Midnight Temptation Read online

  And as much as she was afraid of the other dark emotions he moved inside her, she was held by the belief that he was a man a woman would be a fool to walk away from.

  And so she would stay . . . unless it grew too dangerous to remain beside him. Until she presented too great a threat.

  With one last look at the pastoral beauty of Camille’s art, she propped the painting up against the wall and stripped down to her wilted petticoat. On second thought, she removed it as well and donned one of Marchand’s shirts while she washed the undergarment and hung it by the stove to dry. Then she curled up in his blankets and sought relief from the day’s troubles.

  Hours later, her rest was disturbed by the feel of Marchand slipping under the covers next to her. And her peace of mind was shaken when he fit up close behind her, curving against her back to front, his broad palm moving the fabric of his shirt along her thigh, his arm settling over the dip of her waist to secure her to him. Then came the unmistakable stir of his kiss upon her hair. Wondering what it would be like to roll toward him and offer that extra he’d said he’d appreciate, it was nearly dawn before she found sleep again,

  FREDERIC AND MUSETTE didn’t return to the flat that night and their absence had Marchand in a somber morning mood; that along with the fact that he was readying for Camille’s funeral. By the time Nicole awoke, he was dressed in dark colors, drinking coffee equally black. He had nothing to say to her, even when she emerged from behind the dressing curtain in the new gown she’d purchased with his coin. She could almost believe from his reserve that she’d merely imagined him cuddling her close throughout the night.

  Of Bebe, he was gently solicitous, which was considerate and appropriate, but Nicole couldn’t help the nudge of envy when he bundled the other woman into her coat and escorted her to the door within the circle of his arm.

  “Are you coming?” he asked her, as if an afterthought, and she nodded wordlessly. She decided it best if she followed them at a respectful distance, for on this day of grieving, she was an outsider. After they’d walked a block, Marchand looked back over his shoulder, his expression puzzled. And he stretched back his hand for hers, drawing her up on his other side.

  If it was possible to love a man in three short days’ time, Nicole could swear she loved Marchand LaValois from that moment on.

  It was cold and bleak at the cemetery. Frederic and Musette were already there, standing on the other side of the cheap coffin. A dozen or more fellow artists also crowded around in glum mourning as Camille Viotti was laid to rest.

  After a brief, rather indifferent ceremony, Marchand was turning them to leave when Frederic approached. He gave Bebe a tender kiss on the cheek, nodded to Nicole, then caught his brother up in an emotional embrace. Gradually, Marchand returned it.

  “March, I’m sorry for the way in which we parted. We must never allow such angry words to pass between us again.” He stepped back, still holding Marchand by the shoulders. “I will listen to you. The money you gave me I applied to our rent. I mean to see about going back to school. If you will have patience with me, I will try to become more responsible.”

  With a gruff cry, Marchand seized Frederic up to place hard kisses on either cheek. It was a touching moment and as Nicole glanced away, feeling an interloper, she caught sight of Musette’s face. And the frown upon it was small and her expression guilty, making Nicole wonder what the two of them were up to.

  THEY DINED WELL and drank much, a Parisian send off for Camille. Marchand and Frederic sat close, arms about each other’s shoulders in companionable affection. Musette watched them, her study pensive. Bebe tipped glass after glass until her gaze clouded into a glaze of remembrance and remorse. And Nicole sat in a quiet terror, so hungry her insides ached, yet every time she tried to partake of her médaillons de veau, her stomach knotted up in protest. The scent of the cooked veal was making her positively ill. But the wine was good and she drank more of it than was wise. And as she drank, she watched Musette watching the two brothers. And her suspicious sharpened along with her senses.

  Musette was afraid. Nicole could taste her fear. She could smell the salt of her perspiration, could hear the fright in her rapid respirations. She became absorbed by these things to the point of losing her own sense of consciousness. It was as if they’d become one, as if Musette’s alarm was her own, moving her blood in that same hurried pulse. Her concentration narrowed, focusing on the other young woman until there was nothing else.

  Then suddenly, she heard Marchand call her name. The sound came from a long ways away, a beckoning echo pulling her back into herself. She glanced up at him and she felt his shock as if she was seeing herself through his eyes. Seeing how she was flushed of face and lightly panting, her eyes great, golden orbs, burning with a feverish light.

  “Nicole?”

  She blinked, and the sensations raveled like brilliant threads of emotion leaving behind the bare cloth of her own mind. And a certain degree of fright over what had just happened. What had happened? Afraid to examine it, she explained it away to him as well as to herself by saying, “I fear I’ve had too much wine.”

  Marchand pushed back his chair. “I’ll take you home.”

  Home. Odd feelings rose at the sound of that word. A tangle of images; pink brick and sand-colored stones against a fringe of deep green Norway pines, rickety stairs leading upward, a ragged pallet and a warm man. Home.

  She felt Marchand cup her elbow with his palm and lift her. Her blurry gaze scanned those at the table, her friends; her new family. In a moment of unbearable empathy, she bent down to hug Bebe and felt the other’s shock, then a grateful acceptance.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, close to tears. And because she wanted to do something for the other woman, she gave all that she had, a locket on a gold chain that had been a gift from her parents. Bebe looked surprised and touched as she fingered the unexpected offering.

