An anxious knot tightened in her chest at a heartbreaking memory from her childhood, when she had gone into her mother’s suite almost a year after her death. It had been a little like walking onto a stage. Everything about the room had looked as perfectly normal. Nothing had been changed or moved. She’d laid a hand on the handle of her mother’s silver hairbrush, felt the coolness of the metal, and a sudden haunting emptiness had crawled into her, seizing her lungs, filling her eyes with hot tears.
Eleni remembered the way it felt like she stood into some mirror world that was in neither light nor shadow. In that moment, Ekaterina Audridov’s essence had seemed strong and alive. So much so, Eleni half expected her mother to walk through the door at any moment, that beautiful, kind smile on her sweet face.
Eleni turned her back on Julian and pretended an interest in one of the stone buildings before he noticed that tears had sprung to her eyes. Pushing away the vivid memory, she swiped at her eyes, feeling pitiful and foolish for crying over it now, especially here in public with Julian. Her mother’s passing had happened such a long time ago, but she supposed she’d never fully get over it. Even so, she didn’t want to give Julian cause for concern, or ruin their evening together with her tears.
Stress was likely to blame for her sudden loss of control. The threat to her family name still hung over her head, and blending into Julian’s household had not come as easily as she’d hoped it would. Particularly where Gisele was concerned.
“Are you ready to go?” Julian’s hand found the small of her back. Eleni clutched at the collar of her fur coat and nodded. If Julian noticed her eyes were wet, he said nothing about it. She was grateful for that.
Together, they walked back down the length of the square in the direction of the restaurant, and were almost to Julian’s car when her gaze skittered over two reflective, red orbs in a shadowy throughway between two buildings. She gave a small, involuntary start, but by the time she’d pulled Julian to a stop, whatever she’d seen—whether a vampire’s eyes, or a trick of the light—had retreated into the darkness. She laid a hand over her racing heart. “Did you see that?”
Julian squinted in the direction she indicated. After a moment, he shook his head. “Nothing’s there,
mon chou
.” He patted her arm and drew her along, but she couldn’t keep herself from staring at the shadowy niche across the street.
As Julian walked her to the passenger side door, he pulled they keys from his pocket, and triggered the keyless entry remote to unlock the doors. He shut the door for her, and she reached for the seatbelt. She watched him in the mirror as he rounded the back of the car. “Hurry, hurry…let’s go,” she murmured impatiently under her breath. She didn’t like the idea of Julian standing out on the street alone even for a minute.
They rode mostly in silence on the way back to the chateau, Julian driving with a dark expression on his face, and his hand on her knee. They had just reached the vineyard road, and were winding their way around the hill when Eleni broke the silence.
“Julian, how many other vampires, besides you and Marguerite, live here in Ville Cleménce?”
“Is this about what you thought you saw in the village?” he said in a level voice. “I told you I saw nothing, but even if some person, or an animal, had been there, they would be no threat to us.”
She didn’t necessarily agree with that, but she wasn’t up for an argument. “That’s fine, Julian,” she said, tiredly. “I only glimpsed it for a split second, whatever it was, lights, eyes.” She shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“You have been protected under the banner of the Sévigné name since you arrived at my house. Surely, you know I would never let anyone harm you?”
“I’m grateful for your protection, Julian, but I live here now and I want to know. How many vampires live here?”
Julian’s brow furrowed. His let out a deep sigh, and kept his eyes on the road. “No one permanent lives in the area, or I would know about it. There are those who come through on their way to Paris. That’s not unusual. But if someone were to stay for any length of time, it would be considered an insult for the vampire not to announce himself to me, and to Marguerite. This is familial land, after all. It is an old custom, and it is still respected.” He was silent for a long moment as he pulled into the private road leading to the front driveway of the chateau. “So, is that it? Are you satisfied?”
“Yes. Thank you,” she said, faintly annoyed with him, and not exactly sure why. Because he didn’t believe her? She’d been there herself, he hadn’t seen anything, what more could she expect? Nevertheless, as soon as he pulled into an empty space in the garage and parked, she climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind her.
