His Dark Desires

by Jennifer St Giles

  Moving softly down the stairs, I went to the second floor, where the boarders slept. Their doors were all shut, with no light showing beneath. I assumed they were asleep as well, so I tiptoed down to the first floor, avoiding the creaking stair just before the landing.

  The moment I stepped into the parlor, I felt a change in the air about me, as if a menace hovered nearby but remained hidden from view, like a hunting alligator beneath dark water. My palms dampened, and my mouth grew dry. I tightened my grip on the pan and the poker.

  Nothing stirred but the soft click of the grandfather clock’s pendulum in the center hall. Finally, I had to have air and drew in a deep breath. The acrid scent of cigar smoke hung in the air. Then the stair creaked.

  Someone was headed toward me; the parlor was only a few steps from the end of the stairs. Mama Louisa always said there wasn’t anything that God and a good frying pan couldn’t set straight, and I aimed to prove her right. Moving into the shadows by the door, I set the poker aside, lifted the pan, said a prayer, and waited.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected to see edge around the door into the parlor, but it wasn’t the barrel of a pistol. Instantly I realized how foolish I’d been. I had just one chance to hit the intruder hard and then run, screaming for help. An arm and a dark head appeared and I brought the pan down hard. I must have made a slight noise, because a second before I hit him, the intruder lunged toward me. The pan hit his head with a sickening thud and I heard a groan of pain, but instead of falling to the ground, the man fell forward, plowing into me, and knocking the pan from my hand.

  One minute I was upright and the next I was flat on my back, with a dead weight pinning me down. White lights danced before my eyes as I fought to breathe. I would have screamed, but I couldn’t draw enough air to do more than croak.

  I squirmed, trying to dislodge the man and get help before he regained consciousness. Tears of frustration bit at my eyes. I couldn’t budge him. Then I felt his body turn from dead weight to hard muscle.

  Surprisingly, I grew calmer, determined to face this threat with dignity.

  “Don’t move,” a familiar deep voice threatened.

  Now that he had spoken, I recognized the scent of fresh sandalwood and mint in the air.

  Shock flooded through me until even my toes tingled from it. I was suddenly aware of every inch of the firm body covering mine. Desire instantly heated my blood.

  “Monsieur Trevelyan,” I whispered.

  He rose up on his elbows and looked at me, letting me draw a much needed breath. My breasts pressed against the warm muscle of his chest and I breathed again, enjoying the feel of him and the scent of him. Moonlight streamed through the window and cast a shadow across his face, adding even more dangerous appeal to his rakish good looks.

  “Mrs. Boucheron, what in God’s name did you hit me with?” His voice rumbled deeply, sending out vibrations that reached the very core of my femininity.

  “A pan, monsieur. Are you all right?”

  “A pan?” He groaned. “What sort of pan?”

  Had the man gone daft? “What difference does that make?”

  He shifted, leaning more of his weight to the left and raising his head a little higher.

  “Just tell me,” he said as if his teeth were gritted together. His right leg shifted and slid shockingly between mine. He was too close, too real, and too male. I could barely think.

  “An iron frying pan. Um, since you have recovered your senses sufficiently to ask questions, monsieur, could you get off me? There may be an intruder in my home.”

  He just stared down at me, and my pulse leaped as a strange anticipation filled me.

  “I am sure he is gone. I found the front door open and a dark shadow disappearing into the park when I came down the stairs the first time. I checked the house and was just leaving the storage room at the top of the stairs when I heard someone else, and thought the man hadn’t been alone. It must have been you.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “As best as I can tell, he entered through an open window on the fourth floor. Everything else is locked. The question is, who left the window open?”

  “I did. We’ve been cleaning the attic. I did not think anyone fool enough to climb that high. Monsieur, I am sure you can move now,” I demanded, trying to muster some resistance against the sensations growing inside me.

  “I might, madam, if you will tell me why you are running around the house felling your boarders with a frying pan.” He sounded miffed, which fueled my own irritation.