  Then Nicole allowed Marchand to guide her away. She felt weightless and was glad for the strong circle of his arm. Glad for the masculine heat of him. She clung to his coat, scarcely aware that they were walking. Impressions flew by her, bright, confusing patterns and sounds so pure, so intense they seemed to pierce her head. The sounds of laughter from a café across the street. Of carriage wheels on the next block. Of a child crying somewhere. And underlying it all was the solid, comforting drum of Marchand’s heart. It was that sound she followed, enticed by the beat until it echoed through her own veins.

  And with that sound arose a searing emptiness, a pain she couldn’t identify, yet instinctively she feared it.

  It was hunger.

  BEBE WASN’T SURE what drew her back. Some morbid loneliness awash on a sea of wine. She staggered slightly as she approached the cemetery. Camille was there. She could feel him. If she listened hard enough to the melancholy wind, she could hear his voice.

  Bebe . . .

  “Oh, Camille, how could you leave me?” she sobbed to herself as she reeled onward through the dragging grief.

  As the wind increased, she could see the unhealthy vapors rising from the cemetery. Normally, she had a terror of the graveyard, but on this mournful night it seemed so serene, so inviting to a heart numbed to all but pain. A pain that grew unbearable when she thought of sweet Camille. How she wished they could have afforded a nice burial for him, something befitting the sensitive soul that he was, one in which he could forever remain where he was interred. Instead, as soon as the caretakers believed him to be forgotten, his grave would be violated, his remains carried away and he would be stacked with other unfortunates like slices of bacon in one of the large paupers’ lofts. Time would dissolve all that was unique, and all that he was would be filtered in amongst indifferent others so that his special plot on sacred ground could be used again by the unsuspecting.

  She wept at that image.

  Oh, if there was only some way to
assure him a decent rest. A sleep like a prince undisturbed and undefiled. She had truly loved him.

  Perhaps if Marchand had offered his affection, she could have borne the agony of being alone. Marchand . . . she loved him, too. But Camille had been her hope for a future, Marchand just a glimpse of fleeting pleasure. Without Camille, her days and weeks and years stretched out into an unhappy blur. Why go on?

  She’d come to the place where they’d lowered a plain box into warm earth. She stopped, stunned and horrified by what she saw. The ground was savagely disturbed, mounded up on either side of the fresh grave to expose the broken remains of the coffin. The empty coffin. She gave a cry of outrage. They’d taken him! Grave robbers had stolen away her love!

  Bebe . . .

  His voice whispered upon the midnight breeze. It shivered along her limbs until she was trembling helplessly.

  “Camille?”

  Could there have been some mistake? She’d heard such things sometimes happened; a poor soul believed to be dead and properly buried, only to find his soul had yet to leave him. Could they have buried her beloved Camille alive?

  “Camille? Is that you?”

  She saw a shape shifting amongst the mists. A man moving toward her, slowly, somewhat awkwardly. She waited, scarcely breathing, hope crowding out all thoughts of fear.

  “Camille?”

  She recognized his coat. She herself had picked it out so he might look elegant in his eternal sleep. Only the fabric was caked with earth and torn as if in some terrible struggle. Oh, mon Dieu! He’d had to dig himself up out of his grave! She started to rush forward but just then, a pale moon revealed all to her desperate gaze. Camille Viotti as she’d last seen him; his throat viciously torn open, now a huge dark wound. His eyes were open as well, but no sight or sensibility shown in them. There was something burning there in his gaze, a fierce light that held her momentarily mesmerized. But it wasn’t human . . .

  He reached for her, his movements alarmingly fast, and Bebe screamed as she realized this was not Camille, her love, returned to her alive. Returned to her, yes, but living, no. The charnel scent of death clung to him. The grave’s coloring was upon his face. She would find no warmth within the embrace he offered, because there was no natural life within him.

  Shrieking madly, Bebe stumbled from the cemetery. Blindly, she dashed out into the street, screaming . . . screaming.

  The carriage never had a chance to stop as her figure hurtled in front of it. And when the medical staff examined the bruised and broken remains, they shook their heads. A suicide, it was decided. And since there was no identification upon the body, nothing except a gold locket, she was callously shelved to await burial in an unmarked tomb.

  Chapter Seven

  THE FLAT WAS steeped in darkness, the fire having long since burned down to grey ash. The night air came in with them, filling the room with an invigorating chill, giving them a reason to linger a little longer in each other’s arms.

  “I’d better see to the stove,” Marchand murmured, but he didn’t move to do so right away; Nicole was burrowed up against him and she felt so good, he couldn’t make himself set her aside. And she seemed in no hurry to have him leave her. She’d pushed her palms inside his coat and was rubbing them up and down the curve of his ribs, continuing the subtle, sensual overtures that had him aroused the entire walk home.

