. Before it could be banished by propriety or sanity, she acted.

  Bending her head, she pressed her lips to his injured wrist. She closed her eyes while purpose guided her. An instant later, she smoothed her fingertips in benediction over his healed, unblemished skin, then let go of his hand.

  “Thank you,” he said, the words a husky whisper.

  “You believe me now?” It was asked with care, with exactitude and finality.

  “What does it matter?” he said. “You will still be gone.”

  “I prefer that you know it's not you I am denying.”

  “You cherish my immortal spirit, but not my mortal flesh. Is that what you're saying?”

  “Something of that sort.” Her face was colorless.

  “Then if we were mere disembodied vapor, we could make merry and passionate love until the cows wind their way homeward and trumpets play?”

  “I suppose. Yes.”

  His smile was wry. “You will forgive me, but it sounds as if something would be lacking.”

  “Very likely.”

  “But you have no means of being sure, never having sampled the alternative?” The tilt of his head was alert.

  A flush rose to mantle her cheekbones. “You mean— No, I've never made love to a man. Never.”

  “Then how in infernal blazes,” he said with compressed heat, “do you know it's lethal for your partner?”

  She made a gesture between anger and despair. “If it's evidence you want, go back and look at my mother's grave.”

  “What does her death, as tragic as it may have been, have to do with me?” He braced his hands on his hips, a gesture that almost dislodged the cat on his shoulder. “Do I look frail? Do I seem at all likely to die of loving or being loved?”

  Her lips tightened. “You don't, no, but can you really want to put it to the test?”

  “There are many things I desire,” he said without hesitation, “but none more than this: that you would come to me willingly and seek pleasure in my arms.”

  Rising moisture glimmered in the darkness of her eyes. “I can't.”

  “Why?” he said with strain cracking his voice. “I cannot imagine even your mother died of a single night of passion.”

  Her eyes widened as her thoughts tumbled through her mind. Why had she never considered it? Because she thought of love in terms of forever, that was why. Yet, he was right. If forever was forbidden, what was wrong with one night, one chance, one brief plunge of the heart?

  “Listen to me, Carita, ma chère,” he went on, his voice dropping to a new, richer register. “Love doesn't come with safeguards, nor does living. There is always risk, always the chance that this moment, this night will be the last. It's a part of the mystery, something you accept and forget. You do it, because otherwise you shut yourself into a cramped and miserable prison of your own making. And that, you may discover one day, is only another death, the death of everything that makes you unique and valuable.”

  “I'm not afraid for myself,” she answered steadily. “If it were only my own safety, I would take the risk and never look back.”

  “Commendable,” he said, “but also unbearably righteous. You cannot decide the fate of another person; you have no right. We each have to find our own joy, our own manner and time of loving. And dying.”

  “Yes, but what of the consequences?” she began.

  It was then that the shaft of light, dirty-yellow, sharp-edged, fell across the bars of the gate and onto the sidewalk. A querulous voice called out, “Carita? Is that you?”

  It was her aunt. Carita drew breath to answer. Before she could make a sound, Renfrey reached to place a finger across her lips. Taking her arm, he drew her deeper into the shadows. She went with him, unresisting, though her muscles were stiff and she could remember no decision to move.

  “Carita? Did you hear me? Come in, girl, and lock the gate behind you.”

  Close to her ear, Renfrey whispered, “She is afraid of you. Did you know it?”

  He was right; Carita could hear the wariness and the doubt that verged on distrust. How had she missed it before now?

  She could also hear, however, the age and the anger of unwanted dependence. It was sad beyond imagini
ng.

  Now her aunt had discovered the dog. Her voice sharpened with anxiety even as it dropped to a croon. “What are you doing lying there like that, boy? What happened to my Bruno? Let me look at you.”

  The fear and concern in that familiar voice was more than Carita could bear. She pulled away from Renfrey, stepped forward into the light. “Nothing is wrong with him, Aunt Berthe. He just had a scare, that's all.”

  Her aunt straightened. “You did it, I know. How could you, when you're his favorite.”

