Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) (5 page)

“Did he suck blood from your body?”

The question raised bile to Gabriel’s throat.

“Very well,” he said resolutely. “Since you are the most delicious wench I’ve had in my bed chamber for a time, I will allow you your little fantasy. Not the Rake Ripper? Instead, a creature who tore his way up from a rotting grave to stalk the
precieuses
in Paris? Ancient attire aside, he looked rather tidy to me. Difficult to imagine the man sleeping in the ground.”

“The Rake Ripper and the vampire are one and the same,” Roxanne offered. “Paris does not know what sort of creature the man truly is. And Monsieur Anjou did not rise from a grave. That is a lot of nonsense. Vampires are not dead, they are undead.”

“But of course, merely undead.” A burst of nervous laughter escaped. At times like this he was thankful for the façade Leo offered. “And what makes you so knowledgeable, Mademoiselle Desrues?”

“I just…” The color in her cheeks brightened. As well, her bosom colored.

Triumph curled his mouth. He enjoyed the sensual victory. If she moved closer, he could trace his fingers along the plump curves of her breasts.

Allowing his anger to emerge, Gabriel fisted the counterpane. He’d been prepared for a duel that night, not to have his blood sucked from him. He wouldn’t believe it. He could not.

“Vampires do not exist. Nor do giants or fairies or mermaids. They are manifestations of a child’s fairy tale. Bogies concocted from imagination and a cruel desire to frighten the little ones.”

“What of witches?” Toussaint conjectured from the end of the bed. “At least once a month another witch is burned at the Place de Greve. You cannot deny their existence.”

Roxane’s posture stiffened and Gabriel reacted. “You know a witch or two, mademoiselle? Toussaint’s silly chalk markings before the front door tend to keep them from my home.”

She stood from the bed and smoothed her hands over her skirts. With a pert jut of her chin, her expression segued from unsure to determined. “If you will not believe me, there is nothing I can do for you. Suffer at your own peril. I will take my leave.”

“My own peril? Such dramatics!”

Gabriel crawled out from between the sheets. He wore but a linen nightshirt that flowed to below his knees. The sleeves were long and billowy, hanging over his wrists, and the blasted lace concealed his hands. Damned nuisance concoction.

“Do stay, Mademoiselle Desrues. I want to hear it all,” he entreated. “I am starved for entertainment of a sort I have not known. Please, amuse me with tales of the undead.”

Toussaint dashed to the door, blocking Roxane’s exit. She spun to face Gabriel, anger firing her cheeks to a luscious bloom.

He crouched at the edge of his bed, easily assuming the role of predator. It felt far better than the prey of which he’d been posing lately.

“If I have—allegedly—been bitten by a vampire, why then, am
I
not stalking the night? If I recall my bedtime scaries correctly, is that not what happens when one’s blood has been sucked by a creature of the night?”

“Tempt you?” He flexed an arm, though the nightshirt hid his muscles. It wasn’t a move Leo ever employed. “Do you find it difficult, mademoiselle, to be in this lair of sensual delights with my overwhelming maleness?”

“Not at all,” Toussaint corrected from the door. “One is much more concerned for fashion as compared to the other, who cares far more about the women who frequent his bed.”

“Swish,” she countered.

Gabriel rolled to his back and splayed out his arms in defeat. A chuckle was most appropriate, because the role he played could not be abandoned until he’d achieved his goal.

“Very well, I concede.” No sense in arguing with an image he had worked months to concoct. Lifting his head, he speared Roxane with an engaging look. “Though I would not hesitate to choose you, mademoiselle, over an ell of Alençon lace.”

“That impresses little,” she said, following with a stifled yawn. “I must go home and rest. But before I do, you need to know what to expect.”

“Expect? Beyond this damned wound healing and me getting on with my life?”

“Monsieur Leo, life as you know it will never be the same.”

Roxane’s celadon gaze did not waver from his. Where had the woman garnered such confidence? Any other time he would have sent Toussaint from the room, and seduced the woman into his bed.

“You should. Or rather you
must
from this moment forth. You’ve less than a week before the moon is full, Leo. And it is not so much a choice as options.”

He managed a false gaiety. “Options? What man does not favor options?”

Mademoiselle Desrues strode the length of the bed. Her earthy scent was so unlike the powdered creations that normally landed on his sheets. Gabriel could not stop breathing her in. The urge to gasp, choke at a dusty, musty odor wasn’t there. Because she was fresh. Alive.

Just breathe. Inhale the purity and keep it.

