The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 16

She reached to touch him again. This time she just held the sac filled with his stones, gently, and rubbed a little with her middle finger just at the base. That made him growl again. She played with him, using instincts she didn't know she had. The throbbing was back.

"You drive me mad, woman." His breath was truly ragged.

"I want to drive you mad." How bold she was! She threw one thigh over his hip, which put his manhood right against that place he'd been kissing. Could he fit inside her? Were all men that large?

No, they aren't, came the voice, almost disgusted. Or that skillful with it.

The tip was almost at her entrance as he rolled her over on her back once more. He continued to kiss her as he leaned on one elbow and held his shaft with the other hand. It slid along her slick flesh until it found her opening. She was about to lose her virginity and she was glad. She wanted to lose it with the wicked duc and not some dull apothecary's a.s.sistant. Let the future be d.a.m.ned.

She wrapped her legs around his hips. He pressed inside her. She was tight around him. She felt filled. That wasn't so bad. She looked down. His loins were still separated from hers. She could see his shaft disappearing inside her.

He bent to kiss her neck, now balanced on both elbows above her, and he thrust in fully.

She gave a little shriek as a stab of pain shot through her. Like she'd cut herself, but not deeply. He went still.

"You're a virgin." It sounded like an accusation. He dropped his head, his face curtained by his hair. "I ... I didn't know. I thought ... I would never have just ..."

"It's better now." How embarra.s.sing that she'd shrieked. Now he felt warm inside her. Satisfying. This was where she belonged, joined to Henri Foucault. How had she thought she was filled before? "This is nice."

"I ... I can make it nicer if you'll let me. I promise it won't hurt like that again."

He looked so contrite. But more than that, he looked a little ... frightened? Not like the wicked duc at all. She couldn't have that. "That kissing before ... down there ... was nice."

"Have you ... never had an o.r.g.a.s.m?"

She shook her head. "I would have known, I'm sure."

He took a breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he opened them as though he had decided something. "You can get the same feeling again, only by a different means, if you'll bear with me." The small smile was back, but it was very rueful now.

"I'd like that."

He began to move inside her, gently at first. As he moved in and out, the friction pulled a little at the lips of her mound and the spot that felt so good there. The feeling of wanting more returned. She began to move in counterpoint, even twisting a little at the end each time to get more of that delightful friction. And then his shaft inside her seemed to rub on some most fulfilling place deep inside her. She wanted to be crushed, filled with him, covered by him. So she thrust up her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to his chest and let the hair there rub against her nipples. His thrusts came faster. Her hands on his hips wanted to help him press inside her. His skin was gloriously damp. In no time the wave came cras.h.i.+ng in again as he thrust in and out and she bucked against him. Her moan spiraled up into a wail and she found herself gripping his hips and holding on as though she needed to tether her soul or be blasted away to some place of wind and light.

Just after her peak, he stilled and she felt a throbbing pulse inside her as he loosed his seed. She opened her eyes. The look on his face was inward and she knew his own wave was cras.h.i.+ng over him. She waited, fascinated, as the moment went on and on.

He collapsed and rolled to the side, cradling her in his arms to keep them joined. He kissed her hair softly. "Francoise.

Francoise." She realized he had never called her by her first name until tonight. She liked to hear her name on his lips.

He reached for her hand and kissed her palm. "Are you all right?"

What did he mean? Oh. "Yes. It was nothing."

"It was not nothing. It was inexcusable of me to a.s.sume ... I should have asked, or checked first, or ... Well, I'm sorry it had to be that way for you."

"I thought it was wonderful."

He cleared his throat. "You were very ... skillful."

"Was I? I didn't feel skillful."

"You know things about a man's body ..."

Ahh. He wanted to know how she knew how to please him. "Uh ... woman's intuition."

He raised a brow at her, but apparently decided not to pursue the issue. "You needn't worry about any issue from our bed- sport."

Bed-sport. That was sobering. Because that's what it was to him. She had known it, of course, but just for a while she had thought ...

Remember that. The strange voice again. Her and yet not her. Wait. Issue? "You mean a child?" Lady Toumoult had warned it could happen if you strayed even once, but Francoise had always thought that was just exaggeration meant to frighten her into good behavior. She 'd known women who tried for years to conceive.

"My kind ... I mean, children are very rare for men like me." His voice was tight.

"Oh." How sad for him. Perhaps it was related to the illness that made him so sensitive to sunlight. What could she say? A man like him wouldn't want a child. Like her father hadn't wanted her. She swallowed past a lump in her throat. Bed-sport. He didn't want her either. She hadn't expected more, she reminded herself. She'd wanted a night, one night, of glorious bed-sport because she was never likely to have another.

