“There is no reason for you to be angry with me,” he said, and whether he intended it or not, his thick accent made it sound like a snarl. “I’ll have a talk with Gisele when she gets home.”
“And do what? Scold her? Ground her and send her to her room?” She looked at him with doubt as she stood up and began to unweave her hair from the braid. “You do that. You have a talk with her. In the morning, I’ll call my sister and have a talk with
her
.”
“Whatever the hell for?” Now, he seemed to get it. Something had happened. Something that involved Gisele serious enough to prompt a desire to go back to San Francisco. She’d thought for a minute she’d have to beat him over the head with it, but in the blink of an eye, he shifted from casual to drop dead serious. “What will that accomplish?”
“I’ll be able to see what my options are,” she shot back. “If you’re going to allow your servant to walk over my back and kick me every chance she gets, I’m going back to the states.” Her voice trembled with every word as she turned from him and walked to the dresser. She glanced at him in the big mirror. “I can’t stay here. I realize that now. Not as long as Gisele is here. I’m not about to make you choose between us, but she is out to get me and I’m not going to stand for it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He walked around to the edge of the dresser so she had no choice but to face him. “It’s Marguerite—she’s been talking, filling your head with nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Eleni blurted angrily. “I’m smart enough to recognize the difference. Marguerite simply told me what you wouldn’t. And don’t look at me like that, either, because it’s not like she said something I didn’t already suspect. She told me about Gisele’s ambitions of being immortal, and even if she hadn’t, Gisele herself told me you love her—it’s no wonder, really, since you harbor her here like a spoilt child. Regardless of how you really feel, she loves you, even if it’s superficial. Hell, it could be only in her mind. Whatever the case, I know it’s only because she thinks you will turn her—and she sincerely believes you will. Even if she has to manipulate you to do it.”
He swore in French, his words harsh with denial. But Eleni wasn’t moved, she knew better. There was no denying what she’d seen back in the village.
“Fool yourself all you like, Julian. But in Gisele eyes, I am the only obstacle standing in the way of what she wants most.”
Julian appeared momentarily stunned, as though the idea had never been presented to him. His expression darkened. “Is that how Marguerite offered to help—by making you jealous of one of my housekeepers?”
“Jealous?” She gaped at him. “I think Gisele’s dangerous! And what is wrong with giving Claudette her due. She is your housekeeper…your only housekeeper. I’ve never seen Gisele lift a finger, even when you asked her to do something specific. I don’t understand why you keep defending her.”
“Perhaps for the same reason you keep defending my cousin,” he snapped. “It sounds like she offered you more than a ride home. She helped feed you a line of shit.” His breathing had quickened, gone shallow. Eyes sly, his voice rumbled low. “I suppose after Marguerite volunteered all this grand information, she offered to help you with your condition, also? Let me know when she invites you to move in.”
“What condition would that be, Julian? The Biter’s Addiction, or the condition of being sold out by Gisele? Don’t you even care to know where she was tonight? Who she was with? I saw her in the village with that same vampire that came here wanting me to sign a contract with my ex-Biter. But I suppose that is perfectly all right, because who would dare hurt poor Gisele’s feelings, am I right?”
“You’re sure? Gisele was speaking to a vampire?” His face held disbelief.
“I saw her with him when I got into Marguerite’s car. They were sitting together at the little bistro with the upstairs balcony.”
He shook his head. “Gisele has many friends in the village, human friends. Maybe—”
“Do you honestly think I can’t tell the difference? I’m not blind, Julian. It was the same man who came here to the house—and he was most definitely a vampire. And not just any vampire, one with ties to my ex-Biter!”
She took out her earrings one by one and dropped them carelessly onto the dressing table. “Gisele hasn’t been coming home during the day for weeks—maybe a month,” she said. “Even Claudette has noticed her absence. I heard them arguing about it in the sunroom, about that and other things. Now there’s this, and my probationary hearing is coming up soon. The council could very well call members of your household staff to go on statement about my behavior.” Her voice shook with conviction. “Gisele already wants me gone. And if that Liev Sidorov person, or Rubio, were to offer her money, or sponsorship, in exchange for a statement against me, I don’t doubt for a minute she would take it. She has no loyalty to me, and who knows what they could have promised her?”
