Out of the Dark

by Jennifer Blake

  Lucien, recognizing what was happening, saw his way with sudden bright clarity. From this moment on, he realized with quiet exultation, there could be no turning back. She was in his hands.

  “Enough,” he said, infusing his voice with the lash of authority as he stared down the other men. “You cannot take the panther here and now without killing him in front of the lady. And I feel sure that’s a bloody deed none among you wants to undertake.”

  There was still some muttering and a few curses, but the men noted the trenchant challenge in his face, remembered his reputation with the sword in his hand. They saw, too, that he had given them a way to save face by pretending to bow to female sensibility. It took a few more minutes of aimlessly milling, of talking under their breaths and gesticulating with low threats about how they meant to get the beast come hell or high water. In the end, however, they mounted up again and called their dogs.

  From the saddle, Victor Picard said, “We’ll let it go, Roquelaire, but this isn’t the end of it. You can bet on that.”

  “I didn’t expect it to be,” Lucien said, and he meant it.

  Reining around, the disgruntled men kicked their mounts into movement. They vanished back into the woods.

  The crashing and muffled thuds of the men’s departure faded away. With the slow precision of stiff muscles, Lucien turned to face Anne-Marie.

  “You saved Satan,” she said quietly. Her face was pale and her gaze fastened on him in clear and steady appraisal.

  He made no reply as he moved closer, stepping around the big cat. He felt odd, almost disembodied, as reaction seeped through him like a slow-moving poison. There was a prickling sensation along his spine and the jittery aftermath of over-tried temper in his brain. At the same time, exhilaration fizzed like champagne in his veins.

  “I must thank you,” she went on, eying him with some trepidation. “And I would, if I did not have the strangest feeling that, whatever you may have done in the heat of the moment, it was for reasons of your own.”

  He reached her then. Catching her forearms in his strong hands, he dragged her nearer. Giving her a slight shake, he said through gritted teeth, “Lady, you need a keeper.”

  “Because I wouldn’t sit and wring my hands while Satan was hunted down like—like vermin?” she said with unsteady defiance. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You could have been killed. You could have been caught between the dogs and that great damned cat and slashed to ribbons.”

  She flung her head back. “But I wasn’t. And now Satan is safe, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Satan may be safe, but I’ll be damned if you are,” he answered, his grasp tightening.

  “My only danger—” she began, and then stopped. She glanced at his hands on her arms, stared up into his set face while her eyes widened in wonderment. In abrupt concern, she said, “You’re shaking.”

  His gaze meshed with hers, sinking into the pools of her eyes until he felt as if he were drowning. She was right, he saw. It was a fine quivering that ran through his hands and arms and down to his toes. Clattering his teeth together, it threatened to loosen his grip on his temper.

  He had felt something of the same thing after his first duel. Cool and calm while it was taking place, he had descended into rattled nerves when he had discovered it was over and he was alive and unharmed. It was a natural response to the keyed-up state necessary for facing death. Still, it had never troubled him again. Until now.

  He loosened his grasp to rub his hands up and down along her arms. His voice husky, he said, “You’re trembling, too.”

  “Am I? Oh, yes,” she agreed, as she was shaken by an especially strong rigor. “But you—” A tiny frown appeared between her brows and she reached to touch his face with quivering fingers. “You came rushing in to protect me; you risked your life, but are used to that. It was not yourself you were afraid for, I think.”

  He made no reply; he could not while she brushed her cool fingertips along the plane of his cheek and traced the hard muscle in his jaw in delicate exploration. It was so very pleasant, so devastating in its offer of heart’s ease.

  There was the amazement of discovery in her tone as she went on. “You don’t like death, do you? It gives you no pleasure. Rather, it offends you. You despise it.”

  “Doesn’t everyone,” he answered in ragged tones.

  She shook her head. “Some are terrified of it, some are fascinated, some indifferent and others accepting. Few fight it as you did.”

  This was cutting too close to the bone. Releasing her abruptly, he stepped back. “The mare,” he said, clutching at the first thing that came to mind for a distraction. “I had better see after her. Will Satan follow if I return you home now?”

  “Yes—yes, I’m sure he will.” She still searched his face as if there were some secret hidden beneath its flesh and bones.

  “Come, then,” he said, holding out his arm while he turned his face away from her.

  She hesitated a moment longer, but accepted the support he offered at last and allowed him to lead her back to the buggy.

  The big cat followed like a faithful dog, gliding after them through the edge of the woods, keeping pace until they reached the house once more. Satan disappeared, however, when they stopped on the front drive.

  The eyes of the butler who opened the door to them widened as he saw their disheveled state. Too well trained to comment, he directed them to the salon in answer to Lucien’s request for Madame Decoulet.

  Anne-Marie’s stepmother lacked that discretion. Rising up out of her chair as they entered the room, she lifted her hands and exclaimed in tones of horror, “Dear God in Heaven! What have you been doing, the two of you? You look as if you have been rolling in the grass!”

  “I hope I have more concern for a lady’s comfort,” Lucien said in justifiable sarcasm. “In fact, we met with a misadventure.”