Then that's what she would embrace. "In that case perhaps we can do it again?"

He looked down at her. What was that in his eyes? Softness? "Perhaps. When you're feeling better."

She didn't try to control the behavior of her mouth. "I feel better now."

Twelve.

Francoise blinked. Someone was kissing her hair.

Ahhh. Henri. The scent of him surrounded her. Life seemed to throb in lazy luxury around him, rather than thrumming in the air.

She lay in his arms. The weight of his thigh over hers was delicious. She felt warm and safe from anything here.

"Wake, Francoise," Henri whispered in that husky baritone. She smiled. She had made the panther truly growl this night. She opened her eyes.

It was dark. The candles had long ago sputtered out. Did he want to make love yet again? She ran her hand down his ribs to his hip. She'd like that. She was a little sore, but it was a good kind of sore. And she didn't want the night to end. She looked up into his eyes and their expression was soft.

Some part of her was startled. I don't remember him ever looking at me like that. A stupid thought on the whole, since of course he'd never looked at her like that before.

"It's time to go." He looked sorry. "I let it get too late. It's almost sunrise."

She sighed and nodded. "I have no idea how I'll dress in the dark," she said, pus.h.i.+ng herself up to one elbow.

"I'll dress you. I see well in the dark."

And he did. He didn't fumble or grope. He knew just how to lace and tie. She didn't like to think about how he knew that.

"Now if only you dressed hair."

He ran his fingers through her curls. "This is all you need."

She touched her neckline to make certain nothing was showing that shouldn't. Dear me but this was a sensual dress, just made to drive a man wild. A dress he hadn't bought for her.

You fell for him. You've only made it harder. The voice must be only her own thoughts but it came out so distinctly, as though it were a different person altogether. It sounded accusatory. Fell for him. Did the voice mean she'd fallen in love?

She wasn't in love with him, she told herself firmly. Love a man who cared for nothing but his own pleasure and made money off the weaknesses of others? He took their coin and their ideals in one gesture. One couldn't fall in love with a man like that.

She watched him dress. A shame to cover a body like that. She 'd like to go for days or weeks, never leaving the king 's apartments, never covering that beautiful body, so hard, so different from her own. But soon he was most proper again.

Wordlessly, they made up the great bed as best they could. He swung her cloak around her shoulders and they slipped out into the broad hallway, down the grand stairs, through the salons to the portico over looking the gardens.

The coach waited in the gray light. It was almost sunrise. Francoise looked around, an insistent itching in her brain. There was something she had forgotten. What was it? The feeling was so strong it was almost physical.

She looked around at the immense palace, standing so dark and severe, her mind casting about frantically. She looked down at her clothes ... She had her reticule, her cloak. It wasn't that. Henri trotted down the stairs, but she hesitated. Between the wings that flanked the west facade the gardens stretched serenely. Wait! The grotto with the statues of Apollo and his horses-it was terribly important she go there. Terribly important.

"Wait," she called. "We never got to see the grotto. The one with the statue of Apollo."

He turned. "Too late, now." He cast a glance at the sky. The indigo was paling to the east.

She stood, frozen at the top of the stairs. That grotto held the key to all she wanted to know about herself, all the feelings and dreams she'd been having lately. Going there would fix everything. How stupid. A grotto? Dear G.o.d, but she was letting her imagination run wild. She trudged down the stairway, trying to suppress the feeling of urgency inside her.

Henri handed her into the coach and climbed in beside her.

The carriage crunched down the gravel drive. Francoise leaned out as the facade of the palace, in all its severe grandeur, receded. It was as if the place were enchanted, sleeping under some kind of a spell. Once they left, it would disappear and no one would ever find it again. The perfect place for one glorious night of bed-sport that would never be repeated.

Henri watched her leaning out the carriage window, staring at the palace, as they rolled away. What had he been thinking?

Deflowering a virgin? Strictly against his code of conduct, even if she wanted it. He had vowed never to involve himself with an innocent again. And one who was living in his house, for G.o.d's sake, under his protection? A double violation. Could he be any more stupid? She'd either fall in love with him or hate him. Either way he'd ruin yet another life. And if she found out what he really was? It would change her forever.

The d.a.m.nable thing was, he was incredibly attracted to her on so many levels it was rather startling. How long was it since he'd been startled by life? It made the whole thing seem ... well, new, if he had to put a word on it. He found her sweet and cynical, courageous and naive, full of hope and world-weary with experience. He could spend a long time unraveling those contradictions.