He was silent as Eleni’s eyes flicked over his face.
“I won’t stand by and let my bloodline be ruined by her, Julian.”
“Well, I can see you and Marguerite put some thought into this,” he said at last.
She frowned at him. “Despite what you think of me, Marguerite is only a friend—the only one I’ve made since I moved here. Surely, that was your intention when you sent her to pick me up from the airport.”
“That was my intention, yes. But I also know my cousin has a preference for beautiful women. She has quite a collection of them. You should visit her sometime. I think you would find it most enlightening. I think you would be amazed. You could see with your own eyes that she doesn’t treat her own Acolytes the way she treats you.”
“Now who is talking nonsense? Marguerite has never hit on me, or acted inappropriately toward me in any way. It would hurt her to hear you talk about her this way.”
He had the good grace to look flustered. It came and went quickly, replaced by an expression of cold fury. “Marguerite is hardly some delicate flower, I can assure you of that. You’re not only an Acolyte, Eleni, but a
tyros
living under the court’s supervisions—vulnerable and ripe for the picking. You think she doesn’t realize that?”
His words slashed pain over her heart. Eleni’s mouth gaped, and a hurt sound tumbled out of her. “Is that how it is, then? You’re going to pull status on me?” She’d had enough. “Go ahead and bury your head in the sand. I can’t stop you. But I won’t. I didn’t come here to be bullied by your staff or to be made prisoner inside this house.”
“You’re trying my patience, Eleni.” Fury was evident in the taut lines of his face.
Disgusted, she turned away from him and stormed off to the bathroom to wash her face. Leave him there to stew in his jealousy—it served him right. But she had apparently struck a nerve in him, because by the time she’d reached the bathroom door, Julian had caught up with her. He moved in front of her in a blur of motion. His hand caught her arms, his strong body blocking her path.
“I don’t wish to fight with you like this,” he grated. “I told you I feel a responsibility to give Gisele a decent life. I won’t be made to feel guilty for my actions. While I’d be overjoyed to see her end up in a suitable love match, she is not of any noble bloodline and I’m not so charitable that I’d risk the name of my ancestors to marry her myself. I’ve already told you before that I do not love her. And even if I did feel for her in that way, I don’t have the authority to make her an Acolyte.
“Perhaps you should explain that to her.”
The sound of a car pulling into the gravel drive silenced them both. Muttering a curse under his breath, Julian went one of the bedroom windows overlooking the front yard. Eleni stood back with her arms crossed.
“Looks like Gisele decided to cut her date short. I figured she would when she saw me in Marguerite’s car.” She flicked back her hair. “I wonder what excuse she’ll give you for dumping me off in town. Surely, she’s thought up one by now.”
“Don’t try my patience,” he snapped at her. For a long minute, he stood looking out over the drive, at the car and Gisele, observing her arrival. Finally, he dropped the curtain and started toward the bedroom door. “Stay in here,” he ordered.
Eleni didn’t argue.
He left the room, slamming the door behind him.
She flinched at the loud bang that kicked her heart into an anxious gallop. The tension in the room was unbearable even after he had gone, leaving her no choice but to pace the room to cope with it. She had no idea what he was about to do, but she knew that after tonight was over, whether for better or for worse, the household dynamics wouldn’t be the same.
Giselle probably had an idea of the storm she was walking into and had probably come up with a thousand passable excuses. The woman was a skilled liar, and Eleni worried about that because Julian had an obvious soft spot for her. When she’d agreed to take up residence with a
mal vampire
, for what that degrading title was worth, she’d never imagined she’d have to defend her own honor.
Defiance surged in her at the thought of sitting idly by to have her future determined for her. Tired of playing by the rules and getting nowhere, she ignored Julian’s order and left her room. She left the door slightly open and padded her way down the hall toward the stairs.
She had no real plan in mind except to hear what he said to Gisele. She wanted to hear his judgment passed down in its original context, and if he sided with his servant, she had already made up her mind that their relationship was over. The thought of losing him lashed pain across her heart—she never could have guessed how attached to him she’d become in such a short amount of time. But she had been through enough in her life with Rubio. She only wanted peace, not to have to put herself on guard at every turn. It simply wasn’t worth it.