  He tried telling himself that she’d had too much wine. That’s why she was so cuddly and soft and attentive to him. Too much wine. But knowing that in his head didn’t keep his body from responding. She’d quickened a long-suppressed urgency within him, one that tightened and twisted every time they were together. He’d never had a woman confuse him so. He’d never had to rule his passions with such an enormous amount of discipline. When she was near him, he wanted her closer. When she touched him, he wanted to caress her in return. When she tipped her face up to look at him, he could think of nothing but kissing her. Madness, surely. Because for all her innocent tempting, he wasn’t certain of what she wanted from him. Comfort. Safety. Friendship. Passion. Or love. All but the last, he was eager to share. But he feared it was that last emotion that made him hesitate when instinct cried for him to take her as desire dictated.

  “Have I told you how fine you look in that new dress?”

  “No. Do you really think so?” She sounded shy and insecure. That hint of vulnerability touched off a chord of care inside him that had tenderness overtaking need.

  “Yes, I think so.” His hand ran over the glossy surface of her hair, catching on the pins that held it confined, working them free so that those glorious dark tresses cascaded halfway down her back. She was leaning into him, her body a bow of willing concession. Want flooded through him, but those softer emotions held it at bay. “You are beautiful and very young, I think, and we are going to be in a great deal of trouble, you and I, if we don’t stop this now.”

  “Do you want to stop?” The words purred from her in calculated innocence. All that was male rumbled to life with an impatient lustiness.

  “No,” he told her quietly. “I don’t want to stop. I want to make love with you, Nicole. But I don’t think that would be wise.”

  He’d expected any number of different responses to that claim; shock, embarrassment, outrage, fright. Any of those would have been consistent with what he’d learned of her. But she expressed none of those things. Instead, she stared up at him steadily with a look that devoured. Her eyes glittered in the darkness, a shimmer of hot gold that woke a quiver of remembered alarm in him. He thought it would be a good idea for him to step away now, but as if she anticipated his sudden reluctance, her fingers balled up in his shirt linen, holding him fast.

  “We are wolves, you and I,” she whispered with a penetrating fervor. “We survive on instinct, not wisdom.” She’d worked his shirt free and her fingertips now moved upon bared flesh, creating a tension he couldn’t ignore. God, he wanted her! He’d never been so maddened by desire, so blinded by need. Yet still, there was something so disturbing about her and the almost desperate yearning she evoked.

  Dangerous. That’s what she was. Dangerous. No longer the delicate kitten but a stalking predator. He knew he should break from the intensity of her gaze. He knew he should stop the spiraling desire. Instead, his mouth dropped down upon hers for a wild possessing kiss that shocked as much as it satisfied, for he wasn’t one to make rough with the ladies. It was as if she’d woken something powerful and demanding inside him that cried, take her, conquer her! It’s your only chance! That made no sense, but then again, it did. Because there was no innocence or reluctance in the way she returned the stabbing thrusts of his tongue or in the raw, hungry sounds she made. Even the way she rose up against him was like a challenge, her fingers spearing into his hair, clenching to lock his head in place. He tasted his own blood as the pressure of her lips mashed his against his teeth hard enough to cut them. Then she made another kind of sound, a low rumbling moan akin to ecstasy as she licked at his torn mouth.

  That was enough for him. Something was very wrong with this dark anxious passion. It touched on none of the warm emotions he felt for the woman in his arms. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to make love to her; not in a hard, hurtful hurry. He took hold of her upper arms, intending to lever her away, planning to offer the requisite apology to defuse their direction.

  Her snarl of protest was an unexpected shock. And so was the strength she used to throw him down upon the mattress; the impact so sudden and fierce it stunned the breath from him. It occurred to him in an urgent flash that she was intent on his life rather than his prowess as she flung herself down over him, straddling his chest, tearing his shirt collar open, gripping his face between hands that were enormously powerful. It was too dark to see her expression but he could hear the breath rasping from her in quick vicious pulls.

  He was startled enough to fling his hand out to grope for
his saber. He was frantic enough to look toward the opening of the door as a possible salvation.

  How they must have looked to Frederic and Musette as moonlight flooded in and over them; Nicole crouching astride his chest, her eyes all flaring brilliance, his mouth dark with blood.

  “Get out!”

  The words bellowed from Nicole, so harsh and angry the two instantly retreated and closed the door. The distraction gave Marchand time to heave the clinging figure off him and to roll to a safe distance, sword hilt in hand. And he paused there on hands and knees, panting hard, his heart pounding furiously within his chest.

  But Nicole didn’t rush at him again. She knelt on the pallet, her face buried in her hands. And the sounds she made were ones of desperate weeping. For a brief second, he considered the blade in his hand, but such a notion so horrified him, Marchand flung the sword aside.

  “Nicole?” He started to move toward her.

  She edged backward on her knees, trying to keep the separation of space between them. “No, don’t!” she cried in a hoarse voice. The tones quivered with a fragile terror. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  Her genuine distress was enough to bring him to her. At the touch of his hand, she gave a despairing sob and turned toward him, curling up into a quaking knot of dismay upon his lap.