He didn't want to think what that might mean.

If life could seem fresh, it might mean there was some hope for his soul.

He closed his eyes. Did vampires become senile? If so, he undoubtedly was. He knew very well what life held for him. And his work was his only hope to stave off madness. He meant to continue that work as long as he could, in spite of Robespierre and his b.i.t.c.h dog Croute sniffing about.

So he could afford no entanglements. The girl pretended she wanted only dalliance, but he'd seen the look he knew too well in her eyes last night. How many hearts had he broken? A thousand? And that was without them even knowing he was a monster, spoken of in nurseries in hushed, childish voices to provoke shrieking giggles of fear. If they knew that, then ...

He'd keep her at a distance. That way he wouldn't be tempted again by her lithe, young body or her contradictions.

He still couldn't believe she was a virgin. She knew exactly how to drive him wild. When she'd rolled on top of him the last time and ridden him like he was an unbroken horse, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrusting and bouncing ...

He wouldn't think about that.

Suffice it to say it wasn't the behavior of a virgin. Yet she'd stained the king's sheets with virgin blood. An enigma, this one. One he was not going to try to solve.

He'd present her to society tonight to give her countenance and make sure everyone was very clear that she enjoyed his protection. That would keep her safe from Robespierre and the Croute woman. Then he'd pack her off to England next week with the others.

He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see her expression just now.

She stood looking at the curious leather bag, knowing that her life, her soul, depended upon its contents. The house was dark. The rooms seemed alive, whispering of h.e.l.lish fates in words she couldn't quite hear. Something bad was going to happen to her, something worse than she could imagine, and only the contents of this bag could save her. The sword and the vials. She knew what those strange vials were. They were drugs.

She was in the yellow salon, though all was black and shadows. Outside a warm, summer wind blew. Even the wind felt evil.

Henri stepped out of the shadows. His eyes were glowing red, like coals. He was the source of all the evil in the house.

She realized that now. And he was coming toward her. He opened his mouth to snarl like a black leopard. His fangs dripped saliva. If he caught her he would rip her throat out with those fangs and she would be d.a.m.ned to the pits of fire for eternity. She groped in the bag behind her and found one of the strange soft bottles colored in innocent pastels. He was strong, this devil, but she must fight him if she was going to save her soul. She sprang on him and grabbed for his throat.

He tottered backward, snarling. It was Henri, but not Henri, and that was most frightening of all.

Somehow she had his neck in one hand and she was squeezing the bottle that wasn't made of gla.s.s. Liquid squirted past the snarling fangs and into the evil creature's throat.

He went limp under her hands.

She raised herself and stood, panting. The creature that was Henri but not Henri lay sprawled before her, his chest heaving. But he would wake soon. And then her soul would be more in danger than ever, and the monster before her would be angry. Very angry.

Slowly, she turned to the bag. The Roman short-sword gleamed there with its own internal radiance. Images flashed through her mind of lifting the sword high, bringing it down, and the metal cleaving through flesh, and the blood ... the blood was everywhere.

Francoise gasped. Somewhere a wail still echoed in the air. She looked around wildly. Where was she? Frantic knocking reverberated through the room.

"Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle, are you all right?" Annette's voice.

She breathed. This was only the luxurious, feminine room that wasn't really hers.

"Coming, Annette." She threw back the bedclothes and got up. Her knees were shaky. She started for the door, then paused and looked back. Underneath the bed, right about where her pillows were, that strange leather case squatted like some interloper.

And in it were bottles that weren't gla.s.s, filled with what she was now sure were drugs, and a gleaming sharp-edged sword. A sword that something inside her was urging her to use ... Dear G.o.d, was she going insane?

She put a hand to her mouth as bile rose in her throat. Nonsense. She wasn 't strong enough to use a sword to decapitate anyone. That ... that was what the dream exhorted her to do? Decapitation. A shudder of revulsion rushed through her. She was going mad. She must be.

"Mademoiselle?"

"Coming." Her hands shook as she used the key in the door to let Annette into the room.

"And are we locking our doors these days?" Annette scolded.

"Apparently so." She didn't remember locking her door.

Annette peered at her. "Are you ill?"

"A bad dream." She managed a smile. "No more." It wasn't more, was it?

"The noise! How could it not wake you? Such preparations! Everybody's relatives are here, and still there are not enough hours in the day. A dozen bottles of champagne already have burst their corks. Like a battlefield it is."

The noise of distant bustle came from downstairs. Was that Pierre shouting something about b.u.t.ter? "What is everyone preparing for?" Francoise felt dislocated, as though she and Annette spoke different languages.