After a few lingering inhalations, his agitated state softened. As did Roxane’s gaze, yet her pale eyes remained intense, liquid and clear. What sort of disease had planted itself in the mind of this exquisite beauty? To forge her belief in such hideous myth?

“It is rare the vampire does not kill,” she explained matter-of-factly. “Since the murders have been noted, Monsieur Anjou has been meticulous—save two cases.”

“An extent? Woman, why do you not simply speak what you mean to say? You dress up your fears in euphemisms. Of a sort. To an extent.”

“Will you listen to me?”

He sighed. Another breath of rosemary filled his senses. It appealed so strongly after breathing nothing but powder and greasy hair pomade for months. Captivated against his will, Gabriel conceded. “Fine.”

“Should the victim find himself in such a situation—having been bitten” she began again, “he can do one of three things. First being suicide.”

“The change? You mean
become
a vampire?”

He clutched his throat. This was not a laughable farce performed by the Comédie Française. This was reality. A sickening reality this woman somehow made more evil by the moment. Suicide or vampirism? How far would she go with this charade? He had merely been bitten by a lackwit!

“The orb of night,” Toussaint repeated in fascinated wonder, his stance like a street charlatan seducing the crowds to buy his potions.

Gabriel sat up straight. “What sort of blather is a tumescent orb?”

With a shrug, Roxane pointed toward the oculus. “The full moon.”

One could never see the midnight sky for the lantern suspended above to rain light through the colored glass. Toussaint never missed a night.

“The moon is nearly full,” she said. “If you can abstain from drinking blood for the next few days you will triumph and the vampire’s taint will pass through you. Your mortal soul will remain intact and you will continue to be the swish you are.”

He should challenge her assessment of him, but at the moment, Gabriel had graver matters to consider.

He mined the depths of his charm and finessed a smile. “Mademoiselle, I’ll have you know, of the many wonderful drinks that top my favorites list, blood is not one of them.”

“Blood? And—” Lust? Gabriel squared a palm flat before his face. “Do not place those words in the same sentence. It is utterly insane!”

“You need someone close by who knows what to expect,” she said. “Of all the men who have attempted to fight the call to drink blood none have succeeded. Most give in to the blood hunger within a few days.”

“
Give in
to drinking blood?”

What sort of person studied blood and vampires and lust, all tossed together? Much as the woman attracted, she also repelled him like no female had before. Best to put an end to this charade. “Toussaint, remove this mad scrap of satin from my home.”

The valet merely stared at Roxane, his lips parted and a
yes, Mademoiselle, whatever you wish
glaze to his eyes.

“It is not I who is mad,” Roxane said. “It may very well become you, Leo. For if you are determined to resist the compelling and exceedingly tempting hunger for blood then the only result can be sure madness.”

“Madness,” Toussaint whispered in eerie wonder.

“Indeed.” She paced to the wall where a cheval mirror reflected her tense jaw and crossed arms. “Which option will you choose: madness, vampirism, or suicide?”

Those were the least appealing choices Gabriel had ever been offered. And he had been offered some horrendous choices in his lifetime.

Would a few days find him stalking innocent people in hopes to suck out their blood? He was not a man to become such a monster. Monsters did not marry or raise families. Monsters could not…have love.

“No!” He punched a fist into the plush counterpane. “This is all a spectacular lie conjured by a lone woman in need of attention.”

Roxane made an objective chirp. She remained facing the mirror.

“Yes, attention,” he countered, knowing well the need for such. “You appeared from out of the blue. I have no idea who you really are. You say you have come to hunt the Rake Ripper? Sounds rather dangerous for one so petite and female as you.”

“It is. But I have no choice. Listen to me. What has been done to you is not finished. Know you are not safe until the full moon. As soon as Monsieur Anjou learns you survived his attack he will seek to finish what he could not complete the other night.”

So now he would be pursued by a vampire as well as facing madness? “I certainly hope he does. I will be waiting for him, rapier en garde.”

Morbleu
, this was wrong. Was the Rake Ripper really a creature of the night? By acting the fop had Gabriel lured a monster to him?

He wanted to believe in Roxane’s innocence and her sweet, seductive scent. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her. Kiss away the evil. Take back the night of his attack. But the evidence remained as two painful and deep punctures upon his neck.

“If I succeed…” He slid off the bed and paced the floor. “If I fight the madness, then it is sanity and a normal life that waits?”

“Sure.”

That was the least convincing assurance he had ever heard.

He sought out the celadon sparkle in her expression. Only now did he notice the glass vial suspended around her neck by a fine silver chain. Why, it looked like—