Claudette had left on the light beside the entrance into the dark hall, bless her. The yellow light attracted tiny winged insects that clinked against the glass sconce. Eleni eyed them as she headed toward the door to the windowless passageway, her heels ringing over the cement floor.
Behind her, she heard Julian climb out of the car. He called after her, but she pretended not to hear him. His dismissiveness had embarrassed her and hurt her feelings more than she wanted him to know. Rubio had made it habit to make her doubt herself, and even though she knew Julian wasn’t trying to hurt her in that way, she still wanted to go up to her room and be alone for a while and think. She had seen
something
, even if she wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it hadn’t been vampire eyes, but then again, why not? For all she knew, the vampire council could’ve hired someone to follow her in France. It was certainly within their power to do so. On top of that, the Elder who’d presided over her case had told her they would be monitoring her progress. Perhaps they had meant more than just discussing her recovery during probationary hearings.
“Eleni,” Julian called after her, his voice echoing in the narrow passageway.
She had almost reached the hidden door Marguerite had showed her, the one with side stairs going up to the west wing of the house, when Julian caught up with her. He caught her by the elbow, his fingers gentle but firm. He turned her to him, and Eleni braced herself his angry disapproval. Instead, he surprised her by drawing her into his arms and hugging her as if afraid she might vanish into smoke.
He muttered against her hair, words in French that were spoken too quickly and too softly for her to understand. But she felt the emotion in them and her stomach knotted itself into a ball of exquisite tension. She wanted to be a comfort to him. It was more than about duty. He could be as arrogant as any man she had ever met, but she cared about him deeply.
He kissed her temple, then cupped his palm against her cheek and turned her face to his. Their foreheads touched, and his breath fanned coolly against her face. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you.”
“I know.”
“We shouldn’t argue—never over such trivial things.”
She nodded in agreement, sensing in him some kind of desperation, perhaps the need to connect, to touch. She understood that. It was that kind of connection she’d craved from Rubio, but he had never truly been sincere. Then again, with so many Acolytes living in his house, he didn’t have to be. For him, possession was enough—control. Thankfully, Julian was different. He put on a brave front, but even his self-isolation could not free him from emotion. In those moments when he let his guard down, Eleni saw how he struggled with his own heart, and she loved him for it. In her eyes, he was by far a better man than Rubio could ever hope to be.
She reached up and brushed back his midnight hair from his cheek, her heart fluttering when Julian dipped his head and moved her lips over hers in a searing kiss that would have rocked her back on her heels if he hadn’t been holding on to her. Her lips parted, and his tongue dueled with hers, tempted and teased. Eleni reached up and wrapped her arms around him, felt his hands come under her coat to hold her close to him.
She reveled in his strength, his soothing touch, and the warm amber scent of his cologne, which filled her with feelings of comfort and familiarity. It amazed her that in such a short period of time he had come to represent “home” to her, even though she had no guarantees it would last. For now, that had to be enough. She needed him, more than he could possibly realize.
Julian pulled back to look at her. “We’ve had a wonderful night up to that point, no?” He picked up her hand and kissed it. “Let us recapture that happiness. We can sit by the fire, enjoy each other’s company.”
Eleni nodded. “That sounds good to me.”
Julian seemed relieved, but as he opened the door to the foyer and held it wide to allow her to enter the house first, his brow furrowed as if something still troubled him. She wondered if it had something to do with their argument, or the possibility that she might have actually seen someone watching them from that dark alleyway in the village.
She didn’t know what to think anymore.
Chapter Twelve
Eleni dreamed she was submerged in watery darkness. There was no sound, only a shimmering impression of light somewhere high above her. Lying on her back, she floated comfortably, and didn’t become aware that anything was wrong until the light began to shrink away from her.
Panic shot through her, but she couldn’t move or even call for help as she sank deeper and deeper into a place of darkness. In her heart, she knew with a certainty that if she didn’t regain control and swim for the surface, she was going to die.