  It was a sore point between them, one of many. It wasn't surprising the dog preferred her, Carita knew, since she was the one who fed and walked him, but her aunt could never see that. She moved closer. Holding out the vase she carried, she said, “He was after a cemetery cat that followed us home.”

  “Why didn't you just let him have it? Poor Bruno.” Her voice was crooning as she accepted the worthless porcelain and bent to pat the dog that crowded against her skirts. Then she stiffened, came upright. “Us, you said? Someone is with you?”

  “This gentleman and myself.” Carita gestured toward where Renfrey stood watching.

  The older woman's voice sharpened as she peered into the shadows. “Who is he?”

  A flush rose to Carita's face at the suspicious undertone of her aunt's question. She barely glanced at Renfrey as he stepped to her side, into the light. “Only an acquaintance of my father's whom I happened to—”

  Renfrey's voice cut across her explanation. “Someone who took it upon himself to escort your niece home. It seemed she was in need of protection.”

  “Indeed?” Aunt Berthe's head came up. She folded her arms across her thick waist, standing as tall as her squat figure allowed. Her small, pale eyes were cold. “And what else did you take?”

  “Aunt Berthe!”

  “I know his kind,” her aunt said in bitter condemnation. “Handsome womanizers ready to snatch an advantage; it's no great wonder to me he is acquainted with your father. You will have no more to do with him, do you hear me?”

  “It was never my intention—”

  “Young women do a lot of things they never intend. Go into the house. I will send this gentleman about his business.”

  “No, really, Aunt Berthe,” Carita said. “He has been most kind and not at all—encroaching.” Her voice trailed away as she recalled, belatedly, his kiss.

  “Just as I thought,” her aunt said with grim acceptance. “You will wind up like your mother—or worse, cause destruction that will haunt you all your days. I said go into the—”

  “You prefer,” Renfrey said to the older woman, “that her days be haunted by regret? Are you quite sure you are protecting her? Or are you punishing her?”

  “I'm trying to save her!” Aunt Berthe said.

  “From what? Love? Life? Knowledge of the wide world beyond your narrow little household? Or perhaps the joy your sister found?”

  A spasm of disgust, or perhaps pain, crossed the older woman's face. “You can know nothing of the matter, nothing at all! I would advise you to leave us while you still can.”

  “But there you have the trouble,” Renfrey said with a faint smile. “It's too late; it was always too late. Some things, once begun, cannot be ended.”

  “You mean—” Her aunt stopped. Then her gaze flitted over his features that, seen in the lamplight, were touched with the wildness of a hawk's, and over his frame with its power and careless elegance. Her eyes blared open with horror. She retreated a hasty step, and then swung on Carita. “Get into the house! Now!”

  “There is no need to be rude to someone who has been of service,” Carita said stiffly. “I will say good-night, then join you.”

  “If you stay, you will be damned as surely as if you philandered with the devil. You must come with me, now, this minute.”

  “Be reasonable,” Carita said with a trace of pleading. “I only ask for a moment.”

  Her aunt swung away, marching in stiff-backed haste through the gate. Over her shoulder, she cried, “Come inside, or I wash my hands of you!”

  Mulish anger made Carita lift her chin. “I will be there when I am ready.”

  “Then don't bother to come at all!” her aunt shouted.

  Facing forward, the older woman snapped her fingers at the dog, then sailed up the narrow walk. The boxer heaved himself up and trotted behind her. The door of the house closed behind them, shutting in the light.

  Carita was stunned. She had never felt her aunt loved her, but she had thought there was at least mild affection between them. To discover that it could be discarded so easily was a loss.

  “Walk with me,” Renfrey said quietly at her side, as he had once before.

  Carita recalled the words but knew that this time they meant so much more.

  She could go or stay. If she went inside at once and was sufficiently contrite, her aunt would relent. Surely, she would relent.

  Staying, she could have peace and safety. She could accept the things she had discovered and use them to rearrange her life, to make her personal prison more bearable.

  Going, she would gain the freedom to be her father's daughter. Yet she would also in some degree be consenting to the intimacy Renfrey had asked of her. She must decide how far she would go to attain her desires, how much of herself she could give and still live with the results.