  “My intent, monsieur, was to fell an intruder. If you had not been skulking around my house with a pistol, you would not have met up with my frying pan.”

  “Have you no sense, woman?”

  “It worked, did it not? I knocked you out.”

  “Momentarily, but exactly where are you now, and where am I?” As if to emphasize his point, his hard arousal pressed intimately against my femininity, spreading a fire in my loins. “Don’t you realize what an unscrupulous man might do if he found himself in a situation like this?” He stared down at me, burning me with the intensity of his gaze.

  “Monsieur Trevelyan, I see no point in discussing the matter since you are not an unscrupulous man.”

  “You don’t realize the danger you put yourself in.” He shut his eyes as if pained. “You should have knocked on my door, anyone’s door, rather than come downstairs alone. Given the right circumstances and enough desperation, any man is capable of becoming unscrupulous. You are beautiful, desirable, and if a man found himself…”

  My eyes were riveted to the shadowed planes of his face, the full curve of his lip, then to his eyes.

  “A man might…take liberties that he had no right to take,” he said, almost whispering the last. “I warned you.”

  His gaze dropped to my mouth and his head dipped toward me, bringing his lips so close to mine that the heat radiating from him warmed my skin, making me tingle where his breath brushed my face. Even though I barely knew this man, I desired him like no other man before. My mind might carry doubts regarding him, but my body clamored for him. Something about him had slid beneath my guard the moment he’d spoken to me from the shadows of the live oaks. I had gone years wanting nothing, wanting no one, and in a mere breath of time he’d changed that to wanting everything…from him.

  My hands gripped his shoulders to push him back, to save myself from this sudden, overwhelming temptation. Instead, I dug my fingers into the soft linen of his shirt, urging him closer, ready to give him everything.

  “Monsieur Trevelyan, you must—”

  “I must…” he whispered softly, then crushed my mouth with his. His lips were warm and firm and I opened to his demand. He groaned deeply, pressing his arousal hard enough to caress me intimately though the soft cotton of my gown. His tongue slid enticingly against mine, making me moan from the heated caresses. Fiery pleasure sprang to life, rushing hot desire to every part of me. I met his kiss with fervor. He rolled to his back, bringing me with him so that I lay on top. His hands burned a trail down my back and up under my gown to caress my bare skin, and rhythmically pressed me even deeper against his demanding arousal.

  As he groaned deep in his throat, his hands raced up my sides beneath my gown. I arched back, giving him access to my breasts. He slid his hands to cup them, brushing his thumbs over the sensitive tips, sending sharp bursts of pleasure deep inside me. The tension coiled to a feverish point that coalesced at the very place where his arousal insistently rubbed. I slid my hands into his hair and pressed my mouth to his in pure ecstasy.

  My fingers slid into warm fluid. Lifting my hand, I saw blood. “Mon Dieu,” I cried, rolling off him.

  He groaned. “Come back here.”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “Yes, but I’m dying somewhere else.”

  I scrambled to my knees, peering down at him. I couldn’t see the wound, for his hair was too dark, but I could tell generally where he was hurt. I gathered the hem of
my robe and pressed it to his head. He groaned.

  What sort of man practically made love to a woman while wounded? An utterly senseless man, my mind shouted. A passionate man, my heart whispered softly.

  When a warm dampness seeped through the silk to my fingers, I grew worried. “Stay here. I will get help and send for the doctor.”

  “No.” He grabbed my arm, his grip reassuringly strong. “I’m fine. I know what to do.”

  “But…”

  “I studied medicine for a while. Believe me, it is not serious and I will be fine, but you will not fare as well. Human nature being what it is, the blow to your reputation would be worse than the little bump you’ve given me.” Taking the bunched cloth of my robe hem from me, he pressed it harder to his head and sat up.

  I stood, shrugging the rest of my robe from my shoulders so he could use it as a compress.

  He wobbled when he sat up, and I caught his arm to help steady him.

  “Not as steady as I thought I was,” he muttered. “Your passion weakened me.”

  “Be serious. This isn’t a joking matter. I’ve hurt you.”

