Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) (29 page)

TWENTY-SIX

“He’s going to ask more about Damian. I should have never lied like that!”

“The truth would have only frightened him. Besides, I sense you want to help Damian before revealing to your father all that has gone on.”

“If that is possible.”

Gabriel stroked her hair and kissed the crown of her head. “Your brother and father are much alike, yes?”

“Very much.” She shed the robe and strode to the hearth to toe the remnants of the chalk circle. “They are both fops, living for the chase and women.”

Bending, she plucked up a stray flower petal and pressed it beneath her nose. Turning, she smiled with her memories. “Damian is the sweetest, most genuine man. He would throw himself before a cavalry to save a loved one.”

“And your father?”

“He was once a kind man, always laughing, playing with me. I followed him about the gardens as if a puppy dog. Damian would often yip teasingly at me.” But for all the good, the darkness would never recede. “Father left my mother without explanation. She died because of him!”

She sniffed and settled into his arms. “My mother drowned. I found her lying in the meadow surrounded by yellow coltsfoot and clutching the grimoire. She had bespelled herself, grandmother said.”

“I don’t understand. Did she fall into a lake, a pond? To have drowned?”

“After father left, she was not the same. Mother drew away from Damian and me. She cried constantly. I mean it—literally, her face was never dry. Grandmother said she had placed a spell upon her soul with her sadness. Doom nested in her being. She was a water witch; forged in water, she could only be destroyed by the like. She literally drowned in her own tears, Gabriel. It was horrible. She died of a broken heart.”

Yes, old enough to know when one has gone beyond concern in the eyes of a parent.
Adieu, Gabriel, we leave you with the house and your inheritance. A good life for you
.

“When a man leaves should he not be obliged to, at the very least, offer parting words? I want to love him, Gabriel, truly I do. Because that is what you do—you love your parents unceasingly. But where is the sanity in such complete and utter abandonment?”

There was none. Xavier’s leaving could not be justified from this side of the coin. Roxane’s feelings were real and true and they touched Gabriel in that hollow core of his being. A part that rarely allowed in hope.

“I stand beside you, Roxane. Always.” So tender his gaze; a vampire’s gaze. Seductive and primal, yet genuinely touched by compassion. “But I sense that a decade of separation has widened the chasm between father and daughter. Did you ever ask him?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never had opportunity. He chose to widen the distance with his indifference. And now look what I’ve done. To make him believe his son is in love with a duchess!”

“We did not specify her title.”

Roxane moaned miserably. His embrace did nothing to dispel the queasy roil in her gut. She wished she had a spell to erase the past twenty-four hours—no—for then she would erase the delicious lovemaking with her French Highlander.

Turning, she retrieved the heavy grimoire and returned to Gabriel. They settled onto the chair and together paged through the book, scanning the ink-drawn pictures and touching the fragments of raven’s feather and dried nettle and various bits of broken glass and torn fabric.

So little belief in that one word. It was a horrible truth to learn. There was no way to make it any less by detouring him from reality.

Roxane gaped, closed her mouth, and said, “You make it sound twisted. I only want to help him. I have struggled with this decision, Gabriel. Would not a dark soul be far better than madness?”

“We will help your brother get back the light in his eyes.” He embraced her and kissed her forehead. “We can bring him to my home. Toussaint can help watch him.”

Gabriel looked out the window. Certainly drinking blood had been a finer trade for madness. But would such a hunger eventually drive him toward the same madness Damian Desrues lived?

After waiting an hour at the theatre, Roxane decided Xavier would not show. Just as well. She had no desire to face him after the lies she had conjured. Until truths could be spoken, she preferred her father to remain at a distance.

Gabriel had suggested they go for a walk. Just the thing to clear their minds and settle their tensions.

She had not before been to the Tuileries. Always Damian would remind her they had not the courtly presence to secure pass through the gates. Though she had known Damian dreamed of strolling the militant hedgerows as much as she. A framed print of the garden held a place of honor on the hearth in their country parish.

Now she fluttered her fingers across the stiff boxwood. Perfect planes shaped the shrubs into exact angles, curves and arabesques. Her skirts dusted the grass, sweet with fragrant midnight dew. The scents stirred in her wake reminded of home.

The night guard had recognized Gabriel—as Leo—immediately, and admitted them. Roxane was thrilled to find they had the entire garden to themselves. Though she could not determine Gabriel’s mood. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words during their walk. It was as if his thoughts were a star’s journey away. Certainly, with good reason.