  “You overturned your buggy?” There was blank disappointment in the woman’s voice.

  “Rather, we had a confrontation of some moment in the woods.”

  The older woman’s bosom lifted with her indignation. “Just as I thought! I hope no one saw your condition.” She turned on Anne-Marie. “Go to your room at once, you ungrateful little wretch, while I speak to this so-called gentleman.”

  “Please, Madame,” Anne-Marie said in stringent tones, “it isn’t what you think.”

  “I have eyes in my head, my girl!” The older woman swung back to Lucien. “Sir, whatever your habits in New Orleans, you cannot play fast and loose here with a young woman’s good name and get away with it.”

  Anne-Marie drew a gasping breath. “It was nothing like that!”

  “Quite probably it was worse; you can’t fool me!”

  “I regret cutting short your strictures, Madame,” Lucien interrupted, “but feel any explanation of this affair should be placed before Monsieur Decoulet. Is he, perhaps, at home?”

  The older woman’s face took on an alarming mottled color. Then she met his hard gaze, saw the purpose that glittered there. Her lips parted while avid speculation rose in her small eyes.

  At that moment, the door leading into the library opened. Anne-Marie’s father emerged holding a book in his hand with his forefinger marking his place. “What is this commotion?” he required in stern yet querulous tones.

  “Nothing of great moment,” Lucien said evenly as he turned toward the older man and inclined his head. “There was a little excitement along the road. I would be most happy to discuss it, if you will give me leave. Then there is a matter of some importance I would put to you in private.”

  Anne-Marie’s father surveyed Lucien, his gaze keen and measuring. What he saw there seemed to satisfy him. He nodded. “Come into the library.”

  Lucien moved forward. At the door, he turned with a stiff bow for Anne-Marie who looked on with puzzlement and suspicion in her face. Catching the door handle, he pulled the heavy panel closed behind him.

  Something was going on
.

  Anne-Marie could feel it in the air, sense it in her father’s grave stares turned upon her, deduce it from the flurry of letters sent from Pecan Hill in the care of a groom. It disturbed her in part because no one saw fit to explain it to her, but most of all because her stepmother was ecstatic over it.

  She had feared at first that there might be a connection to Lucien’s interview with her father following the incident involving Satan and the hunters. That idea had slowly lost sway in the past three days as the Dark Angel failed to call again and all reference to the event faded away. She had not remained in disgrace nearly so long as she had expected, however, which was another bothersome aspect.

  She tried to tell herself that Lucien must have put the best possible light on what had happened on the road and in the woods, that his account had somehow mollified her parent and stepparent. His attitude at the time had not indicated that he might do that for her, but he did seem to have the instincts of a gentleman.

  It was also possible, of course, that he had put the worst possible construction upon it. In that case, her father and stepmother could be planning some terrible punishment for her. That would at least account for her father’s concern and her stepmother’s happiness.

  Her greatest fear was that she might be banished. Several possibilities as to a destination occurred, each worse than the other. There was a cousin who had married a poor farmer and given birth to seven children in nine years, so had need of another pair of hands. Or she might be sent to be a companion to her father’s elderly aunt in New Orleans, an obese and raddled creature who smelled of snuff and camphor and talked interminably of her days as a belle. A last resort might be the convent in the countryside south of Paris she had heard whispers about, one where wayward females who had embarrassed their families were sometimes shut away.

  To lose her freedom would be a terrible thing; the fear of it haunted her. Yet her mind wandered away to other thoughts and images with distressing frequency.

  She could not stop thinking of Lucien Roquelaire. She had always felt sorry for hapless females who sighed and wept over the men in their lives, yet her spirits were low and everything seemed dull and dreary as she accepted that he was not going to call again. It was true that the two of them had sparred and sniped at each other without letup, yet there had been an undercurrent of something very different between them. He had looked at her in a way no man ever had before; she had felt in him a fearlessness and tolerance beyond anything she had ever known. She might despise him and abhor his past, but she had also been forced to recognize his essential integrity. Almost, she had allowed herself to believe that he had an interest in her, even if it was only because she was not like every other woman he met. Because of it, she had permitted herself to wonder what it would be like to be loved.

  She had ignored that possibility so long, denying it because that was less painful than yearning after it when she could not have it. Even believing it could and would come to nothing with Lucien, she found that it still hurt to have the idea of being wanted removed so quickly.

  Sometimes at night she lay staring into the dark, thinking of the moment he had kissed her. She could remember the sensation as his mouth possessed hers, the taste and liquid warmth of him. She seemed to feel again the heat of hands upon her, and their sure strength that she had recognized even through her clothing. Sometimes her imagination took flight, and she lay naked with him under the trees as her stepmother had suggested. Or else they stretched out on the pristine white sheets of her bed while he demonstrated to her all the many uses of his masculine ardor and power.

  Useless daydreams. Yet they were so disturbing that she did her best to prevent them rather than retreating into them as in the past. The trouble was that they crept in upon her so insidiously that she could not always control the direction of her mind.