  “Believe me, this bump is a lot less painful than sleeping in the room beneath yours every night, imagining you in bed above me, hearing you move about your room late into the night. Now that is painful.”

  “You’re rambling nonsense. Perhaps you are hurt worse than you think. Do you feel faint? Do you need a drink?”

  “No. I have sworn off liquor. Once I make it to my room, though, I may trouble you for a basin of water.”

  “I’ll bring water plus bandages to put on the cut, and some salve, too. It will soothe the skin and help with healing.”

  “I’ll tend to the wound myself. If you were seen in my room in the middle of the night, it would be disastrous for you.”

  “Nonsense. I am responsible for the gash, and I’ll not rest until the wound is examined. If you won’t let me help, then I will awake Papa John and send for the doctor.”

  Despite the dim light, I could see his gaze rake over me, rekindling the heat that consumed us, pulling the air from me.

  “I’ll apologize if I must, but I’m not sorry for touching you,” he whispered.

  “Nor am I,” I said, my mouth so dry I could barely speak.

  The desire I heard in his voice and the need I felt deep inside of me stayed with me as I helped him collect his pistol and walked him to his room. Then I hurried to my room, donned a thick robe, and got healing salve, bandages, and water. The moment I left my room, my pulse raced. I knew without a doubt that I was stepping beyond the safe boundaries surrounding my life.

  He’d left his door ajar. Near the end of his unmade bed, he sat on a wooden footstool before a beveled mirror, trying to see his injury. When he saw me he stopped, watching my movements in the mirror. I set the basin of water, salve, and bandages on the counterpane, trying to ignore the tension between us, but it was impossible. He held my ivory robe and was softly brushing his thumb over its silken threads, making my palms damp and sending another wave of delicious heat thrumming though my body. I closed his bedroom door.

  While I’d donned clothes, he’d shed them. He wore only his pants and had a towel draped across his broad shoulders. He seemed too muscular for anything as civilized as a suit and waistcoat. Black hair grew across his chest and tapered downward to the forbidden line of his trousers. I snapped my gaze to his smoldering one, feeling as if I were in the midst of a tug-of-war between the devil and propriety. I knew that were I to touch him, to splay my hands against his back and caress his muscled shoulders, we’d pick up where we had left off in the parlor.

  But he’d still be a man whom I barely knew, and I’d still have my doubts. Besides, I’d yet to learn why he’d been so reserved and distant earlier tonight. I turned away and arranged my supplies and ministered to his wound. My hands trembled, making the task take longer than it should. The pressure he had applied to the cut had stopped the bleeding, and I saw that the gash was no longer than my thumb and not very deep. But surrounding the cut, his scalp was an angry, purplish color. He’d not only have a headache, but also a very tender spot for a while.

  Every time I touched his dark hair, its silky strands wrapped intimately around my fingers, making me wonder if the black hair curling across his chest was just as soft. He’d touched my bare skin earlier, but I hadn’t touched him. And I wanted to.

  I hurriedly applied the lavender and mint salve to his cut and secured a bandage to the area. “I am done, monsieur.”

  He exhaled sharply, as if he’d been holding his breath for a long time. “Thank God.” He slid the towel from around his neck.

  Whirling about, I started gathering the supplies from the bed, every fiber of my being centered on getting out of his room before either of us acted any further upon the attraction sizzling between us.

  “We have to talk.” He spoke from just behind me. I could feel the whisper of his breath against the nape of my neck and the warmth of his body seeping though the thickness of my robe.

  “There is nothing to say. It shouldn’t have happened.” I shut my eyes, fisting my hand around the bandages I held.

  “Mrs. Boucheron, after tonight, I think you owe it to me to explain what you have that someone is willing to break into your home to get.”

  Everything within me froze as my pent-up desires fell utterly flat. He stood impatiently waiting for an answer.

  “Well, Mrs. Boucheron? I deserve some answers. What are you hiding?”

  The man had nearly made love to me in the parlor, and now he acted as if I had done something wrong!