  Carita raised her troubled gaze to Renfrey's. His eyes were dark, opaque with his refusal to force her decision. She prized that in him.

  On his shoulder, the old cat watched her also, its yellow stare unblinking, wondering.

  Decision was a difficult thing. So was capitulation. However, neither necessarily required words to make them plain.

  She forced her lips to curve in a tremulous smile. Reaching up, she took the cat in her hands and brought it against her breast where she stroked it gently, reassuringly. Turning, she began to walk away from her aunt's house.

  Renfrey was still for a moment, then she heard the soft, sudden release of his breath. In a moment, he reached her side. Together, they strolled down the moonlit street. They did not look back.

  The air was softer, warmer as they drew near the river. The moisture in it caused the pores of the skin to expand to fullness. A smell of mud and fecundity was carried on it, along with the pervasive aroma of ripe pears from over a garden wall and just a hint of open drains. Somewhere there was a jasmine vine pouring its prodigal sweetness into the night.

  The cadence of their footsteps was slow and deliberate. Their way led into the French Quarter where the measured click of their heels on the slate ballast stones carried ahead of them under the overhanging balconies. The shadows here in these narrow ways were sometimes black and crude, sometimes ornate and curling silhouettes of hand-worked wrought iron. They passed them all with hardly a glance.

  It was later now, and there was mystery in the deeper night stillness. Or perhaps it was only within herself; Carita could not remember a time when she had been less certain of who and what she was.

  “When was it,” Renfrey said as they strolled, “that you first knew you were different?”

  She considered the question. Over the purring of the cat she held, she said, “I'm not sure. At the age of three or possibly four—or maybe my aunt only began to treat me differently then. It was because of a doll I was playing with at the time. I made it talk to me.”

  “That would do it, I would imagine,” he said.

  “I was punished for it, of course. I cried, but felt a secret pride for what I could do that my older cousins, her daughters, could not. After a while, the pride was gone. I only wanted to be exactly like them, exactly like everyone else.”

  His tone thoughtful, gaze straight ahead, Renfrey quoted softly:

  From childhood's hour I have not been

  As others were—I have not seen

  As others saw—I could not bring

  My passions from a common spring.

  Her voice, calm, reflective, picked up the lines.

  From
the same source I have not taken

  My sorrow; I could not awaken

  My heart to joy at the same tone;

  And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone.

  “Poe, of course,” she said. “And yes. Yes, that's the way it was.”

  The tragedy of being different through no fault of her own was plain in her voice. Behind it, Renfrey suspected, were a hundred small slights, a thousand sneers and slurs. He wished that he could take them from her. He wished that he could change the circumstances of her life, could force open all the closed little minds around her and cause tolerance to be the accepted standard for daily existence.

  It was impossible. “And now?” he asked, his voice rigorously impassive.

  The cat, attuned to the undercurrents Renfrey would not permit to sound, came alert and stared at him. He reached to take the animal, to smooth its fur in reassurance then set it on the sidewalk. It followed them, lightly stepping, watching the shadows.

  “And now,” Carita was saying in answer, “there are times when I enjoy who I am.” She paused, went on with the strained ache of yearning in her voice. “And there are others when I would give the world and all there is in it to be someone else, anyone else.”

  He stopped. “I expect that will always be the way of it, and for that I have no remedy. But for the rest—”

  “Yes?” Halting beside him, Carita looked up inquiringly into his face. His expression was serious, his eyes shaded with compassion. He moved not a muscle, yet there crept slowly in upon her a sense of encompassment, as if she were being gathered into a close embrace. The hold was warm, strong, yet without constriction. It offered consolation and, most of all, abiding understanding.

  Tears rose inside her— the tears that spring up because of sympathy freely offered, help and comfort given without expectation of return. She had not known she needed those things, yet accepted them now with gratitude. A frisson of relaxation moved over her, and she shivered with it while she accepted his mental support, savored his nearness, the enfolding solace. Standing perfectly still, she yet eased more fully against him in her mind, resting her head upon the firm strength of his chest. He did not move, yet his arms closed around her.