Eleni woke up gasping for air, a thin sheet of sweat clinging to her skin. Fear rooted in her chest. She reacted without thought, her hand darting out to her right to find Julian in bed beside her. Relief poured through her when she felt his firm chest beneath her hand. She rolled over to see him sleeping soundly with an arm tossed behind his head.
He looked so comfortable—she didn’t want to wake him. Pulling her hand away, she forced herself to get out of bed. After the harrowing dream, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep right away.
She pulled on a robe and left the room, stepping out into the cool darkness of the east wing. After shutting the door softly behind her, she padded through the quiet hall, and as she rounded the corner into the main corridor, a chill feeling of déjà vu came over her. She stopped short. The dark hallway lightened at the farthest end, reminding her of her dream.
It was around five in the afternoon—the brightness at the end of the corridor came from the last rays of sunlight falling at an angle through the stained glass window. Blurred shapes in red, blue, and green fell broken across the carpet and the balcony railing.
She went downstairs and crossed the foyer to the kitchen, which seemed like a mausoleum without Claudette bustling around in it. She filled a kettle with water and put it on to boil, then went around flipping open cabinets, looking for a cup and saucer, and a tea ball with a chain so she could fill it with tea leaves from the canister by the stove.
Minutes later, she carried her cup of tea to the indoor garden and was about to curl up with her tea on one of the loungers closest to an end table when she noticed movement through the wall of glass, a red fluttering that drew her to a stop.
Her heart gave a frightened leap when she realized someone was standing on the open patio right outside the solarium. Eleni put down her tea and went to the window. She peered through the large leaves of a hot house palm and to her surprise, saw Claudette and Gisele standing out in the slushy, sun-melted snow, having what was obviously a very heated discussion on the back terrace.
Gisele’s red, flutter dress was rumpled, and her hands slashed the air while she talked. Her posture was bent slightly forward as if to hammer home some vital point to Claudette, who stood with her arms crossed, spots of color burning in her sullen cheeks. It must have been important, whatever the argument was about, because Claudette had gone out in a housecoat to take part in it. In all the weeks that Eleni had lived with Julian, she had never seen the woman dressed in anything but her serviceable black dress and khaki apron.
Gisele was usually so put together, it was shocking to see her with ratty hair and smudged makeup. She looked as though someone had grabbed her by the neck and given her a good shake.
Claudette kept shaking her head in disapproval until at last Gisele seemed to have had enough. She threw her hands up and shouted angrily at the housekeeper, but the words were muffled through the glass, so Eleni couldn’t make out what she said.
Gisele turned toward the house and reached for the door to the solarium, and Eleni jumped in fear. She darted a glance to her left, warily eyeing the cup of tea she’d left steeping on the little side table near the lounger, but it was too late to grab for it without being noticed. She took a step back to shield herself from view, moving behind the elephant ears growing in a cement trough. The glass doors rattled open and Gisele strode into the room, her high heels beating a tattoo over the flagstones. Each staccato note stabbed her nerves.
Claudette was hot on her heels. “You are living an illusion, can’t you see that? Who do you think will hurt in the long run? It was the same with Marguerite. Have you not learned your lesson? You can’t change the status quo by putting on a red dress.”
Claudette tried to take Gisele’s hands in hers, but Gisele shook her off.
“You are not my
maman
!”
Claudette looked stricken. Without a doubt, the words had cut her deeply. When she spoke, her voice was low and tremulous. “That doesn’t change the fact that this is not what your
maman
would have wanted for you.”
“Who the hell are you to know what she would have wanted for me?” Her voice hitched. “I know she didn’t want nor expect me to be a servant to anyone.”
“That’s true. It’s why she left. She chose that path for herself. You can’t have it both ways, Gisele.” Eleni had never seen Claudette look so fierce. Her eyes were over-bright. “Julian won’t tolerate it.”
“Julian loves me!” Gisele thumped her chest for emphasis. “He confides in me. If not for
her
, I would be his lover.”