  She had another and more insistent worry. She had not seen Satan since the day of the hunt. Though she went into the woods again and again to call him, he never came. It was likely he had retreated deep into the river’s swamplands, beyond the reach of dogs and riders. Cats were notorious for avoiding water, but she had seen Satan swim creeks in flood before, and knew he would have no trouble navigating the interconnected rivers, bayous, and wide, shallow sloughs. In any case, the water receded with the advance of summer, leaving vast areas of open grass or shady and leaf-carpeted bottom land that were reasonably dry.

  She prayed that was where he had gone. If he had not— But she would not think of that. This was not the first time Satan had vanished; he would come back to her in his own good time, or else when instinct told him it was safe to be seen in this vicinity.

  She was returning from another fruitless tramp through the woods when the young boy James came running to meet her. His feet were flying along the path, and he was frowning with the weight of his message. He was still several yards away when he began to yell.

  “Mam’zelle! You got to come quick! They been looking for you everywhere. Madame is so mad she’s ‘bout to spit, and your papa is walking up and down with his pocket watch in his hand.”

  “What’s wrong? Why do they want me?” She quickened her footsteps to a swift walk again as she met the boy and he spun around to return with her to the house. He was breathing hard, as though his search had been a long one.

  “I don’t know, Mam’zelle. But Monsieur Roquelaire has been talking to your papa since the middle of the morning. When they come out of the library, they say they must see you. Monsieur Roquelaire wanted to come find you himself, but your stepmama said it would not be fitting. Why wouldn’t it be fitting, Mam’zelle?”

  “Stupid propriety,” she answered shortly. “No one mentioned why I must be there?”

  “No, Mam’zelle. But your stepmama’s maid has been talking with my mamma in the kitchen, and I heard them say they got to start at once to make a feast.”

  She gave the boy a distracted smile. “I expect you liked the sound of that.”

  “But yes, Mam’zelle. Don’t you?”

  She didn’t. In fact, the idea sounded quite ominous to Anne-Marie. There was no time to work it out, however, for they reached the back door a few seconds later and made their way into the house.

  She had thought to slip upstairs to wash her face and tidy her hair, perhaps change into something less faded and worn before going in to see Lucien. She was not given the opportunity. Her stepmother sailed down the wide central hall to greet her with hissing denunciations for her tardiness, her lack of consideration and her determination to disgrace herself. Ordering James to the kitchen, she grasped Anne-Marie’s arm and marched with her back down the hall to the salon. As she stopped at the door, her dire frown miraculously became a smile. Pushing inside, she said in tones of arch amusement. “Well, and here is the truant at last. Now we may get on with this delightful arrangement.”

  Anne-Marie saw her father and Lucien standing at the French window that stood open to the front veranda. They turned as one, their faces mirroring an identical preoccupation. Lucien took a step in her direction, but stopped as her father spoke.

  “At last, my dear. We were beginning to think you had run away.”

  She tore her gaze from the visitor to attend to her father. “No, why should I?”

  “Young women often take fright when they realize their future is being decided.” The older man gave her a warm smile as he walked to a silver tray on a side table where a decanter of wine and four glasses sat waiting. Picking up the decanter, he filled the glasses, then handed one to his guest and the other two to Anne-Marie and his wife.

  Anne-Marie took the fragile crystal stem in numb fingers. Moistening her lips, she said, “You have been discussing me?”

  Her father nodded. “Indeed. We have just finalized a contract of marriage. My dear daughter, I drink to your betrothal to this fine gentleman, Lucien Roquelaire, and to your happiness with him.”

  Betrothal.

  Anne-Marie could feel the blood leave her face. The glass
she held slipped from her hand. Wine spilled down the front of her skirt like blood. The glass struck the toe of her slipper, bounced with a musical clang, then rolled over the Turkish carpet to strike Lucien’s booted foot.

  Her stepmother screamed. “Mon Dieu, but how fortunate it didn’t break. It’s an omen, a sign of benediction for the marriage.”

  “Impossible.” The word was only a croaking sound in Anne-Marie’s throat. Her chest ached with the fullness inside it.

  “No, no, only look here,” her stepmother said as she swooped down on the glass and held it up. “I will refill it, like so, and you must drink quickly.”

  Anne-Marie wanted to cry out that they could not do this, that her life could not be decided without her participation or consent. But they could do it; marriages were arranged all the time. There was usually some pretense of courtship, some attempt at assuring the young woman of the benefits of the match, but the end result was the same.

  Her stepmother was holding the brimming glass to her lips as if she meant to force her to drink. Pushing the woman’s hand away, Anne-Marie said, “How did this take place? Why was I not consulted?”

  “The initiative came from Monsieur Roquelaire when you returned from your drive some days ago,” her father said. “Since then, we have been pursuing the matter of your dowry, also the amount you will be allowed for running his household and for pin money, which properties he will settle upon you and other such financial considerations. As for consulting you, why, I thought you would surely know how matters stood.”

  She clasped her hands tightly in front of her. “How so, when I was given no inkling of it.”

  “What difference does it make?” Madame Decoulet demanded. “All women require to be wed. You should be glad for the chance.”

  “Glad? But surely—that is, what of his background, the—insecurity of being wed to such a duelist?” She was grasping at straws, but that was all that was left to her.