Before she ever made it to the landing, Eleni heard Julian’s voice booming from downstairs. A woman’s sobbing voice pleading in broken French rose up to clutch at her heart—Gisele. Julian had apparently caught her right as she had entered the house.
Eleni stopped in her tracks and leaned her back against the wall as the wails rose in pitch, and Julian’s angry words echoed through the foyer and shivered through her.
“You have betrayed my trust to another vampire,” he snapped at her. “You abandoned my protégé on the streets for hours and met privately with a transient vampire, putting my entire household at risk—”
“No, no...It’s not true—”
“Do you call me a liar in my own house?” he roared at her. “There are witnesses!”
“Don’t do this Julian… Please, don’t kick me out. I love you too much!” Gisele’s sobs were pitiful, desperate, but Julian had already determined the truth for himself.
Eleni couldn’t stand it. She’d heard enough. She closed her eyes, and covered her ears with the palms of her hands to escape the cries and the shouting. She turned on her heel and headed back to her room. Memories of Rubio ripping her apart in front of the other Acolytes haunted her. The loathing she’d seen in his eyes, and in the eyes of the women she had lived with almost like sisters.
Gisele’s pleas sounded so familiar and haunting, once she rounded the corner and faced the door to her bedroom at the end of the hallway, she broke into a jog.
Eleni dashed into her room and shut the door, then turned away from it, her hand covering her mouth. She thought about locking herself in, but she could just imagine Julian’s reaction if he came back upstairs and found himself locked out.
Instead, she left it unlocked, and went to her closet, spurred by fear, by ghosts of the past. She took down a suitcase from the overhead shelf and carried it to the bed. There, she flopped it down on the end of the mattress, throwing open the latches so the case lay flat.
She went back to the closet and began dragging clothes off the racks, taking them down, hangers and all, and carrying them to the bed to dump in the suitcase. She told herself that Anya would understand. Surely, her sister would not turn her away. A vague plan to take one of the cars in the garage and drive to Paris formed in her mind. She had no idea what she would do once she made it back to the States, but it would be better than this, better than living in fear.
The crunch of tires in the driveway followed by a horn blaring drew her attention to the window. She stared. Then snapped out of a moment of blank thought and hurried over to the spot where Julian had stood earlier. She pulled back the curtain, and to her surprise, a black car waited out front with the engine running.
While she watched, Henri got out of the car, his distinctive brown cap covering his head, and walked around to the back door on the passenger side and opened it. Standing beside the car, he stared toward the front door as if waiting.
Eleni heard Gisele and Julian before she saw them. Gisele was shrieking, crying, clinging to Julian as he escorted her out of the house. Henri helped maneuver her into the back seat, struggling with the woman when she would have clung to the open front of Julian’s shirt.
She couldn’t hear what they said, but the tone carried up to her, and her nerves stretched taut as a wire. Henri finally got Gisele in the car and shut the door, and when he turned, Julian spoke with deliberate, animated gestures. Without a doubt, he was furious.
Henri nodded, and went around the car to drive Gisele wherever he had been ordered to take her. Julian stood in the same spot, watching the car roll away down the drive. Only after the taillights had vanished behind the shield of night-dark trees did he turned to head back into the house. Eleni dropped the curtain quickly into place and stepped back from the window, her heart pounding.
Her hand to her throat, she turned and looked around the room, at the open suitcase on the bed. Only then did she realize tears were streaming down her face. A moment later, the door flung open to her room. Julian stood there, his eyes gone black with anger.
“I will not have discord in my house.” He growled the words as he entered her room and slammed the door. Eleni jumped.
“Julian,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
“I did what you wanted me to do, am I wrong?” he asked bitterly. “I have dealt with her, and now there is only you. I also sent a message to my cousin that you’re not available, and she is not to seek your affections. Be aware, Eleni,” he snarled under his breath, “I do not share my protégés, ever. Not with Marguerite. Not with anyone. It will serve you well to remember that.”