  “I have La Belle, Monsieur Trevelyan, and an iron frying pan—which I must be out of practice with, for I obviously did not strike hard enough.”

  Grabbing the salve, I pushed past him and sailed out the door, feeling satisfaction in the confusion that knotted his brow.

  In the morning, I decided to send for the authorities after breakfast and inform them of the intruder. Then I would seek out Mr. Trevelyan and ask a few pointed questions about last night. I had no clue as to why this was happening, and I wanted to know why he’d been so adamant that I was hiding something.

  When I went to wake my son, I discovered his French doors already unlocked.

  “Andre?” Spinning around, I saw that what I had thought to be my son sleeping was only his bunched up counterpane and pillows with a note on top. A tentacle of fear squeezed my heart as I reached for the note, for a tiny part of me always worried that when he learned of the rumors about his father, he would try and find him.

  I glanced at the names of Phillipe Doucet and Will Hayes on the note and read that Andre had left early this morning to meet his friends at the old military camp. Shoving the note into my pocket, I headed downstairs, determined to march out to the camp and pull Andre home by his ear. Ginette and Mignon were in the kitchen with Mama Louisa, and all three of them looked up at me when I stomped in from the breezeway.

  “I knows trouble when I see it, sure enough, and them shadows under your eyes speak for themselves. Miz Julie, either the devil is at the door or you have got a bone bigger than the Pontchartrain to pick.” Mama Louisa stopped rolling dough and set floury hands on her hips.

  “Both.” Not even the mouthwatering aroma of chicory coffee and beignets eased my ire. “Andre has already disappeared for the day. He left a note informing me of his whereabouts.”

  Ginette’s eyes widened, but she didn’t comment. In fact, I thought she appeared paler and her cheeks more drawn, as if she were in pain.

  “At least he told you where he went,” Mignon said.

  “Thinking like that will have you thanking the alligator for taking off your fingers, because he left you your palm.”

  “But—”

  “Nonnie, there are no excuses for Andre’s behavior. He is on the brink of manhood. At almost thirteen, he needs to be filling shoes much more useful to this household than a frolic with his friends in the woods.” I moved over to where
Ginette sliced apples for breakfast. “Let me cut the rest of these. I desperately need to do something or I will start pulling out my hair.”

  “The juice is making my hands itch more, anyway.” Ginette set down the knife, washed her hands, and sank back onto a nearby bench. “I will set up the sideboard in a few minutes.”

  That she let me take over spoke volumes. “Have you a headache this morning?”

  “I have had one since yesterday.”

  “I remember you mentioning it when we were in the sitting room working embroidery. Has it not eased at all since?”

  “Non.”

  “I am sending for the doctor.”

  “Wait until after breakfast. It may just be that I did not eat much last night; I wasn’t very hungry.”

  “All of you youngin’s are going to make me old before my time,” Mama Louisa said, shaking her head. “Not eatin’ right, looking like a ghost. Miz Ginny, you go sit at the dining room table while I fix you a plate and some soothing tea.”

  “She is sick, isn’t she?” Mignon asked softly, after Ginette left. “There is something you are not telling me. Is she going to die?” Tears flooded Mignon’s eyes.

  “No!” I dropped the knife and ran over to her. Setting my hands on her shoulders, I made her meet my gaze. “That is not true, do you hear me? Whatever made you think such a thing?”

  “Beth died, and Ginette is so like her. And I have been so worried—”

  “Beth? Whatever are you talking—” Realization dawned, and with it a tide of relief. “You are reading Little Women.”

  Mignon nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Jo knew before it happened. She realized that Beth would not recover. I don’t want Ginny to die.”

  “Oh, Nonnie,” I sighed, wrapping my arms around her, holding her tight. “Ginny is not going to die.”

  “You’ve a special delivery, Juliet,” Ginette said.

  Startled, I looked over Mignon’s shoulder. Ginny stood in the doorway, whiter than the lace of her muslin day dress. She clutched the doorframe with one hand and held an envelope in the other.