The Passion (7 page)

"What can I do? What do you need?"

She wished she had not sent Gault away so summarily, and wondered if it was too late to cal him back. He would know what to do. But the master had not wanted him here; he
had
bolted the door against him. Had she been wrong to respect his wishes?

His panting was shal ow, quick, accompanied by a high, thin wheezing that fil ed the room. Tessa's stomach tightened with helpless despair; she raised her hands to her ears to block out the sound. And then she remembered.

Once again she flew down the stairs, threw open bolts, plunged into the night. She tore across the stableyard and into the chicken house, where she snatched two sleeping fowl from their roosts and wrung their necks before they had time to utter more than a squawk. She dispatched their heads on the chopping block with barely a grimace, and hung them up by their feet to drain into a bucket. She rushed back inside to grab two more.

She continued in this fashion until the bucket was fil ed; then she prepared the broth as directed, with strong brandy and plenty of dark sugar, al the time wondering if Gault could have been lying to her, or if she had misunderstood, or in fact had dreamed the entire unlikely episode from beginning to end.

She carried the steaming mixture upstairs, where he lay just as she had left him, dul eyes watching her guardedly, breathing short and rapid. She poured a little of the broth into a saucer and held it close to him. He lifted his head a little, then drank greedily.

Over and over she fil ed the saucer, bending and straightening until she could no longer feel the pain in her back and she thought her body would snap in two at the waist. When he dozed she fed the fire and stroked his fur and murmured softly to him, and when he woke she brought more broth.

It was just before dawn when exhaustion overcame her, and Tessa fel asleep in her chair.

When she awoke she was looking into the bright blue, very human eyes of Alexander Devoncroix.

"Who the flaming hel are you?" he demanded, scowling.

Tessa leapt to her feet, overturning her chair, and stumbled a few steps backward. He was propped up on one elbow in bed, his lower extremities now more or less decently covered by the duvet, his smooth muscled chest displaying nothing but a slight pink shininess over the place where the knife wound had been. Tessa could not believe that she had slept through that incredible transmutation of forms, and then she wondered for one brief, disoriented moment whether she might have been asleep from the beginning and had only dreamed what she remembered…

"Wel ?" he demanded. "I asked you a question, girl."

"I—I…" She saw the bowl with the congealed remains of the blood broth; she saw the saucer from which he had drunk. She saw the bloody towels with which she had cleaned him, the knife, the broken porcelains. She gulped a breath, but the only words that she could find were a feeble and inane "You—

you're speaking English!"

His scowl, if possible, grew even more fierce. "Of course I am. Aren't you?"

"I—yes, I—"

"Your name, damn it!"

She gulped again and with al the courage at her command she held her position; she did not turn and flee. She even managed to speak, and her voice did not sound nearly as hol ow or as feeble as she felt inside. "My name is Tessa. I—you were injured and I—"

"And you're the one who tried to stick a knife in my ribs, and made a mess of it, too." He pushed himself upright in bed, dragging a blood-encrusted hand through his hair. He grimaced when he looked at his fingers, and his voice was impatient. "The next time you take it into your head to play the assassin, wench, be more sure of your aim." He stifled a groan and touched his fingers gingerly to his chest.

"I feel as though my ribs have been kicked in by a horse."

He sat back against the pil ows with an exaggerated wince, rubbing the healed scar. "Damnation, I need a bath, and I'm in no temper to deal with you now.

I'm starved. Where's my valet? Don't just stand there gaping, girl, fetch him! And clean yourself—

you're offensive to look at. Attend me in an hour.

Now go, before I have
you
for breakfast! Gault!" he shouted, flinging himself forward.

Tessa ran to the door, fumbled with the bolt, threw it open. Gault was waiting there with an army of servants, each bearing a covered dish or a tray or a cart from which meats and breads steamed and simmered, fil ing the corridor with their succulent aromas. The valet smirked at her, giving the impression that he had been waiting outside the door for no other reason man to put her in bad graces with the master. And when she edged past him, her heart thundering in her chest and her eyes wide and wary, he suddenly lunged and bared his teeth at her, hissing. Tessa could not prevent the cry that escaped her as she fled, and she heard his laughter al the way to her attic room.

Doubtless no one would have stopped Tessa if she had left the house then. Certainly no one—no one human, that is—would have blamed her. In fact, that alternative never even occurred to Tessa. She had spent so much of her life simply planning the murder, waiting for it, hoping for it, etching out the details night after night in her mind, that there had been no room left over in her imagination for what would happen afterward. Whether he lived or died, Tessa had no place to go from here.

Not that she could have left him in any event. Not now. Not having seen what she had seen and knowing what she now knew, and with so many questions swirling unanswered in her head.

Mme. Crol iere approached Tessa as she vaulted up the back stairs, her countenance thunderous and her crop raised. "There you are, you wicked girl!

You think you can steal from your bed and shirk your duties to conduct your nasty little liaisons—not in my household you cannot!
Alors
!"

She stopped suddenly when she noticed Tessa's bloodied garments, her disarranged hair and wild eyes. Mme. Crol iere's own eyes narrowed, and her nostrils flared noticeably as she took in the story in scent. "Ah, so it was you with the chickens!" she observed with a satisfied smirk. "I wil inform Lavalier and let him deal with you. He's anxious to put someone's head on the block and no one wil be sorry to know it's
you
. And if you think you can ingratiate yourself to the master, I wil tel you now that he discards little nothings like you as easily as he tosses aside old linen. And I wil not have it with
my
girls, I've told him—"

Staring at her, Tessa said dul y, "You're one of them, aren't you?"