The oil lanterns dotting the stone paths burned low and put out an acrid scent. Spinning in the aisle of a curved hedgerow, she lifted her arms and tilted back her head. The moon was not in sight for the clouds. Perhaps that was the bitterness that kept Gabriel at a distance and lingering in the grotto on the other side of the double broderie. He ran his palms over the tops of the boxwood, counting, an absent distraction.

She would let him stew.

Life had once been simple. Unfettered by worry, by wanton greed or fear. Lilac, roses, and rosemary surrounded the parish. A garden of simples hugged the east side, while a potagerie paralleled the south.

Roxane gulped in deep breaths of the verdant air.

Loosening the tight laces that crossed down the front of the red velvet bodice—her nicest for the theatre—her lungs expanded and rejoiced at the freedom. The night breeze kissing the bare mounds of her breasts felt exquisite. Her nipples tingled and hardened.

Plunging to her knees, her skirts spreading in a ruby wave about her, she pressed her fingers into the grass. Cool dew licked at her wrists. Scent of the untainted, the pure and unspoilable, enticed her to lean forward to brush her lips across the grass tips.

“Take me home,” she wished aloud. “Make life simple once again. Remove the taint from my life. I pray to you, earth goddess. With this earthen kiss grant a beginning to a new life. So mote it be.”

Not a spell, but a form of wishcraft that required exquisite timing and determination.
It will come to pass.

A black shadow grew across the bejeweled grass. Roxane turned and rolled onto her back, smiling up at Gabriel.

“Do you know, there are eighteen boxwood shrubs down this aisle, and a matching eighteen across the way? One-hundred and twenty-two lindens line the pond back there. And the stones, I should really look into their numbers…” He turned and started toward the stones.

Roxane grabbed his ankle. “Come, sit by me. We’ll count the stones later.”

“But…” She tugged and he relented, sitting by her and trailing a finger through her hair. “Remember Toussaint’s net? We vampires like to count, to our detriment. Did your brother go mad from the hunger before the moon reached her fullness?”

“No, the madness accompanied the arrival of the full moon.” She twined her fingers into his. That brought him down to lie on his side facing her. “Do you hunger now?”

“Yes. No. I’m not sure. Well, yes, I know the feeling when it arrives. Deep and ingrained, if you can believe that. I guess it is something I will become accustomed to.”

“Do you wish to leave? To find an, er…manner to quench your hunger?”

The sudden heat of his mouth on her breast chased away her troubling query.

“I’m hungry for this,” he murmured against her flesh as he tugged the ribbon laces even looser. “What have you been up to, running about untethered?”

“The urge came upon me.”

“Mm, I’m familiar with urges, you saucy nudist. But you’re not alone now. In fact, I have it on good authority that you hold company with a dangerous creature. The mythical vampire. Are you frightened?”

“Should I be?”

He tweaked her nipple, and she arched her back in response, lifting her breasts high and entreating him continue. She did not fear him looking upon the fire mark; it was who she was. Circling her nipple with his tongue, he sucked and laved at her flesh. “We might be discovered.”

“Good.”

“Oh? You are a voyeur then?”

“Voyeurs like to watch. I think to
be
watched might be exciting.”

“I’ll keep an eye on you.” The nearby lamplight reflected in his eyes. Two wide glowing fires burned in the centers of his dark irises. They matched the blaze that flickered inside her. “This mark of ascension is gorgeous. You are gorgeous.” He slipped a hand down her thigh and pulled up her skirts. Her lace petticoat rustled like the linden leaves overhead. “I want to watch you come, lover.”

His hand slid across her thigh, up, warming a path to her belly. A commanding move that drew pleasurable moans from her throat. Roxane parted her legs and felt him enter her with a single finger.

“
Mon amour
,” he breathed. “You’re so ready.”

“You make me ache, Gabriel.” Two fingers danced inside her, exploring, mapping Renan territory, then slipped up to tease at her aching clitoris. “Yes, right there—no, don’t stop. You tease me.”

“Merely prolonging the madness,” he whispered.

She could sense the irony in his voice, but closed her eyes to darker meanings. Fire coursed through her veins. Dew dripped from her flesh to splat upon the midnight-sweet blades of grass.

Pulse beats quickened, synchronizing between them and huffing out in wanting gasps and moans and whispers for more, more—“More,” Roxane cried.

“I’ve a spell of my own, witch,” he whispered. “You like it?”

“If this is the vampire’s thrall, I gladly sacrifice to have it. Oh!”

Silently she succumbed, floating upon the madness of pleasure he offered. Little frantic pulses tugged her limbs and shivered through her being. Delicious. Splendid. The rush of desire would not relent.