The housekeeper's eyes narrowed once again, although her sharp chin seemed to jerk a little with suppressed amusement. Her only response, however, was a disparaging sniff. "Clean yourself up, you filthy creature, before someone sees you. I'll not have it said that one of
my
girls stank up the house. Off with you!"

She raised the riding crop again threateningly, and Tessa fled to her attic room.

No one would have blamed her if she had run farther.

But she scrubbed the coal dust from her face and the blood from under her fingernails, dressed herself in a clean frock and pinafore, and tied back her hair.

Al of this she did by rote, without thinking of the reason for it, or what she intended to do when her toilette was finished. She stood before the mirror and inspected her appearance automatical y, but the face that looked back at her was not one that she recognized.

The girl she knew had spent a lifetime plotting her vengeance, had seen her opportunity and taken it.

But when she reviewed the events of the night, she was swept by a wave of horror and confusion so intense she had to sit down. What had she
done
!

What madness had overcome her, that she should spend the night nursing back to health the very creature she had spent al her adult life plotting to destroy? He was evil, she knew that to be so; it
must
be so… And yet, in the grip of that miraculous transformation, he had not been evil. He had been a creature of light and magic, of power and beauty, and
she
, smal and clumsy and earthbound, had been the evil one. When he had had her beneath his mighty paws with teeth poised to tear at her throat, and when he had backed away and let her live—then he had not been evil. She, who had plunged a knife into his chest while he slept, had been evil.

Yet how could al these years of knowing be wrong?

How could the incredible miracle she had witnessed last night and the kil er monster she had hated for the past ten years be one and the same? She had fal en under the spel of his transformation; that much was certain. There was no other reason to explain her irrational fear for his safety, her determination that he should not die.
Could
she have been wrong about him al this time? Or was she wrong about him now?

She could not leave this place without knowing the answer.

And so it was that, with a weakness in her knees and a tremor in her chest, Tessa retraced her steps to the massive carved doors of the master's chamber precisely one hour later. She stood for a moment, trying to breathe steadily, trying to gather her courage, and knocked.

His muffled shout bade her enter.

He was stretched out upon the divan in a sunny corner of the room, surrounded by stacked platters that held little more than scraps of bone and crusts of bread. A jug of new wine from his own vineyards

—which were wel known to be among the most prestigious in France—sat half empty at his elbow, and he refil ed his glass with a flourish as she entered. How he could have consumed so much food in the short time Tessa had been gone was beyond her ability to comprehend, but it seemed to have had a beneficial effect—both on his wel -being and on his disposition.

In the hour since she had left him, the blood had been scrubbed from the wal paper—although when she looked closely she could detect the faintest of stains—the bed had been changed, the carpets had been swept. The draperies were drawn back and late-morning sun spil ed through the tal windows, il uminating the gilded mirrors and deep-toned masterpieces, sparkling off the teardrop lamps and chandeliers. The transformation was amazing, but no more so than was the miraculous recovery of the werewolf she had tried to kil .

He wore gray flannel trousers topped by a silk dressing gown which was a rich blue color only a shade darker than his eyes. An ivory ascot was cavalierly wrapped around his neck and its folds tucked into the dressing gown. His lustrous hair was brushed back over his shoulders and tied loosely there; his color was good, his eyes bright and alert.

Beside him stood Gault, attired in a peacock green jacket and trousers and a magenta shirt, his arms folded across his chest, his black eyes glinting wickedly.

Alexander beckoned her over with the hand that held the wineglass, an amused expression on his face.

"And so you have returned," he observed. "Gault and I had a wager. I won. Wil you have some wine?"

Tessa stood with her shoulders straight and her hands folded properly before her, determined to make a good show of it no matter what her fate. She deliberately did not look at Gault.

Alexander had spoken to her in French, so she replied in kind. "Thank you, no," she said. "I'm glad you won your wager, though."

He glanced up at her with dry skepticism, sipping his wine. "I'm given to understand you ordered Gault out last night. That I would have liked to see."

"You bolted the door against him," she explained. "I thought you didn't want him here."

Alexander scowled and shot a glance at his manservant, whose expression did not change, and whose gaze, it seemed, remained fixed upon Tessa with a particularly malicious intensity. "And have it known that I was taken in my sleep by a human—

and a mere pup of a girl at that? I should mink not."

Then he shrugged, his brows knitting in annoyance.

"Not that I deserve any better. It was my own fault."

Tessa had had no idea what to expect when she entered his room, but his rather banal conversation was not among the possibilities. She was so disoriented that for a moment she could do nothing but stare.

He didn't
look
like a monster. But then, he never had.

He gestured to her abruptly, the irritation in his expression deepening as he commanded, "Sit down. You're making my neck hurt."

Now he spoke in English, and it was the second time he had switched languages since he'd begun speaking. Apparently he chose his language as casual y as another man might choose a handkerchief, according to his whim.

Tessa glanced around and, seeing that every surface in the near vicinity was covered with empty plates, bowls and cups, crossed the room to fetch a little straight-backed chair with a blue velvet seat.

She arranged it a few feet in front of him and sat down, once again folding her hands in her lap.

He watched with interest but when she was seated spoke not to her but to his valet. "Wel , now, Gault, what do you think? We have before us a murderous little female and a damn poor one at that, who not only refuses to express any remorse for her act but actual y dares to show her face in my chamber again after such an unspeakable crime. What shal we do with her?"

"Skin her," responded Gault immediately. "Hang her by her heels and cure her over a hickory fire."